#I would actually die for them no lie | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

lonelyquail · 11 months

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ok so while my ds is getting sand poured into it at alarming rates I'm thinking about how jrpgs in specific have a really weird desync with How Important Death Is. like some address it better than others but it very frequently happens where if you take a step back youll go "am I wild or is everybody just like, Really down with murder in this game". and consequences for said murder, especially in a characterization sense but even just actual physical consequences, don't really happen? unless it's a vehicle for conflict but like. when it is a vehicle for conflict it feels weird because why are These Guys actually taking the fact we killed somebody in broad daylight seriously and coming after us for it while all the other npcs and even the main party took it like it was another saturday evening

see I Think where the issue lies is in the fact that everything is in its own little world when you're in a battle? like. when you fight an enemy and you get leather out of it it's seen as something the enemy Drops and not. their hide. when you defeat a character in a battle it does just feel like you Defeated them. unless there's dialogue afterwards that says otherwise you don't even mentally assume you killed em you just wounded them enough to make them flee or dissolve or whatever. and it's Weird to just. have that assumption there because for a lot of games it really isn't clear if you're killing them or defeating them !!

that last point is extra important when you have the specific brand of Skittish Hero / Noble Hero Who Doesn't Kill People / Rational Hero In Way Over Their Head or whatever where you really don't think they Would kill a guy just to get them out of the way. in that case it's REALLY weird because it's hardly brought up. even if it Is brought up that that guy Sure Did Die the mc doesn't tend to actually have a reaction ??? and I don't know why this is ???? like Any written reaction would be more interesting than nothing even if the guy doesn't have a full on crisis about taking another life having them go "oh shit, The Consequences" would be nice. really anything except (oh cool we can advance the plot now).

I will also mention that Some deaths do matter plot wise but very frequently what makes them matter is how much of it is linked to an in game battle I think. if your mc just finishes a fight and comes back to the overworld and the guy's Disappeared or Dissolved or whatever it means they don't matter. if the guy's still around after the fight it means it's more significant, especially if they're still alive but wounded or Really Shaken Up. because this clears up the indistinguishable line between if a battle is lethal or not and if a character decides to deal a finishing blow now it's Way more telling of their character. even though this is basically the same thing that happened in the (killed In A Battle) scenario. just with more dialogue. I will also mention that the person who deals the finishing blow is Rarely Ever that good hearted protagonist and often they'll even go :0 at somebody else committing a murder despite them instigating and helping murder quite a few people. just. In Battle. so it's less bad. I guess.

this is leaving out the fact that in party deaths are often a Major Major Blow because like. ok that's fair. that's A Guy You Knew that's understandable. anyway I don't really know where I'm going with this I just think it's interesting how in these types of games death can swap from not mattering at all to mattering a Lot and if u don't think about it too hard u don't even question it. I'll probably be putting some examples in the tags idk

#i will note that in this specific instance most of my party Is actually super down with murder like vocally #so its less weird but it Is weird that the mc does. Not Seem The Type.#i mean not to say he should have tried to spare everybody i think its kinda neat that he doesnt but #if the fact that he doesnt was brought up at all thatd be interesting. have him acknowledge he killed a dude #but no hes just kind of standing there like (ok what next) no leaning one way or another #these would all be interesting reactions if they were actually Brought Up in dialogue but no its just. oversight #anyway this is about sand but ive also felt this about live a live and even bits of twewy #like specifically in lal the fact that the edo chapter Exists and killing people is just Battling Them made me look at Every Other Chapter #thru a lens of (okay am. am i killing these dudes.) and the answer is I DUNNO #like the guy exploded into a cloud of mist theres no way hes Not dead but its STRANGE #this felt most noticeable in the imperial china and present day chapters because they had mcs who decidedly did not feel down with murder #specifically present day because masaru is fighting this guy for the crime of killing a guys. and woa. he killed a guys. with his Hands #i think theres only a handful of deaths in lal that actually mean anything and you can tell which they are because they dont explode #like in You Know The Part with The Character I Cant Say that guys i think the only time defeating an enemy Leaves A Corpse #ok actually thats a lie the Other Guy I Cant Say in The Chapter Before That also died like that and that was equally important #s also worth mentioning that said first guy can ? also die without leaving a corpse? just turn to ash??#depending on where u go with him. which is weird right. thats weird right.#maybe that just means (hey youre not supposed to feel bad about him dying this tiiiime)#anyway its 5 am ill post this in the morning #vee shut up

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gonnagobankai · 10 months

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I might be misremembering the order of things, but if they anthony had been slightly smarter and less hotheaded, couldn’t he have just pretended that actually he was out with daphne and simon and chaperoned?

