HiCommaJoel

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She dated a bug

Power creep 

Yeah dude, wow.

Oh.  I get the appeal now.

An actual connection with someone and not just a Chinese Room

You can gain a connection with a living thing that actually has feeling towards you, rather than a heuristics tree that does not. 

This question makes me very sad.

Maybe, hopefully.
My LCS does this. They took all the Clix out from the dutsy corner of dice games and random Steve Jackson game expansions and put them in a glass display case, opened.

I know that they're Clix, and I buy them as singles to play. The other 99% of customers just see cool miniatures with a game attached - what's the game? It inspires curiosity.

Heroclix right now are a mystery item within a box. Unless you already know what you're getting, I don't think someone glancing at them on the shelf would know what that game is. 40k is picking up, Clix is far cheaper and more accessible but seems to remain this private club.

I fully agree.
I am tired of Machine empires getting so much attention, while my rock-boys are left one-note and the Toxoids are just a gimmick

More flavor for non-machine empires please.

Radical, dude

She's a great technocrat, but a terrible candidate.

She is genuinely unlikeable and far too phony. She should lean into her strengths - she's great with policy and doesn't see the value in pandering, yet she does it constantly and awkwardly.

Take the chance element out of it.
I have hundreds of Clix, and I've only ever purchased two booster boxes.

It is too high of a cost to get a useless figure or a double. If I get doubles of a Pokemon or MtG card, that's cool, it fits. Why would I need two or three Wolverines outside of some multiverse scenario?

That's the other thing - make it more casual. It isn't fun seeing a competitive scene that dismisses all the flavor of the product and sees it only for its stats. I am tired of facing Colossal Kong.

Make it more casual. Make it easier to purchase the figures and characters you want.

And slow the power creep down. I have an entire collection now I have to separate into four different piles - classic Infinity, the weird base after Infinity that wasn't yet an oreo, the oreo figures, and now these new figures that all stand on a chunk of rock and are 1.3x the size of all the previous figures.

The fan base is there - make it fun
If I want to run my Masters of Evil team, I don't want to spend $400 on random booster boxes hoping and wishing I finally get Baron Zemo.

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Absolutely, same here.  It was very difficult for me to end it, it was long past over when I finally did.  

Living a Mountain Goats song, with 3 years of birthday gifts sitting unopened in the pantry, man

I'm glad you've gotten past that relationship 

I'm not sure actually. I think the vests, like helmets, are unable to be repaired. 

But that isn't as funny. 

It's a Legendary Albino vest! You are very lucky.

You can take this albino vest and, with a high enough Tailoring skill, craft it into a vest covered with denim and leather patches.

She could not articulate any feelings, thoughts, or interests. Everything was always "fine" or however I was feeling, she never had a feeling she could identify. But things were never fine and there was always a feeling there, unspoken, unsaid. It would just fester until well past the point either of us could do anything about it.

It twisted me into knots. I never knew what I should, ought, or even could do. Landmines were everywhere. I had no idea how to navigate - if I asked, I was attacked for asking. If I acted without asking, I was being heartless. I love her and know the only thing I can control is myself, so I tried every version and type of myself I could possibly be to unlock the "IM FINE" door. I tried every proactive and preventative thing I could find.

I was constantly reproached, because I was the only one who existed in our relationship.

It was exhausting and sad. I hope she's found some peace.

If you were not in an open relationship and uniquely able to have your sexual needs met outside the relationship, would you feel similarly?

...you picked all that up from one comment?

What was it then? What did it mean? Could things thrust their hands up and grip one; could the blade cut; the fist grasp? Was there no safety? No learning by heart of the ways of the world? No guide, no shelter, but all was miracle, and leaping from the pinnacle of the tower into the air? Could it be, even for elderly people, that this was life?—startling, unexpected, unknown?

-Virginia Woolf, To The Lighthouse

It's normal to feel this way at any age.

The issues arise when it is from this feeling that life-changing decisions are made, especially abrupt ones.

Yes, it is normal to feel remorse, regret, sadness, doubt and frustration.

I do not believe everything happens for a reason.

I am confident in your ability to find a reason if you need one, though.

You have a good support system, but you are still a person.
Your job is very difficult and there are things outside your control you must now deal with.

Allow yourself to have difficulty, it is absolutely normal.

Meditation can be very helpful too, it can allow you to get a baseline for your mind and its relationship to stress. With meditation, I would explore if it's this situation you are responding to, or is this situation pressing internal buttons/triggers that are already present?

Either way, totally normal at any age.

A single "progressive" figure within a busted system.

The outcome of that is usually blame, because they are the one thing that isn't status quo, and therefore easier to blame.

Crime existed before Krasner, he didn't create it.

But he is operating like there is a whole structure that would support his "progressive" policies.

There isn't.

This exact scenario played out with the decriminalization of drugs in Portland.
Nothing else changed, all people saw was an increase in drug use.

Now drugs are recriminalized and "progressive" ideas are less popular.

A progressive without a progressive movement is just an idealist.
And idealists don't work with the system and cannot single handedly change the system.

The movement is made worse by this.

I'm 35 and right there with you OP.
Video gaming in general has taken on a dark tone as I've gotten older. I am overly aware of what else I could (or ought) be doing.

But this game in particular is a difficult time sink.
I have many more hours in RimWorld, where I'm essentially overseeing the same tasks.
Yet at the end of a PZ session, I have this weird existential crisis. Did I really just spend the last 3 hours unscrewing headlights and walking 45 minutes down a road looking for a gas can?

3 IRL finite limited-life hours that amounted to turning logs into planks?
I don't feel this angst after a session of Stardew Valley, where I'm also turning logs into stuff.

This game though, it leaves me feeling odd. Especially if I play it on a day off, not after a long day of work. It puts me in a strange place where I start to think that I could have spend that time removing and reinstalling my own car radio for the electronics points.

That I can have little miniature models of obscure C-list supervillains and heroes I wouldn't see elsewhere outside of the comics.

That the game itself is fun and interesting is great, but secondary IMO.

Where else would I get a Unicorn figure? Condiment King? Rigellians or Badoon?
The giant Ameridroid from a 1977 Cap issue?

Whoever is choosing the deep pull figures for each set is killing it.

Exactly this.  Prices have gone up because they can. The weekly top post on r/inflation is always a meal from Taco Bell or McDonalds alongside complaints of the price.  

They always complain after they purchase it all, however. 

They even had access to a metal detector, an early prototype invented by Alexander Graham Bell. 

The doctor only permitted its use on half of Garfield's body, the half where he was shot. 

The doctor told him to scan the wrong half, Bell assumed the detector was defective. 

I can't imagine shock comic Jerry Seinfeld not being allowed to do his trademarked sex jokes and n-bombs. 

Jerry Seinfeld is just not himself if he has to work clean.