#its so over but also please. it would be so funny

[valsdelulucorner]

Mermaid mammon head cannons <3

At first when Lucifer saved you and brought you to the island, he just thought you were just a boring old human but once he got to know you, this mer became so clingy to you its not funny. He would literally be waiting for you on the shore bright and early so he can spend more time with you, using the excuse of him being your care taker as a excuse about why he wants to be with you all the time

Once you let belphie out of the cove he was trapped in and got fucking killed, the cove opened up for you guys to make a actually home. He got really exited at this idea when he saw that he could also make camp in the cove because of the shallow pools that fit him perfectly. He called dibs on the pool closest to where you set up your bed in the cove, he will be so smug about this when he managed to his spot but he is also glad he got it because if assures him you will be safe at night

He loves to take you ship wreck diving, holding your hand tight while he leads you around the sunken wreck. He always keeps you in his sight while you broth explore, always checking rooms first before leading you inside to go treasure hunting. He cant let a shark or something hurt his treasure

In mermaid culture, leaving gifts and prey for someone means they want to court and mate them. If you start finding little gold trinkets, shiny objects and dead fish near your part of the cove, please make sure none of the other brothers will see because there will be a clash of teeth and claws. While you guys are alone in the cove however, (and when he works up the confidence lol) he will approach you with his shiniest trinket and largest fish he caught, acting all bashful and shy as he explains the courting of his people. He would be over the moon if you say yes and agree to be his

Because you sleep in the dry part of the cove and he sleeps in the little pools, its difficult to cuddle at night. Because his pool is closest to your ledge, he will sometimes rest his top half ontop of you while his tail remains in the pool of water. In the daytime however, he will either cuddle you in his water pool or you will cuddle him up on your ledge. Either way, he loves being close to you

If your terrified of going into the water, he will either come up onto the sand with you or try and help you ease your way into being able to swim with him. If you just straight up refuse to go into the water after what happened with belphie, he will haul himself up onto the sand and lay with you, blushing bashfully while you guys just talk. It makes him smile to know that he is making you feel more comfortable and less alone by doing this with you, he jeez does he appreciate it if you grab a large banana leaf or something to protect his skin from the hot sand.

If you came it the island as a athlete or a jewelry maker, he will genuinely think you sparkle brighter then you already do. If you were a athlete or someone strong, you pick him up over your shoulders and take him for a little trip up the beach. When you first did it, he freaked out but after a while, he got used to it and saw this as a thing like ship wreck hunting, being with you while you guys search for treasure on land. He's a blushing mess the entire time he's on your shoulder, he's not used to people touching his tail but he doesn't mind it. If you are a jewelry or someone that works with wire and little trinkets, he will be constantly bringing you cool little trinkets he finds and tries to get you the materials to fix them up. He will even try and make you something cool himself, blushing profusely while he gives you a cute little bracelet he made out of shell, jewels and wire

He will allow you to check out his tail if you ask, a bright blush covering his nose and cheeks as he lays next to you on the sand. He will slightly curl around you while you trace lines down his tail, his hands gently tracing lines into your thighs in return. He's never been this close to a live human, he finds your legs fascinating in the way that you find his tail fascinating. If you like to swim, he loves to see how you use your legs while you swim like how you admire the way his tail glides through the water. He finds his treasure strange in the best way possible

He's fascinated by fire. The first day on the island when Lucifer got you some fish to eat, you made a fire and cut up the fish. Why would you do that? Your wasting the yummy parts? On the first night he will watch you from the water as you cook your meal, getting alot closer to you and the fire when you guys start to bond. He tried abit of the cooked fish and he found it alright, he still preferers raw fish, cooked fish like that is so dry

If you manage to find a way off the island, he will genuinely be so heartbroken that you would want to leave. Wasn't he good enough for his treasure? Did he make them not happy? But it was going so well.... He can let that happen, he wont let his treasure leave. You write "SOS" in the sand? suddenly the tide gets bad and washes away the writing in the sand. You make a boat? he will either ruin it before you could leave or make sure it doesn't go far from the island, just being around the corner from you when it starts to sink. If you get more persistent about leaving and try to get some attention from a helicopter from above, he's dragging you back to the cove while holding you close to his body, keeping a clawed hand over your mouth while he hides his face in your neck. You cant leave him treasure, not now. Not. Ever

