Why a villain and not a coach
Most digital-wellbeing tools default to soft, supportive copy: "You've been on Instagram for an hour, take a break." That language fails the same way "you've been smoking for an hour" would fail. The banner that does not bite gets dismissed. ScreenFine's villain is the opposite. A specific, named character whose entire personality is to make you feel the choice you just made. The roast is short, dated, and personal. You remember it because it is unkind in exactly the way the moment deserves.
The six villains
You pick a villain when you onboard, and you can switch any time. The Banker treats every minute as a line item: "47 minutes on Instagram. That is longer than most people spend on their taxes. $3.50 and counting." The Reaper is dry and final. The Coach is a parody of every motivational poster. The Ex is petty in a way that lands. The Algorithm explains exactly which dopamine hook caught you. New Year You is the version of yourself you promised in January, asking what happened.
How the messages are generated
Each notification is generated server-side by a Convex action calling OpenRouter (default model: Claude Haiku 4.5). The prompt includes the fine amount, the triggering app, the time of day, the weekly running total, and the chosen villain's persona. Generation is capped at 120 tokens with try/catch fallback to a hand-written line if the model fails. The message is delivered via Expo push shortly after the fine is created. No personally-identifying data is sent to the model. Only the structured fields needed to write the roast.
Custom names
You can override the displayed villain name. If "the Banker" feels generic, you can name yours "Aunt Carol" or whatever lands harder for you. The persona stays the same; the byline changes. The point is to make the notification feel like it is from someone whose opinion you actually care about.
Premium villains
The four core villains. Banker, Reaper, Coach, Ex. Are included with the $1/week subscription. The Algorithm and New Year You are premium villain packs purchased one-time via Apple In-App Purchase. They unlock permanently once purchased.