Hello and welcome back to live laugh stuck. I am Jackie aka Jax and my pronouns are they them and uh unfortunately this is one of my classic oh god shit just went down in the fandom and thus there are now some podcast changes to let you know about combo episodes. There are chapter markers so you can jump around as desired. That in mind while I will be making sure all factual statements I make are correct. This is my podcast and I will have my own opinions on the matter, not Gio's or Moosie's or anyone else's. And if you've listened to the podcast from the start or have known me for a while, you probably have a good idea on the general tone of those opinions. But I digress. Let's get this started with what prompted this whole thing. What's going on with the unofficial Homestuck collection? For those of you who may not be aware, Friend of the Pod Gio recently released an article titled the unofficial Homestuck collection takedown from which you can glean the premise. If you haven't read it, I really encourage you to do so, and to read the second article about the Homestuck Independent Creative Union, which I will be vaguely referencing, but not covering in this episode. They're both long reads, so I'm going to do my best to briefly summarize it here and also link to a longer summary on Reddit. Even if you didn't hear about the article, you should be familiar with the collection as the current best way to read Homestuck. Not only because the site has been down for most of the year with many things broken even when it's up, but also because it preserves the Flash elements of the comic along with a lot of other cool archival and accessibility features and other additions made by Bambosh, Gio and the community of modders dedicated to improving and expanding on it. We actually had Bambash and Gio on the podcast back in February of 2023 to talk about the collection, and I've been promoting it pretty heavily both on and off the podcast. I'm sure you can understand why the collection being taken down would be a huge issue for the fandom and any future fans, but I do want to say from the jump that you can still find it and download it. I'll touch on that a bit more in the final thoughts, but you can also check out the how to read Homestuck link in the show notes if you don't want to wait. I'd like to give some background context for this, but I cannot possibly give the full explanation of events leading up to this particular situation, especially as the sort of person who might be inclined to go over the invention of paper to explain how to self-publish a book. Both things I know very little about, but decided to use an example anyway. The most relevant context can be found very easily on YouTube.com in the form of Sarah Zed's video, Homestuck sent me a legal threat and that it got worse. And the articles Gio wrote about Hives Swap referenced in the video and about the aftermath. Even if you don't want to watch the video or read the articles, the title of Sarah Zed's video should be pretty self-explanatory. Homestuck aka what Pumpkin legally threatened Sarah Zed due to referencing Gio's articles on Hive Swap in her video on Homestuck. But no one could say anything Gio had said was actually wrong and just showed their whole ass all over the place. This was during my podcast hiatus. You remember my hiatus, right? When I felt like I could no longer be a positive force in the fandom because how absolutely shit the fandom and actual members of What Pumpkin and associated staff and contractors were. That hiatus. The point being, what Pumpkin, Homestuck, whatever you want to call the collected companies and entities and employees and contractors have repeatedly shown themselves to be the fucking worst in personal and professional capacities, but apparently they decided they weren't done proving it. I cannot emphasize enough how simple of a summary this is going to be. I am here to give a rough overview in order to explain why I and Moosie felt a shift in the podcast was necessary. Please, if you have time, go read the article in full or at least the summary from Reddit. Also, I'll be using Hussie, Homestuck, What Pumpkin, and the Homestuck Independent Creative Union or the HICU pretty interchangeably. And if you've read Gio's HICU article, you'll understand that there's really no reason not to at this point, though, I'd be inclined to anyway, just to streamline this a little bit. Disclaimers out of the way, let's dive in to the legitimately barebones basics. Andrew Hussie, initially via a representative, lied to Bambosh and Gio about reaching out about a collaboration with the collection, but instead used legal threats to extort them to give up control of the fan project as well as force them, particularly Gio, to denounce previous criticisms of Hussi, including those by completely unrelated people. see the previously mentioned Sarah Z debacle. In addition to this almost anticlimatically short summary, I wanted to note a few things. One, if you have read the article or more in-depth summaries, you would know there were if you have read the article or more in-depth summaries, you would know there were NDAs involved. One Gio was eventually able to sign. This means, and Gio states it in the article itself, that his lawyer read it and approved it before it was posted. If anything important was incorrect, it would not have been published. Two, in the same vein, after the articles came out, the previously mentioned Homestuck representative responded with his own post and not only did not say any of the transcripted Discord conversations were wrong, but also said to reference them if you wanted exact timestamps for when things happened. Andrew Hussie themself promoted the collection as the best place to read Homestuck in multiple places prior to this discussion as well as other web pumpkin associated staff contractors whatever. They knew about it, approved of it, and