GioCities - fandom

What Happened With Homestuck? (Recap)

2026-04-02T00:00:00-05:00

It’s been eight months since what I’ve jokingly called my Homestuck Divorce. I published The Unofficial Homestuck Collection Takedown and The Homestuck Union Was Always Fake explaining everything, but they’re very long. I think I did need to be thorough in documenting those details, but the information that’s relevant to most people is hard to consume. People kept asking me to summarize and I’d rather just have this out there so I don’t have to think about it again. I don’t want to have to come back to Homestuck, so this is a tl;dr retrospective summary to organize my thoughts and capture this question that still keeps coming up: “what happened?”

Hostile takeover of a fan project

The Unofficial Homestuck Collection was the definitive way to read Homestuck. It was a fan-born fan project released by necessity at a time when Flash was unsupported and the official website was offline indefinitely. After it was released it got the full endorsement of the official Homestuck team, including Andrew.¹ Despite some negative experiences I’d already had with Andrew, the collection was an archive, not an argument, and was only ever a celebration of Homestuck and its related works.

I have been in the Homestuck fandom for my entire adult life, and I’ve always tried to be a positive member of the community. My connections with creatives in the community and valuable contributions of creative work showed that you could be an overwhelmingly positive force in the community while still criticizing management decisions and occasionally being snarky. This is normal and how it should be, although it had become rare in Homestuck.

Homestuck Official reached out to us (the UHC project maintainers) saying they appreciated our work and wanted to work together in some kind of collaboration. They didn’t explain any details of what they were looking to do, though. HSO made a number of specific guarantees to work with us in a positive, good-faith relationship; they insisted they didn’t want the collection taken down and agreed, upfront, that any existing bad blood over past criticisms would never enter in to this. We were told we’d be working with James Roach and a new team that didn’t include Andrew, which gave us reason for optimism. When I brought up Andrew’s past comments that he’d “never speak to me”, Andrew’s representative dismissed the concern as silly.²

Over the following year they systematically broke these commitments (which they’d made in writing),³ threatening disproportionately harsh legal action⁴ unless we complied with a series of demands including:

Signing over the rights to our creative work not as part of a project, but as a precondition to engaging in dialogue at all⁵
Signing and agreeing to a “license” without allowing us to both read the document⁶
Cutting off our personal friendships with past Homestuck critics and publicly denouncing them as Andrew saw fit⁸
Rewriting past essays about Homestuck to reflect more favorably on Andrew⁷
Legally isolating ourselves from each other and communicating only through Andrew, with harsh legal penalties for outside contact⁹
Granting administrative access to the project files to a Homestuck employee and removing ourselves as maintainers entirely¹⁰
For me personally, publicly apologizing for harassment Homestuck employees committed against me, acknowledging I was at fault for implicitly prompting them to do it by being an available target.¹¹

In the end it was a just a hostile takeover briefly disguised as collaboration. Andrew wanted the program, they claimed it, and they were going to keep escalating until it was theirs. Instead of working with us to cement the project’s availability as they promised, Homestuck engaged in a campaign of deception and manipulation. From the outset, they only approached us as part of a scheme to gain control over projects and people Andrew saw as threats.

Not only did Andrew pressure us to sell out and repeatedly threaten us when we wouldn’t act against the interests of the community, he made it clear he was willing to escalate indefinitely and attempt to bankrupt the maintainers with legal fees.²⁰ I finally bailed when I was able to confirm Andrew was simply going to make unilateral demands, but getting that far still cost me four figures out of my pocket. The conduct included legal threats, making false claims of infringement in DMCA demands, directly lying to people in writing, forging signatures on documents,¹² and deliberate destruction of negotiation records.¹³

I know it’s easy to look at a messy conflict and attribute the conflict to fault on both sides. That’s often a fair assumption, but it was not the case here. We met Homestuck Official at their level when they reached out to us, offered to give them free promotion and use of our creative work, and played completely straight when they made it look like they wanted to negotiate. We were met with nothing but abuse.

I knew Andrew had a fixation on me as a critic. They’d already framed me to some people as the source of all their problems,¹⁴ either as a conscious lie or a post-hoc “nothing’s ever my fault” rationalization. I did not think they were so delusional as to call a fake détente in order to get my personal information so they could to sue me if I didn’t give them my work and take down my past writing.¹⁵ But that’s what they did; as soon as they felt I had been sufficiently entrapped they made these increasingly outrageous demands.

There are a lot of details it’s easy to get lost in — he-said-she-said in conversations, tone policing, IP rights, whether this was a true labor dispute or not, etc. But the most important part of what happened was that the entire operation was a scheme. Andrew said they knew the UHC was an independent project, they knew I was attached, and they insisted up-front that they were fine with all of that. Homestuck originally told us a licensing agreement was necessary to protect ourselves from VIZ Media, although they later admitted this was false, as they had re-obtained the rights at this point.¹⁶ This the intentional fraud made every attempt to try to assimilate us and extort me for favors that came after categorically unacceptable. By their own admission¹⁷, everything they did was based on materially false premises and done in service of a goal to violate these foundational promises. It was a genuinely absurd gambit executed by people who didn’t even consider sincerity before jumping to an overly-online wargame mentality.

I think Andrew does these things because they believes they’re playing this elaborate mastermind game to maintain control and curation over “their” fans. But when you lie directly to people and knowingly put false promises in writing as part of a transaction, that’s not being some kind of puppetmaster like Andrew loves to write about, it’s just committing fraud.

As part of the hostile takeover process, while I was waiting for Andrew to respond to me, the HICU made a copy of the project they started hosting at homestuck.github.io.¹⁹ (The reference to HICU ownership of the fork was later scrubbed as part of the shell game.) There are now common misconceptions that the UHC simply “moved”, HSO’s copy is the official¹⁸ home of the project, or that the availability somehow disproves the issues the takedown raised. None of this is true. Homestuck Official’s page claims the fork is a successor to the collection and control moved from the fan project to their official control, which is incorrect. Homestuck’s copy only serves to confuse people about the nature of the project. Since Andrew acknowledged our application was non-infringing and only sent takedown demands for the assets and the website, the up-to-date version of the reader program is still available from the original repository. Compared to the actual release, homestuck.github.io is a snapshot of an older version with bugs that were since fixed. At the time I thought this was obvious pettiness, but it seems to have succeeded in misleading people.

While the fork is deceptively marketed and ethically treacherous, I’m not making the claim that forking the project is theft or a copyright violation. The UHC is designed to stay as widely available as possible even if it’s thrown into legal limbo, which is what happened. It’s “fail-open” by design; when something goes wrong it’s built so that there are 2 copies, not 0. I believe that’s exactly how a community-focused project like the UHC needs to be.

Ultimately I stopped trying to work with Homestuck after they responded to a detailed conciliatory letter sent by my lawyer by threatening to bankrupt me with a phony lawsuit, accusing the project’s homepage of copyright infringement after all copyrighted material had been scrubbed from the site.²⁰ Homestuck’s behavior constituted multiple types of fraud, but importantly it reveals abusive tendencies and a viciousness that endangers any person in the vicinity of the IP.

All of this came at a turning point for the Homestuck brand as a whole. Andrew had been taking steps back for a while. In Pesterquest (2020), there’s a whole plot thread where Aysha U. Farah locks him in a closet.²¹ This peaked in 2023, while Andrew had formally discontinued his involvement in the Homestuck brand.²² In the wake of the publicity about Andrew’s previous misconduct, Homestuck and the Beyond Canon project made definitive statements asserting Andrew would not be involved going forward. After our talks with HSO started, the “Homestuck Independent Creative Union” was announced to manage the continuation of Beyond Canon. It called itself a real independent union doing fresh new work with the Homestuck license without oversight from Andrew.²³

This was false. The Union wasn’t a union, it was run by Andrew, who remained secretly in charge and managing everything. Once The Homestuck Union Was Always Fake was published demonstrating this, Andrew began making public authorial appearances again as if nothing had happened.²⁴ The “independent union” subsequently rebranded as “Furthest Ring Studios,”²⁵ obscuring the original deception.

This pattern of a scheming war mentality is hard to swallow because it’s a preposterous way for people to behave. It makes you feel insane for knowing it’s going on. The idea that there’s all this plotting and trickery and anger driving the decisions of the people in charge of the franchise seems so absurd that it must be an obvious lie. Even the fan communities who believed and understood it went “wow! what an outrageous event!” and then kept to the same routines. It’s hard to fight momentum. I still struggle to internalize it, and I lived it.

This is all an extra stab in the gut to me, because it’s coming from someone I once idolized. Even after discovering the Hiveswap deceptions²⁶ and seeing people denied professional credit as retribution and watching the vitriol thrown at Sarah Z,²⁷ I still fundamentally respected Andrew at some level. The MacGuffin of this whole story was The Unofficial Homestuck Collection, a monument to their work I crafted over the course of years. It is clear evidence that I was working constructively in a way that benefit them, even then. Andrew has a job that people would kill for. My friends trying to get into the creative industry talk about getting 4-5 likes, or getting a single comment on their art. Andrew has been incredibly fortunate. They’ve found an incredible amount of success as an online creator and they’re just squandering it by obsessing over clout and empire-building.

Covering up the story

That covers the events in the original writing. But the reaction to these articles has become its own significant part of the story.

There has been a campaign to bury the articles themselves in allegations and after-the-fact justifications that serve to keep people away from the topic. Any negative buzz you may have heard about the collection or these articles from the fandom today almost certainly comes from this. Some were workshopped by Homestuck Official, some of them were crowdsourced by fans. The instinct to exonerate someone you admire is natural. Especially among fans, people understandably don’t want to believe Andrew is a villain. But instinctive rationalization has prompted a slew of bad faith arguments, like:

There wasn’t really a takedown (there was),
My role as the project maintainer was somehow illegitimate or hidden (no),
This was driven by reasonable copyright concerns (it wasn’t — I show this in detail),
I didn’t respect Andrew’s stated pronouns (I did),
Maybe I forged all the conversation history (obviously not; that would be the easiest thing in the world to disprove),
At any point I refused to sign an NDA (I signed the NDA I was given immediately, and nothing I have written has violated it),
Having something negative to say proves it’s a bad-faith rant lacking substance (no),
Following someone on social media is endorsement (it means you want to see what they post sometimes),
I’m claiming Andrew “hates Homestuck” and was trying to deny people access to the comic (I argued the opposite of this),
I’m some kind of transphobe with a history of going after women (the one woman I was falsely accused of harassing away actually came back, unprompted, just to tell people it wasn’t true),
It’s a significant problem that I removed accidentally insensitive language as soon as someone flagged it (no, that’s how sensitivity works),

These are thought-terminating clichés. They’re individually ridiculous given the facts, but plausible enough on their surface to give people an excuse not to engage with the actual allegations.

All of these arguments are, at their core, hoaxes. These came from people who assumed I was ontologically evil and set off with the goal of discrediting me with whatever justifications they could scrape together. Loose connections were made after to the fact to things I had said to support this existing conclusion, so people could sell the argument to others. I remember watching, live, as people kept trying to brainstorm these and seeing what could stick. Of course there are moments in my life where I’ve failed to be charming, and certain internet obsessives collect screenshots of that to salivate over, but that’s true of everyone and irrelevant to the danger I’ve described.²⁸ These gotchas are crafted to seem plausible on social media and fill out a callout post, but they’re nonsense arguments no one would arrive at from a good-faith reading of the article.

Vessel Of Spirit@VesselOfSpirit
are the emperor's clothes real? i don't have direct information one way or the other. but i like to judge ideas by their fruits, and i can't help but notice that a lot of the voices on the "no" side are coming from whiny losers rotting in the emperor's dungeon
Sun Dec 07 10:02:03 +0000 2025

Weaponizing influence to blacklist

This is all an expected result of the dynamics I’ve grown to understand after working with Homestuck.

Andrew brandishes slander and social harm as a weapon. I’d seen this before and have now experienced it first-hand. Behind everything Andrew does is an implicit threat to ruin you, in a plausibly-deniable way, if you don’t keep them happy.

This behavior is very recognizable as a dominance game. The UHC conflict wasn’t about copyright or money or even reputation, it was about winning, dominating, and subordinating a victim. Since the UHC story first came out I’ve gotten multiple confirmations that Andrew admits this and brags about it in private. Andrew heard our boundaries, pretended to agree to them, then went thermonuclear when we required them to be respected.

Not only were threats made explicit during these talks, when the articles were published the social attack was immediately executed. It’s a technique parallel to the “Suppressive Person” label, where a credible threat to the narrative is labeled as toxic and need to be eradicated for the safety of the community.

People got direct instructions from Andrew to blacklist people for associating with me. Official Homestuck representatives secretly messaged project leads for fandom projects to demand people “fire” me over behavior they refused to describe. (The full LibsOfTiktok thing, but with no offensive posts, just false claims made by officials.) Official Homestuck employees began deflecting and seeding rumors, and influencers who had been granted access to Andrew began badmouthing the UHC project. Further violence escalated to doxxing attempts and direct threats of violence against me and my family, using an old address I gave as a shipping destination for official merch orders.

Very deliberately, none of these hoax accusations have been made on the record by anyone with any responsibility. If they did, they’d be lying, and their refusal to do it tells me they know that.²⁹ But what they can do is curate the vibe they want and make sure the hate and slander spreads. I later learned this was a tactic called “triangulation”, a strategy where the abuser (or their friend) spreads rumors about one of their victims to convince other people to pile on. This lets the dirty work spread while the aggressor maintains plausible deniability.

I wondered why in Sarah’s video Andrew was so fixated on “poisoning the narrative”. In retrospect, this was projection. A big part of their strategy is isolating people by cutting them off from community and support networks, through intimidation or slander. I’ve had friends show me screenshots where big name fans messaged them privately to “warn” them of how “problematic” I was, but then weren’t able to explain why, because it was bullshit they’d been told to repeat. It’s funny when it fails, but well-meaning people frequently buy in to this. They believe the victim is evil and they’re heroes for doing the dirty work of harassment the aggressor doesn’t want to be responsible for.

I have reason to believe this dynamic of social blackmail been the case for a very long time, but this incident has given me both first-hand knowledge and a paper trail. The legal threats were always documented, but there had also always been rumors and second-hand accounts about people willing to contradict the official narrative experiencing significant online harassment as a result. Now there’s documentation of this too.

The cult environment

This behavior is orchestrated harassment. In a cycle that keeps repeating, “inner circle” spaces become pressure cookers of hate³⁰ that turn Andrew’s personal enemies into mythologized villains for community leaders. They’re reality distortion environments, and I’ve watched them temporarily radicalize good people. First a false grievance against a scapegoat becomes part of an internal mythology.¹⁴ A siege mentality is reinforced to pressure people into being hyper-vigilant, and convince people some villain figure is an existential threat.

I may be the person in that slot right now but I’ve watched it rotate over the years. There is always a boogyman, and it’s always someone who offended Andrew by doing something short of complete agreement with their preferred narrative. Homestuck has no mythological enemies, it’s all just Andrew’s choices and their predictable outcomes.

Andrew positions himself as a guru and creates an environment so focused on manipulative scheming that everything anyone does is assumed to be a plot. This is always communicated as an emotional issue and a general feeling of “harm”. There are never any meaningful details.³¹ Any time anything bad happens (and it’s often self-inflicted), the event is spun as an outsider “endangering the team”. It’s projection, but everyone is whipped into legitimately feeling gangstalked. It is obsessive, scary, stalker stuff.

The people at the center of this are community influencers: organizers, moderators, PR people, respected contributors. The attitudes flow outward from them. Some people will wholeheartedly believe this and amplify it as a moral crusade.³² People act out in ways that might be justified if the rumors they were hearing were true, but they aren’t, and no one is allowed to verify any of it. People act in ways that might be justified if the rumors were true — but the rumors aren’t true, and no one is permitted to verify them.

Something I didn’t fully understand at the time is that Andrew’s demand I “show remorse” and admit fault wasn’t only about my humiliation satisfying Andrew personally, it was chumming the waters. Trying to get me to show “remorse” was an attempt to legitimize the hostility that had already been cultivated, and to justify the scale of hate he generates.

“Cult” is a strong word, but a significant amount of the most vicious harassment I’ve faced has been done by self-described “jubilities”, followers of the fictional religion Andrew invented. In the fictional story, Jubilism is based on a clown-themed cult leader manipulating online communities with a blend of “socialist demagoguery”, a “unique flavor of showmanship”, and an “ability to manipulate discourse and controversy to your benefit”. Her cult preaches religious-political principles like there is no tactic whatsoever that should be off the table. She maintains a list of everyone she considers a hater, a list she later uses to execute them in the street.³³ This has deeply resonated with some people, and Andrew now has adopted that same profile³⁴, like Qanon for a certain kind of fan. This Trumpyness is a running theme; Andrew hides behind clownish absurdism which makes the serious seem un-serious. It’s all designed to be goofy and plausibly deniable, but the harm it does is real.

This is not speculation. I’ve watched the war rooms myself and the attacks manifest in very visible ways. I’ve personally seen evidence that Andrew and company build profiles on people by compiling internal dox and tracking social media activity, then host war room meetings to organize campaigns against them.³⁵ This is characterized by disproportionate reactions and an instinct to “destroy” an enemy. There is seemingly no limit on how far they’re willing to go against people for even the smallest perceived slight.

Most recently this has culminated in Andrew and Homestuck’s second-in-command — in response to someone badmouthing Andrew online — jointly compiling dox on a victim and using it to file a restraining order. But then they also identified their family as immigrants, and after confirming that used the order to call the police on their home address.³⁶

The person in question was indisputably horrible. They did do nasty transphobic posting online, and I’d already blocked them myself. But it doesn’t matter how toxic a fan is or what “vibes” they were bringing to a community, you cannot put someone in physical danger for blogging about you disrespectfully.

This level of stalkerish obsession and hunger to retaliate is wildly inappropriate and dangerous, especially coming directly from Andrew and people in a top leadership position. There is no part of Discord moderation that involves “destroying your enemies”. They do not respect boundaries.

Andrew uses public pressure to suppress coverage of these incidents: raising concerns about documented misconduct gets re-framed as invasive personal attacks with therapy-speak. Accusations are “harassment”, gossip is “doxxing”, unwanted fan behavior is “obsessive”, etc.³⁷ Everything is always an attack.

This false labeling³⁸ is dangerous for falsely-accused victims, but it also means the real risk of harassment is diluted because the words becomes meaningless. Harassment and doxxing and obsessive stalking are all very real problems that happen, especially in a community like Homestuck full of marginalized people. But Homestuck’s attempts to write any annoyance off as a nuclear threat mean these words have lost their meaning.

Andrew also uses the vulnerable people around him as personal insulation, with staff absorbing public criticism that should reach him directly, and taking the fall when he wants to do something that could invite pushback.³⁹

The UHC takedown and failed takeover was a medium-sized incident in a history of much worse abuse. But it may have been the first time the dynamic had been captured in definitive paper records and wasn’t just hearsay. I absolutely don’t fault other victims for trying to protect themselves by publicly downplaying the extent of the harm, but I am glad I had a chance to warn people about the danger they’re in.

It’s rough on me, personally, because a lot of slander is spread by well-meaning people who are trying to combat negativity. There are good people I admire who don’t feel comfortable about me because of this, and I mourn that. They’re trying to defend against something they trust was bad, not knowing they’re downstream from deliberately crafted misinformation.

I know there are a some nasty “fans” who have harassed Homestuck’s large population of vulnerable people, which makes people defensive and suspicious. I obviously don’t condone anyone who crosses those lines; I’ve got no sympathy for the “life-ruining” crowds or the trolls and spammers,⁴⁰ and online drama never justifies putting someone in physical danger. I don’t even think it’s tasteful to broadcast information about Andrew’s personal life. Obviously, right? Since I did write about Homestuck conflicts but didn’t write about any biographical drama.

Articles

With the core story and its aftermath covered, the detailed accounts are available for those who want them.

The Unofficial Homestuck Collection Takedown documents our interactions with Andrew and his proxies over the collection — the manipulation, the broken commitments, and the legal threats.

There is also an extended conclusion: Homestuck is Radioactive. Andrew is willing to be extraordinarily hostile toward people, and anyone considering working with him should be aware that standard procedural safeguards have not been sufficient to protect people in the past.

Homestuck — as a corporate brand — needs to end. This is not what happened; more people have signed on to work with Andrew since this incident (not realizing they’re playing Calvinball) and Homestuck is pushing its marketable brand on children harder than ever.

The Homestuck Union Was Always Fake is an overview of the (at the time) Union, and how its structure was an elaborate deception. This also gets into the history of Homestuck’s relationships with fan projects, and how the recent attempts at revitalizing the brand hinged on a weird ploy.

Fandom and The Freedom Motif is an elaboration of my thesis from all of this, which is that it’s crucial for fandom to be structurally independent of corporate control, and how “official recognition” is a trap. It’s important that fandom spaces not need to be officially endorsed to exist. Officialization of some spaces creates a basis to shut others down. It provides exactly the kind of control people like Andrew want, and which people like them have to be kept away from.

Again, this has gone bad in the way I predicted. Ever since Homestuck Official launched its own Discord server and FRAF began encouraging official enclosure of fan projects, competing social spaces and unaffiliated projects have started going dark. Even some fan projects that at first embraced official licensing seem to have been embraced and extinguished.

There’s also the old Hiveswap landing page and the blog tag, Posts tagged #homestuck. God, I hope there are no more of those. I have drafts — good drafts — for essays about Homestuck as a literary work, about its cultural position, etc. Those aren’t happening now.

Recovery and non-recovery

The trouble is the ones who walk away from Omelas… walk away from Omelas. Fans get exhausted, or disgusted, or abused, or burned out, and so they leave fan spaces. Normally fan spaces have a healthy mixture of attitudes. But when disloyalty is punished so severely, those people leave. And only toxic positivity⁴¹ is left. As the people who push back are filtered out, the spaces sustain themselves on a steady intake of new, excited people who don’t yet know the history.⁴² That energy gets exploited, many of those people eventually get damaged, and the cycle continues.

Most fans don’t experience the inner circle toxicity personally, but everyone sees the symptoms: game development failing to happen, comics getting canceled and rebooted because their leads left, game developers being denied credit, books going out of print, spec work being solicited, merch failing to fulfill, MSPA getting blacklisted by publishing companies, etc. And these symptoms echo down to fan spaces: canceled projects, burn out in community spaces, hypervigilant canceling on social media, and general toxicity. Normal things that could plausibly happen, but happening with implausible frequency. Continually destroying historical records and focusing on a hype cycle hides this, as does the normal turnover of new fans.

Inner circle people do break free of this. Everyone has boundaries, and in an environment where boundaries aren’t respected, someone eventually stomps you. You either leave or let it chew through you and burn you out. I’ve had many conversations with ex-Homestucks who start very embarrassed from their participating in the vicious parts of this, but I want to say they’re being too hard on themselves. People are being flooded with stress and false information and they’re mostly doing their best to work from that bad foundation. It’s a whole high-control environment, and it takes time to recover from that. There’s the looming threat that leaving breaks your social circles, but at some point you have to bite the bullet and start recovering. And I want to give people who want to heal all the credit in the world.

I obviously don’t know how to “fix” this since the best move I came up with was to write a blog. But I do believe that speaking out against exploitation and unsafe situations is very, very important. Stop the spread of misinformation, push back when someone says something you know is wrong. One of the reasons I wrote the piece at all is that showing the public what goes on behind these closed doors is material support to every past victim, including the people who can’t speak out. I have gotten many touching messages thanking me for my work, and that needs to be more important than the attempts to drum up hate about it.

Still with love,
- Gio

Update 2026-05-31: Andrew Hussie published a callout post on his Google account. It’s long, and embarrassing, and wrong, and from my post-homestuck perspective isn’t worth debunking in any detail. It’s another leg in Andrew’s well-documented campaign to dodge responsibility and control the narrative.

I feel obligated to mention it somewhere because as evidenced by the table of contents the main purpose of that doc is to discredit me personally. But everything that has to say about me is either placing something innocuous in the context of an elaborate conspiracy they’ve imagined, or else materially false claims that fully cross the line into slander.

The doc confirms what I’ve already said here: the obsession, the scapegoating, the blacklisting, the post-hoc justifications, everything. There’s nothing more to say about it, Andrew is exactly as I’ve described him.

A discord mod had a nightmare about a lamppost and treated it as evidence I was a “fundamentally malicious actor” by wedging it between actual racists, nazis, and transphobes to smear me, because Andrew’s convinced them I’m a villain they need to destroy. It’s just an obvious gish-gallop.

Here’s a really basic thing: if someone writes an article accusing you of wrongdoing (whether it’s abuse or outright fraud), responding with “here’s why our victims deserved it” is not a refutation, it’s a confession. Andrew Hussie’s attempt to attack the character of his victims is an admission of guilt by its very structure. This is irrespective of whether those character attacks were false or not, which his also were.

I like to laugh at absurdity but what’s happening now (only a fraction of which has been publicly documented) is genuinely disturbing. It is obviously unstable and dangerous behavior that these people are still obsessing over individual fans Andrew has scapegoated, and acting on that hatred in ways designed to cause real harm. If you’re still affiliated with Homestuck (or wanting to be), for your own safety, get out now. It is rotten and collapsing, for the reasons I’ve written about and a myriad more too sensitive to publish. They want it to be a cult. You don’t want to be in a cult. You don’t need it. Just leave.

See Endorsement, James’ livestreams, etc.

↩
See Introductions.
October 02, 2023
- GiovanH 11:18 PM
  - feelings-wise, for me having criticized someone does not mean I’m unwilling to work with them. (obviously)
- miles 11:20 PM
  - so for whatever its worth, andrew knew you were a big contributor on this before we reached out, its not even close to a dealbreaker
- GiovanH 11:20 PM
  - by this point I figured he must have
- miles 11:21 PM
  - yeah! like
  - i guess what im getting at here is that we wanna work with you, we like what you guys are doing, and we definitely dont have any intention of getting weird about this lol
↩
October 01, 2023
- miles 10:09
  
  also! just wanna let you know, in the next couple days before andrew and i start chatting with you guys about what it is we wanna get into with you and sharing ideas, we are probably going to ask you to sign an NDA! the reason i tell you this now is just so that i can take the time to personally assure you that this is not some scary legal bullshit and we have no interest in like, being weird or punitive about shit, we just wanna do our due diligence to make sure that the privacy of the projects is respected
  
  if you have any questions at all about the document when the time comes, please dont hesitate to ask me
September 01, 2024, general
- miles 01:19 PM
  
  what i want to get into today is more of the nitty gritty of why it is we feel this is necessary from a more human point of view. to be more direct, what i mean by this is today, and in subsequent discussions until you show us that you understand the necessity of this, i want to talk about why it is that we’ve gotten to the point where the options here are either settlement or lawsuit. there was a real human cost to the way things went down a couple years ago, to say nothing of the damage that was done to Homestuck and Hiveswap by the way that fiasco went down. you weren’t the only person involved in this, obviously, but regardless of your intentions (which to be clear andrew and much of the involved parties still feel were at least partially rooted in like… rabblerousing, to get old-timey about it), things went down really, really nastily for the Homestuck and Hiveswap teams. this is something we need you to understand and talk to us about.
Miles later confirmed this was a lie from the beginning, and that a cease and desist “was in place before any of [them] were aware if [we’d] want to work with” them, and they were planning on hostility if we said no from the very start.

This wasn’t rogue behavior. Miles (Andrew’s representative) was acting as Andrew’s proxy when he lied to us, and he’s since been promoted. ↩
“Disproportionate” here is according to their own description, with NDA language threatening that “[Homestuck] will seek maximum financial damages, both to protect its financial interests, and more importantly, to vigilantly protect the privacy and safety of its members” to intimidate whistleblowers.
See NDAs as Isolation ↩
See the original Homestuck Community Participation and Release Agreement

The original waiver had an intellectual property provision that forces “all creative concepts, stories, characters, settings, dialogue, project ideas, plans, and all other information related to the Homestuck intellectual property” to be bound by the licensing contract between the HICU and Homestuck, Inc., which is a separate, secret document we were not allowed to see until after committing to it. This would turn any signatory into a “poison contributor” who couldn’t work on any independent fanwork.

You understand and agree that all creative concepts, stories, characters, settings, dialogue, project ideas, plans, and all other information related to the Homestuck intellectual property discussed by Group are bound by the conditions described in the licensing agreement between the Union and Homestuck, Inc. All information is deemed Confidential Information.

The license between the Union and Homestuck, Inc. was the first of two license agreements we were asked to sign into without being able to read. The license shown only to Bambosh was the second. ↩
Between Deadlock and Chasing Off Bambosh, Andrew was pressuring Bambosh to unilaterally sign a license on behalf of the entire project, something they were unable to do, since they’d be agreeing on my behalf to an agreement Andrew insisted the NDA prevented them from showing me. ↩
See Statement Demand
August 05, 2024

…
- miles 09:34 PM
  
  so, the next stage of all this is basically that before moving onto getting the license squared away, andrew wants to work on what’s referred to here as a settlement.
…

August 24, 2024, miles

…
- miles 05:50 PM
  
  to lay the groundwork for working with the UHC, andrew wants to reach a settlement that includes a retraction/rewrite
  
  the explicit details of this have yet to be hashed out and will probably be worked on in the coming weeks but its something andrew has made very clear he needs to see happen in some shape or form
  
  note that the rewrite/retraction itself doesnt have to happen RIGHT NOW or even necessarily before we get to work on UHC stuff, but agreeing to do it with the settlement is something andrew needs to see first
August 25, 2024, miles
- miles 03:03 PM
  
  but like. you GOTTA work with us, man
  
  the alternative is that if andrew feels much more stalled or like you arent operating with him in good faith, hes just going to switch gears, have the UHC taken down, replace it, and sue.
↩
See Statement Demand
September 01, 2024, general

…
- miles 01:19 PM
  
  what i want to get into today is more of the nitty gritty of why it is we feel this is necessary from a more human point of view. to be more direct, what i mean by this is today, and in subsequent discussions until you show us that you understand the necessity of this, i want to talk about why it is that we’ve gotten to the point where the options here are either settlement or lawsuit. there was a real human cost to the way things went down a couple years ago, to say nothing of the damage that was done to Homestuck and Hiveswap by the way that fiasco went down. you weren’t the only person involved in this, obviously, but regardless of your intentions (which to be clear andrew and much of the involved parties still feel were at least partially rooted in like… rabblerousing, to get old-timey about it), things went down really, really nastily for the Homestuck and Hiveswap teams. this is something we need you to understand and talk to us about.
…
- miles 01:19 PM
  
  as detailed in the pdf i just sent you, and as i mentioned previously, real damage was done not only to Homestuck and Hiveswap as productions/brands/however you wanna look at it, but there was a huge storm of harassment and outright abuse of many staff members that was like… fucking unacceptable.
  
  we’re not trying to hold you 100% accountable for all the bad shit that went down back then, but we’re also not about to pretend that your blog wasn’t a contributing factor of some significance that, among other things, “legitimized” sarah and emily’s video in the eyes of a bunch of rabid shitheads who weren’t interested so much in “accountability” or whatever the fuck reddit shit it was that they said as they were in dogpiling a group of creators just because they could. andrew also has made it clear to me, and wants me to communicate to you, that regardless of your intentions, he and other members of the team felt your behavior was stalkerish and unacceptable. there is history here that needs to be addressed.
  
  all this preamble is to say that really, before we do anything at all, we need to get real indication from you that this is something you understand, something you’re willing to show remorse for, and something you are willing to Concretely Commit to amending with us. if we’re going to collaborate at all, there has to be some kind of trust built here, and the only way that’s going to happen is for you to address this shit personally. we’re not interested in dancing around this any longer.
↩
See NDAs as Isolation

I have confirmed with my legal counsel that this is not remotely standard language for an NDA. It is designed to intimidate and lock signatories into a coercive, punitive situation. ↩
See Seizure Demand
- miles 02:19 AM
  - as i mentioned earlier, we’re going to step back vis a vis the rewrite stuff. in exchange, and considering the above paragraph, we need to see the UHC handed over to kohi. what that does is neutralize the threat implied earlier, as well as put the UHC in the hands of not only a member of the HICU but someone you yourself have mentioned you want to work with and someone you respect where these types of projects are concerned. andrew doesn’t want to see his own work held hostage and used as leverage against him, and putting the UHC into kohi’s stewardship eliminates that possibility in one simple move.
↩
See The Sarah Z Video Fallout

See Statement Demand

It was this [stalking] pattern of behavior, along with his sourcing practices in particular, which escalated in fully justified feelings of anger toward [Legal Name], which finally reached a boiling point when his blog was massively elevated on Youtube, when thereafter the angry reaction of the Hiveswap team was used against them to cause even more harm in a very public way.

↩
See Cynthia Dominguez

Cynthia Dominguez took the credit for writing this letter, as indicated by her later apology. But she didn’t write the letter, she only agreed to send it on behalf of the angry staff, which made the case to her that it was the right thing to do to stand up for the integrity of a staff under attack by a big platform. The content of the letter was written by friends of Aysha, Hiveswap staff members who felt aggrieved on her behalf … But of course the “legal threat” was then weaponized against the Hiveswap team even further, used as proof that What Pumpkin was a litigious, exploitative company which was trying to suppress criticism.

As at least one example of behavior (which Andrew didn’t treat as shocking or exceptional), they had Aysha ghost-write an angry letter and signed Cynthia’s name to it before sending it to a journalist. Then when they weren’t happy with Sarah’s depiction of them, they tried to use their deception about who said what to treat Sarah’s behavior (holding Cynthia responsible for the contents of the letter her name was on) as unfair. ↩
See Seizure Demand
September 28, 2024, general
- miles 02:19 AM
  - hey hey. you may notice we reset the general chat in here; we’re thinking of bringing in some more folks soon and we figure it isn’t productive to have the old discussion sitting there.
I didn’t find this out until later, but apparently this is a practiced move they do regularly with people. ↩
I really try to be as conservative as possible about posting screenshots, but to confirm I’m not exaggerating about this culture, here’s a conversation from September. The attitude was so dangerously unhinged that a friend of Vibri forwarded this to me because it was genuinely worrying:

This is false. But it’s accepted within those spaces because the misinformation comes directly from Andrew Hussie. It’s the scapegoating, the mythological villain, and the siege mentality all at once.

Andrew’s quite literally blaming me for all ills.
Andrew told me that himself, and Vibri (the current “homestuck community manager”) corroborates it. This is such an absurd claim that it only sticks to fresh faces who don’t know better. And communication is totally siloed off, so people who would know this is bullshit don’t hear it, they just get “I know he’s a monster” from friends who they trust.

It’s a three-step process: Andrew seeds the lies at a private level, then lets that attitude proliferate, and then the fandom will direct all the hate you can ask for at the target of their choice. ↩↩
The promise to donate the long-awaited commentary used as bait has disturbing parallels to Nintendo’s “subtle hint of interest in collaboration”, or Valve offering a hacker a fake job just to arrest them.. Miles essentially admits to this in a “damage control” post that ultimately just confirms the article is factually correct. ↩
Andrew had already purchased the rights back from VIZ, and when he threatened to sue us it was in his capacity as the sole owner. This was another deceptive and false claim the fraudulent negotiations were predicated on. Homestuck has since admitted to this publicly:

Homestuck, “Homestuck Community Issues”: …after regaining control of Homestuck and Homestuck.com from VIZ Media, Andrew began to explore their options for restoring full access to Homestuck and its website. One obvious avenue was to offer a license to the team behind the popular UHC project, who had already produced a working mirror of the comic so widely circulated among the fandom that it had become the de facto primary method to read Homestuck during this period.

↩
They’ve stated this many times as they’ve tried to shift the narrative to “Gio is bad”. An obvious and public example is Miles’ damage control thread.

Miles andrew asked me if i’d be comfortable acting as a liaison/go-between between him and bambosh+gio regarding offering a license to the Unofficial Homestuck Collection and bringing it into the fold …
…
any work any of us do for Homestuck or about Homestuck we do because we love it and the fandom, and the role that i played in this UHC scenario was because i thought i was going to be stepping in to mediate a quick situation that would help reconcile gio and andrew and give something cool to the fans at the same time, not because i was trying to, what, get involved in a messy situation for no reason other than to hurt people and punish the fans?
…
…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.

The claims in this post are mostly demonstrably false, but it is Miles testifying that this was always about assimilating the project and I was always being treated with suspicion and hostility behind closed doors.

Note the importance placed on whether someone is “in the fold” or not. ↩
The Homestuck team keeps trying to call the fork “official”, which is incorrect. The UHC they’re hosting is a mixture of several different intellectual properties owned by several different rightsholders (one of which is me). They can host it but they don’t own it. And of those many owners, only one of the parties endorses Homestuck’s copy. If I draw Garfield I can’t call that official work just because I endorse it, and if Garfield reposts my art they can’t call that official work just because they took it. I was trying to work with Homestuck to make their UHC copy official, but they shut that process down. ↩
See HICU Fork ↩
See Andrew’s June Letter.
[Andrew’s Lawyer] (July) …
Let me be clear about where things stand:
- The recently reinstated Unofficial Homestuck Collection website is saturated with Homestuck’s protected intellectual property. This isn’t speculative; the site prominently features unauthorized use of my client’s assets, trademarks, and materials throughout.
…
- Your client’s trademark infringement is blatant. It appears in the domain name, the headers, marketing language, metadata, and across the website. There is no serious argument for nominative fair use here. The project offers a direct market replacement, creates consumer confusion regarding affiliation, and undermines my client’s ability to control its brand.
In short, your client’s copyright and trademark defenses are without merit. Their continued reliance on these arguments only increases their exposure.

As for the blog posts we’ve previously referenced - even if we were to set aside whether they are legally actionable (a point that remains under review), their removal is a non-negotiable prerequisite for any resolution. Your client cannot expect to maintain those disparaging materials and simultaneously negotiate a working relationship with my client.

At this point, your client has three primary options:
1. Refuse to cooperate, maintain the infringing content, and face both informal and formal legal action, including takedowns, injunctive relief, and pursuit of damages. To be clear, this is not an abstract threat. We have already begun taking steps in that direction, including preparations to pursue removal of your client’s website and related content through their domain registrar, hosting provider, and relevant platforms. We will pursue every available legal and technical remedy to bring this infringement to an end and to hold your client accountable for the existing and resulting damages.
2. Engage in the self-removal of infringing materials referenced in your email, and attempt to wage a public relations campaign. That approach neither eliminates liability for years of past infringement nor secures your client’s ability to operate going forward, nor does it prevent my client from undertaking any of the preceding actions. I’ll be blunt - we are not concerned about the court of public opinion. …
3. Engage in a structured, good-faith resolution, which includes:
  
  Removal of infringing content and unauthorized distribution;
  
  A properly documented license agreement if your client wishes to operate legitimately;
  
  Removal of defamatory or misleading public statements.
This third option is the only one that meaningfully limits your client’s liability, preserves the work they claim to care about, and provides a clear, legal path forward. It is also, frankly, the path of least resistance legally, financially, and reputationally.

We are still willing to pursue that option, but the opportunity to resolve this amicably will not remain open indefinitely. If your client is serious about resolving this dispute, now is the time to act. Otherwise, we will move forward with the steps necessary to protect my client’s rights.

Your client must immediately remove the UHC website and Carrd, pending an executed settlement, release, and/or license from Homestuck.
↩↩
↩
See Andrew Quits Homestuck

What Pumpkin In early 2020, Hussie officially left What Pumpkin to work on new projects unrelated to Homestuck. In the time since, they completed a new project called Psycholonials. The final chapter of this visual novel was just posted today, and is available on Steam and mobile platforms. While Hussie still retains ownership of the Homestuck IP, they decided last year to fully discontinue their creative involvement in any future Homestuck projects, and instead plans to continue independently developing more projects like Psycholonials.

↩
See The Promise of the HICU ↩
↩
See announcement ↩
See More on the Hiveswap Odd Gentlemen Debacle.

The original accusation I received and described was:

At some point during that time Andrew had TOG spend their budget (the Kickstarter funds) on making 3D animatics and animations for the Homestuck finale video (Act 7), instead of working on Hiveswap. Andrew justified this by saying the properties were related and the Act 7 assets would be used in Hiveswap.

Significant portions of the Act 7 animation were in progress or finalized as early as 2013, the work all done in secret by The Odd Gentlemen.

What Pumpkin responded by confirming this in a Kickstarter update. ↩
See Homestuck Sent Me A Legal Threat, And Then It Got Worse, etc. ↩
Selecting a target and then obsessively collecting whatever embarrassing moments in their life you can find is full-on KiwiFarms behavior, and it’s always shocking to watch it done by self-proclaimed leftists to target people they’re falsely accusing of stalking. ↩
Miles (Andrew’s representative throughout the UHC process) did post a damage control thread on their forum. While it avoids making substantive claims that are factually incorrect, it’s a complete misrepresentation of what happened. The post leans extremely hard into the “Andrew’s not trying to destroy Homestuck” line. This isn’t a rebuttal, it’s repeating exactly what I said but pretending that’s counter-evidence. It’s a deliberate straw man cooked up in a PR meeting.

Here’s what I wrote in the actual article:

The Unofficial Homestuck Collection Takedown Andrew is willing to be unimaginably hostile towards people. The problem is not that Andrew “hates their fans”, or is intentionally trying to destroy their community, or anything like that. The problem is that they’re willing to attack anyone if they see it as useful to the greater good of their own reputation. Over the smallest perceived slight Andrew will attack people’s careers, their professional lives, their financial stability, everything.

And here’s Miles very serious response to this.

miles …not because i was trying to, what, get involved in a messy situation for no reason other than to hurt people and punish the fans? why would i do that? or, for that matter, why would andrew?
…
my observation throughout this whole process was Not that gio was standing up as a stalwart defender of the rights of the fans to access homestuck, because andrew Wanted to work with him, and bambosh Wanted to work with us, and andrew doesn’t “hate homestuck and want it to go away” (the whole reason i’m allowed to make HS:BC with the HICU is because andrew wants the fandom to keep thriving!).
…
no, the UHC is not gone forever, there is a fork up right now. the Homestuck site itself is still being worked on and improved and andrew has no intentions of turning Homestuck into “lost media”, that’s not going to happen. Homestuck is not going away or in any danger of disappearing, i promise.
…
i’m of the opinion that gio’s article was pretty transparently not written out of a benevolent desire to protect homestuck fans’ access to the comic.
…
this article isn’t about you, the reader, as a fan and your threatened right to have continuous access to Homestuck, because that’s not in danger. i promise. i have worked on HS:BC for two awesome years now and i have never felt in danger of Homestuck Disappearing, and i wouldn’t BE working on HS:BC if i felt there was some attempt to destroy Homestuck (because, again, why??? would i do that???).
…
…the HICU and FRAF and andrew have all been trying in their own ways to make homestuck fans happy with comics, merch, fanworks, and more, and it’s been working, so gio decided to shit on that parade because he screwed himself out of being a part of it.

Ultimately all this does is confirm everything in my writing is factually correct, or else it could have been easily debunked without having to lean on tone policing. But the “im just a little bean!!” attitude ticks me off, especially as Miles in particular so consistently uses this image to mislead people. ↩
I’ll give an example of the viciousness of this space and the kind of slander that is produced. After I posted this, some log files from the Homestuck moderation chat were leaked, showing the seething hatred that they’re cultivating around me:

In response to this leak, the staff member responsible for the messages (discordantObserver) doubled-down:

Official Discord Mod Team Response to Reddit Accusations I meant and stand by everything I said. When I said “giovanh co-ordinated a harassment campaign, which escalated into a sexual harassment campaign” i meant “giovanh co-ordinated a harassment campaign, which escalated into a sexual harassment campaign”. I do not retract this because there is a level of proof that is completely irrefutable. The fandom decided that sexual harassment was fine at the time, and neither Makin nor GiovanH showed an iota of regret over said sexual harassment.

These horrifying accusations here are, of course, completely untrue. I’m familiar with the revenge porn incident being referenced here: a Homestuck staff member sold explicit images of herself which were then leaked. It is disgusting that this happened. This should go without saying, but I didn’t participate in acquiring or leaking this and I wouldn’t want to associate with anyone who did. I have continually denounced this kind of harassment, and I’m appalled that people would lie that I haven’t.

But it is also obvious that these accusations are untrue. As always, Homestuck staff gives an empty assertion that “proof” exists, and despite the fact that no one has ever seen it, declares that it’s “irrefutable”. But the accusations are false, so proof is never shown. Instead a demand is made that my guilt go without saying, and staff members declaring it to be “known” is the only evidence anyone should need to believe me to be a sexual abuser involved in distributing revenge porn.

There’s one final nail in the coffin. Out of respect for her privacy I haven’t broadcast this, but the victim of this revenge porn incident actually reached out unprompted to apologize to me for lashing out, something I found extremely personally meaningful. The current-day people who reach for this false accusation as a way to attack me are expressly violating the wishes of the victim. It shows that the attitude of people like discordantObserver does not come from a place of caring about victims, it is a rage that seeks justification.

↩
See Never Play Defense, etc. ↩
The irony is not lost on me that, in their forever war against the spectre of kiwifarms vibes and right-coded harassment campaigns, Homestuck has comfortably settled on conducting their own lib-coded harassment campaigns in response. ↩
“Executed on the street” is not a rhetorical flourish I use to suggest the possibility of future escalation. In conjunction with Andrew’s rhetoric, Homestuck staff has already posted (now deleted) public statements saying I needed to be shot dead in a ditch.

Andrew did not raise the subject of Homestuck apologizing for this as part of the UHC talks. ↩
See also Instagram ↩
There have been a lot of these war room/regime enemy “how do we destroy them” meetings, but I guess the most relevant one that I can introduce without dragging in any past victims is the one prompted by the UHC article itself. While I’ve been quietly working away at my own business and moving on with my life the Homestuck team has been feverishly obsessing over me. I’m sure others are experiencing the same, if not worse.

Is this supposed to be shocking? Oooh, ah? No. This is just the environment being the thing I said it was and doing the things I said it would do. Homestuck the brand was allowed to grow and FRAF’s didn’t last one month before going darkside. ↩
I first heard this story from another person who felt like they needed to report a credible threat.

The justification used was “stalking”, but Homestuck lies outright about people being “stalkers”. It’s a label they slap on anyone they dislike. Them choosing to use it does not in any way justify putting a family at risk of deportation. I’ve seen no justification that there was a real stalking problem here, and whenever Homestuck is asked about they deflect by talking about how the person was bad in unrelated ways.

I already knew the subject was a deeply nasty transphobe who had been banned from most community spaces, and I wouldn’t consider doing anything on their behalf in any kind of normal moderation scenario. They were bad and their behavior often called for harsh moderation. But that wasn’t relevant here. Homestuck targeted this person because they ran a tabloid blog that spreading gossip that embarrassed Andrew. Their actual faults were only used as justification.

Serving these papers is the job of a paralegal or process server. Insisting the police do this work instead is an intentional choice, and the conversation shows Vibri was aware this created material risk for this person and their family. Silencing a blogger was prioritized over the safety of their physical safety and the safety of the people around them. Doing all this in February 2026 made a statement.

Vibri’s vindictive behavior over this person spreading rumors raised such a concern for their their physical safety that a mod wanted me to reach out and see if I could at least confirm they hadn’t been SWATed and that ICE hadn’t gotten involved. The answer was: no, after Andrew and Vibri finished their business, I could not reach them. If the goal was to disappear this person, it worked.

Andrew has used his position of authority to attack a number of people over the years, and he’s been able to convincingly paint some of them in a bad light after the fact. This simply doesn’t matter. The question isn’t which of two story characters is the good guy, the question is are the people in a position of structural power exercising it responsibly? The answer is no.

I’d heard about this previously, but I didn’t publish it until it was independently reported as a side note in the r/Homestuck mod report, which mostly focused on the much less serious problem of Homestuck Official attempting to hijack r/Homestuck’s urls to point to official spaces instead.

In response to these reports, Homestuck staff posted:
April 13, 2026
- Maccus 10:07 am
  - To summarize, instead of doing anything productive to celebrate 4/13, a post was put up on the subreddit trying to turn people against us and claim every single person on the “official” side are boogeyman.
  - It’s so tired and played out. It’s been going on like that for years. There’s so much history to this, and a lot of misinformation that’s persisted for years because They have held the space forever and so there wasn’t a way to really counter it.
  - They don’t like this place existing very much because you can just interact with the team now. And like, hearing it from the source instead of whatever bullshit they packaged to you.
  - At the end of the day, we’re just trying to make this Fandom fun again instead of poisoned by all this animosity. We’re kind of sick of it always being a downer. Most of the people still working on Homestuck are just fans who are really passionate about this place and were trying to uplift the people wanting to improve things rather than always making it worse.
  - It’s just going to be a day. It’s a pity you guys are all riled up when you guys should be having a good day.
  - Yall are here because you like the thing right?
The appeal to “positivity” here is an extremely characteristic deflection. Everything Homestuck staff does, including putting its community in physical danger, is done for the purpose of “trying to make the Fandom fun instead of poisoned” (because that’s what the Others do). And if you have any concerns about that behavior, aren’t you the problem for not just having fun? Toxic Positivity.

There’s no room for plurality — staff views themselves as directly competing with fandom spaces that “package” information (read: have opinions) instead of people being forced to consume an official narrative. Any kind of independent space or commentary is treated as a threat. And it is a threat — to the false narratives Homestuck tries to push on people. ↩
Andrew often conspicuously refuses to apply labels like “obsessive” or “parasocial” in situations when they would be appropriate. Andrew doesn’t express any concern about the obsessiveness of fans making art of Andrew, or getting Homestuck tattoos, or naming themselves after Homestuck characters, or identifying with one of Andrew’s proprietary genders. The accusations are only ever deployed to defend their power and money. ↩
In a piece I’m not going to get into which Andrew published (seemingly coincidentally) four days after I wrote this, they write:

Andrew, “HVC Color Composer” I still have a lot of stalkers, and sometimes they shapeshift to avoid detection, and use clever tactics to launder their destructive stalker intentions through behavior which doesn’t outwardly scan as stalking to everyone. Tactics like spreading lies, invading my creative work, intentionally inciting widespread hatred, or desperately clinging to control of hostile server communities for apparently no other reason than to continue wielding a lever of harassment against me and my friends.

These examples are unsubtle barbs at specific people Andrew hates. “Invading my creative work” and “spreading lies” are undisguised jabs at my contributions, “hostile server communities” is a reference to Hussie’s war against the independent Homestuck Reddit, etc.

But what really strikes me is this “shapeshifter” framing. Andrew has all these different people he wants to paint as villains for many different reasons: scandals, control, fandom culture, etc. He groups all these disparate offenses — none of which have anything to do with stalking — as coming from “stalkers”, who are scheming and “avoiding detection” by sneakily not actually doing any of the stalking Andrew was hoping to see. The reality is Andrew’s complaints are about behavior that has nothing to do with stalking, but instead of acknowledging the harm they want to see isn’t there, they’re complaining that it’s not easier for him to justify outrage against them.

In contrast, stalking people while “avoiding detection” describes Andrew’s mode of operation to a T, making all this rhetoric seem like projection.

↩
See Throwing people under the bus and The Prototype, Risk, etc. ↩
I know there are transphobic cell groups there, and I give attempts to curb that nastiness the benefit of the doubt. But when HSO fights “the bad communities”, it isn’t a targeted defense, it’s a justification carelessly applied to anyone whenever it’s convenient.

I remember r/Homestuck was the first online space where someone called me “based”, and I did not care for it. I still don’t. But that’s not hate, that’s culture shock. I don’t care for the attitude and so don’t spend time there. But when a shared grievance that defines an entire community is people interpreting their revulsion of other cultures as harm being done to them, and that other cultural norms are an existential threat is… it’s not praxis, certainly. ↩
See Toxic Positivity ↩
And keeping real records is punished; the historians and recordkeepers have usually been the people targeted for abuse. ↩

Interloper and Artistry in Impressionistic Horror

2025-12-16T00:00:00-06:00

Interloper is an unfiction ARG series for source nerds. It feels like Interloper was laser-targeted to drive me specifically insane, but it turns out that was true for a lot of people. After three years the first episode has 856k views, and the recently released final episode is a feature-length 1:54 film that earns its runtime.

Couldn’t “solve interloper”

I’ve been obsessing about Interloper since the beginning, and when I saw the finale I knew I had to finish it out properly. But this article is my third attempt to write something about Interloper, after spending several weeks just doing research.

My first instinct after seeing the finale was to “solve” it. There was an enormous amount of information available that was all interconnected and painted a picture of this huge, fascinating world. Interloper F didn’t answer all the questions the series asked, but surely with all the clues it gave us, someone who really understood the series would put the pieces together. Surely I could, if I gave it some time and attention.

But that didn’t work.

I have a 40,000 word red strings board. I have thousands of connections that map out, in excruciating detail, how every entity, concept, and pattern in the series relate to each other. I’ve pushed my mind-mapping software to the limits of its usefulness.

Do you want to know what all Sourcebox relates to and how? I know the answer to that question; the answer is “no”.

I just threw away 1,000 words of prose on the SFM 10th anniversary teaser alone. Did you know about all this cool secret data hidden in a meaningful, structured format? If you did you sure didn’t document it, because I had to learn SFM myself to see it.

I have a page of “contradictions” that don’t reveal any secrets but instead add up to a miserable Cinemasins-style nitpick.

If we think of these videos as real YouTube videos published to a channel, that means someone has final cut. I tried to work this out, and it’s nonsense. There is no changeover period where an account that was run by one party is now run by another.
Demos can’t just be recordings of memories because Eida was actively generating them on maps he submitted live. They have to be generated dynamically. But demos can’t be generated dynamically because demos can be records of real gameplay sessions and the Interlope command can return the same demo multiple times. They have to be pulling from a repository of recordings.
- Demos are labeled with a commit message in the format 09-09-13, but that isn’t a date, except for Type 7s when it’s TODAY and it is.

I wanted to come up with a grand comprehensive theory that puts everything in the series into one self-consistent model. But I couldn’t, not to my own satisfaction. The analytical lenses I am drawn to don’t really capture what needs to be captured about Interloper. After all that, I’m left in the same position as the character Anomidae himself; trying to figure how to explain an immense, fascinating thing you don’t fully understand, because no matter what you do the pieces don’t fit. And even without the perfect solution, it might be time to move on.

But that gives me the answer. I know exactly what I’m not capturing already, because I know I’m not capturing it. I know everything there is to know because I know what I don’t know. All I need to show is what I’m missing.

Showcase of Source engine practical effects

But before that, let me explain why I’m so interested in this series in the first place, because it stands out as incredible even among the best unfiction projects. It’s very easy to miss how cool this is if you aren’t already intimately familiar with the Source ecosystem, and as a result I think a lot of it goes over peoples’ heads, which is a tragedy.

Technical showcase, practical effects

See, what’s incredible is how much of it is real. It’s not just horror, it’s also a showcase of technical feats. Anomidae is able to craft phenomenally engaging fiction while keeping large parts of it grounded in what’s technically possible. It’s not just theoretically nonfiction, it’s reproducible at home. And not just reproducible if you download some new game Anomi made for the story, reproducible with a wide array of commercial games that weren’t designed to do any of this, and which Anomi had no special access to.

I’ve seen a lot of reactions to the series by people who aren’t already source fans, and invariably they aren’t able to spot the seam where the fiction meets the real tech. It’s easy to see that TF2 is real and Skycrash is not, but people end up assuming demos or cubemaps or Boxrocket were invented for this too, and they weren’t. The Source Sample Tool is real and I’m running it. It all goes to show how masterfully all these details are designed and presented as expressions and extensions of reality.

It’s like comparing CGI to practical effects. It’s still fiction and still depends on an elaborate contrivance to make look believable, but at the end of the day a lot of what happens was actually done. He didn’t just say this was happening in source; he made it happen in source.

This plays really well into the “scientific supernatural” story: these unusual, anomalous things can be concrete and examinable while still being bizarre and mysterious.

Even within the fiction of the series, Anomi showed almost all his work. Much more than he had to for fiction or puzzle purposes. And even if he still insisted on making something you could download and experiment, he could have done that by making a sourcemod with some extras in the engine code. He didn’t. Everything is done by stretching familiar tools as far as they’ll go.

The demo files — even many of the Type 5 demos — are real and replayable. The maps and demos can actually be examined. The SFM sessions are real. Kulcs and Ordinance both happened, with one side orchestrated but the other side fully exposed to the real world the whole time.

In Interloper 7 Anomi creates a narrative reason to invent a working pinhole camera using light baking tech from 2004, and then really does it. Is there a use case for this outside this contrived story? Not really, no. The story creates the framework needed to show off this interesting technical demonstration in a way that’s not just a fun tech demo but is narratively satisfying. And even that fits within the fiction of the world: within the kayfabe, all this is being done for the purpose of research.

Using familiar space

Source really is a special choice. It’s a family of games that — as the series points out — people feel deep, genuine nostalgia for. And that special but familiar space was used as the staging ground for everything.

Almost everything not explicitly supernatural was just a slight reframing of esoteric mechanics that really have been sitting around on all of our computers since 2004. The series doesn’t just show supernatural events that shouldn’t be possible on screen, it lets you see the whole trick for yourself, and it works.

It’s not a puzzle, it’s horror and presentation

It really is horror

But why haven’t I solved the puzzle? The basic answer is that Interloper isn’t a puzzle; it’s horror.

Interloper was a Halloween special published on October 25 with the description “Happy Halloween!”. The thumbnail is a spooky shadow man with glowing white eyes. You find the decal in a spooky dark alleyway in Ravenholm and then one jumps out and gets you. Interloper is thoroughly a horror series, to the point where it seems silly to try to prove it, except for how straight and scientifically Anomidae’s character plays it. But the series is, ultimately, horror. It’s at times fascinating, majestic, even epic. (I’ve watched too much Interloper and now when I watch the trickshot¹ I cry real tears.) But all of that is in service of a ghost story.

There is incredible attention to detail everywhere in the series, and at certain points there are puzzles that you use details to solve, so it’s very tempting to understand the series as being about detail. You could try to understand the series as the thing it purports to be: incrementally discovering more and more about a coherent truth. And if the series is fundamentally about revealing a mystery, you can rely on conservation of detail and linguistic relevance: understand every move as being a carefully calculated form of communication, procedurally revealing details towards the solution. But this mode of analysis ultimately fails. The series isn’t detailed because it’s meant to be a puzzle, it’s detailed because it’s great.

It’s not primarily a puzzle

Interloper’s first priority isn’t to be a perfectly satisfying puzzle. It comes back at this metaphor a few times: interesting pieces that don’t really connect to each other and don’t build a cohesive picture. Even when two pieces seem to align with each other, it’s not part of a clearly defined picture.

Interloper F …Honestly? At this point I just don’t even know. Like yeah, we have a lot of pieces here now, a lot of things we can put together, but again, the full picture here just doesn’t make sense, and there’s just no way, realistically, to connect all of this together

The primary driver of the narrative is presentation and spectacle. Interloper is a series but it is also 14² different stories. The primary focus isn’t on making every piece ultimately build one cohesive picture, it’s how cool and interesting each piece is and how fun it is that they connect at all. In a puzzle each piece is subordinate; it’s a means to a larger, pre-determined end. But that isn’t how this series works. Big moves are done for awe and aura purposes, and so the universe behind them is not perfectly consistent.

It’s not inconsistent in significant ways that break the consistency of the universe. What’s broken is the conservation of narrative detail: we’re not given all the pieces and the pieces we do have don’t all fit together. There are enough tweaks and shifts in direction here and there that you can’t trust every minor detail as intentional communication.

I’m not saying this was “by design” per se. I don’t know that the intent was always to make sure the pieces didn’t fit cleanly together. I think this is just a natural consequence of focusing on the best parts of the series: the presentation, the spectacle, and the unfathomable mystery of it all. And I’m sure some shifts are the results of rewrites, since the story wasn’t fully written out from the beginning. But I don’t think that’s a major problem here.

Anomidae has a paywalled post on Discord titled “The Importance of “Realistic Consistency”. I won’t quote it here directly, but his general perspective is, I think, compatible with I’m describing here: the events fit within the world. Even in supernatural fiction, for a universe to be believable it needs to have an internal set of rules. It’s important that nothing break the rules, but at the same time the stories aren’t the deterministic product of the rules of the universe. The stories are fit within the universe.

This means some themes are one-off appearances and others end up getting retooled to serve a different purpose later.

For example, does the white slide at the end of Interloper 1 mean that section is authored by someone else? It’s an early iteration of the white slides used by Project Skybox which will signify a different narrator later in the series. A strictly literal reading says this implies that PSB’s involvement wasn’t just early as INT1, they were actually the ones uploading the videos the whole time. But this doesn’t make sense without really foundational shifts in how we understand the series.

If it were all designed to be a perfect puzzle, this would be asking the viewer to completely disrupt the way they understand the series. Using different design languages is a vehicle to communicate information to the viewer, and later reveals could reveal who was talking when in order to fill in missing pieces, etc.

But I don’t think that’s the point here. The white slide is used in INT1 to emphasize the “quick edit” nature of the cut, but that design language gets retooled later to serve a different semantic purpose. The “differentness” of the white slides migrates to implying a separate author. It doesn’t “break” anything to do this, obviously: it’s entirely possible for Anomi to use whatever colors he wants. It’s just a narrative inefficiency for the series as a whole.

The meaning is in connections as language

Interloper isn’t a puzzle first and foremost, but that doesn’t mean the pieces of the story are disconnected or that connections are meaningless when they appear. The connections between pieces show narrative and thematic relationships. They are their own language and tell a rich story that greatly supplements the in-universe narration. The obtuse interrelations between mechanics form a language that describe an intensely interrelated world. And that’s the story!

Interloper invites you to chew on implications without necessarily making those critical to the narrative. It allows for a lot of big gasps without locking any narrative pieces into a system that can be understood. There’s a lot that adds narrative depth but isn’t required to understand the skeleton of the plot. This makes it resist mechanical analysis but reward thematic analysis. The beauty of the thing is in the language it uses; the connections are designed to recontextualize moments with narrative and thematic implications, even if those implications aren’t literally transitive. It’s not lock-and-key puzzles, it’s fridge horror. And I think understanding it isn’t so much understanding how exactly every mechanism in this world works as much as understanding the depth of the language it uses.

This mode of analysis is parallel to some writing I’m planning to do on Wham City. There is an impressionistic aspect to the work; the meaning is found more in the experience than in a literal truth of the world. The Ring isn’t “about” Samara being the human reincarnation of a sea demon, it’s about seeing the fly move.

Short connections

Let’s try to apply this logic to a simple question: who is Olive?

“makeface demo” shows a photo of a real human woman named olive.vtf, in Valve texture format.
Correcting the record shows Mona answer that their name is Olive.
⏺LIVE is the thumbnail of Interloper 4.
The umbrella man’s model (in higuy) is ent_dmnpc_65ge-se, with a mesh named olive.smd, with a texture named corpse1.
During Ordinance, when a VUL sacrifice is made with the name “olive”, the bot name becomes SERVICE MANAGER.

People try to flatten this all down into one unified identity; “olive.smd proves Mona was an umbrella man!” is an extremely common theory. But if you really try to flatten all these points together it doesn’t make sense:

Olive was a person involved with FSKY who then somehow became trapped as an ethereal entity in the source engine. She was captured by Eida who treated her as some kind of ghost, She tried to escape and Eida managed to tear off her limbs by using Sourcebox in conjunction with the DM Editor and the gmod dismemberment addon until she didn’t move anymore. Eida then drowned-deleted Mona outright using the DM Editor. Years later she still exists as an Umbrella Man, despite never having any of the behavior or abilities of an umbrella man prior to being deleted. She’s also the bust, so she’s also chilling at void bedrock waiting for Skyghost to kick off Kulcs.

Anomidae somehow knew some or all of this as early as Interloper 4, despite that stream happening before the model had been extracted or any of the relevant Eida videos had been reuploaded.

Maybe, maybe all of that’s true at once. But that’d create more complexity than it solves. That’d mean this is a story about real people, not AI. It’d also transitively imply drown-deleting turns dmnpcs into umbrella men, which transitively implies Cge7-193 is an umbrella man while being a server… the more links in the chain, the weaker it gets.

If you instead back up and just listen to what the references are trying to tell you, you can hear the music of the thing. Olive was someone involved with FSKY while they were developing Source tech. FSKY’s tech is connected to both Mona and the umbrella men. And that FSKY connection extends all the way to Cge7-193, where some logic still exists to treat Olive as a special administrative role. Meanwhile, as with the “Special Presentation” slide, Anomi is hinting that he knows more than he’s letting on, and is keeping some secrets about the investigation to himself.

This mode of analysis gives fewer concrete facts about the world, but I think it’s a much more faithful way of understanding it. Because of the focus on presentation, the flow of the thing is more important than every follow-on implication. These “short connections” are where the series shines. References are used to show an almost aesthetic flow of meaning and movement.

Examples: read for flow, not puzzles

I’ll list some more examples where a literal interpretation fails but the flow-language works. This is also my excuse to turn a bunch of scattered and interesting connections into prose. This is really subject matter that calls for a video essay going rapid-fire through clips, not a Buzzfeed-style article with a few words between a flood of screenshots. But video is not my métier d’art, so here are some interesting examples:

The Ravenholm alley is thematically treated as a link between the source void and the other world, even though there’s no single mechanic that explains it. Like all the other FSKY assets with injected text, the umbrella man decal appears to be a hotloaded asset streamed in from an external server, something Anomi much later goes out of his way to explain is possible. Much later Ordinance ends with the pawn using a key to open a secret door in that spot in the alleyway. It even requires a key to open, tying it to the idea of Sourcebox activation being a back door into the void.

There’s a recurring theme of “shadow people”: black figures with glowing white eyes. This includes the umbrella man, of course, but also the shambling figures from spookycoast, “NOBODY” the chair man from the SFM 10th video, ent_undef from officehead, and potentially even Mona (as the bust). Is this a clue? No, it’s just communication. These things all have a common anomalous nature. The visual design is semiotics.

Is there literally an alternate version of d1_town_01 in the void caused by someone at FSKY recompiling it with modified map geometry? Is there literally a source entity to handle the lock-and-key effect in some secret FSKY FGD manifest? I mean, maybe, sure, but that’s not something you could confidently base any other theory on because it doesn’t matter. Instead, that spot is thematic language to invoke the idea of the seam between worlds throughout the series. The decal — and the Interlope command itself — is dependent on the external state of a server. And the Ravenholm connection culminates in Final Transmission to dramatic effect.

What exactly is the purpose of the drawing program in Ordinance? Within the kayfabe it’s unclear. But to the flow of the narrative, it foreshadows a series of themes about rendering user-generated graphics, and then sprays turn out to be the key to streaming memories from the captured interloper. Being able to draw a texture onto the Ravenholm alleyway from within the void also reinforces the earlier point that the umbrella man decal is streamed in dynamically from outside and not part of the retail game.

I already mentioned the design language in the black and white slides. Once you’ve noticed the different video editing techniques and templates you can see which videos are polished and which are released with sloppy cuts. Interlopers 5 and F in particular don’t make sense no matter how you slice them: there’s a combination of material that no single person within the fiction would choose to edit upload as-is.

It doesn’t work if you try to “solve” who is editing the videos and why, but it does work if you look for the meaning the language is meant to convey. The mix of design languages shows how different voices and perspectives are tackling the situation in different ways. The editing in 5 conveys a hecticness and the editing in F conveys a tension.

Here I think we run into a constraint of the medium. The actual material in the videos is nonliteral, in a way, because things like Interloper F don’t make sense as artifacts that would exist within the text. The literality of the unfiction breaks down in order to convey more of the meaning of the story.

How exactly does Anomi get an umbrella swep in XEMU2 and what does it do? That’s not the point, the point is the shift in power dynamics. Anomi is the scary mysterious figure now. Anomi is the threat. In Interloper F we see Anomi is scared, and guilty, and desperate to protect the memories he’s found preserved. But in traveling to the coast and nuking the entity that he discovered was for sending out the hostile void probes, he attacks Skyghost: an innocent who only ever worked to help him. In trying to do what he thought was right, Anomi becomes someone else’s villain. That’s the story, and it’s not something we ever have narrated to us. We only get it by mining the subtext.

subroutine_hello is a door with two sides, and you can trace how — generally — the source void is on one side and normal source games are on the other. The further you map it out the less literally it works, eventually landing on the door from the end of Skycrash as being on both sides: opening the xemu connection from one side and kulcs on the other. But there is a symbolic intent behind it.

After Kulcs you can inspect the bizarre presence of the unused info_player_counterterrorist, info_player_allies, info_player_axis, and info_player_start entities in subroutine_hello and realize these maps were designed to allow many different incompatible source games to connect to them, just like int_menu. One server can’t really host all those different runtimes on the same map, but the entities signal that within the fiction of the world, that’s what’s meant to be happening.

If you look through the demo files and think through the timelines you can track how ent_dmnpc_anomi4e_UNREGISTERED seems to be the same entity that moves into Skyghost. This shows how she “came from the demos” but doesn’t necessarily mean her true name is anomi4e_UNREGISTERED or that her origin is literally an unregistered Sourcebox instance.

There’s an entire compressed video streaming mechanic teased as early as Interloper 4 that goes unexplained and uncommented on. The community sometimes calls this the “pixel shader”: it’s not pixels though, it’s MPEG compressed video at a variable bitrate and a distinct “render/derender” screen scrolling effect. It shows up as early as the wrong turn incident in INT4 as the pawn crosses the threshold and, eventually, renders a bitmap memory.

If you watch for it you see it the Spise tests, as a way to access some kind of “interior view” into the void. Spise 2 shows using an inside-out Sourcebox cube to see new locations in the void, Spise 4 takes place entirely within a render, and Spise 6 shows this used to get at a cone directly and mutilate Mona through gmod — something foreshadowed as early as Breen in the machine’s use of the gmod dismemberment addon. The video motif continues with the compressed Ordinance views and concludes in INTF, as memories can be interacted with through a compressed video stream. Dying in streamed map plays the drowning sound effect, which is another thematic connection to drowning signalling disconnection.

And so on and so forth, for everything. And once you speak the language you see the richness of it all.

Once you learn anomalies are cones you realize Lucy had some kind of secret knowledge about it.
Once you realize the Red Room can’t be subroutine_hello you can track the Portal RTX pawn actually fall off the level and fall through the source void before landing in subroutine during Ellisfloor.
- And then, if you pay close attention, you can see it’s actually called communicate
Once you recognize that Umbrella Men target and mutilate specific pawns you can see that the corrupted one in SKYCRASH was targeting Skyghost.
Once you get the series you’re able to understand how gut-wrenchingly horrifying the void damage to column_sky_fortress’s memories of Spice are.

The more you understand about the background the more you can appreciate the artistry of the work. That’s true of understanding how the source engine works but it’s also true of understanding how the pieces of the series reference each other.

Okay here are a few connections that don’t seem to go anywhere

There are, unfortunately, a lot of interesting and seemingly deliberate threads that don’t tie into anything yet, mechanically, emotionally, or otherwise. They may be significant to later SKY//BOX entries, but who knows. Here’s my section where I try to highlight some more interesting things without relapsing into full theorycrafting hell.

SFM 10

Okay though seriously what is up with the tidbits in the SFM 10th teaser.

“SHE IS GONE”, “SHE ISNT HERE ANYMORE”, and “THEY DONT DIE” could maybe connect to the loss of Spice or Skyghost, but the rest of this is encoded information that’s just never come up as relevant.

There’s been no mention of a CON code, nor has the answer to anything been 68. There’s been nothing in the series about “flesh”, and if these are source void natives it doesn’t make sense why that would matter. “fore v eForbs sodibgosdj” would look like garbage in a text editor but here it’s clearly an intentional value. I have no idea what it means.

Nobody in the series can be 47 years old. 1977 is exactly 47 years prior to 2024, which makes this sync with SILLY CONE HUNT, but not in a way that makes any sense. And definitely not in a way that made sense in 2022 when the SFM video went up.

Jman initials

Jman — the initial demonstrator of the Interlope command and Eida’s video partner — goes by <s.t>Jman in the original forum thread.

Two initials separated by a dot aren’t a standard way of writing initials in any locale. It’s seen very frequently in Interloper though: with FSKY staff. “A.Y”, “G.E”, “J.J” are all referenced in text inserted into FSKY files, and a character as pivotal as Jman having a reference is a red flag that hasn’t gone anywhere.

Skybar

During Skycrash, the pink crowbar changes colors several times in rp_christmastown and axlvote.

I’ve seen people try to write this off as shading, except that doesn’t make any sense. In real life the pink missing textures checkerboard isn’t shaded because it’s needs to stand out and can’t be allowed to “disappear” like it does in Skycrash. And in christmastown this happens in a wide-open area where there wouldn’t be anything like a vizleaf seam.

Prosaic

20140920 PROSAIC [Saxxy Awards 2014 Entry] (2021) is supposedly a reupload of a Columbidae Saxxy entry from 2014. There’s something weird here but I’m not sure what.

This is the only video on Saxxy Awards Archives, which looks like a single-purpose channel created during the timespan of the ARG. It’s notably absent from both the canonical list of 2014 Saxxy entries and Columbidae’s own The Saxxy Awards - Complete Collection playlist. But it does appear in 10 Years of improvement in 30 Seconds backdated to 2014… but that compilation actually released in 2022, a year after this “reupload”.

Maybe this was a dropped thread, or it could still be planned as part of a future project.

(and there’s more but I promised to restrain myself)

Expectations

All that to say, I think Interloper is phenomenal, and I still catch myself trying to tease out these fascinating little threads.

In writing this I’m reminded of my writing from the beginning of the year about Murder Drones, and superficially similar objections I had to a lack of mechanical consistency. It’s even the same bad triangle. Unlike Murder Drones though I don’t think Interloper’s “inconsistencies” make it weak, only different from the puzzle I found myself expecting.

When the series “fails”, it’s because it’s failing to meet an expectation. And it can be very easy to expect Interloper to be something it’s not, especially as it shifts in tone from horror to science to ARG to memoir. But if you’re eager for it to be what it is, and you follow the subtle paths it traces, it’s a really special thing.

And it’s special because of how well it does these two things: the realness of the practical effects in source and the richness of the subtext embedded in technical details.

One last thing

I have come through the other side enlightened. The cones, they are silly. Appreciating Interloper means understanding the incredible detail and artistry of the thing, and going hehe im interloping regardless.

Anyway, feel free to flip through my (still half-finished) notebook from when I was trying to construct a grand unified solution to everything. It’s been an enormous project compiling it, and maybe it’ll help illuminate the interconnected beauty of the Interloper world.

https://stash.giovanh.com/interloper-obsidian/videotable.html
(Unfortunately Obsidian does not support all the features I used in the web export.)

There’s a lot here that probably ought to be merged into the main wiki....

Mae Garden, “Interloper: hacking a source engine ARG”

I know I’m supposed to be thriving after the Homestuck divorce but if I said the trickshot sequence wasn’t a Homestuck flash, I’d be lying. We all just have to live with that. ↩
“Misty has been found” doesn’t count. ↩

Fandom and The Freedom Motif

2025-12-07T00:00:00-06:00

Fandom is the most important thing in the modern media industry. Fans buy the products and advertise the brand, but are also the primary source of feedback. The media is what the community forms around, but the community is what feeds the media.

But the relationship between a work’s copyright holder and its fan community is structurally antagonistic. The IP holder and members of the fan community have fundamentally different interests which sometimes align but sometimes don’t. The rightsholder depends on the goodwill of the fandom, but at the same time there is always danger of the community being attacked by the rightsholder. The law creates an implicit hovering threat of legal violence, and the profit motive encourages bad actors to pull the trigger. This doesn’t mean the relationship has to be antagonistic in practice, but it means there is always an underlying potential for conflict that has to be reasoned with. The threat is always there.

There is a productive tension here. Fanwork can serve functions official work can’t, and the community surrounding a work is one of the main things that gives a work “value”, in a base economic sense. They’re the ones buying the products. Media companies are desperate to have more fans because that directly translates into their ability to make money.

Likewise, the health of the franchise matters to the people who love it, and official recognition of fan communities can be a good thing.¹ Fan work can be elevated, talented creators can be brought on as part of official projects, etc. Official recognition can serve as a badge of honor and help platform and encourage talent and creativity in the community.²

But the deciding factor in whether the creator/fan relationship is healthy or exploitative is whether the community is allowed to be independent. It’s fine for official spaces — fourms, Discord servers, etc. — to exist, so long as the purpose isn’t to capture and enclose a community. Media and fandom can have a symbiotic relationship, but as soon as the corporation tries to exercise control over their fans, it turns into an ugly hostility.

The corporation cannot own its customers. The Sonic fandom can’t be a SEGA product. The Mario fandom can’t be a Nintendo product.

One of the most important merits of fanwork, discussion, and criticism is a plurality of perspectives, and the ability to present and analyze work through truly pluralistic viewpoints. This is why things like fan comics, fan games, fan resources, and fan events have been so extraordinarily valuable. They represent legitimate plurality where the community manages and supports itself.

When we were maintaining The Unofficial Homestuck Collection, this is something Bambosh and I talked about in our conference panel. While it may make sense for there to be an official collection, this would be subject to the IP holder and their vision of how to work should be presented, potentially narrowing the focus and scope of the work. One of the obvious dangers is this can lead to the marginalization and demonization of specific viewpoints the corporate interest doesn’t agree with, regardless of their artistic and intellectual merit. The fan-centered archive and the creator-centered archive fill fundamentally separate functions.

If the IP holder insists that all aspects relating to discussion of a work go through one unifying authority, this is an assault on the community and represents an act of aggression against fan-run fan-space. The author cannot be allowed to control all avenues for literary criticism of their work. The community cannot be governed by the same people it serves to police. If there is a demand that all work that exists be brought in under a single umbrella of control, this is a dangerous and precarious arrangement.

“Intellectual property” is often used to justify this, as if real people become an asset owned by companies just because they expect them to buy their product. They do not have the mandate to regulate the way people behave around their work.

Brands have their own interests that are fundamentally different — and often opposed — to constructive fandom. IP holders have to manage the risk associated with their official works very carefully, but applying that kind of control to all work quickly leads to corporate censorship and sanitization of unfriendly topics. Companies have a financial interest in protecting their brand, their image, but that does not give them authority to regulate the people involved, even as they “represent” that brand.

Stuck At Home Con was a wildly successful Homestuck fan convention run and organized for fans, by fans, with no official support or affiliation. As soon as official corporate representatives showed up they started making demands, and the whole thing fell apart in an ugly incident.

I know I’ve mentioned Homestuck several times now, but when I think about this I’m not even thinking primarily about my own experiences. I’m thinking about Nintendo trying to enclose the event space, VRChat trying to enclose creators, and the entire “platformization” trend where owners make themselves a chokepoint and arbitrator for anyone involved in a space of ideas. I talk about this a lot, but game companies love trying to try to claim a right to control how people play the games they already own, and it’s abhorrent. The community around a thing is a community. It’s not a thing, it’s not property, it’s not something money or copyright or anything else has a right to control. It’s people. People are people first and property never.

It does not matter how much or how little work is encapsulated by official support. A unification of community spaces through a central governing authority with the ability to enforce policy and preference is an existential threat to that community.

The threat of a community being beholden to a franchise is a true danger even before that authority proves itself dangerous and untrustworthy by deed. The danger is structural; it is a trap prepared and ready to spring. Even if the current leadership is well-meaning, that power can be replaced and existing structures can be hijacked to suddenly abuse a good faith relationship.

Fans are not the media’s property’s lieutenants, they are its guardrails. Their job is to encourage the good and discourage the bad. That can only happen when some spaces stay financially and organizationally independent.

When someone exerts control over others, that’s hostility… unless the other person is “their own”, and then it’s expected. As soon as a company has the ability to control something they have an obligation to leverage it to their benefit. If a fan criticizes a company, that’s normal discourse. If criticism comes from a company’s own PR manager, that’s the company failing to control its own people. Voices turn from discussion and community into forces capital has neglected to exploit. The difference between someone being independent and someone being an organ of an institution is not semantic, it is stark and extreme.

It’s especially important to set a good example of this with media with a young audience, many of which don’t know any better. We don’t have to put up with that and so we absolutely, positively must not.

Fan projects must be independent, and they must be allowed to operate without being coerced or threatened by an IP holder holding a gun to their head. Fandom is not a labor force or a brand asset. It is a community of free people. Its independence is not optional, it is the keystone holding the relationship together. Any time a brand starts demanding control over the communities of people around that, you need to understand that as the hostile threat that it is.

I’m picturing Christian_Whitehead here, who migrated from fan game development to official employment. But even there there is a clear distinction between which work is community-driven and which work is SEGA’s. ↩
But this can also create a conflict of interest. If some projects are favored but not others, suddenly there’s pressure to keep sponsors happy to maintain that relationship, etc. Again, official approval can be fine, but it’s something you have to be careful about. ↩

The Homestuck Union Was Always Fake

2025-08-08T00:00:00-05:00

Oh no!

The Homestuck Independent Creative Union was announced in October 2023, claiming itself to be a “union” of creators working on Homestuck associated projects. The main selling point of this organization is that it was fully independent of Homestuck, Inc., Andrew Hussie, or any of the other existing management structures that had damaged their reputations. This was untrue from day one. The HICU was never a union and it was never independent of Andrew. In fact Andrew doesn’t just have theoretical authority, they’re actively wielding power over projects in secret.

I want to give a very important disclaimer for this “anti-HICU” looking article because I really, really don’t want to see blame misplaced because of this. I think when most people familiar with it think of the HICU, the reaction is “oh, they’re doing better” or even “yeah, I’m on their side.” I don’t fault you for this! Based on what they said about themselves many people — including me personally — gave the HICU a huge amount of good credit upfront, and they’ve done very little publicly to hurt that image. So if you’re an HICU person — if you’re with FRAF, or DCRC, or even Beyond Canon — I am not attacking you with this! I am not against your “side.” The problem here is not the creatives, it’s strictly management. Whether you’re a fan or someone trying to work with the union, you are the one at risk here and I want to help you most of all.

Around October 2023 Andrew Hussie “restructured” Homestuck’s publishing agreement with Viz Media in order to reestablish their “control over the brand.” Homestuck then announced the relaunch of Homestuck^2: Beyond Canon, run by the also newly-announced Homestuck Independent Creative Union.

The HICU is a fascinating organization. If it had been what Andrew Hussie and James Roach claimed it was, it could have been great. The stated goal was to loosen control on the Homestuck franchise and open the doors to community involvement. Instead it was a dangerous power grab — not just to consolidate control over the Homestuck property but maintain control over surrounding spaces — disguised as community outreach. The danger was never well-understood because the HICU was proficient at passing itself off as something it wasn’t, and people have already fallen victim to it.

To understand just how bad the HICU is, you have to understand what it was ostensibly for, what it promised it would do, and how it really worked.

Although it’s best known for Beyond Canon, HS:BC is a special case that I want to ignore for the purpose of this analysis. (For the purposes of this article when I talk about the HICU I’m not talking about the beyond canon comic team, I’m talking about the union as an administrative structure.) What’s very interesting to me — and I think the most critical promise the HICU makes — is the impact the union has on fanwork.

What the HICU license is for

Unlicensed fanwork

Most fanworks operate without any kind of license agreement with the IP holder, which puts them in a FAFO state.

The law gives rightsholders tremendous power over fanwork. Whether a fanwork is truly in violation of copyright or not, the legal system gives rightsholders of the original property the ability to either take down fanwork or force the issue to a court and financially ruin the people responsible with a war of attrition. Since fanwork is not-for-profit (in fact, it is often required to be), the resolution of the Morton’s Fork here is that IP holders have standing to attack fanwork by default. Fanworks are born with a gun to their head.

This creates a situation where, by default, fanwork is subject to the will of the rightsholder. The attitude the copyright holder has towards unlicensed can be anything. Some companies have a reputation for positive engagement with fanwork, like Sega. Other companies have a reputation for maintaining tight control over their brand and aggressively pursuing the takedown of anything they can, like Nintendo.

But that’s not due to any special property of those companies: as a fan creator, you are subject to the whims of the IP holder at all times. Regardless of any past behavior they could change their mind and take projects down anytime they want, so you have to keep them happy if you want to survive. There is no foundation to confidently build on — one decision can mean you have to shutter your project overnight.

This is especially dangerous because the people involved in fanwork are often already especially vulnerable, and so by simply threatening legal action companies — including Homestuck — can automatically intimidate artists with a war of attrition.

Licensed fanwork

Of course a company can choose to maintain a positive relationship with their fans by choosing not to attack fanwork, but that doesn’t change the fact that they have the ability to change their mind. There is nothing stopping them except their own policy, and so there is no safety, especially when the rightsholder has insulated themselves from blowback.

Licensing exists to create a firm foundation where your rights are defined by contract, not grace. If you want to use work but you don’t have the legal right to do so, you can negotiate a license with the rightsholder that grants you those rights through contract. Once you have a license, your rights to use the material are governed by the text of license, not the whims of the rightsholder. This means a license is valuable. The holder is giving up a level of control, something valuable to them, so licenses have to be negotiated and paid for.

This is a process that’s generally prohibitive for fans, either because the costs are too high or the company is categorically unwilling to open up avenues for discussion.

Open fanwork

One way creators can give fans a confident foundation without managing individual relationships is to release the entire work under a permissive license. This is usually done not through “putting the work into the public domain” (easier said than done!) but by releasing work under an open license which gives anyone rights to use the work. There are creative Commons license is for this, but you also see things like the Open Game License, which is designed so that third-party companies can build a business on a standing agreement with the rightsholder.

Homestuck is not released under a permissive license (which is strange — there have been pushes for it to be released openly, and it’s questionable whether it’s even eligible for copyright in the first place). But in recent years Homestuck has taken a different approach to giving fanworks a foundation: the HICU.

Homestuck’s Licensing Background

Historically, Homestuck has been very bad about this. They’ve been extremely territorial about claiming ownership of anything tangentially related to Homestuck and bombarding people with legal threats. The MSPA sales faq (somehow still live in 2025) is a good starter for this. It asserts that anyone selling any items based on Andrew’s work so is doing something illegal and categorically “disallows” (read: threatens) sales of just about every category of art they can list.

Homestuck was infamous for extremely vicious enforcement of merch policy back in the con heyday.¹ It’s famously true that you can’t copyright a hat, but that didn’t stop Homestuck from exploding at people over it. Rachel Rocklin got a lot of flak for being Andrew Hussie’s enforcement at the time, but time has shown that the one directing this position of hostility was ultimately Andrew, not Rachel.

As aggressive as the written policy is, Homestuck has often exceeded even this standard. For example, by demanding people take down things like free prop-building tutorials, even with no sales and no physical product. This is a particularly nasty and over-aggressive interpretation of copyright law, something I’ve already written about extensively.

This is an especially perverse position for Homestuck to take given the extraordinary liberties it takes with copyright, but that’s another essay entirely.²

But there’s also a danger in the interpersonal side of things, particularly with Homestuck. People know each other, which means whether Homestuck allows your project to exist could depend on whether its members were in Andrew’s good graces personally. This opens up the door to discrimination and a culture where an “inner circle” are able to do creative work, but others aren’t.

I’ve seen “in” people use copyrighted Homestuck assets and characters to promote their own commercial product and sell stickers of ripped Homestuck sprites to support their own media company, just in recent memory. With enforcement determined according to the discretion of executives who had personal relationships with the people involved, the main factor that determined who was safe from Andrew and who was vulnerable to legal harassment was simple favoritism.

The Promise of the HICU

According to the HICU’s self-description, it exists to create an environment somewhat similar to working under an open license. Here’s their basic self-definition:

Beyond Canon, About About the Homestuck Independent Creative Union
The Homestuck Independent Creative Union (HICU) is a union of creative contributors which was established to consolidate members of future Homestuck Projects, beginning with the launch of Homestuck: Beyond Canon.
The HICU is a totally independent entity from Andrew, What Pumpkin, VIZ Media, or any other corporate interest. Andrew has given the union a free license, so they may legally work within the full Homestuck universe and monetize their efforts to support the members. The union is both creatively and financially independent, and no outside individuals or companies are receiving any royalties or payments. Only the members benefit, and income will be distributed among members as equitably as possible.
Andrew is not creatively involved with these projects in any direct way, but remains available to the union for consultation at their request.

October 02, 2023

miles 10:22 PM

so to get colloquial about it, the Union is basically like

the collective of Homestuck Contributors

…

miles 10:22 PM

if it helps, think of the HICU as an actual union.

So the story is that HICU is bound to represent the interests not of Homestuck the company, but of its members — the creative community. They immediately establish that they’re entirely separate and distinct from any existing structures — including Andrew Hussie. Separate entities, separate responsibilities, separate interests.

There’s obviously one connection though: they have a license to work within the Homestuck property. Andrew (on behalf of Homestuck, Inc., the company that holds the actual rights) allegedly issued this organization something they’re calling a “free license”. As written, this is an act of good will toward the fan community designed to actively enable more creative work.

So why does this matter? How does one labeled organization having a license open the property to fans in general? Because the HICU isn’t just writing one comic; it’s reaching out to fan projects and offering partnerships with the union to set up similar licenses.

As described, partnering with the HICU to go under license is the opposite of giving Homestuck a blank check. For projects without a license Homestuck is already able to demand whatever it wants from anyone at any time or threaten legal destruction. But if a fanwork is under a clear license, it has a defined right to use the source material that can only be revoked as per the terms of the license as written. This creates a solid foundation where there was not one before.

The promise the HICU make is pretty unambiguous:

Austinado Andrew Hussie approached us and offered a free license to work with the IP. No royalties owed, no ties to What Pumpkin, VIZ Media, or any other corporate interest, and no outside influence from higher ups at the Homestuck Factory. (NOTE: The Homestuck Factory doesn’t exist. That was a joke.)

Basically, he said: “You guys do good work, keep doing that.” And then handed us the keys to our own little pocket of house-bound freedom.
… As far as creative direction and narrative plans go, the comic and its spin-offs will be unaffected.

Vitally, if this license is what they say it is, you can be under this license and still retain independence and creative control. This is the keystone the promise of the HICU hinges on. Once you’re under license, you have a right to use the material and a solid foundation to work on. You are no longer subject to the whims of any outside influence. Andrew can’t step in and make changes. Your management structure stays the same, only safer.

This design is a balancing act. While the stated goal is to grow as much as possible, the HICU is empowered to curate what projects it licenses, allowing for some moderation and quality control. This isn’t as open as an open license but it can do some of the same good.

The promise of the HICU to enable independent fan projects to operate without fear of licensing issues is a good one.

The Twist

Unfortunately this is all a sham, and has been since day one.

