How I went from $35K to $1.75M (50X) in less than a year

Introduction

Gather 'round retards and autists. Grab a mug of eggnog, find a cozy corner in your mom's basement, and enjoy the tale of SIR JACK A LOT.
In this post: I'll go over my trading history, my strategy, my philosophy, and also systematically destroy every accusation and idiotic question made against me in the last week WITH RECEIPTS. No one doubts motherfuckin SIR JACK A LOT.
Disclaimers
Privacy is important to me. I wish to stay anonymous. This is not financial advice, just my story.

Ghosts of Christmas Past

Chapter 1: Crypto (2017-18)
How it all started... I threw every last dollar I had in ETH at $12 and swing traded a ton of shit coins and ICOs until it all came crashing down.
In short: turned $8K into $300K and back to $30k but owed the IRS ~$120K since all the gains were calculated at 2017-year-end. I royally fucked myself because I didn't set any money aside for taxes. Ended up in debt to some very bad people and things were very dark, I don't like to talk about this time in my life that much.
Chapter 2: WSB Tuition (2018)
First learned about WSB in 2018 from the infamous FB ER put play by YungBillionaire turning ~$28K into $451K overnight. That sounded fun.
Quickly learned about options but most importantly about FDs, tendies, and the power of memes.
Back then it was all about trade wars and hanging at the whim of commander cheeto's supple tweets.
I have fond memories of:

Apparently the first stock I ever bought on Robinhood was HMNY... thanks Robinhood Recap for the reminder of my retarded-ness
Grew my first set of winkles on my smooth brain with AMC calls. The thesis was that their Stubs A-List subscription was doing pretty well according to /AMCsAList back then
Went all-in MTCH weekly puts with $12K clenching my stomach in the fetal position when all of a sudden there was a lawsuit and I tripled my account in minutes, pure luck

Still ended up losing $30K and swore off options forever... until 2020 where I lost another $10k in options. Fucking weeklies man, they're like if cocaine and blackjack made a dopamine-infused baby
WTF is up with the snowflakes Robinhood? So gay, instant short when it IPOs

Ghosts of Christmas Present

Chapter 3: Road to $1M+ (2020)
Let's start with the receipts since that's what everyone's interested in:
Proof that I started Feb 2020 with only $35K
Vanguard is my 401k provider and their self-directed brokerage is provided by TD Ameritrade which is why you see screenshots from two different apps. Started the year with $11K in 401k, deposited $26K more in Jan and then started trading in Feb with $35K. The $49K withdrawal in June was for a 401k loan to buy a Tesla.
Looking at this all-time graph gets me so hard
In my first run up to June, turned $35k into $850K (APT, CODX, NCLH, CHWY) and decided my luck was too good and needed to "cool down". Decided to withdraw $50k for a Tesla and stayed away from the markets for a good 3 months thinking the market was going to go back down again...
But it didn't, the market kept rallying and I got the tendie tingles. My first move in Sept was to go all-in on WORK and bought at the high of $35 and was immediately down -30% thanks to their shit ER. They recovered a bit in the weeks afterwards and then jumped into CRSR which made me a millionaire and then GME. GME also shit the bed with a -20% ER but recovered swiftly thanks to Lord Cohen and recently jumped into STIC for that final spike up.
Chapter 4: Explaining every trade
Proof of every gain/loss I've ever traded (except APT history which was in Vanguard)
My strategy is going all-in on a single stock all-shares. The idea is to have a thesis and conviction with that trade. I stay in the trade until the thesis is invalidated or another opportunity arises, it's a simple strategy and it's worked for me so far. My account does not allow options or margin trading.
Here's a few theses and history I remember in hopes folks can learn something:

APT/CODX - It was obvious to me in Jan/Feb that this coronavirus was the real deal. The trick was to look at the facts and not the noise. There was a fake viral video of blood-curdling screams from Wuhan apartments that was so obviously fake but western media loved it. On the other hand, Wuhan built a makeshift hospital in just 10 days, that's real action the government took and showed me how seriously dangerous this new virus was going to be. So I loaded up on APT, a mask stock, and rode it up and then switched to CODX, a testing stock, and rode that up from $11 to $24 selling right before their botched ER (conf call with no queue and everyone talking over each other lol)
NCLH - Saw a curious spike in volume on May 14 with a move upward, piqued my tendie tingles again. Decided it was worth an all-in at $10.57 as the support of $10 was pretty strong. The mood at the time was that coronavirus was waning (I knew it was wrong but the market was emotionally optimistic) and fortunately it caused NCLH to moon and I sold at $19.75 on June 4 even though it kept mooning to $26 over the next 2 days
CHWY - Got a dog, it's cute. Pets + E-Commerce during a pandemic, easy money. Bought at $41 and sold at $46 only because I thought it was moving kind of slowly. Well I was pretty wrong, now it's at $104
SQQQ/TVIX - I tried being a gay bear for an hour and lost money. Don't ever be a gay bear
CRSR - Been watching a ton of tech review and PC building YouTube channels and subreddits and the "enthusiast" crowd is definitely larger and has bigger wallets than people think. There is fucking keyboard typing ASMR now and ebay reviewers THANKING scalpers for charging them 2-3x MRSP. Biggest generational jump in GPU and CPU in a while and recently IPO-ed Corsair was definitely gonna benefit from this new generation of gamers was my thesis. Went all-in at $24 and sold at $36 after a non-stop run even though it kept running all the way to $51. No regrets, profit is profit.
WORK - It was the only "WFH" stock that didn't moon yet, thought it deserved a chance was my thesis. Went all-in at the tippy top of $35 on Sept 2 and it immediately kept crashing all the way to $24 in 5 days. Fortunately it recovered a bit and sold at $32 for a loss since I gave up hope and it seemed to be running out of steam

Chapter 5: GME Gang Confession
Now: I have a confession to make. My conviction for the Gamestop MOASS is insane. Had 88,233 shares at $13.04 buy-in with a $120 stop limit. Listening to this 90-min podcast of Uberkikz11 going on about how he knows more about this company than any mortal human should gets me so friken hard every time.
But. That -20% ER drop hurt me on a spiritual level. Watching my account go from $1.5M to $1.1M at one point gave me Taco Bell-levels of stomach cramps.
So when it bounced back to $15-16 on no news on Fri, Dec 18, I felt like I needed to "cool down" again. It was going into the holidays with a British virus mutation on the way and hedge funds manipulating to get their holiday bonuses, it felt kind of dangerous. And no way Ryan Cohen would be working with his lawyers on something that fast over the holidays, right?
So I sold all my GME at $15.50.
Then on Mon, Dec 21 morning, Lord Cohen drops his new 13D/A... but the stock price stayed flat all day. The Lord gave me a chance. A whole day to get back in. Unfortunately I didn't take it.
And then Tue, Dec 22 all tendies broke loose, the squeezening. +25% gain. deepfuckingvalue dropping his massive dong in another update. I waddled back and forth in my fetal position. Missed out on ~$300K gain while watching everyone freak out. Felt exactly like this:
Can't feel my dick at all...
Chapter 6: Barking on a STIC
While waddling and scrolling on my phone, I happened to stumble across this post about STIC and BarkBox. Not sure why pound_salt_ deleted the original post but at the time, it was the only post about it on WSB
I was pretty familiar with BarkBox and started researching, it seemed super un-discovered. I liked what I saw: Pets. E-commerce. Subscription. SPAC. Basic white bitches spoiling dogs. This might be worth an all-in.
So on Wed, Dec 23 morning I decided to make a move. All-in at $14.42.
Then I started writing everything I had learned and posted it all in my DD post at 1:46PM ET because I thought it was worth sharing what I found https://www.reddit.com/wallstreetbets/comments/kiypqq/sir_jack_a_lots_next_move_all_in_stic_bark_merge
The price was $14.25 at the time of posting and frankly, price was oddly flat at $14.25 pretty much all day. Lots of people got to buy in at this price. Why did it take me so long to write it? I had actual work meetings all morning and wrote it during my lunch break
Then by the luck of the gods, apparently the CEO of BarkBox, Matt Meeker, went onto CNBC at 3:20PM ET and it started mooning. On Thurs, Dec 24 I awoke to a 20% pop and shared my gains for ya'll to salivate over. Complete. Luck.

Ghost of Christmas Future

Chapter 7: What's next?
Let me be clear. I stand by every word of conviction I mentioned in all my GME and STIC posts, those are still my favorite H1 2021 plays. Holding STIC until merger would most definitely get you some massive gains.
But I'm a swing momentum trader. If I feel like something is running out of steam, has a risk of a rug pull, or another stock has potential to pick up steam with lesser downside, that's when I usually jump around.
I'm not happy with just a +25% in 3 months. I want a +25% compounded on +25% compounded on another +25% in the same 3 month time period.
On Monday, Dec 28 I will probably sell STIC and move all into CRSR again. From technical charting perspective, I'm loving the setup and the magical crayons are telling me we're at the support again and this should bounce in anticipation of strong Q4 earnings.
Now: this is not a ding on STIC or GME, I stand by my 2x-10x claims at some point in H1 2021. It will eventually get there but it might also dip and rise again and I want to swing that dip and rise.
Let me spell it out for some retards: because STIC moon-ed so fast, I want to sell to capture profits and hopefully buy back in on a dip. If STIC had not mooned yet, I would still be holding STIC for a more gradual moon-ing to let my thesis play out. If STIC does not dip but keeps mooning, then I will not chase and happily watch other diamond hands enjoy their tendies.

Q&A / AMAA

I'm fucking tired of answering the same repeated idiotic questions. Let this Q&A serve as an artifact and please link it to new retards. I will also proceed to debunk every single fucking false claim I've read in my last few posts. Also feel free to AMAA in the comments, I'll be replying all day.

How often do you jack off? At least 2 times a day and always before I make a trade for that post-nut clarity
Haha you're going to owe so much in taxes - Nope, this is all in my 401k which in the US means I don't owe taxes until I withdraw. Fucking compounding gains for years bitch
Why are you making such risky trades? My goal is 8 digits or bust, that's my /fatfire number so I can finally quit this wageslave game. It's so obviously stacked against us and requires a lottery moment to reach escape velocity to play on New Game+ where I can live on $400k 4% SWR on $10M. This is my lottery moment and I'm leaning all the fucking way in. That's why I'm chad-ing it up and trying to TIME the market, meaning riding shit up and then jumping back into shit for another ride up. Fuck you Warren Buffet and your 90 y/o "time in the market" boomer bullshit. The next pandemic in 2025 might wipe us all out anyways, I ain't got time to wait for retirement. Gotta will it into existence. YOLO
How are you so good at this? I study everything. Technicals. Charts. Support levels. Volume spikes. Short interest. Executive teams. Rumors. Customer sentiment. Employee morale. Insider trading. MSM manipulation. Comparable market caps. ER reports. Upgrade reports. SEC filings. Meme potential. I literally watch and study every facet I can about a company, and do so quickly.
What's your trading strategy? All-in on a single stock all-shares. The idea is to have a thesis and conviction with that trade. I stay in the trade until the thesis is invalidated or another opportunity arises, it's a simple strategy and it's worked for me so far.
Why do you post on WSB? Internet points is fucking fun. I was banned for like 30 minutes yesterday (on "accident" apparently) and having $200k+ gains without the ability to share was just not the same
How do I follow your next move? Oh just follow my discord/newslett -- no fuck that shit. I don't do discord or newsletters or twitter or anything else. I'll keep posting on WSB until 8 digits or bust (or ban), you can guarantee that.
Why do you remove the time on your screenshots? I'm cropping shit on my iPhone and my username is between the portfolio number and the top bar. Otherwise I'd love to friken show off my perpetual 69% battery level
15% isn't a real YOLO - I am literally shoving my entire net worth into a single stock every single time. Correct it's not the same as blackjack or FDs where if I got it wrong, I could lose everything but it's still fucking riskier than any ETF or financial advisor with their cuckold MBA would ever advise. One 15% play may not be impressive but compounded together is how you get this 50X in less than a year
Where's PLTR or TSLA? Notice I never once touched PLTR, TSLA, NIO, XBEV, MVIS, etc or any of the other meme stocks WSB loves. That's because I hate being a sheep and following after the curve. I try to find shit right before the curve starts (usually indicated by a volume spike) and most WSB meme stocks are up way too high for my risk tolerance. Too much at stake to lose to a random rug pull moment.
Hey I think I'm your cousin, can I get some money? No you fuck, stop being poor.
Hey do you wanna fuck my ex-wife? Already did, next
You're just using WSB to pump and dump on us - No you fucking idiot.

