Bit of a long post but I need to get it off my chest because honestly I don't know what to do. I've never been in this type of situation, therefore any advice from someone whos been through something similar would be helpful. Anyway, bit of backstory.
My gf (20) and I (23) met early December last year and we really hit it off. The problem was that she was in a relationship then, but they broke up not long after ( I honestly think it wasn't because of me, they had problems long before we met) and we started talking and hanging out more often. We either texted or talked on facetime entire day because I am in Switzerland and she is in Croatia. It got to a point where she told me point blank that she had feelings for me but she wasn't ready for a relationship just yet, which I was ok with (keep in mind this was a month and a half after they broke up). Anyway, we started planning to go on a trip for a couple of days as soon as I got back home. I asked her where she wanted to go and picked the best place to stay and planned the entire thing perfectly, I even offered to take some of her friends with us just so she could feel more comfortable (in the end her sister and her boyfriend went with us). The two of us were holding hands and were next to one another entire time, we slept in the same bed, we even made out and had sex when we were alone one night (no alcohol or something similar, just passion I think). And honestly I liked that because we were each others little secret at the time. She even stayed at the house I rented for 7 days because we wanted to spend as much time as we could together. It started to feel like a beginning of a relationship but we didn't wanna say it at the time, we just wanted to be together entire time. Call it honeymoon phase if you will, but we both knew we had feelings for one another. I even met her family and her friends and had dinner with them. It was almost perfect.
This is where magic stops and reality hits. A couple of days ago she wanted to go through my phone, which I was fine with because I have nothing to hide, no porn, no other girls, no ig models, nothing. Just my dogs, family, friends and work, so I said fine as long as I can go through yours, which she reluctantly agreed. And that's when I saw it. Not only has she been texting some other guy, she's been actively seeing him and telling him how much she needs him, but she slept with him the same night and day I was driving 1200km just to see her and take her and her sister on that trip that we planned for so long. But that's not even the best part. At the same time we were planning our trip, that guy booked some cheap ass apartment and texted her the date saying I will see you then. ON THE SAME NIGHT I WAS DRIVING JUST TO SEE HER. And she responded with "I can't wait". But what bothers me is that that guy put in so little effort. I remember on Valentines day we wished each other happy Valentines, and I even sent her a bouquet of roses, just to show her that I really do care about her and I wanted to be there with her right now but can't because of work, she asked him that same fucking day if he wanted to go for a walk. And he said "no, I'm going to play games with my friends, I told you we will meet on the 22.". AND SHE WAS HEARTBROKEN BUT SHE STILL CHASED HIM. HOW PATHETIC DO BOTH OF THEM NEED TO BE? And the entire time she was texting him and going out with him, she was telling me how much she misses me, and how she can't wait for me to come. Entire time while I was there for her, spending days and nights talking and laughing with her, sending her flowers every week ( FLOWERS THAT SHE SHOWED HIM), that guy was putting in so little effort and reaping all the rewards. What's funny is after they slept together she bragged to all of her friends and said how they fucked twice and no protection cuz duh. Same friends that she introduced me to, that said that they are all cheering for me. They all knew, they all saw how much I cared for her and nobody said a thing. Then when I put the phone down and asked her to explain herself, only thing she said was "that was before we were official, and it was just for one night". The same girl that sent me a checklist of her perfect boyfriend where it stands "NEEDS TO BE LOYAL" does something like that and then says it was before we were official. She didn't even show a little bit of remorse, only thing she said was "you need to get over it". How???
I'm sorry for this long post, but my mind is just going crazy right now. I just needed a place to vent, a place where I can get some advice on what to do. Thank you for any advice😅
TL;DR; : Am I getting played? Or was that really a mistake on her part?

i just decided to play after a long break and on the launcher it shows java and windows editions. is windows edition the bedrock edition? if not how can one install bedrock?

