Vegas Party - The game takes the player into the gambling-friendly universe of this over-the-top version of Las Vegas city. Played as a race, the goal is to reach the end of the Strip before anyone else. Trust no one and forget the meaning of the word "mercy" because it does not apply here!
I gotta say, I see some good shit out there. I see new members trying to diversify their positions and learn about other stocks and other ways to make money. This is the path my fellow retards. I'm a nobody here, but I have good returns and some good insight. When I came to WSB, multiple people helped me figure out what the fuck I was doing, because I knew jack shit. I care more about my money than yours, but no retard should be left in the dark alone. So let me pass on a couple things. I can't prove shit to you, so read this or don't. I mainly trade options (Calls and Puts), so that is what I will discuss Generally the most insane gains will come from being in a specific stock and not an ETF or Index. While riskier, this is where you can hit the homeruns. So decide if you want to go for conservative gains or if you want those huge swings. While what I said is true, I am usually against putting everything into a single bet. Anything can go wrong at any time and no play is 100% guaranteed. The goal of this game is to stay alive. You will lose money on a play at some point, because it is inevitable. So never let yourself get wiped out, because you can always build yourself back up. This goes along with one of my other recommendations: always have SOME cash ready to go. You never know when there might be an incredible opportunity and you do not want to get caught with your ass hanging out. Paper hands and diamond hands are just words. You ultimately decide when you want to sell or hold and how much profit you want to take. One of my favorite strategies is to say, buy an even number of options on a play, sell half at a modest level of gains (like enough to break even or gain a little bit) and then let the rest ride longer. Look guys, on many plays, you either paper hands at some point or diamond hands long enough to see your positions go red. Some people will bail at 40% gains and others might not take anything less than 500%. Just know that chasing endless profits ups the risk factor, so YOU decide when it's time. Having a target share price for the stock is also a good strategy. Here's a couple psychological principles in investing. Studies have found that people tend to hold onto losing positions too long and sell winning positions too early. They let their losers lose and cut off their winners short. Apparently most people hate losing more than they like winning. Think about this before you sell. Stocks can often get hot and run multiple days in a row. Sometimes a stock will have one red day and then keep up going. This is why it's important to know WHY you got into a position. Trust your DD and stick to the plan. I had ideas for plays where they went red right away and I bailed... only to see them moon. "Diamond Hands" means that you don't dump your position instantly if it goes down. The hardest thing is knowing if you should cut losses or diamond hands. I'm a retard and we're in a bull market.. so often times the stock will eventually go up. Your call though. The market makers and big boys want you to lose. They want your money. I'm not going to dive into the realm of possible illegal activities that they may use, but just point out some simpler tactics they will use. Big money often sees retail as "weak hands" aka Buy High and Sell Low. They know FOMO is strong when a stock is going up big and that fear takes over when a stock divebombs. We're in a bull market, which means stonks only go up. However, we still have negative days. Stocks sell off sometimes and things can look bad. Generally, the dip is not time to sell, but instead, time to buy. Case and point, we had a pretty big drilling 2 weeks ago. Do you know what the big money did? They bought the fuckin dip and snatched up everything for cheap. We've been mooning ever since. Sometimes shit makes no sense. A company can have blowout earnings, exceed expectations, and the stock will tank. I was holding one stock a little while ago that reported a fantastic earnings and proceeded to drill to the core of the Earth that day. It was total bullshit and I knew it, I trusted my DD. So instead of panic selling, I added to my position. Sure enough, the stock began swinging upwards and hit an all-time high just 2 weeks later. This is why simply gambling can bite you in the ass. It's easy to get scared and sell when you doubt yourself because you picked a random thing to buy. Option Expiration Dates matter. Buying a 1 week option is the cheapest and gives the biggest percentage of profits if it goes your way. However, it can often be a noob trap. One bad day or one piece of bad news can kill your entire position. Stocks trade sideways sometimes. Sometimes they don't do what you think they should do. And sometimes the whole fucking market shits itself for seemingly no reason. So give yourself TIME to work with. Time costs money and hurts profit margins. But it is better to consistently make 50% profit than to hit one play for 300% followed by 10 losers. Look, playing weekly stupidly OTM calls is fun as hell and is a huge rush when it hits. I do at least one or more every week. The key is not loading your entire portfolio into this shit. Remember, no tendies = no more fun. Along the same lines, Strike Price matters. An OTM (Out of the Money) option means that the Strike Price is a bit of a ways from where the stock's price currently is. OTM options give huge profit margins the further you go out. I personally enjoy using them.. some people don't. But my advice is to balance risk with profit potential. If your call relies on a stock gaining 50% in 2 weeks.. then well, it's probably not gonna happen. ITM (In The Money) options means that your stock is already within the strike price. ITM is a more conservative play and sacrifices massive gains for lower risk. https://www.optionsprofitcalculator.com/calculatolong-call.html - Use this to get an estimate of potential profits and how much of a move you need Leaps are fuckin dope. A Leap is a call, but for a much longer period of time. I'm using the term loosely because we're degenerates and some people might consider anything more than 1 month a leap. Given that the market trends up over time, you might even make some money on a mediocre stock this way. A lot of people buy ITM leaps, but again, I'm a degenerate and go OTM a lot. Implied Volatility (IV) - Extremely fucking important. IV is basically an estimation of how much a stock is predicted to move in either direction. High IV = Expensive Options. It's fucking weird to think, but you can make similar profits from a 2% move on a low IV stock as you can from a 5% move on a more volatile stock. Low IV is fantastic when buying an option on a stock that you think is about to moon. High IV is riskier, so you damn well better think the stock can make some big moves. Buying an option on a stock right before Earnings Report (ER) will be more expensive due to IV. Trying to play ER is usually for suckers, unless you have some really good DD about why a company might deliver a huge surprise. One of the textbook big boy moves is to pump a stock going into ER. The company will deliver great news and then dump hard. You may see people bitching about this very soon. Basically, big money knew ahead of time it would be good, so the stock got pumped and then they took profits. Buy the rumor and sell the news. Events, press releases, and important dates that everyone knows about are another trap. You will get shit on. Ask someone about TESLA Battery Day. Positive rumors will send a stock soaring though. Finally, get busy learning. Read about Options on Investopedia and any other things you do not understand. The big boys rely on us to not know what the fuck we're doing to take our money. Learn about the general market. Stocks are grouped into "Sectors" or categories. Start figuring out what they are and pay attention to where the money is going. I didn't even mention half of the shit that goes on in options, so that's on you. The first thing you need to do is to learn what the "Greeks" are. That will teach you how options function. https://www.investopedia.com/trading/using-the-greeks-to-understand-options/ If anyone wants to talk or discuss, send me a message. I'm a degenerate with no life. Oh and, if you follow someone's DD and lose money that's on you. I've come up with some genius shit, but I've also lost on some retarded calls. Nobody can pick you a guaranteed winner and hindsight is 20/20. May the gains be with you
"I think I've lived long enough to see competitive Counter-Strike as we know it, kill itself." Summary of Richard Lewis' stream (Long)
I want to preface that the contents of this post is for informational purposes. I do not condone or approve of any harassments or witch-hunting or the attacking of anybody.
Richard Lewis recently did a stream talking about the terrible state of CS esports and I thought it was an important stream anyone who cares about the CS community should listen to. Vod Link here: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/830415547 I realize it is 3 hours long so I took it upon myself to create a list of interesting points from the stream so you don't have to listen to the whole thing, although I still encourage you to do so if you can. I know this post is still long but probably easier to digest, especially in parts. Here is a link to my raw notes if you for some reason want to read through this which includes some omitted stuff. It's in chronological order of things said in the stream and has some time stamps. https://pastebin.com/6QWTLr8T
Intro
"The last month has convinced me, that we are going to be heading into a dark place for Counter-Strike esports in 2021."
"I think I've seen the scene essentially kill itself."
"For the past 5 to 6 years, we've basically been in a holding pattern of people coming into our game wanting to run it, wanting to run all of the esports and wanting to profiteer and its been sort of a concerted effort to drive them off and push them away."
"We're spread way too thin."
"If Riot don't get involved and stop the scumbags that have moved over to Valorant from getting their feet under the table, Valorant is going to have real problems."
RL thinks too much has happened all at once for us to do anything except watch it play out, like:
Recent CSPPA strike against BLAST
ESIC failures and them not being supported enough
Teams cheating i.e. coaches/bugs
Widespread match fixing
The Pandemic
"People who try to hold bubble events are so incompetent and fuck up and people get the 'rona and its their fault."
"People who say Flashpoint is a bubble is full of shit and is a lie and people are now suffering for that lie."
"To save money they let people go home and break the bubble for a week."
"Not just Flashpoint peoples decision, they have a partner that handles the production." (hinting FACEIT)
"People are trapped in hotels essentially under house arrest because of COVID restrictions and has fucked peoples lives up."
"It's all too much, all of this incompetence, all of this greed, maybe we ride it out."
RL says he has talked to the Riot devs (the ones working on Valorant) and says, "They are so cognizant of all the fuck ups and all the problems we have in Counter-Strike."
He continues to say that this is factored into their business plan and that we never had a competitor, but just so happens to have one coincide, when we are at our worst.
CSPPA - Counter-Strike Professional Players' Association
"Who does this union really fucking serve?"
RL believes that the CSPPA is a mockery.
He points out the hypocrisy that they wouldn't strike for the pros who were kicked out of ESL Pro League, or for Jamppi or dream3r.
He also says ESL paid CSPPA and are racketeering and many other TOs have to pay them to get their "seal of approval"
He says they would strong-arm TOs saying "well if you don't give us the money, these guys are so we'll just have to commit to playing their event."
Also points out that they will strike against a competitor they are not in agreement with (Flashpoint)
RL: "It's what it says about every other time you haven't done it and it's about every time you don't do it now moving forward." "The issues they've chosen to ignore this year alone are embarrassing."
Then he points out that there was no strike for Valve qualifiers even if we have no major but Jamppi and dream3r can't play in them.
"and Valve have said 'Oh yeah we know actually their stories are accurate, Jamppi didn't cheat, now in a legally binding document. Yep dream3r did have his account hacked in a LAN café', but they still can't play. Where is the fucking solidarity? Gone. Doesn't exist. It's not important [because] it doesn't affect you." "That's what the union does right now, it looks after all the tier 1 people."
He says the CSPPA doesn't represent all players all the time and has driven a divide where you have the haves and have-nots
"We have a tier of players that operate with impunity and do not help their tier 2 or tier 3 players out at all." "If you are not a tier 1 player you do not matter, they don't event ask your opinion."
He tells chrisJ to admit and own the fact that the reason he didn't speak up during the ESL Pro League debacle is because it didn't affect him
"They are looking after some players at the expense of other players. How the fuck is that a union?"
He says the BLAST situation is a reasonable dispute and supports the players but is not the right time for a strike and have not even identified the correct enemy
He thinks players are lashing out now due to previous incidents and are upset that BLAST are working with ESIC
He stated that CSPPA shouldn't beefing with ESIC and they should be working in harmony
He says what they need to do is talk with the teams/organizations that have sold that right to BLAST
RL: "Your employers, the people who pay you that massive exorbitant salaries, when you don't stream and you don't do interviews and you offer no value beyond your ability to click heads and you get 25k dollars a month." "Why don't you talk to them about it? Oh right. You're happy to take away BLAST's paper, but you don't want to risk your own."
"I am seeing such unbelievable cowardice from the players here with the battles you choose."
"Where was the strike action when in the qualifiers for the world championship, there were teams and players engaged in huge conflicts of interest?" "Where was the strike action when your image rights were taken and sold to every league you've ever been in every union type organization you've ever been associated with like, WESA, to your org every time you sign a contract, to the leagues you play in."
"Your image rights are essentially worthless now, there's about 10 fucking separate parties that have them, and how many of them are giving you anything for it? Not much pretty much your org by the way."
"That's a big issue. Your image is you, your image is your brand. What are you doing about that? Nothing."
He is also angry at SirScoots who is "popping off" at people on Twitter who all want the same thing, which is 'A unified Counter-Strike scene for everybody, that works for everybody, that has a sustained ecosystem that nourishes everybody.' "We don't have that now."
He also says their rankings are a joke
"Just so happened, oh look TACO, that very important prominent member of the board, we pushed his team artificially up when they weren't even in the fucking top 20, not by a long shot."
He also says the ineptitude of the CSPPA cost Flashpoint a monitor sponsor
"Is it really a player association or is it like a fucking agency at this point"
ESIC - Esports Integrity Commission
"They have been put in an impossible position."
RL says that Ian Smith, the founder of ESIC and who was done work in mainstream sports, is a good and honorable man who has dedicated his life to integrity and sports. He takes on both sides, ensuring match fixers are punished, but also doing appeals and ensuring those punishments were fair.
"ESIC is a tiny organization" and are in need of money, "They didn't run a grift like the CSPPA did."
"Saying 'you want our support and you want the players to turn up you better pay us.' They don't do that."
"Had startup seed money from MTG and since then they've been pecking shit with the hens."
Ian Smith made sure that the money given by MTG (Modern Times Group, parent company of ESL, ESEA, DreamHack) was nothing more than startup money and wouldn't be in debt to them
Ian Smith sat down with other TO's not part of MTG and wanted to partner with them. They declined and called ESIC "ESL spies and we will never align ourselves with you"
"They only were just able to afford, hiring a PR guy on a full time salary to deal with the press and send out those releases you've seen, this year."
"They have a tiny group of staff investigating these things and they have taken on the biggest problems in our scene: the cheating, the match fixing."
ESIC have had "unprecedented levels of cheating to deal with, because there's something wrong with our scene ever since we went online. There's something wrong with it, everyone's lost their fucking pride and self-respect and they got no passion for it anymore, so they think fuck it, what's in it for me?"
He calls out coaches who are talking about players rights when they would rob and steal from them.
Also says more coaches being banned are coming
He also points out flaws in community's reaction to the punishments to coaches bans: "Half of the cunts still have jobs and some of the cunts got new jobs. We didn't even shun the cheating coaches."
ESIC have "found I think another 2 or 3 exploits like that one and they are investigating them all right now, it's going on right now."
"I know that there are going to be more names getting banned, again."
"So they're doing that on a skeleton crew while, investigating 3 continents worth of match fixing in MDL and semi-pro level CS." "They're doing this with half a dozen people." "They don't have any money or any help. People barely even fucking cooperate with them, they are treated like pariahs. It's ridiculous."
"Why are the CSPPA popping off at ESIC on my Twitter timeline, when you should be working together." "because its all about what's in it in for me." "2020, the online era of CS: 'What is in it for me?' How can I cheat, how can I get my paper, how can I bleed this scene one last time before I fuck off and play shooty shooty bang bang Riot Games babys first fps."
RL says that in the CIS region, teams have gone to tournaments and have been eliminated multiple times by the same team. We found out they were cheating and those players who lost, have been cut from their roster, careers ended because of cheaters.
Stream Sniping
"They're all at it in the online era, they're all at it, they're all cheating, they're all using exploits, probably that see through smoke bug got used a bunch of times"
RL talks about how there is no integrity from dead (the player), always denying when caught doing something
On the topic of 'BLAST never said we couldn't stream snipe': "Lies, BLAST never said you could do that, they had to sort of retcon it." "because what happened after that they fucking started snitching and squealing"
"Suddenly you had like, 10 of the top 15 teams in the world, staring into the abyss of being banned for 6-12 months in line with ESIC recommendations."
He says that ESIC was put in a tough situation and couldn't enforce the bans because it would have resulted in killing CS. What resulted was, BLAST, ESIC, and teams came together and gave them a warning and told them, in RL's words "don't do this again or you're gonna get got."
He then says the top teams brushed this off and didn't give a fuck
The new MiBR team playing Flashpoint, that wasn't involved in the previous incidents are doing it again (stream sniping). He gave credit to Flashpoint for the quick resolution and punishment and respect for cogu's response to the situation.
"ESIC came out and said, once more, 'Guys, zero tolerance from now on.'" RL then got upset at community's reaction calling ESIC "pussies" for their non enforcement and said if we want competitive CS we cant ban the top 10 teams.
He points out how players have no integrity and will do anything for an edge as long as they won't get detected or banned or it's within a grey area.
"All of this shit was mad avoidable, even in the pandemic era."
He talks about why aren't we filming them. Why aren't there representatives for leagues and tournaments making sure players aren't cheating?
Match Fixing
"How many years have we let our scene be fucking pillaged by these greedy cunts?" "We just let it happen."
RL says that gambling and skins betting which existed in moderation was "accelerated and blown up by the Call of Duty greedy fucks."
"Never forget TmarTn was on the board of EnVyUs." "His website, CSGOLotto, they had a bunch of off-the-books sponsorships." "NBK promoted them. People forget."
"Those people who had access to the skins, go to the players" "Even people like s1mple, best player in the world, even he scammed knives and skins off fucking fans."
Owners of skin casino sites would approach pros and lend them skins to use in tournaments and possibly keep them after reaching a deal
Players would tip off inside info about matches and teams in exchange for skins. Info such as: roster changes, how they played in scrims
They would use this info to bet and subvert the odds on their sites. "That happened religiously, I can't even tell you how many times it happened."
"I had access to the biggest database of information, from an inside betting circle in NA, and it would take information and screenshots from other pro players, who were feeding them info in exchange for money or skins."
"Some of these players are still playing." "Incredibly, there are players still in the CSPPA today, complaining about the BLAST recordings, that were embroiled in this murky shit back then."