First: look at my post history, I NEVER make a hard recommendation for people to buy a stock. I only share my gains, losses, or DD because it's fucking funny to see how ya'll react. Whether people want to follow my move or not is 100% up to people. Do your own fucking DD and figure out when you want to sell according to your own thesis/risk tolerance.
Second: You folks keep asking me for my next move. Well how and when the fuck should I share it? If I post something in the morning, it's stuck in /new for a while until it gets enough upvotes to hit the front page and by then it's already afternoon or market close and the stock might have already done who knows what. That's not pump and dumping, that's just a delayed effect of how Reddit's algorithm works. Anything on the front page is essentially 5-15 hours old news and you need to determine if the state of the world is still the same or be a sheep and chase. It's the same thing once you hear Aunt Cathie or Boomer Cramer mention a stock and it trickles down to you, you're chasing after others have already gotten in
Third: My $1.5M is not enough to move any real-volume stock. I don't touch OTC or low-volume shit. For STIC: I have 97K shares and on average 2-4M shares are traded every day for STIC so my account is a like a drop of whale cum in the ocean
Fourth: Real pump and dumpers are the shitty scum on the earth. Spend any time in /pennystocks or some Discord or Stocktwits and holy shit, these scum run fucking operations. I've even seen paid newsletters where the highest tier gets the tip "early" to buy in and then the lowefree tiers get the tip which causes the pump for the early buyers to literally dump on and create bag holders on non-existant volume too
Fifth: Listen to what DoubleKillGG and his big brain figured out the rest of you retards could not:

The fact is that SIR_JACK_A_LOT is a swing trader. Yes he pumps his stocks and closes relatively quickly but he doesn't pump shit stocks. If you bought any of his positions when he posted you'd be up on everything. A pump and dump requires the dump part where investors are left holding a stock that is worth less than when they bought it. He did, however, break wsb's rule #4; STIC's market cap is below $1B.
His positions closed and what they're worth currently
NCLH: Exit at 17.95. Current share price is 24.51
CHWY: Exit at 44.35. Current share price is 104.10
NCLH (again): Exit at 19.16. Current share price is 24.51
CRSR: Exit at 35.57. Current share price is 36.70
PTON: Exit at 109.46. Current share price is 163.60
GME: Exit at 15.96. Current share price is 20.26
*\*Exits are estimations from his posts*
STIC: Posted DD when share price was around 14.25. Current share price is 17.85

Shout-outs
Some of ya'll are real gems. Major props to:

My GME gang Uberkikz11, Ackilles, and of course the king deepfuckingvalue along with a few others like CPTHubbard, OutrageousDesk, Tomatotowers, Stonksflyingup, sneakersourcerer, Midaswhale30, Jeffamazon, DrZaius0 for the amazing DD, memes, and brotherhood
alifeofataraxia for his YouTube videos chronicling the tale of SIR JACK A LOT - Part 1, Part 2, Part 3
GrowerNotAShower11 for his erotic fan-fiction. I need one written about Cramer succumbing ahegao-style to the awe of my portfolio gains and massive dong STAT
Many other loyal fans who helped me get unbanned yesterday, thank you

Fuck You Haters
Last week we got durado so cucked he deleted his account and now kingobama123 is all up on my ass. First, read this magnum dong opus and if you have more questions, ask it in the comments, I'll cum all over you.
POLL
To really drive home the value I bring to WSB, let's see how many peoples' lives I've changed and for the better or worse. Take this poll regarding whether I helped make you gain or lose money if you've been following.
https://www.strawpoll.me/42341589
🚀🎄🚀🎄🚀🎄🚀🎄🚀🎄🚀🎄🚀🎄🚀🎄
🎄🚀🎄🚀Merry Fucking Christmas 🚀🎄🚀
🚀🎄Jerome Powell bless us, every one!🚀🎄
🎄🚀🎄🚀🎄🚀🎄🚀🎄🚀🎄🚀🎄🚀🎄🚀
My usual order is the 13-piece tenders - whopping 1780 calories in a single sitting

Listen up retards. Do you happen to feel regret because you always think “ohhh if I yoloed my savings on TSLA/AMD/NVDA 🚀 leaps years ago I could be rich by now!!!”
Well if you didn't know already, it doesn’t really matter what happened in the past. Hindsight will always be 20/20. You shouldn’t be harsh on yourself on your past self that your past self wasn’t retarded enough to yolo their savings into AMD/TSLA/.... Your past self doesn’t have the same knowledge that your current self has. It’s fine. If you judged those stocks with the best DD you could do at the time and didn’t think they were worth it, then you did a good job.
If you always think about what you could/should have done in the past, then you don't have the right attitude to play the stock market casino imho.
The single most important thing is to be able to look ahead. There are always plenty of opportunities around. There are thousands of rockets that are still on earth right now. Some may depart this year, others will stay a little longer on earth. The true strength lies in being able to identify those rockets with the knowledge you have right now. And if you still miss most rockets that will take-off this year that's fine, maybe you'll learn, get better and you'll do better next year.
Now, what if I told you there’s a big rocket that’s parked right right here on earth and it has decent chance for take-off this year? Maybe it won't quite reach the moon this year yet, but hey leaving the exosphere should already be a cool milestone.
It has rock-solid fundamentals and will see lots of growth in the following years/decade.
It’s a company that has the fundamental technology to power all the computer vision tech, which is bound to boom this decade.
The company we’re talking about is of course Sony, and it is extremely undervalued right now.
Its P/E is only 14. They have a P/S of 1.65, a PEG of 0.92 (< 2 is already somewhat exceptional for a company/conglomerate of Sony’s size, under 1 is a steal)
Much lower than all of its same-sector peers. This indicates significant undervaluation.
Next up Sony has a P/CF 13.2, ROE of 20% (S&P 500 average is 14% which would already be considered pretty good. 20% ROE is excellent), PEGY of 0.89, P/B of 2.65 and finally Sony has $41.6B in cash on hand. This makes Sony one of the cheapest tech/entertainment/EV/semiconductor growth stocks you will find on the market.
(ROE of 20% + PEGY of 0.89 + PEG of 0.92 means this company is a growth stock based on the numbers alone, but we’ll dig into the actual company and overall outlook in a moment)
I challenge all retards to find a company with similar benchmarks in one of the mentioned sectors, seriously.
Quite frankly doing this DD honestly blew my mind. I kept looking everywhere for reasons why the company could be so undervalued and why they may struggle in the future. Very important to look at all the challenges the company faces to make sure I’m not just doing confirmation bias DD. But all I could find was the opposite. After several weeks and months of working on this DD, I can only conclude that it is overall a very solid company for a bargain price. The new CEO is taking the company in a great direction imho and I'm begin to think he could be Sony's Satya Nadella.
So if you want some easy tendies, maybe consider $SNE while it is still cheap, I’d say.
For the autists out there who care about analyst ratings, SONY ($SNE) currently has 18 BUY ratings, 2 OVERWEIGHT, 4 HOLD and 0 SELL. (= analyst consensus is a STRONG BUY). Very little analysts cover this stock compared to other entertainment/tech companies, so this adds to my assertion that the stock is very much under the radar. Which means you have time to get in before it gets noticed by the larger investing world and before it starts to get a more fair valuation (P/E of around 30 would be more fair for this company I think, but still cheaper than many same sector peers). But, anyway the few analysts who do happen to cover this company are basically all saying it’s an instant-buy at its current price.
Most boomer investors still think big Japanese tech companies are dinosaurs that have long been surpassed by China, South Korea and Apple etc ages ago. Young boomers may think Sony = PlayStation and that it's it. But the truth is that PlayStation, while very important (about 24% of Sony's total revenue last year), is a part of a larger story.
Lots of investors in general associate Sony with the passé Japanese electronics companies from the 80’s and the 90’s. Just like a lot people may think BlackBerry is a struggling phone company.
While Sony may not be the powerhouse in consumer electronics it was in the 80’s and the 90’s, in a lot of ways they are more relevant than ever before. Despite being a well-known brand and being known as the company behind PlayStation, for some reason its stock still seems to be under the radar among both retail and institutional investors. And boy, are they mind-blowingly undervalued. Even if a big part of its business would collapse tomorrow, they would still be slightly undervalued. And I am about to tell you why.
(& btw compared to Japanese tech/entertainment stocks $SNE is still super cheap (Canon, Nikon, Toshiba, Sharp, Panasonic, Square Enix, Capcom, Nintendo, Fujitsu all have P/E ratios ranging from 18 to 77 and none of them have the combination of global clout, fundamentals & growth prospects that Sony has))
2021 Sony as a corparation is not the fucking Sony from 2005-2015’s, just like BlackBerry in 2021 is not the fucking Blackberry from 2012. Just like Garmin in 2021 is not Garmin from 2011. Just like AMD in 2021 is not AMD from 2012.
No, in 2021, Sony is the global leader in imaging technology and people do not fucking realize it. Sony has 50% marketshare in the CMOS image sensor market. There’s a very good chance the smartphone in your pocket has Sony image sensors (unless it’s a Samsung phone). Sony image sensors are powering a big part of today's vision/camera technology. And they will power even more of tomorrow's computer vision tech.
In 2021, Sony is a behemoth in video games, music, anime, movies and TV show production. Sony is present in every segment of entertainment. Sony’s entertainment branches have been doing great business over the past 5 years, especially music and PlayStation. Additionally, Sony Pictures has completely turned around.
In 2021, Sony is the world’s biggest music publisher (and second biggest music company overall). Music streaming has been a boon for Sony Music and will continue to be.
In 2021, Sony is among the biggest mobile gaming companies in the world (yes, you read that right). And it’s mainly thanks to one game (Fate/Grand Order) that nets them over $1B revenue each year. One of the biggest mobile gaming companies + arguably biggest gaming brand in the world (PlayStation).
In 2021, Sony is an EV company. They surprised the world when they revealed their “Vision-S” at CES 2020. At the reception was fantastic. It is seriously one of the best looking EV’s. They already sell sensors to Toyota. Sony will most like sell the Vision-S's tech to other car manufacturers (sensors for driving assistence / autonomous driving, LiDAR tech, infotainment system).

