Right off bat, I did not grow up with the OT in their original forms. However, I love seeing the changes made and actually like some of the older interpretations, so I'm mostly neutral save for watching the new versions first.
Obviously, the most infamous change is that song, which even newer viewers can tell feels out of place. However, it did lead to that moment where the Twi'lek ends up in the Rancor area, which I think was a legitimately great change that sets up Luke's encounter later on.
I've heard people say they don't like the "No!" from Darth Vader, but in my opinion, it fits very well, especially for something as theatrical as Star Wars. It genuinely just does feel like there's something missing in that original version. I get that you can already tell his thoughts, but the gesture doesn't feel as grand without that verbal reaction. At least in my experience, no one who has seen the movie with that addition has ever minded.
For the unmasking scene, getting rid of the eyebrows just makes the whole look work better. Him being this ghostly white with very prominent eyebrows just looks a little funny.
The ending song is just way better in the newer edition. The Ewok song is cute and fits for some other celebration exclusive to the Ewoks, but the score that was added just feels much more triumphant and like an ending song that also fits the Ewok environment. It's one of my favorite pieces of music from the franchise and I was really surprised when I learned it wasn't originally there.

I’m the eldest out of three, my dad has been having health issues lately (nearly died early April), it was stressful and I was basically parenting my baby sister while mom was constantly in the hospital. Counselors I’ve spoken with agreed that I’ve been placed with too much responsibility on and lately it has decreased thankfully, dad is home and occasionally has a lot of pain but it’s much better now, nothing critical albeit his skin is much worse (he’s always had skin problems), he’s not working currently because he’s not fit to do so. Whenever my baby sister (info: she’s 1 years old and can run around + play freely by herself with supervision) starts crying or screaming, he ALWAYS shouts my name, always my name telling me to put her to sleep when that’s not even what her needs are, always my name, I understand he has health problems but not so bad he can’t even take care of his own daughter. My younger sister can take my baby sister too but why me? Why my name always? There was even this incident where dad was shouting for my name but my sister went instead and CAN put my baby sister to sleep but dad just shouted for me anyways. Mom told him to knock it off, she’s the only breadwinner as of now and does all household chores. I fucking hate that they view me as mom’s substitute. Every day without fail now that he has free time, he goes out and places money on some fucking horse game, I never had a problem as he’s been doing this long before I was even born and it never affected our family, it’s a joke when he says he’ll quit smoking or placing money, it’s impossible to talk him out of it anyways. I just hate the smell of smoke honestly, he didn’t even stop when my baby sister was born which I do find incredibly stupid as she was a newborn. He’s been smoking before I was born too, but I never cared cause he’s always been a father to us, working hard and late, generous, treating us to sushi, I loved that, I loved him and he was the only person I found joy in even when I was suicidal as a kid but now? It feels like everyday I’m seeing more and more of a deadbeat, less of a father even if he’s got health problems. He has friends at the place that he bets money on horses, so sure he needs a social life but even when he’s home, he still takes the TV to watch some fucking horses. Me and my younger sister were having a great time watching a childhood show today, then he came home and everyone 10 minutes or so he’d need the TV just to watch his fucking horses. I was there with mom in comforting him when his dad died during March, I try to show concern and love but he’s really only somewhat of a dead to my baby sister now, going out with her, playing, adoring her. I love her too, I’m not jealous of her. There’s no sense of jealousy, I don’t think I resent my dad and it might just be the fact my period is soon but I just don’t think I have a dad at home right now, I want to unconditionally support him but in return I just want him to treat me like a daughter again. I still remember words from a few years ago that he said to me: “I don’t want to be a good man, I want to be a good father” and he was that, for a good while, he’s not bad but just not a father right now.

Apologies in advance for this somber post. I wanted to share my experience in our wedding planning, and in life really, in case it helps anyone else here too. Next weekend my husband and I are having our destination wedding/vow renewal with our closest friends, family, and a sprinkling of acquaintances. I already know it’s going to be the wedding of my dreams with the dress, the venue, the food, and those most special to me being there, safe and sound. About six months ago however, my kitty Max was diagnosed with both kidney disease and liver cancer. He’s been my guy for the past 15 years, and for those 15 years he’s slept next to my head at night, waited for me at the door, played fetch with corks and talked to me when I had a tough day. Currently he’s sitting on his floor scratcher, staring towards the patio door. I don’t think he’s looking at anything in the backyard, moreso he’s managing the discomfort and pain that his daily dose of chicken-flavored Buprenorphine should help alleviate. He has good days and bad, and sometimes he sleeps all day, other times (like this morning) he wakes me up for food and medicine at 4:30am. I never ever mind. This Wednesday we have a friend coming over to watch our house and the pets before we board our flight early Thursday, and will only be gone six days. He will have someone here 24/7 to feed him, give him medicine, anything and everything I can think to do short of physically being here… I lost my other kitty Lola last October and experienced first hand the very moment we knew it was time to help her go. My Lola, my little miss, passed away in my arms. Max is not there yet, but he’s close, and we joke (we have to) that the moment we get on the plane is the moment he decides to croak. I’m genuinely so scared I won’t be there in case it is his time to go, and for what, ultimately a party about ourselves. There has been more than one moment where I thought we should put him to sleep before the trip, and my husband helped me see that right now it would be more selfish on my part than a gift to Max. He still plays a little, still purrs, still talks to us in his older cragly tone. My husband will be the designated contact during our week up north so if something does happen to Max, he will keep it secret from me until we are on our way home. There is absolutely no world or dimension in which I could keep it together if bubs passed away without me. The whole point of this story though is to explain… this is all just a part of life. I can’t cancel these year-long plans based on an unknown, and we of course didn’t know he would be this sick right now. I am taking early morning walks everyday and drinking lots (and lots and lots) of water to keep my body in check. I’m eating smaller meals and taking vitamins/fiber to ease my stomach and headaches. I have lists to check to help prep for the trip there and the wedding itself and each completed check gets a tiny victory dance in my head. I’m not a religious person at all, but I am speaking prayers to myself and to Max, telling him to go if he has to, and to please forgive me if I am not there to keep him warm when he does. My friends and family are aware of the situation and my best friend, my maid of honor, will help keep me grounded in remembering the ultimate reason why we were doing this in the first place: we are worth celebrating our 15 years of love and the life we made together. I will be open to the love and compliments they give, I will be focused and present in the moment to hold a decent conversation, I will make sure to show gratitude for everyone there. Bubby would want me to. If you’re still reading this, thank you. Know that time does not stop for you, or for me, and all we can do is make the best of what we are given and make peace with the choices we decide to make. Know you’re not alone in the stresses of wedding planning (just had to double check some florist stuff that is making me nervous) and that being stressed itself is also okay. Maybe age really helps all of this (35F) so those of you getting married younger may feel differently, but to give this post an end, I hope you all feel some peace of mind that you’re not alone and have a beautiful time on your special day.

Looking to chat with couples where the husband/bf would like me to cuck him by chatting with her wife/gf/fiance and telling how I would use and fill her holes whilst her cuck partner watches and does nothing all the time!
This could be set up with a groupchat consisting the three of us. Whilst I haven't thought through how'd I wanna approach this, I was however thinking of a scenario where you add me and I instantly start flirting with your wife/gf/fiance right in front of you and basically ignore you untill I'm telling your wife how I wanna use her in front of her husband.
Feel free to reach out to me discuss things first and then we can start with our group chat. Btw if group chat isn't your thing then you can also feel free to let me chat directly with your wife/gf directly. Upto you!
My kik: urwifeinmedms

I'm guessing most of you have read the new chapter, I guess it was kinda boring and underwhelming, but I def think that it could be bigger than we think it is.
At the end of the chapter, it is revealed that Aihara is planning to buy Akamine Academy. This theory came to mind when I saw Mei's reaction to Yuzu discovering the papers, she didn't seem nervous or at least a little cautious about it, she was pretty direct about it. This is my theory:
First, Yuzu is going to (probably) try and stop this from happening since she learned more about Arata and sees he's a nice guy. I think she's going to try and go to grandfather and ask this deal to stop. Second, I think this is where the plot twist is going to happen, I think grandfather is going to reveal that it is Mei herself who is in charge of this operation and proposed the idea. Think about it: She went to Akamine Academy with Yuzu to see other Academy's in the area, she was the one who got in contact with Arata, she was the one who became business partners with Arata. I believe Mei is doing this to prove to the board that she is a good candidate for chairwoman of the academy, and wants to propose a change they can agree with. Just like the Sayaka incident, Mei took responsibility for it. She is showing that same responsibility by handling this all by herself. This chapter takes over the span of 5 days, if it is believed Mei was working on her proposition when Yuzu left to go study, then she definitely could get in contact with the board and propose this in that time span.
Now this is the part where I'm confused, we probably know that Arata probably doesn't know this purchase is happening and we don't know if Mei is going to tell him or not. But the fact that they're business partners and one of them hasn't even heard the proposition is kinda weird. This is the part where I'm making a wild guess, Mei is jealous of Arata. I'm going to say this now, Arata is one of the most CONFUSING characters in this series, I don't know if he likes Yuzu, I don't know if he's gay, there is barely anything revealed on his feelings besides his role in Akamine, but still he just came into the series so I'm gonna diss on him too much. Mei has known Arata and Yuzu for a while and they both have pretty similar attitudes. (I think) Mei is trying to get Yuzu and Arata as distant as possible because she just doesn't trust him with Yuzu. But still this part is a pure guess because of how calm Mei is with revealing the purchase to Yuzu.
Knowing how this series has gone in the past, Yuzu is prob going to save Akamine Academy from being bought and make Mei trust Arata more. But when Yuzu does save Akamine, I think Arata is going to confess his feeling for her, in which Yuzu is going to deny and reveal she's engaged to Mei. Since Arata isn't in the wedding invitation, I think he starts to hate Yuzu since she lied to him saying "I mostly get in her way" even though she saved Akamine. But since Arata was introduced after Citrus, that could be wrong
The last 2 parts is where I'm very unsure, but yea that's my theory, feel free to comment or make your own theories. :)

Hi Everyone
I'm working on a project exploring how to make football more accessible and exciting for women in the UK who haven't traditionally been fans. I'm particularly interested in the idea of a "Fan Ambassador" program, where experienced fans (men/woomen) mentor newcomers.
Here's the basic idea:
Passionate fans sign up as ambassadors. - People new to football get matched with an ambassador based on shared interests, favorite teams (if they have one), etc. - They can then connect for one-on-one watch parties (virtual or in-person), ask questions in real-time, and learn the ropes in a friendly environment. - The platform could also include features like a "digital yearbook" for easy access to player info, stats, and key moments, as well as a simplified "lite mode" for the app, making content easier to digest for beginners.
Additional ideas we're considering:

• Gamified learning experiences (quizzes, trivia)
• Localized pub/cafe match screening listings (maybe through the app?)
• A behind-the-scenes look at players' lives and personalities

Questions for you:

1. What do you think of this "Fan Ambassador" concept? Does it appeal to you?
2. What kind of features would you find most valuable in such a program?
3. Any other ideas for making football more accessible and enjoyable for newcomers?
4. Any concerns or potential drawbacks to this1?

I would really love your honest feedback! All experiences and opinions welcome.

Hi Everyone
I'm working on a project exploring how to make football more accessible and exciting for women who haven't traditionally been fans. I'm particularly interested in the idea of a "Fan Ambassador" program, where experienced fans (men/women) mentor newcomers.
Here's the basic idea:
Passionate fans sign up as ambassadors. - People new to football get matched with an ambassador based on shared interests, favorite teams (if they have one), etc. - They can then connect for one-on-one watch parties (virtual or in-person), ask questions in real-time, and learn the ropes in a friendly environment. - The platform could also include features like a "digital yearbook" for easy access to player info, stats, and key moments, as well as a simplified "lite mode" for the app, making content easier to digest for beginners.
Additional ideas we're considering:

• Gamified learning experiences (quizzes, trivia)
• Localized pub/cafe match screening listings (maybe through the app?)
• A behind-the-scenes look at players' lives and personalities

Questions for you:

1. What do you think of this "Fan Ambassador" concept? Does it appeal to you?
2. What kind of features would you find most valuable in such a program?
3. Any other ideas for making football more accessible and enjoyable for newcomers?
4. Any concerns or potential drawbacks to this1?

