#I have no reason to believe that this game will suck

[jokingmisfit]

Read You Like A Book

Jason Todd x Fem!Reader

Prompt- “You have blood on your face.”

Prompt- “Is there a reason you’re naked in my bed?”

Warning-Cunnilingus, I didn't actually finish it cause I gave up.

You lay calmly with black silk hiding your skin. A moment of peace as you wait for your “target”. A fun game you plan on ending tonight. Your lips turn into a content smile at the thought. As much as you enjoyed the fun of flirting you were sure it’ll be just the same if not better when you two actually start dating. And he didn’t seem to take notice of any of your hints so you figured you’d spell it out for him.

The door to the room opens and Jason comes in. A confident stride reduced to a pretend exhaustion. You watch calmly as he lays his duffle bag on a chair in the corner of the room. There's a breath of silence.

“Is there a reason you’re naked in my bed?” He asks you with a tired voice; clearly a fake one.

A pretend pout plays on your lips. “Aww, I thought you’d be happy to see me.” You say, pout disappearing and turning into upturned bitten lips.

“As nice as that sounds, Imma a bit tired after dealing with Bruce all day.” He says with a scowl.

“Oh?” You question. “Did Buce beat you up?”

“What?! No, why would you say that?” He asked with panicked frustration.

You raise your eyebrows and move across the bed. Ending at the edge you stand on your knees and use one arm to hold the sheet up while the other ushers the man over. Even now, though it’s not surprising, he looms over you. You look up and try to bite back a laugh as you lay a hand gently on his face.

“You have blood on your face,” You say, swiping it off with your finger. “Red Hood.”

You pull your hand back a bit while he stares at you in disbelief. A laugh comes quietly from you. You tilt your head at Jason with a smile. Suddenly his face goes from surprise to deadpan.

“How long have you known?” He asks in defeat.

“Hmm… About a month. Not to be cliche, Jase, but you’re like an open book, at least to me.” You say smiling at him.

Jason curses as he leans his head down onto your shoulder. As much as he was faking the exhaustion he wasn’t faking the tension. The way he relaxed so suddenly as he sighed was enough evidence of that.

“Sooo,” You begin as you pull his face away. “That blood isn’t yours right? ‘Cause if you’re hurt we definitely can’t do what I planned on doing tonight.” You say gesturing to yourself with a flirtatious smile.

A smirk broke across the man's face, a smile that was purely that of a predator’s.

“Hmm, so that’s what you wanted from me this whole time, huh? Learn my secret just for this?” He teases.

“Oh believe me,” You bit back. “I only wanted to do this after I learned it.”

“You are an evil woman sweetheart.” Jason glares playfully.

“And yet you still think I’m sweet.” You answer back.

Your own playful smile is broken by the man as he grabs your jaw. Pulling you in and sucking the air from your lungs and into his own. A clear line of restraint as he holds you. Restraint you weren’t wanting him to use.

So you dropped the dark fabric. For a moment you can tell he didn’t notice. His mind and body were still too occupied with the kiss. Until he moves his left hand down. Trailing just for a second before he stops dead in his tracks. Where he thought he’d touch soft silk he meets warm soft skin.

He looks back, mind reeling at the sight in front of him. Your body is completely exposed. Sheets loosely fallen now sit at your knees. Everything in almost perfect view. Keyword almost. He has to swallow a breath when he looks at your face. A faux innocence and lust glazed eyes. His will to hold back severed by your simple action. His eyes raked your chest, your stomach, your thighs, everything he could see.

“Oh no…” He whispered out with a laugh. “You- haha… God damn, baby.”

Another breath and you were being moved. Jason slams you into the mattress harshly. His teeth bite at your neck. He sucks on every part of you his mouth can touch. He’s everywhere and so quickly you have no time to keep up with him.

So quickly he is moving down lower and lower. You’re left staring at him as he maneuvers your body like it’s his own. Hands pulling your glossy lips apart and rubbing at what's in between. You can’t stop your breathing from going haywire or the new sounds that slip from your mouth.

Speaking of mouths his is chuckling as he leans his face lower to your hole. A wet tongue escapes his lips. He nips and sucks at your clit. You shiver and shake as warm breath and saliva coat your mound.

“Fuck…” He rasps against you. “You taste so fucking good Angel.”

