Toth

No, there is an option in the gameplay menu where you can set whether it is on by default or not! I definitely have it turned off! To make the case for whether it really were the trees I followed their army and attacked it again with my severely damaged army against them and the garrison of their capital. This time I had a rather free space, in fact having been able to wedge my army in between two cliffs to secure my flanks. The result was a Heroic Victory (even though I ran out of ammunition at the end, what with the game strangely thinking arrows are people). I guess it was useful that I had Teclis and my phoenix fully healed at the end of the battle after they started it with like 3 hitpoints altogether. So I managed to advance quite a lot today. It is a lot more sluggish than Repanse's campaign, but I guess that's because you don't get those early confederations handed to you and marching through swamps and jungles with just one army takes quite some time. It doesn't help that there aren't any port towns on the mainland, making embarking nonviable. At the same time as I am rapidly expanding I am in the strange position that countless factions on the other side of the world have declared war on me out of the blue. First the Last Defenders, then Luthor Harkon, then Malekith with all his allies. I'm also in a war with Clan Pestilence because they attacked the allied Elven outpost at the edge of Lustria. Unfortunately they walzed in with a giant as stack smashing both their stacks at once and I had to confederate them to prevent them from being absolutely taken over. It's kinda insane that the rats are already this strong. At the same time I have started my first ritual and am... deeply confused. I saw that the Chaos armies spawned to my east in Defenders of the Great Plan territory, so I placed Teclis at the city where they are the most likely to make an entrance from. But then one Chaos army came out of Orc territory in the far north and torched one of my villages. I only have a general with a single unit there to block it. This leaves me in a very strange situation now with Teclis and my main army sitting in the middle of my territory doing nothing while I would really, REALLY need him either in the north repelling Chaos or in the East culling Clan Pestilence. But I am too afraid that once I go with Teclis into either direction I leave my Vortex Rite sites wide open and the remaining Chaos armies I saw come marching in through the mountain path in the North East. Gaaaaagh... Ah, but there was one extremely funny thing: I had a Rogue army with 15 units attack a Tier 2 city. My garrison units repelled them. Somewhere Repanse is watching in awe thinking "What? Garrison units can actually defend a city?!? How?!?"

Well, I spent the majority of my Repanse playthrough fighting Skaven and my infantry sucked against just about everything, so my perception might indeed be a little skewered. Though I did fight the Last Defenders occasionally and they weren't difficult to beat at all. Weird, when I zoomed into them the lizardmen had already engaged while the Seagard were standing around with their bows out. If they were fighting back, the animations weren't showing it. And once again, the moment I ordered them to fight back and my archers to shoot, the battle was turned around quite swiftly. It just then became super messy as my frontlines completely crumbled as everyone was running after fleeing troops and then got engaged again in skirmishes as the lizards rallied again. No, by now I'm pretty certain it was my pathfinding curse striking again, this time involving the trees. From Medieval 2 onwards I always managed to get units to freeze up and die somehow, which is the main reason why I mostly played Rome until now. In Medieval 2 I managed to get three units of cavalry murdered through a single clipping error involving a trebuchet I stupidly tried to take from the front. Not to mention archers getting stuck traversing through towers and getting slaughtered for it. And I'm not even starting on how my cavalry in Empire managed to kill itself when the animation for riding down fleeing units bugged out or how Indian fortresses are to this day my worst enemy when defending them... I always trip over these things in Total War games... I'm a dwarf at heart.

No, I didn't change a thing in between playthroughs! Skirmish mode was off and Fire at Will was on! The only thing that I could imagine was blocking the Seaguard was that melee mode was off, but even then when they are being completely swarmed by lizards I'd think it wouldn't be too much to ask for them to fight back... The only thing I can think of is that my army totally bugged out because it was fighting in a dense forest.

