u/TheWrathfulMountain

I am a young adult, and I have lost my entire family to religious extremism. I didn't turn out the way they wanted me to be (through no fault of my own), so now I'm more or less navigating the world alone.

Whenever I'd have a question about how something in life works (such as when interest applies on a credit card balance, for example), Googling things or reading threads on Reddit helped, but there were sometimes context-specific questions I'd still have. Asking specific, embarrassing questions on Google or even Reddit are often unsuccessful. They'll be too specific for Google to find a sufficient answer. Asking on Reddit often results in my post being ignored, and when people *do* answer, it's often people cracking jokes or being rude for asking such a question in the first place.

LLMs are patient and capable of answering context-dependent questions. They can help talk you down when you start overthinking things. They will answer the same question no matter how many times you need to ask it, and you can ask however many followup questions you need.

I remember when I went through a months-long anxiety attack in 2022. It was over the dumbest, most embarrassing subject. It was obviously not something I should stress over because it was so obvious that it wasn't going to happen, but if it *did* happen, my life would've been over, so my mind wouldn't allow me to rule it out. I suffered perpetually for months because there was nobody I could talk to about it, not even my therapist. I *know* things would've been different if advanced LLMs existed, but they wouldn't gain mainstream attention until a year later. A while after the dust settled, I made the mistake of discussing this matter with my mother during one of the rare times we visited. The first thing she did with that information was turn it against me not long later.

Using AI for help has caused me to truly realize how most people are manipulative, cruel, apathetic, and selfish. AI has been there when people failed me, and certain people have the gall to treat me like I'm lesser because of it.

I'm primarily a CD collector, but it feels like this applies to vinyl and tapes as well. I mostly fuck with underground black metal these days, and it feels like everything I take an interest in is going for a few dozen dollars a pop in the secondhand market, even for lesser-known projects in the genre. Barely two years ago, I was hesitant to drop even $30 USD on a used CD, but nowadays I get excited when an older, out-of-print album I'm interested in is going for $30 because that feels dirt cheap now. I'm not even talking about the original 90s Norwegian stuff; most of it is much younger and even more niche.

Maybe it's my fault for getting into underground stuff that has had limited runs, but since it's underground, that necessarily means there's also less demand for the things I'm interested in. So is it just me? Or is there something going on in the broader landscape that's driving up demand and prices?

I've been collecting for several years at this point and have amassed a large collection, and I want to take care of it the best I can since my music collection is probably the most valuable thing I own.

My favorite place to listen to my discs has been in my car. I live in a larger city in Texas, so getting anywhere requires at least a 15-minute drive. Listening to my favorite music has made those long rides a source of joy in my life, and I even consider it a favorite hobby. That's why it's with great disappointment that I've come to the conclusion I need to stop using them in the car.

Again, I live in Texas. Summer is brutal here. The temperature is at minimum 90 degrees Fahrenheit on a cool day, and 95+ on a normal day. Using a CD for even ~10 minutes during a daytime drive leaves the disc almost too hot to touch, so I've decided to stop before it causes any longterm damage to the discs.

I've thought about bringing a cheap portable CD player to the car and hooking it up to the AUX port, but at this point I'm not even sure if I should bring discs out of the house at all. I don't know how the heat impacts the discs longterm when they're left in the car when I'm, say, doing a grocery run, even when they're stored in a CD carrier.​ The temperature inside a car can exceed 120+ degrees when it's parked in the sunlight, and I have no idea what that ambient heat does to discs.

Yes, I seem a little paranoid, but I've amassed a collection of CDs that're somewhat rare due to being released in limited numbers by small bands. They're not all necessarily ​expensive, but they're not easy to replace. I've imported hundreds from places like Europe too, so there was a lot of time and money involved in getting them here.

"Just rip them and play them from your phone." Yes, this is what I'm planning to do, but it kind of makes the CDs feel pointless after I rip them if I only get to use them at home. Yes, it's good to have a physical backup with the liner notes and all, but I've always enjoyed the ritual of picking a disc from my shelf, putting it in the carrier, and selecting it while in the car. It's been a big part of my life and source of joy for years, and it helped keep what is normally an unenjoyable part of the day (a morning/evening commute) into something I love.

Nightreign has already surpassed the time I spent playing and Platinuming Elden Ring. It's been one of the most difficult multi-player games I've ever played, but that level of challenge + the unpredictability of randoms keeps the game engaging. The roguelike structure of each run makes your success dependent on skill rather than good armor or stats, so that makes it all the more satisfying when you master fighting different bosses across the field.

FromSoft is sitting on a goldmine of content they could add. They've already demonstrated they'll add enemies from Dark Souls I, II, and III, so imagine if they expanded Nightreign to contain even more from previous games. The hard part of designing and animating bosses is already done, so most of the work would just be converting the pre-existing assets to suit Nightreign's engine. They could add *so much* content to the game on a relatively low budget since all of the assets they'd need are already there.

Routine DLC packs could keep the game relevant, fresh, and financially self-sustaining. As the game gains more attention from constant news, it will also gain more reputation as the hardcore alternative to co-op hero shooters. Eventually, Nightreign could be an enormous celebration of FromSoft's catalog of Soulsborne games in the same vein as Monster Hunter Generations Ultimate, which has an enormous roster of new and old monsters all in one place.

Nightreign has a satisfying amount of things to do for its pricetag, so I'm not complaining that FromSoft seems to have decided not to pursue this. It's just crazy to think about all of the cool things they could've done with it if they'd chosen to make it a live service (for relatively low investment, at that).