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.

After two weeks of anticipation, Super Bowl 55 is finally here as the defending champion Kansas City Chiefs will take on the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in Tampa, Florida.
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With arguably the league's most gifted QB in Patrick Mahomes under center, its best TE in Travis Kelce menacing opposing defences, and deadly skill players like Tyreek Hill able to break out for a big play at any time...it's easy to see why. The Bucs are the underdogs, having emerged from the NFC Wild Card picture with big wins over the Saints and Packers to get this far - and few would put another upset past them with GOAT Tom Brady under center. The combination of home field advantage and Brady being Brady somewhat mitigates Tampa's otherwise heavy underdog status, even if the 22,000 fans expected to attended is well below the normal 65,000+ capacity of Ray Jay. Still, while Tampa are a team brimming with the kind of confidence you get when you're led by TB12, most pundits are joining Vegas and the bookmakers in predicting a Chiefs win - though most have it down to be a close game that's likely to come down to the final possession.

Ernest Vukalić
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Welcome back soccer readers, thanks for the nice words and debating in the comments of my first anylsis on here, hope you'll enjoy this one too. This will be a long read.
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Disclaimer: The numbers I use (if used) are in relation to the line-up shown
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Introduction
Ah yes, the 4-2-3-1. But I will not be talking about the traditional 4-2-3-1 that has been set up by Big Sam, ready to play the ball long and over the top and retreat after a possession loss. In this write up, I will be talking about a more possession and pressing oriented version of the 4-2-3-1. Unlike the cliché use of the 4-2-3-1 nowadays, it was created in the early 90’s to press the opponent and was a respond to the 4-4-2.” My intent was to pressure and steal the ball high up the pitch” -Juanma Lillo. Which makes sense, a direct player against the opposition’s fullback, man marking of the DM and pressure on the centrebacks, and most important two players behind to cover and man mark players.
History
In the 1986, a trend during the World cup appeared. The trend was to use the playmaker as a second striker, pushed further up than the rest of the midfield. Naturally, a few years later, the youngest man to have coaching badges in Spain (at that time), Juanma Lillo (Manchester City’s assistant manager today) created what we know as today, the 4-2-3-1. Managers took note of this and started to replicate it. But along somewhere, managers realized the amount of stability of using two holding midfielders in the centre. During these times, there was an abundance of quality playmakers and old school wingers, so still being able to use your best and most creative players and have security at the back was attractive. This why every World Cup we see the 4-2-3-1 as the standard formation for smaller nations.
Like any other formation, the 4-2-3-1 has had its up and downs. But unlike the others, since the 00’s, there is usually always a few top clubs that play the 4-2-3-1. Such as Rafa Benitez’s Valencia and Javier Irureta’s Deportivo la Coruna title winning sides. Soon enough, the 4-2-3-1 became the most popular formation the game. It was easy to see why, it can both be defensive and offensive, zonal-marking and counter-pressing oriented. Also, in England, the small man big man partnership was popular and the 4-2-3-1 fitted perfectly for the job. The 4-2-3-1 had it’s lowest down time during the early 10’s as teams shifted to a 4-3-3 or to counter the 4-3-3.
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Variations of the 4-2-3-1
To easy into this, we can set two clear opposite sides up as the first divider; defensive or offensive. Managers such as Mauricio Pochettino, Roberto De Zerbi, Hansi Flick, Ten Haag and as of late Jürgen Klopp, after Diogo Jota has shown to be undroppable, use an offensive and counter-pressing version of the 4-2-3-1. Whilst the 4-2-3-1 has two centre midfielders, the more progressive version of the 4-2-3-1 do not actually use both as a double pivot, rather they task one to drop deeper in build-up sometimes. Simply put, it’s easier to progress the ball via triangles, unless the team is instructed to build up from wide areas, like De Zerbi gets his Sassuolo side to do, having two centre midfielders higher up generally. On the other hand, the more defensive 4-2-3-1 do use both the midfielders as holding midfielders, to have more stability at the back, usually used by weaker teams.
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Build-up & offense
Building-up from a goalkick in a 4-2-3-1 can be difficult, but stronger and well drilled teams will not have a problem when building-up. Teams often when building-up will move the ball from the centre, then out wide to the fullback and then centrally again to the centre midfielder. The fullback must release the ball quickly as a lot of team use one of the fullbacks receiving a pass as a pressing trigger, as the sideline is another man for the defending team in this case. Likewise, sometimes a direct pass up to the wide man, from the fullback, who has pushed up and wide to pin the opposition’s fullback back and to create space in front of himself, to his teammates or himself, to get around the first line of press and into dangerous areas of the pitch. The two wide men can either go inside or stay outside and stretch the play. They have a lot of freedom.
The whole front four usually have a lot of freedom, the striker dropping into midfield to create either an overload, or if a defender follows him, space in behind for the wide men to run onto a through pass. Having one of the centre midfielders drop into space is also common, to carry the ball from the back up the pitch, as switching methods of build-up is desired as predictability is a problem in the 4-2-3-1 when building-up. The main difference between playing out of pressure versus dribbling out of pressure is that dribbling out of pressure nullifies the oppositions press, turning non-threatening passing in your own third, to a quick and direct attack. Of course, it is not impossible to play out of a press, but one smooth quick turn is exceptionally faster and more successful than 7 or 8 perfect passes in your own third. This change of pace and dictation of the game is something Pep Guardiola praised Andrés Iniesta of being a master of. Think of Mousa Dembele at Spurs, Mateo Kovačić at Chelsea and Frenkie de Jong at both Ajax and Barcelona. Especially de Jong at Ajax, as the semi-finalists of the Champions League played an offensive 4-2-3-1 with a lot of freedom in attack. But when a centremidfielder is not dropping deep, it invites pressure from the opponent to play around, usually that would involve the goalkeeper to use him as the on who switches play from side to side.
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On the ball, the front 4 have a lot of freedom to move into space and drag players around with them, especially with overlapping fullbacks this is great for the wide men who like to cut inside or run in behind. With 4 roaming players, and the threat of overlapping fullbacks, presses the opposition way down their own half. Unlike the Guardiola 4-3-3 from his Barcelona days, the fullbacks are not generally pushed that far up, as that would leave teams way too open at the back, usually one of the fullbacks will push a little higher up than the other, and they will change during the game who goes up and who stays down. Having good ball playing defenders is always a good asset, but without a deep pivot, the centrebacks needs to be able to play the ball with confidence, short and long. Here are some examples of how a good centreback with passing can distribute during the game. The aim with this is to change the pace of the game. In the pictures I showed the possibilities of chance creation if the striker (9) drops deeper. Using the 4-2-3-1 you can also go the Roger Schmidt route and swamp around the number 9 and play the long ball to him and win the second ball or immediately counter-press the opposition to get a turn over. This would ideally work best with an arial threat up top, to take the focus away from the defenders, while just being a decoy for the long ball. Counter attacking is also viable using the 4-2-3-1 setup.
The downside of 4-2-3-1 is obviously the need for good centrebacks and press-resistant midfielders, but luckily in world of football now-a-days these players can be found in mid to lower-table clubs around the world.
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Defence & the press
In defence, the 4-2-3-1 is already very stable, so to make it into a counter-pressing system should not be too hard, yet it will be difficult to balance correctly. As the formation only has two midfielders these midfielders need especially good awareness to know when to join a press or drop back to sweep up overhit passes. Liverpool are exceptional at this, their wingers (Sadio Mané and Diogo Jota) sit inside and block the pass to the centre midfielders with their cover shadow, and when the fullbacks get the ball, that is a trigger for the press to begin. With the wingers already tucked in, the opposition is forced out wide to the fullback were the press can begin. Because the 4-2-3-1 is a wide formation, and when pressing you need players in the central areas as it is easier to start a press from the central areas and then move out wide, rather than vice-versa. The tucking in of the wingers also help mitigate the amount of line-breaking vertical passes from defenders or from deep. Vertical passes/line-breaking passes are hard to defend against, as before such a pass can be made a lot of mistakes has already been made by the defending team. Whilst I call them mistakes, credit must be given to the attacking team as they must pull around the midfield and stretch the play at the same time to make space for the vertical pass/line-breaking pass. But here is where the mistakes from the defending team comes in, as the centre midfielder has taken the bait, either has been pulled far too out wide, or too centrally for even being able to stop the pass. Diego Simione’s Atletico Madrid were phenomenal at creating these passes with the now Arsenal player Thomas Partey often playing the ball to the dropping Griezmann or last season when used centrally Joao Felix
The Liverpool press
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What we see here is what I talked about earlier, the wingers tucked in, and the fullback receiving a pass as a pressing-trigger. But what other pressing-triggers are there? Well, firstly, there are a few different kinds of presses in general. Either the defending team puts pressure on the player on the ball or the ball receiving player. Also pressing can be man-oriented, ball oriented, space oriented and a mix of all three. While it may not look like the whole team is pressing, if the midfield and defence is not positioned well enough a press by 2-3 or even 4 players will be easily passed by, even Biggie Big Sam’s sides will play out of a disjointed press. Team have become better at playing through, around or over the press so pressing the full 90’ mins would be useless, and unnecessarily tiring for the players. Pressing is very mentally exhausting, and not winning the ball back during the press can be demotivation, not wanting to give that 5% extra the next press and afterwards.
So, the defending team must be switched on, ready for one of the pressing-triggers to be displayed. Those pressing triggers could be about how the pass was made, with the weak foot of the player, is it over or under hit? Especially if a defender has been played an over or under hit ball, that is usually a very common pressing trigger. These are ball-oriented pressing triggers, dictated of how the ball has or will behave. Also, if the receiver has mis controlled the ball, or is having to control the ball with their weak foot. On a game-by-game basis, teams will also leave a player unmarked, if the player is bad under pressure, not match fit or just bad in general. These are receiver-oriented pressing triggers, but the last could also be called a pressing trap in the sense that a trap has been formed and successfully performed. Marcelo Bielsa loves to use a man-oriented press where his team would go man for man, then inevitably when the ball is played to the goalkeeper, the players who pressed the player who played the ball to the goalkeeper who then leaves him and presses the goalkeeper, and still blocking the pass back to the original player with his cover shadow, forcing the team to play long. High risk-high reward. Or with Bielsa coaching; low risk-extremely high reward. Bielsa has toned that down though in the Premier League with Leeds.
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Summary
The creating of the 4-2-3-1 came about as a reaction on the 4-4-2 in Spain, to have more men forward and to press the opposition. So, the cliché usage of the 4-2-3-1 as a defensive formation is quite a paradox of the modern game.
There are a lot of ways to build up and create chances in the 4-2-3-1. As this type of 4-2-3-1 is often deployed by well drilled and good teams, so the lack of pivot is not an issue for these teams, but predictability is. That is why sometimes a press-resistant dribbler will drop into the single pivot role and turn and dribble out of the oppositions press. Chance creation can come from either out wide and central, and it can also come from deep. This is because the front for is given a lot of freedom to move around and create overloads in dangerous zones.
Defending on the front foot in the 4-2-3-1 is quite optimal as it offers 4 players to either be active in a press, wait for a pressing trigger to be activated or pressing trap to have been successfully created. The two midfielders must have good awareness and reading of the game as if they are not focused and ready the team may as well not press. Some problems can occur if the two midfielders are stretched or moved around, as there are no number 6 to pick up dropping forwards.