Grah. Now I have to adjust to the Elves playstyle and its downsides. I only did two battles so far against the Lizardmen starter foe. The first one was just taking a settlement and I lost exactly one swordsman. The second one was a messy and confusing Close Victory that left me completely baffled. I was marching onto the capital of the lizardmen and was attacked on the march by an army double my size, which is okay, I'm being the elves after all. The army was pure melee infantry that absolutely swarmed me. I made two grave mistakes by not having a hero grab the enemy's attention like always did with Repanse, so they actually connected with my infantry, which would be fine if at that point both my infantry and my archers didn't completely stop fighting back if I wasn't micromanaging them. I could understand the archers not daring to risk hitting friendlies, but there were plenty of lizardmen forces in their reserves that needed getting riddled with arrows. When I took a closer look the archers looked like they were having a seizure, being bugged between locking onto a target and going back to idling. Even when I ordered them to run a bit back or placed two units behind the enemy they wouldn't fire at will, they only fired when I ordered them specifically to. I never had this much trouble with my peasant archers... Just as baffling was the infantry. My starting units were fine, but the Lothern Seaguard I hired because I heard they were good also completely froze up when the enemy charged them until I clicked on melee mode and ordered them manually to fight back. Until I figured all that out I already lost a good third of my army because the lizardmen kept rallying, coming back and then going into a frenzy, even after I killed their Slann. *sigh* It seems I can't escape the micromanagement, can't I?

I'm pretty sure it is, there was absolutely nothing indicating the last mission as part of your crusade and the event marker didn't even show up on the map because it was supposedly happening in the Old World. I know, I know. That's what I suspected and I'm not too worried about it, just... eh... it just kinda makes it harder to move on trying out the next campaign when it very much feels like I'm abandoning my whole 'rescue the elves' operation. But I guess it is fitting to go try to prevent that entire mess from happening as Teclis. I find it rather amusing how in his intro Tyrion's last words to him as he storms off angrily were "I'm taking care you will have a home to return to!". Shortly before Repanse got her Vortex Victory Teclis got finally wiped out by the rats who own the entirety of Lustria. I suppose when he returned to Ulthuan and found it in that shape he went with a snide "Wow, great job!".

Okay, I finally finished Repanse's Vortex campaign! And... the end result was kinda underwhelming? So it turns out the most chivalrous thing you can possibly do is raze tiny villages that are gangbanged by three armies. Who could have thought that? So basically in the middle of the fight for Ulthuan I finally reached 2000 chivalry 130 turns after I did my last story quest. Then I could choose which enemy I wanted to fight, Tomb Kings or Vampire Coast, chose Tomb Kings; and then Repanse randomly teleported away to the Old World (the mission said Lyonesse was under attack), beat up four hilariously weak armies with just 80 losses and then teleported back to Ulthuan with a bunch of powerful buffs. That... that was all? The entire crusader campaign was just three missions? For a more story driven Total War this just seemed weird... but yeah, FLC character, so maybe the actual Vortex campaign is more elaborate. I now started a Teclis campaign, but it seems weird to leave in the middle of the still ongoing Ulthuan invasion: https://i.postimg.cc/Y04SK1Ft/Final-state-of-the-map.jpg Basically the respite of my and Imrik's attacks gave Tyrion the time to muster a few more stacks and fight back. He took back the ruins in the inner part of Ulthuan, but Malekith soon counterattacked himself with a full stack, causing something of a stalemate. Tyrion also managed to make a push at the western coast against the vampire pirates there, but at the same time the islands in the east are getting hammered by both Norsca and Sortosa, with them constantly changing ownership. Even then you can see that Eltharion has returned to Yvresse to handle it (even though I hold Tor Yvresse right now). Amusingly, in the middle of all that carnage one island rebelled against Malekith and reformed Yvresse, but because Eltharion is Tyrion's retainer it was lead by a female elf... who greeted me with Eltharion's booming deep voice. XD

Since I just finished watching The Unsleeping City I feel I need to do a bit more advertising for Dimension 20 here because goddamn it, the creativity of each campaign is off the charts. Let me just introduce to you all campaigns so far: Fantasy High The very first Dimension 20 campaign, entirely watchable for free on Youtube. Fantasy High is essentially if a generic Dungeons and Dragons nation has spontaneously decided to warp into a 1960s American suburb. The PCs are students of a high school dedicated to train future adventuring parties and it's all things considered the most light-hearted and silly Dimension 20 campaign. Escape from the Blood Keep Aka: The one with Matthew Mercer as a guest. It's essentially Lord of the Rings from the perspective of the bad guys. Not-Sauron was just defeated and his loyal servants scramble to revive him. It's a case study in just how much Mercer's rolls are cursed and how much PCs can absolutely hilariously derail poor Brennan's storyboard and forced him to make everything up on the spot. The Unsleeping City This one takes place in our world and our New York, except that there is an unseen world of magic hidden beneath it all, with the PCs being just a bunch of crazy New Yorkers getting roped into saving the world. It's absolutely terrific! Tiny Heist Essentially a Toy Story heist story. Can't exactly go into any details because I haven't watched it yet and unlike the three above campaigns it is on their Dropout website. A Crown of Candy Last but not least: The A Song of Ice and Fire campaign. Yes, seriously. They did a campaign that's essentially ASoIaF, but everyone is edible. It's ludicrously ambitious worldbuilding... and god damn it, it is by far the darkest Dimension 20 campaign they have done so far. The Unsleeping City already ended very bittersweet, but the death toll in this one is mental.