I would really love your honest feedback! All experiences and opinions welcome.

Follow me.
If God decreed that the Fall would happen, how can we say we are blamed for our sins? That is, if God decrees everything, is it really everything, or is it everything, but our choices? Whether it's the first or the second, how come we are responsible for our sins but at the same time we have no choice but to sin, unless God regenerates us? Cause if He decrees that all mankind falls (and therefore decrees that everyone will sin), how is it okay that a non-elect person is created only to end up suffering, and how is that fair, since their condition as humans makes them inherently guilty, unless God elects them for His free atonement to be efficacious?
Morality is important, but does anyone here actually think it is held to such a high degree by good God, to the point where HUMANS will be doomed to eternal fire and judgment only because they weren’t lucky enough to have God electing them?
I don’t think there’s another interpretation to biblical Christianity other than the Reformed one, the Bible makes it explicitly clear that salvation is of the Lord and not a work we do. But if it is true, it makes me wonder what is God’s purpose in creating some to be forgiven for a condition they were born in, or to be judged because of such a condition. And how is this all fair. Lastly, how can we say God loves everyone if He elects some for damnation? "Not electing for salvation" or "directly electing for damnation" is the same, since our salvation is dependent entirely on Him in both cases.
I come in all respect. FYI, I'm a Christian, just one at a low point. (or maybe I am a non-elect who has heard the gospel and once been fascinated by it but not in the "elect" way)...

Hi ArsenalWFC
I'm working on a project exploring how to make football more accessible and exciting for women who haven't traditionally been fans. I'm particularly interested in the idea of a "Fan Ambassador" program, where experienced fans (men/woomen) mentor newcomers. This is something that could be easily leveraged to boost particular fan clubs too.
Here's the basic idea:
Passionate fans sign up as ambassadors. - People new to football get matched with an ambassador based on shared interests, favorite teams (if they have one), etc. - They can then connect for one-on-one watch parties (virtual or in-person), ask questions in real-time, and learn the ropes in a friendly environment. - The platform could also include features like a "digital yearbook" for easy access to player info, stats, and key moments, as well as a simplified "lite mode" for the app, making content easier to digest for beginners.
Additional ideas we're considering:

• Gamified learning experiences (quizzes, trivia)
• Localized pub/cafe match screening listings (maybe through the app?)
• A behind-the-scenes look at players' lives and personalities

Questions for you:

1. What do you think of this "Fan Ambassador" concept? Does it appeal to you?
2. What kind of features would you find most valuable in such a program?
3. Any other ideas for making football more accessible and enjoyable for newcomers?
4. Any concerns or potential drawbacks to this1?

I would really love your honest feedback! All experiences and opinions welcome.

During the height of my high regard for the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), among the movies of which I had been a major fan were the Captain America releases. At least two of them. The third film in this mini franchise - 2016's "CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR" proved to be a major disappointment for me. However, when I heard that Disney and Marvel Films had plans to air a miniseries about the characters Sam Wilson aka the Falcon and James "Bucky" Barnes aka the Winter Soldier, I must admit that I felt a renewed interest in the franchise again.
When I said a renewal of the MCU franchise, I meant it. Aside from a few movies like "ANT-MAN", "BLACK PANTHER", "CAPTAIN MARVEL" and "ETERNALS"; the MCU had become a major disappointment for me ever since the release of 2015's "THE AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON". One might ask . . . what about the MCU television productions that aired on the Disney Plus streaming channel? Aside from one production that I somewhat liked and one that I loved, most of them have been disappointing to me. Unfortunately, I have to include this follow-up to the Captain America movies, "THE FALCON AND THE WINTER SOLDIER".
Set six months after 2019's "THE AVENGERS: ENDGAME", "THE FALCON AND THE WINTER SOLDIER" followed former war veteran/Avenger Sam Wilson, who has resumed working the for the U.S. government, while using his role as the Falcon. When the government recruits Sam to track down and deal with a group of enhanced anarchists known as "the Flag Smashers", former World War II veteran/HYDRA tool/Avenger James "Bucky" Buchannan aka the Winter Soldier decides to join Sam in his mission, due to his lingering guilt as a former HYDRA assassin and their shared experiences as Steve Rogers' close friends and battling Thanos and his army.
Since "THE FALCON AND THE WINTER SOLDIER" had aired on the DisneyPlus channel in six episodes, I had seriously considered ranking the episodes. But like Season three of the Marvel Netflix series, "DAREDEVIL", the more I watched "THE FALCON AND THE WINTER SOLIDER", the more it disappointed me. Aside from complaints about its pacing, the limited series had received a great deal of praise from critics and fans alike. Because of this, I believe it was one of the most overrated productions in the MCU history. People had seemed so focused on little moments and scenes that very few had noticed how the series' narrative seemed to be all over the map. For example:
~\Sam Wilson~* - This limited series is supposed to be a follow up to the events of "ENDGAME" in which Sam had received the Captain America shield from an aging Steve Rogers, a sign for him to take up the latter's costumed role. Was this an attempt by Marvel Films/Disney to make Sam a more relevant character? If so, why? Why did a MCU character have to replace Steve as the new Captain America to be more relevant? Why not allow Sam to continue as the Falcon, only push his role to the forefront as one of the franchise's new leading characters? Some might accuse me of not wanting a black man as Captain America, a topic that was brought up in the series. Frankly, I never wanted another character - regardless of race, gender or ethnicity - to become the new Captain America. That includes Bucky Barnes. Allow Steve Rogers to fade into the background and let Sam (as the Falcon) shine as one of the franchise's new leads. However, the die has been cast. One can only sit back and see if moviegoers are willing to accept Sam as the new Captain America.
Perhaps the MCU had to make Sam the new Captain America in order to make him more relevant. Why would I say that? The showrunner for "THE FALCON AND THE WINTER SOLDIER", Malcolm Spellman, came dangerously close to shoving Sam into the role of the second lead or worst, a role he has been since his debut in 2014's "CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER" - a supporting character. During the series' first three or four episodes, someone other than Sam (either Bucky Barnes or Helmut Zemo - two white men) made decisions that allowed the plot to move forward, not Sam. He was simply regulated to being an observer or reactor. The series even managed to undermine Sam's decision not to support the Sokovia Accords in "CIVIL WAR". In thee 2016, Sam became the first Avenger to speak out against the Accords and declare his intentions not to sign it. Yet, according to Bucky in this series, Sam had merely followed Steve's example in rejecting the Accords. And Spellman did nothing to allow Sam to correct this misconception.
~\James "Bucky" Barnes~* - One of the few aspects of "CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR" I found enjoyable proved to be the interactions between Sam Wilson and Bucky Buchannan. Despite their lingering jealousy and competition over the role as "Steve Rogers' best friend", the pair's interactions proved to be very entertaining, thanks to the screen chemistry between Anthony Mackie and Sebastian Stan. Unfortunately, Mackie and Stan could not save "CIVIL WAR" for me. Nor could they save "THE FALCON AND THE WINTER SOLDIER", due to its problematic writing. A good deal of that writing surrounded Bucky's character. I have so many questions about his role in this series. For example:
-Why would any official of the Joint Counter Terrorist Center allow Bucky to visit and question Helmut Zemo, the man responsible for the U.N. conference bombing in Vienna, in "CIVIL WAR"? That made very little sense to me. Surely the JCTC authorities remembered how Zemo managed to brainwash Bucky into making his own prison break in "CIVIL WAR"? Also, Bucky was on parole for his activities as a brainwashed HYDRA assassin. Yet, the JCTC had allowed him to visit Zemo? Surely, the showrunner could have allowed Sam, who was serving the U.S. government again, to be the one to visit and question Zemo?
-How on earth did Bucky managed to evade being arrested and charged for helping Zemo escape from the JCTC? The U.S. and other governments should have been suspicious of Bucky after learning about his visit to Zemo.
-Bucky came off as an arrogant school jock, who thought he was entitled to get his way - especially in his interactions with Sam. I found it hilarious that many fans had criticized John Walker aka Captain America aka U.S. Agent for such toxic behavior. Yet, they had turned a blind eye to Bucky's own behavior. And so did the series - up until the last two episodes. Why did the showrunner allow Bucky to get away with this behavior toward Sam for so long without any complaints from the latter?
-I did not care how Bucky had bullied his way into Sam's mission without the latter's consent. What I found even more annoying was the U.S. government's decision to allow Bucky to join Sam's mission after that ludicrous "therapy session" they were forced to attend together.
~\Racism -~* A good number of MCU fans had complained about the inclusion of racism in "THE FALCON AND THE WINTER SOLDIER". I had no problems with this direction, considering the story was about Sam, an African-American man, becoming the new Captain America. However, I had a good deal of problems with how the production explored the topic of racism.
The story of Isaiah Bradley, Marvel's second Captain America, had originated in the comics. In the MCU, he was a Korea War veteran whom the United States Army used as one of several unwilling African-American test subjects for their version of the Super Soldier serum. I realize that both Marvel Comics and the MCU had attempted to use Bradley's experience as a metaphor for the Tuskegee Syphilis Study. The problem is that I cannot see the U.S. government and the Army - both racist organizations in the early 1950s - be willing to risk the possibility of creating a non-white super soldier. Despite the recent desegregation of the Armed Forces in the late 1940s. And both the government and the Army had been more than willing to use white soldiers in other experiments.
After saving a group of black American super soldiers from a prison camp, Bradly was imprisoned by the U.S. government for thirty years. I saw nothing wrong with this twist in the character's narrative, until I remembered two things - Bradley had been able to free his fellow soldiers without anyone's help; and nearly sixty years later, Steve Rogers managed to break into the Raft and free those Avengers who had refused to sign the Sokovia Accord. Why was Bradley unable to free himself from prison? This is the man who had defeated the Winter Soldier by breaking the latter's metal arm. And he was not powerful enough to make a prison break, let alone evade capture?
I had assumed Sam's difficulty in becoming the new Captain America would stem from the government's reluctance to recruit a black man for the position. That would explain their decision to recruit the blond-haired John Walker instead. But the series never really made it clear whether political racism had played a role in Walker's recruitment. The series also had James "Rhodey" Rhodes had paid Sam a visit, emphasizing the importance of the new Captain America being black. As it turned out, Sam's own insecurities about becoming Captain America had more to do with him not initially assuming the role. There was also that interesting scene outside Bradley's Baltimore home where the police arrested Sam during verbal argument with Bucky. Although the cops backed away when they recognized Sam as an Avenger, they ended up arresting the parolee Bucky for missing his required therapy appointment. This scene was supposed to be a case of racial profiling. But . . . we might as well be honest. In the real world, the police would not have backed down from hassling Sam. What I found more disturbing was the production's handling of Bucky's arrest. Once the police discovers that Sam was an Avenger; they turned to arrest Bucky for failing to show up for his missing his therapy session. Not only did the police arrest Bucky with a more gentle behavior, they did so, accompanied by Henry Jackman's mournful score, something that did not accompany the moment of Sam being arrested. Were the audiences expected to notice the hypocrisy and racism in the police's handling of the two men? Expected to feel sympathy for Bucky? Or both?
The last episode featured a scene of two black kids playing with toy Captain America shields. Someone had commented that the shields (especially in the hands of non-white children) represented hope to the future of race relations in the United States. Why? How? This country had a biracial president for EIGHT YEARS. Yet, U.S. racial policies have remained problematic even to this day. I can say the same for other countries. The so-called symbolism of this scene only reminded me of how human beings put so much faith in imagery and symbolism. And this strikes me as a FALSE FAITH. Why was taking up the mantle of a costumed hero that had been previously occupied by a white man, the only way for Sam Wilson to become relevant within the MCU franchise? What was wrong with him being "the Falcon"? Sam becoming the next Captain America was not going to save the U.S. in regard to race relations - not in real life and not in the fictional world of the MCU. Looking back on the series, the series' only scenario that seemed to expose racism in a realistic manner, proved to be Sam's failure to acquire a bank loan for his family's fishing boat in Louisiana.
~\Sharon Carter~* - I am certain many MCU fans are aware of this. One of Marvel Comics' most iconic couples happened to be Steve Rogers aka Captain America and Sharon Carter aka Agent 13. She also happened to be the great-niece of Peggy Carter, Steve's love interest during World War II. Portrayed by Emily VanCamp, Sharon was first introduced as a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent in "CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER" as a potential love interest for Steve. Despite Sharon's appearance in the following Captain America movie, "CIVIL WAR", their romance never really developed. Many blamed the lack of chemistry between VanCamp and Chris Evans. I never had a problem with their screen chemistry. I had a problem with the lack of relationship development between Sharon and Steve. And I blame Kevin Feige's decision to transform the third Captain America film into a third (and badly written) pseudo Avengers movie. The change in the film's narrative, along with Sharon's failure to appear in "THE AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR" and "ENDGAME", left no opportunity for Sharon and Steve to become the romantic pair they had been in the comics. Instead, Sharon became a fugitive from the U.S. government after helping Steve and Sam hunt down Bucky, moved to Madripoor, a city-state with no U.S. extradition and became an embittered criminal known as "the Power Broker".
After "CIVIL WAR", nearly five years had passed before Sharon appeared in another MCU production - namely this series. And what happened? The franchise, with Spellman, ended up completely destroying her character by transforming her into the villain known as Power Broker, the criminal leader of an Indonesian city-state called Madripoor. After helping Steve and Sam acquire their suits and equipment in order to go after Bucky in "CIVIL WAR", Sharon lost her job with the C.I.A. and became a fugitive. She eventually moved to Madripoor, a city-state with no U.S. extradition, to evade capture, survived Thanos' Snap and became an embittered criminal nicknamed "the Power Broker" in order to survive the new world.
What really pissed me off about Sharon's arc between "CIVIL WAR" and "THE FALCON AND THE WINTER SOLDIER" is that her development into a major villain all happened OFF SCREEN. Off screen. Apparently, screenwriters for "INFINITY WAR" had written a draft that included Sharon in the movie. But according to Christopher Markus, he and Stephen McFeeley could not imagine scenes featuring Steve and Sharon trying to make it work in an apartment, because the 2018 movie did not have time to focus on their personal life. Why did Marvel simply fail to allow Sharon to be part of Steve's vigilante team - like Sam and Natasha Romanoff? I mean . . . good fucking grief! And why did Malcolm Spellman believe the only way Sharon could be interesting was to become a villain in "THE FALCON AND THE WINTER SOLDIER"? This was his idea of improving Sharon's character?
~\Helmut Zemo aka Baron Zemo~* - Why did Malcolm Spellman, Kevin Feige and the MCU thought it necessary to bring back Helmut Zemo, the Sokovian-born villain from "CIVIL WAR"? What role did he play in "THE FALCON AND THE WINTER SOLDIER"? I realize that Bucky, of all people, visited the incarcerated Zemo to acquire information on who had created the super-soldier serum that empowered the Flag Smashers. But why did he believe Zemo could provide the answer? Because he thought HYDRA was involved? Bucky or Sam could have searched for information from sources other than Zemo, who had been incarcerated for . . . what? Eight years? Eight years. Zemo managed to become something of a crowd-pleaser, thanks to Daniel Brühl's performance. Otherwise, I found his presence in this series unnecessary.
~\The Big Bad~* - Why on earth did it take this series so long to finally reveal the main villain's identity? At first, the series hinted the Flag Smashers, led by Karli Morgenthau. However, the series tossed other potential candidates for the Big Bad before viewers - John Walker, Helmut Zemo and yes, Sharon Carter. But in the end, Morgenthau and her group proved to be the main villains.
The Flag Smashers were a group of empowered people who believed the world was a better place between Thanos' Snap and the Blip (resurrection of those who had died during the Snap), when Humans around the world managed to unite and form a borderless society, one in which people helped others without any thought to nationalism and bias. Thanks to the Avengers, the world resumed its conflicts between nationalities and other groups. In other words, the borders returned.
Frankly, I have nothing against this ideal. Only Ms. Morgenthau and her followers resorted to violence and terrorism to achieve their goals. Does this sound familiar? It should. The Flag Smashers proved to be another example of characters with a progressive goal, resorting to extremism and becoming villains. This seemed to be a growing trend within the franchise, which I believe began with Erik "Killmonger" Stevens aka Prince N'Jadaka in 2018's "BLACK PANTHER". Since then, the MCU has not looked back at its growing roster of progressive villains. Perhaps I should not have been surprised. The franchise's ambiguous portrayal of an unconstitutional document like the Sokovia Accords, should have been the wake-up call. It seemed as if Kevin Feige, Marvel Films and Disney Studios had finally exposed themselves for the faux progressives they pretend to be. Frankly, this form of villainy has become tiresome to me.
After writing this article, I had considered ranking the six episodes featured in "THE FALCON AND THE WINTER SOLDIER" anyway. But I decided against it. My dislike of the series made it impossible for me to even bother. Being a fan of the first two Captain America movies, I had truly hoped this series would redeem the franchise. Unfortunately, it proved to be just as disappointing as "CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR". Pity. Perhaps the fourth film, "CAPTAIN AMERICA: BRAVE NEW WORLD" will do the trick. I hope so.