Iris

The first person to ever tell me the theory was Iris. It was nighttime in 2015, and we were lying on an old mattress on the roof of a four-storey apartment building in a university town in southern Ontario. A party was going on downstairs to which we’d both been invited and from whose monotony we’d helped each other escape through an ordinary white door that said “No entrance”. It was summer. I remember the heat waves and the radiating warmth of the asphalt. Our semester was over and we had started existing until the next one started in the way all students exist when they don’t spend their months off at home or touring Europe. I could feel the bass thumping from below. I could see the infinite stars in the cloudless sky. The sound seemed so disconnected from the image. Iris and I weren’t dating, we were just friends, but she leaned toward me on the mattress that night until I could feel her breathing on my neck, and, with my eyes pointed spaceward, she began: “What if…”
Back then it was pure speculation, a wild fantasy inspired by the THC from the joint we were passing back and forth and uninhibited by the beer we’d already drunk. There was nothing scientific or even philosophical about Iris’ telling of it. The theory was a flight of imagination influenced by her name and personalized by the genetic defect of her eyes, which her doctors had said would render her blind by fifty. Even thirty-five seemed far away. It’s heartbreaking now to know that Iris never did live to experience her blindness—her own genetic fate interrupted by the genetic fate of the world—but that night, imagination, the quality Einstein called more important than knowledge, lit up both our brains in synapses of neon as we shared our joint, sucking it into glowing nothingness, Iris paranoid that she’d wake up one morning in eternal darkness despite the doctors’ assurances that her blindness would occur gradually, and me fearing that I would never find love, never share my life with anyone, but soothed at least by Iris’ words and her impossible ideas because Einstein was right, and imagination is magical enough to cure anything.