The primary purpose of the union is not to empower the fandom but to leverage control over it. The HICU organization is a facade: despite their claims there is no meaningful distinction between the HICU and existing Homestuck companies. I have observed that Andrew Hussie personally oversees the HICU and administrates it himself through proxies. By coaxing fan projects “under license”, the HICU takes control away from fans and consolidates it in one organization. Licensees are also forced to submit to an NDA, which Homestuck uses to prevent people from revealing the bullying and abusive behaviors they’re subject to.

The structure of the HICU is intentionally confusing to obscure the function it’s really performing. The HICU is not a separate entity, members do not necessarily have safety or creative freedom, and the union absolutely does not negotiate against Andrew as the name’s allusion to labor unions implies. I have been working with Homestuck staff since before the HICU label existed and seen them simply apply the label to projects they wanted to distance from Andrew’s negative reputation. As an early example, Requiem Café’s Homestuck project transitioned seemingly from a Homestuck Inc/Viz venture to an HICU venture, because the HICU is all the same people doing all the same things. I have personally seen “an invitation from the HICU” turn into “Andrew Hussie is suing your project unless you change it” in one step. It’s a bait-and-switch.

Unfortunately, because of the threat of legal retaliation, most people with direct evidence of this behavior are unable to give evidence of their experiences. However, there are exceptions to this that let us see through the cracks. I have personally been privy to the HICU’s attempts to ensnare outside projects since before the existence of the union was publicly announced in the first place. And as Homestuck uses the HICU to exercise more control over fan spaces, we’re seeing more and more evidence of abuse.

I would not be attesting to these things myself without doing my due diligence. I have confirmed, double-confirmed, triple-confirmed that this behavior is happening. This includes projects I am involved in, this includes projects I’m not involved in. This includes the UHC, this includes projects other than the UHC. I’m unable to publicly share much of the evidence that has convinced me of this, but there is still enough in the public record. The abuse is rampant and systematic.

Andrew’s Leadership

First and foremost, the HICU is in no way independent of existing structures. Despite the implication that this is a union of workers working with Andrew, Andrew themself is directly in charge of the “union.” Like every other Homestuck entity,³ it’s just a shell around Andrew Hussie.

Miles is currently the co-director of the HICU. He also acts a direct proxy for Andrew Hussie.

June 25, 2024, miles

…

miles 05:36 PM

i’ll let andrew know!

GiovanH 06:04 PM

have you noticed you have the job of “priest”

miles 06:09 PM

LMAO

low priest

ive never heard it put that way but i love the comparison

GiovanH 06:10 PM

it seems like a good gig

miles 06:10 PM

gives me an excuse to say “andrew works in mysterious ways”

September 02, 2024

GiovanH 12:41 AM

(@miles real quick before I get too deep into details here, you’re speaking on behalf of Andrew/Homestuck Inc here, correct?)

miles 01:37 PM

yes im speaking on behalf of andrew

In order to even be considered to join the Union, not only do you have to sign this perpetual NDA, Andrew has to personally interview and approve your membership. It is the clearest evidence imaginable that the union is in no way independent. Despite all its promises, the internal politics of the HICU is still just about clamoring for favor from Andrew Hussie.

October 02, 2023

miles 11:04 PM

the way we tend to do things in terms of folks the HICU is collaborating with is as follows

once (or if) you guys do feel comfortable signing the NDA, andrew and i are going to chat with each of you one on one. one at a time

think of it as like. idk i guess an interview?

not that we need your Credentials because your work speaks for itself, its just that andrew likes to have a chat with folks as well in a semi-formal setting so that he can be on top of everyone we collab with

When I was discussing the HICU “Community Participation and Release Agreement” (more on this later) with Miles, we found some typos in the document and a line we needed to strike. You’ll never believe who has final say over the text.

miles 10:36 PM

i can go ahead and have a look at that line and get back to you about maybe striking it, because i totally see your concern, even though i can straight up promise you man to man (whatever thats worth) that we have no intention of operating that way

because again, we’d love to work with you guys if that’s in the cards for us

Bambosh 10:39 PM

That would be excellent if you can make it happen

miles 10:39 PM

i can totally talk to andrew about it

To be clear this is not a license document that involves Homestuck, Inc., this is just the release agreement to work with the HICU. Their claim that “The HICU is a totally independent entity from Andrew, What Pumpkin, VIZ Media, or any other corporate interest.” is fully false.

This isn’t just a conflict of interest. The whole point of the union is to make sure everything serves Andrew’s interests. And, at the same time, it’s covering up the extent of Andrew’s personal involvement.

The latest announcement regarding Andrew’s status in regards to Homestuck was in 2021, when What Pumpkin asserted that “Hussie officially left What Pumpkin to work on new projects unrelated to Homestuck. … While Hussie still retains ownership of the Homestuck IP, they decided last year to fully discontinue their creative involvement in any future Homestuck projects, and instead plans to continue independently developing more projects like Psycholonials.” Note the load-bearing word “creative” there, the same as in “Andrew is not creatively involved with these projects in any direct way.” The intent of this messaging is to project the idea that Andrew is uninvolved and the show is basically running itself now. This is not the case.

I don’t know how much creative control Andrew is choosing to exert over current creative projects. They don’t seem interested in doing so, and so my assumption would be that projects like Beyond Canon and Hiveswap see minimal contribution or involvement from Andrew. What I know is that he’s still in a position to exercise control over aspects he cares about, when he chooses to. The goal here isn’t to secretly control everything, it’s to be able to secretly control something if he wants to. In the recent past he’s exercised personal authority to write announcements, license projects, and make legal demands, although it’s usually disguised with a series of proxies. This is a classic component of dysfunctional management: authority is exercised arbitrarily and without oversight.

I’ve experienced this myself with the UHC; I was working with the HICU right up until the moment it turned out I was working with Andrew the whole time.

I’ve also seen “HICU involvement” consist of Andrew picking out a project they’re personally interested in and establishing a private, direct line with one member of its leadership with no involvement from anyone in the union at all.

It is perverse to co-opt the word and called us a “union”. The job of a union (and the job of a union director) is not to do whatever it takes to make their boss happy. The purpose of a union is to protect the workforce from management and maintain a productive tension. Instead any time Andrew wants a specific thing, “union management” jumps to make it happen. The union already is management, just crudely disguised.

Reputation Laundering

This is an attempt to launder Andrew Hussie’s destroyed reputation. They know that’s what they’re doing, because they’re lying about it.

I’m not going to summarize how Homestuck management ruined its reputation in the past, because that ground is well-trod. Sarah Z’s video is one good start, or you could go all the way back to The Hiveswap Fiasco. That’s just the latest issue; if you want, you can keep digging and find more.... What matters is Homestuck thinks its reputation is trashed and so they’re doing a scheme about it.

Homestuck-the-work is good, and it has a huge and passionate fan base. People are desperate for Good Times and are willing to give a lot of faith to something in the shape of a management overhaul. Andrew Hussie took advantage of this. He’s ultimately managing Homestuck the same way, but he’s using proxies and a shiny new label to do it.

But this is incredibly risky and irresponsible. Andrew is gambling with the livelihood and reputation of others to enrich themself. When it comes out this is how he’s been abusing the union, he stays retired and on perpetual vacation, and James, Miles, and everyone else who depends on the Patreon are used up.

Isolation

Because the license isn’t open the actual text of the agreement isn’t public. Everything goes on behind closed doors, and both Andrew and the HICU require people to sign non-disclosure agreements before even being considered. There is an intense, conspicuous secrecy around anything and everything that would prove the HICU is actually doing what it says it is. This secrecy is necessary because the union is fake.

A common tool Andrew uses to isolate people and form a dependence on Andrew’s goodwill is NDA agreements, which are designed to be over-broad and punitive. They demand that association with Homestuck — including when they require you associate with them — be contingent on NDAs. These NDAs cover all conversations, which is used to cut off lines of communication victims can use to report abuse or even discuss issues with their peers.

Quoting directly from the HICU contract (again, not one I signed, but one some people have),

The purpose of this agreement is to secure confidentiality among an extended network of people… By joining this Group, you are committing to respecting the fact that statements of other Group members have been made only under the mutual understanding that all correspondence among members is private. Signing this form is a legally binding indication that you agree with these conditions of mutual respect and discretion.

… While protecting the financial interests of the Union is not the primary purpose of this agreement, and protecting the privacy and safety among Union and Group members is the primary purpose, nevertheless, if you violate the terms of this agreement, [Homestuck] will seek maximum financial damages, both to protect its financial interests, and more importantly, to vigilantly protect the privacy and safety of its members.
…
…you cannot terminate, cancel, or revoke this Agreement for any reason.
…
…You further agree to refrain from disclosing or using Confidential Information for any purpose other than participating in the Group. Your obligation to maintain the confidentiality of Confidential Information shall survive termination in perpetuity.
…
All information is deemed Confidential Information.⁴ …
…
You agree that any violation or threatened violation of this Agreement will cause irreparable injury to the Union, entitling the Union to obtain injunctive relief in addition to all legal remedies.

I have confirmed with my legal counsel that this is not remotely standard language for an NDA. It is designed to intimidate and lock signatories into a coercive, punitive situation. I don’t say that as a hypothetical way someone could interpret this language, I’m reporting that as something I’ve personally seen Homestuck use that exact language to do. And the thing this contract gives you? Is it a license, is it protection, is it a cut of Patreon revenue? No. If you sign this contract the HICU may have conversations with you about Homestuck, if they feel like it.

What Andrew wants is the ability to get whatever they want whenever they want it, and this environment gets him that. Homestuck inserts the NDA as a hard requirement for entry-level “access” to basic discussion space that should not require any such agreement. What it really does is ensure you can be intimidated into keeping any arbitrary behavior secret and create information silos ripe for manipulation. When you can’t communicate a problem the only source for remedy is to go through Andrew themselves and have him find the grace to give you what you ask for.

But even without the legal stranglehold of an NDA, Andrew uses traditional social isolation as a control tactic.

One of the long-term criticisms of Homestuck leadership has been a tendency to identify people they find undesirable and persecute them via disenfranchisement, cutting off peoples’ ability to network and exist in their community. This creates a culture of secrecy and fear, and requires people to stay in their supervisor’s good graces on a personal basis just to safely exist in the fan community. The HICU is a vast expansion of this power, and creates an opportunity for Homestuck to extend its ability to apply pressure to discriminate against certain people into fan projects.

I have seen the HICU expressly threaten to sue fan projects — including FRAF projects — unless they changed their leadership structure. The full mafia style “installing our own guy in secret” play.

In January of this year I was scheduled to publish my first game on Steam — a collaboration with several other Homestuck fans. Less than a week away from the launch date, Homestuck intervened as personal retaliation against me. They reached out to other members of the team privately and threatened legal action against them if they continued associating themselves with me. It worked. Homestuck cut me off from people I considered good friends, and the whole project was a loss. I am still heartbroken and angry from this. Not because of the game, but because of the relationships I had with other people that they attacked.

But they do that. They were willing to do it with me, I’ve seen them do it to others, and it seems like they’re willing to do it regularly. Isolate an enemy, make them even more dependent on getting your personal favor.

I think a part of being polite and friendly in any community is being somewhat conflict-averse. Nobody wants to “get caught up in drama.” It is important to avoid petty conflicts, but at the same time it is important to address and resolve real interpersonal issues, especially in a work environment. “Drama” is a term that describes petty arguments, but it can be misused to mask genuinely important conflict that needs to be resolved. This is a dynamic that can be weaponized; toxic positivity can act as a cog in the wheel of a larger intimidation machine. Shutting down attempts to resolve real issues with “don’t cause drama” is toxic positivity, parallel to shutting down self-expression with “don’t get political.” If someone is actively misbehaving, being overeager to moderate away conflict can lead to shutting down concerns as “starting conflict,” actively empowering the problem. Maintaining a positive disposition is a good goal but it isn’t the be-all-end-all: you also have to put in the work to make sure people aren’t being abused behind the scenes.

Controlling Terms

The license is a protection racket. Not all licenses are a protection racket, but this one is. Andrew has standing to launch a legal attack against fanwork and threatens to do so unless they negotiate a license from him. I have seen the HICU try to force people to sign an agreement to terms without giving them the ability to read the text of the terms they were agreeing to. Literally forcing people to sign a blank check, except it’s a full legal contract.

But I’m convinced that to Andrew the real value of the HICU isn’t that he can use it to extort money from fan projects, it’s that the HICU gives them control over fan projects themselves. The standard HICU waiver (including the NDA, discussed) is called the “Homestuck Community Participation and Release Agreement.” I think this is an extremely apt title. Homestuck’s position is that they should be the gatekeeper for participation in the community. The document traps you, gives Andrew leverage over you, and it’s all to participate in ways that shouldn’t require a waiver in the first place.

The purpose of a license should be to protect fanworks from Andrew; to reduce their power to threaten them in concrete ways. Even if Andrew really wanted to attack someone, them having a license should protect them from this threat. But every license or license-adjacent document I’ve read is either ineffective at this or explicitly does the opposite.

Homestuck’s one big for the merit of licensing is merch. Let’s talk merch. I love to quibble about what exactly copyright covers — can you enforce a so-called “closed species”? — but the kinds of work Homestuck is putting in its “licensed store” makes it very clear what’s going on here. Homestuck has always claimed far more than they have any justifiable legal right to, and that’s happening here too. Legally, you shouldn’t need a license from Homestuck to sell a print of your own art of your own character(bak), or a plain green shirt with a zodiac symbol(bak). If Homestuck is demanding one and threatening to sue you if you don’t play ball, that’s not licensing, that’s extortion.⁵

The license doesn’t give you a safe foundation to build on. In fact, it ensnares you further. Because the exact text of the license is being kept secret I haven’t read the full terms, so I don’t know if there’s a legal mechanism by which this is happening or if it’s just traditional bullying tactics. But I can personally confirm it’s happening, Andrew’s “moving in mysterious ways.” Not rarely but as a matter of course. I’ll get into some examples in a second.

Signing the HICU license is a deal-with-the devil worse than having no license at all. You’re still subject to the whims of everyone in Homestuck management, except now you’re also subject to nondisclosure and non-disparagement agreements so you’ve lost any ability to defend yourself. All you’ve done is hand over a kill switch and neuter your ability to complain.

The Purpose of the Ruse

So what’s the point of all this? They’re not lying just for the fun of lying. I think a lot of the song-and-dance of the HICU is to disguise an underlying trick. Homestuck can see that there are many fan projects succeeding and thriving without their involvement and without needing a license. They want to use the Homestuck association to seize control over these projects, but the tool they have to do this is legal threats. “You have something great here, hand it over to us or we’ll kill it” is an extremely hard sell when you’re a media company fundamentally dependent on the goodwill of the fans who already love these projects.

“Partnering with the HICU” acts as the public face to obscure this dynamic. From the outside it looks like fan-favorite projects are getting official recognition, getting new license rights, and unlocking new opportunities for growth. Even if “It just allows them to do what they’ve been doing the whole time without fear of legal repercussions.” Some projects may be doing just this and be happy so far. Some projects may well be signing on happily but then finding themselves subject to demands after their “partnership”. Some projects may find Homestuck’s terms so onerous that they don’t want to sign on at all but find that the NDA that allowed them to hear the terms in the first place also prevents them from explaining what happened. All these roads lead to the same place. Homestuck gets control over whatever projects it wants, shuts down anyone who won’t play ball, and carefully launders their reputation as they do this.

Case Studies

The Homestuck Independent Creative Union is promising projects autonomy, but these promises are meaningless because Andrew consistently breaks them. Looking at the legal structure can only get us so far. The smoking gun evidence is if Andrew actually exercises power over “partner” projects, and they do. The purpose of a system is what it does. SAHCon was promised Andrew wouldn’t make demands, and then Andrew did anyway. The Unofficial Homestuck Collection was promised Andrew wouldn’t make demands, and then Andrew did anyway. FRAF projects were promised Andrew wouldn’t make demands, and then Andrew did anyway.

SAHCon

Stuck At Home Con was an unofficial, fan-run Homestuck convention, and it was great. It was primarily a celebration of Homestuck fan community, fan projects, and textual criticism, but there was nothing stopping Homestuck itself from participating in the con. SAHCon has a history of working independently but productively with Homestuck: The Hiveswap teaser in 2022, James panel adjoining mine in 2023, etc.

In December 2023 SAHCon announced a partnership with “the HICU and Homestuck, Inc” to become officially licensed:

📢We here at Stuck at Home Con have great news!
We’ve partnered with the HICU and Homestuck, Inc. to become the first officially licensed Homestuck convention!
We’re really excited about what this means for the future!

🤔What DOES this mean?
It means working with the folks at the HICU to come up with new ideas for fun stuff to do with SAHCon!
It means new opportunities to promote and expand the con!

⁉️Is SAHCon changing hands?
SAHCon’s staff isn’t changing, and we’ll be running things basically the same!
We’ll still be doing the con online, along with our Winter/New Years and Friday showcases!

😎Thanks to everyone involved in the Con over the years - none of this would’ve happened without the hard work of our directors, moderators, artists, guests, and panelists…
And all of you for coming out to support us!
The future is bright, and we’re glad you’re here for it!

Right out of the gate this leaves a lot to be desired. What does SAHCon need a license for? Is Homestuck demanding a license for them to continue operating the way they have been, or was SAHCon just trying to ensure legal stability to prevent the possibility of being sued in the future? Is SAHCon going to be able to do new things now that they couldn’t before? If so, it’s strange that they don’t seem able to explain what they are, outside of “new opportunities.”

And, again, we have this incredible vagueness around the license itself. What is “partnered with the HICU and Homestuck, Inc.” supposed to mean? Those are supposed to be entirely separate entities. SAHCon is licensed, but what are the terms of the license? It’s conspicuously not the “free” license the HICU is getting with. So presumably SAHCon is paying some fee to someone (Homestuck, Inc.? The HICU?) as part of a license, but again, we don’t know what these license conditions are. Does this subject con events to any new policy?

Jonaya Riley @ Studio June Games@JonayaRiley
SAHCon has always, for me, represented a really positive space for fans to gather and share a love of the extended Homestuck universe. I've tried to carry that energy with me in my role as con director, because that's what drew me into the fandom in the first place -
Tue Jan 02 14:58:23 +0000 2024

Jonaya Riley @ Studio June Games@JonayaRiley
Now, with our recent deal to license the Homestuck IP for the con and partnership with the HICU, things are in a place I honestly never imagined they would be.
I'm very positive about this, but it's also both surreal and a little bit intimidating -
Tue Jan 02 14:58:24 +0000 2024

Jonaya Riley @ Studio June Games@JonayaRiley
This year promises to be a good one! I see a lot of promise in how the @Homestuck team is handling things with the official content, and the community feels alive with promise and potential - and that's something exciting to see! -
Tue Jan 02 14:58:26 +0000 2024

The one thing we’re told authoritatively is this is not a power grab. In all announcements on all platforms, SAHCon communicates clearly and concisely that “SAHCon’s staff isn’t changing, and we’ll be running things basically the same!” Homestuck’s involvement will absolutely, positively not change the nature of the conference, they swear it.

Except this turns out to be false.

In July 2025 (before SAHcon 2025), con staff Jojo “Funk” McLovin posts an account of how they were forced out of the con entirely.

Jojo “Funk” McLovin, “The Elephant in the Room” …
Though Cro and Jonaya have hosted SAHCon in years past, this was to be their final SAHCon before handing it off to new organizers. Who these organizers will be is anyone’s guess, because as far as I understand, SAHCon is essentially being taken over by Andrew Hussie and a team adjacent to him.

Who is on this team, why they have decided to take control of this final SAHCon is unknown to me, as whenever I ask, I am either brushed off or stymied by vague allusions to nondisclosure agreements.
…
The other reason I’m not going to participate in SAHCon was because I was asked not to. My friend Jonaya as of March of this year informed me that I would be able to participate in SAHCon in spite of a sexual harassment campaign that I have been suffering from. As of a few days ago, Jonaya informed me that decision had been reversed.

I’m not saying I am entitled to attend SAHCon, but an ostensible invitation being revoked unceremoniously is atrocious behavior, as I have been a loyal attendee, volunteer, and moderator for five years now. I single-handedly am responsible for the SAHCon album releases, contributing tracks, video graphics, and metadata. If not for me, the SAHCon album would be a series of MP3 files in a random Discord server.

The fact that this decision can be made above the head of Jonaya, who has been essentially in charge of SAHCon since 2020, is astounding to me, and because Jonaya was not at liberty to discuss the decision, I’m forced to assume Hussie himself descended from on high and smote me like YHWH of old.
…
I doubt that this is the whole story. I don’t know the reason I was excluded. I don’t know the reason Jonaya is no longer in charge. I don’t know who is going to run SAHCon from here on. I asked, and I received no response. They have never reached out to me. They have never spoken to me. I don’t know any of them personally. It is a black box.

What we have here is a perfect checklist confirming the absolute worst about the Homestuck Independent Creative Union. I have to thank Homestuck for making this so cut-and-dry. They made specific commitments and then violated them.

In 2023 SAHCon was able to guarantee that staff absolutely would not be changing. One convention later and Homestuck administration is reaching in from above and shaking things up against the will of the organizers. Allegedly — SAHCon hasn’t announced this yet — the project’s founders and organizers, Jonaya and Cro, are being pushed out by higher-ups. But regardless of what happens with Jonaya and Cro, we already have a direct account of con staff (Jojo) being unequivocably forced out. Jojo has a fantastic relationship with SAHCon staff; they would not happily pass order this down the chain, they must have fought it and lost. These decisions are explicitly not coming from the founders and administrators of the conference, but from forces they are suddenly subject to after signing a license with Homestuck.

It is not hard to connect these dots. Homestuck partnered with SAHCon under a false pretense that the con would retain autonomy, and they’re Homestuck is using authority they’ve claimed to seize control of the entire event.

Is this legal authority they’ve snuck into the license agreement? Does Homestuck have the right to unilaterally revoke the license if an arbitrary demand from them isn’t fulfilled? Or is this just a case of Homestuck threatening to sue SAHCon without sufficient legal standing? The exact mechanism in play doesn’t matter; what matters is Homestuck executives are exercising power over the project.

Meanwhile, the first thing they’re doing with that power is using it to participate in bullying. They’re blacklisting individual fans they’ve decided they object to and forcing them out of the very conference they were already invited to and even working at.

Unofficial Homestuck Collection

The Unofficial Homestuck Collection has its own full report, and this is where I got the majority of my first-hand evidence.

I’ll summarize the relevant points here: We were approached by a (proto-)HICU offering the UHC a similar free Homestuck license, with the same set of promises of autonomy and independence they’ve offered so many others. As soon as we began discussions they began the process of an out-and-out hostile takeover. This started with trying to force us into signing exploitative contracts. Then they made a series of entirely unreasonable demands about the project — about them controlling who administrated it, them censoring my past criticism of Homestuck administration, etc. When we pushed back on this they escalated to legal threats and then real legal action.

There this intermittent reinforcement throughout — they were extremely nice and they loved us, and the next day they were threatening to take everything down and sue us in court. And they repeated this cycle multiple times! Whenever they were being nice it was sold as the HICU, and whenever they were being aggressive it was sold as Homestuck, or Viz, or Andrew. Andrew was always the one responsible for everything, but they’d play games with putting on the HICU hat and using Miles as a proxy.

James Roach’s name was on all the paperwork, but he never had any administrative authority over the process. He never acted as a director, he was only there as a human shield for Andrew. (I don’t blame him for this though.)

The entire process was defined by coercion, manipulation, lies, and generally unconscionable practices. It was terrible, but in terms of the HICU it absolutely confirmed the pattern I’m describing here. The play was the full embrace-extend-extinguish.

In a response to this article Miles has stated that the HICU played “literally” no role in the UHC issue. This is flatly untrue and he is aware that it is. As soon as I signed my NDA in 2024, I was put in an official HICU discord server with the single admin homestuckicu along with Miles and James. Later homestuckicu would be the account to formally announce two separate DMCA takedown deliveries, officially stating “starting now, the HICU will be fully disengaged” at the very end of the process.

Despite that, the copy of the UHC they made as part of this process was labeled a “Homestuck Independant[sic] Creative Union controlled GitHub fork”, because that’s something they expected people to like. The day this article published and they realized it could get negative attention they changed the reference to the HICU to Homestuck, Inc. This public-facing change was made the day the article was published, not when they supposedly “fully disengaged” eight months prior.

The HICU took responsibility for this project until it went bad. Miles is trying to play games with the HICU label because the whole purpose of the HICU label is to be gamed. It’s a shell game.

Fruity Rumpus Asshole Factory

The new Fruity Rumpus Asshole Factory art collective scares the bejesus out of me. If Andrew has hooks on the FRAF like they do with so much else, and they’re able to keep up the appearance that things are working freely, that’s a nightmare.

The HICU announced FRAF in August 2025:

FRAF is a fanwork collective working in tandem with Homestuck/WP (and, to a pretty limited extent, the HICU) to platform Homestuck fanworks, allow them to license and monetize, and hopefully promote all sorts of cross-project creativity in the Homestuck fandom. It’s just now launching, and I expect it to grow and change a lot in the coming months/years as other fanworks join the league of FRAFfiliates in their beautiful new experiment, but it’ll be a pretty great time and maybe even a new frontier of Homestuck fanwork cross-pollination, and I’m super excited to see what they get up to.

Finally, Homestuck has grown up to become the Content Platform it always wanted to be. Vast Error is here too for some reason, despite already being partnered and licensed with the HICU separately. They don’t need another license so they’re just here to hang out.

FRAF describes itself like so:

fruityrumpus.com The Fruity Rumpus Asshole Factory is an officially licensed Homestuck fanwork collective. All projects under the FRAF label are autonomous, but have been given a free license by Andrew Hussie to jointly promote and monetize their projects in coordination with each other, and the Homestuck Independent Creative Union.

There are a lot of the same immediate concerns here. “Autonomous” is the same line we got about SAHCon, which turned out to be false.

FRAF describes their team as including Miles as the “HICU Representative”. This is the same conflict as always. Miles acts as a director of the HICU, but is at the same time a direct proxy for Andrew Hussie. FRAF is described as mostly working with Homestuck, yet the only connection they give is a representative with the HICU, which is supposed to be an entirely separate organization.

Based on a conversation I had with FRAF director Cami, it sounds like there’s little in the way of formal control. (This is a good thing!) FRAF is currently operating with good faith in both Homestuck and the HICU, and neither have made demands that would harm that. They don’t know Homestuck is radioactive because that’s been kept hidden. FRAF already has significant overlap with the HICU and Beyond Canon, and collaborative licensing between FRAF and Homestuck is what enables FRAF’s existence in the first place. FRAF is currently doing what it can to build its relationships with its big partners. This means being friendly and trying to make everyone happy, including Homestuck and the HICU.

The HICU already has a direct say in which projects FRAF is able to work with:

ABOUT FRAF How are FRAFWorks chosen?

FRAF Members nominate existing fanworks for consideration, which the FRAF Team and the HICU then review. We also plan to occassionally intake nominations through this website.

This isn’t a formal condition of the FRAF license, but something they’re doing voluntarily on good faith. So regardless of what FRAF administration would choose, the HICU (read: Homestuck) already has final say over licensing with the power to block affiliates. If Andrew or Miles suggest an affiliate, people trust that. If they raise an objection to a project, people trust that. Which means, in practice, Homestuck is still able to exercise control over admission and therefore licensing.

But what about ongoing control over works? Cami confirmed “there isn’t a formal stipulation to sign an NDA to be a FRAF affiliate”, although many of the current members are under NDA as part of the surprise launch, or due to other collaborations. And the same “try to make everyone happy” attitude extends, I’m sure, to all its operations.

People in FRAF have a mental model that they’re autonomous and Andrew’s not able to exercise control, but that doesn’t mean that’s true. The party line seems to be “Andrew’s not in control, it’s just that everyone loves him and would let have whatever they wants because we’re friends and also they’re the boss”. There are active Homestuck fans who wouldn’t let Andrew have whatever they want, and they’re not given power. This is not a free autonomous art collective, but they’ve only seen the carrot and not the stick. Show me Andrew really, honestly wanting a policy change at FRAF and not getting his way, or I’m not buying it.

FRAF hasn’t hit The Squeeze. They don’t know it yet, but they’re standing on the edge of a precipice. They’re still in the “love” phase of a love-bombing. Unlike SAHCon, the UHC, and other projects, FRAF hasn’t had to deal with a demand for something unacceptable. So what happens when they get it? Not just a social nudge, but a genuine disagreement FRAF has with its buddies? If history is any indicator, that’s when Homestuck will bare its fangs, and suddenly contingencies and legal liability will start to matter very fast.

Unfortunately, it already isn’t true that FRAF affiliates are really independent. While FRAF-the-organization may not have dealt with ultimatums yet, some of their projects have. I know because I saw it first hand. I was involved in some of these projects, one of which already had direct written confirmation that they “should” be fine with what they were doing, since it was composed of all original work. A few months ago they got orders from on high to clean house anyway. I have personally confirmed that Homestuck reached out to a project and instructed them that they were required to disassociate themselves with people on the Homestuck blacklist, or Homestuck would sue the project as direct quid-pro-quo retaliation. This was not a subtle “goodwill building” move, this demand was a hard cut: projects lost core personnel.

It is absolutely, objectively true that the HICU required people make changes to their project in order to avoid a lawsuit. FRAF membership did not protect these projects. If anything, “goodwill” with FRAF acted as additional pressure for people to give Andrew whatever they wanted. So these are not autonomous projects. Maybe they’re designed to feel like autonomous projects, maybe they’re told they’re still autonomous projects. It doesn’t matter; Andrew is absolutely throwing their weight around to get whatever changes they want made. In practice Andrew has final say over everything, a power they’ve exercising liberally to reward friends and punish enemies.

If FRAF projects really have a free license, good for them. They need to hold onto that, keep doing good work, and be ready to say “no” when demands come. If they’re in any way hooked by Andrew or Miles, they’ve got to cut that out like it’s cancer.

Freedom Motif

Because of the implicit threat of legal violence the relationship between a work’s copyright holder and its fan community is structurally antagonistic. The IP holder and members of the fan community have fundamentally different interests which sometimes align but sometimes don’t. This doesn’t mean the relationship has to be antagonistic in practice, but it means there is always an underlying potential for conflict that has to be reasoned with.

A fan community should be a symbiotic relationship. Fanwork can serve functions official work can’t, and the community surrounding a work is one of the main things that gives a work “value”, in a base economic sense. Likewise official recognition can be a good thing. Fanwork can be elevated, talented creators can be brought on as part of official projects, etc. Official recognition can serve as a badge of honor.

But the deciding factor in whether the creator/fan relationship is healthy or exploitative is whether the community is allowed to be independent. One of the most important merits of fanwork, discussion, and criticism is a plurality of perspectives, and the ability to present and analyze work through truly pluralistic viewpoints. This is why things like fan comics, fan games, fan resources, and fan events have been so extraordinarily valuable. They represent legitimate plurality where the community manages and supports itself.

If the IP holder insists that all aspects relating to discussion of a work go through one unifying authority, this is an assault on the community and represents an act of aggression against fan-run fan-space. If there is a demand that all work that exists be brought in under a single umbrella of control, this is a dangerous and precarious arrangement. It does not matter how much or how little work is encapsulated by official support. A unification of community spaces through a central governing authority with the ability to enforce policy and preference is an existential threat to that community.

This threat is a true danger even before that authority proves itself dangerous and untrustworthy by deed. The danger is structural; it is a trap prepared and ready to spring. Even if the current leadership is well-meaning, that power can be replaced and existing structures can be hijacked to suddenly abuse a good faith relationship.

Normally the problem with these structural issues is that they allow for behavior as unacceptable as retaliation for criticism to potentially happen in the future. But Andrew Hussie is not a potential danger, they are (in my opinion) an active danger. Andrew’s going around threatening fans with baseless lawsuits right now. Even if someone could be trusted to lord over a community as god-king, to own a harem of votaries, Andrew personally cannot.

Andrew is insisting that all communities relating to Homestuck can, if Andrew desires, be brought under their authority, and the HICU and FRAF represent a progression of this project. He knows what they’re doing is wrong and they know people would hate Andrew if they saw it, so the Homestuck Independent Creative Union acts as shield. The Homestuck Independent Creative Union is fake. It’s a cardboard cutout. It’s a lie.

I’m not saying Andrew Hussie wants to be 100% hands-on, micromanaging every aspect of every Homestuck project from the shadows. I think he’s completely happy being hands-off 90% of the time. He’s not the secret shadow author of every post-homestuck work. The problem is on any occasion he does decide he wants to control something he pursues that goal with ferocity and violence. He wants the ability to be as petty as he wants to be, and have the right to use any toy in anyone’s box to do it. He doesn’t demand to make every call, but he does demand the right to make the final call on anything he wants, which is more dangerous.

Fan projects must be independent, and they must be allowed to operate without being coerced or threatened by an IP holder holding a gun to their head. It’s especially important to set a good example of this with media with a young audience, many of which don’t know any better. We don’t have to put up with that and so we absolutely, positively must not. If Andrew is threatening to take good work down, better for the blood of the art to be on his hands than for people to submit to the bullying and let Andrew burn through more lives.

How to Fix This

I don’t expect Homestuck to respond well to this being revealed; Andrew is likely to get angrier, more protective, more insular. They’ll probably double-down on damage control, try to paint me as violent and rabblerousing, the usual patchwork. Their primary goal is just going to be trying to socially isolate me, drum up more baseless rumors, and anything else to construct a plausible reason not to listen to my warning. The party line might be switched from “all completely autonomous” to “of course Andrew retains control of everything, what did you expect” as if their promises of independence never mattered at all and the fault is on any fool who believed them.

But if Homestuck were sincere, if it were going to do the right thing, what would that look like? Simply: the HICU is a fake foundation, build a real one instead.

Here’s just one step: to enable independent artists to build fanwork using Homestuck as a platform, Andrew could release Homestuck under a permissive license. Not even “public domain”, but something like a Creative Commons license. People could build on Homestuck, like Andrew keeps insisting he wants them to. He’d still own the copyright, he’d still be able to merchandise and franchise whatever he wants, but so could others. It’d be enough to prevent anyone from making the argument that using a classpect symbol is copyright infringement.

Likewise put out a clear, binding, public policy that fanworks can merchandise themselves. People could use the Homestuck universe but still distribute and sell their own work. Groups would be able to publish fan games on Itch or Steam without the fear that offending the wrong person would lead to a punitive takedown against the whole thing. You could have something like FRAF or WLF on top of this — some sort of consolidated store for Homestuck fanworks, and HS could even take a cut — but that wouldn’t in any way bar people from doing their own business themselves.

You don’t need to start a witch hunt. You don’t need to dissolve the HICU, you don’t need to burn down FRAF. (But you do need to stop joining it.) You don’t even need to rework Beyond Canon much, just tear the weird licensing guts out of the HICU and let it be a group that can just write an exciting new comic like everybody else can.

All you need to do is establish a true foundation for a community to build on. For the Homestuck community to function without living in fear of Homestuck, Andrew needs to put concrete limits on himself and their companies. Give up the fantasy of living as a god-king. Only after Andrew can’t always get his way — can’t attack people — in the Homestuck community can it actually exist safely.

Vessel Of Spirit@VesselOfSpirit
are the emperor's clothes real? i don't have direct information one way or the other. but i like to judge ideas by their fruits, and i can't help but notice that a lot of the voices on the "no" side are coming from whiny losers rotting in the emperor's dungeon
Sun Dec 07 10:02:03 +0000 2025

And if we expand the scope of our search beyond merch to fanwork in general… Homestuck has a long, ugly history. Maybe another day.
For now here are some more examples of publicly announced threats of legal action by Homestuck against fan projects, for those interested in the history:
↩
gio :⁾@giovan_h
The Homestuck franchise is predicated on some of the most shockingly permissive understandings of fair use in modern history (good!!!), which makes the instances where they've turned around and tried to be extremely stringent about "their IP" so deeply perverse.

Mon Jul 22 19:43:38 +0000 2024
↩
As part of the original Hiveswap article I remember trying to construct some kind of org chart for the various legal entities involved. A complete waste: it’s all smoke and mirrors around Andrew Hussie. ↩
: ↩
See also Trouble a-brewin’ at Redbubble ↩

The Unofficial Homestuck Collection Takedown

2025-08-08T00:00:00-05:00

Bottom line up front

Since November 2023 The Unofficial Homestuck Collection has been entangled in legal discussions with Homestuck and Andrew Hussie.¹ This was quickly revealed to be a false pretext: in reality, Andrew Hussie used a fake offer of collaboration to launch a hostile takeover of the UHC.

Andrew Hussie has sent the UHC maintainers (GiovanH and Bambosh) a series of takedown demands and persistently threatened this project with spurious lawsuits. Andrew demanded we turn over full control of the fan project to them, demanded we remove previous essays on Homestuck, and demanded we denounce some specific critics of theirs they have a personal grudge against. They even threatened a lawsuit on the basis that we used the word “Homestuck” in the title “Unofficial Homestuck Collection”.

As a result of this outrageous conduct, I am forced to take down The Unofficial Homestuck Collection’s web presence at Homestuck’s demand. The current set of legal takedown demands does not affect the GitHub repository itself, so releases of the reader are still available separate from the website takedown we were forced to act on. An outdated copy of the reader and some assets are currently also available from a copy Homestuck made of the collection against our wishes (homestuck.github.io) — more on this later. However, the original team behind the collection (Bambosh and Gio) has been forced to stop supporting our work.

This was not driven by copyright concern, but was Andrew Hussie attempting a hostile takeover of a fan project and demanding absolute control over not only the content of the archive but which fans and creators its contributors were allowed to associate with. As I ultimately conclude: Homestuck is radioactive.

Hostile Takeover

In November 2023 Homestuck sent me and Bambosh (co-creators of the UHC) an offer to collaborate on The Unofficial Homestuck Collection. We initially engaged with this offer because it came with a commitment to respect the project’s independence and for the collaboration to be fully insulated from previous personal grievances.

But this pretense of constructive collaboration turned out to be false almost immediately. For the entire period of time since the first communication — now multiple years — Homestuck has used threats, lies, legal shakedowns, and other psychological pressure tactics to attempt to seize control of The Unofficial Homestuck Collection in a hostile takeover. There was never a legal basis for Homestuck to control The Unofficial collection, and so they have been attempting to use extra-legal tactics to do so.

While the archival impact is unfortunate, the main complaint here is not that we were entitled to distribute Homestuck and it’s wrong that we’ve had to stop. We have no particular legal right to reproduce or distribute the copyrighted Homestuck material, and so did not feel entitled to continue doing it. The fact that executing the takedown demands we’ve received results in material being inaccessible is a side effect of a deeper problem.

The problem is that the way Andrew acted is completely unacceptable. They demanded control over work that was not theirs, demanded we denounce their personal enemies, demanded we recant previous criticisms, and more. This was all done under a pretense of constructive collaboration with the community that turned out to be false from the beginning. Ultimately Andrew has demanded (in violation of their own assurances) that we denounce previous criticism of Homestuck management and give full managerial control over the independent Collection project over to Andrew and their chosen delegates. Under this extortion we would be required to participate in Andrew’s attempt to sweep their past professional misconduct under the rug, and we would remain subordinate to any other demands they made to use the project to attempt to control the fan community.

We have not allowed this hostile takeover to happen to the UHC. Since Andrew has fully committed to hostility towards us and fan projects in general and demanded things we cannot give them, I’m choosing to disengage rather than face a perpetual series of baseless legal attacks and other harassment.

Reluctance

My worst fear is that by explaining this I might appear at all eager to stir up trouble. I am not a rabble-rouser and I do not enjoy conflict. I am well aware that people are going to assume I’m being a hardheaded jerk or creating a conflict myself, but that simply isn’t true. Even now I am focusing on capturing the important parts, which means leaving out “juicy gossip” which is exciting but not load-bearing. Unlike people in the “content industry”, for me controversy is not revenue — it actively costs me money when people read my work. I am exiting this affair with many fewer thousands of dollars and a fun new set of stress-related health issues. If I am a clout-chaser, I am the worst to ever do it.

The archive work, the collection, and everything else I’ve done surrounding Homestuck has all only been motivated by a care for the work and the people in its community. I would still care for Andrew too, had they not been the absolute worst. If I could snap my fingers and get whatever I wanted, I would not have another exciting and scandalous story to tell, I would be happily maintaining a resource that people have found valuable. I can imagine nothing I’d rather do.

But The Unofficial Homestuck Collection is a community project, and project maintainer is a leadership position that comes with responsibilities. When people are harmed they’re entitled to clear and honest communication about what happened. Which, in this case, was very bad. I also feel a responsibility in cases like this to be transparent because doing so may help protect the safety of others.

I am also going to have to describe conversations I had with people, which I am loathe to do. One of the things I pride myself in is my ability to keep confidence, and I’d never discuss private conversations unless there are extraordinary circumstances. This is an extraordinary circumstance: not only did the parties involved already repeatedly violate my trust in eager attempts to harm me, keeping this kind of information secret has been a tactic they abuse to protect themselves from accountability.

Being Cooperative to a Fault

As I will show, I have done everything I can to avoid this contingency, to the point of folly.

I have been very careful to keep the door open to the original collaboration as promised or another amicable resolution. Homestuck rejected this continually and repeatedly. At no point did The Unofficial Homestuck Collection ask for any money or favors, or do anything other than offer to give them work for free. Any attempts to work constructively were violently shut down in favor of Andrew pursuing a personal vendetta and ultimately demanding absolute control of the project. Andrew could have also simply dropped the issue and returned to the status quo of the UHC operating unlicensed, but they refused to do this.

When I was told I needed to sign an NDA, I agreed to do so and then that NDA was never provided. When I was finally given a different NDA, I signed it. When I asked to discuss the possibility of me paying Homestuck for a license just to continue doing what they had already agreed they wanted us to continue to do, I was shut down.

I maintained a frog-and-the-scorpion dynamic: I was the frog,² taking a gamble and giving the scorpion a ride it needs. Andrew’s the scorpion: if they could overcome their nature, they get nice things for free. If they couldn’t, they’d sink themselves. For me it was just a matter of swimming Andrew to the goal and hoping they wouldn’t sink everything. I wanted to make the most generous possible effort in order to see if Andrew can possibly be reasoned with. They cannot.

Offensive behavior

Regardless of how it was done an assault on the collection is tragic. But the way Andrew went about doing it has been vile.

I have been astonished at the extent Homestuck is willing to flagrantly lie, manipulate, extort, and otherwise try to use bullying and pressure tactics in order to gain power over others. I was already skeptical about Homestuck’s project management skills from my postmortems of other projects, but I had never gotten such a close look at how truly brazen and malicious it all is. The shamelessness of it all has been genuinely shocking.

The concerns I brought up about Hiveswap amounted to one blip of data. Since then, I’ve been privy to many, many more incidents that form a clear patter of behavior. I have it on good authority that what I’m going to describe here isn’t an isolated incident; I’ve confirmed this has happened to other people, with other projects, with other sets of demands. The constant factor is the abuse of power. This isn’t just what they did, it’s what they’re like.

Andrew themself is manipulative and controlling: a matured and competent bully. The systems they build around themselves are designed to mask this behind plausible deniability. Because of Andrew/Homestuck’s almost mythological status, people are willing to extend them a lot of good faith, and they very aggressively exploit that. They are practiced at manipulation and use social and legal pressure in order to control others, especially people they view as problems.

Explicitly, the action taken against The Unofficial Homestuck Collection was not based on a good-faith attempt to protect Andrew’s rights, but was instead direct retaliation. This was the case not just with me but with Bambosh, someone Andrew had no complaint with until Bambosh didn’t yield to their demands. Even the slightest lack of deference was enough to make Andrew treat him like an enemy too. There is no material copyright complaint here, copyright is only a legal tool being weaponized. They made it clear throughout the process that they approve of the collection and want it to continue to exist, but only if they could exercise full control over it. Takedowns and similar demands were only ever used to apply pressure to force people to behave socially in the way Andrew demanded. This approach seems to have been their standard operating procedure for many years.

Andrew creates a coercive environment where they have a high degree of control over people. The various tactics Andrew employed with the UHC are all in a pursuit of the same common end we see in so much of their other behavior: getting people under their thumb. They manage power over people which they use to reward friends and punish enemies. I totally understand how they’ve gotten away with treating people like this. It’s practiced, effective manipulation. If I hadn’t already had it impressed on me that Andrew was a bad-faith actor I needed to be vigilant around, it’d probably have worked on me too.

If you are one of the people who have worked with Andrew in the past and this description does not ring true for you, I am happy for you. Unfortunately that does not change the fact that Andrew behaves this way with many others. If Andrew treated you decently, consider that if Andrew had treated others with the same decency there would be no problem, and we would all be much better off for it.

Abridged

This will necessarily be abridged. Unlike past reporting where I’ve had to draw conclusions from what little material was published, this has been a multiple-year ordeal and I have comprehensive documentation of every offense that took place along the way. If I covered every offense committed by Hussie/Homestuck as part of this process, that explanation would be longer than all the Hiveswap work put together. This is a summary, but there is no secret message buried in the cracks where they say it’s opposite day and they were actually cool and good the whole time.

One common motif I’ve had to edit around are platitudes that turn out to be demonstrably false a few moments later. There are a lot of them, and every time I include one I have to go back and note that it wasn’t true, or it sounds like I’m presenting it as fact. So it’s a lot of “that wasn’t true, that wasn’t true, that wasn’t true…” wasted on non load-bearing thoughts, and that just turns into speed bumps.

Background

Okay, summary over. Let’s get into it.

The Collection

If you’re not already familiar with The Unofficial Homestuck Collection, here’s the quick technical summary. The Unofficial Homestuck Collection (UHC) is an offline archive and reader for Homestuck and its related works. The collection was originally written by Bambosh approx. 2019-2020, and released 10/25/2020. It is a tool for reading Homestuck, but it’s not “just Homestuck”, it is an original creative work.

Homestuck referenced several websites that no longer exist and used deprecated technologies like Flash, and so it requires special restoration for people to read it. Special restoration is especially needed for people to read Homestuck now, as the homestuck.com website went offline entirely in early 2025.

I had actually been working on developing an equivalent program at the same time, so shortly after the release of the UHC I contacted Bambosh and offered to help polish and expand the collection. I’ve been working with him on the project ever since. Since 2021 I was formally made a “co-creator” of the project, and the Application was owned and copyrighted jointly between us.

The collection is licensed under GPL 3.0 with a §7 attribution clause. This just means anyone can contribute to the project, or modify it, or create a new spin-off version, as long as their changes allow other people to continue doing that. Because of the creative material represented, the §7 clause also requires crediting information to be retained in any copies or spinoffs.

The UHC has been an extremely rewarding project for me because of how much the community has appreciated it. Any time I see people talking about starting or re-reading Homestuck, I always see someone in the comments point them to the UHC, which really is incredible. The little utilitarian value function in my head is so happy with the reception the project got, not just because it’s a fan-favorite, but because of how much the whole community has really appreciated it being out there.

Asset Layer Cake

The Unofficial Homestuck Collection is split into two components: the reader program and the asset pack. It’s a simplified version of the emulator/ROM dichotomy. The reader is the application itself; it manages everything about the reading experience such as progress tracking and the new reader mode. The asset pack is a static archive of the relevant comic material.

The reader program is designed to be non-infringing: it’s all original work and doesn’t reproduce copyrighted material.³ The “Unofficial” in the title also clearly marks it as unaffiliated with Homestuck, so there’s no trademark issue either. The reader project is not part of “Homestuck”, it is original work that we own.

The asset pack is a little weirder. It’s a compilation of Homestuck content, of course, but not anything that was ever behind a paywall: everything that’s there is just an archive of material that was already published for free. But in the eyes of the law it is still a reproduction of Homestuck’s copyrighted material, so Andrew et al. would be within their rights to require folks to stop hosting it, if they chose to attack the project.

In summary, Homestuck (and Viz Media, for a time) always had every right to force us to stop distributing the asset pack. That constitutes making reproductions of Homestuck, which they have the exclusive right over. However the reader application is entirely new work, and the Homestuck IP does not have any special claim over it.

Endorsement

Fortunately, when it came out, Andrew didn’t attack it. In fact we saw the opposite. There was a stir at launch about people involved with the official team praising and recommending the UHC, which culminated in Andrew Hussie themselves updating their only web presence at the time to point to it:

Andrew even came back to Twitter to agree that the UHC was “100% the best way to read Homestuck”:

So that’s where this story starts: the creator of the original work telling the public their version of their own work is broken and people should use the fan archive instead. We are not entitled to make reproductions of Homestuck but we have been given an official blessing. By the time we get to the end of the story, the official website which Andrew called broken will have been fully abandoned, and Homestuck would exclusively direct people to this collection to read the comic.

First approach – October 2023

Around June 2023, Bambosh and I got the first hint that someone might be looking to contact us in an official capacity, and the project email account got a message in October.

This was notably late to be getting official communication; the UHC released in 2020 and exploded in popularity then, but here we were seeing first communications about it in 2023. As previously noted, Homestuck spent this time endorsing The Unofficial Homestuck Collection.

This delay turned out to be due to Andrew un-partnering with Viz in October, which gave Andrew control over the homestuck.com website. So if they wanted to fix the website, now they can. More on this later.

In October 2023, Bambosh and I get this email:

Miles (rcktpwrr), 2023-10-01 Hey there!

My name’s Miles and I hope this isn’t too out of the blue, but I’m reaching out to you because of your awesome work on the Unofficial Homestuck Collection.

I’m working on an upcoming Homestuck project and we’re sort of getting some stuff in gear, and Andrew mentioned that it’d be super cool to do a little work with you at some point in the future if that’s something you’d be amenable to. Andrew loves the Collection and thinks it’d be pretty cool to work with it in the future; he even has some ideas for contributions of content he’d love to add to the collection.

Would you be at all comfortable chatting with me on Discord sometime, and we can talk a little more details on this and maybe get you talking with Andrew at some point? You can reach me at [redacted] on Discord and pop me a message literally any time!

Also, just to be clear, we’re hoping to keep the work we’re doing private for right now, so Andrew and the team would super appreciate it if you kept this under your belt until we have a chance to explain a little more about the kind of things we wanna do. Sorry to be so cloak and dagger about it, hahaha.

Please feel free to write back or hit me on Discord literally whenever, but we’re looking forward to hearing from you!

Best, Miles

Takeaways:

This is before the relaunch of Homestuck^2: Beyond Canon and the start of the Homestuck Independent Creative Union, so the name Miles is new.
A team working with Andrew is working on a project and would like us to collaborate on it.
- This project, and possibly Andrew working on projects in general, is still secret
- This team would later be revealed as the HICU.
Andrew loves the collection

As far as official responses go, this is pretty good! If this had been true all would still be well.

Good Faith

Given what we know about how Homestuck has historically acted, the safest thing to do at this point would’ve been to tell them to go pound sand. But, it was also possible that things were actually changing internally at Homestuck for the better, which would delight me. We were also told we would be working with a new team, and our hope was Andrew’s lack of direct involvement would translate to a more stable working relationship.

Homestuck and The Unofficial Homestuck Collection were in a position to collaborate for mutual benefit. There is not a hierarchical relationship here. Homestuck was in a position to give the UHC a license to distribute the asset pack, promotion, and development support. The UHC was in the position to use UHC work in an official Homestuck website, give Homestuck a working archive of its inaccessible work, promote the Homestuck brand, and give Homestuck a license to use the UHC reader beyond the GPL. This was also a key opportunity for Homestuck to publicly legitimize the HICU by visibly working with its community and not against it.

There are three basic possible outcomes:

Win/Win: Andrew has the HICU work collaboratively with the existing fan project. Maybe we put together licensing that lets us distribute the asset pack, or maybe we fold the thing into an official project with new licensing.⁴ There are many mutually-beneficial options here.
Neutral: Homestuck doesn’t have to pursue any action here at all. They can continue to allow the collection to be distributed as it was, but retain the ability to take it down at any time if they want.
Lose/Lose: Andrew demands an arrangement that’s not mutually beneficial. They think they can take control of the project, or compel me to give them a blank check, or whatever. I refuse, Andrew takes legal action, I take down the project. I put together a report on what happens (you are here), it’s revealed how bad Andrew was, the UHC is harder for anyone to use including Homestuck.

This process started before the HICU and before “free licenses” were being talked about, and so I was fully ready to license the UHC by paying money out-of-pocket. I would have (and, in fact did) make personal sacrifices to make this work.

But I’m not dumb. There’s a requirement on us to be responsible about what commitments we make.

The Unofficial Homestuck Collection is a community project. It’s not just my work, it’s the work of dozens of community members. As the maintainer of the project I’m responsible for doing right by the whole project and everyone who trusts me to maintain it, including both its contributors and its users.

Part of what it means to be a responsible and trustworthy member of the community is not being negligent. I can’t make agreements that put valuable resources like The Unofficial Homestuck Collection at risk just because it would be easier for me to trust someone, especially when their trustworthiness is already in question.

If Andrew made a bad deal with Viz that resulted in them not doing right by the website, that’s Andrew’s neglectful error. If I make a bad deal that lets Andrew not do right by the collection, that’s my neglectful error.

But what I have here is a very, very good deal for Andrew. It’s a free house for you, Jim! We’ve done this enormous amount of work for free, and we were happy to keep doing it in ways that more directly profited them. The only requirement we ever had is that we would be working with Homestuck, not for Homestuck. To unilaterally hand a community project over would be to treat its many collaborators inappropriately and ultimately compromise the work.

From the beginning I was aware of the possibility that Andrew would try to abuse this situation, but it wouldn’t make sense for them to do so. If Andrew doesn’t see this as primarily being about asserting dominance over an enemy, this should be easily navigable. If they can only play dominance games, it’ll collapse. I was always pushing to do the kind of collaboration they approached us to do, but I was never willing to cross the line into predicating any work on some public humiliation ritual.

If Andrew wants to help us they can. If they want us to give them our help they can have it for free. If they want to control or bully us they can’t. It’s that simple.

⁵

Scorpion, frog. If Andrew can overcome their nature, they get nice things for free. If they don’t, they sink themselves. For me it was just a matter of swimming Andrew to the goal and hoping they wouldn’t sink everything.

At the time James Roach was the person most visibly handling the day-to-day handling of Homestuck operations, and from what I’d seen of him he seemed completely professional and reasonable. So if we would be working with him this could easily work out. My expectation from the beginning was that the more Andrew involved themselves the more they would shoot themselves (and therefore the project) in the foot. So the emphasis placed on Andrew’s minimal involvement made us think we could avoid this problem, and maybe someone else even understood it too. What they said throughout the introductory phase — and the fact that they were asking to work with me at all — indicated that was the case, although this would later turn out to be false.

So we took the responsible route: we decided to allow them to prove their goodwill by being as cooperative and friendly as possible while doing our due diligence to not create vulnerabilities that a bad actor could exploit. I was going to try to pursue a mutually-beneficial collaboration, but I was going to be sure that in doing so I wasn’t leaving myself open to being exploited. Good faith without being negligent. I still think this was the right approach, even though it came at significant personal expense.

Introductions and Context – October 2023

We reached out to Miles via Discord⁶ shortly after getting the email.

October 01, 2023

…

miles 10:45

but yeah thanks so much for getting back to us so quickly! i think itd be really cool to link up and do some work together with the Collection, i know andrew has some ideas for contributions as well

assuming, of course, that you’re amenable to that! it’s your baby, we don’t wanna do anything you arent comfortable with

but we can cover the details later, at any rate im just glad you check that email address LOL

…

Bambosh 10:55

And yeah, definitely open to any suggestions.

Gio’s whole thing was that he approached me with a bunch of good ones and like dang I’m definitely not gonna turn down the help Basically all the new stuff since the original release was his work

…

Bambosh

He’ll literally just DM me out of nowhere like “hey check out this whole ass thing I did” and it’s awesome every time

miles 10:57

sweet LOL

by the way! on the topic of privacy, hermit life, etc

at the risk of sounding a bit cloak-and-dagger, would you mind keeping the fact that we reached out to you under wraps for a little bit?

basically just until we’ve worked out more of whatever this is going to be and the stuff we’ll be doing together hehe

Bambosh 11:02

Absolute zipperlips - though can we get Gio in on it as well? For the aforementioned Valuable Working Partner reasons

miles

yeah for sure! as youve mentioned gio is a big contributor so we expect you both to be locked in here as the conversation coalesces around what it is we’re gonna be doing together

For Now, if possible, id appreciate it if you kept it to yourself just because i wanna make sure i have the go-ahead from andrew to loop whoever you feel is relevant in, but again, it’s your project and i can’t imagine gio wouldnt be on it as well

i’d ask him right now but i think he’s out doing something LOL

…

miles 10:09

also! just wanna let you know, in the next couple days before andrew and i start chatting with you guys about what it is we wanna get into with you and sharing ideas, we are probably going to ask you to sign an NDA! the reason i tell you this now is just so that i can take the time to personally assure you that this is not some scary legal bullshit and we have no interest in like, being weird or punitive about shit, we just wanna do our due diligence to make sure that the privacy of the projects is respected

if you have any questions at all about the document when the time comes, please dont hesitate to ask me

Takeaways:

The tone⁷ was friendly and casual, and overwhelmingly positive about our work so far and the continued health of the collection, as well as the continued direction of me and Bambosh.
Andrew/Miles (later explained as the HICU) wants to “do some work together with the Collection” and “make contributions” to the project
This is all to be at our discretion: they promised not to do anything with the project we weren’t comfortable with
I am introduced in the very first conversation as being key to the project and it’s completely expected for us to be a package deal. It’s clear Homestuck is fine with this
There is an NDA to keep things secret, but there will absolutely not be any “punitive legal bullshit”

Roles and Agents

Andrew forces people to be intentionally vague about an enormous amount of important information. That includes who all is acting in what exact role, requiring me to do additional untangling here to explain it.

I’m convinced this is an intentional strategy. it’s a power play.

Miles is here as a representative of Homestuck, Inc. and Andrew Hussie. Consistently, Miles acts as a direct proxy for Andrew’s intent (sometimes copy-pasting their actual messages), which is why I’m treating Andrew and Miles as a unit. Miles sometimes attempts to do some persuasion on Andrew’s behalf, but this is done as an empowered agent. There were a few personal conversations I had with Miles, but he went out of his way to clearly mark those as speaking on his own behalf, in contrast to his usual role as a direct proxy for Andrew.

June 25, 2024, miles

…

miles 05:36 PM

i’ll let andrew know!

GiovanH 06:04 PM

have you noticed you have the job of “priest”

miles 06:09 PM

LMAO

low priest

ive never heard it put that way but i love the comparison

GiovanH 06:10 PM

it seems like a good gig

miles 06:10 PM

gives me an excuse to say “andrew works in mysterious ways”

As a member of the HICU, Miles is straddled in what should be a tricky position with conflicts of interest, except that the labels are mostly fake. Andrew is the interest that counts and everything else is smoke and mirrors.

When they later try to make a distinction between Andrew and the HICU, Miles continues to represent Andrew while James Roach essentially represents himself in a management role at the HICU, although it turns out the structure of the HICU allows Andrew to overrule him on any point.

September 02, 2024

GiovanH 12:41 AM

(@miles real quick before I get too deep into details here, you’re speaking on behalf of Andrew/Homestuck Inc here, correct?)

miles 01:37 PM

yes im speaking on behalf of andrew

…

JAMES 08:58 PM

also for the record, since it seems like thats kind of an important point: i dont represent andrew legally or even personally im just sort of here to kind of help out where i can as an interested party in the longevity and wellbeing of homestuck as a whole

GiovanH 08:59 PM

(yeah, I’m conceptualizing james as being here for the hicu, basically)

JAMES 08:59 PM

much more interested now that i’m sort of at the helm of some stuff, my name and reputation being very intimately tied to the property at this point

As a rule Andrew has refused to directly use their own name for anything. To maintain plausible deniability, maybe. It’s a cheap stunt and I’m not letting you fall for it. When I talk about “Homestuck” as an actor, I’m talking about Andrew Hussie or a duly appointed representative. Andrew, ultimately, is responsible for these choices. If occasionally Miles or James or some other layer of Homestuck management was the one to type a message, it doesn’t matter. Andrew has final say, Andrew set up the management to work the way it does, and Andrew is ultimately responsible for events they cause.

I know the Joker’s Trick here is to set James or Miles up to take the entire fall when this goes south, but that’s a sad ploy and you’re not going to fall for it this time. No more of this plausible deniability human buffer crumple zone trickery. It’s just Andrew’s decisions, sometimes with a human shield if Andrew thinks it’ll benefit themself.

That being said I really, really don’t want to see blame misplaced because of this. I think when most people familiar with it think of the HICU, the reaction is “oh, they’re doing better” or even “yeah, I’m on their side.” I don’t fault you for this! Based on what they said about themselves many people — including me personally — gave the HICU a huge amount of good credit upfront, and they’ve done very little publicly to hurt that image.

In this article I have criticisms of Andrew and Miles. This is not a general indictment of the HICU crew and it’s certainly not an indictment of FRAF. Do not — do not — let other fan creators get caught up any blame from this. This is about Andrew’s handling of the UHC. I have another article about the HICU, which also does not fault the creative teams.

In response to this article, Miles published a post that directly confirms everything I said about the agent relationship here.

Miles i wanna pause and emphasize something here, because it’s one of the most important things i want to get across. i was acting as a Liaison for andrew, as a MESSENGER, FOR andrew, not as like, a Lawyer or and Advisor or a “coconspirator” or the guy who authored the decisions that actually got made here. i did not and do not tell andrew what to do about anything, certainly not about how to handle the Homestuck IP or any moves he wants to make legally. i gave some advice on how to communicate and actually Did The Communicating, but during all of this i wasn’t even the director on HS:BC, i was literally just a writer who thought he was stepping into a short, sweet process to get a cool collaboration going between the UHC and Homestuck as an IP.

It’s all Andrew.

You Know Gio’s Here, Right?

So, there is an obvious elephant in the room, which is the fact that I’ve been a harsh critic of Andrew Hussie’s professional behavior before, and they took it very poorly. Andrew specifically said that they’d never have anything to do with me and falsely implied I was a stalker and sex pest. So this conversation happening at all was weird, and it was even weirder how this was insistently painted as a complete non-issue.

As for my side of things, I had thought this through before we replied to the original email. For the sake of the project, since there was the potential to do real good on the table, I had decided to take an attitude of “agree to disagree” and simply not make it an issue. I’d already been working on The Unofficial Homestuck Collection without letting my personal frustrations impact the work. I could work with Andrew as long as they were being reasonable, and if they insisted on bringing up old hostilities in a way I couldn’t brush past, we would have to part ways on the project.

But Andrew rejecting my involvement — or even instigating hostilities over it — would deny them goodwill and access to The Unofficial Homestuck Collection. There was never any possibility where their refusing to work with me would end up with them getting control of the project and me leaving it. If they wanted to work, we could work, but they would have to at least tolerate working with the people in charge of the project, as is obviously the case for anyone wanting to collaborate with anyone.

I wasn’t expecting to be working much with Andrew, though. It seemed much more likely I would be working on projects through James Roach, or Miles, and that would have been my preference anyway. So it caught me off guard when Andrew wanted to communicate with both of us privately.

October 02, 2023

miles 11:04 PM

the way we tend to do things in terms of folks the HICU is collaborating with is as follows

once (or if) you guys do feel comfortable signing the NDA, andrew and i are going to chat with each of you one on one. one at a time

think of it as like. idk i guess an interview?

not that we need your Credentials because your work speaks for itself, its just that andrew likes to have a chat with folks as well in a semi-formal setting so that he can be on top of everyone we collab with

again for reasons of, yknow, privacy comfort etc

so when the time comes, we’re gonna basically wait for you to sign the NDA (we’ll get another draft to you before then and ofc no need to sign until we’ve agreed on the form that’s gonna take), then we’re going to chat with bambosh, then we’re gonna chat with gio, and then probably after that we’re all gonna chat as a foursome

Bambosh 11:07 PM

That sounds agreeable to me

miles 11:07 PM

cool!

GiovanH 11:08 PM

~~that seems like a terrible idea~~

Bambosh 11:08 PM

:O

miles 11:08 PM

?

GiovanH 11:08 PM

that will be the most uncomfortable conversation I’ve ever had in my life

miles 11:09 PM

really?

GiovanH 11:09 PM

but okay? if he wants???

miles 11:10 PM

can i ask why itd be uncomfortable?

GiovanH 11:11 PM

the last thing andrew said about me is “I don’t trust him, I will never speak to him, and probably no one from WP ever will either.”

so I was just planning on granting him blanket permission to skip that part if he wanted

…

GiovanH 11:14 PM

if he wants to, I’ll do it.

i’m just anticipating that being extra interesting

miles 11:15 PM

i mean speaking frankly i cant imagine andrew has any desire to get “interesting” about anything LOL, we just wanna chat with folks and work with you guys via the protocols we have in place to make sure the team is comfortable

…

miles 11:16 PM

yeah no worries, again we’re here chatting now because i wanna get the ball rolling on how you guys are feeling

but yeah at that point its gonna be the sign -> chat pipeline, and beyond that theres nothing more we really wanna do

…

GiovanH 11:18 PM

feelings-wise, for me having criticized someone does not mean I’m unwilling to work with them. (obviously)

miles 11:20 PM

so for whatever its worth, andrew knew you were a big contributor on this before we reached out, its not even close to a dealbreaker

GiovanH 11:20 PM

by this point I figured he must have

miles 11:21 PM

yeah! like

i guess what im getting at here is that we wanna work with you, we like what you guys are doing, and we definitely dont have any intention of getting weird about this lol

Takeaways:

Miles emphasizes yet again that my involvement is a non-issue, to the point of acting confused by my hesitancy
Andrew’s involvement is described as minor — “an interview”
They know really thoroughly that I’m a major contributor to the project and that wasn’t ever going to be a dealbreaker
Yet more promises that nothing should be unpleasant or hostile, they triple-promise not to be weird about it

This absolute commitment that there would be no discrimination against me over past disputed complaints is the only reason either of us were willing to engage in any of this in the first place. It was the premise of everything that came after. Every time you see them contradict this basis represents an absolute forfeit of credibility and integrity from them. It is the whole game lost each time. I need you to really, really commit this to memory. Put an extra copy up next the article. This foundation is going to slip through your fingers so fast it’ll seem bizarre it was ever there.

Andrew agreeing to work with me without making an incident of it was the mature thing to do, but still unexpected. I had made the decision that the responsible way to handle a working relationship with Homestuck would to be to make it a point not to try to abuse my position to try to rehash old conflicts or “balance the books”, and instead just work on individual projects where we could find mutually-beneficial arrangements. Homestuck was promising it would do the same. Trucies.

Within those extremely minimal ground rules, I was completely willing to put bad blood behind us and work constructively. Maybe this was naiveté, but I prefer to think of it as insisting on acting in responsible good faith. If something went wrong, it was going to be because someone attacked me, not because I refused.

Homestuck Independent Creative Union

Miles had been very secretive about what actual plans there were, saying we needed to be under NDA first. At a high level that sort of makes sense, so we talked about the structure of this new HICU while we reviewed the waiver, which includes an incredibly broad non-disclosure agreement.

I spend a lot of time emphasizing how important it is that this doesn’t hijack any existing work (because the language of the waiver indicates that it will), and Miles goes out of his way to reassure us that it won’t be.

October 02, 2023, Bambosh, miles

…

miles 10:13 PM

can you tell me what kind of conflicts you guys are concerned about?

i wanna make sure i can assuage your worries as best i can but itll help me to understand what your concerns are

…

GiovanH 10:16 PM

in general, making sure the UHC stays an independent project, and not assigning Homestuck/Viz/whoever rights over the software/editorial decisions/etc

miles 10:16 PM

okay cool cool

anything else jump out at you guys?

GiovanH 10:17 PM

Big picture, I’m okay with an NDA to keep any New Unreleased Happenings secret

miles 10:17 PM

alrighty

Despite all this lip service, the first draft of the “Homestuck Community Participation and Release Agreement” itself contained an attempt to strip signatories of creative independence. The original waiver had an intellectual property provision that forces “all creative concepts, stories, characters, settings, dialogue, project ideas, plans, and all other information related to the Homestuck intellectual property” to be bound by the licensing contract between the HICU and Homestuck, Inc., which is a separate, secret document we were not allowed to see until after committing to it. This would turn any signatory into a “poison contributor” who couldn’t work on any independent fanwork.

GiovanH 10:27 PM

can you give me an example of a scenario you’re worried about?

ok for example

You understand and agree that all creative concepts, stories, characters, settings, dialogue, project ideas, plans, and all other information related to the Homestuck intellectual property discussed by Group are bound by the conditions described in the licensing agreement between the Union and Homestuck, Inc. All information is deemed Confidential Information.

this seems overbroad, and would (accidently?) capture all “information related to the Homestuck intellectual property” that we discuss with each other, including UHC work, as the IP of Homestuck Inc

as well as fanwork and other stuff

which I don’t think is anyone’s intent, but that’s a kill-switch I don’t want to make

…

miles 10:36 PM

i can go ahead and have a look at that line and get back to you about maybe striking it, because i totally see your concern, even though i can straight up promise you man to man (whatever thats worth) that we have no intention of operating that way

because again, we’d love to work with you guys if that’s in the cards for us

Bambosh 10:39 PM

That would be excellent if you can make it happen

miles 10:39 PM

i can totally talk to andrew about it

At our request, we had this line struck from the participation waiver, since the purpose of the NDA in the first place was to allow us to discuss project plans together, and once a basic goal was established a sensible license could be drawn up around that. Even though what was struck was the absurd “blank check” clause — where they commit you to follow a separate document you’re not allowed to read first — they still grumbled about making this exception.

There’s a lot more wrong here, but a full analysis of the release document is outside the scope of this story.

We also get an early description of the union here which matches the description the HICU would later give itself:

October 02, 2023, Bambosh, miles

GiovanH 10:22 PM

also, is the Union the same as the Group, or is there a managment layer? I wasn’t clear on that from the doc

miles 10:22 PM

so to get colloquial about it, the Union is basically like

the collective of Homestuck Contributors

…

miles 10:22 PM

if it helps, think of the HICU as an actual union.

Beyond Canon, About About the Homestuck Independent Creative Union
The Homestuck Independent Creative Union (HICU) is a union of creative contributors which was established to consolidate members of future Homestuck Projects, beginning with the launch of Homestuck: Beyond Canon.
The HICU is a totally independent entity from Andrew, What Pumpkin, VIZ Media, or any other corporate interest. Andrew has given the union a free license, so they may legally work within the full Homestuck universe and monetize their efforts to support the members. The union is both creatively and financially independent, and no outside individuals or companies are receiving any royalties or payments. Only the members benefit, and income will be distributed among members as equitably as possible.
Andrew is not creatively involved with these projects in any direct way, but remains available to the union for consultation at their request.

First, they’re calling themselves a union of creatives. Although not a formal labor union, they’re committing to act like a labor union: “an organization of workers formed for the purpose of serving the members’ interests with respect to wages and working conditions.” The HICU is bound to represent the interests of its members, not Homestuck’s. They immediately establish that they’re entirely separate and distinct from any existing structures — including Andrew Hussie. Separate entities, separate responsibilities, separate interests. We’re supposed to treat the union like a union.

If you’re paying close attention, you’ll notice another problem here: why is Andrew involved in Union business? If the Union is really independent of Homestuck and Andrew, why is Andrew intimately involved in the basic process of onboarding people to the union? That’s an immediate conflict of interest.

In fact, why is Andrew involved in any business related to Homestuck at all? What Pumpkin announced not only that Andrew left What Pumpkin in 2020, but that they chose to “fully discontinue their creative involvement in any future Homestuck projects”.

It will turn out later that these labels — “What Pumpkin”, “Homestuck, Inc.”, “The Silence Mill”, “the Homestuck Independent Creative Union” — they’re all a shell game. The HICU isn’t at all what it says it is; Miles misrepresenting the union from day one, and the union itself continued lying about their independence on their webpage for years. The HICU label was being used by Andrew whenever he wanted to get goodwill by masking his involvement. But that’s another story.

Commentary contribution

Part of the sell here is Homestuck making the pitch that working with them would allow us to do genuinely useful things. What kinds of things was Homestuck looking to contribute, besides official support? I was always keeping in mind the possibility of using the UHC, or a version of the UHC, to replace or supplement the Homestuck website.

But one of the first things Homestuck pitched to entice us was this: it turns out the rest of the Homestuck commentary is finished, and it’s just been locked in a vault. This is the commentary they already committed to releasing as part of the book collection they and Viz announced and failed to complete.

October 02, 2023, Bambosh, miles

…

miles 10:03 PM

but as regards the collection, one of the things i think is okay to let you guys know is that andrew thinks itd be cool to get the last of his author’s commentary in the collection

which would actually be Exclusive to the collection!

GiovanH 10:04 PM

Oh, that would be very cool. I wasn’t sure if that had been written, actually

miles 10:04 PM

heh they totally have

and because viz isn’t really doing the books anymore, the collection seems like it might be the best of all possible homes for them

but there are some other ideas andrew is playing with that could crystallize as we work together with you guys and the Collection

This is a dynamic I’ve seen before: creators providing access and approval as compensation to fans. This is sometimes — but not always — suspect. I’m reminded of Nintendo’s “subtle hint of interest in collaboration” used to arrest Homebrew developers, and Valve offering a hacker a fake job just to arrest them.. But there’s also Sonic Mania. Christian Whitehead wasn’t compensated for his work in “commentary”, but I’m sure he saw access as a perk.

This is a pattern with Andrew in particular. He curates this image of himself as “the guy with answers” and creates excitement by doling out lore. Now, Andrew is not a sacred figure, and his words are not so valuable that they need to be captured. Even when it comes to Homestuck, according to his own philosophy. But this commentary, like the rest of the comic, would have been valuable to fans, and so it was a reason for us to continue and expect a collaboration with mutual benefit.

The HICU NDA Deadlock – October-June 2023

The basic schedule is this: Bambosh signs the HICU waiver and onboards with Andrew, then I do the same, then we start discussing plans properly. We still haven’t even discussed what they want to do in any detail, since that’s a project they want covered by NDA. So the NDA has to come first for both of us before we can start discussing ideas at all, let alone make any commitments.

Bambosh gets his agreement signed but Andrew is on vacation, so it’ll be a while before there’s further progress. (There is an “Andrew vacation” between most of the pauses in this timeline; I’ll try to omit them.)

October 02, 2023

miles 11:07 PM

so when the time comes, we’re gonna basically wait for you to sign the NDA (we’ll get another draft to you before then and ofc no need to sign until we’ve agreed on the form that’s gonna take), then we’re going to chat with bambosh, then we’re gonna chat with gio, and then probably after that we’re all gonna chat as a foursome

…

miles 11:16 PM

yeah no worries, again we’re here chatting now because i wanna get the ball rolling on how you guys are feeling

but yeah at that point its gonna be the sign -> chat pipeline, and beyond that theres nothing more we really wanna do

…

October 04, 2023

GiovanH 09:51 AM

@miles based on what you’ve said I’m assuming you’ll have an NDA for me roughly immediately after bambosh signs his?

miles 11:29 AM

hey! yeah that’s pretty much the game plan, bambosh signs and we pop an NDA to you afterwards, we have our conversations etc and from there we can talk shop

…

October 05, 2023

…

Bambosh 09:11 PM

Alright, signed on my end

Bambosh 09:11 PM

Time to chill for a few weeks

Crucially, from this point on, I am cut out of any discussions Miles, Bambosh, and Andrew have behind closed doors, because they claim every aspect of conversation is covered by the NDA.

…

miles 04:53 PM

yeah there are probably more talks to come before you guys explicitly are under license

about things such as this, the direction the UHC (or, perhaps, the HC) would go

GiovanH 04:56 PM

I have quite a few licensing thoughts but I assume those will have to wait until NDA’d

miles 04:56 PM

definitely LOL

…

GiovanH 04:57 PM

yeah it’s weird trying to make plans when we’re disjointed

the HC

no don’t you’ll break everything

where am I gonna put the star

miles 04:58 PM

at any rate ill get to andrew about getting you the NDA to sign so we can chat as a fearsome foursome

Beyond Canon

Just a few days after this (while Andrew was still on vacation), the Beyond Canon reboot announcement and new site went live.

Miles himself would shortly after be confirmed to be a writer on HS:BC himself:

Meet the Team — Posted on 25 October 2023 by James What can I say about Miles? Miles has known Andrew and I for years, and has such a natural and charismatic charm to him. I knew him largely as a comedy writer before this but seeing him pour himself into worldbuilding and plot mapping has really inspired me. Miles brings an important element to the team, in that he’s kind of a bro. The kind of guy that could probably best some kind of beast in singular combat. His favorite guys are Equius and Dirk. You really need that kind of energy sometimes. Miles’s writing is so full of character and charm. I’m excited for you all to see what he has to offer. I personally think this project could not exist without him.

NDA Deadlock

This is when we get the first major stall to the project, and it’s caused by Miles and Andrew trying to pull another fast one with licensing.

Now that Andrew has Bambosh behind closed doors, instead of moving on to the next step of giving me an NDA to sign and onboarding me, they cut me off entirely and start putting pressure on Bambosh to write them a blank check. At this point, the NDA makes it impossible for us to coordinate and communicate, so it serves here to isolate and corner a victim who is unable to communicate the aggression to the outside world. I keep asking to also be allowed to sign the same NDA, but am always rebuffed.

November 07, 2023

GiovanH 04:47 PM

speaking of which, any paperwork updates for me yet?

i know you were doing it staggered

miles 04:48 PM

yeah i think we may or may not be doing one more meeting with bambosh, who has some paperwork of his own to look through, before we move forward

…

GiovanH 04:50 PM

If that’s uhc-related paperwork that’s usually something I deal with and/or w/ bambosh, fyi

Bambosh 04:51 PM

Yeah, that’s kinda where the discussions gonna go when I get back from lawyer stuff

GiovanH 04:51 PM

<- fake internet lawyer

Bambosh 04:52 PM

Like, even if the paperwork is good I can’t sign anything if I can’t even talk it over with this guy here

GiovanH 04:52 PM

heyo

but yes definitely talk with real lawyers too

miles 04:53 PM

yeah we wanted to give you a chance to go to like, an actual legal expert, who will be able to assure you that this license is legit LOL

We already knew the NDA clause in the waiver was extremely broad, but we didn’t know if the intent was to protect peoples’ privacy as we were told, or if the plan was to weaponize it. We now know the purpose of the NDA was to be weaponized because that’s how Andrew immediately used it.

With this trap set up, Andrew tries to get Bambosh to sign more paperwork and commit the project to a new, secret set of terms under a new previously-undiscussed license. This is an intentional violation of the previously proposed schedule — Bambosh is only supposed to be doing a nominal interview here, not getting pressured to agree to a new set of terms. Instead they’re demanding a blank check before we even sit down to talk ideas. Basic divide-and-conquer.

The manipulation and pressuring comes in a number of forms: social pressures, pointing out the possibility of Viz Media going after unlicensed work, and ultimately making their own direct legal threats.

The line became that Bambosh had to sign a license before anything could continue. This is obviously untrue, not only because they just finished saying the opposite thing, but because the licensing details are heavily dependent on what the project is, which was yet to even be discussed. This time is not being used to try to continue project discussions without me or otherwise nudge me out of the project, Andrew is just blatantly trying to seize power via contract, and I’m being kept out to keep up the pressure and deny Bambosh any defense.

It seems like Andrew was under the impression they could exploit Bambosh as a single point of failure who could be pressured into giving up the project. But that didn’t work, and not just because Bambosh isn’t a fool, but because that’s simply not how the project is structured. Since we’re co-owners, this can’t happen. Neither of us can make any major decisions about the project without consulting with each other. We designed it that way on purpose. Bambosh cannot legally sign anything without showing the paperwork to me, which Andrew insists the NDA prevents him from doing. There is no play here; neither of us could consent to any policy changes without the consent of the other, and a unilateral change in ownership was literally impossible.

So for an extended period of time Andrew and Miles don’t allow me to review the mysterious new documents Andrew is demanding Bambosh sign, and Bambosh can’t sign them until I can review them. All progress is stonewalled by Hussie. By breaking procedure and trying to bully their way into power, Andrew has deadlocked the project.

Baring Fangs

During this wheel-spinning, Homestuck ramps up the pressure.

November 15, 2023

…

miles 06:16 PM

HEY. sorry im finishing up some work shit and i just today got back from vacation so ive been catching up

basically insofar as working with you guys on this goes, nothing has changed. we’re still amenable to your involvement on this, gio, and although i’ve seen the tone get sort of Legalesey i wanna emphasize that we’d still vastly prefer working with the UHC to any sort of takedown bullshit

that’s not at all what we want to happen

This is a huge shift and represents Homestuck completely backtracking on every assurance they’ve given up to this point. Suddenly my involvement is something they’re still “amenable” to, not something taken as a given. But most importantly Homestuck has started brandishing legal threats as a weapon. They have gone directly from “it’s your baby, we don’t wanna do anything you arent comfortable with” to “you can either do work under whatever conditions we dictate or we’ll personally attack you.” From “I’d never hurt you” to “don’t make me hurt you.” This is a clear threat: this is no longer about forging a collaborative relationship, they’ve started waving around a loaded gun.

Reality distortion as manipulation

But also pay attention to how this complete reversal of their position is presented explicitly as “nothing has changed”, even though this is obviously false. This gaslighting is part of the psychological manipulation I’ve come to realize is a weapon Homestuck considers to be one of its most vital tools.

Homestuck chooses to work with people who are dependent on its good graces whenever it can orchestrate such a situation. This can come from hero worship, financial dependence, or threats of legal violence. But this “upper hand” Homestuck maintains allows it to get away with these constant reality distortions, even in cases like this where it’s put everything in writing. If the victim calls them out on the lie Homestuck is able to reverse victim and attacker and treat the objection as an aggression being made against Homestuck. And in almost all cases, Homestuck has set up legal traps that make describing the lie to anyone else an offense in and of itself.

So Homestuck has gotten used to being able to distort reality like this whenever they want. It makes trying to seriously talk with Homestuck a truly absurd affair because they’ll simply demand people accept false histories of things that just happened. Miles is able to transition seamlessly from “ofc no need to sign until we’ve agreed on the form that’s gonna take” to “we aren’t going to be getting any of this work done without you guys being under license”.

“Don’t make me hurt you”

Meanwhile, Andrew has their lawyer load a cease-and-desist into the chamber so they can frame himself as “delaying” it — as if the lawyer is some uncontrollable attack dog they’re holding back, rather than a professional they’re actively paying to carry out his wishes. This is obviously false, and when I told my lawyer who I’d had to hire about it he laughed out loud. Lawyers don’t randomly go around C&Ding people on instinct. Those hours are billable — if the lawyer is priming a C&D, it’s because of their client’s wishes to fire it at someone.

My understanding is that Andrew’s lawyer is thought well of in his industry and has a reputation for being reasonable. He is not independently aggressive, he’s acting here on the direct instruction of his client.

This is an argument Homestuck makes a few times throughout this process: “We don’t want to sue you, but unless you agree to [arbitrary demand] we will have to.” It’s a threat, but it comes in this extremely manipulative wrapper.

It’s a familiar move in high-stakes legal brinkmanship: “We don’t want to go to court, but unless you agree to [arbitrary demand], we’ll have no choice.” It’s not a casual remark; it’s calculated to box the other side in. The harm is positioned as inevitable unless you concede immediately, and the blame for escalation is shifted entirely onto you.

…

miles 06:18 PM

the caveat being that from the getgo there has been a point that we need you guys to understand, which is that we aren’t going to be getting any of this work done without you guys being under license. it’s just not going to happen

bambosh needs time to check with a lawyer and so we’re amenable to giving that time, and again i think andrew is As We Speak instructing his lawyer to get the C&D delayed a while, but the problem is that we’ve seen very little from your end that indicates you guys Are, In Fact, Working With A Lawyer, and it’d be really helpful for us to, yknow… talk to that guy

so we can get this movin

The rhetorical trick here is to paint the threat as reluctant — we really don’t want to do this, but you’re leaving us no choice. The damage becomes your fault for “forcing” their hand, even though the escalation was always part of the plan. It’s a professional version of “Don’t make me hurt you,” played out in legalese and email threads instead of raised voices.

Wheel spinning

I’ve pointed out the deadlock problem before, and as nicely as possible I point it out again here.

…

miles 06:20 PM

are there problems with the lawyer on your end?

GiovanH 06:20 PM

I’m happy to review a license, and I actually have some constructive ideas along those lines of my own, but as long as I’m still locked out we Can’t Do Anything.

You’re saying you’re already working with C&Ds even though you know we can’t sign any license yet?

I literally cannot even review one.

I’m sure Bambosh has already explained this, but the way the project is structured, nothing can happen until we’re both involved in the decision-making process. Anything else is gridlocked.

miles 06:21 PM

no, i’m saying that we’re DELAYING a C&D that we have no intention of following through with because again, We Want To Work With You Guys. andrews lawyer has it on the table because thats how lawyers operate⁸, but andrew is, again probably Literally as we speak, instructing the lawyer to back off on that

as for your involvement, running the project as a twosome, we get it and as im just now getting back we can look into getting you under NDA so you can mutually look over the license

Just a few sentences later Miles jumps right back to “oh, no, you’re right, the next thing that has to happen is for us to offer you an NDA”, which exactly disproves his original threat. But those are the words he has to say, so he says them regardless.

At the same time the line is that Andrew is supposedly “delaying” legal action, but in reality it’s their decision to initiate it in the first place. It’s obviously deeply manipulative for Homestuck to talk about a C&D like this. It went seamlessly from an impossibility to something on the table. And even after loading the gun themselves and threatening to fire it they’re acting as if their lawyer is some wild beast Andrew is trying to rein in and not a professional they are actively paying to be their agent. Andrew is the one threatening to initiate legal hostilities against us if we don’t write them a blank check. Literally, they’re asking us to sign an agreement we can’t read.

There also is no “our” lawyer; Andrew has made it extremely clear I’m not to be involved in this stage, let alone legally. Again, legally Bambosh can’t tell me why talking with Andrew’s lawyer has made him suddenly have to get counsel to review documents they’re demanding he sign before we proceed, but what’s happening is that they’re pressuring him to sign some kind of hostile license. I’m only being included in the above thread so there’s an extra person to threaten; Miles knows perfectly well Homestuck tied my hands themselves.

This predictably spins in circles — without me ever being offered that NDA, of course — for a while until Andrew finally does send us a C&D, still keeping me out of the conversation.

James and Beyond Canon Teasers – Jan-Feb 2023

James Roach was ostensibly leading the HICU, and his name was on the paperwork, but we still hadn’t talked about the UHC project. But apparently he was still optimistic about the project, judging by him teasing it in some newsposts:

Beyond Canon Newspost, posted on 1 January 2024 by James …
Speaking of updates on things… some of you sleuths may have noticed some changes. I’d like to go into a little more detail about them to the extent that I am able. I also wanted to do this in an official newspost, and not on socials etc, so that there is no question about it.

The contract with VIZ media has been restructured. What does this mean? Well, let’s start a little further back. We have gotten a lot of questions about Andrew’s involvement with HS:BC and Homestuck as a whole. I mentioned before that Andrew approached me to finish HS:BC. As many of you know a few years ago Andrew stepped back from having a creative role. This has allowed him to focus on oversight, and some behind-the-scenes stuff. A large part of that was regaining a sort of legal control of the brand as a whole.

So who “Owns Homestuck?” Well Andrew still does. Who has the publishing rights? We’re working on that! The HICU has a license to do what we want with the property, which is what has allowed us to do some of the more creative things we are trying to do. Is the Website going to be fixed? They’re working on that! I have very little to do with that, personally, but once there is something solid to announce there and the concerned parties are comfortable with it I’ll let you know. What does this mean for the commentaries? Behind the scenes, some ideas about how to handle the issues with the way Homestuck is going to be published are being discussed. Some of these ideas may include a new way to release the future book commentary in absence of the books themselves. Wow!
…

Hey, that’s us! Is the goal to use the Collection to fix up the Homestuck website? Who knows, maybe. James refers here to the Viz changes that allowed Andrew to involve themself in this project. And hey, there’s the commentary mentioned again.

Beyond Canon Newspost, posted on 2 February 2024 by James Hi, James Here. Another Month, Another Post. That is the way of the world sometimes. Not much to report this month, I don’t think? Andrew offered some new HICU licenses, but the one I was most excited to announce is still… being worked on? Some sort of legal situation being hammered out. Booooooooring. I used 8 o’s there for fun. I hope you liked it.
…

Always nice to be appreciated.

I hadn’t yet spoken to James about any of this before, which always struck me as odd. He was the one leading the HICU team, he was the one responsible for the project as a whole, his signature was on all the paperwork.

February 06, 2024, James

James 10:52 PM

hows the stuff with the uhhh

collection going?

i was looking forward to tellin the community about that i think a lot of people will be real excited

GiovanH 10:53 PM

I saw your newspost

James 10:53 PM

i dont really like, ask about how things are going if they dont directly involve me LMAO

GiovanH 10:53 PM

yeah

I’m assuming you’re not familiar with the details then but right now from what I’ve been told things are locked up with lawyers for some reason

James 10:54 PM

aint that just the way

well, itll sort itself out

…

GiovanH 10:55 PM

my understanding is there’s not much that can happen until I sign an NDA (which makes total sense) but they haven’t sent me one yet, so we’re stuck at the moment

James had some high-level knowledge that things were in talks but I don’t get the sense that he knew any the details or how things had turned sour. Of everyone involved, it seems like he should be the most motivated to make sure this was working well.

Andrew chases off Bambosh – May-June 2024

Eventually Andrew’s unfulfillable demands on Bambosh pass the breaking point as Andrew just directly starts threatening imminent legal action.

