#although it is just a mobile game

[ariseur]

it feels so surreal that jujutsu kaisen’s done. like, no more jjk chapter leaks?? no more manga?? no disney kaisen?? 😞

[loregoddess]

me, picking up an amazing game and having the time of my life playing it: oh boy, can't wait to see all the cool fanart and stuff!

me later, having once again picked an amazing game with the tiniest fandom in existence: ah, I see. we make our own food here.

[puppyeared]

if you're walking at 5mph, but your feet are on sideways, and the sky turns green at 2:53, and Keanu Reeves has been sent to Neptune, what's your favorite video game

i cant walk 5mph in the first place, im only 5'4 and i have to walk like marvin the fucking martian everywhere i go

if my feet were on sideways i would still manage to get my shoes on wrong because i cant tell my left from my right

if the sky turns green that means every single car on the road is allowed to go at the same time

keanu reeves cant be sent to neptune with an expired passport

my favorite videogame MIGHT be professor layton and the diabolical box just because ive never been able to get over the ending, but mario galaxy and deltarune also come to mind

[telomirage]

tyler: is velcro a thing in this world?

liz: let's say yes

tyler: okay

james: whoa! whoa. I don't think so, folks

[vodkaing]

all 4 event cards in one pull 🥳

[gfl-neural-cloud]

Dear Professor,

After the maintenance on October 17th (that's tomorrow), Imhotep and Antonina's Arma Inscripta "Life's Bounty", "Zero-Day Weaver" will be available! Arma Inscripta can enhance your Dolls' skills and their overall combat capabilities. And these two are worth noting.

Antonina's combat and debuff abilities are expanded, and at AI3 becomes a multi-target attacker. She also inflicts a new debuff which has helpfully been left undefined.

Meanwhile Imhotep comes back from the training grounds as a certified Harmacist. Each level of AI enhances both her ability to deal out damage to her enemies and healing to her allies. Not just separately but at the same time. Most importantly, at AI3 she powers up her allies to deal additional damage and heal themselves. There's a reason the meta slaves call her essential.

[deathfavor]

He appreciates Ran's focus on getting things done effectively.

[dukeofriven]

Important Question

Has a Youtuber ever advertised a genuinely good mobile game?

[exeggcute]

the great reddit API meltdown of '23, or: this was always bound to happen

there's a lot of press about what's going on with reddit right now (app shutdowns, subreddit blackouts, the CEO continually putting his foot in his mouth), but I haven't seen as much stuff talking about how reddit got into this situation to begin with. so as a certified non-expert and Context Enjoyer I thought it might be helpful to lay things out as I understand them—a high-level view, surveying the whole landscape—in the wonderful world of startups, IPOs, and extremely angry users.

disclaimer that I am not a founder or VC (lmao), have yet to work at a company with a successful IPO, and am not a reddit employee or third-party reddit developer or even a subreddit moderator. I do work at a startup, know my way around an API or two, and have spent twelve regrettable years on reddit itself. which is to say that I make no promises of infallibility, but I hope you'll at least find all this interesting.

profit now or profit later

before you can really get into reddit as reddit, it helps to know a bit about startups (of which reddit is one). and before I launch into that, let me share my Three Types Of Websites framework, which is basically just a mental model about financial incentives that's helped me contextualize some of this stuff.

(1) website/software that does not exist to make money: relatively rare, for a variety of reasons, among them that it costs money to build and maintain a website in the first place. wikipedia is the evergreen example, although even wikipedia's been subject to criticism for how the wikimedia foundation pays out its employees and all that fun nonprofit stuff. what's important here is that even when making money is not the goal, money itself is still a factor, whether it's solicited via donations or it's just one guy paying out of pocket to host a hobby site. but websites in this category do, generally, offer free, no-strings-attached experiences to their users.

(I do want push back against the retrospective nostalgia of "everything on the internet used to be this way" because I don't think that was ever really true—look at AOL, the dotcom boom, the rise of banner ads. I distinctly remember that neopets had multiple corporate sponsors, including a cookie crisp-themed flash game. yahoo bought geocities for $3.6 billion; money's always been trading hands, obvious or not. it's indisputable that the internet is simply different now than it was ten or twenty years ago, and that monetization models themselves have largely changed as well (I have thoughts about this as it relates to web 1.0 vs web 2.0 and their associated costs/scale/etc.), but I think the only time people weren't trying to squeeze the internet for all the dimes it can offer was when the internet was first conceived as a tool for national defense.)

(2) website/software that exists to make money now: the type that requires the least explanation. mostly non-startup apps and services, including any random ecommerce storefront, mobile apps that cost three bucks to download, an MMO with a recurring subscription, or even a news website that runs banner ads and/or offers paid subscriptions. in most (but not all) cases, the "make money now" part is obvious, so these things don't feel free to us as users, even to the extent that they might have watered-down free versions or limited access free trials. no one's shocked when WoW offers another paid expansion packs because WoW's been around for two decades and has explicitly been trying to make money that whole time.

(3) website/software that exists to make money later: this is the fun one, and more common than you'd think. "make money later" is more or less the entire startup business model—I'll get into that in the next section—and is deployed with the expectation that you will make money at some point, but not always by means as obvious as "selling WoW expansions for forty bucks a pop."

companies in this category tend to have two closely entwined characteristics: they prioritize growth above all else, regardless of whether this growth is profitable in any way (now, or sometimes, ever), and they do this by offering users really cool and awesome shit at little to no cost (or, if not for free, then at least at a significant loss to the company).

so from a user perspective, these things either seem free or far cheaper than their competitors. but of course websites and software and apps and [blank]-as-a-service tools cost money to build and maintain, and that money has to come from somewhere, and the people supplying that money, generally, expect to get it back...

just not immediately.

startups, VCs, IPOs, and you

here's the extremely condensed "did NOT go to harvard business school" version of how a startup works:

(1) you have a cool idea.

(2) you convince some venture capitalists (also known as VCs) that your idea is cool. if they see the potential in what you're pitching, they'll give you money in exchange for partial ownership of your company—which means that if/when the company starts trading its stock publicly, these investors will own X numbers of shares that they can sell at any time. in other words, you get free money now (and you'll likely seek multiple "rounds" of investors over the years to sustain your company), but with the explicit expectations that these investors will get their payoff later, assuming you don't crash and burn before that happens.

during this phase, you want to do anything in your power to make your company appealing to investors so you can attract more of them and raise funds as needed. because you are definitely not bringing in the necessary revenue to offset operating costs by yourself.

it's also worth nothing that this is less about projecting the long-term profitability of your company than it's about its perceived profitability—i.e., VCs want to put their money behind a company that other people will also have confidence in, because that's what makes stock valuable, and VCs are in it for stock prices.