40 sensors in the Sony Vision-S
Considering the overwhelmingly good reception of the Vision-S so far, I suspect the Vision-S could be another catalyst that will put Sony as a company on the radar of investors and consumers.
We've seen insane investment hype for anything even remotely related to EV over the past year. We've seen a company that barely had a few EV design concepts (oh wait, they had a gravity-powered truck though) even get a $30B market cap at some point lmao.
But somehow a profitable company ($SNE) that has an EV that you can actually drive, doesn't even have a fair valuation?
In 2020’s Sony’s brand value is at their highest point since 12 years. In 2021, it is projected to be a its highest point since 2001 assuming same growth as average yearly growth from 2015 to 2020. Keep in mind brand valuation is a bit bullshitty as there’s no standardization to compare brands from different sectors, let alone non-consumer-facing brands with consumer-facing brands. But one thing we can note is that Sony both as B2C brand and as a B2B company is on a big upwards trend.
https://interbrand.com/best-global-brands/sony/
https://careers.uw.edu/blog/2020/03/17/these-are-the-10-biggest-video-game-companies-in-north-america-shared-article-from-zippia/
In 2021, Sony is an entertainment behemoth. They have grown their entertainment branches by a huge amount over the past 5 to 10 years (they made some big acquisitions in the music space especially and they’re now also all-in in anime). I don’t think people realize how big Sony is as an entertainment company. I dug up the numbers and as of Q3 2020, PlayStation is the second biggest video game company in the world (Tencent is #1) in revenue (I suspect Sony might dethrone Tencent after Sony’s FY Q3 2020 is released). But Sony already comes very close to Tencent especially if you add Fate/Grand Order (which is under Sony Music and not under PlayStation) under PlayStation.
There’s no single other company that has this unique combination of a dominant/important position in all entertainment segments. (video games + music + movies + TV series + anime + TV networks). I guess Tencent maybe?
In 2021, Sony has amazing momentum in the camera space. If you’re familiar with the enthusiast photography space, you should know this. Basically, the market is slowly shifting from SLR to mirrorless cameras. This is because mirrorless cameras tend to smallelighter, have faster AF, better low light performance, better battery life and better video performance. Sony is the company that has been specializing in the development for mirrorless cameras for over a decade while Canon’s bread and butter has always been SLR cameras. Sony is in the lead when it comes to mirrorless cameras and that’s where the market is shifting towards. Because the advantages of mirrorless have become more and more apparent and Sony’s cameras have become technically superior, Sony has gained quite a bit of market share over Canon and Nikon in the last few years. In 2019, Sony overtook Nikon as the #2 camera manufacturer. Sony is in an upwards trend here. (they have the ambition to become the world’s #1 camera brand) Sony also has very good marketing for their cameras. (Sony has a lot of YouTubers / influencers / brand ambassadors for their cameras despite being a smaller brand than Canon)
(just search on YouTube and/or Google “switching to Sony from Canon” just to give you an idea that they do have amazing brand momentum in the camera space. You won’t get as many hits for the opposite)
A huge portion of Sony’s profit comes from image sensors in addition to music and video games. This is in addition to their highly profitable financial holdings division & their more moderately profitable electronics division.
Sony’s electronics division, unlike other Japanese brands, has shown great resilience against the very strong competition from China & South Korea. They have been able to maintain their position in the audio space and as of 2020 are still the global market leader in high-end TV’s (a position they have been holding for decades) and it seems they will continue to be able to maintain that.
But seriously this company is dirt-cheap compared to any of its peers in any segment and there’s various huge growth prospects for Sony:

CMOS image sensors & Sony’s overall imaging prowess will boom due to increased demand from automotive sector, security & surveillance industry, manufacturing industry, medical sector and finally from the aerospace & defence industry. On the longer term, image sensors will continue to boom due to increased demand for computer vision & AI + robotics. And for consumer electronics demand will remain very high obviously.
Sony is aiming for 60% market share in the CMOS image sensor market by 2026. Biggest threat here is Samsung here who have recently started to aggressively invest in image sensors and are challenging Sony. Sony has technological lead + higher production capacity (and Sony will soon open a new plant in Nagasaki), so Sony should be able to hold off Samsung.
The iPhone 12 Pro has 3 cameras + a lidar sensor. Apple now buys 3 image sensors (from Sony) + LiDAR sensor (from Sony) per iPhone 12 Pro they manufacture. Remember the iPhone X and iPhone XS? That one had “only” 2 rear cameras (with image sensos from Sony of course). Basically, Sony will be selling exponentially more image sensors as more smartphones get equipped with more and more cameras.
Now think about how many image sensors Sony can sell to Apple if the iPhone 13 will have 5 cameras + LiDAR sensor (I mean the number of cameras on smartphones certainly won’t decrease)
Gaming (PS5 hype, PSN game sales are booming, add-on content is booming, PS+ subscribers count is booming and finally PSNow & first-party games sales are trending upwards as well). Very consistent year-on-year profit & revenue growth here. They have a history of beating earnings expectations here. The number of PS+ subscribers went from 4M to 48M in just 6-7 years. Investors love to hype up recurring revenue and subscription services such as Disney+ and Netflix. Let’s apply the same logic to PS+? PS+ already has more subscribers than HBO Max in the USA.
PlayStation (video games in general) has not even scratched the fucking surface. Most people who play video games now are millennials and kids. Do you think those millennials will stop playing video games when they grow older? No, of course not. Boomers today also still watch movies and TV. Those millennials have kids and those kids are now also playing video games. The kids of those kids will also play video games etc. Basically the total addressable audience for video games will by HUGE by the end of the decade (and the decades after that) because video games will have penetrated all age ranges of the population. Gaming is the fastest growing segment of the whole entertainment business. By a large margin. PlayStation is obviously in a great position here as you can guess from the PS5 hype, but more importantly imho, the growth of PS+ subscribers (currently a bit under 50 million) and PSN users (>100 million MAU) over the past 5 years shows that PlayStation is primed to profit from the audience growth.
On top of that you have huge video game growth in the China where Sony & PlayStation is already much better established than Xbox (but still super small compared to mobile games and PC gaming in China). Within the console market, Xbox only competes with PlayStation in North America. In the rest of the world, PlayStation has an enormous lead over Xbox. Xbox is simply a lesser known and lesser desirable brand in the rest of the world
Anime streaming (basically they have a monopoly already + vertical integration, it might still be somewhat niche right now, but it will be big within 5 years. Acquiring Crunchyroll was a very good move)
Music streaming (no, they don’t have a music streaming service, but as music streaming grows, Sony Music also gets a piece of the growing pie through licensing/royalties, and they also still have a little 2.8% stake in Spotify)
Apple, Amazon, Netflix, AT&T and Disney are currently battling it out in the streaming wars. When there’s a war you have little chances of winning, you shouldn’t be the one waging the war. You should be the one selling the ammo. Basically Sony Pictures (tv shows + movies) is in that position. Sony Pictures can negotiate good prices for their content because Apple, Amazon, Netflix, AT&T are thirsty for content and they all want their own exclusive content. Sony Pictures does not need to prop up their own streaming service just like Sony Music doesn’t need their own music streaming service when they can just license out their content and turn a profit. There will always be demand for TV & movies content, so Sony Pictures is well positioned is as an independent content provider. And while Apple, Amazon, Netflix, AT&T and Disney are battling it out on the forefront, Sony is quietly building their anime empire in the background. Genius business move from Sony here, seriously. They now have anime production & distribution.
Netflix has 200M subscribers and they currently have a 250M market cap. Think about what Sony will have in 5 years? >30M Crunchyroll subscribers (assuming all anime will be consolidated into Crunhyroll) & >100M PS+ & PSNow subscribers? Anime and gaming is growing faster than movies and TV shows. (9% CAGR for anime, 12% CAGR for gaming vs. 5% CAGR for the whole movies & TV show entertainment segment which includes PVOD, SVOD, box office, TV etc etc). And gaming as a whole is MUCH bigger than SVOD streaming. Netflix gets 99% of their revenue & profit through subscriptions. For the whole Sony Group Corporation, their subscription services (games + anime) it’s currently only 4.5% of their total revenue. And somehow Sony currently has a meagre $128B market cap?
PlayStation alone is bigger than Netflix in terms of operating profit. PlayStation has a MUCH higher profit margin than Netflix. For Q3 2020 Netflix posted $790M operating profit and PlayStation posted $988M operating profit. Revenue was was $6.44B for Netflix vs. $4.77B for PlayStation. (and btw Sony’s mobile gaming revenue (~$1B / year) is under Sony Music, it is not even in those PlayStation numbers!!!)
Think about it. PlayStation alone posts bigger operating profit than Netflix (yes revenue is bit smaller, but it’s the operating profit that matters most). And gaming is growing faster than movies. And PlayStation is about 24% of Sony’s total revenue. And yet Netflix has a market cap that is equal to the double of Sony's market cap? Basically If you apply Netflix’ valuation to PlayStation then PlayStation alone should have a bigger market cap than Netflix' market cap.

PS+ growth and software digital ratio growth

Sony Vision-S & autonomous driving tech (selling sensors + infotainment system to other car manufacturers). Sony surprised everyone when they revealed their Sony Vision-S electric vehicle last year at CES 2020 (in-house design and made in cooperation with Magna Steyr). And it’s currently being tested on public roads. Over the past year we have seen absurdly big investment hype into anything even remotely related to EV’s (including a few questionable companies). We’ve even seen an EV company with a gravity-powered truck get a $30B market cap in June last year. Meanwhile Sony, out of nowhere, revealed what is arguably (subjectively) one of the best looking EV’s. It got very positive reception at CES 2020. An EV that you can actually drive. But somehow their stock is still dirt-cheap based on their current fundamentals alone? Yet some companies that had pretty much nothing but some EV design concepts got insane valuations purely due to hype?
LTE chips for IoT & Industry 4.0 (Altair Semiconductors)
Cross-media IP (The Last of Us show on HBO, Uncharted movie etc). Huge unrealized potential synergy here (it’s about to change). We have seen that it can turn out super well when you look at The Witcher, Sonic the Hedgehog and Detective Pikachu. When The Witcher released on Netflix, sales of The Witcher 3 significantly increased again. Imagine the same thing, but with Sony IP’s. Sony Pictures is currently working on 7 video game IP based TV shows and 3 movies. We know The Last of Us tv series is currently in production for HBO. And then the Uncharted is currently in post-production and scheduled to be released in July this year currently. If Uncharted turns out to be successful, it will mark a big, new milestone for Sony as an entertainment company imho.
Aniplex (Sony Music Entertainment Japan subsidiary for anime production, distribution & mobile games) had a fantastic year in 2020. (more on this later) There is a lot of room for mobile games growth with Aniplex. Thanks to Aniplex, Sony might beat their earnings forecast.
Drones. DJI just got put on Entity List in USA and Sony started developing drones for prosumer / professional a few years ago. Big opportunity for Sony here to take a bit from DJI’s dominance. It only makes sense for Sony to enter the drone market targeting the professional & prosumer video market, considering Sony’s established position in the professional audio/video/photography space
Currently Sony also has several ventures & investments in AI & robotics
Over the past decade, Sony has also carefully expanded into medical equipment tech & biotechnology. Worth noting that Sony also has an important 33% stake in M3 inc (a medical services through-the-internet company with a market cap of $65.5B) (= just their stake in M3 Inc is worth $22B alone, remember Sony, with their large, diversified revenue streams & assets only has a market cap of $128B?)
Sony Pictures has a great upcoming movie slate (MCU Spider-Man, Uncharted, Ghostbusters: Afterlife, Venom 2, Morbius, Spider-Verse sequel, Hotel Transylvania 4, Peter Rabbit 2, Vivo, The Nightingale). They will profit from the theatre reopening and covid recovery. They may even become more favourable among movie theatre chains because they won’t release their movies on the same day on streaming services like Warner (and yeah movie theatres are here to stay, at least for a while imho)
All the above comes on top of established, mature markets (Financial Holdings & Electronic Products)
Oh yeah, btw though TV’s are a cyclical and mature market and are not that important for Sony Group Corporation’s bottomline*, Sony TV’s will continue to do well for the following successive years: o 2020: continued pandemic boost