Mammon had vibrant yellow scales with his tail being a beautiful mix of yellow and white. His nails are less sharper then lucifer but still sharp, beautiful yellow scales littering his hands and ending at his forearm. He had dirty white gills around his neck while his gills on his chest were directly over each of his ribs. His fins are more flowy along the sides of his tail, his larger fin at the bottom of his tail being a beautiful mix of yellow, cream and white. The whites of his eyes were a bright yellow while his pupils were blue, thicker irises but still slits. His tounge is a nice shade of cream and his teeth are more like vampire teeth but with his bottom teeth having fangs aswell. He is covered in bangles and treasure, he pierced his own ears and tounge so he could use some of the jewelry. Mammon calls you his treasure

. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Here is the headcannons i did for the brothers I ref in this if your confused. The brothers as mermaids

This was so much fun, I might actually make some more AU's for the brothers! This has been sitting in my drafts for god knows how long though, its not the best and im going to go over this but overall, i think it turned out alright

Who should I do next?

[abouttofillhisshoes]

📚 would love to hear some of ur recs !!!!

oh my god wait wait i came prepared

Touch tank by @sugar-coat-it is my fucking go-to oh my god the amount of times ive reread this is concerning. such good prose and the build up and DIALOGUE (im such a slut for good dialogue) makes me want to rip my skin off /pos

Mine by @wreckedandpolemic is so. insanely good i'm not one for dom matty but this. this is where its at mate. The way you write him is so delicious and satisfying to read i cant even begin to put into words.

YNA // YFL by @drinkurkombucha oh my GOD stop stop fucking i cant do this. The emotional rollercoaster that was this fic still haunts my dreams AND writing. I've taken so much inspiration from them and their writing style, and a lot of MPIND comes from the absolute mess i was after i read this.

The Cellophane House // Lost boys by @vinylandcoffeecollection i need to DIE its not even funny. The amount of tears i shed over this two parter warrants me being compensated for like. emotional damages the angst is so angst here its written like a true novel. Such a icon their other work is also insanely good, please go read it i beg

@haveyouseenherlately her entire blurb masterlist needs to be bound into a fucking book im so serious. So talented i cant even begin to describe it.

@awellposhmagazine YOU LEGENDDD oh my god jaye she is sooo ughhhh i love her writing style so much especially in this blurb holy shit i actually had to take a nature walk after reading that

@toomuchracket her entire masterlist needs to be studied and analyzed oh my fucking christ. Office matty has such a special place in my heart please never kill him off, you're one of the greatest writers i've ever had the pleasure of reading.

@noacfslut we all know and love elle for her Mechanic Matty AU but dyou know what my absolute favourite is? Sleazy Janitor Matty SEDATE ME NOW OH MY GOD????? He's so. i cant do this elle you're amazing and your writing style is so vivid and your DIALOGUE let me die rq.

@abiiors just read the entire masterlist and let me yell at you about it then please xx. my personal fav is corruption do not SPEAK TO ME ABOUT IT holy shit a nature walk was definitely needed afterwards.

i cant even begin to name every single extraordinary writer i know, but everyone and anyone who puts out fics deserves to be on this list. You're all legendary and some of these fics, especially CH/YFL have truly affected me on a deeper, emotional level.

To all fic writers, thank you.

[moeblob]

Deacon loves two things: Ymber and digging himself a grave.

Fulj hates one thing: Deacon.

[ryoukio]

weskennedy au where leon and wesker are at the same beach for windsurfing/kitesurfing/wingdinging idk which one yet and leon is, really bad at it.....

Wesker offers to teach him out of pity because its both entertaining and incredibly frustrating watching him try not to drown.

[cowboy-robooty]

okay. calling all yandereheads. does anyone know any stories that has a yandere but like they have a sidekick (that doesnt really want to be their sidekick but is forced into it and decides to make the most of their situation and ends up acting like a silly friend to them) and at first they hate their sidekick and want their ass dead but keep em around bc their sidekick helps them stalk their crush but then the story does a switcharoo where the yandere realizes sidekick is their #truelove and goes yandere for sidekick

[funnierasafictive]

your talks about knowing if someone is a fictive or not is fucking hilarious because like- for us SPECIFICALLY I’m essentally front personified and thus the perm fronter and front gatekeeper as of now but like!!!- for us we operate a lot on what we can (phantom) feel, hear or see- like yeah it’s not most clear but like- suddenly feeling picked up or splatted against a wall but not SEEING it happen to the body and KNOWING it’s not happening to your body is a REAL FAST reality check, drawing something and suddenly feeling like there’s wires under your skin shocking you half to death bc youmanaged to actually draw a brain buddy without realizing even more so.