This might be a slightly philosophical post. But the aim is to get to the bottom of what you should be truly doing. To truly get the most results.
There seems to be a MASSIVE amount of conflicting information online about how to do this.
“Do stuff that moves the needle forward”
“Do stuff that brings in revenue”
What does this truly mean though. And is it even the right thing. That’s the purpose of this post, to uncover.
When I’ve spent my time on actual needle-moving forward things, like taking business from 0 to revenue, doing all offer development, operations, sales process, marketing myself, it generally has taken me about 6 months to fully ‘try out’ a business idea I’ve had.
Most times it hasn’t worked.
Either it wasn’t profitable. Or there was a big problem somewhere.
I believe fundamentally it’s because I’m moving too slow.
Because it usually takes me around 6 months to ‘validate’ whether a business has good potential.
When you haven’t sold it or developed expertise in it yourself yet.
And I would say about 5% of the time it does work.
So if it takes 6 months and only 5% of the time it works (where you bring in revenue, no major issues), and each time it doesn’t work you try a new variation of it or something new based on what you learned, then it might take 10 years of trying different things to get the business to work.
Which sounds like it takes way too long.
So I thought about how the top companies move much quicker.
What separates them and my strategy.
And realized they simply had much more people on their team.
If you think about any successful organization who has achieved great things, and is world-leading, usually there is not 1 person on the team.
There seems to be a correlation between number of people on the team and speed of progress they can make in business.
Which goes against what most conventional startup wisdom tells you, most small business content creators etc all tell you to do it all yourself.
Which I’ve done for quite a few years and it’s gone so slowly in terms of overall progress.
If you should ‘do everything yourself’ then most Fortune 500 companies would’ve had single founders, and 1 person on their team. But the vast majority of successful Fortune 500 companies had co-founders.
And most successful businesses I know of, had co-founders.
And as they succeeded, they got more people on the team, and these people helped bring more success, then they brought more people.
Obviously there can be bad staff and not everyone contributes to the success of the company.
But I do believe, based on this, and observing top companies, that generally the more successful they are, the more people were involved with bringing about the success.
Which completely contradicts most information given to startups about ‘lone wolf’, ‘go it alone’. If that were true, Google would have 1 employee. Apple would have 1 employee.
And they would have never gotten off the ground.
Anyway, I may not have explained this perfectly but I do strongly believe the more & higher quality people are working together on something, the stats show these companies tend to do better, and successful companies you see often have more people than less working on them.
From the very beginning and now.
Regardless of the stage they were at.
So going based off this information, that the more people, the better, I have hired 30+ different people for different roles. Over the past few years. Across different businesses. To help speed up the progress in different areas.
From marketing roles, sales process roles, web development, app development, customer service, delivery of services.
And I would say there have been maybe 1 or 2 of them where I was actually happy with the result.
Most times, I would hire someone to do a job, and they didn’t do the job well, despite saying they were experienced.
And showing past examples of their work. And telling me everything I wanted to hear about how good they were.
It would often be that they would end up performing badly in the KPIs I set for them, giving many excuses, asking for help/questions/not solving anything on their own.
And just so many other problems. Like when there were multiple people at the same time on a team, working on the same project, they would blame each other and no one took responsibility despite clear responsibilities.
All telling me how other staff were bad and they were good, but getting conflicting info from all staff where they blame each other for everything so it’s difficult to know who to trust and who is being truthful.
Oftentimes not being reliable or doing what they were clearly asked to do.
Oftentimes trying to outsource the work I game them, to other people and not caring about the quality.
At my expense.
So I lost lots of clients, had low performing areas in the areas I hired for a lot of the time.
To be fair, things happened faster the more people there were.
But they often needed much more from me than they were contributing.
Like they always wanted to get paid more, for doing less work, weren’t reliable, did low quality work, didn’t hit KPIs, missed clear deadlines, always gave excuses, blamed others/external things, always asking how “I” wanted their job to be done, to the point where I was having to literally tell them every single thing to do and become an expert at their job myself, and show them how to do what they were put there to do, or do it myself, and still get a low quality result from them.
Anyway, the list goes on in all the problems I have experienced hiring people.
It really seems like a minefield.
But there were 1-2 people who did actually do well, who were responsive, who did what they committed to do, who hit deadlines, who did what they were asked, who didn’t give excuses. Who were actually honest hard workers who figured out how to solve problems and actually do the job that was asked from them.
Because of the amount of people I hired and the very low % of people who seemed to do their job well, it made me think that I am probably the problem here. If so many people are doing a bad job and not doing what they were actually hired to do. When most other companies seem to succeed at hiring people.
Then it must be a problem with myself and how I am hiring and managing them.
So it makes me think I need to level up in how I hire and manage people.
I’ve tried lots of different businesses and variations of them and some have done okay, some have not.
Mainly the most success I’ve had is in my own freelancing, where I don’t have other people on my team.
Because it’s kind of turned into a headache working with others. Who just seem to have mostly never been able to deliver what they promised without it becoming pointless to hire them in the first place with all the work I’m doing on their behalf and trying to pick up after all the problems and failures they’ve done.
So I’m not sure exactly what to spend my time and resources on.
I have money saved up from freelancing.
Where I can continue to hire people.
But I do feel I’ve had many many bad experiences.
And I believe it’s mostly my fault. Maybe my training, my hiring, my management, at places along the line I’ve not done it well enough.
I’ve tried to make improvements each time but it has kind of seemed like luck to get people who do actually do their job well.
I genuinely want to hire people and succeed in this.
Because if I can successfully work with people to achieve outcomes, rather than relying only on myself, I can build a real business and not just do freelancing.
In freelancing, I was able to make $3k-5k/month but it was very stressful and I hated speaking with clients, and was constantly stressed.
I generally really don’t like socialising with people. Including clients and staff.
And staff often try to get me to socialise unnecessarily so they can avoid doing their job, and pull me away from mine.
So trying to make it work.
I want to make it work with hiring people because if I can do this, I can make 10x-100x-1000x faster progress with other people on the same team.
But I do have a very bad track record so far. So it’s kind of painful returning to it and continuing to have bad experiences.
But at the same time I know it’s me who’s probably at fault because there can’t be this many bad people I’ve hired and it surely can’t be this bad for everyone.
I think the reason is that I’ve been better at managing myself and doing things successfully solo throughout my life.
Like I’ve achieved very good things in solo sports, in academia, and in many areas that don’t require a team, but often become frustrated working in a team.
But I don’t want my business success to be limited to 1 person.
So I truly want to make it work in improving my ability to manage (ideally a large amount of) people in a way where they can actually deliver and it work well.
Because I was capped in freelancing to making $3k-5k/month because I couldn’t take on more clients because I was undercharging and overdelivering and couldn’t handle more due to being massively stressed out and hating it. I was able to work with less clients at times and charge higher, but they never wanted me to ‘outsource’ my work to others or bring on a team, and I felt bad about it because had bad experiences where I had felt like I let clients down, and oftentimes they told me they had hired me because of me, and not wanted me to ‘outsource’ the work.
But I want to make it work.
Building a real business with a team. Not just doing freelancing and relying just on myself.
So I have time and money and resources to put into this.
I have 1 staff member currently who is unproductive. But we have an equity deal so it doesn’t cost me money for them to perform. But costs me lots of time and their performance is extremely weak. Don’t even want to go into detail, but it’s a nightmare. Their performance is about 1/10 but I believe I can raise their performance if I improve my ability to raise their performance.
Anyway. I want to build a team, but not sure exactly what activities are best ways to spend my time.
If I am physically making improvements, I feel I am slowing down the business progress.
Whereas I want to hire and manage people.
I’ve built training so that this co-founder is able to hire people. And these people can use the same training to hire people.
But I don’t currently have training to enable them to manage people.
My fear is that without training, people just ask unlimited questions on how to do something in their role and it becomes pointless to have hired them because I have to do everything they should have done to do it, so they basically just become a robot following very specific instructions. Rather than a human being who can achieve things independently.
So for example, if I made this training, it would take up all my time, whereas I have savings I’ve accumulated from freelancing which I can put into either having the co-founder manage staff, or have the co-founder make management training at the same time to enable more and more staff to hire and manage new staff. To achieve overall objectives and KPIs.
Or I could have the co-founder hire someone to make the training.
Then that frees up my time, my co-founders, time and only takes financial resources to accomplish.
What I want to achieve, is a scenario where I can give staff KPIs and objectives, and they are enabled to hire and manage people who can meet these objectives. Independently without my help required.
They give feedback, and I have a system for feedback to internal improvements can be made based on staff feedback.
Without it being unfiltered, it’s structured and organised so people can’t just get unlimited help/training/whatever from me.
Where they should be able to take actions, iterate, learn, improve, and act as independent thinking people who can achieve objectives themselves. Or within a system where it’s not all tied directly to me.
E.g. I have direct reports going to me.
But they have direct reports who go to them.
Previously I had a system where I did this, but then staff at the bottom of the hierarchy would ask their managers questions, and the managers wouldn’t know the answer so would then ask me the questions, and so jumping over the managers and making me deal with everything.
Whereas I want to build a system where people can make business progress in their specific area, independently without everything going to the CEO. Only important/urgent things are feedbacked to the CEO.
This way I believe much faster progress can happen.
Because I won’t be bogged down by exponentially growing problems.
Like with how it works in any successful organisation.
Tim Cook has only a handful of direct reports. Who each only have a handful of direct reports. And so on.
He’s making the most important decisions, dealing with what’s most important and strategic, with top authority, dealing with everything as a birds eye view, but not doing every employee’s job for them, teaching every employee how to do their job. Picking up the pieces after every employee misses their deadlines, doesn’t do their work, gives excuses, does poor work that doesn’t help the company.
Even in any successful organisation. Each unit/person is making their own decisions, taking their own action, learning from it, practicing themself at improving, gaining their own experience, not all relying on 1 person, every single person in the organisation, just for them to do their job.
In successful organisations, people at every level experience new problems all the time, and don’t need to contact the #1 person at the top just to deal with it.
They come up with a solution and go for it. And iterate. Learn, try to do something better next time. And there’s a constant learning/feedback process going on across the organisation which everyone takes part in, not just 1 person doing every part for everyone.
I believe this structure of modelling what actually successful organisations do is the correct way. Because they’re successful for a reason.
Not this ‘hustle grindset’ BS in the startup/business world where lots of information seems to be saying the wrong thing. It just makes no sense to make every single person 100% reliant on you for them to do their job.
Anyway so I’m thinking about what I should do with my time.
What I want to do, is tell my co-founder what to do, which involves hiring and managing people who do things that move the needle forward in the business, as defined by me, and some of those people also hire and manage people. To have an exponentially growing system of people growing the organisation. And a communication and feedback and learning system and autonomy within the system itself so it can take action, learn, grow, thrive. As a system within itself.
I believe if hypothetically, I did everything myself, then it takes about 6 months to ‘validate’ whether a business has good potential, and 5% of the time it does. So if I do everything myself, I believe it will take me 10 years to get a business off the ground.
But if I utilise my money and time more efficiently, I can have as many people working on each part involved in validating these businesses as possible.
I don’t know if that is lazy or smart.
I believe it’s both. But mostly smart. Because I believe I can convince, hire, organise, manage people to either work on equity deals or pay in a way where businesses can realistically bring in profit.
My co-founder does very little of what I ask him to do.
And he wants me to be doing individual things.
He objectively is financially and intelligently very poor and has very minimal skills or experience.
Not to be offensive. Just to paint a picture. So since there is conflicting information everywhere in the business world and you need to choose who to trust, I don’t trust what he believes.
Objectively I am much richer in all these areas than him.
So I used to operate on a democratic system with them. But it’s kind of like, in a vote for president, if you have 80% of the population being easily controlled by the media and being very dumb and easy to sway and manipulate into believing anything, and they vote for things which are objectively dumb and go against what the smartest and objectively most valuable people vote for, I don’t want to be held back by a dumb population having authority or being listened to, if they have a clear, long track record of making very bad decisions.
If you were to take business advice from a homeless person with no experience, money or intellect, or a Fortune 500 CEO, who let’s say objectively has massive experience, money, intellect and success. Then I would probably take what the CEO has to say.
If you had to listen to what a scientist vs 12 year old had to say about a scientific topic, you’d probably want to listen to the scientist who studied the topic and is well respected in their field.
So I believe it would be dumb for both of us, if he made decisions, objectively.
But at the same time it’s difficult to truly know what the truth is.
The Fortune 500 CEO could be telling you what you want to hear, and could have an incentive to lie to you to send you in the wrong direction with bad business advice so you don’t become competition to them, and the homeless person could be honest.
The scientist could be trying to gain fame and get attention to themself to build their career on a lie and fake experiments whereas the 12 year old could be a science savant.
So it’s difficult to truly know what the truth is.
If I should listen to him or myself.
Objectively.