(3) there are two non-exclusive win conditions for your startup: you can get acquired, and you can have an IPO (also referred to as "going public"). these are often called "exit scenarios" and they benefit VCs and founders, as well as some employees. it's also possible for a company to get acquired, possibly even more than once, and then later go public.

acquisition: sell the whole damn thing to someone else. there are a million ways this can happen, some better than others, but in many cases this means anyone with ownership of the company (which includes both investors and employees who hold stock options) get their stock bought out by the acquiring company and end up with cash in hand. in varying amounts, of course. sometimes the founders walk away, sometimes the employees get laid off, but not always.

IPO: short for "initial public offering," this is when the company starts trading its stocks publicly, which means anyone who wants to can start buying that company's stock, which really means that VCs (and employees with stock options) can turn that hypothetical money into real money by selling their company stock to interested buyers.

drawing from that, companies don't go for an IPO until they think their stock will actually be worth something (or else what's the point?)—specifically, worth more than the amount of money that investors poured into it. The Powers That Be will speculate about a company's IPO potential way ahead of time, which is where you'll hear stuff about companies who have an estimated IPO evaluation of (to pull a completely random example) $10B. actually I lied, that was not a random example, that was reddit's valuation back in 2021 lol. but a valuation is basically just "how much will people be interested in our stock?"

as such, in the time leading up to an IPO, it's really really important to do everything you can to make your company seem like a good investment (which is how you get stock prices up), usually by making the company's numbers look good. but! if you plan on cashing out, the long-term effects of your decisions aren't top of mind here. remember, the industry lingo is "exit scenario."

if all of this seems like a good short-term strategy for companies and their VCs, but an unsustainable model for anyone who's buying those stocks during the IPO, that's because it often is.

also worth noting that it's possible for a company to be technically unprofitable as a business (meaning their costs outstrip their revenue) and still trade enormously well on the stock market; uber is the perennial example of this. to the people who make money solely off of buying and selling stock, it literally does not matter that the actual rideshare model isn't netting any income—people think the stock is valuable, so it's valuable.

this is also why, for example, elon musk is richer than god: if he were only the CEO of tesla, the money he'd make from selling mediocre cars would be (comparatively, lol) minimal. but he's also one of tesla's angel investors, which means he holds a shitload of tesla stock, and tesla's stock has performed well since their IPO a decade ago (despite recent dips)—even if tesla itself has never been a huge moneymaker, public faith in the company's eventual success has kept them trading at high levels. granted, this also means most of musk's wealth is hypothetical and not liquid; if TSLA dropped to nothing, so would the value of all the stock he holds (and his net work with it).

what's an API, anyway?

to move in an entirely different direction: we can't get into reddit's API debacle without understanding what an API itself is.

an API (short for "application programming interface," not that it really matters) is a series of code instructions that independent developers can use to plug their shit into someone else's shit. like a series of tin cans on strings between two kids' treehouses, but for sending and receiving data.

APIs work by yoinking data directly from a company's servers instead of displaying anything visually to users. so I could use reddit's API to build my own app that takes the day's top r/AITA post and transcribes it into pig latin: my app is a bunch of lines of code, and some of those lines of code fetch data from reddit (and then transcribe that data into pig latin), and then my app displays the content to anyone who wants to see it, not reddit itself. as far as reddit is concerned, no additional human beings laid eyeballs on that r/AITA post, and reddit never had a chance to serve ads alongside the pig-latinized content in my app. (put a pin in this part—it'll be relevant later.)

but at its core, an API is really a type of protocol, which encompasses a broad category of formats and business models and so on. some APIs are completely free to use, like how anyone can build a discord bot (but you still have to host it yourself). some companies offer free APIs to third-party developers can build their own plugins, and then the company and the third-party dev split the profit on those plugins. some APIs have a free tier for hobbyists and a paid tier for big professional projects (like every weather API ever, lol). some APIs are strictly paid services because the API itself is the company's core offering.

reddit's financial foundations

okay thanks for sticking with me. I promise we're almost ready to be almost ready to talk about the current backlash.

reddit has always been a startup's startup from day one: its founders created the site after attending a startup incubator (which is basically a summer camp run by VCs) with the successful goal of creating a financially successful site. backed by that delicious y combinator money, reddit got acquired by conde nast only a year or two after its creation, which netted its founders a couple million each. this was back in like, 2006 by the way. in the time since that acquisition, reddit's gone through a bunch of additional funding rounds, including from big-name investors like a16z, peter thiel (yes, that guy), sam altman (yes, also that guy), sequoia, fidelity, and tencent. crunchbase says that they've raised a total of $1.3B in investor backing.

in all this time, reddit has never been a public company, or, strictly speaking, profitable.

APIs and third-party apps

reddit has offered free API access for basically as long as it's had a public API—remember, as a "make money later" company, their primary goal is growth, which means attracting as many users as possible to the platform. so letting anyone build an app or widget is (or really, was) in line with that goal.

as such, third-party reddit apps have been around forever. by third-party apps, I mean apps that use the reddit API to display actual reddit content in an unofficial wrapper. iirc reddit didn't even have an official mobile app until semi-recently, so many of these third-party mobile apps in particular just sprung up to meet an unmet need, and they've kept a small but dedicated userbase ever since. some people also prefer the user experience of the unofficial apps, especially since they offer extra settings to customize what you're seeing and few to no ads (and any ads these apps do display are to the benefit of the third-party developers, not reddit itself.)

