Archive of Related Works by Andrew Hussie
Bill Bolin background information
Discord channel pin compilations
Hussie Negotiations Transcript
Log of changes to homestuck.com
Modern explanations of fandom history/behavior
Mods on the Homestuck Discord Server
Timeline of Hiveswap's Development
This appendix is dedicated to information that is otherwise unstructured but serves as a useful repository of information, such as a large collection of pictures or a text dump. Excel spreadsheets may also go here.
Formspring and Blogs - Wheals
Previous Works - MrCheeze
https://mrcheeze.github.io/andrewhussie/
Art
Bay 12 game forums - large volume of early Homestuck artwork - posted July 29th, 2009
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=39579.0
Music
Lotus Time Capsule - /u/spankety, first posted publicy to subreddit on 10/25/18.
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/pvp85vuvjk1bx4d/AAAddaNRyOhueiMb4KWYtR1ba
Way Back Machine archive link
http://web.archive.org/web/20150307163143/http://tickmancer.tumblr.com/post/3964177452/thetalk
Full text as follows:
For Posterity, Bill Bolin and “The Talk”
So a guy named Bill Bolin (pleocoma) did music for a lot of Homestuck’s early flash pages, but had a falling out with Andrew Hussie and the rest of the music team. pleocoma had posted a number of unfinished Beatdown remixes in the music team thread without specifically marking them as such, and Andrew then used them for the page "[S] Rose and Dave: Shut up and jam" Apparently fed up with a perceived lack of professionalism on the project, the text of his infamous response in the thread he made (“The Talk”) is quoted below the cut.
“» Andrew wrote: >> “Petty is taking a single harmless statement someone makes, like Pleo does, and twisting its meaning around to reap maximum personal offense, and then writing a self righteous novella laced with ad hominem in response. Or what Kali does, which is needling someone with clear mental illness to the point of near psychological oblivion.” » “I guess I’m holding myself to a different standard, and trying to be diplomatic where possible. But that said, there’s zero tolerance for any of this stuff now.” » “And no this really isn’t an invitation for either of those two people to chime in.” Youre going to have to ban me then. I’m glad to see that youre so sensitive and understanding to see that there is a basis for my point of view, and refrained from calling me straight up mentally ill. Here goes.
» Muke wrote: >> “Mr Pleocoma, I gotta say we never talked much before and so the only impression I really have of you is how you’ve acted recently. The largest “mark” made here was by all the silly ruckus you made. I understand if you feel insulted by the insensitivity of the community and the decisions made by Andrew and want to leave the community but don’t act as if you are standing in innocent awe of the offenses of others while being a tool yourself.” » “I know that you probably aren’t actually a tool and so I wish you well as well.”
Thats mighty big talk for a chap like you! Sit down, we’re about to have “the talk”. Andrew had always put himself out to be "a pretty okay guy", so I felt that I had enough of a comfort zone in working with him, and extended trust to him, specifically, trusted him not to abuse the fact whatever we post is game to be used on MSPA. This sounded like something that was pretty standard, but I now know that this was built to be deceptive. Thus, I did not label with the phrase or equivalent the clips and stuff that I had produced that were either in early stages of production (being conceptual works put out to gauge interest and determine at what priority at which I should pursue them), or meant to be something to get the ball rolling and/or pique interest for collaboration. (If you remember and/or look, I completely spelt this out for Non Compos Mentis) Why? because it looks pretty dickish, seems likely to be misinterpreted, and it is something that should be obvious to an experienced illustrator such as Mr. Hussie, as there is a very high probability that he himself has, or has had to in the past, create rough sketches in order to work towards final, publishable products. Now following this train of thought, Andrew should realize that it is not a particularly common desire for an artist of any sort to want to have a rough draft of some sort be published as if it was representative of said artist’s full artistic touch and intent. Now lets go to a parallel dimension, where Andrew is in our (which is to say, my) place. Lets say, one of his favorite journalists was openly recruiting illustrators for a big project, and he brazenly jumps at the opportunity figuring it would be an honor to work on it, he would have the chance to get to work with an idol, and to have an amazingly better chance to make a career in his field while getting to work and learn with peers with an obviously similar interest. THIS IS AN AMAZINGLY FORTUNATE EVENT! So Andrew makes contact and is in, and is shuffled into a super-space-agey-and-parallel-dimension-like-holo-internet room along with everyone else, where they go over the contract terms. It seems pretty okay. something you’d expect, what you submit is applicable for use, of course Andrew is aiming for his work to be used and so he does not see anything that could go wrong, and additionally has no reason to not trust that he is in good hands. Thisisgonnabesoawesomeletsgetstarted! And so they are coordinated, and it became understood that everyone should post their contributions on new or exisiting hyperium-threaded-bulletin-boards, and that boards meant for requested commissions would pop up at times. The very first request-board that our nameless journalist brought up was exceptionally vague about its needs, “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. This is questionable to (hopefully most) of the artists but they follow through anyways and many gave their take on it. After it was chosen which one struck closest to the target, whatever it was, a noticable amount of artists disconnectified and were never heard from again. Perhaps just weak willed people. Everyone is encouraged to work and help each other and draw inspiration from each other, and as more attempts are made to do just that..a few facts emerged. One being that the average level of proficiency of the team was embarassingly low and that Artists/peers don’t necessarily make good constructive advice givers, and those who had that capacity seemed to be too busy to get to comment any more than a handful of illustrations. (and our journalist for some unfathomable reason did not foresee any need for recruiting any consultants to help out even after these facts emerged) Lets say Andrew notices this and feels willing to help out in those regards since the less experienced are determined, spirited, and willing, that they deserve someone to talk to and be given some advice to improve them and help them eventually get something into this magazine-or-whatever. He does his best to distribute unbiased (as much as one is capable) advice and even draws up some redlines for some to encourage a uniform direction so that the group could work together more fluidly. As time goes on the requests appear as a polar extreme, either way too vague, or complicated and difficult. Andrew is forced to shift his attention to the complicated, as most of the peers that had the proper skillset were not willing to touch them as it is obvious that the ultimate execution of it would have them looking like the shittiest artist that ever shat on the earth. But Andrew aimed to please, still keeping to heart that its an honor to do this work, and this opportunity that fell in his lap was a fuckin miracle, so he does his best to arrange of what his idol would like to have done;» “some way for these multiple images made by different people to overlap with each other and make a cohesive picture with any combination of images that are displayed”
Andrew made it happen, at the cost of some pride, as he knows he’ll be able to show what hes really made of at some point, and is patient.» “An image made only with the color yellow”
This one was trickier. Andrew made a concept work for it with a bit of cheaty methods by squeezing in a shade of yellow that happened to be impossible. He tried to consult the yellow expert of the group to see if theres any way this piece could be remade legitimately, using only possible shades of yellow. The expert failed to respond. This yellow expert also previously took copies of some of Andrews illustrations with the vocal intent to collaborate on it somehow, but this also, failed to happen. It was decided just to run with it. But when it came to approaching when the article was due to cyberlogilocast, Mr/Ms Yellow reemerges with his/her own full-yellow illustration. “Well this is good news!” Andrew thought, “This is a lot more organic and legitimate than what I made, and I’d like to somehow encourage that this be used!” so he makes a spin-off illustration that added more colors, in an attempt to show that this is a feasable theme to develop. They wound up being used for another purpose instead, despite the inadequate state of production on them. it was something about fruit stands, or toe jams idontevenknow This wasnt a big deal as there was enough time for a retraction if either of them had wanted to. this was at a part of the project that everything was still building up and so it would fit in sorta. Moving on, Andrew supplied the project with concepts of various unfilled niches so that there is plenty to choose from for consideration and to gauge collaborative interests of his teammates and to try to get a general idea of which ones are most likely to be used. Its a bit difficult to have in mind while doing this that the group sells poster prints of the illustrations used in the articles that have this expectation to remain the same overall picture without a doubt, just bigger and perhaps with something fleshing out the space. It would be nice if adequate notice of when and which of his illustrations were going to go into the articles so that he could make drastic changes like rewriting a whole bunch of lines before a concept he has supplied goes up for the first time so that the expectation for the poster print could be met without having to force it and have it wind up be something that was not his artistic intent at all. Personal integrity happens to be important to Andrew even though it doesnt appear that his teammates or boss share that feeling. Like Mr/Ms Yellow for example. It took several more attempted collaborative efforts with this dipshit to realize that Mr/Ms Yellow was a user that was manipulating, bullying, lying, playing tricks on and making a fool of Andrew for the entertainment for his/her buddies that happen to be as immature as he/she is. Either nobody noticed or gave a shit, but Andrew sure felt fucking retarded for having wasted hard effort on this lowlife. Since this groups organization skills and inhospitible environment had not improved over the course of a year, Andrew wanted to wash his hands of this utter nonsense, and avoided the whateverthefuck-room only to come in to submit finished poster prints. With nearly all his slated illustrations off the rack, he was looking forward to a more appropiate and fulfilling place to be, preferably amongst sane and legitimate artists, even though that meant he might have to fly solo for a little bit to get there. But all of a sudden, an article goes up, featuring illustrations from Andrew that consisted of early concept work and redlines. This is a shocker, he recieved no notice that this was going up and they were made for articles long gone. Despite being rather jarred by this, Andrew goes to the proper board looking to discuss the matter and get an explanation. He made a large detailed post with certain points even highlighted. The response he got was that the journalist actually did not have Andrew in mind at all in regards to this article, and simply thought this was a cool thing to do, and that he had the means and rights to do it without even a courtesy call to Andrew because of the agreement that Andrew took at the beginning of this bullshit, and despite the journalist being widely regarded as being very cool, he still took advantage of Andrew in this way. The journalist also completely ignored the [highlighted] concern about being informed and about how this wasnt stuff that Andrew felt comfortable being in the public eye. Andrew wasn’t upset that much at first, as whats done is done and he planned to explain the misunderstanding to his supporters. All the while during the conversation, Mr/Ms Yellow and her pals, along with people that have never spoken to Andrew before and even people that Andrew had once offered genuinely well-meaning advice to, were now berating, mocking, provoking and every disgusting thing you can think of to Andrew. But to be told something this cold from someone he once regarded with high esteem, and to see the people he once went out of his way to help try to share in success be terrible monsters to him…this was very hurtful. *snap* Now come back to this reality. Tell me Muke, WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU THINK YOU KNOW ABOUT ME THAT MAKES YOU THINK YOU CAN TELL ME THAT I AM ACTING UNHONESTLY? WHO THE FUCK DO YOU KNOW THAT CAN GO THROUGH THIS FUCKING BULLSHIT AND NOT MAKE A “SILLY RUCKUS?” YOU CALLED ME A TOOL, TRY TO PASS IT OFF AS HALF JOKINGLY, AND I’M NOT GOING TO FALL FOR IT. YOU ARE NOTHING BUT A LITTLE MONSTER.
» Andrew wrote: >> “You just snapped. At someone who’s done nothing but be supportive of you creatively and personally. Period.”
Making me not be able to trust you is a strange way to show your support and chumminess.» Andrew wrote: >> “What the fuck do you think this is? Pixar?” » “I never misrepresented anything.”
You sure misrepresented that you know what youre doing. Andrew, I will say this loud and clear.Oh and its so awesome to continue to see the people I once gave a legitimate shit about come in now to have their laugh and hold their head high and mighty at me as if I’m a lunatic…the fucking joke is on you, you fucking tools.
”
Pleocoma was kicked off the music team and all of his music was replaced, leaving behind only brief flourishes in [S] Descend.
ADDITIONAL LINKS:
Provided by Makin
https://mega.nz/#!g74iiTRY!twEoyb2G0yb3rShJrGfm0BurzTsiqnN7u3Xu21uVyOw
#general
#mspa-lit
Provided courtesy of Hiveswap Kickstarter backers - 5/9/19
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. But right now the good news is we’re in a stage of development where we can start sharing some things and are committed to talking with you more frequently.
ACT 2
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.
[hi hs twitter this is discord.gg/homestuck]
This approach is working much better for us but one downside of this approach is that there isn’t much gameplay footage to show for most of the development. We can’t show you any gameplay yet but we would like to share a few snippets…
[gifs]
We will have more to share on Act 2 soon and we want to share it with you first. For our next update we’d like to invite you to submit questions about Act 2 via this google form and we will aim to answer as many of them as possible in the update.
Thanks again for your patience and support. We’re so happy to be back talking about Act 2 and can’t wait to share more info soon.
Shortened summary of proceedings:
In late December of 2019/ early January 2020, the user Phoebe is banned from the HSD for harassment and racism towards other users. She devises a plan to foment discord between the official team and us in an effort to get Kate and Makin both in trouble (see screenshots below). The plan succeeds, and an enormous confrontation begins. Alongside lambasting Makin for releasing “homestuck.net,” an extensive fan archive Makin developed, Kate and people surrounding her on Twitter accuse the mod team and communities of the HSD and Homestuck subreddit of harboring child abusers and being “a child porn ring.” Kate is banned from the Homestuck subreddit for this. Hussie reaches out to Makin over this and to try and smooth matters over.
Makin responds poorly, and then Hussie describes that if no resolution is reached he will become “heavy-handed” in his response but does not elaborate on what this means. Makin redirects Hussie to Drew Linky, where discussions and negotiations of what’s to be done begin in earnest. Drew explains previous history and the current situation as requested, and it becomes clear that the current strife was caused by a specific, targeted misinformation campaign by Phoebe. Despite the falseness of the claims, it is agreed by the three of us (Drew, Makin, and Hussie) that things spiraling out of control would have been less likely if there was more trust between the official team and our community.
It was decided that Makin’s behavior over the last decade as owner of the subreddit and then the HSD shouldn’t be overlooked, and for the benefit of continued stability he should step down and pass control of the community to someone else, namely Drew. After securing certain stipulations (including the ability to discuss the proceedings of these emails with the community at large once they were resolved), Makin agreed to step down. One of the stipulations was for a public statement of no fault or wrongdoing from Hussie and/or the official team. Kate drafted a statement for this purpose, but due to its content Makin and Drew were upset because it appeared to be done in bad faith and stated that no transfer would take place until Kate’s statement was amended.
Hussie stated that Kate would not publish her statement and in fact would not be interacting with or posting about the HSD or subreddit from then on. The transfer was completed and announced to the community at large. Drew commented a few times that Kate “would not be allowed” to speak to or about the community following these proceedings. Kate saw these comments and, though the comments were deleted immediately once Hussie informed Drew they were a problem, she was upset to the point that she posted the statement in full.
Makin did not ask for the server back despite this violation of the negotiations, and the mod team of the HSD penned a “formal complaint” about Kate Mitchell’s behavior, based on posting the full statement despite agreements not to and also because of her behavior towards the fandom as a whole over the course of her being part of the official team. Hussie followed up first by asking what the genders of the mod team of the HSD were, which upset them greatly as they saw it as a distraction from discussing Kate’s behavior and character as well as an unprofessional violation of their privacy.
Hussie responded to the upset saying that no action against Kate would be taken, and then described that he wanted most of the mod team to be replaced due to “negative influence” from Makin’s time as the administrator. Hussie then put Drew in contact with an agreed upon liaison, who shall remain nameless, as well as Aysha from the official team, with the goal of making it possible to talk directly in case further issues would develop.
The email chains stopped at this point as discussions moved to Discord, but the liaison chat was used only a handful of times after people were introduced to each other, and as of July 16th 2020 has remained completely unused since March.
------------------------
Beginning of email chain
------------------------
Hussie Feb 5, 2020, 7:32 PM:
Sorry I did not reply to this email until now. I have not logged onto this account since before it was sent. But it pertains to the project which should be addressed, so I am replying now.
Generally this type of fan-organized content is fine, and I almost never intervene or have anything to say about it. But there are extenuating factors surrounding this project which make it difficult to ignore.
The crux of the problem is that you and your orbiting group of community admins have spiraled into a toxic relationship with virtually the entire group of people I'm currently working with in an official capacity on Homestuck projects, a number of these people being my personal friends. I don't know much about the details of the situation, because I make a point not to pay much attention to communities with any sort of inflammatory interpersonal conduct is taking place. But I have to say, dating back years now, every time I hear your name, or about your communities in general through second hand sources, it's always in a certain negative light, usually associated with personally invasive remarks directed toward my staff or my friends. It's a longstanding pattern resulting in current the conditions, which appear to be untenable. Not just untenable from certain ethical standpoints, but untenable to the goals you have for these community driven projects.
I'm not sure I understand the point of insisting on continuing to manage a number of HS communities as well as a semi-official looking, fan-friendly hub for all things HS, when your group has badly alienated almost every single person working on official HS content, and in doing so also alienated the community revolving around the efforts of those people. Is the goal to perpetuate a more factionalized and hostile fandom? I'm not really getting it.
I also can't claim neutrality on disputes between your group and the people working on my projects. The latter consists of people I have chosen to work with and have extended official licenses to, in a manner that reflects the purposes I have for the future of this property. Whereas I have not chosen to work with your group or extend any official recognition whatsoever. Which was fine, to the extent your group was able to operate harmlessly, which does not appear to be the case anymore, if it ever was. Which means that all of this activity you're presiding over is sort of a rogue operation, representing a substantial gateway that new fans can enter the HS world through, but quickly directs them into an environment which is hostile to the people and projects I'm currently pursuing. So the question is, why would you think the net result of this activity is helpful to me, or the brand in general?
And yet, it is because a project like this appears to involve a great deal of effort, reflecting real interest in the future of HS, that I'm willing to assume you are open to voluntarily taking some steps that will address the problems. I would rather see that happen than have to intervene personally in a way that seems heavy handed, which could throw gas on the fire of a bad situation. So for now my request is for you to suspend this site temporarily. Not delete, just suspend with a notice that it is down for maintenance or something, which will allow some time for us to talk about what can be done to fix all this.
Thank you for listening.
---
Makin Feb 5, 2020, 11:21 PM:
Hey. [Personal details]
"I don't know much" and "second hand sources" don't sound like you know what's going on. I'll go straight to the point. Almost every "toxic" interaction between me and the team before 2016 didn't even exist. Your team at the time just thought [Fandom figure] and I were the same person. Once it became obvious we weren't, the heavy dislike by association alone sabotaged every reaching out I attempted.
I have absolutely been a dick to people in the past. I tended to facetiously "steelman" positions I obviously didn't agree with. But I was younger at the time, younger than you were when you thought making certain kinds of comics was a good idea.
Both those behaviors are long behind us. We've both apologized for them, and are still atoning for them. If you know how much you changed, allow yourself to trust that I have changed too. Even now, I still make some bad jokes and routines that people take seriously, but other people can and have vouched for me (you can check with Drew Linky, for example).
Remember the Caucasian controversy? Remember how many people never stopped believing you were a racist, that you intentionally encouraged hate against mass groups of people? Why is it so hard to believe I am in a similar situation as you were, and it only got worse when you left?
If something like hs.net doesn't make sense, then that's your first clue something isn't right about your assumptions. Since I stopped being salty about Act 7, I have done nothing but support fan projects and work to make the best communities I could. I have hosted dozens of community streams where people chilled and watched Con Air and other Homestuck movies. I hosted music retrospectives. I hosted the great reread of last 2019.
Why would anyone believe I hate Homestuck or want anything bad to happen to it? For god's sake, I even told people to buy your books in the Official Works section, abandoning any pretense of neutrality.
Let me be clear again: I like your story. I like the stories your employees make. I even admire you as a creator. That doesn't mean I have any interest in becoming friends with you or them (though becoming civil and diplomatic, for sure), nor becoming official, nor getting hired. I think a lot of the confusion directed at me comes from there.
After what the fandom's been through, after the MSPA Forums, after more recent events, I (and an increasing number of regular fans) simply don't believe your team having direct control over the entire disconnected fandom is a good idea. We will work on our own to make sure our community is as good as it can be, while your team can create their own, surely healthier competition, or just accept the fans want this state of affairs. We don't claim to be official, we claim to be free.
Your team has chosen Twitter as their main hangout, possibly the most toxic platform ever created. It makes every interaction ten times harder and more obnoxious, encourages rumor spreading, and it's escalated the previously passive friction to the point one of your lead writers accused me of running a child porn ring and then chose to lead a raid against our subreddit. They didn't only attack me, but also our diverse team of mods, and a lot of innocent bystanders.
And not just our community. A hardworking fan you may know as [fandom figure] was harassed today to the point of palpitations simply for pointing out a fanwork linking site was a good idea, even after saying she wasn't condoning me. This happened on Twitter, and was encouraged by two writers that have worked for you. These kinds of events happen daily over there, and we have wanted to separate ourselves from Twitter for that exact reason, not as some kind of attack on you or your franchise.
As of sending this email, the responses to the Jane route are universally positive in our community. There is no inherent hostility coming from us. We regularly ban bad actors and people who are hostile, despite what you may have been told.
But if I work my ass off for months to restore 11 years of fanprojects and the official response is a veiled legal threat and harassment from some of your employees, where do you think the hostility and harm is coming from?
The endgame for our community is evolving to the point drama and abuse from outside are reduced to a tolerable level, and we can just discuss the damn story. That's all we want at this point.
As a compromise, even if I don't really think it's the right move, I can remove the links to the subreddit and discord from the front page first thing tomorrow, if you want.
Tomorrow, because I just spent five hours fixing a dogpile of misguided removal requests and responding to personal attacks, and about two trying to write this email. If you still want me to put the site on maintenance mode, I can do that when I wake up, but hopefully this email has dissuaded you from that, and we can keep this dialogue going.
Thanks for being willing to hear me out.
---
Hussie Feb 6, 2020, 2:45 PM:
This isn't really the type of reply that makes me want to keep a dialogue going, it just makes me wonder why I bothered reaching out at all. There's a lot of defensive spaghetti being thrown at the wall here, addressing claims about you I never even really made, and topics I never brought up. I don't quite know what to do with this. I'm the creator of this thing, I'm coming to you to tell you I see a problem here, and the spirit of your response is something like, "no, there is no problem actually, every single person you're currently working with and have been speaking to for many years are lying to you, and actually, they are the problem and we are the true victims." Alright.
I'll probably leave it at that, since this exchange so far does not resemble a productive conversation. But if you actually care about trying to solve the problem, let me know, and I'll give you my recommendations.
---
Makin Feb 6, 2020, 3:03 PM:
Please give me your recommendations, and thanks.
---
Hussie Feb 6, 2020, 8:47 PM:
My strongest recommendation is that you and the entire admin staff turn over control of your communities to a team of interim admins of my choosing, who I will then work with to establish a method for selecting new leadership in some sort of democratic way. This process hopefully will feel satisfying to all existing community members, as well as those who stay away from your communities, but would participate if they felt more confident about the leadership and policies there. This would not be a matter of my team assuming full control of these spaces. I would prefer the solution avoid that appearance, and result in an organic process that leads to management which is more welcoming to as broad a segment of the fandom as possible.
I realize this may be a difficult thing to do, letting go of communities you've spent so long working to build. Your willingness to do so should not be seen as an indictment of your character, or acknowledgment that certain claims made about you are necessarily true. It just means you're taking a step back to do what's best for the community and brand in general. I think there comes a point where, once certain toxic perceptions of you have cemented among sectors of fandom, especially if it's the entire group of people working on official stuff, there's not much you can do to fight that perception anymore. The only thing you can really do is pass the baton to others, which itself is a strong demonstration that ultimately your main interest is in trying to improve the situation. So if you and your team do this, I'll do everything in my power to convince others to lay off with the negativity toward the previous leadership, because clearly you're now making concrete gestures to set things right.
I'd also advise you not to personalize this too much. You don't need to go to such lengths to convince me you're not a terrible person. I already understood that stuff like this is complicated, and not everything is always as it seems. My take on you was never that you were a bad guy. My take, informed by reports of the past along with recent interactions we've had, is that you suffer from some combination of tone deafness and obsession. I don't mean this as an insult, this is just my honest evaluation of the problems you are facing. The tone deafness results in consistent misunderstanding of what it is people find upsetting that stems from the behavior in your communities, despite your best efforts to address it. You say things like "we fixed all the problems, but people are still mad", and all I really hear is, the problems are likely still happening, but you don't have the right feel for recognizing those problems when they occur. And this is probably where obsession plays a role. You sink into these rabbit holes, like trying to resurrect the old forums, agonizing over every little bit of minutia related to my work as far back as recorded history goes. I get why people care about preserving history to some extent, but it's possible to overdo it. Sometimes old things expire for a reason. 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 which is reminiscent of hostile behavior patterns. Ones linked to either stalking, or someone's effort to stockpile past activities to weaponize against others when they deem necessary. Which doesn't sound that far off from some of the behavior I've heard reported from your communities over the years. So it doesn't really surprise me that these types of issues stem from a culture that is clearly dedicated to such intense curation habits. So it's also my recommendation that you reflect on these habits, and consider how they are contributing to a sense of tone deafness. That is, you may have become so preoccupied with the minutia of my work, you've lost the ability to understand what exactly is upsetting to people with respect to the past behavior of this community, and why.
This is the main reason why I think it is in your best interest to step away from these communities, as well as the best interest of everything you're trying to accomplish. Homestuck.net really doesn't make much sense if it is meant to be an exhaustive documentation of the world of Homestuck, but is managed by an increasingly insular subset of fandom, which feels bitter and aggrieved by other groups, to the extent that it doesn't even acknowledge recent official works. It is a fan site, which means you can operate it how you want, but it's also making some strong statements. The url alone is using a trademarked name which carries a feeling of officiality, even if you claim none. And for that reason, you are promoting the appearance to new fans trying to explore this world that you are trying to control their perception of what you consider to be valid about Homestuck, or not valid. So by excluding reference to more recent official works, presumably due to this bad blood, you are making an implicitly aggressive statement. Something like "this isn't real, because we don't like it, and the people who make it suck". This does not seem like a good way to endear current fans of Homestuck to this project, let alone the people making that content, or myself.
So finally, here is what my recommendation is for homestuck.net:
Keep the site, and maintain it for however long you remain interested. But when the above changes have taken place, then take as much instruction and guidance from the new leadership of the communities, with input from the users, on how best to present the site. Which info to include, which to exclude. My guess is others who've opted off your site would likely come back if new leadership built more confidence in the community, and then vouched for the project. I may have some input on what should stay or go as well. But not until I believe this project rests on a more stable foundation and exists more amicably within the greater HS ecosystem. Following these recommendations is the best way I can think of to accomplish this.
Please let me know if you are willing to do this, and I will follow up with more assistance.
---
Makin Feb 7, 2020, 0:07 AM:
[Personal details] I recommend emailing Drew Linky if communicating with me becomes too frustrating. He's a great guy, and way better than I'll ever be at this diplomacy stuff.
First, I'll address the actionable improvements I can start working on right now. If you're in a hurry, just read this first part:
>> Sometimes old things expire for a reason.
Tell me what things are unacceptable to you on a personal level and I will swiftly remove them, don't worry about this.
>> URL
I thought the URL would be fine based off how the former owners of the homestuck.net domain used it in the past, and how the homestuck2.net domain is being used now. The goal was making it so people can search things like "homestuck cosplay tutorials" and get to the site easily. I can make further changes to make it even more obvious it's run by fans, if you want? Waiting for your feedback.
>> excluding official works
I excluded works one of your writers was involved with due to an unrelated incident where a cease and desist was issued, I wanted to avoid that possibility. Maybe more importantly, I felt that referencing the works in question might be unwelcome. If they or you give me permission to reference Homestuck^2, Pesterquest, etc on Homestuck.net, I will of course include the works there. Those works continue to be pinned and announced in all our communities, so I think this in particular is a legitimate misunderstanding, but I do think I joked about the missing inclusion at some point out of frustration, so that'd be my fault.
And second, addressing the matter of community ownership, I was worried about sounding aggressive or defensive, so I talked to Drew about editing. I kept most of my original messages intact, but after we talked we wrote this:
Turning over the community is a non-starter for a variety of reasons both historical and modern. I can explain as fully as you’d like on these, but I’ll give the most important ones. First and foremost, I don’t trust other people to effectively take care of this community. I know that there are huge disagreements about what “effectively taking care of the community” means, but both the subreddit and the Discord server were and still are really active even with long pauses in official content being released.
It’s been said that the community is unwelcoming or unsafe for certain types of people, which is nonsense: both our community and staff are made of very diverse people who have a wide variety of opinions and beliefs. The community isn’t perfectly welcoming to literally everyone because that’s impossible, but we occupy such a wide stretch of culture that we don’t know how we could invite those outside of it without fundamentally changing how we do things, which would in fact make these places more insular.
As for “toxic perceptions” of me, I’d point out that these perceptions should be viewed with some suspicion specifically because they’re being conveyed to you by the team and people close to them, who are biased against me due to interactions from the past. From what I’ve seen over the last year most of the fandom (pretty much everywhere except Twitter) doesn’t actually view me that negatively, or doesn’t even know I exist. Out of respect to them I’ve avoided contacting members of the staff for years now, with the exception of talking to them in Aysha U. Farah’s personal Discord server last year. In those discussions, although I admit I became defensive at points because I felt overwhelmed talking with them, I tried as hard as I could to be receptive to the criticisms they offered. We did actually implement some changes in our community based directly on suggestions from Aysha, Kate Mitchell, and others in an effort to “make concrete gestures to set things right.”
You mentioned that stepping down wouldn’t necessarily be admitting that claims about me are true. This is confusing, especially because you then admit that not everything is always as it seems. Why would I give over control of the community due to reasons that aren’t in fact true? I believe the opposite: if the biggest reason for me to step down is because of problems with me (actual or perceived) in the official team, then there isn’t much of a reason for me to step down at all. I can give a lot of examples of untrue claims coming from the team in the last month alone, including being accused of “running a child porn ring.” Fighting against false claims like this isn’t just the right thing to do, it’s the only thing to do. I’ve already demonstrated my willingness to change myself and the community, the rest needs to come from a place of cooperation and not capitulation.
I don't want to cause you, your franchise, or your team any harm, and I'll continue working to avoid that. I truly appreciate your taking the time to write all these recommendations, so thank you again.
PS: Fully unrelated, but this conversation reminded me of something you should be aware of. https://andrewhussie.tumblr.com/ has been impersonating you on Tumblr for a few years, and they've got a significant percentage of Tumblr convinced.
---
Hussie Feb 8, 2020, 5:55 PM:
>> Sometimes old things expire for a reason.
>> URL
>> excluding official works
I'll think about this stuff, but it's less important than resolving the other issues for now.
Really there's a lot of talking in circles going on here. And it always seems to come back to reassurances that sound like "don't worry, none of the problems are actually real, and everything's fine." If everything's fine, why am I wasting my time with any of this? Maybe you're not feeling the negative ramifications of any of the issues I'm talking about, but from where I'm standing the vibes surrounding the perception of your communities is completely atrocious. So yes, there's a problem, and I want it to be fixed so the people I work with don't continue feeling disturbed by the activity associated with your community. I don't want to hear anything more about how they are exaggerating or misreading the situation, or whatever. This problem needs to be solved.