Apart from anthony being pissed the actual biggest threat to them was that the blond mean girl saw them outside and could tell others. But given that anthony must have been outside at basically the same time and I presume must hold some level of trustworthy, it would have saved them all so much trouble

#I understand why the show couldn’t actually let them solve something that easy #and how anthony was pissed and in must defend sister honor mode #but I feel this solution would have been more reasonable #if he’s willing to die for her he should also be willing to lie for her #bridgerton #anthony bridgerton #daphne bridgerton #simon basset

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twpsyn-who · 1 year

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Soulmate AU in which you see the way you die when you touch your soulmate for the first time.

And yeah we have the classic "bottle to the neck" scene which is kiss chief 👌🏼👌🏼👌🏼 BUT I present to you "Steve touched Eddie by mistake during high school" with a little bit of "Steve is an idiot and didn't notice" and "Eddie is suffering".

The fall of 1883. Steve has yet to make a move on Nancy, let alone touch her. Meanwhile Eddie is living his best life as of yet : his father finally got put in prison, new freshman has joinend his club and they finally found a drummer for their band. Yes, Will Byers got missing and Eddie felt a little bad for Jonathan, but that was life. Nothing could change Eddie's good vibes.

Until The King of Hawkins runs by him while trying to get to one Nancy Wheeler. The touch was barely there, a hand brushing by Eddie's leather jacket, but it was enough to trigger their apparent soulmate bound. That's when Eddie saw himself in front of his trailer (which looked more like a military base or a fortress with how heavily guarded it was), holding into a made up spear and a shield made with a bin's lid with nails pushed into it. There were huge bats (?) (Eddie wasn't sure what to name the things in the sky yet) getting out of the trailer and him from the vision began running towards one of the bikes outside, getting on one of them and pedalling away from the trailer.

He was yelling for them to follow him. It probably made sense, if uncle Wayne was in the trailer, for him to try get those monsters away. That didn't stop Eddie from being surprised at seeing himself trying to be the hero.

He was no hero. Eddie has always run away from conflicts, from fights and situations that put him in a bad spot. From help too, until his father finally lost it to the alcohol and Eddie has to accept uncle Wayne's offer to move with him if he wanted to stay alive. He was known for running away.

Yet he was trying to get the monsters away from the trailer, distract their attention. And he made a good job too, until his bike got stuck into a vine and made him hit the ground. Eddie felt sick while watching his vision self try fight the monsters only to get pinned down by them and eaten alive. He from the vision was yelling from pain and it took agonizingly long for the huge bats (looking closer they had no resemblance of bats, yet it felt right to call them as such for some reasons) to drop on the ground. By then it was more blood outside of Eddie than inside and he could see his vision's self organs from one of the bites.

There was more, Eddie knew there was more to watch, more to see before he was going to take his last breath, but the vision was too much and it took all of his willpower to get out of it. By then he was alone in the hallway, the classes going while he was watching his own death happen. He went straight for the bathroom and pushed his way into the first stall before getting on his knees and vomiting all he got to eat the other day.

He was crying. Eddie could tell that it was going to happen soon, with how young he looked in the vision. At that point it didn't even mattered anymore that his soulmate was the biggest jerk alive, not when the future was so dark and he wouldn't survive it.

Somehow Eddie spent the rest of the school classes in the bathroom, switching between vomiting and mourning over something that he was never going to have.

#before you go at me : this was supposed to be a Kas Eddie kind of thing aka he doesn't actually dies there lol #or he does and in his place Kas gets born idk man. The idea is that we do have a vampire Eddie on the loose #thooo I love angst man and the idea of Eddie's grades going to shit cuz he knew he would die soon anyway??? of Eddie fucking around and #being a menace to society cuz he was going to die??? only for that to be his downfall altogether?!?!?#The vision didn't stop. Only Eddie stopped looking at it. That means he heard what happened in the background while he was vomiting #he knew of Dustin. And yet the second he saw the three frenchman having a hard time he COULDN'T not take them under his wing #imagine Eddie trying so hard to not get attached/close to Dustin only for him to somehow get closer #Eddie asked the guys once if they meet their soulmates and Dustin said yes and he was going to die in his 40s in a car accident (totally a #lie but Eddie was so RELIEVED when he heard that)#anyway I had a follow up fpr this. if anyway wanna me ramble more about it #meanwhile get this little angsty little thing. as a treat #gosh this is in my drafts since nov 7 agdhdjskks #stranger things #stranger things eddie #eddie munson #stranger things steddie #steddie