I have the distinct feeling Order Tide ain't happening in my Repanse playthrough. I ended up playing quite a lot today and am now Turn 160 and things are becoming mental. I peeked a little at Lustria and much to my horror saw that it's just "ruins" now, the entire continent. Apparently the dominating last Lizardmen faction there got into trouble when they went to war with every single other faction and the Skaven completely took over their empire until only a tiny enclave on the southernmost coast remained. Similarly Teclis has been driven back to his island, Wulfric is desperately holding the line between the rats and Malekith and the Vampire coast and Kraken dude are surprisingly fine. But the real insanity is happening at Ulthuan: Tyrion is pretty much on his last leg. He only has the area directly surrounding his capital left and can barely field a single stack. Nearly the entire outer ring of Ulthuan belongs to Malekith now, with rest belonging to two Vampire Coast factions and one Norsca one. Meanwhile the inner part is all ruins for some reason, but the glowing Chaos monuments don't look very Skaven to me. I guess Repanse has to be the Order Tide now. Now that the Southlands have been completely pacified... well first, Sudenburg stupidly got the idea to attack Imrik, despite me being allied with both. I obviously chose to side with Imrik because Sudenburg sucks. After annihilating them and dividing up their territory we headed out into the sea with all we have to support Tyrion. And seriously, Imrik is the best ally I could possibly have! Just as I was closing in on the first Dark Elf held island the fucking dwarf pirates who declared war on me 120 turns ago and whom I destroyed 100 turns ago respawned right in front of me with a full stack. I was already preparing myself to get two of my armies thrashed in a gruelling battle... when suddenly Imrik's stack swerved out and destroyed them for me (though sacrificing his entire army in the process). Oh my god, Imrik, you are awesome! With that Repanse was able to land her six armies in Yvresse, with 2 more going into the inner ring and 2 more going for a wider swerve to pacify the islands in the north west of Ulthuan and only one army remaining in the Southlands for the time being. I must admit, this entire operation feels very intense and holy shit I can't believe how many Dark Elf stacks are running around everywhere!

I've started down the path of madness and made the first three steps into my monstrous Umineko Tribute MMV: Holy shit, still 33 minutes more to edit... XD Also: I'm sorry it is only very bare bones. I have zero experience with editing software whatsoever, so no flashy effects from me and some rather poor transitions.

Have you watched Dimension 20? If Mercer is too subdued for you, Brennan Lee Mulligan might be more up to your speed.

I should note that by the time of my complaint above Clan Mors was already down to two settlements and I wiped them out soon after, but given that situation they still did horrific damage to my armies and it took me long enough what with them owning half the continent... ... though I guess I'm having a far more dangerous foe right now. Best buddies Imrik and Repanse are still busy mopping up the islands south of our starting continent, but while Malekith is dangerous here, he seems to focus entirely on Ulthuan right now. Its whole northern coast and islands are now conquered and each turn they take another city. I very stupidly sent one army north thinking they might be able to throw a wrench into their invasion, but it got swarmed by three stacks even before reaching the coast of Ulthuan and when I retreated they followed up and a fourth stack came in from behind. At least I managed a 'valiant defeat', but given how Bretonnia plays, loosing a Prophetess with all vows hurts like hell as I can't replace her army with my current economy. And yes, it's once again the fucking monsters that did me in, with four dragons just landing squarely on top of my Prophetess... Edit: ... and I just randomly stumbled across a post saying that the warning marker saying multiple farms don't yield more stuff actually isn't aimed at the income. So... I stupidly crippled my economy by having only one farm in each region because of that misunderstanding and could have had thrice the income that I currently have... For fuck's sake...