May 07, 2024, Bambosh, miles

miles 08:10 PM

hey guys, not super happy i have to reach out like this but its looking like this is where this needs to go. i wanna preface this by saying that im not really interested in opening up a discussion tonight, so id like you to read this message and just think on what it is we have to say before you guys respond. we can talk more in the coming days if you want, but everything that needs to be said vis-a-vis our point of view is going to be said now.

andrew, HS legal counsel, and i all feel that your lawyer is essentially just stalling around and we’ve been making absolutely no meaningful progress, which honestly feels like a tactic you guys are playing at while you try to work something else out. communication is way, way too sparse to get anything productive done, we haven’t heard anything at all from your lawyer in three weeks (all while andrew’s lawyer has been pinging him weekly and getting ghosted more often than not throughout this entire process) and we’re getting fed up with it.

at this point we’re interested in only 3 courses of action from you which are essentially non-negotiable and need to happen within about a week:
1: you get your lawyer to get back in touch with us seriously in a way that actually leads to anything getting done.
2: you sign the current version of the license as drawn up and presented by andrew’s lawyer.
3: if you don’t do either of the above, we start moving to issue a strike against the UHC, take it down, and replace it with a similar tool of our own design.

we’d rather things didn’t have to go the option 3 route at all, but we feel that you guys have made a process that should honestly have been fairly simple an extremely drawn out affair, eating up over half a year of time we could have been collaborating productively. all things considered, the offers we already made in terms of keeping you guys on the project, onboarding you to work with HS and the HICU, licensing you, and PAYING you have been extremely, extremely generous considering you’ve been publishing a giant hoard of almost the entirety of andrew’s body of work with no permission whatsoever, to say nothing of gio’s harmful behavior towards the hiveswap team that andrew was nonetheless fully willing to look past. we all sort of danced around this as you two were consistently trying to pull gio into talks before we were comfortable, but it’s something we all knew, and to be clear it is something we are going to expect gio to own up to and make amends on if we’re going to continue working together.

honestly speaking, andrew’s lawyers actually advised us before we even reached out to you initially to not even bother with any of this, copyright strike it, and be done with it. instead, andrew wanted, and still wants, to reach out and do something with you guys.

considering all of the above, however, and the way all our offers were essentially met with stalling and a lack of willingness to commit or to even have your lawyer communicate with ours in a timely manner, this is essentially the last chance we are willing to give you guys. in the event that you two decide not to play ball here, it’s looking highly likely that we’re just going to have to make moves to quickly copyright strike the UHC, remove it, and replace it with a tool of our own design. it’ll be inconvenient to have to do this, and the fans are going to be upset because the tool is great, but we can whip up a new one pretty easily if we need to.

we would still rather just work with you and the tool that already exists. that said, we are at the point where we feel like you are either not taking this seriously, or angling to leverage this in a way that we find unacceptable. we have given you two ample time, opportunity, and consideration, and we feel like you’ve returned that courtesy with a lack of effort to our faces and what we are starting to assume, as mentioned previously, is some attempt to spin this in a way that is advantageous for you.

i need to be clear here: there is no such spin. i mentioned before that if we have to take this down, we know that fans of homestuck and of your tool are going to be upset, but if that has to come to pass, we aren’t going to be shy about explaining to the fandom at large why it is we weren’t able to work together, and we are going to work as quickly as we can to provide them with a replacement ourselves. the long and short of it is that we reached out in good faith to you guys, offered you a license, and you sat on it for eight months.

we aren’t interested in dragging out this preliminary phase any longer. read this again, think on it, and please do get back to us soon.

The accusations here are all nonsense, of course. It’s a description of what reality would have to be for them to be in the right, presented as if the fiction were a given. There is still no “our” lawyer; Bambosh’s personal legal representation explained to them he wasn’t able to unilaterally sign a document in secret and Andrew simply refused to hear it. I was certainly not privy to any discussion about any money flowing any direction except from us to Andrew. It’s not true that they ever offered “us” anything. And once again, Andrew is trying to “good cop, bad cop” themself by claiming they’re against all the legal proceedings they’ve started and that they aren’t making the threats they’re making. Saying at the end that they’re acting in “good faith” is demonstrably false.

They keep trying to complain about delays even though the project has been held up by them at every stage. We didn’t need an NDA to talk about the project in the first place, that’s something they chose to demand! There was clearly no NDA required for The Unofficial Homestuck Collection to operate well and collaborate with other talent, as evidenced by the fact that we’d already been doing it successfully for years. Almost every delay has been (and will be) from something expensive they tried to impose.

Most importantly, the reason no progress has been made and license has been signed is neither Bambosh or I can unilaterally sign a license without the other, something we’ve repeatedly explained and Miles had acknowledged. Communication is sparse because they forced it to be! In the same breath he complains about insufficient communication Miles manages to also complain about our making them “uncomfortable” by trying to talk, presenting communicating as an offense. We have only ever tried to work toward cooperation while they tried to put leverage on us, and yet Homestuck tries to spin it as us leveraging them.

Importantly, we get legal action followed by replacing it “with a similar tool of our own design” presented, explicitly, as a threat. As presented, the primary purpose of a future “official collection” without our involvement would be a punishment to spite the UHC, not to serve as a real tool.

And on top of all that Homestuck is trying to redefine its relationship with me yet again. Now they were never willing to work together unless I made “amends” for some ambiguous harmful behavior no one has ever been able to specify.

I wouldn’t bother to let myself slow down to refute obvious falsehoods except that it’s important to show how Miles and Andrew slide seamlessly into threats and ultimatums. Nothing he’s saying is true and he’s just forcing his way through it. There is a complete disinterest in integrity; it’s dismissively thrown to the side in order to pursue threats and bully tactics.

The net result of all this was that Andrew Hussie’s behavior was so egregiously bad it chased Bambosh off his own project. Andrew isolated Bambosh and subjected him to intense bullying and pressure tactics, and it was disturbing to see even from the outside. So, for legal purposes, Bambosh disconnected himself from the UHC project on June 18, just before Andrew could Actually Sue Him. This left me fully responsible to handle things from there.

June 18, 2024

Bambosh

Okay, here’s my response:

I developed this project out of a love for Homestuck. I put everything I had into it, to create the version of Homestuck I wanted to exist. This project was for me above anyone else, and the fact that it resonated with the larger community was always less important to me than the fact that I enjoyed developing it. Once I released the 1.1 version, I was pretty much spent - I’d put everything I had into the project, and wanted to move on. The only thing keeping me attached to the project so far has been Gio’s involvement. If he hadn’t stepped in, it would have been stagnant since 2020. He has contributed every single piece of code to the project since the V1.1 release, and written more code in total for the project than I did. Discarding all external context, I personally owe him a great deal for doing a massive amount of unpaid work for my project.⁹ This is why I’ve been hesitant to proceed without him. After everything he’s done for me, I believed it was the right thing to do to figure out what his place would be in the project before proceeding.

You’ve claimed this to be a good faith outreach, and I was genuinely exited to join in.

[Redacted: Conversation regarding particular interactions]

Every time I’ve tried to talk like a reasonable human being, you’ve shot it down. Every interaction we’ve had has been a thinly veiled threat legal threat towards me. I should think the fact that I’ve been spending my limited personal funds on a lawyer to engage with you on your terms would be enough to demonstrate that I really really wanted to make this work, but apparently not.

I developed this project out of a love for Homestuck. And thanks to this entire negotiation, that love does not exist anymore. Frankly, every time I think about the shit you’ve tried to pull over me in this negotiation, I feel physically ill. I cannot imagine a world in which I sign this contract and can just resume business as usual. The moment has passed. You’ve beaten the motivation out of me.

So, you’re getting what you want. I’m taking the project down, and abdicating all responsibility for it. I don’t want anything to do with it anymore. You guys can just make your own version. I wish you the best of luck. Don’t contact me again.

Gio Era – 2024-2025

So I became the primary maintainer of the project.

If I were sensible I would have stopped there. Andrew and Miles had already been caught in enough lies that it was obvious that they weren’t willing to engage in good faith, especially with me. The Unofficial Homestuck Collection doesn’t support me financially in any way, so to keep trying to work with these people meant taking on legal and financial risk with no real possibility of reward. Best case scenario, I would continue to do valuable work for the Homestuck brand for free.

If they had been working with someone without my tough skin, their behavior would have blown this up already. In fact, they were working with someone without my extraordinary patience previously, and they did in fact just blow that up, so it’s not a hypothetical. Andrew had burned through their best shot, but I could still manufacture one last chance for them to be reasonable, just once, for their own good.

But I gave it one more shot. I decide that I’m going to be as amenable as anyone possibly could be, and if they turned nasty again, it’d be them turning nasty again. And at the very least I’d get to see them do it. I decided to play it out. If they were going to attack us I wouldn’t be able to stop them, but I determined the project wouldn’t collapse because I didn’t want to do the legwork.

Making nice to me

What happens next is fascinating: they reset the board and try to run the cycle a second time.

June 18, 2024, miles

miles 09:55 PM

hey man, do you have some time to chat?

…

GiovanH 10:22 PM

Obviously you know Bambosh dropped out, and I wasn’t privy to the details on exactly why that happened, but I’m still amenable to talk

That’s just where I’m at right now

…

miles 10:22 PM

so, to sum up whats happened, andrew decided today that he wanted bambosh to sign the license.

…

miles 10:22 PM

and hes frustrated, and unfortunately the result of our conversation with bambosh tonight was that bambosh said he wants to wash his hands of all this and he torched the UHC off github, took it down, etc

GiovanH 10:26 PM

So, to be clear, he dropped off the project and left the codebase to me. everything still exists but I’m leaving it down temporarily while we sort things out

miles 10:26 PM

okay, thats excellent to hear.

…

miles 10:27 PM

like again i want to be one hundred percent real with you here, it sucks that the UHC is down right now for the fans, but it also sucks to me on like… a personal level, insofar as i NEVER ever ever wanted bambosh or you to feel like we were trying to punish or be assholes about this.

GiovanH 10:28 PM

I know the communication has been nightmarish

miles 10:28 PM

the fact that this might have really hurt bambosh’s feelings sucks. i think hes a good guy and we value his love for homestuck.

…

miles 10:36 PM

yeah..

anyway

like, last on this before we move on to a little business

i just want him to know that, i guess.

andrew has been frustrated, we’ve had to move in very official, stern, and sometimes cold ways, and i want him to understand that like… real people behind this do not want him to feel fucked up about this, and do not want him to feel like… forced out

For my part I explain the picking up of the pieces, which Homestuck didn’t seem to understand. Namely, we transferred mantainership of the project.

Also as soon as Bambosh was out of the picture, Miles immediately rubberbands back to fawning. We’re so sorry if he felt stressed, we didn’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings, etc. He even goes so far as to say “we’ve had to be cold” here. Nobody “had” to be anything; Andrew left the project alone for years, then they decided they wanted it and started throwing punches. The obviously neutral stance would be to simply stop making demands, but Andrew always goes out of their way to pretend that isn’t a possibility. I know the concern for Bambosh isn’t true, I see the attempt at manipulation, it’s gross.

Putting out the fire

I start explaining my basic position, and Miles rubberbands back from knee-breaker to once again being a fun little guy.

…

GiovanH 10:29 PM

Also, while we’re being frank

miles 10:29 PM

of course!

GiovanH 10:31 PM

I think that, pragmatically, it’s not actually to my advantage to try to keep engaging constructively here, because I’m going in blind and there are already hurt feelings and takedown threats sitting around

like, there are already takedown threats in the other thread, and I’m signing up to be the fall guy here

miles 10:31 PM

so let’s talk about that a little

GiovanH 10:32 PM

BUT I still see a win-win here that I’d actually really like to see happen

so I’m choosing to take the riskier path here instead of just closing up shop

miles 10:33 PM

i appreciate that

so like

lemme get into logistics a bit, but before i do that i do wanna emphasize one more time that like

idk how else to say this so im just gonna speak as Me, and not as like a representative of anything,

████████

…

miles

so, to segue from personal to business.

GiovanH 10:40 PM

I have some basic ideas for next steps but I’ll let you go first

miles 10:40 PM

whats happening right now is that obv the UHC is down. im REALLY, really happy that bambosh didnt just torch everything, because its a fucking cool tool and we always wanted to work with it.

GiovanH 10:40 PM

My current plan is for it to not go away if possible

miles 10:40 PM

great. that’s ours as well

Great! They want the collection to keep existing for sure. This has been the most consistent part of their position all along. They love the thing! But things get real weird real quick, because Homestuck just can’t help itself.

…

miles 10:40 PM

now, whats gonna happen is that as of right now, andrew IS invoking copyright strike to keep the UHC down, even though we didnt want it offline today if we could help it. what id like you to understand up front though is that andrew making that move legally and officially does NOT mean he wants it down forever, he and i are of one mind that we’d rather keep working with it

so what’s going to happen now is that tomorrow, andrew’s lawyers are gonna get in touch with you. do you have legal representation yet?

GiovanH 10:43 PM

So issuing a C&D before we even talk definitely seems like a step in the wrong direction

And yes.

miles 10:44 PM

great. lemme talk to andrew about the C&D because i kind of agree, but what he chooses to do with that is ultimately up to him and i have no say in his final call, nor what his legal team wants to do. BUT, i want to be one hundred percent clear here: what we want to do is start working out the process of getting the UHC back up, get you licensed, maybe bambosh as well if hes open to coming back, and get things moving again.

GiovanH 10:44 PM

Like, making legal demands is a really hostile move, not something you do automatically just to do it

I don’t know that I can just coexist with that

miles 10:45 PM

so lemme talk to andrew tonight to see where he lands on that.

but let me be clear on this because i keep getting distracted making other points.

GiovanH 10:46 PM

I’m good to move forward cooperatively as long as nobody starts launching attacks, but if that happens that is a big deal

miles 10:47 PM

so like, we’re still open to working with you specifically, this CD thing was in place before any of us were aware if youd want to work with us

so we can come to a conclusion on that as soon as tonight

but yeah, if bambosh is out, hes out. if he wants to come back wed be happy to have him because again, its important he know that we actually straight up do value him, but if he wants to wash his hands of this its regrettable but understandable.

…

miles 10:47 PM

but already it looks like i think andrew is amenable to keeping a C+D/copyright strike off the record for now

which is great. i agree that if we’re just gonna be working together theres really no need to go right to that

if youd like i can ask him that in no uncertain terms RIGHT NOW?

…

GiovanH 10:55 PM

Basically my offer is that I’m still willing to go forward in good faith so long as we’re all friendly and no one is making legal threats

But, like, the threat of a lawsuit is a really big deal, and doesn’t just happen casually

So let’s do whatever we can to avoid that

Because if there is a real-deal cease and desist that I have to act on, I’ll have to act on it and cease and desist, and then I’ll have to explain what happened, and that’s the lose-lose-lose scenario

miles 10:57 PM

so i do understand that andrew is gonna want to work legally with a capital L with you on some kinda framework going forward if for no other reason than to address the past bad blood, but i just talked to him about the C+D and he’s agreed there is no reason to do a copyright strike if you’re willing to move forward with us, sign an NDA, and work on getting licensed.

to be clear, andrew is fine dropping the C+D for now

GiovanH 10:57 PM

👍

miles 10:57 PM

which is good!

obviously LOL

again, we arent trying to do threats, as you said. its a dumb waste of everyones time. we just want to get set up in a way andrew is comfortable with, get you under license, and move this thing forward

If you’re thinking it’s bizarre for someone to say they’re glad they’re working with you but also want to immediately threaten a lawsuit, it’s because you’re right. This is the main recurring theme again: Andrew continually trying to get me legally on a leash while I force a smile and politely yet firmly refuse to collar myself.

The cease and desist here is the one they were about to attack Bambosh with. I almost didn’t catch it, but Miles drops that “this CD thing was in place before any of us were aware if youd want to work with us,” verifying that this whole friendly collab approach was a lie from the very beginning. I have to spell out that the collaborative partnership they insist they still want is incompatible with them exerting legal force. This is extremely basic, and I don’t really believe anyone involved didn’t understand that starting off with a C&D was an uncalled for form of legal violence.

My consistent position

OK, but what am I thinking here? Given how antagonistic and aggressive Andrew has already been, why am I playing this through instead of just letting Andrew very publicly dig their own grave, as they keep threatening to do? It’s still the same scorpion-and-the-frog dynamic, except we’re already down a frog and Homestuck’s stinger is already being brandished again. Homestuck isn’t going to be nice to Gio — is he stupid? Maybe.

If I act like a glutton for punishment that’s partially because my goal really was to work together and produce something cool and valuable, not to get some cheap-shot drama points. Even if Andrew had a tantrum they wanted to throw, maybe James would be there to put a hand on their shoulder. Heck, maybe once Andrew’s lawyer is in the room he’ll be the responsible one to temper Andrew with sound legal advice.

But I knew if they were going to blow it up, they were going to blow it up. I was not going to allow anyone any leeway to claim that somehow I was too demanding. I’m keeping everything scoped strictly to the collection project because that’s what was agreed on and that’s what allows us to work in the first place. Above all I’m going to be professional.

I still find myself trying to make excuses for Andrew. They’re Andrew! They are the god king of fiction. I know because they wrote themselves that way. Part of why I let this stretch on for as long as I did to my own detriment was to really definitively prove it to myself, that this wasn’t just in my head. I am a scientist and that means evidence before conclusion¹⁰, and every blow I took was evidence.

If I were trying to farm offense I’d have had them dead to rights since the first takedown threat, but that’s never been me; I really did want to see them do this right if they possibly could. In stark contrast to Andrew I have no threats to make and no special pressure I can put on them.

So that’s the implicit experiment behind this: if I gave Homestuck every measure of grace anyone could give, would that be enough? Or was Homestuck fully radioactive?

Back to work – June-July 2024

So, with a pointless C&D off the table for now, we talked about how we could productively move things forward. Homestuck went back to lovey-dovey.

GiovanH 10:59 PM

to talk shop for a sec, I see basically two separate projects here: licensing the collection so it’s not a risk is one, and then whatever further collaboration (i.e. official version or website work) is another

miles 10:59 PM

and, preferably, get the UHC up ASAP

we can talk the deets of that going forward!

…

miles 11:02 PM

like.... after the NDA, getting the license up is literally first on our list. all other projects we do with ya would be happening under that framework

ok yeah so as i was saying

in summary!

a: andrew and lawyers will reach out to you and lawyers soon, to get started on talking about the terms under which we’d like to work together

b: once those terms are set, which we really hope doesnt take too long for the reasons we’ve laid out already, the UHC will get licensed and become the OHC or something like that, we can play around with it

c: we settle a few new things as we figure out the Workflow Situation with the U/OHC and then begin new projects

bc again, we fuck with the tool mega heavily and are excited for new stuff to happen

Vitally, despite the threat of having lawyers send me a cease-and-desist order mere minutes ago, Homestuck made it overwhelmingly clear that they wanted me to continue to keep the collection up for now. I did too, of course, but getting explicit permission from Homestuck means they can’t turn around and threaten me of copyright infringement, because I was acting how they asked me to. So this was a step in the right direction.

GiovanH 11:11 PM

I’m still pondering whether the replacement is the best option but we’ll talk and do whatever makes sense. depends if he’s looking for something very different or basically the same

but that’s deets

miles 11:13 PM

for sure

in the immediate, we’d actually want to keep the UHC up or get it back up ASAP, if possible, because none of us want to punish the fans for this

…

miles 11:13 PM

NDA will be first step, then we can chat about getting you set up with the U/OHC to andrews satisfaction and talk about the details of that arrangement and then finally do some fucking cool shit

GiovanH 11:22 PM

And I will see about spinning up a mirror

miles 11:23 PM

alrighty, awesome

…

GiovanH 11:25 PM

Ok everything should be totally continuous now, just with name changes

I also want to avoid panic so long as nothing’s actually going wrong

miles 11:27 PM

yeah definitely

ok yeah getting it up again is fine for now, we’ll figure out its final zone later but itll be good to have it available for folks now

so, right now id prefer if there was minimal to no public communication on this besides whats absolutely necessary

…

GiovanH 11:31 PM

as far as I’m concerned all we’ve done is change the project maintainer

miles 11:31 PM

wonderful

GiovanH 11:33 PM

I 100% agree that having to announce at any point that we’re shutting down because we’ve had legal action taken against us is the Bad End and I’ll put in work to avoid that

as previously discussed

miles 11:34 PM

yep!

glad we’re of one mind on this

Miles is overwhelmingly clear about Homestuck’s position here: they want the collection to stay up, they want me hosting the website and the asset pack, and my doing that constitutes actively working with them. We also have a schedule now, which is the same schedule from before:

I sign an NDA
I work with Andrew to agree on a license, which Miles also refers to as “terms”
Happy collaboration forever

Different NDA signed June 27, 2024

When they finally sent me an NDA I signed it quickly. This confuses the narrative because it’s weird behavior on their part, but the mechanics are simple.

The reason I’m able to bring these details past this point to light is that the NDA they sent me next was not the HICU community release agreement that includes the overbroad NDA designed to stifle communication, but an entirely different standard mutual NDA suitable for protection of creative and technical data.

My NDA is properly scoped and covers a broad category of creative information I’m not allowed to discuss if Homestuck, Inc. shares it with me. I would not be able to leak you details I learned from the Beyond Canon writer’s room, for instance. But it does not generally silence me from talking about my experience, or prevent me from talking about information I had prior to the NDA. I was extremely careful about verifying this with my lawyer before signing, because I know about Andrew’s tendency to try to abuse NDAs.

I don’t know why they switched out the forms like this. Maybe it was to ensure I still couldn’t compare notes with Bambosh or other HICU members. Maybe it was to keep me at arms length from the rest of the HICU group. Maybe it was to further an ongoing campaign to try to estrange me from the larger fan community by preventing me from calling myself an HICU member. Maybe it was just to make sure nothing I signed committed them to treat me fairly. Whatever the reason, I was never going to agree to something that would tie my hands in the event of this kind of contingency that demands transparency into the proceedings, and I was careful to ensure I did not do so. So this, also, worked out.

As soon as they get my signature Andrew refuses to call me by my chosen name and instead uses my full legal name wherever they possibly can. Notably, they do not do this for Bambosh or anyone else. Apparently they’d been using my legal name with other people before I told them, meaning they’d been digging up info on my identity themself.

It’s a small, petty grossness. It comes off that as Andrew being pleased with themself that they have a socially-acceptable way to deny me one mote of dignity. It’s embarrassingly childish behavior. It’s truly incredible how this guy cares about bullying more than anything else.

NDA as Isolation

Andrew relies on social isolation tactics, especially coercing isolation by using threats of legal violence. This has been true before but it’s made especially evident in the UHC story by the NDA language.

A common tool for this is NDA agreements which are designed to be overbroad and punitive. They demand that association with Homestuck — including when they require you associate with them — be contingent on NDAs. These NDAs cover all conversations and things like “workplace conditions”. This is used to cut off lines of communication victims could use to report abuse or even discuss issues with their peers.

Quoting directly from the HICU contract (again, not one I signed, but one some people have),

The purpose of this agreement is to secure confidentiality among an extended network of people… By joining this Group, you are committing to respecting the fact that statements of other Group members have been made only under the mutual understanding that all correspondence among members is private. Signing this form is a legally binding indication that you agree with these conditions of mutual respect and discretion.

… While protecting the financial interests of the Union is not the primary purpose of this agreement, and protecting the privacy and safety among Union and Group members is the primary purpose, nevertheless, if you violate the terms of this agreement, [Homestuck] will seek maximum financial damages, both to protect its financial interests, and more importantly, to vigilantly protect the privacy and safety of its members.
…
…you cannot terminate, cancel, or revoke this Agreement for any reason.
…
…You further agree to refrain from disclosing or using Confidential Information for any purpose other than participating in the Group. Your obligation to maintain the confidentiality of Confidential Information shall survive termination in perpetuity.
…
All information is deemed Confidential Information.¹¹ …
…
You agree that any violation or threatened violation of this Agreement will cause irreparable injury to the Union, entitling the Union to obtain injunctive relief in addition to all legal remedies.

I have confirmed with my legal counsel that this is not remotely standard language for an NDA. It is designed to intimidate and lock signatories into a coercive, punitive situation. Andrew relies on an ability to abuse NDAs, including by intentionally misrepresenting situations to people with the confidence that people who know the truth will be unable to correct them. I don’t say that as a hypothetical way someone could interpret this language, I’m reporting that as something I’ve personally seen Homestuck use that exact language to do.

What Andrew wants is the ability to get whatever they want whenever they want it, and this environment gets them that. The only source for remedy is to go through Andrew themself and have them find the grace to give you what you ask for. It is an abuser’s playground.

But even without the legal stranglehold of an NDA, Andrew uses traditional social isolation as a control tactic. Skipping ahead in the timeline, in January of this year I was scheduled to publish my first game on Steam — a collaboration with several other Homestuck fans. Less than a week away from the launch date, Homestuck intervened as personal retaliation against me. They reached out to other members of the team privately and threatened legal action against them if they continued associating themselves with me. This was paired — as far as I can tell — with some set of accusations about me they said NDA language prevented them from justifying, which wasn’t true. The play worked. Homestuck cut me off from people I considered good friends, and the whole project was a loss. I am still heartbroken and angry from this. Not just because of the game, but because of the relationships I had with other people that they attacked.

But they do that. They were willing to do it with me, I’ve seen them do it to others, and it seems like they’re willing to do it regularly. Isolate an enemy and make them even more dependent on getting your personal favor, with social ostracization as a weapon to retaliate if they don’t.

Statement demand – August 2024

So now, starting in June 2024, I’m in a room with Miles and James, but no Andrew¹² and no lawyers.

With the NDA signed we can finally get things moving again. I can have that “interview” with Andrew that was promised a year ago, we’ll put together a license that covers the kind of project Homestuck wants to work on and then it’s smooth sailing.

Dear reader, that is not what happened.

August 05, 2024

…

miles 09:34 PM

so, the next stage of all this is basically that before moving onto getting the license squared away, andrew wants to work on what’s referred to here as a settlement.

…

August 24, 2024, miles

…

miles 05:50 PM

at any rate, in the meantime im just gonna summarize where we’re looking to go in terms of next steps

to lay the groundwork for working with the UHC, andrew wants to reach a settlement that includes a retraction/rewrite

the explicit details of this have yet to be hashed out and will probably be worked on in the coming weeks but its something andrew has made very clear he needs to see happen in some shape or form

note that the rewrite/retraction itself doesnt have to happen RIGHT NOW or even necessarily before we get to work on UHC stuff, but agreeing to do it with the settlement is something andrew needs to see first

August 25, 2024, miles

miles 03:03 PM

but like. you GOTTA work with us, man

the alternative is that if andrew feels much more stalled¹³ or like you arent operating with him in good faith, hes just going to switch gears, have the UHC taken down, replace it, and sue.¹⁵ the whole point of the settlement is so he doesnt have to do any of that shit¹⁴, because none of it is desirable and we dont wanna waste our time or energy on it when we could instead be making productive strides together

…

September 01, 2024, general

miles 01:19 PM

what i need to establish now before this conversation goes any further is that i think i’ve been pretty light in my rhetoric for the most part, barring some cases when i needed to try and hustle bambosh and/or you along, but for today i have to be really, really clear: right now the only thing we’re interested in talking about is the settlement, and why it’s necessary, full-stop, before we consider doing literally anything else with you.

im not gonna draw out a point i already made to you a few days ago, but just to recenter the conversation around this, we came to you guys 10 months ago open to collaboration (in the face of you guys publishing the UHC with no license) and we got put off and had all this drawn out for nearly a year so now more than ever, we feel like coming to an understanding about the settlement, what we want, and why its necessary to do before we get around to any work is like… mandatory.

…

Homestuck quickly moves from “we aren’t trying to do threats” to actually, they have demands and retaliation ready if their demands aren’t met.

This yields a series of demands from Andrew, which he sent in the form of a google doc.

The complaint in these demands has nothing to do with The Unofficial Homestuck Collection, but is instead rehashed Hiveswap whining. Before anything else can happen, I need to do whatever it takes to “repair my relationship”, and their first idea of how I can start to do this is releasing a public statement of confession. I as the wretched sinner must supplicate myself before Andrew the righteous god-king of Homestuck and confess my sins so I might be granted a tenuous stay into their glorious kingdom.

This is not the license discussion. In fact, this has been explicitly injected before the license discussion as a newly announced prerequisite.

Despite this being the stage for the scheduled interview, Andrew simply refuses to show up for this. Communication is still through copy-pasted text dumps and occasionally PDFs. It’s not a surprise but it is yet another breach of agreement.

September 01, 2024, general

…

miles 01:19 PM

what i want to get into today is more of the nitty gritty of why it is we feel this is necessary from a more human point of view. to be more direct, what i mean by this is today, and in subsequent discussions until you show us that you understand the necessity of this, i want to talk about why it is that we’ve gotten to the point where the options here are either settlement or lawsuit. there was a real human cost to the way things went down a couple years ago, to say nothing of the damage that was done to Homestuck and Hiveswap by the way that fiasco went down. you weren’t the only person involved in this, obviously, but regardless of your intentions (which to be clear andrew and much of the involved parties still feel were at least partially rooted in like… rabblerousing, to get old-timey about it), things went down really, really nastily for the Homestuck and Hiveswap teams. this is something we need you to understand and talk to us about.

…

miles 01:19 PM

as detailed in the pdf i just sent you, and as i mentioned previously, real damage was done not only to Homestuck and Hiveswap as productions/brands/however you wanna look at it, but there was a huge storm of harassment and outright abuse of many staff members that was like… fucking unacceptable.²²

we’re not trying to hold you 100% accountable for all the bad shit that went down back then, but we’re also not about to pretend that your blog wasn’t a contributing factor of some significance that, among other things, “legitimized” sarah and emily’s video in the eyes of a bunch of rabid shitheads who weren’t interested so much in “accountability” or whatever the fuck reddit shit it was that they said as they were in dogpiling a group of creators just because they could. andrew also has made it clear to me, and wants me to communicate to you, that regardless of your intentions, he and other members of the team felt your behavior was stalkerish and unacceptable. there is history here that needs to be addressed.

all this preamble is to say that really, before we do anything at all, we need to get real indication from you that this is something you understand, something you’re willing to show remorse for, and something you are willing to Concretely Commit to amending with us. if we’re going to collaborate at all, there has to be some kind of trust built here, and the only way that’s going to happen is for you to address this shit personally. we’re not interested in dancing around this any longer.

The fact that there even is a Homestuck Collection is all but forgotten. The only thing that matters is Andrew feels “owed” for the consequences of my old writing. This is about the fact that they consider me, personally, to be a problem. They have not bothered at any point to contact me about any of this. But now we’re in a room together, and they hope that maybe if they corner me and threatens me with a big enough gun I’ll be able to un-hurt their feelings.

I was always concerned they would leverage copyright as an excuse for retaliation over my past writing. What I truly did not expect is that it would be completely blatant. We have spelled out in writing quid pro quo retaliation. Andrew doesn’t even mention copyright here, that’s clearly not what they care about. It’s just a weapon to be brought out later if I’m not subservient enough.

The consistent thing about this sophistry is they can’t point to anything objectionable I’ve ever done. The best excuse they can make is that other people were bad to them in a way they won’t explain either. The options are not “settlement or lawsuit” — there is no Hiveswap business that requires any settlement, and there’s no new offense that would create grounds to sue. They’re just loud and angry.

Details irrelevant

I hesitate to even go into body of the document and the demands themselves, because they fundamentally don’t matter. I’ll give a few key examples in a moment, but don’t lose sight of the role this plays in the story. It’s all nonsense implemented with the now-expected meandering threatening pages of Andrew sophistry and to give it a line-by-line inspection is to give it unearned dignity. The demand that I satisfy Andrew’s personal grievances is inappropriate in and of itself. It’s an attack, it’s breaking a truce, it’s a breach of agreement. It is, most importantly, an insistence on asserting dominance and creating a clear hierarchical relationship.

Earlier, I talked about what it looked like when I was trying to work constructively with someone I had a disagreement with. A big part of that is making sure not to predicate anything on “balancing the books”, since that’s a surefire way to turn this into foolish attempts to pin the other person to the ground. So no refusing to speak to each other until our anger is satisfied, no coming into the room angry at all. There’s no way to proceed down that road and everyone still emerge happy. I graciously agreed to set aside my disagreements and work with someone I had major outstanding criticisms of. We could work together for mutual benefit but that was it.

In contrast, what we have here is a demand that I prostrate myself before my master and beg their forgiveness before any kind of working relationship could be considered, as if he were a god too holy for a mere sinner to approach without first finding a way to satisfy their demand for punitive justice. Which, compared to my willingness to work together despite past conflict, is a really solid example of not doing that.

Good faith cannot coexist with this threatening and demanding behavior. If the first words out of my mouth were “sure, I’ll work for you… for $2,485,506” or “sure, but you have to release a statement apologizing for the MSPA Forums first” or even “sure, but first you have to publicly apologize for the death threats you’re indirectly responsible for”, that would put me in the wrong. That’d be me being aggressive and bringing non-UHC topics inappropriately into a scoped space. We were here to collaborate, not explicitly map out some sort of Petersonian dominance hierarchy.

Homestuck already agreed to work with me, not some alternate version of me who thinks Andrew did nothing wrong they imagines could exist if they bend me hard enough.

The goal here is to manufacture this false hierarchical relationship. That and that alone marks this as another collapse of trust and pushes the relationship into aggression instead of cooperation. “Satisfy our grudge or we’ll sting you with our great big scorpion tail.”

Perhaps one day I’ll do a deep-dive into these documents because they’re truly absurd. For now though I’ll zoom in on just a couple of ideas.

Reversing Victim and Offender

A common thread in the mess of sophistry is Andrew blaming me for their own “feelings of anger” towards me. I do not describe them as angry pejoratively either — this is the self description they gave to justify their own behavior. They assert that — for no reason they can describe — they had “every reason to believe [I] was acting in bad faith”, which they claim makes me directly responsible for their “feeling” that I was stalking them.

They are not able to articulate any specific action that happened that led them to this anger, or how my actual actions might have contributed to it. They imply that “unacceptable” events happened as some kind of consequence of my writing, but they are not able to give a single example of one and don’t even attempt to explain how anything I’ve done could be causal to any possible harm.

It isn’t true that they had any reason to target me, but more importantly they always paint other people as being at fault for their own emotions and actions. They describe a straightforward situation of themself baselessly lashing out at people around them, but spend pages and pages of words insisting every problem they cause themself is always someone else’s fault.

Of course writing did not cause Hiveswap to fail. I wrote a description of how Hiveswap had already failed. This is not a tricky, subtle distinction, this is the kind of question psychologists test one and two year olds on to determine when the human mind learns how time works. It is not a real argument an adult can make to their adult audience. And it’s certainly not an argument they can make directly to me with a straight face on the hope that they’re intimidating enough that I don’t notice.

So much ink has been spilled over what a creative genius Andrew Hussie is, what a monumental contribution to culture Homestuck has been, the excellence of this one individual’s writing and humor. I’ve contributed extensively to it! It’s so bizarre, then, to see even the most basic and obvious criticism treated as an offense of impossible magnitude. It paints the picture of someone who doesn’t understand how their success was a confluence of many factors — talent, but also wealth, timing, and simple good fortune — and instead sees themselves of deserving absolute reverence regardless of facts.

On Aysha’s Behalf

In a particularly disturbing example, Andrew explicitly brings up Aysha U. Farah’s harassment against me, something I have reason to believe was originally prompted by Andrew as retaliation for my previous criticism. This is one of the things I was intentionally not bringing up in order to be extra-generous to Hussie, but they actually describe this as a way in which I had harmed her by being a visible target for her to be “angry” towards. Andrew references the story of Aysha’s participation and orchestration in an entirely baseless harassment campaign against me.

aysha 2:57 PM

go get this bitch https://twitter.com/giovan_h/status/1382045007008399367

this fucking STALER

STALKER

…

aysha 4:19 PM

can you guys please go rip him apart

i’m freaking out

I originally included a few examples of the people Andrew invoked participating in this harassment, but since then they’ve actually reached out to apologize for their behavior which I greatly appreciate.

Homestuck is very good at intimidation. Part of this is legal pressure but Andrew Hussie also controls people with the standing threat that criticism will prompt fans to conduct a stochastic smear and harassment campaign. Andrew has shown they use false rumors which stir people up to violently attack their personal enemies, which is likely what happened here too. My goal here isn’t to put any particular person on blast just for contributing to this attack, it’s to address Andrew’s bizarre new demands. When people who were involved regret their participation, that’s the happy ending.

The power Andrew has over people makes it very easy to execute a smear campaign which spreads through their fanbase like wildfire. I’ve already seen that happen in reaction to this very piece as a transparent attempt to discredit me with false allegations of things like transphobia, antisemitism, racism, etc. Entirely false labels that are just enough to give people a reason to defame me on Andrew’s behalf.

This has done very real, very personal damage to me. I have real stalkers now, as a direct result of the slander spread by Andrew and Aysha. There is a very real discussion to have around children on the Internet stalking me and sending me death threats in the name of “Jubilism”, Andrew’s personal fictional religion whose practices include assassinating your online haters.¹⁶ I have had to explain to my mother that posting on Facebook about the nice lunch she had with me leads to my getting threatening messages about that lunch the next day. It’s brutal.

When this is described it’s not that angry people attacked a scapegoat or even as a colossal management failure, but that — in a sort of Trumpian word avalanche —:

It was this [stalking] pattern of behavior, along with his sourcing practices in particular, which escalated in fully justified feelings of anger toward [Legal Name], which finally reached a boiling point when his blog was massively elevated on Youtube, when thereafter the angry reaction of the Hiveswap team was used against them to cause even more harm in a very public way.

“The angry reaction of the Hiveswap team was used against them to cause even more harm in a very public way” is the kind of sentence I would write as a joke, except it’s the very real thesis of their argument. Andrew and his friends were angry and acted in that anger. They targeted me, started circulating lies, started openly coordinating a harassment campaign against me, because somebody didn’t like my tone. People saw this behavior and were horrified. It was vile and obviously so. And Andrew has the audacity to describe this as me “using their reaction against them.” If Aysha is indeed facing some pushback for the way she behaves, I can only be relieved. She was doing whatever it took to benefit herself even when it meant causing unnecessary harm to others; people like that shouldn’t be welcome in the creative industry. She was a danger to everyone around her, and I have to assume she still is.

To really cap off the absurdity, I find out it was probably Andrew themself who started claiming I was “stalking him”. I’ve always been confused how this claim started — did I really make someone uncomfortable? — but this ends my concerns. I’ve never written about Andrew’s personal life, even the public aspects of it that are widely known.¹⁷ But in this incident I’ve finally directly confirmed that Andrew is responsible for the rumor. For NDA reasons I can’t show you the exact reason they gave, but it had absolutely nothing to do with information about them, it was just an excuse to badmouth a “stuck cog.” There was never any misunderstanding, it’s always just been slander repeated by people who still view them as trustworthy.

Andrew attempts the same DARVO attack on Sarah Z’s video, saying that “the ‘legal threat’ was then weaponized against the Hiveswap team even further, used as proof that What Pumpkin was a litigious, exploitative company which was trying to suppress criticism.”

Of course it was a very real legal threat — no scare quotes required — and Homestuck is indeed a litigious, exploitative company trying to suppress criticism. They look bad because they behaved terribly. It’s true that Sarah’s video was devastating to Andrew’s personal reputation, but that’s because it was a straightforward account of terrible things Andrew did. It damaged their brand the way any scoundrel’s reputation is damaged when they’re caught.

But Andrew argues that all this must not be their fault, and is therefore Sarah’s. Listening to them, Andrew and his friends’ emotions are always justified. Their actions are always justified by their emotions, and the only fault that can ever be found is in people for their reactions to them. Any negative reactions, any negative consequences are always an attack against them.

Okay, one more insane thing, because this boggles my mind:

Cynthia Dominguez took the credit for writing this letter, as indicated by her later apology. But she didn’t write the letter, she only agreed to send it on behalf of the angry staff, which made the case to her that it was the right thing to do to stand up for the integrity of a staff under attack by a big platform. The content of the letter was written by friends of Aysha, Hiveswap staff members who felt aggrieved on her behalf … But of course the “legal threat” was then weaponized against the Hiveswap team even further, used as proof that What Pumpkin was a litigious, exploitative company which was trying to suppress criticism.

There’s this thing Andrew does where in trying to justify some wrongdoing, they confess to new offenses instead. Andrew describes Sarah as making an error here by misattributing the contents of the letter to Cindy Dominguez. This, Andrew explains, is because the content of the letter was written by others (almost certainly Aysha), but was sent under Cindy’s name as an intentional deception.

They’re just liars! That’s their whole thing!

“Blackmail”

Another thing I will pull out as important foreshadowing is this:

Bambosh¹⁸ had a chance to move this along very easily, but when he was pushed on it after his lawyer signaled final approval of the terms, he seems to have snapped and invoked the sudden takedown option as a kneejerk response, which essentially made good on the drama-blackmail implication which was the only real claim to any “leverage”¹⁹ a fan project like this actually has to hold over a creator and his teams. I’m not going to put too fine a point why that was a bad idea, because I assume [Legal Name] is in agreement.

I added a few footnote annotations to some of the absurdity in that, but what I really want to highlight here is this incredibly disingenuous argument about “blackmail” Andrew keeps going back to. Andrew repeatedly describes negative public perception as a result of them doing something objectionable in public as blackmail. In this case Andrew argues that even though they’re the one making a threat to take down the collection, Bambosh taking down the collection in response to that demand would be Bambosh “blackmailing” Andrew, because having made a legal threat would make Andrew look bad.

This is, of course, fundamentally absurd. If you do something very objectionable in public and your audience abhors it, that’s not people attacking you. You do not have the right to be universally loved, and people making justified complaints isn’t the same as being attacked.

This is a mirroring of a favorite fallacy of Andrew’s I’ve already examined: that any negative consequence is evidence of malice and attack. In Homestuck’s case, the consequences they suffer stem from a combination of mismanagement and genuinely offensive behavior, a pattern which has not changed since before I started writing. The writing only captures what is already there. The problem is the act, not the window they did it in front of.

Andrew refuses to even consider the possibility they could be at fault, ever, for anything they do. Any and all negative consequences are always attacks someone else does to them, not just the human condition where if you do massively unpopular things in public people will dislike you.

Why should you face consequences for something just because you’ve said or done it? Something, something, cancel culture.

Backlash to poor conduct is a natural and predictable consequence, but Andrew knows this because they’re a grown adult. So how do we end up with these insane claims?

I think the answer to this is clear in context. Andrew views the ability to demand a takedown not as an ability to demand a takedown, but as a general-purpose forcing device. The logical framing they start with is “Do what I want or I’ll hurt you with ___“, and the tool they have to slot into that spot is legal force. In this case, a takedown demand.

But after it’s constructed this argument makes no sense. “Sign your project over to me or I’ll destroy it, but I also will not allow it to be destroyed” is an incoherent position, and so there’s this hastily-constructed “also, letting me destroy it is you blackmailing me” tacked onto the end. It’s so absurd it makes it easy to work backwards, like seeing a poor photoshop job where the outline is still visible. Andrew was just reaching for the nearest threat because their M.O. is to use threats to squeeze others. The fact that they’re trying to frame this as blackmail is just evidence of their shamelessness.

The goal is to exercise arbitrary power over people, to force them to do what they want. They want to always get whatever they want with no friction. Actually executing on the threat is — ironically — a failure to exercise the power they wanted to. And because it’s an undesirable outcome, even though it’s one they’re directly causing, Andrew insists on finding a way to blame someone else.

Demand response

There’s so much anger here but nothing to do with anything I was responsible for, so I’m not eager to take responsibility for it. I’m not going to lie and post some statement lying about Sarah’s documentation of Homestuck threatening her just because Homestuck’s threatening me the same way. Integrity means standing by your work unless it’s wrong.

But even if this first set of demands had been somewhat reasonable, I’ve already seen that cowering in a subordinate role like Andrew wants would only lead to more demands, forever. Andrew uses people up.

I give Miles the same basic explanation I’ve given here. That’s not licensing or negotiating, that’s just dominance. This is not collaboration, this isn’t respectful, this is the scorpion stinging the frog. I make it clear I’m happy to negotiate and put together a license, but demands for specific performance like this that are not obviously reasonable will have to go through a lawyer.

This is responded to with an escalation of threats.

August 24, 2024, miles²⁰

GiovanH 05:55 PM

I already have many thoughts about this but I’ll need to tag up with [my legal representation] first.

…

GiovanH 06:02 PM

but also, at a high level, off the record, deciding to make UHC work dependent on some kind of rehashing of four-year-old drama is one of the few choices with the potential to sabotage the project, so a step toward that is concerning

miles 06:03 PM

thats also something we’re happy to talk about

because ive had the same thought, we wanna do this in a way that doesnt just like

dredge up old bullshit unproductively²¹

so like i said, signing the settlement doesnt mean you necessarily have to do this rewrite before we get any UHC work done

it just means youve agreed to do it at some point as we work out the details and timing

…

miles 03:03 PM

i dont know how else to put it, signing a license with us doesnt legally complicate anything

the situation you are in NOW, unsigned, and unafilliated with us, is legally complicated

originally amending that was as simple as licensing up with us and getting to work on UHC stuff, which we still and always have wanted to do

instead we are here, 10 months later, and only marginally closer to working together, and i dont know how else to put it, we feel fucked around here.

the fact that lawyers are involved at all is kind of an unfortunate artifact of the fact that instead of just working with us when we came to you guys with open arms, you held us at arms length for months while sitting on a public repository of like, most of andrew’s life’s work as an artist, unlicensed

and so the reason that we’re approaching you now with regards to a settlement is that, on top of the unfortunate business of all the hiveswap drama years ago that your writing did play a role in, when we came to you to try and just put that water under the bridge and work together, with some stipulations about your involvement that nonetheless were fully ready to make room for you, we were stalled

frankly, to work with you, andrew at this point wants not only demonstrations of good faith which we feel like weve been dancing around at best and not getting at worst, but he wants that settlement signed so that he knows that you are actually serious about working with us, doing cool shit moving forward, and also trying to amend for some of the unfortunate bullshit that happened in the past

…

miles

the alternative is that if andrew feels much more stalled or like you arent operating with him in good faith, hes just going to switch gears, have the UHC taken down, replace it, and sue. the whole point of the settlement is so he doesnt have to do any of that shit, because none of it is desirable and we dont wanna waste our time or energy on it when we could instead be making productive strides together

i dont know what more there is to say on our end right now. im a pretty nonconfrontational person so i dont like laying down ultimatums at all but you need to at least like get in the server and start talking to me and james or andrew feels like hes just going to have to take the UHC down.

There’s a lot wrong here, most of it covered already. We have another threat of a takedown, another threat of a lawsuit, another sugar-coating “but we don’t want to! just do what we say and no one has to get hurt”. Despite everything that’s happened I’m still trying to give them the chance to work together, a show of good faith that crosses the line into folly on my part.

Homestuck claiming that we weren’t “working with us when we came to you guys with open arms” and that “you held us at arms length” is truly outrageous. This is the exact opposite of what happened. Bambosh and I both responded to their invitations eagerly, but Andrew kept throwing up roadblocks and demands, very conspicuously keeping us at arm’s length.

The collection as “his work”

What I will pause here to address is this idea Miles gestures to, that the collection is “a public repository of like, most of andrew’s life’s work as an artist”. This comes up a few more times, always couched in vagaries:

August 25, 2024, James

James 04:23 PM

anyway good luck gettin caught up looking forward to seeing you in there and getting this all squared away

ive been using the UHC to stream its a good resource

…

James 04:25 PM

so it makes sense to just like, build on something like this that exists already, didnt realize it was such a complicated thing

just gotta get everyone on the same page

GiovanH 04:26 PM

this kinda gets to what I was saying before

IMO you’re right that it shouldn’t need to be a complicated thing

James 04:28 PM

well idk i guess i get it

andrew wanting to be protective of like, his entire lifes body of work and stuff

September 28, 2024, miles

…

miles 09:04 PM

and its frustrating for him because, and im not at all trying to diminish the value of the work you and bambosh do on the UHC because if it wasnt a cool tool we wouldnt even have come to you guys trying to work with you on it, its ultimately a tool that the Main Point Of And Entire Meat Of is like, all his comics and his art

like the H in UHC stands for homestuck, which like… belongs to homestuck? and andrew? and so he feels spurned when instead of just taking it down he was like “hey come do some work for me because you guys clearly know what youre doing” and the answer was like… all this that’s happened since

James 05:38 PM

yeah i guess this is like

ultimately its andrews body of work being collected so he can probably do with it whatever he wants

Right off the bat it will always be disingenuous to treat the archival act itself as an offense because Andrew’s stated goal is to do the same thing. Never mind that this is an archive of freely-available published works, Homestuck has repeatedly stated they like The Unofficial Homestuck Collection in its current form. They’ve endorsed it. There’s never been any objection to any of the material included, or the way it’s been presented, or any other criticism of the work we’ve been doing. The thing that’s happened here is an incredible amount of volunteer labor went into providing value for the Homestuck brand, for free. The work, they keep insisting, is good and what they want.

The idea here is that this incredible outpouring of volunteer labor is not something we’re providing, but something Andrew is entitled to. Andrew is demanding control over something they did not make and does not own on the basis that it’s about them. This argument implies that Andrew has the right to own any fanwork, and its creator doesn’t. That if you draw a Homestuck character, not only are they allowed to require you not to post the image, Andrew’s entitled to sell prints and pocket the money. That Homestuck “is theirs”, in some sort of nebulous sense that far exceeds the work itself and extends to ownership of original fanwork.

Homestuck is theirs, and it was their job to get all this work done. That’s true in a sense of ownership-as-responsibility, that it’s an offense for companies to take authority but not responsibility for preservation. But it’s also true that they explicitly committed to deliver this exact product and completely failed to do so. They took money to get it done and then they didn’t. Then they made some sort of deal with Viz Media that was advertised as obligating them to do it but it apparently did not, because they didn’t do it.

Not only does the UHC address this negligence by making the work readable, my offer to work directly with Homestuck on licensing terms means by working with me they could even repurpose the UHC to fulfill their existing financial commitments.

The fact that Homestuck owns some material in the asset pack gives them the right to take down the asset pack, and that’s it. No matter how “theirs” it feels, the fact that the Homestuck collection collects Homestuck doesn’t give Homestuck any special right to compel any specific performance from anybody.

Andrew is on vacation and unavailable for most of this, busy flaunting their wealth on Instagram. They appear to just be on vacation for the rest of their life with a few brief exceptions. Throwing Makeship money into the slots while taking down the UHC, like Nero playing violin as Rome burns.

Resetting expectations

This is the point where I start just writing this article directly to them via Discord. Perhaps expectations were set wrong innocently and I needed to explain the baseline, because clearly they’d lost the plot.

So, in no uncertain terms, I explicitly communicate that

We both want something the other person can give us
There are mutually beneficial collaborations that are free win-wins
If they attack, that’s not a win for them, it’s a lose-lose

August 25, 2024, James

…

GiovanH 04:34 PM

for instance the last doc I saw tried to make everything depend on a lot of commitments about stuff unrelated to the UHC, and everything like that dramatically complicates things

I keep saying there are some simple obvious wins we could be getting but that hasn’t happened yet

anyway, more Monday

James 04:36 PM

oh yeah i guess i usually just go along with stuff like that so everyone calms down and i can do w/e i need to actually be doin

in my experience people just kinda wanna feel seen a lot of the time maybe

you know?

though idk easy way to get walked on i guess? (this is not that important to me, but i understand how it is for others)

GiovanH 04:38 PM

so far it’s felt more like people wanting to put a gun to my head

James 04:38 PM

eesh

GiovanH 04:39 PM

which I realize is a very comfortable position for them to be in, but not good for collaboration

James 04:39 PM

sorry man that sucks

well i’ll see what i can do to cool some heads or w/e

…

GiovanH 04:42 PM

yeah and hopefully the group helps with that

like I’ve said from the start, I am happy to agree to disagree on old stuff and just work collaboratively on win-win stuff. But trying to turn this into some dominance game or use it to relitigate old drama is the main path to breaking all this, and I’m trying to keep us away from that if I can

James 04:45 PM

yeah i think just gettin everyone together cooler heads will prevail etc

GiovanH 04:45 PM

I just wanna do the win-wins, and I feel like there’s lots of them

September 02, 2024

GiovanH 08:47 PM

So, there’s a lot going on here, but this is basically what I had gamed out as the failure scenario, so I’d much rather back up for a moment before talking about details.

First, at a very high level, before I get into the body of this, I think trying to predicate UHC work on some “balancing of the books” is a very, very bad idea.
This is something I’ve signposted since the very beginning. Andrew and I have complaints with each other. But acting on those would be the exact opposite of what you want.

I was surprised you reached out offering to work with us given that feelings were probably still hurt, but you went out of your way to say, explicitly, that that wouldn’t be an issue. I decided early on that I wasn’t going to take this as an opportunity to be petty. We can agree to disagree and still work together productively.

But what I’m seeing here is the opposite; it looks like there’s an enormous amount of resentment against me, and you’re specifically saying that if we don’t resolve that to your satisfaction, that’s a complete dealbreaker. In the conversation that brought me to this room in the first place, you promised the exact opposite; that we would be able to work on this specific project, perhaps begrudgingly, without fighting each other through every past fight and squabble we could scrape together.

I also want to say that my objection here isn’t just about hiveswap, or aysha, or any individual bit of fandom drama. For four years now, I have invited you to contact me if you wanted to make any corrections or comments, and that offer still stands. I am happy to address inaccuracies in my writing, and I am happy to work to resolve interpersonal issues with members of the team as needed. I am on board to cooperate, and bend in places as needed

But that’s not what this is asking for. What this writing is demanding is a great show of force, that you feel that before we can work together on anything you need to go through a ritual of performing dominance over an enemy.
And I am not going to humor that. I will absolutely work with you on resolving reasonable issues, but what I see here fundamentally isn’t about that. It is, very obviously, a dramatic show of force, and cannot possibly work as the basis for what you said you wanted to do here.

Making threats and demands about past grievances that are fundamentally unrelated to this project is the exact opposite of collaboration. They aren’t compatible with each other at all. Collaboration is cooperative, and what I see written here is intensely, intentionally hostile. And I don’t know why you would choose to go that lose-lose direction when there is an obvious win-win here. You shouldn’t scorpion-and-the-frog this.

I really, really don’t want to fight this fight, and neither of you should either.
This is a conflict that can only end terribly, and it’s completely avoidable.

This conversation is our opportunity to all be adults in the room.

JAMES 08:53 PM

sorry just checkin in now lemme catch up

ok yeah im caught up

well, i dont know that i’m interested in like bare knuckle brawling anything here either. and i think you being willing to work with us and work on corrections etc is a good starting point.

GiovanH 08:57 PM

The worst case scenario for the project is if Andrew isn’t taking it seriously at all. If he doesn’t see this as an opportunity for a collaboration, or even for me to just give him a bunch of free stuff. He doesn’t care about the UHC at all, really. He instead thinks this is a big chance to get leverage over me for a series of past slights. And it’s just not. But that’s what I’m seeing so far, and that’s disappointing.

…

JAMES 09:01 PM

so, i think that, i don’t disagree about this not needing to be some display of dominance but i think, just as an outside observer here at least like some sort of understanding between parties would go a long way. theres a lot of legalese in these exchanges and i think that maybe thats amplifying things to feel very aggressive

i dont wanna derail things, and i’ll let miles have a crack at it (im figuring out what to eat for dinner) but i also don’t want you to feel like you’re being bullied here by THE MAN or anything

i think you have been misrepresented and scapegoated

but i think there is still probably a level of responsibility and at least acknowledgement that will probably need to be involved. im glad you’re willing to work with us. and i know we’re willing to work with you. and i think the point of this channel of communication is to sort out how we can do that without getting weeks of lawyering involved

GiovanH 09:04 PM

To reluctantly talk about the content of these PDFs (which I think are just prose andrew wrote? I am positive [Andrew’s lawyer] didn’t sign off on this), I think there’s just a ton of resent against me, and in the minds of a few people I’ve basically been scapegoated as being responsible for all evils. And I think it’s misplaced! Like, just factually, the idea that I was some hostile force was never right, and the conclusions predicated on that misunderstanding aren’t true either.

I am 100% willing to talk about specific issues and work through real conflicts, but I am not going to sign up to be crucified for the sins of all redditors

…

GiovanH 09:07 PM

I think this basically snowballed from some initial misperceptions, which was maybe encouraged by some preexisting anger toward me by some members on the team. Literally, predating hiveswap, just over vriscourse.

JAMES 09:07 PM

whoa, had no clue

i think i didnt know who you were until the document, though at first i mistook you for [REDACTED]

who was the one who was getting very personal and stalky

…

GiovanH 09:08 PM

a lot of the really nasty hate I get can be traced back to a few people who decided I was ontologically evil before I said anything about hiveswap, and to this day I don’t know exactly what I did that they fixated on me so hard

…

GiovanH 09:17 PM

giving me pages and pages of text to nitpick is such good giobait, but I really think what I said there is the most important focus right now

miles 09:17 PM

yeah, i think itll be good to also just sit down and like

talk message to message for w hile

*a while

GiovanH 09:21 PM

and also, going off what james said, it sounds like there is probably some de-scapegoating work to do here, if you’re really working off the understanding that I need to be made to pay for all the sins in those lists

because this whole base assumption that my whole game is destroying people on the internet to accumulate clout is fundamentally not true

…

GiovanH 09:28 PM

like, reading that “human cost” doc[^human-cost], it talks about “holding me accountable” for stuff that happened three or four degrees removed from me, which is why I say it’s hard to take seriously as any sort of good-faith conflict resolution

miles 09:29 PM

sure

so to address a question you asked earlier, these docs are essentially communications written by andrew that me (and also james on a pretty unofficial level, now) have been asked to communicate to you

so lemme like

attempt to synthesize a point here rq which you can respond to

basically im not gonna insult your intelligence by being like “oh theres no hard feelings” because of course thats not true

but a lot of the discussion about like…

“accountability” as youve said

it’s sort of been mixed in with what it is we want to put OUT, later, and in a way that may be kind of confusing, so to clarify

sorry if my thoughts seem scattered btw im carbed out

the settlement, license, etc, what we want you to sign, the good faith that goes into you signing that and agreeing to work with us is the vast majority of the “accountability” we’re hoping to see

which has been spurred, in a way that i will be fair and cede is NOT fully your fault, by the pace at which things proceeded from last october

i wont say that things havent got more tense than then but a lot of that is because its kind of baffling to us why we aren’t already like… 7 months deep into a collab?

…

GiovanH 09:49 PM

Well, from where I’m standing, the question of whether Andrew wants to prioritize the a big dominance display above the UHC still remains. In fact, going from the last thing you said, the working answer to that is “yes”, which is why I’ve asked you to reconsider all that.

I just am not going to sign a blank check.

miles 09:51 PM

whats like… i mean maybe this is a pointless exercise but like whats the thing youre the most worried about happening vis a vis a “blank check”

which btw is not like… what we’re asking

but just hit me with the worst case scenario

GiovanH 09:55 PM

I am not going to accept fault for things I wasn’t responsible for, I’m not going to agree to open-ended “until our satisfaction” language, and I’m not going to give someone else editorial control over an article published on my site in my name.

But I think it’s a mistake to even be talking about this. I still think you ought to back way, way up, and decide if we’re going the in-good-faith collaboration path or the hostile threats-and-demands path. Because the more we talk about demands, the more we’re on the wrong track.

You ought to be thinking in terms of specific things I can reasonably do as a show of good faith rather than trying to pack together the most aggressive demands you think you can get away with. And, again, what I’ve read so far has been the latter.

If the answer is Andrew blows up the UHC over pettiness, that’s the answer. He shouldn’t pick that answer, but he can.

…

GiovanH 10:04 PM

I also think Andrew may still be unfamiliar with the thing he’s asking about. I was under the impression that the report from the disgruntled person was the big offense, but that’s not “the hiveswap article”

it is a disconnected side-article, and very intentionally so

“the hiveswap article” is essentially a timeline of confirmable things that publically happened

miles 10:08 PM

i mean, it’s “disconnected” but it’s not like it’s unrelated to the series of events that went down which by and large cause immense damage to homestuck’s reputation and the hiveswap team’s wellbeing (though again, part of this rewrite is giving you an opportunity to point out YOURSELF that this harm was far more on the shoulders of sarah and emily than any other Indivual People)

GiovanH 10:09 PM

And we’re back to multiple degrees of separation. If WP did a thing and I said that it happened, and people didn’t like that WP did it, that’s not me wronging WP.

“It lead to a PR problem” is not a fault on me, unless I am PR staff.

miles 10:12 PM

andrew and you obviously have different ideas about your levels of like, Personal Culpability, but this is getting exacerbated by the fact that we were like “hey, come work with us on the UHC and get cool shit and get paid [which, to be clear, was a nice offer to people who were publishing the entirety of his life’s work for free with no license]” and we keep getting this stall treatment

GiovanH 10:12 PM

Nobody ever talked to me about getting paid, and I never stalled anybody.

The criticisms you are making are not applicable.

miles 10:15 PM

andrew, the guy whose work you are publishing and whose reputation was (directly or indirectly) affected by your writing, feels that they are? and he’s looking for some kind of show of good faith from you that he’s just not getting

he is, in my mind very fairly, cautious about this shit, because 4 years ago a bunch of people went apeshit and tried to burn his whole situation to the ground²³

GiovanH 10:16 PM

I am in this room, talking, trying very hard to make this work instead of doing the safe thing and walking away.

miles 10:16 PM

i understand that that’s not nothing

if this feels unproductive would you mind if we tried something else?

GiovanH 10:17 PM

I feel like I’m just repeating myself now. I am entirely willing to participate in conflict resolution for specific offenses. I am not going to play dominance games or be made to account for a cloud of vagaries, none of which actually stick.

…

GiovanH 10:20 PM

I mean, I am literally working very hard to give Andrew free stuff that makes his property more valuable. I choose to try to cooperate instead of trying to the situation as leverage for pettiness. I am paying for a lawyer. I do not have to do any of that, but I am doing it and so there is value you can take for free, if you don’t sting the frog.

…

GiovanH 10:23 PM

We are still on the adversarial path, and we do not need to be.

JAMES 10:23 PM

i think from andrews pov, he’s working with the information presented to him, so maybe with a little bit of conversation we can walk back some of it.

GiovanH 10:24 PM

I definitely think some of this is stemming from bad info.

miles 10:24 PM

it very well may be? that’s part of what you’d be helping to clarify

JAMES 10:25 PM

i also think that, getting into the semantics of “apologize for these specific things” doesn’t really help anybody. i dont think anybody really wants that, even.

kinda weird

GiovanH 10:26 PM

And, like, I do still have things I think Andrew is at fault for doing, but I am choosing to put that aside here. Because we’re adults.

…

JAMES 10:26 PM

if we’re gonna work together, and i’d still like that because i think its beneficial for all of us, i think we need to take some time to be on the same page here.

so we have a base idea of what andrew wants, and i think this is probably more flexible than it sounds. or at least, can be worked with in a way that is good for both parties

gio what would you like to come out of this

…

GiovanH 10:29 PM

I am here to collaborate on a whole panel of possible ways the UHC work can be more useful. I think there are lots of fun ways that could go.

I am also happy to license the collection in a form similar to how it is now so it can operate without tension. Again, multiple ways to approach that.

There are still ways I feel I’ve been misrepresented and wronged by various homestuck people, including Andrew, but I would rather work constructively with people if I can than stir up old conflict. Agreeing to disagree, if needed.

Like I said in my Big Message, I think cooperation can work as a win-win, and I think hostilities are a lose-lose, and I’m naive enough to still be aiming for the win-win. Which, if you haven’t gamed it out, is a big show of good faith

JAMES 10:36 PM

yeah i think thats reasonable

…

JAMES 10:46 PM

im not interested in villainizing you, and i dont think anybody really wants you to feel like you’re an enemy

GiovanH 10:46 PM

let’s hope!

JAMES 10:46 PM

well, i dont anyway. i think theres a little drama and theatrics here. a bit of flexing on both ends

but who amongst us isnt guilty of that from time to time. lets tentatively put a pin in it for tonight because its getting late and im getting very sweaty (its very warm in my apartment) we’ll see what we can work up.

miles 10:47 PM

yeah thats fine

GiovanH 10:48 PM

sure thing

miles 10:48 PM

ill pop in on the wrap up statements and clarify that i am with james that i think we all really do want this to work out

JAMES 10:49 PM

if i have random thoughts in the middle of the night about it i’ll drop em in here

yeah yeah

GiovanH 10:49 PM

yeah feel free

miles 10:49 PM

and like we mentioned i appreciate you are here talking to us about this, and i hope that despite things getting testy from time to time its apparent that we also want to work with you especially insofar as we’re talking this out at all

GiovanH 10:50 PM

from what I’ve heard it sounds like the big block is that Andrew has, like, a really demonized image of me, and hopefully he can rethink that a little

The last conversation leaves off at “maybe Andrew is operating off misinformation, because all the things they said are wrong.” I think this is another case of normal inspection forcing Homestuck into the most reasonable justification possible for their previous behavior. But would it stick?

Seizure demand – September 2024

That was almost a productive conversation at the end there, right? What happens next is not “de-scapegoating” that we all concluded was reasonable. Instead, astonishingly, they begin the next conversation by using privileges they gave themselves in the Discord server they set up for these discussion to clean the productive parts of the slate.

September 28, 2024, general

miles 02:19 AM

hey hey. you may notice we reset the general chat in here; we’re thinking of bringing in some more folks soon and we figure it isn’t productive to have the old discussion sitting there.

They privated the old general chat and made a new one. This is yet another exhausting power play, but when legal action is involved (like it is here) it also goes by the exciting name spoliation. (Also, I didn’t find this out until later, but apparently this is a practiced move they do regularly with people.) They never did return these records, but fortunately I’ve been keeping my own set too since I’m a responsible adult.

But perhaps despite this insane swing all the things they have to say now will be normal?

miles 02:19 AM

vis a vis that, andrew and james and i sort of had a think about how things have been progressing, and we’ve decided to change course here. we’re gonna table the blog rewrite/settlement stuff and move on from it for now so we can get to UHC stuff instead of sitting around for months haggling over that; it’s not proceeding in any way that any of us find productive, least of all you, so we’re just gonna move past it until further notice.

what we’re thinking is within the next week or two, we want to get kohi onboarded to this chat so we can get back into more solid and productive discussions of Things We Could Do With The UHC, getting it into the HICU/Homestuck network. i know you’ve got ideas, kohi has ideas, ideas abound; at some point maybe we can just strike the U and it’ll become the HC, but that’s more future talk and better suited to when kohi is in here talking shop.

So this starts well enough. Demanding I make some absurd statement is indeed not a productive path. It would be much better to talk shop. I’ve already been talking with Kohi about the collection. They’re great; I’d love to work with them, especially on UHC work. We have a solid gesture here in the direction of actually collaborating instead of letting Andrew posture.

But then Homestuck jams another stick into the spokes of the bike, because every decency they’ve given has just been an attempt to build credit to let them be awful later.

miles 02:19 AM

to that point, however, there is something that was clarified in our last talks that has to be addressed before we move along with this any further. you mentioned, more than once, that you were aware that you had the potential to leverage our worst-case-scenario takedown of the UHC as a way to make us look bad in the eyes of the fans. that confirmed to us that you’ve considered the use of the UHC as a weapon against the Homestuck team if things don’t proceed in a direction that you’re satisfied with, which is obviously unacceptable to us. andrew has no interest in proceeding through talks while his own body of work is used against him as blackmail.

as i mentioned earlier, we’re going to step back vis a vis the rewrite stuff. in exchange, and considering the above paragraph, we need to see the UHC handed over to kohi. what that does is neutralize the threat implied earlier, as well as put the UHC in the hands of not only a member of the HICU but someone you yourself have mentioned you want to work with and someone you respect where these types of projects are concerned. andrew doesn’t want to see his own work held hostage and used as leverage against him, and putting the UHC into kohi’s stewardship eliminates that possibility in one simple move.

there’s still work we can do together, but for that to happen we have to be operating in a sphere where threats aren’t on the table, and that isn’t going to be possible until we know that the fans are going to have access to the UHC, and all of andrew’s work that’s on it, without the risk of its retraction being intentionally weaponized to cause drama that will hurt not only the fandom but the entire HS labor force.

They call it “The Art of the Deal.”

We’ve talked about the absurdity of this “blackmail” claim already; Andrew’s used the word several times to describe the scenario where they force me to take down the collection and I do so, and this is no exception. From my point of view it’s been intentionally hidden, but here’s the conversation they’re characterizing as a “blackmail threat”:

September 02, 2024

miles 10:15 PM

[Andrew]’s looking for some kind of show of good faith from you that he’s just not getting

…

GiovanH 10:20 PM

I mean, I am literally working very hard to give Andrew free stuff that makes his property more valuable. I choose to try to cooperate instead of trying to the situation as leverage for pettiness. I am paying for a lawyer. I do not have to do any of that, but I am doing it and so there is value you can take for free, if you don’t sting the frog.

…

GiovanH 10:29 PM

I am here to collaborate on a whole panel of possible ways the UHC work can be more useful. I think there are lots of fun ways that could go.

I am also happy to license the collection in a form similar to how it is now so it can operate without tension. Again, multiple ways to approach that.

…

GiovanH 10:38 PM

like, if I were a provocatour, the quick win would be to let andrew C&D the collection, go “oh! oh! andrew broke your toy!” and get a bunch of clicks on my web site or whatever it is that clout is

and this is me not doing that²⁴

…

JAMES 10:41 PM

also yeah thats a good point, so thank you for that

anyway, a little progress even if it doesn’t seem like it. we’ll work on things on our end to see if we cant soften expectation a little bit, i can say im glad you’re willing to work with us and are like amicable and even willing to play along a bit for the sake of moving forward. appreciate that.

They asked about good faith, and I gave an example. I am already stretching myself to work with Homestuck, and if I stopped trying to force a peace at any point it would be Andrew who suffers. This is me finally pointing out the elephant in the room, which is that the case where they attack me is the case where they lose, something Andrew seemed unwilling to acknowledge. The response was “that’s a good point, thank you.”

But we get the same inane blackmail logic as before. I’m working hard to protect Andrew from themself, and eventually I might have to stop. This is not a trap I’ve imposed on Andrew, this is me holding up the world like a poor man’s Atlas while they keep knocking all the supports away. The fact that I might stop doing that is inconvenient, so it has to be turned into something offensive I’m doing to them.

And this supposed offense is the justification they give for a whole new absurd demand: that I simply “hand over” the project to them. It’s the full smartgeniusnewadmin. Kohi’s great. I’d trust Kohi with this entirely, except I’ve been shown very clearly that I can’t trust their boss.

This is the culmination of all the absurd power plays: just demanding, outright, that I give them everything for free. I was braced for them to try to slowly push me out in a plausibly deniable way. But no, the power-play is so important to them they keep firing smoking guns. Andrew Hussie is not going to make me sign control of a fan project over to somebody they like more because they do not get to do that. No one in their position can ever be allowed to do anything like that.

This isn’t just a demand, it’s a pushy demand. They’re trying to get me caught up in the flow. The channel’s made, we’re about to invite Kohi in, everything’s all ready to go except you’ve got to real quick forfeit your work to people who have proven they can’t be trusted. Don’t think about it, let’s get moving, chop-chop.

Seizure-response wheel-spinning

I am exhausted from trying to coax Homestuck into acting like an adult, and I just spell the problem out directly.

GiovanH 05:24 PM

Don’t be absurd.

Again, let me try to skip over correcting factual inaccuracies and try to address the problem at the core of this:

You know perfectly well that I haven’t said anything even remotely approaching leveraging anything as “blackmail”, even though you’ve just tried to delete the evidence of that. I pointed out that if I stopped actively trying to push this towards a common goal, your stated intent to send me a cease and desist order would be an unprovoked attack that people would react negatively to. That’s not me doing a blackmail to artificially make you look bad, that’s me trying very hard to keep you from very publicly shooting yourselves in the foot, which you seem intent on doing.
That you would try to spin this as me being a threatening presence is shameful, and embarrassing.
James may not be aware of this, but you’ve brought up this notion that a public outcry against you acting aggressively towards me would somehow be considered my fault, and it’s as wrong now as it was then.

As much as I like Kohi and would love to work with him on the project, I am not going to voluntarily hand over any legal rights at the end of the barrel of a gun. Or in some way that you perceive as me being at the barrel of a gun, even if that’s not reflective of any reality of the situation.

I will say again, as I’ve said repeatedly before, that this collaboration fundamentally does not work if you insist on viewing my having agency in this collaboration as a “threat” that you must necessarily nullify. Frankly, I’m astonished you don’t see that. In fact, you said you did; As is now typical of this project, the demands you’re making now are for things that, in just our last conversation, we all agreed would be unreasonable to ask for, and removed from the table.

There is not going to be a dominance ritual. There is not going to be a point in this process where I sacrifice all my reputation, rights, and agency over to someone else so they can pretend they’re the god-king. This is an opportunity for a collaboration between creators. It is not, and has never been, an opportunity for anyone to make unilateral demands of anyone else.

Moreover I’m really disappointed to see your doubling-down in all of the points I had described as representing bad-faith action, even to the point of trying to erase what productive conversation we did have. I don’t know how transparent you’ve been with others about this, but Miles should know full well that he’s been acting in violation of specific commitments he’s made. You are not in any position to act like I’m the one putting strain on this. I’ve been very diligent about that.

As I’ve made extremely clear, I’ve been trying to get us off the track of absurd hostilities and back toward working cooperatively, which has included trying to brush over the flagrant bad faith you’ve been displaying so far. You’ve already burnt through a fuse by chasing Bambosh off the project, and you’re obviously doing your best to burn through all the goodwill I’ve managed to produce for this project too. I am flabbergasted that you’ve chosen to proceed in this fashion.

September 28, 2024, miles

…

miles 09:04 PM

i get that things keep feeling unproductive and like the wheels are just spinning for no reason but like… the reason thats happening isnt because the goal of all this has been to punish you or some shit, because thats dumb and pointless and serves literally nobody? but what gets andrew feeling defensive, or feeling like… frustrated and warded away, i guess? is that this went from a thing we thought was gonna take like, 3 weeks, for you and bambosh to just sign up and get under license and work with homestuck, to this continually drawn out process where we keep coming to you guys with this request to come under homestucks network and work with us, and the answer kept being No. No. No. No.

and its frustrating for him because, and im not at all trying to diminish the value of the work you and bambosh do on the UHC because if it wasnt a cool tool we wouldnt even have come to you guys trying to work with you on it, its ultimately a tool that the Main Point Of And Entire Meat Of is like, all his comics and his art

like the H in UHC stands for homestuck, which like… belongs to homestuck? and andrew? and so he feels spurned when instead of just taking it down he was like “hey come do some work for me because you guys clearly know what youre doing” and the answer was like… all this that’s happened since

…

GiovanH 09:41 PM

I don’t really have any new information

I can’t speak to Bambosh, but my answer to collaboration stuff has always been “yes”. What’s caused “no”s hasn’t been the work itself, it’s been the addition of additional demands and threats.

“All this that’s happened since” hasn’t been me trying to be difficult, it’s been complications arising due to setting out one thing as a plan and then doing something very different.

The collaboration part is easy. The extreme defensiveness, demands, and general squeezing is what’s introduced complications.

The now-removed chat starts with me saying “hey, let’s do work” and you saying “ok, first off, we aren’t doing squat until you confess to a new list of accusations”

i get that things keep feeling unproductive and like the wheels are just spinning for no reason but like… the […]

All that to say, this framing is simply not true.

Neither is the framing of me as threatening “blackmail”, nor the framing of me as a threat that needs to be diffused. You’re not being honest about this anymore.

…

miles 10:16 PM

nobody wants to like… make another bambosh situation happen

speaking of which, is bambosh doing alright?

i mean you dont really have to answer that if it feels private, idk

GiovanH 10:20 PM

And yet they’re willing to offend without limit.

I mean, I don’t think he’s any fan of Andew yet.

miles 10:22 PM

all i can really say to that is what ive said before which is that it isnt anyones intention to try and offend or attack anyone, i just asked because i know he got frayed pretty bad towards the end and whether you believe it or not im sorry that he got that stressed by all of it

but like i said i dont wanna get too deep into anything else so ill just leave you with like that, but as always if something else comes up feel free to hit me up

GiovanH 10:29 PM

If Andrew was doing this same knives-out aggression with him, I think it’s a wonder he held on as long as he did.

September 28, 2024, James

…

James 07:12 PM

yeesh this is a lot for a saturday evening

hm.

GiovanH 07:13 PM

this is what it’s been like all year, on my end

James 07:13 PM

well this is the opposite of dialing it back

…

James 07:24 PM

i feel like this could have been so easy and its actually very frustrating and disappointing that it hasnt been.

GiovanH 07:24 PM

That is exactly where I am.

This should be such an easy win.

…

James 07:29 PM

i appreciate that

for what its worth i really appreciate your patience and like

dignity here. i’ll see what i can do. i guess thats my job.

GiovanH 07:30 PM

Like I said in the thing, you would not believe how many promises have been broken already.

James 07:30 PM

sorry man

GiovanH 07:31 PM

It is what it is.

I am guessing what happened previously is that Bambosh did not have quite as much patience for a torrent of aggression than I do. But that is what it’s been.

…

GiovanH 07:37 PM

Well, since it looks like you’ve gotten stuck with the job of consensus-building, you certainly have my sympathies for that.

I will continue to support any not-trainwreck options as long as they don’t involve my de-personing.

James 07:49 PM

appreciate it

HICU fork – Nov 2, 2024

The next attempt to just shut me down comes in the form of the HICU “Unofficial Homestuck Collection” fork. Unceremoniously, the official Homestuck github account forks the UHC project and puts up a sparce landing page that is essentially false.

About the Unofficial Homestuck Collection

Originally developed by Bambosh and Giovan_h, The Unofficial Homestuck Collection is a fan-created browser for reading Homestuck and other works by Andrew Hussie as they were originally intended to be experienced with native Flash support. The browser does not fetch content from the internet and instead utilizes an Asset Pack that must be downloaded by the user alongside the software for it to serve content. The UHC includes a “New Reader Mode” to present Homestuck as it was originally released, an inline media player for streaming music from the Homestuck Bandcamp, and many more features to enhance the user’s reading experience.

A new “Official” Homestuck Collection is now in development, and the original Unofficial Homestuck Collection will continue to be preserved and available here. It should be noted that while it remains open source, any official updates or changes will be made on a new Homestuck Independant[sic] Creative Union controlled GitHub fork that can be found here.

The HICU describes the UHC as being “originally” developed by us — stylizing my name incorrectly in the process — but explaining that it has been replaced by this new version, “controlled” by the Homestuck Independent Creative Union. This is done by the Homestuck Independent Creative Union under the official “Homestuck” GitHub account, because they’re functionally interchangeable.

Even publicly, the fork is narratively framing itself as a “successor” to the original UHC, supplanting the original. And it only differentiates itself by having different management. The implication is they have some sort of consent or authority to make this decision, but they do not. It’s the equivalent of mirroring a fan comic while demanding its original author stop writing and distributing their own work. The whole move is another example of Andrew trying to impose their will through force and pressure instead of treating the people around them with respect or allowing any sort of process that respects the rights and dignity of others.

The HICU and Homestuck Inc both claim ownership over the fork. What’s going on here? It’s actually very simple: there is no underlying separation between the two. A lot of work has gone into describing the HICU as separate from existing baggage but that simply isn’t how the organization is structured or how it acts. There is nothing independent about it and it’s certainly nothing like any union.

They wanted to control the UHC, or else replace it with something they controlled. So far they’d entirely failed on both fronts, so instead of working with the people they’d need to work with, they just made a new website declaring it true.

They’re also distributing the Asset Pack V2 package Bambosh and I constructed. This is an incredible move because not only are they distributing the only thing the UHC doesn’t have the right to distribute, they don’t have the right to distribute it either. Some of the copyrighted materials it contains are things they have the right to share, but the asset pack also has many resources they absolutely cannot freely distribute themselves, including Adobe’s flash binaries.

Like I’ve mentioned Kohi had previously chatted about Unofficial Homestuck Collection development work on the practical side. I am confident any involvement they had in the OHC fork was done in good faith without an understanding of how it fit in the larger puzzle.

At the time I made no complaint about this or demand that they cease. From a copyright perspective, this is actually fine. They are licensing the reader application from me, but so far they’re doing it more-or-less under the terms of the license. So long as they respect the project license, them distributing the asset pack like this would actually allow me to focus entirely on the reader application without needing any license from Homestuck.

DMCA Nov/Dec 2024

The next thing they do is once again refuse to respond with any of the ideas I’ve presented, but instead escalate even further in the form of a DMCA takedown.

December 02, 2024, followup

homestuckicu 06:39 PM

Please read the attached DMCA notice. This was just delivered to your counsel by Andrew’s counsel.

…

homestuckicu 06:39 PM

The future of the UHC will be made apparent once we see compliance with the DMCA. The intention here is not to kill the project. But it’s essential that you show a willingness to cooperate with the notice from Andrew’s counsel before the next steps are taken.

All of our correspondence has been turned over to Andrew and his counsel, including the conversations in this server, and all relevant DMs. We were asked to do this by Andrew and his counsel so that they had thorough background context to consider their approach. All conversations will remain confidential.

Andrew and his counsel have been extremely critical of many statements you’ve made, and the way you’ve handled yourself in general during this process. He’s asked that none of his remarks be quoted or summarized here. His view may be communicated through legal channels in the future, but starting now, the HICU will be fully disengaged from that process.

…

homestuckicu 06:39 PM

We wish you all the best with your future endeavors, where they do not conflict with the interests of Homestuck, its creator, and its labor force.

Kind regards,

The Homestuck Independent Creative Union

This is the first message ever sent from the “homestuckicu” discord account, the account used to hide records earlier. God only knows who actually wrote this.

Note how the operating party here is the HICU even though the rightsholder is Homestuck, Inc. and the executor is Andrew. The labels aren’t placed carefully because they’re all functionally interchangeable. The HICU would later claim it wasn’t involved in these affairs at all, which is simply false.

The actual DMCA sent from Andrew’s legal representation is standard and concise:

[Andrew’s Lawyer], Nov 22, 2024 …
As you are aware, our office represents Homestuck Inc. (“Homestuck”). This letter serves as an official notification of copyright infringement by your client, [Legal Name] (your “Client”) pursuant to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (17 U.S.C. § 512) for infringing materials located on your Client’s website, https://homestuck.giovanh.com/unofficial-homestuck-collection/. We respectfully request that you forward this correspondence to your Client, or in the alternative, notify us that you do not represent your Client with regard to this matter.

Homestuck is the rights holder of the registered and copyrighted material that has been improperly displayed on and otherwise incorporated into your Client’s website, which consists of the copyrights of the webcomic “Homestuck,” the originals of which can be found at https://www.homestuck.com/. The infringing works are a direct copy of our client’s original copyrighted work or is substantially similar to our client’s work.

We have a good faith belief that Homestuck’s rights are being infringed and these materials are posted without proper authorization from Homestuck, any of its agents, or the law. The information in this notification is correct and we swear under the penalty of perjury that we are authorized to act on behalf of the owner of these exclusive rights. This includes, specifically, the copyrights that we allege to be infringed upon.

Upon receipt of this notification, your Client now has actual notice that the material on your Client’s system is infringing and, in order to avoid liability, it is incumbent upon your Client pursuant to 17 U.S.C § 512 to remove and/or disable the infringing materials immediately.
…

This is the anticipated request for us to stop hosting and linking to the asset pack, which does indeed contain a direct copy of some of Homestuck’s copyrighted work. Up until now for as long as I’ve been maintaining the project I was only hosting the asset pack on the direct request of Homestuck itself, but they have the right to require its removal and so we remove it. This includes all links to the asset pack and the material it contains, but also required the removal of the live UHC webapp.

The only thing that was left was the project description page at https://homestuck.giovanh.com with the asset pack removed:

wow, look! nothing!

Importantly, this pairs with the HICU fork as an attempt at a particularly nasty Indiana Jones switcheroo. If I have to take my reader application down at the same time as they’ve created a copy, it looks like the project really did “move” to them, which is not at all what’s happened.

December 11, 2024, James

…

GiovanH 04:34 PM

In general I’m just trying to get the legal demands properly addressed right now through the lawyers too

…

GiovanH 04:35 PM

So I was kind of thrown for a loop by the announcement and various legal runarounds I’ve been seeing

if andrew wants to shut down the discord conversation and have the lawyers slowly put something together, I guess that’s okay, but that only works if you’re not also releasing big confident public announcements about what he’s guessing the results of that process will be

James 04:37 PM

well from what i understand it represents a large bit of work you’ve done, so i can understand the apprehension in taking it down entirely. is there a specific issue with like a redirect etc (forgive me if im a bit slow on the uptake)

GiovanH 04:40 PM

So, high level, from my perspective, what I’m seeing now is the “hostile takeover” scenario, where seemingly the main goal is to cut me out of my work and let andrew effectively take ownership of it

and if the way they’re trying to do that now is copy the whole project without me involved and then obliterate the original project, so from the outside it’s a sleight-of-hand where it looks like the same project but I’ve mysteriously left, I have some objections to that

and if whatever happens happens through overtly hostile legal action (as it’s leaning towards now) instead of any kind of working relationship, I’m probably going to be sour on the new thing

It’s not at all lost on me that I’ve been persistently trying to talk about collaborating on a project (which was the original pitch) and sorting out a licensing arrangement, and instead all Andrew has been interested in doing is talking about rewriting old hiveswap posts, and me writing the HICU blank checks, and then getting progressively more hostile when I say I’d rather do the HICU stuff they invited me to do instead.

It really seems like there’s a personal vendetta against me first and foremost, and the UHC is almost an afterthought to that.

I had a whole plan where I would pay homestuck/hicu/whoever a license fee just to continue providing the collection in its current form

and another where you and kohi and I would convert the project to something that looks more like the official collection they’re wanting now

and another where in addition to the UHC I help the HICU create their own downstream OHC fork

and I was never even given the chance to talk about any of that, because it’s just been 100% guns-to-heads, the whole time

James 04:52 PM

yeah, seems like the whole things gone a bit south, despite any effort i had to keep it regular. is there any kinda statement you’d be fine with, i guess? since its already at this point

i think theres been a lot of “waiting to see how it goes” and then, this is how it went because of that.

…

GiovanH 04:54 PM

notes in the official announcement that stood out to be as big red flags were how it was framed as a “moving” (again, that’s a sleight of hand, what they’re currently doing is this legally aggressive replacement thing), and also how they’re in “licensing talks”, when what actually happened is I tried to offer them a license and they threatened to sue me instead, then cut off the talks

James 04:57 PM

dang, guess thats fair. sorry just as an aside how on earth does everyone just have a lawyer thats crazy

[…] this lawyer shit is bonkers to me

GiovanH 04:58 PM

i mean, just looking at the message from miles

Andrew’s intentions now are to have both of your counsels work together until the legal issues surrounding this matter are put to rest. This will take time, and any provocative gestures you make publicly will complicate that process and possibly put you in more significant legal jeopardy than you’d prefer. It will also incite drama within the fandom, which innocent members of the Homestuck creative teams will have to contend with.

again, this is fine, but this cuts both ways; when andrew makes provocative public gestures before stuff is resolved, that complicates the legal process and incites drama too

…

James 04:58 PM

ok so basically just a timing thing, that make sense

i can see what i can do to like, at least let them wait til the dusts settled before making some sort of public thing.

which i guess will result in some sort of downtime, which sucks, but also probably the only real way to let it get sorted out

GiovanH 05:00 PM

I mean, the discord conversation was the way to avoid that, but he’s cut that off

James 05:00 PM

yeah

i mean im not like ignorant i know im the “smooth it over” guy a lot of the time, but thanks for talkin to me about it either way

GiovanH 05:01 PM

if the thing andrew fundamentally wants to do is bully, there’s only so much comms can do about that

…

GiovanH 05:25 PM

I know I keep saying I’m not interested in drama but literally the prospect of this ending in some legally hostile or forceful way and me having to untangle these events and put out some kind of post explaining what happened has me so stressed out I think it’s affecting me medically

…

GiovanH 05:27 PM

this is why stuff like “Andrew and his counsel have been extremely critical of many statements you’ve made, and the way you’ve handled yourself in general during this process.” gets to me, because I have really been trying, here

Dec 2024 Escalation

Despite my removal of the copyrighted assets they required us to remove, Homestuck sends another DMCA request as if their first one was never honored.

[The Unofficial Homestuck Collection’s Lawyer], Dec 11, 2024 …
Thank you for your patience. My understanding is that my client had removed the bulk of the IP belonging to your clients, but not the app itself, which contains de minimus references to/examples of their content. If the former has been put back up, it may be in error and I will inquire. Here is how my client breaks down the different things he has related to this matter:

The Asset Pack

Links to this were present at the now-disabled https://homestuck.giovanh.com/unofficial-homestuck-collection/ address

The reader application, which is the open-source codebase. It contains minimal-to-no copyrighted material.

Links to this were present at the now-disabled https://homestuck.giovanh.com/unofficial-homestuck-collection/ address, and it also has code and releases on github.

The Web Application, which is a modified version of the reader that works in a browser. It contains minimal-to-no copyrighted material. It mostly fetches resources from elsewhere on the internet. If they objected to this, I would need a clear explanation of what about it was objectionable, so it could be reworked not to trigger those complaints.

This was hosted at the root https://homestuck.giovanh.com/ address, not the unofficial-homestuck-collection subpage. This is also currently disabled.

Can you please advise on what is currently available that your clients object to and where it is located?

Homestuck ultimately argues that the infringing material is the two screenshots of the UHC, which include fragments of two Homestuck panels:

[Andrew’s Lawyer], Dec 20, 2024 Regarding your client’s copyright infringement, I am happy to clarify in the interest of furthering this matter to swift resolution. Attached you’ll find a .pdf of the page as of this email. In that, I’ve outlined in bold red boxes and circles the most obvious examples of your client’s website displaying my client’s copyrighted work. Most notably, the files marked as collection.gif and bandcamp.gif are portions of my client’s copyrighted works, and subject to the previously transmitted takedown. …

I also must inform you that your client has engaged in ongoing and continuous trademark infringement, which must immediately cease and desist. Our client is the owner of the trademark HOMESTUCK (Reg # 4691366) …

It is incumbent upon your client to immediately remove their website entitled The Unofficial Homestuck Collection, including their use of the URL for the same (https://homestuck.giovanh.com/unofficial-homestuck-collection/), as the same is a clear and obvious violation of our client’s trademark rights.

Our client is willing to come to an amicable resolution, but shall do so only under terms acceptable to them. To date, your client’s actions have not reflected their respect for the intellectual property rights of my client, which is unacceptable. Our client is willing and prepared to take all actions necessary to defend and enforce their intellectual property.

I appreciate your ongoing attention to this matter and reiterate that our hope is to bring this matter to an amicable resolution, however, our client is unable to ignore flagrant, ongoing, and widespread abuses and infringement of its rights to both its creative work and business interests. The same must immediately cease.

I was also later able to confirm with the group chat that, yes, Andrew’s assertion was that they had the right to take down the website describing the collection even when there was no distribution of Homestuck taking place.

Meanwhile the Hiveswap name Andrew cares about so much is being displaced by a crypto token, but all Andrew’s legal resources are going into bullying people who use the word “Homestuck” to describe the comic of the same name.

As always I was being as generous as possible with their demands, which meant taking the entire site down until the lawyers could get this straightened out.