The goal of my recent playthrough was always war with Rumburg, to increase sordish influence and safety in the region. But I wanted to appear peaceful to sanction Rumburg as much as possible. It may have not been necessary since I maintaned military budget and got military aid from ATO, as well as Lespia and Agnolia alliance. But I wanted to truly crush Rumburg. I got them kicked out of OMEC after the interview and I was diplomatic all the way, I didn't even hold a military parade.
Well it turns out that my international reputation was so strong that the AN actually vowed to protect Sordland against any potential aggression from Rumburg, so they didn't declare war. I was very pacifistic during the AN meeting and I got a large round of applause. So I reverted and tried to sound less peaceful during the speech, it didn't work. I reverted and showed support to Wehlen, shouted at the chancellor twice and didn't suck up to the AN as much. No luck. They still love me so much that they will guarantee me no matter what. So no war. I didn't decline the ATO for peace, smh.
It is a great ending regardless. I defeat Solleas and then I win the election without an alliance. It is a near perfect playthrough regardless as I increased funding in all of the branches except military, fantastic economy, reform without compromise, women and minority rights and destruction of the oligarchs. They only thing I regret is not decreasing military funding since they weren't needed but on the other hand it would be quite irresponsible for a leader to do that without the power of hindsight since the threat was there.
I suppose it can be argued that the great international relations is more beneficial than war but I still think in the long run that defeating Rumburg is necessary for a better world.

Good morning all.
I am in the process of finishing my UC50 form and have an evidence question. Firstly, can i send off my PIP award form? It shows all the things that affect me but I do understand that PIP is awarded slightly differently to LCWRA...but I figured it wouldn't harm my application.
Secondly...What actual medical evidence do they want? I have Addison's disease as well as mental health issues but getting any letter from my GP is always difficult. For my PIP application, I screenshotted my NHS app which showed my conditions....but this form requires printed evidence. I do have a letter from my psychologist which confirms my mental health issues.
I haven't got long to send it back...I stupidly forgot to get it done earlier and now I am running out of time.
Many thanks

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I found a 2003 XL1200S Sportster for sale at $6,500 with only 45 original miles! The seller says they've started it a few times each year, with the longest gap being 6 months. It currently needs a new battery, but the seller claims it should start right up. The photos show it in pristine condition with only a few spots on the chrome (no rust).
I really want this model, so I might be justifying the price because of my enthusiasm. I'm looking for advice on whether this is actually a good deal. My main concerns are potential engine damage from it sitting idle for so long, or issues with seals and cables that might need replacing.
I'm not a mechanic, but I do want to work on the bike myself. What specific concerns should I have for a bike of this age with such low mileage? There are plenty of Sportsters for sale on FB Marketplace and Craigslist, but none in such good condition. This bike looks like it's been kept in museum quality, always garaged.
What are your thoughts? Thanks in advance!

I've been having a lot of acne on my back from years, since puberty. Recently lost a lot of weight and i'd like to get rid of the acne as well. My doctor has prescribed me with light antibiotics and a creme in the past, but both showed no result. Unfortunately there are really long queues for dermatologists in my region. I was wondering if there is anyone who has had the same issue or if anyone is a dermatologist who can help me with this? Thank you in advance!