1. I believe if I spend time building the business via this logic I’ve described above, it can grow much faster, with unlimited people working on it and performing well, if the necessary improvements are made.
   
2. And I believe if I were to do the individual things necessary to do it, it would take 6 months to ‘validate’ each’s potential. I.e. try everything in that timeframe to make it work, build a good service/product, build good sales process, build good marketing, deal with customers, etc, all on your own.
   

Whereas in the first option, other people could do all these things.
Human development over history has happened due to the input of millions, if not billions of people.
There wasn’t 1 person who did all the work to get Carnegie or Bill Gates or Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg to gain the success they’ve achieved.
They all build an empire off the backs of others.
Did the slave owners do the slave work themselves when they brought slaves to America? No.
Does Elon do all the individual parts necessary to grow the company? No. He leads and controls the people in order to do that.
Does Mark Zuckerberg single handedly get Facebook off the ground? No. There were 10+ people involved. He stole code from others. Who sued him.
All of these people had exponentially growing staff as the company grew, as fuel to grow the company.
So if you have the money and strategy to lead them to success, I believe it surely is possible.
So long story short this is a long rambling piece of writing but I believe there’s very little impact 1 individual person has on the success of a company. Controlling and amassing an army of people who build the company up and contribute to the company sounds more true.
Does 1 person do everything involved in every sports team? No. Each player plays their respective part. Directed by the coach/manager.
Does 1 person do everything involved in musical orchestras? No each musician plays their part. Directed by the conductor.
And so on.
If you can build an exponentially growing team of staff who effectively work together, bring others on, take action to grow the business, learn from mistakes, make improvements, are highly motivated, are led successfully, it can achieve great things. I feel like it’s a delusion that individual people single-handedly grow companies without others.
So what should that person spend their time doing?
Doing all the millions of things necessary to grow the company? Or bring and manage others who some make progress themselves, some bring and manage others, to gain more and more resources to make progress at faster and faster rate.
Do successful people really have only 1 person responsible? No. They have teams of people behind them.
So trying to do the work of 1,000 people as 1 person sounds 1,000x as hard as getting 1,000 people to each do the work of 1 person.
So if you can finance the growth of the company via hiring others.
Let’s assume I can finance this exponential staff growth. Then surely I should do it right?
Like if I were to compete with 1 person trying to grow their business, and I had 1,000+ people, all doing their jobs effectively, being organised, working as a system not all relying on me, the competition where it’s 1 staff member on average would get beaten.
And surely any excuse you could give, I could just hire someone to solve that excuse.
Like “oh but what roles do you hire these people to do?” well I could hire someone whose role is to figure out what roles they should do. “But what if x?” well I could hire someone whose role is to solve that too. And so on. “Oh but do you have enough money to pay these staff?” Yes. And I can hire people whose job is to bring in money. Whether it’s fundraising, raising from
Did Hitler fight WW2 with 1 person? No. He fought it with millions, if not hundreds of millions of people.
Did Amazon/[insert any Fortune 500 company] get to their size today from having 1 staff member who did everything? No. They had thousands if not hundreds of thousands of staff.
Did any successful mom and pop shop/small business get to their size today from 1 staff member? No. They are one of the largest employers in the USA. Which means they hire a lot of people. Successful mom & pop shops generally have more staff the more successful they are.
Armies generally have more success the bigger and more effective they are.
Companies generally have more success the more staff and more effective the staff are.
So surely we shouldn’t hold ourselves back, to use the example of war, it’s like trying to go to war with others who have hundreds of thousands of people in their army, with just 1 person, yourself. Who is going to win? Them.
How are you going to compete with companies with way more staff, and way more effective staff than you? You would have to become exponentially more effective as 1 person which I just don’t know if it’s realistic.
I think it’s more delusional to believe that 1 person can do as well as 10 or 20 or 50 or 100 or more people who are each as effective as that 1 person.
So if you were to win, you would probably want to expand your army/staff and make them more effective, rather than try to make yourself somehow perform on the same level as armies/companies with thousands or hundreds of thousands of people. It’s just delusional to believe you can beat them in my opinion.
In business, you’d have to be extremely skilled at hundreds of different skills, spend 10+ hours on 100+ individual areas of the business each week to compete with 1,000+ staff who, if performing effectively, would crush you.
This is just my thoughts.
Am I being delusional? Come on…
I just feel like this is the way. Just look at the most successful organisations in history. Was it 1 person?
No, 1 person cannot realistically win a war against 100,000+ people. No matter how good they are. They would need to be top 0.00000000001% in skill in the world at what they’re beating the other side at.
Could 1 footballer beat a football team of 100 people of equal ability than them? No.
Could a company of 1 person outperform a company of 1,000 people? No.
So I believe if I can solve the ability to do this, I can grow a team of unlimited size to conquer and beat any problem thrown at us.
It’s just down to control of people.
Money doesn’t exist.
Even biggest most successful companies in the world mostly didn’t get there on their own.
I believe less than 1% of Fortune 500 Companies were bootstrapped. Or something similar.
And this is what I’m saying.
People in the small business/entrepreneur world tell you you need to have everything yourself.
How are you going to outfinance, outcompete companies on complete other levels without acquiring these resources from others? Just relying on yourself.
How could 1 person get more financing/investment in a company from investors compared to 1,000 of equal ability.
It’s never 1 person ‘beating the world’. Or beating the industry on their own.
Maybe if your aspiration is to be an average business.
“Oh but you should do what is best at each level, and it’s different for each level. Start just by yourself until you get X revenue. THEN hire people”
…..Well if you struggle to get X revenue on your own, how are you ever going to hire others?
The others help you grow the revenue in the first place.
I feel like the small business world is too overreliant on the founder and delusional about the capabilities of 1 person when competing against units 100-1,000x + bigger than them.
Come on.
Anything you want to compete in. In business.
Generally you already have competition.
And if you manage to somehow “spot” something they’ve “missed”, they could just copy you and wipe you out with their massive resources anyway.
In my opinion you need to expand your resources as FAST as possible.
Not this BS “oh wait until you get X profit on your own to hire other people”
Well if you’ve only made good profit on your own as a freelancer, and you’ve spent a lot of years trying to get a business off the ground solo, what are you meant to do?
“Oh just make it work” Great advice.
I just feel like there’s too much delusion into what it actually takes.
In a job or as a freelancer. It’s easier to make $3k-5k/month revenue because you’re only competing against individuals.
But when you try to compete against other businesses to make $3k-5k/month profit, you’re competing against businesses with 10x-100x the people, the money, the resources, the everything, to beat you.
So how are you meant to realistically beat them on your own? Without expanding your resources as quick as possible.
So because of this I believe if 1 person on their own is somehow meant to take a business from $0 to $10k/mo profit, then surely it will happen quicker if more people, of equal ability, are trying to make the business $0 to 10k/mo profit.
To be honest I don’t know what the truth is. This is just what I believe the truth is.
Because I’ve consumed so much wrong information from people acting like they have the correct advice in business.
All Youtube videos, articles, courses, claiming to make you successful in business, when in reality it’s just advice that sounds either easy to say or easy to hear.
Like it’s easy to say as a comment to this post, a response that takes 5 seconds to write, like the first thing that comes to your mind, like “just figure it out on your own”. But that’s not necessarily the truth, it’s just easy for you to say as a commenter. Comments aren’t necessarily the truth.
And on the other side business advice is easy to hear. Like “work on your own, make $1m/month, move to X country, live the life, working 2hours/day” which is just pure delusion. And most of the time the content/advice’s purpose is to benefit the business who made it, not the receiver of the advice. Because it’s selling a course or they have ad sense so they just want maximum engagement and views.
And anyone who is successful in business doesn’t need to give any advice. Because they’re applying the advice. Not giving it. Bill Gates or Jeff Bezos etc have no strong incentive trying to help others get to their level because they could just make an extra $10M-100M from spending the same time/energy/resources giving advice into growing their business.
They’re never gonna have advice that would help you beat them because otherwise they would’ve applied it themself.
And they are actually incentivized to not want others to truly succeed. Because it means more competition for them and less success for them.
So 99%+ of info online just seems like it’s not true.
I’m trying to figure out what is true and what isn’t.
Honestly though it’s difficult to even trust what anyone says in business. Any advice or feedback. For the reasons given.
Because 99% of feedback is either from people who haven’t truly grown a successful business, or it’s not related to you, or it involved luck, or it’s just like a motivational quote they tell you, or it’s a snarky comment they tell you.
It’s only helpful to them. And you are actually their customer or viewer or their entertainment. Not a successful business yourself. Because it’s just all misinformation that all contradicts with the truth.
So not even sure if it’s worth trying to get advice or if it’s all just pointless, just to figure it out myself from experience, trial and error and learning from my own thinking than relying on any other thinking.
Anyway do you think this is just crazy and I’m going crazy or is there any truth to what I’m saying?
Let me know your brutal honest feedback