I'm really not sure whether I like fighting Skaven or not. I really appreciate that there is some notable evolution of how the battles pan out. 20 turns or so ago their main danger was the combination of ambush attacks and the sheer mass of bodies they threw at me, turning each battle into messy attrition warfare. Now Clan Mors is only fielding endgame units. Entire armies composed of Ratling Gunners, Warpflamers and Sharpshooters. All of these units cause horrific damage if they get to line up their shots, but are such glass cannons they get completely slaughtered once my knights manage to reach them with their charge. I had some pretty amazing battles where I distracted them with my lord and just as they turned their backs towards the forest where my knights were hiding, I came rushing out in full force and Ride of the Rohirrim style slaughtered them to the last rat... ... and then there are battles where I'm just constantly bombarded with horrifically deadly spells and swarmed with so many clan rat spawns behind my artillery and archers that I'm a sitting duck too busy fending them off to actually make use of my mobility. So at the one hand difficult but doable battles where you can succeed at both avoiding losses and winning the battle through skillful maneuvering of your troops and on the other hand pure frustrating bullshit where your super experienced elite units get wiped out and you can't do anything about it. I HATE magic...

Okay, so... I did it! I finally survived this crazy last week with more repeat exams, online teaching and an online course for myself... I'm exhausted, but it is... somewhat refreshing to see two weeks in front of me that... oh god, I still have so much to prepare for after these two weeks that I know I get into severe trouble if I don't start immediately, but as stupid as I am I'm thinking to shove all of that into the second week and spend the first one lazing around and doing something for my fitness. I was confused as well, but I guess it is not unheard of. Heck, here it is not unheard of for teacher trainees to take classes. Or that we have "Quereinsteiger", teacher trainees without formal teaching education who get four times more lessons to teach on top of the course schedule a normal teacher trainee gets. Those get basically squeezed and burned out for as many lessons as possible. Yes, my country is quite horrific to new teachers, which is why we have such a severe shortage of them. Well yeah, but I was already trying for a fresh start at university, all it did was make things worse. So I must honestly say I have absolutely no idea what to do to change. Like I said earlier, I did initially think that once I live on my own I could go search for more experiences, but as it stands that won't happen. No, my students actually don't think that either. My own students are used to me by now, though at the beginning of every semester I still have to suffer questions about how old I am or whether I'm a real teacher already. It's significantly worse when I'm substituting because the students will have the same questions, but notably more hostile ("Since when are students allowed to teach here?"). I should note that we are a vocational upper school though. Meaning that yes, the majority is teenagers, but there are classes where the students are around my age or even older.

I must admit, I am among the people who have also eyeing RPGs for quite some time. I only ever had sporadic contact with players before though. A classmate at my school was in a The Dark Eye group with her boyfriend and at university I also got some stories from a dude who was a D&D DM, but must admit I only ever got interested after first listening to Acquisitions Incorporated and later watching the stunningly creative Dimension 20 campaigns of the College Humor staff. Go check it out! Brennan is a scarily amazing DM! I did try to give Critical Roll a try, but it never clicked with me the same way as these guys do. Some time ago, just to get a grip on how such a game system looks like from the other side of the screen, I bought a DM set for Warhammer 40k: Dark Heresy when it appeared in a humble bundle. I would really like to play, but obviously don't know anyone who would be interested (or would have the time) and then again I myself don't have any time either.