>> Turning over the community is a non-starter for a variety of reasons both historical and modern.
Why is it a non-starter? This is a weird statement. I'm trying to address some serious problems I'm seeing with a community you run that entirely revolves around my work, and you're telling me there are certain things that are non-negotiable? I could have gotten a lot more heavy handed about this a lot earlier than now, but I've been trying to have a reasonable conversation here to give you a chance to recognize there are more systemic problems with your community management style than you've been acknowledging. In fact, I'm still trying to be reasonable, so I'll cite one of your remarks: "both our community and staff are made of very diverse people who have a wide variety of opinions and beliefs." Great, I believe you. So that means your staff should be perfectly capable of navigating these problems themselves without you. They should be able to work with my people directly to repair the situation, right?
So I am coming to the conclusion that the real obstacle to progress here is your personal control over the community. I am not basing this on past reports, I am basing this on the direct interactions I've had with you and observing your patterns of communication. There's a lot of deflection, denialism, circular nonsense, and habits that just keep the conversation going nowhere. So it doesn't surprise me that people I know who've tried to sort out problems with you end up very frustrated and finally washing their hands of you. That means you are the chief obstacle to fixing these problems, which means the best thing for you to do is just resign.
So I'm asking you to completely relinquish all power over your communities, and turn control over to the remaining staff. Then I'll pick the conversation back up with Drew, and work with him on figuring out how to repair the relationship between my people and your community, which is my only real priority here. If you are unwilling to do this, then you will be confirming one of the more negative suspicions I'm developing, which is that none of this is really about Homestuck or building a good community, but instead revolves around your need to control all of this personally, which would make your group a cult of personality more than anything else. If this turns out to be the case, then I will modify my approach to the situation accordingly.
---
Makin Feb 8, 2020, 6:46 PM:
That last sentence is concerning.
Could you explain what you mean, so that I can make the best choice for the community and myself?
---
Hussie Feb 8, 2020, 7:06 PM:
At this point, I shouldn't really have to. If you want cling to power after I explained my position to you very clearly, that means I don't think you have good intentions by running this community. I'll see you as a determined hostile actor toward the brand and the people I work with, and I won't give the benefit of the doubt toward projects like homestuck.net, which otherwise I'd be inclined to view as good harmless fun. Then I will start taking some actions, and if you really need that spelled out for you further, then this is going in the wrong direction.
---
Hussie Feb 8 2020, 4:57 PM:
Hi Drew,
I've had a fairly extensive conversation with Makin trying to address some problems with his community, and I've reached the point where I feel there's no way forward unless he completely resigns from all administrative positions. He's basically a brick wall at this point, and I don't see any improvement to the situation possible as long as he's still in control.
I'd rather continue the conversation with you, or whoever else on the staff is left who's willing to make some changes to fix the situation. Fixing this is not complicated at all, it just involves talking with the people I work with about what can be done, and if they can end up happy with the situation, then I will be too. It could also involve adding a few new people to your staff from our camp, to get some new perspectives in play. But I don't want to humor any more lines of discussion which suggest Makin can still be involved somehow. The well between him and my people has become totally poisoned, and after talking to him for a while, I've realized his entire attitude about this is a dead end. So he just needs to step down.
I'd appreciate it if you can convey to the rest of the admin staff that it is my very strong recommendation that Makin resign. I am saying this in the hopes of improving community relations, and not some effort to take it all over or fuck it up. If you don't feel like you can be a good stand-in for him in this discussion because he is your friend, I understand, but would appreciate it if you could point me to someone on the staff who I could talk to instead. I am sorry if this puts you in an awkward position, but I finally felt like I had to step in here myself and figure this out. I would not have bothered if the situation did not feel dire from my perspective.
Thanks for understanding, and I hope we can all sort this out soon.
---
Drew Feb 8 2020, 6:36 PM:
Andrew,
Thank you for reaching out to me, though I’m sorry that we’re not talking under more positive circumstances. Especially given our previous conversation about the Toblerone bar, I was hopeful that the fandom’s situation by now would be less serious and anxiety-inducing for all involved. I apologize if this response is a little long-winded, I have a tendency to over-elaborate or be more verbose than necessary, especially when I'm nervous.
I’m more or less fine with speaking on Makin’s behalf in these discussions, provided that he continues to trust me to do so. I prefer to be as transparent as possible in conversations like this, so I feel obligated to point out that I’m far from a neutral party: I’ve been part of the Homestuck subreddit and Discord community for over three years now, and have spent countless hours doing my best to make it a good place. I feel the same can be said for most of the other people on our team as well. With this in mind, this sequence of events and others like it in the past have been demoralizing for all of us. I completely understand that it has felt much the same for your people as well.
To get to the main point, I’m afraid that your suggestion of Makin removing himself completely might not even be possible. Even if I totally agreed with the idea, which I do not, the hierarchical structure of our community precludes it: he solely has full permissions and authority for both the subreddit and Discord (I’m sure this fact has been a substantial factor for people’s mistrust in him), and the rest of us are subordinates. There are no mechanisms by which other people may step in and remove him, so far as I’m aware. If he’s to step down, it will have to be strictly of his own volition. To outline the scope of this difficulty, there are multiple instances in the past where people tried to initiate external processes to get him removed. Some of these attempts were by random discontented users and others were by previous members on your team, though I could be misremembering the latter. In each of these cases, the arguments and evidence against him were deemed insufficient.
I will say that it’s possible he could be convinced to step down, but it would have to be done extremely delicately. As per what I said before, he’s been the subject of attempts to remove him a hefty number of times in the last few years. Though some of the complaints against him are valid, many of those attempts were made explicitly in an effort to get revenge. To be clear, I am not suggesting that you’re trying to do anything like that, I merely want to describe the reason for the tone of his responses. Naturally, he’s a bit on-edge and has misgivings about being contacted like this—I deeply apologize that these correspondences started off so rocky as a result of that.
Your reassurances that you’re only trying to do what’s right are appreciated: ever since I joined this community and especially after I became a moderator for it, I’ve also been interested in improving community relations between us and the official team. There were multiple points in the past where I saw opportunities for this, and it’s always rankled with me that they weren’t seized upon for one reason or another. This is indeed an awkward position, even kind of scary given the circumstances, but I’m fully willing and determined to do what I can to ease tensions and try to work out a solution—if there’s any clarification I can provide or questions you might have, please ask and I’ll explain to the best of my abilities. I must reiterate that I’m not sure what form that solution will take, given the difficulties I described above, but if you’re willing to talk further then I’m more than happy to do my best to help out in whatever way I can.
---
Hussie Feb 8 2020, 7:10 PM:
Drew, first of all I'm not asking you all band together and oust him. I'm only hoping to convey to everyone this is what I want. I am in the process of getting Makin to understand of his own accord that it's the best thing for him to step down. At this point, it's pretty simple for me. If he can't understand what I'm saying and do what's best for improving relations by stepping down, then he's signalling to me and everyone else that he sees his own control of the community as the most important factor, and everything else is secondary, including his interest in Homestuck which supposedly this was all about. If he refuses after I've reasonably laid out my whole position, then that changes the way I see all this quite dramatically. It frames him as a much more antagonistic element within the fandom than I wanted to believe he was, and I can't go along with ignoring the negative aspects of his community or its relationship with my staff. It tells me he'd rather cling to power no matter what, at the cost of totally alienating the creator of this story, and at the cost of building a better community that is friendly toward my staff. I think I took a very reasonable approach to my conversation with him, and ultimately told him his resignation is essential to mending the fences due to how poor the relations have gotten. I think that should be a good enough explanation, both for him and for you, to realize that's the right move for your community if you actually care that much about it's stated purpose.
---
Drew Feb 8 2020, 8:05 PM:
I didn't mean to imply you were trying to get us to gang up on him, sorry for giving that impression.
Makin and I discussed all of this for a while. I'll cut straight to the chase: he is willing to step down, but he's not happy about making this decision, and he has numerous concerns about what exactly will happen and how. As a show of good faith he would be willing to hand over the community to me. However, he wants you and me to discuss certain stipulations before he officially removes himself. I share a lot of his concerns, but the overall point is that we're willing to compromise and find a way forward.
He wants me to make it clear--and I do as well--that he does in fact care about Homestuck outside of just retaining control over this community; he's poured his heart and soul into the place for the last ten years. This decision is unimaginably difficult for him, and I hope you can appreciate that he is indeed trying his best to do right.
---
Hussie Feb 8 2020, 8:09 PM:
Thank you, I am willing to show a great deal of latitude as long as he is willing to take the first step and turn full control over to you. Beyond that I think relations can be repaired swiftly, and there won't be much reason for bad blood between him and the Homestuck culture surrounding me once he shows he's willing to do this. The gesture I think is what will be most important to people. I'll do whatever I can to make sure people on my side make an effort to bring this all around to a positive situation again.
---
Drew Feb 8 2020, 9:09 PM:
This got longer than I expected, apologies for the large wall of text.
These are the minimal conditions he'll agree to:
1. Makin wants a public statement issued by you and/or the official team that he and the rest of us—the mods of the Discord server and the subreddit--are not criminals or have aided criminals in any way. Further, he wants it to be known that he's stepping down because it's in the best interests of the community.
2. He wants a tight guarantee that the server and subreddit will not simply be deleted or frozen after he's handed it over.
3. He also wants a guarantee that he will not be persecuted in any form after he steps down, least of all by anyone on the official team.
I'm not sure what form these guarantees could take, if they're even possible, but after recent events he's worried about these possibilities. To expand a little on that, a significant part of recent escalations involved Kate Mitchell accusing us of increasingly outlandish things, up to and including saying that we "oversee a child porn ring," which she immediately edited down to "oversee the sexual exploitation of children." This and similar behaviors from her are an enormous reason that Makin and the rest of us have been variously indignant about these proceedings.
Hitherto I've done my best to maintain a professional and acquiescing tone. Following the above point, though, I need to emphasize something very strongly: we absolutely will not tolerate Kate's involvement in the management of this community, in any shape or form. I personally extended what I thought was a serious olive branch when I met with her and Aysha during their Pgenpodcast recording at Chapel Hill last year. With the aforementioned allegations and other behavior—encouraging her followers on Twitter to raid the subreddit and spread these claims further, and literally saying that she believes the subreddit and Discord server must be destroyed—she has completely nuked any possibility of trust in her that we might have once had. This applies to any member of the official team who has expressed the desire to destroy or delete our community, such as Pip or optimisticDuelist.
This all having been said, we have a few more conditions we'd like to put forth as well:
1. An integral part of our community is that we're allowed to display irreverence towards official works, meaning that we're able to disagree with the vision of their creators and point out what we perceive as issues. We've done our utmost to prevent criticism from turning into harassment or other toxic behaviors, and we think it's vitally important that there's a place where people can freely express valid criticisms. We'd appreciate assurances that we would be allowed to continue doing this.
2. Following that, we're worried that allowing official team members into our staff will intimidate members of our community and make it harder for them to express those criticisms. Ideally, we don't want any members of your team to join our staff (indeed, Reddit's community guidelines say that content creators shouldn't be allowed to have control over related subreddits in order to avoid conflicts of interest or other problems). However, we do recognize that this might be necessary to ensure trust and stability.
3. I'd personally like a guarantee that Makin will not be fully banned from the community after he's removed. If I had my way, I would actually like to retain him on the staff in some sort of creative position: he has a frankly absurd amount of energy and comes up with all sorts of ideas that usually do a lot to improve or enhance the experience of our users. Because of this, he has a unique capacity for galvanizing the community and keeping things going where most other fanbases would have stagnated. He would have no authority nor the ability to make policy decisions, I simply don't want to see him completely removed. I recognize that this will be among the more unlikely concessions, especially if we'll be required to add members of your team to our staff, but I wanted to put it out there nonetheless.
4. I'd also like to be able to discuss these proceedings with our community after the transition of power and any other changes are complete. I despise clandestine things, and I always have. Being able to provide details of this matter to people who ask would do a lot to establish more trust in the official team, or even put our users at ease. Before issuing any statements or providing clarification to our userbase, I would be willing to vet information in order to ensure it's not damaging or misleading somehow.
I hope that all or most of these ideas are acceptable. Thank you for your patience in engaging with us.
---
Hussie Feb 8 2020, 9:18 PM:
I agree to all that. This is much easier than Makin has probably been making it out to seem in his imagination. There isn't much to be paranoid about, because my goal is to fully subdue all the negativity about this comprehensively.
There's really a lot to address there, but I'll just try to keep it simple for now. I know about some of the claims you're talking about, like the weird "child porn ring" thing. I understand much of that was overstated. However it's one thing to adamantly deny the maximum claim, while sweeping under the rug the minimum claims, so hopefully these measures will rectify things in the minds of those concerned.
Anyway, all this can be worked out. These terms are fine, and you can proceed whenever you're ready. I'll report to others who have a bad disposition toward your communities that changes are in progress. Thank you again.
---
Drew Feb 9 2020, 9:18 AM:
I’m sure you didn’t actually intend to make this process hard on Makin. There are conversations I’ve had with him in the past where I tried to tell him that he makes situations overly cerebral, which can lead to the experience you had talking with him. In this particular case however, I think his response is at least understandable given the long history of people trying to do the same thing as you are now, but with less standing or reasonability. Not justifiable necessarily, just understandable.
We’re pleased that you agreed to all of the above conditions. I’ll probably have a couple more questions later once this process is completed, but those were by far the most important things. Makin is ready to hand over the server to me, but with what I described above in mind, he’s reticent to do so until the official statement has been put out first. I don’t want to go into an excess of detail about this; I had an enormous explanation written out with examples and such, but then decided you probably don’t even need or want to hear it. The long and short of it is that all of us were thoroughly rattled about the more serious accusations against us I mentioned. We don’t even want that statement to say “we have done nothing wrong whatsoever,” as despite everything I think we’re reasonably transparent about the fact that Makin and the rest of the team have indeed fucked up certain things in the past.
He—and the rest of us—would simply prefer the categorical denial of criminal wrongdoing to be issued before transferring power (as he puts it, “slander was issued and now it simply needs to be taken back"). I apologize if that request is overly skeptical or worrisome for you: I sincerely believe that you have every intention of keeping a rein on things. Given how out of hand this altercation became, we just have significantly less confidence in some of the members of your team. If they continue to hound us even after this process is said and done, then all of it will have been for nothing. I’m sure it doesn’t need to be repeated, but ensuring that those conditions aren’t broken is absolutely paramount to getting Makin to step down.
That all aside, if you’re amenable to it, Makin will hand over control of the server and subreddit to me as soon as the public statement of no criminal wrong-doing is released. I’m not sure you’ll need it, but if you’d like a more thorough explanation of our reasoning then feel free to ask.
---
Hussie Feb 9 2020, 12:25 PM:
This all sounds fine. One thing I don't like to do anymore is draw unnecessary attention to controversial issues to a larger group of people than needed. My entire approach to maintenance of Homestuck affairs in the later years has been to keep the temperature down as much as possible, which is one reason why I'm stepping in here to broker a solution that will be better for everyone in the long run. So this is a big reason why I don't post much directly, and often use indirect methods of releasing info or statements, to limit the scope of who sees it and how much intensity results from the release. So it wouldn't be great if I maximized a public release saying something like "don't worry guys, none of these people are criminals" when 95% of the people who will read that have no idea what's going on in the first place, and all it will do is put bad ideas in their head that they never had to begin with.
Thus it will best serve the purpose to limit the scope of this statement in the same way, like putting a post in reddit wherein my statement is quoted, or then linking that post via some twitter account, and then I could use my account to reply to that post saying "yes, this was my official statement", so that way I'm not blasting out this message to 100k people who don't know what's going on.
Just as importantly to your purposes here, I'm going to be strongly encouraging all of the people originally involved with this controversy and those accusations to begin taking a very different stance publicly. I think the willingness on your end to take a big step like this completely changes their perspective on everything, and they should be able to be a lot more positive publicly about things, and begin walking back more of their vitriolic earlier statements. I'm sure being on the receiving end of those statements hasn't been fun for any of you, but this is how progress is made and bridges are repaired. I could see no other way, and I'm glad to see relations already noticeably improving, behind the scenes at least.
It would also help things along if you or he typed the sort of statement you'd prefer to see posted, so I could review it and just rewrite it somewhat in my own words, so I can hit the necessary beats.
Another thing helpful to me would be a more thorough list of people you don't want to see involved in transition work. I think you mentioned three people. Are there any others? I'll be sure to exclude them. But as I assemble a small group to function as emissaries for transition efforts, I hope it's ok if the people I select are still at least loosely connected with that scene, or possibly on speaking terms with people on the blacklist (which is sort of inevitable, because it seems like everyone from that scene talks to everyone else). Because the entire point of this exercise is to make sure that this entire sector of the fandom feels satisfied with the results of the changes, so it stands to reason some of them should be involved.
---
Drew Feb 9 2020, 2:20 PM:
Your candor and receptiveness to what we've been saying is extremely encouraging, Makin is becoming a lot more confident in this process as our discussion unfolds.
Your suggestion for how the statement should be released is actually quite in line with what we were thinking. We didn't expect nor really want you to do anything drastic ("I wasn't telling him to put something up on homestuck.com or anything"), especially given how you've tended to handle fandom engagement for the last so many years. I've begun drafting a post for the subreddit and the official statement while you and I hash out any other details.
As for other people that we don't really want to see involved in this transition, our position on this boils down to "anyone who has advocated for the Discord or subreddit's outright destruction." As you mentioned, it's also somewhat difficult because of the "everyone talks to everyone else" aspect. That being said, there are only a few other people who we definitively are not willing to work with. The full list is as follows:
[List of names]
[Revealing details omitted]. As it is, these are the names we felt were important to include for your consideration. Given how closely knit they are, Makin and I both understand that it would be unlikely bordering on impossible to find emissaries that aren't connected to them in any way. Thus, we ultimately trust your judgment in finding the best candidates available. We'll work with you on it if it comes down to more negotiation.
Up until now the two of us had been discussing things among ourselves only, but we finally broke news of these discussions to the rest of our mod team. They're taking it with various levels of acceptance, but it's near ubiquitously agreed that this was inevitable or is even a good development. The primary thing that we all take umbrage to is the part Kate played in all of this. I have no real suggestions or requests to make based on that, they simply wished that I convey their extreme displeasure with her actions and general involvement (I'd go so far as to extend that to the subreddit and Discord community at large, given the sweeping nature of things Kate has said).
Let me know if there's anything that needs to be worked on with these details. Once I have the subreddit post and official statement drafted I'll send copies of one or both for your final approval. I'd also like to take a second to say: I'm sincerely glad that we've been able to coordinate on this, and that things are moving in a positive direction.
---
Drew Feb 9 2020, 2:59 PM:
Attached is the draft of both the subreddit post and the official statement (enclosed in quotes at the bottom). I don't really know how to emulate your voice obviously, so I just included the main points Makin and I agreed upon. We trust you to tailor it as you like. If these are acceptable to you, we'll post them on the subreddit by today or at the latest tomorrow.
[Draft omitted for irrelevance/only minor changes in final subreddit post]
---
Hussie Feb 9 2020, 3:52 PM:
Thanks, this looks mostly fine. I'll take a moment to think about how to fine-tune my quote, so as to achieve the broader diplomatic goals here, and not merely offer blanket exoneration without supporting context. The statement needs to include the right touch to do that.
I understand your team's frustrations surrounding Kate in particular. She's pretty outspoken about a bunch of things, which can have upsides and downsides. In this case, I think there's been some really incendiary rhetoric from her that's thrown a lot of gas on the fire, but it also seems to be true that this resulted in some public pressure to finally address tensions in a more definitive and lasting way, so I can see some value to that. Either way, I have a lot of confidence that she will drastically reverse her tone and try to restore good relations once she sees the right steps being taken. And since she was the one leading a lot of the original claims, I think her reversals will carry the most weight.
To elaborate on her perspective, let me see if I can walk through the sequence of events as I understand them:
1. A while ago she and other people involved in official HS work were talking with you and Makin amicably, and things seemed fine.
2. Conversations started deteriorating, in some part due to Makin's communication habits, and frustrations began to set in.
3. This incident involving a channel where inappropriate situations with minors involved came up. This resulted in more bad communication patterns, and Kate & co. either did not approve of the way the situation was handled, or did not approve of the way the situation was discussed, or being written off as not as big a deal as it actually was.
4. These frustrations led everyone to retreat to their corners. Makin shuts down any talks with them, Kate & co. do the same. This results in Kate believing your community is beyond hope of reasonable communication or willingness to reform.
5. So, seeing it as a lost cause, her rhetoric escalates publicly, including some really provocative ways of describing what happened. This can happen when people get mad, and don't feel like they are being taken seriously, especially when the topic includes the mishandling of situations involving minors.
Then this all results in the relations between the two camps to absolutely crater, and I see a bunch of people making the claims you cited. That is, reddit etc is beyond all hope and it should all just be destroyed, shut down, whatever. But I was never really of that opinion, that a resolution couldn't be reached, so I stepped in, and now here we are. But given everything I just described, I hope you can appreciate that while some hyperbolic rhetoric may have taken place that was very upsetting to you, at the core of this matter is that something inappropriate actually DID happen, even if it doesn't match the accusations.
So I think what will help me revise my quoted statement is some clear description from you or Makin about what it was that actually did take place, how it was handled, and why it won't happen again. It feels like the best way to serve the full diplomatic purposes here will be to include some acknowledgement of that in the statement. Because if it doesn't, those who still have those concerns will likely read it as a shallow cover up, and they won't be inclined to reverse their negative rhetoric.
So please be as honest about this as you can, and I can work with you to adjust the language as carefully as possible, with the intent to maximize the statement's ability to turn the page on all this for good.
---
Drew Feb 9 2020, 5:38 PM:
I apologize in advance for the enormous amount of text. I wanted to keep it brief but, in the interest of communicating our side of things as fully as possible, I couldn't help but be thorough.
The timeline you provided starts off right but then there's a serious divergence from what we experienced. 1 and 2 are accurate (though I wouldn't really say discussions were ever fully amicable, they were chilly at best), but the third thing you described is deeply disconcerting. Throughout these correspondences I've tried to be as forthwith as I possibly can, so I hope you'll believe me when I say: neither Makin, myself, or anyone else on the mod team have literally any idea what "channel" is being described here. Interpolation: Makin and I discussed further and, if we're correct, you're probably referring to an old #nsfw channel that the Discord server briefly had back around when it was created. If this is indeed what you mean, then I can send a separate email providing a full description of the events surrounding that as well. Even if so, the rest of what I describe in this email is true.
Part of the general irritation and why I've been quick to write off evidence against us in my explanations is because, so far as we're aware, there were no recent inappropriate situations, with or without the involvement of minors. To make a fine but important distinction, I fully admit that inappropriate situations might have occurred—such things can and have happened in private messages between individuals on the server in the past. We've banned around half a dozen individuals for this behavior over the last so many years. If it's been happening again, however, we were not notified about it by anyone affected, and certainly none of our staff was involved with such things—moderators can be and have been removed for less, we are extremely intolerant of people who engage in explicitly abusive behavior.
Unless we know that people are being abused or victimized, we can't really address these claims—a comment I've made often is that if people don't come forward and provide evidence, we basically can't do anything to fix it. The last thing we want to do is insinuate that these things never happen and thereby marginalize people who are legitimately being victimized somehow; we take personal claims from individual users with absolute seriousness, which led to the bans I mentioned previously. Where arguments about all of this between us and the official team broke down is what constitutes 1) concrete evidence and 2) abusive behavior in a less serious or passive sense, such as simple disrespect towards users from members of our staff. I also fully admit that the latter happens, and is actually kind of an ongoing problem I've been trying to fix. We can talk about that as well, but for now I'm speaking strictly about more serious types of behavior such as outright bullying or even sexual abuse.
It's been a while so I might not remember some parts accurately, and I'm not sure how familiar you are with how these recent altercations started, but I'll provide some more background in case it helps.
Near the beginning of this year, we banned a user named Phoebe from the Discord server because they were themselves harassing other users on the server, exhibiting racist and/or other abusive behaviors. After this, Phoebe created a Twitter account called "HSCommWatch" and posted a deluge of screenshots they had cobbled together from various sources. Upon further examination by myself and other members of our team, we found artifacts in some of the screenshots that indicated they had been edited, such as timestamps being out of order. We also cross-referenced the text in the screenshots and determined that some of them had been taken out of context from less serious or even unrelated discussions. Almost none of the evidence, as we saw it, proved to be substantial. I and a few other mods responded to the claims posited by the HSCommWatch account, decrying it as bunk and pointing out that a hefty amount of the evidence was doctored in some fashion. If this isn't convincing enough for you, I've attached screenshots that were shared with us from someone in an external group. Phoebe is the user named "feebad," and they explicitly describe that their intent was to foment discord between our groups.
As an aside, I fully admit that we were upset and indignant by the time this debacle was in full blow, and this caused us to respond in a way that wasn't really satisfactory: after a certain point, we were less concerned about addressing any potentially valid complaints and more about refuting the clearly inaccurate ones. I maintain that, generally speaking, we do our best to invite criticism or encourage our users to come forward if there are issues they need to have addressed. In this particular case, we failed to do that.
That having been said, it still stands that the account was not being run in good faith and had incorporated reasonable complaints with ones that were invalid. Kate's part in this began when she picked up on what the account was saying and decided to run with all of it, regardless of validity. After this point, I don't believe anyone from the official team reached out to communicate with us and figure out exactly what was going on. Tensions rose, people entrenched themselves, exaggerations began and intensified, and the rest is history.
Returning to the overall explanation: the gist of all this is that, if something did indeed happen, it was not something we were in a position to fix because we literally didn't know about it. I don't want to shift blame or deny the possibility that something was actually wrong, but I will put the full extent of my reputation on the line by reiterating that we don't condone or allow what we understand to be abusive behavior, and we definitely don't just leave instances of it unpunished. We have mods from every continent so that we can keep an eye on the place around the clock, and before sending this email I explicitly asked them to tell me if they had witnessed behavior that could even be vaguely construed as abusive. Barring disagreements on what constitutes actual abuse, any extant cases of this are in spite of our standards, not because of them.
I don't have much else to say on these things, but tangential to saying that talks broke down: when things first started to break down conversations between us and the official team had certainly been shaky, but Makin was behaving in as fully a contrite and receptive manner as he could. The discussions ended for a while, and then without warning he was banned from Aysha's personal server with no explanation except that people felt uncomfortable with him around. I think this hurt him greatly because he had been sincerely trying to improve, and it led to some of the more defensive rhetoric you witnessed in previous emails.
You seem very firm on the idea that something inappropriate did in fact occur, which worries me. If my explanation does not mollify you, or if you'd like information about the #nsfw channel, I am of course willing to explain further. In keeping with the spirit of what I've said, please share any details you or your team might have of current issues so we can take care of the problem. We're upset about these accusations, but we're still determined to do our job and keep our community safe as we always have.
[Followup email with one screenshot]
---
Hussie Feb 9 2020, 6:46 PM:
Ok, thank you for the elaboration. All this sounds very complicated, and if everything you're saying is true, it's a total mess which makes this very difficult to disentangle in a truthful way, as well as in a way that satisfies people's need to see that the situation is being handled responsibly. Because in order for people to come away with that feeling, there needs to be gestures made which show that people in charge are taking responsibility. But if the chorus always comes down to "nothing happened, nothing happened, it's all a setup" ... that's tough. It won't ring true for people who feel that something inappropriate likely happened, even if their views are the result of an extremely sinister disinfo campaign.
So here is a part of your statement I'm focusing on:
Returning to the overall explanation: the gist of all this is that, if something did indeed happen, it was not something we were in a position to fix because we literally didn't know about it. I don't want to shift blame or deny the possibility that something was actually wrong, but I will put the full extent of my reputation on the line by reiterating that we don't condone or allow what we understand to be abusive behavior, and we definitely don't just leave instances of it unpunished. We have mods from every continent so that we can keep an eye on the place around the clock, and before sending this email I explicitly asked them to tell me if they had witnessed behavior that could even be vaguely construed as abusive. Barring disagreements on what constitutes actual abuse, any extant cases of this are in spite of our standards, not because of them.
This really isn't a bad way to frame the situation, because it includes the truth: inappropriate things MAY have happened, but your staff wasn't in a position to fix it due to not knowing about it. It also provides an opportunity to make statements about how changes are being made to increase overall awareness, to catch things that otherwise were possible to fall through the cracks before. With the most significant gesture of all being Makin voluntarily stepping down in order to signal that he's most interested in improving the culture of his community above all else.
The main point being, if there's some acknowledgment that something bad may have happened, and even though the details are foggy and mostly lost to spotty record-keeping, your highest priority is to fix it and preventing anything like this from happening again, then I think people will have a much easier time turning the page than if the strategy is a hard-edged blanket denial of anything and everything.
Also if I can take a step back here, and comment more generally on those screenshots. Obviously that's a terrible user, out to cause trouble, and others seem to be participating. So regardless of whether this truly was a setup or not, I think those shots speak to a deeper issue. There may have been a systemic cultural problem on the discord which leads to users like this signing up, feeling emboldened to act way out of line and say terrible things for a while, until it finally gets them banned. So even if the resulting drama was a sting by a malicious troll, it's still resulting from a systemic problem with the discord, which is that moderation practices may be fostering this type of mentality or too lenient on it. And if this is true, that this sting resulted in all this drama, then really we are just coming around to the same basic point: some lax policies there may be proving to have catastrophic consequences for that community.
And maybe there isn't much you can do to defend against someone like this, who is dead set on causing trouble through disinfo. But my take now is, with a sturdier community infrastructure where all the people running the show, and other members of the community (Kate et al) actually trust each other and work together, it's much less likely that a disinfo campaign like this would ever get off the ground in the first place. I hope we can reach that point, and if someone setting you all up really was the problem, then in the future perhaps the community leadership could be so strongly connected as to make the possibility of someone like this being successful totally laughable.
So if that's what we're dealing with, a single malicious person trying to turn people against each other, let's take some solace in the fact that they have only been temporarily successful. I think you will be in a much stronger position to defend against such garbage when this is all over, but we have to get there first. And to get there, the right messaging is important.
So for now, what I'm advising is for you to take the remarks in that block of text I quoted, and see if you can work in some sentiments like that into your original announcement. I think it will result in a much stronger statement that actually accomplishes what it needs to.