This might be a slightly philosophical post. But the aim is to get to the bottom of what you should be truly doing. To truly get the most results.
There seems to be a MASSIVE amount of conflicting information online about how to do this.
“Do stuff that moves the needle forward”
“Do stuff that brings in revenue”
What does this truly mean though. And is it even the right thing. That’s the purpose of this post, to uncover.
When I’ve spent my time on actual needle-moving forward things, like taking business from 0 to revenue, doing all offer development, operations, sales process, marketing myself, it generally has taken me about 6 months to fully ‘try out’ a business idea I’ve had.
Most times it hasn’t worked.
Either it wasn’t profitable. Or there was a big problem somewhere.
I believe fundamentally it’s because I’m moving too slow.
Because it usually takes me around 6 months to ‘validate’ whether a business has good potential.
When you haven’t sold it or developed expertise in it yourself yet.
And I would say about 5% of the time it does work.
So if it takes 6 months and only 5% of the time it works (where you bring in revenue, no major issues), and each time it doesn’t work you try a new variation of it or something new based on what you learned, then it might take 10 years of trying different things to get the business to work.
Which sounds like it takes way too long.
So I thought about how the top companies move much quicker.
What separates them and my strategy.
And realized they simply had much more people on their team.
If you think about any successful organization who has achieved great things, and is world-leading, usually there is not 1 person on the team.
There seems to be a correlation between number of people on the team and speed of progress they can make in business.
Which goes against what most conventional startup wisdom tells you, most small business content creators etc all tell you to do it all yourself.
Which I’ve done for quite a few years and it’s gone so slowly in terms of overall progress.
If you should ‘do everything yourself’ then most Fortune 500 companies would’ve had single founders, and 1 person on their team. But the vast majority of successful Fortune 500 companies had co-founders.
And most successful businesses I know of, had co-founders.
And as they succeeded, they got more people on the team, and these people helped bring more success, then they brought more people.
Obviously there can be bad staff and not everyone contributes to the success of the company.
But I do believe, based on this, and observing top companies, that generally the more successful they are, the more people were involved with bringing about the success.
Which completely contradicts most information given to startups about ‘lone wolf’, ‘go it alone’. If that were true, Google would have 1 employee. Apple would have 1 employee.
And they would have never gotten off the ground.
Anyway, I may not have explained this perfectly but I do strongly believe the more & higher quality people are working together on something, the stats show these companies tend to do better, and successful companies you see often have more people than less working on them.
From the very beginning and now.
Regardless of the stage they were at.
So going based off this information, that the more people, the better, I have hired 30+ different people for different roles. Over the past few years. Across different businesses. To help speed up the progress in different areas.
From marketing roles, sales process roles, web development, app development, customer service, delivery of services.
And I would say there have been maybe 1 or 2 of them where I was actually happy with the result.
Most times, I would hire someone to do a job, and they didn’t do the job well, despite saying they were experienced.
And showing past examples of their work. And telling me everything I wanted to hear about how good they were.
It would often be that they would end up performing badly in the KPIs I set for them, giving many excuses, asking for help/questions/not solving anything on their own.
And just so many other problems. Like when there were multiple people at the same time on a team, working on the same project, they would blame each other and no one took responsibility despite clear responsibilities.
All telling me how other staff were bad and they were good, but getting conflicting info from all staff where they blame each other for everything so it’s difficult to know who to trust and who is being truthful.
Oftentimes not being reliable or doing what they were clearly asked to do.
Oftentimes trying to outsource the work I game them, to other people and not caring about the quality.
At my expense.
So I lost lots of clients, had low performing areas in the areas I hired for a lot of the time.
To be fair, things happened faster the more people there were.
But they often needed much more from me than they were contributing.
Like they always wanted to get paid more, for doing less work, weren’t reliable, did low quality work, didn’t hit KPIs, missed clear deadlines, always gave excuses, blamed others/external things, always asking how “I” wanted their job to be done, to the point where I was having to literally tell them every single thing to do and become an expert at their job myself, and show them how to do what they were put there to do, or do it myself, and still get a low quality result from them.
Anyway, the list goes on in all the problems I have experienced hiring people.
It really seems like a minefield.
But there were 1-2 people who did actually do well, who were responsive, who did what they committed to do, who hit deadlines, who did what they were asked, who didn’t give excuses. Who were actually honest hard workers who figured out how to solve problems and actually do the job that was asked from them.
Because of the amount of people I hired and the very low % of people who seemed to do their job well, it made me think that I am probably the problem here. If so many people are doing a bad job and not doing what they were actually hired to do. When most other companies seem to succeed at hiring people.
Then it must be a problem with myself and how I am hiring and managing them.
So it makes me think I need to level up in how I hire and manage people.
I’ve tried lots of different businesses and variations of them and some have done okay, some have not.
Mainly the most success I’ve had is in my own freelancing, where I don’t have other people on my team.
Because it’s kind of turned into a headache working with others. Who just seem to have mostly never been able to deliver what they promised without it becoming pointless to hire them in the first place with all the work I’m doing on their behalf and trying to pick up after all the problems and failures they’ve done.
So I’m not sure exactly what to spend my time and resources on.
I have money saved up from freelancing.
Where I can continue to hire people.
But I do feel I’ve had many many bad experiences.
And I believe it’s mostly my fault. Maybe my training, my hiring, my management, at places along the line I’ve not done it well enough.
I’ve tried to make improvements each time but it has kind of seemed like luck to get people who do actually do their job well.
I genuinely want to hire people and succeed in this.
Because if I can successfully work with people to achieve outcomes, rather than relying only on myself, I can build a real business and not just do freelancing.
In freelancing, I was able to make $3k-5k/month but it was very stressful and I hated speaking with clients, and was constantly stressed.
I generally really don’t like socialising with people. Including clients and staff.
And staff often try to get me to socialise unnecessarily so they can avoid doing their job, and pull me away from mine.
So trying to make it work.
I want to make it work with hiring people because if I can do this, I can make 10x-100x-1000x faster progress with other people on the same team.
But I do have a very bad track record so far. So it’s kind of painful returning to it and continuing to have bad experiences.
But at the same time I know it’s me who’s probably at fault because there can’t be this many bad people I’ve hired and it surely can’t be this bad for everyone.
I think the reason is that I’ve been better at managing myself and doing things successfully solo throughout my life.
Like I’ve achieved very good things in solo sports, in academia, and in many areas that don’t require a team, but often become frustrated working in a team.
But I don’t want my business success to be limited to 1 person.
So I truly want to make it work in improving my ability to manage (ideally a large amount of) people in a way where they can actually deliver and it work well.
Because I was capped in freelancing to making $3k-5k/month because I couldn’t take on more clients because I was undercharging and overdelivering and couldn’t handle more due to being massively stressed out and hating it. I was able to work with less clients at times and charge higher, but they never wanted me to ‘outsource’ my work to others or bring on a team, and I felt bad about it because had bad experiences where I had felt like I let clients down, and oftentimes they told me they had hired me because of me, and not wanted me to ‘outsource’ the work.
But I want to make it work.
Building a real business with a team. Not just doing freelancing and relying just on myself.
So I have time and money and resources to put into this.
I have 1 staff member currently who is unproductive. But we have an equity deal so it doesn’t cost me money for them to perform. But costs me lots of time and their performance is extremely weak. Don’t even want to go into detail, but it’s a nightmare. Their performance is about 1/10 but I believe I can raise their performance if I improve my ability to raise their performance.
Anyway. I want to build a team, but not sure exactly what activities are best ways to spend my time.
If I am physically making improvements, I feel I am slowing down the business progress.
Whereas I want to hire and manage people.
I’ve built training so that this co-founder is able to hire people. And these people can use the same training to hire people.
But I don’t currently have training to enable them to manage people.
My fear is that without training, people just ask unlimited questions on how to do something in their role and it becomes pointless to have hired them because I have to do everything they should have done to do it, so they basically just become a robot following very specific instructions. Rather than a human being who can achieve things independently.
So for example, if I made this training, it would take up all my time, whereas I have savings I’ve accumulated from freelancing which I can put into either having the co-founder manage staff, or have the co-founder make management training at the same time to enable more and more staff to hire and manage new staff. To achieve overall objectives and KPIs.
Or I could have the co-founder hire someone to make the training.
Then that frees up my time, my co-founders, time and only takes financial resources to accomplish.
What I want to achieve, is a scenario where I can give staff KPIs and objectives, and they are enabled to hire and manage people who can meet these objectives. Independently without my help required.
They give feedback, and I have a system for feedback to internal improvements can be made based on staff feedback.
Without it being unfiltered, it’s structured and organised so people can’t just get unlimited help/training/whatever from me.
Where they should be able to take actions, iterate, learn, improve, and act as independent thinking people who can achieve objectives themselves. Or within a system where it’s not all tied directly to me.
E.g. I have direct reports going to me.
But they have direct reports who go to them.
Previously I had a system where I did this, but then staff at the bottom of the hierarchy would ask their managers questions, and the managers wouldn’t know the answer so would then ask me the questions, and so jumping over the managers and making me deal with everything.
Whereas I want to build a system where people can make business progress in their specific area, independently without everything going to the CEO. Only important/urgent things are feedbacked to the CEO.
This way I believe much faster progress can happen.
Because I won’t be bogged down by exponentially growing problems.
Like with how it works in any successful organisation.
Tim Cook has only a handful of direct reports. Who each only have a handful of direct reports. And so on.
He’s making the most important decisions, dealing with what’s most important and strategic, with top authority, dealing with everything as a birds eye view, but not doing every employee’s job for them, teaching every employee how to do their job. Picking up the pieces after every employee misses their deadlines, doesn’t do their work, gives excuses, does poor work that doesn’t help the company.
Even in any successful organisation. Each unit/person is making their own decisions, taking their own action, learning from it, practicing themself at improving, gaining their own experience, not all relying on 1 person, every single person in the organisation, just for them to do their job.
In successful organisations, people at every level experience new problems all the time, and don’t need to contact the #1 person at the top just to deal with it.
They come up with a solution and go for it. And iterate. Learn, try to do something better next time. And there’s a constant learning/feedback process going on across the organisation which everyone takes part in, not just 1 person doing every part for everyone.
I believe this structure of modelling what actually successful organisations do is the correct way. Because they’re successful for a reason.
Not this ‘hustle grindset’ BS in the startup/business world where lots of information seems to be saying the wrong thing. It just makes no sense to make every single person 100% reliant on you for them to do their job.
Anyway so I’m thinking about what I should do with my time.
What I want to do, is tell my co-founder what to do, which involves hiring and managing people who do things that move the needle forward in the business, as defined by me, and some of those people also hire and manage people. To have an exponentially growing system of people growing the organisation. And a communication and feedback and learning system and autonomy within the system itself so it can take action, learn, grow, thrive. As a system within itself.
I believe if hypothetically, I did everything myself, then it takes about 6 months to ‘validate’ whether a business has good potential, and 5% of the time it does. So if I do everything myself, I believe it will take me 10 years to get a business off the ground.
But if I utilise my money and time more efficiently, I can have as many people working on each part involved in validating these businesses as possible.
I don’t know if that is lazy or smart.
I believe it’s both. But mostly smart. Because I believe I can convince, hire, organise, manage people to either work on equity deals or pay in a way where businesses can realistically bring in profit.
My co-founder does very little of what I ask him to do.
And he wants me to be doing individual things.
He objectively is financially and intelligently very poor and has very minimal skills or experience.
Not to be offensive. Just to paint a picture. So since there is conflicting information everywhere in the business world and you need to choose who to trust, I don’t trust what he believes.
Objectively I am much richer in all these areas than him.
So I used to operate on a democratic system with them. But it’s kind of like, in a vote for president, if you have 80% of the population being easily controlled by the media and being very dumb and easy to sway and manipulate into believing anything, and they vote for things which are objectively dumb and go against what the smartest and objectively most valuable people vote for, I don’t want to be held back by a dumb population having authority or being listened to, if they have a clear, long track record of making very bad decisions.
If you were to take business advice from a homeless person with no experience, money or intellect, or a Fortune 500 CEO, who let’s say objectively has massive experience, money, intellect and success. Then I would probably take what the CEO has to say.
If you had to listen to what a scientist vs 12 year old had to say about a scientific topic, you’d probably want to listen to the scientist who studied the topic and is well respected in their field.
So I believe it would be dumb for both of us, if he made decisions, objectively.
But at the same time it’s difficult to truly know what the truth is.
The Fortune 500 CEO could be telling you what you want to hear, and could have an incentive to lie to you to send you in the wrong direction with bad business advice so you don’t become competition to them, and the homeless person could be honest.
The scientist could be trying to gain fame and get attention to themself to build their career on a lie and fake experiments whereas the 12 year old could be a science savant.
So it’s difficult to truly know what the truth is.
If I should listen to him or myself.
Objectively.