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spring-lxcked · 7 months

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i know this is going to end up being Headcanon Tags again but i'm thinking about william and his Famous Casserole™ again

#—— ✧ ooc »#ends up with three young kids because of the divorce and because elise didn't fight for them (VALIDLY but y'know)#and he can cook like. An Egg. man who subsisted on eating frozen dinners most of his life but now can cook...#toast. and egg. boxed pancakes if you're lucky.#william who is actually a semi-good father when they're young and actually puts in a ton of effort to learn to cook #( yes it's partially the whole 'not being able to cook is a flaw & i have to stamp out every flaw i have' thing but STILL )#and he ends up actually being a pretty damn good cook #but also he 100% just got the Famous Casserole from a cookbook sorry kids your dad lied abt writing the recipe himself #but that's more of a Funny Dad Lie he'd totally admit to later than a malicious lie lmao #˖ ✧ headcanon » ( the demon to his demons )#<- yep #this is also making me think of the 'he would NEVER let the pizza at the pizzeria be actually bad. like he'd die first' thing #man who would cook the damn pizza himself if he had to #something something perfectionist to the point of absurdity #god i love/hate him sm

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nomaishuttle · 9 months

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u guys will never understand the weird attachment i have with the letter k shes like a part of me

#not even an aestheticslly pleasing letter shes actually Sooo hard to write in a pretty way idk if ife ever managed it..lie no i did on #saturday. awesome. very good i was practicing capital uppercase k and i think it came out great. so there #lowercase k? dont talk to me anymore. i dont want to hear about her.#however despite this k is my best friend my sister part of me and etc.#ive been half tempted to start spelling connor with a k (konnor) but thankfully i havent stooped that low. itd be likefun bc famously #i was kamille with a k and Eeeeveryone spelled it with a c so i always said Kamille with a k! thats who i am ksmille with a k #and now im what #connor with 2 o's. stupid. not nearly as brand friendly..... so i could ve konnor with a k but konnor is potentially the ugliest thing #ever. it looks like if kourtney kardashian became transgender but needed to keep up the brand. id rather die....#guys wait thatd be so scary im glad they arent making new kardashians bc what if one of them was kamille. thatd be so scary #and then every other little girl i met would be named kamille and id have to kms.

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pocketramblr · 2 years

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That reminds me of a post you made a bit back, so I went and glanced at it and. You used the phrase "he values trust as far as he needs it" but I definitely don't think he has a very good perspective for all the times it's needed because I'd say "teaching children how to not die in a dangerous field job filled with fire and explosions you yourself have many times only survived by chance or unanticipated outside help also by chance" is definitely something that needs trust, if not his sake than for theirs.

well hindsight is 20/20, i'd argue his previous 5 years of teaching showed him he doesn't need trust to do the job and thats.... maybe... kinda.... like i don't agree but i can see his local rationality there? Thing is, Aizawa and I don't have the same job- we have maybe 1/6th of a same job. He's a homeroom teacher in a country with very different expectations of that role and as far as i understand it, its kinda weird he's later shown teaching content? (Hori is it too much to beg for some consistency or further elaboration on the plot device magic school)

that paragraph derailed, sorry- point is, Aizawa saw it as his job to keep the students alive, and did that by scaring them smart. As their homeroom teacher, the EASY and SIMPLE and NORMAL way to do that role would be to establish trust so they listen to your advice to not die but noooo. he decided to scare them, and then amp up stress so they'd listen to OTHER teachers (the ones actually providing the hero training and field practice stuff) more. After all, they'd look more honest and dependable in comparison. Considering that as far as we know none of his former students died in action, technically. technically he's doing his job sucessfully enough that he can argue he doesn't NEED trust/honesty here.

he's an idiot for doing it that way (and an idiot ignoring the other parts of the homeroom teaching purpose like. mental wellbeing and social emotional learning because he considers them less important) but still. this could really be fixed without even changing his attitude about trust and honesty if he just got some gosh darn teacher training