Yeah, I don't think that works with my social anxiety. If I can't sell myself to a possible landlord, how am I supposed to sell myself to a possible roommate? Not to mention that I would still have to search for an apartment for my mother anyway since she refuses to stay at the place we live at now. Ah, well yes... I guess so, but I still would really prefer just talking and planning together to get inspired, that's just how I roll. In fact this constant state of exhaustion and stress draining my creativity hurts the most. Everything I do is half-assed because of that. I will try, thanks. Ugh... no? I was walked around the school by the then vice principal who is now retired back when I was hired, but on my first day I was essentially just thrown in. I only got classes in their first years at the school, so I had to start from scratch and while I was double stacked in three of my lessons to work together with another teacher, all of them soon disappeared into sick leave or retirement (or sick leave to bridge the time till retirement...) and I had to do the lessons on my own anyway. There is a conference for the history department once a year, but most teachers seem to find an excuse to not attend. The previous two times I was there there were only three people, with me and the department head making up two already (and the third one only cared about pushing off the class outing of his ludicrously problematic class onto me because he doesn't want to do it anymore). Meanwhile I was begging the computer science department head to call a conference since forever because our school curriculum is grossly violating the state guidelines, but he adamantly refuses to do so because he wrote it and sees no reason to change it in his last years before retirement, even when the seminar leader of my teacher trainee complained at the school administration. He has that tendency to just wait problems out until people give up bringing them up, which I have already run in several times when there was negative feedback about unnecessary restrictions he imposed on the school computers that have already screwed over lessons and exams. Speaking of the teacher trainee, yes, I got a trainee myself this past year, next week she will have her final lesson at our school. And I barely ever interacted with her. When I offered to look through her preparation to give advice she said she had no time because she only manages to finish her preparations in the night before each lesson and she was only at school for one lesson per week anyway since another school is her main school. I then couldn't even watch any of her lessons because I had to fill in and take over the parallel course of one of the above mentioned colleagues on permanent sick leave. It's ridiculous, but also kinda my fault for giving up so easily. There is also another computer science teacher 'trainee' (as in: An older colleague who is doing a computer science course at university) and whom I offered numerous times to come watch my lessons, but who then never appeared because of his lack of time. The weird thing is that the school overall is fine, but the atmosphere in the staff room is weird. At the school where I was teacher trainee and which was like three times smaller, the relationship between colleagues was a lot more warm, but there was still a lot of hostility towards the school administration for some rather crappy methods to keep the teachers in line and dismissing of fears that the school looses profile and reputation. Here there is the exact same hostility despite the fact that I never saw the principal do anything that warrants it and it is coupled with a far older staff with many shortly before retirement and an overlaying attitude of "If I don't get an hour reduction in exchange for this thing I am being asked, I will not do it" which causes people to react extremely standoffish whenever you ask just about anything. And it got a lot worse now thanks to Corona. Since many are very pissed about having to wear masks and having all windows wide open at freezing temperatures, most seem to have retreated into abandoned corners of the school in their down time and try to spend as little time in the staff rooms as possible. That's actually not unlike my takeaway, though I must admit it is a lot more cynical. In that people only interact with you as long as they have something to gain from it and as soon as you stop being interesting or useful, you'll stop being on their mind and get dropped. That was pretty much my entire university experience with attaching myself to people and only existing for the time you interact with them face-to-face and opportunities to stay in contact never arising. And having trouble with something is a very quick way to speed up that process as you get only viewed as a bother. Ah, I know that as well!^^ I was still asked to leave the staff room at the beginning of the second year by colleagues who apparently never noticed me before, so there is that. But then again, I can't really blame any of them, I still can't buy wine for my mother without getting squinted at and asked for my ID. Of course that... doesn't help my self-esteem either, given how I get cruelly aware of both how people look down at me while I am still already far too old to still be stuck in my stupid circumstances. Yeah, sounds like a cultural thing, though then again it is hard to say with my background of having very little and estranged family and no friends. Maybe other Germans have more luck? XD Lol, same! It's strange, isn't it? I can freely moan about my problems by shouting them out into the void of the internet, but god forbid anybody in real life asks me "How are you?"; I immediately have to switch to defensive mode. It's significantly easier to be open about your messed up state of mind when you don't have to look into the other one's face afterwards. So... enough rambling... got to get going again already!

More like resignation and always having work to do. First rushing through my studies and then teacher training and now entering the job itself. I really never had much time for anything else. Bringing it up would have also been problematic, given that she's still being terrorized by my father to this day because he's upset he still has to pay alimony. I... I must admit, I find it remarkable that you even see the possibility of other people letting someone live with them. That needs a ridiculous amount of trust, does it not? I have a hard time imagining how you even ask for something like that. To the question itself: I think it should be obvious that we have nobody. My mother has one old friend left, mostly because she has the tendency to cut off all contact forever with everybody she feels slighted by, but I guess she never had many relationships anyway, she also broke with her sister a long time ago because she didn't reply to a Christmas card or something. I myself don't even have that, with no rl friends whatsoever, nobody I feel comfortable even talking to. It's strange, I was always a pariah during school life, but endured it without stressing out so much about it, but during these 8 years I have developed a full-blown social anxiety and tend to become extremely defensive when talking about anything other than work. I guess it doesn't help that after I failed every attempt to stay in contact with people from university and now at school me being about a decade younger than even the youngest colleague and looking even younger than that makes things awkward. Wow, that's... that's a thing? XD I mean, sure, I have memories of when my paternal aunt still lived who organized big family gatherings that actually only occasionally devolved into drunken hurtful rants, but otherwise were still pretty nice at the time. Later on holidays only consisted of my father provoking fights so that he can go off to a party alone, so there is that...