My (30m) twin is in a shitty, dangerous situation in his relationship and wants me and our family to just overlook the severity of it in hopes that everything will just be peachy.
He started talking to a girl over Instagram while living with my parents getting his life back together after a very messed up situation he put himself in with our older brother where he was in danger. My older brother is crazy, controlling, and can physically harm family but needed help and my twin thinks he’s here to help everyone.
This girl (Sally) was verbally, mentally, emotionally abusive before they had even met in person. My mom got to hear them fighting constantly but he’d defend her when anyone would ask or show concern. He shared many very worrying details with me like her telling him he’s basically a loser, and many things she didn’t like about him. He’s already so into her at the time and believes it’s a challenge to overcome that he wants to prove himself. He’s constantly sending these letters and flowers confessing his love.
They finally met where she lives multiple states away. She’s told him multiple times since then in different ways if he didn’t do these trips he couldn’t afford, that she would stop talking to him and that happened any time she’d get mad at him.
She also got him to work for their family business for almost nothing, building their website, selling, communicating with customers online. She didn’t want to keep doing it because she has her own business in shitty art you’ve seen on Instagram a thousand times. But people buy it so good for her, I guess.
When her parents and her happened to be going by where my parents live on a business trip, she asked him to get my parents to lie to hers about their relationship and pretend they were just business partners. My parents were obviously appalled and didn’t agree. They never met.
He eventually moved to her state after maybe 6 months of randomly meeting/dates and her parents being told a lie about the development of their relationship. She refused to stay at his apartment until he had furnished it. This whole time we’re warning him that these are serious red flags and sometimes he would tell her he’s not ok with them. She’d say she has trust issues and when he moved that would go away or some other insecurity or she’ll stop something, but she always got what she wanted.
His lease runs out and they end up getting a pretty expensive place together, plus he’s put a bunch of furniture and a car on credit that he can’t afford because she also tells him if they don’t on enough dates she’ll leave him. She had him get the car because she didn’t drive. You name it. So he’s drowning in debt constantly now for the first time in his life.
Then we start hearing really weird shit. He has to get a new work laptop because he spilled water on it. When my brother finally gets to see me, she tells him she doesn’t trust me and doesn’t leave him alone starting drama the entire trip. They break up and I’m getting verbally abusive messages about how I’m a loser and my relationship will never be as good as theirs. Then veiled threats through apology texts when they get back together. Turns out she poured water on his laptop. She’s been verbally abusing him, calling him a “beta cock loser”…she screamed that he was running her over when she wouldn’t let him drive away, threatened to tell police he was abusing her, he later told me they’ve become physically abusive towards each other.
One day he calls me and tells me to keep a recorded phone call he had with her. She was threatening him, telling him he needed to leave the apartment or something bad was going to happen to him. She threatened other things including using her brother’s connection with the cartel to hurt me and my girlfriend’s family in Mexico where we’re living.
This was the final straw for me and my parents. She’s been blocked everywhere and will never be near us again.
My brother, however, even forgave her for this and kept trying to work on the relationship. Later he did temporarily leave and stayed at my parents house but after she kept calling using different numbers and even emailing him telling him she’d bought self help books, he fell for it and went back.
I quit working with my brother and resigned from our company we started, and have since barely spoken to him except when he texts me he loves me. He thinks we can have a normal relationship and even forgive her too. He thinks everyone should believe her that she’s changing. They went to one therapy session. She barely started one of the audio books (I saw the progress on audible).
I feel like he has no self respect or respect for his family or my girlfriend’s, who loves him by the way. I think he’ll end up in jail, hurt, or continuing with her feeling like a loser and being abused. We’ve tried to help and been there for him countless times but he never chooses us. That’s actually something he’s been doing his whole life.
TLDR: My twin brother is being abused and is ruining his life but thinks he’s in love.

Images & video: https://imgur.com/a/wdO0hnK (just had to use something, a fork to rustle up the soil to show the bugs/gnats?).
My calathea medallion was in my living room, but it was reaching too much towards the light source, and was getting crispy ends, which could have been a moisture issue, so I moved them into my bathroom, which has good indirect light, and gets steamy twice a day when using the shower.
At first, they seemed happier, with the smaller leaves seeming to get stronger, but a week later now lots of the leaves are fully crisping, and it's FULL of gnats (I believe? I posted a video of the bugs). added a sticky trap, but it's not catching half of them. The stems just in general seem almost too long(?) for the plant size, like they are bending and creasing, and not 'praying' up and down like it used to either, and it still seems to be permanently leaning. But some younger leaves are still good and are staying upright.
Please any help would be massively appreciated!

So i am at dubai international airport and went to the mcd and when i was paying it asked me to choose between AED and CAD. I choose CAD.
And then when i checked it was a 6% more than the rates it was showing online(which i have the heard is the rate most people see). The machine said it accepted master card.
So should i have chosen AED to have gotten the benefit of the 0% fee.
Super confused and also a bit worried as i thought i could use my wealthsimple card for majority of my trip.