#thing is he got 156 expulsions in 5 years #which means either 1- expelling kids not in his class of 20 which means the other homeroom teachers approved the method #or at least were willing to let him do it #or 2- he expelled some kids multiple times #possibly the case being that the second time was 'for real' and to keep them out of the field so they didn't die in it #or 3- a mix of both #all 20 of his class last year got expelled at first #and i think all 20 moved up so none of them could have been double expellees #but his methods.......... do not completely undo his purpose #so he has *some* rational to continue them #not enough if you ask me #so yeah fun ask fun answer fun post to reference #thats actually a post i kinda regret making because...... so many people interpreted that wrong and said 'noooo trust is important to him'#and like....... the evidence they brought up would have little to do with the honesty thing #which i was focusing on because i was talking to a friend and realized we had very different views on honesty/trust #the friend of mine would sometimes lie no problem no reason if they did not feel you were absolutely entitled to the truth #just to do it #where i had moral implications about the truth in my head if there was no specific reason for lying #basically i felt you needed a reason to lie #and my friend felt you needed a reason to tell the truth #and sometimes that reason was 'you felt like it' but sometimes not #and so i said 'huh' and looked at lying liar aizawa #and wondered where he'd fit between those two views #and then i made the post and it blew up and i hated it because a bunch of people who thought aizawa is hot got mad at me for #morally judging him or something i guess (i was not but ok)#and no. aizawa is not hot. he's ugly. he's pretty. he's both pretty and ugly. but he isn't hot. hope that clarifies #anon #pocket talks to people #huh haven't talked about a my he ro character this much in a while i feel like #whats the occasion

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samwisefamgee · 10 months

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the 20 dollar pair of throwaways I got for my sister's wedding were perfect for the like 7 hours I got them for but are really not perfect for like anything else ever

#i mean the WERE 20 dollars thats how it works but ya know #ive had to use them while walking around to do errands and not gonna lie wish i hadnt tossed the old busted pair #they were pretty far past done for but these things have given me. SO many blisters and i kinda just gotta keep goin #woulda taken the duct tape pair. shoulda just kept the duct tape pair #i seriously need to get some actual nice walking shoes but that would necessitate having more than 50 dollars at one point ever #and im outta weed lmao i had to bust out the emergency stash from the junk drawer #you know cause i get to where im sleeping and the ouch oof ache of my badshoes leaves me wanting a poofer choofer #its a cycle but ive been in worse cycles #if my mental health were also at an especially low point during all this i dont even KNOW what id be doing lol #i walkked. over 17 miles the other day in a haze of self harm after more bullshit happened and lost my wallet during the walk.#not a fun 6 miles of backtracking. drank outta someones hose once and the river twice to stave the clearly onsetting dehydration. didnt die!#found the wallet. drank maybe more water than i ever have in one moment when i passed the library and absorbed their entire drinking font #anyway my legs/knees were ruined and i almost sent myself to the hospital again cause i cant make bad decisions normal i get weird about it #but hey if a very specific set of circumstances fall into place maybe i wont be broke and just generally all around unwell goin forward #heres hoping it does before student loan payments roll round again lol

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lesbianlenas · 2 years

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the other day when i was playing dark souls someone invaded my game & killed me and i’m like. i would genuinely unironically rather they had come to my house in real life and beat me up than killed me in dark souls i mean it

#michelle speaks #it is such a good thing i had just leveled up and was not in a hard area bc like.#if they had killed me in the middle of smth nowhere near a bonfire w like 10000 souls i would have just. gone ballistic #they kept backstabbing me & i’m like. dude i am not good at this game that’s not fair.#fr tho my adhd & dark souls r not compatible bc i am v much an offensive video game player #i like to just wack ppl w a sword a bunch of times nonstop. dark souls is like u cannot do that.#also i feel the consequences of being a serial dier in video games. like ok just bc i’d prefer to die than use a shield #should not make me a bad player…..i have used my shield playing this game more than i have in any other game ever combined #honest 2 god…..i do not even know the shield button in botw i’m serious 😩 i could guess but like. i don’t know for sure lol #and for the record. i am SO good at botw. i do not need a shield i should not need it i HATE them. i just want to stab ykwim 😩#ACTUALLY. that’s a lie. i do know the shield button bc i used it when u fight ganon at the end.#also i fought him 5 times & never died not to brag…..he’s not even hard tho so…..#i just prefer to dodge that’s all. but in dark souls u move so SLOW.