Sigh... just finished my work for today. Managed to correct the exams of two classes and calculated and sent off the semester grades of three classes. Only one class left, then I'm actually done for this semester, though the deadline is tomorrow, so it will still be stressful. I also still have my preparation for next week to do and there are a couple of retry exams left. Well, not quite entirely. She still gets alimony, but not enough to live on her own. This leaves me confused. As well? Do you mean now or in any future constellation? Right now is the situation that the marriage of my parents imploded just as I was getting out of High School. I moved out, but only lived on my own for a week until my mother moved in with me because she couldn't pay the rent of our old home on her own and that has been the state of things for the last 8 years. Thanks for the suggestion and sentiment, but no, there is nobody I could live with. Yes, I looked for smaller apartments as well, but the insane thing is that those aren't necessarily any cheaper (also if you have a dedicated study for work you can write it off taxes, so that's something I'd like to keep in mind.^^). I'm glad to hear that it works out for you! I just heard that we will have one week of online lessons after Christmas with the intention of preventing a post-Christmas superspreading event, but generally the idea remains to keep the schools open no matter what happens. Politicians are aware just how bad our digital equipment is. Well, there is a massive difference between not trying to give some simple tasks a chance that you can do all by yourself as opposed to exposing your weakness to other people and hope they don't take advantage of that to improve their standing. The thing is, I simply don't know anyone I could ask for help. Like I said, I'm the only actual computer science teacher and in regards to history/politics may be other teachers there, but I maybe see them twice a semester. It is a really big school with seven staff rooms. I should also note that I'm always failing these things and get discouraged easily whenever I'm being turned down. Outside of asking for materials, I was asking quite often whether people would be willing to prepare lessons together, because brainstorming ideas like that seems a lot more fair to me, but I never managed to do it. At first I tried to stay in contact with some fellow teacher trainees I graduated with from university to try and prepare our work together, but they never had time and we never met again ever. Then I tried to approach other teacher trainees from my seminary, but they also turned me down citing their lack of time, though a couple of weeks later it turned out that every single one of the people I asked now was part of such a prep group with each other. When I found out I was somewhere between seething rage and absolute devastation, giving up entirely on speaking with them anymore. And that's with people I thought I was getting along with! Now imagine the barriers within me dealing with these colleagues at my current school with whom I barely ever interact at all. I just wanted to say something encouraging about how not having other people around (or the option to invite other people) might improve the mood due to less tension about having to deal with them until I noticed you considered them actually being a source of relieve. Eh... Maybe... well, it might be advantageous to just go into this Christmas with an open mind. Expect the best to prevent it becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy!^^

Well, thanks, but... I just don't know how to do something like that. The rents here have skyrocketed to a degree that it is impossible for me to finance two households and even then, looking for places costs time I don't have. Last summer break my mother had a 180° turnaround where she frantically demanded I move out because it might be advantageous to her ongoing legal battles with my father, but that as well was an incredibly exhausting and fruitless experience where I only got to see exactly one place in my income category and that was the creepy dark attic of some old man. -.- In fact, several landlords showed themselves aghast that a lone guy is searching for a 2,5 rooms flat (I desperately want a separate study for work) and refused to invite me because of that. All those set-backs caused my mother to change tracks that I should save up to buy a house for both of us instead, since that, hilariously enough, might actually be cheaper. That I can absolutely not do. I have far too few lessons as it is to get the topics done I have to cover in any sensible detail and nobody can cover anybody. I can only call in sick if I am truly sick and I am not. Also Christmas holiday is soon enough... though I worry a lot about how to spend it. I recently watched a few videos of teachers on Youtube and one advised to prepare all of your lessons entirely during your holidays so that you can focus on the day-to-day business during the actual school time. But obviously I don't feel confident I will be able to work through the holidays and end up having anything to show for it. We'll see whether they still will be open in January... Right now it seems more and more doubtful. But then again, fully online schools are also shit. I lost far too many students when we closed them last semester who interpreted that as holidays, cut off all contact with school and played dead. Thanks for the hint, though... I guess I'm really bad at that. I can't do that for computer science because I'm essentially the only computer science teacher there is. I could do that for history, but... I am utterly unable to just take someone else's stuff into my own lessons without massively reworking it. I always strive for my lessons to have something of a narrative why we need to look at A and B to form an opinion about C and someone else's work never truly fits that logic I want to guide my students through... ... and truth be told, there is also this bit about me that my 'professional me' in school is pretty much the only aspect of myself that I take pride in. If I ever ask anybody for help I think I cannot take it. And that's not even taking in account how much I have been taught through experience that showing weakness will always cause people to attack you. And not being able to make my lessons on my own most certainly is a weakness in this job, given how I was utterly wrecked during teacher training for daring to ask my seminar leader what I can do to improve my stuff.