2020-2021: PS5 / Xbox Series X/S
2021 Summer Olympics (tv sales ALWAYS spike during the olympics) (& the effect is more pronounced for high-end TV’s, = good for Sony because Sony’s market share is concentrated in the high-end range (they are market leader in the high-end range)
2022 FIFA world cup (exact same thing as for the olympics)
You could say it’s already priced in, but the stock is already ridiculously undervalued so idk…

You would think this company somehow has a bad outlook, but that could not be further from the true, let me explain and go over some of the different divisions and explain why they will moon:
Sony Entertainment
While Netflix, Disney, AT&T, Amazon, and Apple are waging the great streaming war, Sony has been quietly building its anime streaming empire over the past years.

Sony recently acquired Crunchyroll for $1.175B (it is a great deal for Sony imho and will immediately be more valuable under Sony. Considering the growing appetite for anime I honestly do not even understand why AT&T sold it, they could have integrated it with their other streaming service (HBO Max) but ok)
With Crunchyroll Sony now has the following anime empire:
Aniplex (anime production & distribution, subsidiary of Sony Music Entertainment Japan) F
Funimation
Manga Entertainment UK (production, licensing, and distribution, UK)
Wakanam (licensing and distribution in Europe)
AnimeLab (licensing and distribution in Australia & New Zealand)
Crunchyroll (3 million paying subcribers, 90 million registered users and 50 million social media followers)

* Why anime matters:

Anime growth
“The global size is expected to reach USD 36.26 billion by 2025, registering a CAGR of 8.8% over the forecast period, according to a study conducted by Grand View Research, Inc. Growing popularity and sales of Japanese anime content across the globe apart from Japan is driving the growth”
(tl;dr anime 🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀, Sony is all in on anime and they have pretty much no competition)
Anime is the fastest growing subsegment of movies/video entertainment worldwide.

Sony also has a partnership with Bilibili for anime distribution in China:

https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/201903/26/WS5c990d93a3104842260b2737.html

Bilibili already partnered with Sony Music Entertainment Japan to bring Aniplex’s hugely successful Aniplex’s Fate/Grand Order mobile game in China.
Sony acquired a 5% stake in Bilibili for $400M in March 2020 (that 5% stake is now already worth $2.33B at Bilibili’s current share price ($BILI) and imho $BILI still has lots of upside potential considering it is the de facto video creation/sharing/viewing à la YouTube/Twitch for GenZ in China)

https://ir.bilibili.com/news-releases/news-release-details/bilibili-announces-equity-investment-sony

Sony Music Entertainment Japan
Aniplex

Sony Music (mobile games) generated $400M revenue from its mobile games in Q2 FY2020, published through Aniplex (Sony Music Entertainment Japan, “SMEJ”) subsidiary
They are the publisher of Fate/Grand Order, one of the most profitable mobile video games of the past 5 years (has generated $4B in revenue (!!) by the end of 2019 and is still as popular as ever). Fate/Grand order is the 7th most profitable mobile game in revenue worldwide as of 2020 (!)

Fate/Grand Order #9 game by revenue last year as of Q3 2020

Aniplex launched Disney: Twisted Wonderland in March this year. In Q3, it was the #10 most downloaded mobile game in Japan. (Aniplex now has two top ten games in Japan)
Fate/Grand Order was the #2 most tweeted game in 2020 and #3 was Disney: Twisted Wonderland. You can see that Aniplex has two hugely successful mobile games. (we are talking close to $1B of revenue a year here). It is the #2 game in Japan by total revenue from Q1 2016 to Q3 2020 and the #9 game in worldwide revenue from Q1 2020 to Q3 2020.

Aniplex has two very popular mobile games

SMEJ earns about > $1B from mobile games in revenue from mobile games and there is still a lot of future growth potential here considering Japan’s mobile game market grew a whopping 32% yoy from Q3 2019 to Q3 2020.
Aniplex recently co-distrubuted the movie Demon Slayer: Mugen Train in Japan in October 2020. It became the highest grossing film of all time in Japan with a total gross box office revenue of $380M. In the middle of a pandemic. It still needs to release in South Korea, China and USA where it will most likely do great as well.

Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE) (Game & Netwerk Services business unit):

We all know 2020 was a huge year for video games with the stay-at-home pandemic boost. The whole video game sector brought in $180B of revenue in 2020, a whopping 20% increase yoy.
But 2020 will not be just a one-off temporary exceptional year for video games. The video game market has a CAGR of 13% which means it will be worth $291B in 2027. Video games is by far the segment with the highest growth rate in the whole entertainment industry.

US video game market growth (worldwide growth has a 13% CAGR)

PlayStation revenue and operating profit growth

PlayStation obviously has a huge piece of this pie and over the past years has seen consistent yoy revenue and profit growth. Think about it, for every FIFA/Call of Duty/Assassin’s Creed sold on PS4/PS5, Sony gets a 30% cut. There have been sold a billion PS4 games so far.
5 years ago 20 to 30% of PS4 games were purchased digitally. Flashforward to 2020 and it’s 60-75% and the digital ratio looks set to still increase a bit. This means higher profit margin for game publishers and for Sony at the expense of retailers
SIE has seen huge success in its first-party games over the past 5 years. Spider-Man, God of War, Horizon: Zero Dawn, The Last of Us Part 2, Uncharted 4, Ghost of Tsushima, Days Gone, Ratchet & Clank have all been huge successes. This is really big and represents a big change compared to the previous generations where Sony never really hit it big as a games publisher even though most of their games were considered quality games.
SIE is now not only a powerful platform holdeprovider, but also a very successful games publisher with popular IP’s (Uncharted, God of War, The Last of Us, Horizon, Ghost of Tsushima, Ratchet & Clank). This is an enormous asset, because firstly it increases the chances of success for cross-media opportunities (Sony Pictures can make TV shows and movies out of it to expand the popularity of those IP’s even more). And secondly, it is an obvious selling point for PS5. The more popular and bigger their exclusive content, the more they can draw people to their platform/service. This should increases PS5 total marketshare over its competitor.
The hype for God of War: Ragnarok will be absolutely through the roof. Hype for Horizon: Forbidden West is also very good already (10 million yt views, 273K likes which is very good). Gran Turismo 7 and Ratchet & Clank will also do very well in 2021. (I suspect that GoW oand Horizon might be delayed to 2022)
PS5 reception has been extremely good. Demand is through the roof as well all know. The only problem is that they cannot quite capitalize on the demand due to lack of supply, but overall, it is a very good thing that demand is very high, and that reception has been very positive. The challenge will primarily supply and production-related for the following 6 months and to be able to maintain brand momentum. Hopefully, they won’t push disappointed/inpatient customers to competitors.
Considering there’s backwards compatibility from PS4 to PS5, users will want all their PSN content to transition with them as well, so I expect them to lose very little marketshare to Xbox. Also, I do not know if Americans realize it, but Xbox is not nearly as big as PlayStation in the rest of the world as it is in the USA. PlayStation just has global brand power that Xbox just doesn’t have, so Xbox isn’t much of threat at all I’d say. Where I live, in Belgium, In Europe everyone is talking about the PS5, nobody really seems to care about Xbox Series S/X that much. Comparing PlayStation to Xbox in terms of mindshare is like comparing Apple to Motorola (not meant to be a diss to Motorola, I have a Motorola phone myself, just saying that Xbox has significantly less mindshare / brand power in Europe).
SIE is likely working on PSVR 2, this could be big.
Sony has a small stake in Epic Games (1.4%) and they have a good business relationship with them, so this might also make them open to release first-party games on Epic Games Store after exclusivity period on PS5.
Remember the Travis Scott concert in Fortnite? I believe that was one of the reasons why Sony invested in Epic Games. It serves as an example how music can sometimes converge with video games, and this can play to Sony’s strengths.
PlayStation also has way superior presence in Asia compared to Xbox. Have been expanding into China as well. Another great opportunity for revenue growth.
PS+ subscribers grew from 5.7 million by the end of 2013 to 46 million by October 30th, 2020. This is an average growth rate of 28% over the past 5 years. Considering most of the growth was early on, it will slow down, but I predict that they will have about 70 million PS+ subscribers by the end of 2023. This is huge and represents a stable, recurring source of income. Investors who keep hyping Netflix/Disney+ will love this, but it seems they have yet to discover $SNE.
There is a reason why Amazon, Google, Nvidia have been aggressively investing in video games & games streaming. They know the business is huge and is about to get even bigger. But considering the established, loyal PlayStation userbase, the established global brand of PlayStation and the exclusive games, PlayStation should be able to easily standoff competition from Amazon, Google and Nvidia (GeForce Now) in the next few years. So far, Amazon’s venture into game development, publishing & streaming has completely failed. Stadia and GeForceNow seem to have a bit more success, but still relatively niche. Therefore, I think PlayStation is well-positioned to remain one of the leaders in the industry for the following decade.