---
Drew Feb 9 2020, 7:27 PM:
I'll start out by saying I'm just a little miffed: ideally, if it's revealed that a misinformation campaign is responsible for setting off hostilities, then that should be the end of the matter. I have more thoughts about this that, under different circumstances, I would feel obligated to opine. On a more pragmatic basis though, I agree with what you're saying: this conflict has become so complicated that it would be best to try and start anew instead of mending old problems. More importantly Makin agrees as well. We're more than amenable to adjusting the subreddit post to reflect your judgments.
Just as a point of clarification, this user and their commiserating to ruin things didn't take place on our server, it was after we banned them for previous offenses. I'm not sure if you were under a different impression, I just felt I should clear that up. I guess it's inconsequential regardless: we feel it's an unfortunate truth that things would never have gotten this bad if there was more trust between your team and ours.
As it is, I've made a small but substantial edit to the subreddit post, particularly the second paragraph. I'm a little tired from all of these negotiations today, so it might not be quite up to your specifications. Provided that all parties involved are willing though, I'm determined to see this finished before the end of the day or at the latest tomorrow. Just let me know if there's any alterations you'd like to see and I'll do my best to reflect that.
[Draft omitted for reasons above]
---
Hussie Feb 9 2020, 7:29 PM:
You're right, if it's absolutely confirmed this is only the result of disinfo, then that should clear things up. But it seems more complex than that to me for now, and also there are more issues in play than just those accusations. Please bear with me as I work through all this and try to get the full picture here. But thanks for modifying the statement, I'll look at it and probably offer some revisions tomorrow.
---
Hussie Feb 9 2020, 7:39 PM:
Sorry, I know this is exhausting and you said you're done for the day, but in the interest of being thorough and getting all the facts, maybe you could give me the overview of this too:
Interpolation: Makin and I discussed further and, if we're correct, you're probably referring to an old #nsfw channel that the Discord server briefly had back around when it was created. If this is indeed what you mean, then I can send a separate email providing a full description of the events surrounding that as well. Even if so, the rest of what I describe in this email is true.
I think it's likely that this is the channel that I've heard about, which if it existed, then this is a separate issue from the disinfo nonsense. The facts I have are that this was run by someone named [omitted for privacy] who was 16 at the time, and then the place was shut down pretty quickly. Is that correct, and is there anything else to elaborate on?
---
Drew Feb 9 2020, 8:22 PM:
I want to say I'm sorry, I keep laboring under the belief that it's obvious what we're saying is true. After relaxing for a little bit, I understand completely the difficulties you're dealing with in balancing all of this information and validating whether individual pieces of it are true. This process has been exhausting and I'm deeply regretful things got to this point, regardless of how or why.
It's funny that you emailed me so quickly, I was literally about to respond: I wanted to give you the very information you just requested in order to demonstrate my claims of transparency. However, Makin went to bed about an hour ago. I just finished typing up a lengthy response explaining the history of the NSFW channel and [omitted]’s involvement (I keep trying to keep these emails brief, but I find myself writing a novel every single time. I'm sorry you have to suffer through this shit honestly), but I make sure to talk with Makin before I send emails to you in order to make sure we're covering every possible base, so this will have to wait until tomorrow. Perhaps that's for the best anyway, I'm sure you're tired as well.
Let me know if there's anything else I can help with in the meantime.
---
Drew Feb 10 2020, 9:30 AM:
Alright, here's the explanation.
[omitted] and the NSFW channel are a good example of a case where we've actually fucked up, but perhaps not in the way that’s been described to you. The NSFW channel was created by popular demand back in mid to late 2016, originally not even for sexually explicit material, but just for images that might be inappropriate for normal chat; its purpose gradually transformed over time (“I'm famously not a fan of nsfw content in the first place, but users were asking for it and this was a time when I was more pliable”). The channel was up for a period of about 3 months to half a year, we completely deleted them to protect privacy afterwards so the record is incomplete. Whatever the case, we do know for a fact that [omitted] was explicitly NOT in charge of the NSFW channel: we had a different mod named [redacted for privacy] who took care of it. As a brief aside, one of the complaints levied against us is that we put minors in charge of the Discord server--not even with regard to the NSFW channel, but just in general. We recently agreed that putting people on our team who are underaged--which we've simplified as meaning 18 or older regardless of country of residence--is something we should avoid. To our knowledge we have one person who's still a minor on our team, but he turns 18 in a few months. However, at no point was there knowingly a minor in charge of the NSFW channel. If [redacted] was a minor, then he directly lied to us about his age.
The NSFW channel was deleted in early 2017 because there was a string of incidents that made it clear to us that it was a bad idea to keep around. We had a vetting process to keep users in general from viewing the channel, but it's not hard or uncommon to lie about your age to get in (“everyone who was in the channel said they were of age, checked by a mod DM, and if we even suspected they were a minor they got a nsfw-ban role that permanently barred them from applying”). With a bevy of minors around, obviously this was still untenable. Makin was already uncomfortable with all of this and had been looking for excuses to get rid of the channel, but the incidents I mentioned were undeniable proof that it was unacceptable: in short, there were problem users who were being creepy and manipulative towards other users in the NSFW channel.
We banned people like this of course, but then we discovered that one of them, a certifiable pedophile named ITOAN, had been collecting photos that other users had posted (this behavior itself was against our rules, after a short while we explicitly disallowed sharing nudes but it occasionally happened anyway during off hours). ITOAN collected the images into a folder intended to be used as blackmail. He did this not even just in our server, but also in various satellite servers independently created by various users where we had no control. Apparently, ITOAN was part of a group of other odious individuals who harassed users from within and outside of our server (“as far as I can tell, [omitted] had absolutely nothing to do with this. the moment we found out about the folder, we banned itoan and everyone who had lied about their age, got the folder removed, worked with discord to bust him and his friends and stop them from ever bothering anyone again”). Needless to say, we didn't want the NSFW channel around anymore after that. At this point Discord was also toying with the idea of getting rid of all NSFW content on their platform, so we used both of these as reasoning for getting rid of the channel.
Unfortunately, this wasn't the end of it. Despite these issues, people were still demanding a place to discuss NSFW topics and share images to that effect (“people still wanted a place to discuss nsfw subjects, so the possibility of a nsfw server was raised by [omitted]… [omitted] had designed the bot that a lot of people in nsfw used, so this was deemed fine”). Makin absolutely refused to have that sort of environment again on the server, but he made a compromise: he would allow the creation of a sister server that was independently overseen by members of our team who were willing to do it. [redacted] was of course involved in this, though he quit shortly afterwards due to internal disagreements. The other people who agreed to oversee it included myself, another mod, and [omitted]. At this point in time, [omitted] was of legal age. One of our former mods helpfully cleared this up recently: he describes that [omitted] lied about his age to get into the NSFW channels when he was still 17, but later by the time the NSFW server was created he was of legal age. Thus, [omitted] did in fact have access to our NSFW channel as a minor, and it was only until some time after this whole debacle that we discovered he had lied. We’ve never actually seen his ID so there’s a chance he was lying about this more than we even know, but that’s getting outside the point a bit.
In retrospect, all of this was a huge mistake regardless. It was initially framed and understood that Makin would be ultimately in charge of the NSFW server and decide its policies, but he tends to stay away from sexually explicit material. Thus, he remained largely hands off and [omitted] became the de facto owner of the server. This was fine for a while, but various disputes between him and Makin intensified as time went by.
This all came to a head in I believe early or mid 2018: Makin made a rare check on the NSFW server to make sure things were operating smoothly, but he discovered that [omitted] had removed his permissions. Makin was incensed and removed [omitted] from the Discord mod team until he relinquished control of the NSFW server to someone else (“I didn't want my server to be tied to someone who was hiding shit from me considering the subject of the server and the history of nsfw”). Citing other concerns which I’ll elaborate on momentarily, [omitted] refused to hand over the keys and we formally cut ties with each other (“I categorically nullified my association and the HSD's association to [omitted] and told people to stop using [the NSFW server]”).
The other issues revolve around [omitted]'s primary function as part of our team: he was the botmaster for the server, developing a program he called Aradiabot that maintained a lot of our records and kept track of things. [omitted] frequently mentioned money troubles and was displeased because Makin had never promised or talked about paying him to develop Aradiabot. In fairness, none of us are being paid to take care of the place, and none of the rest of us were ever laboring under the illusion that we would be paid--we take care of the place purely because we want to, not to make money. [omitted] was not happy about this arrangement and claimed that Makin "tricked him into working hundreds of hours for no pay" or some such. I know you're not familiar with these matters and consequently can't take me at face value, but even at the time I thought those assertions were ridiculous: the bulk of [omitted]'s work on Aradiabot was not done for our Discord server, but for other servers. I also highly doubt he actually spent hundreds of hours on it, but that's drifting into territory I don't know anything about.
If you find these details concerning, I fully appreciate that. As I opened this explanation with, all of this stuff is a good example of an area where we agree in saying we fucked up, and we tried to learn from our mistakes. As it is, we’ve included a large amount of screenshots that may prove variously helpful to you in figuring out what was happening back then. Makin adds: "this is why we are so adamant the claims are wrong. for over three years now, the possibility that something like that could happen or that minors can be unsafe simply hasn't existed." I understand all of this is kind of involved and complicated, so if you need clarification, don’t hesitate to ask.
---
Hussie Feb 10 2020, 2:54 PM:
Thanks, this is very helpful in giving me a more complete view of the situation. I'm cross checking points here with other sources. But I can agree what we are circling around here is some form of earlier "administrative negligence" rather than outright abuse, which is what I always thought was likely in the first place. Now I am just trying to capture the exact nature of that "negligence" by confirming with other sources, and carefully reading your reports. The point of this being so that we can all get to a point of understanding a common truth. The truth of whatever mistakes were made are very important to isolate, so that it can be publicly acknowledged along with some commitments that things were done to fix those situations, and things are still being done to improve overall. I never wanted to box anyone into a situation of looking like they're admitting to anything that was not true, so this is an important for avoiding that. Focusing on the truth of the earlier "negligence" will also add more power to discrediting the bad disinformation stuff, which I think has been genuinely harmful to everyone involved, and it should be pointed out to everyone that's what was going on. So please continue trusting me in this process, I really am working to create a path out of this for everyone, which will optimize the likelihood of turning public opinion around.
So to that end, I have couple few followup questions after running this report by someone who was there at the time and knew [omitted]. A few quotes here:
"At the very least, [omitted] was one of the mods most commonly asked to give ppl access to the nsfw channel." - Do you know if that's true?
"The following screenshot is from CaNMT (its a screenshot wherein he admits to being 16), not HSD, admittedly. However, the communities back then were VERY directly related, and [omitted] is directly and explicitly upfront about being 16 in a public space here, before the shutdown of the NSFW Channel." - Does this track with whatever you or Makin observed? The thrust of their point being, it was more like "common knowledge" that he was 16 despite lying his way into the channel. Or do you feel that this information was not as evident as this person believes?
And then a remark of a more general nature...
"Additionally, Makin says that it’s absolutely been a safe place for children during the past three years. [...] While maybe in the current day this is accurate, it’s only in the past year that Moderators really actively started stomping out people being directly and openly uh bringing up NSFW topics. Particularly in the #general chat of the server. It’s kind of consistently been a hotbed for minors talking about NSFW subject matters and kink. Just, under the framing of, “jokes.” And it’s under this framing that a lot of stuff was allowed for years."
Does this ring true as well?
Again, thanks for bearing with me, all of this helps me get a better handle on the evolution of whatever historical administrative flaws led to these kind of complaints, and then finally this blowup. This should not last much longer, and I would really like to get this settled by the end of today.
---
Drew Feb 10 2020, 5:00 PM:
Sorry for the long response time, I was at work. We're also looking forward to putting this business behind us, all of it has been rather disquieting.
1. "[omitted] was one of the mods most commonly asked to give ppl access to the nsfw channel." Not a strict yes or no answer, but I'm forced to lean slightly towards "yes." Even though it was [redacted]'s job, providing access to #nsfw was a common duty of the entire mod team; if you were contacted by a user then you were expected to confirm they were of age and give them access. However, it does seem that [omitted] was more often contacted for this than most other mods (indeed, my first interaction with [omitted] was asking him for access). This was before my time and none of us remember why that was the case, though I suspect it was simply because he personally engaged with the channel more often and built a reputation for himself.
2. "The following screenshot is from CaNMT… [omitted] is directly and explicitly upfront about being 16 in a public space here." This is more complicated, I'm not sure if you'll find the answer satisfying. Makin says: "I don't think it was common knowledge outside of friend groups. I definitely didn't know. I'm kind of an antisocial person if this dialogue hasn't showed it already." He also describes that CaNMT was an invite only server, so not exactly public. To my understanding CaNMT was also orders of magnitude smaller, so as far as the HSD is concerned it was definitely not what could be considered common knowledge until after the fact.
3. "Particularly in the #general chat of the server. It’s kind of consistently been a hotbed for minors talking about NSFW subject matters and kink. Just, under the framing of, “jokes.” And it’s under this framing that a lot of stuff was allowed for years." No, but as with other things this is kind of a disagreement on the meaning of something, in this case what "jokes" are. We've been clamping down on it in order to increase discussion quality, not because we saw things that made us afraid for the safety of our users. It is true that users on our server make jokes in this realm, not in #general but in a containment channel for shitposting called #altgen. Sometimes those jokes do leak out into the general channel because there's some overlap in the people who use each channel. However, this is strictly disallowed, and we ban people for it when we discover it's been happening (even if we only find out about it later).
Those quotation marks around "jokes" is appropriate, but not because they're used as a veil for something more sinister; the implication I wish to give is that they are terribly unfunny and irritating for anyone who doesn't want to deal with it, which is why we created a containment channel in the first place. Makin describes: "while there are definitely jokes, especially in altgen, they are not different from what you might find in 9gag or any modern meme website for all ages. references to kinks, rarely, but in public it's never meant for anything but laughs." A good example of this would be people spamming "uwu" or simply throwing out the name of a kink like "vore" and nothing else, or other inane bullshit. As time goes by the Overton window has shifted though, and we find ourselves being stricter about what to allow.
To make it absolutely clear what this usually entails, no NSFW imagery is tolerated aside from rare instances of drawn, artistic nudity in our art channel. #altgen's brand of jokes are strictly textual, or at the most a picture of text. The mod team doesn't turn a blind eye to any of this either: we go in and break up the NSFW shitposting if we see it start getting too serious or if rules are being broken somehow. Similarly, we generally break up fuller discussion of kinks when it happens. To my reckoning this has always been the case, but I will openly admit that we were more lax about it in the past than we are now. I'm sure that using the search function in #general and #altgen will turn up instances where we failed to stop this for various reasons, a lot happens in three years.
In a more legitimate capacity, we do have a channel for serious discussion where we shunt any NSFW topics that aren't memes or shitposting. It's not the primary function of that channel, and easily 90-95% of the discussion there is usually politics, life advice, or depressed people looking to talk with others. #serious just happens to be the most appropriate place we have for more explicit, serious topics. Any NSFW talk there typically manifests in people talking about their past experiences or asking people for advice, not flirtation or ERP or anything like that (our mod in charge of the channel describes: "The most sexual topics I've seen in there is like, talking about transitioning sometimes. And just more emotional relationship talk."). I'm afraid more inappropriate stuff may happen behind closed doors, but as with other problems that's not something we can really help with because we don't know about it unless someone tells us.
---
Hussie Feb 10 2020, 5:07 PM:
Thanks. And again I want to make it clear I'm only asking those things not out of continued persecution or getting you to jump through hoops to continue proving innocence, but only for the sake of my own full clarity, and to give you a chance to respond fairly to the lingering questions I still see coming up. At this point I feel pretty satisfied I have a good sense of what actually happened. Give me some time to regroup, and later today I'll get back to you with my proposed resolution.
---
Hussie Feb 10 2020, 6:51 PM:
'm hearing that you and Kate are somewhat coordinating on a message she's planning on releasing in an effort to start repairing the relations. That sounds fine to me, and I gave her a quote to include on that, which can double as the same quote I give you for your reddit statement. It's pretty basic and covers my truthful view on this, and I'm hoping it can turn the page for you all.
Here is her full statement for your review. Please feel free to supply feedback before she releases it.
[full text of “draft public statement on the narwhal bacon website” provided at bottom of document]
You can also lift my quote out of there and paste it in your reddit statement whenever you're ready.
P.S. - I'll also be in touch soon to connect you with someone more "neutral" who I believe can help you out with some transitional work under your new administration.
---
Drew Feb 10 2020, 6:55 PM:
'll address the rest of this as quickly as possible, but: "I'm hearing that you and Kate are somewhat coordinating on a message she's planning on releasing in an effort to start repairing the relations." I haven't talked to her since before relations broke down. Where did you hear this?
---
Hussie Feb 10 2020, 7:00 PM:
I guess I misunderstood what she said to me. I think what she meant was that she prepared this statement, and wanted to give you an opportunity to review it first before she put it up. Sorry about the confusion. Either way, feel free to run with my quote there.
---
Drew Feb 10 2020, 7:14 PM:
We are extremely upset about this. Kate’s statement about these proceedings is absurd and aggressive to the extreme. We were honestly hoping for an apology for the part she played in all of this, or at the very least to not have her participate at all. Instead it sounds like a bare, technical admittance of no intended harm with absolutely none of the spirit. I did not confer with Kate about literally any of this and I’m personally incensed that she thought it was appropriate to type this up, let alone send it to us for review.
Your statement and hers conflict in some ways, most notably Kate’s statement about new management going forward while seeming to paint me as a malefactor alongside Makin. Following that, at one point her statement says that all of this is a problem of negligence and not actual wrongdoing, but the rest of it sounds like a declaration that all of the things we discussed were actually true instead of the product of a misplaced bout of escalation that she was at least partially responsible for causing.
Everything Kate wrote is categorically unacceptable and frankly outrageous—we don’t get the impression from any of this that she’s even trying to genuinely engage and move past these problems; even the title of the draft sounds like she’s treating this as a joke. Your statement was perfect but we do not approve of literally anything else in this document.
---
Hussie Feb 10 2020, 7:23 PM:
Yeah, I didn't think you'd be that thrilled with it. But please try to understand the difficult political position I'm in. I'm doing my best to mediate a complex situation here.
I'm telling her not to post this. She agreed, and will sit on it for however long I want. Hopefully this will give me some time to convince her to revise her approach to this. Meanwhile, it's ok with me if you just go through with the post on reddit, and probably for the best at this point to do as soon as possible, just to move this forward before any more stupid things happen to blow this up again.
---
Drew Feb 10 2020, 7:51 PM:
I understand that this is complex, and I don’t want to sound like I or even we are angry at you specifically about this. At this point we’re just convinced that Kate has no real interest in mending the bridge; her statement is more like crude, sloppy graffiti on that bridge than anything else. I believe we were making extremely good progress and we were both increasingly optimistic about the process, but her post completely floored us in the worst way imaginable. I apologize if the last email was too strong but I hope you can appreciate the depths of our shock here. I've remarked often in the past week or so that I was afraid this is less about genuine concerns in our community and more about a historical feud that has started to affect the wider community. Our dialogue has been constructive and ameliorated those concerns significantly, but the fact that she thought that was anywhere near appropriate fills us with great fear for the future. If this is the sort of thing we can expect from her going forward, we are thoroughly not okay with continuing; this is a horrendous lack of professionalism and—if I may go so far—it is grossly duplicitous wording.
Makin says I can directly quote him here: "I really, really, REALLY want to move on past this, even more than you do. I was fully ready to step down and even making some preparations, but the kate thing really makes me feel she's going to cause even more drama for the community when I'm gone, this time invigorated about a victory. you really seem to be trying to do the right thing and kate really seems to want to sabotage that, from where I'm standing. I really, really want that to not be a possibility before I step down."
To be utterly clear: we are not willing to proceed with Makin handing over control to me until Kate's apparent hostility towards us is fully reckoned with. All three of us are ready and eager for this to be done, but this kind of nonsense would be a deal breaker, especially if there's a possibility of seeing it again in the future. That's literally the only thing left in this dialogue that we're not happy with.
A less intense but still important point of confusion is her remark about changes in staff. As we understood it, emissaries or liaisons simply referred to a neutral group of people that I or my team at large would be conferring with to ensure that everyone is on the same page, and you agreed that we would not be expected to add anyone to our staff. Is this a misunderstanding? What do you expect from us in this regard?
---
Hussie Feb 10 2020, 8:09 PM:
My sense was that upon appointing some neutral liaisons to discuss new ideas for community management, what might result from that was the appointment of one or two new people into the staff from that culture, simply as a way of introducing new perspectives onto the scene. Not something I saw as essential, but it also seemed like a reasonable assumption of the direction this could go in. I'm not sure if I ever voiced that idea. Sorry if I didn't, this dialogue has all been kind of murky at this point. But I may have said something to that effect to her when she was asking how all this was going.
But ultimately, I can see where you're coming from here. And I basically agree with you, that the zealous tone of her piece wasn't really what I had in mind when it came to post-transition discourse. I did want to see a friendlier posture, so I'm not sure what to say yet. I will say, the fact alone that she sent it along to you for review suggests she believes these were innocent statements, putting focus on things like "safety" and such, all the topics she's most passionate about when it came to this controversy. But I think she may still not fully realize that a factor in play here is that both of you were pretty hurt by what happened, which is something that I think could use some acknowledgment.
From my end what I can at least do is try as best as I can to guarantee you she won't have anything to do with the liaison work, and I personally really would think that would be a bad idea regardless. But I can also see that I should try to get her to commit to adjusting her posture before we go through with this. Give me a little time, I'll see what I can do.
---
Hussie Feb 10 2020, 8:30 PM:
I just talked to her about it again, in about as serious a way as I could. I think she gets where you're coming from now, and I've gotten her to agree to say NOTHING about this matter ever again, anywhere. No tweets, no podcast remarks, nothing. We both think that's for the best, just to avoid mishaps, like saying the wrong thing even if the intent is good. She's also absolutely adamant about wanting no involvement in whatever transition efforts there will be, even tangentially. I believe she means this.
I think this is the best I can do to address your concerns. Any of my attempts at convincing her to have an attitude you will find favorable I think unfortunately will be a blind alley. So does this sound acceptable?
---
Drew Feb 10 2020, 8:41 PM:
Yes, we're more than happy with that arrangement. I have to admit I was still hopeful for an apology, but I can't say I'm surprised that's not going to happen. As it is, not interacting with her in any manner after this is completely fine. Makin is in the process of transferring the server over to me as we speak. Are there any last suggestions to the subreddit post draft I gave to you last night before we announce it on the subreddit? If not, I'll append your statement to it and make it official.
Thank god this process is nearly complete. I might have a couple more questions after this (maybe not even relevant now, given the draft we saw), but nothing anywhere near the grave seriousness of the stuff that came before and I'm perfectly fine with holding off on those for now. For the interim I'm glad we were able to come to a mutual agreement even if there were some bumps along the way.
---
Hussie Feb 10 2020, 8:45 PM:
No, the statement was fine as I saw it.
As for an apology, or really any sort of conciliatory gestures, I wouldn't totally give up on that idea. It may just need time, since feelings surrounding all this have been so raw. Also that deranged Phoebe person who infiltrated her friend group may have galvanized so many negative feelings, it can be hard to reverse that so quickly (she only found out of that betrayal when I showed her the screenshots yesterday). It would also probably be helpful to her if you communicated personally to her some day about what specifically you found hurtful about her actions. I think she would listen.
Ultimately I find her to be a decent and well-intended person to talk to, which is what I think of everyone involved here, including both of you. I'd recommend revisiting this in a few weeks or months, whatever it takes too cool down, and seeing if some more rational conversations are possible.
Glad to see this is getting settled. Feel free to stay in touch about further issues.
---
Drew Feb 10 2020, 8:54 PM:
We're still pretty upset about the conflict itself, but your advice is good. It will take a very long time before that particular dialogue begins, but I'm not going to rule it out completely. I hope we can get to that point someday, sincerely. The person I met at Chapel Hill was nothing like the person I saw on Twitter, and part of my extreme disappointment was in discovering that they were in fact the same person. I mean, for christ's sake, I knitted her a scarf as a peacemaking gift and then all of this happened.
I guess that and all of this are in the past now. I will get back in touch with you, but I think I'm going to give it a few days so we can both have a chance to decompress from all this. Like I said, the questions aren't important and one probably doesn't apply now anyway. I'll do some thinking about it and get back to you on it, maybe Friday or the weekend.
I can't thank you enough for your composure and patience to hear us out. I feared that, after Makin's initial responses to you, this was a completely lost cause. I was even afraid of the possibility of legal action or something, I have no real idea what you were capable of doing. As it is, this is a far greater outcome than what I initially expected. I hope that I was able to assist in a satisfying manner; if you have any more concerns or your staff brings up issues, please do not hesitate to forward them to me so I can figure out what's going on in the future.
---
Drew Feb 10 2020, 8:59 PM:
Oh, you also mentioned something about just tweeting and saying "yeah, this is my official statement." I'm not sure how you were going to approach that after all of this, but here's a tweet from me linking to the official reddit post if you just want to retweet that: https://twitter.com/Drew_Linky/status/1227062628218032128
To be honest I never use Twitter, I have no idea how that shit goes. It's whatever works for you of course.
---
Hussie Feb 10 2020, 9:01 PM:
Not going to lie, I was pretty disappointed that she almost blew it up at the last minute, so yeah. You might have a point. But again, no one is perfect really, and we all have to work around each other's faults to get anywhere. As for getting a bit heavy there with Makin, I sort of regret that, because I think at that point he'd seen enough stress. The situation seemed so bad though, I felt like I just had to brute force my way into getting this situation taken seriously. So I hope there are no hard feelings there with him. My hope is he can see some personal benefits to this change, being able to enjoy the community without the burden of its responsibilities.
Thanks for the link. Not sure I see a purpose in signal boosting that to a large audience yet, if at all. I'll keep an eye on the situation and do whatever seems necessary, but for now I think these measures are sufficient.
---
Hussie Feb 10 2020, 10:55 PM:
First of all, can you remove this remark? This disclosure really isn't a helpful way to settle this down. https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/601248410133069864/676649247717982219/image0.jpg
There's more to follow on that. I think her promise of silence had more caveats than I realized when I conveyed that to you. But can we start there?
---
Drew Feb 10 2020, 11:17 PM:
Oh shit, yeah, I'm sorry. My brain isn't working right tonight, I've been putting fires out nonstop since the announcement went through. I'll refrain from mentioning that part of the arrangement.
---
Hussie Feb 10 2020, 11:17 PM
There are some others she saw, like this, which she takes particular issue with: https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/601248410133069864/676654786958852146/image0.jpg
Framing it like "she isn't permitted" is really pissing her off. The thing is, I don't have an NDA or gag order or anything like that, and wouldn't even want to go that far for something like this. It was just a friendly agreement, with the presumption that she wouldn't be reading stuff like that coming from you. So this is going to take some effort to fix, and also I think she wants to post that full statement you read as her "last word" on it before she drops the issue fully.
I don't know, sorry about this. There's only so much I can control here. She's a free person, and she's angry, so you may just have to brace for that statement coming out one way or another. I may be reaching the point where I can't really mediate the situation anymore.
---
Drew Feb 10 2020, 11:29 PM:
Yeah, I know. I should have refrained from posting further explanations about what was going on. I'm searching with a fine-toothed comb to see if there's anything else I said that could be seen as offensive.
I really, really don't want her to post that rant. It will do incalculable damage to the progress we've made here. I'm not trying to engage in bad faith or fuck things up, it's just been an extremely distressing series of events, mentally exhausting to deal with all of this for the last two days. I know you're at the end of your rope as well, let's just try and get through this last stretch.
---
Hussie Feb 10 2020, 11:40 PM:
At this point I have to keep impressing on you that it's beyond my control, and she's a free person. I think she views posting this one piece and then being done with it as the more diplomatic of the two options now. Kind of out of my hands.
---
Drew Feb 10 2020, 11:40 PM:
Jesus christ, I really hope not. I immediately deleted all of the comments that she was upset about. This will literally undo everything we worked for over the last week, if she posts that Makin is going to demand his position back and I'll feel obligated to give it to him. I really, really don't want to do that, the idea is absolutely filling me with dread. I don't know what else needs to be done to rectify this but maybe tell her I'm at least willing to work with her on it. I just don't want anything that drastic happening, for your team's sake and ours.
---
Hussie Feb 10 2020, 11:40 PM:
Well I think she just did it. You have two options. Relent from pressure from Makin, or stand your ground and ride it out. It's up to you. If Makin comes back, I seriously have to wash my hands of all this for good.
---
Drew Feb 10 2020, 11:51 PM:
Well, good to know that this remained bloodless for all of two hours. I understand that I fucked up by posting those comments but this feels like the equivalent of pushing the nuclear button in response to a fairly minor denouncement. I understand that it was effectively out of your hands, but I hope you understand where we're coming from. This sort of temperamental behavior was why we were apprehensive about all this in the first place.
As it is, Makin is asleep. I'll have to talk with him tomorrow, he's going to be even more upset with this than I am. I'm still willing to work with Kate on this to AT LEAST get her to walk that post back, but she's going to have to take the first step and reach out. If she's not willing to do that, then I need to cast serious aspersions on her ability to emotionally handle a fandom like this, or being in any position of power. This reaction is pretty ridiculous.
---
Hussie Feb 10 2020, 11:58 PM:
I'm not happy about any of this. Beyond that, don't know what I can say. I really tried my best to resolve this.
Extremely unlikely she walks anything back or reaches out. You can try reaching out and see what happens if you want. But to make something happen with her, it would require another round of very patient conversations from you. Up to you to decide if you have that in you after all this.
---
Drew Feb 11 2020, 12:04 AM:
Well, I'm not about to fucking quit now. What we were trying for is way too important to just give up at this point. I understand the position you're in and I don't expect anything more from you regarding all of this.
---
Hussie Feb 11 2020, 12:05 AM:
I'll help out if you're still willing to put energy into it. I'll admire the resilience if you do. But I think now that you're the admin, in some ways I have to step back and let you make some calls as the new leader of a community. I defer to the way you want to handle it and I'll be here to assist.
---
Drew Feb 11 2020, 12:35 AM:
[Omitted for personal info]’s said much the same thing, that this is basically just my first challenge as new head of the community. I'm mostly distraught because, as disproportionate as this response feels, I know I'm ultimately at fault for it because I let my guard down and made an assumption I shouldn't have.
That having been said, I already convinced Makin to step down, which is something that we literally never thought he would do. I'm extremely worried what he'll say about this when he wakes up, but there are exactly three outcomes: he demands the server back and everything is completely ruined; he stays calm for the moment but demands the server back IF I can't get Kate to walk things back; or, he's fine with it. That last part is the least likely obviously, but given the knowledge that you and other people from the team I've spoken to already are not comfortable with Kate's actions, AND the threat of losing stability/peace in the community, maybe he'll respond more appropriately. He doesn't want a return to hostilities any more than we do.