RL also says that there were tournaments where teams contrived with each other, who should throw, who should win.
"There's a handful of people that are trying to fucking clean it up, and you think you get something over the line and you see something like the CSPPA and it's run by corrupt fucking chuckle heads, and now you've got another corrupt body you have to fight on a fucking daily basis, it's demoralizing."
"It's too far gone. Our entire semi-professional scene is compromised."
"It's rife guys, I'm not going to lie any more. It's not just China, it's not just Russia, it's here, it's NA, it's Europe, it's Australia, so much more than you think, so much more than we can prove."
"I get sent chat logs all the time […] and they're morons, these players, short-sighted, amateur, morons and they're doing it on WhatsApp." People would get cut from the bets because they want to make more money, then they leak the logs. He says, from the chat logs, they spread "little" bets across every site they can (400 to 1k dollars) to prevent shifting odds
He says the scumbags who've fucked off to Valorant will do the same there if Riot doesn't do something and says Valorant "is an esports scene heading for a very early fall based on the sheer volume of scumbags that are already there."
"That's tier 2 CS in a nutshell these days. They know they're never going to play in a major, so what's the punishment?"
"All of these tier 2 fucks that are fixing games now they are like the fucking mafia compared to iBuyPower" "These guys are working with organized criminals to fix entire seasons worth of games. That's what's going on in your tier 2 CS."
"I'm literally being told that there are players fixing games at all levels of Chinese esports and motherfuckers with guns are turning up to team houses and stuff."
North America
"Everyone in NA has left we've lost a continents worth of support during this pandemic and Valve haven't said a fucking word."
RL says the Call of Duty "goblins" that destroyed CS for years are the same people who are now trying to leave CS. "The nerve to treat a game where the fans, and the community, and the TO's were nothing but good to you." "To just kick the players out now and go and leave and say 'It just doesn't make financial sense.' Oh you'll slither back when we have a major though for them stickers won't you."
There's a cascading effect in NA where people don't bother with CS anymore and people like Chaos suffer.
He says NA team owners are incompetent for always wanting it easy and always wanting a guarantee on their investment without skill or nuance.
RL says he would be able to market a team correctly and would have a good ROI and also points out how TSM wouldn't even be bothered to tweet that their team, which was one of the best in the world, was playing at the Major.
He also says not all NA owners are like that, compliments and respects Jason Lake who nearly lost everything to keep Complexity going.
He then calls out the incompetence in Infinite Esports when they acquired OpTic Gaming and bought an Indian CS team.
He says HECZ is not to blame here and that they couldn't tell forsaken was cheating when it was so obvious.
They measured his reaction time to the likes of dev1ce and s1mple
When an enemy showed up on his screen he won that duel something like 44% of the time
"was like the number 1 player in the world statistically"
He brought a laptop to their bootcamp and refused to use the high end PCs that hey provided
He respects Andy Miller (NRG CEO) and HECZ but says that the attitude of not being able to easily monetize their teams is "piss weak" and there needs to be a risk.
He says Chaos EC shouldn't be cutting their roster and should be competent enough to be able to figure out how to make money off their team.
He says there are still opportunities in NA and people are panicking and pulling out, and says Valorant will be the same if not worse.
He also says "bums" who couldn't even get out of groups in NA competitions, are making crazy money in Valorant and says it will continue to inflate.
He also said that he heard rumors that EG (Evil Geniuses) are done.
He also thinks that the rumors of a Valve franchised league from before was sparked up from "these lazy fabled weak NA fucking team owners basically trying to see if Valve would bite at the hook if it was dangled and they didn't"
Slasher says NA team owners are really in favor of franchised leagues because they want to make more money. "Most of the powerful team owners right now are on board with ditching this third party organization structure, or they are trying to play this power politics with all the TOs, and that is contributing to a lot of the problems there"
RL says that Riot has proved they can run a franchised league (LCS) and will be profitable in 2021 which is what a lot of team owners care about and says the competition will only serve to snatch people away from CS.
RL continues to say, "I am so sick and tired of what we have done to this scene, I am just exhausted with it." "I think we have legitimately fucked it, I really think we have. I think we're staring into almost like a CGS (Championship Gaming Series) wasteland in NA." "Counter-Strike esports is a fucking joke."
Talent
"TO's have treated CS talent like absolute human garbage for years now."
RL says that people like Sean Gares and ddk switching over to Valorant isn't for financial reasons because they are making less over there.
He points out that TO's can't even give talent a 3 month in advance calendar.
Because of the pandemic TO's won't hire certain people and some people are working more hours for the same money.
He says we as a community don't respect journalists enough which is why we don't have good journalists.
He also says DeKay is leaving the scene soon and that Thorin is close to leaving also
He says he had to talk a caster down from quitting and was struggling to find reasons.
He says that DreamHack told Vince they would hire him but not if he wants to stick with dusT and says that this is the norm in esports. "Constant leveraging of people against each other." and says this is why we don't have a talent union.
New gen casters are getting put into shit situations and the community's reaction to them is adding fuel to the fire
He says the reason Moses left was because of the terrible conditions
He says that Anders had to constantly leave his family and kid because someone fucked up or broke promises and had to constantly tell his kid to their face that "daddy can't be home this weekend."
He says that esports has always been a lie to sell you this dream, "Meanwhile there's about 2% of the cunts getting all the checks."
Valve
"Anything that Riot does, is better than Valve's inaction"
Slasher says that the larger aspect of esports as a whole compared to other entertainment mediums and Valve's lack of inattention are the bigger problems. He continues saying that the fact that Valve let their game be ran as an esport, they need to take on the responsibilities of it.
Both Slasher and RL wants Valve to take control but not on the level of Riot Games, there needs to be a balance.
In case it was ever a question: Gabe Newell has been to 0 CSGO Majors.
RL calls Valve out saying they could have done something during the gambling era.
He says Valve used to come to the majors, but doesn't think they do anymore.
RL had met with Valve at the Cluj-Napoca Major and had tried to appeal iBP's indefinite punishment and had also gave Brax's life story:
A recent family member passed away, they had lost a lot of income, they had to live in trailer, iBuyPower did not pay any salaries, and was pressured by family to make money who didn't support his career.
RL said that Valve told him, "How dare you try and make us feel guilty." "We shouldn't feel bad about enforcing the only thing that matters that we need to make players afraid of: cheating and match fixing"
RL also tried to share other info about match fixing and nothing came of it
RL points out that Source 2 or a new engine is not something you will want based on the experience of transitioning from CS 1.6 to CS:S. "Valve's track record with brand new engines being launched, not fucking great from what I remember."
Slasher says "If there is anything the community should do, is pressure Valve to hire a community manager."
They say that we need a commissioner, a community manager (not the person who runs the Twitter who posts memes all day), then we need to have a circuit
RL reiterates that Valve doesn't care about CS esports and says they need to change the culture at Valve to make them care about CS esports
Slasher says a systemic problem is making it so working on CSGO would be a bad decision for you as an employee for Valve
He also hasn't talked to Valve in ages and have sent over bugs and cheats and doesn't get emails back anymore
Slasher says we should be directing attention at the developer leads, pointing out Ido Magal, if he even is still the project lead
RL thinks that Ido and Brian are the only people that "vaguely even give a fuck about CS" and were the only people that RL recalled that actually read Reddit and paid attention from time to time
"It is really fucking precarious. Somebody has got to step the fuck up and start giving a shit"
Slasher suggests org owners, with CSPPA, with ESIC, with TOs have a concerted effort against Valve
"Riot Games are doing better things than Valve in the esports space" which is something RL didn't think he'd say.
"People who used to be talent, working with unions, arguing with other talent, when the unions fucked them over, can't understand their perspective, TOs fucking over broadcast talent, broadcast talent wanting to leave and go and work for orgs, orgs having no money, Valve might take coaches away because all the coaches are cheating, ESIC has about 4 people in a fucking call doing the investigations, everyone thinks they're spies for ESL, ESL are just the evil fucking overlords wanting to rule the scene and will just somehow, like cockroaches outliving a nuclear bomb, and Valve are in a fucking holiday in Hawaii thinking about the next Dota character because they don't give a fuck about us."
Closing Statements
"We've peaked. If we want to sustain and exist, now is the time to figure it out. No esports lasts as long as this, we've already done 8 years. We've already broke the records. We have got to figure out a way to coexist and drive the negative forces out and we need to do it as a collective and we're not doing that."
RL compared the Counter-Strike scene to the people on the Titanic who ran around with guns robbing people while the boat was sinking.
"We have given up on being a respectable esports scene." "We are now a conduit to make money for those who want to just milk it, just have one last ride, one last roll of the dice. It's done." "What a fucking mess. What have we done to our fucking scene?"
"There's just too much self-interest driving all of this." "I don't see a way we stop the dominoes." "When it's that bad, when there's that many dishonest people that ESIC have to come out and say that if we punish them all there's no one left. What does that tell you?"
"How many opportunities have we had to clean house? How many times have we said, 'this must never happen again', and another scandal." "The entire skins betting operations was the biggest criminal conspiracy in esports ever executed and no one has been punished for it." "The people who could be driving that don't want to."
"Right now people are fans of those organizations because the scene has value. It is worth being a fan of Astralis because they are excellent at Counter-Strike. It is worth being a fan of s1mple because he is the best player in Counter-Strike, maybe the exception of ZywOo. If the scene is devalued, if the scene loses its meaning, those things lose its meaning too, and people will leave, people will stop tuning into the games. I have seen it happen in multiple esports, this is not my first time at the rodeo. I am getting big Brood War vibes right now and I don't like it."
"The role you play in all of this as fans, as viewers, as listeners, as consumers of esports content, it's absolutely imperative that you know who the good guys are. It's absolutely imperative that you use your voice. It's absolutely imperative that when things are bad, you know who, at least, is trying to make them good, and you have to apply your criticism to the right targets."
He continues saying it's no good in continuing to attack ESIC and saying how they are bad, ESIC have it hard
He says CSPPA are on the right side of the argument on BLAST but have been on the wrong side of many arguments many times.
"If you are not willing to stand along side the weakest member of the union, with the least amount of influence, and the least amount of power, then it is not a union at all and you shouldn't pose as one." "You wanna serve a bunch of special interest do it, everyone else in esports fucking does, but do not pose as something you are not." "We love the players. I've been fighting for players rights for as long as I've been able to, but the CSPPA is not what we needed."
"They are not applying the pressure to the right people, they are not fighting the right battles, they are not helping their weaker members."
He says what orgs have done by keeping or hiring coaches is bad. "When you give up on holding an appreciable standard, you've lost the scene" "Competition matters, rules matter, punishments matter, achievements matter, excellence matters" "If you start stripping that away, you have nothing" "You guys need to take that knowledge and apply it sensibly."
"Valve has sold you all down the river, they sold everyone in the esports scene down the river, tournament organizers are selling their talent down the river. Don't hate on them for sounding tired after a 16 hour day. Don't hate on them because the hype for a matchup they've seen for the 20th time in the past 3 months, they can't be as excited or it sounds contrived. Support your guys, they're there for you, these are your people."
"This community has got to start acting like one for the first fucking time. Just put the petty shit away, let's try and fix this fucking scene while we still have one to save."
"You can't rely on Valve, you can't rely on ESL, you can't rely on the CSPPA, you can't rely on anyone." "Once again, it's gonna be the likes of us, the amateurs, the people who give a fuck, rolling up our sleeves and grafting." "I'm old and tired and I don't want to have to do it again. People need to pick up the torch and do it."
"Like Michal did, like Dudenhoeffer did. You see something wrong, fix it. You see somebody doing something wrong, call it out. If you think something could be better, let people know."
"Vote with your wallets if you're not happy with the direction Valve goes in. If when we do get to the Major, they serve up another subpar, same old bullshit stickers and signatures package again, do not buy it."
"You're a powerful block and if you use it correctly we can fucking avert this disaster."
"I'm not doing another year in this broken, bust-up fucking scene, where everyone is miserable, everyone is broke, everyone is tired, and everyone is trying to fucking rob everyone else, blind, while the fucking people who are meant to be protecting you, are just fucking enhancing it and lining their own pockets."
"I'm not doing it anymore and you shouldn't want to do it either."
"I stand by every fucking thing I said. I mean it, because this game fucking matters to me, this scene fucking matters to me. I put my life into this, my adult life, and to see it in this state is fucking sad."
Bitcoin and speculative stock investing are dark mirrors of each other and the whole system is rotten.
Hey guys. Not entirely sure if this is the right place for this post, but here goes. Since the GameStop short squeeze and the Elon Musk Bitcoin pump happened, there's been a lot on my mind about both Bitcoin and regular stocks and I need to get this off my chest. One thing above all has really been bothering me and I couldn't put it into words until recently: how rotten the whole system is and how it allows a minority to earn enough money to never need to work again. Whether it's Bitcoin or speculative stocks, it works out very similarly. People throw money and hope they get lucky, no better than any gambling. When they win, it's not because they were smarter or did some great service to society. They only had to install an app on their phone, go through some KYC and throw money at their crypto or stock of choice. Money is a currency used to determine how much access to society's resources someone has. The more money you have, the more resources you can access. This can be better apartments, lambos, yachts, mansions, whatever. The winners of crypto or stocks are just gamblers, they get a disproportionately high share of society's resources without creating anything of value. And then there's people like me. I work a day job, working hard every day and trying to improve my skills, hoping to get recognized and achieve some measure of success in life, yet I get a pittance while all these gamblers win big. To be clear here, I'm not salty because I didn't invest money or lost it. I don't believe in either speculative stock investing or crypto "investing". I realize that speculative investments have a far higher chance to lose money, and losing money can really hurt you and your life prospects. With both Bitcoin and speculative stock investing, what happens in practice isn't very different. They're glorified casinos and the winners are set for life, and it really grinds my gears because they didn't do anything to earn it, while I'm sitting at a desk day in and day out, working hard yet barely getting anything out of it. But what's even worse is that the winners' wealth is created through exploitative means. For someone to win money in the casinos, someone else has to lose. Usually a lot of someones. And the losers? They can be drastically affected by their loss. It's even more sad when you realize that most of them were suckered into playing the game with false promises: "Bitcoin/Gamestop is guaranteed to moon! Invest now and you'll never need to work again!" and so on. Then when things fail and the hysteria ends, a lot of people are left holding the bag. Some turn to substance abuse, others commit suicie, yet others double down and throw more money at the casino in the vain hopes that they'll win the next time. And even if speculative investments had a 50% or higher chance of making you a winner, what would that mean for our society? I'm no economist, but I'm pretty sure that our society would start running low on resources as people buy more luxuries they couldn't afford before and this would result in price inflation. Which in the long-term, would nullify the winners' wealth and make everyone else worse off. It's all so upsetting, and very sad what our society really values. Sorry if this was too long or rambly, but I really needed to get this off my chest. Let me know what you think in the comments. Edit: This might not have been clear to some, but I'm not a Bitcoin supporter. I know how it works and why it's terrible. Edit 2: Well, my free day of shitposting is ending, so I'm wrapping up this thread. Thank you all so much for your responses! There were many interesting discussions, even with coiners. I might respond more tomorrow, but not as much as today.