You moan out a plea. Begging him for something, you aren’t sure what. Jason moves back up your body. Trailing with his lips all the way up. Your impatience gets the better of you and you pull his head up to yours. Heated lips fighting for power you know you won’t get.

#jason todd x reader #jason todd #jason todd x fem!reader #jason todd smut #batman #batfam x reader

[artificialbreezy]

okay i was in the middle of working on a smutty Matt blurb but i saw this post and i feel like its my duty to talk about it okay? cool. here we go.

this is the era that would shotgun smoke into your mouth. i’ll take no arguments.

kinda (really just weed) NSFW under the cut ◡̈

okay now let’s get into it.

MAYBE it started out friendly, right? just a casual hang out at his house. nothing you weren’t used to at this point. you don’t really smoke, never tried it. they never judged you for it, always offered if you ever did wanna try, they’d take it so easy on you and would never rush/push you into more than what you were comfortable with. so ya know what, this is the time. you’re gonna smoke weed today! so when you get there and everyone’s outside surrounded by a fire you’re extra comfortable. it’s warm, there’s no reason to be nervous, all your friends are right there, Noah is RIGHT there. he always has your back. as the night goes on and more people are working their way inside to play some drinking games, you and Noah are left outside with a half smoked blunt and a weak fire going. you’d take a deep breath, Noah immediately catching onto your nerves. “hey, what’s wrong honey?” Noah always got a lil more affectionate when he was high. you weren’t complaining though. you’d shake your head and tell him nothing. he’d cock his eyebrow, 100% not believing what you said. so you’d just quick talk it out. “iwannasmokeweedbutimalittlenervous” and you’d take another breath and stare at the fire. all to hear his sweet chuckle, “there’s this thing that we could do, where you don’t have to take a hit off the blunt. i could take the hit, give it to you and see how you feel.” and you’re more confused now, what is talking about? how can you get high by not smoking it? he’d see the confusion on your face, “you trust me, yeah?” and you’d nod.

he’d pull you into his lap, and you’re already beet red. nervous, shy, hoping to all fucks that he can’t feel how fast your heart is beating. “open your mouth a little bit.” he’d relight the blunt, take a rather big hit, grab your jaw and pull you close. close enough that his lips were on yours and blow the smoke into your lungs. he’d pull away a little, hand still holding your jaw. “fuck it.” he’d mumble, before he pulled you back into his lips. “gotta have another taste, you understand right?” he’d say between kisses.

your kiss was interrupted when the slider opened and Jesse stood there wide eyed, immediately turning back into the house yelling, “YOU GUYS OWE ME 20 BUCKS. THEY’RE OUT HERE SUCKING FACE!!” Noah would just shake his head, rub his thumb against your cheek, press a soft kiss to your mouth. “go upstairs, i’ll meet you in my bed in 10 minutes okay? we got some things to talk about.”

#noah sebastian blurb #noah sebastian fluff #noah sebastian headcanons #noah sebastian fic #noah sebastian fanfiction #noah sebastian x reader #noah sebastian smut #bad omens blurb #bad omens moodboard #bad omens headcanons #bad omens fluff #bad omens fanfiction

[genericpuff]

So I just read episode 275 and I’m sort of confused?

(I took screenshots, but the ask won’t let me include them so) At the end of the episode Hera summons these little balls of light(?) , maybe small stars(?) and then she casts them down onto Kronos.

I feel like that was really anticlimactic and not illustrated well. Along with the viewer not seeing Hera fight Kronos, a God that’s been tormenting her, her last attack(?) doesn’t feel right — like, there’s no power behind, if anything, I’d compare it to what a healers animation in a game looks like.

Rachel even emphasizes how strong and brilliant Hera is with Persephone, but then doesn’t show us anything. I know the scene was split between Hera and Hades dealing with Kronos physically and mentally (asleep), but it was sort of disappointing.

What I think really sucks about the setup for the Hera vs. Kronos fight is that, as cool of a concept as it is to have Hera and Hades both fighting Kronos in separate timelines, it fails on multiple levels:

1.) All the build up of Hera saying "I was created to destroy you" winds up meaning nothing because it cuts away to Hades for the entire fight

2.) When it does cut back to Hera, she's just kinda... sitting on Kronos? Like what did she do besides just breaking one of his fingers? Why weren't we allowed to see that? I think this is more so clearly Rachel's inability to write/draw fight scenes showing through, so she relied entirely on the Hades' sequence which was less physical fighting and more just Hades monologuing before turning Kronos into a diamond.