Guys I really need help because I’m just at my fuxing wits end with Tik Tok. The constant low views, low engagement due to them not pushing my videos is so disheartening.
I've received a 2 violations last week for absolute nonsense. The first violation was because I said “eww! That’s terrible” on someone’s post because they were talking about some really horrible situation. I didn’t mean it as in they were “eww”
Then I posted a video about things we should just let go of as women. Extremely long nails, baby hairs down to your eyeballs, huge bat lashes…. Very basic video. I got a strike for it! I was absolutely shocked. They removed my video then I appealed and they approved it and put it back up. Ultimately I felt like shxt so I deleted the entire post. After that I waited two days, I resumed posting. TODAY I posted and I thought hmm let me check my analytics. My analytics show that zero people who follow me have seen my posts, despite them appearing on the For You page. While people not following me have. And I was so annoyed!
It's frustrating to see that fitness, beauty, fashion, and lip-sync creators or even people just talking about absolutely nothing are getting the most views and engagement while my commentary, reactions, and reviews go unnoticed due to Tik Tok not pushing anything. I have 1.2k followers and aim for 5k by the year's end, but it feels unattainable.
I had friends tell me to keep going and how my content isn’t bad. But I am at the point where I’m starting to feel like is this even for me and maybe I should just delete my entire socials. The constant rejection Tik Tok is doing to small content creators like myself is just appalling and honestly unfair. Don’t get me wrong I enjoy making content, making people laugh and I love talking to people however I do not want to conform to what everyone else is doing as I feel like it’s not authentic.
Any advice or constructive criticism would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks :)

Help me please if there’s anyone who’s financially well off. I’m 24 from the uk and this year has been fucking shit to keep a long story short me and my ex split up in January we have a two year old son together and I’ve not been able to see him in months because of lies she’s told the police about me had me arrested twice for things I didn’t do luckily the police seen through her lies and nothing happened with that but she’s got social services involved and they are the most useless horrible people around they’re the people who have helped her in not letting me see my son and I have to do something about it. My sons mother is a danger and a vile person she’s got another daughter who she’s abused for years and I’ve witnessed it with my own eyes I’m worried sick she’s doing the same with my son ever since been little they’ve both always had marks on them I know kids fall over all the time and hurt themselves but they’re all different types of marks, bruises, scratches even bites marks which aren’t kids size teeth. This week has been the last straw for me she’s having different lads round who I don’t feel comfortable with being around my son her family are known drug dealers and overall shit people so what I’m asking is if anyone out there has ten thousand pounds to give me you don’t understand how much it would change my life. The reason why I want that is because I want to start a new life with my son away from her and all of them I have everything in place apart from the money if anyone is out there who’s well off please help me, this is only if you are rich please don’t anyone send anything if you aren’t. If anyone sees this and thinks about it but thinks it might be a scam I’ll leave my phone number email address and I’ll show proof of everything trust me this is not a scam I’m just broken by all of this and just looking for anyone out there who could help if there is someone out there who would help I’ll be internally grateful I’ll leave my details here.
Phone number:07762804980 Email address: lacz660@gmail.com Bank details: ADAM LACKENBY SORT CODE 11-07-83 ACCOUNT NUMBER 11271067
I know it’s stupid giving my details out but that’s how serious I am if anyone thinks it would be smart to try and hack my bank account there’s nothing in it so it would be pointless.I’m going to put this on all social media Reddit and anything like that to get as much people to see it as possible if you see this and want to help but can’t send any money all I ask is you share this as much as you can that means a lot just by doing that. If anyone is willing to do this please it would change my life thank you.

Hello! I know this is a long shot, but I was wondering if anyone here is selling 2-3 tickets to Taylor's show in Miami in October? The specific date doesn't matter and I'll take any seats!

A week before my 31st birthday I was diagnosed with a meningioma. About the size of a golf-ball behind my left eye. I go in for surgery, they get it out, but the scans showed that it was bone invasive. I wake up a few hours later, and I'm told that the surgery went great, all the neoplasm was removed, but for most of the bone. They could only shave so much of it away because something needed to keep my eyeball in its socket. Pathology of the tumor revealed it to be benign. A grade I meningioma. Very common, great prognosis. My recovery was great and I was out of the hospital about 24 hours later.
Now, just before my 33rd birthday, I find out that it's back. Kinda, I haven't gotten the scan done yet. We only know that all of the symptoms I had before - swollen around the eye, asymmetrical eye position, unable to focus the left eye, headaches, etc... - are back and slightly worse.
So I've been doing a lot of reading and about two months after my surgery, a paper comes out that says that my specific situation, Bone Invasive Grade I Meningioma is so rare, that there simply isn't enough data to study it properly. Now I'm reading this: "...sometimes recur in long-term follow-up, often requiring additional treatments, such as secondary surgery or salvage radiosurgery, which can be challenging and potentially lead to morbidity." and it's difficult to face this with the same optimism I did the first time around.
I put on a brave face for my friends and family, I make jokes and laugh, but I don't want to deal any of this again. I don't want the process of recovery again. I don't want my wife to go through all of that again. I guess I'm just in the self-pity stage and I'm trying to limit what I say to the people around me. We don't know exactly how bad it is yet, so I don't want to paint the devil on the wall, but it's hard.