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2025, Pre-

I graduated with a degree in one field, found a low paying job in another, got married, worked my way to slightly better pay, wanted to have a child, bought a Beagle named Pillow as a temporary substitute, lived in an apartment overlooking a green garbage bin that was always full of beer cans and pizza boxes, and held my wife, crying, when we found out that we couldn’t have children. Somewhere along the way my parents died and Kurt Schwaller, a physicist from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, proved a grand theory of everything that rather than being based on the vibrations of strings, was based on a property of particles called viscous time force. I never understood the details. To me they lacked imagination. The overriding point, the experts on television told us, was that given enough data and computing power we could now predict the outcome of anything. The effect was that no one wanted to study theoretical physics and everyone wanted to make breakthroughs in data collection systems and biological hardware. Hackers created a version of Linux that ran from DNA. Western Digital released the first working holographic storage drive. The NSA, FSB, BND and other agencies rushed to put their suddenly valuable mass of unprocessed raw spy data to prognostic use. A Chinese bookmaker known only by the nick ##!! wrote a piece of Python code that could predict the outcomes of hockey games. Within a month, the NHL and KHL were scrambling to come up with ways of saving their leagues by making them more unpredictable. They introduced elements of chance: power plays without penalties, a tilting ice surface, fluctuating rules that sometimes allowed for icings and offsides and sometimes not, and, finally, a pre-game lottery by which the names of the players on both teams were put into a pot and randomly drawn into two squads. Given enough variables, the strategy did thwart the code, but the inherent unfairness of the innovations alienated the players, the draft made owners question why they were paying the salaries of superstars who played against them half of the time, and the fans simply stopped paying attention to a league full of teams for which their already dwindling loyalty had bottomed out. Besides, the code was basic. ##!! had room to expand. The KHL folded first, followed by the NHL, and then the other sports leagues, preemptively. They didn’t bother to wait until their own codes were broken. I remember seeing an interview with ##!! while this was still front page news. The reporter, a perpetually smiling big-breasted blonde with blindingly white teeth, asked him if he thought that hockey could be rescued by the creation of roving blue lines that would continually alter the relative sizes of both offensive zones and the neutral zone. ##!! answered that he didn’t know what a blue line was because he’d never watched a hockey game in his life. His voice was cold, objective, and there was something terrifyingly inhuman about the idea that a person with no knowledge of a subject could nevertheless understand it so completely. Content had become a mere input of form.
By 2025, mainstream interest in the theory of everything faded, not because the theory was wrong but because it was too right and too abstract and now there weren’t any young theoretical physicists to help explain it using cute graphics on YouTube. We consumed what we understood and passively accepted the fallout while going on with our daily lives. The people who did understand made money, but for the rest of us the consequences were less than their potential, because even with enough time, memory and microprocessors the most we could know was the what and the when, not the why. For the governments and corporations pouring taxes and tax-free earnings into complex models of world domination, that didn’t matter. They weren’t interested in cause. They were in the business of exploiting certainty to gain power. As long as they could predict lightning, they were satisfied. If they could make it, all the better. Away from the cutting edge, however, like ants or ancients, what we craved to know was where the lightning came from, what it meant, and on that issue the theory was silent. As Kurt Schwaller put it in a speech to the United Nations, “All I’ve given you is a tool—a microscope to magnify the minutes, so to speak—with which to investigate in perfect detail the entirety of our interrelations. But the investigations still have to made, ladies and gentlemen. Have a hay stack, look for the needle. Know there might not be one.”
In January, my wife and I began a fertility treatment for which we’d been saving for years. It was undoubtedly the reason we became so emotionally involved in the media attention around Aiko, the lovely, black-haired and fashionable Crown Princess of Japan, who along with her husband was going through the same ordeal that we were. For a few months, it seemed as if the whole world sat on the edges of its seat, wishing for this beautiful royal couple to conceive. And we sat on two, our own and one somewhere in an exotic Japan updated by the royal Twitter feed. It strikes me now that royalty has always fascinated the proles, a feeling that historically went in tandem with hatred, respect or awe, but it was the Japanese who held our attentions the longest and the most genuinely in the twenty-first century, when equality had more or less rendered a hereditary ruling class obsolete. The British declared themselves post-Christian in 2014 and post-Royal in 2021, the European Court of Justice ruled all other European royals invalid in 2022, and the Muslim monarchs pompously degraded themselves one-by-one into their own exiles and executions. Only the Japanese line survived, adapting to the times by refusing to take itself seriously on anything but the most superficial level. They dressed nicely, acted politely and observed a social protocol that we admired without wanting to follow it ourselves. Before he died, my father had often marvelled that the Second World War began with Japan being led by an emperor god, and ended with the American occupation forcing him to renounce his divinity. The Japanese god had died because MacArthur willed it and Hirohito spoke it. Godhood was like plaque. If your mother told you to brush your teeth, off it went, provided you used the right flavour of Colgate. Kings had once ruled by divine right. By 2025, the Crown Princess of Japan ruled our hearts merely by popular approval. She was our special friend, with whom we were all on intimate and imaginary terms. Indeed, on the day she died—on the day they all died—Princess Aiko’s was the most friended account on Facebook.
That’s why March 27, 2025, was such a joyous occasion for us. In hindsight, it’s utterly sick to associate the date with happiness of any kind, but history must always be understood in context, and the context of the announcement was a wirelessly connected world whose collective hopes came suddenly true to the jingle of a breaking news story on the BBC. I was in the kitchen sauteing onions when I heard it. Cutting them had made me cry and my eyes were still red. Then the announcer’s voice broke as he was setting up his intro, and in a video clip that was subsequently rebroadcast, downloaded and parodied close to a billion times in the one hundred thirty-two days that followed, he said: “The Crown Princess of Japan is pregnant!”
I ran to the living room and hugged my wife, who’d fallen to her knees in front of the wall-mounted monitor. Pillow was doing laps on and off the sofa. The BBC cut away from the announcer’s joyful face to a live feed from Japan. As I held my wife, her body felt warm and full of life. The top of her jeans cut into her waist. Her tears wetted the top of my shirt sleeve. Both of our phones started to buzz—emails and Twitter notifications streaming in. On the monitor, Aiko and her husband, both of their angular faces larger than life in 110” 1080p, waved to the crowd in Tokyo and the billions watching around the world. They spoke in Japanese and a woman on the BBC translated, but we hardly needed to know her exact words to understand the emotions. If them, why not also us? I knew my wife was having the same thought. We, too, could have a family. Then I smelled burning oil and the pungency of onions and I remembered my sauteing. I gently removed my arms from around my wife’s shoulders and ran back to the kitchen, still listening to Aiko’s voice and its polite English echo, and my hands must have been shaking, or else my whole body was shaking, because after I had turned down the heat I reached for the handle of the frying pan, knocked the pan off the stove top instead, and burned myself while stupidly trying to catch it before it fell, clattering, to the floor. The burned onions splattered. I’d cracked one of the kitchen tiles. My hand turned pale and I felt a numbness before my skin started to overflow with the warmth of pain. Without turning off the broadcast, my wife shooed me downstairs to the garage where we kept our car and drove me to the hospital.
The Toronto streets were raucous. Horns honked. J-pop blared. In the commotion we nearly hit a pedestrian, a middle-aged white woman pushing a baby carriage, who’d cut across Lake Shore without looking both ways. She had appeared suddenly from behind a parked transport—and my wife instinctively jerked the car from the left lane to the right, scraping our side mirror against the truck but saving two lives. The woman barely noticed. She disappeared into a crowd of Asian kids on the other side of street who were dancing to electronica and waving half a dozen Japanese flags, one of which was the Rising Sun Flag, the military flag of Imperial Japan. Clutching my wrist in the hope it would dull the pain in my hand, I wondered how many of them knew about the suffering Japanese soldiers had inflicted on countless Chinese in the name of that flag. To the right, Lake Ontario shone and sparkled in the late afternoon light. A passenger jet took off from Toronto Island Airport and climbed into the sky.
In the hospital waiting room, I sat next to a woman who was reading a movie magazine with Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s face on the cover. The Cannes film festival was coming up. My wife checked me in at the reception desk. The woman beside me put down her magazine and told me that she was there with her son, as if needing to justify her presence. I affirmed by nodding. He’d hurt his leg playing soccer for a local Armenian junior boys team, she went on. I said I’d hurt myself frying onions and that I was here with my wife. She said my wife was pretty and asked if I liked movies. Without meaning to do it, I tried to guess her age—unsuccessfully—and proceeded to imagine having doggy style sex with her. She had dark eyes that barely blinked and plump thighs. When I started to feel guilty, I answered her question: sometimes I watched movies at home, but I hadn’t been to a theatre in a decade. When my wife sat down, I let the two of them talk about the woman’s son. I was having trouble concentrating. I took my phone out of my pocket and read all the new emails about the royal conception, then stared at the seconds hand going slowly around its digital clock face on my home screen, wondering why we so often emulated the limitations of analogue machines on devices that were no longer bound by them. I switched my clock type to a digital readout. Now the seconds no longer rotated but flickered away. They called my name over the crackling intercom and a nurse led me to one of the empty rooms. “How about that baby,” he said while we walked. I didn’t see his face, only the shaved back of his head. “The things they can do these days, even for infertile couples.”
I waited for over thirty minutes for a doctor. When one came in, she inspected my hand for less than ten seconds before telling me that I was fine and hinting that I shouldn’t have wasted her time by coming to the emergency room. She had high cheek bones, thin lips and bony wrists. Her tablet had a faux clipboard wallpaper. Maybe I had only misinterpreted her tone. “How about that baby,” I said.
“It’s not a baby yet,” she answered.
This time her tone was impossible to misinterpret. I was only repeating what the nurse had said, I told myself. But I didn’t say that to her. Instead, I imagined her coming home at night to an empty apartment, furnished possibly in a minimalistic Japanese or Swedish style, brewing a cup of black coffee and settling into an armchair to re-read a Simone de Beauvoir novel. I was about to imagine having sex with her when I caught hold of myself and wondered what was up with me today.
When I got back to the waiting room, my wife was no longer there—but the Armenian woman was. She pointed down the hall and told me a room number. She said that sometime after I left, my wife had gotten a cramp and started to vomit all over the floor. Someone was still mopping up. The other people in the waiting room, which was filling up, gave me tactfully dirty looks, either because I was with the vomiter or because I’d shirked my responsible by being away during the vomiting. Irrationally, I wiped my own mouth and fled down the hall.
Inside the numbered room, my wife was sitting hunched over on an observation bed, slowly kicking her feet back and forth. “Are you OK?” I asked.
“Come here,” she said.
I did, and sat beside her on the bed. I repeated my question. She still smelled a little of vomit, but she looked up at me like the world’s luckiest puppy, her eyes big and glassy, and said, “Norman, I’m pregnant.”
That’s all she could say—
That’s all either of us could say for a while.
We just sat there on the examination bed like a pair of best friends on a swing set after dark, dangling our feet and taking turns pulling each other closer. “Are you sure?” I finally asked. My voice was hoarse. I sounded like a frog.
“Yes.” She kicked the heel of my shoe with the rubber toe of hers. “We’re going to have a baby.”
It was beautiful. The most wonderful moment of my life. I remembered the day we met and our little marriage ceremony. I thought about being a father, and felt positively terrified, and about being a better husband, and felt absolutely determined, and as I kissed my wife there in the little hospital room with its sterile green walls, I imagined making love to her. I kept imagining it as we drove back to the apartment through partying Toronto streets. “Not since the Maple Leafs won the Stanley Cup!” the radio announcer proclaimed—before I turned him off. I also turned off my phone and my wife’s phone. No more buzzing. In the underground parking lot, I leaned over and licked her soft neck. I pushed her through the open apartment door and straight into the living room, onto the sofa, and wished I could be the cushions beneath her thighs and the air invading her lungs. Pillow barked a greeting and wagged her tail. The monitor on the wall showed talking heads and fertility experts. I unbuttoned my wife’s blouse. She unbuckled my belt. The picture on the monitor dissolved to a close-up of Aiko’s smiling face. My wife and I took turns sliding off each other’s jeans. I kissed her bare stomach. She ran her hands through my hair. I dimmed the lights. We made love.
When we were done it was starry nighttime. My wife bandaged my hand. We turned off the television. The silence was refreshing because people on television too often talk like they’re trying to push you off a ledge. My wife excused me from the duty of making supper because of my ineptness with the frying pan, and handed me a leash instead. I hooked it up to Pillow’s collar and took her outside. While she peed, I gazed up at the sky and identified the Big Dipper. It and the Little Dipper were the only constellations I could identify without using a smartphone app. After Pillow finished, we ducked into a nook and I peed, too. The March sky was amazingly clear of smog. My urine splashed on the concrete and I felt embarrassingly primal. I breathed in, shook out the last drops and zipped up.
In the apartment, we ate grilled portabella mushrooms topped with parmesan and parsley and drank brown rice tea. My wife had changed into fresh clothes. I had changed into fresh skin. Every time she said “mom” and “dad”, the words discharged trickles of electricity up and down my peripheral nervous system. We were happy; we were going to have a baby. The whole world was happy; the Crown Princess of Japan of was going to have a baby. The sounds of drunken urban celebrations drifted in through our bedroom window all night like fog, and we barely slept.