Not to get too personal about all of this, but he's not an emotionally vulnerable person and he confided things in me that I'm pretty sure he's never said to another living being on the internet. Betraying his trust after that is somewhere near the core of the earth on my list of things I want to do. I'm going to do my best to convince him not to demand the keys back. I hope this was not all for nothing.
If I can pull this off, I deserve a fucking Nobel peace prize. Or a toblerone, whichever works.
---
Hussie Feb 11 2020, 12:47 AM:
I think there are ways of asserting yourself and standing up for what you believe is right, which do not involve feeling like you're betraying a friend. Consider that the trepidation you feel about Makin's response is driven by the fact that he is wielding this kind of emotional leverage over you, which I think is inappropriate, and is at the core of many abusive scenarios. And most of all, remember one simple fact. At the end of the day, these communities aren't really HIS, no matter how long he controlled them. This is what I was trying to impress upon him when I got heavy handed. They all revolve entirely around something I made, so I think it's only fitting that my wishes factor into the equation strongly. And I much prefer you in charge now than him. He should try to make peace with that.
Also, despite the fact that you didn't really want Kate's post going out, what's done is done, and you might as well start looking at the silver lining. Which is, to observe how this release is already starting to positively impacting the perception of your community from the outside, rather than negatively effecting portions of the community on the inside. There is surely a lot of negativity happening now from some regulars in reddit, about how you got played or Kate is mocking you or lying, and I'm sure this feels bad to hear. But I think a lot of these sentiments are coming from people who, in my opinion, don't have very good intentions. If you continue to define your sense of successful community management by the approval of people who have really negative vibes, then you are always going to be miserable. I think Makin was suffering from this, and his community was weaker for it. But yours can be better.
---
Drew Feb 11 2020, 1:07 AM:
I want to clarify that I wasn't saying Makin confided in me to gain some kind of emotional leverage over me. I more mean that he has pretty distinctly been unwilling to establish friendships with people on the internet for various reasons. I believe he was hurt extremely badly in the past and it influenced his perception of online interactions accordingly. My apprehension is more due to the fact that I don't want him to suffer through that again, especially right after making good progress on it. Additionally, it's not just him that will be upset about this, everyone on our mod team has read Kate's post and is completely outraged. I described before that our distrust of Kate runs high, and this is probably the absolute worst case scenario for mitigating that and making progress on fandom peace. Still, the rest of what you say rings true.
I already said in a few places that I think I'm just kind of in a mild clinical shock at how quickly this turned sour--my urgency was due to a sense of panic, but I think I feel more or less calm about what's to come, whatever that may be. I don't really want to extenuate this conversation much further, you're not at liberty to do anything about it and I'm essentially venting at this point; this is not something I wanted to do, and I'm sorry if this has lowered your evaluation of my professionalism. If this somehow hasn't gone belly-up by tomorrow, I look forward to resuming our business with hashing out less serious details about the future. Otherwise, I guess we'll see what happens. Talking with you has been a pleasure and I hope that, this last problem notwithstanding, you found our engagements productive and satisfying.
---
Drew Feb 11 2020, 7:34 PM:
I'm not sure if you've been told yet, but Makin did not ask for the server back when he woke up.
Given how I closed our conversation yesterday, I'm afraid that my mod team and I all discussed how things ended and our perspective has changed. I know we've both suffered through enough of this, but they were adamant that we respond in some manner; I can't really disagree with them. Before you worry, the overall situation does not change, we are simply submitting a democratic, formal complaint. I hope this will not be seen as an overreach.
[full text of “formal complaint about kate mitchell” available below]
---
Hussie Feb 12 2020, 12:08 AM:
Thanks, all I can say for now is that I will consider this statement seriously. But please give me a little time to form a reply. A couple days or so. Been a pretty intense week worth of communication efforts, I'm sure you understand, but I'm staying on it.
--
Drew Feb 12 2020, 12:39 AM:
Yeah, I was worried about adding more stress after all this. Please take all the time you need, I think it's safe to say we could all use a break too. I promise that no matter what, we'll let you be until you're ready to speak again.
---
Hussie Feb 12 2020, 1:14 PM:
Before I reply to the complaint, for the sake of giving me better context on the staff's perspective, I'm trying to get a sense of the staff itself. How big, and the gender composition.
I heard there were 24 mods total, and that most of them are men. Is that true? Do you know what the full gender makeup of the staff is?
--
Drew Feb 12 2020, 1:40 PM:
Yes, there are 24 mods total across the subreddit and Discord server, although I'm representing about 22 of them directly--a few of them have backed off because they don't want anymore entanglement with fandom drama, assume a round total of 20 people engaged in this process. The rest still stand unless people change their minds.
However, we're really offended that you guys are asking for a gender count. That shouldn't be what this is about, although I'm not surprised given some of the rhetoric that's been used against us in the past. Our complaints don't come from a place of who Kate is, but because of her character and the actions she's committed; it's those two pieces specifically that make us concerned about her involvement.
Despite our reservations about it, we assembled an incomplete census of our team so you can see what you're working with. This does not include information about their sexuality or trans identities. Again, we are extremely displeased about this because it takes away from the real problems we're discussing, but whatever makes you guys feel better I guess.
Identify as male: 12 including myself
identify as female: 7
Identify as nonbinary: 1
The other 4 mods aren't available to respond to this yet, and probably won't feel comfortable about it anyway. To top this all off, one of our female-identifying staff, who will remain anonymous, demanded that I quote her:
"There's a disproportionately high number of trans and lgbt members in the community but when we raised this in the mod chat a number of mods felt deeply uncomfortable that this had been asked of them, they didn't feel like they had to be forced to pin their orientation or identity down just so that they would be seen as valid or invalid when confronting someone who has done nothing but harrass the community"
---
Drew Feb 12 2020, 1:56 PM:
People were telling me to hold off on that first email so they could get their comments in, I sent it prematurely. I can't stress enough how upset the entire team is that you requested this information. More quotations that are being demanded I send:
"this is horrifyingly invasive
i still constantly vacillate with my exact identity and i'm not even out irl and i'm supposed to just stick the gender landing for an abusive asshole [clarified that they're referring to Kate] that just wants to see the subreddit and discord destroyed? fuck that
if this goes more public than it already is i will be fucking mad"
"I am not uncomfortable but I'm disturbed that someone I personally admired would think this is okay to ask"
"I'm less uncomfortable and more annoyed by this -- is the question implying that simply because of my gender or orientation my opinions and moderating ability mean less? What is even the purpose of such a question? I'd appreciate it if this was clarified."
"i am so uncomfortable with this, why the fuck does this matter"
"we were literally asked for our genders? why???? why the fuck does this matter? i hope hussie knows how unprofessional and invasive that was to ask"
Literally all of these quotes came from LGBT staff members.
---
Hussie Feb 12 2020, 2:07 PM:
I really don't see what's wrong with trying to gauge the diversity situation of the staff there. The situation is like a black box to me. If this complaint was coming from 24 men only, the nature of the complaint suddenly feels like it has a different tenor, and I wanted to make sure that wasn't the case. Being offended that I'm asking seems to suggest diverse perspectives aren't relevant when assessing what's going on here, but I don't think that's true. But it's good to hear there's a diverse group there. To those offended please understand that I was trying to avert a situation where I might have been heeding a complaint that could have felt like an unseemly pile-on if it was issued by 24 cis men.
---
Hussie Feb 13 2020, 2:43 PM:
I've given the complaint some thought. Sorry this ran a bit long, but I think this is all important for you to read. The back and forth equivocation about all this really needs to be brought to an end for the sake of our sanity, so I'm being very direct about all this.
When it came to her breach of the conditions for the admin switch, I am not actually sure it was as disproportionate as you're saying. What happened was we came to an informal agreement where she would say nothing, to avoid her releasing statements which would make it seem she was rubbing it in the face of the reddit community. But I think it was fair for her to believe this pledge of discretion was mutual. Almost like signing a "mutual NDA", but through a handshake, and only resulting from a very uneasy truce to begin with. Once one party shows it's willing to talk shit after that, I don't think it's unreasonable for the other party to feel like all bets are off. So when you began assuring everyone things like "don't worry, Andrew has her under control", of course that's going to piss her off, and I knew it would. People I work with really don't like any language out there to the effect of "Hussie needs to exercise more control over his unruly women." So the moment that happened, I did what I could to cool it down, but I knew it wouldn't matter at that point, because you were essentially doing the exact thing you were worried she was going to do. Using language that seemed to be rubbing it in. And you could delete it, and did, but by then it's too late, because you've already shown to her there's a pretty good chance statements like that could show up again, if not from you, then others. So it all unraveled after that EXTREMELY quickly. She wanted to get her post out to get her points across asap, which she was never happy about suppressing much to begin with. Not even sure I can blame her, and really, when you call it disproportionate, I think you are understating your misstep.
And admittedly, right as it was happening, I wasn't that happy about her posting it. I did think it was a loose cannon move. But soon after that I came around on it, not just because of what I said above, but because I read her statement again trying to be as objective as I can about it. I really don't think it's that bad. It is a post that now has about 140 total engagements, which is barely anything. It's a piece using strong language that's designed to accomplish one thing: to send signals to those concerned that the situation is improving, and people involved are taking responsibility by making the right changes. This is what you WANT a statement like this to do. Because the people it's targeting are never going to have the patience to sift through all the complexities of what really happened. The only thing they care about is seeing some acknowledgment that bad stuff was going on, and now it's being fixed. Makin ends up looking good, and so does everyone else from an outside perspective. And it's not even like the basic claims of that post are that far off, given all the problems that kept getting back to me over the years. Issues my friends reported, ways they felt harassed, all sorts of stuff. Let's not forget, the reason I finally stepped in here wasn't only due to things stemming from Kate's involvement, it also had to do with a long history of problems that were finally coming to a head.
Another reason it's hard for me to get fully on board with this complaint is, since getting involved, I feel like I've personally been retracing Kate's original steps of frustration just by trying to figure out what actually happened in the first place. Between first Makin and then you, it was like pulling teeth to get to the bottom of the original incident. I had to comb through layers of deflection, denialism, and cross reference with a lot of outside accounts just to figure out if there actually were disturbing events at the heart of this. And in the end, I'm pretty sure I know what happened, and the negligence was mostly a series of innocent mistakes. But the fact is, there WAS something questionable going on, and it took a ton of direct investigation work from me to piece it together after getting the runaround from both of you. So I can easily see how Kate may have tried to engage on this topic, felt stonewalled and bamboozled about it just as I was, and then finally gave up and began to suspect worse things were happening than what really took place. Then what followed was increasingly inflammatory stuff from her directed at your camp, which is not how I would have handled it. But I can't really say her overstatements were necessarily WORSE than the types of obfuscation she faced when originally trying to get some clarity on a situation involving the safety of minors.
Which just makes me feel less sympathetic to this rhetoric from all of you, where every time I turn around, I'm hearing something else she did was the absolute the height of outrage. Or that you and Makin are completely incensed by the post she gave you to review. Or how you can't stress enough how unhappy this person or that person is about whatever. At a certain point, I'm asking myself, can we just chill out with these proclamations of outrage and indignation? This kind of posturing does not square up at all with the reality that something sketchy WAS happening, and you both have been running interference patterns on my effort to get to the bottom of it for a solid week.
And now I'm also wondering about the entire moderation staff which signed off on these outrages, not because I blame them for being mad about it, but for a different reason entirely. I just made a simple request for a demographic breakdown of what I determined to be a fairly large mod staff of 24 people. I wondered about the gender splits, because as I said, if it was massively lopsided toward cis men, I really feel like that colors the nature of the claims in a way I should take into account. I needed to rule out the possibility of a 24-man dogpile before considering the issue further. And I think mods of varied identities should already understand why it's important to wonder about the diversification of a management group when it comes to the judgments they form on sensitive issues. I really wonder why I even needed to explain this. But as seems to be the pattern, when I bring this up, people are yet again beside themselves with indignation. The shock and horror, over a simple demographic poll of a group of people in a position of responsibility over others. And I get that feelings there are probably still raw over the Kate issue, but the fact that everyone was so gobsmacked I would even inquire at all about that makes me feel very suspicious of the mod culture there. And what I really mean by that is, I'm still very suspicious of Makin's influence over this entire community, its culture, and the attitudes of its leadership.
I promise I read your complaint and thought about it carefully over the last 24 hours. And this is my very honest response. In the context of the week-long gauntlet of total nonsense we've had to go through, I think it's kind of an overreach. Like maybe everyone there thinks now that Makin has been so reasonable by stepping down, it's time to turn to Kate, and see if we can exact some retribution for her behavior. I don't think I want to indulge that sentiment under these circumstances. I finally got to the bottom of what happened, and yes, Makin is "exonerated", but he is not excused. I'm annoyed by what it took to get here, I'm annoyed by the many problems from reddit that have gotten back to me over the years, and I'm annoyed that virtually every single person I'm on friendly or professional terms with has a negative view of Makin for a variety of perfectly legitimate reasons.
I stand by everything I said to Makin during all this. He's tone deaf, he will never get it, and those qualities very likely have permeated the staff and culture over many years, and now we are fixing the situation. As for Kate, I understand how upset you all are about all the stuff she said, and you want to see "repercussions", but as much as you don't want to hear it, this has to be my take: she is a distraction. Kate is not the real issue here, and never was. The real issue is the culture of reddit/hsd management which precipitated her bad attitude, and it's been coming awfully close to precipitating mine as well. So the culture needs a revamp.
I really don't want to see a lengthy response full of line by line rebuttals or anything. It's a waste of your typing time and energy, and really we should just move this along to productive outcomes. I don't care if Makin was gracious enough not to ask for control back, and to some extent the way this is being framed is absurd, because none of this was ever really his. Taking the implied stance in your complaint that you are doing huge favors or making generous concessions to me if I decide to exercise some control over the leadership of large communities dedicated to a thing I made feels kind of presumptuous. So let's stop messing around with formal complaints, proclamations of outrage, or petty nonsense which focuses on who is "winning" or "losing" in this whole charade, and get down to the business of making reddit/hsd better.
The next step will be for me to put you in touch with [omitted], who should be a good "neutral" party to help coordinate some changes. He's a very sensible person and he's still friendly to reddit and my staff. I still mean it that this should be a relatively neutral revamp process, and not me completely paving over everything with my own people. I don't want that, but I DO want to see a lot of new faces on this staff, because as of now I don't have much confidence in the moderation culture there.
So please wait for me to connect you with him via separate email chain, and we can all talk about what to do next.
---
Drew Feb 13 2020, 3:29 PM:
I’m disappointed to hear all of this, but maybe not for the reasons you're expecting. I thought that, after I stepped in to help negotiations, we were fairly upfront with you about what was going on; I was afraid that I was even providing you with too much information, so I'm kind of sad to hear that this all came across as further stonewalling or obfuscation. It's clear to me now that I was probably misunderstanding the nature of what was going on here. I hope that regardless of all this, I didn't present any of us as operating in bad faith or with malicious intentions.
I won't comment on your response to the complaint, as you've said it wouldn't be productive. For what it's worth, we think that [omitted] is an excellent choice for mediation. I'll respond to that email in a bit, I need to finish up with work.
---
Hussie Feb 13 2020, 3:39 PM:
Thanks for understanding Drew, the bottom line is, I REALLY just want this to move on. So let's please just try to make some progress all this in the new chain with [omitted].
---
Hussie Feb 13 2020, 2:50 PM:
Hi Drew, I'm connecting you with [omitted], who I've been in touch with about functioning as a liaison for improving community relations, and the culture reddit/hsd's management in general.
[omitted], thank you for doing this. I know you are very busy with your academic work, so whatever time you can spare for this will be very appreciated. I'd also recommend that you recruit one or two people you trust to help you out with this, so as to not make this too burdensome or pull much time away from your work.
Originally my goal here was for everyone to think of ways to mend the bridges between the reddit community, and the entire community orbiting official HS works. I now think the process should run a little deeper than that. I think there should be some significant changes to the leadership of the reddit/hsd communities, and it will take some effort to build lists of people who will be suitable for those roles under current circumstances. We want to stay somewhat "neutral" with the choices, but ideally the result should be communities that are much friendlier with each other, and friendlier toward the culture surrounding official HS works.
I've had to draw the conclusion that Makin's leadership has had a very negative influence over the culture of reddit/hsd, and has negatively influenced the moderation culture as well. Currently there are 24 mods in total. I'm not sure if it will be necessary to replace all of them, but I think the strongest move here that will accomplish our goals will be to replace most. This should not be seen as an indictment of their character or moderation skills, but as a way of fully turning the page on Makin's influence over these communities.
I'd like diversity of leadership to be a guiding factor. The end result should have m/f split as even as possible, along with good spread of other attributes which would result in a diverse staff. I also think that the resulting culture from this group should see the diversity of their leadership as an important feature when building a stronger community. The attitude I'm sensing from the current staff in this regard feels lacking to me.
I also think anyone new considered for these positions should not have had any contact with Makin before. The point is to free up the atmosphere from his previous influence. To this end, we also don't want certain people from the official HS side involved at all either, due to bad blood between the two camps. Please don't have any contact with the following people during this process: [names omitted]
But anyone else connected to the official HS scene is ok to consult with, and it's very advisable that you do so. Aysha would be good to talk to, and she may be able to recommend others for advice.
Thanks again to both of you, especially Drew who has been very patient and diplomatic through a fairly arduous process. There's more work to be done, but we're almost there, and I think things will be much improved in the long run if we follow through with this.
---
Drew Feb 14 2020, 10:03 AM:
Hey [omitted]. I've seen you around in the community, but I don't think we've ever actually talked before. It's nice to meet you.
Before we begin, I want to ask: are you completely comfortable with acting as the liaison? I assume you already talked about it with him, but I'm just making sure.
---
[omitted] Feb 15 2020, 7:57 AM:
Hi Drew,
I'm sure that we've probably participated in some shared conversations over the years, maybe a comment thread or two. It's nice to chat one on one with you for once, though, I agree.
I'm definitely comfortable operating in this role, and have talked things over about my own situation with Andrew as well as a basic overview of the situation. [omitted for personal, irrelevant information]
My hope, as someone who has previously participated in both r/homestuck and the HSD, and seen how the server has developed over time, is that this experience will hopefully help me to open an earnest dialogue and resolve some of this tension that has been brewing.
Thank you for reaching out, and I hope that we can work together to achieve these goals.
---
[three emails omitted containing personal, irrelevant information]
---
[omitted] Feb 16 2020, 3:03 AM:
… I'm happy to at least begin here in emails and perhaps shift to Discord conversations later in the discussions. I understand that this is quite the complex undertaking but would rather get a feel for the space before engaging with a wider base of people. Where do you currently feel things sit with respect to the HSD?
---
Drew Feb 16 2020, 9:07 AM:
That’s a big question. To be completely honest, I feel like things are going pretty well right now and have been for the last several months, more or less. To explain a little bit, I mentioned early on in Andrew and I’s dialogue that an integral feature of our community is the ability to be irreverent to official works and their creators, if people should want. We feel like we’ve managed to create a good balance of this over time: our users feel free to praise or criticize what’s going on in the comic as much as they feel like, so I tend to see differing opinions between users where some like what’s going on and others don’t.
Inevitably, every once in a while you get a couple knuckleheads who take it too far or someone specifically aiming to stir trouble, but over time we’ve established policies and guidelines where we feel fine stepping in and doling out punishments to people who are messing things up for everyone else. Past experience has been really helpful in figuring out how to go about this in an optimal way, at least for the kind of environment that both we as a mod team and the community in general want to have.
---
[omitted] Feb 17 2020, 9:27 AM:
[omitted for personal, relevant information].
I recognise that the goal here is not to clamp down on criticism completely - and agree (in theory) with the idea that the HSD should be free to respectfully criticise the content. While I'm enjoying HS^2 a great deal, I've also got my own personal opinions on what's working and what isn't in the story. And I know that the space can be a great place for people to engage with that, in both a positive and negative way.
I'm curious to hear more about the policies and guidelines that have been established, though. I recognise that on the server, there are a number of specific channel rules (where spam can go, what's appropriate in art vs hs-art), as well as three overarching rules (Mods have final say, be respectful of others, don't share HS^2 bonus updates). However, much of what I've noticed (and you'll have to forgive the specific focus on read-shills/mspalit, but from looking around this seems to pop up in other Homestuck channels on the server as well) has been a decided lack of respectful behaviour, or stepping in on disrespectful behaviour, and I imagine is much of the reason why this discussion has even begun in the first place. Many people, even those on the server, have raised the issues of vindictive or apathetic responses from the moderation team. You have to recognise how disingenuous that call of respect and allowing criticism is next to calls for people to silence members of the Homestuck team for their own criticism. I also think claiming this is "a few knuckleheads" is somewhat reductive.
I've reached out to Aysha for some assistance on this matter in moving forward, too, and as Andrew suggests will be consulting with her on these matters. I feel like it's prudent to understand what past experience in this space has brought about, and the changes that have occurred throughout the development of the server to get where it is today. What changes have occurred in moderation, or in determining who is capable of moderating? I'm well aware of Makin's previous modpocalypse style of server turn-over, for example, but less familiar about if this is still a prevailing trend. In the past, this has lead to some improper choices for moderation, from my understanding, and I imagine showing clear indications of moving away from this sort of practice could be the steps that lead towards fostering a greater community environment.
---
Drew Feb 17 2020, 10:07 PM:
[beginning omitted for personal and irrelevant details] … I'm perfectly happy to provide you with answers for all of the questions you're asking, but after my last interaction with Andrew I'm pretty wary about providing too much information or coming across like I'm not actually giving you anything useful. Exactly how much information do you want? I'm not sure if you're familiar with my writing, but I can give you as much or as little as you'd like.
---
[omitted] Feb 19 2020, 7:44 AM
That's perfectly fine. For anything more pressing, I'll be sure to make the time sensitivity clear. [omitted for personal and irrelevant information]
The amount of information you gave to my last question about your feelings on HSD seemed like a good amount. I don't mind reading a lot, but I think brevity is also nice too.
I guess the crux of my questions from my last email is asking what would be your expectations of HSD moderators; their expectations, limitations, what they would need to enforce (which, I recognise, varies based on channel), and elements of that nature. Mostly I'm just wanting to get a feel of where we're at before trying to guide this to where Andrew and the official team are wanting to take it, and bringing on board new mods.
Take care, and good luck with your work.
---
Drew Feb 20 2020, 12:08 PM
I think I’m starting to see a problem here. I get the impression Hussie thought we were giving him the runaround in our correspondences, but the amount of information we gave him wasn’t in an attempt to obscure matters somehow. We were being totally thorough to try and give him the best possible understanding of what’s going on.
The length of the response you’re referencing would be completely inadequate to describe what you’re asking for. I can try to provide brief answers, but our community is a pretty big place. Running it requires a lot of care, attention, and fine-tuning stuff or adapting as time goes by. The subreddit is less of a problem in this regard, because while it has more users it is far less active. Importantly, it has an in-house tool that makes reporting posts or users far easier, which Discord does not.
Some of the things in the dialogue between Hussie, myself, and now you have confused me a bit, but now I’m pretty sure there’s a more serious gap in understanding than I first realized. The way all this works is complex due to the server’s sheer size, and if the community isn’t run in the way we’ve developed over the years then it can rapidly fall apart. This isn’t just us making things more complicated than they need to be, it’s actually pretty similar to the other big community I helped to manage in the past. Changing things without knowing what you’re doing runs a serious risk of descending into chaos or turning the server into a wasteland where no one bothers talking to begin with. I’m sure you understand that we’re averse to implementing any suggestions which would make either of these things happen.
If you want to gain a more proper understanding of everything, I’ve attached a document about three and a half pages in length that gives a much better shakedown on how things work, have worked, and will work going into the future. Otherwise, I’ll try to condense it down as much as possible here.
Requirements to be modded: establish a history of activity in the designated channel, understand how its subculture works, be at least somewhat familiar with the users there, be willing to keep an eye on it in general and especially when activity spikes, and we must be able to trust them (to be impartial, not abuse their power, listen to judgments from higher staff, and so on).
Limitations: truthfully not many, follow the rules that regular users are expected to, try not to shake up or guide a channel’s activity or culture by needlessly interfering with it too much.
Expectations: enforce channel and server rules, respond to user complaints if necessary, keep things from getting out of control, report more serious problems to staff above them if they can’t handle it.
Punishment: if a mod breaks rules, shares confidential information from mod chat discussion, or otherwise misbehaves in some fashion, they’re warned or removed as we see fit. This can also be decided in council fashion, but the admin has executive power to take more drastic action.
Mod hiring process: modpocalypse scenarios will likely not return, turnover of the staff even if temporary isn’t something I’m comfortable with. Mods have been and will be taken on through an application process, approved by council with final yay or nay from the admin. If this fails, democratic elections are held. Mods will be removed in much the same fashion.
There’s a ton of stuff that this email does not even touch on, such as janitors, and I strongly urge you to read the full document so you can get a more accurate picture of how complicated this all is by necessity. Regardless, our set up has served us pretty well for the last three years.
Also, it’s been talked about vaguely so far, but we realize now that none of us actually understand what Andrew or the team’s short/long-term goals are for interacting with our community. What exactly are you going to ask of us? There are things you might request that will inherently disturb the community, and as I've illustrated we’ll have to resist those ideas.
As always, if you need any clarification on these things don’t be afraid to ask.
[full text of “explanation of modding” available below]
---
[omitted] Mar 1 2020, 7:17 PM:
My apologies once again for delaying. I recognise that this was quite an involved response, and I wanted to ensure that I could adequately compose a reply to it. My hope is to clarify our position on the matter, the problems we have, and our eventual goals.
I recognise that the community is large, but I think the precise metrics you describe may be inadequate. If you have more specific metrics on the numbers of weekly active users (against the total number of users) that would be cool; I'd also love to see a graph of where those 16-30,000 daily messages are being concentrated. That may also help to target where moderation should be focused too - if a lot of messages are being sent in, eg, western-media then I'd say that should be more a target of moderation, perhaps (though I gather that may involve putting one or two 'janitors' on such chats). I assume that the server already periodically removes inactive accounts after a period of time?
There's a core point that you bring up both in the email itself and the extended document about the server's culture. I recognise that the space has cultivated a certain atmosphere over the past four years. But this culture is in part also a problematic aspect of the server. I know you make a point of outlining that there is a fine line between constructive criticism and outright dismissal, but I can't help but feel my own experiences in HSD fall on the right side more often than not. I understand what it can be like managing a popular space, and I know that the threat of having that conversation dry up is all too real. But I fear that the current culture of the server isolates more of the wider Homestuck community than it retains, and to put things more bluntly, could be seen as a form of grooming.
With respect to harassment, you state "We explicitly disallow any harassment of specific individuals. What exactly people consider harassment is a subject of disagreement, but I’ll touch on that later. If we see behavior that we understand to be harassment, we do in fact take immediate action." as well as "We don’t have this set in stone--it’s difficult to pin down in a way that satisfies everyone--so we rely on each other to confer in unclear circumstances and use common sense to determine what is acceptable and what isn’t". If what constitutes harassment must be determined by consensus (which I already consider a point of contention), the lack of a diverse moderation team is absolutely a detriment to the goal of moderation. If your understanding and views on harassment stem from your own personal experience as individuals, it is impossible to represent the wide gamut of user experience without beginning from a diverse team. This is a major cornerstone of innovation theory (see Winkler for example) - diverse teams can produce high initial conflict but greater long term success. I recognise that you have made the point in the past that the HSD's moderation team is LGBT diverse, but that is not where the buck need stop either.
It is clear that whatever we bring to the table will need to not only be diverse but also large and global to best moderate the space and keep it running smoothly. Clearly, this is a large undertaking. In the end, this seems to be the goal that the team and Andrew are aiming for - to create a welcoming community atmosphere and repair the fractures in the base through more diverse and structured moderation. Your comments about your expectations of the team heading forward, including stepping away from what outsiders may have seen as quite chaotic processes, quell some of the worries I had, but I feel the ultimate goal here is to introduce and turn over the moderation team in line with Andrew's expectations.
From here, moving forward, I'd like to propose conversing through a joint Discord chat involving at first myself and Aysha along with yourself and a set of HSD representatives, likely one or two other moderators. We hope to open a more direct means of discussing the nature of moving forward from here, and will hopefully add to this chat future collaborators that we approach that we feel are ideal candidates to bring about our goals moving forward. It is hoped that this Discord chat can be more of a middle ground, rather than us entering into a discussion in HSD's moderation channels. I'm happy to create this space, and add you to it so you can add who you need.
Please understand that I am coming into this discussion from a position of having experienced the HSD from the early days of 2016, along with many of my peers. I have seen the space transform over time, and eventually distanced myself from what it was becoming, and I have heard these feelings echoed by others. As it stands, the culture that has been cultivated is just as likely to be part of the problem, and I hope that we can work together on this to make the space an ideal community hub while retaining the community driven nature that makes it so worthwhile.
Thanks again for your time on this matter.
---
Drew Mar 2 2020, 8:15 AM:
We think starting a group chat is for the best, both because it would allow other people besides myself to be able to respond, and because it would probably expedite matters considerably. Invite me when you’re ready, I’m deliberating on which representatives I want. I have two or three in mind.
------------------------
End of email chain
------------------------
“draft public statement on the narwhal bacon website” full text
The Homestuck subreddit and its associated Discord (the "HSD") bill themselves as the largest community for discussion of Homestuck, and a place for a diverse fan community to come together. Too often in the past, the leadership of this community has failed to safeguard its most vulnerable members, provide adequate resources to its moderators, cultivate a healthy culture of critique, stop harassment of and fixation on private individuals, or enforce its rules consistently for all users. Those raising issues with community leadership were dismissed out of hand and faced deliberate reprisal that threatened their social connections and friendships.
Let's be clear: A wide variety of unconnected people from all walks of life reported bullying, stalking, hostile takeovers of their smaller communities, and exposure to sexually explicit or discriminatory content passed off as "jokes" from members of the HSD community, including members of its leadership. Until now, leaders failed to acknowledge the scope of the problems facing their community and refused to admit they were overwhelmed by the challenges they faced as their community grew. Firm pressure, in public and private, was necessary. As a community, we had to say enough is enough, loudly and clearly enough that it was heard. Those who came forward with their stories of abuse in the HSD are brave, and their bravery made a difference to the future fabric of our community of shared interest.
Neither brave nor virtuous, though, were those who sought to advance falsehoods, cast doubt on victims' stories, or those who treated this issue as a game. Like many of my colleagues, I am no stranger to smear campaigns and misinformation, and those who engaged in those behaviors against HSD staff are not allies of any victim and only harm any attempt to improve our shared space.