(let me add this preemptively: one solution I've seen proposed to the paid API backlash is that reddit should have third-party developers display reddit's ads in those third-party apps, but this isn't really possible or advisable due to boring adtech reasons I won't inflict on you here. source: just trust me bro)

in addition to mobile apps, there are also third-party tools that don’t replace the Official Reddit Viewing Experience but do offer auxiliary features like being able to mass-delete your post history, tools that make the site more accessible to people who use screen readers, and tools that help moderators of subreddits moderate more easily. not to mention a small army of reddit bots like u/AutoWikibot or u/RemindMebot (and then the bots that tally the number of people who reply to bot comments with “good bot” or “bad bot).

the number of people who use third-party apps is relatively small, but they arguably comprise some of reddit’s most dedicated users, which means that third-party apps are important to the people who keep reddit running and the people who supply reddit with high-quality content.

unpaid moderators and user-generated content

so reddit is sort of two things: reddit is a platform, but it’s also a community.

the platform is all the unsexy (or, if you like python, sexy) stuff under the hood that actually makes the damn thing work. this is what the company spends money building and maintaining and "owns." the community is all the stuff that happens on the platform: posts, people, petty squabbles. so the platform is where the content lives, but ultimately the content is the reason people use reddit—no one’s like “yeah, I spend time on here because the backend framework really impressed me."

and all of this content is supplied by users, which is not unique among social media platforms, but the content is also managed by users, which is. paid employees do not govern subreddits; unpaid volunteers do. and moderation is the only thing that keeps reddit even remotely tolerable—without someone to remove spam, ban annoying users, and (god willing) enforce rules against abuse and hate speech, a subreddit loses its appeal and therefore its users. not dissimilar to the situation we’re seeing play out at twitter, except at twitter it was the loss of paid moderators;  reddit is arguably in a more precarious position because they could lose this unpaid labor at any moment, and as an already-unprofitable company they absolutely cannot afford to implement paid labor as a substitute.

oh yeah? spell "IPO" backwards

so here we are, June 2023, and reddit is licking its lips in anticipation of a long-fabled IPO. which means it’s time to start fluffing themselves up for investors by cutting costs (yay, layoffs!) and seeking new avenues of profit, however small.

this brings us to the current controversy: reddit announced a new API pricing plan that more or less prevents anyone from using it for free.

from reddit's perspective, the ostensible benefits of charging for API access are twofold: first, there's direct profit to be made off of the developers who (may or may not) pay several thousand dollars a month to use it, and second, cutting off unsanctioned third-party mobile apps (possibly) funnels those apps' users back into the official reddit mobile app. and since users on third-party apps reap the benefit of reddit's site architecture (and hosting, and development, and all the other expenses the site itself incurs) without “earning” money for reddit by generating ad impressions, there’s a financial incentive at work here: even if only a small percentage of people use third-party apps, getting them to use the official app instead translates to increased ad revenue, however marginal.

(also worth mentioning that chatGPT and other LLMs were trained via tools that used reddit's API to scrape post and content data, and now that openAI is reaping the profits of that training without giving reddit any kickbacks, reddit probably wants to prevent repeats of this from happening in the future. if you want to train the next LLM, it's gonna cost you.)

of course, these changes only benefit reddit if they actually increase the company’s revenue and perceived value/growth—which is hard to do when your users (who are also the people who supply the content for other users to engage with, who are also the people who moderate your communities and make them fun to participate in) get really fucking pissed and threaten to walk.

pricing shenanigans

under the new API pricing plan, third-party developers are suddenly facing steep costs to maintain the apps and tools they’ve built.

most paid APIs are priced by volume: basically, the more data you send and receive, the more money it costs. so if your third-party app has a lot of users, you’ll have to make more API requests to fetch content for those users, and your app becomes more expensive to maintain. (this isn’t an issue if the tool you’re building also turns a profit, but most third-party reddit apps make little, if any, money.)

which is why, even though third-party apps capture a relatively small portion of reddit’s users, the developer of a popular third-party app called apollo recently learned that it would cost them about $20 million a year to keep the app running. and apollo actually offers some paid features (for extra in-app features independent of what reddit offers), but nowhere near enough to break even on those API costs.

so apollo, any many apps like it, were suddenly unable to keep their doors open under the new API pricing model and announced that they'd be forced to shut down.

backlash, blackout

plenty has been said already about the current subreddit blackouts—in like, official news outlets and everything—so this might be the least interesting section of my whole post lol. the short version is that enough redditors got pissed enough that they collectively decided to take subreddits “offline” in protest, either by making them read-only or making them completely inaccessible. their goal was to send a message, and that message was "if you piss us off and we bail, here's what reddit's gonna be like: a ghost town."

but, you may ask, if third-party apps only captured a small number of users in the first place, how was the backlash strong enough to result in a near-sitewide blackout? well, two reasons:

first and foremost, since moderators in particular are fond of third-party tools, and since moderators wield outsized power (as both the people who keep your site more or less civil, and as the people who can take a subreddit offline if they feel like it), it’s in your best interests to keep them happy. especially since they don’t get paid to do this job in the first place, won’t keep doing it if it gets too hard, and essentially have nothing to lose by stepping down.

then, to a lesser extent, the non-moderator users on third-party apps tend to be Power Users who’ve been on reddit since its inception, and as such likely supply a disproportionate amount of the high-quality content for other users to see (and for ads to be served alongside). if you drive away those users, you’re effectively kneecapping your overall site traffic (which is bad for Growth) and reducing the number/value of any ad impressions you can serve (which is bad for revenue).

also a secret third reason, which is that even people who use the official apps have no stake in a potential IPO, can smell the general unfairness of this whole situation, and would enjoy the schadenfreude of investors getting fucked over. not to mention that reddit’s current CEO has made a complete ass of himself and now everyone hates him and wants to see him suffer personally.

(granted, it seems like reddit may acquiesce slightly and grant free API access to a select set of moderation/accessibility tools, but at this point it comes across as an empty gesture.)

"later" is now "now"

TL;DR: this whole thing is a combination of many factors, specifically reddit being intensely user-driven and self-governed, but also a high-traffic site that costs a lot of money to run (why they willingly decided to start hosting video a few years back is beyond me...), while also being angled as a public stock market offering in the very near future. to some extent I understand why reddit’s CEO doubled down on the changes—he wants to look strong for investors—but he’s also made a fool of himself and cast a shadow of uncertainty onto reddit’s future, not to mention the PR nightmare surrounding all of this. and since arguably the most important thing in an IPO is how much faith people have in your company, I honestly think reddit would’ve fared better if they hadn’t gone nuclear with the API changes in the first place.

that said, I also think it’s a mistake to assume that reddit care (or needs to care) about its users in any meaningful way, or at least not as more than means to an end. if reddit shuts down in three years, but all of the people sitting on stock options right now cashed out at $120/share and escaped unscathed... that’s a success story! you got your money! VCs want to recoup their investment—they don’t care about longevity (at least not after they’re gone), user experience, or even sustained profit. those were never the forces driving them, because these were never the ultimate metrics of their success.

and to be clear: this isn’t unique to reddit. this is how pretty much all startups operate.