3.) And speaking of the diamond thing... so we're just expected to believe Hades could turn not just people, but Titans into diamonds? This whole time? How is he just suddenly able to do this? It feels like a shonen anime where the main character has a flashback to a scene from 3 seconds ago (in this case, Hades' conversation with Melinoe) and then unlocks a new special ability through it, but it somehow feels even less earned than it does in anime (and trust me, I can't stand that anime trope at the best of times LOL) Like at least in something like Naruto it's like... okay we have this ability Naruto's been trying to master and we've seen him work at it for a few episodes so seeing him finally nail it on the brink of defeat is like, really hype and fun. But Hades just turns Kronos into a rock out of nowhere when we had zero reason or build-up to believe that would ever be possible. Why not, IDK, have Morpheus finally master her ability to dream dive and use that to trap Kronos in an eternal sleep? At least that would have had some pre-existing foundation especially with how much of S3 was focused on the dream diving shit. IDK, the whole thing's really contrived and silly and relies a lot on the reader just going "okay! yeah that makes sense!"

4.) So Hades turned timey-wimey Kronos into a diamond... but then it cuts back to present Kronos who's just been somehow defeated by Hera through ✨magic✨ and that's just it? What about present Kronos? Is he just still trapped in Tartarus now? Why isn't he also a diamond if Hades turned some past form of Kronos into a diamond? Or was the goal just to free Melinoe so present Kronos couldn't keep using her powers? But who's to say Kronos can't just do what he did again by reaching through time to grab Melinoe and start the whole thing over again? Especially now that Melinoe doesn't remember what happened and would be none the wiser that Kronos has attempted this before? Is it because this is present Kronos whose time abilities were 'exhausted' to him 'long ago'? Then how was he able to pull Hades into the time-bowl to begin with? Again, just like the diamond thing, this entire conflict relies a lot on readers just shrugging and accepting it because there's zero foundation for the concepts that are being portrayed and thus zero logic besides "just go with it".

I can go on and on about it but at the end of the day LO just isn't a comic that should have attempted having any big Marvel fight scenes. This is an issue in a lot of romance comics that have gone on too long, they start to lose the plot around their third season and then just throw everything out the window for some other big plot that makes no sense within the context of the story. Somehow LO, a Greek myth fantasy adaption, made fighting the God of Time seem out of place and boring.

God I can't wait for Hades 2.

#ask me anything #anon ama #ama #anon ask me anything #lore olympus critical #anti lore olympus #lo critical

[wwolflesbian]

got to mess around with the dragons dogma 2 character creator and DAMN it seems pretty fuckin good. let me tell you when I realized not only was the skin color menu diverse but you can also pick the UNDERTONE of your character's skin my mind was blown. I've never seen another game do that. I can actually make a character with my skintone which never happens. I absolutely will not be able to afford the game when it comes out cause I am deeply broke and it's $70 (rip) but when I can pick up a cheap physical copy later I'll be super vibing.

BUT my only complaint from first blush is that you can't give your character a unibrow so I can't make them full cuban like I want. oh and while you can make your character very large I wasn't able to make mine look appropriately fat but maybe if I played around with it more I'd be able to manage it. there are a lot of sliders.

#I only play dragons dogma as huge people who can throw everything and everyone they see of a cliff #I keep saying it but modern capcom keeps releasing banger after banger #I have no reason to believe that this game will suck #but I suppose we'll see especially since I'm not getting it at launch