January 06, 2025, miles, James

GiovanH 07:21 PM

Before I ask specific questions, does anyone want to give me a status update? Vibe check?

miles 09:01 PM

so as things stand currently, there isn’t really anything more for james and i to say to you on andrew’s behalf (or ours) that hasn’t already been said, except that while we’re here i’m gonna check in on the status of the DMCA that was sent to your lawyer almost 3 weeks ago on december 11th. for the record, that DMCA required that you take down the infringing content (namely the UHC site, which you put back up in violation of a previous DMCA sent earlier in december that you momentarily followed) and provide written confirmation of that within 3 days, which would’ve been december 14th, basically 3 weeks ago. the site’s still up.

…

miles 09:01 PM

anyway, all there really is to say here is that there isn’t anything to say here, and certainly nothing james and i can do for or with you, prior to you abiding by the DMCA and getting your lawyer back in touch with andrew’s lawyer. the DMCA’s a legal order from andrew’s team, 3 weeks late, not a suggestion, and there’s really not much andrew feels like saying or any details he feels like talking about until you’re back in compliance with it. the whole point of us sort of disconnecting a month or so back was specifically to get the lawyers hashing this out.

…

GiovanH 09:04 PM

Ah, that explains it

My current belief is I did honor the DMCA request as soon as it was received by taking down all the copyrighted assets, including the webapp. There’s still a website at the address, but it’s a placeholder that no longer distributes the assets. We wanted to confirm this with Andrew’s legal representation though, so we’ve sent Andrew a request for confirmation that we’ve taken down the claimed content, and ask if there’s any additional scope they’re claiming needs to be removed. Now I’m just waiting for confirmation from Andrew’s legal representation that I’ve addressed his legal grievance.

…

GiovanH 09:04 PM

The point is I’m very much not trying to give anyone the middle finger by keeping stuff up. We processed the DMCA notice when it was received and the current understanding of myself and my representation is we’re in full compliance, although we’re still waiting on them to confirm they’re satisfied with that

It was not at all my understanding that there was a concern that the remediation was insufficient, or anything’s current state still constituted any violation

If Andrew’s representation has not had a confirmation from us sitting in his inbox from December, let me know and I’ll get it re-sent.

Please do let me know if you see any asset packs still being distributed under my control and I’ll scrub them, although I’ve already scrubbed everything I could think of.

The point is I’m very much not trying to give anyone the middle finger by keeping stuff up.

in fact, if it’s working right, I set the site to detect when people click links to pages within the webapp and redirect people to the corresponding page on the homestuck.com website instead

…

GiovanH 09:04 PM

very sorry if people were under the impression I had taken some sort of defiant posture! I was trying to honor your request for me to send updates to your representation from now on, but word travels slow through laywers

miles 09:31 PM

obviously im not andrews lawyer so i cant sum this up in a Legal Manner but to clarify (although reading the DMCA i feel like it’s pretty clear?) andrew and HS legal’s position is that no, having the site up at all is absolutely not in compliance with the second DMCA. the entire website is dripping with the homestuck IP, trademark etc, and the entire purpose of the site is to proliferate a tool used specifically to host all that material. the fact that it happens to not have those assets on there anymore is not at all considered by andrew or his team to be a sufficient or satisfactory response to the DMCA.

i dont know the full text of that response or have access to it myself, i never read it, but again for clarity’s sake andrew’s position here is that having the site up and the tool up, asset packs or no, is a fundamental violation of andrew’s trademark, and the DMCA is an order to take it all down.

GiovanH 09:33 PM

I have not seen this clarification! My most recent legal counsel was that what’s currently up was not infringing, but I may be one communication behind. I’ll call and see.

miles 09:33 PM

ok, definitely do that sooner than later

but again, for clarity’s sake, andrew and HS legal see having the site up as a defiant posture, so the number one step of amending that that i’d highly recommend doing like, NOW, is taking it down immediately

GiovanH 09:35 PM

In the meantime my inclination is to take things down until I can confirm my position with representation

Yeah, that

Although my recollection is the last request was to keep the tooling up because the fork wasn’t done yet… I can definitely hide things now in response to what you’ve just said though

I can’t speak to the soundness of any of the legal arguments (i.e. whether the claims are valid or not) but in this interim period before I get updated counsel on that, I’ll delist what I can

miles 09:39 PM

yeah i mean im not here to speak to the legal arguments either, just to confirm that “compliance” here means taking it all down and, like you said, getting updated counsel and also preferably getting the lawyers back in touch pronto to discuss next steps

…

GiovanH 09:43 PM

https://homestuck.giovanh.com/unofficial-homestuck-collection/ 451’d

miles 09:43 PM

perfect

…

GiovanH 10:00 PM

ok, good

yeah, the DMCA just says “the webcomic Homestuck”, which is the part we’d done the takedown for

so the remaining step will be to address whatever was added in this third message, which it sounds like is “everything else”

GiovanH 10:00 PM

fwiw my status is I thought I was maintaining this patient, respectful public silence about this whole process. (also, I had a whole analysis piece written about HS2 written that I shelved just to make sure that in this sensitive window, nobody even felt like I was criticizing them.) sucks that that’s not at all what folks were perceiving it as. hate that kind of sitcom communication gap

These objections are, of course, very silly on their face. It’s obviously fair use to show a fragment of a Homestuck panel in a screenshot, and using the word “Homestuck” to describe Homestuck isn’t a trademark violation.

Despite this we still brought the website down. Not based on the text of the DMCA order or any legal request, but based on the description they said they would have liked the DMCA order to mean. In this, as in all things, I extended them every possible latitude.

[The Unofficial Homestuck Collection’s Lawyer], Jan 9, 2025 To address the present status: The website is currently entirely offline and will remain so until we further our discussion.

To address your points in order:

1) Thank you for your further explanation. While we do not necessarily agree that the website implies the completeness which bothers you, it will be addressed and clarified before we put the site back online.
2) Regarding the .gif files, we feel that a reasonable person could consider this a fair use, but rather than dispute it and to show our good faith we will remove them before the website goes back online.
3) Regarding the trademark issue, we feel it is fairly obvious to a reasonable person, including a participant in the relevant market, that this is a nominative use only, especially with the prominent word “UNOFFICIAL” proximal to the mark. We maintain that this nominative use is necessary to indicate to website viewers what the app is useful for and otherwise does no harm to, nor causes any likelihood of confusion with, your client’s mark. If you would prefer some alternate presentation or wording, please advise and we will do our best to reach a reasonable accommodation with you.

We would also like to reach a reasonable agreement and accommodation with your client, as we feel that the continued availability of the app is mutually beneficial to both parties. We appreciate your position and will work to be more responsive in future to this end.

June, Blog Demand and Response

After some back and forth, we get another communication about a “settlement”, once again fixated not on any UHC-related harm but on Andrew’s anger over previous reporting.

[Andrew’s Legal Agency], Jun 16, 2025 After speaking with our client, Homestuck is willing to settle if several conditions are met.

First, the five blog posts I list below need to be removed. As you are probably aware, Homestuck fundamentally believes these five blog posts to be libel and we cannot move forward with any settlement without these being removed.

https://blog.giovanh.com/blog/2020/10/03/the-hiveswap-fiasco/
https://blog.giovanh.com/blog/2020/10/03/accountability-on-kickstarter/
https://blog.giovanh.com/blog/2021/01/14/more-on-the-hiveswap-odd-gentlemen-debacle/
https://blog.giovanh.com/blog/2021/06/30/the-sarah-z-video-fallout/
https://blog.giovanh.com/blog/2021/11/11/polygons-life-after-homestuck-thread/

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.

Finally, the parties sign a release agreement which includes an NDA, an agreement the parties will cooperate with each other, and a non-disparagement clause. As part of the release agreement, [Legal Name] may release a mutually approved statement on his blog explaining the situation.

Of course since they’re hosting the assets themselves now, “the reader itself” is the only thing they could have a claim against. Meanwhile, remember how Homestuck was going to “move past” the blog stuff because it was obviously “unproductive?” They sure don’t. My understanding is that Andrew’s lawyer is thought well of in his industry, and I have no idea how Andrew managed to talk him into participating in this inane “libel” argument.

I will just let my lawyer speak for me here, because his response is an excellent summary of the situation.

[The Unofficial Homestuck Collection’s Lawyer], Jun 27, 2025 We are glad to hear that regardless of any settlement you do not object to the reader application. As I’ve written before we also believe the reader is non-infringing and we are grateful to have a clear confirmation that you agree on this point.

The purpose of my client’s website is for the distribution and documentation of the reader application, the software you have said you do not object to. It does not currently distribute illegal copies of the protected Homestuck assets, nor is that its purpose. If that page links to another website that’s currently distributing unauthorized copies, such as the unaffiliated caard page, we can comply with removing those links if necessary. If you believe we are in error regarding any assets not mentioned herein, please advise.

Note that since Homestuck is providing the same files themselves, the could link to Homestuck’s distribution of the assets without any substantive change in content. Even without Homestuck hosting this specific file though, the Homestuck assets have been widely distributed for several years now with the full knowledge and even support of Homestuck and its executives, so my client modifying his page will not have an effect on the material’s availability. We acknowledge that this does not affect your client’s distribution rights, but we suggest that a simple license to distribute the asset pack with proper attribution and terms could be a reasonable element of any proposed settlement.

That being the case it’s unclear what material matters remain for such a settlement to resolve. When [Legal Name] inherited responsibility for maintaining the project’s websites he had both explicit permission and explicit direction from Homestuck to continue distributing those assets and not interrupt the availability of the project. When your office sent us a DMCA request we took down all copyrighted material that could be considered infringing pending further discussion and agreement. In fact my client has gone above and beyond the requirements by de-listing the entire website while we try to resolve the underlying dispute. We have only recently restored the website for the reader application after being unable to reach [Andrew’s Lawyer] or any of Homestuck’s agents for an extended period of time, which we took to indicate a loss of interest in the matter.

Prior to the DMCA letter your office sent us, my client was also in the middle of a productive conversation with Homestuck about licensing the collection itself. A specific plan was outlined in which Homestuck executives would meet with my client, onboard them to the “Homestuck Independent Creative Union”, and then discuss approaches to collaborating on the existing project in both artistic and technical capacities. Unfortunately Homestuck shut this communication down before following through on this procedure or discussing details of such a license.

The topics that precipitated Homestuck’s ending of this productive conversation to the best of my knowledge were unrelated to the license or the project, but rather related to demands by Homestuck representatives that Homestuck take control of the project in its entirety (something they had previously agreed not to do) and for my client to perform a vague sort of public obeisance and/or apology, including regarding the blog posts you’ve referenced. In fact, the original DMCA request that precipitated [Andrew’s Firm’s] involvement was not a reaction to the distribution of any copyrighted material, but instead direct retaliation for not assigning Homestuck Inc. ownership and management control over the reader application. At times, to be blunt, we have questioned whether Homestuck is/was acting in good faith when it presents copyright infringement as its objection. Over the past three years, Homestuck has supported our distribution of the Homestuck assets currently being objected to, even directing people to download from my client this very same asset pack. They only stopped directing people to use us as a distributor for these resources after they decided they wanted to take ownership of the reader application. Again, we acknowledge that this does not affect your client’s distribution rights, but we suggest that a simple license to distribute the asset pack with proper attribution and terms could be a reasonable element of any proposed settlement if the copyrighted materials are in fact the issue Homestuck wants to address.

With regard to the accusations of defamatory blog posts, this is a topic unrelated to the question of copyrigt,[sic] but I will address it as Homestuck sees this matter as strongly relevant to their relationship with my client. First and foremost, we strenuously deny and disagree with any assertion that defamatory statements exist in these posts or any other work published by my client. [Legal Name] has shown me communications between him and Homestuck representatives wherein he repeatedly responds to these accusations with requests for clarification, and clarification was never given. Some of these conversations happened as part of the recent Homestuck Collection project, but some were as old as requests for comment made before the posts were ever published. In addition, we have communication from Andrew Hussie dated 2024-09-02 wherein he describes said articles not as containing any false statements, but as being “cynical” and “destructive” and needing to be deleted regardless of their actual content. This leads us to believe Homestuck does not actually believe there to be any actual defamation in these works either. If you and your client believe there are false or defamatory statements in the posts in question, please identify such statements with particularity, and we will review them and take any appropriate action.

When it comes to defamation, if anything, we have reason to believe that Homestuck and its agents have engaged in spreading false and defamatory claims about my client, not the other way around. It seems more likely that your client wants to predicate work on the condition that my client remove writing containing facts and/or opinions Homestuck finds unflattering, which is a very different conversation than an accusation of defamation.

Either way, we find it problematic to bundle the question of these posts with the idea of a settlement regarding alleged copyright infringement, especially since they predate Homestuck reaching out to [Legal Name] with offers to collaborate on The Unofficial Homestuck Collection project. I reviewed the initial series of communication between [Legal Name] and Homestuck. Before proceeding into the conversation at all, my client points out this risk of “bad blood” as something that could impact a working relationship, and Homestuck explicitly dismisses those concerns, unequivocally reassuring my client that past criticisms would not interfere with either licensing issues or Homestuck’s request to participate in some yet-to-be-determined mutually agreeable form. Homestuck clearly did not condition an association with [Legal Name] on the removal of this material, as their representatives themselves represented. As noted, if you identify particular defamatory statements, we will review them and take appropriate action. Such action will be taken whether or not we reach a copyright settlement, as my client of course does not wish to defame anyone.

Without disparaging or denying the actual rights your clients may have, in some ways, again to be blunt, they appear to be trying to use the alleged infringement as an excuse to pursue an inappropriate personal vendetta against my client and unlawfully seize management of The Unofficial Homestuck Collection, his own intellectual property. Despite all this my client has continually emphasized that his goal is not to engage in a hostile relationship with Homestuck. His stated goal is not to exploit or harm Homestuck in any way, but to simply create and publish his own independent and valuable work. In the event of unsustainable legal hostility from Homestuck, rather than pursue legal action, a much more likely scenario is for him to simply bow out, cease maintaining this project, and publicly explain why he has been forced to do. But we are cognizant of the fact that doing so risks creating new conflict and doing significant damage to your brand, which is why we’ve taken steps so far to try to work with Homestuck cooperatively in order to avoid that lose-lose scenario.

In my previous communication with [Andrew’s Lawyer], I discussed my client’s interest in pursuing a true settlement to resolve some of these claims and even potentially license his work to Homestuck for commercial use — something they’ve expressed a strong interest in — while preventing an avoidable conflict that would inevitably end with Homestuck framed in a negative light. We are interested in continuing that discussion, but Homestuck must move past trying to pursue a personal grudge in order to do that and come to an amicable and mutually-beneficial conclusion to this.

July, Andrew’s Final Demand

[Andrew’s Lawyer] (July) …
Let me be clear about where things stand:

The recently reinstated Unofficial Homestuck Collection website is saturated with Homestuck’s protected intellectual property. This isn’t speculative; the site prominently features unauthorized use of my client’s assets, trademarks, and materials throughout.

…

Your client’s trademark infringement is blatant. It appears in the domain name, the headers, marketing language, metadata, and across the website. There is no serious argument for nominative fair use here. The project offers a direct market replacement, creates consumer confusion regarding affiliation, and undermines my client’s ability to control its brand.

In short, your client’s copyright and trademark defenses are without merit. Their continued reliance on these arguments only increases their exposure.

As for the blog posts we’ve previously referenced - even if we were to set aside whether they are legally actionable (a point that remains under review), their removal is a non-negotiable prerequisite for any resolution. Your client cannot expect to maintain those disparaging materials and simultaneously negotiate a working relationship with my client.

At this point, your client has three primary options:

Refuse to cooperate, maintain the infringing content, and face both informal and formal legal action, including takedowns, injunctive relief, and pursuit of damages. To be clear, this is not an abstract threat. We have already begun taking steps in that direction, including preparations to pursue removal of your client’s website and related content through their domain registrar, hosting provider, and relevant platforms. We will pursue every available legal and technical remedy to bring this infringement to an end and to hold your client accountable for the existing and resulting damages.

Engage in the self-removal of infringing materials referenced in your email, and attempt to wage a public relations campaign. That approach neither eliminates liability for years of past infringement nor secures your client’s ability to operate going forward, nor does it prevent my client from undertaking any of the preceding actions. I’ll be blunt - we are not concerned about the court of public opinion. …

Engage in a structured, good-faith resolution, which includes:

Removal of infringing content and unauthorized distribution;

A properly documented license agreement if your client wishes to operate legitimately;

Removal of defamatory or misleading public statements.

This third option is the only one that meaningfully limits your client’s liability, preserves the work they claim to care about, and provides a clear, legal path forward. It is also, frankly, the path of least resistance legally, financially, and reputationally.

We are still willing to pursue that option, but the opportunity to resolve this amicably will not remain open indefinitely. If your client is serious about resolving this dispute, now is the time to act. Otherwise, we will move forward with the steps necessary to protect my client’s rights.

Your client must immediately remove the UHC website and Carrd, pending an executed settlement, release, and/or license from Homestuck.

This is overstating their position, to say the least. Andrew once again categorically refuses to consider the particularities — there’s not even a “While X is true, Y” type transition. Instead they’re simply refusing to address any of the issues we raised and just restating the most aggressive position possible. For the entire period of time I’ve maintained the Unofficial Homestuck Collection site in a theoretically infringing way it was on the direct request Homestuck made in writing, as I’ve detailed here. That counts. There’s also no trademark issue — we’re using the word Homestuck clear as a description of the thing itself. The UHC is only ever described as unofficial and if anyone’s confused it’s because the Homestuck website was down. By the time we got this letter any blank page was a “direct market replacement” for homestuck.com, since after getting it back from Viz they’d turned it off. The best they can do is just desperately declare us “without merit”. It’s intimidation. (Note the explicit threat to cause “reputational” damage to me.) I’m sure this works on anyone who hasn’t already had to hire a lawyer but after review I know better.

They declare we “cannot expect” to negotiate a working relationship despite the fact that they themselves were the ones who offered that relationship without any of the newly described conditions. They throw in how little they care about “public opinion” while at the same time threatening a frivolous lawsuit unless I personally help improve Andrew’s reputation and clean up their public image. (For some reason people think they like to threaten lawsuits — this must somehow be due to the Haters.)

But the most interesting thing is that the purpose of all this is to force me not to simply address the copyright concern, but for me to remove information I’ve published that paints Andrew in a negative light. And in so doing, I would publicly imply the falsehood that the writing itself was objectionable. In order to talk about the blog posts at all they have to “set aside” the question of whether the posts are true or not, because despite already claiming otherwise Homestuck know they are. This is the same demand Homestuck already said could be ignored if I gave them control of the UHC. It’s just the same exhausting demand for a public show of submission again. They boast about all the attacks they’ve set up against me as if they’re impressive and strong, when each one is itself an offense. All these paths funnel towards the same demand for “removal of defamatory or misleading public statements”, which is just Andrew’s original grudge. It’s all about Andrew’s personal grudges through-and-through. Everything else is set dressing.

Conclusions

This wasn’t a blunder. This wasn’t cognitive dissonance. This wasn’t a dumb guy misplaying their hand. This is an intentional strategy of practiced, coordinated abusive behavior. What happened here was misconduct performed as a matter of regular practice.

These explicit legal attacks only cap off a series of social attacks that have been underway for years against various people, with various degrees of visibility. What I’m able to share now is not the extent of the data, it’s just the most freely shareable data. For everything I can write about publicly there are five private incidents.

I say this only to explain my confidence. To be explicitly clear, “dude, trust me” is not a valid way to criticize a person. Insisting that there’s a real but secret concern one can’t articulate but demands others act on is not behaving responsibly. In fact, it’s how an abuser uses their influence to alienate personal enemies without cause. I only point out that the specific evidence I’ve pointed out here (and elsewhere) are not the extent, but points in a cloud of stories that have mostly been hushed up.

Archival Disaster

It is obviously bad for the archive to be unavailable, especially when the archive is the best version out there. Even with the original program and the HICU fork available, there’s work I needed to do that now isn’t going to happen.

Homestuck has communicated extremely strongly for years — both when Andrew was visibly in charge and now, when they’re a shadow leader — that they’re willing to cause however much damage they feel like causing. They do not see themselves as having any sort of responsibility, and don’t even see providing a good product as a goal that they have at all.

If Andrew is interested in taking the responsibility of custodianship for the comic seriously and making sure what they provide is the best thing for the community, that would be good. We already know for a fact they haven’t been historically: this is what necessitated we build the collection in the first place. And the union hasn’t been involved for long, but they have made it extremely clear that respect for their community is of no importance to them.

The Homestuck website could be up and fully-featured right now. Andrew could be selling copies of the UHC on Steam right now, for money. But the price tag for that was “please, please just be normal” and they spat on it. Homestuck had a clear choice here between doing right by people or maintaining an image of Andrew as perfect, and they chose the bad one.

Has to be said

I hate to be a negative voice, especially another time about this same franchise I love, but the only thing worse than exposing what’s going on here would be to cover it up and let it keep getting worse. Andrew would only keep harming and exploiting more and more people. We saw this same dynamic in the accounts from workers who were mistreated during the Hiveswap days: professional abuse was covered up, terrible practices were normalized, and so those practices and that abuse just continued to hurt more and more people, because no one would talk about it.

I don’t like the thought that this is going to negatively impact some of the good projects the HICU seems to be working with, but hiding what’s happening here would be irresponsible and negligent of me. Although Andrew’s legal representative bizarrely asserted in writing that they don’t care about reputational damage, I still care about minimizing the harm this inflicts on innocents. I have done what I can to reduce collateral harm without covering up points people need to know. Ultimately I believe openness with the community about these incidents is foundational to real harm mitigation because it’s the only way to discourage the people committing the harm from continuing.

I am not throwing anyone under the bus here. Andrew Hussie and company have driven a bus over a crowd of people and I have to deliver the bad news to their grieving families. I know this news impacts a lot of people — some very severely — and so I don’t give it lightly. I promise I tried other avenues before it came to this. But Andrew doing this hurts more people than just themself, and as much as I want to I can’t protect everyone in their blast radius while being honest.

If Homestuck ever does come back and remedy the damage they’ve done that would change the story. But that’s a tall ask and I expect if they do anything they’ll do the opposite. Their primary goal is just going to be trying to socially isolate me, drum up more baseless rumors, and anything else to construct a plausible reason for people to ignore my warning.

Freedom Motif

A fan community should be a symbiotic relationship. Fanwork can serve functions official work can’t, and the community surrounding a work is one of the main things that gives a work “value”, in a base economic sense. Likewise official recognition can be a good thing. Fan work can be elevated, talented creators can be brought on as part of official projects, etc. Official recognition can serve as a badge of honor.

But the deciding factor in whether the creator/fan relationship is healthy or exploitative is whether the community is allowed to be independent. One of the most important merits of fanwork, discussion, and criticism is a plurality of perspectives, and the ability to present and analyze work through truly pluralistic viewpoints. This is why things like fan comics, fan games, fan resources, and fan events (like Stuck At Home Con) have been so extraordinarily valuable. They represent legitimate plurality where the community manages and supports itself.

This is something Bambosh and I talked about in our conference panel. While it may make sense for there to be an official collection, this would be subject to the IP holder and their vision of how to work should be presented, potentially narrowing the focus and scope of the work. One of the obvious dangers is this can lead to the marginalization and demonization of specific viewpoints the corporate interest doesn’t agree with, regardless of their artistic and intellectual merit. The fan-centered archive and the creator-centered archive fill fundamentally separate functions.

If the IP holder insists that all aspects relating to discussion of a work go through one unifying authority, this is an assault on the community and represents an act of aggression against fan-run fan-space. If there is a demand that all work that exists be brought in under a single umbrella of control, this is a dangerous and precarious arrangement. It does not matter how much or how little work is encapsulated by official support. A unification of community spaces through a central governing authority with the ability to enforce policy and preference is an existential threat to that community.

Or, in extraordinarily blatant corruption like we see here, the control can be used to prevent valid criticisms of the work or the people involved in its management, as has happened here. In Homestuck’s case, not only is there this structural danger, Homestuck’s past and present leadership has proven itself to be not just potentially problematic, but actively and eagerly abusive of power it can acquire over community spaces. Especially toxic to fan spaces is Homestuck’s eagerness to blacklist and socially isolate people on its “enemies list”, leading to a sort of guilt-by-association virus that attacks the very foundations of community. Homestuck has consistently historically abused any power it can acquire for the personal enrichment of its few executives. It does this, like a parasite, directly at the expense of the people who support it.

Homestuck is Radioactive

The Unofficial Homestuck Collection didn’t have a right to exist. I’m not entitled to unilaterally distribute Homestuck. That’s why we took it down when we were finally asked. The problem here isn’t that I didn’t get what I wanted, the problem was the mistreatment and deception throughout, the inordinate amount of retaliatory violence that Andrew was willing to wield. The problem is the way Homestuck operates.

Homestuck is, at its core, a bad faith actor at a scale that’s genuinely difficult to convey without sounding overdramatic. They already were before this, but this incident has proven it beyond argument. People keep falling for the friendly act and keep getting irreparably harmed for their trouble.

Andrew is willing to be unimaginably hostile towards people. The problem is not that Andrew “hates their fans”, or is intentionally trying to destroy their community, or anything like that. The problem is that they’re willing to attack anyone if they see it as useful to the greater good of their own reputation. Over the smallest perceived slight Andrew will attack people’s careers, their professional lives, their financial stability, everything. I gave Andrew more chances to set themself right than anyone could have asked me to give them. I gave James every chance to set them straight. I gave their lawyer every chance to set them straight. If the leeway I gave them to be angry was not enough, no amount of leeway will ever be.

This is not an exceptional situation, this is the capstone to a long and consistent history of controlling and violently litigious behavior — not just over copyright issues, but for any whim Andrew is willing to pursue.

This primarily concerns fan spaces, but is in no way limited to them. I am convinced it is not a coincidence Andrew has seemingly never been able to work with people. This obviously includes big names like The Odd Gentlemen, Fellow Traveller, and Viz Media²⁵, but don’t forget about art/music team turnover, Requiem Cafe, or that Andrew has already burned through two management teams on Homestuck^2 alone.

Not only is Homestuck radioactive, Andrew has gone to great lengths to prove that no matter what they say has changed, it will always be radioactive.²⁶ I cannot overemphasize the fact that Homestuck will just lie outright. Whether this is because they’re confident they can retaliate against people who catch them or not, they freely do it. If Homestuck comes to you for anything, even if they’re nice, even if they make explicit guarantees in writing, even if they explicitly promise Andrew isn’t involved, their willingness to lie here shows you can’t trust any of it. They have gone through all the ways they could possibly be trustworthy, all the ways they could be expected to be reasonable, and systematically violated each of them.

If Homestuck reaches out to you to collaborate, to license work, or for anything else, cut bait on day one. If they start making takedown threats, let them follow through and announce what’s happened. It’s better than any alternative.

It does not matter that Homestuck’s current salesman is making seem chill and reasonable. It does not matter that there’s some new organization that structures you comfortably far away from the labels that were attached to previous abuses. It does not matter that they’ve agreed to everything they should have and promised to be generous and reasonable. It does not matter what they put on paper. You cannot shrewdly navigate this. You are handing away power to a person eager to harm you in ways a reasonable person would have no reason to even consider to be a possibility. You are signing up to play Calvinball.

Take the word of everyone who has tried to do this before you and failed, and let the silence of those pressured into keeping quiet as indictment.

Don’t Support This

The point of this isn’t to get everyone riled up and angry. Don’t harass anyone over this, don’t start a manhunt. If you have a copy of the UHC please continue to enjoy it. I have no legal fund, even though I have paid multiple thousands of dollars out of pocket for legal defense during this time. (If Andrew still tries to sue me, perhaps I will need one.) But what you should do is not tolerate this behavior.

I still love Homestuck so much. I love the people, I love the community, I love the art. I love the various people on the Homestuck workforce! They’re not responsible for these problems, they’re just caught up in it. I even still love the work itself.

Homestuck is art. It’s an important literary work. But it’s far past time for it to go full Hatsune Miku. Make the fanart. Love the comic. Talk about the work. Go to prom! Make conventions and celebrate the wonderful community Homestuck has fostered. Be excellent to each other. But it is vital not to do anything on any kind of leash. It’s time for Homestuck-as-a-corporation to be fully over. No more merch, no more official, no more brand. Let the fan scene thrive, but if you see an outstretched hand, cut it off. For Homestuck to continue under any form of Andrew’s leadership is to condemn it to rot with the Harry Potters and Dilberts and Good Omens of history.

No one should be willing to work with disgruntled ex-cartoonist Andrew Hussie, including by proxy. At worst you’re at risk of entering into an abusive relationship and at best you’re propping them up and lending your credibility to someone who spends other people’s credibility like it’s money.

You especially shouldn’t support this right now, when the currently running major Homestuck project is running a Patreon whose money pays Andrew and Miles. Makeship Karkat isn’t worth having when he pays these salaries. Off the back of this story I’m just going to come out and make an explicit value judgment: you should not be giving Homestuck your money, and if you are you should stop. I think we should encourage fan merchandise and support attempts to create and sell new things, but not when Homestuck gets a cut. Homestuck has done half a dozen things during this process that individually warrant that. I wish they hadn’t, but they did. Putting them all together, I cannot possibly justify saying that continuing to financially support this behavior is reasonable. It’s not.

Hoping to go back to fun stuff soon.
With love,
- Gio

When this was first published it was written with he/him pronouns for Andrew throughout, since at the time James Roach, Miles, and Andrew’s legal representation all used he/him for Andrew. I got several comments reminding me that Andrew has been using “any pronouns”, and so using he/him (as well as calling them a man) could be read as a transmisogynistic jab, which was never the intent.

To clarify that intent and make sure this doesn’t read to anyone as some kind of transphobic trash I’ve rewritten the piece with they/them use instaed.

I have criticisms of Andrew here, obviously, but I want it to be very clear I’m not taking any cheap shots over identity. I use whatever set of pronouns someone uses. That’s not what this is about.

Let me know if I’ve missed a spot and I’ll fix it. ↩
Bambosh was also the frog. ↩
For the sake of trying to reduce asset pack updates (because they’re extremely large files that people have trouble with) some later updates to the Application contain a few tiny assets to “patch” the asset pack, but those are considered minimal and non-infringing, and can be removed if needed. ↩
As the copyright holder I have the right to re-license the collection outside GPL3, so if they wanted to use it in one of the ways GPL3 doesn’t allow, I can enable that. This is the kind of thing I would expect their lawyer to have explained to them if they consulted with him properly. ↩
By Kurzon - Own work, CC BY 4.0, Link ↩
A quick note on these discord quotes; These are all carefully transcribed so they’re accessible on all screen sizes and on screen readers. As with all blockquotes, an ellipsis indicates a cut. I also do have very crunchy screenshots and other evidence for these, but collaging them in to a readable article would make for even nastier reading.

No, being text doesn’t make my quotes suspicious. It’s incredibly easy to mock up a fake screenshot, and using screenshots in this article would have only made it difficult to read. You can check the validity by looking at Andrew’s response. If I’d fabricated anything it would be trivial for him to prove it and disprove this entire piece, which he’d love to do. ↩
I’m going to linger on these early moments to show you the tone but don’t worry, I won’t go this in-depth for every exchange of messages. I simply cannot. ↩
i promise you it is not ↩
I didn’t get to see this message until more than a year later, but it’s very sweet. Seriously, Bambosh? What a guy. ↩
Well, evidence before conclusion chronologically. I may still give summaries of things I know before showing the details. I had to go through everything many times over before I understood the whole picture, and now I’m trying to give you the benefit of that work in one shot. That’s my little gift to you called writing. ↩
: ↩
There’s a very “Trump handshake” aspect to all this. ↩
I haven’t been spending much time on timestamps and date gaps, but it’s flatly untrue that I’ve stalled anything or even been unresponsive. Perhaps there’s a feeling of not making progress left over from the deadlock which they caused themselves. ↩
Another example of the “don’t make me hit you” reversal of victim and offender. Andrew doesn’t have to make any attacks, they’re choosing to do it. Discussed previously. ↩
Another example of using the creation of a UHC fork as a threat designed to punish rather than something they’re willing to maintain. Discussed previously. ↩
Andrew cultivates this strange inversion of Jester’s Privilege, where taking on the trappings of comedy and unseriousness shields the otherwise powerless jester from responsibility, allowing one to tell truth to power. Except in Andrew’s case the person claiming it is the one with all the power, and they’re using ambiguous Goofs to situationally infantilize themselves to dodge responsibility for serious harms they’ve caused not with jokes, but with professional malpractice. ↩
I know a common avenue of textual analysis is psychoanalysis of Andrew’s personal life. “Oh, it’s because their father…”, “Oh, it’s because their brother…”. I have never participated in any of this. I think it’s speculative and distasteful. ↩
Andrew can’t resist but try to throw Bambosh under the bus, something even Miles knew not to do. There was no “kneejerk snap”, Andrew directly began legal proceedings against Bambosh who rightfully disconnected from the project in response. Although Bambosh’s exit was sudden there was also no sudden takedown — the collection was down for a few minutes at most while we migrated the maintainer behind the scenes. But complaining about a takedown in the first place is absurd, because the very thing Andrew keeps threatening to do — and in Bambosh’s case, already legally demanded — is a takedown. ↩
Andrew also keeps modeling things as “leverage”; who’s under whose thumb, who’s gun is to whose head, which one is the alpha and which one is the simp. The reality, as I’ve already described, is we’re two people who would like things from each other, and we’re meeting to pursue mutual benefit. But Andrew simply refuses to work this way; they consistently demand power over others first. ↩
“But Miles can’t be responding to the settlement demands! You said those were sent in September, and this chat is from August! Are you making this all up?” Good question, no. Some of the docs were sent over earlier in August, which is the discussion here. September is the first date they were all available, which is why I attribute it that way. As I discussed in the intro, some non-impactful streamlining is necessary for this to be readable. ↩
A truly deranged thing to claim, given that the injection of the demand that I make a public statement is the most clearcut case of “dredging up old bullshit unproductively” I can imagine ↩
This is flatly untrue; the documents don’t detail any damage done to the brand and don’t explain any amount of “harassment”. At best, Andrew asserts it’s the case without explaining how. ↩
I actually have no idea what’s being referred to here. It sounds like Andrew feels like somebody did them wrong but refuses to articulate what it was, which is behavior I’ve learned not to give credence to from them. ↩
Of course, I have still not done that. This post is the opposite of a “quick win”, it was — as you’ll read — a very last resort, forced by Andrew’s continued legal violence. ↩
In fact, according to Andrew, VIZ media “left the project and brand hanging out to dry a few years prior” to 2021, almost immediately after the original deal in 2017. ↩
An argument Homestuck could give was that this one public incident was the worst they’ve ever behaved, and just happened to be the one that was publicized. I don’t believe that for a second, but if it were true Andrew can prove it.

If Homestuck wants to disprove any of this, all they need to do is waive NDAs they’re using to censor people. Guarantee a representative sample of people they’ve affected immunity and let them give their stories too. Let’s hear from the folks who interacted with Homestuck and then were mysteriously harmed for secret reasons.

Waive the NDA with Bambosh, let him describe what he experienced too. Let’s have open conversations with everybody. All they need to do to prove me wrong is open the floor, and all they need to do to prove me right is to keep up the isolation tactics and play damage control. ↩

Can You Keep a Secret?

2025-06-04T00:00:00-05:00

Deltarune came out! Weirdly, that’s kind of a problem? People who care about the game have this immediate need to stay off social media so as not to be spoiled. There is a rush to for anyone who ever wants to play the game to do so immediately, because if you don’t the Internet will ensure you don’t get a blind experience. You’re forced to binge it or be spoiled.

I was just thinking about chapter 2, and how I would’ve loved to have found the secret twist for myself, even though it was hidden away a little. If the game has indicated there was something to find, people would have found it on their own. Instead, I’m willing to bet the experience for the vast majority of people was finding out online first and then reproducing what they saw for themselves.

Narrative spoilers

But this is not a Deltarune thing. For any narrative media, the experience depends on the work presenting the narrative flow it intends to. This includes reveals, this includes pacing, this includes characterization.

Getting information out of turn spoils the game. It does this so aggressively that breaking narrative flow has become one of the definitions for the word “spoil”, as in “ruin”. I have a much longer piece I want to write some day about information filtering in general, which is maybe the hardest problem ever?

For games like Deltarune, it’s taken for granted that people have at most a week of courtesy before the Internet is flooded with information. And of course there are some people out there who are eager to get that information as soon as possible; it is not universally true that people want to experience narrative as intended.

Except sometimes we care a lot

But is this a little silly? Is narrative purity so reverential that information should not flow through the normal channels by which ideas are pushed to us, like social media?

Here’s what piqued my interest about this today: gaming does have a reverence for not letting experiences be spoiled. It’s just very selective right now. We see this absolute demand that knowledge not be leaked, that games be allowed to communicate information to the player on their own terms. But beyond extremely new releases, we see this almost exclusively with regard to knowledge-based games or metroidbrainias, where knowledge is the gameplay mechanic.

These are games like The Outer Wilds, Tunic, The Witness, Return of the Obra Dinn. Games — often freeform open-world games — where the main gameplay mechanic is the knowledge the player has about the world and its mechanics. Jumps in player ability come not from being given a new ability or opening a previously-locked door, but from reveals about how the world works and what you can do in it.

Spoiling these — even long after their release — is seen as crossing a line, in a way talking about Undertale isn’t.

Distinction

But isn’t this a strange distinction? What is it about brainiovania games it drives people to protect the experience in a uniquely extreme way?

People talk about metroidbrainias as uniquely un-replayable, but this clearly isn’t true. You don’t get the same experience if you play it again, but that’s true of all stories.

Mechanical fetishization?

So where do we find the distinction? Is it really just that the thing being spoiled is the mechanic of the game, rather than the story? In both normal story games and metroidbrainias the experience is different on a subsequent playthrough, but in metroidbrainias the challenge is also uniquely removed, or so it seems. Is the deciding factor that knowledge determines what routes are available to you rather than knowledge determining your experience of the narrative? Is mechanical purity being elevated in importance above story?

Taxonomy

But how do you even draw a line between metroidbrainias and any narrative game? It seems like the opposite of a metroidbrainia is a “mastery” game, where the question is just how good you are at the game.

But is there even such a thing as a “true” mastery games? When I try to think of the platonic ideal of a mastery game, the first thing that jumps to mind is UFO 50’s Magic Garden, a simple-but-hard score challenge. The game teaches you the controls, drops you in, and the only question is how well you execute and how quickly you can react.

Except… there’s strategy. When you start, you don’t know what’s effective. The most effective way to score points is to collect a line of oppies, turn them to enemies, and cut through the whole row like pac-man championship edition. The game does not teach you this move.

So what does that even mean? The structures of games rely on knowledge for mechanical purposes to varying degrees, with mastery games on one side of the spectrum and metroidbrainias on the other. But there’s also a dimension of the importance of story, which is another way games rely on knowledge to deliver an experience. And when it comes to resisting the urge to spoil games we’re better about visual novels, where the story eclipses the gameplay entirely.

At some point on that scale is a cutoff for what’s socially acceptable to talk about openly and what isn’t. Arcade section? Free-for-all. We love talking about these, we love sharing techniques, we love the community aspect of mastery. Speedrunning is often about forcing a dynamic of mastery on games that aren’t designed for it just to enjoy this community dynamic. The Metroidbrainia section? In my experience, very carefully defended. People who play the games value the experience and want to share that with others, and communicating too much about the details doesn’t share that joy, it ruins it.

But the importance story has to the social acceptability of spoilers is weird. Spoilers for story details of extremely narrative-focused games like visual novels are generally kept out of public consciousness but still readily available, in a book-club way. But when a game has a story but also some mechanic other than story, the importance we give to the purity of the narrative flow seems unfairly reduced.

Fandom

But here’s the thing: I don’t think this is due to fetishizing the value of mechanics in games over narrative intent. I think the answer is much simpler: stories have funny little guys in them.

We want to talk about the guys. We want to talk about how cool the reveals were. We want to make memes.

We take it for granted that we desperately want to talk about the story, and that everyone has seen it already. So now the task is to strike some sort of balance between that drive and the need to keep the experience available for new players, depending on how much weight we give to that.

Have you ever seen — in the wild — a meme about the spacial relationships between the orbital patterns of celestial bodies in the outer wilds? About the rules of the line patterns in The Witness? I haven’t, and I don’t think it’s because those secrets are more secret than the big twist that you get to fight Sans. I think it’s because they’re just not fun to talk about.

So here is a strange dynamic. Internet fandom culture has baked into it this temptation to cannibalize some of the value of stories by sharing too many details too widely, because stories are just so fun to share with people. In contrast, metroidbrainia games are kind of incompatible with modern fandom. The details that are there to spoil aren’t the kinds of things people want to talk about.

The imperfections of Murder Drones

2025-01-12T00:00:00-06:00

I love murder drones. I think they’re such great little guys. Bring me a robot maid and I am yours forever, etc. But watching through the series itself actually took me a few stabs, and I think it’s due to a few design decisions that make following the plot unintuitive and add some friction to what’s otherwise a very fun show. So I want to talk a little bit about that friction, even though the entire thing is still a good time overall.

Indie Animation

First, the obviously relevant context is that Murder Drones is made by Glitch, which is a small independent animation studio. And independent animation necessarily comes with constraints. It’s incredibly exciting that we have the technology for small teams to make work with this quality and scale, and I don’t at all want to take that for granted. But I think a lot of the friction I have to talk about comes from fundamental trade-offs that come from that setup.

Since their resources are very limited and good animation is expensive work, there’s a pressure for everything to be compressed. Short episodes with short shots in an eight-episode miniseries mean the project is feasible, but it’s hard to get all your fun ideas in while still sufficiently paving the way for them to land properly.

Structurally, a small indie team also carries the risk of skill gaps. I don’t mean to make any criticisms of anyone in particular on the project here, but this kind of team might not necessarily have experienced television writers or producers. And, with a small independent team, there might not be enough of a test audience to catch things that could be improved, or not enough budget to re-iterate for minor improvements. So those are all categories of things that can easily run into trouble.

Independent serialized animation like this is a relatively new phenomenon, but these are going to be the same sorts of challenges projects like RWBY and Helluva Boss have. (Although I think Murder Drones is significantly better than both of those.) So while there are common environmental factors that can make this kind of project a little extra rough, the way that roughness actually manifests is interesting.

It’s not glaringly bad

The reason I’m interested in talking about this at all is that I noticed the friction as part of my own experience, but it wasn’t linked to any obvious problems. In fact, the whole reason I’m writing this is Murder Drones felt like it should be great, and I was surprised there were things that still weren’t quite clicking. In re-watching the series to write this, slowing down and zooming in to catch every piece made the effect much harder to see. It’s hard to put my finger on exactly what caused the effect. Which is why I want to! The dynamics you can barely see are always the most interesting to understand.

This is one of the reasons I really like understanding rules and best practices, because when you’re zoomed-in working on something, it can be easy to miss subtle things about the way the work comes across. Something can seem good as you’re studying it but still have a problem. And when you can’t see the problem directly, you can work it from the other direction.

Things that are fine

There are a lot of obvious things about the show that might seem like evidence of “low-quality” internet media, but I actually don’t object to any of those.

You can feel, in its construction, an intent to appeal to modern fandom culture. It’s like… you know the Hasbro shows like G.I. Joe that were mostly designed to market toys? It’s like a non-evil version of that. Instead of trying to sell you products, the show baits you to engage with the show. There are so many fun characters, and there are lots of great outfits to put them in. And you gotta make a drone ‘sona.

It’s all very shippy. It has so many characters who are incredibly cute together, and it’s just begging you to draw fanart of your faves kissing. There’s a big climactic resolution where the two love interests cement themselves as a ship, and they live happy, harmonious lives in a good* ending.

Like, in the third episode, right after a dramatic wedge is driven between them Uzi and N take each other to prom, complete with a dress and a tuxedo. And then this fight happens.

show knows what it’s about

And with all that set up, I feel like I’m poised to really tear down the show with some really biting cynicism, but that isn’t my point at all. I’m guessing there’s some hate for the show from people who subliminally feel pandered to by all that, but I actually think it’s fine.

It’s not a sin to understand and cater to the specific media environment you know you’re operating in. One might argue that’s part of making a good show. I think it’s easy to take the odd vibes the show prompts and pair those to this sort of fandom cynicism the show also prompts, except I repeat I don’t think the fandomism is the problem.

As a show, it really intentionally embraces the edgy random mid-2000s teen vibe, and I’m not holding that against it. It gives the show some fun character. The whole show is really kind of a love letter not just to fandom, but that particular cringy dorky teenager version fandomhood. Which is just a fun angle to take teen characters and run with!

The silly background humor is fine, the homages are fine, poking fun at tropes is fine too. (Although the humor in the pilot is particularly weak, unfortunately.) There is definitely a “cringe” flavor in the background, but I don’t think that actually hurts it.

And before I get into what does hurt it, I have to list off a few more ways the whole show is genuinely excellent:

Character design
Species design
great looking animation, lighting, textures
- A lot of stuff is glowy but it’s the right kind/amount of glowy
- faces are great
- Thanks Unreal Engine 5
Consistently sick as hell AS effects
- good lord

Solid voice acting
- Good performances
- Characters felt right
- Never took me out of the moment
Soundtrack!
- Just the right combination of fitting and memorable
- but not overbearing even in an already crowded show
it’s got The Juice

Confusion and signaling

No, I think the core problem is confusion. Not any one confusing decision, but a cumulative effect from many tiny things that don’t communicate information well to the viewer. The overall effect is that the plot is hard to follow, and so despite its good qualities, the show is more difficult to watch as a story than it needs to be.

The show makes it unnecessarily difficult for a new viewer’s to intuit a mental model of the story, the world and its characters. Several factors interfere with the story’s ability to communicate, and so people have a hard time forming an understanding of both the mechanics of the world (powers, technology, setting, and elements of the mystery) and the characters themselves (histories, relationships, motivations). Many small factors add up and confuse the plot, creating a narrative situation where a fact can be telegraphed to the viewer without them knowing what that is supposed to mean.

After watching through the series I’m not still confused by the plot, so I don’t think it’s “confusing” in retrospect. The problem is the interaction it has with people trying to watch through the series for the first time, without knowledge from later episodes. And Murder Drones being a finished series is a relatively new phenomenon, so for a long time, that group included everyone.

I think my first reaction at the top of the article about loving the little guys is a common reaction of the show as a whole. Fans of murder drones seem to be fans of the characters first and foremost.

So the answer to “what’s wrong?” is “a lot of nitpicky technical things”. Most of these aren’t even mistakes or errors per se. The pieces aren’t objectively wrong, they just have the wrong effect when put together. And I have no particular film training that would let me talk precisely about these little mechanical things! But I’m going to try anyway.

Also, I’m not Cinemasins, and I’m not here to list “plot holes”. That’s not the problem I care about here. There’s a scene in the pilot episode where one robot fires an EMP blast at another robot, and only her target was hurt. And it’s fine. It was part of a fight scene, it obviously read as a direct attack, and it feels narratively consistent for a hit to the target to only hurt them. A story doesn’t have to be perfectly realistic; what matters is the experience, which requires that it be effectively communicated to the audience.

Why am I writing about all the parts I don’t like if I think the show is fun and you should watch it? Because I already spent all this time asking myself what was bugging me and painstakingly figuring out the answer. And maybe I just wanted an excuse to take a whole bunch of pictures of them. Criticism is my love language. I’m so sorry.

Visual

Everything is gray

The show is set on an exoplanet where the atmosphere has been destroyed, leaving the planet in a permanent winter only robots can inhabit. Originally this was a mining planet set up as a utilitarian space, and most interiors are industrial spacer bunkers built with utilitarian industrial lighting. The problem is when your main locations are space-y metal interiors lit by cold fluorescent light and cold gray outdoor snowscapes, everything is just a foggy blue-gray, all the time, indoors and outdoors.

Weather: gray

It’s gray inside too. These are all different locations

This one’s a rustic wooden cabin

This is kind of the opposite of a visual language. Instead of using visual cues to give the viewer more information and signal a contrast between different locations as shots change, the lighting/design almost obscures information about the environment, and even obfuscates some scene transitions.

There are some fun exceptions to this, like the human-inhabited areas that get incandescent lighting, as opposed to cold industrial light. Uzi is consistently color-coded purple, and Doll gets this interesting orange-red. Episode 3 gives characters’ personal rooms this very vibrant color coding that I think works really well.

Bad early character recognizability

Not everybody, just the four disassembly drones.

All the disassembly drones share the same white/black/yellow/hazard color scheme, the same hair color, the same wings, the same tail, the same silhouette (sans J), and the same set of facial expressions. When they’re engaged in combat, they switch to an alternate combat form which is the same for all three of them with no distinctions. We’re introduced to three of these characters at once.

The color scheme issue alone is a killer, but all three drones sharing most of the same secondary and even tertiary characteristics is murder for readability.

This is most impactful in the pilot, because that’s when viewers are first introduced to the characters, and also when there are the most disassembly drones around at once. And it doesn’t help that V and J have the same basic alignment and narrative relationship to N and Uzi. Or that the serial designation letter names “N”, “V”, and “J” trigger the foreign name effect. It helps a lot that they get rid of J for most of the series.

But even after the pilot, this does keep coming up. Especially when a figure is obscured, it can be genuinely unclear who’s who.

generic disassembly drone or someone we know personally? it matters!

Weirdly, even though they’re much less important to recognize, the relatively unimportant worker drones have much more recognizable distinct characteristics. And not by a small margin! They have actual designs complete with color schemes!

even if most of their designs came free with their archetype

Similarity in general

This issue of things being similar to each other in unhelpful ways keeps coming up. Sometimes two things are vaguely similar and it turns out they’re supposed to be deeply connected, and sometimes things are extremely similar but totally unrelated to each other.

This creates a little conceptual problem. I called this Bad Triangle as a placeholder name, and I can’t think of anything better, so I present to you the Bad Triangle:

Concept A is introduced, and then it’s revealed that it has the same relationship to B as it does to C. This is classic Writing: if a parallel structure is set up like this, it should be to communicate that B and C have a sibling-like relationship. But if they don’t, then the viewer can’t reliably make connections and can’t form a clear understanding of the puzzle. Many of the communication issues I’ll point out are Bad Triangle Problems.

This isn’t limited to strictly visual similarity. Episode 2 and episode 3 both start with scenes where a lone worker drone inside their bunker is singled out in the dark and murdered by a supernatural force. These events are completely unrelated. They’re done by two different murderers using two different methods for two different motivations. They don’t even know the other one happened. Thematically, these events are utterly unrelated, but the viewer is signaled to think they’re parallel, since they’re presented in the same way in quick succession.

We’re shown a design of cute little robot bugs in episode 3 as a symbol of death and decay, but then that same model and design is reused for a sentient helper robot. And it’s still a bug they pick off the ground. Two very different roles for the same thing, presented in such quick succession there’s no indication which one is the anomaly in this world.

As another quick example, Uzi’s organic bat tail has a distinctive design that is noticeably identical to JCJ sentinels, even though they’re totally unconnected.

But, at the same time, you’re supposed to be able to intuit that these are just two variants of the same thing, only knowing they’re two things that both had material impacts on the world:

Finding out these phenomena are related would be a twist, except we know you are meant to intuit this, because Uzi does it!

An example of this being done well is the Cabin Fever insignias. Episode 3 is all about Doll and her strange powers, we learn that Uzi has the same powers and also share this necklace in common. This chains directly into the next episode where we get a quick flashback where Uzi figures out what the symbol means, and then they go investigate that location. Bing, bang, boom.

Personal

Ambiguous character motivations and expectations

This is far and away the most severe issue with the first half of the show: It is almost constantly unclear what people’s thoughts and motivations are. The sin is the effect — the viewer not understanding the motivations and goals of the characters, and so not having proper expectations — but there are a few different things that all cause this.

A common cause of this is characters communicating in ambiguous ways about their relationships with major plot elements.

Let’s start with the Absolute Solver, the main plot of the series. One of the first things we learn about disassembly drones is that they have this pseudo-magical auto-repair healing factor that worker drones don’t.

In the next episode, Uzi sees J’s Absolute Solver aftermath and makes the wild leap that the Absolute Solver is a program of some sort that manipulates matter in order to autonomously heal drones.

So — very basic question — what do our two disassembly drones think about this? N says he’s totally surprised by the snake-crab, and the fear that there’s something monstrous inside disassembly drones (besides their already monstrous vampirism) drives a wedge between N and Uzi.

Uzi asks N “what are you things?” and N does this strange ashamed runaway instead of acting horrified. It’s framed as him being embarrassed of his ~~race~~ category, but again it’s left unclear whether any of this is understood or expected.

N then goes to V and… sits in silence in the corner. Does this always happen? Had no disassembly drone ever sustained damage before? Now that it’s happened, do they think J was an anomaly, or are they in danger of the same thing? We’re led to assume this was totally new information for them, but we’re then led to believe that V is familiar with the solver snake-crab effect. So for N’s reaction to make sense, they’d have to have two totally different understandings of the world, despite their squad already working together so much they’ve created a whole corpse spire.

In the next episode, N asserts to V that “we can’t interact with the worker drones, we’re too dangerous.” Why has he started to think this? Presumably J, except that’s hardly more dangerous to the workers than the genocide they were already committing. Or did two things change simultaneously, and N’s changed both his opinion on worker drones in general and also his own nature? Why would arguing that they’re dangerous convince V, who is still doing the genocide?

These aren’t “plot holes”. Every character is allowed to be wrong about things and fail to communicate effectively with others. In fact, that can be very narratively interesting! That’s not what’s wrong here. The problem is the story is hidden from the audience. We don’t know who is doing what, and why. The overall plot is a mystery, but also every character interaction is a puzzle we don’t have the pieces to.

As another example, let’s look at V in the first few episodes. How are we supposed to conceptualize her? What’s her personality and motivation, other than “psychopath”? We get pretty direct exposition, from her, that she doesn’t recognize the symbol, doesn’t know about the Absolute Solver, and is still primarily motivated to perform the drone genocide.

Then Cabin Fever comes, and we get a nice emotional arc between Uzi and V. As V sees N and Uzi care for each other, her attitude towards Uzi shifts from predatory (for both pragmatic and possessive reasons) to one of accepting and even actively looking after Uzi. Classic character work.

it’s weird that they “fit right in”, right? more on that in a bit

(This is also a pretty big unexplained shift from the pilot. V went from not caring about N at all to actively possessive about N, and keeping secrets from him to protect him, for some reason. Now, when N asks about anything, the answer is “stop prying into that stuff.” I think it’s just a retcon, but it’s totally un-lampshaded, and it’s so contradictory that it leaves the audience without an understanding of the character.)

The problem is, in the middle of that Cabin Fever emotional uzi-acceptance arc, the main plot of the episode is Uzi’s newly-discovered Solver powers manifesting in strange fleshy ways that V recognizes and wants to destroy, for reasons she doesn’t disclose to anyone else.

So it suddenly becomes very hard to get a non-contradictory idea of what V thinks or wants. Is she reacting to Uzi’s new suspiciously disassembly drone-like traits? No one knew that could happen at all. Or is she reacting to the parts of her transformation that are anomalous? Or her solver powers (even though V was fine with that earlier)? Or the fact that she goes on a vampiric killing spree and eats several of her classmates (even though V also does that)?

All those things happen at once, by the way. And there are reasons for all of them to be disturbing to different people for different reasons. There’s a lot to react to, but not only is it unclear what V is reacting to, it’s unclear what exactly her reaction is. V and N have a conflict/conversation with incredibly tightly packed emotional swings and reactions, but none of them tell us anything meaningful about the characters or plot, because everybody is all over the place all the time.

And because all the characters are keeping secrets from each other, it’s never revealed to the viewer what the conflict is, which is a pretty important component, narratively.

Also, in a move that felt like they just did it to screw with me, we then see Uzi use these same fleshy powers that sent her into an insane corruption rampage masterfully and casually, with no one (including V) reacting or mentioning it.

This problem keeps happening. Episode 3 is a whole tangled mess of this, specifically in regard to Lizzy. There’s a subplot where she’s manipulated by V to give V the chance to genocide their prom, but at the same time Lizzy is working with Doll, who is openly showing Lizzy her insane vampire murder life. Meanwhile, all these plots work together to accomplish totally disjointed set of goals (including V at prom) that didn’t require the murders that constituted the main plot of the episode.

With full hindsight, my best-guess answer to all that is: V and N do have two sets of information, N didn’t know about the solver and V did. But, somehow, V didn’t know about the most distinguishing feature of the solver, the symbol. (This was retconned without anyone telling the audience, maybe?) Moreover, when Uzi began exhibiting monster traits, V recognized them as related to Cyn, who she was trying to keep N safe from(???). She then had to weigh her two significant motivations — her care for N, and her antagonism toward Cyn — and made the gamble to trust Uzi to satisfy the former at the expense of risking vulnerability to the latter. Doll’s plan made no sense because the purpose of the episode was for Doll to do a big dramatic heel-turn for the audience, and Lizzy is just a psychopath.

This is a very complicated answer and not one you can formulate when you first watch the show, which means you don’t have enough information to understand the characters or conflicts.

In the middle of writing this I watched Jacob and Leo Untangle the Brilliance of DEVS, a retrospective on the TV show Devs, and Jacob Geller made this comment I agree with:

And the show does that [thing I want Sci-Fi to do more which] is just have characters talk through ramifications of things. Like, you know, I want to hear those conversations. And so them kind of having all the arguments that you would have I think is so interesting.

If having these conversations so consistently is part of what makes Devs engaging, characters refusing to ever discuss the implications of their world makes it that much harder to engage with it. The drones are all encountering huge, crazy new concepts that should totally realign their views of the world, and they don’t communicate how they’re dealing with that.

There’s another category of narrative confusion that’s tightly related to all this. I said earlier that I didn’t have an issue with the humor of the show. Poking at tropes can be fun, turning social interactions into clownish performances can be funny, etc. No problem here. What is a problem is when these gags aren’t in service to the main task of communicating the story. And this happens a lot.

In the early show, the most significant dynamic to understand in this whole fictional world is how the societies of the worker drones and the disassembly drones relate to each other. These groups and their relationship is the worldbuilding of the show, and defining and later subverting it is absolutely fundamental.

In the pilot this is spelled out. Uzi’s full name is Uzi Doorman, because she’s from the vitally important Doorman family, the family that makes the giant doors to protect the workers from the titular murder drones. Their entire society is defined by worker drones defending against the existential threat of disassembly drones, who are actively committing genocide against them.

But Uzi delivers all that exposition before anyone even knows disassembly drones can speak. Most of that backstory is eventually contradicted or disproven, so it’s not at all a set-in-stone truth given by a reliable narrator. Subverting the worldview expressed in the opening exposition is a core thread of the show’s plot.

So, given that this “interspecies” relationship a core part of this world that’s in flux throughout the series, the audience needs to understand its norms. Especially — as is the case in Murder Drones — that relationship is the crux of a radical societal shift. So it’s a problem when every interaction between workers and disassembly drones is played for laughs.

Right off the bat, immediately after leading an invasion force into the bunker that slaughters its citizens, N is granted access by the guards by giving a cute face and saying “sorry” nicely.

Uzi’s father takes her to prom, where she’s faced with the question “how could you side with the murder drones, they killed our families?” This is an extremely valid question, but tonally it manages to clash with the episode, because everyone is seemingly okay with everything, all the time.

At prom, Lizzy helps reassemble a damaged V while chiding her for her attempted mass-murder. This whole conversation is significantly less important to everyone in the room than being mean to N.

A minute later, disassembly drones serve as chaperones of a school field trip as a pretext to explore the area. Everybody hangs out and does fun camp activities. At this point, V has not stopped doing the genocide, and actively murders and eats children during the trip.

This is the same trip where Uzi becomes a vampire and goes on a killing spree, murdering and eating many of her classmates. This is never dealt with in any capacity.

It all adds up to a bullet point I had labeled “people are generally cool with stuff they shouldn’t be”. It’s supposed to be a combination of clowning, trope humor, and plot lubricant, which are all fine in moderation. But in Murder Drones, the way this permeates the story — including plot-crucial points — creates a genuine problem. Fundamentally, it’s not clear what kinds of behaviors are normative in this world and what’s considered a meaningful violation of standards. Which makes it unclear what those standards are, which makes it hard to understand the world the story is taking place in. Which matters!

Plot

Human twist doesn’t land

In the very first episode, it’s ambiguous whether humanity died out or just the humans on the one exoplanet. This is a critical plot point!

“Ambiguous” is me being generous here. Uzi says, outright, that “all humans” were killed, and it was easy to pick up where “they” (humans? humanity?) left off. When Tessa shows up, that’s a twist, and so the assumption has to change to be that humans are still around somewhere, maybe in colony ships. (Ironically, “Tessa” showing up doesn’t mean anything for the state of the human race, actually.) So, when Tessa drops the big twist that Earth was destroyed just like the drones’ exoplanet, it doesn’t land. It’s not a twist if it was completely reasonable to assume that had been the case the whole time.

This might just be a victim of a chance in plot direction since the pilot. But if that’s the case, by the time they got to episode six out of eight and were ready to reveal the reveal, they needed to lampshade this somehow in order to make the twist land. Instead, the pieces just don’t connect well, at the expense of the story.

Eye colors

I’ve already mentioned how the blue lighting hurts scene recognizability. But here’s a specific bone I have to pick with lighting choices not just affecting scene readability, but directly hurting the communication of the story. Here’s N in a flashback in episode 2:

It’s an important plot beat that N’s eyes are white and not yellow in this shot. Unfortunately it’s literally impossible to tell that’s the case, because the scene is lit with yellow incandescent lights, so everything white is yellow anyway.

Our best chance at noticing something here is to compare N’s white eyes with yellow eyes directly in this same lighting, which we fortunately get. But here’s what that looks like:

As a visual language, this is illegible.

The only screenshot I was able to get where you can see the difference at all is this one brief shot where both characters are in the same shot and lighting at the same time:

But as a point of reference, here’s an earlier shot showing V with white eyes compared to N’s yellow:

You can see the same kind of contrast here, except in this shot it’s meaningless. Both sets of eyes are still supposed to be yellow here. Which means that major plot point comfortably falls into the margin of “animation error.” That’s real bad!

Mechanics

Too many similar mechanics

This is the cousin of the visual similarity problem. There are a lot of mechanical effects in Murder Drones. Big ol’ tech tree. But there are a lot of different mechanical things that look the same but have totally different causes, or a single cause that can be expressed in very different ways.

Too many kinds of regeneration are introduced at once. In episode 1, we get two different kinds of healing: N’s liquid metal self-repair is one distinct ability, but then the healing saliva is another distinct repair mechanism that works on other units too. (This never comes up again.) One episode later and we get the snake-crab, which seems to be J’s core using an as-of-yet unexplained matter manipulation ability to rebuild her robot body. We then learn that the core is controlled by an autonomous program, not J, and then much later we learn that it’s not a program, but an undefinable eldritch entity. Uzi also gets her own regeneration ability, which uses a distinct soldering effect.

Ultimately, the significance of death (writers take note: this matters) is very muddy. In addition to all the ways drones (and non-drones!) can regenerate what should be fatal damage, we see in J that some robots can literally be replaced with duplicate copies even after permanently killed. It’s also implied that worker drones might have access to the same powers as disassembly drones, but the extent of this isn’t clear, so it’s never obvious if any particular damage is significant or not.

Then, halfway through the series, the idea of cores as a standard worker drone component (as opposed as exclusive to either disassembly drones or snake-crab monsters) is introduced, and now that’s the only time death is significant.

And yes, cores are another unacknowledged retcon. The pilot shows a bisected, coreless worker drone. But even not including that, J’s core being the Absolute Solver instead of having J’s own personality is inconsistent and doesn’t make any sense, especially since J wasn’t ever even a solver host.

Meanwhile, with regard to death, the Absolute Solver seems to transcend the idea of bodies entirely and is usually freely possessing multiple robots simultaneously. Until damage to one particular possessed drone’s core effectively seals her away despite that.

But there are also issues with mechanics less significant than death itself that still play a role in the mystery.

Episode 5 introduces the idea that magnets knock drones out. Episode 6 introduces sentinels which also knock drones out, but also magnets don’t do that anymore, they’re just mild sedatives. Again, the problem isn’t that this is a “plot hole”, it’s that it’s the same mechanic being too different too quickly, making it hard to understand the world as a coherent system.

Disassembly drones’ “vampirism” means they have to consume oil, specifically to prevent from overheating. (Uzi picks up this trait too as she begins to use the solver.) We see drones attack and eat other drones to sate this need. The problem with this is we later see this exact behavior in Cyn’s drones during the culling of Earth, and it’s against fleshy, bloody humans.

This obviously doesn’t involve ingesting drone oil, and seems like it couldn’t have any of the physical effects oil is supposed to give them. So we have the same action done in two different ways, signaling a thematic parallel but not actually paralleling any of the same ideas. Bad triangle problem.

An exciting and marketable thing disassembly drones can do is turn their face into an elongated X, to signify that they’re little rascals. This starts as a trait unique to disassembly drones, but then in a big reveal Uzi does it too.

Wow, is she turning into a disassembly drone??? No, she’s turning into a third kind of bat-thing that’s mechanically very similar to a disassembly drone (face, wings, vampirism…) but distinct in a few obtuse ways that aren’t explained (fleshy, weaponless, possessable…).

As for the elongated X face, we’re given a lore dump that says it’s an indicator of a “Faulty OS String”. It’s very nice to have information like this conveyed at all, but here it doesn’t land, because when we see it in-universe it’s an expression rather than a consistent indicator. Also, we don’t know what an OS String is, or why that’d be relevant. The implication is disassembly drones have theirs changed, I guess, but nothing ever indicates why anyone would have done that or why it’d show up on Uzi.

Transformations

Similarly, there are too many alternate forms of things. Disassembly drones seem able to transform in a number of ways by design: their wings can be deployed or undeployed at will, and their arms can transform into seemingly any kind of weaponry. That’s all supposedly standard, but then there are more transformations added in that are key to the plot.

In episode 2, we learn disassembly drones can apparently become snake-crab monsters. In episode 3, we learn that worker drones can become some sort of teleporting psychokinetic ghost. In episode 4 we see a worker drone transform into a beastly form that resembles disassembly drones but is still very different, and in episode 5 we see that our disassembly drones were originally maids and butlers, which are called worker drones but are very clearly physiologically different from all the other worker drones we know.

Actually, let me dig into the maid droid angle, because that’s very representative of this problem. The flashback scenes were supposed to be the big reveal that disassembly drones were originally worker drones. But instead they’re shown to be an entirely different third thing that doesn’t fit anywhere within any of the previously established taxonomies. The flashback servants have the stature of disassembly drones, but the limbs of worker drones, and a job and environment that’s also totally new.

Narratively, this is supposed to be the “A was B all along” twist, but the introduction of the new variant breaks the “all along” part. It’s like if planet of the apes revealed at the end that they were on a planet that’s a lot like earth but still a different place. So it doesn’t click. None of the pegs fit in the holes, because every peg and every hole is a different shape every time. When everything is novel all the time, the viewer doesn’t get a frame of reference.

All of these effects have different triggers and different significances to the plot, but none of them are explained or understood (by characters or viewers) before the next one is introduced. Most of them are justifiable in hindsight, but in an “ok, I suppose that justifies how that was able to work” way, not in an “oh, that clicks into place, that’s so clever” way.

And they could have clicked into place in a satisfying way. The transformation designs are great and the logic behind them is mostly wired up. They’re 90% of the way there, but that missing 10% noticeably takes the edge off. Again, the piece that’s weak here is how well this world is communicated to the audience.

There’s an attempt to unify a lot of these mechanics and effects under the eldritch “solver” label, but…

Solver powers are very poorly defined

So what actually is the “Absolute Solver”? I might put this question under “mechanics”, except one of the things the Solver is is a sentient person! The same name is used for both the main antagonist of the series and the main supernatural mechanic. It’s the whole metaplot, so it’s important to know what it is. Even in retrospect, this is remarkably hard to do!

So, by my count, here’s what all is explicitly referred to by the name “Absolute Solver”, in order of appearance:

0: ~~A boolean variable in worker drones’ OS that can be toggled~~ (probably retconned)

Disassembly drones’ autonomous repair functions (saliva, liquid metal, etc.)
A sentient emergency-repair system (snake-crab) to reconstitute disassembly drones triggered by major damage
A set of consciously-invoked abilities (matter manipulation, teleportation) some drones (Doll, Uzi, Cyn) are able to tap into
A non-sentient layer of OS programming in disassembly drones to suppress and wipe certain memories
An eldritch entity whose conduit is mutated disposed AI who possesses drones

One thing these all have in common is they’re all reliably sick as hell any time they’re on-screen and don’t think for a moment I don’t appreciate that.

Some of these are compatible with each other, but not all of them at once. That’s right, it’s Bad Triangle time!

1 and 4 could be the same thing, but they can’t also be the same thing as 5, because disassembly drones who have 1 and 4 aren’t ever possessed and seemingly can’t be.
2 and 5 seem like the same entity, with 2 just being 5 possessing a drone core, except 2 is embedded in (some?) disassembly drones and 5 is not. We also see disassembly drones hit the condition to trigger 2, but nothing happens.
3 is probably a property of 5, and drones with 3 are either actively possessed, have been possessed previously, or are descended from a once-possessed drone. But worker drones with 3 don’t have the abilities of 1 or 2.
Uzi using 3 seems to make her a conduit for 5, except we see two other drones (Nori, Doll) freely using 3 without triggering or risking possession.
The eldritch nature of 5 consistently has themes of fleshiness and corruption, especially in Uzi and Cyn. We see this fleshy effect on all drones with any of those numbered traits.

Even if we’re open to a more complex mechanical than the “Absolute Solver” being any cohesive idea, lots of other things prevent any reasonably simple model from working. Once Uzi exhibits 3, she acquires the disassembly drone vampiric weaknesses of burning in sunlight and having to consume oil to keep from overheating. But disassembly drones don’t have any of those powers, and Uzi never exhibits any of the abilities of disassembly drones.

Once we’re away from a strict definition, we have to factor in all the signifiers and associated symbology, and it works less and less. I actually went through the whole series a third time just to fill out this table to try to figure out what powers correspond with what causes, and it just doesn’t work.

This leaves me unable to answer really basic questions. Are DDs hosts for 5, like Uzi, Doll, and Cyn? solver!Tessa says that no, only Uzi is a target, and most evidence agrees and suggests either special experimentation or a genetic component is required, but J proves otherwise with 2.

“Having the Solver” (3) lets Doll and Cyn teleport at will, but not anybody else. What’s the common factor unique to those two but not Uzi and Nora? Nothing! I checked the table!

This isn’t a dumb powerscaling question, this is literally one of the core mysteries of the series. And if I can’t even pin it down with three rewatches and a spreadsheet, a new viewer won’t be able to intuit any of it. And that’s what matters, not my autistic little spreadsheet.

Magic

So if all these powers are cool, why doesn’t it click? This question got me thinking about magic systems in fiction in general.

These robots and powers do form a magic system. Not counting the more explicitly supernatural, eldritch properties of the Solver, the drones and their various abilities are all part of one world, and every mechanic relates to the others. So it’s a system, but it is also magic: these are not physical systems and rules the audience is already familiar with, because they don’t exist in our world.

So if you have a new system of extra-natural abilities, and you want to use that as background for a larger story, how do you write that? This is not a new question. Looking at how people have answered it led me to Sanderson’s Laws Of Magic, a set of essays on writing and communicating magic systems in fiction, the point being that there are best practices for writing magic that works with the narrative:

Sanderson’s First Law As a storyteller, I want a setting element that is narratively sound and which offers room for mystery and discovery. A good magic system should both visually appealing and should work to enhance the mood of a story. It should facilitate the narrative, and provide a source of conflict.

The laws are:

An author’s ability to solve conflict with magic is DIRECTLY PROPORTIONAL to how well the reader understands said magic.
Limitations > Powers
Expand what you already have before you add something new.

For the purposes of Murder Drones, we can tick #2 off as done, since Uzi’s solver powers are explicitly corrupting, and the narrative does a good job at framing an internal and external conflict around the tradeoffs involved in using them. Of the remaining two, a new power isn’t usually presented as a solution to conflict, so I think #3 is what Murder Drones has the most trouble with.

I think a lot of the reason this is an issue is due to the “indie rush” I talked about at the beginning of this essay. If you have a lot of good ideas but fit them into too small a space, they don’t have room to breathe and build on each other.

Sanderson’s point here is not just about pacing out how frequently you introduce new mechanics, but also that it’s often better to develop and extrapolate the mechanics you already have. Keep the rules, play with the consequences.

Sanderson’s Third Law of Magic Often, the best storytelling happens when a thoughtful writer changes one or two things about what we know, then extrapolates purposefully through all of the ramifications of that change. … Extrapolating, to me, is about asking the “what happens when” questions. … Instead of giving every character a new power, can you have different takes on the same powers, used in different ways?

As I’ve been discussing, Murder Drones pathologically avoids letting characters work through the ramifications of things. It’s difficult just understanding a character’s thoughts and motivations, and the show usually introduces new ideas and characters instead of doing new things with the tools it’s already introduced. (See: Alice.) In other words, it’s good at making “what happen”, but is weak at tying it to the “when”.

I really like the point here about exploring variations of established mechanics, which seems like something that would fit into Murder Drones very well. N and V have the same sets of abilities as disassembly drones, but they express themselves with them very differently. N is very utilitarian and stays in “civilian mode” most of the time, whereas V tends to stay in wings-out, arms-rotating combat mode whenever there’s any excuse.

The king of personality though would be the Absolute Solver itself. The triangle-glyph matter-manipulation power of people actively wielding the Solver is extremely versatile, and almost a magic system in and of itself.

GLITCH@glitch_prod
robot witchcraft was used in the making of this concept art

Wed Jun 21 19:01:00 +0000 2023

There’s a lot of potential here for variation as a narrative tool. What if one drone used editing as their go-to action, and another just used translation as telekinesis? You can use the flexibility of the power as a narrative device here, use specialization and style as a method of characterization. The one thing we get that’s close to this in the story is the null bomb Cyn frequently uses, but that’s more of a special case than an extension of the existing toolset. So this strikes me as an angle that could have easily created some rich narrative and characterization, but was left unused.

So what?

I don’t know! I liked murder drones and I thought it was interesting to think through all this.

Like I said in the opening, I don’t even know that any of this means that the show is “bad”. But I love that you can notice something feels off and identify the reasons that might be. And I also like identifying how some of these mechanical issues in communicating the story could be mechanically fixable, even if this particular show may not have had the resources to do it.

Making Thanos work

2024-12-17T00:00:00-06:00

Did you know there are still people who think the MCU’s Thanos is a deep character with interesting motivations? For all the CinemaSins “why didn’t he use his powers to end scarcity, is he stupid” types, there are still “Thanos did nothing wrong” chuds.

This is stupid, of course. But after seeing people be wrong on the internet, it occurred to me recently that there are a couple of genuinely interesting ways to spin the character without changing his mechanical role in the story. In fact, with just a tiny bit of re-framing, you can turn Thanos from a stupid dumb-dumb into a genuinely great villain.

Why Thanos doesn’t work

First, a super-quick summary of what I’m reacting to.

The original sin here is how the MCU signals Thanos to the audience. The text makes a deliberate gesture toward Thanos’ actions and motivations being based on a philosophy of balancing the universe for the greater good and thus morally ambiguous, but it’s not backed up by anything and immediately collapses when inspected.

Thanos grew up on Titan, which suffered an overpopulation crisis. Thanos suggested reducing their resource costs by killing a random half of the population, a proposal which was rejected so thoroughly they exiled him from the planet for it. The planet eventually does succumb to an overpopulation crisis. Thanos is convinced his genocide plan is necessary to keep the same thing from happening everywhere, and starts a centuries-long campaign of wars that end with him indiscriminately killing half the population of any place he can find.

The movie plays him as “reluctant”, which he is not. When his planet is destroyed, Thanos centers this around himself — not just a “loss” but a conflict he lost — and spends the rest of his life trying to prove to himself his plan would have worked and so he was the one wronged. His noble model of “balance” is internalized bullshit to cover an ultimately childish motivation.

Simple enough. I’m not covering any new ground here, I don’t think.

So how do you make a cosmic genocider complex and interesting?

First, you pretty much have to give up on “moral ambiguity”, unless you’re making that the main plot of your movie. The convergent instrument fallacy “I demand to have my boot on your face because I think that’s best for everyone” doesn’t cut it. You also don’t want to change Thanos’s mechanical role in the story for this. He still needs to be an immensely powerful conquering force who ultimately kills half the population. No Infamous Iron Man’ing.

So here’s how you fix it:

Thanos starts from a position of power — the royal family — but when he tried to impose his idea he didn’t have enough power to actualize his vision. So, in reaction (almost as a trauma response) he starts accruing power in the form of military might. Thanos is already a talented military tactician himself when he’s exiled from Titan, so we know Titan wasn’t really edenic. Titan wasn’t overtly evil, but it was militaristic enough that Thanos transitions straight into position as a conquering warlord.

With a militaristic head-start, Thanos spends his military career developing the strength of his armies, with an absolute focus on this idea of balance through destruction. But this keeps Thanos immersed in a military culture of his own creation for centuries, which becomes a feedback loop that changes the way his mind works and how he views the world.

That’s the hook. Thanos’ problem is that he’s wearing horse blinders. His background has fundamentally limited how he thinks about the world, and this is what stunts him. The only solutions he can imagine to any problem are violent because his thought patterns have boxed him in to a way of thinking that only produces that flavor of idea. All he has is a hammer.

So far everything I’ve been talking about applies to Thanos as a warlord. But this does mean he’s limited by the fact that he’s only wielding the tools of war. He physically only has a hammer.

The introduction of the infinity gauntlet is the perfect linchpin to this theme. Completing the gauntlet should represent a moment of immense freedom. After centuries of pursuing his goals with force, he’s finally handed a true blank check. While before he was limited by the paradigms of force, he can finally choose any result he wants and achieve it directly. It’s absolute power, limited only by the imagination of the user.

And instead of addressing the root cause of the problem, he just intensifies his pursuit of genocide. With this, what was ostensibly an instrumental goal becomes the thing he chooses to affirm instead of the original goal that prompted this whole course of action.

This should be the culmination of the theme: Thanos is stupid. His fatal flaw is that he is indeed limited by his own imagination. He’s spent so much time pursuing his path with absolute focus that he can’t stop when it’s time. All at once he has every tool in the world, but all his psyche wants to do is hammer. What’s interesting about Thanos isn’t that his original motivation was harm mitigation, it’s that at some point he stopped wanting that.

Wonder Woman

This is a plot beat that was handled better in — of all things — Wonder Woman 1984. The plot of 1984 is a guy gets the power to accumulate power by granting other people’s wishes like a genie, and also Wonder Woman is there. This causes horrible problems, not only because the wishes have ironic consequences, but because wish for stupid, naive stuff.

This leads to this scene, where Wish Man gets an audience with the President of the United States, and offers him absolutely anything he wants:

This is the Thanos dynamic done right, I think. POTUS gets a blank check, a liberating moment where they’re freed from the limitations of reality and resources. And that creates the horrifying moment when you realize how they want to spend their checks. POTUS doesn’t want peace, he doesn’t want domination, he doesn’t want victory, he wants more. More everything, more weapons, more brinkmanship, more distance along exactly the same path he was on already.

That’s the perfect Thanos moment. The tragedy, the horror, is that the man has been bent into the shape of an intermediate goal. The responses these people have to power are fundamentally wrong, because the way they think about problems is dictated by the shape of themselves. They can’t even conceive of genuine benefit.

That’s how you turn the snap from a cultural joke to something interesting: make it real. Do what comics do best: take an aspect of humanity and extrapolate it to mythic proportions.

There is another interesting way to play the character. I think this is a lot weaker than the horse-blinder characterization, but it’s still better than the text, so I’ll mention it.

One of Thanos’ characteristics is a facade of neutrality. With the exception of the big fun superhero fights, he acts out his brutality through layers of constructed systems. Populations are carefully divided up at random The lack of criteria is part of his MO, but so is this insistence on a level of indirectness between himself and the actual suffering.

He doesn’t kill people directly. He doesn’t stay around to enjoy the results. He’s a bureaucrat.

Characterize Thanos by leaning into this. He’s that kind of heartless that reduces people down to numbers and line-items before making efficient decisions about them. He’s Scrooge killing Tiny Tim through wage theft. He’s the healthcare provider denying necessary care. He’s the unjust judge who condemns men for the rest of their lives.

He refuses to take responsibility for the gravity of his actions. He conceptualizes himself as a mindless force acting out a fundamental truth of the universe, not an active participant. It’s not that he’s indomitable, it’s that he’s “inevitable”. And a dispassionate evil can be a greater threat, because it scales.

The Angel is You

2023-08-12T00:00:00-05:00

”…okay, fine, you can have one more, but only because of the name”
a Deltarune theory

Answering the questions raised by Ralsei’s prophecy:

Who is the Angel?
What is the “Angel’s Heaven”?
How can it be banished?

Angels and Heavens

First, here’s a list of all the references to “Angels” or “Heaven” in the text of Undertale and Deltarune, which I’ll go through one by one:

The human in Undertale is called an “angel” for coming down from the human world (this is a red herring) (this could also refer to Asriel but it doesn’t matter)
The Angel’s Heaven from Ralsei’s prophecy
The Heaven Spamton is pursuing
The Angel worshiped by the Hometown church
- The Angel doll Noelle and Dess made in church youth group

Undertale

First, the “angel” (lowercase) from Undertale, which I’ll ultimately want to write off as a distraction.

In Waterfall, you can ask Gerson about the Delta “with-a-space” Rune, the royal emblem, and he’ll exposit:

* Eh?
* You don't know what that is?
* What are they teaching you kids in school nowadays...?
* Wa ha ha!
* That's the Delta Rune, the emblem of our kingdom.
* The Kingdom...
* ... of Monsters.

* That emblem actually predates written history.
* The original meaning has been lost to time...
* All we know is that the triangles symbolize us monsters below, and the winged circle above symbolizes...
* Somethin' else.
* Most people say it's the 'angel,' from the prophecy...

* Oh yeah...
* The prophecy.
* Legend has it, an 'angel' who has seen the surface will descend from above and bring us freedom.
* Lately, the people have been taking a bleaker outlook...
* Callin' that winged circle the 'Angel of Death.'
* A harbinger of destruction, waitin' to 'free' us from this mortal realm...

* In my opinion, when I see that little circle...
* I jus' think it looks neat!
* Wahaha!

There are two pieces of this that I think are relevant to Deltarune proper:

Gerson understands the “little circle” as being a distinct shape, not necessarily part of the “wings” of the angel.
One interpretation of this is that the “angel” is the whole upper half — wings and circle — that’s made of two components: the circle, and its wings. We see some of this in Asriel, as he has a distinct form without the wings, but then chooses to grow them in his god form to symbolize power and ascension, effectively stepping into the role of the angel.
Undertale knows the rune used to have a meaning, but it was lost to time. The meaning they have now is reconstructed from legend. Contrast this with Deltarune, where the meaning comes directly from a specific Prophecy.

But, as this description relates to the story of Undertale proper, it doesn’t map cleanly onto the world.

The delta rune doesn’t quite “fit” Undertale (likely because it was written and designed with Deltarune in mind): the “angel” ambiguously refers to the player character who descends from the surface to either bring freedom or death depending on the player’s choices, or just Asriel and later his god form.

In Undertale, the three triangles don’t refer to anything in particular, just “the general population” of monsterkind.

This is much weaker symbology than in Deltarune proper, where each component of the rune itself has a specific meaning. I briefly discussed this in Post-Ch2 Deltarune Theories:

The Delta Rune itself is the triangly-symbol littered throughout Ralsei’s section of the dark world. (Lancer and the card people also seem to know of it, although it’s possible they originally heard it from Ralsei or his kingdom.) In Chapter 2, we get Ralsei’s depiction of the rune itself in color, with Susie and Kris at the top, and Ralsei at the bottom (possibly signifying their roles as Lightners/Darkners)

We’re given explicit meanings for the symbols on the bottom half of the rune, leaving the top half collectively again as our “Angel”.

Prophesy

In Deltarune, Ralsei tells us the prophecy of the Delta Rune outright:

For millenia, LIGHT and DARK have lived in balance, 
Bringing peace to the WORLD.
But if this harmony were to shatter...
A terrible calamity would occur.
The sky will run black with terror
And the land will crack with fear.
Then, her heart pounding...
The EARTH will draw her final breath.
Only then, shining with hope...
Three HEROES appear at WORLDS' edge.
A HUMAN, A MONSTER, And a PRINCE FROM THE DARK.
Only they can seal the fountains
And banish the ANGEL'S HEAVEN.
Only then will balance be restored,
And the WORLD saved from destruction.

“WORLDS’ edge” is a great phrase to have here, because not only is “WORLDS” in all-caps like a game-universe proper noun, the apostrophe outside the word explicitly puts it in the plural possessive. That means what’s being described here is the edge of multiple worlds. There are lots of candidates for what those multiple worlds are, though. The Dark Worlds are separate Worlds, and we’ve seen they have distinct edges at the fountains.

* You see, each Dark Fountain creates a different "world."
* A "world" whose Darkners reflect the will of its fountain.
* But, though those Darkners can exist in their own worlds...
* They might not "belong" if they go to another one.

But Hometown also seems to be a kind of world, as is THE DEPTHS, and even the save slots are in the running as possible “separate worlds”.

So what’s going on here?

First, the prophecy is taking some liberty with the timeline for stylistic purposes. The harmony between light and dark has shattered, and the three heroes have appeared, but the earth hasn’t actually drawn her final breath yet; that’s the disaster that’s supposedly imminent. Again, I think this is an intentional stylistic decision — think Alduin’s wall — and not some kind of lie or narrative contradiction. It’s describing a set of events that all happen at around the same time.

More importantly, the prophecy tells us the real antagonist of the conflict. Once out of balance, LIGHT and DARK will both be destroyed (the EARTH, or the singular WORLD seems to include both, and the allegiance between Lightners and Darkners also emphasizes this), and the way to prevent this is to “banish” (expel, remove, defend against, sever) the “Angel’s Heaven”: a third realm distinct from the LIGHT and the DARK that threatens both, and is “possessed by” (owned by, or the realm inhabited by, or is specifically related to) the ANGEL, singular.

So that tells us a bit about the Angel by way of the HEAVEN, which is an in-universe force that’s positioned as antagonistic to the balance of the world. We know the presence of heaven corresponds to the start of the conflict and the disturbance of the balance of power, and the ultimate resolution to that conflict will be to defend against heaven.

Spamton

We get quite a bit of talk about this conflict with Heaven from Spamton in the weird route. In fact, Spamton’s entire gambit in the weird route seems to be making the most direct attempt to attack or even enter “Heaven” we’ve seen in the story so far.

Spamton describes the Neo body specifically as “heaven-piercing”:

* LISTEN. IN THE [Deep Abyss] OF QUEEN'S [Mansion]
* [[A Great Deal]] IS WAITING For [[A LimiTed Time Only!]]
* A HEAVEN-PIERCING [[Workout-Ready Body]]
* [[Designed BY The Classics You've Come To Expect! (C)1997]]
* KRIS THAT [Little Nipper] IS OUR [One-way Ticket] TO MAKE YOU [Big]. MAKE ME [Big].
* BEFORE YOU KNOW IT WE WILL BE TAKING [ A Ride around Town on Our Specil Cungadero]

When the NEO body isn’t enough to “pierce heaven” alone, Spamton decides what he was missing — what he needed to get into heaven — was their SOUL.

* HERE I AM!! KRIS!!
* BIG
* BIG,
* [[BIGGER AND BETTER THAN EVER]]
* HA HA HA ... THIS POWER IS
* FREEDOM.
* I WON'T HAVE TO BE 
* JUST A PUPPET 
* ANY MORE!!!!
* OR... so... I... thought.
* WHAT ARE THESE STRINGS!? 
* WHY AM I NOT [BIG] ENOUGH!? 
* It's still DARK... SO DARK!
* KRIS.
* KRIS. 
* KRIS. 
* KRIS.
* THAT'S RIGHT. 
* YOU. 
* I NEED YOU.
* TO BE BIG. 
* WITH ME.
* VERY   VERY    BIG
* SO BIG WE'LL STAND UP TALL AND SEE PAST THE DARK
* STAND UP WITH OUR HEADS IN THE CLOUDS AND LOOK INTO
* H E A V E N
* I 
* JUST NEED 
* THAT LITTLE,
* [[SOUL]] 
* Y O U HAVE

During the fight, Spamton seems particularly cognizant of Heaven, and even taunts it directly:

* [Heaven], are you WATCHING?
* IT'S TIME TO MAKE A VERY [Specil] DEAL...

And, right before cutting the final wire, as Spamton imagines cutting the strings will provide him with the ascension he’s been seeking, he again addresses his victory speech toward Heaven:

KRIS!!! I UNDERSTAND NOW!! THE GREATEST DEAL OF ALL!!! [Friendship]!!!
KRIS!!! MY DAYS AS A [Long-Nosed Doll] ARE OVER!!!
CUT THAT [Wire] AND MAKE ME A [Real Boy]!!
ARE YOU WATCHING, [Heaven]!? IT'S TIME FOR SPAMTON'S [Comeback Special]!
AND THIS TIME... I LIVE FOR MYSELF!!!
NO... MYSELF AND MY [Friend(s)]!!!

spiritedsketch, tumblr

Note the emphasis throughout on Heaven watching. Spamton expects Heaven (or its population?) to be observing this fight directly, visually. He even “looks to the heavens” directly, although throughout the fight his head jerks around at many different angles, including towards the screen.

1	`* Spamton looks to the heavens.`

What’s more, in the Snowgrave route, Spamton drops a rare direct Angel reference.

* [Angel], [Angel]
* ARE YOU LOOKING FOR THE [Ring] of [Thorns]?
* THEN [[Why]] GO TO A DUMPSTER!!!

When we go to the dumpster to buy the ThornRing (which only the player might know about, as it’s in the castle town item recipe list), Spamton addresses the Angel directly. This could be a way of addressing Noelle, but she isn’t the one looking for the ring.

But that still doesn’t tell us much about the Angel. Strangely, the only people who know about the Angel are in Hometown, and they seem to know a lot.

Religion

The Overworld in Hometown, in true Americana small-town fashion, is dominated by the church. And this church worships… the Angel.

The Delta Rune is absent from the church (conspicuously so, in fact, given how well it could have been incorporated into the stained-glass), but what is present is the isolated angel symbol as a steeple.

Further, when talking with Father Alvin, in place of a blessing like “God be with you”, he says

1	`* Good day, Kris. May the Angel watch over you...`

and

We get a little bit more about the church from this set of lines with Rudy:

* (It's an angel doll.)
* (Its lack of facial features is unsettling.)
* That angel?
* Noelle n' Dess made it in youth group.
* It's kind of like a good luck charm to me now.
* Oh, right, you and Azzy tried to make one too...
* But you wasted the whole time making huge wings for it!