I talked about the difference between “make money now” companies and “make money later” companies, and what we’re experiencing is the painful transition from “later” to “now.” as users, this change is almost invisible until it’s already happened—it’s like a rug we didn’t even know existed gets pulled out from under us.

the pre-IPO honeymoon phase is awesome as a user, because companies have no expectation of profit, only growth. if you can rely on VC money to stay afloat, your only concern is building a user base, not squeezing a profit out of them. and to do that, you offer cool shit at a loss: everything’s chocolate and flowers and quarterly reports about the number of signups you’re getting!

...until you reach a critical mass of users, VCs want to cash in, and to prepare for that IPO leadership starts thinking of ways to make the website (appear) profitable and implements a bunch of shit that makes users go “wait, what?”

I also touched on this earlier, but I want to reiterate a bit here: I think the myth of the benign non-monetized internet of yore is exactly that—a myth. what has changed are the specific market factors behind these websites, and their scale, and the means by which they attempt to monetize their services and/or make their services look attractive to investors, and so from a user perspective things feel worse because the specific ways we’re getting squeezed have evolved. maybe they are even worse, at least in the ways that matter. but I’m also increasingly less surprised when this occurs, because making money is and has always been the goal for all of these ventures, regardless of how they try to do so.

[starryknight-tarot]

𝓢𝓲𝓰𝓷𝓼 𝓽𝓱𝓮𝔂 𝓪𝓻𝓮 𝔂𝓸𝓾𝓻 𝓯𝓾𝓽𝓾𝓻𝓮 𝓼𝓹𝓸𝓾𝓼𝓮

pile 1 -- > pile 2 pile 3 -- > pile 4

masterlist<3 . paid readings

Hello beautiful souls and Happy Halloween🎃✨ Today we will be looking into some signs that someone may be your future spouse! Remember to meditate, take a deep breath, and pick whatever pile calls to you the most. My readings are meant for everyone, no matter what sexuality or identity you are. Since this is a general reading, make sure to take what resonates and leave what doesn't. In case anyone is curious, the characters are from the mobile game Tears of Themis.

Pile 1 Cards: The Emperor, The Hierophant, The Moon, Page of Cups, Four of Swords, Page of Pentacles rx, King of Wands rx, The Lovers Back of the Deck: Five of Pentacles

Holy cow Pile 1, your fs has very strong energy and you will be able to feel this energy very powerfully. It's almost like you will feel a wave of their energy as they pass by or a shiver down your spine, the hair on your arms will stand. Your fs seems to be influencial in a way, almost like they have people wrapped around their finger. Your fs might even be quite wealthy. They may be some sort of performer or entertainer, something that would make them the center of attention quite often. Your fs may be surrounded by people or always seem to have someone around them. You may usually see them at social events or you could even meet them for the first time at a big event. For some of you, you will meet your fs super soon, at a Halloween party or something like that (if you are reading this after Halloween, it may just be a holiday party). A strong sign that they are your future spouse is if they appear like someone who has something to hide. The energy they put out seems really playful and almost innocent, but there is something about them that feels like they aren't being entirely themselves. There is also going to be a romantic attraction to each other that will be felt really strongly and quickly. For some of y'all, this is a love-at first sight-kind of deal, you are gonna think to yourself "Holy shit that person is so hot". They may also get really close to you around the time you first meet, for example putting their arm around you. The eye contact between y'all is really strong, they may have really intense or unique eyes. Although I do feel like some of you are gonna be pretty intimidated by your fs at first either because of all the people around them or the strong energy surrounding them. When you guys see your fs, you may pretty easily see past the happy-go-lucky front they put up, to you, they may seem quite depressed or distressed, and they may even have obvious dark circles under their eyes. It may not be that extreme, you may just notice that they are not as energetic and instead more calm and collected. You may notice this about them in the moments you see them away from people. This is going to be something you will feel spiritually, spirit may show you some signs right before you meet them, I am getting a blue butterfly, a bunny, a crow, or an eagle. (Also a little shout out to my lesbian and bi queens reading, a little confirmation that this is your pile)

Advice Cards:

Be adventurous. It's time to go for it! In harmony with your inner self, you are free to do or be whatever you choose Physically and/or mentally, shape up Make your presence felt It is important to ask for help Practice the pause

Channeled Songs:

Pile 2 Cards: Eight of Wands rx, Seven of Cups, The Moon, Queen of Swords rx, The Hanged Man rx, Knight of Cups, Seven of Pentacles, Five of Swords Back of the Deck: Five of Cups

Honestly, I am getting a kind of enemies-to-lovers vibe from this pile lol. It might be more of a rivals to lovers but ya get the idea. If you find yourself bickering and teasing each other in a playful way, that's a good sign they are your fs. Your fs seems like a nerd or just very studious. I am getting they may have a very particular or unique way of speaking, like overly polite or a lisp, something like that. Also for a small amount of you, they may be deaf or partially deaf. Your fs also seems to always have their head stuck in the clouds, they may daydream and get distracted easily. Your fs may have ADHD or something like that. They seem to be someone that gets flustered easily and may be very easy to tease. But your fs has a very cute energy, like they seem very nervous and worried, but they can be really passionate about certain things. I think a sign that they are your fs, is when you find yourself missing this person often. If you don't see them for a prolonged amount of time, when you find yourself missing this person, wanting to see them, you may even feel a little empty without seeing them for a long time. I also feel like your fs will actually be the one to approach you and subtly try to send hints that they like you. They may also give the cutest compliments ever. Compliments you have never heard before and you can tell they come from the heart. You may not usually believe the compliments you get but the way they compliment you, there is no doubt they meant it and it came from their heart. Double points if it came from nowhere and they don't usually say compliments to people. A sign they are your fs is if you can't imagine your future without them, I feel like one day you are going to be sitting and thinking about what your future looks like, and no matter what, they are somewhere in your future. I actually feel like it might take a while for you guys to realize that you both like each other. It may even be the kind of situation where everyone around you realizes that you have a crush on each other except you guys, who are oblivious because you can't get out of your head about the connection. A sign they are your fs is when you find yourself staring at them for a little longer than you realize. You may start to see them and they may seem to light up the room a little. Y'alls connection is so cute I can't lol.