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thecherrygod · 2 years

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i am. making a mistake

#my posts #im. very depressed. in a bad state. and also ill and unsure if im actually becoming feverish. and its midnight #i. am struggling emotionally and with a class and with motivation and i guess im also underwhelmed #like i have. shit to do. and things id rather be doing. im doing none im just sitting there feeling useless #i. just told a classmate i didnt start my assignment at all yet not even read the material #and he said it makes sense you were a bit sick im sure youll feel better and be able to do it #and i told him that hes wrong bc i would have been able to at least read the material before getting sick #and that if i was doing okay i would still be in the same situation #i. i dont. think i should be having this conversation with him #i dont. know why im doing this. i want to kms #i mean he has talked to me once when he was struggling he broke the mental illness barrier but i dont think i should be passing it either #i feel like i should stop saying whatever the fuck i am saying idk why i started idk if its too late for that #editing my tags to ad more bc i dont want to make another postabout this #yes i made a mistake. idk how to reply without going further into the conversation #'you could do what you told me and do the text to speech thing you sometimes do when you struggle to focus' my guy. my man. i cant #idk what to tell him that isnt an 'i cant even start that i can only open the documents i cant do more than that' i made a mistake #idk how to lie my way out of this idk how to just say 'yeah i should do that' or something and thats it #i mean i guess i do want to have someone to tell them how im actually doing but i dont. think its the right thing to do #also i want to throw up and cry and die and if i knew where our thermometers were id check my temperature #yeah my brain is barely working so since i feel my options are actually answer or ask him to forget i asked #i am asking him to forget i asked #i do feel awful and stupid but i dont think actually replying is good and i dont have another way to do so

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arolesbianism · 7 months

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Hello followers who know nothing about rain world guess who's making a rain world au that it's slowly becoming obsessed with

#rat rambles #rain posting #the fate of this au relies on me finding good songs for it but we are getting to dangerous territory #this could easily become a catagory 10 autism even any moment I will not lie #Im still in the worldbuildibg phase so I wont go off abt it too hard rn but its a warrior cat au. ish.#think of it as more warriors inspired than a direct wc au #I was thinking to myself abt how moon and pebby would be such wc kids and then I was like wait. a wc au would kinda work actually #as in the fact that starclan remain forever unchanging after death could be smth I could fuck about with #the iterators are also cats but theyre trapped in the physical realm while also not fully being alive #so sort of like an echo in a way but they were chosen for it at birth and it was fueled by starclan #basically having them absorb starclan spirits to both make it basically impossible for them to die and also to give them 'wisdom' and stuff #they rly arent made any wiser by it they just hear vague wispers constantly #sliver instead of being like yo guys I found they answer before dying gors like hey guys I found the answer (kills and is never seen again)#and after finding that gazestar (the cat that got killed) did not in fact come back everyone freaked out a bit #oh also I forgot to mention that at some point the stars (and starclan) all disapeared rip #the scugs are all just normal cats of varrying points in time living their lives after the clans of old collapsed #the void sea also still exists but I haven't decided how much yet

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capaldiera · 9 months

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"it's a good life isn't it" "the best" no the fuck it isn't you're insane

#me.txt #quotes from guys who have never lived a different life. from guys who are so fucked up by their lives they could never live a normal one #if i wrote a longish felix/james fic (not going to do that) it would be called it's a good life.and it wld feature them having to spend a #lot of time together laying low and over the course of their conversations they both basically-admit like this sucks bad actually. and then #at the end they just like go back to how it used to be. and one day no time to die will happen #there'd be more to ithan that and thered be wayyy more they dont ever say out loud #but its like theres this undercurrent to their last words. of knowing its a nice lie theyre telling themselves #i guess this would take place after skyfall and before spectre bc its before all that stuff with madeleine #even if writing was something i could do. i would really struggle to do this justice tbh. like there has to be so much indirect conversation #you cant have them talking like theyre trying to get good grade in therapy lol.#and i'd also have to remember to make them suck bad as people. we mustnt forget about that

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literalgrill · 5 months

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Do NOT Support Hard Drive On Patreon

You might see friends today suggesting you support Hard Drive on Patreon today. You know, the funny video games version of The Onion? As a journalist, I will firmly tell you DO NOT GIVE THEM A DIME.

The CEO has pushed out all former staff that have built the site up to its current greatness and has been pushing the use of AI. The staff begged to have a Patreon before basically all being pushed out, but the idea was refused until now, when it will only line the pockets of a single person instead of hard working writers.