Everything wrong with Genshin Impact, Community and Mihoyo
This is going to be a really long post, so read it at your pace. I'll try my best to make it worthwhile but I ain't much of a good writer. Genshin Impact has been released since 28th of September and so far the game has received a lot of mixed reactions from the players and most of them not being good ones. Let's dig into them. So this is a criticism/feedback/bitching/complaining post or whatever you like to call it. First of all What is Genshin Impact? This is something even the game itself doesn't know and is what's confused most of the people around and is what created the first problem. Genshin has severe identity crisis. It's a JRPG? It's a Mobile gacha game? It's a AAA title aimed for all? The game tried to find something in between all this and created the mess we see today. You see people trying to defend the game by saying "This is a Gacha game. This is how it works. This is how it's been for years." Now all these things are complete BS. Genshin isn't and was never intended to be your typical mobile gacha. It tried to appeal to the mainstream audience. The instant Genshin was being developed for PC, Switch and PS4 it rose above your typical Gacha game. It wanted to cater to the mainstream crowd. Now this creates the very big problem that is the difference between Mainstream gamers like PC, PS4, Switch and Gacha Addict mobile market. While gacha addicted mobile gamers are used to being fcked over by shitty practices by those companies, the mainstream crowd is different. Some of them are completely new to the gacha system. Just accept the fact that gacha is a very bad monetization model, some games have implemented it in a nicer way which actually isn't bad, but Genshin monetization is just straight up ridiculous. Genshin was promoted as JRPG from the very beginning instead of being your usual gacha mobile game. This is where most of the mainstream players expectations shattered. Things like being limited by stamina system for play is a norm practice in mobile games(Not all games do this but most of them do) BUT it's not in the mainstream market and this is something which is not acceptable when you go for broader market. You can't just expect them to conform to your shitty stamina system and be all happy happy. You're gonna get backlash. Resin(this absolute piece of shit item in Genshin) Resin system is just ridiculous. While being already bad in the first place, it's way worse compared to even the stamina system of other mobile gacha games. Almost 95% of the stuff you do in the game is locked behind resin system. You wanna farm Mora? go spend resin, you wanna farm exp? go spend resin, you wanna farm artifacts? go spend resin, you wanna farm upgrade materials? go spend resin. What's even more ridiculous is the amount you need per dungeons, bosses and the amount you get. Resin is capped at 120. So you can run hypostasis 3 times and poof it's gone. Once you get to higher level even running hypostasis 3 times doesn't give you enough material to level up your character. The regen rate is also crap 1 resin per 8 minutes. This doesn't stop here. One of the shittiest thing in the game is the weekly bosses. YOU CAN FCKING FIGHT IT ONCE A WEEK AND IT'S STILL WALLED BEHIND RESIN. Can you see double the bs here. On top of being only available once a week you still need to spend 60 Resin just to collect rewards. The sheer amount of bs is ridiculous. Let's talk Experience To raise your character. The very first laughable thing is that beating monsters of lv60 gives you 14-15 Character exp. I mean why even have it in the first place. This is just shitty on the face of people. You need to fight monsters for months then maybe you can raise one Level of your character. The sheer amount of stupidness that fighting monsters doesn't give you Exp is just wow. You get most of the exp from those Exp Books(Adventurer's exp, Hero's Wit). And guess what you need to spend resin to get those. And what's another fcked up thing is that one run costs 20 resin and doesn't even give you enough to level up even 1 level. Yes you can get it from chests and quests but you'll run out way too soon once you reach higher levels. Money walks in now which is Mora. You need iirc 60000 Mora just to ascend a character and a lv35 Leyline gives you 44000. The amount of Mora you need to upgrade gears and characters is once again another very bad thing. You can spend few days farming 1 Million Mora and guess what it'll be gone in a poof once you get upgrade 3-4 artifacts(which you'll get fcked along the way. We'll get to that). Everything in the game needs mora be it levelling up character, talents, artifacts, weapons. The amount needed is 100x more than what you are earning. You'll always be short on this. Comes in the Artifact now You have greater chance of winning a lottery ticket than rolling good stats on the artifacts. The amount of RNG implemented on Artifacts is baffling. First you need a good main stat(Pray to RNG), then you good secondary stats. Did you know these are also assigned via RNG. Then once you upgrade the artifact additional stats are assigned based on RNG. Once you keep upgrading the artifacts existing sub stats are upgraded(based on RNG) and more new Sub stats are assigned(Based on RNG) which are further upgraded(based on RNG). Those are whole 6-7 layers of RNG to get a good Artifact. So yeah you're better off praying of being able to kamehameha than getting a good Artifact. You can say that no problem I'm a hardcore grinder I'll farm them till I get them. But then Resin comes and grabs your a$$ and puts you in place. Oh did you also know that Artifact drops are RNG!? Also Domains drops multiple type of artifacts you on top praying to get a good artifact main stat, first you need to pray to get the artifact at all. And you need to do this with 6 runs per day ONLY IF YOU GRIND SINGLE DOMAIN AND NEGLECT EVERYTHING ELSE. Now Don't ya worry because in comes the weapons upgrade materials Weapon ascension materials are dropped from different domains and you need 20 resin per run and need to do multiple runs to get enough material to ascend your weapon. Talent Books have joined the Chat You thought it was over, but it was I the talent books. Yet another piece of upgrade material which drops from yet different type of domains that require resin. Higher levels require 9 per talent level to upgrade and the domain drops 1 per run. Now what's the center of all the problems mentioned above? IT'S RESIN! This single piece of item limits everything you can do in the game. The only thing you can do in this game without resin is just farming chests which(don't even get me started on this) are just another piece of shit in the game. Chest rewards are very very underwhelming. It's isn't worth farming them except for that Adventure Exp. Have you ever played a Open world RPG which limits 95% of the content behind such a system? This is one of the biggest bs in the game. So yeah what's the game at higher levels? You login -> burn resin in 10 minutes -> you get trash -> you curse -> you logout -> rinse and repeat. Basically you're a trash collector. Congratulations you've made it so far. Now that the resin is done we look at another horrendous aspect of the game that is Monetization and Gacha. Now for all those white knights out there just accept the fact that the gacha rate is horrendous. 0.6% to get a 5 star character is way too low. As the CN guy said it's just double the rate of a glass blowing up. Gacha has been for around quite a while. There are examples of good and bad gachas all around. BUT GENSHIN FALLS INTO THE WORST ONE. You have 0.6 rate to get a 5 star character which is basically non existent and you get pity at 90 pulls. Here's comes another scummy part. At 90 pulls you have 50% chance to get the UP characters. See this bs. It's actually a pity but not a pity. You can pull 90 times but are still reliant on RNG to get you the desired character. Real pity comes at 180 Pulls which is just straight up ridiculous. 180 pulls are 32000 primogems and converting them to real life money that's a whopping $400 just one Freaking 5 star character. That's like whole month worth of food. and Congrats if you got the 5 star character cuz that's not his full potential. You need another 6 of him to max him. So in worst case you're looking at $2400 just to max out one 5 star character. Holy flames this shit. 4 star rate is also so low that you rarely get them out of 10 pull pity which is just another scummy practice. Cost for primogems is yet another crappy practice to greed money. $100 gives you 8800 primogems which are about 55 pulls. This is not even enough to hit that initial pity of 90 pulls let alone that 180 one. Monthly Pass and Battle Pass Another two methods of monetization that the game uses. These two are absolutely worthless. Now you may say that Monthly Pass is actually really good value. You can get 3000 Primogems for $5 which is a steal. and Yes it could have been good had the rates been decent. Just look at what 3000 primogems net you. A 4 star character you don't want? A useless 4 star weapon? or will you hold out on to hope that it will give you a 5 star character? Even after spending money you are still reliant on that small chance to get something good. Battle Pass. Oh don't get me started on this piece of crap. It's the single worst BP I've seen during my whole gaming life. From those ridiculous requirements which force you spend primogems to refresh resin to the locking of weekly Exp, this is just accumulation of every single crap lying around. Not even worth a shit. Achievements This doesn't fall under Monetization but is another bs aspect of the game that I'd like to discuss. Achievements spit in the face of the player. Collecting 100 chests gives you 10 primogems. and what's that number? That's 1/16 the amount you need for one damn pull. Even if we count the primogems you get from those 100 chests it nets you 200(2 from each) + 10 = 210 primogems which doesn't even amount to two pulls. I feel like this system is there just to mock the player. Hats of to you. You've made it this far. Next we move on to other aspects. COMMUNITY First of all I'm very happy that people are shitting on these crappy practices and voicing their opinions. There's definitely no need to accept these types of things. Once you accept this, they'll go even lower next time. Along with this I'm baffled at the people still trying to defend such scummy tactics. Take a look at these posts https://www.reddit.com/Genshin_Impact/comments/j799kw/i_will_say_my_biggest_tip_to_enjoy_the_game_and/ https://www.reddit.com/Genshin_Impact/comments/j7atw9/my_take_on_the_negative_reviews_as_a_long_time/ I won't go into any of them. Feel free to look at them yourselves. CN players are not happy and they're bashing the game everywhere and trying to make sure their voice is heard. This is what we also need to do. Some people say that "It's a Chinese Company. It won't matter whether you bitch here". This is 100% bs. This is not just a chinese game. It's released worldwide for everybody to play. They have people everywhere looking at stuff. So voice you complaints wherever you want official discord, forums, reddit, twitter, youtube, in game feedback. Keep in mind if you don't speak at all nothing will ever change. Once they receive enough backlash from their playerbase things will get better. The community definitely has the power to change things, Youtube channels To be honest I was hoping for those youtube channels would bring up some of those concerns of the community but nope. Every single one of them is dripping wet for Genshin and just screaming into the mics. "5 AWESOME TIPS FOR GENSHIN". "5 INSANE TIPS FOR GENSHIN". "5 SUPER DUPER INSANE TIPS FOR GENSHIN". "5 TIPS FOR GENSHIN TO LEVEL UP AND GET THAT HOT MILF IN YOUR AREA". I don't mean to criticize those channels, they may create content they want, but a good chunk of community watches those channels so bringing issues with the game will definitely help. "This is a Gacha Game. This is how it's supposed to be. If you don't like it quit it. You aren't enjoying the game" ---- Genshin Impact Whiteknights First of all I have absolutely no need to hear from someone how to enjoy my game so yeah get the hell outta here with this advice. And for all you sorry a$$ mobile gacha gaming gambling addicts out there get it through your thick skulls of yours that GENSHIN IS NOT A MOBILE GACHA GAME. This is something even the game tries to achieve but fails very hard to do so. It wanted to be something more than your typical gacha game but in the end it's own system doomed it. From the start Genshin is being marketed as OPEN WORLD JRPG rather than a gacha game. It also has every aspect of open world rpgs cuz that's what the game is. It is also a game that it playable on PC and console rather than mobile. 90% of the mobiles don't even run the game good. The moment Genshin touched the PC, Switch and PS4 platforms it needed to shed the skin of mobile gacha gaming concepts. Currently the Genshin Impact for high level player is login -> burn resin in 10-15 minutes -> logout. This is how you play Mobile Gacha games. THIS IS NOT HOW YOU PLAY PC, PS4 OR FOR THAT MATTER MAINSTREAM GAMES. This part is limited to mobile gaming. It has absolutely no place in the mainstream market cuz most of the time people play for longer hours on these systems. Genshin is not a game that you'll play waiting at a bus stop for 5-10 minutes or waiting for your friend at the cafe. The game wants you to play it like a full RPG. and in here comes the point where the game contradicts itself. It wants you play the game but limits it greatly or just 99% behind a stamina system. See the absolute madness in this? This is where the greed comes in. It's where they sell Resin refills. Look at the $20 BP with extra resin, look at weekly packs in the shop selling resin. The sheer ridiculousness of the game selling you stamina just to play the game. For people waiting for the feature to pet the dogs, just hope that it doesn't cost you 20 resin to do so or they are only pettable once a week. Even as a gacha game Genshin Impact is a big disappointment This is coming from my experience as a gacha gamer. The game is literal crap when compared to other gacha games. You've got examples of great gacha games like Azur Lane around(I'm saying comparatively better, not that other ones don't have problems) but still it choose to go with worst ones. I have nothing expect gratitude for you for reading this so far. Next we move on to the final segment that is the Company Itself. Mihoyo The final boss of all is Mihoyo itself and they themselves have been really scummy and shitty. So far they have been completely turning a blind eye and not listening to the people at all. Starting from the very first CBT to the OBT they have received constant feedback but have completely neglected the main parts which include resin and monetization. Now keep in mind that Mihoyo is not a new company. They have been in the market for years. Their other mobile game Honkai Impact 3 is very big in CN and also quite popular in global too. Throughout constant feedback from players and being in market they have learned what's good and what's bad. And the shittiest thing is that they choose to completely ignore it and push there scummy tactics. Let's see some of them.... The first and very obvious one being the gacha and monetization. Monetization was available during the CBT3 on CN server. It received quite a feedback due to rates being so low. But they still didn't change a thing. They just rolled it exactly the same way meaning they didn't pay any heed to the feedback regarding the monetization. They know about gacha and what's good and bad about it but still purposely chose to go with the shittiest kind of gacha. Unskippable Cutscenes. Let's just accept it that the only reason the cutscenes are unskippable is because they want to prevent people from rerolling accounts. Though it didn't prevent them but it was their intention. That's why they even went as far as banning accounts who pulled 5 star but had no activity for 24 hours or so but didn't even touch those accounts that only had 4 stars. Criticism threads on the official forums are being deleted. Just another scummy tactic. There have been constant bashing on CN forums since 15th, taptap score is 4.7 and on other forums too. Yet they still haven't considered any of them and are just ignoring their playerbase completely. What's Mihoyo trying to do? At this point it's either two possibilities one that either they didn't research enough into the mainstream audience or it's just deliberate. And the chance of it being the former is let's say 0.6 It seems like rather than catering to what the mainstream playerbase expects, Mihoyo is trying to lure them into the shady and absolute bs world of Mobile Gacha gaming. This is what garnered so much hate from the mainstream audience. While the gacha gaming addicts are used to being fcked over by these scummy tactics all year around, this is not the case with others. Some of them are even completely new to the terms like Gacha. And just accept the fact that Gacha is a horrendous system of monetization. Like Gigguk said "Who said gacha is like drugs. Drugs are way cheaper." To any sane person this model of monetization is absolute bs and it is. Even among this Monetization Genshin goes for the worst one their is. So yeah expecting a whole different player crowd to shut up and just fall into crappy and scummy practices is not gonna work and is definitely gonna blow up in your face. And I hope that people continue to bash such systems cuz if such kind of system is accepted it will shift many other aspects to the shittier side and thing will continue to get worse. This is the reason why mobile gacha gaming is so bad. The devs pushed poorer rates and people just sat there and accepted it blowing thousands on such practices. This is the reason why something like 0.6% chance to get a 5 star character exists. It's derived from the Mobile Gacha Gaming. What's all these complaining posts? Why don't you just enjoy the game? FCKING STOP PROTECTING/WHITE KNIGHTING THESE SCUMMY PRACTICES. First of all get it through your thick skulls that the who are doing the so called "complaining" are doing it because they love the game and WANT IT TO BE BETTER. They aren't doing it out of spite or anything. You can dismiss a few troll threads when a user is hating without a reason anywhere. But know that when multiple people are complaining about one thing it means there is something wrong with that. People are making long posts giving proper reasons as to why something is bad and giving a reply like "This is how it is. Quit if you don't like it." is a rotten and crappy mindset. The reason people are taking their time to write of such lengthy posts is because they genuinely love the game and want it to be better and more awesome. That's why something called "FEEDBACK" exists in this world. As it stands the game is just heading to its doom and the people trying to prevent it are the ones who care about it. People giving crappy answers are contributing nothing to it. And let me ask this question why do you have to fcking head crash into people who care? Is it bad that the game gets better and everybody enjoys it rather than your sorry a$$ of a gacha gambling addict. A fact is that if things get better these so called white knights will be jumping in joy too. BUT THERE IS ONE VERY BIG DIFFERENCE. They will call it like "Wow! mihoyo is so generous. They're the best devs in the world." rather than actually crediting it to the people who made the change possible. FINAL WORDS The game itself is very beautiful. The awesome Open world map, absolutely banger soundtrack all are just too good. I absolutely love the game itself. But the current game system is very flawed and this needs to addressed as soon as possible. If Genshin Impact stays like this, it will be removed from the mainstream audience. That's why changes need to occur if they want this crowd to stay, otherwise if all want is just money then they'll carry on with these shitty practices. Know that at the end of all this if nothing is changed Genshin will just be another Generic Mobile Gacha Game where you'll save primogems for months for a char -> Get fcked by abyssal rates -> Curse the devs and game -> Go to sleep -> Rinse and repeat and if you enjoy it that's good for you. What sucks the most is that a game with so much potential will be ruined.
A practical guide to finding love (no you probably won't find it when you stop searching for it...)
**This is based on some notes I wrote for myself, which I decided to embellish and post here*\* Firstly, the advice "You'll find love when you stop searching for it" is fundamentally misguided. Don't get me wrong, I understand the intention behind it. Focus on yourself and drop the desperation - sounds like solid advice right? Well as far as I'm concerned it's not enough. It needs the caveat \potentially plausible if you are a friendly looking and approachable individual with a healthy social life who's willing to embrace any opportunities that come your way** Or the advice 'Just live a life you enjoy and you'll naturally attract someone sooner or later' ... tell that to my previous neighbour who was a manager at a games workshop and spent his free time painting Warhammer 40k miniatures. Unfortunately he wasn't asexual or aromantic, and I did speak to him about this once...he admitted he was lonely and desperate to meet someone but didn't know how... hopefully he has by now but I really wouldn't bet 2 monopoly dollars on it. The point is don’t blindly follow such misleading advice and expect a relationship to definitely fall into place while you're just doing your thing. You have to be proactive. As for me - I’m tall and fairly attractive and intelligent, and I've been told I'm fun company, on paper I've got quite a bit going for me. But until about 24 I had almost no ladies in my life at all... because I wouldn’t try to push for anything, I wouldn’t step out of my comfort zone, I'd smile and keep walking, when I was out I was mainly just hanging with friends, my job wasn’t allowing me to meet people... it was as though I thought my dream girl would just turn up knocking on my fucking door because I was a nice friendly guy. Well the only time a girl ever did she tried to convert me to Catholicism (and she failed). I got resentful of the 'lucky' guys who seemed to easily manoeuvre their way into relationships. I'd tell myself 'you're better looking, funnier etc than them... why the fuck can't girls notice that?' It didn't dawn on me until more recently how naïve my mindset was. The moral of this story is that yes there is an element of randomness to life, but you can create your own luck. And luck as we know is when preparation meetsopportunity.