This is a problem of negligence first and foremost. I believe Makin and Drew Linky when they say they did not engage in criminal conduct and have seen no evidence that they did. But dereliction of their responsibility and the entrenched culture of their community meant responses to harm were inadequate, and their staff was neither numerous enough nor committed enough to ensure a space of that size was operated in a safe and responsible fashion.
I am heartened, then, to learn that the leadership of HSD have acknowledged that change is necessary. I am encouraged to learn that the leadership of the community will change with Makin stepping down from his ownership role, and no more will a single individual take outsize importance in the community's culture. I am relieved to hear that new leaders will join the existing staff of the community.
This type of change requires enduring commitment. The HSD and Subreddit must review its bans and reverse those implemented merely for raising issues with leadership that have now been acknowledged and addressed. The remaining and new staff must be unshaking in their commitment to providing a space free of sexism, racism, ableism, transphobia, harassment, stalking, and sexual exploitation.
Those outside the community must, too, let the new leaders work and take them in good faith in their assurance that change is coming. Now that these issues and their seriousness has been acknowledged and prior staff action and composition determined insufficient, I have every reason to believe it will and support them in their actions. I hope, too, that Makin and any other members of the HSD or subreddit staff that leave as these changes come enjoy privacy and safety, and that no one continues to attack those who have acknowledged their faults and given up their power in response. I look forward to these changes and have no intention of playing any direct role in the internal governance of HSD during or after this transition. If the principles of making a better and safer community are upheld, then all of us – artists, fans, staff and members of every community where Homestuck is discussed – will be better for it. I am thankful to Andrew Hussie for taking leadership on this, and to Drew Linky for coming to the table with him and working out an acceptable solution that makes our shared space better.
Said Andrew:
"First I want to say, I also do not believe anyone involved with the leadership of these communities engaged in any criminal activity. After reviewing all the facts, what appears to have happened was a pattern of administrative negligence. Though it was disappointing to hear about what transpired, what's most important to me now is seeing that significant changes are being made to improve the situation. I spoke directly with Makin and Drew, and we all came to the resolution that Makin stepping down was the best course of action so that the remaining leadership could consider new policies, while sending a clear signal to everyone outside the community that things are moving in the right direction. Regardless of what may have happened in the past, I'm pleased to see that Makin has been trying to do the right thing now. Thanks also to everyone who kept the spotlight on this issue until we could all figure out a solution, and to Drew for his patience in sorting it all out with us. Having talked to him a great deal about this, I now feel pretty confident in Drew's ability to manage these communities going forward."
Thank you most to the brave individuals who spoke truth to power, and helped us ensure a better, brighter future.
Regards,
Kate
---
“Formal complaint about kate mitchell” full text
In previous correspondences I was speaking mostly on behalf of myself and Makin. With recent events though, I'm now speaking on behalf of our staff and, to a lesser extent, our entire community. My fellow moderators have fully reviewed this document and approve of the message.
Our primary focus in reaching out to you is to discuss Kate and actions she's committed throughout our previous negotiations, during her time as a member of the Homestuck 2 team, and throughout her membership in any other projects related to Homestuck. Put simply, we feel that her behavior has continually worsened and reached a point we can no longer accept as a community.
I hope that our recent actions demonstrate to you that we are not acting in bad faith on this issue or any other. Makin's willingness to step down should have proven his positive intentions already. With his declination to ask for the server back after this outrageous disregard for a critical stipulation of our agreements, we feel that he has proven his goodwill even further. Even discounting his part in all of this, the mod team is absolutely unified in sending this complaint—there's a significant chance that we would have done so even in absence of the need for our previous negotiations. If so required, we can try to collect and provide evidence of the things we're claiming beyond the most recent altercation, though if I'm not mistaken Kate seems to delete interactions with fans she has on Twitter. With all of this in mind, I hope you can take the seriousness of what we're saying even if it might be at face value.
There are a number of parallels between this email and the rest of the process we've been undergoing. You contacted us because you felt that Makin could no longer be in control of this community, and your opinions worsened because of the manner with which he conducted himself initially. You became firm that he was not fit to lead us, and you held that position after we all agreed that the real problem was larger systemic issues his involvement necessarily precluded fixing. You suggested that removing him would be to the betterment of both of our groups and help to reestablish trust. We agreed to all of this and have done our absolute best to comply with what you requested while also securing the best conditions we could hope for.
We now turn to you as the aggrieved party in these circumstances. We cannot overstate the magnitude of Kate's offenses against us, which from our perspective have been largely unprovoked. This goes up to and especially includes the release of her statement following the close of our negotiations. The contents of said statement are less the important point, though these too alarm us because she refused to recant even her strictly defamatory statements, such as repeatedly insinuating that we are "prone to hate and harassment, a pipeline for radicalization, a haven of ableism and anti-Semitism, a place where children were exploited." More important is the fact that she felt vindicated posting it in explicit retaliation for a mistake that for all intents and purposes was a minor one, and which was almost immediately reversed. I recognize that the mistake made her upset, and we are sympathetic to the explanation that her life circumstances have left her hardened and that she is adamant in her beliefs. However, none of that excuses the sheer indignity and vitriol that she has shown to us and our community at large (and even people outside of our community), both in the immediate sense and in the past.
Kate's involvement with the official team has lent itself to a number of sustained problems that we feel can no longer be allowed to continue. She has outwardly bullied fans in general— not just those who associate themselves with our portions of the community—on Twitter and possibly other places, reacting to even faint criticisms with vindictive and often explosive rhetoric that causes people to feel unsafe interacting with her. In cases where accusations of wrongdoing against her grew larger, she denied and deflected those claims, marginalizing the people who brought that evidence against her: "There's a significant number of well-meaning queer youth who have been mobilized and radicalized by bad actors." In this she has decried collaborative efforts to point out her wrongdoing.
In recent events, then, Kate has displayed a mindboggling level of hypocrisy and projection:
"[Makin] has a clear history of retaliation against those who attempt to hold him accountable. He made me a target of retaliation simply for believing the numerous individuals both shared on this account and privately. He will do it to anyone who speaks up."
By contrast, a previous tweet:
"Be wary of anyone peddling broad conspiratorial claims. Be wary of anyone telling you they are the only safe adult. Think about your standards for applying violence and violent language. Think about who you choose to bring economic harm down upon. Are you making real change?"
This all reads even worse in light of her spreading information that led to an assault on our community with evidence that was later proven to be the result of a disinformation campaign. When confronted about the part she played in all of this, she refused to apologize for any of it, even with the knowledge that some of the claims she had put forth and amplified were false. She systematically stalked our subreddit hunting for the slightest reason to cry foul ("Another great thread. It's sickening to see this man's pattern of action. The entire HSD mod team is complicit in this, every single day."), and then in the same turn demanded that our community be destroyed (literally: "REDDIT DELENDA EST") multiple times. In all of these things she has wielded her influence as part of the team leading your franchise like a cudgel, and she has shown no remorse for any of it.
We were dismayed but willing to accept these things in the name of greater peace. Then after the mistake I made on the subreddit—posting details of what I thought was a formalized agreement and not simply based on whether she could be trusted to play along—she lashed back against us in an act that can only be described as grossly disproportionate. Again, the contents of her statement are not really what matter here. The problem is the severity and quickness of her response to a matter that was resolved almost immediately, her willingness to completely throw out an extensive series of negotiations trying to resolve years of tension. A complaint Kate has repeatedly issued about Makin is that he pursued projects and maintained the community not to keep it safe or improve it, but to satisfy and protect a fragile ego; I don't believe I need to spell out the rest of that particular implication.
Publicly, nothing has changed; despite all of this, we are still engaging in the spirit of making things better for everyone. Members of our staff will not officially badmouth Kate over these grievous issues (though, unless you deem it unwise, they will probably continue to criticize her informally), and we will remove comments seen as threatening or otherwise inappropriate as we always have. With all of these things, we feel that reaching out in this manner is more than reasonable and totally justified.
Echoing sentiments shared by most of our community, we privately but categorically do not support Kate as a fixture of Homestuck's team, and we are currently determined not to work with her in the future under any circumstances until she faces repercussions for her actions. While we remain dedicated to improving relations with the rest of the official team, Kate's uncontrollable spite and self-serving, contradictory logic have fundamentally eliminated the chances of constructively interacting with her from now on. We, or at least I, understand that she isn't a completely negative person; I've personally met the kind and compassionate person you spoke of before. Yet, it is impossible to ignore the substantial negativity caused by her too. If I'm not mistaken, that's what everything we've talked over has been about.
Obviously, we aren't actually in a position to demand that you remove her, and I understand your assertion that you have no real power over her; writing this complaint is not really something I wanted to do even given how things ended, but after mulling over her actions we aren't comfortable with the outcome, at least as things stand. If you haven't already I highly suggest you and/or your team begin a serious discussion about her actions and the extreme level of harm she has caused towards the Homestuck franchise and its fans, both in these negotiations and generally in the past.
---
“Explanation of modding” full text
There’s two parts to this response, the first concerning our policies and the second involving the history of our mod selection process, as well as how that’ll change going into the future now that I’m in charge.
I should point out that the subreddit, despite having 3.5 times the people, is much slower and genteel due to its forum-oriented nature; we’ve only had to enact serious policy changes a handful of times in the last ten years, to my knowledge. In contrast, the Discord server has experienced dozens of changes over the last four years, growing organically to handle the nature of the environment. Being a real time chat with thousands of users capable of speaking at any time, the server appeals more to people as a place for rapid, engaged discussion. There are over 16,000 people here, and we see an average of about 1 message per user per day. That number often reaches 20,000 messages or even upwards of 30,000 messages on busier days. I have a fairly complete set of records and analyses of this data spanning back to the server’s creation, if you wish to see it, but the point is that all of this means we have to balance the desires and actions of a large number of people. Making sweeping decisions without thought or balance comes with a serious risk of destroying the server, and obviously we will avoid that outcome to the fullest degree possible.
This all being put aside, this document will solely focus on the Discord server.
As you noted, the specific rules that pertain to each channel are rather numerous and explaining them all would probably constitute its own document several pages in length. If you need this anyway, I can provide an exhaustive explanation of what rules we have and why. Generally speaking, the global rule “be respectful” seems to be most relevant to our negotiations, and this invariably leads to a discussion about harassment. We explicitly disallow any harassment of specific individuals. What exactly people consider harassment is a subject of disagreement, but I’ll touch on that later. If we see behavior that we understand to be harassment, we do in fact take immediate action. A large difficulty in this is the sheer size and activity of the HSD: malicious comments can slip by because it’s physically impossible to keep track of everything. This is by no means intentional, and we already have a couple of methods for dealing with it.
First and foremost we rely on user reports a lot, whether moderators are online or not. However, this necessarily means that unless someone comments on a problem there’s a higher likelihood that we’re not going to know about it. This is further complicated by the fact that, unlike the subreddit, Discord does not have a feature that allows users to directly report something to moderators anonymously; they must take the initiative of contacting us on their own. Another way of reducing bad actors is through smaller moderation roles, at this point being the “janitors.” These are individuals we know to be active but don’t completely trust with policy/decision-making for the server at large. They have less responsibility but essentially keep an eye out for any trouble going on in the channels they’re assigned to. They have the power to handle matters if they can, or they can call a mod to take care of it as needed. We believe that this system has, for the most part, been very effective. It’s not 100% thorough, but this is about as close as it can get in a community of this size.
Now to bring us back around to what we define as “harassment.” We don’t have this set in stone--it’s difficult to pin down in a way that satisfies everyone--so we rely on each other to confer in unclear circumstances and use common sense to determine what is acceptable and what isn’t. The most rigid definition of what we consider harassment would be “lashing out with baseless insults on a personal level,” which is the hard limit of our tolerance; any behavior like this is met with a sharp warning and then a ban if it doesn’t stop, or an immediate ban if it’s egregious enough.
That definition may still be unclear, so a couple of examples: something like “you’re an idiot” in the middle of an otherwise fine discussion would be considered rude and probably merit a warning, but it’s not really harassment. Similarly, people saying things like “I don’t like this thing/this idea sucks because of x reason” is also rude, but it’s not harassment because it isn’t directed towards a specific person and is typically an attempt to be constructive. Racism, sexism, homophobia, etc are all considered harassment, and anything like “you’re a pathetic loser,” “kill yourself,” “your art/music/whatever is horrible and you deserve to feel bad” said in earnest would certainly be considered harassment.
Even the latter cases can be murky in some situations though; I specified that it must be in earnest, because each channel has developed its own subculture with people who all recognize each other, or it’s understood someone is being sarcastic. I don’t know how common it is, but sometimes comments like this may just be friends engaging in simple ribbing. If all people involved vouch that it was meant in jest then no punishment is given, although we tend to watch those people more closely after such incidents anyway.
A more common gray area is the last example I provided, where it’s a user simply saying that the content someone produces sucks. We kind of waffle on where the line of “harassment” versus “simply being unconstructive” is here, because sometimes the things people make really do just suck, and it’s not reasonable to expect people to lie about that. However, we usually clamp down on such comments anyway because it doesn’t add much to the discussion. To increase conversational quality, we tell people to do their best to offer constructive criticism or explain exactly why they feel a certain way. If it’s clear someone is just being a nuisance, or if the person being criticized becomes upset, then we step in to move the conversation along and punish people as the situation demands.
More extreme forms of harassment include doxxing people or threatening them with violence or harm of some sort, and without question such behavior is dealt with harshly using immediate, permanent server-wide bans.
I recognize that we’re far from perfect in tackling these issues. In practice this stuff is complicated, dynamically so, and some problems are always going to slip through the cracks. With that in mind, users reporting problems they encounter is probably the most effective way we have of monitoring the place. A complaint I’ve heard often is that “such and such is harassing me and they weren’t dealt with!” but then when all of the mods were asked, they explained that the person issuing the complaint never actually spoke to us about it. This has happened with one or more of WP’s staff as well, where they joined the server, saw stuff they didn’t like, and never really brought it up to us so we could address it.
Alternatively, there was one case where it WAS brought up, but they weren’t satisfied with our response. This is something of an intractable problem where sometimes we don’t agree with a complaint or find it insubstantial. This can be due to various things such as a lack of proof, evidence of bias or retaliation, or other such circumstances. From this, a fundamental disagreement occasionally occurs on how exactly things should be dealt with or whether they actually need to be dealt with at all. If such a disagreement pops up and it can’t be resolved with discussion, then there’s not much that can be done.
We don’t guarantee that we will always respond to someone: if we find a complaint unreasonable we tell them so or ignore it; often it’s just that we’re busy people and have lives outside of this server, so it takes us a while to respond to someone, or we even forget. Sometimes we won’t even be able to help someone at all (we’ve received complaints from users about people who aren’t even in our server, which is bewildering). However, we always welcome people to speak up if they feel something is wrong. If they don’t do that, then our hands are usually tied at that point. I feel that this should be impressed upon specifically with regard to WP: if they’re aware of someone in our community who is issuing threats of violence or physical harm, then they need to tell us so it can be handled as soon as possible. As I mentioned before, too, we seem to have ideological differences in what needs to be addressed and what doesn’t. If someone is indeed issuing a threat of bodily harm or something to that degree, then WP can and should report it directly to me so that it can be handled (we’ve already taken care of at least one situation in this manner). In lesser cases, we reserve the right to continue adjudicating members of our community as we see fit.
Naturally there are incidents in the past where all of this has gone wrong and it wasn’t handled correctly, though in our defense I would say that it’s more of a “you don’t see the times the process worked” sort of deal: for every single time something goes wrong and people hear about it, there’s a thousand times where it worked just fine, so no one even knows anything happened. If you or someone else could provide some examples where it didn’t actually work—theoretical or historical—it might help reduce the scope of our conversations to what specifically might need to be changed. One of my mods described: “If you aren’t able to share any anecdotes or experiences from users you’ve talked to because they aren’t comfortable having them shared, then unfortunately, I think we’ll have a lot of trouble getting anywhere in the future. We aren’t necessarily asking for any names, just the specific nature of actions and content of responses which have been controversial.” Providing us more information about such instances would do a lot to move these conversations along as we work together in the future.
-
The mod selection process has certainly been complicated, but we don’t feel that it was actually bad. The only “modpocalypse” that was truly disruptive was the first one, back in mid-2016 when the server was basically a wild jungle. That was when Makin first decided to clean house and organized everything, and since then the great, chaotic modding events were merely a traditional element. The mod selection process after 2016 was never actually random: people were added or re-added based on how reliable they were and/or how much users liked them. Mods were not invited back if they didn’t coordinate well with the rest of the mod team, if they stopped being active in the community, or if their position was deemed unnecessary.
Regardless of all that, it wouldn’t really be my style to wipe out the entire mod team and replace them willy-nilly. Removing mods is always associated with a period of turmoil, which can be brief if handled well or interminable if handled poorly. Removal would probably follow similar conventions as before, but now with a rough quorum leading to a discussion about whether someone should be removed or not. This would happen in response to an offense committed by a mod such as breaking server rules, or if they’re making matters uncomfortable for everyone else.
As for taking on new mods I’m a fairly straightforward individual, so I would probably cut out the fluff and keep everything else. This involves opening up mod applications, and then the sitting team would decide in a council format who to accept by weighing multiple factors: how active the applicant currently is, whether they’ve had previous modding experience (especially in larger servers, modding quiet places with less than a thousand people or messages per day is marginally helpful but doesn’t confer the right kind of experience), how much people in the server like or trust them, and whether they’ve been around long enough to understand the community and how it works. Quick learners are a bonus, because the system we have for logging and checking things is rather extensive so that we can be thoroughly sure about what’s happening or who is involved in specific incidents. Should this fail and we find no suitable candidates, we have a more democratic process where the users of a channel nominate people and vote on them. Combined with executive approval of the admin, these methods have been the primary ways of accepting mods in the past and we find that it suits our purposes well.
Sometimes an emergency situation will arise where we need to take on hands to resolve something quickly. This typically happens in response to a raid on the server. As an aside, I was actually modded this way: we were experiencing an absurd amount of porn and gore raids on our community back in early 2017, so Makin asked me to help out. We experienced this again during the massive child porn raids we suffered in 2017 or 2018, so we expanded the powers of our then mod team and temporarily hired more to stay vigilant on the entire server around the clock. These are rare cases though; often we just see that a channel could use another set of eyes due to a burst in activity, so we pick someone we think would do a good job and ask if they’re interested in handling things for us. We recently did this for altgen and the Homestuck channel category back in November of 2019, adding a couple of pseudo-mods and a janitor.
Speaking of janitors, we haven’t made very much use of them in the past, but I’ve been considering expanding the janitorial staff considerably even in just the last week. Additionally, we don’t really have an effective way to coordinate with them because they don’t have access to the mod-chat, as they aren’t trusted like pseudo- or full mods. I think I’d like to make a #janitor-chat where they can talk to each other about optimal ways to handle any problems, and so they can easily get the attention of a mod if it’s needed. Expanding the janitorial staff should be less controversial and easier to qualify for than adding mods to the main team, so I’m significantly less hesitant to do so.
In short, mass turnover of the staff is something that will probably never happen again. All of our current mods are highly familiar with the channels they look at and their subcultures. Additionally, they’re fully experienced in navigating the infrastructure we’ve developed for keeping track of things, making it possible for them to do their jobs swiftly and easily. I trust all of them to accomplish their duties—even more sometimes—and to listen to what I have to say, both as general advice and when I seriously need them to change something they’re doing. We have internal disagreements on how to handle things sometimes, but we typically reach a consensus after a bit where most of us agree on what is the optimal way to go forward, or whether something needs to be fixed.
I hope this document answers all of your questions in abundance.
------------------
End of transcript
Maintained by Skyplayer
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1VO9F_FU0N-hZzfAigLQFCIDQgGE9TXc-uhwrWoS7VD0/edit
The Complicated Story of the Homestuck Fandom - The RPG Monger, Youtube, 10/25/18
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLm-0V741M8
Up to date as of the 9th of June, 2019
It should be clarified that this list has been compiled mostly after the fact, wherein the details of when certain mods were appointed and removed have been forgotten. It is not impossible to find out the exact day on which these things happened, but it is not of great importance except as a general record. To that effect, this list is compiled on a general basis except where such details are immediately available.
The overall “era,” especially as deemed from one Reckoning event to another, is given. First the name of the mod in question is provided, then their position, the conditions under which they departed, and finally any accompanying details of when they started or finished. Names will repeat across eras if a given mod served in more than one. If somehow you have knowledge of this that’s missing, please don’t hesitate to message Drew Linky with details. As a final note: if the date of appointment or removal remains unknown, it is a safe bet that it happened during a previous or following Reckoning.
AFTER BEGINNING OF SERVER
Andrew - full mod, appointed “for a couple of days”, removed during The Reckoning
AnionCation - full mod, date of appointment unknown
cynicallyCritical - full mod, date of appointment unknown, removed before The Reckoning
Lucky Red Seven - full mod / gaming pseudo, date of appointment unknown
Nixlex - full mod, date of appointment unknown, removed during The Reckoning
Wheals - full mod, date of appointment unknown
Cloudaria - art pseudo, date of appointment and removal unknown
Jakkyr - voicechat pseudo, gen pseudo (?), resigned upon Toast becoming mod
Ost - gen pseudo, date of appointment unknown
Rufioh - serious pseudo, date of appointment unknown, removed during The Reckoning
AFTER THE FIRST RECKONING (11th of August, 2016)
AnionCation - full mod, date of removal unknown
Cerulean - full mod, date of appointment unknown
CynicallyCritical - full mod, appointed during The Reckoning, date of removal unknown
Drew Linky - full mod, appointed 28th of January, 2017
LRS - full mod
Ngame - full mod, appointed during The Reckoning
Toast - full mod, appointed briefly as a joke some time after The Reckoning, removed a week later due to backlash
Wheals - full mod
Anervaria - #general, date of appointment unknown
DeltaPsi - #coding-tech, date of appointment unknown
Dingus - #altgen, appointed after Tori resigns from position
Linkslittlefriend - #homestuck, date of appointment and removal unknown
Master Emp - #nsfw, date of appointment unknown
Medixum - #serious, date of appointment unknown
Minish - #western-media, appointed during The Reckoning, date of removal unknown
MrCheeze - #mspa-lit, date of appointment unknown
Ost - #general, removed during The Rapture
Sea Hitler - #general, date of appointment unknown
Senigrade - #general, appointed during The Reckoning, date of removal unknown
Tensei - #music, date of appointment unknown
Tori - #altgen, appointed during The Reckoning, resigned 13th of November, 2017
Wade - #mspa-lit, appointed during The Reckoning, date of removal unknown
Wizard of Chaos - #gaming, date of appointment unknown
AFTER THE SECOND RECKONING ("THE RAPTURE," 28th of January, 2018)
Cerulean - demoted to Botmaster during The Rapture, demodded 18th of November, 2018
Drew Linky - full mod
Nights - full mod, appointed during The Rapture, left server on 15th of March, 2019
Sea Hitler - full mod, promoted during The Rapture
Spiral - #homestuck, appointed during The Rapture (later promoted to full mod, date unknown)
Tensei - full mod, promoted during The Rapture
Wheals - full mod
DeltaPsi - #coding-tech, resigned from position on 23rd of July, 2018
DeusAscendant - #altgen, appointed during The Rapture
Dingus - #altgen
Ifnar - #serious, appointed during The Rapture
Medixum - #serious, removed during The Rapture
MrCheeze - #mspa-lit, resigned due to conflict, date unknown
Ngame - #media channels, appointed during The Rapture (briefly full mod, date unknown)
Olkiserve - #music, appointed during The Rapture
Teratosapphic - #art-music, appointed during The Rapture
Toast - #homestuck, appointed during The Rapture
VirtuNat - #coding-tech and #oc-shrine, appointed during The Rapture
Wizard of Chaos - #gaming (temporarily demodded in 2018 for 3-4 months)
AFTER THE THIRD RECKONING ("THE GNOMENING," 6th of June, 2019)
Dingus - promoted to full mod during The Gnomening
Drew Linky - full mod
Ngame - full mod, removed during The Gnomening
Nights - full mod, removed during The Gnomening
Spiral - full mod
Tensei - full mod
Toast - promoted to full mod during The Gnomening, removed on 9th of January 2020 for excessive, unnecessary disrespect towards a user
WHATISLOSTINTHEMINES - full mod, appointed during The Gnomening
Wheals - full mod, removed during The Gnomening
Anervaria - #voicechat, promoted from janitor during The Gnomening
DeusAscendant - #altgen, demoted to janitor during The Gnomening, later removed for insubordination and extensive rudeness
Dioxazine - Homestuck channel category, appointed on 3rd of November 2019 after opening mod applications, steps down 25th of November 2019
Jman005 - Homestuck channel category, appointed on 3rd of November 2019 after opening mod applications, steps down on 1st of April, 2020 for personal reasons
Misha - #eastern-media, appointed during The Gnomening
Olkiserve - #music, removed during The Gnomening
Photino - #homestuck, appointed during The Gnomening
Polyphemus - #music, promoted from janitor during The Gnomening (temporarily demoted on 10th of September 2020, promoted back to pseudo-mod on Thanksgiving 2020)
Prime - shitposting channels, appointed janitor on 3rd of November 2019 after opening mod applications
Raarzard - shitposting channels, promoted from janitor on 3rd of November 2019 after opening mod applications
Retifile - #general, appointed during The Gnomening
Teratosapphic - #art-cosplay, removed during The Gnomening, reappointed to janitor by application for art channels on 6th of March 2020
Tipsy - #western-media, appointed during The Gnomening
Tyr - #general janitor, appointed during The Gnomening, removed 25th of July 2019 by request
Valkyrie - #altgen, appointed during The Gnomening
VirtuNat - #coding-tech, #oc-shrine
Wadapan - #general, appointed during The Gnomening
Wizard of Chaos - #gaming, promoted to full moderator on 17th of March 2020
Makin - following fandom drama, steps down 10th of February 2020 (see this entry for details)
Drew Linky - takes over control of subreddit and HSD 10th of February, check entry above.
Moonjail - appointed #music janitor by application on 6th of March 2020, promoted to pseudo-mod on 2nd of April same year due to quality work
Neth - appointed #general janitor by application on 6th of March 2020
Erieolae - appointed #general janitor by application on 6th of March 2020
Vortrex - appointed #altgen janitor by application on 6th of March 2020, requests removal for personal reasons on the 7th of September 2020, also appointed #altgen janitor on 22nd of September 2020 for good levels of participation there
Shroom - appointed #serious janitor by application on 6th of March 2020
Penumbra - appointed Homestuck category janitor by application on 6th of March 2020
Ci - appointed #original-character janitor by application on 6th of March 2020
Photino - removed due to inactivity, 20th of June 2020
AFTER THE FOURTH RECKONING ("THE HUSKENING", 11th of October, 2020)
Removed from their positions: Dingus, Tensei, Sea Hitler, Cyrene, Wadapan, Qweq, Erieolae, Tyr, and ValkyrieMakin - reappointed as server owner and administrator after being asked to come backed
Drew Linky - co-administrator of server
Ifnar - promoted to full mod during The Huskening
Spiral - full moderator
Tay (previously WHATISLOSTINTHEMINES) - full moderator
The Ennemy - appointed as full moderator during The Huskening
Misha - #eastern-media pseudo-mod
B3es - appointed as #western-media pseudo-mod during The Huskening
Anervaria - #general and #voicechat pseudo-mod, later requested to step down in good standing on the 14th of July, 2021
Ci - promoted to #oc-hell pseudo-mod during The Huskening
HarpyHour - appointed as be Homestuck channels pseudo-mod during The Huskening, promoted to full mod on 2/19/2021
homersimpson@mail.com - selected to be #altgen pseudo-mod during The Huskening
Neth - promoted to #general pseudo-mod during The Huskening
Moonjail - #music pseudo-mod, requested to step down in good standing on July 13th, 2021
Penumbra - promoted to Homestuck channels pseudo-mod during The Huskening
Prime - promoted to #altgen pseudo-mod during The Huskening
RAARzard - #altgen pseudo-mod
Reti - #general pseudo-mod
Sein - appointed as #science-math and #coding-tech pseudo-mod during The Huskening
Tipsy - Homestuck channels pseudo-mod
Wizard of Chaos - demoted to #gaming pseudo-mod during The Huskening, later requested to step down in good standing on July 14th, 2021 (had repeatedly asked to be removed for months, but was denied partially as a joke)
VirtuNat - demoted to #oc-hell janitor during The Huskening
Shroom - #altgen and #serious janitor
Teratosapphic - art channels janitor
Tori - appointed as #altgen janitor during The Huskening, resigned 12/30/2020 after deciding she dislikes the channel too much
Jman005 - readded to team as #hussietube janitor in wake of Hussie's newly announced project, 19th of December, 2020, stepped down as of 29th of January 2021
Pax Probliscum - recruited as Homestuck category janitor on 24th of March, 2021
Roserado - recruited as Homestuck category janitor on 24th of March, 2021, promoted to pseudo-mod on the 30th of June, 2021
Grimpike - recruited as #gaming janitor on 14th of July, 2021
AFTER THE FIFTH RECKONING ("THE HUSKENING 2: ASCENSION". 8th of August, 2021)
Removed from their positions: Tay, Anervaria, Ci, Neth, Penumbra, Prime, Reti, Tipsy, VirtuNat, Shroom, and Pax Probliscum
Makin - server owner and administrator
Drew Linky - co-administrator of server
Ifnar - full moderator
Spiral - full moderator
B3es - promoted to full mod during the Ascension
Teratosapphic - promoted from janitor to full mod during the Ascension
Juliette (formerly RAARzard) - promoted to full mod during the Ascension, was removed following internal issues with team in early October, 2021
Misha - #media pseudo-mod
HarpyHour - demoted to #homestuck category pseudo-mod during the Ascension
homersimpson@mail.com - #altgen pseudo mod
Sein - #science-math and #coding-tech pseudo
Roserado - #homestuck category pseudo mod
grimPike - promoted to #gaming pseudo mod during the Ascension
Chasca - selected for #general pseudo mod during the Ascension
Kreuz - selected for #general pseudo during the Ascension
Slashed Out - selected for #altgen pseudo mod during the Ascension
Tyzuigi - selected for #altgen pseudo mod during the Ascension
Wizard of Chaos - botmaster
Axolotl - selected for #altgen janitor shortly after the Ascension
Mildly Adequate Snoiiper - selected for #altgen janitor shortly after the Ascension
28th of January, 2018
Drew Linky
"The Rapture" begins, makin removes all mod roles and hides all channels except for four: #general-alpha, #general-aleph, #general-a, #general-1; icon changes; shuffles order of channels; ifnar complains that it is nowhere near the chaos or confusion of the reckoning because server activity has dropped and mspa lit regulars knew about it in advance; eventually all channels are renamed simply to #general, but order keeps shuffling; at 4:42 AM EST makes an announcement saying "suggest new #general pseudos in the right general channel!", meaning the order of channels was important to keep track of for making suggestions; users come up with a way to keep track of channels using channel IDs, figure out which channels were which based on that and then channel functions like bot usage in what was botspam-radio; ~4:50 AM EST introduces a fifth channel and removed it, 5:02 AM EST now down to three; 5:04 AM fourth gen comes back, then back to three, then down to two; 5:05 AM EST added third and fourth gens back; the general atmosphere is slowly increasing in intensity, each change lends itself to the establishment of a microculture that just as quickly is destroyed when another change happens, constant reshuffling makes sure that nothing can concretely remain, two large camps of people, those who drift through channels and those who remain stationary in whatever channel they were in originally; notice a channel with many altgen regulars on it; at 5:19 AM EST, poll hosted off-server for new #general pseudo; unable to keep further notes, need to sleep; each channel dedicated to a different kind of shitposting, user IQuick comments "Everything is altgen right now"
Nights
1:20 PM my time, Makin made a poll for people to send suggestions of pseudos they want for #general.
