When I was about to go into high school I wanted to learn about cool music that wasn’t just the classic rock my dad was into or top 40 pop music. I knew Pixies were cool because Kurt Cobain said they were cool and I liked Fight Club so I downloaded a copy of Surfer Rosa. That shit changed my life. It was so foundational to my tastes and opened up a whole world of independent music to me. Cloud Nothing’s Attack on Memory was a big deal for me too… I’m gonna miss the dude. Thanks Albini, you made some cool music.

Life is a marathon not a sprint. We don’t all have the same problems and we don’t all have the same tools at same time to deal with them and that’s ok. The value of you is so much more than just the accolades you receive or the money you earn. The meaning to your life is whatever you decide that meaning is not whatever is forced upon you. Remember to be kind to yourself. All anyone can do is try and be a lil better than the day before.

This happened to me in Hollow Knight. I was pretty deep into it and IDK why but I dropped it for a bit. After like 6 months I went back and I could not remember where the hell I was going, any of the mechanics, and every generic enemy was murdering me bad. I really should give that game another try lol I was going to just wait for silksong and play that but… Yeah :'(

It seems like from this comment and your post that your players just want to spend the session roleplay their characters doing super op stuff and are not super interested in balanced combat or deep character progression despite what they may say. I thunk would good to talk to them about what you’ve mentioned in the post and how it makes things hard on you as a DM. A couple solutions id maybe propose are agreeing to follow raw for the time and not make any rule changes in session and let you run the kind of campaign you want to see if they enjoy a more traditional DND experience. Alternatively maybe that’s not what they are looking for and if y’all have limited amount of time to play every week maybe a different system besides dnd would be more fun and easier for everyone including you. Ive tried monster of the week and blades in the dark with players similar to yours and found that while they weren’t like the most balanced experiences it was a lot easier to do a quick session where everyone felt like they did cool shit and I didnt have to spend sessions checking rules or trying to tell someone the silly thing they wanted to do wouldnt be possible because of bonus actions or lack of feat. Most important things is everyone has fun including you OP! Hope it all works out!

My favorite book I read this year was “The Fifth Season” by N.K. Jemisin and the rest of her Broken Earth Trilogy was fantastic as well. It’s such a uniquely dangerous and i I’mnteresting world full of mystery and horror. It really grounded with fantastic characters and a compelling plot. Plus it deals with issues like systemic oppression and climate change in a way that just doesn’t just feel like it is copying real world but slapping fantasy/sci Fi paint over it.