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First, forget everything you’ve seen or heard from the reveal trailer, as the remake has been… remade from scratch. Ubisoft’s official announcement on the change of developers said that Montreal would be “building upon” the work already done by Ubisoft Mumbai and Pune, but from what we’ve been able to gather; it’s been completely redone. Footage sent to Insider Gaming under the condition that it does not go public shows the game is somewhat still in an early stage (missing textures, assets, etc.) and is, unfortunately, likely a ways off from release.
Prince of Persia: Sands of Time Remake’s overhaul also includes a more “realistic approach”, said one source. Everything has been built from the ground up, which includes a complete graphical overhaul, new animations and mechanics for combat and parkour, and much more. Starting from scratch has meant that the game has been rewritten, recaptured in mocap, and more.
One of the most noticeable changes for long-time Prince of Persia fans is that Yuri Lowenthal, the voice behind The Prince in the original, will no longer be reprising his role, despite him doing so in the original reveal trailer and during the remake’s original development. It’s not entirely clear why Lowenthal is no longer on the project.
Several sources have suggested that the company could give a more prominent update on the project soon, but what that looks like and when it will be is unclear.
Insider Gaming reached out to Ubisoft on comment before publication, to which a spokesperson said, “We do not comment on rumours and speculation”.
https://insider-gaming.com/prince-of-persia-sands-of-time-remake/

I'll just leave some suggestions here that I'd like to see implemented. Because there are personal suggestions, I'd like to hear both the community and devs share their opinions or more suggestions
The game:

• Add extra work tiles. This might be very personal and specific for me, because I often get on very long new creation streaks. Especially since you're trying to monetize the game more, you could sell it for quite a cheap price like 5 bucks. I can't promise a lot of people will need it, but it doesn't seem like a very hard thing to add + it creates some profit
  
• Decrease the loading time. Probably need to lower the amount of elements that get loaded from the start
  
• Improve the searching of elements. For example, I have the element "2 pillows". To find it, I would have to start by searching "2". If I search with just "Pillows", nothing will show up even though it's (the most important) part of the word
  
• More leveling rewards. I heard of themes/accessories being in the works. It would be cool if we could be awarded with greater rewards for reaching "milestones". Whether it's an hour of infinite energy, a pack of free elements, or something visual. It would really make the leveling system feel more rewarding rather than a nuisance of collecting small rewards
  
• Community challenges. Basically, hints have gotten useless once you completed every goal. To make hints useful again and have the community engage more with the game, you could implement weekly (or even daily) challenges to create certain elements created by the community. Users could upload an element (maybe with a game interface, if that's easier than Reddit), which the devs can choose to be a daily challenge for players to try and create (and spend hints on)
  
• A friend system (or anything to make the community engage more with each other). Since the game is entirely community based and it's easy for even new players to quickly create first evers, I think it would be really cool to share them with each other for them to create as well. It could maybe work like a sort of trading system where both add an element the other doesn't have yet, so they can both gain elements. This could also cost coins to do. Heck, you can turn this into a marketplace HAHAHA. A friend system might be a lot, but I think the community should have an easier time to help each other out or flex their creations
  

The community:

• I know you already had one and are planning on creating a new one, but a Discord server would greatly benefit the community. While Reddit allows us to make our own posts, it's hard to get to know the community and grow closer to it. Engaging with users in an off topic chat, easily being able to host events (like the challenge thing I recommended before), and dedicated channels for posting cool certain creations. I'm aware that there are a lot of users who prefer Reddit, but for myself I'm usually active on Discord and would have an easier time posting there
  