1. I believe if I spend time building the business via this logic I’ve described above, it can grow much faster, with unlimited people working on it and performing well, if the necessary improvements are made.
   
2. And I believe if I were to do the individual things necessary to do it, it would take 6 months to ‘validate’ each’s potential. I.e. try everything in that timeframe to make it work, build a good service/product, build good sales process, build good marketing, deal with customers, etc, all on your own.
   

Whereas in the first option, other people could do all these things.
Human development over history has happened due to the input of millions, if not billions of people.
There wasn’t 1 person who did all the work to get Carnegie or Bill Gates or Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg to gain the success they’ve achieved.
They all build an empire off the backs of others.
Did the slave owners do the slave work themselves when they brought slaves to America? No.
Does Elon do all the individual parts necessary to grow the company? No. He leads and controls the people in order to do that.
Does Mark Zuckerberg single handedly get Facebook off the ground? No. There were 10+ people involved. He stole code from others. Who sued him.
All of these people had exponentially growing staff as the company grew, as fuel to grow the company.
So if you have the money and strategy to lead them to success, I believe it surely is possible.
So long story short this is a long rambling piece of writing but I believe there’s very little impact 1 individual person has on the success of a company. Controlling and amassing an army of people who build the company up and contribute to the company sounds more true.
Does 1 person do everything involved in every sports team? No. Each player plays their respective part. Directed by the coach/manager.
Does 1 person do everything involved in musical orchestras? No each musician plays their part. Directed by the conductor.
And so on.
If you can build an exponentially growing team of staff who effectively work together, bring others on, take action to grow the business, learn from mistakes, make improvements, are highly motivated, are led successfully, it can achieve great things. I feel like it’s a delusion that individual people single-handedly grow companies without others.
So what should that person spend their time doing?
Doing all the millions of things necessary to grow the company? Or bring and manage others who some make progress themselves, some bring and manage others, to gain more and more resources to make progress at faster and faster rate.
Do successful people really have only 1 person responsible? No. They have teams of people behind them.
So trying to do the work of 1,000 people as 1 person sounds 1,000x as hard as getting 1,000 people to each do the work of 1 person.
So if you can finance the growth of the company via hiring others.
Let’s assume I can finance this exponential staff growth. Then surely I should do it right?
Like if I were to compete with 1 person trying to grow their business, and I had 1,000+ people, all doing their jobs effectively, being organised, working as a system not all relying on me, the competition where it’s 1 staff member on average would get beaten.
And surely any excuse you could give, I could just hire someone to solve that excuse.
Like “oh but what roles do you hire these people to do?” well I could hire someone whose role is to figure out what roles they should do. “But what if x?” well I could hire someone whose role is to solve that too. And so on. “Oh but do you have enough money to pay these staff?” Yes. And I can hire people whose job is to bring in money. Whether it’s fundraising, raising from
Did Hitler fight WW2 with 1 person? No. He fought it with millions, if not hundreds of millions of people.
Did Amazon/[insert any Fortune 500 company] get to their size today from having 1 staff member who did everything? No. They had thousands if not hundreds of thousands of staff.
Did any successful mom and pop shop/small business get to their size today from 1 staff member? No. They are one of the largest employers in the USA. Which means they hire a lot of people. Successful mom & pop shops generally have more staff the more successful they are.
Armies generally have more success the bigger and more effective they are.
Companies generally have more success the more staff and more effective the staff are.
So surely we shouldn’t hold ourselves back, to use the example of war, it’s like trying to go to war with others who have hundreds of thousands of people in their army, with just 1 person, yourself. Who is going to win? Them.
How are you going to compete with companies with way more staff, and way more effective staff than you? You would have to become exponentially more effective as 1 person which I just don’t know if it’s realistic.
I think it’s more delusional to believe that 1 person can do as well as 10 or 20 or 50 or 100 or more people who are each as effective as that 1 person.
So if you were to win, you would probably want to expand your army/staff and make them more effective, rather than try to make yourself somehow perform on the same level as armies/companies with thousands or hundreds of thousands of people. It’s just delusional to believe you can beat them in my opinion.
In business, you’d have to be extremely skilled at hundreds of different skills, spend 10+ hours on 100+ individual areas of the business each week to compete with 1,000+ staff who, if performing effectively, would crush you.
This is just my thoughts.
Am I being delusional? Come on…
I just feel like this is the way. Just look at the most successful organisations in history. Was it 1 person?
No, 1 person cannot realistically win a war against 100,000+ people. No matter how good they are. They would need to be top 0.00000000001% in skill in the world at what they’re beating the other side at.
Could 1 footballer beat a football team of 100 people of equal ability than them? No.
Could a company of 1 person outperform a company of 1,000 people? No.
So I believe if I can solve the ability to do this, I can grow a team of unlimited size to conquer and beat any problem thrown at us.
It’s just down to control of people.
Money doesn’t exist.
Even biggest most successful companies in the world mostly didn’t get there on their own.
I believe less than 1% of Fortune 500 Companies were bootstrapped. Or something similar.
And this is what I’m saying.
People in the small business/entrepreneur world tell you you need to have everything yourself.
How are you going to outfinance, outcompete companies on complete other levels without acquiring these resources from others? Just relying on yourself.
How could 1 person get more financing/investment in a company from investors compared to 1,000 of equal ability.
It’s never 1 person ‘beating the world’. Or beating the industry on their own.
Maybe if your aspiration is to be an average business.
“Oh but you should do what is best at each level, and it’s different for each level. Start just by yourself until you get X revenue. THEN hire people”
…..Well if you struggle to get X revenue on your own, how are you ever going to hire others?
The others help you grow the revenue in the first place.
I feel like the small business world is too overreliant on the founder and delusional about the capabilities of 1 person when competing against units 100-1,000x + bigger than them.
Come on.
Anything you want to compete in. In business.
Generally you already have competition.
And if you manage to somehow “spot” something they’ve “missed”, they could just copy you and wipe you out with their massive resources anyway.
In my opinion you need to expand your resources as FAST as possible.
Not this BS “oh wait until you get X profit on your own to hire other people”
Well if you’ve only made good profit on your own as a freelancer, and you’ve spent a lot of years trying to get a business off the ground solo, what are you meant to do?
“Oh just make it work” Great advice.
I just feel like there’s too much delusion into what it actually takes.
In a job or as a freelancer. It’s easier to make $3k-5k/month revenue because you’re only competing against individuals.
But when you try to compete against other businesses to make $3k-5k/month profit, you’re competing against businesses with 10x-100x the people, the money, the resources, the everything, to beat you.
So how are you meant to realistically beat them on your own? Without expanding your resources as quick as possible.
So because of this I believe if 1 person on their own is somehow meant to take a business from $0 to $10k/mo profit, then surely it will happen quicker if more people, of equal ability, are trying to make the business $0 to 10k/mo profit.
To be honest I don’t know what the truth is. This is just what I believe the truth is.
Because I’ve consumed so much wrong information from people acting like they have the correct advice in business.
All Youtube videos, articles, courses, claiming to make you successful in business, when in reality it’s just advice that sounds either easy to say or easy to hear.
Like it’s easy to say as a comment to this post, a response that takes 5 seconds to write, like the first thing that comes to your mind, like “just figure it out on your own”. But that’s not necessarily the truth, it’s just easy for you to say as a commenter. Comments aren’t necessarily the truth.
And on the other side business advice is easy to hear. Like “work on your own, make $1m/month, move to X country, live the life, working 2hours/day” which is just pure delusion. And most of the time the content/advice’s purpose is to benefit the business who made it, not the receiver of the advice. Because it’s selling a course or they have ad sense so they just want maximum engagement and views.
And anyone who is successful in business doesn’t need to give any advice. Because they’re applying the advice. Not giving it. Bill Gates or Jeff Bezos etc have no strong incentive trying to help others get to their level because they could just make an extra $10M-100M from spending the same time/energy/resources giving advice into growing their business.
They’re never gonna have advice that would help you beat them because otherwise they would’ve applied it themself.
And they are actually incentivized to not want others to truly succeed. Because it means more competition for them and less success for them.
So 99%+ of info online just seems like it’s not true.
I’m trying to figure out what is true and what isn’t.
Honestly though it’s difficult to even trust what anyone says in business. Any advice or feedback. For the reasons given.
Because 99% of feedback is either from people who haven’t truly grown a successful business, or it’s not related to you, or it involved luck, or it’s just like a motivational quote they tell you, or it’s a snarky comment they tell you.
It’s only helpful to them. And you are actually their customer or viewer or their entertainment. Not a successful business yourself. Because it’s just all misinformation that all contradicts with the truth.
So not even sure if it’s worth trying to get advice or if it’s all just pointless, just to figure it out myself from experience, trial and error and learning from my own thinking than relying on any other thinking.
Anyway do you think this is just crazy and I’m going crazy or is there any truth to what I’m saying?
Let me know your brutal honest feedback