I'll get to the other divisions later, I figured this is a good first step.
But so far the tl;dr
Image sensors: 🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀
IoT/Industry 4.0 chipsets: 🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀
PS5/PSN/PS+: 🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀
Online medical services (M3 inc.): 🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀
Anime: 🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀
Fate/Grand Order: 🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀
Demon Slayer: Mugen Train 🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀
Sony Music / music streaming (the performance of Sony Music’s in Sony’s business is seriously understated. The numbers speak for themselves): 🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀
Sony Electronics 🚀
Sony Financial Holdings (very stable & profitable business, even managed to grow slightly during pandemic when most insurance companies performed more poorly): 🚀🚀🚀
Still have to cover Sony Pictures, but their upcoming movie slate looks pretty good honestly (Spider-Man sequel, Venom: Let There Be Darkness, Ghostbusters: Afterlife, Uncharted, Morbius, Hotel Transylvania 4 so that's worth one rocket as well imho 🚀
tl;dr of tl;dr:
🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀

Disclaimer: I am not a financial advisor. I am an idiot that's trying to understand why $SNE stock is so cheap.
Positions: SNE 105C 21st January 22

IMPORTANT EDIT: I got in touch with her and explained in the lengthy last update. She got home by the way, and even said she didn’t wanna stay ‘til Sunday cause she wasn’t even sure what she was gonna do.
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Hi everyone, I have never posted on a subreddit before so I’m unsure how to start but I really need help on how to proceed right now. I will attempt to be straight to the point:
My mom went to Mexico City exactly 8 days ago to meet up with this guy she’s been chatting with online for roughly 3 months, I couldn’t go because my passport process wasn’t complete and she couldn’t hold on for a few weeks so she decided to go by herself. I had her location tracked, and told her to be sure to ask for wifi wherever she went. I urged her to be careful as hell. She left the hotel she was staying in by herself in Mexico City last Tuesday and went to Veracruz with this guy to stay in a different hotel together. She FaceTimed me daily and 85% of the time had connection because of wifi or local coverage.
Fast forward to last night, she’s back near Mexico City in a place called Tizayuca and says she’s going to eat with him and other people she just met basically. 2 hours later, she FaceTimes me and she’s flat-out drunk and shows me shows me something weird on the floor that I could not make out and they’re yelling back and forth at each other. She claims that they don’t want her to talk to me and only focus on me, and she begs me to push the flight up from Sunday to tomorrow, so I did that. He insults her repeatedly and then insults me on the phone and then she insults him back, he keeps pushing her and cornering her and launches a punch/hit at her face and her phone goes flying across the room. The two other people are simply sitting at the table and laughing it off and she grabs her phone and exits the house but I’m telling her not to or the connection will be lost. She doesn’t hear me and she’s yelling in the street asking for someone to call the police in Spanish. I’m just sitting on the call trying to figure out wtf is happening and tell her to calm down but she’s not paying attention to me. The call drops and I haven’t heard of her since, none of my messages have been delivering since 1am yesterday morning. If she went back in the house, surely the wifi would’ve reconnected and they would have delivered. They haven’t and I’m incredibly worried, her location has also dropped off the map and Google location claims she was last seen OVER 36 hours ago. Find my iPhone won’t play a sound unless there’s connection and there hasn’t been for also 36+ hours. I’ve tried a million times to reach her, nope. I told my mom that in case anything happens she can repeatedly press the side button for an emergency call but that didn’t go thru her mind. The behavior in that house was extremely off based on the call, the energy just didn’t feel right from the start.
I called 911 right after the call dropped and they connected me with another place where they connected me with another place. Sadly I don’t have the address or even a street name to provide because this was a grid neighborhood in a run down part miles outside of Mexico City in a town called Tizayuca. I contacted 911 again but dead end, I keep reaching higher levels of assistance now.
I know the guy’s name, number, Facebook and have a photo of his ID for safety reasons so I know who exactly he is but there’s no address on the ID.
My mom doesn’t know when the flight leaves for Tuesday, she only asked me to reschedule it ASAP. I did, but she won’t be able to see any Delta notifications since her phone has been unreachable for a while now. She has no idea when the new flight is set to leave, I postponed it for Thursday now in case she’s found within the next day.
My question is: what now? 😭 I’m a 19 year old guy in New York by the way, I’ve never been to Mexico and wouldn’t know how anything works. My Spanish is generally shitty speaking wise but I understand it perfectly. Theres too many scenarios are racing thru my head. Please if someone can give me advice on what to do next.
I’m sorry if there’s typos in here.
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UPDATE 1: I did contact the Embassy and they were very very helpful, asked me for a lot of info and they got a hold of the police near the town she was in after a few hours. They called me just now and claim that my mom and that guy left the house a few minutes after everything happened and he “drove her to the airport”. The police and others on the 4-way call questioned this because they were all drinking. They told me they’ll contact back in 15 mins because they want to confirm the plates to the car or something. I’m happy the woman who spoke with the officers said some small tip but it adds more questions in my head because that’s them alone in 1 car.
Update 2: The team of 2 people and the officer on the phone who’ve been helping me most of the way told me they have the car’s plate numbers because of a cctv screenshot and put a tab on it so they can be on the lookout for it. They also are contacting all the nearby hotels in Mexico City and looking for either her or his name at check ins I believe. But he explained to me it’s now a waiting game and have to hope that news shows up at this point. The lucky thing is they have plate numbers but it wasn’t a cab and her phone hasn’t synced for almost a day. Surely she’d have wifi and a charger with her if she had arrived at a hotel already :(
Update 3 @ 5am over a day after: I just checked with Delta on the phone even after checking online and seeing that she hasn’t checked in for her flight due in a few hours. I probably have to push the flight further down another day or two because Delta didn’t tell me much. -> Also I did find this guys Facebook which seems kinda sketchy, his number was on it, so I got his WhatsApp and noticed he was online much recently. I forwarded all of this and the picture of his ID I asked my mom to send me earlier in the day to the man helping me from the Embassy. It’s mostly a waiting game now. No signs showing my mom’s phone as turned on or had service since the call dropped last night. I have to sleep and I have work but now idk if I should go incase I miss any call
Update 4, 36 hours later: Um long story short, I filled out a missing persons questionnaire for review and I got the license plate number, make and model etc. I think I’m doing a good thing right now, my moms co worker took me to my local precinct but that was a very big dead end. They are considering I should hire a PI for this now but the man who’s been in touch w me hourly form the Mexican Embassy is telling me they’re looking and will get in touch with me on an update by midday, right now it’s 11:30am. ☹️ I hate to say it but there’s no positive updates right now, the hole is deepening and no signs of any activity on Find my iPhone, Gmail tracking, cannot play an emergency noise because the phone isn’t connected to internet and no calls go thru. I really hope the day ends with some positivity because right now I’ve almost exhausted most of my abilities to move forward.
UPDATE 5: Guys my mom is okay, good news but also basic news: she FaceTimed me and said she had no service, etc etc the Embassy personnel were in the house as well as the officers checking once again and found her in the same spot she was in 2 days ago. They interviewed her privately and pressured her to spill whatever truth there was but she stuck with the idea that it was a drunk fight and a misunderstanding but I’m not happy one bit. They questioned why does she have connection now but she didn’t yesterday and she couldn’t even respond to that, I’m honestly so exhausted with her and even her co-worker and I spoke about the fact that she needs to grow up because she still insists on her flight departing on Sunday. I’m not sure how to FEEL with her staying over there for the original 5 extra days and if I have now “cancelled” my report and something DOES happen within the next 5 days, it’s going to look like I’m just crying wolf. This was just exhausting and I don’t think she understands the amount of stress she put people in but she insisted she’s fine, she told me she’s fine. I keep trying to convince her and even made up an excuse that I can’t switch the flight anymore or I’ll have to pay out of pocket money and it’s like she doesn’t seem to care. She told me she wants to come home and just forget everything ever happened as well as this guy but I’m not convinced that’s gonna be the case and it annoys me because I know what I saw. I’m just happy she’s okay I guess, everything seems to be okay. Officers took a photo of her for verification, even made her show her body to make sure there’s no bruising etc and I even had to speak to them in Spanish which somehow my Spanish sounded fluent for once. By the way, my mom is Mexican so she communicated with them perfectly but she doesn’t know any direct family there since she’s been in the US for the past 20+ years.
Final few notes: I just want to thank everyone for investing so much time and help into this, I used Reddit as a last resort after a few hours and it ended up giving me multiple ideas that turned out being so so useful. Sorry for worrying everyone here but I’m not happy with the results as a whole that much and just want her to come home because the fact that she wants to stay an extra few days isn’t sitting right with me, trust me, her being alive and clearly safe/comfortable makes me feel relieved but.. idk what to think. I appreciate each and every one of you and sorry for not answering messages cause I was busy most of the day. I was about to start making a whole gofundme for a PI but it won’t be necessary now but I’m genuinely so warmed by everyone going out of their way to check themselves and even offer help ❤️
Update 6: She’s coming home tomorrow Thursday instead of Sunday now, I think she woke up this morning with some brain cell growth so thank God I didn’t make any flight changes.
Update 7: She’s home :) and we’re all good now cause we talked it out and she’s sorry and explained to other people I told and they told her not to do that and leave someone hanging etc. But she’s home, so thank you everyone

I'm a jumbled mess as I write this, so apologies if I ramble.
My suspicions started a few weeks ago when little things were happening:

wife started drinking (she wasn't a teetotaler beforehand, but it was rare for either of us to drink more than a couple times a month). The drinking quickly escalated to 2+ full bottles of wine per night
we routinely made use of the "Find My..." feature of our iPhones and suddenly a few weeks ago hers started randomly "turning it off." I would re-enable it and it would randomly turn off again some time later.
I was working from home even before the pandemic and with the pandemic, I've been mostly a recluse. I'm an introvert, so it was no big deal -- she would do the sopping and run errands, and would occasionally meet girlfriends for lunch/dinner, etc. This wasn't a concern because I was often invited and sometimes even went along.
In the last few weeks, she's been going out nearly every day and is gone for hours -- leaving by 11am and not back until 5 - 8pm. Sometimes she has things to show for her efforts, sometimes not.
she regularly calls me or texts me to see if I want or need anything and happily brings things home I request. She's generally responsive and her mood seems the same.
I smoke cigars daily and sit out on our deck when I do, watching some streaming show/movie or playing video games, or whatever. When I came in a couple weeks ago, she was already in bed and was clearly talking to someone on her phone at ~2am (I'm a night owl). The call ended as soon as I appeared.
Friday night, the same thing happened again, but I heard a man's voice on the call. Previously, she said she had been talking to one of her girlfriends. I immediately knew something was wrong.

So, because we have dogs who don't get along, we tend to switch places and one sleeps in the bedroom with one dog while the other sleeps in the living room with the other dog. I know that's not great. I never said our situation was perfect, but I thought we were adults about it. I did register concern with her when we started this procedure with our dogs over a year ago; I didn't want our relationship to suffer.
So, Friday night I was sleeping in the living room. I couldn't get the call out of my head. I decided to open her laptop and found Facebook opened and logged in. Her chats with a man were... extremely lewd. They were sending nude selfies back and forth, and were using Facebook messenger to roleplay a dom/submissive relationship (something I never knew she was into). I also found coordination for rendezvouses with her sometimes apologizing that the dogs or I was holding her up. I didn't have the wherewithal to download the chats at that time since I was so blindsided by what I saw.
I didn't sleep all night and have pretty much been going through a full-blown panic attack since then. I have barely slept and eaten almost nothing. I'm a wreck.
My family lives on the west coast and I'm on the east, so I'm all alone except for a few friends, most of whom are her friends, too. I considered her my best friend and since my male best friend passed away 1.5 years ago after a suicide, I really don't have anyone to rely on.
I'm the breadwinner in the house. She has no obligations other than helping with the housework and some charities she's assisting. I have been supportive of that and even helped put her through college so she could get her bachelor's degree a couple years ago. All-in-all, I've been proud of her and very much in love even though our situation has been challenging.
Our love life has been non-existant for years, and while that has been a concern it hasn't been a deal-breaker for me. She said she wasn't that into sex, so I was happy to have something platonic and loving in other ways. She has been the center of my life since we started dating in 1996 and since our wedding in 2001. Our 20th anniversary would be this year.
I don't know what I want out of this whole thing. I'm still so hurt and surprised. I've never felt as alone as I do now, and having to pretend things are ok isn't working because I've been physically ill for two days because of my discovery. I could use advice and ideas for how to proceed. I don't know if I want to try to save the marriage or not. I'm terrified of not having her in my life, but I don't know that I'll ever be able to trust her again.
Thanks so much for reading this. I will try to answer questions if you have any.
EDIT: Thank you all for the kind words and the suggestions. I have taken much of it to heart as I consider my next steps. I'll have time later this week to see an attorney and get some idea of things. I've finally had a chance to talk to some family and get some things off my chest, which has been good. I'm working on collecting info and improving my mental state now. Finally sleeping and eating again, even if only a little.
I am grateful to all of you, internet strangers, for your insight and kindness. It may sound like a meaningless platitude, but I do deeply appreciate the time each of you has taken to write your thoughts. Many, many thanks.