Although the poll has unlimited responses, making it so people can spam vote for others.
After a few minutes, Makin posts this https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/407103737627410432/407118305996832778/unknown.png and declares the poll useless.
The users have a discussion about the pseudo mod system itself, and candidates they want to vote for.
Makin posts this in announcements https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/164122260913913857/407121778280759296/unknown.png. It is a wonderful image.
Makin then asked people to vote for channel pesudos one by one, going by activity generation and message count of each candidate to judge them for the positions.
The first pseudo chosen was VirtuNat, for the channel #general. Though the fact that they were chosen over Ost upset Ost a bit, and they left the server seeing as they had no reason to be there anymore from their point of view. (sadcherub I hope she feels better :(( ) Makin makes his position clear in that VirtuNat is more active than Ost in #general, and they were generating activity more than Ost did.
The second pseudo was for #coding-tech, Difarem. Since he was already doing a good job modding the channel, there was no need to change him, and no controversary over the choice.
For the third pick, Makin dropped a curveball and promoted Tensei (YAY CONGRATS) into a full global mod for the reason below:
"since a certain pseudo has gone out of his way to constantly moderate channels that aren't the mod hangouts, and has shown off the actual pseudos of those places, I think it befits PROMOTIONS" - Makin in announcements. Many Tenseiface reactions were had at the wacky announcement.
Next channels were #homestuck and #hiveswap, which got the pseudos Spiral alongside Toast who was already doing well and needed no replacment.
As for #art-music, Tensei suggested Rar.exe, and others were suggeting Griever. The chaos continued with people spamming the name of who they want, until Tensei brought up the point that Griever usually NEEDS to be told to go to #art-music, and that's the only time he speaks in the channel -- And this convinced makin to just pick Rar for the position. (howhigh)
Now the next channel was #oc-shrine, which Makin and the majority seem to have quickly decided that VirtuNat can just handle it alongside #general-- but then he pulled a CURVEBALL and changed his decision to Oblong Meat Product as pseudo-- And then, another curveball, I'm fucking typing this in real time god save my soul, he goes back and picks VirtuNat as pseudo of #oc-shrine along with #general.
Amidst the discussions, Makin notifies Ngame that he is unlikely to earn his mod position back, to which Ngame replies that he is not surprised. Though Makin decides to make him the pseudo mod of the #media channels, since he's active in those channels enough to be their pseudo, but isn't active enough to be global mod.
Next was the pseudo mod of #hangouts.... Who is the most social of us all? The answer may surprise you... its OLKI. (CONGRATS BUDDY)
Other candidates were primarily Nikki, who was reject because her activity dropped as of late. And Red, who Makin rejected for... I don't know, I think because of splinter stuff? Anyway, Olki was chosen in the end as the crowning king of all social bullshit.
Next channel was #serious, voting starts, and everyone is already saying that Ifnar is good enough for it. He wins without contest in the matter of minutes, great job my good bitch.
After that was #gaming. Who is the true GAME BRO? or GAME GRL? Immediately after Makin's announcement, small kerfuffles broke out over Woc, some saying mod him, some saying don't mod him -- And in the end, the story of surpassing hardship, repeatedly, forever, in really funny ways, the story of someone who fell so hard and tried so hard and it didn't even matter, but now he rises again, Woc, victorious and in full control of his position as #gaming pseudo once more.
And with that, Makin announces that all the channels that mattered had pseudos now, and it is time for global mods.
Drew (thats you!! yay!!) immediately reprises his position along with Wheals, (cool dude!! i agree good decisions Makin) no discussion to be had over the choices.
After a bit of some chaotic discussions in the four #geneal channels, Makin decides to reprise Sea Hitlers position as well in response to popular opinion. (very good yes)
And-- Ok for some fuckign reason Makin JUST decided to make me a global mod (BY THE WAY IF ITS A JOKE I WILL BE ETERNALLY UPSET AT YOU FOREVER MAKIN) and now I guess I am global mod??????????? What the fuck. These channels look scary. But I have a duty to write this shitstorm so I'm moving on. I don't know who exactly, but I think some people were upset/didn't want Makin to choose me for global mod. Shrugs, moving on.
Now next was the position of #altgen, which got postponed from the start until now-- And the voting is postponed yet again.
While people were voting for #altgen pseudos, the topic of Cerulean and Aradiabot come up. Since Cerulean isn't active enough to keep his mod position, Makin demodded him but decided that he still deserves something for always handling Aradiabot. Thus introducing a new role: Botmaster, basically a mod reskin role for Cerulean alone. It remains to be seen what the role can do.
Discussion is back in the #general channels over #altgen pseudos again, and after a while Makin finally decides that both Dingus and DeusAscendent will be trial altgen pseudo mods. And in Makin's words: "the one that impresses me the most gets to keep the job". Now Dingus and Deus will be fighting to the death, may the bigger D win.
Next, Molly is Molly. And she gets to keep her #altgen janitor position. She is Molly.
Makin announces that finally, this concludes the rounds for today, and he notes that the four #general channels are staying until the community stream. (which is like in 6 hours from typing this at 3:08 PM GMT +3 my time.) (yes this fucking thing took like 2 hours jesus.)
Quickly people started asking for channels to be accessible again, and Makin decided to open up one channel every 30 minutes, starting with #altgen.
This continues channel by channel aaaaaaaaaaaand now I think this concludes everything interesting I guess.
Assessment of Server Activity - 2018, Drew Linky
Note: please refer to links in "Raw Data" and "Statistical Graphs" subsections below for more complete information. Information on the current year is available upon request, otherwise it will be uploaded here at the end of the calendar year.
Brief explanation of layout and conventions
As a set of arbitrary guidelines for interpreting data: the “major channels” are distinguished by consistently having message counts in excess of 1,000 messages per day and not falling under this number. Minor channels then are typically below 1,000 messages per day, but may sometimes exceed that number for any reason. In order as they appear on the related spreadsheet, the major channels currently include: #general, #altgen, and #mspa-lit. The minor channels currently include: #serious, #homestuck, #hiveswap, #gaming, #art-cosplay, #oc-shrine, #western-media, #eastern-media, #music, #science-math, #coding-tech, #writing, and #hs-art-cosplay.
#mspa-other was archived after only 9 days and so is not included in the list of minor channels. #botspam is not included on the basis that it is not ever actually used for genuine discussion or broad participation of any sort. No archived or otherwise hidden channels are included in the assessment. Temporary channels such as #survey or joke channels are recorded in a specifically different column delineated by bold lines, in between the major and minor channels.
Overview of server and channel statistics
Average number of messages per day this year were around 24,000. As a general rule of thumb, the server has better or worse days based on how many messages were sent: the last time the server was under 10,000 messages on a given day was the 20th of September 2016, and thus near 10,000 messages is a poor day; 20,000 messages is near the average and is thus a fair or good day; 30,000 messages is the higher end of normal activity, and thus parse as great days for server activity. Anything above 40,000 is an outlier, reaching this level on 9 separate days in 2017 and 2 days in 2018. The highest days for server activity were 4/13 in 2017 (60,000 messages) and the Rapture in 2018 (50,000).
Similarly, months have a scale for performance. Based on numbers from the last two years, 600,000 messages a month serves as a rough threshold for server activity: the only month to fall below this number is January 2018 (584,117), making it a very poor month for activity. Between 600,000-700,000 is the minimum for acceptable server activity; above 700,000 is good or fair; above 800,000 is great. The server has only surpassed 900,000 messages a month twice, March 2017 (971,384) and April 2017 actually surpassed one million messages. 2018’s most active month was July (896,530), although April and June were both close behind (887,962 and 879,437 respectively).
Overall server messages are around 900,000 less than last year, an average of about 2,500 less messages per day. Disregarding January, the beginning of 2018 was decent and then April through July were strong months, all surpassing 800,000 messages. Momentum began to falter in August (721,912) with the return of school, and ever since then the server has been struggling to get past 600,000 messages per month.
There are line graphs for usercount and message count in 2016, 2017, and 2018 available in the associated graphical spreadsheet, located in the tabs “message count 2016,” “message-user count 2017”, and “message-user count 2018”. Additional visualizations of data are available but may be less helpful.
Specific channel observations and comparisons
The #hangout/#general merger was an indisputable success: even including #general + #hangout’s strongest months together, there has been an average net increase of 1,500 messages per day since #hangout was hidden, and #general shows signs that it is still increasing in activity as time goes by: it now experiences an average of 6,000 messages or more per day. Altgen has a similar level of activity, averaging between 5,000-7,000 messages per day, though it experienced some lag throughout this year. It has started to build up steam in the last couple of months and now it will occasionally see even 8,000 to 10,000 messages a day.
#mspa-lit has been difficult to track: the last day where the channel fell below 1,000 messages was the 18th of October 2016. In 2017, the channel regularly saw days with over 7,000-8,000 messages and commonly passed even 10,000. Throughout 2018 mspa-lit has fluctuated somewhat, starting off strong at the beginning of the year with an average of about 6,000 messages per day. It was mostly able to keep that pace up through the summer, with some months being busier or slower than usual. After the departure of a few notable regulars such as Revlar and Putnam (among others) later in the year, the channel has faltered some and has come closer to falling under the 1,000 message threshold than ever before on several days through November and December. It still experiences spikes in activity, but it only rarely approaches the level it had in the first half of the year. Over the course of 2019 we will see if the channel does one of three things: regains its former strength, fades away due to further decreasing activity, or if it settles into this niche of semi-activity. The strongest days for mspa-lit each year have been 4/13 in 2017 (16,836) and the 4th of March 2018 (12,585).
The weakest channels by far are the #media channels and #science-math: there have been several days where each channel actually has zero messages sent, with the media channels occasionally going two or more days without any activity at all. However, a comparison shows that #western- and #eastern-media have roughly twice the average number of messages per day since they were split apart. Similarly, after creating #science-math the average number of messages per day across #science-math and #coding-tech appears to have increased by 100 per day.
Problems with these analyses: I’m not sure if #western-media is the only original channel for the topic or if some other channel like #tv or #television-movies existed and is now hidden. Additionally, the average messages per day may not be a worthwhile assessment because the activity across both media and science/coding channels is sporadic; there may be several days with less than a dozen messages, and then for some reason there will be a few days with several hundred. The statistical analysis is probably significantly skewed because of inconsistent message patterns.
Another channel modification earlier this year was when #art-music split into #art-cosplay and #music. The average message count per day before this split was about 1,100, and post-split the average across both channels per day is just over 400, meaning that total activity for these topics has been reduced to about a third of what it used to be. The activity for both of these channels has been more consistent than the media or science/coding channels, so this analysis is more than likely valid.
A bar graph comparing each channel’s activity across each year is available in the graph spreadsheet in the tab “channel year comparison”. This will be the most accessible visual comparison of this data.
Reminder: All of the raw data may be found in the sheet linked immediately below this paragraph, with information up to the end of 2018. Graphs of the information described above--and more--will be found in the link under Statistical Graphs.
Additionally, information about the rate of usercount growth may be found in the Raw Data.
April Fool’s Day 2019
Raw Data
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1nBRpJbRM_NGfmyZ4Z0tUZsM4yA1cSoPv
Statistical Graphs
https://drive.google.com/open?id=18tcd5BTeHjPrBE8NMUaKbfNPl1GQbo1h
Brief Assessment of Server Activity - 2020, Drew Linky
Note: please refer to the raw data for more information (may be difficult to navigate: relevant information is in “daily channel messages yearly” tab, scroll to bottom for 2020).
Seeing as I somehow avoided doing this in 2019, I will summarize the year only by saying it was the worst on record since the server was created back in 2016. It’s not too terrible given the state of the fandom, but considering that the Epilogues were released in April and Homestuck 2 was started in late October of that year, it appears rather disappointing: there were approximately 6,669,000 messages in total for an average of about 18,500 per day.
2020, despite significant global turmoil and some pronounced drama between our mod staff and Andrew Hussie, the year was overall more more successful for us: despite a slow start in January and February, but April (as always) was our strongest showing with the first time over 900,000 messages since 2017. The rest of the year was consistently higher in activity than 2019, often exceeding monthly totals for that year by a couple hundred thousand messages.
For the year there were a total of nearly eight million messages with an average of almost 22,000 per day. The spread is similar to what it was two years ago, with a few differences: naturally, #general, #altgen, and #mspa-lit topped the list of most active channels by leagues and miles, with a total of 1.3 million, 2.1 million, and 1.9 million messages, and a daily average of 3,500, 5,800, and 5,100 messages, respectively.
The “lesser” channels follow as usual, most being 100 messages or less a day, although with a few notes: #western-media and #eastern-media both excelled under the care of their new pseudos following Makin’s return, namely B3es, Tipsy, and Misha. #eastern-media in particular saw a sustained period of messages in excess of 1,000 a day, sometimes a few thousand. Completely unexpectedly, #coding-tech (and to a lesser degree #science-math) accelerated under The Ennemy’s and Sein’s care, respectively. Similarly, #music has witnessed the assembly of some small culture following Moonjail’s efforts to increase conversation, as well as the creation of a weekly album stream in their own Cytube channel. #original-characters actually suffered a decline in activity from last year, though I’ve heard conflicting arguments as to whether the channel quality has improved as a result of Nat’s removal as the pseudo.
In all: 2019 was a severe depression in our usual activity, with one month actually falling below 400,000 messages. 2020 by comparison was something of a revival, though whether or not we will stabilize or fluctuate some more remains to be seen. As always, the full data is available for perusal in the link above. No graphs forthcoming this time, I don’t have the energy for it.
Arranged by user Rumull, circa June 2016
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1LiYg9dnHT-DxP8IrY1Advh4znipTMLdjVTPrABuP1WU/
Content gained from skaianetsystems.com
As provided by /u/DimensionRescuer on January 1st, 2019
http://www.mediafire.com/file/cry7jumgcr283t5/Skaianet+website.zip
In case this link fials, here is a dump of the assets not including pictures:
READ ME:
ATTENTION. BY ILLEGALLY HACKING INTO THE DARK_WEB_CACHE FULL OF ILLICIT_WARES WHICH HAS BEEN EXPLICITLY BLACKLISTED BY THE GOVERNMENT, AND STORING THESE CRITICAL_ASSETS ON YOUR DEVICE, YOU HAVE OFFICIALLY AGREED TO ALLOW YOUR DEVICE TO BECOME A CRITICAL NODE IN THE SKAIANET SYSTEMS BLOCKCHAIN. TO REMOVE YOUR SYSTEM FROM THE BLOCKCHAIN, THESE INSTRUCTIONS MUST BE FOLLOWED PRECISELY. AT EXACTLY 04:13 UTC, DELETE CRITICAL_ASSET01.jpg. DELETION MUST OCCUR WITHIN NO GREATER OR LESS THAN ONE SECOND FROM THAT TIME. EXACTLY 24 HOURS LATER, DELETE THE SECOND CRITICAL_ASSET AT THE SAME TIME. CONTINUE DELETING EACH CONSECUTIVE CRITICAL_ASSET EVERY 24 HOURS UNTIL ALL HAVE BEEN DELETED, AND THEN 24 HOURS AFTER THAT, DELETE THE FOLDER, INCLUDING THIS READ ME FILE. ANY DEVIATION FROM THESE INSTRUCTIONS, SUCH AS DELETING A FILE AT THE WRONG TIME, WILL RESULT IN FAILURE, AND YOUR DEVICE WILL REMAIN EMBEDDED IN THE BLOCKCHAIN UNTIL YOU REINSTALL THIS CACHE OF CRITICAL_ASSETS AND START THE UNINSTALLATION PROCESS OVER. SKAIANET SYSTEMS THANKS YOU FOR GENEROUSLY PROVIDING MOST OF YOUR DEVICE'S COMPUTING POWER TO THE BLOCKCHAIN.
Complete collection of lore text files:
1863 - Calamity
HIC's race has been wiped out by a psychic shockwave, leaving her with no empire left to rule. On orders from her new master, she uses her ship to navigate a circuitous route to another universe, the one that is home to planet Earth. She disembarks somewhere in the American western frontier in 1863. She hides her ship, and begins exploring.
She wanders about the wilderness in Wyoming. She encounters families of migrant settlers from the east. She kills and eats them, and burns down their houses. She encounters bands of Native Americans. She kills them too. She's in the middle of a major skirmish with natives she seems to be enjoying, when she gets shot by a rifle. It wounds her more than an ordinary rifle should. In the distance, she can see a green, muscular woman, even taller than she is. She's dressed like a frontierswoman, holding the rifle. It is an adult female cherub named Calamity. Her nickname as a notorious figure in the west is Calamity Jane.
HIC and Calamity engage in combat. The natives all get the hell out of there. It seems like an even match, but Calamity gets the upper hand. She beats the crap out of HIC. She strongly advises HIC to stop fooling around and get to work. Calamity then climbs onto an absolutely massive horse, and gallops away. HIC develops begrudging sense of admiration for whoever this woman is.
HIC staggers, still injured, to the wreckage of a nearby settlement. Looks around for tools. The green alien woman dressed as a very large human had the right idea. She needs to blend in with this primitive alien race if she's going to make any progress here. She finds a sturdy hacksaw, and cuts off both her horns, so the stumps are buried in her hair. She takes a sickle, and dramatically shortens her hair. She finds tattered lengths of cloth, wraps herself up in a disdainful approximation of primitive human garb. She walks away to begin her long term schemes of conquest, as demanded by the terms of service to her master.
1864 - Centralia
HIC wanders the land in "disguise", and makes her way down to Missouri. She listens and learns things about humanity, and current state of world. Hears the nation is in midst of a civil war. As she understands it, a rebellious uprising against the current regime to defend the caste order. She considers caste-based social order and slavery to be important parts of society. But rebellious insurrection makes her blood boil. So she is torn, chooses no affiliation. She seeks only to further embed herself.
She settles in the town of Centralia, operating a bordello for a while. A major clash between union soldiers and confederate guerrillas breaks out. Large number of union soldiers are slaughtered. Confederates are drunk, revelrous bastards. They disgust her. Her contempt for sedition overrides her neutrality, and she goes on rampage, killing all confederates in town. Union soldiers are horrified by her power. They attack her too, but she kills them as well. The union major runs up behind her with a bayonet. Before he can stab her in the back, a confederate shoots him, "saving" her. The man is a young Jesse James (17). He is enamored with her. She decides she could use a loyal human ally, and recruits him as her right hand man.
1873 - Train Robbery
Almost a decade later, HIC and the James brothers (Jesse and Frank) have formed a crime gang. HIC leads the gang from the shadows, posing as their mother, with the alias Zerelda. However, she keeps them as lovers as well. She has begun to amass a significant fortune from their criminal enterprises. They decide to rob a train in Iowa.
Jesse and Frank, without assistance of HIC, board the train to rob it. They shoot most people on the train, and steal a bunch of things. They're interrupted by some complete drunken fool, a "southern gentleman" type with a mustache. It's Mark Twain (38), or one of his many aliases. He completely bamboozles them with a sort of drunken master performance that he has perfected over his many years as a successful con man and steamboat gambler. By the time he's done smooth-talking them, he has them genuinely believing some tall tale. He's ushered them into the caboose, locks them in, then separates the train which leaves them behind. He makes off with all their stolen loot, and leaves behind his card, which says "Colonel Sassacre".
Back at their headquarters, HIC has taken up Earth baking as an obsessive hobby. Bizarre cakes are everywhere. Jesse and Frank think it's weird, but just go along with it. HIC is furious at the incompetence of her cowboy subordinates. Good help isn't easy to come by on this planet. She pines for the days of having a good supply of clown muscle to boss around. She examines Sassacre's card. She's impressed by his feats of guile and buffoonery. She puts it in her drawer.
1876 - RIP James Bros
Jesse and Frank rob a bank. They bring a dozen men from the gang this time. They shoot the place up, demand money. The heist is interrupted by Calamity. By now she is a widely-known folk hero. She kills all the goons. Wounds Jesse and Frank, takes them to jail to collect the reward. She, like HIC, has been accumulating wealth over the years, but as a mercenary of justice.
HIC hears of this, and visits them in prison when no one is there. She easily rips open the prison door, and lets them out. Frank sobs, apologizes profusely. He explains it was Calamity again. HIC fumes at hearing her name. She kills Frank. Jesse, upset, kneels in front of her. He pledges to get revenge, to hunt Calamity down. He loves her, will do anything for her. She tells him she knows. He was always her favorite. She rips his head off, and keeps it as a memento. She leaves. It's time to move on from this foolish gang of lawless cowboys, and proceed to the next phase of her plan.
1881 - Crocker
HIC has relocated to Connecticut. She has completely reinvented herself. Her alias is now Betty Crocker. She has started a baking company named Crocker Corp to serve as a front for her many illicit enterprises. Her fortune continues to amass, and she launders it all through this company. Her skill at baking has skyrocketed, and her products are becoming more popular in the region.
She has established a business partnership with Twain, and relocated to the northeast with him. She has only a platonic relation with Twain. Since Jesse's death, she has sworn off fornicating with humans. Something unsavory and unbusinesslike about it. Like fucking a dog. Twain uses his skills as a drunken grifter, and notable, charismatic entertainer to assist with her schemes. And she in turn uses her corporate leverage to boost his career and fame to new levels, increasing his degree of influence. It's a more constructive partnership than she had as a gangster out west.
In time, Twain is corrupted by her utterly. The partnership is not of mutual benefit, as it initially seemed. He understands all of his freewheeling ways are in absolute service to her. His drinking problems escalate, but he remains loyal and serviceable to her. He continues to refine his various tricks as a con man, inventing different characters and aliases, but his mainstay is Sassacre. He develops a completely unwarranted reputation as an intellectual, a man of science and learning, on the orders of HIC.
1889 - Skaianet
HIC establishes a company called Skaianet, and puts Twain in charge of it, as a figurehead founder. Its mission is to dramatically advance the scientific enlightenment of humankind. She charges him with continuing to develop the fraudulent storyline of this company, expand it to become a global operation, and recruit others into the charade. He establishes a foundation, a Distinguished Gentleman's League of Intellectuals and Luminaries, setting up shop mostly throughout Europe, because that's where people tend to believe a lot of hoity-toity egg heads come from. He wants people like him, who he thinks he can train. Young men with mustaches, a bit disheveled. This will be his coalition of phony scientists who will be the public faces making all the astounding "breakthroughs" that Skaianet will be responsible for, in coming years. The main purpose of Skaianet of course is to serve as a technology laundering company. A way to convert technology from Alternia, and tech mined from Sburbian ruins which originated from meteor impact sites, into more digestible morsels of advancement according to the standards of the period.
1895 - Einstein
During his travels through Europe, Twain (60) encounters a young idiot he considers of great promise as a scientist-huckster. A 16 year old named Albert Einstein. Twain takes him under his wing, teaches him everything he knows. Einstein is a slow learner, but Twain, aging, drunk, and ornery, is determined to make this kid his protege and be done with it.
Einstein thereafter assists Twain with the expansion of Skaianet, fortifying its European presence especially, and establishing more sophisticated means of cleanly laundering advanced tech and science into the company. To this end, an extensive network of patent offices are created throughout Europe, all owned by Skaianet.
1896 - Fred Karno's Army
Meanwhile, in the 1890s, an underground guild has been assembling unbeknownst to HIC. The guild, operated by a lethally trained, extremely skilled slapstick performer named Fred Karno, has been set up to train young orphans in the deadly arts of combat and comedic performance. The result, when the young warriors mature, will be a group of vaudeville assassins, mostly famous for their notable stage performances, but in the shadows play pivotal roles in history, assassinating key dangerous figures. Karno's Army was rumored to be commissioned and funded by Calamity.
Harry Houdini (22) is currently the protege of Karno. He is of nearly equal skill, and spends a good deal of time directly training the orphans himself. Houdini also travels around the northeastern US in the early 1890s performing, making a name for himself, attracting the attention of Twain, who keeps an eye on him. Covertly, Houdini has been investigating the emerging Crocker and Skaianet empire, and has been surreptitiously committing various acts of sabotage to gum up the works. His sabotage usually involves making things disappear. Money, employees, even entire bakeries. Twain alerts HIC to this activity, who is furious. She tries to catch him in the act, but this Houdini fellow is a very slippery character. Incredible ability to escape.
Twain assigns Einstein to tail Houdini and learn more about what he's up to. As far as anyone can tell, Houdini doesn't know Einstein is in the Crocker network. Einstein is still young, has maintained a low profile, and is still essentially just a lackey for now. Einstein uses some of the con man tricks taught to him by Twain to follow Houdini around Europe. Einstein does some fairly bad character acting, playing the role of an affable drunk, who is a fan of Houdini's act, and wants to get to know him better. Einstein playfully asks him to do the stomach punching trick. Houdini says alright, braces himself, and lets Einstein pathetically punch him in the stomach. Einstein is "amazed" Houdini is not phased at all by the punch. Houdini has no reason to suspect him, so the ruse is successful. Einstein talks his way into doing some menial work for Karno's Army, which he promises to keep a secret.
This leads Einstein back to one of Karno's small orphanages which houses some kids Houdini is training. Einstein's job is just to look after the kids while Houdini is traveling. Einstein's infiltration is successful, now he just needs to gather intel. In the house, he meets three promising young students of the army. Well, two are promising, one is a complete shit. Their names are Charlie Chaplin, Stan Laurel, and Adolf Hitler. They are all about 6 years old.
Einstein is still "in character", a drunk, ugly American who is starstruck by Houdini, attempting to do bad card tricks, and is just excited to be helping. Chaplin and Laurel don't give a shit about him at all. They focus diligently on their training, telling jokes very seriously, performing slapstick, and honing their combat skills. Hitler however is extremely suspicious of Einstein. He doesn't buy his bullshit at all. Hitler does not take his studies seriously in any way. He spends time making horrible drawings of people dying. He's not the slightest bit funny. He despises Einstein for trying to pull some fake shit on everyone, and he hates the other kids for not caring. Einstein continues babysitting them for several weeks. During that time, he's mocked and tormented by Hitler, who calls him a phony fraud. His anti-semitism also begins to escalate, mostly as a means designed to continue owning Einstein.
Eventually, Hitler and Einstein get into a major physical altercation, with Hitler absolutely wailing on him. Einstein's like, ow man, fucking STOP. A bunch of stuff spills out of Einstein's jacket, like a full deck of playing cards, a bottle of booze, and an old timey photo of Twain and HIC posing together. Chaplin and Laurel run in to break up the fight. Laurel grabs Hitler, but Hitler headbutts his face, bloodying him, knocking him down. They argue. Laurel absolutely loathes Hitler. Hitler lashes out at Chaplin, but Chaplin subdues him with ease. Chaplin is the star student. Hitler bitches and moans loudly, flailing, but Chaplin choke-holds him until he passes out. Einstein is embarrassed, and sick of this shit. He quits the babysitting job, and never comes back.
Laurel apologizes to Chaplin for his sloppy form, and letting this fool get the better of him. Chaplin says it's ok, he's still learning. In years to come, Laurel will be Chaplin's understudy. As Chaplin drags unconscious Hitler off to his bed, Laurel wipes the blood off his face, and looks at the mess on the floor. He picks up the picture of Twain and HIC. He thinks she is the most beautiful woman he has ever seen. He puts the picture in his pocket.
Einstein returns to HIC with some good intelligence. He reports on Karno's Army. The organization intrigues her. He also reports it is funded by a competing baking baroness called Little Debbie. It's a fake name though. He heard Houdini refer to her as Jane. HIC knows exactly who that is.
1903 - Patent Office
By now, Twain has realized Einstein (24) is kind of a loser. He's not a very good huckster con man. Doesn't have near the versatility Twain has. Twain decommissions him as an undercover operative, and just sends him to work at one of Skaianet's patent offices in Europe, processing hundreds of patents a day for laundered tech. But during his work there, he continues to be used as a figurehead intellectual who is credited with various scientific "breakthroughs" as a cover story for Skaianet.
He works peacefully in the patent office for about a year, relieved to have boring work to do instead of getting caught up in company intrigue. Then, he's called for a favor by an old "friend", Houdini. He wants to relocate Hitler (15) to work in his patent office. Einstein hates this idea, but isn't sure what to do. Apparently Hitler is such an atrocious student, so deeply unfunny and uncommitted to the craft of vaudeville combat, that Houdini is desperate to get rid of him by "promoting" him to a "more important" job. He would really appreciate this favor. Einstein is very uncomfortable. Checks with HIC. She likes the idea of keeping a student of Karno's Army close by. She orders Einstein to keep a close eye on Hitler. He's stuck with him.
For the next 6 years, they both work crammed together in this small patent office. Hitler is absolutely awful to work with. He's worse than ever, a complete bitch. He doesn't do much work, fucks up what little he does, and fucks up anything Einstein does. HIC sees absolutely no reason to change this situation for years, and greatly enjoys hearing Einstein's miserable reports. Hitler continues to build a huge grudge toward Einstein, as over the years Einstein is publicly credited with more and more "scientific breakthroughs". He is becoming a major celebrity in the science world, which consumes Hitler with rage and envy, because Hitler knows he's a complete fraud. An intense rivalry develops between them, but it is lopsided. All Einstein wants to do is go back to the US and get away from this bullshit.
Meanwhile, Chaplin climbs the ranks of Karno's Army. Laurel is his understudy, both in show business, and as a warrior. They continue their training furiously, preparing for difficult times ahead. Chaplin begins to gain some notoriety as a performer. Hitler takes note of this, becomes jealous, and starts biting his style.