Came here due to following The Click on YouTube LOL so I'd try my luck posting. Might be a bit long, so TLDR at the bottom. Technically I posted this before on pettyrevenge, but my friend told me that I should also post a copy here, so here we are. And as a side note, I'm not from the US, so yeah.
This happened during my college days in the 2000s. I majored in Business Admin and one of my classes we had to take for the core subjects was Business Management, which I shared with a few of my friends who took the same major and a few other acquaintances who were in a different major but took them as part of their elective courses.
One of the acquaintances, whom I'll call Gina (not real name) was one of those that really had to stick her nose into other people's businesses. If she sense someone talking about something juicy (in her eyes), she would quickly insert herself into the conversation and insist the person to spill the tea for her, regardless if she knew the topic of discussion or not. Not only that, she has absolutely no inside voice whenever she joins a conversation. She adopts this "loud and proud" attitude and would just talk and respond loudly during the conversation that you can sometimes even hear her outside of the room.
Even when the topic in question is just a general discussion of a course subject that she didn't even take the class of, she'd insist on joining the conversation and either 1) spout out absolute nonsense and be completely oblivious that she had said anything wrong or 2) steer the conversation to finally talk about something she is familiar with. Not only that, she's the type of person who has to one-up you at any topic, e.g. "You got a Nobel prize? I got knighted by the Queen!" type of attitude.
It got to the point where she sometimes try to butt into private conversations or people talking about personal matters and insist on hearing about it and also give unsolicited advice even though she knows fuck all about the issue, and if you try to dismiss her, she will loudly chastise you for not including her into the conversation and not being a good friend for doing so. As an Asian ingrained in polite Asian culture (remember, I'm not from the US), we would either just smile and nod and tolerate her presence or try to make an excuse to leave the room to continue our discussion elsewhere away from her earshot, and our dear ol' oblivious Gina would move on to the next grapevine to grab the next gossip.
One day, I was talking to one of my friends Jordan (who takes the same major as me, also not real name) about a family crisis at home. IIRC, I think it had something to do with their father facing possible jailtime for embezzlement and that they might face potential dropout from college because their father was the main breadwinner and the one paying for college tuition and their mother might not be able to cover it in the future once their father is officially convicted. As usual, Gina saw how intense our faces were while we were talking despite us using hushed tones, and plopped herself next to us to get the scoop.
I tried dismissing her, saying that this is a private matter and that she shouldn't get involved. But of course, she took offense and loudly chastised me in front of the whole class for being "anti-social, leaving her out, that's not what friends do, all I want is to help, I just want to know, what's so wrong about that?" Everyone heard her but decided not to interfere (again, polite Asian culture), but we could still see that all eyes are on us to see how this drama unfold and how we're going to deal with her. Jordan's face became visible distraught and uncomfortable both by the prying eyes and Gina's endless loud chastising, and it was obvious if Gina didn't shut up, all hell would break loose.
Then it suddenly clicked to me on one of Gina's quirks: she was the type that had no patience for foreign films or TV shows. She would only watch movies or TV shows if they were in English, Mandarin or Cantonese (like famous Hong Kong movies and/or TV shows). Anything other than those three languages, she would NOT touch them, even if the show comes with subtitles, because she doesn't have the brain capacity to read subtitles AND watch the show at the same time, and even more so when it comes to anime.
During that time, the Three Kings of Anime (Bleach, Naruto and One Piece) were the rage and while I'm not a die-hard fan, I'm kept up to date with the storyline thanks to being a backseat audience whenever my now husband (then boyfriend) watched those three shows every week when it came out. And we knew for a fact that she actively avoids anything to do with anime because she has no patience to watch them and is completely ignorant of anime fandoms, and from there, the nerdy gears in my head turned the cogwheels to sprout out my demon horns into imaginary existence.
I gave my friend a "I got this" look, pretended to sigh in defeat and said, "Fine~ We were talking about how we could get our hands on the One Piece."
"One Piece?" Gina's eyes began to show intrigue, and a bit of smugness thinking that she had wore me down.
"Oh yeah, didn't you know? It's a family treasure heirloom in Jordan's family for generations!"
I proceeded to basically tell Gina the plot of One Piece anime, but replacing the anime characters' names with Jordan's and their family. How Golden Roger was their ancestor who used to be a pirate in his heyday and had kept a stash of treasure hidden somewhere in the far corners of the Earth, and that a treasure map has become Jordan's family heirloom and passed down from generation to generation, and now that Jordan's grandfather had recently bequeathed the map to them in his will, they were trying to discuss with me the best way to travel to find this One Piece. I spun tale after tale (may have even included Naruto and Bleach plots into the mix) to keep her intrigued, all the while everyone in the classroom (those in the know, anyways) were just trying very hard to keep a straight face at my fanciful tale. Even Jordan played along and added their own spin into the plot to keep the conversation going, and dear ol' oblivious Gina just lapped it all up.
We kept it up for almost 2 weeks as Gina kept coming back for more of Jordan's "family lore", in which we kept feeding her more anime plots (at the same time, it gave Jordan a bit of stress relief and distraction from their own real family crisis). Until one day, at the campus cafeteria, we saw Gina with another group of her friends about two tables away from us and we could hear her talking in her usual loud self about Jordan's "family lore" (yeah, if a story is juicy enough, she would tend to spread around to anyone who would listen; another bad habit of hers).
One of her friends, whom we know is an anime fan, suddenly called her out, "Hey! I thought you said you don't watch anime!"
Gina, with an obvious disgust on her face, said, "Of course not. I wouldn't touch them even with a ten-foot pole! Don't lump me with your lot."
"Really? Then why does your story sound like the anime plots of One Piece, Bleach and Naruto?"
Gina went dead silent for almost a full 2 minute to let everything sink in before she VERY SLOWLY turned towards us sitting two tables away and gave us the world's deadliest death stare, in which we just grinned and comically shrugged at her before walking out of the cafeteria laughing our heads off.
We're not sure how, but she soon realized on that fateful day when we started telling her the "family lore", everyone in class was in on it because no one came forward to stop or correct us. She completely stopped talking to everyone in class and no longer butt in on conversations after that because she couldn't trust anyone at that point, and by mid-semester, she dropped out of this class altogether. From what I heard, she picked a different elective class to go to because she was so traumatized with paranoia by the fact that "if OP lied about her conversation with Jordan, what else are others lying about in their conversation??" in her mind.
Eh, good riddance either way.
TLDR: Entitled classmate wants in on everyone's drama regardless of their privacy or relevance, so I gave her fictional drama to stew on, and she got embarrassed for being told the drama ain't real.
P/S: If The Click sees this, that'll absolutely make my day LOL

• Drama: OMG! Vampire
  • Native Title: แวมไพร์ไวน์แดง
• Country: Thailand
• Studio: Very Great Channel (Physical Therapy, Crazy Handsome Rich)
• Premiere Date: May 19 , 2024
• Socials:
  • Trailer
  • Instagram
  • X
  • Tik Tok
• Airing Schedule: Monday
  • Episodes: 10
• Streaming Sources: WeTV/w4100jv324q-Teaser%3A%20Vampires%20will%20live%20with%20humans%20and%20how%20they%20survive%3F%20%7C%20OMG%20Vampire) (Uncut)
• Director: Phadej Onlahung (Dear Doctor, I’m Coming For Your Soul, Work from Heart)
• Starring:
  • "Frank" Thanatsaran Samthonglai (2gether, Love Syndrome III, Crazy Handsome Rich)
  • Lee Long Shi ( Love Syndrome III, Crazy Handsome Rich)
  • David Kittikawin Justice
  • "Kan" Kan Tangruek
  • “Son” Ravisut Patipatvasin (Crazy Handsome Rich)
  • "Non" Nonpawit Lertrommayanant
  • “Sugus” Buntawit Tragulpanich (Golden Blood)
  • "Bonus" Tanadech Deeseesuk (Gen Y, Gen Y 2, What Zabb Man)
  • "Big" Thanakorn Kuljarassombat (Gen Y, Gen Y 2, Something in My Room, Big Dragon)
• Plot Synopsis: After waking from a century-long sleep, vampire Phum finds that the land of vampires has banned gen-x vampires from falling in love. The new law doesn't suit Phum and he invites his gang of close friends—Sen, Run, Mix and Jolie—to flee to the land of humans where people have more freedom. Getting there, however, won't be easy. They'll need to put their names down in the Bible of Life and take the bodies of their parallel human selves, mindful that there may be consequences. Phum finds himself living the life of a broken-hearted young man. Life in the land of humans is turning out to be a chaotic undertaking when he meets Patrick, the owner of a secret bar, and ends up working for him.
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• Previous Discussions:
  
• Recommendations: Like vamps with your BL 🧛 ? Maybe you’d enjoy…
  
  • Red Wine in the Dark Night
  • Kissable Lips
  • 1000 Years Old
  • Discipline Z: Vampire
  • Bite Fight

Bear with me while I explain where I'm coming from.
The context for this question comes mostly from reading arguments about the role of Essence in the setting and the way Magic is fundamentally a "birthright" to special insight about the way the universe works and the power to interact with it. Now, I personally love that as part of the setting, but what I don't love is how the setting seems to shy away from giving it the Cyberpunk treatment. Yes, Mages are employed by corporations and all corporations want them, but the setting portrays Magic as something that's fundamentally uncontrollable by the corporations. It can pop up anywhere and give anyone the power to ruin their plans. It's a bright spot in the setting, but by dint of that it leaves me with an odd feeling.
This is meant to be speculative fiction to a large extent, and it feels like the speculation there doesn't go far enough. The main culprit, in my eyes, is the MAG score and the role of Initiation.
We all know a higher MAG score is better, and Initiation, the only method to increase it, is usually something you can't do during character generation. It's something left out for the sake of progression and tied directly to karma, which makes its actual cost nebulous. Karma doesn't have a clear material presence in the setting; It exists as a game mechanic exclusively. This creates a strange situation, where, for example, a Mage born with a MAG score of 1 can increase their MAG score by spending Karma up to the limit of their Essence, but that karma doesn't translate to any particular thing that enables that growth. It just happens.
What I want to posit is an alternative to that: A way for Awakened characters to buy up their MAG score with nuyen and to perform Initiation in the same way. I picture it as the cost of reagents and awakened plants or animal parts with high Availability required to increase one's power and control, maybe even to pay an Alchemist to turn this into a pill like in Chinese Xianxia, or to perform treatments. Using these things, Mages would grow stronger in quantifiable ways.
I feel like it would add to the setting in several key ways:

• It would justify the presence of powerful mages working for Corporations, for one. Corporations would pay for all of these resources and treatments to get their Mages up to snuff, the same way they already buy their spells and formulas. It would create a real incentive for the independent Mage to join a corporation's payroll beyond simple lifestyle, and a potential leash for any enterprising Mr. Johnson: You stop taking runs from me and the free upgrades stop coming. This is something that might actually matter to player characters, whereas having their character live in a penthouse instead of an alleyway usually doesn't.
  