directed people toward it for a few years. Four, it's revealed that Hussie has been referring to Gio by his legal name rather than his chosen name. Not just on legal documents, but like in general. Keep that last point in mind for this last thing I want to mention, the accusation that Gio is transphobic. In the first iteration of the article, he used only he him pronouns for Hussie, as did the Homestuck representatives in the Discord transcripts, and at one point referred to Hussie as a man, as that was his understanding of how Hussie identified at the time. Though, there have been accusations of this being explicitly transmisogynistic, especially since it was in the context of Gio calling Hussie angry or aggressive. as it's been removed. I don't have the actual quote. Gio has since edited Hussie's pronouns to they them, removing the reference to Hussie as a man and adding a note to explain the change at the end of the article. To me, it would already be an overreaction to hold using the same pronouns as the people who work closely with Hussie uses for them over someone's head, especially since the situation was fixed and explained. But when you dive into what we, the public, actually know about Hussie's gender, the accusations are misguided at best and maliciously twisting words and lying in order to discredit not only the article, but Gio himself at worst. So, what's the fucking deal with Hussie's pronouns and gender anyway? Here are the things the average person can find out. Two, there was a What Pumpkin announcement about Hussie stepping down from any creative role in a Homestuck. We see how well that went. In which Hussie is referred to with they them pronouns. I believe in subsequent public posts from general official Homestuck staff both he him and they them are used but I'm not 100% sure on that. Three, as previously mentioned, Homestuck representatives were only using he him in reference to Hussie in the Discord transcripts in Gio's article. Three, as previously mentioned, Homestuck representatives only using he him pronouns for Hussie in the Discord transcripts in Gio's article. But before I get into the meat of Hussie's gender rather than just pronouns, I want to emphasize that the previous point shows that it is not misgendering to use he him for Hussie. If it was, the Homestuck representatives would have been misgendering them in every undisputed Discord transcript we've seen. Now, let's get into Hussie identifying as clown gender, though I'll get into the specifics of what that exactly is later. This is just setting up why people have come to the conclusion that that's how they identify. As far as I can tell, it's only gleaned from Hussie's first post Homestuck work, Psycholonials. Though again, if there are other sources, please let me know. If you're not familiar with Psychonials, it's as described in an interview Hussie had for Polygon in 2021, a game that follows Z and Abby, two girls who must figure out what to do with a mess of a revolution and empire that they themselves prompted. In the interview, Hussie mentions relating to Z, quote, "It loosely correlates with my past experience of presiding over a big fandom and watching it spin out of control. It's also an allegory for what I'm presently doing with psychonials. Z decides to launch a new brand and to rebrand her own image by making a clownsona and then roll out new content to the public as a way of turning the page on whatever she was up to before. This is basically what I did." End quote. However, to quote again, "Hussie suggests the personal allegorical elements in psychonials are more like points of inspiration, This story is about Z after all, not himself." End quote. I make this point because I've seen people use the fact that they identify with Z in some ways to not only say that this is Hussie's self-insert, but also makes their identification more about Z's creation and adoption of clown gender. But the quote only references Hussie's experience with fandom as what they identify with. There is another moment in Psychonials that perhaps seems a little more clear-cut. In the end credits, there is a cast list for every character that appears in the game, including background characters. There are a lot of them. If you've seen there is the credits for additional clown designs, this is why. There's just a shit ton of clowns. The characters are labeled with their name and then one or more emojis representing their character based on the points of the gender pyramid Z describes in the game and I'll get into details about later. The only emoji that does not appear as a gender anywhere else in the game is the pleading eyes emoji given to every character that inherits the secretary of jape position in the cult that Z form. What is relevant to discussions around Hussie's gender is that one of the clown characters mixed in with all the others is called Dclussie and is labeled with a clown emoji and no other symbol. For those not aware, dclussie is the name of Hussie's previously referenced clownsona and is currently the name of their Instagram where a few of the pictures had them in clown makeup along with some e boy looks. I'm not going to get further into that. You can find it yourself. Too long, didn't listen, but still somehow made it here. Hussie is said to relate to Z, the main character of Psycholonials, specifically around dealing with a fandom cult gone out of control. Z creates clown gender in Hussie's Clown Sona appears as a sort of Easter egg in the credits of their game and is labeled as identifying as clown gender. But what the fuck is the gender pyramid in clown gender? The final version of the gender pyramid as described by Zen psycholonials is a spectrum of male to female left to right with non-binary genders in the middle and ambivalence toward their gender clown gender to extremely strong feelings toward their gender. Horse gender from top to bottom. Unlike