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Kiwi Farms
FORWARD:
After making my megapost and consulting with a few more experienced sources (chiefly @Marvin) I’ve realized that this OP, while informative, is tailored a little more to people already familiar to Homestuck. Therefore it’s about time I provided an intro for people who don’t know much about the comic and are looking for a reason to care. I’ll also be providing links to my megapost on more recent information and on some of the major players, past and present.
AN INTRODUCTION (FOR PEOPLE WHO DON’T READ HOMESTUCK):
For some, Homestuck is the impetus for fandom drama on Tumblr. Born from the mind of Andrew Hussie, a now mid-30s former Something Awful troll long past his prime, it’s a webcomic described by some as “a comic about four kids who play a game together and end the world”. At least that’s how it started in 2009. This is the story of a deeply flawed webcomic, an even more flawed fanbase, and some of the worst unprofessional staff around.
Andrew’s a pretty hard guy to read. Though he made Problem Sleuth, arguably his best work, on his own in 2006, and started off Homestuck the same way, he quickly gathered a team to back him up that started to influence him a little too much. Politics, both internal and external, eventually shaped the comic into a retcon-filled mess. By the time the ending came out in 2016, it left many readers confused, annoyed, and disillusioned. There were too many characters and not enough development for them, and the plot was full of holes.
During the comic’s heyday in 2012-2013, Andrew Hussie had turned Homestuck into a cash cow and had hired Rachel Rocklin, his then-girlfriend, as a Manager. She proceeded to ruin the livelihood of many fan content creators by harassing them over Twitter, raiding booths at conventions, and generally being a huge cunt to anyone involved. You would typically find her shitting up any Homestuck-related project made without the consent of WhatPumpkin, Hussie’s company. The fandom was thus left scattered aside from con meetups and Tumblr pages. Rachel was eventually fired and dumped by Hussie in 2015 after some relationship drama involving her, Hussie, and IPGD, a frequent Hussie collaborator.
Andrew started a Kickstarter for Hiveswap, a prequel point-and-click series, in 2012. Initially a 3D project that gathered over $2.5 million in backer money, the entire team was sacked in 2015 and by the next year, the game’s format moved to 2D, with the team completely replaced by equally incompetent people. Two cows to emerge at this time were Cohen Edenfield, a Twitter shitposter hired to helm the project in Hussie’s place, and Shelby Cragg, who previously convinced Andrew to add some of her own ideas to Homestuck’s story. Homestuck was also marketed as a potential TV series that year by John Warren and Dante Basco, but to no avail.
In 2018, Homestuck was sold by Andrew to Viz Media, who promptly fired everyone again; even Shelby, whose sister was dating him around that time. The comic was moved to a brand new website, and a dating sim written by Hussie using art from Shelby was released. Updates remain constant.
There are too many cows to cover in this intro alone. This is a ratking without borders; there are members linked to Zoe Quinn, KC Green, Chuck Tingle (rumored to be Andrew himself), Steven Crewniverse, the High Guardian Spice debacle, and probably anyone in the indie scene with a Tumblr. If you’re prepared to watch an empire burn to the ground, this is the perfect vantage point to watch it from.
Rough Timeline:
Homestuck’s creator and main writer. From the little tidbits of info we know, Hussie hired a team of artists off Tumblr to work on the first version of Hiveswap, before firing them a few years later as part of the split with The Odd Gentlemen. Other than his Dad dying a year later and unsubstantiated theories that he might also be directly working on the Chuck Tingle game project with Zoe Quinn, we know very little else about his current whereabouts or work.
Now that the ridiculous accusations are out in the open, let me preface this by saying that the “WhatPumpkin” team, that is Andrew Hussie and his tight-knit clique are really horrible people. You can read the story of a team member of their video game where, tl;dr: most of the team for the Homestuck video game “Hiveswap” was told to quit all their jobs and schooling and work full time for Hussie, only to be fired at a moment's notice. They were cut off of all communication and left without any support, and Hussie very quickly hired a whole new team, staffed entirely by his personal friends. The new team includes Cohen Edenfield (“ex-member Skull Man” of PennyArcadeForums), Toby “Radiation” Fox (Undertale), KC Green (whom I’ve heard you are all familiar with already), Shelby Cragg, Poinko, James Roach, and possibly a few other artists, all of whom already on Hussie’s contract from Homestuck. Further reading on this includes the /r/homestuck thread “Is Andrew Okay?”, the information of which was pooled on Tumblr by user *REDACTED*. You’ll notice that post is a reblog of a reblog of a mirror of the post, as the original blew up on Tumblr, amassing thousands of notes in a short time, before disappearing as quickly as it went up. Along with any trace of *REDACTED*, a reddit regular whom I could do a write-up on just as long as this one. A fitting end to this preface is a link to the twitter account said to be Hussie’s previously private account, of which only a few bitter public tweets remain.
Andrew Hussie (probably) said:
There is a special place in hell for everyone who doesn't like the taste of what I'm force-feeding them.
There is...a lot more to discover. I have barely touched on IPGD, who played a part in the first rendition of Hiveswap. They did their own write-up here about how Hussie lost a lot of money to a company scamming them. But I have my own doubts that it wasn’t orchestrated to launder money.
Over a year after all this, most of the people involved have disappeared. The only person mentioned above that still retains social media presence, is Cohen Edenfield. He’s entirely taken over for Homestuck now, for both the comic and the game. And he’s run it into the ground. There were plans for “Homestuck 2.0”, a project aimed at increasing Homestuck’s brand by hosting fan-made content on an official youtube channel. It was part of Dante Basco’s (Hook, Avatar: The Last Airbender, Jake Long American Dragon) plan to take Homestuck and “bring the series to Hollywood”. The original video was removed from youtube, no fan-content was ever posted, and both Dante and his friend in the video, John Warren, have not talked about Homestuck since.
And that’s about where we’re at. I’m sure there’s more information out there. And I’m sure much more will come out as Hiveswap and Project Tingler are released. If they are ever released. If anything here can be elaborated on in the future, I’m sure I will hear of it. I’m aware of the channels, and I’m sure if you’re reading this, you are too. The truth is out there.
Discuss.
EDIT: Semper fidelis to @tehpope for helping with formatting on this one; you're the best, fam.