2025, Post-

Gold is precious because it’s rare. Now close your eyes and imagine that the next time you open them, everything in your world will be golden: your kitchen table, the bananas you bought on the way home from work yesterday, your bottle of shampoo, even your teeth. Now blink. You’re not alone. The market’s flooded. Gold isn’t rare anymore. It’s everywhere. Which means that it’s worth about as much as its weight in mud, because there’s nothing intrinsically good about gold. Can you write on your gold table? It scratches. Surely you can’t eat your golden fruit. Your shampoo’s not a liquid anymore, so your hair’s already starting to get greasy. And if you do find something to eat that’s not made of metal, how long will those gold teeth last before you grind them into finely polished nubs?
For two days the Earth glittered.
For two days we lived in a daze of perfection.
And then, on March 29, a researcher working with lab mice at Stanford University noticed something odd. All of his female mice were pregnant. He contacted several of his colleagues who were also working with mice, rats, and monkeys. All their female animals were pregnant, too. Some of the colleagues had wives and girlfriends. They took innocent-seeming trips to their local pharmacies and bought up all the available pregnancy tests. At home, women took test after test and all of them showed positive. By midnight, the researchers had drafted a joint letter and sent copies of it to the major newspapers in their countries. On the morning of March 30, the news hit.
When I checked my Twitter feed after breakfast, #impregtoo was already trending. Throughout the day, Reddit lit up with increasingly bizarre accounts of pregnancies that physically couldn’t be but, apparently, were. Post-menopausal women, celibate women, prepubescent girls, women who’d had their uteruses removed only to discover that their reproductive systems had spontaneously regenerated like the severed tales of lizards. Existing early stage pregnancies aborted themselves and re-fertilized, like a system rebooting. Later term pregnancies developed Matryoshka-like pregnancies nested within pregnancies. After a while, I stopped reading, choosing to spend time with my wife instead. As night fell, we reclined on the sofa, her head on my chest, Pillow curled up in our tangle of feet, the television off, and the streets of Toronto eerily quiet save for the intermittent blaring of far off sirens, as any lingering doubts about the reality of the situation melted away like the brief, late season snow that floated gently down from the sky, blackening the streets.
On March 30, the World Health Organization issued a communique confirming that based on the available data it was reasonable to assume that all female mammals were pregnant. No cause was identified. It urged any woman who was not pregnant to step forward immediately. Otherwise, the communique offered no guidance. It indicated merely that the organization was already working with governments around the world to prepare for a massive influx of human population in approximately nine months’ time. Most places, including Toronto, reacted with stunned panic. Non-essential workplaces and schools were decried closed. People were urged to stay indoors. Hospitals prepared for possible complications. A few supermarkets ran out of canned food and there were several bank runs, but nothing happened that the existing systems couldn’t handle. Populations kept their nerve. Highway and air traffic increased slightly as people rushed to be with their friends, families and gynaecologists. We spent the entire day in our apartment and let Pillow pee in the tub. Except for the conspiracy theorists, who believed that the Earth was being cosmically pollinated by aliens, most of us weren’t scared to go outside, but we were scared of the unknown, and we preferred to process that fear in the comfort of our own dens.
The New York Times ran a front page editorial arguing for an evaluation of the situation using Kurt Schwaller’s theory of everything. In conjunction with The Washington Post, The Guardian and The Wikipedia Foundation, a website was set up asking users for technical help, monetary donations and the sharing of any surplus computing power.
The project quickly ran into problems. To accurately predict anything, the theory of everything needed sufficient data, and, on April 2, cryptome.org published a series of leaked emails between the French Minister of Health and a high-ranking member of World Health Organization that proved the latter’s communique had been disingenuous at best. Externally, the World Health Organization had concluded that all female mammals were pregnant. That remained true. However, it had failed to admit an even more baffling development: the wombs of all female mammals had inexplicably become impenetrable to all rays and materials that had so far been tried against them. For all intents and purposes, there was no way to see inside the womb, or to destroy it. The only way to revert the body to its natural form, to terminate the pregnancy, was to kill the woman—an experiment that, according to the high-ranking member of the World Health Organization, the French government had helped conduct on unwilling women in Mali. Both parties issued repeated denials until a video surfaced showing the murders. I couldn’t bring myself to watch it. They spun their denials into arguments about the necessity of sacrificing lives for the greater good.
Reminded once again of the deception inherent in politics, many turned to religion, but the mainstream religions were hesitant to react. They offered few opinions and no answers. The fringe religions split into two camps. Some leaders welcomed this development, the greatest of all known miracles, while others denounced the same as a universal and unnatural punishment for our collective sins of hedonism, egoism and pride. The most successful of all was the Tribe of Akna, a vaguely mystical Maya revival cult that sprang up seemingly overnight and was led by a Guatemalan freelance programmer named Salvador Abaroa. Although it originated in Mexico City, the Tribe spread as quickly across the world as the computer viruses that Abaroa was notorious for creating. On the Tribe’s homepage, Abaroa could be seen striking an antique brass gong and saying in Spanish-tinged English, “Like energy, life is never destroyed. Every one of us plays an integral part of the cosmic ecosystem. Every man, woman and virus.” Elsewhere on the website, you could buy self-published theological textbooks, listen to scratchy recordings of speeches by Alan Watts and read about the hypothesis that Maya thought was deeply connected to Buddhism because the Mayans had crossed the Pacific Ocean and colonized Asia.
But despite the apparent international cooperation happening at the highest levels, the first week of April was an atomizing period for the so-called people on the ground. We hunkered down. Most personal communication was digital. My wife and I exchanged emails with her parents and sister, but we met no one face-to-face, not even on Skype. We neither invited our neighbours to dinner nor were invited by them, despite how easy it was to walk down the hall and knock. I read far more than I wrote, and even when I did write, responding to a blog post or news story, I found it easier to relate to strangers than to the people I knew. My wife said I had a high tolerance for solitude. “Who do you know in the city?” she asked. Although we’d been living here together for three years, she still considered Toronto mine. She was the stranger, I was the native. I said that I knew a few people from work. She told me to call one of them I’d never called before. I did, and the next day’s sky was cloudless and sunny and there were five of us in the apartment: my wife and I, my friend Bakshi and his wife Jacinda, and their daughter, Greta. Greta drank apple juice while the rest of us drank wine, and all five of us gorged ourselves on freshly baked peach cobbler, laughing at silly faces and cracking immature jokes. It hardly registered for me that the majority of the room was unstoppably pregnant, but wasn’t that the point: to forget—if only for a few hours? Instead of watching the BBC, we streamed BDRips of Hayao Miyazaki movies from The Pirate Bay. Porco Rosso ruled the skies, castles flew, a Catbus arrived at its magical stop. Then Bakshi’s phone rang, and he excused himself from the table to take the call. When he returned, his face was grey. “What’s the matter?” Jacinda asked him. He was still holding the phone to his ear. “It’s Kurt Schwaller,” he said. “They just found his body. They think he killed himself.”