There’s a lot happening here.

Noelle and December made an angel doll as a craft in church youth group, pointing again to the Angel being a key figure in the town’s religion
There’s another reference to Asriel designing his hyperdeath god DeviantArt god OC, which is cute
The angel doll is kind of creepy, because it’s a doll without facial features.

A doll without facial features is a very specific thing in Deltarune, and it’s something very, very important:

The narrator finds the lack of facial features in the doll unsettling. Notably Rudy does not, so perhaps the Angel is traditionally depicted as faceless, or is canonically a blank slate? Hm.

Remember when I said the Angel is only talked about in the light world? That’s not quite true. Rarely, in the Clover fight, they’ll say the lines

An angel is watching us.
You BELIEVE that garbage?
Please stop, you two...

I think the “You BELIEVE that garbage?” line suggests that this might be referring to the religious teachings about the angel and not the Angel from the prophecy itself. Another “how are the light and dark worlds connected, exactly?” question in the pile, but I’m still marking this under “angel religion” for that reason.

The Angel is You

So who is the Angel? The player, the real human, on the other side of the screen.

The player is the only one who fits the two key roles played by the Angel: The Watcher and the Light.

Other Connections First

Noelle’s doll doesn’t have a face, and the church might understand the physical form of the Angel as not having one.

In the gonermaker, in reference to the faceless goner vessel, we are told unambiguously

1	`THIS IS YOUR BODY.`

The Watcher

So, first, the angel is understood as a watcher. Specifically, someone watching, and specifically watching the events depicted in the game.

Alvin:

1	`* Good day, Kris. May the Angel watch over you...`

Spamton:

* [Heaven], are you WATCHING?
* IT'S TIME TO MAKE A VERY [Specil] DEAL...

1	`ARE YOU WATCHING, [Heaven]!? IT'S TIME FOR SPAMTON'S [Comeback Special]!`

Clover:

An angel is watching us.
You BELIEVE that garbage?
Please stop, you two...

“Watch over you” even implies a kind of watching “from above”.

This is directly, tautologically true. The player does see everything that happens in the main story. We watch over Kris, we watch every fight, we even understand Spamton’s plight.

More, we literally watch over the game in the form of the top-down camera angle. Like an angel, we are “above” the world and look “down” into it without being literally vertically above the characters in the same space.

The Light

The Angel has another role. They “light” Kris’s way with their “power”.

From Alvin:

1	`* Let the Angel's power light your way.`

This one is a doozy.

You, the player, impact the game via the SOUL; Kris’s SOUL. You move it directly in menu screens and in battle, and it seems to “possess” Kris. It’s even there in the gonermaker, at moment zero, at your very first interaction with the game world. The SOUL is your instrument, and its how your power impacts the world.

In the game, the SOUL is very specifically described as having “power”:

Versus Spades King:

* Your SOUL shined its power on Susie!
* Susie's will is changing...
* TALK became RED BUSTER!

* Your SOUL shined its power on RALSEI!
* Ralsei's will is changing...
* TALK became DUAL HEAL!

Kris’s SOUL emits light. Not literally, but metaphorically, as a metaphor for power:

(As you stood in front of the fountain,)
(You felt something strange.)
(It was as if)
(Your very SOUL was glowing...)

But is it specifically the SOUL that’s interacting with the fountain? Yes. In Chapter 1, Ralsei tells Susie

* Uh, Susie.
* We need YOU to finish it.
* Sometimes, proceeding will take all 3 of us.
* Furthermore, only Kris can seal the DARK FOUNTAIN...
* So if you don't accompany us, you won't make it home!

Only moments ago, they said the prophecy said “only they [the three heroes] can seal the fountains.” But now it’s just Kris. Why the distinction? Because it’s the soul that seals the fountains, and only Kris has one.

Speaking of Ralsei, he knows a lot about your SOUL, even seeming to see and reference it directly during both variants of the battle tutorial:

* See that HEART, Kris?
* That's a SOUL, the culmination of a HUMAN's being!
* Not only does it represent one's WILL and COMPASSION...
* But it also has the power to DETERMINE FATE.
* When enemies attack, BULLETS appear.
* Please avoid them and protect your team's FATE!

* See that HEART, Kris?
* That's your SOUL, the culmination of your being!
* Within, it holds your WILL... your COMPASSION...
* ... and the FATE of the world.
* If it gets hit, you and your friends will lose HP.
* If everyone's HP reaches 0, we'll lose the battle.
* So, please take care to avoid the enemy's attack.

The fate of the world definitely does hinge on the SOUL. Is Ralsei just talking about death ending their quest, or does he know the SOUL is tied to something greater? Ralsei sure is weird!

In Don’t Forget, we’re told directly “There’s a light inside your soul”, further emphasizing the Light metaphor.

But the strongest link here, the one repeated the most often, is the save point.

At the first save, you see the message

* At times, you see it flickering.
* The light only you can see.
* By second nature, you reach out, and...
* You bathed your body in the light.
* A power shines within you, breaking through the darkness.
* The pain you had melted away...
* (HP fully restored.)

Only Kris has see the SOUL, whose own Light interacts with the Light of the save point. Further, when they save, the power that shines comes from within them, from the SOUL.

In fact, at almost every save point, you’re told that saving is a Power Shining Within you.

* The power of this place shines within you.
* The power of fluffy boys shines within you.
* The power of adventure shines within you.
* The power of backtracking shines within you.
* The power of mean girls shines within you.
* The power of the forest shines within you.
* The power of reoccurring bake sales shines within you.
* You are filled with the power of immediate nostalgia.
* You are filled with the power of friendship-based architecture.
* You are filled with the power of a new adventure.
* You are filled with the power of pointless backtracking.
* The game is wrecked. You are filled with the power of videogame violence.
* You are filled with the power of noise music.
* You are still filled with the power from the cat sign.
* You are mostly filled with the power of fluffy boys and mean girls.
* You are filled with the power of not knowing what a sugarplum is.
* Noelle is no longer in your party. All of you are filled with the power... Of not knowing what a sugarplum is.
* You are filled with the power of musical bagels.
* You are filled with the power of silence.
* You are filled with the power of chicken nuggets.
* You are filled with the power of vacation homes.
* Looking at these legs fills you with a certain power.
* You are filled with the power of book holes.
* You are filled with a certain power.
* You and Noelle were filled with power.
* After a long day, you have returned to the castle town.
* But, you still feel the power in your hands...

It’s not subtle. The power fills Kris like a light. It stays with them whenever you’re there playing. So whose power is it? We’re given the answer to that too, in the name of the sound that plays when you use your power through the soul to seal a fountain:

So, after all that, at the end of Chapter 2, when we’re told it’s the Angel’s power that lights Kris’s way?

Your the angel.

Banishing the Angel’s Heaven

In Homestuck, by the time you get to Act 7, the narrative itself is compromised. The ultimate evil has secured enough in-universe power that he can continue killing everyone, living or dead, in any universe, in any time, forever.

So our heroes leave the narrative.

They use a reality-manipulating AURYN-inspired magical item to create a new universe outside the narrative itself and escape there as the story implodes on itself. And when they do, the story ends, necessarily.

Deltarune starts with Gaster initiating a “CONNECTION” with us. As soon as the game starts, we’re connected to the world in a very tangible way. The diegetic connection made between the player and Gaster maps to the act of us playing the game. In fact, in that setup, we can be “disconnected” by making an invalid name selection, which physically exits the game.

There’s another line from Spamton’s shop dialogue where he describes his ascension to the heavens indirectly:

* I USED TO BE NOTHING BUT THE E_MAIL GUY, NOW I'M THE [[It Burns! Ow! Stop! Help Me! It Burns!]] GUY!
* [[Amazed at thi5 amazing transformation? You too can]] HAVE A [[Communion]] WITH [[Unintelligble Laughter]]
* SOON I'LL EVEN SURPASS THAT DAMNED [[Clown Around Town!]]
* BUT UNLIKE HIM I'M GONNA [[Shoot For the Sky!]] AND  GET ON THE PATH TO ...
* [[The Big One]]
* I'LL GET SO.
* I'LL GET SO.
* I'LL GET SO.
* I'LL GET SO.
* I'LL GET SO.
* I'LL GET SO.
* [[Hyperlink blocked.]]

What I want to pick out from this is that mention of having “communition with [unintelligible]” (ending in something censored) as part of getting his Neo body and transcending the dark world.

“You too” implies this is something that’s happened before, presumably with Spamton himself. If (as most people think) Spamton (like Jevil) had a relationship with Gaster at some point in the past, but that’s since ended and his life as a Darkner fell apart after, this aligns perfectly with what we know. But even if Spamton himself hasn’t had a relationship himself with Gaster in particular, the dynamic is still the same.

The idea of having a communion with a mysterious, obscured, unintelligible entity as a logical part of bridging the world and a space beyond it maps again very well onto our connection with the worlds of Deltarune being mediated by Gaster.

Ultimately this conversation emphasizes the idea of a connection between the world and an ascended space, that connection being an active (and terminable) force rather than a passive state, and the connection requiring a mediator, exactly like Angel Theory posits exists between the player, Gaster, and the in-universe soul.

That connection also maps to the imbalance predicted by the prophecy. When we start the game, the story starts, and the harmony of the world shatters.

As long as we play the game, we are present in the world as the Angel, as both LIGHT and DARK are connected to our ANGEL’S HEAVEN. We exert power over the world, mostly through Kris (although only they are directly aware of this fact).

According to Ralsei’s prophecy, only after the three heroes seal the fountains and banish the ANGEL’S HEAVEN will balance be restored and the world saved from destruction.

This might even be foreshadowed by the circle/wings distinction I mentioned earlier. The angel is an entity that is empowered over the world, but this is from composition, not nature. The Angel can have their wings clipped. And Gaster is the one who gives the player the “connection”, which the angel wings represent.

“Banishing the Angel’s heaven” sounds abstract and philosophical, but if we’re indeed the Angel, it isn’t. To banish the angel’s heaven, to sever the influence of the angel from the world, you need to disrupt the connection between the angel and the world: the connection between the player and the game.

Mafa

THE ANGEL BEING THE PLAYER EVEN MAKES THE CONNECTION OF GASTER AS THE DEVIL STRONGER BECAUSE THE ANTITHESIS OF A PLAYER IS A GAME DEV

Fuck this theory is so big brained

Psycholonials Commentary, selections

2022-02-22T00:00:00-06:00

The following are exerpts from my fully transcribed playthrough of Psycholonials, which I wrote last summer. If you aren’t familiar with psycholonials or haven’t played the game, I recommend reading that to catch up.

If you’ve already played Psycholonials though, here’s some food for you. Exerpts though, not the whole thing.

Exerpts

On Music

The song Together was originally the score to the 2013 independent short film High Tide, which was released that same year as Someday (feat. Astro Kid). A number of other tracks from the Psycholonials EP came directly from Clark Powell’s Namesake (where Together was re-released as Day that Never Came) or from unreleased HS music team WIPs.

At about that point in the paragraph, I started writing the sentence “It’s like Clark Powell’s megalovania” but then I died of a heart attack and thus could not finish that thought.

As of the Psycholonials album release, those albums were deleted completely from Powell’s bandcamp page. Clark discussed a “cleanup” on twitter before the Psycholonials release, but has since deleted the tweet.

However, since then (approximately November 2021) Clark has re-listed her albums.

On Clowngender

So, let’s talk xenogenders. Actually, no, let’s not; I for one feel woefully underqualified to touch on that.

I will instead just point out that clowngender is apparently already a thing, and not something Andrew Hussie invented. It’s also not very much like the gender Zhen describes here. What she describes — “[ressonating less] with the entire concept of gender at all, like youre transcending the entire conventional spectrum, and seeing gender for the farcical social construct it really is” — is Agender, another thing Psycholonials did not invent.

I realize I’m being a little hard on the author here. I guess I take issue with this to the degree that the game thinks it’s inventing something new and profound, which is what I’m interpreting it as doing. If it doesn’t mean to be doing that, then that bothers me less.

Also, putting nonbinary as the dead center of the male/female axis and calling that understanding “standard” is… whew, that’s super wrong, right there. Whether it’s Zhen or the author who’s getting it wrong, I don’t know, but that ain’t it.

On the Engine

Psycholonials is written in Unity, apparently, using middleware called Naninovel. That surprises me, because so far everything seems like it could have been written in something like Ren’py or game maker. Unity seems like overkill for something as light as this, and ren’py is a solid VN engine that Andrew is already familiar with, having produced two full ren’py games already.

The various animations seem to have been originally written in flash, but they’re rendered as videos and just played as webms in-engine.

I get very distracted playing this game because the pixels are so wrong. All these scaled pixel art assets have anti-aliasing done on them, meaning the edges are at once blocky and blurry. It honestly gives me eye strain looking at it. I ended up running the game in a very small window for the LP, which helped a little.

Apparently, the actual art assets in unity are aliased, so it’s not an engine scaling issue, they were just imported wrong, in the equivalent of saving everything as a jpeg.

Here’s my original tweet thread on that subject.

On Mixels

I honestly love how the art in Psycholonials plays with resolution. The mixed pixel resolution (mixels? are actually a very expressive tool. You’ll commonly see things like that last panel, where the body is low-resolution and upscaled without any filtering, and then the face is drawn on at another scale. It’s actually really charming, and it allows for things like that Percy panel, where the face is comically simplified, to work naturally within the artstyle.

On Money

zhen you idiot, you’re a billionaire. there are so many things you could be doing that aren’t this. i know I’m supposed to say this girl needs therapy but maybe therapy isn’t for you. maybe just go to prison

It’s interesting how this story revolves around this political ideology that the player knows so little directly about. It’s defined in a manifesto that was published in-universe, but which the player has not been shown.

The ideology itself seems to be “society is bad, do whatever crimes you want, I was mad anyway.” It’s almost South Park-esque in how much it romanticises applied apathy and the pursuit of… what? Money, followers? A bunch of instrumental goods that just sit in a hoard and aren’t being used for anything, good or bad. And with how willing she is to rope other people in and casually destroy their lives, it’s obvious there’s no room here for any actual respect towards others. Zhen says she has these long-term goals, but if she did she wouldn’t be taking these absurd, suicidal risks.

I don’t know if this was the intended read, or if the authors really thought they had come up with something deep and meaningful even though it’s obviously terrible if you think about it for even a minute.

I wonder if there are zhen did nothing wrong stans out there, somehow. Probably not, because this game did not sell well.

On CHAZ

So there are a lot of specific historical events from 2020 being referenced here. Obviously Covid, but also the mass protests against police brutality following the murder of George Floyd, and specifically the occupation of Seattle dubbed the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone (CHAZ) in June. The idea, basically, was to cut off police presence in the area entirely, and show that the community could support itself and thrive without a militant police presence.

Wrapped up in the real-life discourse around protesting was this concept of “outside agitators”. This is rhetoric used to discredit political unrest by saying the actors came from “outside” — either from outside the affected community, or physically foreign agents — and the visible unrest doesn’t represent any legitimate grievances of the people.

Notably, in real life, there was actual police brutality, and the “outside agitators” narrative was a false one. There were actual atrocities being protested, instead of just people who got angry on the internet. Psycholonials has yet to directly touch on the former, other than just saying it’s the case; ascribing adjectives to it through the lens of Zhen’s narration.

Also, unlike what happened the actual capital hill autonomous zone, there is zero mutual aid or any sort of community support on Clown Island. In the absense of anything to suggest otherwise, it seems like it’s every clown for themself, with nothing resembling production, sustainability, or support. Again, just no community. It is, again, the kind of militaristic anarchy fantasy you would expect to see a villain of a story execute.

Maybe Psycholonials is a lesson in the importance of not organizing your social movement around unstable people whose primary motivations is their personal frustrations and fame. That could be a good lesson: “hey, don’t base your important social movement around Instagram influencers.” I could get behind that.

On Confused Narration

This story about systematic oppression would really, really hit better if it demonstrated the existence of any.

Really, more than anything, this is a great story about the dangers of cult mentality, although I don’t think it means to be. Like, this is a great dive into cult behaviour and some of the serious issues we’re running into today in the real political landscape about rallying behind charismatic figureheads, but I don’t think that’s what Andrew’s going for.

See, the trouble is, I want to assume that all these horrific things are meant to be bad, but given that Andrew’s friends have already just out-and-out publicly advocated for public lynchings of people they wanted to cancel online, maybe not? Based on the text so far and the context of the writing I really do think the author actually thinks they came up with a neat cult.

On Pathological Narcissism

ABBY: Keeping an unsorted list of people you’ve decided are bad is the kind of thing crazy dictators do
Z: im not planning to do a mass purge and therefore it is okay to prepare all the resources and infrastructure to do one if i decide to later
ABBY: Hm. You are still my friend, but maybe I want to engage in your cult slightly less

You think it’s a ridiculous idea that you might go on a hater killing spree. You know you’re better than everyone in history who’ve been like you up to this point, because you’re very self-confident.

Suddenly, the person you murdered without justification’s murder is justified! It is very convenient for your present ethical dilemma. Anything you do will turn out to be justified and right, because you are so very confident, and that is what determines if a person’s actions are good or not. I, the story’s framing, am telling this to you, the reader.

ABBY: I blame myself for my parents’ murder, because I was too complicit in your murder cult. we’re still cool tho

You (zhen) think this murder is your fault, for not doing a different murder earlier.

You remember Abby’s warning about murder lists, though, from mere moments ago.

RIOTUS: Hey. Anyone who opposes you in any way is an absolute threat, and need to be killed

Z: well, i know abby is right, actually, but my new good friend riotus makes a good point about how i am perfect and everything i do is justified, so i will do those murders instead of not doing them, as was our previous plan

Zhen is, of course, a textbook narcissist, so it’s not surprising that Abby’s concerns don’t have any effect on her. Abby is there to fuel her, not to be a friend.

Joculine here is murdered for revenge, not because she did anything harmful to the organization. Zhen doesn’t even think she’s a saboteur! She’s not considered a suppressive person, she’s murdered because the leader has a personal grievance with her, and then the murder is justified after the fact.

No, really, look at that. Zhen hates Joculine because she was mean to her online in the past. Maybe she was just a troll, or she called Zhen out on some legitimately bad behaviour. That’s left deliberately unclear. And now she’s hinted that she wants a promotion. That’s what got her killed. Not killing Abby’s parents, not anything else. And that murder is portrayed as a heroic, narratively satisfying act!

Joculine is summarily judged and executed for the crime of being an anti. And I use Anti here in the same way as the story: a poorly-defined truncation that ultimately only serves to label people as with you or against you. This scene, where Zhen murders Joculine for being mean to her online, really is one of her lowest points. It’s the basest, most absurd way one could react to “cancel culture”.

So why does the framing of the story love it?

This scene gets an animation. The camera adores Zhen during the full sequence of gunplay. The moment is satisfying, and the afterglow is proud.

So does the story mean to explicitly glorify this? Yes. I don’t know any other way you could read this but yes.

On Violence

This chapter has such a fun and interesting political dialogue I really didn’t want to interrupt it. Abby’s concerned that Zhen’s plan of “just do stuff” isn’t a great one, specifically because it literally isn’t solving the problems it was meant to solve. Like, textually, we’re told that; aside from popularity, it’s failing.

Then Zhen proposes another plan that consumes resources without directly impacting anything they mean to impact. See, all Zhen is interested in is the destructive side of revolution. Again, textually:

Z: its perfectly simple
Z: yes, american imperialism is evil, so we are taking a stand against it
Z: and the only way to do that is capture and repurpose territory in order to weaken america

All Zhen’s steps are destructive. Kill a cop, kill more cops, take an island, take another island. Gain popularity, social influence, and money along the way, of course, but the real goal here is to lash out against capitalism.

Abby, of course, points out that jubilite successes are actually benefiting capitalism, and that Zhen doesn’t actually have any sort of plan to do any real damage to her target aside from lashing out at whatever edges she can reach.

Zhen’s retort to this is confidence. She’s got clout, she’s got tanks. She feels in control. What she doesn’t have is any plan that could possibly result in the “fall of America” or even any plans for how to run a country. No economic or political system in place, just hot revolutionary fervor. “Z: once weve achieved total victory, there will be PLENTY of time to sort out how to run governments and shit”. Zhen is conquest and only conquest.

On Authorial Intent

Throughout this story I’ve occasionally poked fun at the characters or poked fun at the writing. Those should be distinct and separate things, of course. In any piece of fiction, the writer and the written characters aren’t the same, and can’t be treated as synonymous. Just because someone writers a character — even the protagonist — doing something doesn’t mean they agree with that decision. This is a basic distinction, and should generally go without saying.

There are some cases, though, where that distinction can sorta break down. For psycholonials specifically, after going through the story, I’m forced to think that the author wants you to agree with Zhen. That there is an active thesis being made by the writing, and that thesis is that Zhen was right. I feel like that’s self-evident at this point, but I’m going to make the case for it anyway.

There’s a ton of evidence for this. Joculine’s whole deal, those spoons… this very ending conversation, for one. Zhen, shouting directly into the camera, “we were right about everything!!!!!!” as part of her happy ending. The story being told (not just by Zhen, but by the narrative itself) is that the movement was right, the violence was right, taking action — and taking action in the way that they did — was right. The problem wasn’t us, because we had hearts of gold and all that juicy self-confidence. No, the problem was… everybody else! The haters! The outside agitators who came in and… defended the world against you, I guess!

“All the left wing shit” isn’t wrong on its merits, it’s just that implementing it always ends in disaster firing squad murder, because this kind of social movement seems to naturally cause people to act that way. So it’s not your fault when it happens! The problem was that ego somehow got wrapped up in a movement that required someone motivated by ego in order to exist and succeed in the first place. Maybe the problem, really, was that other people choose to follow my ego cult.

That’s what Zhen thinks at the end, and that’s what the story is trying to say. There’s no subversion here, no bitterly ironic ending. We’re actually just supposed to agree with Zhen and see her as a hero prima facie.

Even the camera tells that story. Look at the shots in Chapter 8:

This isn’t supposed to be a deranged rant, this is meant to be righteous anger given as the hero’s last stand. The camera is on her side throughout.

If I were wrong about that — if this whole story was all an elaborate exercise in subverting the idea that Zhen is a hero — I would expect to see a few things that I just don’t. Fundamentally, I’d expect to see anything Zhen does portrayed by the storyteller as potentially a bad thing. There’s none of this. There aren’t any consequences, obviously, but there’s also a conspicuous lack of narrative or artistic choices to even hint to the reader that something might be wrong. If you want to question Zhen at any point in the story, that work is left entirely up to you to do for yourself.

There’s just a lot of post-hoc justification in this story. I talked about Joculine already, and she’s probably the strongest example of it.

There’s also a lot of cases where the tone becomes negative after something awful happens, but never because of the awful thing. The tone shift feels almost obligatory. It turns out it was good to kill Joculine, not because she had people killed, but because she was mean to us online once. It was bad to issue a sweeping kill order not because murder is wrong, but because it made our friend Abby uncomfortable. Et cetera.

And, I mean, that’s just looking at the narrative on its own without any real-world evidence. That’s because if you add in even a little bit (shoot there’s too many for the gag) of context about the ideas Andrew Hussie promoted IRL, that seals the deal pretty overwhelmingly. So leading with that would be cheating.

On Cancel Culture

So, believe it or not, a lot of what Zhen says here about cancel culture is actually right, taken literally. It’s absolutely possible to pick out a goal (“hurt a person I dislike”, for instance) and then use a phony excuse to go about doing it. Want to hate women in the games industry? Hate women in the games industry, but insist it’s about ethics in journalism somehow. Really mad that trans people exist? Make a forum where you make threads about specific public trans people so you can catalogue every individual stupid thing they do, but insist their identities aren’t the reason. Want to harass someone you don’t like over some personal squabble from when you were fourteen? Put together a callout post and publish a bunch of weird old blackmail material. Sometimes it’s vindictive, sometimes it’s out of a misguided sense of puritanianism, sometimes it really is just to get attention. It’s totally possible to use social media to pursue your own goal while using some insincere pretext you can insist is your real motivation.

The problem, of course, is that doesn’t make the reverse true. Not all concerns about ethics are fake, not all concerns about people in a community are attempts at character assassination. This is obvious, of course. The reason those cover stories work at all is because ethics or pedophilia or toxic behaviour or whatever is because those things are actually real concerns.

Now, why do I even bring that up? It’s not like people are going around saying all concerns raised about them on the internet are automatically harassment, or transphobia, or stalking, right? That would be absurd. But it happens. You see people throw on another “layer of bullshit”, as Zhen calls it, and say that all criticism of them is automatically in such bad-faith that their critics should be reviled, without any consideration of the issue itself.

You’ll see snakes call things “hit pieces” that aren’t, or people hunting down critics of anyone in their demographic just to publicly insult them. You see people say any criticism of them is an attack on whatever minority group they decide to identify with, and that their critics need to be silenced by any needs necessary. They’ll even advocate actual murder (which Zhen actually does in this story, and is praised for)! It’s all just another trumped-up pretext, but this time, instead of just hurting someone you shouldn’t, it’s a pretext that can defend even the indefensible. And, of course, there are always people who will take full advantage of being able to do the indefensible without consequence. And that’s before we even touch on how all this gets used for lateral violence in and between vulnerable communities. But I’m commenting here, not writing an essay.

I think one of the problems really is social media, actually. There’s something about social media — the rapid-fire of information, the gamification of human interaction, the platforms aiming to drive up engagement for corporate profit — that discourages people from taking the time to “penetrate the layers of bullshit” and actually think about the things being said. It’s far, far easier to just agree with whatever rhetoric the people you like already are using than to take the time and make the effort to actually look at the substance of any given issue for yourself. “Anyone opposed to X party is bad” and “anyone who even tolerates anyone I say is bad is also bad” are patently absurd evaluation metrics, but they’re sadly much easier metrics to use than thoughtfully engaging in each issue you care about. That takes real time and energy, so your social media content/effort output ratio is going to be much better if you take the shortcuts.

Anonymous Coward asked 2022-07-27: In the last paragraph of the Psycholonials Commentary section “On Authorial Intent,” you never clarify whether you support Homestuck using their platform to amplify BLM and express anger at the police — what side of the aisle do you stand on, here, dude?

This is an interesting question. Well, it’s almost an interesting question. The actual question is “what side of the aisle do you stand on?”, which isn’t a useful thing to ask without specifying what you mean by “the aisle”, but I think it’s trying to get at something interesting, which I’ll talk about.

I think the basic problem here is the idea of anticonservatism as a monolith, where everyone who wants change must want the same thing. And that’s not true, obviously.

I think the specifics of the violent revolution depicted in Psycholonials is bad. Even the text eventually admits this with the montage of jubulite leaders being assassinated by each other. I think Zhen is a bad person who, throughout the story, almost exclusively does terrible things. And I think the author(s) think many of these things are good, which I evidence with some tweets from the @homestuck account where the tweet author uses her platform to generally amplify anticapitalist protest and advocate for direct action and protest against police, including to “violently overthrow the systems that oppress them”, which sounds a lot like the events depicted in the story.

That doesn’t make the BLM movement wrong. It doesn’t even make anticapitalism (which is what the tweets actually promote, not specifically BLM) wrong, necessarily. It certainly doesn’t make anger at the police in real life unjustified. I don’t even think all the tweets are wrong; if the police are abusing tip lines to try to arrest protestors it could totally be good to spam them with nonsense to prevent them from doing harm. I don’t actually see a direct conflict here. There are people who want misdirected violence in real life similar to that in the story, which I don’t support. But I think that’s a minority of “the protest movement”. The majority of the BLM movement, and protesting police brutality in general, is not wrong, and it’s certainly not made wrong by one piece of fiction that uses it as a basis to glorify its own vision of terrorism.

Polygon's "Life after Homestuck" (Thread)

2021-11-11T00:00:00-06:00

Polygon@Polygon
“I came to regard that fandom as being pretty close to a cult [...] And that’s about how I’ve come to regard all fandoms now.”
Andrew Hussie on life after Homestuck: polygon.com/features/22674…

Thu Nov 11 19:20:07 +0000 2021

gio :⁾@giovan_h
Okay, so I have a whole thing about Psycholonials planned, so I won't get super deep in the weeds on this, but let's skim this for the highlights. There's some interesting stuff here. twitter.com/Polygon/status…
Thu Nov 11 23:16:33 +0000 2021

gio :⁾@giovan_h
Replying to giovan_h:
1. Andrew Hussie personally identifies with Zhen in a lot of ways, especially with her loss of control over her movement and attempted personal rebranding.

Thu Nov 11 23:22:27 +0000 2021

gio :⁾@giovan_h
Replying to giovan_h:
2. Andrew sees Psycholonials as an "anti-cult narrative", which... if you've read the story and the consequences the various cult leaders and members have for their actions, is odd.

Thu Nov 11 23:24:37 +0000 2021

gio :⁾@giovan_h
Replying to giovan_h:
3. Further, "cult" is very much how he characterizes fandom as a whole. There's a lot here I actually agree with about toxic volatility, although I expect we're imaging two very different people.

Thu Nov 11 23:28:06 +0000 2021

gio :⁾@giovan_h
Replying to giovan_h:
4. He has some interesting thoughts about wanting to not be deified or made into a blank-slate character for fans to project onto in a parasocial way. I'm intensely curious whether or not this is reflection he had after writing himself into Homestuck as a blank-slate god figure.

Thu Nov 11 23:31:16 +0000 2021

gio :⁾@giovan_h
Replying to giovan_h:
5. Directly following him praising himself for stepping away from the spotlight and not becoming a cult leader, he laments how he somehow lost control over his brand. He doesn't say what he imagines the "preposterous hallucinatory projections" to be, though.

Thu Nov 11 23:34:52 +0000 2021

gio :⁾@giovan_h
Replying to giovan_h:
6. This article also gets into the Hiveswap controversy and... this is where I have to get into how this article is bad. Let's start with this absurd paragraph that paints Sarah Z's video as hallucinatory rambling accusations without addressing its validity or even linking to it.

Thu Nov 11 23:37:41 +0000 2021

gio :⁾@giovan_h
Replying to giovan_h:
It's not hard to see that the author (priv, so I won't @ them) isn't exactly a subject matter expert about that "controversy", as they're somehow under the impression that Hiveswap is finished. (Wonder if that has something to do with getting all your information from Andrew?)

Thu Nov 11 23:41:31 +0000 2021

gio :⁾@giovan_h
Replying to giovan_h:
Instead, the article resorts to classic both-sides-y handwringing about "public theater" and how Sarah and I ignited reddit with "speculation". This is not a good look when someone has serious, credible accusations against them!
Thu Nov 11 23:45:08 +0000 2021

gio :⁾@giovan_h
Replying to giovan_h:
(In fact, compulsive middle-of-the-road-ness is something Sarah herself was blasted for by some people when *her* first video came out! Then she did more research and refined her opinion based on the evidence, which was the correct thing to do)
Thu Nov 11 23:45:08 +0000 2021

gio :⁾@giovan_h
Replying to giovan_h:
This exhausts the meat of the article, aside from a bunch of weird false and misleading insinuations about fandom people, including me.

Thu Nov 11 23:51:44 +0000 2021

gio :⁾@giovan_h
Replying to giovan_h:
It's also incredible in its own right that an article about Andrew's intersection with fandom managed to get around addressing any of the actual controversies. Like, that took some real verbal athletics. Unless it was just omitted for ease, but would journalism do that?
Thu Nov 11 23:53:11 +0000 2021

gio :⁾@giovan_h
Replying to giovan_h:
"Fandom" here is treated as a great force of nature, some all-consuming external flood whose machinations are unknowable and that can only ever be fled from. Absolutely no attention is paid to how the creator's decisions form and curate their audience

Thu Nov 11 23:58:29 +0000 2021

gio :⁾@giovan_h
Replying to giovan_h:
It's true that the author of a work doesn't have an absolute enthralling power over their fans, but to pretend there is *no* connection and that both parties are helpless victims at each others' whims is obviously dishonest.
Fri Nov 12 00:00:04 +0000 2021

gio :⁾@giovan_h
Replying to giovan_h:
But this is done intentionally, because granting there's a dynamic there to interrogate at all invites public discussion about the actual actions taken by both audience and author, which is something Andrew has absolutely refused to engage with on any terms.
Fri Nov 12 00:02:12 +0000 2021

gio :⁾@giovan_h
i can’t believe polygon put out a hit piece on me
Thu Nov 11 22:56:58 +0000 2021

Lady Emily@GreatCheshire
Replying to giovan_h:
@giovan_h Did they even interview you beforehand?
Thu Nov 11 22:59:09 +0000 2021

Sarah’s thread

Sarah Z@marysuewriter
Replying to marysuewriter:
(Also, to be clear, I have nothing against the author- it looks like this was mostly just intended to be a nice fluff piece on a creator and their work. I just take umbrage with how some of the real harm WP did was glossed over or justified and the language used in certain parts)
Fri Nov 12 01:23:10 +0000 2021

John E Warren ♿️🤠@FloppyAdult
It's interesting to see a dude who once thought Homestuck could be as big of a franchise as Star Wars frame himself as he does in this piece without any real pushback lmao twitter.com/Polygon/status…
Fri Nov 12 17:22:36 +0000 2021

Post-Ch2 Deltarune Theories

2021-10-05T00:00:00-05:00

As you might know, I have a somewhat complicated relationship with Undertale theories, so for Deltarune I’m kind of forcing myself not to go too red thread board with trying to “solve” things — which sucks, because I really like solving things.

So instead of trying to be right about the big stuff, I thought I’d just talk about some fun crack theories. For fun! For fun, I tell myself.

Susie is immune to player input

There’s a lot in Deltarune Chapter 1 that implies that, unlike undertale, player choice doesn’t matter. The character you make in the first sequence is discarded, There’s even word of god that there’s only one ending to the game.

But, if you look at it, most of that involves Susie. You can’t control Susie at all for the first half of Chapter 1, only eventually getting her explicit buy-in after she decides she wants to be nice to lancer. And, of course, at the beginning of the game, she tells you directly

Your choices matter with everyone else, though. There’s a massive branching tree of options during your battle tutorial with Ralsei, you design a thrash machine that carries over to chapter 2, and you can tell Noelle about Susie eating chalk to get an extra item in Chapter 2, just to name a few examples. Hell, your choices matter with Onionsan and Starwalker.

And, the one time you get choice-blocked again in Chapter 2, it’s Susie.

There obviously seems to be something going on with player control in Deltarune. There’s an elaborate plot point around your SOUL as the focus of user input, and Kris taking measures to act on their own without it. There are also two scenes — both with Susie — where you have to imagine what’s going on somewhere else, and can’t directly control her actions.

Ralsei may just be extremely cooperative, but in Chapter 2 you can also control Noelle to do things she absolutely does not want to do. Without going too far down that rabbit hole, the player seems to have a lot of control over characters — including non-heroes — with the notable exception of Susie.

Since I’m talking about control though, I also want to touch on this other theory video I saw that says, in so many words, that Noelle in particular has some extra degree of agency due to not being a formal member of the Delta Warriors. I don’t think this is the relevant distinction, though. Your choices matter with Noelle (lightener, non-hero), but also with Ralsei (darkener?, hero), and literally all the enemies (darkener, non-hero), so neither of those factors seems decisive. The big exception is Susie, as a person.

So, is that a coincidence, or is Susie special? You could arguably chalk Susie’s behaviour in Chapter 1 to her tentative status as a villain, but that doesn’t explain why that mechanic continued into the splitup room in Chapter 2.

Ralsei isn’t a darkener

So there’s obviously a lot weird with Ralsei. He starts Chapter 1 knowing Kris and Susie’s names, which he obviously shouldn’t know.

But there are also a few notes in Chapter 2 specifically that point to his not being a Darkener at all.

He’s able to move between unconnected Dark Worlds without being transplanted by a Lightener. Both Rouxls Kaard and Lancer needed to be explicitly carried in your inventory to move between Dark Worlds at all, and they couldn’t survive, even after being successfully transplanted to castle town. Ralsei, though, just shows up behind you. In fact, he came from a room that was a dead-end, except for its connection to the light world.

The only way we know it’s possible to come from the closet to the library dark world is exactly how Kris did: by leaving, walking through the light world, and jumping back in. Darkeners can’t do that, but it seems like Ralsei can.

There’s a lot about Ralsei that’s super suspicious, really.

Ralsei’s Dark world is incredibly small compared to the others, and it grows in size each time another fountain is opened and subsequently closed. Ralsei talks about the importance of balance between dark and light, but after each chapter, his domain grows. And it’s not a zero-sum game, either; dark worlds are created between chapters. And Ralsei’s whole motivation is allegedly acting on this ancient prophesy about the delta warriors, which no one but Ralsei has ever heard of, and whose symbols are only scattered around Ralsei’s own dark world, and which doesn’t have any conceivable source.

Another odd thing about Ralsei’s dark world is the lack of anything that corresponds with a real-world item. Everything in the card Dark World is distinctly game themed, everything in the library dark world is distinctly computer themed, but Ralsei’s world (with the Castle town, and the cliffs, and the tar eyes, and the bubble piles) is… just dark. There isn’t any chalk, there aren’t even the papers we saw in the cutscene.

After the secret boss fight, Kris has a panic attack about what Spamton said about puppets on strings. Ralsei jumps in to comfort Kris, but almost too aggressively, given that Kris is reacting to what is possibly a serious existential danger. It’s comfort, but it’s not healthy comfort.

Even the tea is off. In Chapter 2, you can get tea items themed after different characters. Each character has a different reaction (and recovery amounts) for each flavor of tea.¹ Ralsei tea, though, is odd. Kris doesn’t react to any tea flavors. Noelle says Ralsei flavored tea is an empty cup. Ralsei calls it water, i.e. tea brewed without any leaves.

Other weird Ralsei things:

The conversation he has about being unsure about his own identity during the swan ride
Ralsei’s reaction to the team considering leaving the fountain open
- See also: the dire consequences for leaving fountains open being something only Ralsei knows about
Kris’s castle room has trophies mirroring their light world bedroom, something Ralsei shouldn’t know about
Ralsei’s wallpapering plot elements during the Snowgrave route
Ralsei names the castle town after “your name” from the gonermaker scene, which he shouldn’t know
Ralsei refers to the castle town as the “school” when Lancer turns to stone, a light-world fact nobody has told him
Jevil directly calls the Delta Warriors “lighteners”, even though Ralsei was there

Speaking of Ralsei, how about that Delta Rune?

The Delta Rune itself is the triangly-symbol littered throughout Ralsei’s section of the dark world. (Lancer and the card people also seem to know of it, although it’s possible they originally heard it from Ralsei or his kingdom.) In Chapter 2, we get Ralsei’s depiction of the rune itself in color, with Susie and Kris at the top, and Ralsei at the bottom (possibly signifying their roles as lightners/darkners):

Vessel Goner Theory

So, pre-chapter one, Deltarune presents itself as this SURVEY_PROGRAM (directed by W.D. Gaster) that starts with you creating a “VESSEL” character. There are the usual options (head, body, legs) and some personality choices, but then the whole character creation conceit is subverted by your vessel being discarded and your controlling Kris instead, who is not the character you made.

Let’s quickly acknowledge that Kris looks a lot like a more-colourful version of a character you could make with this screen, and then move our focus back to the survey.

I’m going to call it the Gonermaker, because that’s what the game’s files call it. (That and PLACE_CONTACT.) Now, that’s an interesting name. Goners are an idea from Undertale; namely, these guys:

They’re all grey, somehow-deformed versions of normal monsters. They show up with certain fun values, and only very briefly. The first three are explicitly g_followers that tell you stories about W.D. Gaster by name. Clam Girl talks about her neighbour “Suzy” that you didn’t meet, and Monster Kid talks about not existing — a parallel to the Gaster story. (There’s one other object that has a recolored grey version, and that’s Sans’ door/warp door/mysteryman door. That’s not directly related to this theory, but it is noteworthy.)

In the Gonermaker, you are making a goner. You are “connected”, your answers (your “feedback”, if you will) is collected, and you construct a grey, deformed version of Kris. In addition to their hair and body features not matching up, they notably do not have a mouth.

So, what does that mean? Well, Goners are goners of other things. There’s a direct relationship there. So, Kris is to [your vessel] as monster kid is to goner kid, whatever that means.

Here’s a thought; what if we use the Gonermaker information to inform the Goners in Undertale? Perhaps all Goners are Vessels. Ours was “discarded”, but the Goners in Undertale seem… well, not present, but certainly more present than Goner Kris. Are they successful products of the survey program?

Anyway, when I started writing this, I was hoping it would inform why Kris is Doing Weird Stuff, but I kinda hit a dead end there. I thought maybe Kris was themself a vessel for something, but it doesn’t seem like they are. Maybe our SOUL would “fit better” in a Goner, without the Kris/SOUL conflict we see in Deltarune?

Deltarune is a Dangan Ronpa V3 situation

I’m not saying that the relationship between the Deltarune and Undertale stories the same as DR1&2/DR3, but what I do think is the same is the matter of the relationship at all.

DRV3 is positioned in this very interesting way such that the question “is this game part of the same story” is itself loaded, and can’t be answered without going into plot details about both. There is a relationship between the stories, but — unlike what is usual in story metainformation — the nature relationship itself is deeply tied to the content of both stories, even though that sort of question is usually easy to answer without spoiling anything. There is some complex (mesa)textual interrelationship that prevents the answer from being a clean one.

You could reasonably, though, give almost any answer to any question about how they’re related. “Is it the same series?” “Is the continuity the same?” “Are these the same characters?” These are binaries that can be answered with either “yes” or “no”, and for each one there’s a strong case that can be made that either answer is true.

I think — pretty obviously — there’s a similar thing going on with Deltarune. The exact details aren’t clear yet, but that aspect of the relationship itself is pretty solid, in my book. There is a connection, or there isn’t, depending entirely on which way you argue it. The games are built on a diagetic strange loop.

other things I refuse to let myself talk formally about because they’re mostly gaster ramblings or just disconnected ideas

Undertale

in the true lab Alphys/Gaster explicitly discover that determination can be used to fuse monsters together. Gaster is “shattered”. perhaps he would seek out determination in order to fuse himself back together
gaster created the “darkness totems” in the core, which is yet another connection to Deltarune’s darkness
shyren’s lower body (her “agent”, as in music agent) is shared with the Lemon Bread amalgamate. lemon bread’s overworld sprite is a grey figure. shyren is called out by sans(?) as being important using gaster-adjacent terminology. if you hum at shyren during the genocide route you get the secret text “A hooded figure watches the commotion from afar.” instead of the joke about Sans selling tickets. sans and the river person are the two hooded charaters in undertale.
in Undertale’s true lab, if you poke around in the refrigerator room before turning on the ventilation, the things you can interact with are “something in the shape of a man” and “a tree, ripe with delicious fruit”, like Deltarune’s secret rooms
clam girl is a gaster follower who specifically talks about a character named suzy. that’s like a connection or something right
The way Gaster’s name can’t be input in either Undertale or Deltarune’s file select screen is parallel with how even explicit references to him like mus_st_him and “ANOTHER HIM” use the pronoun “him” or “mysteryman” or “redacted” instead of using his name. Maybe there’s a natural force preventing this? We also see antimetic properties like this in the sweepstakes when Noelle “can’t remember” the name of the egg they were given labeled “SPECIAL”, in gaster-caps.
a bunch of amalgamates have really explicit gaster coding. memoryheads in particular are super weird. they’re the only amalgamates not to have concept art or be made of other monsters. their flavor text is “No data available”, missing data being one of gaster’s key themes. they attack with smiley faces that look extremely similar to the mysteryman sprite. memoryheads play dial-up noises, similarly to sayer 666 and the deltarune phone. memoryheads are strongly thematically linked to phones with flavor text, tying in to the gaster phonecall Fun event and Spamton’s phone connection. re: the name memoryhead, gaster in particular seemingly cannot be remembered by normal characters. the everyman amalgamate even appears in the jevil fight during the merry-go-round.
in undertale there’s a secret grey (nearly goner coloured) bench with a quiche, which is an egg product. this is a very silly train of thought

Deltarune

kris only opens the third dark world portal on camera after hearing explicit instructions on how to open dark world portals, so maybe they didn’t open the first two
the forest secret room and the dumpster secret room are both accessed the same way: randomly upon going through a room transition. there are lots of ways to trigger entering a room, why is that the particular mechanism chosen? this is the same mechanism used to access undertale’s fakehallway, except undertale also has a layer of Fun values that control which deviant events happen and Deltarune does not
in the spamton fight, your soul turns yellow by itself, which is completely new and possibly significant
CLAM GIRL THEORY: if you don’t talk to onionsan in chapter 1, there’s a clam person in that area. When you talk to him, he turns around and is a clam guy. BUT, when you’re not talking to them, they clearly use clam girl’s sprite, including the colors and the shoulder straps. clam girl, remember, is the undertale character who talks about suzy and disappears
kris is controlled by the player/soul, which can see the internal monologues of characters, making it seem like kris themself can read minds
internally, many system things are named DEVICE_ as in DEVICE_GONERMAKER or PROCESS as in the survey program. also DEVICE_FRIEND, a cryptid in the main game
the background from the gonermaker is a earthbound-style postprocessed version of an image named IMAGE_DEPTH, which is also (and only) used as the background of the end-of-chapter fountains
after deltarune chapter 1’s fountain is closed there’s a very specific sequence of events: a fountain whoosh, suzie says “I can’t see anything!!”, a thud (like a door), a vroom (like lancer’s bike), a second thud, a squeak, suzie coughs(?) and says “Hey, watch it!”, a grab, a dog squeak, a third thud, and then the lights come on. there’s also a large, open storage unit with cards and things spilling out of it and towards the door, although kris and suzie did not come out of it. (there is a similar hiding spot that could fit a person in the library) that would fit with a third lightener being in the dark world when the portal closed, running out of the room and closing it behind them, then running all the way out of the school
Is that a cut on your face, or part of your eye? The gash weaves down as if you cry. The pain itself is reason why.

Spamton

When spamton is “intercepted” with “can anyone hear me? Help…” the voice on the other end seems to be the “unused” dialog voice.
When Spamton betrays Kris in their mutual plot to break their strings and achieve greatness, Kris looks… really sad. Genuinely betrayed. They don’t even fight back. Even in the ride, there’s a unique sprite of them hunched over. People talk about the after-fight scene, which is important, but there’s this pre-fight side of it too.

Homestuck's Ruse of Authorial Homogeneity

2021-09-03T00:00:00-05:00

Somebody asked me about a comment I made online about the odd situation raised by the state of Homestuck^2 and Hiveswap’s authorship. I sent them a long message but by the time I was done I realized I had quite a few thoughts on the issue, and so this is me expanding that out a bit.

Authorial teams

Probably the defining aspect of the “post-canon” Homestuck era has been the deliberate movement away from Andrew’s auteurship and to the form of these nebulous authorial teams. It’s almost impossible to overstate how key Andrew and his personal identity was to Homestuck and its interactions with fandom, and this period represented a deliberate and forced shift away from that.

Homestuck, the comic as written exclusively by Andrew Hussie, officially ended in 2016. Hiveswap Act 1, written by Cohen Edenfield, launched in 2017. Later in 2017, K.C. Green, Dril, and Andrew co-wrote a SBAHJ book. Hiveswap Friendsim launched in 2018, featuring stories written by a list of contributors, mostly people who had been involved in Hiveswap or the original art/music teams. In 2019 there were the Epilogues, written by a group in which Andrew was one of five. Pesterquest released in 2019, with much the same makeup as Hiveswap Friendsim. Hiveswap Act 2 released in 2020 without any writing credits at all.

Finally, there was Homestuck^2: written by Aysha Farah, Lalo Hunt, and Pip Dillistone. Andrew was originally listed as a director, but later removed entirely from the credits — not even moved to the surprisingly long “directors emeritus” section — indicating he never contributed any direction to the project.¹

The gambit itself

So, when Andrew stops working on Homestuck and hands the reigns over to another set of people (and, later, even formally leaves the company), there’s an obvious problem. In addition to the usual questions (“how is the media going to be different now”, etc), there’s this very distinct question raised about the works’ connections at all.

So if Andrew isn’t involved is it “really Homestuck”? Is it canon? Is it relevant? Those questions directly translate to both the artistic legitimacy and the finances of the HS2 authors. So it makes sense that post-canon Homestuck is sensitive about authorship, because their legitimacy is tied to their relationship with Andrew, the original guru. It’s a big deal.

As I mentioned I’m absolutely not going to touch on the answers. That’s way out of scope, and for the HS2 story, it actually matters less than you’d think. What’s crucial here is the sense of it — both fans and the new writers understood that the perceived “legitimacy” of works like Hiveswap and HS2 hinges on its connection to the perceived genius behind the original work. “Legitimacy” is extremely hard to define here, but it was felt.

So how do you handle the fact that you have other authors on the writing team for the epilogues and Hiveswap? Simple; you have to create a ruse of authorial homogeneity, so that no matter which person writes which word, they’re all treated the same (and as narratively consistent). That’s what the teams do.

If you took the Epilogues, for instance, and highlighted each line according to who conceived of the plot point and who wrote the text, you’d immediately get factions of fans who only considered Andrew’s words “canon”, or discarded parts introduced by specific people they didn’t like. It would create a holy war between fans and the “new authorship”, which is something the whole team — Hussie included — didn’t want.

The goal, of course, is to take that “legitimacy”, whatever it was, and distribute it with this extended period of collaboration. Andrew could get it to the point where anyone’s words carry the same weight as his, and then he really could slip out the back door and the engine would keep running. This is an interesting idea! Could it have worked? Maybe. But if you look at the community and the state of WP it’s clear it didn’t.

Probably the best example of this — maybe even the culmination of it — is this answer from the very short-lived homestuckteam curiouscat.

The team itself was composed… ambiguously. The most information anyone ever got about this was the non-answer to the very first question answered by the account:

November 20 giovan_h: Who all is involved with this account, specifically?‬

homestuckteam: Whoever is active on current Homestuck projects and wants to participate.

So, given that the person answering any given question could be pretty much anybody, there are some obvious limitations here. If you asked someone a very specific question about what one person in particular thought, for instance, that couldn’t be answered with any legitimacy by an account like this.

But they did it anyway.

November 21 Konstantin3001: Some time ago, Hussie answered the question (that sounded something like “do you think Homestuck is going to be your Magnum Opus”) with a statement, that Homestuck was just a warm up for his next project, kinda like Problem Sleuth was to Homestuck. Is that still true (and relevant)?

homestuckteam: yeah

No, really, that was the answer, the single word “yeah” in lowercase. Given by some anonymous person.

“It shouldn’t matter who wrote this part of the story/answered this specific question” is sort of a nice idea, on paper, but once it gets to a specific case where it doesn’t work anymore you’ve gotta know better than to just keep doing it.

If you’ll publicly answer questions like “what does person X think about issue Y” but refuse to confirm whether or not person X was even consulted about the answer you gave, you’ve written yourself into a corner.

Aftermath

So, what’s the result of this kind of situation? Tension. Extreme tension, up to and beyond the point of collapse.

The homestuckteam curiouscat shut down after only a few months. Any public discussion about Homestuck is taken with an extreme, extreme defence reflex. The Homestuck^2 project itself, along with the patreon, shut down entirely. The authorial homogeneity experiment was actually an interesting one, but at this point I think it’s safe to say the results were — and, with Hiveswap, continue to be — a failure.

Several credible reports note Andrew as having written the outline for the Epilogues and HS2 (including specifically designing and naming the character “Yiffy”, to some controversy). HS2 is a direct continuation of the Homestuck epilogues, which Andrew definitely contributed to and outlined. As for the specific question of whether he technically contributed to HS2, I am deferring to the official word, which is no. ↩

The Sarah Z Video Fallout

2021-06-30T00:00:00-05:00

One of your questions was whether I thought Gio was a stalker. It’s my personal take that he probably does not technically qualify as one, but I also don’t think it’s a simple “no” either, given his antagonistic fixation toward people at WP, and his persistent invasiveness has made the women at WP uncomfortable.

Suffice to say for now, I don’t trust him, I will never speak to him, and probably no one from WP ever will either.

After the backer update came out, I took at look at Gio’s revisions to his article, and unsurprisingly, he just rearranged all the new facts so that he could draw all the same basic negative conclusions he’d already drawn.

I think this would be a bizarre conclusion to reach for anyone who was looking at that update objectively, and just indicates that the facts never really mattered because he had already made up his mind.

The only explanation is what everyone at WP suspected all along.
He’s a troll.

*record scratch*
*freeze-frame*
You’re probably wondering how I got into this situation.

That’s right, I’m writing a story about me this time. It’s my blog, after all. First I wrote a history, then reported on a rumor, and now it’s time to tell the story of this dramatic little farce.

First let me summarize the dramatic events of the day of 4/13/2021, and then I’ll go over the meat of the video. I wrote this following section on 4/14 while everything was still fresh in my head, and circulated it to a few friends who wanted to make sure I was doing alright.

Part 1: The events of 4/14

There’s a lot of information that dropped yesterday that have been talked about already, but the actual weirdness of the events of the day were mostly not, which leaves a lot of people asking about it.

I really am serious about not wanting to escalate drama, but unfortunately when circumstances are extreme, just giving an account of what happened to you can be more provocative than I’m usually comfortable with. But, since it really is important, here’s a summary.

Obviously, anything I say about the intentions of other people is only partially-informed speculation on my part, and should absolutely not be treated as me definitively asserting I know something about someone else’s inner mind.

I’ve broken events down by time, because the minute-to-minute order of events tells you what people were actually reacting to, which matters.

3:00 am

Sarah Z¹, a YouTube video essayist with 379K subscribers known for her work on internet community history, teased the existence of a new video on Twitter:

Sarah Z@marysuewriter
youtube has been checking my video for ad suitability for literal hours. youchube please
Tue Apr 13 08:10:28 +0000 2021

11:30 am

Aysha Farah is a major writer on Homestuck projects and is Kate Mitchell’s partner at Snake Solutions Studio LLP, the for-profit studio writing Homestuck^2 in conjunction with Homestuck Inc. Aysha tweeted:

Aysha@ayshaufarah
will someone watch @marysuewriter's video and tell me how braced for harassment and death threats i should be
Tue Apr 13 16:28:02 +0000 2021

I should note here that not only was no video out at this point, but there was no reason to think a hypothetical video would be negative. Sarah’s fanbase is not known for harassing the subjects of her videos. Her work is known to be lighthearted and done in good faith, and Aysha’s expectation to the contrary (before the video was published!) seems to come out of nowhere.

12:30 pm

Sarah first released A Brief History of Homestuck, a 2+ hour deep dive into the history of the Homestuck fandom.

This included maybe half an hour of discussion about Hiveswap and the Kickstarter campaign, which was based heavily on my comprehensive Hiveswap history and cited my article as a source. There were also notes about my other article, a less historical investigation (due to simply lacking conclusive evidence) into rumors about TOG’s involvement. These were well distinguished, with the unconfirmed parts clearly presented as such. I wasn’t consulted about the video and didn’t plan any of the contents with Sarah, but my articles were used as good sources, as intended.

She presented ipgd’s report and “my report” as separate accounts of what happened with TOG, which if I’m being extremely sensitive feels a hair too much like attributing those accusations to me for my comfort, but she does use the word report, so it’s not wrong. She goes on to say that, in her estimation, the truth is probably somewhere in the middle, which is what I personally agree with.

Also, she gets my name wrong a couple of times in the video, which I thought would clue people in that we weren’t working together? It’s really fine, though. I’m not here to nitpick, my work was well-cited as a source for a good video and I was-and-am perfectly pleased.

At 12:30 pm, she released the video on Nebula, a paid streaming service, as an early release to the people who supported her with a subscription there.

Immediately after, Aysha tweets

Aysha@ayshaufarah
just so everyone is aware, @marysuewriter didn't attempt to get in contact with any of us. which i find weird, since i'm right here.
Tue Apr 13 17:32:33 +0000 2021

Aysha@ayshaufarah
Replying to ning_yingying:
@ning_yingying a youtuber released a hit piece on us without talking to anybody in the studio
Tue Apr 13 17:43:30 +0000 2021

Aysha seems convinced here that the video is a hit piece (“a published article aiming to sway public opinion by presenting false or biased information”) for some reason. Again, not only is this not true, there’s no possible reason to think this. It’s not even possible to have seen the video yet.

But even without that, the first tweet is just funny: What Pumpkin and Aysha are absolutely not reachable for people who try to get in touch with them, especially if there’s a chance they’re writing something at all critical. I’ve reached out for comment multiple times about my article, and never gotten a single reply of any kind about Hiveswap.

1:00 pm

At 1:00 pm, Sarah’s video went public on YouTube, and she tweeted a link to the video.

Aysha tweets

Aysha@ayshaufarah
anyway homestuck's team is now majority queer and poc, so i hope sarah z is cool with like. the sort of shit that comes down on us literally ALL THE TIME
Tue Apr 13 18:10:17 +0000 2021

It’s… unclear the point Aysha means to make here, if any? There’s some vague gesture towards linking Sarah’s video to oppression of minority groups, but it’s not at all coherent. The argument seems to be “to talk about the company I work at in any capacity is to be complicit in horrors”, which is of course absurd.

So, obviously, nothing about this makes any sense. The Hiveswap article was less than a year old and doesn’t have anything to do with harassing queer people. My most generous interpretation of this is a loose attempt to compare me to those actual stalker types and generally signal to people that they should harass me over this imagined offense. But Dani is a high-profile figure and former Snake Solutions partner, and so that’s of course exactly what happened.

There exists a narrative that the Snake Solutions crowd reacts extremely poorly to even mild criticism. That they accuse perceived critics — no matter how mundane the criticism — as being transphobic, or racist, or stalkers, even when those accusations don’t make any sense in the situation, or are obviously false. But the accusations alone ensure their targets are harassed. These tweets and the harassment I received because of them certainly don’t do much in the way of disproving that narrative, which is a shame.

1:30 pm

Someone replied to Aysha’s earlier tweet pointing out that WP isn’t reachable, correctly citing my article as a counterexample:

CheshireCreeper INTO THE SLIPKNOT/4 OF DIAMONDS@CheshireCreeper
Replying to ayshaufarah:
@ayshaufarah @ASTERISMIS @marysuewriter Well I mean Gio did try and get into contact with you over his Hiveswap article and you declined to comment so it's probable that Sarah just assumed that you wouldn't give a comment on this?
Tue Apr 13 18:48:05 +0000 2021

I saw this and confirmed that yes, I reached out to WP, and no, they wouldn’t speak to me:

gio :⁾@giovan_h
Replying to CheshireCreeper:
@CheshireCreeper @ayshaufarah @ASTERISMIS @marysuewriter If What Pumpkin is available for comment that’s a startling new development
Tue Apr 13 18:56:21 +0000 2021

2:30 pm

At this point, and not before, it was physically possible for a person to have watched the whole Sarah Z video, if they had started on Nebula and watched the whole thing non-stop.

Around this time I also started getting warnings. Apparently Aysha put a hit out on me over my reply-tweet to my pal CheshireCreeper’s question. No, really.

This is a practice called dogpiling, a form of targeted online harassment where a large, popular account directs their following to insult, attack, or doxx a victim. Wikipedia notes the term became popular during the gamergate controversy, where it was popular practice to dogpile feminists or just women with any online following, in order to pressure them into shutting up.

It is an ugly, abusive thing to do, and this is an incredibly overt instance of it, with the actual instruction “go get this bitch”, calling me a “FUCKING STAL(K)ER”. (When you are very angry, sometimes it is hard to find your up arrow key.) I’ll also note here that after Aysha posted this, I did in fact get threats, but I won’t go into detail about that here as it’s nothing more than you’d expect from an attack of this magnitude.

(Also, I hate to use this word, but to put a label on it, this is literally defamatory slander against me, since it is factually false.)

Now, I was originally stunned to see this. Aysha was a high-profile person in the community, surely she wouldn’t just overtly do this? I had to verify it for myself before I reacted further — it would be negligent of me to react without verifying, but it’d be irresponsible not to react, so I had to verify it. So, I looked up the discord server and dropped in. Sure enough, yep, the campaign was real. I tried to ask what was going on, but of course she kicked me out immediately.

But, while I was there, I took a screenshot for myself.

gio :⁾@giovan_h
Yeah, I can't imagine why she didn't come running to your door, with how well you react to criticism of the Homestuck media property and all. twitter.com/giovan_h/statu…

Tue Apr 13 19:13:44 +0000 2021

Fortunately this helped me get out ahead of it slightly, since it was now obvious what my harassers were doing and why. There’s also a small thread under there about how the accusations made against me don’t make any sense and seem to just be utterly baseless name-calling, as you’d expect.

Apparently after I exposed her threat she deleted it (and maybe even parts of the server), but I can’t say for sure. I don’t know if she made the threat in a panic and immediately regretted it, or if she really did mean to be as malicious as possible but later realized there might be more blowback than she wanted. She hasn’t contacted me or said anything either way. Me, if I hurt someone and regretted it, I would make some attempt to apologize. De-escalate, that’s the important thing. She didn’t do that.

3:30 pm

Around this time, people have actually finished the Sarah video and some reply to Aysha’s original request to summarize the video for her:

Karu (võbina ülevaade)@libakary
Replying to ayshaufarah:
@ayshaufarah @marysuewriter It never mentions you or as far as I'm aware any hs2 contributors besides hussie by name. The hs2/epilogues involved content is mostly on the negative side and it barely mentions the harassment, but her criticisms are not unfair about most things.
Tue Apr 13 20:28:39 +0000 2021

b@fairyyboyy
Replying to ayshaufarah:
@ayshaufarah I watched the video and she said literally nothing bad. It's just a history with a few opinions. Like all her videos.
Tue Apr 13 21:57:37 +0000 2021

Carmella@homestuckho
Replying to ayshaufarah:
@ayshaufarah grumpy because she called homestuck2 bad huh
Wed Apr 14 00:44:29 +0000 2021

Aysha@ayshaufarah
Replying to homestuckho:
@homestuckho i don't care about that part, i care about the hiveswap lies
Wed Apr 14 14:36:47 +0000 2021

D@lollipophustler
Replying to lollipophustler:
@ayshaufarah This was the most good faith video a neutral party could have made and it's disheartening to see you brush it off as if this was her goal or intention with the video. And in the process, making incendiary statements which ARE leading to her getting harassed, openly.
Wed Apr 14 14:52:57 +0000 2021

Apparently Sarah was getting harassed today over this too. Good grief.

It is funny that Aysha says here that, of the whole video (which makes explicit criticism of the quality of her work!) the thing she’s upset about are “hiveswap lies”, which I tried to ask them about! In fact, the tweet that she started the harassment campaign over was me pointing out that fact! The absurdity couldn’t be more stark. (Or so I thought.)

Sarah’s video also barely discussed Aysha or any individuals working at What Pumpkin by name, with the exception of Andrew Hussie. The specific issue Aysha is taking issue with here — the Hiveswap story — was criticism of the company from before she even joined it, let alone wrote any material for it. The attacks were wrong, obviously, but if Aysha knew anything about the video, she’d have known that her complaints didn’t make any sense in the first place.

Fortunately, at this point Aysha had calmed after her initial episode and started to run damage control, calming people down and retracting her earlier harsh statements — oh wait no actually she was doing the exact opposite of that, okay

g-great! great job there.

Damage control would have to wait for never, apparently. She still hasn’t retracted anything, but she would delete her messages, delete the channel she posted them in, and eventually nuke the entire Discord server entirely. As one might do if they were still baselessly furious but cogent enough to cover their tracks to avoid negative consequences. (Neither Discord nor Patreon’s terms of service actually let you use their platforms to openly launch coordinated harassment campaigns.)

4:00 or thereabouts

Sarah Z received some additional information from What Pumpkin, which she pinned to the video as a comment:

Hi everyone! Shortly after release my video, I received a DM from someone with a lot of firsthand knowledge on the game. There’s some really important info there. Though they’ve asked to remain anonymous, suffice it to say I can verify that they have firsthand information and I believe them. To sum up what I was told:

…

Based on my conversation with the person who contacted me, I have reason to believe one of the sources may therefore have been dishonest and misrepresented or treated speculation as fact when contacting Gio (though I can’t claim to know anyone’s internal motivations). In any case, I think this information and the fact that I was contacted is important to share, so please take everything in this comment into account when watching the video.

I won’t summarize the information here, as it was shortly afterward made public via Kickstarter, but it essentially boils down to “the source you presented as unreliable, who said negative things about us, is unreliable, according to us, as of just now.”

Sarah got another fun present from What Pumpkin: a legal threat. She did not make the details of this public, but added this note to her video:

Emails have been sent to me and the agency I make videos with containing explicit legal threats against me for parts of my video. I don’t know what more I can say at this time, but will keep you all in the loop as much as I can. For now, feel free to still review the new information I’ve learned.

This is unfortunately par for the course with What Pumpkin. As I’ve discussed before, they are famously, aggressively litigious, even if they’re often very, very wrong about it. Anyway, nobody liked that.

8:00 pm

The Homestuck Kickstarter put out an update that included the details that were told to Sarah Z earlier, and a lot more. I won’t summarize the details here, since I immediately analyzed those and edited the actual information into my other Hiveswap articles. It’s noteworthy because it seems to be a direct reaction to the Sarah Z video and my Hiveswap investigation. It confirms and denies several things I didn’t have a solid source on before, and although incredibly indirect, is still more of a response to criticism than What Pumpkin had ever given.

As I said, I quickly combed through them, updated my work (as I do when there’s updated information), and let Sarah know. She added another note to the video:

A Kickstarter update went out yesterday with more detailed information about the Hiveswap production, and criticizing the reliability of the source in the Gio article, same as the person who contacted me. It looks like at some point since then, the Hiveswap Gio writeup has been updated to include the information in said update!

Wednesday

4/13 is over! It was a wild one.

I don’t have this on my beat-by-beat Timeline, but at some point during 4/13, between the Kickstarter update and sending out legal threats, What Pumpkin purged the @homestuck twitter account of all but 18 tweets.

This is a “scorched earth” style of damage control, where a worried corporation will destroy any evidence of any unsavory behavior that might make them look bad. As I’ve already shown extensively in my main Hiveswap article, this is extremely typical of them.

Anyway, I’ll just end with this:

I really do try my best to main cordial relationships with people whenever I can. I liked Aysha, mildly. I heard some odd stories, but I didn’t know her personally and admired her work. I even complemented her prolific writing in the Hiveswap article she apparently hates so much.

I don’t understand why she did the things she did yesterday. I had no idea she had so much vitriol stored up against me and my work. I don’t know why she ignored me for months when I was doing my research, and didn’t contact me to clarify the things she disagreed with when I published it. Maybe this is me being ND? Maybe there was some emotional effect going on behind the scenes among staff and friends I wasn’t privy to. Either way, from my perspective, this is a vicious attack completely out of left field, and it’s rotten behavior.

Hi again! It’s me, Present Gio, from the record scratch gag. Welcome back to now.

Well, not quite. Between 4/14 and now I chatted with jojo, edited my frantic Hiveswap updates for clarity, and did some other uninteresting stuff. Also, some stuff that was interesting but not relevant. Certainly nothing that demands the hour-by-hour recap format, thank god.

So here’s what happened next, apparently. The rest of this article is mostly going to talk about a series of emails between various people affiliated with Sarah Z and various people affiliated with What Pumpkin, which Sarah released in a second video here. I’ll try not to just rehash the same material, so if you’re interested, it’s worth your time to watch that too.

Part 2: Homestuck Sent Sarah A Legal Threat, And Then It Got Worse

Cindy’s Threat

(Starting at 13:05 in the video)

Let’s start with that legal threat Sarah got on 4/13. (This was sent to Dave Wiskus, the CEO of Standard, the company who represents Sarah.) There’s just so much going on here, so I’ll go ahead and give my interjections throughout. Emphasis added.

Hello Dave and PJ,

My name is Cindy and I’m President and CEO of What Pumpkin Games. We at WP received your contact from Sarah Z after an associate spoke with her about the Homestuck video she uploaded today on 4/13.

So this is Cindy Dominguez, who I’ve been waiting to hear from. Cindy has been behind the scenes at What Pumpkin since the very beginning, but has done very little publicly, if ever. She’s co-owned WP LLC, Homestuck Inc, and What Pumpkin Games, and was credited as a producer in Friendsim, Pesterquest, and Hiveswap. Now, with Andrew having left WP, it looks like she might be the sole executive.

We were disappointed to learn that a member of your association published a video that promoted speculative, false claims about our company from a known malicious actor that could potentially cause us to incur significant financial damages.

This is basically the whole case: some of what Sarah reported on (as claims) were false and told by some malicious Accuser (not me, but one of my sources), and this has caused WP some amount of trouble.

It’s a bit silly to criticize What Pumpkin, though. After all, they’ve never done anything wrong. Unrelated to that, let me just read any given sentence in this 101 page report and oh wait, the opposite is true.

She promoted these claims without seeking any comment from What Pumpkin prior to publication. What’s more, when [Homestuck Writer], a creative director at our company, reached out in multiple attempts to contact her following the publication of the video, she not only ignored our representative’s communications, Ms. Z chose to make a public post disparaging our representative by name. She has since deleted the post, but has not made any apology to our representative.

So, this is an obviously bizarre idea, right? Cindy seems to be arguing here that, before you talk about Homestuck on the internet, you’re expected to send What Pumpkin a message asking them for their comment. (You might remember WP’s unavailability as being a point of contention already!) Now, of course, as part of my due diligence on the original article, I actually did this. But I didn’t seriously expect an answer, since What Pumpkin is famously unresponsive to this sort of questioning. What little PR What Pumpkin Games had was handled by Fellow Traveler, who had they had recently ended their relationship with. I actually mentioned in my article, multiple times, how I tried to get in contact with What Pumpkin but was continually rebuffed. At this point there was absolutely no reason to think you even could get in contact with WP, so Cindy’s (and Aysha’s) expectation here that Sarah would — and their apparent offense that she didn’t — is bonkers.

Oh, but it gets better. [Homestuck Writer] here is… one Aysha U. Farah, whose public meltdown you might remember from before. Aysha “rip him apart” Farah is the person What Pumpkin decided to hinge their legal argument on. Good lord, I… I honestly don’t have the words.

Just for the sake of being completely comprehensive, though, let’s examine that last point about “disparaging our representative.” I actually have a copy of the post that’s referring to here, from before Sarah deleted it:

Aha! So what actually happened is Sarah was explicitly asked about Aysha, but she had seen the harassment campaign and decided that in hindsight it was probably for the best she hadn’t involved Aysha in the video. But then she deleted it. So there’s that entire argument defused, because the whole idea that Sarah conducted some sort of positive disparagement campaign is patently false. Cindy also feels Aysha is owed an apology for… having her misbehavior momentarily noticed, which, no.

We finally managed to get in contact with Ms. Z many hours after the publication of the video through an associate who is not formally employed by What Pumpkin. That person was able to clear up the disinformation that Ms. Z shared in her video, and we’re glad that she appears to be amenable to issuing a correction now that she has seen proof that the documents she was promoting in her video contained false and libelous information.

The “correction” mentioned here was the comment Sarah made on her video, saying “I have reason to believe one of the sources may therefore have been dishonest and misrepresented or treated speculation as fact when contacting Gio”. What’s still notably absent is any sort of proof that any documents contained false information, or even an idea of what information WP is alleging to be false. All that happened was the vague idea that it’s possible someone gave some amount of information because they disliked WP, but not any of the followthrough that would amount to proof, or even a legitimate accusation of libel.

(There’s a bit here about WP contacting Sarah through a third party later ostentatiously dubbed “Mr. X”, but I’m skipping over him throughout this article because he doesn’t seem relevant. He’s wrong, but he gets a pass.)

All of this could have been avoided had she simply requested a comment from the primary source before publishing inflammatory speculation about a sensitive legal settlement. However, she indicated that her sponsorship with Audible prevents her from taking down or re-editing the video even with our mutual agreement that the content warrants correction.

We understand that Ms. Z is very young, and her irresponsible, unethical journalism is the result of ignorance and not active intent to damage our company.

This sudden outburst of infantilizing personal insults about Sarah is probably one of the most obviously damning things about this whole letter. It’s insulting and incredibly unprofessional.

We also recognize that the defamatory content in question is a small part of the video, and we are not seeking changes to any other segment unrelated to the matter of these false claims. Nevertheless, that small, thoughtlessly included segment as well as her choice to link directly to libelous documents in the video description poses an enormous financial and reputational risk to our company.

We are not seeking compensation and will not take legal action provided that an acceptable correction is made immediately. We consider a text clarification below the video, a Twitter post, or any other form of retraction that does not involve either taking the video down or re-editing the video to correct the defamatory material to be unacceptable. Ms. Z must also publicly acknowledge on all platforms that the original video contained disinformation and take responsibility for her lack of diligence in researching this video.

Again, still no hint as to what the libel actually is or what statements were false. Just demands that WP has the right to erase any criticism about their company from the internet at their leisure², and demands Sarah engage in public self-flagellation because… well, still no reason given, actually.

We’re hoping that by getting in contact with you that you can convey to Audible that it is in the best professional and legal interests of all parties to allow a re-edit of this video to remove the false content. Ms. Z’s large platform has already forced us to invest significant time and resources into combatting the disinformation she chose to spread. We may need to pay thousands in legal fees in the process of reviewing the necessary documentation related to our settlement, so this is not at all trivial to us. The damage she has caused is already massive and irreparable, so we’d like to emphasize that we consider preventing further harm to our company to be a grave and urgent matter.

We look forward to your timely response.

-Cindy Dominguez

There is apparently only one thing WP did to “combat the disinformation” in the video, which was post a Kickstarter update that confirmed a number of accusations made that were previously only rumors. So, not only did it not combat any “disinformation” (or, still, even identify any), it went out of its way to confirm swaths of the article it so hated. Note how Cindy says that posting this update required “investing significant time and resources”, because it turns out later that’s a lie! But whoops, I’m spoiling things.

I’ll say one more thing here: if somebody describing you causes you “massive and irreparable damage”, and you and your team of lawyers can’t identify any part of that description that is false, your problem isn’t “journalism exists”, your problem is that when people learn things about you, they hate you. If you want to change that, you can’t just harass YouTubers; you’ve gotta do different things, bucko!

Standard’s Response

(Starting at 19:05 in the video)

Now, fortunately, it turns out Standard isn’t actually a clownshow, and they addressed this absurd threat very well. Here’s the response Dave sent. (Emphasis added at the parts where I love Dave an extra amount)

Cindy,

I am sorry for taking so long to get back to you. I needed the extra time to respond to your condescending and, in my opinion, defamatory email with the appropriate professional tone.

You mention an unrelated third party getting in touch with Sarah, and I have confirmed that to be true. That person (“Mr. X”) asked to remain anonymous. Mr. X did offer supposed first-hand knowledge regarding The Odd Gentlemen’s actions and omissions. However, Sarah has not received any independent proof of Mr. X’s statements. Feel free to share any documents related to the matter in question, and I am happy to pass them along to Sarah.

Oh, hey, remember when What Pumpkin hasn’t made any effort to prove anything was actually false, or even identify which statements they’re saying are libel? Because that’s incredibly important, basic stuff, and I’m going to keep hammering on how absurd it is that WP isn’t doing it.

Although Sarah was under no obligation to do so, she posted the relevant statements from Mr. X in a pinned post beneath her video and removed the link to the second Gio article. I think that adequately gives the non-TOG side of the story—which was itself included in the video already—further visibility and served as a thoughtful and adequate response to the new information raised by Mr. X.

Frankly, I don’t understand why you care about statements made about TOG. Weren’t they the developer before What Pumpkin took over? Are you claiming now that there were untrue statements made specifically about What Pumpkin in the video?

You refer to a settlement agreement that you have to pay lawyers to analyze. I assume that it is a confidential settlement with some third party related to development of the game. I don’t know what the terms of that settlement are, and I fail to see how that is relevant here. Surely the settlement agreement doesn’t make you responsible for Sarah’s independent reporting?

Although content creators represented by Standard are responsible for their own content, Standard is not afraid to bring its own resources to bear to assist creators in fighting off frivolous threats. We take the rights of creators very seriously, and we are of the opinion that Sarah has handled your accusations with class and poise. I think that you should be satisfied with the actions Sarah has already taken, and I recommend that you drop the matter. If you want to further share your side of the story, YouTube remains a platform accessible to all. But I consider this matter closed, and I have encouraged Sarah to avoid any more engagement on this topic.

Sincerely,

Dave

Applause, etc.

Andrew Enters

(Starting at 22:10 in the video)

So Cindy doesn’t respond to this immediately. Nor does anyone affiliated with What Pumpkin at all. Instead, Dave gets an email from Andrew Hussie himself.

Hi Dave. I was just forwarded this email chain. Catching up on this now, and stepping in to hopefully resolve some conflict here.

Some background first. I’m the creator of Homestuck. But I stepped away from What Pumpkin last year. This information only became public recently, so not many people knew I haven’t been too involved in the company operations for a while. But as the creator of the IP I’m still around to advise and consult with WP staff, so I’m helping resolve this before it gets out of hand.

For Sarah’s understanding, I’ll try to briefly explain why WP reacted as they did. The staff at WP who composed the original letter were blindsided by Sarah’s video on 4/13, and mostly were disappointed that no primary sources from WP were consulted for the opportunity to correct mistakes with the reporting before publishing the video to a very large platform.

So now we’ve replaced violent legal outrage at not being consulted with “well, we were disappointed about it”, which I think is closer to a reasonable reaction, at least.

I guess things got a little heated at WP. But at the same time, I can get where they’re coming from, and I hope Sarah can too.

As you know, our friend quickly told Sarah that the blog included unreliable information, and she promptly removed the link to the more toxic article, which we appreciate.

(This is the second article, which contained the reports of accusations that were rumors at the time, but WP later confirmed to be at least partially true.)

Some more background on that: the actual informant to that article is someone we’ve known about for years, someone who is a very destructive and vindictive personality who actually did a lot to cause serious problems during the Kickstarter planning.

So Andrew is identifying the source of the second article (who I’m just going to keep calling the Accuser) as someone they’re aware of, who caused problems during the Kickstarter planning (in early-to-mid 2012). Keep that in mind!

But what’s done is done, so hopefully more constructive things can happen moving forward than trading vague legal threats or doubling down on some of these questionable sources and rumors which appeared in the video.

The truth is that if Sarah had come to some people here first, due to being fans of her work, many would have been happy to supply all kinds of answers about the history of the Kickstarter, and many more topics. I think this is still a possibility if Sarah is willing to do more follow-up reporting.

If she wants to make a follow-up video, it could include the potential to reveal a lot of information that’s never been shared before. I don’t care much about policies of “secrecy”, and I don’t think many at WP do either. Much of these rumors about the opacity of WP are a bit overblown.

Given the entire history of the project, this is a very funny thing to say. There’s just so much I could cite here as a counterexample that it’s comical. It’s almost like Andrew thinks “opacity” is something he³ has to write down and actively choose to pursue for it to be real, and not just an easily observable state. Anyway, you don’t even have to look at the history, just keep reading this very email chain.

If you can forward this to Sarah, I’d appreciate it. Please let her know I’m available for follow-up clarifications on any of this, and others at WP can be too. Thank you.

Andrew

Former Employee Accounts

(Starting at 25:08 in the video)

So, in her video, Sarah Z pauses the email chain here and talks about her communications with some former What Pumpkin staff. At this point, these are third-hand accounts, but there’s still some interesting stuff here I’d like to pull from.

Sarah Z, Homestuck Sent Me A Legal Threat, And Then It Got Worse So, if you remember from my earlier video, I spoke about how in 2015, a large volume of the staff was abruptly fired with no warning, despite employers telling them everything was fine, and that those people received no kind of severance pay or credits. Multiple people we spoke to were able to point to specific assets that they designed that ended up in the final game despite never receiving any credit for it.

[Employees] were later fired- this happened not only with no warning, but according to Roger, they were specifically told after asking that they shouldn’t look for another job. They told me,

Halfway through the job i started panicking because I just have a gut for when things go south, and things felt like they were going south. I asked sincerely if I should look for another job and they insisted I should not. I asked if they were having money problems and they laughed at me and said “no of course not.” Then they let one of the animators go and cut others’ hours down. The vibe of the office was way less optimistic, but there was hope. I do recall a meeting where they said they were getting more money and not to worry. It was shortly before we all got fired. As you know, it’s easier to find a job when you’re already employed. So to tell me that I shouldn’t look for another job, and then fire me without warning, was to put it lightly, cruel.

And… yeah. Yeah, it really is.

It’s very clear talking to everyone that the closure of NYC hit them pretty hard. Not only did it come out of nowhere, but WhatPumpkin seemingly didn’t do anything to help that transition or to make it easier on anyone. Employees were left without severance pay, apparently because there wasn’t any money for it. Most were not contacted for a follow-up at all. There wasn’t a safety net in place to help secure the fired staff to new jobs or positions elsewhere or even just to make things less shit for them. Artists with skill sets that could’ve easily transferred over to 2D Hiveswap were let go without any real explanation why. The whole thing is honestly just very depressing.

So this isn’t funny anymore, this is just really, really, really sad. I’ve talked about this some before, how the entire NYC staff was fired completely out of the blue with no warning, no severance, and no healthcare, even as development was going well and What Pumpkin was courting major investors. I heard incredible anecdotes, like people working at the studio first learning there was an issue by reading the public Kickstarter announcement that the studio had closed. But I didn’t have nearly the reach to talk to people than Sarah did. Seeing her research confirm that things were as bad as I heard they were — if not worse — is horrifying and depressing.

If any of this sounds familiar, it’s because it matches a lot of what was said in the previous Homestuck video based on Gio’s article. This is important because it’s going to be a huge factor later on. After all, we were originally contacted because we didn’t approach primary sources and instead relied on an article written by someone with a bias against a company. But here we were, asking former WhatPumpkin employees directly what happened and getting basically the same response.

Hah! Did you forget that this is a story about me? That’s right, it turns out I actually did research and contacted primary sources, and didn’t just sit down and write an elaborate fiction with the stated goal of causing What Pumpkin the most damage. That latter idea is obviously absurd, but you’ll never guess who accuses me of that! Except wait, I gave that away in the intro, it’s Andrew Hussie. Whoops!

Andrew Enters Again

(Starting at 33:11 in the video)

Speaking of Andrew, Sarah does get in touch with him directly. And he emails her back:

Before I continue, one point of disclosure that seems relevant is I didn’t actually watch the video, and still haven’t yet. I felt it was important to first make it clear I’m not operating from a position of hard feelings about the video or anything like that. I simply haven’t watched it, and even if I did, whatever sort of negative editorializing it may contain is a non-factor to me. I’ve seen more than my share of critical takes over many years, so for the record before we go further, I have no issue at all with any reporting in the past or future which is unflattering to Homestuck or the historical events surrounding it. I’m just here to help my friends get some satisfaction in their desire to have their voices heard in this story, as well as to help you produce more accurate and interesting followup content, if that’s what you want.

Have you had time to think about how you want to approach this?

So… Andrew hasn’t actually watched the video. The video he already asserted had “mistakes” and requires “more accurate” follow-up content. So, presumably, the only information he’s going on here is that someone told him they didn’t like it, and he didn’t bother checking. Maybe he doesn’t even know what parts of the video he doesn’t like? It’s worth noting that Andrew’s friends who he would have heard from here are the people who wanted to be consulted… who are the same people who bashed the video as being a “hit piece” before it even came out. Who are Aysha. Did Cindy bother to watch the video before blasting out angry legal threats, I wonder? Or did she just hear from someone who heard from someone that they didn’t vibe with it?

There’s also “I have no issue at all with any reporting in the past or future which is unflattering to Homestuck or the historical events surrounding it”, which is another one of those obviously false statements Andy is just hoping you don’t think about, I guess. Keep that one in mind, though, when you think about how he reacted to literally everyone in this story who criticized him.

Andrew has ideas about teams and also me

(Starting at 37:41 in the video)

So Sarah takes the opportunity to finally ask some basic questions. “What’s your story about the Kickstarter? Why do your employees keep publicly attacking this Gio fellow? Why did you call Gio’s source malicious, and what were they actually wrong about? What about all those legal threats you sent people, including me? How come you fired everyone and mislead them about their job security?” A good basic panel.

Andrew responds with… ho boy, a lot.

First of all, it needs to be said that transparency isn’t a black and white concept. There are literally thousands of facts associated with the Kickstarter and subsequent gamedev efforts.

I think Sarah addresses this handily when she says “crowdfunding from thousands of people instead of private funding sources isn’t a way to be accountable to no one; it’s a way to be accountable to thousands of people. It turns what could have been a private game development affair into a public one. Framing people who want to know what’s happening with the game as a bunch of drama-hungry vultures, and acting like you owe no one any kind of explanation is incredibly unfair to these people. Like, I understand that acting like these folks are all just doing Drama Alert shit about the inner workings of the company is the easy way out.”

Many instances of transparency on the level desired by certain sectors of the fandom would unavoidably involve throwing a lot of people I’ve worked with under the bus, which is something I’ve been historically reluctant to do.

The way I’ve generally handled such events is to say, I could either publicly trash the person who just did a bunch of bad things, or I could try to be a little more diplomatic, put a positive spin on the new direction things are taking, and just keep moving forward while rallying efforts of everyone still remaining to repair the damage caused by destructive individuals. This approach may be frustrating to those who are dying to know all the internal details of a turbulent production. But experience has told me this is the only rational way to handle things if you want a project to continue, and not see it be completely destroyed by unnecessarily inflaming drama and pointing fingers at people who caused problems, and are gone anyway.

So this is an interesting argument that’s come up a few times now. According to Andrew, he’s keeping these secrets as an alternative to “throwing people under the bus”. This mirrors the language from the Homestuck^2 cancellation post, and the excuse given for stripping the credits from Hiveswap Act 2 entirely:

teamstuck@homestuckteam
For those of you wondering about credits: in an effort to avoid the targeted harassment that many members of our team have previously experienced, the team agreed to only credit the studio initially. More thorough credits will be patched in as launch hype dies down.
Fri Nov 27 18:51:39 +0000 2020

From the NYC days when the studio was “mostly made up of women developers” to now, with a team that is “majority queer and poc”, the “Homestuck team” — Andrew and other upper management excluded — have always been in particularly vulnerable social positions. This means What Pumpkin has, if anything, a particular responsibility to protect and support its artists.

But What Pumpkin does the opposite. Instead of supporting their artists and helping them build their careers, they mislead them about their job security and pay, fired them without severance or benefits, and vindictively denied credit to whistle-blowers, intentionally sabotaging their careers.

The @homestuckteam tweet about Act 2 is similarly misleading. From what I’ve seen, the vast majority of the “harassment” the team experiences is mostly criticism directed at management and writers, not the artists and animators by association, like the answer absurdly suggests. Think less “rip him apart” campaigns and more along the lines of team fortress memes. As aggressors often do, they’re using the language of protection, but they’re using it to justify denying people credit and then lying about it.

At the end of the day, what really happens is this: Andrew justifies things that are convenient to him as “protecting his team”, even though the “team” is consistently vulnerable populations that Andrew uses as personal shields. The rhetoric he uses is a mock-selflessness that frames any criticism of What Pumpkin — the company — as an attack on the vulnerable employees, sometimes to the point of actually redirecting real vitriol about WP’s corporate policies onto the artists.

Anyway, after all that, once pressed Andrew is going to throw a couple of people under the bus and blame everything that went wrong on them, so look forward to that.

One take is that the doors to these explanations only opened after you posted the video, which is a take I don’t really blame you for having. But the alternative take is a possibility which was never tested, because you posted it before you had a chance to find out. Which is that, if you or someone with a platform of your size had approached WP asking these questions, or attempted to clear up any misunderstandings between two opposing theories about the Kickstarter, these answers would have been provided because no one at WP would want such a visible broadcast to include that sort of misinformation.

First, “the doors to these explanations only opened after you posted the video” isn’t a “take”, it’s a factual description of the events as they happened. Second, Andrew claims that even though they haven’t shared this information before, and still won’t now, they might have this time, because… she had a high enough subscriber count.

The truth is, I don’t think anyone with a significant platform showed any interest in covering the Kickstarter events on the level of detail that you or Gio were diving into. Any demands for the types of extremely fine details you see in Gio’s blog always appeared in small minority pockets of fandom, if they even existed at all.

Unlike Andrew, I don’t think my hunches as to what people care about are automatically the absolute truth, so I’ll let you make up your own mind as to how interested in this story you are. I will say that “what public events happened, and when” don’t qualify as “extremely fine details”, by my definition. I have a file of what I would consider “extremely fine details”, but I didn’t talk about them because, unlike what’s in my actual article, they’re not interesting or relevant.

I think there was a serious risk that any corrections given to him would have been weaponized to continue portraying events negatively, and our corrections could easily just be undercut by further misinformation from his lying source.

This is a fair concern, because the truth about the situation is damning prima facie. If the truth is you did a bunch of bad stuff, of course talking about it is a risk to you. You don’t want people to think you’re awful, and if you’re awful, the truth about that is a danger. “Oh, yeah, we kept secrets because we fucked up, and we really want to hide that.” This is the kind of thing you whisper behind closed doors, though. You don’t just admit that when you’re asked why you kept secrets! Especially since Andrew doesn’t “care much about policies of secrecy”, apparently!?

Also, still, what misinformation, dude? If you’re going to base your entire case on the idea that something in the article was wrong, you can’t just “I object! That was… objectionable!”, you have to actually take specific issue with something. It’s been months and Andy hasn’t even made a motion towards square one. And if you don’t want to tell the truth because you know the truth will make you look worse, that’s still on you!

The totality of this situation, in addition to the fact that hardly anyone was even looking at his blog (I think he only had a few hundred followers) made it apparent the best thing to do was ignore him, and allow his blog to pass as a relative non-event in the grand scheme of fandom history.

Oh no, it looks like my whole framing device was wrong! This didn’t really start with Sarah Z, it turns out Andrew & co. have just been biting their nails and hoping nobody noticed my article since day one. I am writing on a typewriter with no backspace key, though, so we’ll press on. Carriage return, line feed.

One of your questions was whether I thought Gio was a stalker. It’s my personal take that he probably does not technically qualify as one, but I also don’t think it’s a simple “no” either, given his antagonistic fixation toward people at WP, and his persistent invasiveness has made the women at WP uncomfortable. Suffice to say for now, I don’t trust him, I will never speak to him, and probably no one from WP ever will either. On the other hand, I’m perfectly happy to share some information with you, since I can see from your track record that you’ve made a lot of good videos where it looks to me like you’re interested in putting at least some effort into figuring out what’s true, rather than just maximizing the damage done to the targets of your reporting regardless of what you find out. After the backer update came out, I took at look at Gio’s revisions to his article, and unsurprisingly, he just rearranged all the new facts so that he could draw all the same basic negative conclusions he’d already drawn. In fact, he described what was revealed by the update as even worse than what he originally thought. I think this would be a bizarre conclusion for anyone who was looking at that update objectively, and just indicates that the facts never mattered because he had already made up his mind. The only explanation is what everyone at WP suspected all along. He’s a troll.