[b4kuch1n]

same teacher, different lessons

transcript

#sonic the hedgehog #dr. ivo eggman robotnik #miles tails prower #sonic frontiers #SPOILERS. THERE ARE SPOILERS IN THIS COMIC BY THE WAY. #SONIC FRONTIERS SPOILERS #smiles gently I can not believe I let sonic the fuckign hedgehog ruin my life #(I can I totally can) #hi <3 if you follow me because I drew this sonic comic. don't! #don't do it! follow me bc I'm funny and hot and devastatingly smart don't follow me bc I draw sonic stuff. bc it won;t happen again #I mean it. not bc I dont like or want to do sonic stuff. but bc I am literally in the middle of a job rn #one that I want to invest 100% of my time and brain in #this comic is actually an effort to win my brain back so I can do my job lol #because I finished miss penny snapcube's streams of this game and it force fed me emotions #I just! I just thought sonic would come tell eggman abt sage!! idk seems like something he'd do!!! #and also the whole thing abt letting the characters move on and have a future and change and develop #vs Killing My Baby Little Guy Daughter For Like Ten Minutes #thematically interesting! also for some reasons I had. a pretty easy time drawing this #I was mouthbreathing galloping like a horse to finishing this. Because I Need To Work #I didnt expect to have a good time with these designs tho idk why. probably bc I most suck shit at drawing animals #but to be fair yet again sonic and tails are little guys. theyre animal but theyre also like dudes. also sonic's design is kinda perfect #as far as character design goes he's really pretty goo- wait I made a continuity error hol on #okay. okay I fixed it. no problem. no matter 's all good now #okay. I go sleep now. today has been very noisy. but this actually got me through it okay #thank you sonic the hedgehog. that was pretty cool of u #have a good night guys! absolute freedom is probably really really sad #long post

[bhaalble]

I like Shadowheart but I legitimately do not know where the narrative emerges from that Lae'zel is the aggressor because in every single playthrough I've done Shadowheart talks about her like three times more and usually unprompted. Lae'zel's RUDE sure but the worst thing she does to Shadowheart is tell us not to save her in the middle of a burning crashing mind flayer ship (while doing nothing to stop us if we decide to do it). Shadowheart comes out the gate suspicious of Lae'zel and is incredibly hostile and mistrustful of her not because of anything she's actually done. Shadowheart has actually done something to Lae'zel's people and she knows it but when confronted about that immediately jumps to "well it was probably stolen plunder anyways 😒😒😒" ITS NOT. ITS CARVED WITH GITH RUNES AND HAS BEEN WITH THEM FOR GENERATIONS. AND ALSO THAT WOULDNT MAKE IT YOURS.

The weirdest the game gets about this is that fight where Lae'zel challenges her to a duel and Shadowheart instead sneaks up on her in the middle of the night and holds a knife to her throat! And then starts!!! lecturing LAE'ZEL about how they need not be enemies and they could instead direct that hostility at others! This is seconds after "If the others ask, I'll say you were turning. Don't expect to be mourned" btw

To be clear this too is yuri but girl you have problems! Conditions even!

#it occasionally (often) feels like the game really banks on me agreeing on gith default evil #which i dont for any number of reasons. #but also laezel is like pretty much nothing but practical the whole opening act #considering the stakes she believes are at play! #very rarely does she actually pick fights with the others she just doesnt have patience with them #also its deeply funny to be playing as a gith sorceror who's mostly in shadowhearts good books #she keeps expecting orroros to agree and orroros is like hey man im scared shitless of her but like #for a reason #whats your reason it doesnt seem like you have a reason #then they get a proper look at the astral prism and go oh thats the reason #well that sucks >: ( #bg3 #baldurs gate 3 #shadowheart #lae'zel

[donerunning]

I am thinking about how Christa’s dynamic with clementine would shape her Dynamic with Kenny should you choose the Kenny path in season 2. Being torn away from one Angry and broken person and immediately being thrust into the custody of Another. Both of them having been survivors of the s1 group, the only living ties she had to Lee (until Lily). Christa’s anger and grief manifesting in silence and full emotional withdrawal and Kenny’s anger and grief manifesting in explosive and unpredictable outbursts. How Christa taught her how to survive, and how to navigate around him safely. And hey, at least he talks to us. Right?

#twdg #the walking dead game #clementine twdg #kenny twdg #christa twdg #look. look. I know this is based off of the assumption that Christa and Clem really did have a bad relationship post omid. but I’m working #with what we got here and what we saw fucking sucked. #I know it’s like maybe just a writing issue but I refuse to believe that clementine just never speaks of that time for no reason #and any Kenny defenders please save your breath Kenny has always been an abusive father #I think he’s a really good character I do not think he’s a really good person!! #imo leaving Kenny at Wellington is always the best most optimistic ending but I recently did a run where I just impulsively shot him after #he killed Jane and I was like wait someone cooked here #I have got to get this Christa comic out of my system #lots of Christa and Kenny parallels (I made them up in my head)

[lumpsbumpsandwhumps]

fnaf movie..........