Have you ever heard the saying “It’s in my blood”? Well, it is. I come from a long line of serial killers, technically my grandfather (Pedro) was a mass murderer. His reign of terror claimed 298 victims somewhere in the Andes, it was near the end of his run he impregnated the prostitute who would give birth to my father after fleeing to America. My father (Felix) was a truck driver but in his spare time he would kidnap and murder women and young girls. During his active years he was given a lot of names, The I-70 killer, the freeway Phantom and the Parkway stalker to name a few. He and my mother were killed by a drunk driver in 1990 and I was turned over to child protective services. Despite the circumstances I had a fairly happy childhood, I was adopted quickly by Oliver and Gail Campbell. They were good people, Oliver was Professor at the local college and Gail was an artist. They gave me a great life, they never harmed me in any way and did their best to keep me safe but no matter how hard they tried they couldn’t protect me from myself.
I suppose by now you’re wondering who I am, well boys and girls that’s my little secret. For now you may call me Dante, there’s a lot to unpack here so I guess I’ll start at the beginning. My first kill well human kill anyway was a kid named Billy McCarthy, he was what you would consider one of the popular kids if there is such a thing in the fifth grade. I guess here is where you would get the stereotypical popular bully routine but no, that’s not how this story goes. I wasn’t picked on or pushed around, hell, for the most part people barely noticed I was around and before you go jumping to conclusions that has nothing to do with it either.
The why probably isn’t as interesting as the how but I’ll tell you anyway, I picked him because I didn’t like his shoes. I know, I know, that’s petty as hell, but for 10 year old me that was enough. I watched him for days, I didn’t have a clue back then I had no idea what I was doing or how I was going to do it I just knew I wanted it done. It was a Friday afternoon, Billy and his friends walked through Stone Park every day but on Fridays he had soccer practice and would be late so he would be by himself. I told my mother I was going to the park about an hour before I knew he would be there. On the way I stopped by old man Hudson’s place and broke into the toolshed behind his house, there wasn’t much to pick from and being so young I chose the only thing I could fit into my pocket a flathead screwdriver. When I got to the park I spent a little too long looking for the perfect spot and by the time I found one it was too late. I spotted Billy already on the far end of the park, I’d missed my chance. I know that’s a little anticlimactic but it turned out to be for the best, that night I was up late watching an old movie I can’t recall the name of it but in it there was a man who poisoned his wife by crushing up pills and mixing it into her food. This gave me an idea, now being 10 I didn’t have access to pills and wouldn’t have known what to use even if I did. What I did have was my father’s workshop in the garage, there were lots of chemicals I couldn’t begin to tell you what half of them were but there were quite a few that had warnings on them. I poured a little from each one into a water bottle and saved it till I went back to school.
That Monday while we were in gym I asked to use the restroom, while I was gone I went to Billy’s locker and pulled his thermos out of his backpack. I poured out about a cup or so of the sweet smelling juice out then replaced it with the cocktail I’d mixed up, when I was done I sniffed it just to see if I could detect it and much to my surprise there was only a slight difference. Later that day when we went to lunch I sat at my usual table and pretended not to know what was about to happen, after about 15 minutes people started screaming. There was a sudden panic and the cafeteria exploded into chaos, Billy was violently seizing on the floor spewing bloody foam from his mouth as teaches rushed to his aid. He died later that night in the hospital, it was all over the news when they found he’d been poisoned everyone was looking for someone to blame. There were all sorts of rumors on who it could have been and kids being kids made up stories that grew into urban legends. The case went unsolved, but I was hooked I spent the rest of that school year riding the high till the buzz started to fade away and by the start of the next year no one was talking about it anymore.
I tried to go without it, I really did, but every day I walked the halls and didn’t feel the fear in the air, I felt sick. I wanted it back, I needed to feel that power again but if there was one thing I’d learned, it was to not rush the process. If one death fed me for a year two would get me to the 8th grade, looking back I have to laugh at my reasoning it was all so silly now that I reflect on those moments. Nevertheless I spent my first semester picking out targets luckily for me there was no shortage of people I didn’t like but one in particular “Coach Philips” gave me the best reason of all.
Mr. Philips was the head coach of the football team, he was a large muscular man with a head full of grey hair. Everyone loved Coach Philips, when parents and staff were around he put on an act that made them believe he was a genuine good guy. But when it was just him and the team, he was a brutal dictator with a foul mouth and a quick temper. I’d heard the stories but because I wasn’t on the team I’d never seen it for myself, one afternoon I had to stay after school for detention I wasn’t a trouble maker or anything like that I just got caught talking to my friend Caleb and the teacher punished me for it. When detention was finally over I was walking through the building near the gym and stopped to tie my shoe, while I was kneeling down I started hearing someone arguing and got a little nosey. I crept into the locker room following the voices till I got to this area everyone called “The Cage” it was where the football teams lockers were and no one besides them was allowed inside.
Once I passed the cage I came to the hall that leads to the Coaches office, that’s where the yelling was coming from. As quietly as I could I crept down the hall and got as close as possible without being seen, from where I was I could see a part of his office through the window but I couldn’t see everything. The coach barked out “Are you fucking stupid Denton?! I told you to get your shit together or there would be consequences!” I caught a glimpse of one of the older kids standing near the door as coach stormed over and grabbed him by the arm pulling him in the office before closing the door. Now all I could see was the Coaches back and hear him yelling but only for a moment before the sound of him slapping whoever that Denton kid was. There was a crash from the kid slamming into the desk then a struggle that only lasted for a few seconds, the hall went quiet I waited for a moment before I started to get out of there then I heard muffled screams and whimpering. I had to know what was happening, I slowly crept around the corner and made my way over to the window, when I peeped inside I nearly threw up. Coach had that boy bent over his desk violating him in the worst way imaginable, I never saw the kids face I turned tail and got out of there as fast as possible. I ran all the way home, I thought about telling my parents or maybe the police but something stopped me, I knew in that moment it had to be me, it was up to me to stop this. I don’t want you to get the wrong idea I didn’t want to stop him out of some need to be the hero. I wanted to stop him because he was on my turf and even then I didn’t like sharing. It would take me a while to come up with a plan for the coach but in the meantime I had my sights set on one Eliza Stuart, she was a grade above me I couldn’t really tell you why I sniffed her out. She wasn’t popular or even a standout student for all intents and purposes she was just another face in the crowd but for some reason that made her perfect.
Finding her pattern wasn’t easy, I only really saw her once or twice a day during school so there was no way I could get to her bag. I needed another approach, I watched her for days, eventually I found out she rode the bus and what side of town she lived on but none of that was any help. I was getting close to giving up on her, then on a Tuesday afternoon there was a fire. Faulty wiring lit the insulation inside the walls and before anyone knew what was going on a large section of the building was on fire. The alarms blared while the halls filled with smoke and all that organized fire drill shit flew straight out the window. Students and teachers alike flooded into the halls headed for the exits and in that chaos I spotted her, she was standing near the janitor’s closet talking with another girl. By the time I got close the other girl was walking away, keeping my back to Eliza I moved with the crowd till I was standing directly in front of her then pretended to get thrown off balance stumbling into her causing her to fall landing just inside the doorway. Without looking back I slammed the door shut and locked it still facing the surging crowd, no one noticed. I joined the crowd and filed out to the courtyard where we were all gathered watching the school burn, I stared at that door till they moved us away and she never came out. Her body was discovered later that day and once again that feeling of power surged through me but as good as it felt it wasn’t enough, I needed more.
No one panicked, there was no fear just sadness it felt like a hollow victory. They wrote it off as a tragic accident so there was no muttering or wondering, no fantastic stories or boogie-men bumping off the townsfolk it was utterly disappointing. The rest of that year was a wash, but the next year when things got back to normal I’d already made up my mind, “Coach” was first on the list. I’d hit a little growth spurt and put on weight so I tried out for the team and made it. I hated every second of it, there were some benefits like discipline, strength, stamina and speed but seeing his face knowing what he was made me sick.