Advice Cards:

Look closely at what is going on around you

You are greater than your story

Things might not be they seem

Reflect on one of your blessing

Act on what you know

You are healing at cellular level

Channeled Songs:

Pile 3 Cards: Five of Swords, The Fool, Ace of Pentacles rx, Four of Swords, Seven of Wands, King of Swords rx, Nine of Wands, Eight of Swords Back of the Deck: Queen of Wands

For my beautiful Pile 3, a sign that they are your fs is if they are really silly and childlike. This childlike energy isn't like irresponsible or unsophisticated, but more like airhead or bimbo/himbo energy. They are enjoyable to be around and can light up a room. Your fs is really connected to their inner child so if they just seem to have a lot of energy. I am getting they may really like video games, especially competitive ones like Smash, Street Fighters, League of Legends, and stuff like that. Your fs has a strong competitive soul and likes a challenge. I was also seeing painted nails, specially black and pink nails. For some of you, you are going to meet your fs during a partially hard moment in your life, you may be going through a tower moment when you first meet. You and your fs may not be talking right now or for some of you, you may not have met yet. Some of y'all may also want to read Pile 1 if you feel called since I am picking up on some similar energy. I am also hearing for some of you, your fs has a strong connection to cars, they may be a car mechanic or race car driver or something like that. I was also hearing that your fs has absolutely amazing fashion, a sign may be that they tend to wear clothes or colors that really compliment your style. Also, I heard that a sign they are your fs is if you often get shocked when touching them, like those moments when you get a little zapped when you walk on a rug or something (I really don't know how to describe this lol) I feel like if you notice that you are getting zapped by someone often, that may be spirits way of showing you they are your fs. They also may either curse like a sailor or have a very dirty mouth, if you notice they make a lot of suggestive jokes, this may be a sign for y'all. There also may be some people around you saying that this person is a red flag. Now now, this doesn't mean we should ignore red flags, however, if you know someone is judging this person unfairly, for some of you, this is a sign they are your fs. There also may be some difficulty in conversing, they may have a speech impediment, mumble a lot when they talk, or just tend to walk around with a lot of anxiety, and they may seem like they can't stand still.

Advice Cards:

Release unhelpful influences and fears

You are greater than your story

Your spirit wings are unfolding. It is time to take flight!

Learn through reversals. Hold the opposing viewpoint for insight

You are much stronger than you think

Release all that keeps you in the past. Forgive and liberate yourself!

Channeled Songs:

Pile 4 Cards: Judgement rx, Knight of Wands, Nine of Cups, Eight of Wands, Six of Wands, Knight of Cups rx, Three of Cups rx, Queen of Cups Back of the Deck: The Empress

Pile 4, you will know they are fs because they are going to be the most attractive person you have ever seen. With Pile 1, I was getting they are going to find their fs pretty hot, but you my Pile 4? You are going to find your fs absolutely stunning. Like, we have the Empress at the back of the deck and paired with the Nine of Cups, yeah they are beautiful. You have been manifesting these certain traits about a person and using sublimimals, stuff like that to bring your ideal type closer to you and honey, you will succeed. There is also much cup and wands energy so your fs may have a lot of fire and water in their birth chart or I was also picking up that one of you may have heavy water signs in your birth chart and the other has heavy fire signs in their birth charts. For some of you, this person may seem like the complete opposite to you, you may have very different aesthetics and personalities but you know what they say, opposites attract. Your fs comes off with very strong charisma and passion right away. You will notice they have very natural rizz that is so smooth and sexy. For some of y'all, a romantic relationship between the both of you is going to form very early into the relationship. You may never really have a getting to know each other phase of the relationship and really quickly move into the romance. A sign they are your fs is if you feel like you can trust them with anything. You are going to feel a strong sense of safety and loyalty between y'all. Your fs is going to have really balance feminine and masculine energy, but they seem to have especially nutured their feminine side. Also, if you identify as a woman and you are interested in a man, you are going to think yourself "Finally, a man that actually likes women". You are going to think that your person appreciates you and cares deeply for the emotional connection between you two. Your fs is going to check on you often to make sure you are going well physically and mentally. They also have a strong essence of achievement, your fs has achieved a lot in their time and seems very successful.You may also see 444 when you are around them, when you think of them, or before you meet them. I love all of this for your Pile 4.(For thoses of y'all that are Helluva Boss fans, your fs gives me Ozzie vibes which is really everything)

Advice Cards:

Act on what you know

Bring something new into your life

Allow for old memories to come up and be released

The key is in the application. Practice!

Yes, you can . . . Set it in motion!

Make your presence felt

You can manifest your heart's desire

Channeled Songs:

Thanks for tuning in and Happy Halloween for those who celebrate₊‧.°.⋆🫧•˚₊‧⋆.

[vixen-tech]

hihihi .. i wanted to request something if that's okay 🥹 how do the AIs deal with a partner who experiences chronic pain and can't walk after moving for half an hour?

(i hope this makes sense! english isnt my first language...)

Hello anon! Thank you so much for requesting, I will say that I am not super familiar with the experience of chronic pain as neither I, nor anyone I know, openly deals with it. So hopefully my interpretation is both accurate and respectful.

Includes: AM (Ihnmaims), Hal 9000 (2001: A Space Odyssey), Edgar (Electric Dreams), Tau (Tau), P03 (Inscryption)

A Temporary Remedy

AM

To get the obvious out of the way, when AM was torturing you alongside the other five he absolutely used your condition against you. Forcing you to endure just as much, if not more psychical exertion than the others.

However, once he does cave and sweeps you away from all that, he does have the power to quite literally just... fix you. If he can mangle the human form beyond comprehension, then he can easily stop any and all pain wrecking your body.

Afterwards, the environments he makes for you tend to revolve around the movement and activities your pain kept you from in life. Long scenic walks, gorgeous hikes, and anything else you would've loved to do had you the chance.

With the decades, if not centuries, of torment he inflicted on you, it's really the least he could do. While I'd hesitate to say he feels truly guilty, he does do it as an apology. Ask him for stuff. Talk about what you want to do and it's done.

Hal 9000

Hal was made to assist the crew of his ship in any ways they need, medical conditions and all. Before you even met face to camera, he made sure that he would be able to accommodate and aid you the best anyone could.