#i saw it (: #there were exactly two (2) points in which i wanted to scream in theaters #otherwise it was pretty mid #like it was entertaining for 1.5 hrs and had a lot of the game lore from across the series melded into one #plus new original lore to piece together holes #i think thats the only reason i didnt LOVE it tbh -- the new canon kept taking me out bc of what i already knew about the games #so someone would say/reveal something and i'd be like “?????” and have to take a sec to adjust #but otherwise!!! #i give it...6.5/10 #fun to watch but dont need to see it again #also the previews kinda sucked too EXCEPT that frankenstein horror/comedy/romcom #i am so fucking into that and you better believe thats the most insanely perfect whump movie

[ars0nism]

thinking about that one haytham character study/au i wrote where it, to this day, feels like i got possessed by the spirit of this fictional man while writing it

#i usually dont claim to know a character better than everyone else but i know haytham kenway better than anything else #basically its an au where shay stayed and they saved ziio's village bc fuck you ubisoft for killing off ziio #but yeah he meets young connor. #and i took SO MUCH of the introspection from the forsaken novel #the thing with haytham is that its a thin line between overly angsty and not enough?? #he recognizes the injustices done to him. comes so close to admitting hes on the wrong side of history. but he does believe in the templars #granted its been half a year so i dont remember THAT clearly #but just. all about him is so #his mother was so horrified by what he did. his father died when he was so young all those 'when youre older' promises dying with him #HIM BEING THE ONE WHO SAVES CONNOR FROM BEING HANGED BECAUSE THE ASSASSINS FAILED #INDIRECTLY CAUSING HTE DOWNFALL OF THE AMERICAN RITE AND HIS OWN FUCKINGERDGFJ DEATH #god remember when assassins creed characters were still interesting #it took me well over a minute to remember the valhalla antagonists #mostly because they were A. completely irrelevant for 90% of the game or B. fucking annoying and nothing else #personally the only reason i stuck around in valhalla for that long was because it let me have gay sex #was the story engaging? rarely! was the side content good? sometimes! #im not even a nostalgia rose tinted glasses loser my first ac was odyssey #honestly i think haytham might be where the morally questionable mentally ill dads who love their kids but suck at parenting thing started #like for me. my affection for those specific characters #haytham is the blueprint. for better or for worse

[dbphantom]

this game is so pretty it's not fair

not pictured: lucien clipping through the floor behind me

#i've been really into skyrim lately #the vibes are immaculate #it's a huge comfort game for me #been falling asleep to those '10 hour skyrim ambiance' videos on yt lmao #reminded me i should share some of these screenshots i took the past few days #cruddy rambles #yes my dragonborn is a battlemage what about it!!! #it's genuinely a really fun playstyle to play support while your teammates destroy everything for you #play on legendary and setav their damage values to like .3 and it's so so so fun to play support #you get oneshot by everything so your followers HAVE to take aggro #im a conjuration/alteration mage so i can summon walls of earth to block enemies and wraiths that explode on impact #the thalmor embassy is going to suck but it'll be a fun experiment to see how far this build can take me #currently my dragonborn's goal is to 'save up' enough money to pay for his education at the college of winterhold. so he's roaming around #doing bounties and got roped into the main story by accident #so far we've found lucien kaidan inigo and lydia (who is getting replaced by auri when we get close enough to make me beelining to her #believable on the 'roleplay' part of things) naturally #my dragonborn is originally from solstheim and came to skyrim for the college. which. he doesn't know it's horrible so that'll be fun. #listen i wanted a reason to actually have my character 'established' before i did college stuff as for roleplay reasons i'll be leaving #my followers at home for that questline #so he needs the money lmao

[eclysia]

okay i can talk a little about this now. lets try and dissect who madame x is.

part a. Narrowing It Down

dialogue and appearances point to madame x being a theolia. that crucial "father, i have lost" line that she drops when winning against her in blacksteeple is one that i believe points to yveltal; who, with damning evidence especially thanks to v13, is vitus.

somehow. hes got pieces of himself fucking everywhere.

the hospital records of anathea having black hair and red eyes were certainly not incorrect, but the fact that they were found just before the madame x helmet reveal is, to me, a grade A red herring. the mystery that is madame xs identity would not be solved that easily solely because you kept sakitron alive, at least in my opinion.

however, it gives us some helpful info. anathea picked up blond hair and gray eyes thanks to the archetype, and v13 revealed that vitus is sterile. as a result, the theolia children solely have anatheas genes + archetype. if their archetype influence was removed, they would more than likely revert to moms hair and eye color

no one else has black hair and red eyes besides, uh.. maybe saki? you really want to tell me madame x is saki rn? lol

-

there is more to this theory, and a more crude version of it was written up by someone else here.