We had lost two of our last three games and Coach was not happy, I knew sooner or later he would start taking it out on the players and I was right. The Monday after our last loss he started having one on one player meetings in his office, I can’t say he did what he did to all the players. I don’t know that as a fact, but I do know there were a couple I’d seen him being tough on and I’m almost certain they were victims. I made sure I skipped my meeting and dodged him all day till after school, over the summer I’d found a knife in an old trunk of my fathers. It wasn’t that big but it was heavy and sharp I made sure of that, there’s an unmarked pet grave filled with fur to prove it. In any case once I was sure no one was around I went to Coach Philips office and knocked on the door, his office smelled like a combination of foot fungus spray and Old spice cologne. He grimaced at me when he opened the door, “Well it’s about god damn time you showed up, do you think I have all day to wait on your sorry ass? Get in here and close my door.” My heart was pounding so hard I could barely hear him scolding me for wasting his time, he slammed his ham sized fist on the desk and jolted towards me asking if I was listening. (I wasn’t) The second he grabbed my shirt I pulled my blade and plunged it into his neck spraying my face with blood. Coach’s eyes went wide, he gasped and gurgled releasing his grip thrashing back away from me swinging wildly. Grasping at the gushing hole in his throat he staggered back and stumbled over a chair then crashed to the ground wheezing, I hadn’t realized the knife was still in my hand till he started reaching for me. I swung that blade as hard as I could at his outreaching hand slicing off one of his fingers but he kept coming. Slipping in his own blood he crawled towards me, I maneuvered around in his office to stay out of reach but he was a big man, I couldn’t dodge forever. Getting up off the floor and grabbing me by the throat he snatched me off my feet he hoisted me into the air, I struggled against his grip thinking I was going to die till I jabbed that knife into his eye and felt the blade scrape bone. He let out a groan and dropped me then staggered back over to his desk mumbling something I couldn’t make out before taking a seat in his chair. Tilting his head back and resting his hands on his knees he let out one last gurgling breath and went still. Time stopped, it felt like electricity was running through my veins, instinct took over and the next thing I know I’m pulling the knife free from Coach’s eye socket. Everything seemed out of step like the frames of reality were lagging by a second causing the world around me to have a distorted glare. I moved through the hall quickly to the locker room and got in the shower clothes and all, I stood there watching the hot water washing away the blood when I was done I changed into my gym clothes and stole a pair of shoes out of the cage. Once I was all cleaned up I put my clothes in a trash bag then took towels and cleaned the hallway and went home.
I ate dinner, played video games and watched television till it was time for bed and I slept like a baby. The next morning when I got to school police were everywhere, the crowd was buzzing. The word was out, everyone was talking about it I could feel the energy vibrating through everyone around me it was intoxicating. I was too young to understand what I was feeling, my mind couldn’t process the overpowering emotions that were pulsing through me so I did the only thing I could think of to calm myself down, I hummed Old McDonald under my breath and for some reason it worked. I made it through the day listening to all the different versions of what everyone thought happened and managed not to burst out laughing. As the weeks went by and no one was being arrested for the murder the legend grew. Rumors started to go around about some shady drifter that wandered into town and was hiding, waiting to pick us off one by one, it was hilarious. I even heard it was the mob and Coach Philips was in witness protection or some nonsense but the best one and my personal favorite was one of the school staff was a killer. It created this weird vibe that had all of the student’s edge, I loved every second of it.
By Christmas break the rumors had become full on ghost stories but the buzz was calming down it was time for more. Since I wouldn’t be back in school for a week I started looking around the neighborhood for anyone that caught my eye but for the first few days there was nothing. For time’s sake I’ll gloss over the next couple of years, mainly because I didn’t kill anyone else till high-school, well there was a homeless guy but I don’t count that one because it was an accident.
By the time I was in high-school I’d become what you would call “The quiet kid” but it was by design. I’d come up with a plan, I wanted to see if I could control someone else and get them to do my dirty work without them knowing it. First I had to pick my subjects, they weren’t hard to find. The first was a boy named Dennis, he was lanky and tall with pale skin and bright red hair. In a way you could say he made himself stick out but no one deserves to be pushed around for being different. Dennis had a best friend that he hung out with named Chris, they dressed alike and listened to the same music so naturally the two became targets together. Freshman year for them was hell, they were chased home, beaten up and constantly the subject of random rumors. I watched them long enough to learn some of their likes and dislikes, and one thing they both had in common was some band called “L7”. It took me a month to get a concert shirt but the day I wore it to school I met Chris, he was blown away by the shirt. “Holy shit, how’d you get that?” his eyes were so wide I thought they might pop out of his head. “You have to let me buy that off you. I’ll give you 50 bucks for it right now.” I made up some story about getting it from one of the band members and it wasn’t for sale but from that day on we started to become friends. It wasn’t long before he introduced me to Dennis and from there we hung out every day.
One afternoon we were supposed to meet up at this little hideout they had been using for years. It wasn’t much to look at, it was a clearing deep in the woods where they would get high and shoot their fathers guns when they could sneak them out of the house. I got there early that day so I had to wait for them, when they made it they were both clearly hurt. Dennis had a swollen eye and a busted lip, Chris had a bloody nose and his shirt was torn. They ranted and raved about being tired of it all and how they were going to take off, they wanted to drop out and run away. I convinced them that was the wrong move, “Running doesn’t change who you are. It just changes where you’re at. Stand up for yourselves, force them to change how they treat you.”
Wiping blood from his chin Dennis snapped, “Don’t you think we’ve tried?! That just makes it worse! Look at my fucking face! Do you think I stood there and let this happen?! Do you think Chris wanted to get the shit kicked out of him by some asshole who decided today was a good day to pick on somebody? Come on man, we shouldn’t have to live like this!”
I had to choose my next words very carefully, I didn’t want to push the envelope too fast. “I get it. I know you fight back. What I’m saying is, maybe you’re fighting back the wrong way. What we need is a way to level things out, you know, make it a fair fight.” Once the wheels were turning there was no stopping the machine, they quickly grabbed hold to the idea and ran with it, at first it was sticks and bats then knives finally landing on guns. By the end of that day they were just talking about it, imagining scenarios and cracking jokes. By the end of the month after several more incidents, we were making actual plans. We set up P.O. boxes and ordered weapons using false information we got from different places, before long we were practicing after school every day for weeks. We never wrote anything down and never told a soul what we were planning, the idea was simple we would wipe them all out and show the world what happens when you push someone too far.
In order for my plan to work I couldn’t be involved, this part was actually a lot easier than you may think my father had already planned on having me miss school for a trip to Texas so all I had to do was time it out and it worked out to perfection. The day before we were supposed to do it I had to break it to them that my dad sprung a trip on me and I would have to miss it, we argued a little but in the end they vowed to go through with the plan. What happened next would become one of the worst mass shootings in history, I got a bad feeling from it. I didn’t like the attention, it was too much and it ended badly for both of them. I never attempted that one again, the idea was better than the reality, in the end it was a lesson learned.
I didn’t do anything for years after that, the whole experience was upsetting for me. I went on with my life and made it through college without a single incident. For the most part I’d written it off as just a really fucked up phase of my life, then I started working for a company that will remain nameless because mistakes like that get you caught. I was invited to a New Year’s Eve party one day after work and since I didn’t really have any plans I went. The party was amazing, great food, great music and nice people for the most part. I had just finished my first beer when I ran into an old friend of mine, Caleb. We laughed and talked about the old days for a moment then went our separate ways. It was good to see him again, but as the night progressed I started catching him in different spots watching me. I brushed it off the first few times but as we got closer and closer to midnight I would find him closer to me.
Feeling uncomfortable I wound up leaving early, walking through the parking lot Caleb caught up to me. “I’ve been looking for you for a long time now, you want to hear something funny? I thought you would have at least thanked me for cleaning up your messes, but no, instead you ignored me and left me behind. Why!?” Before I could process what he was saying he launched forward clubbing me across the head with something heavy and everything went black.
When I woke up I was in the backseat of my car parked under an overpass near the river. There’s a yellow sticky note attached the steering wheel that said, “Call me” with a phone number written in blue ink. I ignored it, got myself together and went home, everything went back to normal for a couple of days till I started noticing a bad odor in my car. After a quick search I found a badly butchered young woman’s body, wrapped in plastic rotting in my trunk. I hadn’t had to deal with anything like this before, I’d never given any thought to getting rid of bodies. I wound up driving as far away as I could and dumping her in the bog, the body was never recovered as far as I know.
The next morning before I could leave for work, I got a phone call. “It’s your turn, let’s see how you like it.” Before I could yell my response into the receiver the line went dead. Hanging it up out of anger I grabbed my keys and stormed out the front door, I don’t even remember if I locked it. I was in my car and headed for work in a daze, I couldn’t get his words out of my head. When I got there I spent most of the day just going through the motions but right around lunch I caught sight of Caleb watching me from across the office. (How the hell did he know where I worked?) I got up from my desk and quickly headed in his direction, I never took my eyes off him but somehow between me getting up from my desk and walking to where he was standing, he’d vanished.