• It would push Mages into the rat race. Now they have to think about how much they're being paid, instead of working pro-bono and still getting all they need. Even if the change is to add nuyen as an alternative payment, getting paid in both nuyen and karma becomes a path to two initiations so you don't need working for the people/man rules anymore. It also frees Mages from the working for the people treadmill that pigeonholes them as the "good guys" of the setting. Mages can now benefit from something other than charity work, instead of being penalized for it.
  
• It would create space for new characters and backstories. How did your Mage reach his MAG 6 at chargen, if they even did? Were they born that lucky? Did they have a sponsor or mentor? Was it by working under a corporation or outside their sphere of influence? Was there some kind of Awakened plant or beast involved in the process, and what does that mean for your Magic? It might even create new space for mechanics, like new Adept Paths or Mage Paths that grant spells that otherwise don't see much play. It also creates an excuse not to take MAG to 6 from the get go, and a reason for the mechanics around the numbers there to loosen up a bit. Maybe a way to substitute your MAG in skill dicepools for MAG skills, so low MAG Mages can still roll well but be limited by Force.
  
• Finally, it equalizes augmentations on both sides of the tech/magic divide. It makes Mages corruptible through the promise of power same as mundanes and makes rewards no longer a complicated mess out of character. The Mage can be just as tempted by a big pile of Nuyen because it translates directly to personal power and not simply "fluff" for them.
  

After beating the game a few times now, I figured I'd write some strategies that helped me beat some hard bosses, namely Owl (Great Shinobi- I have yet to fight Father due to obscure questlines) and Demon of Hatred. There is no guarantee these will work for you, but these methods are what got me through these bosses. I highly recommend getting Ako's sugar, as I used it for both fights.

Great Shinobi - Owl

This is the boss that gave me the most trouble. Luckily, there's an easy- almost cheese- method of beating him.
Items - Ako's sugar, Mortal Draw or Ichimonji or the Ax prosthetic
As I said, this method is almost a cheese, depending on how you see it. Good news is, if you feel that Mortal Draw is too powerful, you should be able to use either of the other two and the method will work fine, it will just take longer.
What you want to do for the majority of the fight is punish his big moves. Things to look out for are his Nightjar slash, which he will use after throwing two shuriken. If you can time it correctly, you can dodge right into him and be in his face as soon as he lands, or dodge to the side to be safer. Once he lands, use any of the three skills above. If you are using Mortal Draw, I recommend only using it once as to save emblems, he will always block the 2nd attack. Once you are out of emblems, use it twice. Additionally, there is one combo you can punish. He will swing at you two or three times, but what you want to look for after that is two, faster slashes. After deflecting these two, hit him with a normal R1. Avoid the medicine charm, I've found it easier to not pursue him while it's out due to the finnicky hitboxes, but maybe attack him from behind or at range if you can. For the phase transition, it does not matter whether or not you attack him or just get near him, he will throw a smoke bomb. Be careful about the move where he jumps off your sword, as in the 2nd phase he will throw poison.
DO NOT USE: CHARGED R1 OR SPEAR PROTSTETHIC, he has a mikiri counter that can deal devastating damage. Shadowrush/hunt will not trigger the mikiri on this version of the boss. If your posture is broken, get up ASAP- he has a move where he will stomp on Sekiro and deal massive damage. Owl has a running slash which will almost always be followed by the medicine ban. There is a move similar in which he will throw a shuriken and then slash, you should do your best to deflect this, it will push you back but otherwise it will deal massive damage, to either your health or posture. This boss does heavy posture damage, so keep your health high.

Demon of Hatred

This boss absolutely sucked to fight the first time I did. I had killed him using a cheese and then fought him in reflection it was that bad. I've gotten a bit of a better hang on him now, although it's still a tedious fight.
Items - Ako's sugar, divine confetti, Suzaku's Lotus Umbrella, Malcontent, Yashikaru's sugar
You want to save the Malcontent and Yashikaru's sugar for the third phase, and the umbrella is not necessary. Make sure you have enough emblems to use Malcontent three times-12 emblems. You will only really get a few hits in at each window, so be careful. This boss has a much different battle flow than the rest.
A lot of the first two phases is running and chasing, so be thankful that Sekiro has no stamina bar. This boss is essentially Run to the Left + Punish Big Moves Simulator. By running to the left, almost all moves can be avoided. For the giant fire slam, either run away and grapple back, or use the umbrella. When he throws the fireball cluster at you, sometimes you can avoid by running to the left, but I've found this inconsistent. Often, the umbrella will be safer. For his combo, I tend to deflect the first, fire arm, hit, before being able to get close enough to hit him safely while the combo plays out. He has a perilous move in which he will drag his arm across the ground, you need to jump ASAP as this is often a death sentence. Other than that, often running to the left will keep you safe. His 2nd phase has a large window in which you can buff, before being hit by a nondamaging shockwave.
Third Phase - This is where you'll use the Yashikaru's sugar and Malcontent. Buff with both confetti and the sugar, then use Malcontent. You will have a fairly small window to get these activated. Once buffed, use an uncharged Malcontent. This will stun him for enough time to get 7-8 hits. After this, use Malcontent again and hit him until he gets stunned. If he still has health after the 2nd Malcontent + stun, use the third charge of Malcontent. This method has consistently killed him for me.
Hopefully these guides help someone, please feel free to criticize as this is my first time writing any kind of guide. I do ask that any criticism is useful, nothing just like "This is useless" or "Doesn't make sense." If these are well received, I may end up writing a guide for Emma/Isshin, as I just beat them last night.

Hi Everyone
I'm working on a project exploring how to make football more accessible and exciting for women who haven't traditionally been fans. I'm particularly interested in the idea of a "Fan Ambassador" program, where experienced fans (men/woomen) mentor newcomers.
Here's the basic idea:
Passionate fans sign up as ambassadors. - People new to football get matched with an ambassador based on shared interests, favorite teams (if they have one), etc. - They can then connect for one-on-one watch parties (virtual or in-person), ask questions in real-time, and learn the ropes in a friendly environment. - The platform could also include features like a "digital yearbook" for easy access to player info, stats, and key moments, as well as a simplified "lite mode" for the app, making content easier to digest for beginners.
Additional ideas we're considering:

• Gamified learning experiences (quizzes, trivia)
• Localized pub/cafe match screening listings (maybe through the app?)
• A behind-the-scenes look at players' lives and personalities

Questions for you:

1. What do you think of this "Fan Ambassador" concept? Does it appeal to you?
2. What kind of features would you find most valuable in such a program?
3. Any other ideas for making football more accessible and enjoyable for newcomers?
4. Any concerns or potential drawbacks to this1?

I would really love your honest feedback! All experiences and opinions welcome.

Hi Everyone
I'm working on a project exploring how to make football more accessible and exciting for females who haven't traditionally been fans. I'm particularly interested in the idea of a "Fan Ambassador" program, where experienced fans mentor newcomers.
Here's the basic idea:
Passionate fans sign up as ambassadors.

• People new to football get matched with an ambassador based on shared interests, favorite teams, etc.
• They can then connect for one-on-one watch parties (virtual or in-person), ask questions in real-time, and learn the ropes in a friendly environment.
• The platform could also include features like a "digital yearbook" for easy access to player info, stats, and key moments, as well as a simplified "lite mode" for the app, making content easier to digest for beginners.

Additional ideas we're considering:

• Gamified learning experiences (quizzes, trivia)
• Localized pub/cafe match screening listings (maybe through the app?)
• A behind-the-scenes look at players' lives and personalities

Questions for you:

1. What do you think of this "Fan Ambassador" concept? Does it appeal to you?
2. What kind of features would you find most valuable in such a program?
3. Any other ideas for making football more accessible and enjoyable for newcomers?
4. Any concerns or potential drawbacks to this1?

I would really love your honest feedback! All experiences and opinions welcome.

Please, if you have a spare time with this and give me your honest advice. I’m genuinely so conflicted.
So my boyfriend is really sweet. The relationship started off with him giving me insane crazy princess treatment. And everything is good; we hang out almost every single day. We text every single day; he needs constant updates. He tells me when he's in his car about to go somewhere. He tells me when he's about to shower and he says he does these things so l'm not waiting for his text if he doesn't respond back, which I appreciate, but he also expects me to do the same. For me, that's a little bit too much. I'm not used to that. He is very protective, so whenever we're in public, he always wants to hold onto me to show other people I'm his girl because sometimes men will look at me. I think he knows I could do better on physical attraction, not gonna lie.
All this feels like it's a little bit too much, so I told him that I think he's way too committed to this relationship to the point where I feel like it's more like a marriage, not just dating. I told him that I am not being the perfect girlfriend that he wants me to be because he needs to give me time; it's only been one month. He continues doing things like getting annoyed if l hang up the phone to pick up someone else's call without saying goodbye and telling him who's calling. I understand his perspective, but he still gets annoyed if I hang up the call.
I can’t have guy best friends and especially I cannot call my guy best friends when he’s in the car with me. If they call me, I can’t pick up and have a conversation. Sometimes I do because they are important to me. One thing that really ticks me off is whenever I tell him something, he says “we both could use this or that.”
For example, yesterday I was washing my hair, blow drying it, and I was on FaceTime with friends so I didn’t text him for like 3-4 hours, but he knew that I was busy because I told him. That night when I called him, I could tell he had a little anger in his tone and he was like, "If you didn’t call me in five minutes, I would’ve gone to sleep." We had a conversation about how if I don’t want to FaceTime that night, I should just let him know beforehand. Him waiting and then making that comment about going to sleep within five minutes made me feel guilty, but then I took a step back and thought, "You know I have people over at my house; give me some space. I’m not your wife. It’s been a month."
Also We hang out almost every day by the way because I have a lot of free time and it's like we seeing each other 4- 12 hours every single day. Mind you it's only been a month so for me it's a lot and if we're not seeing each other, it's the constant texting and updates
My main issue right now is that he texted me this morning said:" I'm sorry for being mean yesterday and making you feel like that".
I responded with: " It's OK, I just need some space to think about it."
He responded with: "I feel we both need space recollect ourselves"
What does he needs space for??!?! Everything is throwing me off... this is the second time saying "we both need" when I address an issue about how he made me feel. I understand that he's trying to consider his feelings into the problem, but I'm not crazy.
How should I handle a situation where my boyfriend says we both need what I need instead of addressing my feelings individually?
Sorry it’s kinda long 😭 TL;DR: My boyfriend is very sweet but extremely attentive and protective, expecting constant updates and restricting interactions with male friends. He often says "we both need" when I express my individual needs. It's been only a month, but I feel overwhelmed by his level of commitment. How should I handle a situation where my boyfriend says we both need what I need instead of addressing my feelings individually?