I know they might have provided laughs before, but Hard Drive is a shell of what it was once. Let it die and support the people who actually made those moments of joy possible. Don't believe me? Check out what former employees are saying below:

Kevin Podas: Okay you know what, I would feel bad saying nothing about this, so here goes:🚨SAVE YOUR MONEY🚨

We passionately advocated for a Patreon at Hard Drive & were aggressively shot down. The talent & people who built the site were pushed out. To see this now is beyond upsetting. For the past few years or so I put a lot of myself into this website. I pitched a ton of jokes, got over 120 articles published, & met a lot of great people. I'm sure if you've been following me for some time you could easily see this.

However, there is a lot of misinformation. I was eventually promoted to Managing Editor of the site & was ecstatic. Grateful for the opportunity. Felt like all of my hard work in the comedy mines was finally paying off. But things took a turn for the worst, & each day there were new surprises that affected our livelihoods. These were all very avoidable surprises, mind you.

A patreon was going to be our hail mary, but alas, for some reason, the power that be did not want it. Causing us to leave a dream job behind. "At least we did all we could," we consoled ourselves afterwards. I put a lot of myself into this project. I pitched all sorts of ideas that could have helped-- we all did. Merch collaborations, Patreon-integrated YouTube content, so much more. And most of them were shot down out of sheer stubbornness and nothing more. To see lie after lie spread, and multiple big publications and YouTubers that I am a fan of promote this Patreon under these pretenses is incredibly upsetting. There are so many receipts.

Please share this and consider pulling out if you've already put money into this. On Hard Drive using AI, also from Kevin Podas: I can't personally confirm that part aside from some of the recent header images for articles on both Hard Drive and Hard Times are being made with AI. As far as writing, it's been mentioned in the past, but I personally do not know. Maybe others do, maybe not. MORE From Kevin Podas suggesting the owner denying a Patreon being set up earlier cost an artist a job that was replaced by AI: We had a social media person who was awesome! He made the images until this AI implementation. He had to leave because ad revenue was low and a Patreon was aggressively refused.

Luca Fisher: at the risk of burning some bridges, i have to back up kevin here. i've only been part-time, in-and-out of hard drive since i got in last year, but i can corroborate that management doubled and tripled down about not hosting a patreon/crowdfunding and that many other suggestions and ideas, including mine (and ones much smarter than mine!), were shot down in really long, apocalyptic threads of everyone left on deck desperately trying to come up with ways to keep the lights on. managerially it has been messy and sad

i've written for multiple publications that have long since died, ones that were in the process of dying, and ones that, in this case, are soon to be put in the ground. it is sad and sucks every time. i don't know what could have been done differently, but i do know that a lot of great writers and content creators were left shorthanded and unhappy by the way things have gone. and it is sort of puzzling to see the sudden championing of patreon after we were all told plenty of times that it couldn't work and we should move on also, just to add my own personal two cents here, i was really disappointed by the shuttering of many different article sections on the site over the past 6-8 months. i understand cutting corners in a deficit, and i know it had to be done. that said…

all in all, i'm really sad to see this all happen. i don't fault anyone, if only because i don't really know enough about how this all can happen to make sense of it. games journalism is in a sad, sorry state, and will likely no longer be a thing in the next decade

VideoSealMan: I'm gonna say this because I think I deserve to. For months, MONTHS on end I was bugging Hard Drive management about a Patreon. Often I got ignored for a week+, but when I actually got a response I was encouraged to - of all things, write up a Google Doc pitching the concept I did it regardless. I wasn't the only one trying to sway management on a Patreon, but so fiercely was I fighting for it that last night, I was accused of making this comment directly by the CEO! With no evidence whatsoever! After I'd been gone for over a month.

I vouched so hard for Patreon because I wanted all the writers and creatives working with Hard Drive including myself to get paid better. When I actually got a response, the idea was often shut down. Eventually due to the state of my company, my pay was cut for a second time I confronted management alongside a couple other important figureheads at the org and told them that if we couldn't do a Patreon - I could no longer financially justify staying there. The answer was still no, so I left. Baffled at the decision, but whatever.

It is unendingly frustrating to know that myself and many other people who put their soul into Hard Drive LEFT because of management's absolute refusal to compromise on a Patreon, to then see them launch one anyway a month later and get over 1000 people pledging money. I'm seeing a lot of things float around about greed and people being fired. No one was fired. Everyone who left, left because they were sick of management's decision-making. And honestly, management is a lot of things but I would not call them greedy. (From my experience.) They did genuinely make an effort to pay people as much as possible. I found the pay very fair for a while. I am not disputing that I was paid what I was owed - yet management frequently feels the need to remind critics of that. Lmao, yes. I was paid what I was owed. No one is disputing payment. You did the bare minimum a business owner should do and paid everyone their due, very well done. I make no allegations of greed, cheating or foul play. I make allegations of poor management and incompetence that has fucked over other people.