And we’re back to the cold open! Why I haven’t been pulling my punches this time around. See, Andrew actually addresses Aysha’s little stalker stunt, and he predictably fumbles it.

Andrew says I asked too many questions, and made someone uncomfortable. That’s almost the kind of accusation that could possibly be true of someone, until you remember that “being a stalker” is being given as both the result of my asking questions and as the reason they didn’t answer my questions. See, Aysha just threw that word out without actually accusing me of doing anything specifically wrong because that’s the kind of thing you do when you’re mad at someone without a good reason. Andrew can’t bring himself to do the decent thing and just say “yeah, Aysha was obviously in the wrong here”, he forces himself to presuppose trivially circular reasoning.

Now, don’t get me wrong, there are some crazy fans out there. KF was in the news recently for apparently harassing an incredibly talented developer to the point of suicide, and I’m sure all those same people have it out for the people from What Pumpkin too.

But that doesn’t justify launching actual harassment campaigns against people who aren’t doing anything wrong. The question of “does [x] really believe they’re being threatened or is that just a smokescreen” comes up regularly when someone lashes out like that, but I think the whole conversation really distracts from the fact that either way they’re doing indefensibly bad things. Their thought process for asking people to attack me is unknowable and irrelevant.

As for “just rearranging all the new facts so I could draw all the same basic negative conclusions”, that’s also trivially false. Based on the build published in the Kickstarter update, I retracted what I said about Act 1 being nearly ready to ship as a direct result of the info in the KS post. I am not at all embarrassed about assessing new info when it’s available. The problem is, in this case, most of the Kickstarter information already matched what I thought was true already, so of course it didn’t necessitate major changes. It’s consistent because the events that happened stayed the same, and the new information didn’t re-contextualize them. That’s due to the facts in the update, not my mood. See, I actually did look at the update objectively, as Andrew requests here. I just didn’t agree with its conclusions, which is what he actually wanted.

If WP was able to respond so quickly after your video with a new Kickstarter update sharing that information, why not just share that information a long time ago, which could have theoretically averted a situation like this?

The answer is that the recent backer update really wasn’t as trivial as it seemed. It was more of a measure of last resort. WP had a post like that on file, which is why it was able to be posted pretty quickly. It was just somewhat edited to suit the purpose, and address some of the specific claims.

It makes complete sense that What Pumpkin had a post like that on file. It’s shameful that it took someone publishing a YouTube video and catching them by surprise just to get it posted, but fine. I’ve talked about that already. What’s more fun about this line is Cindy’s original legal threat talked about how labor-intensive it was to post that Kickstarter update, and that it entailed “significant time and resources,” but here’s Andrew just admitting outright that wasn’t true. Cindy just decided she had to push out the harshest legal snarl she could, even if it meant fabricating damages. Neat!

Given that you’re working as some form of reporter here, I don’t think proposing an NDA makes sense, so all that’s really left is to explicitly ask if you are willing to handle the facts I give you responsibly when it comes time to publish content. By this I don’t mean spinning the narrative a certain way. I mean, before you record everything you’re planning to say, come to some mutual agreement with me on which names, job titles or other personal information should be masked, or if there are any particularly explosive or compromising facts that could put anyone in an unsafe position, we consider ways of artfully sidestepping those facts without disrupting the truth too much. Can you agree to this?

So remember earlier when I interpreted WP’s legal threat as a demand for control over criticism of them? Here it is in black-and-white: Andrew is willing to engage (because he’s not opaque, remember) in exchange for an editorial pass over Sarah’s video script, up to and including “disrupting the truth” to some degree. Here, this is done in the name of “protecting his team” which, well, I’ve already talked about.

Andrew either does or doesn’t want to talk about it, I can’t tell

(Starting at 45:48 in the video)

Sarah responds, again, very well. She asks about the interest evidenced by the response to the ipgd post, and asks about Andrew’s response to and awareness of it at the time.

Andrew responds with what Sarah summarizes as “well, okay, some people were generally interested with what happened at the company, but nothing specific, and it became more of a thing after the ipgd post. I didn’t write it and I didn’t ask her to make it, it’s just that she could say stuff we couldn’t because she wasn’t under NDA.“

So Andrew claims here that he didn’t directly write or instruct ipgd to write her post, but that ipgd’s not being covered by NDA put her in a unique position to be able to leak information without legally violating the terms of the NDA. This all matches up with what all we already knew.

Sarah also asked more about this Accuser who leaked the (correct!) information about Act 7, who Hussie is blaming so much on, and critically asks what specific parts of his testimony were untrue. (She also doesn’t agree to give Hussie editorial control over her video, because again, not a clownshow.)

To which Andrew responds:

The reason this exchange is happening is because your video provoked an extremely negative backlash against WP. Probably the biggest I’ve ever seen, as well as the most negative. I think a million views is more attention than I can recall any media piece on Homestuck ever getting, regardless of how positive or negative it was.

This is just patently false, as clearly demonstrable by looking at… really any metric. Moving on.

The type of negativity I’m talking about here isn’t about critical reception to certain works, like Homestuck^2. It’s about mixing in a lot of misinformation which seems to have galvanized many of those negative sentiments. Or turned minor or sleeping fandom grievances into major active ones. And it would be one thing if I were the target, but since I stepped away earlier last year to focus on other things, I feel like the people who are bearing the full brunt of this negativity are those still charged with bringing Hiveswap to completion, which now feels like it must be done under a new cloud of hostility.

And we’re back to Andrew beating his two favourite drums: “I don’t care about the criticism, I’m just upset that some of what you said was false, maybe, I don’t know what, and also I still haven’t watched the video” and “I don’t care about myself, it’s my team, the people I saddled with all my responsibilities before I took off, they’re the real victims here, when you criticise me.”

There’s another familiar line here: “I don’t care about the HS2 criticism”. Remember that one?

Carmella@homestuckho
Replying to ayshaufarah:
@ayshaufarah grumpy because she called homestuck2 bad huh
Wed Apr 14 00:44:29 +0000 2021

Aysha@ayshaufarah
Replying to homestuckho:
@homestuckho i don't care about that part, i care about the hiveswap lies
Wed Apr 14 14:36:47 +0000 2021

This consistently strikes me as an odd sentiment, because they’re both saying that they’re more angry about people hearing stories about What Pumpkin’s management than they are in what’s actually pretty vicious criticism of their own writing. I mean, Sarah Z rips into Homestuck^2:

Homestuck 2 was bad. It’s bad, y’all. I’m sorry but it’s really bad. I’m trying to be nice here but I really don’t like it. Homestuck 2 is bad. I don’t want to kick a project while it’s down, and as you’ll soon learn, Homestuck 2 is very very down, but I have to be honest when I say that I read all of Homestuck 2 and just found it not very good. Like it’s not even an issue of the plot of Homestuck 2 or whatever because Homestuck 2 doesn’t really have a plot. Nothing has happened. It’s a comic that has run for 400 pages, for over a year, and barely any plot progression has taken place.

If I had to compare the writing of Homestuck 2 to anything, it’s season 4 of Community. Here you have the continuation of a cult favorite series now overseen by a different staff of people, people who hold the original work in such high regard and are so afraid of potentially deviating from it or upsetting the fanbase that their direction seems to be to try to replicate the voice and style of the original writer to the point of it just feeling hollow and shallow and unappealing. Characters are flanderized to such basic caricatures of themselves just so that you know that it’s them and can feel like you’re seeing them in their iconic, fan preferred state. Plotlines get a lot shallower and more focused on providing cool fanservice moments rather than actually making sense or continuing the arc of the story. It’s just… flat. Very very flat and uninteresting, the type of writing that makes you question if you ever really liked the series in the first place.

That is vicious criticism of Aysha and Andrew’s very personal, very current proficiency as writers. That’s a more personal attack than my saying that Andrew made management mistakes back in 2016 could ever be. And it’s not a position I’ve taken! And yet both of them are willing to accept that in an attempt to put more weight behind their Hiveswap objections. Why? No, really, I don’t know. Aysha literally wasn’t even involved back then. Why do these people care so strongly that people not find out about this story?

Anyway, back to Andrew.

It’s still the case that no one at WP knows why you didn’t seek comment from anyone here before posting, which would have been a simple way to dispel a lot of the misinformation, and in some cases hard evidence could have been used to disprove certain claims.

Well, that’s not true. Remember that whole twitter thread about how WP is unavailable for comment, and Aysha got so mad about it she spun up a whole harassment campaign over it? I think that means she knows.

WP also still isn’t sure why you singled [Homestuck writer] out as someone who couldn’t be trusted to get comments from. Someone mentioned to me somewhere you publicly interacted with Gio to tell him you felt vindicated in believing [Homestuck writer] couldn’t be trusted as a source.

Everything here is false. Sarah didn’t single anyone out as untrustworthy; assuming this is referring to that same tumblr ask from before, that’s just not what happened. As for “publicly interacting with me about feeling vindicated”… no? That literally never happened. At all, on any platform. This is just clearly made-up.

I’m struck by how freely Andrew is willing to act on stuff he hasn’t at all confirmed. He still hasn’t even watched the video, and now he’s citing “I think someone mentioned to me, somewhere, that [false thing] happened” as if it were a point of fact. How do you not check that before you send the email? “I think I remember someone else thinking you did this so that makes it true. I reckon they’re right, and that’s the same thing as checking, I think.” Good lord.

I’m not approaching this topic from a standpoint of legality regarding the way you went about researching your video, this is more about basic courtesy.

…

Having said this, it’s still not my intention to approach our conversation with language that sounds either litigious or accusatory. So I’m not literally asking you why you didn’t consult with WP, and I’m not trying to force you to answer for these decisions here. Instead I’ll just offer what my sense has been about this from the beginning. It seems to me that anyone trying to investigate these matters begins from a confusing starting point, and is limited by the fact that they don’t know what they don’t know. If an investigator did know certain key details already, they’d know how better to approach gathering more facts, which topics were landmines to be careful with, etc

Well, about that. See, you made this company called What Pumpkin, and they already skipped past basic courtesy and blasted Sarah with absurd legal demands (some of which you already said yourself were false!), including asking why she didn’t consult with WP, so it’s a little late to be telling this story now.

As for all this Hard Evidence that could have been used to disprove claims about you, that’s literally what I’ve asked for. Heck, you don’t need me, you’ve had years to publish any exonerating evidence about yourself you wanted! The people who are talking about this are limited by what we don’t know, yes, but that’s because you’ve consistently chosen to withhold all of the relevant information. Even right now, today, I’d be happy to publish all the hard evidence you’d like to show. You’re the one who doesn’t want to talk about this, and everyone knows it. That’s why we’ve stopped asking!

You asked a few questions here, but you didn’t seem to address the point near the end of my previous email. Which was that I preferred to move through these events as a “process” which should have a particular starting point. By starting with the insane events of NYC that went unreported, this should help you begin to see what I mean when I say these were miserable experiences for WP staff in ways that were totally beyond anyone’s control. You may even begin to develop an appreciation for why WP’s original note to Dave was worded as strongly as it was. Cindy had to personally travel to the vacated NYC office and haul out smashed equipment herself. The events being poked at here are a lot more serious than the way rumors have been framing them.

I also think the truth of the NYC events shouldn’t just be dismissed as irrelevant, because your video massively elevated Gio’s version of events. Some key themes of that report were things like WP mishandling the concerns of NYC staff, being callously uncommunicative, or the idea that I closed the studio “on a whim”. None of that is true. But you don’t need to believe me just because I say so. I have email transcripts of what happened, and can share them. But if you’re not interested in understanding the events on that level, and would prefer to keep hopping around the timeline asking questions in a way that’s disconnected from understanding the totality of what it’s been like for WP to deliver this game, I don’t think I can continue supplying information. I need some sense that you care about understanding the toll it’s taken on the people at the center of this, and how the way your video is currently framing these events has enormously compounded the suffering already caused by a series of events which had for the most part been put to rest. Are you willing to read the story about how the NYC studio really closed?

Man, I’d love to hear what “Gio’s version of events” is, because I don’t remember giving any personal testimony about my time working at What Pumpkin. Here I thought I was just making a note of what events seem to have happened, and when. I’ve been pretty clear whenever I pointed out something only came from one source, or wasn’t robustly proven.

So, there’s a ton of exonerating evidence, Andrew promises, but he’s not willing to share any of it because… Sarah asked questions when Andrew invited her to? There’s really nothing of any substance here, just more gesturing that Andrew thinks everything would be fine if you understood the whole story, which he definitely won’t share. Also, he’s very transparent.

Various tidbits

(Starting at 53:52 in the video)

So Sarah replies, again, very well:

Thanks for getting back to me. This was admittedly somewhat frustrating to read- you initially contacted me in order to tell me I’d gotten specific details wrong and so that I could use your account as a reference point in any future content. I’ve since repeatedly informed you that I am happy to listen to your side of events, and that I will take it into consideration for the production of any future content. I’ve restated my willingness to listen in every email since, but I nevertheless seem to be getting several replies that express hesitation to tell me anything, which is curious given that you contacted me. Let me unequivocally restate that yes, I am willing to listen to your side of what happened at WhatPumpkin if you are willing to share it. If you don’t wish to share your account of what happened, then there is no reason to continue with this conversation and any future video content will be made without it.

There are then apparently a few emails back and forth, and eventually Sarah gets enough information to at least give a coherent summary of Andrew’s claims: (This is Sarah, now)

…if what Andrew showed me is true, WhatPumpkin did hire someone who later turned out to behave in toxic and inappropriate ways, and because of the person’s position it supposedly required them to shut things down really quickly. To that end, I think that’s helpful information about the closure of the company and I understand the difficult position that can put an employer in. According to Andrew, the person has been spreading false rumors about the company online for a long time now. What I will say I didn’t get was any information about any specific false claim this person made that 1, was in Gio’s article, or 2, more importantly, was in my video. There was this general allusion to ‘this toxic ex-employee is lying about us online’, but nothing that actually relates to like… what things were said, what things were lies, and why a bunch of Twitter DMs and threatening emails got sent over it.

Or, for that matter, how a person could manage to convince several former What Pumpkin employees that their workplace and employers were bad. Like… dozens of people don’t just suddenly get tricked into believing that they’re being treated like shit by their employer without reason. And the people who messaged me messaged me with firsthand personal grievances, not hearsay or “he said/she said/they said” shit. If said person was lying, then what were they lying about and why were so many people willing to believe them?

On the whole, Hussie doesn’t tell me about any specific lies this person spread about the company at all, especially none that relate to my video, or even Gio’s article for that matter. Just the general idea that there exists an employee out there who was a bad person and makes things up about the company.

So there’s a lot Sarah is obviously correct about here. One disgruntled ex-employee doesn’t explain why so many people have specific, concrete stories of how What Pumpkin wronged them personally. The idea that WP makes baseless legal threats isn’t a lie this guy told, because that’s something Sarah actually experienced firsthand, in this very story. Nor is the vague mention that some unhappy ex-employee exists a substitute for specifying what your actual complaint is!

Let’s humor Andrew and take a minute to look at this Accuser fellow, though, since he wants so desperately for us to focus on that angle. Earlier in this thread, Andrew pointed him out as someone they’ve been aware of since they caused problems during the Kickstarter planning in early-to-mid 2012. This is the same person who WP says (in the Kickstarter update) left the team in early 2014.

Wait a minute. This toxic guy — who Andrew is now ambiguously blaming all negative sentiments about WP about on — was kept on for two full years after the inappropriate behavior started? If he’s as awful as they’re saying he is, in what universe was What Pumpkin not grossly at fault for keeping him around so long? If they’re telling the truth, it sounds like they sabotaged their own project by tolerating this guy for as long as they did.

According to Sarah’s interviews,

One person I spoke to who worked not at the games studio, but in closer proximity to Hussie, described their experience as “like 10 million HR violations a day”, talking about how the company allegedly had no HR department at the time and thus a lot of inappropriate behaviour was ignored or excused.

So What Pumpkin didn’t build the HR infrastructure they needed to deal with inappropriate behavior, tolerated someone they claim to be as toxic as the devil himself, and that’s their best excuse!

Even with all that said, I think it’s a mistake to focus on the details of this Accuser guy anyway. Even if I knew everything, it would just be the tawdry drama of this one character, which isn’t the story I care about. What matters are the facts. The real, substantive truth of what happened. The Accuser contributed to that with a number of stories that, it turns out, were true! Officially confirmed, case closed. WP says they lied about some ambiguous details, but they can’t come up any actual points they’re even willing to claim are false, let alone show proof about. The “malicious ex-employee” story is a huge, intentional distraction designed to position WP as the victim in a story they can’t even keep straight.

I rewatched The Alt-Right Playbook: Never Play Defense the other day, and I was struck by the very first example. You know, the one where the pawn keeps making various arguments about why a woman is bad, without ever actually engaging with counterarguments or refutations. See, he’s angry at feminism, and his goal is to pick on a feminist. Any actual question about what happened are incidental.

There’s a similar effect happening here with WP and their defenders, I think. See, none of them are actually arguing for a position, they’re arguing for a feeling. Their case is never about whether an event actually occurred or not, or whether or not their accusers are wrong, it’s about whether they’re “left sitting spotless upon their Perch of Exoneration” or not.

This is what you do when your narrative is held together with scotch tape and gum. You protect the narrative itself, because you know it can’t hold up to even mild scrutiny. How you choose to argue that case depends only on what rhetoric is convenient, because you don’t have the option of proving yourself right.

Andrew Engages

Anyway, Sarah emails back

The primary point of confusion for me in terms of questions still relates to the claims made by [Name Redacted]- I am still not entirely certain what “distorted rumours” and “poisoning the well” specifically entail. Were specific false claims made by [Name Redacted] that later got picked up in the video or article? Which parts does this context make untrue? So far, this information serves as helpful contextualization, but I am still uncertain as to its specific relation to the “unreliable information” about which you initially contacted me. Is there any final information regarding the specifics of [Name Redacted]’s involvement, the aforementioned factual inconsistencies, or WhatPumpkin’s development process, that you wish to share?

And Hussie responds

Since [redacted] put in more work socially connecting with many members of the staff, they believe him, and start listening to his counter narrative. Which is something to the effect of, this studio closed spontaneously for unfair reasons, was horribly mismanaged, and the reason you aren’t hearing anything from them now is because they just don’t care about you (again, paraphrasing).

There’s a recurring theme in communications from WP (and Andrew, in particular) where they will say something is “false.” The actual thing they say that about, though, is rarely a specific point of fact, but rather a whole presentation. In other words, they don’t make a distinction between a point in an article being “false” and an article taking a tone they disagree with. They erase the very real distinction between fact and tone and simply call the whole thing false if they disagree with the way it makes people feel at the end. It’s fair to be upset that someone didn’t frame you in a positive way, but it’s important to be clear if that’s what you’re upset about; you can’t just disagree with the tone and call that the same thing as lying.

This article is already overlong as it is, so I’m going to skip some largely uninteresting blockquotes where Andrew refers to critical ex-employees as “poisoned”, as if someone invented some sort of mind control poison that just makes people hate WP irrationally, even though they’ve done nothing wrong ever. (Now, of course, What Pumpkin claims to have identified my anonymous source based on their claims, so even What Pumpkin thinks these claims are unique enough to identify a specific person. But also, that many people are parroting the same story? So that doesn’t work.)

Hussie did finally, finally link to specific sections he had objections with:

If you read Gio’s article starting here at “Insight into the NYC Team Firing”: https://blog.giovanh.com/blog/2020/10/03/the-hiveswap-fiasco/#insight-into-nyc-team-firing

Down to the side-channel fundraising header, that entire section is skewed by the [Accuser] narrative. That this was a spontaneous and callous mass-firing with no explanation. Having the [Accuser] incident as context makes it all make more sense, but that context is missing from the article making this material misleading, and puts WP in a very awkward position in terms of offering a defense, since to do so would reactivate the concerns over whether reporting this would put people in a compromising position.

Then the [other guy]-poisoned narrative also has relevance to this section, about lack of accreditation to the NYC staff. https://blog.giovanh.com/blog/2020/10/03/the-hiveswap-fiasco/#crediting-and-art-theft

By the time Act 1 comes out in late 2017, it’s been two years since the NYC closure, and among the [other guy]-poisoned staff, the narrative about what WP did wrong starts to evolve after this.

Two very similar narratives here. In both cases, Andrew doesn’t take any issue with any of the facts, but argues that they were missing context. Context that Andrew and What Pumpkin had for years, but withheld. That context being that there existed an ex-employee who was allegedly some sort of mastermind who manipulated many people into all telling unflattering stories about What Pumpkin. Stories that Andrew doesn’t take any factual issue with. That’s the context that makes misleading people about their job security and firing them without a safety net not “callous.” Andy just wishes I had included the context, that I asked for, but WP choose to keep secret.

There’s a lot of complaining in general that the information people are reading is from the perspective of fans and employees, not the company. Jojo wrote a good video on this topic, but to summarize; yes, all the talk is from the perspective of fans and employees, because that’s all the information there is. By definition, because What Pumpkin the company is incredibly tight-lipped and refuses to even make statements about issues — let alone be transparent about their processes — there isn’t information from their perspective. This is a choice they made, and if they were really upset about the consequences, they would at least start communicating now.

And then there’s the kicker. See, that last paragraph continues

It’s not just about closing abruptly without communication, it also relates to claims that some NYC staff aren’t being credited for some work that evidently carried over from the NYC build. From what I saw at the time, as well as some direct interactions she had with us, it seems like [Alice] was the most vocal champion of that narrative, just as she was of [Accuser]’s narrative right after closure. Those claims are mostly covered by that section in the article.

…

I know that [Alice] was the one leading the charge on the credit issues because she sent us an email about it after Act 1’s release. In it she requested credit in a friendly tone, citing a few minor things appearing in Act 1 like a font design she contributed to, and small touches to characters like the gold trim on one of outfits. Probably under ordinary circumstances I would have replied to this in a friendly way, and even if her claims didn’t totally track (iirc they didn’t really, after consulting with some others), I’m sure I would have erred on the side of caution and just credited her. But this was a pretty crazy email to get because it wasn’t even long before receiving this that I saw her in public spaces saying wildly vitriolic things about me and WP, repeating the false points from the [Accuser] narrative and such.

…she’d already publicly burned the bridge with WP for anyone to be inclined to make the changes to the credits over such small points. I can at least acknowledge there’s a chance some of her influence in the NYC build leaked through to the next version in small ways, and it wouldn’t have been off base to credit her. But this is pretty much the only situation I can think of like that. No one else from the NYC team went improperly uncredited.

So here stands Hussie’s best attempt at dealing with an actual point of fact: that NYC staff weren’t credited for their work. His explanation of this is… they deliberately chose to withhold credit from select employees because they thought they were badmouthing the company on the internet. So not only did they not credit the NYC staff for their work, they specifically picked people they personally disliked to exclude from credit.

Speaking of the Accuser, this was actually one of their more out-there claims: “Not crediting WP NYC also fits in with a long pattern of behavior. Depriving people of proper credit is something Andrew had a significant habit of doing.” I couldn’t even research that, I just had to present it as-is. “They also said Hussie deprived people of credit. Huh!” But then Hussie comes in and just confesses to it.

Maybe this is why he’s learned to so desperately avoid dealing with points of fact. Maybe demanding people only judge you by your vibes is actually the better strategy for him.

Oh, and also, because Hussie got the idea in the head that she was “poisoned”, he didn’t hire her back specifically as retribution, because why not.

I think it’s pretty likely she would have been hired back if not for getting poisoned by his influence.

So that’s Hussie’s best stab at contesting my article. Okay. But, y’know, this is a thread between Andrew and Sarah, so what about her video?

The short answer is, I don’t quite know yet, because I still haven’t gotten around to viewing the video, which I can soon.

Well, the man’s consistent.

So then later Andrew actually watches the video they’re mad about

But unfortunately, I don’t have a lot to say about it, because Hussie doesn’t have a lot to say about it. Apparently he comes up with a second guy who’s also the devil and also spreads malicious lies about What Pumpkin (but apparently the true kind still), and also everything that went wrong during development was his fault and not Hussie’s.

And then, apparently, the conversation just peters out, with more and more question dodging.

But Cindy’s back!

(Starting at 1:12:14 in the video)

Sarah gets one last email from What Pumpkin. This time Cindy again:

The members of our team were, and still are, really hurt by your video. [Repeats of things Andrew said already]

I’m only able to be this honest with you because I know Andrew has shared with you some of the background details nobody has heard about before. I still wish you would have gotten in touch with us before publishing your video, but that doesn’t justify the anger in my email to Dave. My team was really hurt by the video’s amplification of the misinformation about us, and in the moment I let my emotions and frustration get the best of me. It wasn’t the right way to handle things, and I apologize for that.

Well, I mean, at least Cindy’s aware she lashed out inappropriately in a fit of anger. That’s more than can be said for Aysha. It’s still absurd. “I let my frustration get the best of the me” is an excuse for your friend calling you a name in middle school, not the grown-adult CEO-of-a-real-company sending you honest-to-god legal threats that cite damages in the thousands of dollars.

Good lord, I don’t even know what I could say to cap off that clownshow. It’s just all so absurd, I can’t pull off a punchy ending, the best I can do is just point up, jaw agape.

Just to cover my bases, I wrote What Pumpkin yet another email back in May in an attempt to ask basic questions about Hiveswap and clear up points they disagreed about:

This was, of course ignored. There’s that spirit of transparency for you!

hbomberguy, “PewDiePie Is A Nazi”

Not to be confused with Sarah Zedig, a Homestuck twitter fan who was not involved in the day’s events other than deleting some old tweets that apparently fell out of favor with her friend group. ↩
You can tell “at What Pumpkin’s leisure” is the only standard being used here, because it’s the only one they ever cite. No specific facts that were wrong, no specific libel, no standard of any sort. Just what they want. If the standard were “erase false information”, you’d see something be called false, here. ↩
For the purpose of this article, I’m using he/him pronouns for Andrew in places (Andrew says he now uses any pronouns) just because there are only a few characters in this already overlong story, and if I sometimes switch to they/them for Andrew it turns out it gets really unreadable, really fast. ↩

Trouble a-brewin' at Redbubble

2021-06-02T00:00:00-05:00

Homestuck is once again lit up over fan merch. Homestuck and fan merch have a long and troubled history, but this latest incident is between artists, Redbubble, and Viz media. Here are my thoughts on that!

In late May 2021, artists who sold Homestuck merch on Redbubble got this email:

Dear [name],

Thank you for submitting your fan art for Homestuck and/or Hiveswap as part of Redbubble’s Fan Art Partner Program.

At this time, our partnership with the rights holder VIZ Media has come to an end. When a partnership expires, we are required to remove officially approved artworks from the marketplace. This means that your Homestuck and/or Hiveswap designs will be removed from Redbubble soon.

Here are a couple of things to keep in mind:

It is important to know that licensors do not allow previously approved designs once sold on Redbubble to be sold on any other platform, even after the program ends.

Because this removal is not in response to a complaint, your account will not be negatively impacted.

Partnerships come and go, but don’t worry. We’re looking forward to partnering with more awesome brands in the future.

Check out our Current Brand Partnerships list to see all the properties that are actively accepting submissions. For additional information, we recommend checking out the Fan Art Partner Program FAQ.

Thank you, Redbubble

This hit a lot of people, and hit them hard:

austina(annoyed grunt)@avstinado
to add insult to tonight's injury, redbubble has decided to spontaneously take down the main 12's sigil shirts off of the VE storefront on viz's behalf. the storefront they've been on for three years. without issue. that use alchemy symbols. which are public domain.
Fri May 28 14:45:37 +0000 2021

austina(annoyed grunt)@avstinado
update on the redbubble situation: looks like if you have any currently running VE merchandise, you're officially an owner of limited edition products that we legally cannot reuse or redistribute.
what a fucking joke.

Wed Jun 02 19:24:29 +0000 2021

Rut-roh!

Unfortunately for Twitter and brevity this is actually the intersection of a couple different complicated issues, which I’ll try to summarize here.

Copyright law really sucks for fanartists, actually

Just gonna get this one out of the way right off the bat. Copyright law gives IP owners a tremendous amount of power over what’s done with their characters and designs, even extending far into derivative fanart. If you own Homestuck, you actually can take someone to court over selling merch of their fantroll, and probably win. That’s not a great starting point, but it’s the truth.

Eevee has a great write-up of why this is bad. I’d also point you to Tom Scott’s video about how copyright law isn’t designed for intermediate platforms like Redbubble, but suffice it to say, yeah, copyright law really sucks for fanartists, actually.

This is the most complex thing going on here, certainly, but it’s not new and interesting. What is new and interesting, though, is

Redbubble forcing predatory licensing on people

Now, copyright law sucks for fanartists, but that doesn’t explain what happened here.

The work on Homestuck that fell under the Homestuck franchise umbrella was extremely varied There was plenty of merch that was clearly copies from the Homestuck IP: stickers of panels from the comic, aspect designs, even duplicates of shirts that were already for sale on FFBF. These are cases where the rights owner clearly has an exclusive right to merchandise, and is well within their rights to demand you to stop.

But there was plenty of obviously original work, too. Quotes from something Homestuck referenced, entirely original art of original characters, even public domain symbols on a black shirt.

Pictured: A thing Viz Media owns, now

Designs that were literally just alchemical symbols on black shirts were struck down for being tagged Homestuck. Copyright law is bad, but it’s not that bad; tagging your product as something Homestuck fans might be interested in doesn’t mean the corporate entity that owns Homestuck now owns your design. So what’s happened here?

This particular issue centers around Redbubble’s Fan Art Program. Redbubble’s objective isn’t to make sure everyone is able to sell the work they’re entitled to, it’s to ensure the highest profit for Redbubble. Selling a few extra units generates revenue, of course, but being sued is such a tremendous risk that, in Redbubble’s judgement, it’s worth it to stay well within the good graces of any company who shows up, even if that means denying people a storefront to sell work they legally own. Because profit is explicitly the goal, here, the Redbubble system doesn’t offer artists the due process the copyright system would usually demand; actual legal rights take backseat to expediency and profit.

So what does this mean for fanart? Well, back to the Fan Art Program. Redbubble partners with certain franchises to facilitate Redbubble selling fanart of those works. Those agreements are between Redbubble and the companies, and likely vary, but include clauses like

The brand can approve or reject individual designs for sale
The brand can charge Redbubble a markup fee on designs sold
Redbubble is allowed to sell approved designs without fear of being sued by the brand in an actual copyright case
Approved artists can easily officially license their merch and sell it without fear of legal action

Given the legal protections offered by the fan art program, Redbubble would rather you not make fanart of unapproved franchises, given the likelihood that such designs would open Redbubble up to potential legal consequences.

So here’s how that actually played out, here. Some time circa June 2019, Viz Media and Redbubble entered into one of these fan art partnerships. As part of this, RB granted Viz the right to manually approve any Homestuck art on the store, and gathered up all the “Homestuck designs.” This was likely done algorithmicly — finding everything using the Homestuck tag, or the name of a Homestuck character — and put it in the approval queue.

After that, Viz went through that queue and approved — from what I can tell — almost everything. If you were a RB Homestuck artist before, you got a notification that your art was claimed by Viz and was temporarily suspended, and a few weeks later you got a notification that it was approved and back up for sale.

What people might not have known is this represented a fundamental change in their works’ ownership. Viz had asserted that it was the rights owner of Homestuck, and therefore the rights holder of the subject of your work. Anything they claimed to own, you were now selling at their pleasure, not your own. As RB’s FAQ says, “In exchange for their permission to use their IP, the rights holder may require you to give up certain of your rights in the work.” Continuing to sell your work on Redbubble apparently indicated consent of this.

So, what rights did you give Viz? Well, apparently, an exclusive license to the design.

It’s important to know that licensors do not allow previously approved designs once sold on Redbubble to be sold on any other platform, even after the program ends.

And thus solves the mystery of how Viz got the right to demand you stop quoting Eddie Morton. Redbubble handed the rights to Viz on a silver platter.

Once the agreement ended, Viz exercised its right to eradicate the design. A right Redbubble gave Viz via contract, and artists gave Redbubble via EULA. All this far exceeds what copyright law requires. Viz couldn’t reasonably demand ownership of those latter designs (they don’t own the idea of symbols against black, no matter who all they buy), but Redbubble surrendered it anyway to keep itself as protected as possible.

Wait, Viz?

One thing about all this that stands out to me particularly is: why Viz? Viz Media keeps claiming to be the rights holder here, but is that even right?

According to What Pumpkin, Andrew Hussie still personally owns the rights to the Homestuck IP (the characters, symbols, etc.) Viz media owns a limited subset of publication rights for producing and marketing the physical hardcover collection and the epilogues. Viz certainly does NOT have an exclusive license over homestuck merch, a fact evident by FFBF;s continued merch store.

So… did Viz even have the IP rights it claimed to in 2019? Was the recent termination really part of regular negotiations (the agreement period lasted two years, almost down to the week), or did Viz just realize they don’t have the rights in the first place? I don’t know. I know What Pumpkin says Andrew still personally holds the rights (even though he doesn’t work at WP), but I’ve learned to take anything they say with a helping of salt.

I would love to have an easy solution to this. Heck, I’d throw a party if any one of the three separate issues at play here were solved. Given part 2, you might be tempted to cast blame at the artists who licensed their work to Viz. You’d think “They never should have done that, that’s the problem right there. They just shouldn’t have agreed.” This isn’t really a fair assessment, though. As I described, the licensing at play here was really snuck past people; they didn’t know that their inaction meant they were giving exclusive rights to a company, they were just glad they could sell their work again. Selling officially licensed fan merchandise seemed like a great thing, until it just wasn’t.

Big picture, it seems to me that store platforms like Redbubble are currently way over-incentivized to avoid conflict with big scary corporate rightsholders, and so err towards denying people the ability to sell art that they own. Redbubble’s policies are worse for artists than the actual on-the-books copyright law, which is already really bad! I reckon somebody should do something about that.

Yes I’m just putting links to those same references here again, because they’re good

W.D. Gaster and Fake Depth

2021-05-02T00:00:00-05:00

or, “W.D. Gaster undercuts Undertale’s cohesiveness as a work”

Something I struggle with as a writer is how to write fiction that’s deep and meaningful.

When a very young Gio wrote The Raphael Parable, I updated it with a little ARG. “The ARG Update”, I called it. There were scattered clues, and a puzzle, and secret notes so the diligent scavenger could piece together what really happened. Except nothing did really happen. There wasn’t a story I wanted to tell, there wasn’t an interesting mystery to solve, there were just clues tied to more clues tied to an arbitrary ending. It was hopefully fun to follow, but it was the trappings of mystery without any of the meaning.

Petscop, on the other hand, has a substantial depth to it because it keeps tying itself to reality. The viewer is given a real person recording themselves playing a game. It’s set in our world. The game itself seems to be intricately tied to real-world events; too. Disappearances, the player’s family, even the YouTube account managing the videos. Petscop tells a deep mystery story because the mystery is backed by a story: a death, an abuse, a revenge. There’s meat to the mystery.

Sans (Undertale) is a fun character. He’s spooky. He breaks an unbreakable log, he teleports, he’s figured out something about the timelines. Then there’s a fight with Sans, where he’s very tough and has a gun.

Then he needed a backstory for his gun and science, and we got Gaster, who is almost those things. Gaster was a fun idea, though, so he got some extra Easter eggs. We get room_gaster, the gaster followers, Mysteryman, the wrong number song, and the sound test. He’s fun, and mysterious, and ended up carrying most of the mysterious lore bits of Undertale that were never quite explained.

This is an emergent story, not one Gaster was crafted around. This is the narrative that arises out of Gaster’s mechanical function of… well, not being there.

So, who is W.D. Gaster? Who is the big backstory, the Secret, the man behind the True Lab? Nothing. He’s the previous royal scientist, but through some unknowable horror he got deleted from reality. “Shattered across time and space”, according to another character who doesn’t seem to exist. He’s cut content who was conceived of as cut content. He’s a mystery by definition. The only story he gets is one of omission, the vague cosmic horror of not existing:

Have you ever thought about a world where everything is exactly the same… Except you don’t exist? Everything functions perfectly without you… Ha, ha… The thought terrifies me.

-still not Gaster, because he isn’t there

Treating Gaster as a solvable mystery is an explicitly absurd quest in futility. He is unfixable. The answer is missing.

But Undertale isn’t about mysteries, not really. Undertale wants you to move on from Undertale. Undertale shames the genocide completionist and teases the pacifist stickler.

Undertale doesn’t want you to sit down at a corkboard and “solve” it. W.D. Gaster refuses to be solved. His whole character is defined by being missing, by not being in the game or even in the universe at all.

Oh. There is a man here.

And yet.

And yet Gaster demands solution. There’s just too much riding on it. With every ounce of weight Undertale gives to its plot, with every secret detail it includes about Gaster, it demands you care about him. He designed the SOUL machine that kickstarts the whole plot of the game. He gives Sans the knowledge he needs to nudge the timelines toward safety. He is all the loose ends and plot holes wrapped up into one character who isn’t available to be interrogated.

This isn’t like with the genocide route, where the player is shamed for starting a rampage for the sake of it. This is a mystery the game created, a mystery the story revolves around. The player is demanded to consider it, to solve it, to work towards solutions. But in the end they’re denied a solution. There’s a missing piece, and there always will be.

In a parallel to the way Asriel wants you to keep playing the game to the point of self-destruction, Undertale wants you to keep solving its story to that same end. It’s perverted, sure, but when it comes to Gaster it’s something Undertale deliberately hooks you into doing, not an expectation the player unfairly imposes on the work.

I’m forcefully reminded at this point about Folding Ideas’ excellent video The Stanley Parable, Dark Souls, and Intended Play, which makes this argument:

If there is crafted content on the other side of your misbehaviour, then it’s not actually misbehaviour.

…

If there is something that the game’s author simply flat-out, 100% did not want you to experience, did not want you to engage in, then it wouldn’t be there. Even when it comes to potential misbehavior using the rules of the system you’re placed within, externalities that they didn’t or couldn’t account for, like throwing garbage at NPCs, the only truly accurate sign that the authors don’t want you doing that is that nothing happens at all. This is because even a negative reaction, even the game pushing back against misbehaviour, is content.

The obvious example of subversively intended play is the genocide route — a joke he makes in the video — but I can’t help but think of the contrapositive alluded to in the quote above: if there is nothing, no content behind a path, then the game is making the strong, deliberate statement that it does not want you following that path. Gaster, a character defined by a lack of content, is then a whole degree of judgement further than the genocide route — maybe even the harshest a game can possibly discourage something. How viciously then must Undertale not want you to think about this?

But — for me, at least — this paradoxically creates a weird illusion of depth. The mystery being intricate, having scattered clues throughout the game, being tied to characters and mechanics I’ve learned to love through playing it… it all makes it feel important. Fun values and random events make the game feel “deeper”, like there’s a vast world you’re getting inconsistent glimpses into, and Gaster seems to be presented explicitly as a secret that takes digging to discover. Digging is explicitly encouraged with more content and tidbits and clues.

And as you learn the puzzle is harder and harder to solve, as the clues become scattered so far throughout the game world and tied so deeply to the plot and characters, the “answer” feels more and more important. It’s an illusion. A trick. A sleight-of-hand. There’s no depth, no substance to it. Just signs and symbols of depth around an answer that isn’t. We know the answer isn’t deep or important because — by definition — there is not an answer at all.

I say it “undercuts Undertale’s cohesiveness as a work” because again, I think Undertale wants to be set down and for the player to be finished with it. But Gaster simultaneously hooks the dedicated player into an unfinishable puzzle.

The Gaster mystery is the kind of thing you have to seal away in a glass box, or else it doesn’t work. It’s a mystery you can’t treat as a mystery. It’s an ouroboros. Despite the act of eating and the concept of body length being things that demand concrete resolution, it’s not a resolvable thing. You can’t finish it, you can’t resolve it. You can only abstract it and understand it for what it is.

I love W.D. Gaster. The mystery of omission is incredibly tantalizing to me, on a deep level. I want to dive in, I want to solve this character. I want to look at the science, and find all the secret grey kids, and piece together every last crumb of the universe. I stayed up until midnight to get the survey program that turned out to be Deltarune, and I was disappointed when it did. I wanted more pieces of the puzzle, not more puzzle. W.D. Gaster is always the promise of more puzzle, but without the solution. The solution isn’t just missing, it’s impossible. The mystery itself is predicated on it not itself being solvable. I hate W.D. Gaster.

The Hiveswap Fiasco – 2020-2021

2021-04-21T00:00:00-05:00

This point, early October 2020, is when I originally published this article. Time keeps ticking on, and Hiveswap updates continue to slowly drip out.

October 2020

Act 2 Trailer

@homestuck posts a new trailer for Hiveswap Act 2. It opens with “years ago, but not many” as a reference to how slow the development process has been going, I guess?

Hiveswap Act 2 is delayed to November 2020.

Hiveswap.com is also updated with a more “streamlined” design. The new design removes many links to other projects and independent artists that were previously only accessible through the Hiveswap home page, so all of that content is now inaccessible unless you have a direct link already.

In the background, the entire whatpumpkin.com domain now force-redirects to hiveswap.com, breaking innumerable important links like this one and this one and that one.

The new website also has a screenshot with this troll who has not previously been seen in promotional material or as part of the Troll Call. This is Fefsprites’ fantroll Idarat Catlaz, in the game due to them winning the comic contest. Nice!

November 2020

This message was posted to the Fellow Traveller discord server on 11/01/2020:

Hey @Homestuck Traveller, we hope you’re excited for the release of Act 2 in November!

We wanted to give you an update on some business housekeeping.

As the release date of Hiveswap: Act 2 nears, Fellow Traveller and What Pumpkin have made a few adjustments to our publishing arrangement. What Pumpkin Games will be expanding its operations to take a more direct role in player support for Hiveswap. This means that going forward, any questions and concerns about Hiveswap should be sent directly to What Pumpkin Games. Fellow Traveller will continue to work with What Pumpkin as the publisher of Pesterquest and Friendsim.

With these changes, we will be closing the Homestuck and Hiveswap channels in our Discord. We will close the channels on November 9 2020, but What Pumpkin has created a new Discord to make sure you can continue your conversations, memes and theories. Once everything in the new Discord is set up, they’ll be handing over moderation to you, the fans. You can start making your transition with this invite: https://discord.gg/krfzwma

The Pesterquest channel in our Discord will remain for discussion of Friendsim and Pesterquest, and we’ll have some news to share there soon.

Keep an eye on What Pumpkin Games social channels for news about future Hiveswap community projects.

Fellow Traveller announced that they would be shutting down their discord channels for Homestuck and Hiveswap, so that What Pumpkin could take a more aggressive role in managing community forums for Homestuck.

The links for Hiveswap acts 1 and 2 were still on the Fellow Traveller website, with no indication of any changes in publishing.

Act 2 Release Date

On November 15, the @homestuck twitter account uploaded this youtube link:

Homestuck@homestuck
act 2 gameplay trailer
youtube.com/watch?v=x-TkWS…
Sun Nov 15 18:21:11 +0000 2020

They teased this especially hard, and promised that the release date (which, again, was already announced to be sometime in November) would be revealed at the end of the video.

However, instead of announcing this directly, they used YouTube Premiere to delay the video and have a live announcement. The video itself went live at on the 16th, a full day later.

Act 2’s new release date is November 25, as announced on Twitter with this screenshot of the youtube video.

Homestuck@homestuck
Hiveswap act 2 coming to a computer near you

Tue Nov 17 00:16:15 +0000 2020

The body of the video itself is all gameplay footage of Act 2, complete with mouse cursor a la YouTube LP.

There is also a new press kit for Act 2 with both Act 2 trailers and gameplay screenshots.

Act 2 Release

Act 2 released on November 25, 2020.

If you want my reactions to the game itself, I made a (spoilery) twitter reaction thread about it:

gio :⁾@giovan_h
ok #HiveswapAct2 reaction thread I guess
Thu Nov 26 03:48:20 +0000 2020

gio :⁾@giovan_h
Replying to giovan_h:
I got spoiled on this but there's no credits on the title screen at *all* this time around, which is weird. it's weird
Thu Nov 26 03:48:53 +0000 2020

gio :⁾@giovan_h
Replying to giovan_h:
not sure if this is a "confusing game mechanic" joke or just incredibly obtuse writing

Thu Nov 26 03:50:31 +0000 2020

gio :⁾@giovan_h
Replying to giovan_h:
wonder if the debug menu is still there? i'll check after I finish the game twitter.com/giovan_h/statu…
Thu Nov 26 03:52:50 +0000 2020

gio :⁾@giovan_h
Replying to giovan_h:
this animation is a bug. it has to be a bug. this can't be what they meant to do
Thu Nov 26 03:55:35 +0000 2020

gio :⁾@giovan_h
Replying to giovan_h:
when you switch characters they switch places but not really. i am sure this can be used to break something
Thu Nov 26 04:01:05 +0000 2020

gio :⁾@giovan_h
Replying to giovan_h:
just found Chittr and I like it a lot. very fun, only one obvious bug so far
Thu Nov 26 04:05:09 +0000 2020

gio :⁾@giovan_h
Replying to giovan_h:
"xefros how come you don't have a jagged white outline"

Thu Nov 26 04:10:29 +0000 2020

gio :⁾@giovan_h
Replying to giovan_h:
okay so the whole point of this room is you need to find an item but when you "find it" it isn't added to either character's inventory. it just sets an invisible flag. why
Thu Nov 26 04:18:42 +0000 2020

gio :⁾@giovan_h
Replying to giovan_h:
okay so let's talk about UI design and these buttons that give absolutely zero visual indicator which one is currently selected
Thu Nov 26 04:37:09 +0000 2020

gio :⁾@giovan_h
Replying to muckbowrll:
@bowrll he is a cutie
Thu Nov 26 04:47:05 +0000 2020

gio :⁾@giovan_h
Replying to giovan_h:
the train platform background music bit is a good gag
Thu Nov 26 05:01:21 +0000 2020

gio :⁾@giovan_h
Replying to giovan_h:
they did this a second time. they skipped two full items. i haven't picked up a single real item in the game. do they know what an adventure game is? twitter.com/giovan_h/statu…
Thu Nov 26 05:09:18 +0000 2020

gio :⁾@giovan_h
Replying to giovan_h:
if marvus just brutally murders zebruh on this station platform this game will be redeemed. i want that to happen so bad you guys

Thu Nov 26 05:14:04 +0000 2020

gio :⁾@giovan_h
Replying to giovan_h:
i am so unhappy right now
Thu Nov 26 05:16:37 +0000 2020

gio :⁾@giovan_h
Replying to giovan_h:
WHY WON'T THIS GAME GIVE ME ANY ITEMS. THERE'S AN INVENTORY RIGHT THERE.
Thu Nov 26 05:20:56 +0000 2020

gio :⁾@giovan_h
Replying to giovan_h:
ok so at this point my best guess is they realized that writing item interactions is O(n²) and went full panic mode. "no more items, ever again"
Thu Nov 26 05:32:54 +0000 2020

gio :⁾@giovan_h
Replying to giovan_h:
the two genders

Thu Nov 26 05:39:04 +0000 2020

transfemGnostalgic@nueclear333
so whats the consensus. act 2 good or bad
Thu Nov 26 05:50:33 +0000 2020

gio :⁾@giovan_h
Replying to nueclear333:
@nueclear333 so far not great
Thu Nov 26 05:52:42 +0000 2020

gio :⁾@giovan_h
Replying to giovan_h:
I have been given my first item of the game. and it's gone. and we're back to fake items almost immediately
Thu Nov 26 06:00:49 +0000 2020

gio :⁾@giovan_h
Replying to giovan_h:
i am enjoying the phoenix wright bit
Thu Nov 26 07:02:58 +0000 2020

gio :⁾@giovan_h
Replying to giovan_h:
oh I forgot to mention this back in the yellowblood car but James Roach doing chiptune is James Roach at his best, as always. really great stuff
Thu Nov 26 07:35:42 +0000 2020

gio :⁾@giovan_h
Replying to hamesatron:
@hamesatron bee dance is fun
Thu Nov 26 19:18:26 +0000 2020

gio :⁾@giovan_h
Replying to giovan_h:
Also going to take this magical moment while it's still *literally a secret* who did any work on this game to say I definitely feel like the writing took a big hit since Act 1. It feels a lot worse and needlessly so.
Fri Nov 27 03:24:38 +0000 2020

gio :⁾@giovan_h
Replying to giovan_h:
In a community that takes criticism poorly and personally this is a rare opportunity to honestly criticize the bad writing, so that's one silver lining to the obviously incredibly lousy crediting practice
Fri Nov 27 03:28:10 +0000 2020

gio :⁾@giovan_h
Replying to giovan_h:
okay if there's going to be a troll brutally murdered on-screen and it *isn't* zebruh, after that perfect moment earlier, I'm going to be so pissed
Fri Nov 27 03:42:25 +0000 2020

gio :⁾@giovan_h
Replying to giovan_h:
without commenting on this one way or the other I'm noting that Act 2 seems to push "lanque isn't trans"
Fri Nov 27 03:45:14 +0000 2020

gio :⁾@giovan_h
Replying to giovan_h:
joey is perhaps the worst negotiator in Hiveswap
Fri Nov 27 03:58:18 +0000 2020

gio :⁾@giovan_h
Replying to giovan_h:
I'm not even going to complain about the backtracking since it seems pretty confined to this one car
Fri Nov 27 04:06:02 +0000 2020

gio :⁾@giovan_h
Replying to giovan_h:
this game is good actually

Fri Nov 27 04:09:54 +0000 2020

gio :⁾@giovan_h
Replying to giovan_h:
ok nope I wasn't being too harsh about the writing. good to know

Fri Nov 27 04:16:49 +0000 2020

gio :⁾@giovan_h
Replying to rubs_juice:
@rubs_juice The heart-to-hearts are nice, but the unprompted scenes where both characters break character and give each other wooden monologues about specific social issues and political theory isn't doing it for me
Fri Nov 27 04:23:26 +0000 2020

gio :⁾@giovan_h
Replying to giovan_h:
me: "wow the frowning joey is a really nice touch of quality"
2 seconds later: "maybe she just loves buttons so much she forgot"
Fri Nov 27 04:29:34 +0000 2020

gio :⁾@giovan_h
Replying to giovan_h:
YOU HAVE TO PRESS THIS BUTTON SO MANY TIMES. HOW DID NOBODY CATCH THIS
Fri Nov 27 04:40:32 +0000 2020

gio :⁾@giovan_h
Replying to giovan_h:
hiveswap: "hey check out this really cool cherub-themed spiral elevator we designed for the clown car"
me: "woah, neat! what does it look like?"
hiveswap: "...look like?"
Fri Nov 27 04:44:31 +0000 2020

gio :⁾@giovan_h
Replying to giovan_h:
ah just warp the characters wherever and hope the cutscene plays eventually. good enough for steam
Fri Nov 27 05:01:27 +0000 2020

gio :⁾@giovan_h
Replying to giovan_h:
eh, just zoom in real tight. we're not making TWO jpegs for this room, what are we, MADE of development time?

Fri Nov 27 05:04:49 +0000 2020

gio :⁾@giovan_h
Replying to giovan_h:
"but sir, if we zoom in that tight, they'll see the obvious artifacting around the--"
"CLEAN OUT YOUR DESK"

Fri Nov 27 05:06:51 +0000 2020

gio :⁾@giovan_h
Replying to giovan_h:
final boss was fine
Fri Nov 27 05:30:54 +0000 2020

gio :⁾@giovan_h
Replying to giovan_h:
Okay, that's Act 2. Final thoughts:
THAT WAS NOT A VERY GOOD VIDEO GAME
Fri Nov 27 05:31:15 +0000 2020

gio :⁾@giovan_h
Replying to giovan_h:
to summarize: the writing and gameplay both took *big* hits from act 1 (writing most noticeably) and the whole thing is plagued with QA issues that are just kinda embarrassing
Fri Nov 27 05:36:58 +0000 2020

Act 2 Credits Outcry

When Act 2 released, people immediately realized something was wrong; the game released without any crediting of any kind. The credits button was missing from the main menu, there was no postgame credits reel, and even the soundtrack DLC didn’t have the artists listed.

Alienoid@AlienoidNovace
Okay but is anybody going to talk about why (Hiveswap Act 2 spoilers (I guess???)) uuuuuuuhhhhhhhhhhh
is anybody gonna talk about why there's no credits?? like, at all?????? main menu, post-game, what??????????????
Thu Nov 26 19:00:29 +0000 2020

gio :⁾@giovan_h
Replying to giovan_h:
I’ve had “Homestuck doesn’t credit artists properly” as a problem on my radar for a while now but this is the most egregious thing yet
Thu Nov 26 19:33:50 +0000 2020

Homestuck Tech Support@yoitscro
Hiveswap Act 2 needs a credit section, just an fyi.
There's no reason why the artists who hauled ass aren't featured. It doesn't matter if it's attached to Act 1; there are new people or people who aren't apart of the team now, so like....that should be part of an update.
Thu Nov 26 19:22:32 +0000 2020

Homestuck Tech Support@yoitscro
Replying to yoitscro:
Artists and animators not being credited are a big problem in the video game industry...let's...be better than that maybe??
Thu Nov 26 19:26:10 +0000 2020

sarah zedig! 🍉🐐@hmsnofun
hot take but everyone who laid hands on a game should get credit for the work they did. a central issues of labor organization in entertainment industries 100 years ago was the right to be credited! it's insane how many games eschew credit if you left the team before it shipped.
Fri Nov 27 03:21:43 +0000 2020

BabyFawnLegs@BabyFawnLegs
Replying to giovan_h:
@giovan_h it's really direly upsetting to me that HS, of all things, can't be a model representation of the labour ethics that are closely embraced by the independent creators in its fandom
Thu Nov 26 21:13:45 +0000 2020

dualitySimplified ∞ 🟩@simpleduality
Replying to RumpusFruity:
@RumpusFruity you don't have to explain that you laid off most of the people that originally worked on the game if you don't credit anyone at all
Fri Nov 27 17:50:37 +0000 2020

After prolonged outrage on Twitter and Reddit, as well as targeted review bombing on Steam, the new “homestuckteam” curiouscat account posted this statement:

teamstuck@homestuckteam
For those of you wondering about credits: in an effort to avoid the targeted harassment that many members of our team have previously experienced, the team agreed to only credit the studio initially. More thorough credits will be patched in as launch hype dies down.
Fri Nov 27 18:51:39 +0000 2020

Members of the Hiveswap development team quickly responded saying that they did not agree to only credit the studio initially, and that this tweet was a lie. Former members of the Hiveswap development team, whose work was used uncredited, were also not consulted, and agreed to nothing of the sort.

Shadolith@Shadolith
As someone who last worked with the Hiveswap team in 2018, I wasn't contacted about this. I'm glad measures are being taken to mitigate harassment, but an opt-out option would have been vastly preferable to only being credited after the hype dies down.
Nov 27 13:25:00 +0000 2020

I also talked about this myself on Twitter:

gio :⁾@giovan_h
Replying to giovan_h:
wonder if this is related to the weird ruse of authorial homogeneity WP is is trying lately twitter.com/giovan_h/statu…
Fri Nov 27 00:45:15 +0000 2020

gio :⁾@giovan_h
Replying to giovan_h:
Homestuck has two distinct ways it mishandled crediting and I’m honestly not sure which is at play here
Fri Nov 27 21:22:56 +0000 2020

gio :⁾@giovan_h
Replying to giovan_h:
This isn’t really about harassment, and we know “the team” DIDN’T agree to it. I don’t believe for a second they planned to EVER credit anyone until the blowback, either.
The only useful thing we can glean from this statement is WP is still lying.
Fri Nov 27 21:27:04 +0000 2020

gio :⁾@giovan_h
Replying to giovan_h:
From what I’ve seen, the “harassment” the team experiences is mostly criticism directed at management and writers, NOT the artists and animators by association, like this absurdly suggests.
Fri Nov 27 21:34:37 +0000 2020

Suffice it to say, nobody bought that.

The game was silently patched with credits one day later, on November 28. Metadata for the credits page was actually in the game all along, but the credits slide itself had been removed, indicating that the credits functionality was implemented but later specifically disabled for release. The soundtrack was not updated, and still does not credit the musicians, although James Roach later posted the credits himself.

gio :⁾@giovan_h
in case you missed it here is the Hiveswap Act 2 credits video
Mon Nov 30 00:12:27 +0000 2020

James Roach@hamesatron
ok answerin a few questions:
here is a breakdown of the OST that i made a while ago
im not in charge of this so, grain of salt, but i THINK yes they are planning to eventually put it on various streaming services
we will probably not be doing a robust OST commentary this time

Fri Nov 27 21:14:55 +0000 2020

No announcement was made on Steam or Twitter, nor was the “targeted harassment” issue brought up again. A few entries on the credits page were, however, left anonymous or pseudoanonymous. As was discussed on Twitter, leaving credit entries anonymous or pseudoanonymous is an effective way of handing this.

Act 2 Cut Content

Act 2 also had a significant amount of cut content, including several minigames and entire characters who were heavily featured in promotional material.

Sirs not appearing in this game

One of the few remaining minigames, a bee-themed rhythm minigame, was retroactively (and silently) removed from the game several days after release. It was simply cut, and not replaced with any sort of explanation. teamhomestuck made the following statement about this when asked:

Q: What drove the decision to remove the bee minigame? I really liked it :(

A:

We received reports that the bee game was a hard block for people with certain mobility issues. Engineering solutions like a skip button might’ve taken several more days to implement. We preferred to get out an accessibility solution ASAP so we opted to just remove it. But we’ll consider our options about what to do with it in the future.

We have had limited availability from a handful of people to take care of urgent issues as they come up due to the holiday, so we apologize for the delays.

Starting this week we’ll take a good look at what improvements we can make based on your feedback. Thank you all for your patience and help tracking down the last few bugs since launch.

On Twitter, they followed this with

teamstuck@homestuckteam
Replying to homestuckteam:
To reiterate, it is a weekend. Typically, workers prefer not to work on the weekend, and we do not want to demand our contributors put in excessive weekend overtime. We chose a solution we could push immediately so people with accessibility issues could complete it right now.
Sun Nov 29 23:52:49 +0000 2020

As I brought up at the time, just a few days prior, James Roach himself tweeted about finding the bee minigame really hard. Then WP said they were blindsided by accessibility needs and had to scramble to make the game playable. I have a hard time reconciling those two facts.

Either “the bee game was inaccessible because nobody told us” is a lie or WPG is extremely dysfunctional. or both. probably both.

Also, WP turning around and framing this as “we’re indie devs, people are making unreasonable demands of us” is insulting and absurd given they had ample time to do testing themselves but choose not to. But “we are the victims of this problem we caused ourselves” seems to be the go-to line from WP

Despite their implication that fixing the accessibility issue was an urgent priority that would almost be enough to drive them to work over the weekend, the bee minigame would not be fixed until 2021-01-14, when the game was patched with no update description on Steam and no announcement on social media.

Key reselling scheme

On November 30, @homestuck made an announcement:

Homestuck@homestuck
If you haven't already bought your HIVESWAP: ACT 2 Steam key, consider purchasing it directly from our website:
whatpumpkin.com
Mon Nov 30 21:55:58 +0000 2020

Homestuck@homestuck
Replying to homestuck:
Steam allows developers to keep 100% of their cut for keys distributed through their own storefronts, so if you buy from our site, we'll use part of the money we're saving on platform fees for charity instead.
Mon Nov 30 21:55:58 +0000 2020

Homestuck@homestuck
Replying to homestuck:
Through the end of December we'll be supporting these charities:
blackdisability.org
secure.actblue.com/donate/novchar…
digdeep.org
We'd be glad to hear from you about what causes you'd like us to support in the future.
Mon Nov 30 21:55:58 +0000 2020

Although the announcement does not specify the cut What Pumpkin is claiming to give to charity, the web page linked says 10%. This is only a third of Steam’s 30% cut, so What Pumpkin actually makes 128% percent of their usual profit when you buy from their site directly, even though they’re giving a cut to charity.

(Although December came and went, it is unclear whether the 10% cut is still going to charity, or if now that the specified charity period ended, What Pumpkin is now pocketing the full amount of new purchases. The storefront page has not been updated to reflect a change, but this could be in error.)

While Steam does provisionally allow key selling, they explicitly reserve the right to deny keys to developers who misuse keys in various ways. Steam may take action against What Pumpkin for explicitly working to cut Steam out of the loop and keep them from getting their fee, although they have not done so yet.

January 2021

I wrote the Debacle article with a report on new allegations about The Odd Gentlemen and what happened during that timespan. What Pumpkin later confessed to several of the allegations broken in this piece.

February 2021

Psycholonials

Andrew Hussie began publishing promo materials for a new project. This would turn out to be a new episodic visual novel called Psycholonials, apparently unrelated to Homestuck or Hiveswap. (This didn’t stop the official Homestuck Twitter account from promoting it, though.)

gio :⁾@giovan_h
I was just handed a note saying “Psycholonials is going to be episodic” and fell over, dead
Fri Jan 22 06:35:54 +0000 2021

According to a schedule on the Psycholonials web page, the ninth and final episode is scheduled to release on 4/20/2021. At this point there is not an expected date for Hiveswap acts 3 and 4, nor is there a schedule for Hauntswitch. Psycholonials, however, will be fully published within two months.

(At time of writing I have not played Psycholonials and have no particular comments as to its content. If I do play Psycholonials any comments I have about its content are probably not relevant to the history of Hiveswap anyway.)

HS2 Patreon Cancelled

Homestuck^2, the comic, had been on an announced hiatus since December 2020. According to the team,

We’re taking a bit of a break to recharge and refresh, and to do some reshuffling of tiers, update schedule, and bonus content.

The hiatus had no planned end date, and it continued through February.

On February 11th, the previously discussed Homestuck Patreon posted an announcement from Andrew Hussie. This long post blamed misogyny, transphobia, racism, “internet bullying”, and “large segments of the fandom” for the general failures of Homestuck^2. Ultimately, this led up to Andrew cancelling Homestuck^2 as it currently exists and ending the Patreon funding model. Homestuck^2 will now be posted all at once when the comic is finished. There is no estimated schedule for this. This post also did not address previous assertions on behalf of HS2 that the serial format was intentionally chosen and a strong part of Homestuck^2 as a work.

The Homestuck^2 website was also updated to remove the “news” section and replaced the “About” page with the single blurb:

Homestuck^2 is an officially commissioned story which explores a continuation of the narrative after the events of The Homestuck Epilogues. It began in October of 2019 and updated regularly for about a year until it was paused indefinitely. The creative team is now being commissioned to finish the story privately. All content will be posted here at once when the story is complete.

According to the post, it will be funded by “previously saved Patreon funds”. It seems unlikely that there is a vault of Patreon money that could fund the rest of the comic by itself, but notably absent is any sort of financial support from What Pumpkin.

April 2021

On 4/12/2021, one day before 4/13, Homestuck Inc.’s “Hauntswitch” trademark was marked as abandoned with no use statement filed.

Act 7 Answers

Update #36 (Backers only)

On 4/13/2021, seemingly in response to a video essay that includes a summary of my Hiveswap research, the Hiveswap Kickstarter posted Update #36, for backers only. It is a very formal document that addresses some of the accusations made about Hiveswap development.

(On the same day, What Pumpkin threatened the video itself with legal action of some variety, as they are known to do. As of writing, neither What Pumpkin nor anyone claiming to be associated with it have contacted me about inaccuracies, discrepancies, or “libel” in any of my articles or research. What Pumpkin still seems unwilling to directly accuse me of any misconduct, but does seem more than willing to slander me behind my back.)

It appears to have not been written that day as a reaction to the video, but rather something What Pupmkin had on file as a nuclear option, in case they were forced at figurative gunpoint to be transparent to backers. Andrew later confirmed this:

From my perspective, it seems like backers only began to get transparency after [the Sarah Z video] came out, which seems a bit odd to me.

I think there’s an implication behind this statement which I’ve seen a few times in other places. Which is something like, if WP was able to respond so quickly after [the video] with a new Kickstarter update sharing that information, why not just share that information a long time ago, which could have theoretically averted a sitaution like this?

The answer is that the recent backer update really wasn’t as trivial as it seemed. It was more of a measure of last resort. WP had a post like that on file, which is why it was able to be posted pretty quickly. It was just somewhat edited to suit the purpose, and address some of the specific claims. More thorough accounts like that have been prepared in advance to post in case anything unforseen happened, examples being like, if TOG began sharing some distorted version of events, or if Gio and his accomplice started doing really insane stuff instead of just posting misinformation on a low-traffic blog. A backer update like that was a measure of last resort because posting it at all carries risk.

The first half of this is a confession. “Yes”, Hussie says, “we had this information available in a form that was ready to be shared to Kickstarter backers, but we withheld it because we really didn’t want to share it. We weren’t planning to ever admit to any of this, and the video — not our obligations — is what forced us to.”¹ I don’t need to tell you how far this project has devolved from “weekly backer updates”, do I?

In an email between Sarah Z’s management and WP President and CEO Cindy Dominguez, WP claimed that posting this required WP to “invest significant time and resources into combatting [disinformation]”, and that they “may need to pay thousands in legal fees in the process of reviewing the necessary documentation related to our settlement”, but this later turned out to be mostly bogus, as Andrew mentioned above.

This almost feels like low-hanging fruit at this point, but I’m just going to note here one more time that Andrew Hussie is saying here that they intentionally withheld information from people who were entitled to it in order to make a profit off that deception, which, among other things, is an actual dictionary definition of fraud. And that’s not even something I’m going out on a limb and accusing them of, that’s what they’re saying here! That’s their excuse! At the risk of editorializing here, that’s astonishing.

Then there’s a personal attack against me and my work (mixed in with a thorough misunderstanding of how journalistic sources work) and offhand remark that there are even more transparency reports that have been pre-prepared, but WP is still choosing to withhold. It ends with a mention that “posting it at all carries risk.” I’ll talk more about this “risk” at the end of the blow-by-blow, because “risk” is something the announcement touches on too.

Let’s get directly into the content of the Kickstarter update:

Over the years, a lot of misinformation as well as deliberate disinformation has spread around about the history of Hiveswap. The purpose of this post is to clarify these matters for backers who’ve been wondering what the truth is.

The post talks here for a bit about George Rohac, WP’s former Director of Business Development (as of Namco High). (I’m not sure why they choose this moment to involve him, but they do.) I went back and included this information with the campaign details.

Then we get some detailed financial numbers from the Kickstarter campaign. For the first time, although the campaign was nearly a decade ago.

The crowdfunding campaign finished out at a gross total of $2,485,506, as well as a gross total of $207,930 from PayPal pledges. But because of platform fees, as well as the costs of producing and shipping merchandise to backers of the campaign, the effective budget was significantly lower than the gross pledged total

This finally, for the first time, confirmed the actual total amount of money raised by the campaign: $2,693,436. This chart also includes detailed breakdowns of platform fees and merch costs, which leaves $1,627,004 in the game development budget, before taxes. And this confirms that the number this article reported was correct.

After determining the final budget for the game, What Pumpkin signed an agreement with the contracted game company (hereafter “[TOG]”) to develop Hussie’s game concept. WP and [TOG] entered into a development contract on November 30, 2012, shortly after the conclusion of the Homestuck Kickstarter. WP paid $788,000 to [TOG] in late 2012 for development.

They won’t mention the name “The Odd Gentlemen”, for some reason (likely the settlement), but we get more details about the contract: $788,000. This is exactly the number in ipgd’s story, confirming that much. They don’t confirm where the rest of the money went at this point, whether it was set aside for future Hiveswap work or simply added to regular Homestuck operating funds. This is an odd thing to leave ambiguous, for reasons which will come up later.

But then we get to the real meat of the story. What Pumpkin addresses the allegations that TOG did contract work on the Homestuck comic, specifically Act 7.

Because there was an understanding that delivering the complete game development documents would take some time, during which it would be difficult for [TOG] to make meaningful progress on the Hiveswap game build, [TOG] inquired about getting involved with other Homestuck-adjacent projects to do immediate work. WP let [TOG] know about the Act 7 animation plans. With an assurance that this work could be done in parallel with a flexible timeline and would not impact the development cycle of Hiveswap itself, Hussie and What Pumpkin saw this as a good opportunity to establish a working relationship with this organization prior to the start of development and agreed to contract [TOG] to do animation work for the Act 7 project.

WP and [TOG] agreed that this project would have a separate budget from the Hiveswap Kickstarter money, paid for from WP’s regular operating funds. As the existence of this animation itself would not be revealed until its release in 2016, this was not publicly announced at the time. [TOG] and the lead animator on the project specifically requested not to be credited upon release of the animation.

What Pumpkin unequivocally states they secretly contracted TOG to do significant work on Act 7, but claim that the funds used were separate from the $788,000 game contract. Instead, they claim the money used came from “regular operating funds”, which they imply does not include any of the other money raised from the Kickstarter campaign. Oddly, this is merely implied; the word choice used is weirdly ambiguous about this, given its importance.

What Pumpkin also claims that the reason TOG’s involvement was kept a secret was that TOG specifically requested that the studio not be credited. They don’t say when this request was made, which is extremely significant. They’re implying that this request was made around 2013, before the unpleasantness and settlement, but it is entirely possible TOG made this request nearer to 2016, not wanting to be publicly involved with WP because of the painful legal battle, or even due to the terms of the settlement.

Hussie initiated the “Megapause” on April 14, 2013 in order to devote his full attention to finalizing the Hiveswap development documents. What Pumpkin soon provided its story documents so that [TOG] could formally begin core systems development. … In 2013 following receipt of WP’s deliverables, [TOG] enthusiastically assured WP that it was positioned to begin development.

Now we get back to the design documents. What Pumpkin says here that the “story documents” were provided sometime around April 2013, and WP submitted the deliverables in 2013, as opposed to the previous estimate of October 2014. This… can’t be correct. We know WP hadn’t completed all of the Hiveswap deliverables by 2013 by WP’s own account; Andrew posted that the documents weren’t done in Update #15 on June 2014, making that the earliest possible date they could have been submitted. Either this 2013 number is false or one of those earlier updates was.

The Prototype

[TOG] would deliver its first prototype in early 2014. [The attached prototype] was sent to WP on 2/18/14. At this point, it was becoming a significant concern among backers that WP had yet to show proof that the game was being made, so WP was looking for any sort of tangible progress update from [TOG] that was suitable to share with the public. But Hussie and WP found the quality of the prototype somewhat alarming, and decided that sharing any shots from the game would only cause embarrassment for [TOG].

Here we get the astonishing: a playable build of the legendary broken 2014 prototype. It is indeed not very good, and it’s entirely understandable that What Pumpkin didn’t release any gameplay screenshots or footage at this point. Also, this is just generally a really cool artifact to have.

The prototype build is essentially as advertised. HiveSwap_1stPlayablePrototype.exe is a stock 3D unity game where you can move a t-posing Joey around in an untextured room and examine a few objects. There are a few conversation stubs consisting of fixed camera angles with placeholder text. There’s no pathfinding, so trying to move to certain objects gets Joey stuck on geometry and softlocks the demo.

Under the hood, the demo seems to be written entirely in Adventure Creator for Unity, a Unity asset store toolkit that advertises itself as a way to “Develop a 2D or 3D adventure game in Unity without writing a line of code.”² The code itself has class names like KickStarter, so it’s possible this version was more of a proof-of-concept than a serious base game the developers meant to iterate upon (especially given the presence of Adventure Creator). There is a surprisingly robust menu system with a save/load system, but I suspect this is Adventure Creator built-in functionality, rather than work done specifically for this demo.

Back to the announcement, WP then repeats the claim that TOG didn’t end up improving on the prototype or producing a good game which, at this point, is pretty much established.

There’s an email here from part of a chain trying to coordinate an office visit:

May 15, 2014 - from [TOG] to Hussie

That’s awesome about being on the west coast. It’d be great to have you come to the studio.

Dev has slowed a bit on our end, as we wanted to take a step back and really evaluate what was needed and the best way to achieve the features that have been coming online in the docs. We’re continuing to break that all down so we can build and plan most effectively moving forward. We also wanted to find some simple formats for input from your writing team for dialogue content and are getting that squared away.

The best time to come by would actually be right after E3. Things are a bit nuts until then.

Here TOG apparently admits that development progress has been slow, claiming that the work was spent more on design. They also mention that they’re extremely busy due to E3 (presumably with Wayward Manor, based simply on the date) and ask to postpone the visit. They continued postponing visits from Hussie and representatives through August.

TOG produced the concept art from Update #15 over the summer. Update 15 focused on the art and design rather than detail the development troubles.

And then the document suddenly and abruptly changes gears. Remember Act 7? The secret contract for Act 7’s back, and we’re shifting gears to aggressively defending that choice and keeping it secret. I’ll let them make their case:

There was no indication from [TOG] that the Act 7 animation project was in any way in conflict with Hiveswap development. [TOG] was enthusiastic about taking on this project, and bidded against other animators for the contract. They saw it as a useful tie-in to concept art work on Hiveswap, as [TOG] leadership conveyed in an email to WP in early 2013:

It was great chatting with you. We’ve been running through this and we think we have something that will work well for everyone.

We’re with you and totally want to make this something that has way more legs than just the animation — though, of course, we want that to stand alone as something incredible and work as a fantastic lead in to the game using this same style.

To that end, what we think works best is that with this animation not only will me make an amazing finale, but we will also utilize this time to fully define and lockdown the style of the game while using this added conceptual time to increase the overall fidelity by defining pipelines and getting a head start on all of the art

WP also does not have any reason to believe that the Act 7 project in practice created a conflict that was not disclosed by [TOG] to WP. Act 7 was a 2D animation project, and Hiveswap at the time was a 3D game, so it did not pull [TOG]’s programmers or 3D artists away from work on Hiveswap. [TOG] never mentioned the development needs of a separate project at all to WP, or cited any such reason as distracting from work on Hiveswap; [TOG] instead repeatedly provided WP with various assurances that everything was still fine with Hiveswap.

Had [TOG] communicated that they had scheduling conflicts or some other impediment preventing them from developing Hiveswap, WP would have terminated the contract even sooner.

So that’s their story. The Odd Gentlemen worked on Act 7 (according to WP, with funds that are implied not to be from the Kickstarter), but What Pumpkin thinks this didn’t create a project or conflict. Since Hiveswap and Act 7 required different skillsets, TOG could divide their staff between the projects without under-staffing either. And, had TOG experienced a conflict and told WP, WP says they would have cancelled the contract. (They don’t acknowledge how this incentivises TOG to keep news of problems from WP, though.) Even today, with the benefit of hindsight, WP doesn’t believe there was a conflict or distraction.

One obvious oddity with the idea of avoiding conflicts and doing both jobs together: earlier in this same update, one of the reasons Act 7 was an appropriate contract was because they knew it would take time to get design documents together. If the goal was to have two teams working together, working on Act 7 and idling until the design documents are ready doesn’t accomplish that.

One thing to note in that quoted section: there were, in fact, plans to coordinate the Act 7 animation with Hiveswap, somehow. It’s unclear exactly how this would have worked, but this matches details of the original Act 7 allegation that Act 7 was meant to be more tightly related to Hiveswap than what ended up happening.

Next the update summarizes the termination of the agreement with The Odd Gentlemen and the establishment of the WP NYC studio. There’s not a specific reason given here, other than Hussie presumably being dissatisfied with their performance and responsiveness, as previously mentioned. This was around the time of Update #16.

What Pumpkin says “at this point, negotiations were very amicable”, but implies that recovering the unused money from the contract was surprisingly difficult. They don’t go into detail about this at all, presumably due to legal obligations. They do specify, though, that the funds recouped were much less than they originally expected.

What Pumpkin then says that the NYC studio ran into trouble because it was established with the expected budget, but TOG ended up returning less than the expected amount.

The WP NYC project manager had designed the schedule based on the good faith presumption that most of the development funds would be recouped. When it was finally revealed the return was far short of what was expected, and the repayment plan could in no way keep up with the schedule as currently drafted, it threw the project into a period of chaos as plans were quickly redrawn. The length of Act 1 was slashed, and other modifications were made to try to fit the rest of Act 1 into the newly shortened runway. But in the end, the revisions still weren’t enough to save the game as it existed, and the studio needed to be closed in order to reserve what funds remained to finish the project in some form.

This may have come across as a sudden or spontaneous decision. Part of this is because the WP NYC senior staff and WP ownership were doing everything in their power to save the project, including injecting WP regular operating funds into the project, until it was determined that going any further would be disastrous for the future of Hiveswap. Another is that WP was legally unable to give any detailed disclosures about the financial troubles, even to many of the WP NYC staff.

The way this is described, upper management had an understanding of the problem in advance. But why were the employees blindsided? Why were backers? What of the horror stories of people getting fired and losing healthcare? What Pumpkin pins the blame on… the TOG settlement, the details of which are still secret.

They then claim that they were originally going to re-open the studio (if they could put together a new budget). It should be noted here that while the studio was meant to be frozen, the staff was really truly fired, not put in any sort of limbo. But the re-opening itself ended up not happening because… an employee was ambiguously bad?

It should also be noted that originally the NYC studio was not going to be permanently closed, but only frozen for a reassessment of the project. But during this freeze period, there were some dramatic events. One staff member behaved in a destructive and threatening manner. … This version of the project was then abandoned for many reasons, including these events.

There are really no details here for me to even comment on, but this is… just an odd thing to partially attribute the studio closure to, no? I’d be interested in hearing more about this, although I realize that’s highly unlikely due to the potentially personal nature of the issue.

Next, we get an explicit response to the various accounts that the 3D Acts 1 and 2 were shippable and in-progress, respectively:

Some misinformation claims that at the time the WP NYC studio was shuttered, its iterations of Act 1 and 2 were complete. This is wrong. Act 1 was very far from a shippable state and absolutely no work on Act 2 had been completed besides some concept and 3D art. Here you can see a video documenting one of many major bugs with critical path progression in the final build produced by WP NYC, where it becomes impossible to re-focus on the Simon Says toy if Joey fails and then exits out of the puzzle: Link

That response is a resounding “no they weren’t.” The footage linked shows a near-playable version of the game, but there are still clearly missing text labels and game-breaking bugs. This is clearly not ready to ship, and they were right not to. There is, however, most of a game here, it just needs more work. But it seems that the claim “at the end of 2014 the first act was in a shippable state” was at least an exaggeration. Likewise, the “Act 2” being worked on would not have been comparable to the current Steam release of Act 2, but would look more like the second half of Act 1.³

To WP’s knowledge every artist whose work was used in the final release of Act 1 was included in the credits. The final version of Act 1 was in large part built off concept art and storyboards drawn during the WP NYC era, and many of the artists who made them continued to work on the team that produced the final version of Act 1; the roadmap for the completion of Act 1 was specifically planned because WP had determined that the existing 2D concepts could easily be refined into a final product that would both be visually appealing and more economic to produce. Unfortunately due to the transition to 2D WP no longer had a place for the 3D artists or the original 3D engine, and all of those assets were dropped. They were not used as a basis for the finished assets in Act 1, and visual similarities to WP NYC 3D assets are due to the fact that final Act 1 assets are in large part refinements of the original concept art. Any artist whose work was used incidentally was included in Additional Contributions.

This appears to be a direct response to my criticism of Act 1’s crediting. There’s a lot here: implicit dismissal of the artistic legitimacy of design work, how many 3D resources match up exactly with the final game except with a style shift… Most obviously it directly contradicts Update #22, where What Pumpkin says the WP NYC team produced a stockpile of 2D assets that were used in the 2D version. In the middle of this very paragraph they explicitly say that some 3D concept art, storyboards, and 2D assets made by people who didn’t stay at the company is in the final game.

What Pumpkin makes the claim that they credited all the incidental artists, but I’ve spoken to ex-WP employees who have told me, straight-up, that their work was used or traced but they aren’t named in the credits. I can’t force you to believe the people instead of the company, but that’s just not what I’ve heard. I’ve spoken to multiple people who directly testified that they weren’t credited for their work or offered a position at the new company. If they’re all to be believed, What Pumpkin is simply lying here.

As an addendum, WP has identified the primary source of a disclosure to a well-circulated document of the Hiveswap development process. WP has been aware of a pattern of false claims this former employee has made since the end of their employment at the beginning of 2014. As this individual was not present during the end of the development contract with [TOG], nor the WP NYC development period, all of the information they have shared is based on speculation and conjecture.

I believe this person to be my primary source for the Act 7 article. According to What Pumpkin, this is a disgruntled ex-employee who left the team in early 2014, meaning anything they said later than that is speculation. In addition to the obvious — that a whistleblower doesn’t like the practices they’re whistleblowing — this would mean they were not privy to the events of 2014 or later, making anything they said about that only semi-informed speculation.

This makes sense. For instance, “Act 1 was in a shippable state at the end of 2014, and Act 2 was nearly done” turns out to probably be incorrect, as mentioned above. The source was wrong about this, but exaggerated to make What Pumpkin look as bad as possible.

That being said, they made significant claims (TOG working on Act 7, for instance) that this very update confirms. I’m editing the article to note the additional unreliability, but the source’s contributions cannot be entirely discarded.

At this time, WP does not wish to invite more controversy into the lives of anyone previously involved with this project, and considers these matters to have been resolved long ago.

These matters should have been resolved long ago. This is ancient drama, and the fact that it took what it did to get this level of transparency is shameful. Instead, I’ve gotten threats and targeted harassment by the core team over simply acknowledging the history. The drama around Hiveswap and Hauntswitch is kept alive by What Pumpkin, and no one else.

Since preservation of the project was the primary responsibility to the backers, making destructive disclosures that put the project at risk along the way would have been at odds with that responsibility.

Here’s that risk again. This makes it very clear: the risk What Pumpkin fears is to the company, to the “Hiveswap project”. Transparency creates risk to the project, because the facts about what What Pumpkin did and does is so hideously bad. What Pumpkin isn’t willing to do right, or meet basic obligations, or just generally be decent to the few people who actually like it. It’s too far gone, too committed to itself to do anything. The only thing left for it to try to manipulate is the optics of the situation. Somewhere the goal became to lie and omit for personal gain. This is the goal that any truth poses “risk” to.

What Pumpkin:

It’s not true that your primary responsibility is to the preservation of the project. It’s not true that your primarily responsibility to the fans who funded your project was to ensure your own survival first. Your responsibilities are not to the company, they’re to people. Listen to yourself. Keeping the “project” alive and saving face was not worth the expense of your own artists and employees. You say disclosing what happened would have been “destructive”? That the thing that put the Hiveswap Kickstarter at risk would have been the disclosure? You’re seriously ending this update by saying you did everything right? That you made all the right choices?

Well look how that turned out.

All in all this is an astonishing press release (is it a press release if it’s labelled as for backers eyes only?); perhaps one of the ballsiest things WP has done. It simultaneously says that some of my claims were lies (even legally actionable!), admits that they did many of the things I claimed they did, and insist that it was fine and good that they did all of them.

I don’t feel that it’s professional to mix my personal frustrations in with my main research, but I will stoop to reacting to some of the attacks against me in this brief, clearly-demarcated aside.

There are no actual allegations that I engaged in any sort of misconduct, just deliberately hazy name-calling, so there’s very little actual work for me to do here. The emails I’ve quoted here contain numerous personal attacks on me, describing an “antagonistic fixation” and “persistent invasiveness” (mirroring Aysha’s attempts to brand me a “stalker”), which as far as I can tell all only describe this article and the accompanying research, despite the words designed to conjure an image of a dangerous madman.

Further, the Kickstarter announcement itself does its best to make it sound like this post was me somehow being hoodwinked into regurgitating slander against WP, which is simply false. I have always presented my source’s claims as-is, and encouraged readers to take everything here with healthy scepticism. Claims and established points of fact are different, and I am careful to always treat them as such.

Nor will you find some sinister accomplice plotting with me to “maximize the damage done to What Pumpkin, truth be damned”. I set out to write, contacted potential sources, and interviewed some about topics they had specific knowledge of. In the process I came into contact with other people interested in the project, who I gladly listened to. I probably don’t have to remind you of this, but the “hoodwinked fool” and “devious accomplice” narratives — both of which are real lies WP tried to tell! — are obviously contradictory, but that didn’t bother them.

Between this and Aysha’s harassment efforts, people from WP just keep trying new accusations as if using big enough words will somehow make a phony accusation true. Maybe that’s just your instinct when you’re a fiction writer; you just keep trying to come up with new phrases as if the right combination of words will change reality. This is not so.

Honestly, Andrew Hussie himself, a man who has spent the last 6 years losing all credibility, trying to attack mine. It’s astonishing stuff, but unfortunately typical of people with misconduct to hide who are desperate enough to resort to thuggery.

Andrew quits Homestuck

On 4/20/2021, the What Pumpkin website was silently updated. No announcement tweet was made, no email or other announcement put out; the text was simply edited into the website. The content of the announcement was also not part of the Kickstarter update a few days prior.

In early 2020, Hussie officially left What Pumpkin to work on new projects unrelated to Homestuck. In the time since, they completed a new project called Psycholonials. The final chapter of this visual novel was just posted today, and is available on Steam and mobile platforms. While Hussie still retains ownership of the Homestuck IP, they decided last year to fully discontinue their creative involvement in any future Homestuck projects, and instead plans to continue independently developing more projects like Psycholonials.

This announces that in “early 2020” (a full year prior), Hussie “officially left” What Pumpkin. It’s not entirely clear what “officially” means in this context, since it was done without announcement and kept secret for a year. Hussie still “retains ownership of the Homestuck IP”, but has discontinued “creative involvement” in “any future Homestuck projects.”

The “early 2020” time period mentioned may be May 2020, when “Hiveswap” was transfered from What Pumpkin Games, inc to Homestuck Inc. Andrew Hussie still personally owns the “Homestuck” trademark, as the site says.

This leaves a lot very unclear. Is Andrew to be involved in the completion of Hiveswap or Hauntswitch? Are they considering the two games to be a “future” project or an old one? Will the Viz hardcover book collection continue, or is Hussie refusing to finish the commentary? Who is in charge of What-Pumpkin-the-company now, if Andrew left? Cynthia Dominguez, the other co-founder? Aysha Farah, who does at least still work there? These questions are conspicuously unanswered.

Despite having supposedly What Pumpkin and quit Homestuck circa May 2020, Andrew made the Future Approach to Homestuck^2 post on the What Pumpkin patreon account, signing it by name in February 2021. In the post he repeatedly describes himself as the executive in charge of the project, and personally dictating the future direction of the project: both in form and in content.

A few notes have filtered in about the commentary, but no official announcement has been made. Viz lists the Homestuck collection as being a 6 book set, with all six books published, even though that collection only covers Side 1 (only about 50% of the comic). A few people who contacted Viz directly (myself included) got answers like “At this time, we do not have any news regarding other future releases of Homestuck” and even one time “The 6 book set covers the entire comic”, which is of course false. I have emailed Viz myself asking about this, but have yet to get a response.

As you can read, I’m paraphrasing here. ↩
I won’t detail the whole attribution process here, but if you load up Assembly-CSharp.dll in a .NET disassmbler, you can see the AC namespace, which you can match to the Adventure Creator API. ↩
This assumes the build provided by WP really is the latest NYC build of the game. It would be possible to deliberately present an footage older build here to exaggerate the point that the game wasn’t ready by lying about the footage presented. There’s no evidence that this is fabricated, though, only that it could be, and WP is incentivized to do so. ↩

More on the Hiveswap Odd Gentlemen Debacle

2021-01-14T00:00:00-06:00

When I wrote the Hiveswap article, I left a note asking for people to contact me if there were any facts I got wrong or major events I missed. A number of people took me up on that, which I am thankful for.

However, there was one big report I got that was too significant to just edit into the article. Because these allegations were new, and from a credible source, I thought they warranted their own article and research.

By the request of the source (because Andrew is known to be aggressively litigious), I have edited our conversation into a synthetic document summarizing their position. This is a summary of the claims from the source to preserve their anonymity and ensure clarity. I am not yet asserting anything, just stating what the source said; I’ll hold my personal comments until after the whole thing. Here is that report:

Supposedly: What actually happened with The Odd Gentlemen

The biggest reason there’s an NDA in place about The Odd Gentlemen’s involvement is that Andrew wanted to cover up the fact that much of the blame is on Andrew’s failure to deliver a workable plan to the studio in the agreed-upon schedule.

While parts of the ipgd post are true, the post distorts what happened into a story designed to make Andrew look like he did no wrong. What actually happened is this:

Andrew and The Odd Gentlemen committed to a development schedule that started with a design document Andrew needed to write. However, he failed to produce that document on time, which wrecked the schedule.

During this period, when TOG could not work on any specifics of Hiveswap (because Andrew wouldn’t provide the requisite documents), Andrew had TOG work on general assets. This period of limbo lasted for nearly two years of development time because Andrew wouldn’t deliver the cornerstone design document.

At some point during that time Andrew had TOG spend their budget (the Kickstarter funds) on making 3D animatics and animations for the Homestuck finale video (Act 7), instead of working on Hiveswap. Andrew justified this by saying the properties were related and the Act 7 assets would be used in Hiveswap.

Significant portions of the Act 7 animation were in progress or finalized as early as 2013, the work all done in secret by The Odd Gentlemen.

This was all completely off-schedule. Eventually, TOG decided they had wasted too much time making comic assets for Homestuck and needed to work on work that was on track to go forward, which Hiveswap was not.

So The Odd Gentlemen shifted to King’s Quest. King’s Quest was still an adventure game, so TOG felt they would be able to reuse some of the generic adventure game material for when it came time to work on Hiveswap again.

The problem was when Andrew was ready for TOG to work on Hiveswap he demanded it be worked on right away. At this point TOG was on schedule to finish and deliver King’s Quest, and needed to finish that project first, but Andrew wouldn’t have it.

Supposedly: What happened with What Pumpkin NYC

I realize this is a deeply unsatisfying answer, but Andrew scrapped the 3D hiveswap content on a whim.

Andrew had a habit of handing off projects to teams and then disappearing for the duration only to show up at the end and demand sweeping changes. He would have posters thrown out because he suddenly disliked the art or the artist, or send products to be re-manufactured because he suddenly decided he wanted a different design. He had no respect for other people’s time or work outside them being tools for his “vision”.

This is what happened with WPNYC; Act 1 was in a shippable state at the end of 2014, and Act 2 was nearly done. Andrew just decided to go another direction and scrap the work. There wasn’t some issue with the rights or engine, it was just Andrew wanting it to be different.