The preparation
Involves making yourself the best version of you - which you really should be doing in general: Spiritually - I hesitate to use this term because I'm atheist, but what I mean is that you must accept that you're somebody who is capable of loving and deserving of love. If not you will sabotage yourself with or without even realising it. Not the 'romantic weekend in the Bahamas to excuse the fact they've been putting work ahead of you' or 'delivering 3 tons of roses to your workplace with a crane' type of love, but the consistent feeling of deeply empathising with somebody. It need not even be associated with lust - friendships can be based in love - though in the case of romantic sexual relationships there needs to be an element of physical attraction. Also, morally speaking, strive to act in a way that allows you to hold your head high - treat others as you would wish to be treated, judge people by their intentions not merely their actions, live and let live, yet stand up against things you feel are unjust. This will deliver a deeper sense of confidence in yourself that romantic rejections can't ever scathe. Physically - exercise routinely for fitness and physique, find a fashion sense and hairstyle that flatters you and your expression, groom and maintain good hygiene - plus any procedures one can afford such dental work, corrective laser eye surgery - don’t ever be ashamed of what you look like but do what you can within reason to look your best. Remember that a less naturally attractive person who's put effort into these areas will often beat out a more naturally attractive person who hasn't. Make sure you're not portraying an image that doesn't align with who you are though... Mentally - recognise and address any mental conditions or issues or shortcomings as soon as possible - anxiety, depression being the most common ones - take meds, do CBT with a therapist, whatever it takes to get a handle on it because this can hold you back from everything, and doesn't often just improve on its own terms...unfortunately it's the opposite. Try to avoid developing a neediness, obsessiveness and/or dependency for others, because that will translate into desperation which is obviously very unattractive. People should be a compliment to your life - another source of happiness. Making somebody the primary or perhaps only source of happiness in your life is like skipping along a knife's edge. If you give them all the power to build you up, you therefore give them the power to break you down. It will always hurt, but learn how to handle rejection gracefully. All forms of rejection. Personally and Socially - Work on improving your social skills (they're skills after all...nobody is born with them), gaining general knowledge so you can contribute more to conversation, watch some stand up comedy and take some improv class to help hone your wit and humour, hang around positive people, cultivate your passions and interests and don’t be afraid to let the world know about them, try to make less presumptions and have more experiences. Learn to be unapologetically yourself, and accept that not everybody is going to like you, just as you don't like everybody you meet. Occupationally - pursue something you have some degree of passion in OR at least just take your work responsibilities seriously. Even in the age of fuck capitalism there’s nothing attractive about a long term unemployed person. Plus we are hardwired to feel fulfilled when working and contributing - even if those contributions seem insignificant to us and wider society. Just starting at a retail job helped to pull me out of a depression not long ago (ironically) Financially - you don’t need to have huge amounts of wealth or possessions, obviously, but proving that you’re fairly stable and prudent with your finances is attractive and beneficial for your life in general. This is all well and good but you could spend a million years improving yourself and get nowhere closer to meeting somebody without the catalyst...
The opportunity
Despite the connotations of the word, this is a proactive process. It involves putting yourself in situations conducive to meeting people; - Bars and clubs (not my favourite places at all but occasionally on the right night with the right mood they can be great places for meeting people) - Social events (parties, festivals, fairs, local community events etc) - Volunteering - Your Workplace (a bit risky of course - depends on the size and nature of the workplace and the maturity level of the people involved) - Picking up part time jobs in bars etc - Smiling and chatting to people when you’re out and about - Travelling (when it's allowed again) - Swallowing your pride and asking friends if they know anyone they could set you up on a date with - Clubs and interest groups - Dating/singles events - Dating apps (especially Hinge) - Web forums and communities and so on. Saying yes to more experiences and making less negative assumptions. Yeah, theoretically your teacher could pair you up with someone you instantly click with in first year university (or even high school) and end up marrying them - that's actually how my cousins parents met. But even that requires you to embrace the opportunity that's presented to you. If you're anything like I was for most my life, you probably wouldn't even do that much. _________________________________________ Always be open to meeting people. Even if you're in the 'preparation' stage and you have no confidence in yourself, trying to bulk up, get some anxiety under control etc you should still be open to meeting people. The only cases where I wouldn't recommend it is if you're literally being treated for schizophrenia or overcoming a debilitating injury or trauma - which you don't wish to burden upon anyone for the time being - which I think is reasonable. But believe me, there would be someone out there who would gladly accept whatever you have to offer and vice versa. And you'll never stand a chance of meeting them if you don't believe it. Digression I: We're a social creature and libidinous lifeform - expecting to feel complete in life, in the absence of romance or intimacy, can be very challenging if not impossible for the vast majority of us. It's ok to feel lonely being single. It's ok to feel a void that only a romantic relationship could fill. That's not a pathetic mark of insecurity. Think about it...why would mother nature actually want us to feel fulfilled before we've done our duty of procreating and raising children? That would be counterproductive to the continuation of the species. Start searching today I'm not telling you to cancel dinner with your grandparents, call your single friends and start stalking the nightclubs this evening with some canned pickup lines and a packet of Rohypnol. But be open to meeting people 24/7 and start forcing yourself to get out there when there's no good reason not to. As Napoleon probably didn't even say 'Don't wait. The time will never be just right' ... I interpret that as meaning the time is always right. You can't wait to emerge from some 10 year long cocoon of self improvement before you spread your wings- then you'll be 10 years behind and that will be weighing on your mind as well. Trust me, I fell down the self help trap for years and I still do occasionally. You can still be improving yourself whilst approaching people, whilst dating, whilst in a relationship - in fact you would be foolish not to, and having someone to keep you accountable can actually help. After all, life is a continuous sequence of failure, reflection, and self improvement, or at least that's how I like to look at it. Approaching and Courtship I'm not even ashamed to admit that I've perused hundreds of 'pick up artist' articles and videos in an attempt to optimize my success rate. Ironically the deeper I dove into it, the more I began to realise that there is no silver bullet. No panacea. No magic phrase or move that will win the heart of whoever you're pursuing. If there were there wouldn't be hundreds of articles to peruse in the first place. Digression II: If you truly just want a one night stand or NSA arrangement (and there's nothing wrong with that as long as you're upfront about it and don't deliberately mislead) there are some courtship exploits you can roll out; pick your venues strategically, put on some bravado, push and pull, go hot and cold, disqualify them, give them shit tests, talk to attractive friends of the opposite sex to invoke some social proof and jealousy, set false time constraints, escalate the conversation verbally to more risqué topics, deliberately misinterpret things sexually, escalate physical touch, the finger length game, move them to various venues or areas within a venue to help build a narrative, involve alcohol and social lubricants, put shit like 'I'll grab the first round if you buy breakfast' etc in your bio. Of course, these won't work on everyone and you risk getting a drink thrown in your face. Also worth mentioning that healthy long-term relationships can of course begin with a moment of infatuation when your bloodshot eyes spot a prepossessing pair of legs in a dirty shithole dive bar at 3am...they don't need to begin with some magisterial Romeo and Juliet moment. That's not what this post is about though. If you're looking for something long-term, the mindset is a bit simpler; Be the best version of yourself, and know your worth. If you're growing into somebody you love, you shouldn't feel like you're inconveniencing someone by approaching or dating them. You're giving them the opportunity to meet somebody great. Would you be nervous to walk up and hand some attractive stranger a $10,000 cheque? I don't love that analogy because there's some arrogance to it, but it's an interesting thought. That's not to say you shouldn't ever reflect on how you're projecting yourself - negative feedback (rejection) should always be interpreted constructively. If you're being called a creep consistently, you need to stand back and try to figure out where you're misrepresenting yourself. Perhaps consider waiting until you get home before you start masturbating for instance. Digression III: If you're pursuing someone you plan to spend your foreseeable future with, it's not in your best interest to put on any facades. The moment you apply a façade you've lost - for if they respond positively to your façade you lose confidence in who you are underneath it, if they don't - well perhaps they may have responded positively if you were more earnest about who you are. So be transparent with your feelings and clear with your communications. The Dr Seuss adage comes to mind "Be who you are and say what you feel; those who matter won't mind, and those who mind don't matter". At least in the context of romantic relationships. If our cheery friend Nietzsche was right about one thing it's that marriages/long-term relationships fail not due to a lack of love (lust) but a lack of friendship. It's imperative. Remember; love is expressed through consistency NOT intensity. Digression IV: Start to see people for who they are, not for what you want them to be. The latter is not fair on either person. I can't emphasise this point enough (without bolding it which would fuck up the format). I'm the guiltiest of this. I would catch myself daydreaming about girls I knew who were in relationships with close friends. I would catch myself having reveries about people I knew weren't interested in me. I would even catch myself fantasying about somebody I just swiped on, so when we never matched it felt like a kick in the guts. It's nice (and natural) to fantasy about things - that's what the lottery, gambling, even travel industries are founded on - but it absolutely drains your time and energy and the road leads only to disappointment. ________________________ How do you even know when you've found love? Digression V: A curious phenomena of humankind is that we generally want what we can't have. Once we have it, or know that we can, we no longer want it. So we don't often truly want it, we just want the satisfaction of attaining that which we couldn't have. You must be cognizant of this in the realm of romantic relationships, because it can cause you to throw away what you have in order to chase after what you have not - in an endless self destructive cycle. Learn the difference between truly growing apart from someone versus simply losing the novelty and infatuation associated with the incipient stages of a relationship, which is inevitable - even your dream partner will lose some of their lustre sooner or later. This is paraphrasing one of Epicurus' meditations so you know it's good shit. As unromantic as it sounds, love isn't magical, despite how it may feel at the time...it's neurochemistry... oxytocin, serotonin, dopamine, vasopressin etc. We all have hundreds of thousands, if not millions of 'soulmates' out there. For me they are; - Somebody whom you feel comfortable being unapologetically yourself around - Somebody whom you genuinely enjoy spending your time with (of course there will be natural ups and downs) - Somebody whom you genuinely want the best for...for their sake not yours - Somebody who you're physically attracted to (as much as possible) And yes you can have all these things and still grow apart from someone. Or find out they've been sleeping with your best friend. That's life. It's better to have loved and lost than never loved at all. ________________________ Edit: I just made this even longer Edit 2: I just made it slightly longer again
@TraceSafeTech and Why We Love it - written by @mrdotto5 @stockfamgroup $TSF $UTOLF
TraceSafe Inc. (TSF in Canada, UTOLF in U.S. with OTCQB listing in near future) Industry: Real-Time Location Services (including Contact Tracing) Notable Management: Mr. Wayne Lloyd (C.E.O. of TraceSafe) Dr. Dennis Kwan (C.E.O of TraceSafe Technologies), Why We Love it: By the time I finished my DD, and I did quite a bit of it, TraceSafe was an auto-buy for me and a pleasure to write about. But before diving in, I had questions; plenty of them. I believe that investors should enter every opportunity with skepticism. It gives you a clearer head and reduces potentially dangerous levels of FOMO (fear of missing out). FOMO can drive valuations of stocks to scary levels and it rarely ends well, as retail buyers like you and me buy the hype on a company while bigger players exit their positions. Smaller growth-oriented companies can often have new, exciting technology that captures the imagination of the market, but smart investors, retail or otherwise, always look for one key milestone before buying in: validation. Without proof that a company is successfully penetrating their market, you’re buying the idea instead of the reality. When I first looked at Tracesafe in the autumn of 2020, I was impressed by the technology they were bringing to market with an experienced management team. But I didn’t invest my hard-earned money because I needed to see real partnerships with big-market companies. Cutting edge technology, for all its impressiveness, isn’t worth much to a company without the means to monetize it. If you’re buying the idea, you’re making a leap of faith, and that is a little too close to gambling for me. So much has happened since then that the leap of faith has become an open door to walk through. Validation is here. But before we get to all that, let’s set the foundation, because none of this would have been possible without the management team, which is one of the most impressive parts to the story. The C.E.O., Dr. Dennis Kwan, and The C.T.O. Suresh Singamsetty, have been developing technology companies in the wearables space for years. Dr. Kwan co-founding Martian Watches, the first ever voice-enabled smartwatch. He was also V.P. of a Bluetooth company that was acquired for $160 million and he personally owns more than ten patents in wireless/bluetooth technologies. Mr. Singamsetty, the software expert, was with Dr. Kwan at Martian Watches. He owns more than 20 patents himself. The third member of the team, Gord Zeilstra, is another massive successful industry veteran. His specialty is driving companies’ global sales footprint. His success in the building of Monster.com and S.A.P. into global brands is an exciting indicator of where TraceSafe is headed. So what about validation? Let’s begin with its partnership with Tritan Software. You probably haven’t heard of them, but I have no doubt you have heard of Carnival Cruises, Norwegian Cruise Lines, and Royal Caribbean. Tritan is the health and safety software provider for 95% of the entire global cruise line industry. I’ll put that in word form to give it the attention it deserves: NINETY FIVE PERCENT of the global cruise line industry. Tritan is responsible for collecting, storing and securing the privacy of health information for all passengers, in addition to quality and incident management and a host of other software solutions. The CDC (Centre for Disease Control and Prevention) will most certainly have compliance requirements for resumption of sailing operations and Tritan knows this, which is why they are acting now, and acting swiftly. (Countless other companies approached Tritan, but they chose the experience and superior security of TraceSafe). The partnership was only recently announced and it remains to be seen how entwined the two companies will become, but contact tracing is only the tip of the iceberg (sorry, not the best cruise line analogy). For a clearer picture of the entire iceberg, we can look to Walt Disney’s iconic theme parks. It is no secret that Disney theme parks have always placed a premium focus on customer experience, and one of the most effective ways they achieve this is through the “Magic Band”, which is essentially a wearable device that customers use to enter the park, unlock their hotel rooms, and buy food and merchandise. A one stop shop on your wrist. This is where the cruise industry is headed. With a wearable on your wrist, you can enjoy all the same conveniences as the Magic Band combined with a contact tracing and safety monitoring device, all in one device. So, that’s it? The cruise lines? Even if it were the only partnership in the pipeline, it may have been enough to turn TraceSafe into a major global player, but it is just one of many projects, both ongoing and in the future. But even greater validation was announced just today (making me do some quick edits to this story) TraceSafe, just today, announced a potentially game-changing purchase order. The agreement is to supply a global Tier 1 semiconductor manufacturer with 60,000 wearable units to be used across their enterprise. Professional services network Deloitte is managing the implementation of TraceSafe’s “next generation” of wearable products, which can be processed and paired within seconds, compared to about 3 minutes per device of other companies in the industry. To give you an idea of the magnitude of this agreement, Dr. Kwan is quoted “This is one of the largest deployments of its kind anywhere in the world and we are very proud to be working with technology innovators to deliver a product so important in enhancing the health and safety of their workforce.” I will forgive you if you stop reading now. The above agreement, combined with the cruise line partnership, is honestly enough for me and for many investors, but for those who stick around, the story actually gets considerably better. The total wearable market is projected to reach $60 billion, and a large part of this will focus on corporate safety. In this way, Tracesafe has a bit of an advantage, as the company has a presence in Southeast Asia. You will remember that long before we realized the impact of the pandemic, several Asian countries were already scrambling to deal with the first wave. Since that time, we have dealt with each wave several months behind Southeast Asian countries. This time lapse has given TraceSafe a window into near-future conditions in the Western world. The best example of this is in Singapore, where they are closer to emerging from lockdown than we are in North America. Singapore has become the proving ground for TraceSafe technology., and it has gone perfectly. TraceSafe is being worn on construction sites for Boustead, a massive Singaporean construction company. This partnership has not only led to improvements in safety and security at Boustead, but it has also won TraceSafe the Singaporean National Innovation Award. Closer to home, TraseSafe partnered with The World Junior Hockey Championships in Vancouver, Canada in December. The tournament was essentially a bubble-event that was completed safely using TraceSafe technology. T.T.G, the sponsorship firm that organized the event (and, incidentally, was instrumental in bringing The Winter Olympics to Vancouver in 2010) was impressed. So was Telus, the tournament sponsor. The future is very bright in venue tracing, with fans itching to return but needing a safe and proven way to do it. There remains one incredibly large catalyst for growth, and some may find it the most interesting of all, but before we get to that (cough, Airbeam, cough), let’s quickly dispel any lingering doubts you may have: Aren’t those wrist bands uncomfortable and a nuisance? This is another part of the reason Tritan and others have chosen