Basically the only people left at Hard Drive have been there for about 2 months. They will reap the rewards of this successful Patreon I and so many others passionately fought for for so long. We will not see a dime.

I do not know the new people at Hard Drive, But I feel bad for them. They were haphazardly thrust into Hard Drive's workplace with little to no explanation on how anything works, or given any context on the state of the place. Even now managements feeds them half-truths and misinformation about other people's grievances. I am broke and have been for a while. I had to move out of my flat in Reading and back with my family because of how little money I was making. This has basically doomed my flatmate to moving back in with abusive parents, which is something I feel guilty about every day. If we had gone with the Patreon I worked myself hoarse over back then, this could have been avoided. Some of my other good pals could also not have been fucked over.

It was a bad judgment call, but it's not a crime. It's just management getting it wrong.

So should you give to the Hard Drive Patreon? I don't know! I don't think any of the new people working there to patch up the holes left by the recent mass exodus have any bad intentions. Maybe they deserve it! But it is not the same site you knew a year ago, or even a month ago. Myself and many people who were there far longer than me and did far more for it than I did are all gone now because we could not deal with management's terrible decision-making and dogass communication any longer. That's what you should know, imo

I had an agreement in place with management that I would receive the next 8 months of revenue from the Hard Drive YT channel from my leaving in November. This was a deal I appreciated, and thought was very fair on management's behalf. So far, the deal has been honoured for 2 months. However as of last night I was removed from the Hard Drive Slack without warning, and as an editor for the YouTube channel. This means I no longer have any way of verifying how much I am owed, I just have to take their word for it. I'm sure management will make their own statements full of half-truths and weird language on the many cases being brought against them - I'd take everything they say with a pinch of salt if some of the screenshots I've seen of them talking about me are any indication lol

To management; I do not want to talk to you. I want you to DM me a screenshot of how much I'm owed every month and then send me the money per our agreement until June, then we can go our separate ways. Do that and admit to your mistakes, and maybe you can recover your reputation! That's it from me, lol. If they pull out of the deal and fuck me over I'll have more to say, but most of what I know is other people's stories of incompetence and poor decision-making, lol. I genuinely get no pleasure out of doing this; I do not think management is evil - I just think they're really bad at what they do and it's cost other, more talented people, lol. You should believe the writers imo

One last thing I wanna say btw, management did often stress that no one should try to make Hard Drive a full time thing. They were transparent about that, and that is fair. I was working on it because at a few points, I was lead to believe we actually were doing a Patreon. Many other ppl have similar stories of being strung along by management changing their minds and stop-starting shit every 2 weeks. We all made the fatal mistake of overestimating our manager - who would tell you one thing one day and something totally opposite the next week lol

Hunter R. Thompson:

I'm not your dad, but speaking as a Hard Drive writer, I don't know that funding Hard Drive on Patreon is worth it

The driving talent on the back end—behind the kickass site I joined in 2019—have peaced out over the years as the site's been (in our view) increasingly mismanaged. Mismanagement like, not setting up crowdfunding before the ship sank and all its best crew failed; or publishing a screenshot of Andy Ngo pedojacketing a trans writer, complete with her deadname; or a disgruntled ex-writer getting falsely accused of shit-talk, by actual staff. I'm grateful for the writing I've gotten to produce for HD (and will forever be kicking myself for not writing even more, in the four years I've had to do it!! i'm a dumbass!!!) but it is very much no longer the site I signed up for.

I don't want to resign as a contributor altogether, because I'm open to the idea of the site recovering and bad practices being retired as finances level out-- it would just be dishonest for potential backers to not be Aware Of The Circumstances, I think.

Jeremy Kaplowitz: i truly don't want to start shit, but feel compelled to say: i want to see Hard Drive succeed w/o resorting to throwing former writers & editors, myself included, under the bus. surely there's a way to save the site without building it over the corpses of those who left. my $0.02 i don't blame anyone who wants to sign up for the HD patreon and i support the website, but that includes those who worked on it for years, have complaints, and don't deserve to be treated like bitter assholes like this kind of stuff is just objectively true, meanwhile there's these new writers who joined the site after i left (meaning, in the last ~3 months) claiming people are liars. decide for yourself if you care, but this is what happened! [Quotes this Tweet]

Seth Finkelstein: Writing for Hard Drive has been a privilege the past few years, and it makes me so angry to see people I looked up to get jerked around behind the scenes. The amount of grenades the editors jumped on our behalf is immense, and I don't think the way they're being treated is right.