Thanks for the kind words. I know for a long time that this is what I should be doing, but I'm too stressed to even think about it right now and just know that it is going to get messy if I try... And I know myself, deep down I'm a coward and fold like a paper bird whenever she says something discouraging. And no, here is no lockdown whatsoever, life at least for us is going on without any difference to before the pandemic, I just got more work because of it because I have to handle both the in-person teaching and the homeschooling for those in quarantine at the same time. Well, the normal workload in my federal state is 26 school hours of teaching + preparation and follow-up work and yeah, being very much of a beginner myself, my situation is similar to yours. Looking back at my previous posts, I have always complained about my work-life-balance these last two years, but right now it is especially bad because next Monday the grades have to be finalized and yet some class teachers insist on having them finished by Friday, so I am especially frantic to get everything done till then. And my standards... the worst part is that my constant exhaustion has reached a point where I am extremely unhappy with how my lessons turn out either way because I am wasting just soo much time. I came back home today and was instantly overwhelmed by exhaustion, fought on, needed 3 hours to create one exam for tomorrow and then only managed to correct 4 other exams or so... It is not that I am overly perfectionist with my lessons by now, it is that everything I do takes insanely long and it's driving me mad. So basically that I have no work-life balance and keep running against this wall like an idiot is entirely my own fault that I can't escape anymore...

Ah shit, my mood has hit rock bottom since yesterday. So for the past few weeks my routine has been thus: Every weekend entirely filled with correcting exams, every weekday filled with school, then after school preparing lessons and online-lessons for the next day, then 4-5 hours of sleep. I'm pretty much constantly exhausted and working very ineffectively, but have to get my stuff done with the fast approaching deadlines somehow. And yesterday my mother's daily dinner table rant went full brunt into my direction. She has been pretty pissed the entire time that I'm skimping on my house chores due to my suffocating workload, berating me every weekend while I'm correcting and angrily cursing me loud enough that I hear her the next room over. I admit, it's a shitty thing for me to do, but I don't know where else to take the time from. But now it bubbled out of her once again, that it's a grave mistake that I've even become a teacher, I can't work with children anyway and even if I insist on doing this, I am an idiot for not searching for a better school already right now, one year in the job is enough experience and I need to apply long in advance because nobody will want to take me anyway. When I tried to object that I want to change schools once I have settled in into the job, but also made some life experiences and stand on my own feet, she got my meaning immediately and furiously said she will never ever allow me to live apart from her because she doesn't know how many years she still has left and doesn't want to spend them in (financial?) fear. So that's it. Pretty much all the stuff where I thought "I will do that once I live on my own" have been wiped away just like that. It will never happen. At least not without breaking with my mother forever and I'm too exhausted to even consider causing that much conflict. My life has reached a deadend. Changing the federal state? Working abroad? Picking up new hobbies? Dating? All impossible... I guess I must sound utterly pathetic and insane when I say that this little outburst was causing enough despair that I briefly wondered why I even bothered living anymore, given that my life will be all the same until my death. I just... can't deal with all this shit right now...

Oh... am I supposed to? You made me google that and apparently in order for Bretonnians to get regiments of renown you have to register your game at a website. CA's DLC policies never fail to baffle me...

Ah yes, I actually managed to feel a bit better about myself, but of course I had to be struck down by a massive headache that refuses to go away. Gah... Interestingly this is opposed to... damn, two weeks ago. I got the bright idea to draw a sketch as a way to take a breather... which itself is already weird given that I can't draw for shit, but to get the perspective right I shot a selfie and looking at it just felt miserable afterwards. After the whole exchange here in the Dating thread I wondered whether I should try my luck downloading an app this spring, but just the idea of trying to sell myself with a picture is ludicrous to me. I hate absolutely everything about how I look... I mean... the weirdest aspect of that whole global pandemic thing is the fact that nothing at all changed in how I live my life. I was able to work in a library to get away from the madness at home back when I was at university, but ever since I became a teacher proper, my life has always been just home and school. The only difference now is that I have additional workload in regards to keeping in touch with the quarantined students on top of the regular teaching. I'm sorry to hear about your inner conflicts right now. I'm getting the feeling being stuck at home with your sister lets you go up the wall in a way not too dissimilar to me. I guess I am in no position to give constructive advice, but know that trying to wrap your head around all your troubles, real or perceived, at the same time is what is overwhelming you. When you realize that happening, take a deep breath and say "One step at a time" and focus on whatever you wanted to do right in the moment. I know... I'm one to tell... but still.^^