Hey guys, it’s Coooolin! It’s Throwback Thursday, and 2 more days til the weekend!! How was everyone’s day!? Gooodd ? Baadd? Let me know, dooown beloow !!
Here’s the new cards today, thanks as always EA!

Silver Master Icons

MARTIN ST. LOUIS - 91 OVR - TBL / RW - BAR² , WH²
Billy Smith - 91 OVR - NYI / G - 5’10” / 185 lbs - SWA² , DIS²
*Brendan Shanahan - 91 OVR - DET / LW - H and S² , SH²

Sets

All these guys to upgrade to their 91 OVR cost their specific 86 OVR card , plus 9 Icon Collectables.
9 ICONS TO UPGRADE - short said .
—-

Primetimes

NHL

(Flooded with a team that beat the sens... lets not talk about that game..)
Will Update wanting to pump this out with Silver Master Icons
Elias Petterson - 89 OVR - VAN / C - GLA¹ , PP¹
Matt Duchene - 87 OVR - NAS / C - LTL¹ , MAG¹
Thatcher Demko - 86 OVR - VAN / G - 6’4” / 192 lbs - SPA¹ , BAL¹
JIMMY Howard - 85 OVR - DET / G - 6’1” / 218 lbs - SWA¹ , DIS¹
Nick Cousins - 82 OVR - NAS / C - SPE¹ , WH¹
Jordie Benn - 81 OVR - VAN / LD - SH¹ , PP¹
Jay Beagle - 81 OVR - VAN / C - LTL¹ , GLA¹
Kevin Lankinen - 80 OVR - CHI / G - 6’2” / 185 lbs - BAR¹ , SWA¹
Tyler Motte - 80 OVR - VAN / C - SPA¹ , WM¹
Jarred Tindroi - 77 OVR - NAS / LD - DIS¹ , WH¹

Other Leagues

Zachary L’Heureux - 83 OVR - HAL / C -
Aleksi Klemetti - 77 OVR - KAL / LW -
• • • • • • • • • • - - - - - - - - - • • • • • • • • • • • •

Packs Available

Quantity - 1,736
Double PT PACK - 37.5k C / 750 P
13 items, at least 5 Players with 2 guaranteed Primetime Players.
— From previous day —
23H / 40M
• Jumbo Premium Players Pack - 45k C / 900 P
20 items , all Gold Players, at least 5 80+ OVR Players
• Mega Pack - 37.5k C / 750 P
30 items, at least 15 Gold Players, and 4 80+ OVR Players
• Jumbo Premium Pack - 15k C / 300 P
20 items, at least 9 Players with at least 4 Gold Players

P.S.

• Squad Battles Rewards
• New Season of HUT RUSH — 3M POINTS FOR FREE ICON COLLECT

HOCKEY NEWS TODAY

• Hockey History Today
• Winnipeg Jets back in runnin
Fantasy Hockey Pickups
Who should be on your team?

STOCK MARKET NEWS - WHAT JUST HAPPENED

• Gamestop See-Saw
• Disney Rising from its tumbled down
Corona News
• Corona News Today
• Ontario Reports Fewest Deaths

BELL LETS TALK DAY

• Bell Lets Talk
• Bublé is in on BLTK (Bell Lets Talk Day)
That’s the most important stuff I found today!
——————

What’s to Come?

• New Event Tomorrow - 5pm EST
• Weekend!!
—————

Summary of the day

Quick Read
Best Forward of the Day - PT - is ELLLIIAAASS PETEERSSONN OVR 89 with the syn GLAAADDIIATOORR and PASSSINN PLAYYMAKERRR
Best Defence of the Day - PT - is JOORRDIIEE BEENNNNN OVR *81 with the syn SHUUTT DOWNN and PASSSINN PLAYYMAKERRR
• Squad Battles Rewards!!
• New Season of HUT RUSH!
———— —— ———

Important Notice

Today is Bell Let’s Talk Day. Today is a day where Mental Health is in full action and everyone talks about it. You can help Bell Lets Talk Day gain money for Mental Health by; tweeeting #BellLetsTalk , Snapping friends with the Bell Lets Talk Day filter, sharing / liking / commenting their post on Facebook...and many other ways, as well as the obvious - simply donating.
Mental Health is HUGE especially with everything going on in the world.
Please know you are loved, cared for, and that your someones reason to smile, and wake up. You are a blessing to this world, put here for a reason. You are so strong, capable of anything you put your mind to. I know I am just some stranger on the Internet that does these “Daily Posts” but I am here for anyone in need of just talking about their problems, venting away, or just someone to talk to.
Bell Let’s Talk Day is one of my favourite / least favourite days because I personally love talking about Mental Health.... but I personally believe that it should be a week, or a month.. or just seriously for more people to talk about it on a daily basis.
Let’s end this stigma around Mental Health.
You can make a huge difference to someone’s life. Simply just be nice to one another, smile, and just say “I appreciate you” or some nice positive thing like that.
You recieve what you give away... karma goes a long, long ways.
I hope your 2021 and years to come are full of love, happiness, kindness, laughs, blessings, and success.
You deserve what you give to people. So if you give hate —- I’m sorry, but you’ll recieve that..
Love you all, I’m very appreciated of everyone who likes these posts, and strives me to keep posting. Its so much fun!!
My PM / Chat is open to anyone !! Don’t be afraid . We’re all in this together!!!
——

Interested in Stocks?

EA’s Stock Price, after hours - Jan 28
$ 143.01 (usd) —- Currency Converter
we looked at the stock at $137.54 usd
—— That is a difference of ( $5.47 / 3.98% ) —
Disclaimer - I am not a financial advisor. It is your money, please do your own due diligence. I am not responsible for your money. This is *not** advice. I added this section for an added educational purposes only. YOUR CAPITAL IS AT RISK. Happy Investing.*
—— —— —— —-

NEED A SOUNDTRACK TO LISTEN TO?

I made this for everyone. I’ll update it whenever I feel like it, but its been often!

TONS OF PEOPLE SEEM TO LOVE THE PLAYLIST!! How are you not listening to it already!?
Comment songs to add, and please give feedback! It’s much appreciated!!
I currently have “Skin” by “Sabrina Carpenter” stuck in my head.... which you can play, recently added to the playlist!
Sidenote - How do you guys like the playlist!? I have a friend who makes music...and I really want to surprise him with some new people listening to his music... if you wanna help me, please click Here!! it would mean a lot to me!!
———-

Sites To Bookmark!

If you click here you will be redirected to bilasport. Bilasport is the best Online Streaming site for your entertainment needs for all sports! (Not affiliated)
A great streaming source recommended by NHLStreams is SurgeSport. Click on Hockey and you’ll be good to go!
Want to make your dream team, and show others what you’ve been working on, and much more? I will redirect you HERE!.
Here’s a helpful pack guide for you! Click!
Want to know how the market is holding up? With a simple TAP! you will be on the newly fresh made website for the HUT market, made by one of the guys on the sub!
.... what do the stats on a card mean? Is my card I want / pulled good? Click here to find out!!
When is my favourite team playing? When do they play!? Here you can click on this link, and tap on your favourite team. From there, tap “Schedule” . You can add this to your homescreen on iPhone by clicking the square with the upwards arrow, scrolling down, and tapping “Add to Home Screen”
——- —— —— —— —— —— —— —— —- —— —-

Fighting a Gambling Addiction?

Don’t feel scared to click here. Winning is SO much louder than losing. Know that you are NEVER alone. We are all here for eachother, and it is never too late to get help. I am here for you.
This is a VERY important thread, especially if you are new to HUT. Here!

Story Time!!!

“Happiness” - By Anonymous Person
Then I stopped to think, if helping a little kitten could make me smile, maybe doing something for people could make me happy.
So the next day I baked some biscuits and took them to a neighbour who was sick in bed.
Every day I try and do something nice for someone. It made me so happy to see them happy.
Today, I don’t know of anybody who sleeps and eats better than I do. I’ve found happiness by giving it to others.
When she heard that, the rich lady cried. She had everything money could buy, but she had lost the things money cannot buy.
The beauty of life does not depend on how happy you are; but on how happy others can be because of you.
Happiness is not a destination, its a journey. Happiness is not tomorrow, it is now. Happiness is not dependancy, it is a decision. Happiness is what you are, not what you have!
P.S. - Hope you have a happy fun filled day
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28 / 365
—— —— —— —- —- ——- —- —— ——
Thanks for reading.
I’m always welcome to feedback, please let me know what I can improve on.
If there’s anything missing, please let me know!
Take care, happy gaming! TODAY IS BELL LETS TALK DAY!!
• Coolin Killin It
(Life is like a puzzle, you just have to find the right piece.)

A second Night Sky Season has arrived!
Merge Dragon Seasons are 28-day game-wide events that let players win prizes by completing specific quests. A basic set of 30 rewards are available for free to all participants, with an additional set of premium rewards offered to players who buy a Royal Pass.
The Season quests are similar to others in the game, and center on harvesting, merging items, healing dead land, and other common tasks. Once a quest is completed, its individual prize can be collected on the Season rewards screen and sent to your Camp in a loot orb.
This will mark the fifth Seasons event on Merge Dragons, and the second that has been widely available to most players.

1: Night Sky 1 in September 2020
2: Equinox in October 2020
3: Wild Hearts in November 2020
4: Wintertide in December 2020
6: Still un-named in Gram Games releases, but expected to start very soon after the end of the current season. The official social media channels are only offering a teaser image of the exclusive feature breed so far, but u/ProPlaner has kindly sussed out some details and posted a video of the brand new Maple Moth

Season Basics

The basic Season rewards consist of Season chests, a few common low- to mid-level Camp items, and 7 Tanzanite Mystery eggs which yield coin breed whelps.
Season chests are similar to regular Treasure and Grimm chests; when opened, they yield a random assortment of items normally found in Pearlescent, Dangerous, Occult, Golden, and Moon chests. The “Tap” notification for each level of Season chest will vanish as soon as one of that level is opened, and chests from different Seasons can be merged as long as they are of the same level. This short video created by u/Proplaner shows what to expect from tapping these chests and the Decision Eggs; the general mix of contents for both has been consistent across all Seasons so far.
The basic Season prizes are relatively low value, and many people just sell the items for coins straight away. That said, active players can complete most of the quests with minimal extra effort, so these could be considered free rewards for normal playing; the challenge of completing all 30 quests may also add some excitement all on its own.