I don’t scare easy but something about this was getting under my skin. I couldn’t remember where or when I’d met Caleb, as far back as I could think he’d always been around. I had to put him out of my mind and get back to work but for the rest of the day odd things kept happening. I was sitting at my desk when Tracey one of the office managers stopped to talk to me. “I’ll have you know, I’ve won several awards for my innovations with this company and I don’t appreciate you saying I contribute nothing to this project.” I was shocked by her tone, she seemed genuinely upset but I had no idea what she was talking about. “For you to call my work into question in front of the regional lead was inexcusable, I should fire you.” I was completely caught off guard, I didn’t know how to respond to something I had no memory of doing. Before I could come up with a response she was called away, random people passed by my desk for the rest of the day smiling and giving me the thumbs up. Everyone hated Tracey, she was a self-absorbed blow hard that took credit for other peoples work and never once defended the people under her. As happy as it made me to see her squirm I was still left with this horrible sinking feeling and a gap in my memory. The more I thought about it I couldn’t remember leaving for lunch, I could clearly recall seeing 11:45 on the clock and thinking I only had 15 minutes left. The very next thing I remembered was seeing Caleb and getting up from my desk, by the time my work day was over I’d had at least four conversations with four different people I had no memory of meeting. The truly disturbing part was they all seemed to know me really well, I couldn’t wrap my mind around it.
When I made it home that evening there was a note taped to my front door, it read. “There is no darkness without light, no wrong without right.” It was nonsense, just more scare tactics Caleb was using to get under my skin. Tossing the note in the garbage I went inside and got some rest, if he wanted the old me he would get it. I started making plans for the next time I saw him, the idea was simple the next time we were face to face I was planning on ending his pathetic life. I began carrying a few of my favorite new toys like an overpowered taser and zip-ties, it wasn’t long before I would get my chance.
The following week I used my vacation time to take off from work for a while and set my plan in motion. I jog every morning along the same route, there’s a long stretch of paths that cut through the woods if he was going to ambush me that would be the perfect spot. At 5:30 a.m. I was just hitting the trail, I could feel him out there somewhere watching, waiting on his moment. I’d been on the trail for ten minutes when he sprung his trap, I spotted the trip-line a mile away but I played along just for fun. When I snagged the line I slammed into the ground and pretended to be hurt, Caleb predictably rushed in as I rolled to my back, pulled the taser and fired hitting him square in the chest.
The second he dropped I got up and hog-tied him before dragging him off the path, when I was sure we were out of sight I checked him for weapons and found he was carrying a combat knife. He smiled at me holding it in my hand. “Feels good, doesn’t it?” before he could say another word I clamped my left hand over his mouth and using my right drove the blade through his throat. Turning my wrist to open the hole, I stared into his eyes and as he wheezed out a long breath I inhaled deeply sucking in his last gasp of life. Once I was sure it was over I pulled my hand away from his face, he was still smiling. I had to move fast, other people jog that path and someone could be coming at any moment. I took off my sweat shirt, rolled the knife up in it and stuffed it in the sport bag I carry my water in. Using the water I washed my hands and face before getting back on the path just in time to see a pair of women turning onto the trail, I still had to get rid of the trip-line. I pretended to be stretching then took a step towards the tree and acted like I was tying my shoe, in one motion I slipped my fingers through the loop and snatched back snapping the line and slightly cutting into my fingers at the same time. I stood and stretched one last time before jogging passed them headed back to my apartment, that old feeling washed over me as I moved along the sidewalk and I realized in that moment how much I’d missed it. The electricity in my veins, the fire in my lungs the outright blissful euphoria of it all surged through me and I smiled. I laughed and picked up my pace feeling more energized than I had in years, I was back.
That night I went out bar hopping, I’m not a heavy drinker but that wasn’t the point, I was fishing. I wasn’t getting anything for the first couple of hours, I moved from place to place waiting for someone to catch my eye but for the most part it was a dud. I called for a cab and stepped outside to wait, “Excuse me, can I get a light?” a sweet sounding voice called to me as a beautiful young woman with long dark hair stepped up beside me. “I’m sorry, I don’t smoke.” She looked at me and smiled slipping her cigarette back in the pack, “That’s ok, you wouldn’t happen to have the time would you? I’ve been waiting on this cab forever.” I gave her the time and we stood there making small talk for a while till the cab finally arrived, we agreed to split the fare and hopped in. Something about her made me happy maybe it was her energy or possibly that wicked little smirk but I wanted to know her. We exchanged numbers before I got to my stop and went our separate ways.
The next night I went out again, I roamed around driving from spot to spot hoping to catch that urge but this time it didn’t take long. I was passing through uptown when I spotted him, your run of the mill neighborhood tough guy standing on the corner talking to a lady that was clearly uninterested in the conversation. I parked on the other end of the building then got out and crept through the alley coming out behind him. I decided to use a gun this time, I watched from the shadows waiting on the chance, there’s nothing like that feeling when you’re waiting for someone to step into your trap. I love it almost as much as the fallout, he walked past the alley not knowing I was there, I stepped out behind him silently raised the gun aimed at the back of his head and fired. It was over in an instant and I was racing through the alley back to my car. When I got there I calmly got in and drove away as people started to gather around the body, no one saw me, it happened so fast no one had a clue, thanks to the revolver there were no shells to find, it was quick and clean.
I had another two days left on my vacation and I was going to make the most of it. I wanted something special this time, I traveled to an upscale shopping center and wondered around buying little things while fishing for another fix. A grey haired older woman sat on a bench near the shoe store talking to someone on the phone. (Perfect.) I walked over and sat on the bench next to her, in my left pocket I was holding a syringe filled with paint thinner, I intentionally bumped her with my leg and injected her with the full dose then excused myself and walked away. I didn’t wait to see the outcome but I found out later through the news the woman died. With two down I was feeling like a kid again, and on my last day of vacation I decided that was exactly what I wanted.
Before I go further I just want it to be known, I’m not a sexual predator, I haven’t ever and will never rape anyone. As a point of pride I go out of my way to eliminate those types when I come across them, but I’ll save that for later. In any case I drove to the other side of the city for my last day and spent it looking for a victim. It took hours to finally find a good fishing hole but when I did it took less than 15 minutes to find what I was looking for. He was just a little younger than I was around the time of my first kill, he’d wandered away from the playground and was off playing by himself. The park sits on the edge of a natural bayou the water is deep and dark, it’s separated from the playground by a dense section of trees which is where I had been watching from the entire time. I didn’t hesitate, the moment he was out of view from the playground I rushed him and snapped his neck before he could scream then weighed down the body with rocks and dumped him in the water.
My vacation was over, on Monday morning I stepped through those doors still riding the buzz off the last week of my life and it felt amazing. I breezed through the day and even managed to log some programing time before I clocked out and headed home. I was feeling so good I finally decided to make a call I should have made days ago.
Her name is Tabitha, since the day I met her I couldn’t stop thinking about her, even when I was getting my fix her name rattled around in my brain every day. I actually felt nervous waiting for her to pick up, I couldn’t believe it, I was in the middle of rehearsing what I would say when the line clicked over. “Hello.” that one little word set my nerves at ease, smiling to myself I cleared my throat and the words just seemed to spill out. We talked for hours, about everything and nothing, laughing and connecting on the things we had in common, it was the most joy I’d ever felt from a stranger in my life.
We took it slow, only talking on the phone for weeks before finally seeing each other in person. The energy didn’t change, it was still so comfortable and natural with her that it felt like we’d always known one another. One date led to another and another but the odd thing was I didn’t feel that urge anymore. Weeks passed hell months passed, and we had become a legit couple, and in that entire time I didn’t kill a single person.
Then on a Wednesday evening it came back, I don’t know what triggered it, I was havening a good day. But as I pulled up to a stop light on the way home I turned and looked at the car next to me. The guy behind the wheel looked young, he was nodding his head to some song on the radio. I took the gun from under my seat then motioned for him to roll down the window keeping it out of sight. When he let it down I brought the gun up and fired as the light turned green, then I drove off. When I got home I disassembled the gun and put my bike in the car, that night I drove out to the bog burying pieces of the gun along the way. When I got there I cleaned out the car before torching it then rolled it into the swamp. It was a long ride home I didn’t make it back till the next morning, when I got there I reported my car stolen and went on with my day.