• Similar to what I mentioned just now, I'd love to see threads to specific categories. I once made a post on a lot of games and gaming related things I found, so it would be cool if we had threads made for posting games, series, books, celebrities, or anything nerdy. I'd love to see what other games people have created
  

Hey all!
I've been lurking here since I uploaded my first video on YT, and I've found some of your threads here useful. So I thought I'd give back with a write up on my monetization journey, which, although not lightning fast, has been medium-fast (two months and two weeks from my first upload).
Who am I?
I'm a fashion photographer, with 10+ years of experience in my main field, and 3+ years of experience in the generative AI field. I started working with generative AI for a project with Vogue Italia right before the main publicly available applications were released to the wider public (Dall-E, MidJourney, Stable Diffusion), and since then my work has been a mix of traditional photography and generative AI. And that's why I became a part-time Tuber.
Finding a niche
While I was implementing gen AI more and more in my fashion photography works, I was struggling to find professionally oriented tutorials on YT. There's a ton of content about gen AI, covering news, tools, and starting out with it, but there was close to no in-depth, real-world use cases focused tutorials. So I though - hey, I'm using it in my own works. I know a ton of fellow professionals who can use it too. I can't be the only one looking for this kind of content. Maybe I should create that content myself.
Now, I don't know what you're interested in, but in order to find a niche, I'd do the same: find something you like and know about, and check if there's some aspects of it which no one covers, and you know you can cover yourself.
From the comments and commission requests I've gotten in two months, I was right. Which leads us to...
Offering value
My content is long and incredibly tedious. Honestly, it's quite boring to the layman. But it's necessary for anyone who wants to learn something applicable in their own field *or* anyone who wants to start using AI tools in their own traditional workflows, so I realized those are my audience.
To those people, I'm offering value, even if the videos are long and boring. But it's the fact that they're long and boring that's giving me an edge. Let me explain how.
Basically, from the first video, I had to choose if:

• I wanted to go straight to the point and show how things were done with the tools I was using, and show real life examples, or;
  
• I wanted to spend the necessary time to explain to anyone, even those who had no skillset in the tools I was using, how things were done.
  

I decided to go with the latter. My videos are complete tutorials, A to Z, made for people who know basically nothing about generative AI, guiding them from knowing nothing to doing exactly what I'm doing, explaining how I set up things and, most importantly, why I do it the way I do it.
Now, I needed a way to not lose the attention of people who already knew how to go from A to G, but not from G to Z, so in the first minute or so I always say something along the lines of "ok, so now I'm going to build all of my workflow from scratch, so if you're not interested in how and why it works this way, you can find the timestamps here and jump ahead to the demonstration segment".
This works, and it's why my watch curve looks like a "U". A good 25-30% of people are interested in the "how it's done", while 35-40% are interested in "what it looks like".
The only negative comment I've ever received on my format, which was something like "dude, you're too slow", was followed by a comment, a month later, by the same user, saying "I get now why you're slow, not everyone's at the same level. Please disregard my previous comment".
Strategy
Overall, I upload weekly, same day, same time, unless:

• I want to stream (unscheduled, spur of the moment short streams, around 2 hours each);
  
• something huge has come out in my niche and needs to be covered as soon as possible.
  

I don't post shorts anymore, since:

• I'm not good at making them;
  
• I don't like making them;
  
• they don't provide value to my core audience.
  