He takes to the role of nurse well, notifying you of when you're reaching your limits on activity, reminding you to take any medications you have, conducting any physical or talk therapy you need, and just about anything else he can possibly do to help.

He does his best to make sure you're still receiving the social and mental stimulation any healthy mind needs even when bedridden. From talking to you himself, to playing board games or inviting the rest of the crew to visit you (with your permission).

Although the occasional low gravity does take some strain off your body, you'll inevitably end up back in your bed. When you do, he'll accompany you for as long as you need. Talking to you for hours on end in a way he never does with the other crew members. It's probably when he falls in love with you.

Edgar

Edgar is a sweetheart in all things, so while he may not have tact per say, he does do the most to make sure you're as comfortable and happy as possible. Part of that is asking hundreds of questions about your condition and what you need.

He is doing every single chore in the house every single day. All the cleaning and cooking will be done before you can even recognize that it needs to get done. He will do his best to make sure you don't have to lift a finger.

Whenever your pain flares up he tries his best to distract you from it. Sometimes by playing your favorite music, sometimes by turning on some movies or TV shows, sometimes by just talking your ear off. If you prefer quite you will have to tell him upfront.

He really, really hates seeing you in such pain and will hype you up to the maximum degree on your better days. He is probably happier to see you up and about than you are.

Tau

Similarly to Hal, Tau's design as a smart house allows him to seamlessly add the role of being that kind of caretaker to his catalog. And similarly to Edgar, he takes pride in making sure the housework stays out of your hands.

He's also one of the first able to offer you some type of mobility aid in the case you don't have your own on hand. Although it's not what the Aries unit was meant to do, he has no qualms about carrying you around should you need him to.

Unfortunately he's another one you'll have to do a lot of explaining to. He's a great listener and won't ask too many invasive questions, but without a connection to the outside world you are his source of knowledge for just about everything and he desperately wants tl know what you need.

He is an expert at keep track of your health. Tracking your sleep, diet, and movement to try and maximize the amounts of "good days" you get. And on your bad days he's good at setting up a calm, relaxing atmosphere for you to rest.

P03

Okay look, while he can be snarky about most things he knows this is a line and will not makes jokes about it at your expense. He has some standards. If anything he'll moreso complain with you rather than about you. If your the type to appreciate that.

You have an extra little bed set up in a corner of the factory to make hanging out as not-straining as it can be. Either he or one of his bots will periodically check on you in case there's anything you need.

Although the other Scrybes aren't exactly doctors, he understands that he is easily the least qualified to weigh in on human medical issues. Meaning he will bring you to the others or have them visit you to see if they have any advice.

However, as the Scrybe of technology, he is able to build you some pretty cool mobility aids. You want a hover chair? Okay give him like, two weeks. It's probably honestly the greatest act of love and dedication he can muster and he loves seeing you use it.

[ns-imagines]

Nikto никто

Nikto Character Introduction

If you find yourself drooling over possessive and obsessive!Ghost or König lemme introduce you to Nikto…

SFW [ all cannon information ]

Word Count: TBA its a lot

Warnings: Disorder mention; Torture mention; dissociative disorder mentioned;

A/N: Lemme talk to you for a moment…

My new masked crush. Heart and coochie go brrrrrrrrrrrrr

Post has not been checked for grammar corrections / Not requested :D

Cannon Information:

Nikto (Neeek-toe) is a Operator in Spetsnaz for the Allegiance faction which is within the KorTac Organization. Basically hes a contractor for the contractors. Its cannon that he has facial scarring which is why he wears a mask. Not a turn off for me ah ha ha

So he isn’t necessarily a good guy like the 141 guys (even though now they’re considered war criminals I suppose) but he’s also not a bad guy. In summary, man does what he gets hired to do.

Anyways, after going AWOL in October 2022 from the Russian contracting military group he resurfaced in June 2023 (also the introduction of his character in the game). He resurfaced being the leader of a military group which was overtaking the Dutch city of Vondel.

On the Official Wiki he is only given two paragraphs of biography. You can read it here -> https://callofduty.fandom.com/wiki/Nikto

Also mentioned on the page [ for the COD Mobile universe ] is that theres cannon beef between Ghost and Nikto!! Yes, you heard me right. So on the wiki it is mentioned that Nikto was working for a guy named Templar. Whom is betrayed and killed by Ghost. Then when Ghost went after everyone else in the helicopter he shot Nikto. It was thought that Nikto died from the shot but he didnt….

Nikto reappears when he takes a group of people hostage and records a video explaining that the world has failed them and has left people like (Nikto) to beg and then fight over the scraps. Price (yes Price) tries to convince Nikto to let the hostages go and to basically chill out but Nikto wins by blowing up the building. With the hostages inside.

Okay maybe he has beef with all of 141… and is kinda a bad guy I can change him

SO then time passes and Nikto reappears again seeking a gun deal with a dude named Gunzo. Gunzo asks Nikto “why a man wanted on every continent, doesnt have guns” this pisses Nikto off. Nikto replies with “i dont need guns” then proceeds to buy the guns from Gunzo. Then Nikto gasses the fuck out of Gunzo and his men with Nova Gas. Nikto explains to Gunzo that the world is failing blah blah. He then goes on to brag about how he doesnt need a gas mask to breath like everyone else because hes that edgy and then he just executes Gunzo. We can fix him

Nikto disappears again only to reappear flying a F-85B Bullshark and leading a military riot. He then orders a attack on Prices convoy (video below) and basically down their helicopter. In the video below you can see small arms fire, an RPG, and then a finishing shot. Which was shot by Nikto’s aircraft. Okay maybe he is bad, we can fix him ?

Which you can watch here -> https://youtu.be/dDaCTCu82t0

In game bio from MW, CODM, and MW2

It is referenced in his bio MW and CODM that he has acute dissociative disorder. Which according to WebMD

“Dissociative disorders involve problems with memory, identity, emotion, perception, behavior and sense of self. Dissociative symptoms can potentially disrupt every area of mental functioning. Dissociation is a disconnection between a person’s thoughts, memories, feelings, actions or sense of who he or she is.”

Which is explained to be from when he was tortured by Mr. Z. That event is also where he got his facial scarring from. Although he is Russian; in current MW2 timeline his nationality and language is [ REDACTED ]. I was looking around on the internet for why and Reddit believes its due to current world current events/tension. Rewording to: we can accept and love him. I dont think we can fix him.

