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wakraya · 2 years

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Going slowly insane and need my favorite homestuck blogger lady to give me her feedback on this. I feel like WP have Valve levels of bad communication. Trying to discern what is actually going on with homestuck and it's drama is slowly turning me into the Joker. Am I the only one who feels like WP needs better PR? please give your take on this because at this point actually liking homestuck with the vitriol going on nowadays is making me feel like i am defending ayn rand or some shit.

Let me preface with this: I am 100% behind WhatPumpkin not saying a single fucking thing and just releasing content at their own rate at this point, and I dislike gossiping about Personal Shit regarding other people like you're gossiping about celebrities. However, let me tell you exactly what led to the current climate of silence.

WhatPumpkin had huge problems to deal with behind the scenes because of the Odd Gentlemen issue, problem which likely led to legal action, and which we only recently learned the full extent of with the full explanation on the Hiveswap Development that we got like, two years back or so? That pretty much confirm what we thought about TOG, and that while they add some nuance and specific times and amounts of money to specific things, are largely what we all thought.

Because of this, WhatPumpkin kept the Bad Stuff Going On behind closed doors, and tried to put out concept art and positive stuff for people to enjoy while dealing with the Mess internally. The mess only grew, and the document about the Hiveswap Development revealed that WPNY was made an unsalvageable working environment because of One Specific Member of the team, who was described as even outright aggressive. This led to the eventual closing of WPNY, and the new house of WhatPumpkin changed gears from trying to salvage the 3D assets of the game, to starting from scratch in 2D. This, of course, meant that the progress of the game was scrapped, and while assets were later reused, it meant using a new engine and taking more time. With the Fandom getting impatient and them already trying to keep the issues with TOG and that one Team Member under wraps to not make a big, potentially legal stink of the situation, this shaped WhatPumpkin's lack of communication with the Fandom.

Eventually Hiveswap came out! Act 1 at least. Then Friendsim started to come out as well! Some members of the WP Team became better known figures and started to interact with the Fandom- James with the wacky Music Titles and such. This was, however, around the time HS^2 came out, and that changed the dynamic of the game.

When HS^2 came out, people were largely dissatisfied, and soon a climate of spite and hatred towards the work started to bubble up. This led to the direct harassment of figures working in WhatPumpkin, like Kate and Aysha. Because it was policy to kinda, not say much about the behind-the-scenes already, this helped to close off the internal workings of WhatPumpkin even more, and in turn, this made the climate of hatred grow even more. People tried to speculate or unveil details about WP, and went on wild assumptions about the team members, while other members, like Kate, who were vocal about takes that people found vitriolic, were seen as Scapegoats to direct harassment towards.

WhatPumpkin made mistakes and bad decisions, yeah. Because of the reusing of assets between WPNY and Current WP for Hiveswap, it was later found there were missing credits for a few pieces because the original artist had slipped between the cracks- Which was admitted to be a mistake and patched in if I'm correct. In this same vein, because of the, and I cannot stress enough, directed harassment campaign towards anyone working on WP Content, Act 2 was released for the first period of time without Credits, as a misguided attempt to protect people from the initial wave of hate. This was, as well, patched shortly after.

On top of the HS^2 Harassment, there was more going on. Enter: Gio. Allegedly, as said by the WhatPumpkin Team, a straight up stalker trying to unveil exactly what happens behind closed doors in WhatPumpkin. Gio made an article trying to twist the narrative saying that The Odd Gentlemen were innocent victims of WhatPumpkin's bad handling (Many of these assumptions were disproven by the Hiveswap Development document), and that WP were actively malicious. A lot of this information came from an anonymous disgruntled WP Employee. It's not confirmed, but heavily implied by the Hiveswap Document, that this Employee is none other than the member of the team that made WPNY unfixable, and that many of their claims were wild assumptions made on a timeframe that made no sense because they were no longer employed by WP at that point.

Enter Sarah Z: Who while stating that it was all speculation and not confirmed, still drew a LOT of attention to Gio's article which would have, otherwise, barely made the dent it did. As Sarah Z promoted this view of things which led to the release of the Hiveswap Document, WhatPumpkin had a meltdown of how to handle the downfall, and tried to solve things unprofessionally through legal channels, and with demands about the video that went nowhere.

Now, I can not go into details about the following, because I don't want to spread information that isn't out there already, nor talk about Heavy Shit regarding other people without their consent, but I have been privy to a few behind-the-scenes things regarding the mysterious WP Employee that talked with Gio, as well as the issue with Sarah Z. And all I can say is that I understand completely why WP acted they way they did, even if I think it was a badly handled mess, I absolutely understand and empathize with what happened. So I know without being specific, none of this means anything, but I want to put it out there that, my standing with WP comes from a point of having Extra Context about the situation.

Either way- Between the harassment, that led to Kate leaving the Fandom and HS^2 going to work in private, and the later mess regarding the speculation about Hiveswap's Development and the whole Sarah Z Fiasco, I truly, genuinely believe that just going to work on private and sharing Absolutely Fucking Nothing to be the healthiest thing these people can do.

Please remember that the thing that made Kate leave is that she was being doxxed by a stalker and reported to the police for going out to protest.

Please also remember that, as someone with no direct affiliation to WhatPumpkin, just a fan that said "I like the Epilogues", I was subject to a one-and-a-half year-long daily anon hate harassment campaign with more slurs thrown my way than I can remember.

You can not fathom or understand the sheer amount of Bullshit WP have gotten sent their way.

So like. Chill. Don't compare queer indie creators to Ayn Fucking Rand. Really. Not fucking cool.

EDIT: I forgot to add! At one point, during the Hate Harassment Campaign, there was an attempt by Hussie and WP to strengthen ties to the community. The Reddit, with notoriously bad takes about the comic and feeding on a lot of the vitriol of the community, and WP, made a ‘deal’ where WP would communicate more, and, in turn, Makin would step down as boss of the Reddit, and there’d be an attempt to make the Reddit a better community for the Homestuck Fandom.

It lasted like a week? Before it was decided that WP had not upheld their part of the bargain of communicating more, and Makin returned.

The emails of what had been discussed between WP and the Reddit were released by Makin, prefaced by a statement of how it made Hussie and WP look bad.

If you actually read the emails, however, you find out a lot of this preamble is actually fucking Fake, but a lot of people didn’t bother to read what was up except for like, hand-picked examples that strengthened Makin’s argument and painted WP in a bad light, when in reality it’d been an earnest attempt at finding common ground.

So yeah.

Honestly? Fuck the Fandom. Just stay silent, WP.

#WhatPumpkin #HSE #WP

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