Not crediting WP NYC also fits in with a long pattern of behaviour. Depriving people of proper credit is something Andrew had a significant habit of doing. He would hold grudges against creators (that were not his close friends) that started to gain popularity as “the” artist for a character. Andrew responded to some artists who got jobs to do posters and other items but kept doing fanart by ending the relationship and scrubbing as much information as he could of their involvement.

The money problems are also not clear cut. What Pumpkin was bringing in seven figures throughout the pauses on merchandise alone.

Andrew would effectively allot allowances to certain projects, and if they couldn’t make it he would let people fail. He would assert that things should be doable on a certain schedule and budget, but then make sudden demands and sweeping changes.

In April 2026, in an attempt to discredit this article, Homestuck describes the following “loophole” in their NDA with The Odd Gentlemen that they assert allows them to share details covered by that NDA:

Homestuck:

Please note that all information shared in this section is in compliance with the non-disclosure agreement (NDA) that Homestuck signed with The Odd Gentlemen (TOG) as a condition of their 2015 settlement. The NDA expressly provides an exception that permits disclosure of information pertaining to Hiveswap’s development and the settlement with TOG in private communication with individual backers to the 2012 Homestuck Kickstarter campaign. That is the manner in which this information was shared with the author of this section of this article, who is a Kickstarter backer not party to the settlement or its associated NDA.

The Homestuck team has shared information through these same channels once in the past. We maintain that the information shared at this time is a correct and accurate accounting of events.

The loophole element seems extremely suspect to me — an NDA shouldn’t allow you to use a proxy to violate the NDA. More importantly though, this confirms that Homestuck has been able to give its Kickstarter backers full transparency into what was going on with The Odd Gentlemen since the start and chose to withhold that information from stakeholders who were entitled to it. Andrew Hussie withheld this information for more than a decade (2014-2026).

In 2026, Hiveswap Act 3 had still not shipped.

Boy, that’s a lot.

Okay! That’s the story I was told, now let’s dive in a bit.

Obviously a lot of this is hard or impossible for me¹ to fact-check, given the innate secrecy of the thing; there are only a handful of people in the world who could confirm or disprove this, and generally those people directly profit from that information not being shared at all.

Given all that, I have still tried to do what I could to find any evidence related to this situation to see whether it conflicts with the account or if it supports the claim. I’ll fill in what gaps I can.

As with the original Hiveswap article, while I have done my best to verify everything below, it’s entirely possible I got something wrong or missed something significant. If so, please let me know (leave a comment, or use a contact from the sidebar) so I can make the relevant corrections. If you’ve experienced something described here yourself, let me know! I’ll note any changes at the bottom.

> While parts of the ipgd post are true, the post distorts what happened into a story designed to make Andrew look like he did no wrong

This makes sense. As I discussed in The Hiveswap Fiasco, Andrew volunteered the information in the ipgd post in the first place:

From what I can tell, if this account is true*, Andrew Hussie voluntarily sent ipgd this information through a Kickstarter private message in order to circumvent some provision in the settlement. Given that this information is essentially leaked by Andrew himself, it’s worth being sceptical.

Also, ipgd’s post definitely portrays Andrew as the victim and TOG as the abuser, so it does “make Andrew look like he did no wrong.” Her account has such inflammatory statements as “odd gentlemen stole kickstarter money” and “they straight up signed up to steal money from us”. I’ll talk about ipgd’s post a few more times in this article, where the details line up, but the general theme is that a few parts are true, but framed in an intentionally misleading way.

> This period of limbo lasted for nearly two years of development time because Andrew wouldn’t deliver the cornerstone design document.

The two-year period described here would be 2012-2014, starting sometime before September 2012 with the pre-kickstarter arrangements and ending around the What Pumpkin Studios announcement in October 2014. (More timeline info below.)

In ipgd’s post, she says “WP gave 788k to TOG in 2012 to develop hiveswap. they then proceeded to do next to nothing, completely blowing off the dev schedule that they agreed to.” This is interesting for her to have mentioned, in retrospect, since Andrew’s account is also that TOG “blew off the dev schedule”. According to this account, TOG wasn’t following the development schedule, but ipgd’s post leaves out the likelihood that this was Andrew’s fault, not TOG’s.

Andrew actually talks about (what is probably) this design document in Kickstarter Update #15, published June 2014:

Aside from a bunch of dialogue, the writing and design work is all pretty much done. The game design documents comprise dozens of files, and around a couple hundred thousand words in total. There was a lot to think about besides just a story. Puzzles, game mechanics, the exact way every little thing works. Bringing such documents to completion involves a lot of effort. I assembled my own little team independently of the game developer to help me get this done. … Last winter [Ryan North] and I scribbled down all this stuff. The basic outline of the game, tons of funny ideas and puzzles and such. Then in the following months, I and some other people ironed all that out into documents that programmers can actually understand and turn into a game.

…

So what does that mean for the status of development? Since all the documentation is just about done, it’s out of my hands at this point. It’s now up to the developer to finish building the systems, modeling, rendering assets, testing, all that stuff. I can’t really give you a solid estimate on how long that will take, since I’m not personally managing the people or resources. When it comes to things like writing I hire individuals like Ryan and others to help, but when it comes to delivering the final product, we commissioned a 3rd party developer with their own staff and time tables and all that, so it’s pretty much their show now.

Actual photos of the document in question, from the KS update

By Andrew’s own account, the design document was only finished in July 2014, which is exactly what my source describes.

In this context, though, it’s interesting how Andrew announces the finished design document, the name of the developer, and how “it’s out of my hands at this point” all at once. It’s almost as if Andrew knew the document was a problem and knew TOG wouldn’t be able to meet the agreed schedule, but wanted to throw TOG under the bus and give fans someone else to blame.

What Pumpkin would later assert that all the deliverables were given to TOG in 2013, but that doesn’t match the timeline or the Kickstarter updates’ own account.

> Andrew had TOG spend their budget (the Kickstarter funds) on making 3D animatics and animations for the Homestuck finale video (Act 7), instead of working on Hiveswap. Significant portions of the Act 7 animation were in progress or finalized as early as 2013, the work all done in secret by The Odd Gentlemen.

Okay so obviously this is a big one.

In an effort to gather as much information as I could about this, I reached out to some of the people who definitely did work on Act 7 to get their perspective.

Since WP’s engagement with TOG is covered by NDA, this means the rest of the animation would have to be finished by other people who were kept in the dark about The Odd Gentlemen’s involvement. So, for instance, if I could find someone who knows who did the original animatics, that would easily disprove this claim. On the other hand, if all of this is true, you would expect the animators to have been handed a partial product but kept in the dark about its source.

So, which is it? According to another source I was able to contact (who wishes to remain anonymous, of course), the final animation team was given the project under exactly the latter, suspicious set of circumstances. They weren’t told who worked on it previously and weren’t allowed to contact the people who did the original animatics:

Gio:

Well, to be honest, I’m trying to run down a tip about some potentially shady behaviour with the first drafts :S

I was hoping you’d been on Act 7 from the get-go and could de-confirm them, but if there was already white-label work done by people you didn’t know when you joined the project, it might still be true.

Source:

Funny you should say that, because when I came onto the project I was given very cagey answers about who had worked on it previously[…] I wasn’t told their names even after asking and I only recognized some of [redacted]’s animation work because [they’re] a friend. I asked if I could contact any of the people who were working on it before and was shut down on that front. This is just my impression from that time, but it came off as if there was some sort of not-so-amicable-parting happening.

So, unfortunately, it looks like the Act 7 team had the experience you would expect if TOG did the original work. There’s even the smoking gun that this person actually did try to look into the source of the original drafts, but Andrew explicitly shut them down.

Interestingly, Andrew using Hiveswap resources to supplement comic work isn’t without precedent; I know it’s happened before. In a conversation I had back in October for the Hiveswap article, someone from the remote team told me they were asked to work on assets for Collide shortly before WPNYC closed:

a bit before the closing of wpny my work became more work on these assets that we need for what ended up becoming collide

…

there wasnt like, a hard cut that i can remember, it was like ‘hey if you get time maybe do a few sprite animations between hiveswap work’

Meanwhile, here’s what Andrew said personally about Act 7’s production:

The animation itself had a fairly complicated production history. I actually storyboarded it about four years ago. In fact, some of the shots I visualized before I even began Homestuck. I’d like to extend very special thanks to Angela Sham, who took the reins on the animation while it was in progress, and worked with me closely on it for about a year until it was done. She’s a great animator, and I’m quite excited that she’s continuing to work with us on the game.

“About four years” prior to 4/13/16 was April 2012… which was just before Andrew engaged The Odd Gentlemen. The animation released on 4/13/16, which makes “about a year until [Act 7] was done” 2015-2016. This means the WP Act 7 team (Angela Sham, Ani Roschier, Jeffrey Lai, et al.) started their work on it in 2015… which was just after 2014, when Hiveswap dropped TOG. This all fits the timeline uncomfortably well.

Going back around to that ipgd quote: “WP gave 788k to TOG in 2012 to develop hiveswap. they then proceeded to do next to nothing, completely blowing off the dev schedule that they agreed to.” Again, there are details here that fit: What Pumpkin did pay The Odd Gentlemen $800k to develop Hiveswap, and TOG did produce little in the way of usable Hiveswap game material. What they produced was instead white-label work on other Homestuck projects, at Andrew’s direction. Regardless of whether this was an appropriate use of resources, it’s clearly wrong that it was hidden like this.

The 4/13/2021 post contained emails which confirmed this idea:

It was great chatting with you. We’ve been running through this and we think we have something that will work well for everyone.

We’re with you and totally want to make this something that has way more legs than just the animation — though, of course, we want that to stand alone as something incredible and work as a fantastic lead in to the game using this same style.

To that end, what we think works best is that with this animation not only will me make an amazing finale, but we will also utilize this time to fully define and lockdown the style of the game while using this added conceptual time to increase the overall fidelity by defining pipelines and getting a head start on all of the art

So there were, in fact, plans to coordinate the Act 7 animation with Hiveswap, somehow. It’s unclear exactly how this would have worked, but this matches details of the original allegation.

A historical note here: as of Hiveswap: Act 2, no assets from Homestuck Act 7 have been used in Hiveswap material.

> So The Odd Gentlemen shifted to King’s Quest.

The Odd Gentlemen’s involvement in Hiveswap was 2012-2014. King’s Quest was announced in 2014 and released in 2015. It’s not exactly clear exactly when development on King’s Quest started, but I assume “some time before 2014” which, again, fits the timeline, and everyone on both sides of the table seems to agree that this is basically what happened. No surprises here.

> The problem was when Andrew was ready for TOG to work on Hiveswap he demanded it be worked on right away. At this point TOG was on schedule to finish and deliver King’s Quest, and needed to finish that project first, but Andrew wouldn’t have it.

This is an interesting time period, because it directly intersects with ipgd’s post. Let’s compare the relevant excerpts:

ipgd: according to the timeline in the doc i got, WP gave 788k to TOG in 2012 to develop Hiveswap. they then proceeded to do next to nothing, completely blowing off the dev schedule that they agreed to.

According to my source, it’s true that TOG did next to nothing for Hiveswap and didn’t follow the development schedule. However, ipgd doesn’t mention Andrew being the bottleneck and holding the project up, nor Andrew assigning TOG other, unscheduled tasks to work on.

ipgd: at some point TOG apparently just completely gave up working on hiveswap, because they were tapped to develop king’s quest.

My source concurs with this. The part about pausing work on Hiveswap to work on King’s Quest, anyway.

ipgd: however, instead of dropping out of developing the game, they decided to just… not tell WP, and proceeded to spend the money they were given on KQ’s development instead.

All of this seems to simply be an assertion by ipgd. Her implication is that the document she has details this, but she chose not to make any of that information available for inspection or give any other sort of argument as for how this would be true.

By the time King’s Quest development started, The Odd Gentlemen would have been long-since denied the needed design document for Hiveswap. They would be completely off-schedule, secretly working on the Act 7 animation and such; the books were likely in disarray at that point.²

ipgd: eventually, after months of platitudes and refusals to communicate (at one point andrew even moved across the country to be able to visit TOG’s offices and get the ball rolling on development, but they wouldn’t even let him come in), WP realized that they’d have to drop TOG, so they terminated the contract in late 2014.

This appears to describe the same period of time my source describes as when Andrew “demanded they work on it right away, even though they had been doing work all along.” It’s also possible this describes Andrew showing up at the tailend of the project and demanding sweeping changes.

> Andrew had a habit of handing off projects to teams and then disappearing for the duration only to show up at the end and demand sweeping changes.

From my understanding, this is in line with how Andrew has done business in general.

Famously, in “The Talk” (a rant about Andrew’s professionalism that largely doesn’t map to the issues we’ve seen in Hiveswap), Bill Bolin gave some details into the process of working with Andrew. Andrew had a private forum (for “Art Team” or “Music Team” people) where he would post threads with vague requests. Bolin describes a sample request as:

“A person drawn with crayon, fit to be in a X by Y inches-or-whatever-wacky-otherdimensional-measure-of-distance spot” with no mention on what kind of article/paragraph/chapter thing that its going to be sitting by, and what or who this image is supposed to represent.

Then multiple people would submit work for the prompt — give their take on it — and Andrew would pick whichever one he liked best, discarding the rest.

In a more recent account, Gankra³ (who worked on most of the interactive, playable segments in Homestuck) gave an an interview where they describe the creative process of working with Andrew:

Originally we developed everything over private messages on the MSPA forums with links. Over the years we would make use of email, AIM(?) chat, and a secret forum where the other artists and musicians hung out and riffed off eachother’s work with occasional direction from Andrew.

They describe working with Andrew as an incredibly difficult task, since Andrew was such a hero of theirs and moved creatively at such a high speed:

Working with [Andrew] was apparently nothing less than being in a creative firestorm, with projects being completed in an exceedingly short amount of time and often incorporating elements created on the fly.

…

I honestly pushed myself too hard here. I don’t think Andrew really understood how hard this stuff was on me; I think he’s a good enough guy that he would’ve given me more space if he realized what I was doing to myself. But he’s just so productive and I burnt myself out really hard trying to keep up with someone who, ultimately, was my hero that I didn’t want to disappoint. I have two intense negative memories from working on homestuck:

Begging Andrew (I think I was in tears irl) to just wait another day for me to finish one of our projects, because he wanted to start posting more pages of the story (he was that far ahead of me).

Being so stressed out from working on one of our projects that I went to a party and drunk myself sick (I normally don’t drink alcohol at all, for context)

…

I think mostly I’m pretty happy with what I did because I know the context under which it was created. There was no time to do things right. I barely had a chance to test it.

Edit 2021-01-29: As some people are taking issue with the Bolin quote, here’s another account of Andrew’s process from notasenator:

Normally Andrew will put a bunch of requests for different art assets in a thread, and people will take on those jobs and produce the assets for him. These are individual things, like a single background, character or animation.

Take this example from Roseterniabound:

Shortlist of obvious needs:

Heirsuit John sprite

Grimdark Rose sprite

Rose has a dialogue portrait. Needs to be grimdark’d!

John’s portrait needs to be heirsuited!

Maybe a Jack sprite??? Don’t know if it’ll be used yet, but could be fun to see anyway.

one or two “pawn” agent sprites (the chess soldiers, like WV commanded)

He provides only the blurriest of pictures of plot (if any at all… the description the team got for that one was “So I’m thinking of doing a pixel sprite walkabout thing for Rose, possibly including John too, not sure yet.”) and people go to work.

When he has the assets he needs (plus all the ones he’s created himself) he goes to work by himself and creates the flash.

Andrew is the storyboarder, he’s the writer and animator and the person who puts it all together. The art team is just providing additional art assets so he can spend his time fighting with Flash and not drawing backgrounds or animating sprites.

In this case, the difference is - to make sure things stay as secret as possible (probably because team members like to post about projects on SA) he’s not posting a list of assets needed in the thread, and instead is emailing team members directly to get their pieces in. That’s the only difference.

None of this summary of Andrew’s asset commissioning system is meant to be at all controversial; this is simply a summary of common knowledge from the MSPAF days.

> Act 1 was in a shippable state at the end of 2014, and Act 2 was nearly done

This description of the 3D Act 1 work is mostly in line with my previous research, although exaggerated. According to What Pumpkin, the 3D NYC build was almost shippable, but still needed significant debugging. It was also much shorter than the Act 1 that exists now.

Act 2 being nearly done, though, seems to be speculation. It doesn’t track with previous descriptions of progress.

It is highly likely that by 2014, this source no longer worked at What Pumpkin, and these descriptions of late-2014 are only semi-informed speculation.

> Not crediting WP NYC also fits in with a long pattern of behaviour. Depriving people of proper credit is something Andrew had a significant habit of doing.

Edit: It’s a very bold claim that Andrew deliberately deprives people of credit over personal grudges, and one I thought I would never be able to meaningfully confirm. However… Andrew actually directly admitted to doing this:

I know that she was the one leading the charge on the credit issues because she sent us an email about it after Act 1’s release. In it she requested credit in a friendly tone, citing a few minor things appearing in Act 1 like a font design she contributed to, and small touches to characters like the gold trim on one of outfits. Probably under ordinary circumstances I would have replied to this in a friendly way, and even if her claims didn’t totally track (iirc they didn’t really, after consulting with some others), I’m sure I would have erred on the side of caution and just credited her. But this was a pretty crazy email to get because it wasn’t even long before receiving this that I saw her in public spaces saying wildly vitriolic things about me and WP, repeating the false points from the [this article] narrative and such.

After consulting with the staff on it, it seemed like the team was in agreement that there wasn’t much substance to her claims, and even if there was, she’d already publicly burned the bridge with WP for anyone to be inclined to make the changes to the credits over such small points. I can at least acknowledge there’s a chance some of her influence in the NYC build leaked through to the next version in small ways, and it wouldn’t have been off base to credit her. But this is pretty much the only situation I can think of like that. No one else from the NYC team went improperly uncredited.

So… I mean that’s that, isn’t it? When pushed about a specific case, Andrew directly admits here that he was asked to credit an employee for her work, and that the request was friendly and reasonable, but because Andrew knew she had spoken poorly about What Pumpkin online he denied her her due credit.

He then tries to claim that this instance (where he got caught doing it) is the only time he’s done a thing like that, despite multiple sources reporting a pattern of this sort of behaviour, albeit in less concrete ways. So that’s another case where Andrew just directly admitted to doing the thing he was accused of.

Even without that confession, Andrew Hussie certainly does have a bad track record when it comes to properly crediting artists. The accusation, though, describes depriving people of proper credit as something Andrew does almost vindictively.

As I previously discussed in depth, Hiveswap Act 1 does not credit anyone involved in WP NYC and the 3D version of the game, despite using a significant amount of their work.

Hiveswap Act 2 released with the credits removed, to significant outcry (although partial credits were patched in later, after significant blowback)

Outside of Hiveswap, Paradox Space experienced a similar major crediting issue. I didn’t include that story as part of the Hiveswap article, so I’ll tell it now.

Paradox Space

Paradox Space (launched April 13, 2014) was a Homestuck spinoff webcomic with short stories set in the Homestuck universe. Importantly, it was an intensely independent project, with stories written and drawn by independent artists. As Andrew wrote in the original newspost:

As I work on finishing the story, I tend to think a lot about where Homestuck as a creative property goes from here. It’s hard to ignore the fact that it has turned into something much bigger than just a long, crazy story on the internet. It has a lot of fans, and there’s a whole culture surrounding it.

…

The idea is also to get a lot of different artists and writers involved. It’s going to be a major team effort. Occasionally I will write some comic scripts, particularly at the onset to help get this off the ground. But I’d like that to be the exception rather than the rule. I think it will be exciting to see how a talented pool of creators can work within the HS universe, and what they will bring to these characters. Scroll down to the bottom of the page to see who’s contributing so far. I guarantee that list of names will expand considerably in the months ahead.

(This could be seen as an early version of Andrew’s “whole weird postcanon thing” which I might write on some day.)

Paradox Space was designed to promote independent artists and give them a chance to promote themselves and their work: see the news feed for some great examples of this. There was also a tag system so you could browse comics by artists. Look at all these great people! There was even a big CONTRIBUTOR PANEL at the bottom of the page that listed all the artists and gave them each nice little bios and social links:

Paradox Space was designed to promote independent artists… until it wasn’t. In November 2017, as part of the hiveswap.com redesign, the Paradox Space site was redesigned with a more streamlined look that removed all of this. The contributor panel is gone, the tags have been removed, and permalinks to contributor pages fail completely. Links to the newsposts are removed, and permalinks to news posts, too, fail. Paradox Space is linked to on the Hiveswap.com website only.

As of the October 2020 update, the Hiveswap.com website is redesigned and the links to Paradox Space are removed entirely.

gio :⁾@giovan_h
so all references to paradox space have been completely scrubbed from the new hiveswap.com, huh
sucks to be those independent artists I guess
Mon Oct 26 05:13:16 +0000 2020

There wasn’t any stated reason for these changes; I’m not even aware that there’s been any official acknowledgement. Just a continual movement away from crediting and supporting independent artists in favor of… not doing that.

Maybe this is exactly as described: depriving people of proper credit when they started to gain popularity. Or maybe there’s another reason. If there is, they’ve kept it a secret. If they had been transparent about the reasons for the change, there’d be less need to speculate, at any rate.

> What Pumpkin was bringing in seven figures throughout the pauses on merchandise alone.

As What Pumpkin brags about in its promotional material, “Direct-to-consumer merchandise sales have generated over $10,000,000 in revenue.” This is a total, not yearly revenue, but with some integral calculus (and/or dividing $10,000,000 into Homestuck’s 10-year run), this checks out as an entirely reasonable number.

> Andrew would effectively allot allowances to certain projects, and if they couldn’t make it he would let people fail.

Given WP’s significant revenue streams, it’s entirely possible that some or all of the money issues were self-inflicted. It could be that Hiveswap was tight on money, but only because Andrew refused to give it the budget it needed.

Etc

Here’s an (aggressively rounded) timeline of 2012-2016, just as a visual aid:

gantt
    title The Odd Gentlemen & Hiveswap
    dateFormat  YYYY-MM
    axisFormat %m/%y
    
    section TOG
    TOG involvement         :tog, 2012-09, 2014-10
    Design doc hiatus       :doc, 2012-07, 2014-07
    King's Quest            :kq, 2013-12, 2015-06

    section Act 7
    Original A7 storyboard  :andrew, 2012-03, 2012-04
    TOG Act 7 work (alleged, window) :active, tog2, 2013-01, 2014-10
    WP Act 7 work           :wp7, 2015-04, 2016-04
    
    section Hiveswap Baseline
    Kickstarter Campaign  :ks, 2012-09, 2012-10
    What Pumpkin NYC      :nyc, 2014-10, 2015-12
    What Pumpkin Games    :wpg, 2015-12, 2016-12

Of special note here are that the alleged Act 7 work overlaps with TOG’s involvement on Hiveswap, that the design doc only was finished after TOG was midway through King’s Quest, and TOG was terminated very shortly after the design document was complete.

Conclusion

So, what am I saying? I’m saying… I can find no fault in it, so far. I’d love to say this is obviously wrong, just because it describes bad things happening to good people, and I’d like that not to have happened. I should easily be able to say this is wrong. Every day that goes by without someone showing me proof that something here is wrong, I’m more and more inclined to believe it. It’s absurd that this is even plausible. If this were untrue, there should be mountains of evidence to disprove it; a bare minimum of transparency is all it would take.

Update 4/13/2021

As of Kickstarter Update #36, What Pumpkin made the following statement about the accusations I reference in this article: (They didn’t tell you it was the source in this article, I’m telling you that)

As an addendum, WP has identified the primary source of a disclosure to a well-circulated document of the Hiveswap development process. WP has been aware of a pattern of false claims this former employee has made since the end of their employment at the beginning of 2014. As this individual was not present during the end of the development contract with GC, nor the WP NYC development period, all of the information they have shared is based on speculation and conjecture.

There is a detailed analysis of this update in The Hiveswap Fiasco, but to summarize:

According to What Pumpkin, this is a disgruntled ex-employee who left the team in early 2014, meaning anything they said later than that is speculation. In addition to the obvious — that a whistleblower doesn’t like the practices they’re whistleblowing — this would mean they were not privy to the events of 2014 or later, making anything they said about that only semi-informed speculation.

This makes sense. Many of the claims made here early in the timeline turned out to be correct, and even verified by What Pumpkin later on. Some of the later ones seem incorrect, perhaps a mix of hearsay and semi-informed exaggerations designed to make an overall point. As with everything else, I will note which claims are solid and which are dubious.

It is entirely possible some of this information was provided in bad faith. As I discussed, some of it holds up, and some doesn’t. In the same Kickstarter update, though, they explicitly confirm a significant amount of the news I broke, including multiple major points in this very article! I have also noted those cases.

With Update 36, we got a bare minimum of transparency on events that happened a decade ago. According to What Pumpkin, the source here is disgruntled (obviously) but more importantly wasn’t privy to events after early 2014. This means that some of these claims are most likely speculation, although others still seem extremely plausible, and others have been confirmed outright. It’s not disproven, but we’ve chiselled out a few bits that turned out not to be right, and I see that as progress to be celebrated.

I stand by my previous conclusions, I think, but this now-confirmed behavior with Act 7 is so much worse than what was reported before. It’s not just negligent or incompetent or even passively insensitive, but actively harmful.

Mismanagement and eccentricity might have explained some of the previous issues, but it can’t possibly cover this: misappropriating money from a new investment – and creating a significant debt in the process – to pay a different creative debt while aggressively covering up the scandal. Not to mention attacking the reputation of an independent game dev studio and using an NDA to prevent them from defending themselves.

Not to say eccentricity is any sort of excuse, either. The sheer amount of human damage done by Hiveswap is astounding and inexcusable. Treating other people as disposable in your pursuit of your vision (driving people out of the industry, tossing out their work because you decided you asked for the wrong thing, firing them the day after they quit their jobs to work for you) is a wretched thing to do for any reason.

I wish I could demand transparency, but What Pumpkin is a company that to this day lists strip mall shipping companies as their business address; I don’t expect them to start being upfront about their biggest failures. I’m honestly a bit worn out from all of this, so I don’t know that I have another punchy conclusion in me, or some dramatic call to action.

Don’t idolize people, I guess. When an auteur is surrounded by fans who believe his work is perfect and that the pursuit of his artistic vision is worth the sacrifices of other people, he’ll start to believe it.

Also, don’t be so attached to something that you can’t allow criticism of it. Live with both eyes open.

As usual, What Pumpkin did not respond to requests for comment.

Why Act 6 Hits Different

2020-11-08T00:00:00-06:00

One of the reasons Homestuck was so popular is how contemporary it was to internet culture. You tell anyone that Homestuck is heavily influenced by internet culture and they’ll nod and agree and you’ll both be very intelligent media critics. But somehow, even from that same group, you’ll see people who notice how the writing style of Homestuck changes over its nine year run and forget about contemporary culture entirely, which is a mistake.

Andrew Hussie has always spoken (or tried to speak) in an aggressively contemporary voice. What he wrote in 2008 sounds like it was written for the internet in 2008, with all the charm and all the baggage. Homestuck began in 2009. Remember internet culture from 2009? “R*tard” was still an acceptable insult back then (among the dominant cultural groups that made up internet forums, at least). Going back as an archive reader in 202X, though, reading “the r slur” in casual conversation is jarring. Why is that there? That shouldn’t be there.

The comic that Andrew wrote immediately predating MSPA was called “Team Special Olympics”, and that’s a whole conversation, let me tell you. In MSPA proper, Andrew was happy to make running jokes about racial diversity or gay pornography in an uncritical, unsatirical way. This was the internet culture Andrew’s comics were deeply immersed in.

Rather than stay fixed in 2009, MSPA — and Homestuck in particular — continued to mirror contemporary (read: pop) culture as it went on, which caused natural shifts in the material. What were previously wacky domestic antics played up for laughs became serious issues of domestic abuse, in retrospect. As readers revisited the earlier material, they re-evaluated it through a more mature cultural lens. Because of the serial nature of the comic, this worked out very naturally: as Andrew and the fandom grew, Andrew wrote in-characters realizing that abusive behaviour was concerning, just as actual abuse victims do. It felt like a natural progression of the story and characterization, because it was natural; it was the same dynamic that really was playing out irl.

This effect had a noticeable impact on the tone of the comic. 13 year boys who insultingly called each other “gay” as playful insults — or prefaced their interactions with “no homo” clauses — would become very different characters in 2015. Sexuality isn’t a insult now, it’s a character arc. Disabled characters, too, were originally played for laughs, but later got real character arcs about their disabilities as they related to their identities in a way that treated the issue (semi)seriously.

All this change — what Sarah Zedig calls its “maturation away from its at times uncomfortable edginess” — can sometimes rub old homestuck fans who liked everything about the atmosphere of the 2000s the wrong way. It can feel like the second half of Homestuck is “subverting” the story they knew and loved, because, well, it’s different. In back corners of the internet you’ll hear that Homestuck was somehow “taken over by sjws” or even conspiracy theories that later parts of homestuck were ghostwritten by another author entirely. On the other side of the room, you’ll have people who read Homestuck, see how it develops well-written gay, trans, and non-binary¹ main characters in its later half, and treat the full body of Homestuck as thoughtful queer fiction.

Neither of these is quite right. Both forget how long Homestuck was a serial work, and how much the contemporary culture it mirrored changed over its run. Homestuck re-framed earlier events as its fans themselves re-contextualized them in a changing world. Likewise, Homestuck engaged with queer topics only as and because they became a topic of conversation online. Andrew’s writing reflected the culture of the internet as it happened, and reading it as an archive work invokes all those difficulties with it.

When people describe Homestuck now, they might mention that the first part is “dated”, due to contemporary references, slurs, insensitivity, and the like. But that forgets that Homestuck intentionally, extremely, unavoidably a product of its time, and the internet culture that gives it its charm is the same thing that can leave a bad taste in peoples’ mouths.

sarah zedig, skeleton goat@hmsnofun
Replying to hmsnofun:
i want to say this stuff should be left as an apocryphal entry on a wiki, but at the same time i've long maintained that homestuck's maturation away from its at times uncomfortable edginess is part of what makes it such an essential work of fiction. so idk i guess
Mon Oct 26 07:11:20 +0000 2020

semi-infamous vriska stan@leg1slacerator
i love seeing shit like “homestuck is too woke and trans now hussie would never have approved this”
this is how delusional straight men think pesterquest was written

Thu Nov 21 05:23:51 +0000 2019

All Hail Jax, King of Dirk/kat@Dirkification
It's 2020 stop trying to make Hussie retroactively woke
You're allowed to like things by people who weren't and aren't a beacon of progressive shit
Pretending that it has zero problems or all the queer shit we have now was always intentional does more harm than good
Wed Aug 05 16:15:32 +0000 2020

tavris moment@tavr1spr1te
I still guarantee you all with 98% confidence that representation in Homestuck is incidental at best, and Hussie by no means intended to have grandiose, intricate and well-written trans narratives at the start, and J//ne should not be treated as such.
Fri Aug 28 20:43:29 +0000 2020

The Hiveswap Fiasco – 2017-2020

2020-10-03T18:00:00-05:00

Continuing from Viz Media and the release of Act 1....

November 2017

SBAHJ Kickstarter

Andrew Hussie, in conjunction with comedy writers KC Green and Dril, launched another Kickstarter for a hardcover spin-off of the Homestuck sub-comic Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff.

This campaign was a success (180% funded) and the book was written, printed, and shipped to backers in 2018. Make That Thing is a subsidiary of TopatoCo, a book publisher which previously handled MSPA merchandise.

One interesting note is that Andrew Hussie made a new Kickstarter account for this, possibly in violation of the Kickstarter terms of service, because Hiveswap is in such poor standing that Kickstarter has banned Andrew from starting more Kickstarter projects. If this account were set up just to evade the ban, that would explain it.

Troll Call

A newspost on mspaintadventures.com announces the “Troll Call”:

Every week we’ll be revealing some new troll characters from Hiveswap until Act 2 is out. Follow the Troll Call here, and meet the first two here. Expect a few more surprises like this to drop in coming weeks.

Sure enough, a later news post announces an exciting new redesign for the hiveswap.com website, including an “extended zodiac” and a personality quiz. This is the extended set of symbols that was teased much earlier. This new set of symbols also includes some character symbols from designs as early as June 2014.

To match this new schedule, WP announced that Hiveswap: Act 2 would be released in Spring 2018. This date also keeps in line with the promise that switching to a 2D artstyle would allow new acts to come out quickly. Phew!

January 2018

Scrapped Hiveswap Forum

Some time around February 2016, What Pumpkin NYC hired a team of eight interns to build a forum platform to “alleviate growing discontent in crowdfunding backers and general fanbase” about Hiveswap. The project was headed up by Phillip Huang, an intern at What Pumpkin:

Hey guys!

I’m Phillip Huang of What Pumpkin! _{(please don’t hurt me)}

I’m happy to announce that, a few weeks ago, I was assigned to rebuild the forums!

Look, I understand WP has really been dropping the ball on keeping the community up to date with regards to the forums. I wasn’t a part of the team until pretty recently, so I can’t really speak on behalf of them or whatever policies they had to follow in the past. But I do know two things:

First, please do not think for a second that we don’t care about you guys. Andrew and the rest of the team absolutely feel the growing animosity and discontent, and we’re working as hard as we can every day to try to keep the fanbase happy. By my personal observations, the reason the forums have been on the back burner is because there are just too many other things to be working on right now (most notably Hiveswap—game development is a BEAST).

Second, starting with this post, I am going to try to make amends by increasing transparency, feedback, and communication, at least with regards to the forums and their reconstruction. Technically I’m not supposed to announce very much now, but if you have a burning hot question go ahead and ask me here (not PM pls so I don’t have to repeat myself) and I’ll see what I’m allowed to say. Once the new forums are up, I’m going to try to get some of the other WP team members to start posting on them so they can answer questions about more general things (no promises though! ). A part of this initiative is me trying to contact the old mods and other prominent community members to help shape the ~~creation of the new universe~~ relaunch of the forums…

So what happens now? WP probably won’t be making an Official Announcement^TM about this until the forums actually launch. I can’t make any promises on a launch date or any features. In the meantime, it’s probably best to keep this news and your hypes on the down low. … Also, please don’t pester the mods to give any info, and mods please don’t leak anything else (I SEE YOU “flowey” ).

Alrighty, thanks for your patience y’all. We really appreciate your dedication to this community throughout all of these difficulties. Hopefully I’ll see you on the new forums! _{(when they launch, which is never)}

Phillip posted regular updates on the “Fate of the MSPA Forums” thread on the omegaupdate fan forums. He gave unofficial apologies for how poorly What Pumpkin had treated people and how flippant they had been about the forums in general. Part of the project, as he understood it, was to import the old forum data once the new system was up and running. If What Pumpkin was aware that that data was unrecoverable (and it is likely they did), Phillip was kept in the dark about it. He continued giving updates and answering questions to the best of his ability until his internship ended in 2017 without the forum ever being launched.

In January 2018, Phillip returned to report that “What Pumpkin has told me that the forum relaunch will be handled professionally by a department of a larger media company” (Viz) and “Sadly, they didn’t mention any timeline regarding this relaunch. … This will conclude my involvement with this project, so this will be my last update.”

Viz media has yet to launch any such replacement forum. According to Makin, who worked on the project,

I was told after the fact by one of the people working with me that viz was the one to cancel the new forums project

because forums were passe or something

It’s also possible that Viz may not want to launch a new forum because that would be a reminder that they failed to preserve the old forums or restore the precious historical data. Either way, it looks like Viz may not ever relaunch any sort of forum, despite the huge community push and the work being already done.

Comic Contest

What Pumpkin announced an official comic contest for on the Act 2 characters featured in Troll Call:

One of the best parts of the weekly TROLL CALL has been the great FAN COMICS. We love them, and we want to reward your enthusiasm. So, here’s the deal. Every week, we’re going to be giving away gift cards to For Fans By Fans, the central hub of Hiveswap and Homestuck merch. Second runner-up gets $25, first runner-up gets $50, and the first place winner gets $75!

Also…ALL first place winners will be entered into our GRAND PRIZE contest, the winner of which will get their fantroll added to Hiveswap as an NPC! What Pumpkin Games’ writers and animators will work with you to develop YOUR fantroll into a CANONICAL CHARACTER

The results were announced in April. The grand prize winner was announced to be fefsprites with this animated comic. Fefsprites is currently under NDA about Act 2, but plans to submit their fantroll Idarat Catlaz.

What’s notable about the contest is that, at time of writing, all official record of it seems to have been completely obliterated from the internet. The contest details and the prize announcement have been scrubbed from tumblr, and the contest rules have been removed. Even the winning comic is a 404, even though the blog is still active.

April 2018

Homestuck.com redesign

On April 02, 2018, Viz Media retired the mspaintadventures.com site in favor of a new, completely redesigned homestuck.com. Homestuck.com is designed to be mobile friendly, and converts the old flash content to static video files. There were a few news announcements for this:

More broadly than just converting Flash pages, this adaptation serves another purpose. My intent for MSPA was never to have it last forever, or to concern myself with maintaining a labyrinthine, crudely-coded website for the rest of my life. At some point, the right thing to do was always going to be figuring out how the stories hosted on it could persist long into the future. VIZ Media is about as good as any organization I can think of when it comes to publishing long-running series, and preserving them for future readers. They print many classic manga series and get those books on shelves all over the world, thus keeping those series alive and widely read, well beyond their initial publication. So the VIZ team and I are working together to preserve the original content while updating its delivery, but Homestuck’s unusual format makes this a unique challenge. (Incidentally, they’ll also be releasing the full run of Homestuck in print as well, to complement the work online.)

My hope is you will see these changes as a net-positive, and perhaps can enjoy the work again in ways that weren’t possible before (such as on your phone). Again, this adaptation will continue to evolve and improve. Any feedback you may have when it comes to the performance or presentation, feel free to contact the site team at VIZ. They’re taking everyone’s remarks seriously. Thanks again to all who continue to care enough about Homestuck to stop by and read this. We all appreciate your support.

I do want to note that one of the main reasons given for the partnership with VIZ Media was media preservation. I’m an archivist, myself, and I believe very strongly that media preservation and continued publishing of works is crucial, so I’m glad to see that preservation is one of the key expectations What Pumpkin has of VIZ media.

The homestuck.com redesign wasn’t off to a great start on this, however, as they made the old site design inaccessible. There was also no mention of making previously published Homestuck works — like Paradox Space or the SBAHJ Kickstarter novel — available again, which is another point against them. Hopefully VIZ will change its mind on these points and make an effort to preserve these works, but so far, it hasn’t done so.

The new Homestuck website was a partial success, with the glaring exception that the main promise of continued maintenance never happened.

Many of the video files are only temporary, and will be replaced in coming months, either with HTML-converted files, or higher quality videos.

Viz did not follow through on this or any of their other promises to polish the site, and a significant portion of the site is still broken in 2020. For instance, many of the flash files were recorded to video and uploaded to Youtube, who incorrectly blocked some of them, making the pages unreadable. VIZ (a media giant with its own CDN, who could easily host and stream videos itself) has not addressed this, or seemingly even contacted Youtube at all about the issue.

There are other issues with the way Viz handled homestuck.com, but further detail on that is beyond the scope of this article. As of 2021, Viz has failed to preserve the bulk of Homestuck’s flash content, and fan projects have had to step in to fill the void.

Newsrama Andrew Hussie Interview

On the same day, Andrew also published an interview with Newsrama about the VIZ-published book versions of Homestuck:

Nrama: How did the collections from VIZ come about, and what’s the experience been like working with them?

Hussie: The VIZ people are great, and are all true professionals when it comes to manga and anime. That’s why Homestuck was the perfect fit here. You’ll never see a better anime than Homestuck.

Nrama: Have you had any talk about reprinting your other MS Paint Adventures in hard-copy form?

Hussie: There are old editions of Problem Sleuth floating around out there. You can probably buy used copies on Amazon for like $100 each. But maybe we’ll make new and better editions of those for VIZ too, who knows.

Nrama: What are some aspects of multimedia storytelling you’d like to see explored, both in terms of what you’re creating, and from other creators? It often feels like there’s a lot of untapped potential out there.

Hussie: I tried to make Homestuck the thing that taps all the untapped potential. At least when it comes to the web format, circa 2009-2016. I don’t know if you could do much more with it than was done, unless you start grasping at straws for new ridiculous things to try out. Which Homestuck did a lot of itself, the further it went along. There’s always more to try.

Nrama: What’s next for you?

Hussie: I’ll probably just keep making things.

~~He has not. He has not made “next” things “after the adventure game”. He has not even finished the adventure game.~~

Update 2021: Andrew has, in fact, made another thing: Psycholonials, which I’ll discuss later. He did not finish Hiveswap or Hauntswitch before abandoning them, though, which might be worse.

What Pumpkin puts Hiveswap on formal hiatus

On April 3, 2018, What Pumpkin posted an announcement on their Tumblr page that they were dramatically changing their business plans:

What Pumpkin Games is going through a transition period, which has involved restructuring the company, the way we develop games, and the types of projects we focus on. First, the most important thing to address is, Hiveswap’s development absolutely will continue. The approach to its development will evolve as this transition goes forward, but ensuring the release of the full Hiveswap series remains our priority. We should have more specific information about what exactly this means for Hiveswap in coming weeks.

In the more immediate future, WPG is shifting focus to making smaller, fun, lightweight games that can be produced more quickly. The type of content we can release along the way between acts, continuing to build upon the Hiveswap world, and give fans things they can enjoy while they wait. These games are somewhat in the vein of what we did with the Troll Call, but more engaging, providing more depth and background to the characters that were previewed.

Now, I do have to immediately interject here. In the first paragraph, the announcement reads “ensuring the release of the full Hiveswap series remains our priority”, but now they’ve just said that they are not “focusing” on the mainline Hiveswap series, and are “shifting focus” to other games. This is, in fact, the opposite of prioritizing the mainline Hiveswap series — What Pumpkin is making the decision here to stop working on Hiveswap and instead start a new series of games.

In September, James Roach mentioned that Hiveswap Act 2 was officially on hiatus, confirming this interpretation of the announcement: Hiveswap is out.

The post continues

The first such game will be available very soon. The format is a “Friendship Simulator”, much like dating sims or visual novels you may have played before. The idea is, instead of trying to date a character, you just try to befriend them, and in the process, you get to know them better, and ridiculous things happen along the way. The first volume features two trolls from the Troll Call, and was written by Andrew Hussie.

We hope you enjoy this type of game! If it’s well received by the fans, then there should be more of these to play in the future. We appreciate your patience and support as WPG makes this transition.

What Pumpkin doesn’t officially announce why they’re making the “transition”, but given that we know they’ve used the allocated funding, it seems reasonable to assume that What Pumpkin wants a profitable game so that Hiveswap doesn’t eat into potential comic profits. A spinoff series also gives What Pumpkin an excuse to charge Kickstarter backers for Hiveswap again, as it will turn out that they won’t be giving backers any of these new games. This seems exactly like, as Jess put it, “Oh crap, we only have money to make a quarter of the game! Let’s raise some more!”

They don’t say if this shift is going to involve restructuring and, say, firing anyone. The tone here is very positive and optimistic, though, so there’s probably nothing to worry about.

What Pumpkin Fires Everyone

In April 2018, John Michonski from Video Game Choo Choo published the article “WhatPumpkin Layoffs Due to VIZ Media Purchase”, reporting recent sweeping layoffs at WhatPumpkin, and that they were due to VIZ Media:

Recently, WhatPumpkin, the primary force behind the webcomic Homestuck as well as video game spinoff Hiveswap, had a round of layoffs. Specifically, a large amount of the primary development team behind Hiveswap was let go. Due to NDAs, those who were ready to speak to us were cautious about what they could say, and didn’t want to be named, but many of them pointed to the new owner of the Homestuck IP, VIZ Media, as the reason behind the layoffs, instead of WhatPumpkin itself.

An anonymous source claimed the layoffs were purely due to VIZ restructuring, and they didn’t take the needs of WhatPumpkin staff into account. Upper management at the company stood by those in the crosshairs, and fought to keep their jobs.

VIZ has recently announced that, while development of Hiveswap is continuing, they will be shifting focus for the time being to the smaller “Friendship Simulators” called Friendsims, where you befriend characters that were previously announced for the next episode of Hiveswap. According to other public posts by the former development team, a good chunk of their work will still be used in the final version of Hiveswap’s Act Two.

…

The scope of the layoffs was massive. Seemingly everyone who was involved with the project was fired, including the core team. Most of the people involved in Hiveswap posted something about having worked on Hiveswap in the past tense, being newly unemployed, or needing new work, including James Roach, Cohen Edenfield, Shelby Cragg, Hillary Esdaile (rah-bop), and John Warren.

James Roach wrote:

I.. enjoyed much of my time at WP, even the late nights and ever-shifting needs of a project that never felt like it would be done. I am the sort of person who finds themselves very lost without work to do. When you work at a small company like WP, you end up doing a lot more than is in your job description. There were so many times where i’d be like filling out a spreadsheet at 3 AM thinking like “man if all those people that thought they wanted this job could see what it was actually like”

The few of us that have been around since the beginning- before the studio changes, before the controversies and hurdles of development.. shit before even the shift in leadership- those few of us.. have been through a lot. There is so much I wish I could have shared with you guys. A lot of little triumphs and celebrations but also a lot of disappointment and frustrations. My constant worry is that I would be letting the fans down, because that was me.

The reason I cite the Michonski article above is that he was able to interview members of the Hiveswap development team and confirm that the layoffs were directly due to VIZ Media’s involvement. The fact that VIZ Media has the authority to prompt this at all speaks to it having an outsized influence in the internals of What Pumpkin far beyond just publishing and the comic’s IP. Again, the exact details are unknown, and there has been no transparency as to this, even to the Kickstarter underwriters.

A few of the fired developers, including James Roach, were re-hired a few months later to do work on the new games that What Pumpkin was making instead of Hiveswap.

April 2018: Hiveswap Friendsim Launches

The Hiveswap Friendsim is a quick, loosely-canonical visual novel adventure following the efforts of the unnamed protagonist (that’s you!) to survive and maybe even thrive on the harsh surface of ALTERNIA.

Unlike Hiveswap proper, which is an adventure game, Friendsim is a visual novel that feels a lot like a modern version of Namco High. It’s mostly a text-based novel with a few branching paths, coupled with character art and simple animations.

Hiveswap Friendsim was launched for $0.99 with two chapters available. More chapters were released in “Volumes”, which were available as DLC for another $0.99 each. All together, the full story is 18 volumes for a total of $17.82 (more than twice as much as Act 1). The full game and all the DLC volumes are also available in a bundle together, but unlike usual Steam bundles, there is absolutely no discount applied for doing this.

The director of the game was Andrew Hussie. The producers of the game were Ash Paulson, Cindy Dominguez, Cohen Edenfield, and Julian Dominguez. (Although some of the producers joined the team in the middle of the story, leading to some confusing and complicated crediting.) Original music for this game was composed by a wide group of people, mostly from the music team. Notable contributors were James Roach, Toby Fox, and Alexander Rosetti.

Despite being named “Hiveswap Friendsim”, being produced by the studio that the Kickstarter campaign formed, and being a direct part of the Hiveswap universe, Kickstarter backers were not given this game. I even wrote in myself, as backer, to ask why backers weren’t given copies of the game, and was told by Julian Dominguez:

When Andrew/What Pumpkin made the announcement that HIVESWAP would be changed from a single video game, the plan was to make that video game into four acts. That is still the plan. This Friendsim is a derivative of the Homestuck/HIVESWAP universe and not part of story structure [sic] of those four Hiveswap acts.

Note that Troll Call indicated that this release (and these characters) would be Hiveswap: Act 2, but we got the Hiveswap Friendship Simulator instead due to the recent change. At this point, the Troll Call page simply reads “As featured in Hiveswap Friendsim” with no indication of the characters having any relation to Act 2. Again, Julian argues Friendsim is not part of Hiveswap proper.

December 2018

Hiveswap Friendsim Ends

What Pumpkin releases the last update of Hiveswap Friendsim

Of the thirty-seven stories in the game, Andrew Hussie wrote two. The most prolific writer by far was Aysha Farah, who wrote twelve routes.

Skaianet Systems

In late December 2018, What Pumpkin deleted their Tumblr blog and wiped their Twitter account. This was may have been part of an ultimately misguided ARG, although it’s unclear how destroying years of records was meant to be related, if at all, to the ARG, or anything else. None of these accounts have been restored, despite the ARG fading into obscurity and embarrassment. The only thing erasing the records has accomplished is slightly obscuring What Pumpkin’s many failures, and further miscrediting the WP NYC team by hiding evidence of their contributions.

Weeks prior, What Pumpkin mentioned in a footnote that they would be “retiring” the Tumblr account, citing “maintenance.” “Retiring” here apparently meant erasing the blog and all the content. No explanation was given.

April 2019: The Homestuck Epilogues

On 4/13/2019, the prologue to the “dubiously canon” Homestuck epilogues was posted. The rest of the epilogues were made available in their entirety on 4/20/2019, to divisively mixed response. This marked the absolute conclusion of the comic proper (although a case could be made that the comic concluded prior).

VIZ Media will publish a beautiful hardcover edition of the epilogues in January 2020. It’s 640 pages and available for $25 on Amazon.

I want to note one important textual thing about the epilogues here. The epilogues have a brief prologue, and then two “routes”, titled “meat” and “candy”. There’s no indication given on the “proper” order to read the routes in; you can read them in any order. The routes diverge at the prologue, which marks a split into two different, physically separated worlds that have wildly different tones. The last chapter of each route is a vignette into the other route’s ending, which creates an interesting and unique reading experience. Only after you read both routes do you get a full picture of the real story.

Does this sound familiar? I know it was years ago, but to me this sounds an awful lot like how Andrew envisioned Hiveswap in 2014: Two parallel stories about two parallel worlds that can be read in any order to get the full story, with both stories happening in parallel and tying in to each other. It’s the same idea, just tweaked slightly to better fit the material.

One interpretation of this is that Andrew likes that idea and was excited to use it right away. Another is that he’s using the idea now because he’s given up on Hiveswap and Hauntswitch. I can’t say whether either is true, but at this point I’m not optimistic about Andrew’s dedication to Hiveswap.

Epilogues Fact Sheet

The epilogues also had a fact sheet for publishers like the mainline books did, this time reading:

Homestuck is one of the biggest pop culture phenomena of the past decade, a unique and massive internet-based hybrid work consisting of webcomics, chat logs, gifs, video games, animation, and music.

Over 1,000,000 users a day visited the hosting site, MS Paint Adventures, during the height of the Homestuck serialization. To date the comic has over 2,500,000,000 pageviews.

The Homestuck Official YouTube channel has over 3,200,000 views.

Direct-to-consumer merchandise sales have generated over $10,000,000 in revenue.

Ten official soundtrack albums have been released on Bandcamp.

The first episode of Hiveswap, an independent video game series set in the Homestuck universe, released in September 2017 for PC and Mac and immediately became a top ten best-selling game on Steam.

Homestuck has spawned innumerable fanworks in all genres—art, fiction, music, videos, crafts, cosplay—along with fan events all over the world.

Again, this seems to have been for internal use only, but some stores still listed it as-is.

The ad claims Hiveswap “immediately became a top ten best-selling game on Steam”, which is remarkable, because — as far as I can tell — it’s a blatant lie. Steam actually publishes top 100 lists for best-selling new games by year, and Hiveswap didn’t make it, even if we narrow the domain down to the month. I looked up the data for Steam 2017 — even if we (generously) assume they mean it was in the top ten best-sellers of 2017 — by the end of 2017 200,000 people owned Hiveswap at maximum, including people with free review copies. That puts them somewhere below rank 200. It seems like What Pumpkin literally just claimed they were a bestseller and hoped nobody would check.

We also get this internal figure that “Direct-to-consumer merchandise sales have generated over $10,000,000 in revenue”, which was definitely not meant to be publicized. This is yet another confirmation that Homestuck is still a multi-million dollar brand, and should not be hurting for money.

May 2019: Act 2 update

Update #31

So it’s been a while. There are a lot of reasons for our silence, and honestly it’s a whole tangle of stuff that maybe one day we’ll get into.

Or maybe one day I will.

We know you’re eager to find out something, anything, so let’s cut to the chase - yes, Act 2 is in active development. While we don’t want to start throwing out release dates until we’re a little further along, we’re happy to say that the script, art and design work is nearly complete, and programming is underway.

You might gather from the above description that Hiveswap development is a little unusual. Let’s just say we learned a lot of lessons during development of Act 1. For Act 2 we have built a staggered development process where the script and design come first, followed by the art. Then our programming team will put it all together while the writing, design and art teams move on to Act 3. Once we have all the Act 2 content and programming together, we will move into a play-testing and iteration phase before release.

While they say “we don’t want to start throwing out release dates”, what they mean is that they’d like you to forget about the confirmed release date of Spring 2018, which they missed due to choosing to make a different game instead. They aren’t formally cancelling Hiveswap, it’s just delayed indefinitely, yet again. “Hiveswap development is a little unusual”, yes.

There is also a mention of “indie game label Fellow Traveller”, who is running LudoNarraCon, a digital convention Hiveswap is participating in.

June 2019: Answering some questions

Q/A on whatpumpkin.com

Are all four acts of Hiveswap still coming? When are each of the games coming out? What’s the roadmap for these games? We are committed to delivering Hiveswap in its entirety–Act 2, followed by Act 3, and then Act 4. After that, we can turn our attention to the possibility of Hauntswitch.

Hauntswitch, the second of the two adventure games, seems to have been downgraded to a “possibility”, now, even though it’s critical to the main storyline. Also, even though the question they ask themselves is “When are the games coming out”, their answer doesn’t include any answer for that, not even a vague time estimate.

Please, tell us more about Hiveswap: Act 2! Act 2 is still a point and click adventure game, with the same basic UI and mechanics. The puzzles and gameplay will focus more heavily on character dialogue in this installment.

In terms of length, the amount of time it will take you to complete the game will depend on how much time you spend exploring and talking to the characters in each scene. There will be more content in Act 2 than Act 1.

Who’s doing what on the team behind Hiveswap: Act 2? James and Toby are back for music, Adrienne is back for animation, and Aysha of Friendsim has joined the writing team. In the future we’ll be doing a series of artist and writer spotlights, introducing you guys to the team.

At this point, What Pumpkin has “brought back” much of the team they fired to work on Act 2, instead of just keeping the team together and avoiding an enormous amount of unnecessary disruption.

Notably absent from the “new” team is Cohen Edenfield, the scriptwriter who wrote the entire excellent script for Act 1. This is an unfortunate decision, as it means the game won’t keep a consistent lead writer.

Aysha Farah, meanwhile, is rapidly taking on more writing responsibility for Homestuck. Her first credits were writing some of the routes for Friendsim and “additional contributions” on the Homestuck epilogues. She was then promoted to creative director of Pesterquest, and now it looks like she’s slated to be the lead writer of Act 2; she’s had a very rapid ascent.

July 2019: Fellow Traveller

What Pumpkin Games@whatpumpkin
What Pumpkin has a new friend in @FellowTravellr - whatpumpkin.com/fellow-travell…
Tue Jul 30 17:16:07 +0000 2019

What Pumpkin announces in a blog post that they have arranged to have indie game publisher Fellow Traveller, the hosts of LudoNarraCon, which Hiveswap participated in. Fellow Traveller will be “managing all of the business bits” (marketing, branding, production support) while What Pumpkin continues to work on game development.

We’ve done this so we can devote more of our time to the development of the game. So what does this mean for you? In short: we’re working to bring Act 2 to the world as soon as possible. With our new partner, it also means you’ll be hearing from us a lot more: look forward to regular updates, newsletters, social media posts, and more exciting news in the coming weeks. In the meantime, you’re all invited to join our official Discord server. We look forward to meeting you all there!

(And then there’s a link to an expired discord server invite. Discord server invites have an option to never expire, as would be appropriate for permanent links on public pages, but they default to expiring in five minutes, which may have happened here.)

Hiveswap: Act 1 was also retroactively edited on Steam such that Fellow Traveller replaced What Pumpkin Games, inc as the publisher. No announcement was made about this.

There have not been any regular updates, newsletters, social media posts, or other exciting news in the following weeks. Or at all, really. There actually hasn’t been a peep out of Fellow Traveller about Hiveswap at all, although they’ve been very aggressively promoting their other games, like Paradise Killer. So this is not a “partnership” that’s born any fruit, as of yet.

September 2019: Pesterquest Launches

Pesterquest is announced. It is another visual novel in the same style as Hiveswap Friendsim, but this time focusing on the original Homestuck characters, and not the Hiveswap universe. It is also a direct sequel to Hiveswap Friendsim, in that you play as the same character and the story starts immediately after the end of Friendsim.

It is produced by Andrew Hussie and Cindy Dominguez, and directed by Aysha Farah (of Snake Solutions). It will feature contributions by many different people, including James Roach, Kate Mitchell, Sarah Zedig, and Gina Chacón.

The game is developed by What Pumpkin Games and published by Fellow Traveller. Pesterquest does not use DLC for chapters, but is sold for $11.99 upfront ($4 more than Act 1). When it launched, only one chapter was available; the rest were released as free updates, preordered with the game.

The executive producers were Andrew Hussie and Cindy Dominguez. The director was Aysha Farah. The audio director was James Roach, who wrote every original track for the game.

bleaksqueak@bleaksqueak
Also yes in light of Yesterday's news, and the new PQ stuff, and all of that, Hiveswap (ACT 2 ) is still being worked on. I am personally working my butt off on it and can attest the rest of the team is all buttless now too.
we're doing our best, but it's a small team. ty!
Sun Oct 27 00:45:42 +0000 2019

October 2019

Hiveswap: Act 2 Steam Page

On October 2019, the @whatpumpkin twitter account posted an announcement:

What Pumpkin Games@whatpumpkin
Hiveswap: Act 2 Steam page is up! - store.steampowered.com/app/1181840/HI…
Thu Oct 31 14:08:09 +0000 2019

The Steam page for Hiveswap: Act 2 was available, and there was a trailer featuring the Troll Call characters. There were a few gameplay screenshots, but the store page mostly consists of the trailer video and character animations.

The game is listed as being developed by What Pumpkin Games, and published by Fellow Traveller.

The steam page also promises that “Hiveswap: Act 2 is the anticipated second entry in the four-part series of narrative adventure games from the universe of Andrew Hussie’s smash hit webcomic Homestuck.” and “James Roach and Toby Fox (creator of Undertale) return for another genre-spanning original soundtrack.”

The release date on steam is listed as “tickets available soon.”, which was probably supposed to be funny.

Bandcamp Changes

Without any sort of announcement, What Pumpkin (possibly in cooperation with Viz Media) “reorganized” the official Homestuck bandcamp page, making several major changes:

Deleting all the track art
Deleting many albums
Grouping albums into less-expensive bundles
Exclusively selling bundles and not albums

Originally they promised that any removed albums were temporary and would be restored soon, but the removed albums were never restored. Some of the original artists re-uploaded their Homestuck work on their own channels, but some albums were permanently lost. This seems to go somewhat against What Pumpkin’s directive of preservation, but they’ve made no comment about it.

The track art and original album organization would have been permanently lost as well, if not for a hero’s complete track archive.

Currently, the tracks from the Grubbles album are only available as part of the Hiveswap: Act 1 OST, and they come with every copy. That album is $4.13 (reduced from $7.99 by), price significantly reduced from the original cost of $12.99.

Homestuck^2

Kate Mitchell and Aysha Farah, as Snake Sollutions Studio LLP, launch “Homestuck^2”. It’s to be an experimental, semi-official,¹ “dubiously canon” fan-adventure-slash-story-continuation in the vein of other fan continuations like Act 8 and Act Omega, only with Andrew involved. It’s produced jointly with What Pumpkin, but the writing and production is done by Snake Solutions and their team.

According to their introduction, the comic is supported by Patreon, with exclusive content available for Patreon backers:

This update comprises the “main” update for the month of October. The next update posted to this site will be the main update for the month of November. Additional *~*bonus updates*~* will also begin in November.

What’s this about bonus updates, we hear you ask? To find out more, please make sure to check out our Patreon page! Pledging to the official Homestuck Patreon is a great way to support the independent creators behind the comic, and to get your grubby little hands on some bonus Homestuck content that you won’t find anywhere else!

The Patreon label reads “Homestuck is creating Homestuck^2: Beyond Canon”.

This wouldn’t be relevant to Hiveswap at all until a later Patreon update:

December 2019: Freelance Rates

The Homestuck^2 Patreon releases a post titled “Freelance rates for Hiveswap, Pesterquest, and future What Pumpkin projects increased for all workers after success of Homestuck Patreon”, which is written as a kind of press release. It’s mostly relevant, so I’m attaching the whole thing:

The level of support for the Homestuck Patreon has been overwhelming, and What Pumpkin couldn’t be more thankful this Thanksgiving. Fans want to support the independent artists behind their favorite works, and What Pumpkin has gotten to business making it happen.

In early November, What Pumpkin founder Andrew Hussie and the freelance creative and technical team behind WP’s projects agreed on a significant increase in rates for the art, writing, music and code that makes the expanding Homestuck and Hiveswap universe possible.

Too often, the comics and games we enjoy – even big-budget corporate media – are made in unhealthy and unsustainable “crunch” environments. The direct support and generosity of Homestuck fans helps to ensure better conditions for everyone.

“The point of the Patreon wasn’t only to fund HS^2. There are dozens of people working on Homestuck games and projects, and almost all of them came from the fandom originally. So they’re spread across everything we’re doing, like Hiveswap, Friendsim, Pesterquest, and now HS^2, contributing art, writing, music and programming. The Patreon is a good way for fans who love what they’re doing to contribute to their overall compensation outside of game sales alone. Before the Patreon existed, there really wasn’t a coherent means of showing more support for the people working on all this. Unless you wanted to buy multiple copies of the games? Which I certainly don’t discourage. But I thought maybe we could come up with something better, which is also attached to a cool new project. The better the Patreon does, not only does everyone at the studio benefit, but the more you’ll see HS^2 start to pick up the pace,” said What Pumpkin founder Andrew Hussie.

“It was important to the Homestuck^2 team that fans’ enthusiasm and support was shared with everyone working with What Pumpkin, and Homestuck’s community has again proved itself the greatest fandom around,” said Homestuck^2 co-director Aysha U. Farah.

The workers that benefit from these contributions are active on the following projects:

HIVESWAP: ACT 2 is the anticipated second entry in the four-part series of narrative adventure games from the universe of Homestuck. Hiveswap has something for you, whether you’re a dedicated fan or just now discovering the fandom phenomenon.

Embark on a quest of epic importance in PESTERQUEST, a grimsical episodic visual novel set in the darkly funny Homestuck/Hiveswap universe. Dive deeper into Homestuck lore in this rich visual novel with an unapologetically irreverent story.

HOMESTUCK^2: BEYOND CANON is an official continuation of the cult-classic webcomic Homestuck and a follow-up to The Homestuck Epilogues, dropped as a major event in April of this year. Homestuck 2: Beyond Canon takes a combination of Andrew Hussie’s original writing and plot outlines and concepts and joins him with a team of new, diverse voices to expand the compelling narratives of Homestuck’s most (and least) beloved characters.

2019 has been an incredible journey, with numerous releases for our fans. With this support, expect even more announcements from What Pumpkin in 2020 and beyond!

What Pumpkin is an independent studio founded by Andrew Hussie, author and artist behind cult classic webcomic Homestuck. It brings together a diverse team with a passion for telling new stories in Homestuck and Hiveswap’s vast universes and a love for the worldwide community and culture that surrounds their work.

Obviously notable is the titular piece of news, which is that What Pumpkin is paying people more based on the success of the Homestuck Patreon. This means that the Homestuck Patreon isn’t just supporting Homestuck^2, it’s supporting Hiveswap and What Pumpkin’s visual novels. It’s good to hear those projects are still a priority, and it’s nice to get a chance to support the new games. And, of course, that’s the spin the press release puts on it.

On the other side of the coin, that means Hiveswap and the visual novels are being funded by Patreon, which is disturbing. What Pumpkin has, in fact, “gone back to the crowdfunding well”, to borrow their description of what they did not want to do.

After successfully funding the game three times over on Kickstarter, What Pumpkin attempted a round of secret side-channel investments (possibly more), and are now trying to tap into Patreon — which is now funding independent artists working on a new comic — as a source of funds.

Worse, this is a patreon that advertises itself as funding an entirely new project with its own set of independent artists; there was no indication that this money was being siphoned off for other projects.

2023-10-18 extreme necro update

An update posted to the Homestuck 2 news page today by James Roach implies that my understanding of the HS^2 patreon as being “hijacked” to fund projects unrelated to HS^2 was correct:

The Plan — Posted by James on 18 October 2023 (emphasis added)

On the 30th of October, we are going to restart the Patreon. …
So, how will this time be different? …
First up, we need to be very transparent about where the money is going. This time we are paying all of it to the HS:BC team. Unlike previous projects, we won’t have a larger absent entity dictating what is and isn’t necessary for us. This time there will be no third parties taking large percentages of money that could be paid to the people who contribute instead.
…
Every month, aside from basic operating expenses (web infrastructure, hosting costs, etc.), 100% of Patreon funding will go directly to the HS:BC team. For the first few months 80% will be split up evenly among the current team of contributing members and technical crew. The remaining 20% will be used to backpay the current team several months of work done for this initial buffer of updates.
…
After I have paid the team for this buffer and development time that number will change to a 95% even split revenue share with the HS:BC team. 5% each month will be saved in order to build up initial capital for those luxury projects that require some upfront funding: [S] pages, Albums, Merch, etc. The money made from those endeavors will still be paid to the individual artists. We can talk about a financial breakdown for that when the time comes, and if you still want to know. I do not mind.

Seems good! Seems better.

I’m not recapping the rest of the updates, but this felt too relevant not to attach.

April 2020: Pesterquest Ends

Pesterquest ends with a final volume that acts as a tie-in chapter to Homestuck^2.

Despite the character name recognition and improved gameplay, Pesterquest was significantly less popular than Act 1 or even Friendsim, selling somewhere between 20,000 and 50,000 copies.

Writing credits were added as the routes were written. In the final credits for the game Andrew Hussie had a single writing credit for the first route. The other twenty-one writing credits went to other writers. Aysha Farah, the game’s Director, was still the most prolific writer by far with six routes to her name.

During the game’s lifespan, there were several odd, notable bugs that came up during natural progression in the game. These were usually fixed shortly after, but it did raise some concerns about quality control and playtesting.

(This is what happens when you make a typo in the Ren’py game engine. I’m speaking from experience here, although my experience is of not making clownish mistakes and shipping a broken game to thousands of people without testing it)

Whew.

(This is the original conclusion to this article, written October 2020.)

This brings us to the time of my writing this article, early October 2020. So, what’s the state of the Hiveswap?

The Kickstarter obligations still aren’t fulfilled. At the very beginning of this article, I explained how Kickstarter projects are legally obligated to “make every reasonable effort to find another way of bringing the project to the best possible conclusion for backers.” Knowing what we know now, let’s see if Homestuck has done that.

According to the Kickstarter Terms of Use,

A creator in this position has only remedied the situation and met their obligations to backers if:

they post an update that explains what work has been done, how funds were used, and what prevents them from finishing the project as planned;

they work diligently and in good faith to bring the project to the best possible conclusion in a timeframe that’s communicated to backers;

they’re able to demonstrate that they’ve used funds appropriately and made every reasonable effort to complete the project as promised;

they’ve been honest, and have made no material misrepresentations in their communication to backers; and

they offer to return any remaining funds to backers who have not received their reward (in proportion to the amounts pledged), or else explain how those funds will be used to complete the project in some alternate form.

This reads as an almost comical list of the exact opposite of how MSPA has handled the project. From the top, What Pumpkin

did not post the promised regular updates explaining what work had been done, and was incredibly secretive about how money was spent to the point of making people sign NDAs about it, and actually signed a settlement with an NDA requiring them not to post updates that explain how funds were used
chronically failed to communicate with backers about the timeframe of the project, which is currently delayed indefinitely, and are currently 8 years overdue and have only produced 1/4 of the promised product
seem to have used their funding inappropriately, and publicly announced that they are not making the expected effort to complete the project
lied about key parts of the project repeatedly and made multiple wilful misrepresentations about the game and their intent
refuses to give refunds and refuses any accountability about the project’s budget and financial history

Kickstarter seems to agree that this project has utterly failed to meet its obligations. According to correspondence I have with Kickstarter, Andrew Hussie is in bad standing for failing to deliver or communicate about the project, and has been banned from starting more Kickstarter projects. (As previously mentioned, he may have intentionally circumvented this.)

Okay, I’m with you, what else?

Fellow Traveller committed to “managing all of the business bits” (marketing, branding, production support) so What Pumpkin can focus on game development. But Fellow Traveller didn’t get a chance to do any of that before they bowed out, leaving Hiveswap once again self-published.

Viz does have publication rights for the original comic, and the Kickstarter project owes people full copies of Homestuck, and I haven’t seen those two facts reconciled anywhere. I sent them an inquiry about this for the article but Viz declined to reply. Viz’ involvement is especially dangerous because they haven’t ever formally taken responsibility for the Hiveswap project or provided Hiveswap with any resources or support, but instead directly interfered with its production.

Andrew Hussie, What Pumpkin, Viz Media, Snake Solutions and the rest of the Homestuck team were all working on new projects: the Homestuck books, multiple visual novels, Homestuck^2, new music albums, and more. Burning through a laundry list of new legal entities doesn’t change that all of these new Homestuck projects were greenlit by Andrew, were launched after Hiveswap, and are being worked on instead of Hiveswap, which is the only project that actively owes people content that’s already been paid for.

It’s like if you had pre-ordered Half Life 3 for several hundred dollars in 2008 along with thousands of other people, and Valve just kept the money and worked on other projects instead. In fact, dare I say it, it’s like taking money set aside for one game and spending it on another, leaving the funders with scraps and a bunch of guarantees you don’t intend to deliver on. Transparent misconduct that at least borders on fraud.

And then, of course, they weren’t anymore. Andrew buggered off entirely to make his own clown thing, Homestuck^2 was suddenly frozen, and it doesn’t look like the Viz book series is going to be finished, either. Hiveswap falls neatly in line with a whole history of projects that were started and abandoned — the only difference is the unshakable obligations still tied to the Kickstarter project.

Of course, Kickstarter projects fail all the time, but a lot of things make this different. The Kickstarter campaign was a massive success: it got overwhelming support and raised more than $2.5 million, which is more than you need to make a medium-sized indie game. The project had a modest goal: a point-and-click adventure game. They weren’t trying to develop anything new or even a little bit risky. What Pumpkin didn’t go into bankruptcy. They continue to produce successful games and continue to make money off Homestuck merchandise, games, and book residuals.² They were even picked up by VIZ, a media publishing empire. And Hiveswap hasn’t been cancelled, it’s just quietly been de-prioritized in favour of other, more profitable projects — in complete defiance of What Pumpkin’s actual obligations.

With the very first delay, Andrew promised “we’ll be working things out to stay favorable to backers”, which he didn’t do. Later, when the project switched to 2D, he said “the most important thing to me is that the project is still alive, and is looking as promising as ever” which, given what we know now, was another lie.

Andrew, MSPA, What Pumpkin, Homestuck, and Viz Media haven’t been transparent about any of this. Despite being crowdfunded and community supported, they haven’t communicated with the game’s underwriters, opting instead to ignore backers and fans and produce nothing but radio silence for stretches of months at a time. What Pumpkin is not at all willing to open up or show any accountability to the game’s fans and stakeholders; I had to painstakingly compile all of this myself over the course of months.

Hell, they never even disclosed how much money they raised from the original crowdfunding campaign. They’re silent for months at a time, regularly purge their records whenever there’s a possibility for embarrassment, and shackle everyone involved in the game with NDAs. This overt opacity about the project gives the whole thing an air of shadiness: everything we do hear about the project makes them look bad — maybe even to the point of being vulnerable to legal liability for misconduct — which is why they’re bent on hiding as much as they can. This exacerbates all the other development issues, in addition to being wrong per se.

Despite no longer being bankrupt — and, in fact, having major investment in the form of Viz Media — What Pumpkin refuses to produce Hiveswap, or — significantly — give refunds to backers who request them. (See comments) The Hiveswap project isn’t even an eighth of the way complete. Fans and backers are stuck in a state of limbo, and What Pumpkin is content to leave them that way.

It’s very disheartening, given all this, to see questions and concerns about Hiveswap treated like spam. In some extreme cases, even official Homestuck staff are willing to talk about Hiveswap fans with open disdain. Light criticism of the project — even just pointing out incontrovertible facts — is met with… something less than reservation. The actual obligations What Pumpkin has to the Kickstarter backers is being ignored, and complaints are treated as coming from “whiny fans” instead of as the legitimate grievances they are.

People sometimes ask me what I think about Andrew Hussie. After everything, do I think he was pulling a con? Was he as bad as all that? Honestly, I don’t know. A lot of the information I’d need to make a judgment on something like that isn’t available, largely because Andrew chose to deliberately hide it.

At the end of the day, Andrew Hussie raised a comical amount of money to make a game and frittered it away to nothing. $2.5 million is a mind-boggling amount of money to lose on a crowdfunding project, and — due to What Pumpkin’s deliberate opacity about everything — it’s all completely unaccounted for. The project is orders of magnitude behind schedule, and no effort is being made to get it finished or have any accountability about it. It is hideous behaviour, especially coming from a comic like Homestuck which has always relied on community support and reader involvement.

Appendix I: People

(Summaries of how people are related to the Hiveswap controversy, not full bios.)

Andrew Hussie
- Writer of Homestuck
- Started the Kickstarter for Hiveswap
- Partially involved in Friendsim
- Partially involved in Pesterquest
- Seemingly uninvolved in Homestuck^2
Ryan North
- Andrew Hussie’s personal friend
- Funny comics man
- Absent
Cindy Dominguez
- Old friend of Andrew’s
- Administrated the MSPA Forums
- Executive of What Pumpkin LLC, Homestuck inc, What Pumpkin Games
- Friendsim Producer
- Pesterquest Producer
- Hiveswap Executive Producer
- The person who sends out baseless legal threats
Jess Haskins
- Writer, Paperback Studio
- Senior Producer and Creative Director at WP NYC
- Gave multiple interviews
- Fired with the dissolution of WP NYC
James Seetal
- Employee at WP NYC
- Highly experienced game industry veteran
- Representative of the incredibly talented staff at WP NYC(?)
Cohen Edenfield
- Hiveswap Creative Director (2017)
- Hiveswap Lead Writer/Scripter (2017)
- Friendsim Producer
- Did not stay on for Act 2
Toby Fox
- Former Music Team member for Homestuck
- Did Undertale
- Knows Andrew and/or his basement
- Wrote music for Hiveswap Friendsim
- The winner
James Roach
- Former Music Team member for Homestuck
- Music Lead for Act 1
- Composed a lot of music for Friendsim
- Composed all the original tracks for Pesterquest
- Wrote some for Pesterquest
- Fired and rehired
Aysha Farah
- Wrote most of Hiveswap Friendsim
- Wrote most of Pesterquest
- Directed Pesterquest
- Fired and rehired
- Partner at Snake Solutions
- Writes Homestuck^2
Robert J. Lake
- Former Music Team member for Homestuck
- “Spellbang”
Ash Paulsen
- Associate producer of Hiveswap (~2017)
- Friendsim Producer
Hilary “Rah” Bop
- Hiveswap production artist (2016)
- Hiveswap environmental art director (2017)
Kate Mitchell
- Writer for Pesterquest, Homestuck^2
- Partner at Snake Solutions
Makin
- Formerly a former /r/homestuck moderator
- Worked on the scrapped Hiveswap forum

Appendix II: Legal

It’s often unclear which “What Pumpkin” is being discussed, or who holds the rights to something. This diagram isn’t so much to answer those questions as it is to visualize why it’s so confusing.

Arrow indicates ownership of a trademark, copyright, or share.

Boxes are individuals, rounded rectangles are firms, and diamonds are marks and/or creative works.

~~It’s unknown what the function of “Homestuck Inc.” is, but it’s possible it’s the entity that holds rights over the original Homestuck comic and collects royalties from it.~~ As of 2020-11-16, this seems to be confirmed, as the Hiveswap: Act 2 page is labeled “Homestuck and HIVESWAP are © 2009-2020 Homestuck Inc.”

Snake Solutions is indicated as co-copyrighting Homestuck^2 with What Pumpkin Studios, LLC, but this is an assumed correction on my part: the actual site for Homestuck^2 lists the copyright as being held by Snake Solutions and What Pumpkin, which is the trademark under which homestuck is merchandised, not a firm.

Whether or not Homestuck^2 is official media or not is a very complicated and surprisingly contentious issue that is far outside the scope of this article. ↩
I assume? It would be absurd for Andrew to sell rights to the IP and not be collecting residuals on sales. ↩

The Hiveswap Fiasco – 2015-2017

2020-10-03T16:00:00-05:00

Continuing from the kickstarter campaign and the work of What Pumpkin NYC....

December 2015: WP NYC Dissolve & A New Look

Update #22 (Public)

We’ve been taking the last several months to pause production on Hiveswap and revise the overall approach to the game, as well as the visual direction, to make things a little more cost-efficient, and more rapidly producible over the full span of the series.

So. You may have seen this one coming. Maybe my language gave it away, or you just know what Hiveswap: Act 1 looks like.

But Hiveswap’s artstyle is 2D now. This means that all the previous assets for the characters and items that were made, shaded, and rendered in 3D won’t be used, including everything shown in the preview video, trailer video, and the rendered 3D screenshots.

Let’s hear more from Andrew(?) before we rush to judgement, though:

The original 3D approach to the game began a few years ago with some high-level discussions with the original developer. Back then, before any work was done or money was spent, the main advantage we discussed about using 3D models related to efficiency. We talked about the ability to reuse character model templates and animation rigs for a big cast, and thoughts along these lines were what led to the 3D direction, even though it was kind of an aesthetic departure from the Homestuck look. Which at the time, I thought was fine! I’ve always liked to mix things up, try different styles and work with different kinds of media, so I welcomed that approach if it meant a more efficient production. I was sure there were some cool things we could do with that look. (And, in fact, we did!)

When we moved the project to our own studio, and as the budget situation continued to evolve over the previous year, some weaknesses in that approach started to become evident. Some additional engineering challenges were starting to pile up that would not have been present with a 2D system. The modeling demands were also racking up, and over time the production started getting pretty heavy, in terms of both cost and time. So, rather than continue down that road and burn through the remaining budget, I thought it would be better to pause, reassess, and make some changes to make the production faster and less expensive. This seemed like an especially important call to make, given that we have an entire series to develop beyond the first episode, and I’d rather there be as little waiting time as possible between episodes.

(Andrew now calls the process of producing models and 3D assets “heavy”, even after a previous update bragged about how the team had developed a “finely tuned system” for producing assets in an efficient production pipeline.)

The new approach should accomplish this. Not to mention, it’s looking pretty great! I have a lot of incredible 2D artists working on this game, who have all been instrumental in making art for Homestuck itself at some point.

Would this have been a better direction to pursue from the start? Maybe! Hard to say, since initial circumstances were so different from what they are now. It’s been a pretty wild ride! Game development is very challenging, and strikes me as a big exercise in rolling with the punches. That’s pretty much all I’ve been doing for the last few years. It is a shame it’s gotten so delayed, but the most important thing to me is that the project is still alive, and is looking as promising as ever.

Also, while it may seem like a shame to let go of the 3D assets that were made during the previous iteration, I would point out that over the last year we have actually stockpiled a massive amount of incredible 2D art assets that are still perfectly usable, and will still make it into the game. So we aren’t missing that much of a beat, aside from the last few months of reorganization.

…

They interrupt this with some concept art, and then more give more important notes:

NYC STAFF: Most of the people who worked on the game in New York unfortunately are no longer with us, as the studio has been restructured to be more of a geographically distributed operation, to help save costs. We really appreciate everything they did for Hiveswap, and the passion that they put into the game. I would like to sincerely thank them all for the great work they did for this phase of the project. Running a studio in New York for a while was actually a lot of fun. They were all wonderful people and I wish them the best. At some point I think I would like to gather all the 3D stuff that was done and present it as an interesting behind the scenes look at the history of this project, so people can appreciate the work the NYC team did. Perhaps at the very least this could be some nice bonus material for backers when the game comes out.

What Pumpkin Games has been “restructured to be more of a geographically distributed operation” to help save costs, which was a complete reversal of the July plan to significantly upgrade What Pumpkin NYC’s offices. The “geographically distributed operation”, meanwhile, included a lot of people from the same remote team that had been working with WP NYC.

The entire NYC staff was fired, including Jess Haskins, James Seetal, and everyone else I’ve mentioned so far. According to reports from WP NYC staff, this was completely out of the blue. Development on the 3D version was going extremely well, the team was testing a completed Hiveswap: Act 1 and working on Act 2, and the team was even told they were fielding multiple interested investors, including PlayStation(!). Then, out of the blue, the entire staff was let go with no warning, no severance, and no healthcare.

Now, it seems to me that moving from a physical office to distributed work doesn’t seem like it necessitates firing the whole team, per se. Geographical distribution doesn’t mean you have to fire your team; that explanation doesn’t hold up. It seems to me that “to help save costs” is the primary motivator here, although it’s not clear that there was a desperate need to do so.

TO RECAP: Hiveswap is still moving full steam ahead, despite pausing a few months to do some highly necessary project reorganization. It’s looking very promising, and I’m probably as excited about the project as I have ever been. Thank you as always to our backers for their ongoing patience and understanding. Happy holidays!

(This was not true.)

Insight into NYC Team Firing

There was extremely poor communication between What Pumpkin and the staff about all of this. According to conversations I had with a member of the remote team, they actually found out about the studio closing through the public Kickstarter post:

then when the kickstarter post about wpny closing and the game switching to 2d got posted i thought ‘holy shit do i even have a job anymore’ because this was the first time i was seeing anything about either of these things

Gio: did you actually find out through the kickstarter update?

yeah
…
thats why it felt so jarring to me seeing that update, because as far as i knew, 3d hiveswap was still ongoing

A journal post that will have been published by an ex-WP NYC employee in March 2016 gives us a little more insight into how brutal the WP NYC firings were, and confirming the other stories. (Source NSFW).

The Shit Storm that started this all

… I LOVED working there. I had taken so many SHIT jobs, working with creeps for bosses, not getting paychecks, working two jobs sometimes, that I felt like I finally made it! It was backed with some money, we had a popular/funny IP, and it seemed like we had a solid team. But in late October, the entire office was laid off abruptly.

Aside from one very incomplete trailer video, which was released onto youtube by our office manager without telling the art team, no one has really seen any of the game that we made in action. And that hurts. To think people believe we worked on this game for over a year, and made garbage really fucking hurts. The finished trailer with proper textures, lighting, FX, frame rate, etc, looked like an actual polished product. Hell, the last month I was working there, I was working on the second game already, because there was [nothing left for me to do] on the first one! We already had an alpha of the first game, and were hoping to reach beta in a little over a month. The fans really don’t know how close we were…it’s insane.

Because [my husband] worked there too, working there went from being the happiest time of my life, to the worst…Now we were both unemployed. Everyone in the office was losing their shit, rightfully so. We had issues with the owners of the company (aka the web comic creator) and them being transparent with us. We had known 2 months prior to the layoffs that there was a tightening of the budget, as we had to let go of an animator, and two writers/data people. A few others, myself included had their hours cut. The night before we all got laid off, we had received an e-mail from our investor recruiter that we had interest from angel investors, and things were looking good! Hell, we might even get pay raises! Talk about mix signals. :) The owners didn’t talk to us. They didn’t tell us when we were in trouble, and we trusted them.

We were a real team. Like a family. We saw each other more than our significant others, we had so many crunch nights at the office prepping for cons together. The day after the layoffs, we all went into ‘work’. We had planned to just pack up and leave, but we all ended up spending the day together. Playing games, drinking, and watching a hilarious homemade mockumentary one of our programmers made like 10-15 year ago. It was awesome. I couldn’t help but feel hopeless....I had worked with so many idiots, I finally had a well oiled team, and no one willing to fund us. We were given an unusable piece of garbage to work with, we remade an entire game from scratch in months, with a limited team, and my old boss decided to reboot the project again for a third time. What a waste of time, talent, etc…

…

My boss never helped. Repeated, friendly e-mails were ignored. Once I was fired, it’s like I didn’t exist. This was the same experience for my other team members. We thought things were fine, then one day, we were told we were all fired, and our health insurance would expire at the end of the month. No severance.

According to this report, things were going well, as reported, or at least that’s what What Pumpkin told its own team. (Also, more details from ipgd’s story are confirmed, and we learn that the amusingly bad trailer was apparently released without approval.) Then, in a complete act of betrayal, the development team was fired without warning and left without severance or health insurance.

Why Andrew killed WP NYC

All of this begs the question: if WP NYC was doing so well, why dismantle it? The above story and other sources affirm that the 3D version of Act 1 was nearly finished, and the team was even making considerable progress on Act 2. Why fire all these good people, and why throw out all the work?

We know WP NYC was doing well and making excellent progress. The dA journal notes:

I was working on the second game already, because there was nothing to do on the first one!

And another source concurs:

at the end of 2014 the first act was in a shippable state, act 2 was nearly done. andrew decided to go another direction and scrap the work.

(WP would much later comment that Act 1 wasn’t ready to be shipped at this point, but did exist in a significant form. Notably the “act 2” cited above consists of material that was included in the shipped version of Act 1.)

It’s hard to imagine how much this cost them. Years of work discarded in order to change the art style of the project, and it’s still not clear why. We can rule out a few possibilities — there didn’t seem to be any legal issues with rights, for instance, or technical issues with the engine — but the truth is, only Andrew knows exactly why he made the decision.

According to a conversation I had with an ex-WP NYC employee, the studio was badly mismanaged towards the end:

Personally I think it was that hussie was in over his head. … I don’t want to put it all on hussie tho, despite my coworkers being super awesome I think we were also mismanaged in office and our game designer was all over the place

Towards the end of WP NYC, maybe like 4-5 months before, our art director and tech director took the reins, and started managing stuff…I mean for months we hadn’t even worked towards a vertical slice.

Like I said before, our manager and lead designer who oversaw the NY company were really nice people, but they didn’t know how to manage a game studio. I think they were also over their head.

Edit: After I wrote this article, I published a separate article with leaks about this specific topic: read my second Hiveswap article for additional insight into this.

Edit 2: Much later, and as a response to this article, Andrew gave some reasoning as to why he dissolved WP NYC. Due to the lack of substantiating evidence and the need for extensive fact-checking, I detail this in my third “fallout” article.

January 2016: Secret side-channel fundraising

In January 2019 (the future!), Daniel Kelly (thewebcomicsreview.tumblr.com) will make a tumblr post detailing how, in January 2016, What Pumpkin contacted him asking for more money.

He signed an NDA that expired, so they were legally allowed to share their experience.

…this is what I was told after I signed it, on January 4th 2016

Hello again!

First of all, thanks for being a Hiveswap backer! We’re working really hard to make sure your patience is rewarded!

As you are well aware, the production of Hiveswap has been mired in a stream of delays. Believe me, it’s been a source of major frustration for us. Partnerships with outside developers didn’t pan out for several reasons and created a budgetary strain on the project. The high quality we expect for the project didn’t materialize with outside developers, either, which leads us to the in-house development structure we have today.

Since making the moves Andrew referred to in his Kickstarter update, development for Hiveswap has been incredibly efficient as well as refreshingly exciting for all of us involved. We’re seeing an amazing game take shape that’ll be at your fingertips in 2016.

In fact, we’re all busy making moves that’ll ensure Homestuck sees a content resurgence next year and beyond. On top of Hiveswap, we’re working on a slate of games to come out in a steady stream over the next five years. Hiveswap is just the beginning!

Outside of games, we’re working with Rufio ((Rufioh??)) himself, Dante Basco, on a suite of digital content so cool it’s hard to keep quiet about. He’s officially a member of the What Pumpkin team while we work on this content.

My job since the beginning has been to bolster this plan and raise the money to execute it. That’s right, we’re raising money. We don’t want to go back to the crowdfunding well. People have already been incredibly generous with their support and have waited a long time for results. This fundraising round is different and includes the potential for investors to share in the success of the company whenever we release a game. We have to put the situation on our backs and move forward.

We’re in the midst of raising these funds (relatively) quietly and creating What Pumpkin Games, a company dedicated to the creation of all this digital goodness.

We’re doing what’s called a Series A round of financing. We feel like we bypassed the typical seed round of funding by virtue of our amazing Kickstarter and the fact that Homestuck is a proven brand. We’re raising $2 million right now to execute the first part of our plan. To be clear, the money we’re raising goes beyond the funding of Hiveswap.

First, I have to interject here: this “proven brand” notion is outright false. All Homestuck had managed to do at this point is delay their game 2 years, lose 2 million dollars, and lie about it to the stakeholders. Nobody had managed to develop even a single successful game, let alone ship it or show profitability. What Pumpkin’s track record consists of lying to the people who paid them and then not delivering a product, which seems like a very poor foundation for asking for more money.

We’ve been focusing on outside investors and investment groups and it occurred to us that our upper tier backers should absolutely be made aware of this campaign in the hopes you’d be excited about investing. It’s not a pledge situation like Kickstarter. You’d be investing in a corporation for equity stake and benefiting directly from the profits of What Pumpkin Games. You’re under no obligation to invest, but we want to make the option available to you!

We’re selling 800 shares of What Pumpkin Games stock at $2500 per share. If you are an accredited investor (link explains what that is, exactly) and are interested in investing, let me know and we can schedule a call or keep the thread going here. Even if you don’t meet the accredited investor criteria, if you know someone who does and would be interested in investing in What Pumpkin Games, please give them my contact information and we’ll talk.

Thanks for your time!

Since I did not have $2500 to blow in 2016, I never responded which probably robs me of some JUICY DEETS I could have held on to until now.

Then Daniel summarizes and cross-references this information. Here’s my summary of that summary:

The Kickstarter update referred to is this one, about how the game had gone 2D.
The “outside developers” are probably the Odd Gentlemen, who were originally supposed to make the game. That they “created a budgetary strain on the project” is probably the closest thing we’ll get to an official statement regarding the “The Odd Gentlemen stole all the money for King’s Quest” story ipgd came out with.
“We’re seeing an amazing game take shape that’ll be at your fingertips in 2016”. Hiveswap: Act 1 released in September 2017 and production on Act 2 stalled out in favour of Friendsim
Dante Basco being involved in Homestuck was a secret at the time. Whatever he was working on (“Homestuck 2.0”) never panned out and he left. There is no indication that Dante Basco was involved in Hiveswap, nor is he credited anywhere as such.
I don’t know a lot about investing in businesses, but skipping the seed funding phase because “Homestuck is a proven brand” seems like a bit of a red flag, as does the fact that they were asking Kickstarter backers for more money in the first place.
The game has been delayed to 2016

So, yeah, that’s the big mystery of the Hiveswap NDA of 2016. They were trying to raise money for Hiveswap and other projects. I have no idea if they were able to raise that money, but the fact that a bunch of people left WP a few months later hints at “no”

This is yet another reminder that Andrew and What Pumpkin continue to be deliberately opaque to fans and backers, and treat Homestuck as a cutthroat business. They literally, unapologetically went back to people who backed the Kickstarter to try to squeeze them for more money, even as Homestuck continued to be a profitable franchise.