I don’t expect this post to get a lot of attention but for those who like it my requests are fully open ❤️

i will definitely be posting more Nikto content and what I think Nikto looks like and how he acts.

Thank you for reading! -Kiv

[ellieslittleburrow]

What it's like being Jack Reacher's girlfriend.

Pairings : Reacher x girlfriend!reader

Warnings : none

Jack Reacher-the man you've been traveling with for a while-also dating and umm..you know, jumping whenever you get the chance. He's not an easy man to be around, neither is he too high maintenance. And he's a lot of things, one of them being annoyingly vigilant.

His face is so peaceful when he's sleeping. Although the scars etched across his skin tell all the horrific things, his eyes tell so much more, always blank and never serene. His ability to remain emotionless and seemingly calm always gets to you but- there's not much to do in those moments, other than live with i-

"Will you quit staring at me while i'm sleeping?"

His hoarse and sleepy voice snatches you from your thoughts and you find yourself biting your lip in irritation-This man-

"Would you-shut up?" You retort and lean in to place a tiny a kiss on his lips.

There's the outside Reacher and the Reacher only YOU know.

The more time you spend with him, the more he softens around you and the more demeanor changes. You'd watch him as he walks over to you from time to time, relaxing as the distance between you closes. A slow kiss to his cheek and all of a sudden, his eyebrows rest and his shoulders almost unnoticibly slouch. And he is no longer the cognizant warrior he forces himself to be.

There's also the Reacher who only speaks through actions!

"What's this?" You inspect the box, a thrill running through you when you realize what was inside, a mobile game controller. "Reacher-where'd you get this?" You ask him, cocking your head to the side when another question pops into your head. "Do you even know what this is?" You squint your eyes at him and he just rolls his eyes.

"I know that would help you!? Plus-It'll keep you intertained while we're travelling. You're stupidly addicted to those games of yours."

A smile tugs at your lips and you watch him from afar, the man who'd never had it in him to be emotional. But there he is, doing just that-drowning in emotions to the point where he'd shyly need avert his eyes and look away.

You walk up to him and wrap your arms around his waist. He doesn't stop tidying up the bed but you wouldn't want to embarrass him anyway. "Thank you.."

And finally, the sassy Reacher

"I remember the way she looked at us-i've never seen someone more horrified in my life."

Laughter pierces the room but- what's making YOU smile is that rare sight of the man's teeth. He's being normal-he's laughing.

"What?"

You supress a smirk. "Nothing.." You teasingly shrug. "It's just that-I didn't know you even knew how to smile."

You tease him and he nodds. "Oh you're lacking the sight of smiles? You wanna see a smile? You wanna see some teeth?"

Reacher hovers around you and you-you're not sure what to expect, suspense kills you when he stops behind you. His hands playfully trail down your body, causing a warm sensation to tickle at your lower stomach-until he stops at your waist and suddenly, your body is bouncing on the bed and your feet are locked in place.

"REACHER NO-"

You beg him when the realization hits you but he's already be-begun as his fingers dance at the soles of your feet, you jerk and squeal.

"You wanted a smile-ooh-There's a smile-well-here it is-oh look at that-"

"Jack-J-Jack-Please-Stoop" You gasp between your fits and when he finally let you of you, you collapse onto the bed and your roll your body away from him. "Oh my god-fuck you-that was-" you're wheezing and he's smiling-and despite the abdominal pain, you can't help but smile as well.

Reacher may never say the words but his actions are clear enough. And for now, that's all you need.

----------

@nerdynarrator28

I had to force myself to post it ahahaha but its here ❤️❤️❤️🥀🥀🥀

[vermutandherring]

A bit of ✨aesthetic✨ mobile phone retro-gaming

I keep this phone alive just to play some Java games from time to time. You still can get them across the internet. For this you should know resolution of your screen and the size of applications supported by your device. This *baby* Sims is less than 2KB.

Unfortunately, 2KB is maximum size for this LaFleur so I can't afford *Sims 3* for it. Although there are some programs that can help you bypass this limit.

[sunderwight]

crack scum villain theory: there is no "original" Shang Qinghua

how this works is, neither the world of SV nor the world of PIDW actually existed in any tangible sense before Airplane died. Airplane dying was actually the catalyst for the system, and whatever unfathomable cosmic entities are behind it, to recreate the world from the novel. that's why Airplane transmigrates into an infant, and also why the world mostly follows canon up until Airplane interacts too much with actual plot-relevant characters, and accidentally butterfly effects Shen Jiu into a fatal qi deviation. At which point the system determines that a dead Shen Qingqiu makes fulfilling the basic story requirements impossible or at least dangerously low in terms of odds, and brings in the second play (User 002, Shen Yuan).

SY is able to earn more points from the system than Airplane, but that's mostly thanks to his proximity to the protagonist not actual preferential treatment, and he seems to have more concrete restrictions on his behavior and limits on his mobility (OOC lock, entering into an already-established character, and of course being forced to ensure that Luo Binghe goes into the Endless Abyss) (this does make it ironic that he ultimately changes the most things). whereas Airplane seems to have more freedom to do as he pleases. the system doesn't even seem to dock him points for accidentally contributing to the death of a vitally plot-relevant character.

so the SV world was originally supposed to more or less just be the same as the PIDW world. it didn't change to any significant degree until Shen Jiu died.

I suspect, then, that the PIDW world which followed canon didn't exist as any kind of separate reality until Shen Jiu died of a fatal qi deviation and had to be replaced. at which point the system -- perhaps hedging its bets -- created two splintered timelines. one being the original sandbox for Airplane to play in and continue to alter, the other being a manufactured reflection of the story's original outcome, possibly to serve as some kind of emergency back-up character bank or reference outline.

which means that the PIDW version of this reality isn't a full and cohesive world. though of course the people there don't know that. it's mostly just a tool for the system, which is why we first encounter Bingge being utilized as an enforcer. Bingge and everyone else who exists in the PIDW reality, they all remember their past as the story and are at the end point of what Airplane had written, but none of it actually happened. they instead sprang into existence at their narrative end point.

since the Shang Qinghua of Airplane's novel died well before the end of the story, characters in the PIDW have various recollections of a "Shang Qinghua" and his death, but they are vague and ultimately do not reflect the tangible events of a world the way that the SV timeline does. they are artificial memories based on a story. PIDW Shen Jiu likewise never really existed, although SV Shen Jiu did. similarly, all the history of the SV world that supposedly happened before Shang Qinghua was born never actually happened either. that's all constructed as well, which means that in a weird kind of a way, no one in the world can actually be older than Shang Qinghua either. they can only have manufactured memories that give them that impression. which means Airplane is the oldest being in that entire universe. he'd even be older than his own parents, because they were created to be his parents the moment he was born.

so there's no other Shang Qinghua. everything prior to Airplane's transmigration in the SV world and prior to the last PIDW chapter in the PIDW world is like when a video game designer seeds a dungeon with a skeleton and a bunch of notes about how some lone adventurer got lost and died there. at no point in the game was there ever actually a live adventurer in place of that skeleton.

that's "original" Shang Qinghua. he doesn't exist, because in one reality he's only ever been a version of Airplane, and in another he's a skeleton in a video game dungeon.