#sighss theres so much more i want to talk about #its so difficult trying to be 100% accurate when i cannot sift through the game though #a few notes from there and my own knowledge i want to touch on #1. kenneth was able to split his emotions away from himself entirely. i believe that maria did the same with herself for unknown reasons at #2. legitimately? melias 'i suck at math' line proves that she isnt maria.. at least not entirely #do i think her math skills went to madame x. yes #melias archetype wish and marias archetype wish are also complete opposites #with maria wishing for someone to come and rescue her #and melia wishing for the strength to protect people so she had to stop being saved #3. there should be NO reason why madame x needs MELIA IN PARTICULAR. #there are tons of other juiced up archetype people out there #PLUS xen has access to the third layer. they should have documents on these folk #4. minor but i want to point at the crystals on melias magical girl outfit #and the crystal embedded in madame xs outfit #plus the way xs helmet curls a bit like melias hair #and the way that 2/4 of melias like.. wing things? arceus things #are corrupted. i do not think this has to do with her siblings #but rather than the suggestion that she is half of one whole #i want to rip through the game and explain more arghgh.

[veeslug]

I agree the Scarlet and Violet have problems (namely the glitchy and broken nature of the game due to time constraints the people at gamefreak had to work under) but it feels like every time a new Pokémon game comes out, ten thousand people who haven’t been Pokémon’s target demographic in ten+ years say something along the lines of “This game SUCKS the best Pokémon game is (first Pokémon game they played as a kid) and I am NOT biased about that!!”. And it’s not based on the actual problems with the game or how it was made, it’s just that there don’t like some of the mechanics or the new Pokémon.

#‘these games are too easy’ they’re not meant to be hard #the game is rated E for ever for a reason; and small kids are a part of that everyone believe it or not #you don’t have to keep playing the Pokémon games if you don’t like them anymore!! #just boot up an emulator of your favorite one!! it’s not that hard #fern’s ramblings #Pokémon #pokémon scarvio #Pokémon scarlet #Pokémon violet #tbh my main (not glitch/workplace related) complaint about scarlet is that I wish there were more new Pokémon #I think black/white is my favorite region just because every Pokémon is new and I wish they would do that again #it was extremely disappointing to go into the Pokédex and see that only a third of the Pokémon in the game were new/specific to this region #wait for ten years when Pokémon dirt and rock or something comes out #I guarantee you that there will be people saying something like ‘this new game SUCKS the franchise peaked at sun/moon!!’

[crypto-botany]

Smajor summoning a storm to cause ~10 players to dc so they have an excuse to restart ace race because Dream won (in color!!!)

#personally I believe that the redo was fair and justified. it affected such a large number of players that the results would´ve been skewed #especially in a game like ace race where losing just a few seconds can put you down a number of places (like fruit) #dream has a right to be frustrated at redoing the game. but from what ive watched from his vod he doesnt let it go #and he doesnt understand (or care to understand) the reasoning behind the decision. #as someone who´s really competative and also has a hard time letting losses go I somewhat sympathize with him #but his behaviour still leaves a sour taste in my mouth. the ´jokes´ during hitw. picking at the mods. ect #(although I will say I thought his ´technical difficulties´ was funny. i love mcc shenanigans) #it sucked watching scott´s pov where he makes a joke about being called slurs no matter which decision he made #and realizing that he actually really does have to go through this #(i know that dream is not directly responsible for his audience´s reactions. #but i think he needs to understand that a group of them will act on what he says. and because his fanbase is large so is that group) #i try to avoid twitter every mcc because everything has become so polarized. especially around dream. like buildmart... #(which is a whole other post in itself) #sorry this turned into a rant lol

[jaythelay]

I honest to god saw a video that said this year was the best year for gaming, and said this year had the highest meta critic scores of all time-

And I laughed and laughed as he made no points for but against what he was trying to say, back to baaaack.