By 1909, HIC and Twain finally recall Einstein back to the states, much to his relief. They need him to be on hand for the arrival of two very important new recruits to the company. By this point, Hitler is an official employee of Skaianet, and their responsibility to decide what to do with. Also by now, SN owns a great deal of European infrastructure. So Twain simply "promotes" Hitler from the patent office to a completely useless military post somewhere in Europe.
1910 - Jane and Jake
HIC and Twain are now headquartered in Crocker manor, somewhere in upstate New York. Not far away, one of Crocker's bakeries is demolished by a meteor. Twain investigates the crater, and finds a baby girl at the bottom, inside of a dirty man's hat. He takes the baby back to the manor. Eight days later, another meteor strikes just outside the manor. Twain goes to investigate. There is a baby boy at the bottom, wielding two flintlock pistols. The baby shoots Twain through the heart, killing him.
HIC takes the two babies into her home, and raises them as her own. She names her Jane, after her nemesis Calamity. She will be trained to become a worthy heiress to her empire. She names the other idiot Jake, as an afterthought, because it sounds a bit like Jane, human names are stupid, and she doesn't actually care. According to the rules of royal legacy which she understands, the fact that he has killed Twain makes him the rightful heir to Skaianet, which he has just officially inherited. But he is still too young. He needs some time to grow, and to be groomed. In the meantime, Einstein can stand in as the interim manager of SN's affairs. Over the next decade he will continue to play the "famous genius" shtick like a fiddle (which he also plays, but very badly), while expanding the company, and getting it ready for Jake to assume control of, on HIC's orders.
1923 - Jake Leaves
Jake becomes a rebellious teen, and decides to leave home to pursue adventure. He rides his dog Halley away, says goodbye to Jane. He changes his last name to Halley, but due to a speech impediment, his name is bastardized to Harley, which sticks for the rest of his life. HIC anticipates his temporary departure, continues to prepare for when the time is right for Jake to assume mostly figurehead control of Skaianet.
By now, World War 1 is over. Chaplin is now the supreme master of the vaudeville assassins, taking Houdini's place. Houdini, Chaplin, and Laurel played a pivotal role in ending WWI, responsible for key assassinations leading to victory. Hitler was continuously shuffled around various German military positions, mostly by Einstein who had the reins on Skaianet. Einstein kept moving him around, hoping Hitler would end up getting killed in action, but he kept surviving. Hitler suspected this is what was happening, fueling his grudge, even more so as Einstein's fame kept growing.
With the war over, and Chaplin leading Karno's Army, they turn their focus to securing global stability. Which means continuing to investigate and contain the ambitious reach of Crocker Corp and Skaianet. Chaplin understands now in hindsight that Einstein's involvement with his orphanage was a ruse, an embedded intelligence operation ordered by HIC. He devises a counterintelligence measure. He orders his protege, Stan Laurel, to work as a double agent. To act as though he is a defector from the army, and to behave as though he resents Chaplin and wishes to switch sides to spite him, and gather intelligence from inside HIC's operation.
Chaplin, who by now has built quite a name for himself as a performer, starts working his own angle. He covertly befriends Jake, who is a huge sucker for any big star. Jake loves the motion pictures. He arranges for Jake to have a backstage pass to one of his shows. After the show, Chaplin and Laurel fake a heated argument, which comes to blows. They make sure Jake sees it, who is alarmed. Chaplin manipulates Jake to report this to Einstein. Einstein knows Laurel is a key member of the army, and is intrigued. He invites Laurel for an interview to Crocker manor. Laurel shows up, but is made to wait in living room for appointment. He meets Jane there, who takes it upon herself to entertain him while he waits. She is highly attracted to him, and attempts flirtation. He is very uncomfortable and nervous, as he waits for this meeting. HIC finally shows up. Has brief, chilly exchange. She isn't that impressed with Laurel. Something seems fishy about the situation. She doesn't outright refuse to accept his service, but he's essentially rebuffed. Laurel recalls his childhood infatuation with her, from the dropped photo. The feelings for her come rushing back, and he becomes obsessed again.
Chaplin signals his double agent operation must continue. Laurel must keep playing the part of being spurned by Chaplin, resentful, pursuing his own career independently. To maintain this cover, Laurel finds a new comedy partner, Oliver Hardy. A chubby civilian performer who knows nothing of Karno's Army, nothing of lethal combat. An affable, earnest fellow who becomes a great friend of Laurel.
1926 - RIP Houdini
Somewhere in Europe, Houdini is sitting in the lounge of some hotel. By pure chance, Hitler is passing through that hotel, and spots him. He immediately challenges him to his famous stomach punching trick, to see if he can take it. Before Houdini even knows what's going on, Hitler punches him in the stomach by surprise as hard as he can. Then he laughs his ass off, and walks away. Houdini groans and collapses. Later, he dies.
Meanwhile, Chaplin's "friendship" with Jake has turned into a turbulent romantic affair. Jake knows virtually nothing, and has proven to be an absolutely worthless source of intelligence on Crocker's internal matters. Chaplin also increasingly finds him obnoxious and thoughtless, but can't seem to quit him. He rationalizes continued relationship as needed to maintain a key intelligence asset until Jake is reactivated as an important part of the network.
1927 - Putting Pants on Philip
HIC and Jane are on a rare outing together, just for fun. Jane is a very surly teen, who has to get dragged out of the house by HIC to do anything together. They decide to go see a movie. The film "Putting Pants on Philip" is playing. It's the first appearance of Laurel and Hardy in a film together. Jane suddenly wide eyed with excitement at the sight of Laurel, who she still fancies. But to her surprise, HIC is laughing uncontrollably through the entire film. It's the most she's ever heard her laugh. In fact, she's not sure if she's ever heard her laugh. She just thinks it's the funniest fucking thing she's ever seen. She absolutely MUST know who that delightful fat clown man is. He must be brought to her immediately. Jane thinks this is all a little weird, but whatever. It's a good excuse to call Laurel.
Laurel, summoned by Jane and asked to bring Hardy, won't pass up this opportunity to go undercover inside the Crocker network. He has not been able to stop thinking about HIC since he saw her. At this point, he's confused about whether he wants to infiltrate to serve Chaplin, or whether he just wants to be close to her. On arriving, he quickly realizes that all of her affection is for Hardy. He begrudgingly must accept her affection for his partner in order to stay in her service though. Both he and Hardy are hired as her two right hand men, just as the James brothers once were. Although this time, only Laurel would do the legwork. Hardy would be kept exclusively as her lover, though he was effectively a sex slave.
1931 - Jake Returns
Jake (21), now of age, has fully inherited Skaianet, and "runs" it in a hands on way. At least, he believes he does. He believes SN is now a considerably more distinct entity from Crocker Corp, and his leadership of the company is a result of his hard work and competence. Neither is true. HIC is still mostly pulling the strings on the business, but he is allowed to manage various cosmetic aspects of the business, and serves as the public face. Einstein has retired from any direct participation in the business, and now serves strictly as a famous professorial type, who still announces "breakthroughs" now and then to serve as cover for SN's tech laundering.
1933 - Hitler's Promotion
Hitler, now a fixture within the German military, which is one of the many industrial complexes influenced by SN, keeps being completely horrible wherever he ends up, and making a spectacular mess of everything. These tantrums and disruptions are so legendary, they often make it back to Jake's desk. He always deals with the problem by getting whichever department is complaining to "promote" him to higher and higher positions, so he gets out of everyone's hair. No one ever wants to fire him because of the insane tantrum he would throw. Jake just shrugs along with it, until Hindenburg finally asks Jake what he should do about this Hitler guy. Jake tells him to just promote him to a useless bullshit title like "chancellor" and to stop fucking bothering him about Hitler forever, please. They decide to throw a fake election to justify his new phony position as chancellor, and that's that.
Meanwhile, Laurel is in so deep, so obsessed and manipulated by HIC as her right hand, he's not acting in any way as a double agent anymore. Laurel does all her dirty work, serves all her grim purposes, but continues making films with Hardy, mainly because she insists on it. She loves the films. Hardy continues being her sex slave. She often fornicates with him very loudly and aggressively while Laurel is in the other room, in earshot. Hardy's life is becoming increasingly miserable, but he must put on a brave face as a fat and jolly funnyman.
Chaplin tries to recall Laurel from the operation, but Laurel won't comply. He's conflicted, ashamed to admit to his master, but he cannot leave HIC, due to his personal feelings, as well as the fact that she would likely kill Hardy if he did. Chaplin understands. He is now deeply depressed, for this reason, but also due to his experience with Jake. His affair with Jake lasted for several years, but ultimately, Jake toyed with his heart, and abandoned him. Chaplin continues to perform for years, but ceases his work with Karno's Army, which is now a shell of its former self. There are no orphans in training, and virtually no active agents remaining.
Jane meanwhile has been aggressively courting Laurel. She hates HIC, has always had her eye on Laurel, and this is her way of acting out. Laurel, continually rebuffed by HIC for affection and recognition, succumbs to Jane's advances, and nervously pursues torrid affair with her for many years thereafter, under the nose of HIC.
1942 - Ann Dunham
Jake (32) has long since lost any control or jurisdiction over Hitler, or any interest in controlling him for that matter. He's practically abandoned his post at Skaianet in terms of managing assets, and though remains figurehead of company, he's out exploring and adventuring, completely oblivious to whatever's going on in Europe. He hops from site to site, looking for Sburbian ruins to plunder. While on one such expedition in Kansas, he has an illegitimate daughter named Ann Harley. He takes custody of her, apprentices her as an adventurer, and takes her all over the place on his adventures. He brings her to Hawaii as he explores the Pacific, to look for a fabled island he's discovered some lore about. But as a teen, she finally ditches him there, and changes her name to Ann Dunham (her mother's name), because she's sick of her douchebag dad. Years later, she gives birth to Barack Obama.
1945 - WWII
Hitler gets really carried away in his new position. Aside from just being an asshole, he seems mostly motivated by spite for Einstein, who keeps being a beloved famous scientist, despite being a fraud. He takes his wrath out on jews especially, and kicks the holocaust into high gear. As years go by, he keeps sending taunting letters to Einstein, telling him this is all his fault. He can stop the holocaust and end WWII any time he wants, all he has to do is come out publicly and admit he's a fraud. He has to say really specific things Hitler has written for him, like "I'M A BIG FUCKING LOSER FRAUD, WHO'S BAD AT SCIENCE, I FAKED ALL MY BREAKTHROUGHS, MY DUMB SCRAGGLY HAIR AND MUSTACHE LOOK GAY, AND I DON'T DESERVE ANY OF MY FAME OR MONEY..." and so on. But no matter how bad WWII gets, Einstein is too ashamed to do anything about it. Instead, he keeps up his act, and develops a really pious, pacifist shtick where he opines on the tragedy and folly of war and such. He takes his shameful secret to his grave.
Chaplin becomes deeply concerned about the war. After years of Jake-fueled depression, Chaplin finally gets on the phone with Laurel. Urges him to do something. Chaplin stands no chance. He's out of shape, hasn't been in the business in years. Karno's Army is disbanded. Laurel is the only one who can stop him. Needs to do it to avenge their old master, Houdini. Laurel's like, wait what? Hitler Killed Houdini? Chaplin says yeah. And lastly, he says if nothing else... take him down for biting his style. He hangs up.
Laurel brings the matter to HIC. She doesn't care at all about the death toll of WWII, but nearing the end of the war, even she finally has to admit that Hitler is causing so much chaos, it's in danger of disrupting her plans. She wonders why Calamity has done nothing about this. Laurel explains that her syndicate is defunct. HIC finally approves the hit. She orders Laurel to take him out. But she has to admit she's impressed by the devastation Hitler has caused. She asks him to take him out, on the condition that he brings something back for her.
Laurel infiltrates deep into German territory near the end of the war. He discovers Hitler's bunker, where he's hiding. They fight for a bit, but Hitler is pathetic. He was always lazy in honing his vaudeville combat skills, whereas Laurel's were sharp as ever. He knocks Hitler to the ground, takes out his gun. They have an extensive, melodramatic dialogue. Laurel issues an icy one-liner, and shoots him in the head. Then he takes out a knife, to satisfy HIC's request.
Laurel returns home, enters Crocker manor with Hitler's severed head under his arm. He hears HIC and Hardy upstairs loudly fornicating. He winces. He goes to the study to deliver the head. Jane (35) is in there, closes the door behind him. She doesn't seem to care about or notice the Hitler head at all. She was just worried about him, and missed him. He puts the head down on the desk, and listens to her. She can't take living here anymore. She doesn't want to be the heiress to this shitty company. She's getting old. She wants her own life, to start a family. With HIM. He's also frustrated with life here. He is tempted to run away with her. But... he can't. His loyalty to HIC is too strong. She gets more heated. She at least wants to have his baby. She will leave, and raise it herself. He acquiesces to this. They have sex on the couch, while the Hitler head stares at them. When they are done, Jane leaves the Crocker compound for good.
1955 - RIP Einstein
Einstein (76) is writing more bullshit pacifist poetry, scolding the world for its evils. He takes a break to play his violin badly. He really sucks. Chaplin (66) smashes through the window of his posh residence. He's been training, getting his ass back in gear. He's in peak physical condition again, incredibly limber. He knows about his complicity in the holocaust. He despises Einstein for his weakness, gives him strong, accusatory lecture. Einstein is blubbering mess. He runs through house, throwing papers around containing all the chicken scratch fake math he keeps on hand to seem legitimate. Chaplin catches him, smacks him around. Ends up breaking his neck. He thinks about exposing him to the world. But no. It would make everyone sad. Also, that's exactly what Hitler would have wanted.
1957 - RIP Hardy
Hardy is completely miserable. Worn down from his many years of servitude. He's a severe alcoholic, and his comedy has suffered horribly too. HIC doesn't seem to notice though. She always laughs maniacally at his movies, even though everyone else can tell he lumbers around on stage as a joyless, broken wreck. He hangs himself. Laurel, guilty and devastated about what he's complicit in putting his friend through, finds himself for the first time furious with HIC. He thinks he's going to march into her office, tell her off, and quit. He walks up to her, seething. But he looks in her eyes. She's heartbroken by the loss. They collapse into each other's arms, and both start sobbing.
Jane (47) leads a simple life, raising her son (12). She opens a joke shop, and eventually marries a simple business man whose last name is Egbert. Laurel checks in from time to time, but from a distance. Never speaks to Jane again. Sometimes he comes by and shows his son some tricks alone in the yard, like the ones Houdini taught him in the orphanage.
Meanwhile, Jake is on another expedition, plundering some Sburbian ruins with one of his families. He's taking his beautiful wife (of the moment. he's had many wives) and his 5 year old son through a jungle to approach the ruins. They hear some rustling in the bushes. A crazed Charlie Chaplin busts out of the bushes, and confronts Jake after finally tracking him down. He shouts at him, insists he must pay for his crimes, his service to Crocker, his complicity in mass murder. Chaplin pulls out a gun, aims. Jake reflexively hides behind his wife, just as Chaplin pulls the trigger. Wife dies. Son screams. Jake pulls out two pistols, they have Hollywood style gun battle. They run out of ammo, engage in fisticuffs. Jake badly outclassed, gets beaten senseless. Chaplin seems to be losing it, shouting things like "I LOVED YOU!" as he beats Jake to a pulp. Chaplin, raising fist over unconscious Jake, who is near death, is interrupted. It's Calamity, who says nothing. She merely shakes her head at him. He lets go of Jake, and weeps. Then, angrily, stomps over to Jake's son, takes him by the hand, and leaves Jake badly beaten and alone in this jungle. Calamity leaves too. Chaplin adopts his son, renames him Harry, in honor of his old master, Houdini. When he's a little older, the son, deeply ashamed of his biological father, takes his dead mother's last name, Anderson.
1961 - Next Phase
HIC reveals to Laurel the next phase of her plan. Without Jake's knowledge (most things are done without his knowledge), she has carved out a vast portion of Skaianet's industrial infrastructure to facilitate a massive cloning project. She takes him to a new cloning plant near the Crocker compound, gives him a tour, and explains his new responsibilities. From now on, attending to the advancement of this project must be his only concern. He wonders what she's cloning, but she doesn't say. It will take additional years of development.
1964 - The Fieri Clones
Laurel has spent a few years overseeing the advancement of the facilities. He still has no idea what they're supposed to accomplish, but HIC has invited him to an initial demonstration of their mission.
There are two large objects, both have huge tarps over them. She removes one tarp, revealing a big contraption, which involves one large glass jar containing Jesse James' old severed head in brine. Next to that is another same-sized jar, that appears to be full of several gallons of human ejaculate. The hat on top of this jar suggests to Laurel that this large supply of genetic material belonged to Hardy, which HIC had been harvesting from him for years.
She pushes a button, and in a flash of light, a baby clone combining those two sources of DNA is created. She quickly pushes another button, which rapidly accelerates the growth of the clone to become a full grown man. He is a horrid, fat, naked man, who is laughing maniacally. He has the mind of a baby, and all he seems to know how to do is stagger around laughing like a lunatic. She explains that she is using the combinations of genetic material from previous servants to make the perfect human, and ultimate heir to her dominion here on Earth. Much like she customarily had an heiress on her home planet, the last of which was named Feferi, who she never got a chance to kill in combat. So she will name this boorish laughing man in her honor. But he's a guy, not a girl, so this will be a Guy Feferi. The clone seems delighted by this, and mimics gleefully, "F-F-F... FIERI! FIERI!!!" HIC shrugs, as if that sounds fine. Guy Fieri, whatever. She really doesn't give a shit.
She pushes him out of the way, and does another few demonstrations. The next couple clones are much worse, much uglier, imperfect copies. Just absolute wretches, grotesque, bloated Fieri clones. She gets frustrated, and concentrates very carefully on the settings, getting the DNA balance just right. She pushes the button, accelerates growth, and... at last. She's done it.
This clone seems a little more focused, more cunning, less maniacally crazed than Fieri Prime. This one will be her absolute STAR. Her ultimate clown servant, the one who will lead on her behalf once she rules all. He will go on to be known as Violent J. She seems extremely excited about all this.
But Laurel is disgusted by this plan. He was not prepared for this level of depravity, and can't hide his revulsion. HIC notices this, and shows pity. She assures him that she hasn't forgotten how valuable his service has been to him. He sulks a bit. She walks up to him, puts her hand on his face with a sort of condescending sympathy. Did he really think she'd forgotten him? He looks up with puppy dog eyes. Then she slashes his face with her claw, drawing blood.
She pulls the tarp off the other, nearly identical device. It has the same two jars, but one has Hitler's severed head in the brine. The other jar that should have the ejaculate in it, is empty. She opens the top, and flicks some of Laurel's blood into it. She pushes the button again, clones and accelerates growth. Another nude clown, this one much thinner. Laughs, gives Laurel an evil grin. This one will go on to be known as Shaggy 2 Dope. Laurel is horrified, clutches his bleeding face. HIC explains that these will be her two perfect clown servants, her messiahs that will help bring about the resurrection of her home planet. As he knows, she always prefers to have two servants. He should be honored that he and Hardy's genes will live on in the perfect bodies of these noble clown soldiers.
The naked clones all advance toward him slowly, menacingly. He backs away, reaches for his gun. Suddenly, HIC kills all the clones with her trident. Laurel is stunned, confused. She says, this was only a demonstration. These are prototype clones, to show off the final products. But they have empty minds. Of no use to her as brainless adults. They need to be cloned as infants, and embedded throughout the world, such that they grow up and obtain major positions of cultural influence. They need to be raised, groomed to agitate on her behalf, while being genetically programmed toward being unshakably loyal to HIC.
She activates the first machine again, and recreates Fieri Prime, but as an infant. She picks him up, cradles him lovingly. He attempts to breastfeed. She walks over, explains more to Laurel. This will take patience. She will need his help, seeding the world with her Fieri clones. Laurel's head is spinning. She takes pity, explains to him the bigger picture. In truth, while these clones are prototypes, this entire timeline is also a prototype. From the moment she arrived, up until the world ends, everything that's happened has been sort of a trial run. The apocalypse will come in the year 2009, once Jake's work is complete. And then, once the universe is reset through the software he releases into the world, she will journey to the rebooted universe, and start over from scratch, and retrace all her steps. But this time, she must continue to fine-tune the blueprints of her plan. To perfect the steps she has been taking all along toward world domination. And in that timeline, the world will not end in 2009. Beyond that year, it will simply belong to her.
Laurel is so confused, but resigned to her absolute supremacy. He knows she is ancient, infinitely powerful, and what she says is probably true. He lost his soul long ago to her. No matter what she does, he would follow her to the end of the world. And she knows he would. She thrusts the baby into Laurel's arms. He cradles it uncomfortably. She says, now go. Take young Fieri into the world. Hide him somewhere that he may grow up, and sow his evil.
1965 - Laurel's Last Stand
Laurel (75) is out in the world, wandering around with this awful baby. It makes nasty burbling noises. He is repulsed by it. He thinks of Jane, of the life he could have had. The amount he's suffered for HIC. His tears drip onto baby Fieri, who responds with more gross noises. He comes to grim realization, he may need to set up another series of underground orphanages, like the one he grew up in, to raise and train these little shits. He is dismayed at this thought, but it is interrupted.
Chaplin (76) ambushes him. He has finally caught up with him, to make him pay for his crimes. He has brought his young apprentice and adopted son, Harry Anderson (13), who has been training intensively in the way of the vaudeville assassin. He looks angry, determined. Has been taught to loathe traitors of the army. There is a standoff. Minutes of silence, as they all size each other up. Laurel says, fuck it, let's do this. He tosses baby Fieri on the ground without any concern for injuring it. Chaplin nods slightly. Harry flies into action, screaming. Very intense fight between Laurel and Harry ensues. Laurel stunned at his ability. CHRIST, what kind of moves have you been teaching this kid? Just a few new techniques he's been working on. Stuff Laurel never got a chance to learn, since he was so busy spending most of his life as a traitor.
It's a very even match. They pull guns on each other. Shoot, miss, throw playing cards, do other magic tricks, beat each other bloody. Finally Harry gets the best of him. Laurel curses his old body. He can't keep up with this punk. He gasps, tries to get up. Chaplin calls off Harry, says this is his fight to finish. Chaplin deeply regretful as he pulls out his gun, tears streaming down his face. He thanks Laurel for his service. Kills him.
Harry is bloody and injured, but shows concern for the dropped baby. He picks it up, sees a little dog tag around its neck. "Guy", huh? Well, you're free of those awful people now. I'll take care of you. Harry raises and apprentices Guy Fieri, with the blessing of his wise old master.
1965-2009 - Skip to the End
The clone experimentation continues. Jake marries a woman by the name of Claire in the late 70's. Starts yet another family. Needs to stay local to a lab, to continue development of some incredibly advanced software. Software that still needs computer tech to be developed well enough to support it. SN's tendrils continue to influence all sectors of the tech world to make that happen. He's recruiting some enterprising employees of SN at a very young age, just like his old lady did. He just set up an infant from the sky named Dirk down in Texas with a trust fund, setting him on a path to be of use to the company. Then he moved up here to New York to do the same for another kid named Roxy. He's been making good headway on his quest for the mysterious island in the pacific. Once everything is taken care of here, he'll leave this family behind and set up shop on that island permanently. That's when the real work begins. The discoveries on that island will finally unite him with the destiny he's been in search of his whole life.
Prior to his discoveries on the island, Jake has no idea this will result in some kids using the software he's unearthing, which will destroy all life on Earth. Nor does he have any idea that those kids will be using this same software to reboot the universe with different starting conditions, thus ending this "trial run" timeline for HIC, and giving her a fresh start. Exactly as she planned.
1863-1965 - Post-Scratch Timeline
The prototype timeline is finished. It served its purpose, both for HIC and her master. Many details are different, but she doesn't care. Humans always obsessed with details, details, details. The results are what matter. Power is what matters. She mostly duplicates the previous results, with less nonsense this time.
HIC travels to new timeline by entering the Sburb session, traveling through one of the gates during the scratch, and lands on Earth around the same time she did before, in 1863. Most post-scratch details are inconsequential until John and Jade arrive.
John and Jade land in 1910 instead of Jake and Jane. John stays home and plays Jane's role as an heir, rather than heiress. Laurel remained infatuated with HIC, but had little to do with John. Chaplin pursued affair with Jade instead of Jake, which lasted for a longer time and instilled in her the sense of rebellion against HIC, while playing a similar role of heiress to SN that Jake played. Ultimately, HIC killed Jade for her constant insubordination, but not a moment before necessary, so as to let the timeline play out.
Otherwise, everything proceeds mostly the same, as precisely controlled by HIC to fit the original timeline events as closely as she could force them to play out. For instance, Jane cannot sire a son with Laurel in this timeline, so she uses that son's DNA to covertly impregnate John's future wife at the exact needed moment, so that son will grow up to be the father who this timeline's Jane will need. HIC knows later another session will begin that is essential to her plans to move on from this planet, conquer a new universe, and free herself from her master once and for all.
She knows Jane will show up in 1996, and will prepare the world for her arrival. Her grooming in the previous timeline was essentially just practice. This time it will count, and she will groom a fitting heiress to her empire. Jake will arrive in 1996 too, but she's sick and fucking tired of this dude, and he will have no valuable role in her plans except to be groomed as a serviceable slave to the heiress. The other two kids are set to arrive about four centuries after that, once her conquest of Earth has been absolute. They are only necessary to open the game session which she will enter and occupy. Otherwise, they are trivial to her.
1965 - Harry Adopts Fieri, Again
Returning to the exact moment Harry Anderson has claimed baby Fieri to raise him as an apprentice, but in this new timeline. Very little is different about this encounter. Life continues for Harry, as he attempts to raise this baby.
1977 - Chaplin's Last Stand
Harry (25) and Fieri (12) are touring the Fieri clone labs. Fieri is a very evil and precocious child. He has been corrupting Harry's pure heart gradually, by funneling money from HIC to support his struggling magic career. He's been whispering in his ear, swearing he'd line up Hollywood gigs too. Might be able to get him his own sitcom some day. Harry for a few years has gotten under the thumb of HIC, looking after the army of tens of thousands of young Fieri clones in facilities around the world. Harry wonders where it all went wrong. Remembers the haunted look in Laurel's eyes when Chaplin killed him. The look that seemed to be begging for death. Was this who he was becoming? The children are rowdy today. They truly are pure evil. Whatever was happening here... it was wrong. All wrong.
Fieri takes him to a special area. They go deeper and deeper into the belly of the beast. Finally Harry sees two young kids, around 5 years old. One big, one small. They are revered by the thousands of other chubby, unpleasant children. Behold, our messiahs. The perfect result of the Fieri Clone Project. Violent J and Shaggy 2 Dope. All the children begin whooping, and bowing reverently. It's too much for Harry. He buckles over and vomits.
That's when his master shows up. Chaplin (88) wears a dark expression. And you, too, have succumbed to this depravity, my once beloved apprentice? Harry cannot look him in the eye. Chaplin assumes a valorous fighting stance. Now that his pupil has been corrupted, he knows the legacy of the vaudeville assassins will die with him. He will take as many of these little bastards down with him as he can. Young Violent J gestures disdainfully toward the intruder. Chaplin is swarmed by Fieri Clones. Guy Fieri roars with maniacal laughter. Harry is sobbing.
1989 - ICP
Harry pursues career. Gets a sitcom deal in the 80's. He is consumed by guilt, and has ceased his previous life as a vaudeville assassin completely. His skills decline dramatically, and he struggles. The thousands of Fieri clones continue to grow up and infiltrate culture in many ways. In 1989, Violent J and Shaggy 2 Dope form a rap group called the Insane Clown Posse. The stage is set.
1996 - Jane and Jake
Jane and Jake arrive in 1996 via meteor, instead of John and Jade. Jane is raised by a genetic copy of the same man who she gave birth to in the previous timeline. He was raised by John Crocker and some woman he married immediately after leaving the Crocker compound in terror, after seeing Hitler's severed head sitting on a desk. Jake lives on the island, taken there by Jade. HIC starts conditioning Jane with propaganda and mind control technology.
2008 - Obama
Obama is elected president. However, Obama wasn't born in this timeline. He was a direct descendant of Jake in the previous timeline, so he could not have been born in this one. After the end of the pre-scratch world in 2009, he fled after less than one year in office, and in some way made it to this universe, to run for president and serve again for a full 8 year term. Unfortunately, since he was not born in this timeline, this resulted in some issues with the authenticity of his birth certificate. Meanwhile, Fieri gets political. He fans the flames of populism. Now several 100,000 Fieri clones all over the world, embedded in positions of cultural influence. ICP continues to amass power and influence, by stirring the religious passions of the juggalos.
2011 - Rebranding
Crocker Corp rebrands. HIC finally makes her presence known to the world, to continue to influence the political situation, and fears of the populace. Jane and Jake enter session. Earth continues on without any apocalyptic meteor events, until 2029.
2016 - Trump
HIC's covert agitation campaign is in full force. Many Fieri clones embedded everywhere. Large volume of them established in Russia. One particularly gruesome genetic anomaly named Steve Bannon helps agitate the political environment enough to install as president a billionaire braggart named Donald Trump. This proves corrosive to political norms and conventions enough to set the stage for HIC's grand designs, a political backlash movement that would see her clown messiahs rising to power, thus eradicating democracy on Earth forever.
2024 - The Double Juggalo Presidency
Trump's presidency [REDACTED]. Over this span of time, he begins to realize what sort of dark forces were transpiring in the country during his presidency, and desperately tries to save America, as well as the world. He attempts to team up with Obama and stop the juggalo uprising. But it's too late, and he weeps for democracy. No one can stop the surge of rowdy clowns. Violent J and Shaggy 2 Dope win in a landslide in 2024 and change everything.
Years later, Dave and Rose kill Guy Fieri and ICP. Later, they challenge HIC. But by then, she has accumulated too much power, having released her full potential through continued genetic research in this timeline. She kills them both.
2029 - Apophis
The Apophis meteor strikes the Earth. Its origin and relation to Sburbian tech is [REDACTED]. The devastation of the impact further accelerates the decline of civilization, which is now ill-equipped for coping with such an event. The damage done to SN infrastructure leads HIC to close the company for good. Its purpose has been served.
2050 - Flooding
By now, there is virtually no vestige left of government or civilization. Her top clone servants have been killed, and most of humanity has been wiped out by them. The remaining population struggles to survive as the water level rises rapidly. HIC has accelerated the flooding of Earth. It was easy, since her work over the past couple centuries massively accelerated carbon emission-based industry in the world, setting the stage for Earth to become a permanent greenhouse trap. Once she had full control, she pushed the emissions a little further, and that rapidly melted what was left of the ice caps. The world is hers completely.
