Bioshock: Downpour
In this timeline, the ADAM produced in Rapture during the 1950s has leached into the ocean throughout the years and has drastically changed the ecosystem in the Atlantic, and ultimately, the world. A lily pad-like organism evolves to use Incinerate to boil off ocean water, creating a world of endless rainfall. Human civilization is now faced with catastrophe. A world drowned out by the eternal rain and brimming with ADAM-mutated organisms has pushed people indoors, struggling for survival.
https://preview.redd.it/yg0bqkc1o65b1.jpg?width=960&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=96700a593f25ce20c3eedb4fdfafd3f331b22797
That's when one man, a wanderer from the hinterlands, arrives at a human settlement on the American East Coast and gains a following with his message of solidarity with the new world.
His name is Greg Aspen. Many people in this feudalistic society believe he is a sign of a new dawn for mankind. He convinces the masses, and even some in the aristocratic class, that the ADAM-dominated outside world is not to be feared, but instead embraced as a catalyst for a great awakening for humanity.
Aspen's appearance and demeanor is inspired by Russian mystic, Grigori Rasputin.
Aspen was born in 1965 to a very young mother who ran away from home and joined a hippie commune. He grew up traveling the US and learning to appreciate nature and simple living from his communal family. Aspen was only 15 when the ADAM crisis emerged in 1980. He would spend the next several years studying the transformations made by ADAM on the environment and sharing his ideas of solidarity with the many wilderness people he encountered. He arrives at a large indoor human settlement in former New Jersey in 1998, aided by entire tribes of ADAM-mutated sub-humans and their domesticated ADAM-mutated animals. He is branded as a public enemy by the city government. But the liberal youth and academics are assuaged by his message and sympathize with his ideals of a more naturalistic existence, and so many of Aspen's militants are able to infiltrate the city and wreak havoc with their aid.
On the eve of the New Year, 1999, Aspen's tribes-people and animals invade the Upper Ward of the city where many well off and affluent residents are celebrating the city's 20 year anniversary with 1979 throwback themed festivities. Aspen's militants take hold of various sectors of the ward and destroy infrastructure, allowing rain, mutant plants and more animals to pour into the city. Throughout the year Aspen continues to lay siege to the city and virulently spreads his propaganda to the surviving residents.
The people in this city are caught between two extremes; a jingoistic, militaristic government that seeks to crush the incursion even at the cost of civilian lives...and a radical, spiritual movement of idealistic people who seek to change the world even at the expense of their own humanity.
Greg Aspen has convinced thousands that the way forward involves the rejection of societal restraints regarding morals, sexual desire, diet, etiquette, emotional expression, family obligations, and other traditional human values. He believes it is these repressive behaviors that prevent people from achieving symbiosis; assimilation with the dominant sects of the ADAM-organism world. He believes that humans will play a key role in transforming the natural world into a completely united community of organisms free from conflict and organized for a common purpose for the entire world. As he puts it:
"Mother Earth lives and breathes. Now it is mankind who will give her sight."
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This story is still rough and half-formulated. If you have any ideas on making it more whole please leave a comment. I want to take more time to better imagine the city before I post anything about it. Let me know your thoughts.
Ps. yes, these images are AI generated (special thanks to Dream by WOMBO).

Original announcement here : https://www.reddit.com/CasualIreland/comments/141b69c/causal_ireland_will_be_joining_the_protest_of/
Ok so, I'm presuming by now, the majority of ye have noticed what's going on with Reddit and the site wide blackouts that are planned. These are in response an announcement by Reddit that they were raising the price to make calls to their API from being free to a level that will kill every third party app on Reddit.
As it stands Apollo, Reddit is Fun, Sync, Relay and Slide have announced that they will be forced to shut down.
These apps provided essential tools to not only mods in keeping subs as safe and spam free as possible, but to users who rely on these apps for accessibility and customisation.
Yesterday, Reddits CEO Steve Huffman, aka Spez, took part in a disastrous AMA which didn't alleviate anything. It made matters worse.
He was rude, he was childish, and he dodged every important question asked. list of all questions actually answered are here.
When it came to accessibility issues for blind people, he threw out the cliche line "we will do better" while suggesting apps that are compatible with the reddit for mobile, neglecting to mention these are android only. Not IOS supported. This is an issue that has been brought up with Reddit for 8 years and ignored for those 8 years. We will do better isn't good enough.
When it comes to how he treats the devs who have worked for years to bridge the gap between the tools reddit offers for moderators and accessibility issues, Spez first accused Apollo of blackmailing Reddit, then when the phone transcripts were posted as proof that that didn't happen (audio here), Spez doubled down and rather than pulling back and saying "it was a misunderstanding" he personally insulted Christian, which is a strange stance for a CEO to take (article that breaks this down)
Reddit are forcing these apps out of the market, to push their own native app, which when the problems this is causing are brought up, they side step.
There is also rumours that web based browsing will be discontinued.

How does this affect this community? :

For one, the mods will not be able to mod effectively anymore. The majority of our mod actions are carried out through Apollo/RIF. That's because a lot of the mod actions required are simply not available on the reddit app. We all have jobs, we're not tied to our desktop reddit so we rely on modding on the go. we won't be able to anymore which either means the sub gets spammed by bots, porn, spam etc. or we have to lock down posts when we're not around. Neither of which we want.
For you the users, you will be pushed to Reddits native app. If you're already there, you know how messy it can be. It doesn't remember preferences, it picks and chooses what videos it will play. It kicks you out of a thread when you're in the middle of reading comments. It auto refreshes your stream when you're scrolling. And these are just a few of the basic things they've known about for 8 years and not bothered fixing!
The majority of our users are mobile users. Take this, from the the busiest day we had last month (don't come at me for the light mode, the rest is dark, I swear! they force light mode on the stats!). 55k visitors, 50k of which were mobile users. Thats 90% of of users! Thats absolutely insane numbers. We have no breakdown on how many of those 50K use the reddit app or a third party app, but I'd wager the majority are not on the Reddit app and are now going to be pushed that way.
https://preview.redd.it/a4q0xq3rq65b1.png?width=929&format=png&auto=webp&s=313952e49dd35cf0753343d9639e8ea075f7f193
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What this now means :

Look, the mods here are all in agreement that two days of a blackout is not enough. We may be a small sub in the grand scheme of things, but enough small subs join in and a point is made. At this moment 3588 subs have joined in this movement. Many of which are already dark (live link to subs joining and going dark).
This whole thing has at least one of the mods here ready to delete their whole reddit account and walk away, as the removal of these apps removes their ability to interact with Reddit. This is not on.
We want to go dark indefinitely, until some sort of compromise is reached here. No one is saying that these 3rd party apps should continue on for free, even the devs themselves admit that there should be a charge. but not $20 million a year. Indefinite sounds scary, but it just means an end date hasn't been established yet. There will be one, we just don't know when.
We are however aware that this is your sub, so we don't want to make the unilateral decision to go private indefinitely, without first gauging how the majority of you feel about this. Let us know what you think we should do. The poll will run for only one day, so make your voice heard.
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Where can we go during the blackout?:

Luckily, Casual Ireland already has an established Discord server. If you're missing your fix, head on over there for the chats. If you need help with setting up a discord account, there are helpful guides here on their website. You can also ask us any questions also and we'll get you started.
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What can we do to help?:

Spread the word. Complain. Stay off Reddit. Hit them where it hurts, in their pockets because they're not getting add views. Check out Save3rdPartyApps. Let the people know how you feel!
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We're sorry if this adversely affects any of you, but this is something that we feel we have to make a stand on, and we appreciate any support from you guys.
Much love!
Your stressed out mods.
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