TraceSafe. Recall that two of the management team are pioneers of the wearable space with over 30 patents between them. The TraceSafe product has a battery that long outlasts any other in the industry and it is also incredibly lightweight and unobtrusive. Added to this is the extended product line, with tags and credit-card style devices. Discounting everything else in the pipeline, is anybody seriously going to get back on a cruise ship after all that has happened? Will the return to cruise lines be slow? The high amount of bookings for the second half of 2021 says “no”, and so do experts in the field, who state that cruise line demand is higher than most other industry segments. Once people are vaccinated, the industry will return in a big way. Tritan understands this; hence the quick action. But what about privacy? Isn’t this just another way for companies or governments to spy on us? I honestly wondered about this because it seemed an obvious question, but the answer makes complete sense. If the TraceSafe software were downloaded onto your phone, perhaps there would be more skepticism on my part. We all value privacy and bristle when it is infringed upon. But these devices are only work-site specific, meaning that the wearables (and software embedded in them) are separate from your personal devices and they do not function once you leave the site. They only ensure health and safety through workplace tracking. Aren’t margins higher on software than hardware? Will this make enough profit? The answers to these questions vary, but they all begin with “yes”. Margins are indeed higher on software, and TraceSafe in fact is currently selling 50/50 between hardware and software (cloud computing), with a focus on moving to 20/80 in the coming months. The cloud-based real-time monitoring system does not, in fact, need an internet connection (which I’d say is important when you’re out at sea) as it is a bluetooth device. No user information is stored on the device and it has medical-grade privacy/security (remember the company’s origins). The administration functions are user-friendly. What about the revenues? Whatever exciting news you may hear about a company, it is always more reassuring to see actual revenues pouring in, even so soon after developing a contact tracing solution. TraceSafe could be forgiven for only being a quarter or two away from meaningful revenues, but luckily for investors, this isn’t the case. Based on video interviews in January, the company expects to continue their 100%-200% year over year growth, which puts them somewhere between a projection of $20-$32 million for 2021. Although it should be noted that I’m extrapolating these numbers by following growth patterns from previous quarters, this DOES NOT INCLUDE ANY NEW PARTNERSHIPS, INCLUDING THE AGREEMENT ANNOUNCED TODAY! (Oops, sorry. I seem to have left caps lock on there!). And then there is the share float. Fully diluted, after all outstanding shares incentive-based options, the total share count will be under 70 million. This is a very small float, which appeals to most investors, as a company in a growth phase will have fewer obstacles to share price growth. What about data? Data monetization is big business. TraceSafe will have the ability to monetize data from their cloud-based software at some point in this process, although that shouldn’t be confused with personal data, which would never be shared, obviously. But corporations looking for trends in safety and efficiency would most definitely benefit from the analysis of general workforce data. What else am I missing? This is a bonus for the company that cannot be overstated. Airbeam. Ever heard of it? Before you read the bonus paragraph below, note that TraceSafe has invested into Airbeam and owns an impressive 9.9 million shares. Ok, go ahead and read about Airbeam now (Thanks to Stock Fam discord user “Aberdenov” for the assistance) The 5G revolution is upon us. This revolution will be in the tens of TRILLIONS of dollars. Airbeam will be a player in 5G critical infrastructure. Their 5G micro cell network utilizing AI/ML with EDGE computing on the 60Ghz band will be a catalyst for smart cities enabling such things as autonomous vehicles. Airbeam will also be deploying wireless cameras with unlimited storage and smart displays for advertising. The company is led by former executive and head of research and development at Qualcomm, Dr Karim Arabi, and along with Stockwell Day and his political connections, the future looks bright for the company. Airbeam's last private raise was back in 2019 with a valuation of 97 million. Since then they have gained traction with pilot projects in America, Qatar and the Philippines. An IPO is expected sometime in 2021 with a far higher valuation. TraceSafe has openly talked about increasing shareholder value after the Airbeam IPO, including a potential dividend, which is unheard of for a growth tech company. So you see how skepticism can lead to the DD that you need to uncover a company like TraceSafe. It has the management team, tech cutting-edge technology, the validation, the contracts, the blue-sky opportunity of an industry that will be a part of our lives, and an incredible piece of foresight to buy in early to a very hotly anticipated IPO. Just another Stock Fam favourite! Thanks to expert poster Jethro and all the members of the TraceSafe channel for their relentless DD. Come join the discussion! Follow me on twitter MrDotto5
Playboy going public: Porn, Gambling, and Cannabis
NEW INFO 5 Results from share redemption are posted. Less than .2% redeemed. Very bullish as investors are showing extreme confidence in the future of PLBY. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/playboy-mountain-crest-acquisition-corp-120000721.html NEW INFO 4 Definitive Agreement to purchase 100% of Lovers brand stores announced 2/1. https://www.streetinsider.com/Corporate+News/Playboy+%28MCAC%29+Confirms+Deal+to+Acquire+Lovers/17892359.html NEW INFO 3 I bought more on the dip today. 5081 total. Price rose AH to $12.38 (2.15%) NEW INFO 2 Here is the full webinar. https://icrinc.zoom.us/rec/play/9GWKdmOYumjWfZuufW3QXpe_FW_g--qeNbg6PnTjTMbnNTgLmCbWjeRFpQga1iPc-elpGap8dnDv8Zww.yD7DjUwuPmapeEdP?continueMode=true&tk=lEYc4F_FkKlgsmCIs6w0gtGHT2kbgVGbUju3cIRBSjk.DQIAAAAV8NK49xZWdldRM2xNSFNQcTBmcE00UzM3bXh3AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA&uuid=WN_GKWqbHkeSyuWetJmLFkj4g&_x_zm_rtaid=kR45-uuqRE-L65AxLjpbQw.1611967079119.2c054e3d3f8d8e63339273d9175939ed&_x_zm_rhtaid=866 NEW INFO 1 Live merger webinar with PLBY and MCAC on Friday January 29, 2021 at 12:00 NOON EST link below https://mcacquisition.com/investor-relations/press-release-details/2021/Playboy-Enterprises-Inc.-and-Mountain-Crest-Acquisition-Corp-Participate-in-SPACInsider-ICR-Webinar-on-January-29th-at-12pm-ET/default.aspx Playboy going public: Porn, Gambling, and Cannabis !!!WARNING READING AHEAD!!! TL;DR at the end. It will take some time to sort through all the links and read/watch everything, but you should. In the next couple weeks, Mountain Crest Acquisition Corp is taking Playboy public. The existing ticker MCAC will become PLBY. Special purpose acquisition companies have taken private companies public in recent months with great success. I believe this will be no exception. Notably, Playboy is profitable and has skyrocketing revenue going into a transformational growth phase. Porn - First and foremost, let's talk about porn. I know what you guys are thinking. “Porno mags are dead. Why would I want to invest in something like that? I can get porn for free online.” Guess what? You are absolutely right. And that’s exactly why Playboy doesn’t do that anymore. That’s right, they eliminated their print division. And yet they somehow STILL make money from porn that people (see: boomers) pay for on their website through PlayboyTV, Playboy Plus, and iPlayboy. Here’s the thing: Playboy has international, multi-generational name recognition from porn. They have content available in 180 countries. It will be the only publicly traded adult entertainment (porn) company. But that is not where this company is going. It will help support them along the way. You can see every Playboy magazine through iPlayboy if you’re interested. NSFW links below: https://www.playboy.com/ https://www.playboytv.com/ https://www.playboyplus.com/ https://www.iplayboy.com/ Gambling - Some of you might recognize the Playboy brand from gambling trips to places like Las Vegas, Atlantic City, Cancun, London or Macau. They’ve been in the gambling biz for decades through their casinos, clubs, and licensed gaming products. They see the writing on the wall. COVID is accelerating the transition to digital, application based GAMBLING. That’s right. What we are doing on Robinhood with risky options is gambling, and the only reason regulators might give a shit anymore is because we are making too much money. There may be some restrictions put in place, but gambling from your phone on your couch is not going anywhere. More and more states are allowing things like Draftkings, poker, state ‘lottery” apps, hell - even political betting. Michigan and Virginia just ok’d gambling apps. They won’t be the last. This is all from your couch and any 18 year old with a cracked iphone can access it. Wouldn’t it be cool if Playboy was going to do something like that? They’re already working on it. As per CEO Ben Kohn who we will get to later, “...the company’s casino-style digital gaming products with Scientific Games and Microgaming continue to see significant global growth.” Honestly, I stopped researching Scientific Games' sports betting segment when I saw the word ‘omni-channel’. That told me all I needed to know about it’s success. “Our SG Sports™ platform is an enhanced, omni-channel solution for online, self-service and retail fixed odds sports betting – from soccer to tennis, basketball, football, baseball, hockey, motor sports, racing and more.” https://www.scientificgames.com/ https://www.microgaming.co.uk/ “This latter segment has become increasingly enticing for Playboy, and it said last week that it is considering new tie-ups that could include gaming operators like PointsBet and 888Holdings.” https://calvinayre.com/2020/10/05/business/playboys-gaming-ops-could-get-a-boost-from-spac-purchase/ As per their SEC filing: “Significant consumer engagement and spend with Playboy-branded gaming properties around the world, including with leading partners such as Microgaming, Scientific Games, and Caesar’s Entertainment, steers our investment in digital gaming, sports betting and other digital offerings to further support our commercial strategy to expand consumer spend with minimal marginal cost, and gain consumer data to inform go-to-market plans across categories.” https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgadata/1803914/000110465921005986/tm2034213-12_defm14a.htm#tMDAA1 They are expanding into more areas of gaming/gambling, working with international players in the digital gaming/gambling arena, and a Playboy sportsbook is on the horizon. https://www.playboy.com/read/the-pleasure-of-playing-with-yourself-mobile-gaming-in-the-covid-era Cannabis - If you’ve ever read through a Playboy magazine, you know they’ve had a positive relationship with cannabis for many years. As of September 2020, Playboy has made a major shift into the cannabis space. Too good to be true you say? Check their website. Playboy currently sells a range of CBD products. This is a good sign. Federal hemp products, which these most likely are, can be mailed across state lines and most importantly for a company like Playboy, can operate through a traditional banking institution. CBD products are usually the first step towards the cannabis space for large companies. Playboy didn’t make these products themselves meaning they are working with a processor in the cannabis industry. Another good sign for future expansion. What else do they have for sale? Pipes, grinders, ashtrays, rolling trays, joint holders. Hmm. Ok. So it looks like they want to sell some shit. They probably don’t have an active interest in cannabis right? Think again: https://www.forbes.com/sites/javierhasse/2020/09/24/playboy-gets-serious-about-cannabis-law-reform-advocacy-with-new-partnership-grants/?sh=62f044a65cea “Taking yet another step into the cannabis space, Playboy will be announcing later on Thursday (September, 2020) that it is launching a cannabis law reform and advocacy campaign in partnership with National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML), Last Prisoner Project, Marijuana Policy Project, the Veterans Cannabis Project, and the Eaze Momentum Program.” “According to information procured exclusively, the three-pronged campaign will focus on calling for federal legalization. The program also includes the creation of a mentorship plan, through which the Playboy Foundation will support entrepreneurs from groups that are underrepresented in the industry.” Remember that CEO Kohn from earlier? He wrote this recently: https://medium.com/naked-open-letters-from-playboy/congress-must-pass-the-more-act-c867c35239ae Seems like he really wants weed to be legal? Hmm wonder why? The writing's on the wall my friends. Playboy wants into the cannabis industry, they are making steps towards this end, and we have favorable conditions for legislative progress. Don’t think branding your own cannabis line is profitable or worthwhile? Tell me why these 41 celebrity millionaires and billionaires are dummies. I’ll wait. https://www.celebstoner.com/news/celebstoner-news/2019/07/12/top-celebrity-cannabis-brands/ Confirmation: I hear you. “This all seems pretty speculative. It would be wildly profitable if they pull this shift off. But how do we really know?” Watch this whole video: https://finance.yahoo.com/video/playboy-ceo-telling-story-female-154907068.html Man - this interview just gets my juices flowing. And highlights one of my favorite reasons for this play. They have so many different business avenues from which a catalyst could appear. I think paying attention, holding shares, and options on these staggered announcements over the next year is the way I am going to go about it. "There's definitely been a shift to direct-to-consumer," he (Kohn) said. "About 50 percent of our revenue today is direct-to-consumer, and that will continue to grow going forward.” “Kohn touted Playboy's portfolio of both digital and consumer products, with casino-style gaming, in particular, serving a crucial role under the company's new business model. Playboy also has its sights on the emerging cannabis market, from CBD products to marijuana products geared toward sexual health and pleasure.” "If THC does become legal in the United States, we have developed certain strains to enhance your sex life that we will launch," Kohn said. https://cheddar.com/media/playboy-goes-public-health-gaming-lifestyle-focus Oh? The CEO actually said it? Ok then. “We have developed certain strains…” They’re already working with growers on strains and genetics? Ok. There are several legal cannabis markets for those products right now, international and stateside. I expect Playboy licensed hemp and THC pre-rolls by EOY. Something like this: https://www.etsy.com/listing/842996758/10-playboy-pre-roll-tubes-limited?ga_order=most_relevant&ga_search_type=all&ga_view_type=gallery&ga_search_query=pre+roll+playboy&ref=sr_gallery-1-2&organic_search_click=1 Maintaining cannabis operations can be costly and a regulatory headache. Playboy’s licensing strategy allows them to pick successful, established partners and sidestep traditional barriers to entry. You know what I like about these new markets? They’re expanding. Worldwide. And they are going to be a bigger deal than they already are with or without Playboy. Who thinks weed and gambling are going away? Too many people like that stuff. These are easy markets. And Playboy is early enough to carve out their spot in each. Fuck it, read this too: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jimosman/2020/10/20/playboy-could-be-the-king-of-spacs-here-are-three-picks/?sh=2e13dcaa3e05 Numbers: You want numbers? I got numbers. As per the company’s most recent SEC filing: “For the year ended December 31, 2019, and the nine months ended September 30, 2020, Playboy’s historical consolidated revenue was $78.1 million and $101.3 million, respectively, historical consolidated net income (loss) was $(23.6) million and $(4.8) million, respectively, and Adjusted EBITDA was $13.1 million and $21.8 million, respectively.” “In the nine months ended September 30, 2020, Playboy’s Licensing segment contributed $44.2 million in revenue and $31.1 million in net income.” “In the ninth months ended September 30, 2020, Playboy’s Direct-to-Consumer segment contributed $40.2 million in revenue and net income of $0.1 million.” “In the nine months ended September 30, 2020, Playboy’s Digital Subscriptions and Content segment contributed $15.4 million in revenue and net income of $7.4 million.” They are profitable across all three of their current business segments. “Playboy’s return to the public markets presents a transformed, streamlined and high-growth business. The Company has over $400 million in cash flows contracted through 2029, sexual wellness products available for sale online and in over 10,000 major retail stores in the US, and a growing variety of clothing and branded lifestyle and digital gaming products.” https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgadata/1803914/000110465921005986/tm2034213-12_defm14a.htm#tSHCF Growth: Playboy has massive growth in China and massive growth potential in India. “In China, where Playboy has spent more than 25 years building its business, our licensees have an enormous footprint of nearly 2,500 brick and mortar stores and 1,000 ecommerce stores selling high quality, Playboy-branded men’s casual wear, shoes/footwear, sleepwear, swimwear, formal suits, leather & non-leather goods, sweaters, active wear, and accessories. We have achieved significant growth in China licensing revenues over the past several years in partnership with strong licensees and high-quality manufacturers, and we are planning for increased growth through updates to our men’s fashion lines and expansion into adjacent categories in men’s skincare and grooming, sexual wellness, and women’s fashion, a category where recent launches have been well received.” The men’s market in China is about the same size as the entire population of the United States and European Union combined. Playboy is a leading brand in this market. They are expanding into the women’s market too. Did you know CBD toothpaste is huge in China? China loves CBD products and has hemp fields that dwarf those in the US. If Playboy expands their CBD line China it will be huge. Did you know the gambling money in Macau absolutely puts Las Vegas to shame? Technically, it's illegal on the mainland, but in reality, there is a lot of gambling going on in China. https://www.forbes.com/sites/javierhasse/2020/10/19/magic-johnson-and-uncle-buds-cbd-brand-enter-china-via-tmall-partnership/?sh=271776ca411e “In India, Playboy today has a presence through select apparel licensees and hospitality establishments. Consumer research suggests significant growth opportunities in the territory with Playboy’s brand and categories of focus.” “Playboy Enterprises has announced the expansion of its global consumer products business into India as part of a partnership with Jay Jay Iconic Brands, a leading fashion and lifestyle Company in India.” “The Indian market today is dominated by consumers under the age of 35, who represent more than 65 percent of the country’s total population and are driving India’s significant online shopping growth. The Playboy brand’s core values of playfulness and exploration resonate strongly with the expressed desires of today’s younger millennial consumers. For us, Playboy was the perfect fit.” “The Playboy international portfolio has been flourishing for more than 25 years in several South Asian markets such as China and Japan. In particular, it has strategically targeted the millennial and gen-Z audiences across categories such as apparel, footwear, home textiles, eyewear and watches.” https://www.licenseglobal.com/industry-news/playboy-expands-global-footprint-india It looks like they gave COVID the heisman in terms of net damage sustained: “Although Playboy has not suffered any material adverse consequences to date from the COVID-19 pandemic, the business has been impacted both negatively and positively. The remote working and stay-at-home orders resulted in the closure of the London Playboy Club and retail stores of Playboy’s licensees, decreasing licensing revenues in the second quarter, as well as causing supply chain disruption and less efficient product development thereby slowing the launch of new products. However, these negative impacts were offset by an increase in Yandy’s direct-to-consumer sales, which have benefited in part from overall increases in online retail sales so far during the pandemic.” Looks like the positives are long term (Yandy acquisition) and the negatives are temporary (stay-at-home orders). https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgadata/1803914/000110465921006093/tm213766-1_defa14a.htm This speaks to their ability to maintain