other genders, horse gender is an intensifier rather than a gender in its own right. You can be anywhere on the spectrum from extremes at each point to somewhere in the middle. Already this is ridiculously outdated. Non-binary does not exist in the middle of a male-to-female spectrum any more than bisexuality exists in the middle of a gay to straight spectrum. Non-binary is an umbrella term for innumerable understandings of gender. And while some might lean more towards masculine or feminine, others are a combination of both or of other genders or something else entirely, in psycholonials is a gender inspired by a clown alien that talks to Z in her dreams. It's an extreme ambivalence to gender because you're so above the very concept literally on top of the pyramid. None of it really matters. You view the whole thing as a farce. So, it's clown themed. Though, as I said, it exists on the gender spectrum. So, you can be slightly less peak clown gender and also be clown female, male, non-binary. Clown gendered people inherently do not give a shit about what pronouns anyone uses for them because they are too cool being clown gendered to care about how people refer to them. Basically, I hate the gender pyramid. It could be something fun if you take it completely unseriously and remove the idea that non-binary is between male and female. And I think horse gender is a funny concept, even if Hussie gets kind of weird with it in a vaguely racist way, which you can say about so many things in psychonials, but that's another discussion. But if we take Hussie's identification as clown gender and their explanation of it in psycholonials 100% seriously, Hussie uses any pronouns because they do not give a shit about pronouns. And since there's only the clown emoji listed under their clownsona, only identifies as clown gender. Not a guy clown or a girl clown or a non-binary clown. Just clown. The epitome of not giving a shit about gender.

chapter marker. Back to the point about Hussie's pronouns. This not only means that Gio was not transphobic to use he him for hussie, it is actually more misgendering to call Hussie or anyone who was at the peak of clown gender trans fem or trans masc or anything but completely unaligned. Though again, I don't think anyone who is peak clown gender as expressed in psycholonials would give a shit. Not that anyone besides Hussie and their fictional characters are experts on clown gender, myself included. Thus, Gio using he him for Hussie, following the example of people who have worked closely with Hussie for years, and keeping in mind their own ambivalence towards pronouns, is completely and totally fine. Anyone insisting otherwise, are the ones who do not understand Hussie's gender, as explained in detail in Psychonials, as terrible as an explanation of gender, I personally find it to be, and are ignoring not only Hussie's bio using any all pronouns, but also how their friends and close co-workers refer to them. So, what's the takeaway from this whole unofficial Homestuck collection debacle? Fuck Hussie and fuck Homestuck as an entity, but keep using the unofficial Homestuck collection. Homestuck made its own fork of the project on GitHub, initially under the guise of the HICU, but Homestuck.net has some information on how to go about still using the unofficial Homestuck collection without relying on that Homestuck controlled fork. Uh, and I'll link that in the show notes. Honestly, I initially had one of my usual sentimental but ragefilled rants scripted and ready to go. And while I still have one a bit locked and loaded, I want to make sure the focus isn't on me. Well, outside of the explanation on what's going to happen with the podcast I'll go over next. So many episodes of this podcast has been a way for me to air my grievances and no spoilers for set explanation of future plans, but there will still be plenty of opportunities for me to air them again and again and again because Homestuck has done a fucking lot to give a fucking lot of people a fucking lot of grievances. For every one story I could tell you of fucked up shit people associated with Homestuck in an official capacity either did to fans themselves or encouraged, there are a dozen more you'll never hear. What Gio talks about in their article is the same type of shit that has been going on for over a decade at minimum. And with all the NDAs and blacklisting threats around, who knows how many current or former staff members or contractors have their own stories that they can't come forward about. The Sarah Zed video and fallout should have been our last straw, but they hunkered down for a few years, waited for old fans to move on, new fans to come in, and people to generally forget, and then they created the HICU facade as a way to distance themselves and take away people's reasons to expect accountability. But again, read Gio's article just about the HICU to dive more into that. I'm not sure I could say much more about it that isn't just the Brooklyn 99 vindication meme, to be honest. The point is, we can't let them do that again. We can't let them try to wait until enough time has passed for people to think it's been years. Maybe they've changed. We can't look at any facade of new management and think, "Hey, well, it's not Hussie or anyone I remember doing bad things, so the problem is solved." You have got to remember, you have got to listen to and believe people's stories about dealing with this terrible fucking organization, whether as a fan or in an official capacity. And this includes if the people implicated are people you personally like. That doesn't make these people evil or means you have to stop liking their work or have to stop being affected by whatever they they did to to make you enjoy what they do or say. But you have to believe that even people whose work you enjoy can do bad things sometimes. And again, it doesn't make them evil. And