Finally! Yesterday I managed to empty my evening to play a few more turns! Meaning I can afford to respond because I actually have something to tell.^^ Oh, thanks for the tip, I didn't know heroes had that ability. Even the paladins? Funny, I'm actually trying to add a life damsel into every army of mine because I figured Grail Knights are actually worth using healing spells on. In that regard, that Skaven attack ambush I mentioned above was actually the very first time I had one on the field and she made a terrifying difference. Even though I was taken aback that her 'passive healing' doesn't mean a healing aura, but instead that everybody on the field gets healed every time she uses a spell. Magic is... nasty. Case in point, I just had another battle with her and a very experienced Skaven spellcaster as the opposing general. The bastards tried to tunnel their way below the city where the ambushed army from earlier was still sitting recovering their losses and given that underground armies get wiped when defeated and this one contained quite a hefty amount of armies of renown and artillery, I thought it might be worth to intercept them. I was very annoyed when two of my cavalry charges were obliterated by green ball lightning popping up the second they engaged with the enemy and then watching even a whole Grail Knights unit getting zapped to death. Magic is just ludicrously overpowered. And those were my only losses! I lost 100 knights and defeated an army of 1700 and somehow the game said "Pyrrhic Victory" because I lost so many Grail Knights... and maybe because my archers did most of the work, with all six units of them ending up having 150 kills each. It's frankly insane how the best way to utilize your archers is by having your general run circles ahead of the army... Ah yes, I have seen some of those by now, but honestly haven't figured them be scary, only when there is a huge pack of three units of them converging on one cavalry unit, then I pull back and look whether I can find a juicier target to charge. So far the sniper units have been the most nasty enemy against my cavalry (aside the spellcasters from above). In any case, other than that not much happened. I pushed further into Skaven territory, but interestingly the Last Defenders recovered thanks to me killing so many rats. I saw them retaking two of their cities, but unfortunately for them the dwarves insist I should go out of my way to clobber them down again.^^ There was also a scene of a Beastmen army spawning at the edge of Repanse's view. I was already expecting to get attacked and prepared for defense when suddenly the Beastmen messaged me: "If you give us 100 gold, we will attack the Skaven for you!" Oh... okay... that is unexpected! And... surprisingly cheap... okay... go ahead, just do your thing. You're welcome! I then watched their army turn around and torch the Skaven village next to them, then disappear into the horizon. Two turns later I get the message that they have been wiped out. Now that was random... Unfortunately I didn't even get the village, a Sudenburg army was quicker and colonized it. But hey, it's somewhat strange that the Warhammer Total War is the first Total War game that I am playing in which diplomacy is not totally broken. But I'm not complaining.^^ I still think it's the funniest shit ever that my Repanse is besties with Imrik, even though according to lore Imrik is such a prick even other elves have trouble dealing with him. The Knights of Caledor made me join their war against Naggaroth and while I struggled to get armies into the water to defend my coasts, Imrik himself did and is right now busy smashing every Dark Elf fleet that comes into sight of my harbors. That's nice! I'm in turn preparing an invasion force against the three Dark Elf islands in the south. We'll see how that goes. I wonder, given how bad I am at managing magic, I guess Teclis would be a neat next campaign if I ever manage to finish Repanse. I still haven't managed to get 1000 chivalry after 110 turns, I still can't see how I can get 2000 before conquering the world...

Me too, but for me it's posting shit in forums and the like. I guess it's a side effect of reaching rock bottom in terms of loneliness and anxiety. I'm sorry I have to vent my nonsense again, but it's just insane... Basically I had been at my most effective last Wednesday when I was correcting exams wearing a jacket in the freezing cold staff room with no ways to distract myself. At home the situation however is really bad. I'm extremely desperate to get my remaining exams corrected, design the next batch of exams, have to prepare my lessons for the week and homeschooling for all the quarantined students, all the while my mother is suffocatingly angry all the time about the state of the flat and pretty much constantly berating me for sitting at the desk all day and not help enough with the chores, so I have to abandon my work every hour or two to do a cleaning thing or two and then return and get distracted with the internet again while my mother keeps harping on me from the next room over. And yes, I'm pretty sure I'm only posting so much shit right now and then anxiously check for replies because the only other option would be to scream uncontrollably about how miserable I feel right now and that I have absolutely nobody to talk to. I feel like bursting, but I'm also well aware that everyone else is just as busy and it's horrible of me to waste precious minutes complaining.