2040-2424 - Preparing Alternia C
In time, the rest of humanity dies. All but the highest peaks on Earth are fully submerged in water. HIC creates some floating colonies for some carapacian clones imported from the session. On Earth, she prepares conditions for the two kids arriving in 2424 who are needed to open the session. But she can still visit the session any time via certain access points. She is in the process of conquering Derse as well, and becoming its queen, to prepare for the work that needs to be done there.
Even having conquered and flooded Earth, it is still just a prototype planet. She will have one of her powerful new servants from the session transport the planet to a new universe she forces them all to make for her. Then, finally finished with the work she was assigned by her master, she will be free of his influence forever. She will rule Alternia C, resurrect the troll race, and continue her reign more powerful than ever.
RIP HIC
Everything in the session proceeds as planned, until John from the pre-scratch timeline uses an unforeseen ability to disrupt the course of events, breaking HIC's mental grip on her powerful servants, and turning the tide in their favor. They all team up to challenge her.
The battle is closely fought, but at long last, she is defeated. She has no idea how it came to this. There's a fucking anime sword impaling her through the chest. She's on the floor, bleeding out, thinking the final thoughts of her life. The kids who killed her have left her there to die. They've taken her flooded planet that she worked so hard to conquer. They've stolen her reward, the new universe she was going to rule. She thinks over the last several hundred years of her life. A wild journey she never imagined she would go on. It was in service to a master she hated, slavery she resented every minute of. Yet they were the most exhilarating years of her very long life.
Calamity shows up. She's here to say goodbye. HIC has fully served her purpose, from Calamity's point of view. All she ever wanted was to ensure the conditions were satisfied for the birth of her children. It was nothing personal. She needed to contain HIC's wild impulses, to keep her in check, to make sure she stayed in the rails of her designated global conquest to secure the future birthplace of her son and daughter. Now it's over. They have both succeeded, and Calamity must travel to the new universe to find her mate, and breed. The last thing HIC sees is Calamity throwing off her shroud, spreading her angel wings, and flying up to Skaia. HIC closes her eyes and dies.
-------
END OF LORE TEXT FILES
Coordinates:
Latitude: 7.54044, Longitude: 19.34320,
Latitude: 59.59924, Longitude: 142.56831,
Latitude: 32.69014, Longitude: 75.69641,
Latitude: 53.33706, Longitude: 111.77075,
Latitude: 61.40545, Longitude: 80.60927,
Latitude: -23.56785, Longitude: 114.93736,
Latitude: 31.29668, Longitude: 12.54051,
Latitude: 52.41077, Longitude: 87.31729,
Latitude: -28.33136, Longitude: 138.58945,
Latitude: 1.40001, Longitude: -61.52241,
Latitude: 34.54162, Longitude: -119.63153,
Latitude: 44.78893, Longitude: 81.14044,
Latitude: 55.82463, Longitude: 127.22151,
Latitude: 74.88070, Longitude: 90.63174,
Latitude: 65.21932, Longitude: -173.74283,
Latitude: 21.10738, Longitude: 74.57002,
Latitude: 73.10748, Longitude: -48.45428,
Latitude: 60.74755, Longitude: 142.01706,
Latitude: -5.37813, Longitude: 31.42891,
Latitude: -9.20952, Longitude: -66.87065,
Latitude: 33.43228, Longitude: 97.88285,
Latitude: -26.08581, Longitude: 24.69693,
Latitude: 11.24559, Longitude: 12.08721,
Latitude: -16.36835, Longitude: -50.59490,
Latitude: 68.74373, Longitude: -144.17275,
Latitude: 17.04005, Longitude: 97.68261,
Latitude: 38.24650, Longitude: 106.49642,
Latitude: 21.85192, Longitude: -3.09684,
Latitude: 62.88434, Longitude: -124.20298,
Latitude: 38.60233, Longitude: 80.15358,
Latitude: 54.19481, Longitude: 72.48143,
Latitude: -27.50667, Longitude: 133.93761,
Latitude: -9.04663, Longitude: -36.10689,
Latitude: -27.26953, Longitude: -57.91870,
Latitude: 58.40644, Longitude: -68.97977,
Latitude: -2.48229, Longitude: -51.64199,
Latitude: -12.05939, Longitude: 25.55648,
Latitude: 30.67068, Longitude: 118.61092,
Latitude: 26.90603, Longitude: 85.96731,
Homestuck ARG Document
Kittenchilly, January 1st, 2019
An extensive assembly of the information and proceedings concerning the appearance of the Skaianet Systems ARG at the very beginning of 2019.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1T0fYoFGqmJzzXXhufnePvwqdwddzmp1LtV-IXSNOm0A/preview#
Hussie's Apology
January 2nd, 2019
Originally there was some backstory content hidden in some cursed tags in this site code. I came up with the concepts years ago for internal purposes, not originally intended for public consumption. I thought some might find it interesting if the material were leaked in the site code in an obscure way. I think it has proven to be neither obscure as imagined, nor all that rewarding to read. The subject matter was inflammatory in careless ways, and the negative reactions to it are legitimate and should have been expected. A drafting process can be messy and can result in some ill-advised nonsense which often should not see the light of day. Letting a bunch of rough draft text files be deployed in this way was not a well considered move. Obviously this material has hurt a lot of people. Which isn't what I was going for, and didn't anticipate, but certainly should have. As far as the intentions behind it, I'm sure I believed it would be read as condemnation through satire, but instead it came off as excessively irreverent and disrespectful of a sensitive topic (to be clear, the main topic relates to antisemitism, which of course is not an issue that should be handled frivolously). After receiving criticism it's obvious to me where I'd been mistaken, and why no one could have possibly read it the way it was intended. I know this content was bad, I regret putting it in a place where people would discover it, and I regret that it was drafted in the first place.
I acknowledge that there are certain subjects which demand an exceptional level of care, and that I have been inexcusably thoughtless in handling this. I understand that there should be a certain standard of consideration and review for the content that is presented to an audience, and in forgoing that consideration there have been serious consequences for those people whom this issue directly affects. This could have been easily avoided had I sought a more careful review before it was posted to ensure that what I actually wanted to convey was being properly conveyed.
I am sorry that this lapse of judgment has been hurtful to so many people. I cannot undo the damage that this has caused, but I can promise that I am aware of the gravity of this mistake and that, going forward, I will be more mindful of the serious impact careless decisions have on those they hurt.
V's comments on the ARG
January 2nd, 2019
There were several people who had previously seen the content that was released on the Skaianet website the other day. I was one of them.
This content was written some years ago in a different context. I believe at the time that I’d read it, it was not intended for anything other than a kind of lore road map to inform unrelated future content. It was presented basically as is: a very rough, outline style document that was not meant to be viewed externally. There were obvious problems with the document, which I recognized at the time.
But my reactions to an incredibly rough outline intended only for internal planning purposes were probably imbued with less urgency than they would have been had I actually reviewed the content with the understanding it was to be published as is. And to speak very candidly, I think the frequency with which I tell Andrew that his ideas are stupid and terrible in a facetious manner may honestly have obfuscated the sincerity of my objections at that time. I could have and should have been more clear that I wasn’t joking.
I believe after that point the idea was dropped pretty quickly, and these documents were left to sit unreviewed for a long time. By the time the prospect of releasing the raw outline was raised years later, I had honestly forgotten most of the details of the story and exactly how bad the objectionable parts had been. That being said, I certainly remembered enough that I should have felt motivated to review the material again when I heard he was considering posting it. While I had no part in writing it, I was not proactive in stopping it, and in that I feel I hold a burden of negligence.
Not for nothing, I think the fact that this content had technically passed the eyes of several people whose opinions he has come to trust in matters like this was a significant factor in what made him feel like it would be received as humorous. It isn’t that none of us recognized that there were problems, but none of us at any point said to him in clear terms, “do not post this”, or “you have to take out X, Y, Z specific parts, and here is why, and we aren’t just making fun of you this time”.
While the responsibility for a person’s actions obviously ultimately rests with that person, I think in the course of demanding from our privileged friends deference to and trust in our judgment it also incurs upon us some degree of responsibility in ensuring that the judgment we are instructing them to follow is also sound and thoughtful. I don’t think that he received that in this. I discussed this with one of the other people who had seen it more recently, and they related to me that at the point they'd given Andrew their feedback, they had only skimmed the document without actually finishing it. I also think that my disengagement and disinterest in reviewing it again may as well have been tacit encouragement.
As this was a free, quasiofficial easter egg dispersed obscurely within the source code of a website, it was not subject to a full formal review process as would a collaborative work passing through the company itself for wide publication (and I’d like to clarify specifically that the Friendsim/Hiveswap team was not associated with this in any way). He sought review and input from several friends in an informal capacity over an extended period of time, and received potentially misleading feedback from multiple sources.
Due to the completely unbothered atmosphere from the people who were aware of its impending release, I do not think he imagined it would have the hurtful impact it did. I think this inaction is why he believed it would be OK. I truly do not believe Andrew had any malicious intent. In saying this I do not intend to excuse Andrew’s actions, or my inaction, but I hope this explanation can help fans understand how and why this happened.
I’d also like to make this clear that I’m not writing this because I’ve been asked to. I feel that in being negligent in this matter that I’ve failed him personally as a friend, and as someone who was in a position to easily prevent him from making an ass of himself. And more importantly I was also in a position to discourage this from being released at all, but I did not take the steps to actively involve myself in the review of this content such that I could have helped prevent the damage it caused to the people who had to read it.
This event has certainly reminded me of the responsibility I hold as someone associated with a property of this reach and impact, with a marginalized perspective that I have impressed upon its creator entitles me to a greater level of understanding and foresight with regards to matters that will impact the marginalized community than he has. He trusts us to tell him when he has made a mistake and we did not do that adequately. So I would like to apologize for my part in allowing this to happen, and assure you that going forward I will be appropriately vigilant to the extent of my power in ensuring that nothing like this will happen again.
Again, I must emphasize I am speaking only as an individual. What I am saying here is entirely independent from What Pumpkin and does not represent its position as a company entity.
August 2018
ipgd
Tumblr post about The Odd Gentlemen, date of publication unknown
archive.is/JR0PN
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.
Niklink
Subreddit post mirrored on Tumblr on September 6th, 2017
Some of you might be too young to remember the heady days of mid-2012. A time where Homestuck still updated pretty much every day. The fandom had rode strong and true through the EOA5 hiatus and crashed through to the unexplored pastures of Act 6 with nary a whinny of hesitation. And after the coolness that was [S] Caliborn: Enter, Hussie returned from a hiatus with a troll ancestor walkaround to open A6I3… and an extra project: the ‘Homestuck Adventure Game’, and its corresponding Kickstarter.
The plan is this. I’ll finish Homestuck some time in 2013 … When Homestuck is done, that’s when our full attention will be on actual development. The game will be scheduled for release in 2014.
-Homestuck Adventure Game Kickstarter campaign (Sep. 4 2012)
As we now know, the Kickstarter was a big hit, and reached its funding goal 32 hours after its launch, on September 5, 2012, at roughly 10:30 pm. Five years ago, to this day. The campaign went on to end with $2.5 mil on October 4, however no one expected to see much more on the game until Homestuck ended. Eventually, Hussie paused for two months before A6A6 started (on 4/13/13) to work on the game, and intended to finish Homestuck in the upcoming months after the pause.
This is Homestuck’s final push … To alleviate some of the suspense and wild speculation, I will give you a very loose estimate of my schedule, from now until the end of HS. Please observe these facts, as organized by this really awesome “html table” I have designed for this purpose.
-MSPA news update (Apr. 13 2013)
Then a bunch of A6A6 happened. The dreaded, terrible, Gigapause began. Hussie planned to continue making Homestuck, but handling the final section of the story in one big chunk, instead of regularly updating. And also work on the game. He didn’t even give a time estimate on the Gigapause’s length, probably to avoid tying himself to any expectations.
I also have to allocate some time to work on the Kickstarter game … 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.
-MSPA news update (Oct. 17 2013)
It took until New Year’s Eve for us to get our first news on the game itself. It wasn’t much to see, but one fact that is important to us is that it seems that Hussie had already agreed to create the game with The Odd Gentlemen, as he said that he didn’t want to announce the developers of the game at that time. It took another six months of Gigapause to get another update on the game, which was when the partnership with The Odd Gentlemen was formally announced. The game seemed already to clearly be on schedule for late 2014 at the very earliest.
Note there was no target month given, because I really didn’t know what the timeframe was down to that level of specificity … 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 … 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.
-Kickstarter backer update (Jun. 20 2014)
The Gigapause finally ended a year after it began. And soon after it ended, Hussie outlined an entirely new plan for the Homestuck Adventure Game, now finally revealed to be titled Hiveswap. There’s a lot that was said in that update (available here). But to condense it to one point: Hussie decided to pull development of the game in-house and over the last 'couple months’ set up a What Pumpkin game studio for that purpose. Remember that it had been only four months since The Odd Gentlemen were revealed as the developers, which means that the decision to take back developing duties happened very promptly after the developer was announced!
The original plan had us testing the game by this point. Looks like testing within first half of next year is more likely. One major change to the plan I’ve settled on is to release the game episodically, to shorten the gap between now and when something is ready to be released.
-Kickstarter non-backer update (Oct. 30, 2014)
It took until after A6A6I4 had concluded for our next update, which was promising: Hiveswap had a website (since redesigned) and actual screenshots. Hussie stressed how development had amped up, especially considering that “Back in October of last year we hadn’t even bought, like… computers.”, and was overall very optimistic about the development progress, both in terms of speed and quality.
This point and click adventure has 3D graphics, puzzle solving gameplay, and an original story spanning four content packed Acts that will release throughout 2015.
-What Pumpkin Studios press release (Feb. 17 2015)
The future seemed bright. There was an asset reel, a playable demo at conventions, and a trailer (“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.”). A second press release mentioned a mid-2015 release date (the press release was later still available - with the date edited out!). However, time came and went… and nothing happened. Just as A6A6I5 was ramping down with the Omegapause about to begin, we received more news on the progress of the game. It said that the WP Studios operation at NYC was expanding, and necessitated a bump in the development of the game.
So we’ll be taking the little adjustment period this month to revise the schedule and come up with a new date to reflect the amount of polishing and testing we think the game could still use. We’ll announce a new release date once we’re sure the estimate will be final.
-Kickstarter non-backer update (Jul. 20 2015)
We kept waiting for EOA6 and A7, waiting for Hiveswap, and then suddenly finding ourselves in utter radio silence again. But something extremely worrying started to happen: in late October, a large amount of WP Studios NYC employees were laid off at the same time - surely a sign that the game was being abandoned. With no official word on the matter, people started trying to glean the truth by following said former employee’s social media presences. The hysteria rose to such a point that on this very subreddit, someone took it upon themselves to dig up everything they could on these employees in a dangerously insensitive way. (And then Makin fucking stickied it without even fully reading the post. He says “I’m sorry”.) The resulting backlash ended with Hussie saying that news on the game was coming before 2015 ended just to calm everyone down. And news did come:
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.
-Kickstarter non-backer update (Dec. 25 2015)
Hiveswap had transitioned to 2D, and in the process WP Studios NYC had been shut down (the expansion earlier that year seemingly for naught) and development was moved to a decentralized operation with less physical presence. Even though the previous update claimed to have a release date coming soon, no hint of any such thing was made now. Fans were relatively pacified after months of thinking that the project had been cancelled, and turned their attention to the upcoming end of Homestuck. It was generally assumed that Hussie was working on getting Homestuck done by 4/13, and that after that he would be free to turn his full attentions on the game. Our last crumb of official news came six months after the last, in the newspost for the release of Volume 10.
Since 4/13 I have been preoccupied with a wide variety of projects. Some are related to Homestuck, some are not … I have kept busy, and do not feel there is much to report yet. But there probably will be over the next couple of months.
-MSPA news update (Jun. 12 2016)
Four months came and went in deadly silence. Hiveswap was still under active development, but from the outside, nothing appeared to be happening. All official forms of communication were silent. The official website hadn’t been updated in a year and a half, and still contained screenshots of the 3D version of the game. It seemed like the project had died (yet another) silent death behind the curtains. But suddenly, unexpectedly, one little update showed up on the game’s website:
Hiveswap: Act 1 will be released January 2017.
-Hiveswap.com news update (Oct. 1 2016)
(quickly deleted, then undeleted on Oct. 6 2016)
A launch date??!? A new trailer! The 2D style makes it pretty now! THE GAME IS COMING OUT! After such a long time with a seemingly dead project, things were suddenly moving at breakneck speeds. Hiveswap was submitted to Steam Greenlight (in December) and overwhelming support got it approved almost instantly! Plus, we got the Homestuck credits flash and the snapchat stuff that’s happening! Could this be a revival? Wait… isn’t January almost done already, how come we haven’t heard anything el-
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.
-MSPA news update (Jan. 26 2017)
Oh. Well, alright. It did seem a little odd though, since we never got an exact release date, and the game is getting delayed for 'bug-fixing’. But that means it’s essentially finished anyways, so we just have to hang on a little longer. Say, 4/13 is coming up - and three months’ time should be enough to quash any pesky problems. Of course, we’d gone back to not hearing anything about Hiveswap, but it seemed like a reasonable expectation given the timeline of things…
So, the game is nearly done … Some things take longer to implement or polish than we anticipate, but our intent is not to mislead you. I promise. We want to keep you in the loop as much as we can … The next time you hear a release date from us, it’ll be because the game is about to launch. In the meantime, we thank you, one last time, for your continued patience and understanding.
-What Pumpkin tumblr post (Apr. 13 2017)
Well, we’d gotten another trailer. And an apology. And by the time those two started to wear off, we got what we should have had all along: semi-regular communication from WP in the form of a series of developer interviews, art, and track releases. It was, at least, something to look forward to while waiting. But the lack of real MSPA content of any kind combined with the passing months meant dissatisfaction continued to mount. It was supposed to be just bug fixing, after all! Until finally:
We’re excited to let you guys know that HIVESWAP: ACT 1 has a release date, and it is September 14th!
-What Pumpkin tumblr post (Aug. 29 2017)
Here we are, everyone. Act 1 might actually be released. It’s been a long and hard wait as the years went by, but the light at the end of the tunnel draws near. I hope you’re all as happy and excited as I am about it! And I fervently, desperately hope not to have to repost this next year. But at the same time, there’s one vital, inscrutable, heart-tightening question that we will have to find an answer for soon…
When’s Act 2 coming out?
/u/PumpkinLatte63
Subreddit post circa early 2017 (might be old)
https://www.reddit.com/r/homestuck/comments/56hl6c/timeline_of_hiveswap_news_masterpost/
Hiveswap is about a girl named Joey Claire and her brother, Jude Harley. Through a strange machine, she switches places with a troll, Dammek, and finds herself on Alternia. Along with Dammek's friend, Xefros, she joins a group of troll rebels to prevent the activation of a doomsday weapon that threatens both of their worlds. Here's some fanart.
This game has been in development for quite a long time, but we've finally got a release date! There have been many tidbits of information released about the game over the past few years, so I thought I'd try to organize the stuff we know, in case you're new or need a refresher. I also like seeing everyone's reactions and theories to the news as it came out, but I don't know, maybe that's just me. Let me know if I missed anything important.
(Dates link to the subreddit's discussion threads)
· September 4, 2012: The Kickstarter is launched for a Homestuck Adventure Game. The funding goal is met within a couple days, and it finishes a month later with $2.48 million raised, including two $10,000 pledges for canon fantrolls.
· December 31, 2013: We get our first look at "Mystery Girl"
· (or Flashlight Girl) and learn some other details, namely that the game wouldn't involve Sburb, was a new story, and would include trolls.
· June 19, 2014: The second update. There's some concept art:
· Alternia, a fire-breathing First Guardian-esque axolotl lusus (?) and "Antler Troll" (or Strideer). The Odd Gentlemen is announced as the developer.
· July 23, 2014: Andrew Hussie's variant cover
· for The Midas Flesh is released. HMMM....
· October 30, 2014: A lot of new stuff. We learn Joey's name, and we get a look at her manor, the cherub machine, some Alternian environments, and a new troll. The title is finally revealed to be Hiveswap. The game will be a prequel of sorts, set on B1 Earth and A2 Alternia before Sburb, and follow Joey as she switches places with a troll on Alternia. Development has transferred to What Pumpkin. The game will be released in four episodes, with plans for a possible second game about the troll stuck on Earth. (Image links are broken on the main site, so here's the update.)
· February 15, 2015: More art, including Joey and her troll friend with deer and sloth lusii. We also get a first look at the 3D environments, along with Joey's brother in his treehouse. A website, hiveswap.com, has been launched (this is what it looked like at the time). The blurb states that Joey joins a band of scrappy troll rebels and embarks on an epic journey to save the world and find a way home. The Earth portion of the game is said to take place in the 90's, and will also include some background about Skaianet and the guardians. Alternia is set decades or centuries before Karkat's time, but after the adults were banished from the planet. The release date is set for Spring 2015. And finally, we get a sketch
· of the Heiress. Hussie does not spoil who the 1st best at memes is.
· March 6, 2015: Everyone wonders what the names "Jude" and "Prongle" refer to. Here
· since other link is broken.
· March 7, 2015: An Italian video is released, containing information that is backed up by later articles.
· March 10, 2015: Joey's last name is Claire, the year is 1994, there's some stuff about her SNES, and the player's choices will result in branching paths in the story. The release date is still listed as Spring 2015. A lot of articles are coming out around this time.
· March 11, 2015: Jude is the name of Joey's brother. Joey fights with her flashlight, and also uses ballet and tap skills. Jude helps her with a walkie-talkie and his carrier pigeons. You can communicate with other trolls using Troll Twitter.
· March 24, 2015: We find out Xefros' name. Along with Joey, Jude, and Xefros, there will be 2 other playable characters. The game has 100+ NPCs along with Prongle (Twitter) and Scythian (Amazon). (Old fact sheet is here, new fact sheet doesn't mention Prongle/Scythian. Those features might've been removed?)
· March 26, 2015: Some asset reels were released, with 3D models of the MCs, new creepy green-mouthed monsters, several troll NPCs, and some concept art with blurry hints of Grandpa Harley and his wife. (Watch again because the music is great.) The two canon fantrolls are also pictured. Apparently, 250 extra Zodiac signs have been created.
· March 30, 2015: New names: Jude Harley and Xefros Tritoh. Jude's last name surprises people because it's different from Joey's and confirms a relationship with Jade and Grandpa. Tritoh is probably a reference to a three-toed sloth, Xefros' lusus. The release date now says Mid-2015.
· April 2, 2015: A gameplay preview with two parts; the second video is here. Joey and Jude's dog is named Tesseract, and their town is called Hauntswitch. (I believe this was later said to be the name of the possible second game. So Xefros' town might be called Hiveswap?) Jude is conspiracy-obsessed, concerned about the neighboring mansion and watching out for strange hooded figures. There are two cutscenes, one where monsters attack the home and another where Joey discovers the cherub machine that transports her to Alternia. There's an 11-day countdown on the other side. A screenshot is included where we finally find out that Antler Troll is named Dammek. His last name is still unknown. There are two new trolls: Cridea Jeevik (first best at memes?) and Fiamet (avatar is Dr. Shrunk, an axolotl from Animal Crossing). They could perhaps be the 2 other playable characters. Since Cridea is 8 sweeps, the other characters might also be around 17 years old. Here are possible name origins for the trolls. Someone points out that their names could correspond to the four elements.
· April 10, 2015: A new teaser trailer for Hiveswap is released, with some improved footage from the previous video.
· May 25, 2015: Joey wants to be a vet, and she likes dance and solving puzzles. Xefros' interests include telekinesis, butling (being a butler), and the Troll sport of ‘Arena Stickball.’ (Later art shows this is somewhat different from table stickball.) The new release date is Q2 2015. Here's a non-broken link.
· May 26, 2015: The Heiress gets more of a spotlight, as she decrees that everyone must laugh at her jokes or suffer the consequences.
· May 29, 2015: The Heiress gets a 3D model and a name: Trizza Tethis.
· Around this time was ipgd's news about the controversy with The Odd Gentlemen, but I don't want to get into that here.
· July 20, 2015: Hussie announces that What Pumpkin will restructure to focus only on game development. The office in NYC will also move somewhere else. The release date is delayed, but the extra time will help the game.
· August 28, 2015: There's a new screenshot with nicer-looking graphics and an updated interface.
· December 25, 2015: The last few months were used to transition Hiveswap from 3D to 2D, which will make production much more cost- and time-efficient. Hussie promises that the game's story and writing has benefited from all the delays. It's too bad that the 3D assets won't be used, but from the concept art we've seen, the 2D backgrounds will look amazing. More art is released, including Xefros/Dammek's band, young Nanna/Grandpa, mysterious hooded figures, Trizza memes, and finally a young Mom Lalonde with Joey and Jude. After the months with no updates and worrying signs, most people are relieved with the news and think the 2D look is an improvement.
· October 1, 2016: 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.
· October 6, 2016: Hype thread.
· October 6, 2016: The 2D trailer is revealed, with a confirmed release date of January 2017. There are a couple new images on the website. Joey's mom is named A. Claire. (Anna Claire?)
News update 26th of August 2025 on Friendsim 2 website by Jonaya
We were originally included in the FRAF (Fruity Rumpus Asshole Factory), which is a kind of omnibus license for selected Homestuck fan works, giving them the right to create merch and a kind of official license to use the Homestuck IP. We were one of the works selected for the initial rollout of the FRAF.
However, effective today, August 26th 2025, I am hereby officially withdrawing Friendsim 2 from the FRAF omnibus licensing agreement.
This is something I'm choosing to do completely on my own as the work's creative director, primary producer, and sole source of funding - not prompted by anyone working with FRAF, for a couple reasons:
1. I wasn't planning on monetizing or merchandising Friendsim 2 in any way, and didn't really benefit from ongoing promotion in FRAF since Friendsim 2 has been done for some time. I have been additionally assured that leaving FRAF won't result in any legal issues with our work.
2. I have concerns that the omnibus license FRAF uses might come into conflict with the licenses I have with my own artists, of whom there are many. While the Homestuck/Hiveswap designs are Andrew Hussie's IP to do with as they wish, all of the original work done for this game is the IP of a number of different creatives, myself included, collectively licensed under the CC 4.0 non-commercial attribution license on release. I'm unclear on exactly what the implications would be of effectively sub-licensing their work under a new agreement if I ever tried to leverage that license for any reason. Since this is an inactive, completed project and I don't have the resources, time, or inclination to explore the legal complexities here, I would prefer to withdraw our association with the FRAF website and associated license.
My primary concern has always been with the fair treatment of the many talented, creative individuals that worked on this project. While FRAF seemed like an interesting idea that would help promote their work, after some thought on this my concerns about potential conflicts of licensing outweigh the benefits of involvement with FRAF.
Nothing is planned to change with the availability of this game - we're still on Steam and Itch, and we're still as non-canon as always!
I wish all other projects still included in the FRAF the best of luck.
-Jonaya Riley - Director, Friendsim 2
Released 14th of December 2024, mp3 audio only
Posted late August 2025 by Jonaya on Neocities
Hey everyone - This is Jonaya here, one of the two main directors of Stuck at Home Con, and I have some bittersweet news to share with our community and followers. While this statement is the result of the collective decisions of myself, Cro, and the other key staff members, I also want it to be super clear that I'm writing this from my own POV and not as some written-by-committee response to y'all. I say this because I think it's important that everyone knows how much this community means to us, and how much I believe that you're deserving of transparency and honesty.
Not to bury the lede on this - after much internal discussion amongst the key staff, Cro and I have made the collective decision to end Stuck at Home Con after SAHCon 2025. We will leave up our socials, YouTube, and website in an archival form, but we will be formally closing as a convention.
I've been involved in SAHCon since 2020, when I was brought on as a panelist and quickly put into a staff role. Cro named me as his co-director in late 2020, and I've become increasingly involved in the general management and organization of the convention. Cro has been my friend for a long time, and we developed a specific way of approaching SAHCon where he would handle a lot of the "big picture" type ideas and side initiatives and I would handle a lot of the specific organization and day-to-day operations. It was a really good way to run things, and one I've found tremendous satisfaction in, but with both myself and Cro moving on to other things outside of the fandom and having less free time to work on the con, it's definitely become a challenge to maintain.
From the beginning, our intention with SAHCon was to provide an open space where people who love Homestuck can come together to celebrate the comic they all love and all of the wonderful things that the fandom has made because of it. We've been proud to bring together fans from many walks of life and many sections of the fandom, and proud to help provide a place for that fandom to gather.
We considered passing SAHCon along to someone else, but we feel like there's simply too much of us and other staff who are also moving away from Homestuck wrapped up in the existence of Stuck at Home Con.
This wasn't an easy decision to make - this convention means a tremendous amount to myself, Cro, and everyone else involved in it. We want to see SAHCon go out on a high note rather than stumble along as some shadow of its former self. We also want to encourage the community at large to continue to make amazing things happen - things like Promstuck (where I got engaged!), or the informal gatherings of fans that continue to happen all across the country. Online spaces like the Calibornia discord server show that what we did with SAHCon might have been special, but it's in no way unique to us - so we hope to see more community initiatives like ours in the future! There is power in community, and we would rather choose to leave our legacy as a sign of what's possible than try to continue to cling to that niche even as our founders move on to other things.
So the con is closing, but we've still got one last chance to gather and celebrate! We'll be hosting our Friday Showcase on October 24th and SAHCon itself will happen on October 25th! We look forward to seeing everyone there, and we know it's gonna be great!
Before I close this out, I want to share a few very personal feelings on all of this...
Stuck at Home Con is probably the biggest fan thing I've ever been involved in, and it means a lot to me. The Homestuck community, where I met my fiancee and a good chunk of my best friends, means a lot to me. While Homestuck as a work of fiction might have lost its shine to me as an individual, nothing will ever take away the memories and experiences that I've had within this fandom.
I personally want to thank everyone who's been involved in running SAHCon over the years - the panelists, artists, special guests, VR Chat developers, and musicians. And most of all, the con staff, who've come together every year to help keep things ticking and running smoothly. I want to thank Cro for being my friend and collaborator all these years, Mikky for running our artist alley, Stacy for being our regular DJ, and Jojo "Funk" McLovin for organizing the SAHCon albums every year. Everyone involved in this con has dedicated countless hours of their lives and an untold amount of passion to making this a positive, welcoming community.
And last of all, I want to thank everyone who's ever attended SAHCon for being the very essence of what this con has always been about. There is no community without people, and all y'all have always been the driving force that kept us going for over six years. Thank you, each and every one of you reading this, for being a part of what we built. Whether you've been here since the beginning or you're just now getting into this fandom, I hope that you all go and create amazing things together.
-Jonaya Riley
Director, Stuck at Home Con