would recomend checking to see if the voices register as “not yours” or “in another language”- even if you register the words and language if it doesn’t FEEL like what you know as yours/body’s you should check shit out- we primarily use body’s voice or I’m limited to it- however I DO register the spanish and such languages at times and I can 10000% tell you that juanaflippa threatened someone with a gun bc she didn’t want to see a “not my mate” throwing themself on me and I 1000% registered those words as rusian despite body being english only and the voice she had at her disposal as ONLY the body’s voice.

idk if any of this will help anyone but it MIGHT be more aproachable to ask them to say/do something a certain way involving your senses and check that way than other methods,,

AGH THATS SO TRUE. this is nicer than me going "annoy them" BAHAHA

[bidaryl]

the thing about twd fic dying off around s6/s7 is that plot lines and characters beyond that are barely incorporated and included so now we're forever stuck reading about fucking negan being the biggest baddest killer to ever walk the earth and the whisperers and reapers and governors are left in the dust. for once i just wanna read about negan being the Alexandria Outcast: Hated By Most, Needed By Some, and let alpha or the fucking commonwealth be the monster at the end of the story. please

[nomaishuttle]

looking back on it i do think my childhood was engineered in a lab to make a really maladjusted person

[themyscirah]

Started thinking about the Amanda Waller + Ben Turner relationship again.... fuck, I'm gonna need a minute

[gothamcityneedsme]

i would accept the joker if like, the brainiac brainwashing unlocked the joker locked in batman's mind though. a jokerfied batman is right there. then you don't even have to kill him. that'd be a blast.

[be-the-glenn-to-my-maggie]

The time thing is actually something I'm glad you mentioned in your response because I've been puzzling over it myself. I can see this happening one of three ways so far: 1) the RDA have been there for longer than in canon and Grace and them ended up arriving at a later time. 2) the meshing is less organic and more purposeful. After gaining their independence they still want to keep parts of their culture but want to sort of move away from the more traditional stories told by their creators/captors, so they mesh the stories and songs on purpose to make something uniquely theirs.

Or 3) since they are just experimental versions of the recoms, it makes sense that the RDA scientists might have needed time to perfect the memory transfer, especially since around two-thirds of their test subjects are from the people who volunteered their memories way back when the science of memory transfer was just becoming a thing as to not waste more valuable memories. Therefore a lot of their memories are often muddled, and those who can remember fully are few and far between. I imagine that if this was the reason I chose it would also give me a reason as to why Paz went up so high in the rankings: she's one of the last to be made, therefor all of her memories are intact. With the knowledge she knows, it's no wonder she became the Priestess of Songs. Plus, she knows far more about the RDA than the others because of how long she was with them, which could be another part of that.

Hmm, very interesting!! I think any version could be very cool. I think it seems like you have the most fleshed out about the last one. I kind of like the idea of them all being somewhat defective memory-wise.

My best friend suffered a brain injury while we were growing up, we were about sixteen, and sometimes talking to her is just having the same few conversations over and over with slight variations. She is the same person with the same personality, she just doesn't remember that she told me this story last week, you know? It really isn't that big a deal, because she lived and she is much better than she used to be. Often with fictional memory issues or brain injuries, I feel like a repeated story or a forgotten detail is treated as a sign of the character still being broken, not quite healed. Sometimes it's every day life. I like the idea of a whole clan of characters who are... I don't know, damaged mentally, for lack of a better word, but it's just their way of life. I've read a few stories where Spider has mental trauma from the RDA mind reading machine, and the memory thing being such a major deal always makes me vaguely sad. I'd love one where he'd adjust to his new normal.

When my best friend is tired she CANNOT balance, she will fall trying to walk over something even if it's the only thing on the floor. It's just her now so it's the funniest shit in the world, we just make fun of her. Idk. That idea makes me feel warm and happy. My apologies for going off topic, you made me think about something that's really only been a half formed thought.

[daphnalia]

only the funniest things being allowed in goofs realm is giving me hope for yeet bigly content cause name anything funnier in regards to this godforsaken podcast

[killmebythebeach]

So was anyone gonna tell me that s5 is so unbelievably sad or was I supposed to find that out myself.

[readymades2002]

the thing is i feel like /i/ can read tone pretty well but no one can read my unaffected tone as anything but pissy and then i immediately validate their reading of that tone by getting pissy!!!!!!!! like okay i wasnt mad before but now i’m mad!!!! are you happy!!!

[raeygina-george]

Thinking about the actual story I have to give to my au

[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...