Other Bits On AI: We do know for sure however that AI art has been used by the site. Its fucking owner confirms it here:https://twitter.com/MattSaincome/status/1743040541603123622. Seems the owner pushed AI written articles as well! TayFabe: My vaguetweet is making the rounds & these made me apoplectic. - owner regularly lobbied using ai. Once he tested it & said ai was writing better satire than 25% of the HT/HD writers. - ai images were used on the site & socials w/o consulting the team or disclosing it publicly I found the ai bit relevant to include bc 1) it illuminates a stark change in HD's current direction & leadership, 2) ai images have previously been used on the site and (since deleted) ig posts, 3) ai content fucking sucks, and repeatedly pushing to use it is a telling quality The "handful of writers who chose to leave" includes 2 editors-in-chief (both cofounders who wrote a combined total of >1,000 articles & defined the voice of HD), & at least 3 other editors. These guys put in WORK since 2017, so cool to be corrected by ppl who joined in Nov 2023 [Link to mentioned vague tweet from post.] More from TayFabe: owner continuously lobbied for using ai in every possible way. No one else wanted to do it, but he kept on, saying ai was writing better satire than 25% of the HT/HD writers. Also, ai images were used on the site & socials without public disclosure or consulting the team.

The owner has responded now multiple times in a private discord... Thank you for people sharing screenshots! First Screenshot:

Kevin's Response: He banned me from the server for speaking out, so no, I didn't see it. And he gave no indication of a timeline, it was just "we'll do one when *I* say so" and gave every inclination he was totally against it. It bred an environment that pushed our hands to have to leave. Screenshot Round Two:

Kevin's Response: "Starting one in 3 months" is an absolute lie. He denied it, I have screenshots and others who can confirm. No timeline was given. Just "this is what it is now" and like, I couldn't live off of that. I wanted to do more but he was allergic to good ideas from others around him.

Matt, owner of Hard Drive, responds publicly on Twitter.

Matt: Kevin, the patreon launch was delayed because I didn't think it would work. Everyone is happy that it did work. Everyone who left the site because we didn't have money to pay for creative content which didn't revenue is welcome to return home. But unclear why the hostility.

Hard Drive paid out literally every dollar it had, then a bunch more, to creative people who worked on the site. When we ran out of money, we couldn't pay anymore. We did our best.

Kevin: Right, and my point of this thread was that it was completely and totally avoidable. This is reasonable to be upset about. How could I have been any more clear?

Matt: If we knew with 100% certainly that the community would have supported us via patreon, we would have done that. We didn't know. We had tried 4 years ago and got no support. We were wrong this time. We did our best to figure it out. We paid all the money we could.

Kevin: So you knew with 100% certainty this time? Or you took a leap of faith?

Matt: It was a last gasp panic effort after ad rates got cut in half on january 1st due to seasonal spending changes. We didn't know it would work. We were embarrassed to ask for support. We wanted to figure it out.

Kevin: Every site has a Patreon. Every YouTuber, comedy group, etc. But you insisted that nobody cared about Hard Drive. Which is wildly untrue. I know you see that now, but again, I think you can see why I and many others are pretty upset. A last ditch panic effort was long overdue. A couple more things from Matt:

It was about the size of the hole we needed plugged budget wise, the time I had left of personal resources, and the past data I had about us trying a patreon (which turned out to be a bad indicator). I didn't think the Patreon would help us fast enough. I made a bad estimation

aka "if we make $1000 more dollars a month via patreon, which would be 10x what we got last time, we will not solve any of our problems. If instead we try to plow down path B, we might make it out in time." That was the thinking. I chose the wrong path, but didn't mean to Kevin also retweeted this comment from the user Matt was responding to: So you're saying that you're bad at running the business, didn't listen to any of your employees until after they were forced to leave their jobs, and now you're going to get more of the money from the Patreon that was their idea in the first place? Matt's Response: Respectfully, I made a mistake delaying the patreon decision. But keeping a comedy site alive for 9 years is not easy, there are lots of potential ideas, and think overall we've done a good and honorable job. Will leave this thread in peace now to allow people their space.

Sorry for linking to Elon's hellsite (derogatory), but sources need links so...

#video games #patreon #hard drive #ai critical

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