a financially solvent company throughout the transition phase to the aforementioned areas. They’d say some fancy shit like “expanded business model to encompass four key revenue streams: Sexual Wellness, Style & Apparel, Gaming & Lifestyle, and Beauty & Grooming.” I hear “we’re just biding our time with these trinkets until those dollar dollar bill y’all markets are fully up and running.” But the truth is these existing revenue streams are profitable, scalable, and rapidly expanding Playboy’s e-commerce segment around the world. "Even in the face of COVID this year, we've been able to grow EBITDA over 100 percent and revenue over 68 percent, and I expect that to accelerate going into 2021," he said. “Playboy is accelerating its growth in company-owned and branded consumer products in attractive and expanding markets in which it has a proven history of brand affinity and consumer spend.” Also in the SEC filing, the Time Frame: “As we detailed in the definitive proxy statement, the SPAC stockholder meeting to vote on the transaction has been set for February 9th, and, subject to stockholder approval and satisfaction of the other closing conditions, we expect to complete the merger and begin trading on NASDAQ under ticker PLBY shortly thereafter,” concluded Kohn. The Players: Suhail “The Whale” Rizvi (HMFIC), Ben “The Bridge” Kohn (CEO), “lil” Suying Liu & “Big” Dong Liu (Young-gun China gang). I encourage you to look these folks up. The real OG here is Suhail Rizvi. He’s from India originally and Chairman of the Board for the new PLBY company. He was an early investor in Twitter, Square, Facebook and others. His firm, Rizvi Traverse, currently invests in Instacart, Pinterest, Snapchat, Playboy, and SpaceX. Maybe you’ve heard of them. “Rizvi, who owns a sprawling three-home compound in Greenwich, Connecticut, and a 1.65-acre estate in Palm Beach, Florida, near Bill Gates and Michael Bloomberg, moved to Iowa Falls when he was five. His father was a professor of psychology at Iowa. Along with his older brother Ashraf, a hedge fund manager, Rizvi graduated from Wharton business school.” “Suhail Rizvi: the 47-year-old 'unsocial' social media baron: When Twitter goes public in the coming weeks (2013), one of the biggest winners will be a 47-year-old financier who guards his secrecy so zealously that he employs a person to take down his Wikipedia entry and scrub his photos from the internet. In IPO, Twitter seeks to be 'anti-FB'” “Prince Alwaleed bin Talal of Saudi Arabia looks like a big Twitter winner. So do the moneyed clients of Jamie Dimon. But as you’ve-got-to-be-joking wealth washed over Twitter on Thursday — a company that didn’t exist eight years ago was worth $31.7 billion after its first day on the stock market — the non-boldface name of the moment is Suhail R. Rizvi. Mr. Rizvi, 47, runs a private investment company that is the largest outside investor in Twitter with a 15.6 percent stake worth $3.8 billion at the end of trading on Thursday (November, 2013). Using a web of connections in the tech industry and in finance, as well as a hearty dose of good timing, he brought many prominent names in at the ground floor, including the Saudi prince and some of JPMorgan’s wealthiest clients.” https://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/08/technology/at-twitter-working-behind-the-scenes-toward-a-billion-dollar-payday.html Y’all like that Arab money? How about a dude that can call up Saudi Princes and convince them to spend? Funniest shit about I read about him: “Rizvi was able to buy only $100 million in Facebook shortly before its IPO, thus limiting his returns, according to people with knowledge of the matter.” Poor guy :( He should be fine with the 16 million PLBY shares he's going to have though :) Shuhail also has experience in the entertainment industry. He’s invested in companies like SESAC, ICM, and Summit Entertainment. He’s got Hollywood connections to blast this stuff post-merger. And he’s at least partially responsible for that whole Twilight thing. I’m team Edward btw. I really like what Suhail has done so far. He’s lurked in the shadows while Kohn is consolidating the company, trimming the fat, making Playboy profitable, and aiming the ship at modern growing markets. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-twitter-ipo-rizvi-insight/insight-little-known-hollywood-investor-poised-to-score-with-twitter-ipo-idUSBRE9920VW20131003 Ben “The Bridge” Kohn is an interesting guy. He’s the connection between Rizvi Traverse and Playboy. He’s both CEO of Playboy and was previously Managing Partner at Rizvi Traverse. Ben seems to be the voice of the Playboy-Rizvi partnership, which makes sense with Suhail’s privacy concerns. Kohn said this: “Today is a very big day for all of us at Playboy and for all our partners globally. I stepped into the CEO role at Playboy in 2017 because I saw the biggest opportunity of my career. Playboy is a brand and platform that could not be replicated today. It has massive global reach, with more than $3B of global consumer spend and products sold in over 180 countries. Our mission – to create a culture where all people can pursue pleasure – is rooted in our 67-year history and creates a clear focus for our business and role we play in people’s lives, providing them with the products, services and experiences that create a lifestyle of pleasure. We are taking this step into the public markets because the committed capital will enable us to accelerate our product development and go-to-market strategies and to more rapidly build our direct to consumer capabilities,” said Ben Kohn, CEO of Playboy. “Playboy today is a highly profitable commerce business with a total addressable market projected in the trillions of dollars,” Mr. Kohn continued, “We are actively selling into the Sexual Wellness consumer category, projected to be approximately $400 billion in size by 2024, where our recently launched intimacy products have rolled out to more than 10,000 stores at major US retailers in the United States. Combined with our owned & operated ecommerce Sexual Wellness initiatives, the category will contribute more than 40% of our revenue this year. In our Apparel and Beauty categories, our collaborations with high-end fashion brands including Missguided and PacSun are projected to achieve over $50M in retail sales across the US and UK this year, our leading men’s apparel lines in China expanded to nearly 2500 brick and mortar stores and almost 1000 digital stores, and our new men’s and women’s fragrance line recently launched in Europe. In Gaming, our casino-style digital gaming products with Scientific Games and Microgaming continue to see significant global growth. Our product strategy is informed by years of consumer data as we actively expand from a purely licensing model into owning and operating key high-growth product lines focused on driving profitability and consumer lifetime value. We are thrilled about the future of Playboy. Our foundation has been set to drive further growth and margin, and with the committed capital from this transaction and our more than $180M in NOLs, we will take advantage of the opportunity in front of us, building to our goal of $100M of adjusted EBITDA in 2025.” https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20201001005404/en/Playboy-to-Become-a-Public-Company Also, according to their Form 4s, “Big” Dong Liu and “lil” Suying Liu just loaded up with shares last week. These guys are brothers and seem like the Chinese market connection. They are only 32 & 35 years old. I don’t even know what that means, but it's provocative. https://www.secform4.com/insider-trading/1832415.htm https://finance.yahoo.com/news/mountain-crest-acquisition-corp-ii-002600994.html Y’all like that China money? “Mr. Liu has been the Chief Financial Officer of Dongguan Zhishang Photoelectric Technology Co., Ltd., a regional designer, manufacturer and distributor of LED lights serving commercial customers throughout Southern China since November 2016, at which time he led a syndicate of investments into the firm. Mr. Liu has since overseen the financials of Dongguan Zhishang as well as provided strategic guidance to its board of directors, advising on operational efficiency and cash flow performance. From March 2010 to October 2016, Mr. Liu was the Head of Finance at Feidiao Electrical Group Co., Ltd., a leading Chinese manufacturer of electrical outlets headquartered in Shanghai and with businesses in the greater China region as well as Europe.” Dr. Suying Liu, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Mountain Crest Acquisition Corp., commented, “Playboy is a unique and compelling investment opportunity, with one of the world’s largest and most recognized brands, its proven consumer affinity and spend, and its enormous future growth potential in its four product segments and new and existing geographic regions. I am thrilled to be partnering with Ben and his exceptional team to bring his vision to fruition.” https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20201001005404/en/Playboy-to-Become-a-Public-Company These guys are good. They have a proven track record of success across multiple industries. Connections and money run deep with all of these guys. I don’t think they’re in the game to lose. I was going to write a couple more paragraphs about why you should have a look at this but really the best thing you can do is read this SEC filing from a couple days ago. It explains the situation in far better detail. Specifically, look to page 137 and read through their strategy. Also, look at their ownership percentages and compensation plans including the stock options and their prices. The financials look great, revenue is up 90% Q3, and it looks like a bright future. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgadata/1803914/000110465921005986/tm2034213-12_defm14a.htm#tSHCF I’m hesitant to attach this because his position seems short term, but I’m going to with a warning because he does hit on some good points (two are below his link) and he’s got a sizable position in this thing (500k+ on margin, I think). I don’t know this guy but he did look at the same publicly available info and make roughly the same prediction, albeit without the in depth gambling or cannabis mention. You can also search reddit for ‘MCAC’ and very few relevant results come up and none of them even come close to really looking at this thing. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1gOvAd6lebs452hFlWWbxVjQ3VMsjGBkbJeXRwDwIJfM/edit?usp=sharing “Also, before you people start making claims that Playboy is a “boomer” company, STOP RIGHT THERE. This is not a good argument. Simply put. The only thing that matters is Playboy’s name recognition, not their archaic business model which doesn’t even exist anymore as they have completely repurposed their business.” “Imagine not buying $MCAC at a 400M valuation lol. Streetwear department is worth 1B alone imo.” Considering the ridiculous Chinese growth as a lifestyle brand, he’s not wrong. Current Cultural Significance and Meme Value: A year ago I wouldn’t have included this section but the events from the last several weeks (even going back to tsla) have proven that a company’s ability to meme and/or gain social network popularity can have an effect. Tik-tok, Snapchat, Twitch, Reddit, Youtube, Facebook, Twitter. They all have Playboy stuff on them. Kids in middle and highschool know what Playboy is but will likely never see or touch one of the magazines in person. They’ll have a Playboy hoodie though. Crazy huh? A lot like GME, PLBY would hugely benefit from meme-value stock interest to drive engagement towards their new business model while also building strategic coffers. This interest may not directly and/or significantly move the stock price but can generate significant interest from larger players who will. Bull Case: The year is 2025. Playboy is now the world leader pleasure brand. They began by offering Playboy licensed gaming products, including gambling products, direct to consumers through existing names. By 2022, demand has skyrocketed and Playboy has designed and released their own gambling platforms. In 2025, they are also a leading cannabis brand in the United States and Canada with proprietary strains and products geared towards sexual wellness. Cannabis was legalized in the US in 2023 when President Biden got glaucoma but had success with cannabis treatment. He personally pushes for cannabis legalization as he steps out of office after his first term. Playboy has also grown their brand in China and India to multi-billion per year markets. The stock goes up from 11ish to 100ish and everyone makes big gains buying somewhere along the way. Bear Case: The United States does a complete 180 on marijuana and gambling. President Biden overdoses on marijuana in the Lincoln bedroom when his FDs go tits up and he loses a ton of money in his sports book app after the Fighting Blue Hens narrowly lose the National Championship to Bama. Playboy is unable to expand their cannabis and gambling brands but still does well with their worldwide lifestyle brand. They gain and lose some interest in China and India but the markets are too large to ignore them completely. The stock goes up from 11ish to 13ish and everyone makes 15-20% gains. TL;DR: Successful technology/e-commerce investment firm took over Playboy to turn it into a porn, online gambling/gaming, sports book, cannabis company, worldwide lifestyle brand that promotes sexual wellness, vetern access, women-ownership, minority-ownership, and “pleasure for all”. Does a successful online team reinventing an antiquated physical copy giant sound familiar? No options yet, shares only for now. $11.38 per share at time of writing. My guess? $20 by the end of February. $50 by EOY. This is not financial advice. I am not qualified to give financial advice. I’m just sayin’ I would personally use a Playboy sports book app while smoking a Playboy strain specific joint and it would be cool if they did that. Do your own research. You’d probably want to start here: WARNING - POTENTIALLY NSFW - SEXY MODELS AHEAD - no actual nudity though https://s26.q4cdn.com/895475556/files/doc_presentations/Playboy-Craig-Hallum-Conference-Investor-Presentation-11_17_20-compressed.pdf Or here: https://www.mcacquisition.com/investor-relations/default.aspx Jimmy Chill: “Get into any SPAC at $10 or $11 and you are going to make money.” STL;DR: Buy MCAC. MCAC > PLBY couple weeks. Rocketship. Moon. Position: 5000 shares. I will buy short, medium, and long-dated calls once available.
Descriptions and Recommendations for the Broken Bonds refugees wanting to continue to watch Verum
Since the recent news (Best of luck to Toast and his father!) I imagine a lot of the Broken Bonds viewers who want to get into more involved in Verum has increased, so I will attempt to give a small description of a few campaigns in relation to Broken Bonds for the Broken Bonds refugees who want to branch out into new campaigns. I will not be commenting on every campaign ever but I will comment on every active one(excluding one shots or things like the red star) and a few finished ones that are related to BB:
This is the time that I would put a bit of a disclaimer for Strange Roads and the early parts of the Tops campaigns, in the early parts of these campaigns a player was revealed to have some abhorent acts that were brought to light, that player was removed from both Strange Roads and Tops campaigns, I will not be mentioning this another time but it is a disclaimer I thought was worth mentioning, but I urge you to not be dettered from these amazing stories cause of one bad apple and I would prefer if the matter was not mentioned again in this thread.
Gamblers Delight (11 episodes , 1 bookkeeping episode) -> Shadow of Tyre (23 episodes, currently ongoing):
@CrikMaster aka Criken as Moe Kowbull
@Strippin aka Strippin as Ahst
@woops aka Woops as Raost Tredder
@TheNo1Alex aka TheNo1Alex as Toot
@goldentot aka Tate as Eustace
This is the quintessential lore campaign, the Gamblers is the campaign with the fastest roadmap to get people kept up with the current lore and currently running events while also providing proper context and buildup, because this is the group that most likely uncovered that lore to begin with. The players themselves follow the name of the campaign to a fault, they are gamblers. If you liked E'ar hugging the maggot get ready for a whole 40+ sessions of that with these misfit pirates and their constant gambling of the world's fate. Shadow of Tyre has given to the world the fastest way of aquiring lore aptly naming the group the "Speedrunners of Tyre" for constanly completing everything quickly through gambles. The group dynamic is very cheery and jumps on almost any oportunity to do something great. I would recommend this campaign to almost everyone who is interested in the lore of Verum and likes people doing heroic things. The easiest way to describe them in one sentence is "Take a chance. Roll the Dice. Let it be a Gambler's Delight".
Gailen's Gate(39 Episodes) -> Soul of Tyre(21 episodes, currently ongoing):
@shaken_im aka Sean as Braktor Ironbellows
@surefour aka Surefour as Belanovan
@ronniefilyaw aka WhompRonnie as Ozzie
@invadercristi aka Miss Universe as Hackne Silvermask
@SterLovesFood aka Ster as Gruff
This campaign starts out as a city builder establishing a new city in the continent of Kalkatesh but their fate is rewritten as they follow their destiny to the Arcane Labyrinth to find the Soul of Tyre. The players are all VERY experienced both in terms of roleplay and battle mechanics, they have a past Seven from 7years7days as a player and that plays a lot to the dynamic of the group and the way they make decisions. This is a group that is very careful with the decisions they make and are very careful. It provides a unique way to experience the world since most of the time people are new to Verum and the way the universe works. If you want a campaign filled with lore and tense decisions focusing a lot on the green side of the pantheon of Verum and of course takes a very important role in the current storyline due to them being in the Arcane Labyrinth then Soul of Tyre is for you. Due to the tense nature of their enviroment and their decision making the campaign may sometimes result in characters arguing with each other for a lot of time, however when push comes to shove SoT always delivers with excellent RP, incredible tactics and overall smart decision making. This is the line that I think describes Soul of Tyre the best: "Because you could be right, our spark is fading. But the Seven will not die forgotten. I'm little more than a candle in a sea of darkness now, but before you snuff me out I will start a luminous fire. And now, you're going to witness me, THIS IS MY POWER TOO! And I'm going to show you EXACTLY WHAT THIS SOUL CAN DO"
Deals in the Dark(14 Episodes) -> Maw of Abbaddon(7 Episodes) -> Duality of Dragons(6 Episodes) -> Meaning of Madness(7 Episodes) -> Heart of Tyre(21 Episodes, currently ongoing):
[REDACTED] aka [REDACTED] as [REDACTED]
@NaomiOop aka Naomi as Neve
@scottjund aka Scott Jund as "Rivitah or whatever the fuck name he has this week"
@RussMoney aka Russmoney as Madd Morc
@AMGSheena aka AMGSheena as Argh'xl Roz
@SummersSalt aka Summer as Seren
@msf_actual aka Snake as Ives Brightburn
The late night crew, the Tops, the lords of Abbadon. They go by a lot of names and titles but if there's one campaign that adheres to the sentence "Hope is not so easily extinguished" it is the Tops. I'm gonna be blund. Nothing good ever happens to the Heart of Tyre, they constantly face worse shit and worse shit every week. Yet, every single week they overcome it , they strive forward no matter the challenge and the opposition. Whether it be through a lucky dice roll, fate or impressive stratergies , the Tops are the group that had me waking up my wife at 4am from me screaming "TOPS TOPS TOPS TOPS". Every single one of them having heroic moments all the time no matter the challenge. If you want the heroes of Verum, no matter their allegiance , no matter their alignment, for me Tops are the heroes Verum has. In terms of what the campaign entails , it goes from a faction building campaign into the whole storyline of the Arcane Labyrinth with a heavy emphasis on horror elements like Silent Hills and Resident Evil. If I could describe the group dynamic in one sentence is "For the planet"
Shattered Crowns Season 1-3:
Season 1: 14 Episodes
Season 2: 14 Episodes
Season 3: 6 Episodes
@MOONMOON_OW aka MoonMoon as Scrumpo
@AdmiralBahroo aka AdmiralBahroo as Big Tree
@Octopimp aka Octopimp as Huckleberry
@JoeZieja aka Joe Zieja as Ikkar
@SterLovesFood aka Ster as Guy
The scattered clowns, a chaotic group, a lovable group, OH GOD WHY IS EVERYTHING ON VIOLET FIRE AND WHY ARE WE IN SPACE AGHHH!!!. The group that unleashed the Cacophonic Collective upon Broken Bonds, the group that started a TON of shit with the fireball incident. This is one of the if not the most unique and different campaign Arcadum has run on stream, ESPECIALLY after season 2, there's huge lore payoffs, incredible fights, the conclusion and start of multiple campaign expanding arcs and storyline in this grand adventure, spam your libidos and follow the clowns in their quest to save the universe.