you've got to look past whatever friendly face they're using as a shield from criticism, ready to take the fall when things go to shit And let me be clear, if you're frustrated or angry learning about any of this, harassing whatever public-f facing accounts or members of staff not only will be harming people who are more than likely to have no control over anything and no training in PR or community management, but also will do literally nothing to Hussie, but give them more fuel for see how badly my team is treated. This justifies my every action going forward. Again, even if we find out that some of those more publicly facing people have done bad things. We simply do not know the pressure they are under. And again, people doing bad things doesn't make them evil or mean that they can't change or just define them as a person forever. And don't give Homestuck money. Absolutely do not give them any more money. I don't know how the financials shake out on the back end, but Hussie and any other shit people working with them don't deserve your money. Don't buy the plushies or whatever other merch they may come out with. Don't buy the games and don't support the animation. If there's someone working on any Homestuck properties you do want to support, go to their social media or whatever accounts individually and see if they have a way to send them money directly. And go support fan works. Other fans need your support now more than ever in the face of Hussie using the threat of enforcing their IP in order to get their way. As much as a shit-show 2019 was, it was also full of awesome fan works and communities. And if we don't give in to the toxic fandom sludge that exists in internet fan spaces in general, we can make even better ones. So go check out Etsy for cute keychains and wanshi tape and body pillows. Troll through AO3 for a new favorite fic. Go and find YouTube channels and podcasts and z makers and whatever else you can get your hands on. And make sure to share it with fellow fans and make sure the creators know how much you appreciate their work. Homestuck.net is a great place to find a lot of fan works and resources, especially ones from the height of fandom, and I highly recommend checking it out. Also, I've linked to some fan works I personally like and want to promote on livelaughstuck.com/fanworks. Okay, with all of that out of the way, what's going on with the podcast? Here are the big takeaways. We will not be doing problem sleuth and will instead be reading the epilogues next. And the podcast will be going from every other week to once a month. As far as the nitty-gritty details, I'll be honest. There was a second where I didn't know if I was going to keep the podcast going. We just recorded the last of the Homestuck readthrough, except for a planned wrap-up episode that'll be coming out next Thursday. With our next plans being a problem sleuth break before getting into the epilogues, this would be a perfect time to just tie a bow in the whole thing and focus more of my attention on my other podcast and projects. Maybe even get back to another podcast I've been meaning to revive. There have been people dropping from Homestuck projects in general, including ones I've worked on. But after talking with Moosie and Domi, we decided we'll keep the podcast going and just won't explore any non-homestuck work of Hussies. Even like I said, Problem Sleuth, even though I've been promising it for a few episodes uh at at the very least. I feel like I've been promising it forever, but we're we're not going to do problem sleuth. We're just going to read the epilogues next. And as of now, the plan is to still do Homestuck 2 after that and maybe do some more fanstuck adjacent stuff again, but we haven't like figured out what exactly that's going to look like or anything. So that's why I kind of have the uh livelaughstuck.com/fanworks. So at the very least, we're promoting fan works there. Point being, Moosestuck will still be going on for a while. But I'm still not sure how I feel about reviewing HiveSwap Act 2 and Act Three, assuming it ever comes out. As I said, we don't want to financially support Hussie nor encourage others to do so, but as a Kickstarter backer, I already own Act 2 and will own Act 3 in theory, but I'm not sure how much I want to contribute to further promoting it, even with my tiny platform. In the same vein, I will not be watching and probably not even discussing the Homestuck animation. But I didn't mention the idea of this podcast ending just to be dramatic. This podcast has always had an end date, even if I've never had a solid idea of when that would be. I still don't know the date, but it doesn't seem quite as far out as it did before. That said, unless something absolutely insane like this happens again, it won't be out of nowhere. It'll be when I feel I'm at a good ending point, and I'll let you know when I do eventually decide that is. Whether it's next year or 5 years from now, however long we end up going, I appreciate all of you listening, whether you're new or have been here since it was called Jax Does Homestuck. You all have truly been a bright spot in what can be a tumultuous space. And I hope I can be that for you. Maybe just not on episodes where I have to explain what bad shit went down. So, thank you for being you, and I'll see you in the next episode for the Homestuck wrap-up with Moosie.

Thank you to Domi for composing the theme song and editing the episode. You can find more of her work at soundcloud.com/dominothief.

Shout out to our fakest fan tier supporters, Danni the Spoonlord and Tezrak. You can become a supporter and receive early episodes and bonus content for as little as $1 a month over at ko-fi.com/jaxyacks or simply give a onetime tip. For information on and links to my other projects, head over to jaxyacks.com. Thanks again for listening.

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