The long term goal is to find new clients for my day job, and to do consulting work on the side, given that my audience perceive me as an expert in my field.
Metrics
Now, I think that the metrics I've seen both here and in the Partnered sub are completely skewed towards niches that are not appliable to me or fellow tutorial YouTubers, or for this sub in particular, are skewed towards creators who don't have large view counts.
20-30% CTR? 50% AVD? These kind of numbers, to me, would mean that I struck gold and I created something that was flying off the shelves like cakes during the French revolution (even if that never happened). Or, most likely, that no one is watching my content expect for my most hardened userbase, *and* YT didn't push the video at all to outside audiences.
My usual metrics, which are a direct result of both my very niche content and the nature of my content (tutorials), are around 8-10% CTR and 12-18% AVD. And the videos with these metrics get pushed, hard, to outside audiences.
I think YT's algorithm kind of understands that my content is not meant to be watched from start to finish, and that my audience is very selective of what it's useful to them. So either it doesn't care about the usual metrics I see thrown around here, or those metrics are inflated.
I also think (but again, sample size=1, me) that YT kind puts each and every one of us into a "box" of sorts, in terms of how much it wants to push our content. At first, my videos had a max impressions of around 10k. Nowadays, it's more in the realm of 50-200k, and it's reflected in the amount of impressions my newest videos get when they're published. The curves all look the same until one video breaks out, and a new standard is expected out of my next videos.
Also, each video is their own thing. If a video's CTR tanks in the first few hours, I can expect it to not reach the same audience that my most successful videos reach in the same amount of time, and that's because...
YouTube wants people to see (your) videos
Well, maybe not *your* videos, and maybe not *all* your videos, but the way YT works is opposite of the way IG works, for example. While IG has no monetary incentives to pushing free content, and has to push paid content in between free content, YouTube makes money out of people seeing free content, because the paid content (ADs) is embedded into the free content (videos).
So if your video is good, YT has no issues pushing it. If your video is not good, too bad, there's another content creator in your niche who has a better video, so let's push their video instead.
By providing value to your viewers, you're providing value to YouTube and their ADs, so either you and YT win, or another content creator and YT win. In the eyes of YT, everybody wins all the time.
Increasing CTR
If you're like me, you know, in your heart of hearts, that a catchy title and a great thumbnail are as important as the content of your video. If you're like me, the thumbnail's the last thing you prepare, and we're both wrong.
Seriously, get good at creating good thumbnails. Since I've started focusing more on thumbnails, my CTR has gotten, if not better in the long run (since all videos default to kind of the same CTR the longer the video has been out for and the wider the audience is), better in the first few hours and days, which increases the audience drastically.
I know this is a boring part of the creative process, but get good at it.
Also, experiment with multiple thumbnails during the first hours when a video has been published. A thumbnail you expected to do well might not be as catchy as you thought. Try 3 or 4 different thumbnails and see what sticks.
Increasing AVD
Now in my case I can't do much about it, since the format I've chosen is kind of non-negotiable and it's what brings value at the expense of AVD, but if you're:

• seeing a sharp decrease in viewers around the 00:30 mark, work on your intros and get straight into the action;
  
• seeing a below 30% retention rate throughout the video, either there was no need for this content, or you're not covering it well enough (or you're not engaging enough);
  
• overall, give the viewers a reason to stay engaged throughout the different sections of the video.
  

Streaming
I discovered streaming way too late, and I wish I did it way earlier. It would have had me monetized at least a couple of weeks sooner.
But in order to do it well, you need:

• a good userbase who wants to extract more infos and values from things you're not covering in your uploads;
  
• the skillset necessary to basically host a mini-show.
  

The latter is the hardest part, and I only know how to do it because I'm used to giving speeches and lessons. But, like all skills, it's not something you're born with, it's something you train and get good at, so if you're into it try it and get better at it over time.
Equipment
I'm lucky enough to have a day job that covers most of the equipment needed. My camera and lenses are the same I'm using for my day job, I already had a mic, my PC is an absolute beast because of the generative AI work I do, so I think I spent like 20 bucks for a mic arm and that's it.
In anyone else's case, though, the most important things to invest in is:

• a good mic, since audio quality is more important than video quality (tons of people have terrible displays, but tons of people like to hear nice audio);
  
• 8 hours in DaVinci Resolve, and I swear you don't even need the full 8 hours, you just need to understand how to trim, cut and paste clips, how to improve your audio, and how to export files;
  
• only then, and maybe, a good enough camera, good lighting (my light is literally an ikea lamp with a 5 bucks white scrim on it, I just know how to make it look good because of my day job), minimum hardware.
  

Final considerations
Some of you may have more trouble with subs, some with watch hours (in my case, I got 2.5k subs before I reached my watch hours goal), some of you may find trouble expressing yourselves in front of the camera, or talking well, or may prefer scripts rather than talking freely while doing things, but all in all:

• do what you're good at;
  
• improve what you're lacking in;
  
• know what's useless to improve.
  

Let me know if you'd like to know more, or if I missed something.
Thanks for reading!