February 2016

Forums offline

In March 2016, the MSPA Forums went permanently offline. The only explanation or announcement was this message, which displayed when you tried to access the forums:

Untrue.

According to the MSPA Wiki:

Since March 29th 2016 when Homestuck’s Omegapause ended (two weeks away from the comic’s end), the site went abruptly offline; its main page was initially replaced with a plaintext page claiming that passwords had been compromised, but the forums could still be accessed by typing the urls of the individual subforums. Users flooded the questions subforum looking for answers, but received none. The main page was then replaced by one claiming the site was down for maintenance and a few days later, the entire forums vanished from the website. The site was shown to be closed for maintenance until February 2018, when the domain now redirects to the MS Paint Adventures’ website. In October 2019, it was revealed that the forum’s data got corrupted during one of the many server transfers, and thus all non-archived posts are virtually gone.

Many fan adventures, community projects and miscellaneous posts got lost in the process. After its passing other unofficial communities took its mantle, albeit with smaller userbases. [sic]

What Pumpkin and Andrew Hussie aren’t interested in explaining what happened. For years, the site simply read “Forums temporarily offline”, with no indication as to the problem. The main comic page still linked to the forums all that time, with no indication that they were decommissioned or given up on.

As far as I can tell, Andrew himself never made any official comment about the forums, the issues that led to the entire history and the backups being destroyed, or the choice to not replace the forums in any capacity. Until late 2019, it wasn’t even officially confirmed that the forums were permanently deleted. As for Hiveswap, the guarantee of the backer subforum hasn’t been addressed in any capacity, and won’t be in the future.

The only insight we have to what Hussie currently thinks of the forums, in retrospect (besides Makin’s post here) comes from a dramatic set of emails² linked by /r/homestuck moderator Drew (no relation to Andrew). In these messages Hussie calls interest in the forums “obsession” and “agonizing over every little bit of minutia”. Andrew writes:

Creators usually let go of old sites and outdated work deliberately. Intensive curation of old things like this, while sometimes interesting, can also carry an obsessive energy..¹.

For the purposes of this article, though, the important point here is that the promised subforum for backer updates never happened, and since the MSPA forum was permanently destroyed in March 2016, it never will.

May 2016: RJ 4chan post

According to this post from rj on a 4chan /co/ homestuck thread:

I love how opaque they are about the development process. This means they have spent years doing literally nothing save maybe hitting dead end after dead end

This game is beyond doomed

ok yawn im staying up all night i guess so i’m going to rebuke this because whatever.

i can’t say a lot, but i can say for a true fact that the game has been solidly worked on the entire time at the very least since it moved in house. lots of really insane roadblocks happened along the way, and i’m at liberty to talk about none of it. i can say this: the man gives a shit and the team is putting heart, soul, and a+++ work into something that you’ll probably like.

it’s obvious that the final game is vastly different than what was originally hoped for. that’s not the team or hussie’s fault. maybe there will be a tell all in the future, ala the whole lionhead thing. you’d probably find it fascinating.

point is the game will at least be -good.- do you like point and clicks? did you like broken age? you’ll probably dig it, even in its current form. maybe it won’t be an earthshattering experience the likes of which the world has never seen before, but it’ll be worth playing, at least.

god i wish professional and human courtesy (there are things i know even i shouldn’t know) didnt keep me from telling you all some things because what’s going on is, again, entirely not wp’s fault. nobody on the team is really to blame for the hardship. at this point, including money that’s been lost due to merch cost and other reasons, the game has gone way over its 2 million budget and is being funded basically out of pocket. the fact that it wasn’t straight up cancelled is a testament to the sheer fortitude of what pumpkin.

for the record: i’m not directly involved in the making of this game. nothing is personally at stake here, even career shit. i could probably shit on the game if i wanted. but i don’t. i just want to set this straight i guess.

it does fucking suck for everyone, backers especially. at the very least i learned some important mistakes to avoid when i crowdfund from it, so that’s cool?

This is signed by “rj” as in Robert J! Lake (“rj lake” or “spellbang”), known for his work on the music team.

RJ is one of the few people who doesn’t blame What Pumpkin or Andrew for the issues. He does, though, reveal that the game has gone over budget despite being funded at more than three times the original goal, and implies that Andrew (and What Pumpkin) have been funding development at a loss. While that would be impressive if What Pumpkin didn’t have obligations to fulfil and were just developing a game for profit, it does at least confirm that the money from the Kickstarter is definitely used up.

This still doesn’t make sense, though, since Homestuck is still a multi-million dollar brand that’s continually generating revenue from merchandise, books, and music. Maybe when RJ says “funded basically out of pocket”, he means it’s being funded with that money. That’s somewhat misleading, because it still shouldn’t be the case that Andrew is “in the red” from Homestuck.

June 2016: Hiveswap leak

There was some leaked 3D Hiveswap material put on 4chan. It’s an animation demo reel, similar to Hiveswap Friends, showing some lower-resolution 3D characters and some of their animations.

August 2016: Homestuck 2.0

John E Warren ♿️🤠@FloppyAdult
We've been loading up on Homestuck YouTube content the past few weeks -- looking forward to posting that stuff soon.
Mon Aug 15 23:07:27 +0000 2016

John Warren (now from Fanbyte) promises a bunch of “Homestuck 2.0” YouTube content that never happens. Assuming John isn’t lying here, that means the content was produced and written, but never published, for unknown reasons.

October 2016

Tech Coast Angels side-channel fundraising

Remember thewebcomicsreview’s story about being solicited for further fundraising? It turns out that’s not where it ended.

In October 2016, What Pumpkin had a private venture capital seed round. They offered to sell up to $500,000 of What Pumpkin Games, and ended up selling $325K This was all to one party, the “Tech Coast Angels”, a US-based angel investing firm (a kind of venture capital, where one firm will invest money into a business for a share, which it hopes to sell later at a profit, after the company appreciates in value.). Apparently none of the prior attempts at soliciting individuals for investment were successful, as TCA was the sole investor in the round.

Throughout 2017, TCA would internally promote What Pumpkin Games, until exiting in 2018 and reporting a return on investment.

New release date edited into website

The Hiveswap website quietly edited so a newspost contains the following announcement:

Hiveswap: Act 1 will be released January 2017. Follow us at @hiveswapgame for further updates.

Hiveswap: Act 1 is delayed to January 2017. There was significant confusion over the roundabout nature of the announcement:

After almost a year with very little updates (I think, I wasn’t paying too much attention during this time), hiveswap.com edits a years-old newspost to say that the game will be released January 2017. No one has any idea if it’s legit. A What Pumpkin employee seemed to confirm the news but later deleted their post.

Chuck Tingle Dating Simulator

At some point in 2016, Cohen Edenfield (Hiveswap writer) and John Warren (Homestuck 2.0, Fanbyte) were working on Chuck Tingle Dating Simulator, a full motion video visual novel directed by Zoë Quinn (of gamergate (in)fame) revolving around the stories of Chuck Tingle, who is probably not secretly Andrew writing erotic novels behind a pseudonym and elaborate fake persona, as some have speculated.³ Chuck Tingle Dating Simulator was funded on Kickstarter in 2016 with a release date of 2017. As of writing, the game never released, but it also hasn’t been formally cancelled yet either.

New trailer

The Homestuck Official Youtube account posts a trailer for Hiveswap: Act 1, featuring the new 2D art style.

Homestuck Ends

The credits page is posted to mspaintadventures.org. Homestuck is officially over, except for the epilogues, which Andrew says will come eventually.

In theory, the hard copies of Homestuck that Andrew owes the Kickstarter backers can now be produced and distributed, although as far as I’m aware there has been absolutely zero official mention of this. That backer reward technically isn’t due until all four acts of Hiveswap are finished and the hard copies are sent out. Hard copies were due to ship in 2014 but it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen any time soon.

December 2016: Steam Greenlight

Update #23

Please head over to the page and vote YES so we can get the game approved for Steam as quick as possible, since our planned launch is still January 2017—next month!

Because Steam Greenlight was still a thing (it wouldn’t be fully discontinued until June 2017), What Pumpkin put Hiveswap: Act 1 on it and invited people to vote to let their game on the Steam platform. The targeted release date was January 2017, next month. (This was not a delay, as it matches the information from October)

The page features the recently-released trailer for Act 1, which should have been posted here first, but wasn’t! An unfortunate oversight on our part.

This was also the release of an updated game trailer that used the new 2D art assets. In theory, the trailer would have been posted to the Kickstarter feed some time in the last year, but that wasn’t done (possibly because the trailer was only recently completed?)

There were also a few previews of new music tracks by James Roach (Toby Fox did not contribute to this selection) and an announcement that Hiveswap merch was available on the WeLoveFine store.

Finally, we just want to thank everyone for sticking around. Lots of ups and down, but we’re ALMOST THERE. We’ll be posting another trailer before launch, and this time, backers will see it before anyone else. We promise we haven’t forgotten who made this all possible. We’ll also be answering queries about changed emails and addresses soon, so have no fear!

The game was successfully greenlit before the end of the month.

The very next day, a second post was made mostly announcing an extra album (with the James Roach music) would also be available for Kickstarter backers.

As of this post, we’ve reached #2 (and climbing) of all projects on Greenlight…ALREADY! And HIVESWAP is on the front of the Steam Community page! Wow. Thank you all so much! Where doing this, man.

We will be answering queries about changed emails and physical addresses soon! And we’ve seen some other questions, so just to clarify: When the decision was made to release the game in multiple Acts, backers were assured that they would still be getting ALL episodes of HIVESWAP and each episode’s official soundtrack. This hasn’t changed!

Because it had been several years already since the Kickstarter target date of 2014, address changes were becoming a frequent issue. (There is no mention of long-term shipping goals, like the physical edition of the 4-act set or the physical copy of the Homestuck comic.)

Well, that’s not true. It has changed…for the better. Backers will also be getting THE GRUBBLES ALBUM, announced here for the first time, before it’s available anywhere else!

The Grubbles Album is a small five-track game tie-in album with re-recorded “troll” garage band music. Originally, The Grubbles was available on Bandcamp for $5.00, and its tracks were not included with the $7.99 soundtrack album. This would change.

January 2017: Update, from Andrew

Update #26 (Backers only)

(Confusingly, this update was explicitly marked as “From Andrew”. The first few updates were signed “Andrew” at the bottom, but some subsequent updates weren’t, which may have been written by other What Pumpkin staff. All news posts are published under the general project author name “MSPaintAdventures”, so this isn’t clear. Also confusingly, this was first posted on the MSPA news feed in January, but only released as a “backers only” Kickstarter post in February.)

Status of Hiveswap: the game is just about done. It could still use some more testing to be absolutely certain we are not releasing a buggy piece of shit! To that end it will be worth waiting another several weeks or so.

This is to say that the (very ambitious) release date of January 2017 hadn’t been met, and Hiveswap is again delayed indefinitely.

Thank you as always for your legendary patience.

Regarding questions about physical addresses, for those who backed at the relevant tiers: Physical mailing address updates are not necessary at this time. We will be releasing HIVESWAP: Act 1 in digital form soon. The physical version of HIVESWAP will ship after all Acts are complete.

One more reminder here at the end confirming physical editions of Hiveswap are still to be shipped out. What Pumpkin here says not to worry about updating your address (as the extended delay meant many people’s physical address had changed) because nothing was going to be shipped for a while, yet.

April 2017: Trailer 2

Update #27 (Backers only)

Hey everyone, Cohen here, creative director and head writer for Hiveswap.

This update is brought to us by Cohen Edenfield, the (new) Creative Director and Lead Writer/Scripter for Hiveswap. It’s another trailer in the new 2D artstyle, plus minor notes.

August 2017: Release date

Update #29

Hiveswap: Act 1 is delayed to September 14.

There is also a new launch trailer.

September 2017: A busy month!

PAX West Demo

In early September, there is a playable demo of Hiveswap available at PAX West (at the WeLoveFine booth.)

Act 1 Release

Update #30 (Public)

HIVESWAP: Act 1 goes live on the Steam and Humble Store at 2PM EDT!

September 12, 2017: A Kickstarter update reminds everyone that Hiveswap launched on Steam. They also remind backers that signed, physical copies of the game will not be mailed out until all four acts of Hiveswap are finished and released.

Hiveswap: Act 1 (possibly subtitled “Kansas City Shuffle”??? this is never made clear) was developed and published by What Pumpkin Games, inc. and released for $7.99. A version that included the game soundtrack was also available for $11.99.

Act 1 received positive reviews on Steam and from reviewers like MetaCritic. In my opinion, it’s a solid game, and the new 2D artstyle is gorgeous and suits the material well.

To date, Hiveswap: Act 1 has sold between 100,000 and 200,000 copies. Of Steam games released in 2017, Hiveswap ranks #4470, above Doki Doki Literature Club, just under Bendy and the Ink Machine, and several spots beneath SCP: Secret Laboratory, Creativerse, and Realm Grinder.

In the announcement when WP NYC was dissolved, there was this note about the 3D work:

At some point I think I would like to gather all the 3D stuff that was done and present it as an interesting behind the scenes look at the history of this project, so people can appreciate the work the NYC team did. Perhaps at the very least this could be some nice bonus material for backers when the game comes out.

This certainly never happened.

There were some immediate issues with feature completeness, though. The Kickstarter stretch goals that were reached included linux support (at $900k) and English, French, Italian, German, and Spanish language support (at $1m) but launched with neither.⁴ Also on the stretch goals (at $1.5m) was “All backers can beta test adventure game.” Of course, the $1.5m goal was reached, but this beta test, of course, never happened. None of this was (to my knowledge) ever publicly addressed or acknowledged.

Crediting and Art Theft

EDIT: After this article was published, Andrew Hussie sent emails in which he directly confessed to explicitly denying select WP employees credit in games because he disliked them personally, explicitly confirming these concerns.

The release of Hiveswap: Act 1 is also the biggest Hiveswap scandal that nobody talks about. The full in-game credits for Hiveswap: Act 1 is this single bitmap texture:

for a fun game you can play at home, count how many times Andrew Hussie credits himself

This list only includes people who worked on Hiveswap after the December 2015 restructuring. No credit is given to any of the employees of What Pumpkin NYC (except for the single employee who stayed) for any of the work done, even though a lot of that work was used to make the final version. In some cases, assets What Pumpkin NYC designed are used in the final game directly, but still none of the work done by ex-employees is properly credited to them.

For instance, see how the level and environment design⁵ in the final game matches up with the WP NYC prototypes almost exactly, just redrawn in 2D. It’s pretty blatant, it’s basically the game development equivalent of traced art:

(Left: prototype WP NYC designs. Right: final game.)

Significant portions of the cutscenes were also written and choreographed by WP NYC and simply redrawn by the later team. These environments, levels, cutscenes, UI, and more were designed by the What Pumpkin NYC team and simply re-stylized in 2D, and yet Andrew denied all of the original artists and designers credit. And, of course, WLF sold Hiveswap: Act 1 merch with designs done exclusively by the WP NYC team, again, completely uncredited.

According to a source from WP NYC, this wasn’t something that flew under the radar: this was brought up multiple times with Andrew Hussie himself, who refused to credit the artists for their work. They said it “came as a huge surprise” that he didn’t have any sympathy about this as an artist.

From what we heard about the studio transition, though, it seems like this was actually planned and anticipated. From the “a new look” update,

over the last year we have actually stockpiled a massive amount of incredible 2D art assets that are still perfectly usable, and will still make it into the game.

So it seems like What Pumpkin always planned on using work staff at What Pumpkin NYC did, but they apparently weren’t planning on keeping them on the team, paying them severance, or crediting them for it.

To be clear, I don’t think there’s a legal issue here, or some shady trick to get around compensating the artists. Everything here was almost⁶ certainly paid work done under contract that What Pumpkin owns the rights to, wholesale.

Proper crediting is incredibly important in the entertainment industry; credit is what allows developers and artists to build a resume, which directly impacts their ability to be employed in the future. “In this business, it’s basically, ‘You’re only as good as your last project,’ so if you’re unable to speak about your projects, it’s very much a hard thing to get out there.” That’s a quote from Alexander Fernandez in this excellent polygon article about white label game development, a controversial practice where games are contracted out to studios who do work with the understanding that they won’t be credited for the final product. But what happened here is far worse than that; What Pumpkin employees didn’t sign up to do uncredited work; they expected to be credited and just weren’t. This is off-the-charts bad. What happened with What Pumpkin NYC was egregiously offensive and unprofessional behavior, especially for an artist-driven project like Homestuck.

What Pumpkin would later comment on the points raised in this article with several statements that directly contradict other testimony.

Hiveswap: Act 1 Review

Since this whole article is about Hiveswap, I suppose I should try to describe the one playable bit of Hiveswap in a little bit of detail. This is mostly for readers who haven’t played Act 1 or want a refresher, you can skip it if you’d like.

The design of the game itself is amazing. The art is gorgeous, the world is really playful and fun, and the writing is great. Some of the animations aren’t as smooth as they might be, but I think it works as a stylistic choice. The writing is great, I’ll repeat: there’s a ton of detail and most of the different adventure-gamey item combinations have unique dialogue. It’s astonishing how many different item combinations have unique dialogue, the jokes are funny, it’s just very tight.

The only problem is that the actual gameplay feels… janky? Just unpolished. It’s generally tricky to move where you want to go, the buttons have odd bounding boxes, and it just doesn’t feel great to play, from a programming standpoint. There are lots of little janky programming things, like the menu with a “Save Game” option but no “Load Game” option, and the cursor not indicating whether or not things are interactable at points. There’s a single snake minigame (the Nokia one, not a cool serpent pal) that’s repeated twice and feels like a my-first-unity tutorial project, and really nothing else. It really feels like the actual programming of the game was rushed and sloppy. I’ll admit I’m editorializing here, obviously, and my game design work probably makes me more sensitive to issues like that.

There’s also nothing particularly clever about it, outside of the writing. In a lot of ways, it mimics the semiotics of Homestuck without introducing any clever new ideas, or even reusing Homestuck’s material.

For instance, Homestuck has this incredibly memorable inventory system, where inventory items are stored and retrieved on irregularly shaped cards based on different data structures. In the comic, this is played for laughs, puzzles, and character development. Hiveswap: Act 1 has an inventory system that… uses the irregular shape of the card. No behaviour, no puzzle, no gags, no charm, just a straight inventory system with a “wacky Homestuck” coat of paint. They even use that shape for assets that don’t make any sort of thematic sense, like menu buttons.

I’m not going to critique every single asset and design choice in the game here, but you can safely take this dynamic and apply it to the rest of the \~4 hour game. It really is just a coat of paint, it’s like they went “haha, funny shapes” but a lot of what made Homestuck fun and charming flew over their heads. The game is fine, but doesn’t hold up on its own when compared to its source material, in my opinion.

Cohen Interview

On September 13, 2017, an “interview” was posted to the What Pumpkin Tumblr page in which Cohen interviews themself about Hiveswap.

Today we’re talking to Cohen Edenfield, that is to say, me. Hi. We’re all pretty busy at the moment, with the release in <22 hours and everything, but I managed to get this handled.

What is your specific role on the Hiveswap team?

I have two full-time jobs on HIVESWAP: Creative Director and Lead Writer/Scripter. As Creative Director, I’ve worked with my team leads Angela, Rah, James and Tauhid and with our programmers to, well, “realize a creative vision.” I give notes, feedback, and broad-strokes direction on pretty much everything on the project, which I’m able to do because I can count on the expertise of the team leads doing an amazing job. I can bring them a rough, sketchy description of the overall “feel” that a piece of music or animation or art needs, and be confident that they’ll spin my straw into gold and make something beautiful. I’ll ask Tauhid for a new UI specific to Alternia, with the vague direction that it use hexagons instead of circles, or I’ll ask Angela for moving clouds, or I’ll ask Rah for a new close-up of a sexy lamp, and I know they’ll get it done. And I’ll ask James for an “8-bit college football fight song,” because he does great work, and because I want to hurt him on a spiritual level.

…

Which brings us, I guess, to my other full-time job, Lead Writer/Scripter, which includes narration, dialogue, item descriptions, etc…I wrote about 150,000 words, all together, if you’re really taking your time, trying different dialogue paths, and actually trying to use everything on everything else. If you’re not, it’s considerably less, but it’s in there.

As for the story, the broad narrative strokes of Act 1 and some specific plot beats were mapped out before I came on board, but in 2+ years of development there’s naturally been some substantial reworking and rearranging to refine things from both a gameplay and a narrative perspective. The characters have changed a fair bit, both to suit a different overall tone and because things change over the course of two years. Andrew looks the finished stuff over, and gives feedback on it, and we make changes as needed. I’ve relied a lot on his storytelling and characterization expertise. I may have penned the current script, but we wrote this game together.

…

When and how did you get your start on the Hiveswap project?

In May 2015 I got an email from Andrew asking if I’d be interested in doing some freelance writing on what I then thought of as the “Homestuck Adventure Game.” I’ve been reading Andrew’s various stuff since like…2003? We used to post on the same forum, so it was this kind of “oh right, hey, I think I know you, actually” moment. I’d finished my Masters in English Lit three days before, and I was looking for freelance work, so the timing couldn’t have been better.

…

How did you get your start in creative direction?

As we restructured the studio to our current remote-working situation, Andrew and I had a lot of talks about what HIVESWAP should actually look like. We kept going back to the gorgeous concept art by Gina and Mallory, and we realized that while the 3D development work that had been done was good, it really didn’t feel like Homestuck. The concept art, the 2D assets… those felt like Homestuck.

There’s one particular discrepancy with Cohen that I’ll mention here. They say here they joined the team in May 2015, which matches up with the timeline: What Pumpkin became the studio in summer 2015, and so Cohen would have been hired soon after as part of WP NYC. Cohen stayed on the team even after WP NYC was dissolved, was promoted to Lead Writer, and wrote the script for the game. That all adds up.

What I can’t reconcile is Update 2 from 2014, where Andrew says the writing for the game is finished. Was there a full script for the game written in 2014 that was later discarded? Assuming that update is true, it sounds like — in addition to all the 3D work — at least one full script for the game was written and discarded. Anyway, for a studio that seems incredibly tight on funds, What Pumpkin sure does end up having to redo a lot of work for no apparent reason.

Hiveswap: Act 1 OST commentary

In late September, Cohen posted commentary to the What Pumpkin tumblr blog written by James Roach and Toby Fox, the composers of the Act 1 soundtrack.

Part 1, Part 2

Although this is official commentary, it doesn’t seem to have been preserved by What Pumpkin in any format.

Viz Media deal

On September 14, 2017, Andrew posted a news post announcing a partnership with Viz Media:

What Pumpkin and Homestuck are partnering with Viz Media to work on a lot of cool stuff together in the future. This will include projects based on both the Homestuck and Hiveswap worlds. The possibilities are wide open, but here are a couple examples of things we know we’re going to work on already…

Viz will begin releasing the Homestuck books again, starting next year. These will be nice new hardcover editions, and the plan is to just keep turning out volumes until the entire story is in print. Each volume will be full of my Secret Notes just like the previous ones were. Viz will also be involved in the release of the mysterious epilogue project I alluded to a while ago. Details on format, release date, etc, will remain undisclosed until further notice, but you can expect more information about that to surface next year too. I wanted to do something a little unusual for it, something existing outside the confines of the web story. Working with Viz struck me as good opportunity for this. [sic]

Aside from that, anything can happen. Take a look at the sorts of things Viz has already published or produced. These are all examples of things on the table for future consideration for either Homestuck or Hiveswap. I’ve got plenty of ideas, and so do they. Maybe you do too??

To put it simply, what’s happening here is What Pumpkin is selling licensing rights of the text of the Homestuck comic to Viz, so Viz can republish the work. The details — what rights were sold, and under what conditions — were never explained and remain unclear. There are a number of ways this could go, but the first format they point out is a printed book series. (It will later turn out that Viz has an outsized influence in the internals of What Pumpkin far beyond just publishing and the comic’s IP.)

Andrew mentions “Viz releasing the Homestuck books again”, here, which is somewhat misleading. TopatoCo had already released the first few of a series of Homestuck books, but that series never finished. Unlike the wording of the news post suggests, Viz Media was never involved in the original books. Also, the first of the Viz books is just a direct copy of the TopatoCo series, albeit with additional misprints, somehow. It’s good that Viz is going to finish the Homestuck print run, though, and some fans were excited about that, until later.

There was also an announcement from Viz Media in which they summarize much the same thing, although their post has this blurb from Andrew Hussie about how great Hiveswap is:

“Fans have been looking forward to this for a long time, and I don’t think they’ll be disappointed. Personally speaking, I think it’s the best adventure game I’ve ever played,” says Andrew Hussie, HOMESTUCK creator and co-founder at What Pumpkin Games. “I’m excited to team up with VIZ Media to expand on the world of HOMESTUCK, and work closely with them on a bunch of new projects involving both HOMESTUCK and HIVESWAP.”

Shortly after, Viz formally announced the “Collector’s Edition” deluxe hardcover series of Homestuck books with author commentary by Andrew.

In the capital timeline, this falls just a year after the $325K venture capital round, which lasted for approximately two years, and included the Act 1 greenlight and game release.

Viz Involvement in Hiveswap: Act 1

Several weeks after this article was initially published, Viz responded to my request for comment with this email:

Hi,

Thank you for taking the time to write in with your inquiry, many apologies for our delayed response!

While VIZ Media is no longer involved with Hiveswap, you can contact Fellow Traveler Games[sic] with any questions you may have about Hiveswap here: https://fellowtraveller.games/contact/

You can also learn more about Hiveswap Act 2 here: https://fellowtraveller.games/games/hiveswap-act-2/

If you have any additional questions, please don’t hesitate to write us again.

Take care,

[C] @ VIZ Media

Now, this is odd. C says here that Viz is “no longer” involved with Hiveswap, implying that it was, at some point.

But this implication doesn’t match the timeline or any of the data: Act 1 released on September 12, but the Viz announcement wasn’t until the 14th. If Viz media was involved in the release of Hiveswap Act 1, it was done entirely in secret.

After a brief back-and-forth over a few days interspersed with generic customer service niceties and links to various news announcements, I gleaned the following semi-clarifications from a rotation of people:

As [C] mentioned, we worked with the game developer What Pumpkin to release the first part of Hiveswap in 2017. We have had no involvement with the game since this launch. Thanks!

Best regards,

[L] @ VIZ

As [C] & [L] have mentioned, all the publicly-available information is in the press announcement on our website. What Pumpkin developed the Hiveswap Act 1 game, and VIZ, Homestuck and What Pumpkin worked together to release the game. Since the game launched, we have not been involved in the game.

…

[J] @ VIZ

We do not have any additional information we are able to share on our involvement beyond what has already been released and mentioned in the press releases. We are no longer involved in Hiveswap and any further inquiries should be directed toward the companies still working on the release.

Thank you so much for writing in! I hope you find the information you’re looking for.

Best,

[L] @ VIZ

I’m still not entirely sure what to make of this. The only thing that suggests that Viz was involved in the release of Hiveswap: Act 1 was the assertion in this email chain. Viz doesn’t seem to have ever been involved in the release, publication, or marketing of the game, outside mentioning the game’s existence alongside its announcement days after the game launched. And, although all three representatives agree that Viz has not been involved with Hiveswap since the launch, the one case in which we do know Viz was involved with the management of What Pumpkin Games doesn’t happen until April 2018, several months later. It’s possible this is what they’re referring to.

So… did Viz have some sort of involvement in Act 1? My answer is… maybe?! They certainly say they did, although they’re not willing to elaborate on that assertion at all. It’s possible more details will come to light about this in the future, but for now this remains a bizarrely unresolved thread.

Hardcover Edition Fact Sheet

When Viz media does begin releasing the books to booksellers, they include a fact sheet that reads:

Releases 4 times a year for 5+ volumes. Series is ongoing. The main run of the comic lasted for 7 years, from 2009-2016, comprising over 8,000 pages of material and 4 hours of video. Further content is currently in development.

Over 1,000,000 users a day visited the hosting site, MS Paint Adventures, during the height of the Homestuck serialization. To date the comic has over 2,500,000,000 pageviews.

The Homestuck Official YouTube channel has over 3,200,000 views.

Homestuck has spawned innumerable fanworks in all genres-art, fiction, music, videos, crafts, cosplay, etc.-along with live fan events all over the world.

The first episode of an independent video game series set in the Homestuck universe will release on Steam in Q4 2017. The initial Kickstarter campaign for the game raised $2,500,000, more than half a million dollars within the first 24 hours.

This seems to have been for internal use, but some stores listed it as-is, or only changed it slightly. This was probably unintentional, but gives us some insight.

One notable thing here is yet another confirmation that the crowdfunding campaign raised at least $2.5 million. There’s also a reminder that part of the monetary value of the Homestuck brand is its fandom popularity and many fanworks. It’s often easy to forget that Homestuck is a business that directly profits off engagement, but it’s true.

Next: more games, more books, more distress.

I find this particularly amusing, because “intensive curation of old things” is exactly what I’m forced to do for this article just to put a story together. I don’t know, if I had made a ton of financial promises that I wasn’t keeping, I wouldn’t want anybody paying attention, either. ↩
I… do not recommend the average person read the leaked emails. It’s part of a very different, very childish melodrama that falls far beyond the scope of this article. But, for the sake of citing my sources, this document and its attribution can be found here. ↩
To be overwhelmingly clear, I mean this exactly as written. This isn’t sarcasm, I think the theory is false. It’s just funny.

In fact, Chuck Tingle himself is pretty anti-Hiveswap.

Chuck Tingle@ChuckTingle
watched video on homestuck hiveswap. it was interesting but brought reminder of why i am sour to be subjected to 'we think you are andrew hussie' when someone at hiveswap way called chuck autism roleplay and has still has not apologized. i do not know this company but i know that
Thu Jul 01 17:25:12 +0000 2021

Chuck Tingle@ChuckTingle
to be honest i am still not entirely sure what 'homestuck' or 'hiveswap' even is (buds say its a webcomic and then link me and i think, still think what the heck is this?) but i do know what the writers and financial advisors have said about chucks way and it is pretty dang gross
Fri Dec 22 16:19:19 +0000 2023

Adult Beefswelling@PumaFetish
Chuck tingle is transparently and without question Andrew Hussie
Fri Oct 25 23:45:00 +0000 2024

Chuck Tingle@ChuckTingle
absolutely not and the people involved with hiveswap have treated me terribly and made fun of and gatekept my autism
Fri Oct 25 23:49:58 +0000 2024

↩
A caveat here about Linux support: When Act 1 launched on steam it was only available on Windows and Mac. Apparently at some point they went back and added the linux builds to steam without any sort of announcement. Since it was a stock unity game, making a linux build is relatively easy, so it’s entirely possible they just misconfigured Steam on launch day. ↩
You may note here that some of the visible carry-over between the 2D and 3D versions comes from shared concept art. Most of the concept art in update 16 was drawn by bleaksqueak, who was not credited in the update post, but is credited in the final game under “Concept Art.” It wouldn’t be fair to point to, say, the portal device design in Act 1 and accuse What Pumpkin of art theft over that, because it isn’t. Not every similarity is automatically an act of impropriety; some are harmless outliers. That being said, there is still a lot of uncredited work done by WPNYC in the final product, so I wouldn’t let this distract you too much from the main point. ↩
I know James Roach and other Homestuck musicians have mentioned in the past that they do retain rights to their songs, but license them to Homestuck, which is an unusual arrangement. If What Pumpkin were willing to do this in other places, it could make issues like this much more complicated. However, Homestuck only seems to do this with music contributions, so I still think it very unlikely that there would be any direct rights issues over the WP NYC assets. ↩

Accountability on Kickstarter

2020-10-03T12:30:00-05:00

This section was originally included in the main body of The Hiveswap Fiasco but I decided it was distinct enough to move it to its own aside page.

A quick note here about how Kickstarter works. This may seem excessive to litigate now, but as you’ll read shortly, it’s unfortunately surprisingly relevant. When a Kickstarter project succeeds, backers pay the creator directly, not Kickstarter — Kickstarter takes a cut, but the transaction is between the backer and the creator. For this reason, Kickstarter doesn’t guarantee refunds.

However, Kickstarter is not a blind donation based on trust alone: creators are legally obligated to fulfill backers. From Kickstarter’s own accountability FAQ:

Is a creator legally obligated to fulfill the promises of their project?

Yes. Kickstarter’s Terms of Use require creators to fulfill all rewards of their project or refund any backer whose reward they do not or cannot fulfill. (This is what creators see before they launch.) We crafted these terms to create a legal requirement for creators to follow through on their projects, and to give backers a recourse if they don’t. We hope that backers will consider using this provision only in cases where they feel that a creator has not made a good faith effort to complete the project and fulfill.

This is a summary of section 4 of the Kickstarter Terms of Use,¹ which reads:

When a project is successfully funded, the creator must complete the project and fulfill each reward. Once a creator has done so, they’ve satisfied their obligation to their backers.

Throughout the process, creators owe their backers a high standard of effort, honest communication, and a dedication to bringing the project to life. At the same time, backers must understand that they’re not buying something when they back a project—they’re helping to create something new, not ordering something that already exists. There may be changes or delays, and there’s a chance something could happen that prevents the creator from being able to finish the project as promised.

If a creator is unable to complete their project and fulfill rewards, they’ve failed to live up to the basic obligations of this agreement. To right this, they must make every reasonable effort to find another way of bringing the project to the best possible conclusion for backers.

The creator is solely responsible for fulfilling the promises made in their project. If they’re unable to satisfy the terms of this agreement, they may be subject to legal action by backers.

Now, if a project fails and goes bankrupt, they obviously can’t fulfill their obligations. Kickstarter projects fail all the time. However, there are concrete, legal obligations on creators of successfully funded projects, as long as they’re capable of doing so. Or, if there’s a reason that the final product can’t be completed, (non-bankrupt) project creators are obligated to refund their backers. Note that there are two obligations here: between the creator and Kickstarter, the company, and between the creator and the project backers.

So, in the case of the Homestuck Kickstarter, “MS Paint Adventures” is legally obligated by both Kickstarter and the project backers to deliver the promised game and merchandise to the project’s backers. But hopefully it won’t come to that, right?

I’m reading from the latest version of the Kickstarter terms of use here even though the Homestuck Kickstarter was launched under an earlier revision. That shouldn’t affect anything, though, because continued use of the service constitutes agreement to the updated rules. Users both are currently subject to the latest version of the terms and were subject to what was the current version of the terms at time of publication. ↩

The Hiveswap Fiasco – 2012-2015

2020-10-03T12:00:00-05:00

The real “story” of Hiveswap isn’t found in the universe of the game. Instead, when people talk about Hiveswap, the conversation is dominated by stories about the development and history of the game as a project, which started as a Kickstarter success story but then bounced from scandal to scandal for years. The story of how Andrew Hussie burned through a $2.5 million dollar investment over eight years to produce almost nothing is fascinating, convoluted, and poorly understood especially among newer Homestuck fans.

Right now, this meta-story mostly exists in the form of oral history. This is probably due to the fact that a lot of the key sources have now been deleted, but I think it’s also because it feels premature to write up a “postmortem” on a game’s development before it’s even an eighth of the way finished. Not canceled, just… in limbo. There is also significant pressure on people in the know — even fans who just lived through backing the project — to keep quiet about all this, for reasons I’ll get into.

I’m documenting the story so far so that the Hiveswap Story isn’t lost to time, and so there’s a decent summary of events so far, and maybe even so new Hiveswap fans can catch up. I dug through every page, announcement, interview, blog post, FAQ, and tweet I could find, and the culmination is this the most comprehensive — as far as I can tell — explanation of Hiveswap to date.

Throughout this article, emphasis within blockquotes is usually mine. I may in some cases add anchorlinks (dotted) as cross-references.

Disclaimer: While I have done my best to verify everything in this article, it’s entirely possible I got something wrong or missed something significant. If so, please let me know so I can make the relevant corrections.

Neither What Pumpkin nor Viz Media would respond to requests for comment. I’ve contacted them repeatedly, including after this article was published and members of the staff explicitly expressed concern over parts of this article, but they continue to refuse comment. Snake Solutions did respond to comment, but only to tell me to stylize Homestuck^2 as “homestuck 2”, which I am not going to do.

As part of my research I had the opportunity to speak with former employees from What Pumpkin Studios, but they wished to remain anonymous. (Likely due in part to due to fears of retaliation, due to What Pumpkin’s history of aggressive litigation against whistleblowing or other perceived criticism.) Some tips were submitted anonymously but then researched.

Executive Summary

This is a long article, so if you’re looking for something you can read in a few seconds, here it is.

In 2012, Andrew Hussie launched a Kickstarter for an adventure game based on his hit webcomic Homestuck. (x) The Kickstarter campaign was a massive success and raised $2.5 million. According to the original plans, the game (called Hiveswap) would be designed by What Pumpkin (Andrew’s company) and developed by a third party development studio (The Odd Gentlemen) and launched in 2014. (x) After repeated delays, What Pumpkin ditched The Odd Gentlemen (possibly due to some shady business (x)) and moved to in-house development, setting up an office (“What Pumpkin NYC”) in New York City. (x) What Pumpkin NYC continued development during most of 2015, until they were dissolved in favour of a completely different team doing exclusively remote work. The new team worked on a version of the game with a completely different art style, meaning years of work had to be discarded. (x)

Hiveswap was released in 2017, building off the work done by WP NYC but completely failing to credit them for their work. (x) Andrew Hussie sold Homestuck to Viz Media, a publishing giant with the resources to finish Hiveswap. (x) Viz Media sabotaged Hiveswap instead. (x) What Pumpkin continued to work on other for-profit games — instead of Hiveswap — that didn’t go towards fulfilling Kickstarter obligations. (x) Some of the new games cannibalized work that was meant for Act 2. (x) In 2019, What Pumpkin released a brief trailer for Act 2. (x) For a while What Pumpkin siphoned money from a Patreon account for an indie comic to spend on Hiveswap development, (x) but they’ve paused that since the comic itself has gone on indefinite hiatus. (x) Act 2 was released with significant controversy over accessibility issues and the game intentionally not crediting its artists. (x) Then Andrew buggered off. (x)

At present, What Pumpkin continues to work on for-profit projects while neglecting their obligations on Hiveswap. Despite not being bankrupt and having major investment, they refuse to produce Hiveswap OR give refunds to backers. It is hideous behaviour. (x)

Read the ending summary.

September 2012

The Kickstarter Campaign

On September 4, 2012, Andrew Hussie launched a Kickstarter project for a point-and-click adventure game based on his comic, Homestuck.

MSPaintAdventures had always been inspired by adventure games (like King’s Quest), even in its stories before Homestuck. As the Kickstarter campaign post explained:

Homestuck, like all other stories on MS Paint Adventures, was built on extensive parody of video games, most notably classic adventure games. The “mock adventure game” format has driven the creation of every page in the story, often with readers supplying commands for what the characters should do next. So for the project after Homestuck, I think it would not only be fitting, but quite exciting to present the story in the form of an actual adventure game. …
When [Homestuck is] complete, I’ll work with an independent game developer to create a game involving a new story based within the Homestuck universe—assuming this project is funded, of course. The readers, through their participation, have helped make Homestuck what it has become. They may continue to participate in Homestuck’s evolution by helping to fund this project!

The scope of the game was drafted out very roughly; it would be “like a spinoff” “based on homestuck” in a “shorter, self-contained story”. What Pumpkin (the company that handled homestuck merch) would be “working with an experienced game developer” for the development of the actual game. Once game development began, backers would get weekly updates.

The total funding goal of the project was $700,000. For $15, you could get a digital copy of the game, which was set to release some time in 2014. (Remember those numbers.)

(If you go to the live link on Kickstarter and scroll down to “Risks and challenges”, the field is empty, which is humorous in retrospect, but that’s just due to the Homestuck Kickstarter predating that field. No issue there.)

There was a very wide range of tiers available that included various combinations of merchandise (some exclusive to the Kickstarter, some not), the game, and the soundtrack. I’ll note a few of them here that are representative of the selection:

$15: A digital download of the game
$25: A digital download of the game plus the game soundtrack
$55: Game, soundtrack, and a physical print
$75: A limited-run physical edition of the game, signed by Andrew Hussie
$100: The game, a shirt, some stickers, and some enamel pins
$250: The game, a plushie, a tote bag, a shirt, some stickers, and some enamel pins

This was also the literal peak of the famously passionate Homestuck internet fandom. It was the perfect storm.

The project made its entire $700,000 goal within 32 hours.

As the project kept generating interest and support, they introduced stretch goals for the game, promising the extra funds would go to “higher production values.” As the project got more and more funding, they passed several stretch goals, adding more platforms, translations, merch, and an art book to the project. This was all fairly standard.¹

Some of the stretch goals met included support of new platforms (Mac and Linux), multilanguage support (English, French, German, Italian, Spanish), a closed beta where all backers could beta test the adventure game, a “making-of” art book, and — at the very peak — a full digital copy of Homestuck (the comic) to be included with the physical game.

Andrew made another news post on the main Homestuck site on September 24, expressing extreme gratitude, going over a few logistics, and adding the option to back directly with PayPal.

On October 4, 2012, the Kickstarter campaign finished at 2.48 million dollars, plus an undisclosed amount of additional direct backing through PayPal that put them over the 2.5 million mark.² (Andrew later confirmed this.) This number is noteworthy because it met their $2.5 million stretch goal, which added that digital copy of Homestuck (the comic) to be shipped with physical copies of the game. They made more than three times their original goal, and were the 6th most successful Kickstarter project of all time. Andrew made a news post and things were looking good. Andrew had been producing great content for years now; imagine what he could do with resources!

As of Update #36 from April 2021, What Pumpkin mentions that the campaign itself was actually managed and directed by George Rohac, crowdfunding specialist and WP’s one time Director of Business Development:

The Kickstarter was planned by the What Pumpkin business development team in mid 2012. One member of the team was a crowdfunding specialist who led the planning process and managed the contracts with the developer. Prior to the Kickstarter opening for pledges, What Pumpkin worked out a plan for a flexible game concept that could be refined according to how much the campaign ultimately brought in.

According to this post, the Kickstarter was planned with flexible funding in mind, so that the game could be made for as little as $700,000 but could also scale up if the Kickstarter made more than its initial goal (as it did). Excellent!

Learn about accountability on Kickstarter

(moved)

But first, merch.

Before the game, though, came merch fulfillment for the Kickstarter rewards. An enormous amount of people contributed to the campaign, so the process of sending out backer surveys, collecting addresses, and doing the actual work of shipping items to 11,000 people was a significant amount of work.

Regarding the merchandise, the Kickstarter campaign says

…the reward bundles here are so nice, that they actually still represent a pretty good value for the pledge. I think the scalemate plushes came out especially great. They are of almost impossibly high quality for something produced in bulk. This item is in very limited supply—note the finite number available for that tier. There are a couple more hidden bundles to be revealed later, but once they’re gone, that’s it! That’s all we have. But if the response to the scalemates turns out to be strong, we’re going to look into making more sometime next year.

It’s been noted that most (if not all) of the merchandise³ was, in fact, resold in other places since the campaign, but personally I’m glad it was, as it is very nice.

The signed physical print is a beautiful piece by Skeptic Archer. Oddly, it’s only credited in a small footnote at the end of the Kickstarter page, and the beautiful 36”x24” print is only signed (initialed) by Andrew. Odd art crediting is a minor note, but something to keep in mind going forward.

~~(This is unconfirmed, but according to a now-deleted comment, Rachel from What Pumpkin estimated the actual production budget for the game after merchandise and backer rewards as $1.6 million.)~~ As of Update 38, the $1.6 million number was confirmed. Further, the approximate cost of manufacturing and distributing Kickstarter rewards (which may or may not include rewards that have not been produced yet, WP leaves it ambiguous) was $730k.

Announcements about this came through Kickstarter project updates.

According to the FAQ,

A backers-only blog will be going up and weekly updates will tell you about behind-the-scenes work not only with regards to this game project, but also about how we choose, develop, and deliver the merch that you see in our store and in these paks. If you don’t become a backer, you will not receive access.

Future updates were meant to take place on a “backer blog”, which was to be a subforum on the MSPA Forums exclusive to Kickstarter backers, where What Pumpkin would keep backers updated on progress. The Kickstarter promises to give detailed weekly updates until the full game releases. This is, of course, entirely appropriate and expected for a project that was given $2.5 million — transparency is expected, and opacity is cause for suspicion and alarm.

The only news out of the Kickstarter was shipping updates until 2013.

Comic Gigapause

There had also been a brief note in the October news post for the latest comic hiatus that mentioned working on the Kickstarter project:

I also have to allocate some time to work on the Kickstarter game. That didn’t stop being a thing I have to do. It’s coming along. I’ll probably have a more substantive update on that before the end of the year. There hasn’t been much to report yet since it’s mostly been in a high level planning and writing phase. And firming up tons of legal minutiae. Stuff like that.

“Firming up tons of legal minutiae” here presumably describes doing legal footwork for the IP and setting the appropriate contracts with the “experienced game developer”.

December 2013

Update 1

Update #14 (Backers only)

Greetings, and Happy New Year. Welcome to the First Annual Homestuck Kickstarter Update of 2013!!!

On December 31, 2013, MSPA released the “First Annual Homestuck Kickstarter Update”. This was a much-anticipated behind the scenes look at the game design and high-level planning. This post mostly consisted of notes about how things were actually coming along, while trying not to spoil anything about the game. A few plot elements were confirmed or disconfirmed: it was revealed that Sburb would not be in the game, but trolls would be involved somehow. Stuff like that.

One new human character was shown, with rough sketches and a 3D model.

Andrew also teased the “experienced game developer” they would be working with for development, but did not reveal the company in the update. (This would later turn out to be The Odd Gentlemen.)

There was no news yet about the backer blog or how the weekly updates would be handled.

Namco High

December 2013 was also the release of Namco High, a dating sim developed by What Pumpkin Studios with Andrew Hussie as the game’s Creative Director.

Namco High is a simple visual novel. It’s primarily about characters from Namco franchises, but there are some stories about Homestuck characters mixed in as well that you could purchase and play. There are quite a few newsposts on the MSPA website.

June 2013: Undertale Kickstarter

that’s not an edit, that’s the actual Kickstarter graphic. sic?

In June 2013, Toby Fox (known for his work on the music team) launched his own crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter for a role-playing game. His goal was $5,000, and he ended up raising $51,000.

The Undertale Kickstarter very much piggybacked off the success of Homestuck’s; Toby Fox was best known from his work on Homestuck, and the Kickstarter campaign referenced Homestuck directly in a few different places. Toby Fox was friends with Andrew Hussie and would end up doing at least some of the work literally from Andrew’s basement:

tobyfox@tobyfox
@andrewhussie THANKS ANDREW!!! and i said it before but thanks for letting me start making undertale in your basement
Sep 15 07:07:00 +0000 2015

Andrew Hussie, Update 22 Actually, yes, [Toby Fox] literally spent a period of time developing Undertale in my basement. I have always assumed this is why he titled the game as such.

June 2014: Update 2

Update #15 (Backers only)

Greetings again. Welcome to the Sequel to the First Annual Homestuck Kickstarter Update of 2013!!!

On June 20, 2014, MSPA released the second annual update.

This update was loaded with concept art of Alternian-looking environments, plus another 3D render: a troll this time. Andrew also teased that there would be some contributions from Ryan North.

There were also major updates about development status.

Aside from a bunch of dialogue, the writing and design work is all pretty much done. The game design documents comprise dozens of files, and around a couple hundred thousand words in total. There was a lot to think about besides just a story. Puzzles, game mechanics, the exact way every little thing works. Bringing such documents to completion involves a lot of effort. I assembled my own little team independently of the game developer to help me get this done.

Apparently, the writing and scriptwork are pretty much finished, and the game design is done too. This is great, and sounds on-track for a 2014 release.

Significantly, this update officially revealed the development studio: The Odd Gentlemen:

While we were still in the high level planning stages of this, I thought it would be better to keep the developer out of the limelight for a while, so we could all have some breathing room to get the project off the ground. I think this was the right decision. But I also think it’s been long enough keeping the backers in the dark on this. So,

The name of the developer is The Odd Gentlemen. It is a solid outfit, and I’ve enjoyed working with them so far. A lot of good stuff is happening behind the scenes. Expect to hear more from them about this project in the future.
…
Odd Gentlemen had the right combination of availability in their schedule, and the fact that I liked the people there and felt like they could deliver a good product. I am still confident this will be the case.

The Odd Gentlemen is a game studio run out of LA, California. It was also in the process of developing an episodic King’s Quest adventure game from around 2014 through 2016 as a follow-up to the hit Sierra adventure game series.

The next day on June 21 The Odd Gentlemen released a very similar blog post confirming their involvement. Later in July they made another blog post about Hiveswap cosplay. (Both of these posts have now been scrubbed.)

2014 was the year Hiveswap was slated for release, so they were cutting it close — Andrew addressed this concern directly:

2014 was the year we were shooting for release. Note there was no target month given, because I really didn’t know what the timeframe was down to that level of specificity. I expected there would be bumps in the road, because there always are for big projects like this. When the Kickstarter ended, that is not really when development began in earnest. That’s when we began getting a lot of boring legal stuff in order, which took a while. Probably around six months I’d say. After that, planning began for real. So if we are behind schedule (which may not even be technically true), I guess it could be by that amount of time. But I’m anticipating a major surge in development in the latter half of 2014. So we’ll see where we are as we approach the end of the year.

Thanks for the patience!!!

(Note that there was, in fact, an estimated target month given in the backer rewards’ estimate: June 2014)

This update could also be interpreted as the first of the weekly updates the Kickstarter promised, except it was not followed with another update the next week. In fact, the commitment for weekly updates was never honored — not ever. For the rest of the project, there would never be development updates posted within a week of each other. This was the first of a very, very long string of broken commitments.

October 2014: What Pumpkin Studios

Update #16 (Public)

There are some updates to mention. Some changes to the plan. Exciting changes!

On October 30, 2014, the Kickstarter received an extremely significant update about the game and the project lifecycle that made major changes to the structure of the development process and the game:

What Pumpkin is now the development studio

Over the last several months, we’ve been shifting the development operation from the previous studio over to What Pumpkin. We have both agreed it will be the best move to continue production in-house, given the future game development plans for the Homestuck property (more on that further down). So this means exactly what it sounds like. As of this moment, in addition to everything else What Pumpkin does, it is officially now a game dev studio as well. Pretty cool!

Setting up a game dev studio from scratch is fairly tricky however. Hiring new people, getting them up to speed, and setting up the infrastructure represents a bump in the road on our previously devised rollout schedule. The original plan had us testing the game by this point. Looks like testing within first half of next year is more likely.

…

But given that we have decided to pull a game dev studio out of thin air over the last couple months, it has gone alarmingly well. All the hiring was done quickly, and people have been cranking out great stuff (see samples above, all of which was done in-house). I’m pretty psyched about the new team!

The game is no longer being developed by The Odd Gentlemen, allegedly due to “the future game development plans for the Homestuck property”. As far as I can tell, The Odd Gentlemen never mention Homestuck again after the two blog posts already mentioned. What Pumpkin will now expand and, in addition to its existing responsibilities handling the merchandise for Homestuck and Hiveswap, become a game studio “out of thin air”.

There will be two games

So as a result, from the start I conceived of a story that revolved around the idea of there eventually being two games

…

The second game is not intended as a sequel though. It is meant to be a story told in parallel with the first. So when both games are finished, people will be able to play them in either order.

There will be two games with parallel storylines. They will be produced sequentially, but can be played alternating once both are released to get the full story in sequence. (This seems to be a similar concept to what would become the Homestuck Epilogues, years later.)

The entire first game would be considered the “Homestuck Adventure Game” that was funded by the original crowdfunding campaign and owed to backers. Presumably, the second game would be funded by profits off the first game and the rest of the franchise, or perhaps by a separate Kickstarter. Regardless, backers would not be entitled to the second game.

The first game is called “Hiveswap”

This is the title of the first game.

The first game, Hiveswap, is the Homestuck Adventure Game that the Kickstarter supported. The second game (which will later be titled Hauntswitch) will be released later.

Hiveswap is now episodic

When I say “first game” and “second game”, I mean those will be two distinct storylines that each consist of several episodes to be released in sequence. Four episodes per game is looking likely. The fact that there will be multiple installments won’t change much for backers. Anyone who backed will be entitled to each download for the first game. I’m sure there will be other questions that come up as a result of this release model, such as how physical copies are handled, but just keep in mind that we’ll be working things out to stay favorable to backers. We’ll have more answers as things take shape.

Designing the story around two games is an old idea, based on having a plan in place to continue the series if the demand is there. But releasing each one episodically is a new idea, based more on the emerging realities of production. I think it’s the right call, both to get something out sooner, but also I think it will add some dimension to the story itself and the way it’s received. Much of the fun for Homestuck readers was in following an ongoing story, getting together with other readers and discussing new developments. So releasing the game like this should preserve that part of the experience somewhat. Leaving some space between episodes should build some anticipation for what happens next. I suspect a lot of people will enjoy the story more this way.

Instead of releasing a complete game, Hiveswap will be released in (probably four) episodes, due in part to “the emerging realities of production”. Hussie also seems to believe that the serial nature of the comic will translate well to the game, and actually enhance the experience for players.

Episodic game development is known as being an especially high-risk game development strategy. From Wikipedia:

Essentially, the business model of the episodic gaming is still considered high-risk for developers… Experts cite that this can be demonstrated in the limited number of successes of episodic game ventures. Specific disadvantages include the following:
…
- Some developers choose the episodic model because they lack the resources to complete a full-length game, and hope the sales of episodes will fund further development. If earlier episodes fail to sell, then funding for future episodes may suffer or disappear, forcing developers to renege on promises of future episodes and cut storylines short.

I’m quoting from Wikipedia here to emphasize the point that this isn’t an industry secret; the disadvantages and risks of the episodic business model are well-known. Just saying the phrase “episodic” immediately brings to mind that one example you’re already thinking of.

Andrew assures everyone that “The fact that there will be multiple installments won’t change much for backers” and “we’ll be working things out to stay favorable to backers.” (He will not follow through on this.)

Concept Art Dump

This update was front-loaded with a “concept art dump” that closely resembles the game that would become Hiveswap: Act 1, including designs for the manor, attic, treehouse, Alternia, and portal.

This post also included 3D models rigged with animation! Very exciting stuff.

The Odd Gentlemen

Edit: After I wrote this article, I published a separate article based on leaks about this specific topic: read my second Hiveswap article for much more information on this topic. Do note though that the other article is more speculative than this one.

King’s Quest and The Odd Gentlemen

or, The Odd Gentlemen robbed us, as ipgd titled it.

In July 2015 (the future), ipgd, friend of Andrew’s and general insider published a post (alt) that was the culmination of their research into the Kickstarter:

i’m sure that everyone has noticed by now that the homestuck game is very, very late. boy, do i have a fun reason why!

you may remember that what pumpkin announced that the game studio “the odd gentlemen” was originally attached to develop the game, and you may also remember that they quietly moved to in house development in 2014. what they didn’t tell you: the reason they did this was that odd gentlemen stole kickstarter money and spent it on king’s quest.

i imagine most of us who backed the homestuck game kickstarter are pretty curious about what was going on there. i’ve done some work on the comic and talk to andrew from time to time, so i tried asking about what happened and got some very cagey non-responses. eventually, he tells me he actually can’t tell me anywhere but through kickstarter because of a settlement he signed (already fishy). so, i sent in an inquiry through KS and what i got was a big steaming load of bullshit worse than anything i could have imagined. i’m talking multiple counts of embezzlement and fraud.

according to the timeline in the doc i got, WP gave 788k to TOG in 2012 to develop hiveswap. they then proceeded to do next to nothing, completely blowing off the dev schedule that they agreed to. (the game was supposed to be done by oct 2014. instead, that was when WP ended up having to switch to in house development and start from scratch.) the doc included a detailed rundown of everything TOG actually did. in summary:

“Over 8 months of development, TOG produced exactly one “playable build”. It is a single room, involving one character, no animation, and almost no other key features. Virtually nothing works properly. It was submitted in February of 2014, and no improvements or additional versions were submitted beyond that date.”

a link to it was included in the doc. it’s… probably the worst thing i’ve ever seen in my life?? if you try to click on ANYTHING, joey runs into a bookcase and flies into the air and the demo gets stuck. the only thing that distinguishes it from an out-of-the-box adventure creator demo is its very subpar models and the fact it is unplayably bugged.

at some point TOG apparently just completely gave up working on hiveswap, because they were tapped to develop king’s quest (you can see them admit this in public here at about 1 minute into this video). however, instead of dropping out of developing the game, they decided to just… not tell WP, and proceeded to spend the money they were given on KQ’s development instead.

eventually, after months of platitudes and refusals to communicate (at one point andrew even moved across the country to be able to visit TOG’s offices and get the ball rolling on development, but they wouldn’t even let him come in), WP realized that they’d have to drop TOG, so they terminated the contract in late 2014.

at that stage, TOG said they had 390,000 dollars left of the money WP gave them that they hadn’t spent on “development” or taxes. but, get this – in the 7 months it took them to agree on a settlement for returning the money, they spent 170,000 of it on king’s quest. seriously. like, they didn’t even try to hide it – they straight up spent it after they’d already officially stopped working on the game, and were just like, haha, whoops? pay you back later i guess.

this isn’t acknowledged in a binding settlement like the king’s quest embezzlement is, but i’m pretty sure most of the 190k they claim they spent on hiveswap’s development before they picked up KQ went into neil gaiman’s wayward manor. they picked THAT up at around the time they were supposed to start working on hiveswap, and admitted the workload was conflicting with their ability to devote time to hiveswap. given the egregiously overstated man hours claimed for how little work they actually did, and the fact they admittedly stole the money for another game, i think it’s a pretty obvious conclusion to reach.

it doesn’t look like there was ever a point where TOG wasn’t funneling homestuck’s KS money into another game. it’s unclear whether they EVER actually intended to seriously develop the game. they straight up signed up to steal money from us.

andrew mentioned that this was one of the biggest reasons for the gigapause, and that all the logistics of dealing with TOG’s incompetence meant he couldn’t get much work done on the comic in that time.

why am i posting this? well, king’s quest was developed with stolen money, so it’s probably in your best interest to know this before you buy it. all things considered, it’s a miracle that hiveswap is doing as well as it is – at this point, i think hiveswap has moved past this fiasco and isn’t in any danger of falling through. it’s uh, pretty late, but from what i’ve seen, they’re well on their way to an Actual Game that may be Actually Good despite getting jerked around by a circus of incompetent clowns for 8 months.

at this point, i’m not sure what to DO about this. what pumpkin is bound by the settlement they had to sign if they wanted to get any of the money back at all, so there’s not much that they themselves can do to retrieve the money TOG stole from us. i actually tried messaging sierra, the company that licensed KQ to TOG, but they don’t seem to care that KQ was made with stolen money. maybe activision might want to know. in any case, it’s important that this info get out there so people know what they’re dealing with when buying something from the odd gentlemen.

The key allegations ipgd makes here are:

What Pumpkin paid The Odd Gentlemen $788k to develop Hiveswap by October 2014
The Odd Gentlemen did not meet the agreed-upon schedule
The only thing The Odd Gentlemen produced for Hiveswap was an awful and unusable demo
The Odd Gentlemen being horrible forced What Pumpkin to switch to in-house development in order to produce the game at all
TOG spent a significant amount of What Pumpkin’s money on King’s Quest instead of Hiveswap
- Even after they were told to stop entirely, they kept siphoning money
What Pumpkin eventually got a formal settlement
- Including admission of wrongdoing from TOG
- But the details of the settlement were kept secret even from the development team and other insiders
~~As of late 2014, What Pumpkin was left with ~$200k and no game~~ The ~$200k number here is only what What Pumpkin was able to reclaim from the TOG contract; this does not include their other operating funds or the other revenue that should still have been left over from the Kickstarter campaign.

Andrew Hussie himself later explicitly “no-comment”ed on the allegations:

andrewhussie@andrewhussie
Replying to ryan5162000:
@ryan5162000 post wasn't official in any capacity. asked the user to delete it. i have no comment on matters between WP and TOG.
Jul 4 07:07:00 +0000 2015

(Archive copy)

Of particular note is the sentence “i have no comment on matters between WP and TOG”, which is exactly what you’d have to say if you had settled with a binding NDA, as is the claim.

Not only did ipgd take down the original Tumblr post, since then, someone (either WP or ipgd herself) submitted a special request to the wayback machine to manually prevent the blog from being archived. (See here.)

Fact-checking ipgd

There isn’t actually a way to request an “inquiry through KS”; Kickstarter doesn’t know anything about the internals of the project other than updates the creator posts publicly. From what I can tell, if this account is true,⁴ Andrew Hussie voluntarily sent ipgd this information through a Kickstarter private message in order to circumvent some provision in the settlement. Given that this information is essentially leaked by Andrew himself, it’s worth being skeptical.

Some of ipgd’s accusations fit in neatly with other accounts, and fill in a number of holes. These are all thoroughly supported by later events and accounts:

What Pumpkin paid The Odd Gentlemen $788k to develop Hiveswap by October 2014
The Odd Gentlemen did not meet the agreed-upon schedule
The only thing The Odd Gentlemen produced for Hiveswap was an awful and unusable demo
What Pumpkin eventually got a formal settlement
- But the details of the settlement were kept secret even from the development team and other insiders

Each of these points fits neatly with all the other available information as I understand it, and I haven’t found any reason to think that any of them are untrue. Later events will explicitly confirm many of these points as true, creating a lot of circumstantial evidence supporting the full list of allegations, which led people to believe the full story for years. It’s confirmed that What Pumpkin did get a formal settlement with TOG, for example. What Pumpkin later cited the exact $788k number, implying that ipgd had some insider knowledge at this point. As another example, an anonymous source who used to work at What Pumpkin confirmed the point about the broken prototype:

Personally I think it was that Hussie was in over his head. When we took the reins after odd gentleman, you should have seen how bad the demo was. It looked like an intern had made it.

I don’t know the details about the court case, bc that was secretive, but I believe they settled. They had spent I think almost a third of the money and it was total garbage.

Another account about the prototype:

We were given an unusable piece of garbage to work with.

There is also some evidence of similar behavior from The Odd Gentlemen, where they began developing Wayward Manor as a third party but then seemingly bailed and scrubbed their name from the records before release. There is little to no information on this, and most controversy about Wayward Manor seems to stem from speculation about Hiveswap, rather than the other way around.

While I’d love to speculate as to why What Pumpkin didn’t have the legal leverage to demand restitution, or why What Pumpkin chose to sign the NDA instead of staying accountable to the project underwriters, I don’t yet have the evidence to do so meaningfully. (I don’t know why they kept it a secret, because they kept it a secret.)

Some of the allegations, however, haven’t been corroborated since, and seem unlikely:

The Odd Gentlemen being horrible forced What Pumpkin to switch to in-house development in order to produce the game at all
TOG spent a significant amount of What Pumpkin’s money on King’s Quest instead of Hiveswap, explicitly embezzling from What Pumpkin
- Even after they were told to stop entirely, they kept siphoning money, explicitly embezzling from What Pumpkin

As mentioned previously, these were leaked together by ipgd and Andrew. These details are protected by the settlement, so even if they’re not true, there’s likely nothing TOG could do to refute them. These could very easily be either completely false or deliberately exaggerated in Andrew’s favor.

And some have even been confirmed explicitly to be false:

The only thing The Odd Gentlemen produced for What Pumpkin was an awful and unusable demo

In January 2021, I broke a report about accusations that The Odd Gentlemen were actually engaged on animation work for Homestuck Act 7 during this time period. Update #36 later explicitly confirmed this part of the leak as true.

Edit: Again, read my second Hiveswap article for much more information on this topic.

February 2015: Hiveswap is Coming

Update #17 (Public)

This update features more concept art (mostly just colored versions of art seen previously) and what appear to be game renders.

Notably, the game is still 3D. All the character assets we’ve seen up to this point have been 3D, and presumably all the animation was done using 3D models too, so this all makes sense.

There are then a number of links to a new Hiveswap website and social media accounts. We then get another look into the development going on:

Being privy to all the work being done, I can tell you it’s not only looking great, but it bears mentioning how FAST all this work has been materializing. To put this in perspective, recall that last Fall I mentioned we switched tracks and brought all game development in-house, under the What Pumpkin banner. We thought this was the best move for the future of the project, but realistically it also meant nearly a total production reboot. The move involved some risk, requiring an entire dev operation to be assembled from the ground-up almost overnight. Back in October of last year we hadn’t even bought, like… computers. There weren’t even computers yet, ok? You kind of need those, people kept telling me. But in the few months since then, somehow this crazy game making machine appeared out of thin air, caught fire, and now most of an episode has been drawn, modeled, textured, animated, all that. And the weird thing is, not just how quickly it’s coming together, but considering the speed it’s like… freakishly good? It shouldn’t be this good.

(This seems to imply that the previous update, including the models and animations, were leftover work from The Odd Gentlemen — though that may not be the case.)

All I can do, aside from mumble to myself like a wizard just played a trick on me, is give credit to the fantastic people on WP’s dev team, and James and Jess (senior producer and creative director) who brought all these people together so quickly and are keeping everyone on task.

It’s concerning here that all we’re getting about the now-late game are these brush-off “it’s fine” pacification answers. I get Andrew is trying to be cute here, but given that Hiveswap had officially missed the Kickstarter release date of 2014, and Andrew is already behind on delivering on the project, this is pretty unprofessional.

Besides that, this mostly looks okay. What Pumpkin NYC is doing impressive work, which is to be expected from the talented team What Pumpkin managed to assemble. James here is James Seetal, a game industry veteran with an impressive resume. They are slated to be the senior producer of Hiveswap. Jess is Jess Haskins. She is Paperback Studio. This would be the first Homestuck credit for either of them.

The release date for Hiveswap is delayed to Spring 2015.

March 2015

Hiveswap Friends

Update #18 (Public)

This update is another asset update. The main piece is a video, featuring high-quality views of the 3D character models. There are some more character designs, also with 3D models. This is going to be a 3D game.

Andrew reveals the music team for Hiveswap: James Roach (known at the time for his fan music as part of The Homestuck Fan Musicians and tracks on coloUrs and mayhem and Toby Fox (known for his work in the music team and Undertale, which would release in September 2015).

We also hear something about more troll symbols:

The original Homestuck trolls corresponded with zodiac signs, of course. You can see these ones are wearing different symbols. We ended up making quite a few new ones to create an “expanded zodiac.” Around 250, actually. The majority of which won’t appear in the game, but we made a bunch of extra ones I guess in case of an emergency. This can be considered the canonical extended set of troll symbols. I’ll let you see them later, in a more meaningful context. If there is really such a thing as a meaningful context for 250 fake zodiac signs.

Emerald City ComicCon

There is another post shortly after about What Pumpkin having a booth at Emerald City ComicCon. We get this interesting tidbit about a playable demo of the game:

If you’re one of the thousands of comics and gaming fans who’ll be hitting the Seattle Convention Center this weekend for ECCC, don’t miss your chance to visit What Pumpkin at booth #305 to try a preview segment of Hiveswap. Bear in mind this is an early preview of a work in progress. It’s one room, with some features disabled, but it’s playable, looks very good, and gives a strong sense of what it will be like to play it. It’s not the sort of thing we can put online anywhere yet, but we’re more than happy to let people visiting the booth try it out on our machine.

There is some footage of this version:

It’s a fully-3D version of Joey’s room, with an inventory, and pointing and clicking. Great!

Hiveswap Press Sheet

Around this time, What Pumpkin Studios NYC released a press sheet about Hiveswap. This is a one-sheet that just lays out the basics: developed by What Pumpkin NYC, four acts, releasing throughout 2015, “describing what an adventure game is”, that sort of thing. It also compliments how good the game is, as press sheets are liable to do.

GDC Italian Interview

A GDC interview given in Italian revealed a few more details about the game.

Some translations from a reddit thread:

It will be out on MAY, split into four parts and available for PC, Mac and Linux.
“the graphics are a bit outdated, but recall the webcomic’s drawing style and upgrade it to 3D”

There were also a few plot details that were confirmed by later updates.

April 2015

Jess Haskins Gameplay Preview

(These names are somewhat misleading: the “Gameplay Walkthrough”, doesn’t feature gameplay, but is rather a narrated slideshow of concept art and renders.)

These two videos of “Prototype 1.1” were posted to “GamerHubTV” and are narrated by Jess Haskins. The gameplay looks very similar to the Emerald City ComicCon demo.

The prototype version has multiple playable characters (Jude, Joey, and Xefros) with 3D models. (Joey is wearing a dog shirt that has not yet been seen in any other media.)

The Gameplay Preview includes a sample of the 3D intro cutscene with Joey and Jude, and some 3D adventure game gameplay with adventure game commands and a sylladex inventory. There are several 3D maps available, including Joey’s room, Jude’s treehouse, and a basement. It ends with another 3D cutscene featuring the cherub portal in the attic.

Kickstarter Update & Trailer

Update #20 (Public)

Have you noticed that we’re posting more updates lately? That’s because things are really moving on the game right now, and there’s a lot of exciting progress to report.

This last trailer was also posted on the WP NYC Tumblr.

Gameplay!

There was some criticism of the gameplay trailer for the low framerate and lack of a specified release date. But we have the makings of a game here! And don’t worry, it’s definitely still in 3D. Why would it not be in 3D? Everything is okay.

(We’ll later be told that this trailer was posted to YouTube by the office manager before it was ready, and without the go-ahead from the art team or anyone involved. This could explain issues like the low framerate and unfinished textures.)

Backers are encouraged to pay attention to What Pumpkin Studios’ new YouTube channel, “since we’ll be posting more cool stuff there in the coming months as we get closer to the game’s release.” The two videos from GamerHubTV were never uploaded to the official YouTube channel. (In fact, nothing was uploaded to the YouTube channel after this point.)

What Pumpkin’s acting Creative Director, Jess Haskins, also gave several interviews about the making of the game at Review Fix, Tap Repeatedly, and Hey Poor Player:

Review Fix: Jess Haskins talks Hiveswap

Review Fix

Review Fix: What has the development process been like thus far?

Haskins: It’s been kind of crazy, but going really well so far. The game is a spin-off of the Homestuck webcomic and was funded a couple of years ago on Kickstarter. After that, the script was in a sort of gestation period for a long time as we worked on building up the world and filling out and refining the story during pre-production. Back then I was working on it as writer/narrative designer/game designer along with Andrew Hussie, the creator of the webcomic, and our assistant producer Mike Christatos, who helped develop the characters and story. Last year we founded a game development studio basically from scratch here in NYC to launch into the production phase, and since then we’ve been plowing ahead full steam. Since going into active production it’s really been coming together in quite a short time.

Day one in the new office we had a skeleton team of me, our senior producer, our lead artist, and one animator. We were still waiting for our lead programmer to serve out his two weeks’ notice at his last position so he could come in! The team grew very fast from that point, though, up to a current total of 12 full time here in the office.

When we all saw the very first test animations come back, Joey walking around and wielding her flashlight, we were just floored. After designing and writing and talking about these characters for so long, actually seeing them alive and moving across our screens was like a revelation. Since then we’ve been moving forward in leaps and bounds, and the first episode (out of four) should be out this spring

Review Fix: Lets [sic] talk about the visuals. How tough as it been to capture the look that you wanted?

Haskins: It’s been interesting translating Homestuck’s 2D aesthetic, or I should say the many different 2D aesthetics as they evolved over time, into a 3D format. We wanted something that was visibly grounded in the comic’s visual style, but with a 3D environment we had some room to play around with the way it was rendered and create something unique.

We didn’t want to be slaves to the look of source material, which was very informed by its methods of production – heavy photomanipulation and stark colorization on the backgrounds, copy-paste static sprites, wacky 2-frame Flash animations. We couldn’t just copy that and have it look right. So we have things like 3D modeled characters with animated 2D textures for their facial expressions, and a toon shader that gives a light 2D outline effect to the characters, walking around in a slightly cartoony, stylized 3D world. But we always go back to the comic for reference, and find ways we can bring elements of its visuals into this game.

Review Fix: How important was the fans’ support in the creation of this game?

Haskins: Absolutely huge. This project wouldn’t exist without the enthusiastic outpouring of support we received from our fans and backers on Kickstarter, so thank you! We took to Kickstarter asking for $700,000 to make a small little adventure game, and wound up with $2.48M in pledges. So it’s no longer a small little game! We were given a license – no, a mandate! – to go out and create something really amazing, so that’s what we’re doing.

On another level, many Homestuck readers and fans actually go on to work for us professionally, contributing to projects like the Paradox Space series of spin-off comics, or lending their skills as artists, musicians, and writers to the game. Like Mallory Dyer, an insanely talented artist who makes these incredibly detailed plush dolls of Homestuck characters – fabric sculptures, really – and now works for us doing a bunch of our concept and 2D art. Or Phil Gibson, who’s worked on the Paradox Space comics and does double duty as both dialog writer and artist concepting our NPC designs. In addition to the full-time staff who are part of our New York studio, we have a big team of remote contractors and freelancers all over the world who are passionate, talented fans and were just so amazing at what they did that we had to hire them.

Tap Repeatedly: Hiveswap

Tap Repeatedly

Andrew Hussie is, according to Haskins, highly involved in storytelling for the project and creating high level vision. Drafts are sent to him, and it’s “very collaborative,” but the project isn’t micromanaged by the creator either. Experienced game developers on the What Pumpkin team have a lot of input. Haskins also mentioned Ryan North, of Dinosaur Comics fame, as an early collaborator on the game’s high level story. Haskins herself was brought on to the Hiveswap project as a game designer after the Kickstarter ended along with the New York based studio. Haskins has worked on a variety of games, from puzzle platformers and social games to the multi-player shooter Guns of Icarus Online.

Hey Poor Player: Hiveswap’s Jess Haskins

Hey Poor Player

Jay: Hiveswap got its start as a Kickstarter campaign, which saw monumental success. Did the projects crowdfunding success expand the scope of what you could do with the game?

Jess: It definitely did. What we would have been able to achieve with the original funding goal would have still been neat and fun and interesting, but much more modest in scope. There’s a certain kind of epicness that’s part of the feel of Homestuck, not just in the cosmic sweep of the story but in the sheer amount of content and attention to detail. It’s wonderful to have the budget to be able to think a little bigger and make the game feel grand and epic as well, and we’re touched and grateful for the outpouring of support the project received to make that happen.

Jay: We know the game will be episodic in nature. How big, both in time and scope, will the episodes be? And what made the team decide on an episodic format?

Jess: The episodes themselves (which we call Acts; there will be four Acts in total) will be pretty hefty – a fair bit longer than, say, a typical Telltale episode. That was one of the reasons for breaking it up, because each Act will take a good chunk of time to play and spacing them out will make them a little more digestible. There’s room to play, discuss, mull it over, maybe replay and try some different choices, and have something left to anticipate and look forward to. That’s part of the structure of the webcomic, as well – big, action-packed Acts with a lot of drama and twists and turns, and then a pause to build up excitement and anticipation before the next content release.

Plus, we’re really excited to share the game with the world, and releasing it episodically lets us get it into players’ hands that much sooner.

Jay: Hiveswap was originally announced to be a collaborative effort with indie studio The Odd Gentlemen, but has now been moved to What Pumpkin. What made What Pumpkin a better choice?

Jess: Forming a game studio and bringing the project in-house was a big development for us, obviously! We have a bunch of game ideas for the Hiveswap universe and beyond, so it just made sense to move all production in-house. It opens up the opportunity for us to work on other game projects in the future once Hiveswap is completed, if all goes well. It’s been nice to have a direct line between the creative vision of Andrew Hussie and the writers to the rest of the development team.

When we started the studio I was the sole What Pumpkin employee working full-time on the project as writer and game designer, and we were fortunate in that there’s a great pool of creative talent here in New York City. That’s where I’m based, and where we established the game-development branch of the company. We were able to very quickly put together a wonderful team and dive right into production work, and since then we’ve been making great progress. It’s been really exciting to see the game come together.

(Again, Jess’s answer here to the question about in-house production isn’t true.)

Jay: It was said in an update about the game that development was going “alarmingly well.” What have some of the biggest surprises and challenges been along the way?

Jess: A lot of it is just the basic challenges of any software development, but especially games – establishing our tools and pipeline, building out the core features of the game, and getting it all working seamlessly and bug-free. We’re developing the game in Unity, and we’re building our own adventure game engine on top of that. We looked at a few off-the-shelf options, but apart from some piecemeal plugins and tools, none of them really offered what we needed. Apart from the game engine, we’re also building our own custom tools for managing data, since everything we looked at was either overpowered for our needs or really lacking in flexibility.

The first and biggest hurdle has been just getting the first playable room, which requires basically the whole asset integration pipeline and all the game systems and features to be in place and working together. After that, it’s all just content creation. This is a huge game with a lot of content, but we have a bunch of brilliant writers and awesomely talented artists cranking out loads of funny jokes and beautiful art. We might be going faster if we didn’t have to stop all the time to goggle at the new assets or laugh at stuff in the script as it comes in, but it’s that good.

Jay: Hiveswap is planned to be the first in a pair of games that will round out the original Kickstarter-funded project. What then? Are there plans or ideas floating around for future game projects once this is done?

Jess: There are always tons of ideas, but nothing concrete after Hiveswap and the companion game, which we plan to make if the first one does well. At that point we’ll have two big games spanning eight episodes under our belt, and be ready to take over the world. Obviously we would love to keep working on stuff and keep making projects after that. So we really really want Hiveswap to do well! We hope people have as much fun playing it as we’re having while making it.

“King’s Quest in Good Hands”

While seemingly not directly related to Hiveswap, The Odd Gentlemen gave a video interview with Polygon about the King’s Quest project, which contained this quote from Rob Thompson, The Odd Gentlemen’s lead engineer:

When Lindsey [Lindsey Rostal, Producer at The Odd Gentlemen] came to me, she actually gave me a choice; we had another project going on and she’s like “You want this or you want King’s Quest” — King’s Quest, no doubt, give it to me, I can’t wait, I can’t wait to get started.

This is noteworthy here because, as far as I can tell, the only other project The Odd Gentlemen had going on at this time was Hiveswap. With that in mind, it makes it seem like the staff at The Odd Gentlemen was very excited about King’s Quest and relatively disinterested in Hiveswap, which is obviously concerning. Are they just openly saying here that they’re not interested in Hiveswap and are happy to keep their best people off the project? And if they’re not interested in Hiveswap — or working with Andrew — why? (See other article)

What Pumpkin NYC Tumblr

What Pumpkin NYC makes their first introductory post on their Tumblr (now deleted), kicking off a few introductory posts about their offices and the apparently compulsory homestuck references.

What Pumpkin NYC would continue to post aggressively and interact with the fandom.

Offline, What Pumpkin would also do some miscellaneous work for Homestuck that wasn’t related to the adventure game, like managing art for Volume 10.

There was also a remote team of developers who did work for the game but weren’t physically colocated with WP NYC, as mentioned briefly in the Review Fix interview. This team included people like writer Cohen Edenfield, animator Angela Sham, artists Shelby Cragg and H. “Rah” Esdaile, and musicians James Roach and Toby Fox, to name a few.

May 2015

GameNews.ovh Interview

In May 2015, yet another interview with Jess Haskins came out on now entirely defunct website gamenews.ovh confirming that “Hiveswap Act 1 is due to launch in Q2 2015”, which was imminent.

There were a few questions about the new episodic direction of the game, but Jess insisted that there was no cause for concern:

The game is due to launch a full year after the date in the initial Kickstarter pitch, but Jess assured us that the project is otherwise running smoothly, and that its episodic structure is no cause for alarm.

One: We are not running out of money. We are not splitting the game in two. The game is planned to be episodic. We’re releasing it in four acts, which will be evenly spaced. This isn’t: ‘Oh crap, we only have money to make a quarter of the game! Let’s raise some more!’ We feel that the game is better enjoyed and digested in chunks, sort of like the comic itself, which has a big rush of content, and then a long pause, while the audience can read, absorb, speculate, theorise, tear it apart, dig in, and then anticipate the next instalment.

Jess Haskins makes a few key assertions here. Allegedly, the team is not low on money, and they will not need to push out interstitial content to make money to reinvest into the rest of the game. That concern is denied outright. (Various reports, evidence, and behavior suggests that this is all blatantly false, that What Pumpkin is and will continue to be low on money and continue to be unable to fulfil their commitments without interstitial fundraising and other gambles.)

There was also the standard interview stuff:

Homestuck creator Andrew Hussie has been involved in every aspect of the writing and production, from the outline level all the way down to the final text and finishing touches; yet it’s been a highly collaborative process. ‘’en to really he’s open to really good ideas, and mostly really funny jokes, wherever we can get them. So if you throw something in that makes Andrew laugh, then it’s in.”

Hiveswap is being developed in Unity, and the production process has been surprisingly fast. “The game has been in pre-production for quite a while. Working on the script and the story at a really high level. It was back in October when we actually started up the studio here in New York, and really got the team together to dive into production. Since then we’ve been tearing through it at a really fast clip. It’s been really nice to see everything come together after it’s been gestating for all this time.”

If this first game, once it’s out, it does well, we’d like to move on to do a second, companion game, also set in the world. [sic]

This last line is a reference to Hauntswitch, the planned sequel to Hiveswap, which will be required to tell the full story.

Meet James Seetal

WP NYC posted a bio on James Seetal, their Director of Production (mentioned briefly earlier).

I’m responsible for both Hiveswap’s production as well as the maintenance, management, and operations of the game studio. I also function as the Lead Producer for Hiveswap. I manage and run team meetings, create schedules, organize production pipelines with the senior staff, and meet with dev team members individually if they are blocked from completing a task. We use an agile software development process and I organize everyone’s work to insure the project and the studio is running smoothly.

James is responsible for the actual production of the game. He says they’re using an agile development methodology, but doesn’t specify which one.

BigShinyRobot interview

BigShinyRobot had a rare interview with both Jess Haskins and Andrew Hussie:

What inspired you to make the game? Were you surprised that your Kickstarter was able to get as much money as it did?

Andrew Hussie (creator): I wanted to make another story that took place within the already very big Homestuck universe, to help develop that universe further. I also wanted to do so in a different medium. The stories on my site, like Homestuck, were all adventure game parodies, so why not make a real adventure game, right? And: was I surprised by the funding? Kinda! But kinda also not really, because Homestuck is pretty popular. We did some math in advance, and figured hitting a mark like that was pretty feasible. And that turned out to be true. But getting there was still pretty cool!

What do you think people will like most about the game? Do you think not just fans of Homestuck, but others will like the game as well?

Jess: Hiveswap will appeal to classic adventure game fans and anyone who enjoys a deep, story-driven game with rich character interactions and a detailed world to explore. Players familiar with Homestuck will find a lot of connections to the comic and will definitely recognize the world and style of Andrew Hussie, with his trademark storytelling and humor.

This last answer from Jess is interesting, because it implies that the story is going to be written and scripted by Andrew.

What are the challenges in making a video game Vs. a web comic?

Andrew: A web comic is a huge solo effort. Homestuck has art and music contributors for some Flash animations, but that content is like 1% of the comic. The rest is a huge one-man grind, for thousands of pages. Over the course of years that gets pretty arduous to make, given how much content there is. A game is much more of a team effort. It’s also very challenging, for different reasons. It’s less about doing every little thing yourself, more about generally conducting the efforts of a team of creative people. As the team grows, it’s more about conducting the conductors. It’s pretty complicated, as a lot goes into making a game. Thousands of art assets and such. One major difference is, with my comic, there weren’t many limitations. Any idea I had, I could write and draw and it could be on the website the next day. With a game, with how complicated and expensive production can get, the sky isn’t really the limit. You have a budget to consider. If you throw every crazy idea you have into a game, you’ll burn through all your money very fast.

More info

We also got a 3D render and name of another character from the game.

July 2015

3D world of Hiveswap

What Pumpkin NYC made a blog post about their design process:

Building the world of Hiveswap is becoming a finely tuned system: we rely on a lot of different people to transform an idea in Andrew Hussie’s mind into a finished 3D model. From artists to modelers to painters, everyone involved adds a bit of their personality and perspective to make the game feel like a fully realized place.

The post talks about the general process of building a 3D game environment, from concept art to modelling to lighting. They’ve developed a finely-tuned system to convert designs and concept art to the 3D models used in the game.

Changes at What Pumpkin

July 20, 2015

Update #21 (Public)

There are a lot of changes taking place at What Pumpkin. These are mostly good things! But one consequence is an inevitable delay in Hiveswap’s release date.

As you may know, What Pumpkin has been primarily concerned with selling merchandise related to Homestuck. Recently, we’ve partnered with We Love Fine to handle all future merchandising, and have been taking steps to put the company’s focus solely on game development. This little restructuring phase means soon we’ll be able to put all our resources and attention into games

This update is about What Pumpkin’s shift from merchandising to game development. WeLoveFine, a third party retailer, had been announced as What Pumpkin (the merch store)’s replacement earlier that month. (WeLoveFine is another complicated story that deserves its own article.)

Meanwhile, What Pumpkin Studios (now possibly just What Pumpkin? but definitely a game development studio) has been expanding so much that they need a bigger office space:

Meanwhile, as our warehouse winds down, things at the studio are trending very much in the opposite direction. So much so that we’ll be moving to a bigger office. What Pumpkin NYC launched last fall with just a handful of people in a tiny office on Wall Street, but since then we’ve grown so much, we literally can’t fit everyone in the room anymore. So an office upgrade is definitely in order. We’ll be moving somewhere that not only can sustain our current operation, but accommodate future growth as well.

Hiveswap is delayed again — this time indefinitely — but they promise that the final product will be polished, fine-tuned, and a deep adventure game experience. The new release date will be announced sometime later.

Meanwhile, What Pumpkin NYC says they’re doing so extraordinarily well that they’re planning to invest in a bigger office space to accommodate their growing staff.

August 2015

FemHype Interview

Femhype interviewed the UI designer and texture artist at What Pumpkin NYC. You’re welcome to read the interview for yourself, but I’m actually more interested in the screenshots throughout the article (credited as “Courtesy of What Pumpkin Studios”) of the prototype version of the game, as these were never shared with backers are some of the very few existing screenshots of the NYC prototype:

These screenshots (and a few others) were later put on Paperback Studios’ portfolio page for Hiveswap (although the format makes them hard to see).

September 2015: Undertale Releases

Undertale, Toby Fox’s kickstarter project from 2013, released in September 2015 on Steam for $9.99. It would later get ports to other platforms.

Although Toby Fox had no game development experience other than doing a few simple ROM hacks in high school, he wrote and programmed the entire game himself (with some artistic and design contributions from others, including Temmie Chang). He also composed the game’s entire musical score, a 100+ song soundtrack. The soundtrack was especially praised, and got a limited edition Vinyl printing which is now a highly sought-after collector’s item.

The game itself received extremely high critical acclaim, and was ranked #4 by metascore on Steam for 2015, just above Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain and several spots above Crypt of the NecroDancer, Fallout 4, and Prison Architect. At time of writing, the PC version of Undertale has sold between 2,000,000 and 5,000,000 copies on Steam.

In the credits of the game, he gives special thanks to a number of people, including Andrew⁵ and ipgd.

Next: the big change and the makings of Act 1

If you look at the campaign now, the “risks and challenges” section is empty. This isn’t anything untoward; this campaign was made in 2012, before the site had that field. ↩
Neither Andrew nor What Pumpkin ever announced how much money the campaign actually raised, in total, counting PayPal donations. We know it was at least enough to push the total over $2.5 million, but given that they had enough people asking for a PayPal option that they set up an entire secondary storefront for it, the total could be much more than that. The $2.5m+ mark was confirmed much later in Update 38. ↩
Not including the poster. Also note that they did resell plush scalemates, but they never strictly promised to keep the scalemates a Kickstarter exclusive. ↩
If you don’t believe ipgd’s account about getting a document with all this information, you might speculate that the framing story about the document is just a way to launder information she shouldn’t have had: she somehow knew details about the allegations she was making, but needed a way to explain how he got them. That would certainly explain how the allegations hold up. ↩
“Andrew” appeared multiple times in the credits, although neither entry had a last name attached. ↩

GioCities - fandom

What Happened With Homestuck? (Recap)

Hostile takeover of a fan project

Covering up the story

Weaponizing influence to blacklist

The cult environment

Articles

Recovery and non-recovery

Interloper and Artistry in Impressionistic Horror

Couldn’t “solve interloper”

Showcase of Source engine practical effects

Technical showcase, practical effects

Using familiar space

It’s not a puzzle, it’s horror and presentation

It really is horror

It’s not primarily a puzzle

The meaning is in connections as language

Short connections

Examples: read for flow, not puzzles

Okay here are a few connections that don’t seem to go anywhere

Expectations

One last thing

Related Reading

Fandom and The Freedom Motif

The Homestuck Union Was Always Fake

Oh no!

What the HICU license is for

Unlicensed fanwork

Licensed fanwork

Open fanwork

Homestuck’s Licensing Background

The Promise of the HICU

The Twist

Andrew’s Leadership

Reputation Laundering

Isolation

Controlling Terms

The Purpose of the Ruse

Case Studies

SAHCon

Unofficial Homestuck Collection

Fruity Rumpus Asshole Factory

Freedom Motif

How to Fix This

Related Reading

The Unofficial Homestuck Collection Takedown

Bottom line up front

Hostile Takeover

Reluctance

Being Cooperative to a Fault

Offensive behavior

Abridged

Background

The Collection

Asset Layer Cake

Endorsement

First approach – October 2023

Good Faith

Introductions and Context – October 2023

Roles and Agents

You Know Gio’s Here, Right?

Homestuck Independent Creative Union

Commentary contribution

The HICU NDA Deadlock – October-June 2023

Beyond Canon

NDA Deadlock

Baring Fangs

Reality distortion as manipulation

“Don’t make me hurt you”

Wheel spinning

James and Beyond Canon Teasers – Jan-Feb 2023

Andrew chases off Bambosh – May-June 2024

Gio Era – 2024-2025

Making nice to me

Putting out the fire

My consistent position

Back to work – June-July 2024

Different NDA signed June 27, 2024

NDA as Isolation

Statement demand – August 2024