Quests

All quest tasks can be completed in Camp, Levels, regular weekend Out-Of-Camp Events, or any combination of the three. Many of the same quick, low-chalice levels popular for farming Dragon Stars work well for these quests. OOC events are held on weekends several times a month; specific info, including strategies and tips for completion, can be found in our Community Info FAQ section.
The number of Basic Season quests that can be completed each day is limited; when a pause is reached, the next quest will always become available at the next normal event starting hour (around 7pm Greenwich Mean Time, or 2pm Eastern US Time). The Royal Pass used to remove this cool-down period so that each new task started as soon as the previous one ended; that has now changed, and the delays are merely reduced for at least some pass purchasers. Prizes do not need to be collected immediately, but anything left on the board at the end of the Season will be lost.
Here are this Season’s quests (curtesy of the Dragonia Den Discord) with the date each unlocks for the basic free version:

Harvest anything 65x (Jan 20)
Merge anything 75x (Jan 20)
Heal land 45x (Jan 21)
Gain or create stars 4x (Jan 22)
Harvest from Life Flowers 75x (Jan 23)
Merge Eggs or Dragons 5x (Jan 24)
Merge any Life Flowers 40x (Jan 25)
Merge anything 140x (Jan 26)
Gain or Create stars 5x (Jan 27)
Merge Eggs or Dragons 8x (Jan 28)
Harvest from anything 95x (Jan 29)
Heal land 65x (Jan 30)
Merge any Life Flowers 45x (Jan 31)
Merge anything 145x (Feb 1)
Gain or Create stars 8x (Feb 2)
Heal land 70x (Feb 3)
Harvest from Life Flowers 125x (Feb 4)
Merge Eggs or Dragons 12x (Feb 5)
Merge any Life Flowers 75x (Feb 6)
Merge anything 250x (Feb 7)
Heal land 90x (Feb 8)
Gain or Create stars 9x (Feb 9)
Merge anything 200x (Feb 10)
Merge any Life Flowers 90x (Feb 11)
Merge Eggs or Dragons 11x (Feb 12)
Merge anything 255x (Feb 13)
Merge any Life Flowers 95x (Feb 14)
Heal land 110x (Feb 15)
Merge Eggs or Dragons 13x (Feb 16)
Gain or Create stars 10x (Feb 17)

These quests are similar to what has been offered in previous Seasons; only the specific order and number of task repetitions has changed.

Tips for Completing Quests

Heal Any Land: OOC Events are good for this; but once past the 35k dragon power level, unlocking dead land in Camp is a rare occasion.
- Good levels: Shore Grove, Zomblin Falls 1, Fear Isle 4, Shroomia 6, The Healer, Peace Isles,
Gain or Create Stars: In levels, actions that trigger after the level has been completed do not count; this includes gaining the third star in popular levels like Zomblin Falls 1 and Dread Marsh 3. Purple Dragon stars do not count unless you tap out their gems, but this is definitely not recommended for the lvl 1 Dragon stars due to the huge loss in potential gems.
- New Info: Stars tapped out of level 7 Giant Treasure Chests will count towards this quest, as will stars gained by tapping applicable Daily Treasure Chests. This only counts when freshly opening a chest; stars already present in your Camp in loot orbs from previously tapped chests will not register as “new”
- Thanks to u/Baddread for this tip!
- Good levels: Skull Grove, Summit 1, Summit 2,
Harvest Anything: This is a great incentive to set your dragons to harvesting fruit and fruit trees to build your coin supply; grinding for stone and material for other chains works well, too, and OOC events provide plenty of opportunities.
- Good levels: Peace Isles,
Harvest from Life Flowers: Regular weekend events are great for this; however, dragons will only harvest life orbs on their own if unlocked dead land is present, so established Camps may not be ideal.
- Good levels: Outskirts 5, Shore Grove, Boneyard Isles,
Merge Anything: Grinding in your Camp for any chain using stone-bought chests will make short work of these; in levels you can cheat and go with 3-merges if you are sure it won’t leave you short of materials to finish the level objectives. Unfortunately, merging in multiples only counts as 1, so mass-merging (such as in events) will slow your progress.
- Good levels: Outskirts 5, Boneyard Isles, Peace Isles,
Merge Life Flowers: Grinding Moon/Phobos chests in Camp works well, and moves you that much further towards the ultimate goal of creating the Rainbow wonder. OOC Events also yield plenty of opportunities, especially towards the end when there’s plenty of materials to make sprouts, and no reason to avoid 3-merges. Note that only “flowers” count for these quests; items over level 7 are considered “trees”.
- Good levels: Open Lands, Golden Meadow 19,
Merge Eggs or Dragons: There’s not much opportunity for this in OOC Events, but it’s a good incentive to work on building up your Camp dragon herd. Stockpiling Bountiful chests awarded by completing levels will yield lots of free eggs as long as you keep the countdown clock going; collecting the chests on the main Levels map will deliver them to your Camp in a loot bubble for easy storage. Eggs in loot orbs from Kala trades are also convenient for hoarding off to one side of your screen; likewise for Friendship eggs and shards, or Event and Season egg and nest rewards. Some Camp Quests involve tapping nests or merging eggs or dragons, so if the timing’s right you’ll fulfill multiple tasks at once.
- Good levels: The Crescent, Zomblin Falls 1, Boneyard Isles, Peace Isles, Fear Isle 4,

Buying a Royal Pass

Each Season offers players the opportunity to purchase a Royal Pass; the first three were $4.99 US, but the price jumped to $9.99 US in Season 4. This purchase unlocks an additional premium tier of prize items and performance boosts, in addition to all the basic prize items:
The current Season’s Royal Pass offers:

From the Royal Guardian breed: 19 dragon eggs and a nest, plus a L1, L2, and two L3 dragons.
3 Sapphire and 3 Ruby Fire Mystery eggs
A L1 Cosmos whelp
A L1 Gargoyle whelp
6 Decision eggs
Performance boosts to dragon speeds (starts at +2%, and maxes at +8%)
Faster chalice refill times (starts at +5%, and maxes at +20%)
Temporary +20% increase of coin and stone brick storage capacity
The option to pay gems to complete individual unlocked quests
No cool-down period between quests
- A new version of the Pass that still included cool-downs was initially released to some purchasers, before being rolled back on Feb 4. More info is below in the “Is the Pass worth buying” section.

All prize eggs, dragons, and items are permanent once brought to your Camp, but the performance boosts and extra storage only last for the duration of that particular Season. Passes do not carry over; no matter if they are bought on day 1 or day 27, they’ll all expire on day 28, and any unearned or uncollected rewards will vanish.

Decision Eggs

When first tapped, Decision Eggs offer a choice between three breeds, and then the egg permanently changes into whichever breed you select. If you do not like the choices offered, closing and reopening the game will reset the options. Decision eggs do not expire, and can be bubbled using the MarcusV method, or just left in their original loot orb.

NOTE: Having an un-bubbled egg for a given breed sitting out in your Camp seems to improve the odds of being offered that breed as one of the choices, even for Tier 2 Trophy breeds.

Most players prefer to select eggs that are difficult to gain by other means; here is a general guide to availability:

Rarest of the Rare: These eggs are either Royal Pass exclusives or Tier 2 eggs from non-purchasable breeds
- Royal Guardian, Wild Gryphon, Maple Moth (upcoming Season 6 exclusive), Bestie, Wisdom Owl
- NOTE: Tier 2 eggs from other, slightly-less-rare Trophy breeds have also been reported; having an un-bubbled egg of the targeted breed out may be needed for this to happen.
Very Rare: These are either secondary event trophy breeds, or have featured less commonly in recent events; all can be purchased in the store for gems once unlocked. Secondary event trophy breed eggs are often spawned in sets of four by a special event prize item when it is first brought to Camp, so many players have odd numbers of these eggs sitting around.
- Aqua, Autumn, Basket, Blaze, Chocolate, Cool, Deer, Dog, Fairy, Hera, Ice, Jester, Jungle, King of Hearts, Martian, Onsie, Passion, River, Seth, Shiba, Skeleton, Stadium, Terra, Zephyr
Rare: These are a mix of primary Out-Of-Camp Event Trophy breeds, and the most expensive Camp breeds. Primary Trophy dragons are regularly featured as the main prizes in standard weekend OOC events; usually three eggs, a nest, and a level 4 dragon are offered each event, with an additional nest and level 3 dragon often offered in the following event.
- Anubis, Bunny, Cat, Diva, Doll, Life, Moon, Morpho, Morty, Nilla, Prism, Rick, Samba, Sea, Sensei, Sun, Turtle, Wood, Zen, Zeus
Uncommon: These breeds are available from wonders or other free sources with a reasonable amount of effort
- Butterfly, Cosmos, Friend Egg and Shard, Midas Duck, Owl, Sapphire Mystery, Super eggs, Tribal
Very Common: These breeds are purchasable with coins, or can be obtained free by harvesting Dragon Trees in Camp.
- Crimson, Gargoyle, Grass, Golem, Green, Nature, Rock, Rocs, Sharp, Spotted, Toadstool, Ruby Fire Mystery (yields Pegasus and Wise)

A note about Super Eggs: These attract a lot of attention because they give on a good show and give multiple dragons at once. But they are free with patience (a shard is given by every 7th Daily Treasure Chest), and yield mostly coin breed L1 whelps, so many players feel they are overrated and not worth paying gems or cash.

Is the Night Sky Royal Pass worth buying?

Tl;dr: Not unless you really love the Royal Guardian dragon breed. The rest of the reward items are available elsewhere for less money (or free), the total number of dragons you get is low compared to other purchase options, the dragon performance boosts are hardly noticeable, and you may still face days-long waits before starting new quests.

The first three Seasons had a Royal Pass priced at $4.99 US that gave a total of 19x featured breed eggs and a nest, plus 1x level 1, 1x level 2, and 2x level 3 dragons. Combined, this merges up to 4x level 3 dragons, or the equivalent of 63-67 eggs (depending on how many are in the nest). Those Passes also yielded an 7x additional mixed Mystery eggs, 2x older premium/trophy breed whelps, and 6x Decision eggs, along with a few small amounts of coin and stone. Seasons 1 and 3 starred brand new trophy breeds (Royal Guardian and Wild Gryphon), while Season 2 featured the existing Autumn dragon.
The Royal Pass in Season 4 gave a similar number of eggs and dragons, and featured the Prism breed, which is available in Camp via the Magnificent Artefacts chain. This Pass greatly reduced the dragon performance boosts, from 20% down to 8%, and shrunk the storage capacity boost from 100% down to 20%. This Season’s most controversial change was to the price of the Royal Pass, which doubled for most players from $4.99 to $9.99 US.
The current Night Sky 2 Season Royal Pass:

Has the same doubled price and greatly reduced boosts, and lower value non-featured breed whelps.
Features the Royal Guardian trophy breed. This is the first time many players will see this dragon; it was introduced in Season 1 last September, but only to a limited group of beta testers.
Devs are testing a new “feature” regarding cool-down times between quests — players that still see the phrase “unlocks all quests” at the bottom of the Royal Pass’ benefit description are allowed to start the next quest as soon as the prior one is completed, just as in previous Seasons. However, games that instead show the words “unlock all quests quicker” will encounter cool-down periods of up to 6 days
- This is an a/b test, with accounts assigned to a version at random; if you purchased a non-instant unlock Pass without spotting the one-word change in the description, you may be able to get a refund by contacting Game Support or via your app store (more info at bottom).
- This new version was first posted about in this thread shortly after the event began; a few hours later this response from Gram Games Support was shared.
- The new version of the Pass appears to limit overall progress to the normal pace experienced by free players. The difference is that Pass players get small blocks of quests unlocked all at once, but then can’t progress further until the one-release-per-day basic players have caught up.
- Basic season players have always seen their final quest unlocked 24 hours before the end of the Season; hopefully these Pass players will see the last block of quests released well before that to provide some flexibility for things that might prevent playing on the final day.
- On Feb 4, Gram Games began removing cool-downs from all versions of the Royal Pass; it is not yet known how this will affect refund requests.