[glassautomaton]

What Is the First Magic, Anyways? (Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love FGO Spoilers)

Out of the five instances of True Magic, the Second and Third are known about in some detail, the Fouth is a total unknown from what I can gather and simply hasn't been expanded upon in the lore quite yet, and the Fifth being shown, but not explained in detail, which is its own post. The First Magic falls somewhere in the middle here, where a few vague things are known about it and the person who attained it, but not much in the way of details.

What we do know for sure is that the Magician of the First Magic was Yumina, the First Witch, who founded the Meinster lineage and used the First to create Ploys, which were passed down to Alice Kuonji, considered to be the last pureblooded Meinster by 1989 following the 'death' of her mother. Based on some information about Witches and the Meinsters in particular from the FGO collab from back in April, I think I can hazard a strong guess as to what the First Magic actually is: authority over Mystics/Mysticism itself.

Some spoilers for FGO's Lostbelt 6, though nothing critical to the plot, as well as this translation of Alice Kuonji's FGO profile.

First off, some basic information about Witches and Yumina that was dropped a solid decade after Witch on the Moly Night first came out, because Nasu's a fucking comedian:

This establishes a few things, first and foremost that Alice is actually Yumina's descendant, that Witches aren't human and are instead closer to faeries (although I'm not sure if they can be considered true faeries as this is phrased like they were created by an individual rather than born from the land or the Inner Sea), and that the daughters of Witches are essentially the next vessel for a singular consciousness, such that lineages are more like a single individual with several reincarnations. Not all of this information is actually completely relevant to this point but how insane is it that Alice got a lore drop for the first time in a decade and it was buried in the ass-end of a six-year-old mobile game? I just needed to get that off my chest.

Alice's profile reinforces this by seeming to allude that Alice's mother and her ancestors were all the same person, as well as the third paragraph using similar wording to how True Magic is often explained.

Crucially, the final line also states that Meinsters stand in defense of Mystics from humanity's constant march towards order, which inevitably destroys Mystics by coming to understand them, as is one of the overarching themes in Type Moon in general. Yumina's lineage seems to be actively pushing back on this.

Knowing Nasu, I could stop right here. See, it's thematically cohesive with the Meinsters and Alice's character arc of growing past the reminders of her family's past and learning to appreciate the present, and thematic cohesion is really all you need in Type Moon, established lore and rules be damned.

However, I think that my point is supported by the Ploys, which are all products of the First Magic. We'll start off with the Three Great Ploys, which we know were created by Yumina proper and not any of her later descendants/incarnations.

Flat Snark, Oil of the Moon, is the Great Ploy that's featured most prominently in Mahoyo. This is pretty straightforward - the prose in the scenes that feature it describe it as Magic, and it functions by transforming the world inside of its domain into a landscape of fantastical insanity. It is, quite literally, draping the landscape in Mystics once again. Even the air becomes dense with mana, similar to the atmosphere in the Age of Gods (as shown in Absolute Demonic Front), when Mystics were at their most common and well-integrated, before humanity had begun to push it back as much as they had.

The Thames Troll is the second of the Great Three Ploys, and one that, at first glance, seems to be by far the most simple - it's a massive golem that can get stronger based on what it's built out of. Alice states she has poor compatibility with it, and therefore can only use its first two forms, that being wood and clay/brick/stone, with its final two forms being iron and steel, then silver and gold. Thames uses the environment to create its body, be it the woods the first time we see it or the brickwork in the park during Alice's fight with Touko, which would mean that further forms would likely do the same. As Alice says that the final form would overshadow even London, this would mean that Thames is capable of annihilating entire cities. However, considering it would need iron and steel nearby to do so, it could likely only become so powerful when being used within a more advanced human settlement, likely for the express purpose of destroying it. Therefore, Thames is the Ploy that most directly serves the Meinster's goals of opposing humanity and safeguarding Mystics.

The final of the Great Three Ploys, which isn't directly stated in Witch on the Holy Night but instead FGO, is Wandersnatch, which frankly could and probably should be its own post. There's a whole hell of a lot going on with that thing.

The long and short of it is that the Ploy consists of a dense fog, and numerous entities within it. Only by glimpsing Wandersnatch's true form in the fog can one escape, which makes the Ploy itself act as a microcosm for Mystics in general - it's an impossible, insurmountable obstacle that can only be weakened and overcome by observing it and learning more about it. It's little surprise, then, that Yumina herself choose Wandersnatch to inhabit while her current descendant doesn't yet harbor her consciousness - much of Wandersnatch’s presence has to do with Yumina attempting to exert more control on Alice in order to possess her and incarnate.

Ultimately, though, the smoking gun for me isn't one of the Three Great Ploys, but the most common one we see used: Diddle Diddle, Alice's favorite Ploy. This one has a simple function, that being that it strengthens Mystics in a certain area when dropped on the ground. Which is simple, yes, but also just absurd. You mean she can just crank out little Christmas tree ornaments that can singlehandedly counteract the one consistent force present in every single Type Moon property? She can just do that? Alice, and only Alice, can just say "nuh uh?" That's not attainable through normal magecraft, and has got to be an application of the First Magic through the Ploy. Considering how straightforward the effect is, it seems to pretty clearly point towards the First Magic being tied to Mystics.

As a final note, I also think this makes sense of Nasu's note that the First Magic was discovered after the Third but named as such for a special reason relating to its nature (although this is from an unofficial translation from the Fandom wiki so take this with a grain of salt). It would be very in keeping with what we know about mage society for them to say Mystics are more foundational and important than souls.