A Tale of Two Towers(18 Episodes) -> Secrets in the Stone(11 Episodes):
@Rhabby_V aka Rhabby V as Claw
@DattosDestiny aka Datto as Dusty
@BlessiousPlays aka Blessious as Elwood
@Pterodactylsftw aka Pterodactylstfw as Gorrul
@travel_danielle aka Danielle as Tirsis
@Tiff_Tiefling aka Silvelle/Tiff as Ulm
A campaign that gets derailed by A LOT and very often. They are in the middle of some of the most important events in the current storyline and hold the other piece of Zorro. One of the players is Arcadum's wife, a previous Seven and the actoplayer for the Astral Traveler, they have one of the best note takers as players who ended ascending his character to be a translator. If you're interested in the lore of Verum Secrets in the Stones is a must watch.
Death and Debts(11 episodes) -> Steel and Silence(2 Episodes, currently ongoing)
@ProjektMelody aka ProjektMelody as Terryn
@MomoMischief aka Momo as Vaeri
@Bunny_Gif aka Bunny_gif as Madeleine
@zentreya aka Zentreya as Zara
@Iron_mouse aka IronMouse as Umi
@_Silvervale aka Silvervale as Revlis
Chaotic Horny. 2 word describe this group. These girls have a blast playing DnD and have become entangled in the main storyline as of their second campaign. If you want to feel nauseated from all the laughter and ways they find to break Arcadum then I recommend this campaign wholeheartly. DaD and now SaS were my main campaigns that I found solace in when things were going horribly wrong for the Tyre groups and all I could feel for 2 weeks was pure suffering. This is the most horny group you'll find in Verum while also having sprinkles of important lore. 3 words describe this grouip the best: "Bag of Nipples"
The Strange Roads(17 Episodes):
[REDACTED] aka [REDACTED] as [REDACTED]
@JesseCox aka Jesse Cox as Arcidamus
@Gallan aka Bikeman as Gallan Troth
@Timmac_ aka Timmac as Koordrin
@dexbonus aka Dodger as Zackarius
@Kelli_Siren aka Kelli as Mirage
A campaign that was deeply interlinked with Broken Bonds, if you liked the Boys from the Valloween fight then this is where they originate from and Nox also appears in it having one of her most epic fights in Verum yet. A campaign of a group of adventures travelling from one end of Kalkatesh to the other. Along the road they encounter a lot of different storylines and obstacles they have to take care of, if you care abou Kalkatesh's multitude of different ways of living then this is a great campaign as it provides an example of a lot of it's cities cultures in one packed campaign. The group dynamic is heavily RP, the players are almost always in character. The characters from this campaign make multiple cameos in other campaigns a lot of the time , also featuring a Violet Eye and a lot of lore on the patreons of Verum and their nature.
The Tearing Veil (13 Episodes, currently ongoing):
@sodapoppintv aka Sodapoppin as Flamewrath
@KingVigors aka Vigors as Vim
@DevinNash aka DevinNash as Wisp
@surefour aka Surefour as Nidhogg
@MOONMOON_OW aka MoonMoon as Angorn
@roflgatorOW aka Roflgator as Raber
The Unwise 6. A evil campaign focusing on a group of misfits following the commands of the Mad God Olokenhai. This is heavily chaotic group focused on doing evil acts to help the heroes of Kalkatesh against the ongoing plot in Orde. If you are into Town RP, political assasination, hobo killing, sneaking around and spy movies I would heavily recommend the Tearing Veil. The constant fear of their enviroment while combined with the unpredictable nature of some characters in the group makes a significant impact in the dynamic of this group with lots of yelling(in character , the players don't actually dislike each other, they're all friends). This campaign is marked with this quote "My only regret was not killing more of them!".
The Herald's Call (7 Episodes, currently ongoing):
@jordanfisher aka Jordan Fisher as Riku
@shroud aka Shroud as Midas
@bnans aka bnans as Zada
@alexiaraye aka Alexia Raye as Azylea
@ShannonZKiller aka Shannon as Arienne Okash'd
@Sacriel aka Sacriel as Archael Sunspear
The Wise 6. The other side of the Orde struggle. This is the pollar opposite of the Tearing Veil group having a bunch of careful smart players that are very considerate in their decisionmaking akin to Heart of Tyre and Soul of Tyre. While being new to DnD they play very smartly and rp to a great level. I have nothing but good news to say about the Herald's Call, the only problem I've had with the campaign was a lore reveal for this campaign being in my opinion setup too early in comparison to the payoff of the other campaigns so I would not recommend watching this before catching up if you're currently watching any of the longer campaigns as this campaign and Weal and Woe are very frontloaded lore wise and reveals do not get built up as the players have to be caught up with the current events.
Weal and Woe (7 Episodes, currently ongoing):
@feliciaday aka Felicia Day as Mara
@Jae_Day6 aka Jae Park as Lily Pichu
@justkeshi aka Casey Luong as Laius
@poetristephanie aka Stephanie Poetri as Meni
@clintonkane aka Clinton Kane as Barbie
Newcomers to Verum with experienced DnD player Felicia freaking Day to play in what many of us call the "K-pop" group. I'm gonna be real, this campaign feels very homely to me, the variant mic quality , the dificulty to understand technology and the very different characters being in the same part feels distinctly like my games of DnD. This campaign is very frontloaded with lore so I would recommend waiting on catching up to the longer campaigns before tackling this, it has in my opinion some of the best maps Nurp has ever made and utilises maptools to a new extent of what Arcadum usually does. If you've watched the latest BB episode that dude Taladon, is who gives the Weal and Woe party commands and drives their cause, the main aesthetic for this group being movable objects and robots it feels distinctly different from a lot of other Verum campaigns as it focuses on the Folly of Maltos.
The Silent Knights(14 Episodes):
@ObliviousVR aka Oblivious as Alyla Aurora
@InvaderCristi aka Miss Universe as Jairx
@MNaiade aka Mara Naiade as Rochelle
@StarStainStuff aka Starstainstuff as Dr. Essler
@AH_Faelyix aka Faelyix as Rainbow After Rain
@__Mimiika aka Mimika as Nox N'varja "Nox" Ilven
Nox's original campaign, it focuses on the Alice storyline and the creation of the before-mentioned silent knights faction as in the protectors of the dream realm. It originally featured a violet eye that was later retconned as the player couldn't play due to scheduling issues. Heavy lore campaign obviously focusing on the Dream , it's function, it's history, it's creation and it's protection.
Wonders Within (11 Episodes):
@woops aka Woops as Inuchiyo
@sh1nym aka Sh1ny as Clyde
@Drekwiz aka Drekwiz as Derk
@_AnubisX aka Anubis as Wokou Kaizoku
This is a HEAVY lore campaign before this whole violet shit started happening and is very deeply relevant to the event's right now as much of the lore unpacked in this campaign has become increasingly relevant. Main theme for this campaign is the discovery and plundering of the great city Easmere and reestablishing it as a nation of Kalkatesh.
Ambitions of Avarice:
The second hardest boss Arcadum has ever run on stream , the number 1 still going on, these characters are all max level living world characters with insane items.
The Dilating One:
GLORY FUCKING SUFFER This is the hardest boss Arcadum has ever run on stream and we're currently fighting it.
The Traitor's Trial:
If you're not fully caught up with the Tyre campaigns do not touch this. If you are, you know what this is.
Islam appears as if it ways made up by Primitive, medieval Arabs who didn't know anything about the world outside from their local area nor had interactions with a divine being.
ISLAM- The belief that an All-Knowing, All-Powerful God decided to reveal his doctrine for mankind, to a 7th century illiterate Arab slave trader(slave and sex slave owner who had regular sex with his 9 year old wife) ,in a cave where no one else was there to verify, through Angel Gabriel over 23 years rather than just beaming it into his brain.
Islam is an extremely Arab-centric religion, it seems as if it was completely made up by an Arabic person/people. The more a religion is tied to the culture of whatever society created it, the less likely it is to be legitimate. An omnipresent All-Knowing God wouldn’t care where on earth the primates he gave sentience to come from. This is what I will be discussing.
THE KAABAThe holy site for pilgrimage is very conveniently located in their backyard (Saudi Arabia.) This would be like a religion of Japanese origin claiming the holy site for pilgrimage is in Tokyo. Muslims have to pray towards the Kaaba which is located in Mecca, Saudi Arabia. Pre-Islamic Arabia was extremely underdeveloped and primitive. Literature wasn’t important and credible texts were rare so sometimes historians have to go with the biased Islamic perspective. According to the Abrahamic religions(Islam included), Abraham lived at around 2100-2200BC which is thousands of years before Islam was born in the 7th century. Islamic sources claim Abraham built the Kaaba for Islamic practises and it was his most important accomplishment. However the Bible never mentions the Kaaba and some Muslims claim Allah is the same God of the bible. Strangely the Kaaba was never mentioned in Judaism and Christianity. Only Islamic sources claim Christians and Jews also respected the Kaaba religiously. It was difficult to unify the many sects of Judaism and Christians on many things but not one sect of either religion mentioned the Kaaba. This suggests this idea was entirely fabricated. Islamic sources claim that the Kaaba in Mecca was a well known, important trade centre. Most Historians agree this is false as there was no mention of the Kaaba by the powerful Roman Empire, and the neighbouring Persian Empire and neighbouring Northern African Rulers until the birth of Islam . All historical evidence indicates the Quran was built by Arab Pagans a few centuries before Muhammad, not Abraham, yet again another false Islamic claim made by early Muslim Arabs or Muhammad.The Zamzam Well is a well located in Mecca, Saudi East of the Kaaba the holiest place in Islam. According to Islam, it is a miraculously generated source of water from God, which sprang spontaneously thousands of years ago when Ibrahim (Abraham's) son Ismael (Ishmael) was left with his mother Hajar (Hagar) in the desert, thirsty and crying. Ibrahim made a request to Allah- 14:37: "{O our Lord! I have made some of my offspring to dwell in an uncultivable valley by Your Sacred House (the Ka'bah at Makkah) in order, O our Lord, that they may perform Salah (prayer). So fill some hearts among men with love towards them, and (O Allah) provide them with fruits so that they may give thanks.}" Muslims believe Zamzam was the first among many fruits provided to Ibrahim by Allah. provided to Ismail and Hajar were in the desert. Very conveniently the Holy Water in Islam is located in Mecca, Saudi Arabia. The water is so holy it is taught to heal diseases and sickness; there is no scientific evidence to support this. This appears to be a knock-off version of a biblical story (one of the many in Islam) where Abraham’s concubine and his son Ishmael were left in the desert of Paran in Palestine. The Hadith Sahih Muslim 31:6046 says that ZamZam water is special, can quench hunger,feed you and make you gain weight;there is of course no scientific evidence to support these claims. Islam makes it appear as if it is a miracle that there is water well in the desert which is expected coming from primitive Arab desert dwellers with little scientific knowledge. Water is underground in most deserts because as rainwater falls, it is absorbed underground and flows through the underground including under a desert.
IMPORTANCE OF ARABIC Allah stated His holy book must be written, memorised and taught in Arabic(conveniently Muhammad's language) to Prophet Muhammad even though there are thousands of other languages in the world. Vulgar Latin or Middle Chinese were the most spoken language in the world in the 7th century when the Quran was revealed,English and Mandarin are the most spoken languages in the 21st century. Only 5% of the world's population today speak Arabic (Arabic is the 5th most spoken language in the world) so it is illogical, confusing and absurd why God wanted "the most important words for mankind" to be specifically delivered in Arabic. If Allah had revealed his doctrine to all cultures and corners of the world, there would be an independently verifiable method to confirm that every language in the world received the same message from the same God. This would be very powerful evidence in favour of Islam. It is a shame he decided against this: Quranic Verses on Importance of Arabic: 41:3- "A Scripture whereof the verses are in detail, a Lecture in Arabic for people who have knowledge" 7:1: "Alif, Lam, Mim, Sad (These are the names of letters of the Arabic alphabet and in this sequence only Allah knows their meaning here;this is one of Allah's many miracles)." 12:2: "We have sent it down as an Arabic Quran so you people may understand/use reason" 14:44: "We have not sent any Messenger except with the language of his people (Arabic) so he can make things clear to them. Allah misguides anyone He wills and guides anyone He wills. He is the Almighty, the All-Wise." 42:7: "So We have revealed an Arabic Quran to you, in order that you may warn the mother of cities(Mecca) and all who live nearby..." 44:58: "We have made the Quran easy in your language (Arabic) so that they might be reminded." 26:198 - "And if We had revealed it (this Qur'an) unto any of the non-Arabs" - 26:199. "And had Muhammad recited the Quran unto them, they would not have believed in it " 41:44: "If We had made it a foreign Quran, they would have said, ‘If only its verses were clear! What? Foreign speech to an Arab?’ Say, ‘It is guidance and healing for those who have faith, but the ears of the disbelievers are heavy, they are blind to it, it is as if they are being called from a distant place."- Could Allah's book not also be unclear to Non-Arabic speakers which was the vast majority of the world in the 7th century and the 21st century? Why the Almighty God would have a preference for one language over the thousands of others is unclear. Muslims believe Arabic has a special status in Islam. It is compulsory to learn Arabic to be a Muslim and perform activities like the 5 daily prayers, recite the Shahadah and read the Quran. Millions of Muslims around the world memorise the Quran and verses for prayer which are entirely in Arabic whilst not knowing the meaning of what they are saying when they pray everyday and read the Quran. It is estimated up to 10 million Muslims around the world (the majority not Arabic speaking in countries like Nigeria, Indonesia and Pakistan) have memorised the whole Quran. Most of them barely understand a word of what they have memorised It seems likely an All-Wise, All-Powerful God would be able to come up with a better way for people to show devotion to Him than reciting words in a foreign language they don’t know. God’s chosen messenger was an Arabic Person. Islam is filled with Key Arabic terms like Hajj, Shahadah, Taqwa, Taraweeh, Ramadan, Zakat and encourages Arabic customs like keeping a beard, eating dates and women covering their hair. SPLITTING OF THE MOON 54:1 The Quran states: "The Hour draws near; the moon is split in two". And if they see a miracle they turn away and say 54:2 "Passing Magic," Sahih Bukhari 4:56:81 Narrated Anas states : \"*That the Meccan people requested Allah's Apostle to show them a miracle, and so he showed them the splitting of the moon."*The Quran and Hadith claim that the people of Mecca,Saudi Arabia asked Muhammad to prove that he had divine powers so he miraculously split the moon into two pieces and then, presumably, put it back together again. There is absolutely no scientific evidence whatsoever that the moon has ever been split into two. Since the moon is visible to half the planet at any given time, we should expect to see numerous accounts from different parts of the world attesting to this event if it actually happened. The Romans, Greeks, Egyptians, Persians, Chinese and Indians had avid astronomers who should have seen this event and recorded it in their histories. The absence of historical record from other civilisations, contemporary to Muhammad, is a strong indication that this event never happened. Yet again another Islamic lie. The Quran states in 4:82 "Do they not then consider the Qur'an carefully? Had it been from other than Allah, they would surely have found some contradictions." The Quran appears to tell us it certainly didn't come from God as we have clearly found a contradiction in the book between what it says and what actually happens/happened in reality as the moon never split. The Quran also says in 2:256 "Whoever believes in Allah, then he has grasped the most trustworthy handhold(The Quran) that will never break. And Allah is All-Hearer, All-Knower." Clearly the Quran is broken and is not trustworthy as it has lied to us and tried to deceive us about Science. The lie of the splitting of the moon disproves many of Allah's 99 names such as AL-HAQQ(The Absolute-Truth,) AR-RASHEED(The Infallible Teacher,) AL-ALEEM (The All-Knowing,) AR-RAQEEB(The Watchful One,) AL-HAKEEM(The All-Wise,) ASH-SHAHEED(The All Observing Witnessing, AL-MAJEED(The Glorious-Most Honourable,) AL-HAMEED(The Praiseworthy,)DHUL-JALAALI WAL-IKRAAM(Possessor of Glory and Honour, Lord of Majesty and Generosity.) DESCRIPTIONS OF HEAVEN/PARADISE The invention of an afterlife by religions such as Islam is to serve our primitive desires to stay alive and is a result of the fear of One's mortality. The invention of an afterlife is also means to satisfy our primal desires to feel pleasure and Islam provides this as it sates in 41:31- "You will have therein(Paradise) whatever yourselves desire, whatever you want." The sole purpose of a Muslim's life is to enter Paradise and according to 29:64- "This life is nothing but diversion and play (to distract you from the ultimate goal of paradise)" The way heaven is described in a religion is usually reflective of the culture the religion originated from; this is expected as religions are fabricated by humans not sourced from divine beings.