The non-dragon Royal Pass benefits are of limited value in the game:

Extra coin and stone storage capacity is handy, but does not add much actual value outside of a few specific tasks, such as farming coins in a level or after completing OOC events.
Paying gems to skip quests is questionable given how easy most tasks are completed and the 28 day time frame.
The removal or reduction of the cool-down periods between quests may speed things up, but most non-paying players will have plenty of time to complete the tasks even with the frequent wait periods.
Players still working their way through the levels, or those seriously grinding for Dragon Stars, may benefit from increased chalice refill speeds, but only if they are playing enough to keep the countdown timer running.

The greatest benefit from purchasing a Royal Pass is in the trophy dragons it yields; the objective rarity and obtainability of each breed will vary, and for many players the ultimate desirability may be heavily influenced by personal preference. If you feel a strong connection to the Royal Guardian, it may be worth the price to gain four level 3 dragons from this Season; the breed will certainly be offered again, but probably not for at least several months and will most likely still require a cash purchase.

I still don’t have the Season in my game

The Seasons events have been gradually rolled out to the Merge Dragons community, with each version reaching more players than the last. Most players should have access now, but according to the Support website, there are still some accounts left out. If you do not see the newest Season in your game, try these possibly solutions:

Check that your game is up to date — automatic updates can be unreliable for this app.
Check you have at least 200 dragon power — new players will need to build up their stats before a Season appears.
Check your internet connection — if it is too slow or unstable, events and other activities requiring access to Gram Games servers will not activate.
Clear your game’s cache — A good option any time the game acts weird; sadly this is not available on iPhones
Restart your device — this can sometimes trigger things to show properly in the game when nothing else works.

If none of that helps, you may unfortunately still be excluded from participating by the developer; this is due to ongoing a/b testing, where the devs look at how various versions of the game affect player behavior like spending patterns. You can try contacting Gram Games Support through the in-game link or the official website to ask about it, or at least rule out if there is any kind of fixable problem involved.
As a last resort, you can try backing up your game to the cloud (via Facebook or Apple’s Game Center), completely deleting the app from your device, re-downloading it from the app store, and then restoring your game progress from the earlier cloud save. If all goes well, this may get you a version of the game that includes the Seasons, but it is considered a risky option; cloud save is never 100% reliable, and any glitch or misstep in the process could cost you some or all of your progress.

Contacting the Developers

If you would like to give Gram Games some feedback on this event, you can message them through the in-game Support link (on your Settings page), or through the game’s Support website. Please remember the people who answer the support tickets are not the ones responsible for the changes; they can only help with a limited number of technical issues, and their responses to complaints about changes in the game must align with the official message given to them by their bosses. All complaints are passed on to the developers; if you want to increase the odds of your message attracting close attention, be polite and constructive in your criticism — if you have suggestions for improvements or better ways they could monetize the game, let them know.
It may be possible to get a refund if you paid for the current Royal Pass without spotting the slight change in the description about unlocking quests — especially since the previous version of that pass was still advertised on the game’s official Seasons FAQ page well after players started receiving the new one. If Gram Games is unwilling to help, it may be possible to apply for a refund directly through your device’s app store.
Here’s a Support response from Monday morning, granting a refund to one unhappy player. Some early requests were reportedly denied, but as the verdicts seem to be applied inconsistently, a second attempt might be warranted if a first request was refused.

With thanks to the Dragonia Den Guild and all those who contribute to the awesome Fandom Wiki
Edits are ongoing as new info comes in

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.

Hi guys!
My mom has used Windows OS for as long as I remember. Recently, her desktop has kicked the bucket, and she has been using her Iphone for internet and everything else. We are looking into getting her a laptop, and the Chromebook type of laptops were recommended. I am not super familiar with Chrome OS (I have a Mac), so I was wondering if I could get some pros/cons and any other advice from users here?
Basically, she would use her laptop to:
(1) browse the web (Facebook, email, news, online shopping, etc.)
(2) play simple games (think Diner Dash and other Facebook-type games, nothing that requires a graphics card)
(3) Stream Netflix or watch Youtube vids from time to time
(4) Additionally, she has expressed that she wants to use her laptop to write a novel, which could get pretty lengthy (Microsoft word replacement?).
So, nothing too crazy. Just a basic laptop that could handle those things. A webcam for Zoom would be nice, but not necessary! We were browsing Target's options but weren't really too sure how to narrow it down. We want to get her a good computer that will last long, without paying for things we may not really need.
Additional question for those able to answer: In your opinion, will the change from Windows OS to Chrome OS be easy? My mom isn't the most tech savvy, so don't want an OS that is super complicated.
Thank you in advance!
Edit: Thank you for all of the replies! Going to try to read/get to them all and I am super grateful. I am feeling more confident now about purchasing.

Hi, I just needed some help and you hope you guys could help me out. I am not good with this stuff so bear with me. Here is some basic information, I am paying for Att 1GB internet and my house is about 1600 Sq ft, and 6 people living in it. I am using ATT’s gateway (bgw320-500) and 2 of their WiFi extenders (Airties 4921). I would say there is about 16 devices connected and most of them are always in use. 6 iPhones , 4 laptops, 2 Apple Watches, 1 iPad Pro, 1 PS4, 1 desktop, 1 fire stick. Most of my family uses zoom and just does web surfing or streams video, not in 4K. The signal strength is great, pretty much 3 bars all around the house. The desktop via Ethernet cable near the gateway gets 950 down and 900 up. On WiFi very near the gateway, my iPhone gets about 500 down and 450 Up. (Side note, these are the speed tests via WiFi on my devices in my room. iPhone XS Max: 120 down 100 up. iPad Pro 18 down 23 up. Laptop: 180 down 185 up. PS4: 60 down 8 up.)
The issue is in my room when I game online, especially during the day. At night the experience is a little bit better. I lag when I game online on my PS4. I play games like Call of duty. I just bought a netgear powerline 1200 and didn’t see a difference, honestly saw a decrease in speed while connect to my ps4. 1 adapter was hooked up to my PS4 and other to the att gateway on the gigabit port. I also bought an asus rt-ax82u router and hooked it up to the gateway, not sure if that was a smart idea. Not sure if the asus router was a smart idea. Since I have a gateway. I also bought an asus zen wifi 6 ax xt8 (2 pack). On its way hasn’t arrived. To my question, sorry about all that, how do I get a fast and reliable wired connection in my room? Or what do I do with all the equipment that I bought? Should I return the asus router? What do I do? I am complete lost and don’t know what I am doing. Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated

Hey guys. You guys might remember me from all the posts I made about buying this thing.
I had a 11 Pro and I badly wanted a Z Fold 2 because it's such a cool device to have. I was ready to sell my iPhone and iPad and replace both with this.
I bought mine on November 27th. Loved it so much. It was an amazing device. Sold it yesterday. Lost about $500, but I'm still glad I got rid of it.
Why? I'll start off with the usability issues.
It won't replace your tablet, because the screen is too small to be a proper tablet. When I'm watching YouTube or movies, I still reach for my iPad. And that sucks.
The phone is not water resistant. Even though I thought it wouldn't be an issue, with COVID, I always wash my iPhone after I get home. With the fold I could only wipe it with sanitizer. And even that was scary. Might not be a problem for you guys, but it was for me.
It's too clunky and heavy. I had to handle it with great care. I couldn't toss it into the cars cupholder like my iPhone. I had to baby it. When you're out and about trying to get stuff done, these things count.
After a while the phone didn't open all the way flat. There was a slight curve. No idea if it's normal, but it happened.
Then that's the screen failure. Plenty of Folds displays randomly crapped out. Didn't happen to mine, but it's happening to others. Made me paranoid.
One drop of the phone could probably kill it.
And that brings us to cases. There are no good cases. Most cases don't cover the hinge, so the hinge is exposed. The cases that cover the hinge leave a huge bump when unfolded. Looks awful.
The battery life was not as good as my 11 Pro.
Camera wasn't as good as the 11 Pro.
Now we get to the software. This is a tricky subject because most of these are problems with Android and not the phone itself. I must add I upgraded to One UI 3 prior to selling. It didn't make much of a difference.
I'll start off with the Fold specific issues.
With a case on, the swipe gestures don't work.
Some apps don't work properly due to the weird aspect ratio and screen size.
Most apps still have the phone UI, Not the tablet UI.
Games looked pixelated. I had to do weird tricks to get them to look right.
Instagram stories were cut in half. I couldn't even post stories properly.
The split screen functionality is good but usually that would break the app.
There wasn't a proper floating keyboard. On a phone with a big screen, you really need one.
Now we get to Android problems. These might not matter to an Android user, but since you're coming from iOS..
iOS is generally more polished and way more pleasant to use. Even without a 120hz display it feels so smooth due to the animations. Apps tend to look better too. They have a better layout.
Don't know if this is a fold issue or an Android issue, but when I had multiple tabs open on Samsung Internet, after a few days the app would slow down. I noticed a lag. Usually restarting the app or phone would fix it. That was annoying because that would never happen on an iPhone.
I couldn't answer WhatsApp calls from the car stereo. Found that really annoying!
Notifications only showed the last 5 texts from a group or contact. Even still, it didn't show the whole message. Only showed the first 5 lines. Dragging the notification down to expand it would give me 2 more lines?! What?
I couldn't dissmiss an incoming messenger call. I could hide the notification, but the phone kept ringing and vibrating!
While I'm on a call, call quality on the other end would drop when I get another call.
Bixby is dumb and Google assistant never got what I was saying. I couldn't tell either to call or text someone on WhatsApp or telegram while the phone was locked. I do that often while driving.
Couldn't get either to play music on Apple Music. It works with Spotify though, but I don't want to move to Spotify because Apple music is cheaper.
I use AirDrop a lot to move files around my Apple devices. I know this doesn't matter to an Android user but since you're coming from an iPhone, you probably have a Mac or an iPad. You'll get frustrated when you can't copy a YouTube link from your iPad and paste it on your Fold. Didn't know how much I needed it until I lost it.
You couldn't drag the scroll bar in third party apps.
Everything said, it's an amazing phone. A massive head turner in public. But from a general usability standpoint, it didn't work for me. It's a shame really. I wanted to like this phone and sell my iDevices. I was ready to make the big switch and stay on Android. I loved the color I got (mystic bronze). Loved the build quality and overall feel of the thing. But not having a proper case made me paranoid to use it carefree.
I'll be sticking around because I love the device. Maybe when the issues get ironed out I'll give it another try. Like everyone said before, it's not for everyone.

Rec for games for iPad/iPhone that don't need internet

iphone games that don't need internet to play

iphone games that don't need internet to play - win

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