u/OneSmartKyle

If you're rich.

Let me give some background. I come from a rust belt, mid-sized Midwestern City. Living there is affordable and you genuinely did feel a sense of community. Even living downtown was somewhat affordable, and when I went to other cities with the same "vibe," it was also affordable but had a lot to do if you hunted for it. This means niche festivals, farm stuff, the outdoors, and you had to have hobbies to be entertained.

Milwaukee, Cleveland, Buffalo, these are all my "people" if you will. I loved these cities so much. If you wanted to go out and enjoy what they offered, you'd rarely be disappointed. But I also didn't hear about people there saying they were the best. It was usually folks from either very hoity-toity places that made fun of those cities.

So, when I hear people say a place like "Chicago is the best, SF is the best, or NYC is the best," it usually means that they have no problem with how those places obsessively separate money from them. Seriously, I did not realize how much I like adblock until I was bombarded by advertisements I get in real life here. When folks mention that there's so much to do, I often get why COVID hit some people so hard: their lives were about entertainment brought to them, not entertainment they enjoy and generate on their own. And the prices? Let me give you a reference. My wife and I are working class, not funded by mommy and daddy, and we like like-minded folks like ourselves. There are so many people we've met who say "yea, we're working class too," and when we hang out, they're either dropping $400 or $500 and talking about how they married up or their parents get them stuff. These folks are in their 30s for Christ's sake. And I'm talking "Hey let's get into this hobby together, but it has some high start up costs." We're talking about absolute junk that's being bought for that price tag.

I'm not a country bumpkin who is afraid of big cities. But I also don't think you can: (1) ride in on someone elses dime, including generational wealth, familial support, and be well into adulthood on your parent's phone plan, while (2) exclaiming that you live in the best place in the world when your basically only one foot into financial independence and not experiencing the financial downsides.

I was shocked how much old money was doing the heavy lifting in making X city sound good and pleasant to live in, because they aren't living paycheck to paycheck. Like I get it, X definitely sucks. But I think LARPing like you understand the financial difficulties of people in the "best city in the world," makes you in-line with him to more degrees than is acceptable. I've never been around so many folks who will say "Y person is a good one," when I say "All billionaires are bad. It doesn't matter if it's X or Y."

That's my rant.

Asking because I joined a sub titled to be about the middle class, and it's really either a bunch of middle aged men who pulled up the ladder, trust fund kids larping as middle class, and the classic redditor behavior.

I got on Reddit to avoid toxicity, and it's just switching from Poison Oak to Poison Ivy it seems. Fascbook is an absolute dumpster fire that looks like late stage Myspace as opposed to what it did even a few years back. But Reddit...like I'm here for my hobbies.

What are subreddits that just enshittify the platform?

So, when I went to see Ethel Cain, a nagging thought popped into my head, and the more I talked with my musical friends (who are largely generalists), it seemed the overlap was prevalent.

Do you notice a lot of Ethel Cain fans like metal? I tell folks "Preacher's Daughter" is the most non-metal metal album out there, and a lot of metalheads don't have an appetite to even give it a whirl.

I was talking to folks in line and noticed more people either had their last concert be Ethel Cain or Lorna Shore (definitely metal). I'm not throwing shade to 9million--I like shoegaze. But I did wonder this whole time if a band like Holy Fawn would have been a good opener too.

Am I making a weird connection here? Do you think if Ethel Cain released a metal album it would alienate her fanbase or maybe uncouple some weirdos I keep hearing about?

On my first attempt, and second, she wiped my Bastigors and then my Orserk army who did not have a fire skill. She even killed my favorite lambball, Harbinger of Death.

But I did it this morning finally. My Orserks had Diamond Body, Demon God, Eternal Flame, and Serenity. They absolutely annihilated Hartalis in Phase 1. Not one went down. For the Shadowbeaks, sadly, I lost two good boys somehow (probably bad stats), and they had Demon God, Serenity, Vampiric, and Diamond Body. I don't think I fired a shot. Named my Orserks after the Blood Angels, Shadowbeaks after Ravenguard, and Bastigors after Space Wolves to keep a theme going.

It took about five minutes, but I wasn't biting my nails on the timer. Also, beating the Attack Chopper with the Charge Rifle was...surprisingly easy? I thought it would work and I blew threw about 100 ammo.

Now, in my downtime, I must start breeding Herbils. I love gerbils, and want an army of adorable demigods.

I just got done with the Xenolord, and my Bastigor team (which was not fully maxxed out) did alright. I definitely had a "random bullshit, go!" moment at the Palbox because the dude starting cleaning house around 20k HP. I made, it was hard, but alls well that ends well.

Then I went to fight Hartalis for the first time, just to see how it was. It took my Bastigors in its hands, smelled them, and then wiped its butt like a marker with my whole team.

My "random bullshit, go!" method led to basically half my palbox just dying. I think it got to the point of playing musical death chairs with my pals like lambs to the slaughter. Even sent a lambball that made it a whopping six seconds.

I'm breeding a maxed out Orserk army. Any tips are welcome.