Imagine thinking metacritic review scores represents public perception. Imagine thinking the horrendous state of game reviewership and corporatization, all the memes about IGN, none of that EVER happened.

Just sad man. We live in an era where kids are becoming adults, and their unfortunate only childhood with gaming was the cruelest period known as the 360 era. And they were too young to notice all the negative changes, all the worsening products, nickel and diming, all the fundamental flaws-

And now? Their only experience with "bad" games is the fucking Gollum game. Gone are the days of Horse Armor where people had standards and saw EXACTLYZ WHERE THAT WOULD TAKE US, gone are the days where DLC was violently hated for being the once free update it really was, gone are the days where you Bought and Owned a fucking game, top to bottom, no extra purchases, no updates that steal your game and replace it with a worse/different one.

The modern horrendous, disgusting, anti-consumer state of gaming is now default for ever. And I don't even know who I can be mad at anymore, but for sure, your dumbfuckass coming on and bringing up review scores like an entire YEAR wasn't dedicated to discussing the entire state of gaming journalism and how reviews are bought and paid for to keep the site running via ads from the same game companies.

I feel like a bitter old man, telling kids they can have better if they just care about themselves enough to not let companies shanghai them with flashing lights and Addiction Experts meant to give them mental and financial damages long-term permanently. That was never a problem in the PS2 era, it was never a problem for 2 decades, until Microsoft came in with the awful Xbox 360.

Genuinely depressing. I'm not mad at that kid for being ignorant, and wanting to defend their hobby, I just want them to play good games and know what a real artistic experience can be and bro, I'm sorry, but no triple a game has provided that in at least 2 decades. Not a single one. If you think you did, trust me, there's an indie title out there that will completely child-ify that previous experience. I also guarantee, the triple a game stole it from the indie title, as the industry has shown in the past, it's not above robbing the small person for even an extra dollar.

#gaming industry #ya really gotta give up on everyone and everything to be involved anymore #having standards only sucks when nobody else has them #but having integrity and self-respect means believing in what you've experienced and seen throughout time to maintain those standards #and at the end of the day #I never moved my goal post #it's been the exact same since I was 14 #DLC is bad because expansion packs are simply superior and worth both the creative effort and cost for consumer #microtransactions are proof DLC is bad for the industry by splitting the problem into an even bigger pile of problems #Addiction Experts being hired is proof Microtransactions are bad for the consumer because they're literally designed to give you mental and #financial problems #Season Passes and Pre-Orders are bad for everyone literally everyone but the CEO and investors because You Are Paying For A Promise That #Isn't Even Fucking Made #it also incentivises not taking time on your work and instead rushing because now you have to shit out a product #and every company is terrible because they always always always screw someone over without any reason every single fucking time #I have not moved my goal posts #The entire community and industry at large just never set a standard #never cared about anything #but will vehemently defend this bullshit they themselves show to the world they only superficially care about

[crabs-nonsense]

Guys. Depression. *melts into the floor*

#im okay tho!!! #i learned that apparently people genuinely care about me and vague posting concerning stuff and then disappearing can be bad #once said something and disappeared and came back to comments such as crab im going to hunt you for sport for scaring me and i was like what #crab says words #anyways my new meds ive been on for two weeks now have a warning that they can cause increased suicidal thoughts and i have depression #so im like is this just my depression be depression or is it the meds and honestly who knows aha #im not worried about it tho because the warning is for hormone imbalance making you sad not the meds magically putting thoughts in your head #so when youre an aethiest who believes you stop existing when you die and fear not existing more than anything in the world well.... #i can be sad and hate myself and hate existance and wish i wasnt here as much as i want i will never end up dead over it #small mercies #ive been having so many bad depression days lately it sucks #ive managed to not hard spiral because my friends are really cool about being there if im going through it and reach out #im just bad at the reaching out part aha #i dont want to be a burden and i have been brushed off and ignored when reaching out too many times so #its hard for me to do sometimes #my work around is not addressing the fact im reaching out for that reason at all and just being like yo wanna play video games with me #its been decently effective :D

[literalgrill]

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