After getting fed up with it finally, tried to do some investigating and this is what i found:

Running Android 15 on a Pixel 6 with Beta version of app installed issues are as follows:

Regardless of network i connected to, issue persisted. After clearing app cache, issue persisted. After changing to alternative account on another instance, issue persisted

The only thing left to test was a random comment someone else made: remove muted communities. Had nothing left to lose at this point, deleted everything in app settings related to muting (communities and instances, even words) and BAM! Worked. So tried muting communities and instances again problem came back.

So, seems there is a weird bug with muting things. I cleared my muted everything stuff and just blocking billion communities now.