The Islamic Paradise (Jannah) is described in the Quran and in Hadith as a place with lots of magnificent gardens, nice greenery and weirdly obsesses on how there are many rivers and sources of water in Paradise. Here are some verses on the Islamic Paradise: 36:34 - “And We have made (In Paradise) therein gardens of date-palms and grapesand We have caused springs of water to gush forth therein.”3:193 -“But as to those who are careful of (their duty to) their Lord, they shall have gardens beneath which rivers flow....”16:31 -“The gardens of perpetuity, they shall enter them, rivers flowing beneath them; they shall have in them what they please...”47:15 - "The description of Paradise which the righteous have been promised is that in it are rivers of water the taste and smell of which are not changed..."5:119- "...There are gardens, with rivers flowing beneath – their eternal Home. Allah is well-pleased with them, and they with Allah. That is the great salvation."9:72- "Allah hath promised to Believers, men and women, gardens under which rivers flow, to dwell therein, and beautiful mansions in gardens of everlasting bliss."61:12 - “These it is (Paradise) for whom are gardens of perpetuity beneath which rivers flow,”54:54 - "Verily, The Righteous, will be in the midst of Gardens and Rivers in Paradise."18: 33. "Each of those two gardens brought forth its produce, and failed not in the least therein, and We caused a river to gush forth in the midst of them." The fascination with gardens and water appears to be a reasonable depiction of heaven coming from primitive desert dwellers who didn’t have much access to greenery and vast areas of water. Most people don't think of water when they think of a heaven except of course primitive Arabs who lived in the sweltering heat of the desert. Islam is famous for having an extensive list of things which are forbidden under the religion (Haram) . There are customs like drinking alcohol, gambling, wearing gold and women being able to dress freely, and beautifying one's appearance which was and is part of most cultures including Pre-Islamic Arabia that were subsequently banned under Islam. I believe the reason religions like Islam ban trivial, inconsequential thing like beautifying one’s appearance is because if you can force people to give up something so intrinsic to their society and to being human, it is much easier exercise control. Abu Huraira reported Allah's Messenger (ﷺ) as saying: The world is a prison-house for a believer and Paradise for a non-believer. Sahih Muslim 2956. The purpose of tedious rules is to make its adherents cement themselves more concretely to the religion. Muslims are being controlled massively by the the commands of a fictional being(Allah) and unfortunately do not seem to understand that. There is no other reason. The rules do not benefit you but the business. Every time you follow these rules with no evidence they came from a divine being, you are paying another subscription fee until you decide you are being used and drained to the religions benefit, not yours. Muslims are obligated to follow the Quran and it's rules as it is supposedly the word of God- 4:59- "O you who believe! Obey Allah and obey the Messenger (Muhammad ), and those of you (Muslims) who are in authority and if there is deviation amongst yourselves, refer back to Allah, His Messenger (and Quran ), if you believe in Allah and in the Last Day. That is better and more suitable for final determination." FASCINATION WITH WINE IN PARADISE The fascination with wine in the Islamic heaven indicates that the Arabic authoauthors were into alcohol all along. Allah is clearly a confused man who doesn't even understand and abide by his own words as he says in 5:90 that alcohol consumption is the work of Satan but then promises alcohol in heaven for righteous Muslims. 5:90- "O you who believe! Intoxicants (all kinds of alcoholic drinks), gambling, Al-Ansab, and Al-Azlam (arrows for seeking luck or decision) are an abomination of Shaitan's (Satan) handiwork. So avoid (strictly all) that (abomination) in order that you may be successful." It seems weird to condone something in Heaven that you said is bad to do on Earth.Here are Quranic verses on Alcohol in Paradise:76:5 -"Indeed, the righteous will drink from a cup [of wine] whose mixture is of Kafur."76:17 -“And they will be given to drink a cup [of wine] whose mixture is of ginger. “47:15 -“The description of Paradise is that in it are rivers of water the taste and smell of which are not changed; rivers of milk of which the taste never changes;rivers of winedelicious to those who drink; and rivers of clarified honey (clear and pure)....” FASCINATION WITH WOMEN AND SEX IN PARADISE The Quran forbids men and women especially women from beautifying themselves, tells men to lower their gaze, tells men and women to be modest in dress and behaviour, and discourages the provocative sexual display of their bodies and and discourages hyper-sexuality however extensively discusses sex and the beauty of the women in heaven. Yet again, it seems weird to condone something in Heaven that you said is bad to do on Earth. 24:31 -“And tell the believing women to lower their gaze (from looking at forbidden things), and protect their private parts (from illegal sexual acts, etc.) and not to show off their adornment except only that which is apparent (like palms of hands or one eye or both eyes for necessity to see the way, or outer dress like veil, gloves, head-cover, apron, etc.), and to draw their veils all overJuyubihinna(i.e. their bodies, faces, necks and bosoms, etc.) and not to reveal their adornment except to their husbands, their fathers, their husband's fathers, their sons, their husband's sons, their brothers or their brother's sons, or their sister's sons, or their (Muslim) women (i.e. their sisters in Islam), or the (female) slaves whom their right hands possess, or old male servants who lack vigour, or small children who have no sense of the shame of sex. And let them not stamp their feet so as to reveal what they hide of their adornment. And all of you beg Allah to forgive you all, O believers, that you may be successful.” Here are Quranic Verses regarding the beauty of the women in Paradise: 2:25- “...they shall have thereinAzwajun Mutahharatun(purified mates or wives), (having no menses, stools, urine, etc.) and they will abide therein forever.” This means God will provide pure women for men to have sex with in Paradise.55: 70-“Therein (In Paradise) will be fair (wives) good and beautiful.”37:48- -“And with them (believing men) will be chaste females, restraining their glances (desiring none except their husbands), with wide and beautiful eyes.” 37:49. “(Delicate and pure) as if they were (hidden) eggs (well) preserved.”2:25- "Virgins await those who enter paradise." 78:31-34 - “Verily for the Righteous(men) there will be the fulfilment of (the heart´s) desires; Gardens and vineyards, And a cup(of wine) overflowing; And women of equal age with big and firm breasts” Quran 55:54-56 - “They(righteous men) will recline on Carpets...In them will be houris(virgins) restraining their glances, and no man or Jinn has ever opened their hymen with sexual intercourse, which of your Lord’s blessings would you deny? The obsession and fascination with women's beauty and sex in the Islamic Paradise and lack of regard for female sexuality with no Quranic verses appealing to a Woman’s desire for sexual gratification clearly illustrates this was made up by sexually aroused Arabian Men who were implementing their sexual fantasies into their ideal paradise. It is oddly suspicious that there are no Islamic verses describing the handsome men in Paradise for women. The misogynistic objectification of women by portraying them as commodities and treating them like prizes to be won if One is faithful to Allah is typical of the ideals of the time, where women in most civilisations were treated as second class class citizens and had limited rights compared to men. Bonus Quranic verses on women in Islam: 4:34- "Men are in charge of women, because Allah hath made the one of them to excel the other, and because they spend of their property (for the support of women). So good women are the obedient, guarding in secret that which Allah hath guarded. As for those from whom you fear rebellion from, admonish them and banish them to beds apart, and beat them. Then if they obey you, seek not a way against them. Lo! Allah is ever High, Exalted, Great." This verse means men are in charge of women, because Allah made men to be better than women. Women must obey men, and if they refuse they must be punished. Refuse to have sex with them and beat them into submission. 2:223- "Men,your women are soil for you (to cultivate/farm) so go to your soil as you please, and send (good deeds) before you for your souls, and fear Allah, and know that ye will (one day) meet Him. Give glad tidings to believers, (O Muhammad)." In the mind of Allah, women are like a dirty field for men to put their penises through. Plough them whenever you like (as long as they're not menstruating, of course.) 4:24- "Also forbidden for men to marry are women already married, except those whom your right hands possess(captive women aka sex slaves)." This verse means Allah permits men having sex slaves. OBSESSION WITH DATES Islam has stressed the holiness of the date and the date palm more than any other religion. In fact, the Prophet Muhammad said that Ajwah dates—grown in the Madinah region of Saudi Arabia—are from paradise. The date palm, mentioned more than any other fruit-bearing plant in the Quran 22 times is a symbol often associated with Muslims. Muhammad argued that seven dates in the morning protected one from poison and witchcraft. The Quran states that Mary was advised to eat dates while in labour with Jesus, to ease childbirth and strengthen the body. The Prophet was once reported to have said, “People in a house without dates are in a state of hunger.” Some of the many Islamic verses on date-palms:The Hadith - Jami’ at-Tirmidhi 3464 states: “ The prophet says: whoever says: Glory is to Allah the Magnificent, and with His Praise, a date-palm tree is planted for him in Paradise.”36:34 - “And We have made (In Paradise) therein gardens of date-palms and grapes, and We have caused springs of water to gush forth therein.”55:11 - ”Therein are fruits, date-palms producing sheathed fruit-stalks (enclosing dates)."(This verse means thankfully Allah has provided humans with date-palms on Earth)17:91- "Or you have a garden of date-palms and grapes, and cause rivers to gush forth in their midst abundantly."55:68- "In them (both) will be fruits, and date-palms and pomegranates."80:29- "And olives and date palms"54:20- "Plucking out men as if they were uprooted stems of date-palms."(Allah bragging about the punishment and torment he inflicted on innocent disbelievers using a strong wind) It seems very convenient and oddly suspicious that God has created a special status for date-palms in his religion and talks about dates an awful lot, given the fact dates are a staple food in Saudi Arabia (It’s eaten regularly and mass produced in the Arabic World). It is very easy for a culture that loves and places great value on dates to then say that God also gives dates a special status. Why the creator of the universe would have a liking to the common fruit in the Middle East over all the thousands of fruits that exist is unclear. It would be suspicious if the God of a religion of Japanese origin claimed Sushi is a holy,special food and described how much sushi there would be in heaven e.g "For those that believe, there will be plates of sushi for them in Paradise."
PORK The Quran offers no explanation as to why pork is impure is it states in 6:145 when God says, in reference to the flesh of swine (pig), “for that surely it is impure.” Arabs generally didn’t eat pork and thought it was an unclean animal before Islam came so it was very convenient that Allah said Muslims shouldn’t eat pork as it was unclean and impure. This highlights how the Arabs were scientifically illiterate and didn't know proper cooking kills pathogens. Why would the creator of the universe view some foods the mere humans he created eat as disgusting but others perfectly fine for them to eat. This seems like a human trait that is usually dependent on One's culture. For example, a person from the USA may view eating snails and horse meat as disgusting whilst a person from France may view this as perfectly normal. SPREAD OF ISLAMIslam was spread by Arab Conquest & War and Arab traders. The most Islamic regions of the world are in the Middle East/Arabic countries. Doesn't Allah know his "beautiful words of wisdom" for mankind would be spread through violent ways and evil dictators who forced it upon lands they conquered. Allah is All-Knowing, Benevolent and All-Powerful therefore he could have stopped these from happening or created a better way for his doctrine to spread through Mankind. Quran 2:256 states: "There is no compulsion in religion. Verily, the Right Path has become distinct from the wrong path." and 15:9 states: "Verily We: It is We Who have sent down theDhikr(i.e. the Qur'an) and surely, We will guard it (from corruption.)" This verse clearly means the All-Powerful Allah and his Angels dramatically failed on their promise to protect the Quran from corruption and misuse as we know how much evil that has been committed in the name of the Quran throughout history especially given the infamous rise of Radical Islamic Terrorism over the last few decades. 99% of all terrorist attacks that occurred throughout the world from 2010-2020 were Islam related. This disproves many of Allah's 99 names such as AL-MUHAYMIN(The Preserver of Safety,) AR-RASHEED(The Guide, Infallible Teacher,) AL-HAQQ(The Absolute Truth,) AL-AZIZ(All Powerful,) AL-MUHAYMIN AL-‘ALEEM(The All-Knowing.) Doesn't Allah realise that by revealing his doctrine exclusively to Arabs, he engineered the cultural isolation of the rest of the world from his doctrine, he engineered the circumstances of Unbelievers' disbelief that live in the far corners of the world like South America,New Zealand and the Pacific/Remote Islands of the world therefore he created a punishment (Hell) for a situation he knowingly created. It is very suspicious that Allah is Arabic-speaking, Arab-centric, yet will punish non Arabs millenniums later for not believing the message they received through a game of telephone. RENAMING OF JEWISH AND CHRISTIAN FIGURES The Quran also arrogantly claims that key figures: Jesus(Isa), Abraham(Ibrahim), Noah(Nuh), David(Dawud), Ishmael(Ismail), Isaac(Ishaq), Joseph(Yusuf), Ezekiel(Dhulkifl), Moses(Musa), Solomon(Sulayman) ,Jacob(Yaqub) in the centuries old religions of Judaism and Christianity were actually Muslim and Islamic Prophets and gave them Arabic names instead of their Aramaic and Hebrew names. ARABIC NAMES ARE BRACKETED. FASTING“The month of Ramadan [is that] in which was revealed the Quran, a guidance for the people and clear proofs of guidance and criterion. So whoever sights [the new moon of] the month, let him fast it; and whoever is ill or on a journey – then an equal number of other days. Allah intends for you ease and does not intend for you hardship and [wants] for you to complete the period and to glorify Allah for that [to] which He has guided you, and perhaps you will be grateful.” (Quran: 21:85)Fasting in Ramadan is one of the 5 pillars of Islam and must be performed if One is fit,healthy, not pregnant,not ill and not menstruating. Islam requires fasting from dawn till dusk in the holy month of Ramadan which is approximately 12 hours in Saudi Arabia. If the authoauthors were in Northern Europe where dawn till dusk can last up to 22-23 hours in the summer months, leaving a 1-2 hour window to eat a day for a whole month, they probably wouldn’t have made this difficult, extremely unhealthy and dangerous task a requirement. The author is also clearly unaware that there are parts of Northern Europe near the North Pole where the sun never sets in the summer months. This phenomenon is colloquially known as the Midnight Sun. For example Svalbard, Norway is known for having a Midnight Sun. In Svalbard, Norway there is no sunset from April to August and no sunlight from November to January. Islam was born 1400 years ago so how would people living in these parts of the world be able before the invention of mechanical clocks 600 years ago is unclear. The Quran makes no provisions for Muslims living in these areas, the Quran states in 6:38- " We did not leave ANYTHING out of this book," this is weird given the fact the Quran is meant to be the perfect,final word from the All-Knowing All-Powerful God who knows about the existence of the midnight sun. THE ONLY ANIMALS,PLANTS, CITIES AND PEOPLE MENTIONED IN THE QURAN ARE THE ONES FOUND IN THE MIDDLE EAST.
The only animals and plants mentioned in the Quran are the ones found in the Middle East. Never ones specifically in Australia, Europe, Antarctica North America or South America. The only cities, nations and continents mentioned in the Quran are the ones found in the Middle East area. Never ones specifically in Australia, Europe, Antarctica North America or South America. The people mentioned in the Quran all lived in the Middle East area.The Quran doesn’t mention people living in Australia, Europe, Antarctica, North America or South America. The Quran never mentions smoking even though it was popular and existed in the Americas long before the 7th century when the Quran was written. All the miracles in the Quran occurred in Saudi Arabia and nowhere else in the world. No miracles from Allah. No miracles in the Quran in Australia, Europe, Antarctica, North America or South America.
ISLAM'S OBSESSION WITH ARABIC AND ARABIAN CULTUREReligions are fabricated by humans, consequently, they are tied and intrinsic to the particular culture it originated from and Islam is no exception. Religious and Non-Religious people agree that 99.99%+ of religions are fabricated by humans as there are thousands of religions that make incompatible claims,each claiming to be sourced from a divine being. Islam is obsessed with Arabic and Arabic culture, every page you turn to you see a reference to Arabic culture, this isn't the case for Christianity. The Majority of people don't think of Israel, Hebrew and Israeli culture when they think of Christianity. Like I said, the more a religion is tied to the culture of whatever society created it, the less likely it is to be legitimate. An omnipresent All-Knowing God wouldn’t care where on earth the primates he gave sentience to come from. A religion that professes its universality and its suitability for all mankind, 81:27 "Verily, this (the Quran) is no less than a Reminder to (all) the'Alamin(mankind and jinns)," seems rather centred around a specific group of people (Arabs). All evidence points to the fact Islam and the Quran was a completely made up by Arabic People and/or Muhammad who had no contact with a Deity and other cultures beside Arabic culture adding to the fact it is filled with hundred of contradictions, inconsistencies and scientific inaccuracies. The fictional character ,Allah, was clearly obsessed with Arabs and Arabic culture and couldn't go a few pages without a reference to Arabic culture; this guy is meant to be the creator of the universe. Islam appears to be a local Arab folklore to unite nomads under the banner of one God through the violent political campaign of Muhammad. Islam claims to be global but all knowing Allah forget to send prophets outside of Arab world. The evidence of contradictions, both big and small serves as clear evidence of human tampering. If the Quran came from Muhammad it was nothing more than fabrication from a power hungry megalomaniac, with his claims of divine inspiration being nothing more than an attempt to conquer Arabia and Islam being nothing more than just another false desert cult to emerge from a sea of desert cults.
And no, the crap portion of this word was not a judgmental adjective — it was referring to the game of craps, a gambling game in which a pair of dice are thrown (or shot). Gambling Game Hindi Meaning - Find the correct meaning of Gambling Game in Hindi. It is important to understand the word properly when we translate it from English to Hindi. There are always several meanings of each word in Hindi. Present participle for to manipulate (a situation), typically in a way that is unfair or unscrupulous. Present participle for to play gambling games. Present participle for to play video games. Noun. Noun. 1. gambling - the act of playing for stakes in the hope of winning (including the payment of a price for a chance to win a prize); "his gambling cost him a fortune"; "there was heavy play at the blackjack table". gaming, play. Gambling definition: Gambling is the act or activity of betting money , for example in card games or on horse... Meaning, pronunciation, translations and examples Sports betting/gambling terms and definitions you need to know before wagering. ... An added game may also be a postponed match, like a rainout in baseball, from the previous day. gambling definition: 1. the activity of betting money, for example in a game or on a horse race: 2. the activity of…. Learn more. Synonyms for gambling game include game of chance, poker, roulette, bingo, bridge, canasta, craps, crazy eights, gin and gin rummy. Find more similar words at wordhippo.com!
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