translated from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_KnXHycF2s&t=689s

Damwon 3:1 Victory!

As of now because of Damwon's victory in World LCK are now the number 1 region this year. Of course next year we still have to see MSI and Worlds but for now LCK have reclaimed their number 1 region spot.
 
This was a very emotional moment for me. This took longer than I thought. When LCK first fell I thought they would do better next year but they kept faltering on the international stage. I even thought this day would never come. When I watched LPL to be really honest they were really good. Even at the finals they gave us a hard time. Damwon really won our confidence back.
 

General Ideas

To start I think Suning did better than I expected. Both side have something they regret/fell short and there are many points going for them both but in the end I thought Suning did better than I expected. I predicted a 3:1 but I predicted a much easier 3:1. The won games were all loseable and to be honest I am not sure what would happen if they went to game 5.
 
Looking at Suning it reminds me of the old(young?) Damwon. Overall Damwon are a better team but Suning was really able to play out their style. Just like the name 'Style of Me" Suning was able to play according to their strength and displayed a monstrous performance. To be honest it was really fun seeing them play. Of course it was fun because we won it probably won't be that funny if we lost(IG flashback).
 
This is going to be a short overview of the series. Let's not go too deep on the games itself since we have something else to talk about.

Game 1

SofM Shen Jungle

Last time I talked about Shen and how not everyone can play the champion. There are just some player unable to play the champioin. I don't think SofM was good with Shen but instead, he is just really good with jungling. When you see the game you don't really get the feeling that SofM or even Suning is good with Shen. I don't think Shen is a champion that mesh well with Suning. But SofM is really good with Jungling so in terms of farming and macro he is really good but I don't he played to Shen's strength.
 

Pick/Ban

Damwon picked a pretty traditional comp: Orianna, Ornn, and Graves reminiscent of the group stage and then Ashe/Pantheon. The analyst desk talked about this already but this comp is great even in blind pick(OGN B05 prepared us for this). This comp doesn't really have much weakness and it's a great game 1 comp.
 
Suning on the other hand chooses a very stylish(flavourful) comp which they will continue to do so the entire series. The comp is all about combos with Azir, Wukong, Leona going in while Ezreal deal damage in the back. Azir is good on paper(original: 'concept pick') but it was really hard to use him effectively in-game.
 
Suning's comp was really scary but to put it simply BeryL played out of his mind this game. He was good overall but specifically his positioning before teamfight/objective was really amazing. Because they have Ornn against Shen/Wukong they really can't break sidelines so they have to group around mid. What Suning want to do is catch them offguard with Leona/Azir but BeryL was able to stop them and even catch them before they catch Damwon.
 
You hear this and might think Damwon is unstoppable this game but in reality, it was a really close one. Biin played out of his mind this game. Specifically when Biin who was able to outplay Nuguri and Canyon who came to pick him off. But Biin was able to dodge their skill and survive till Angel and SofM came and clean them up. Wukong wasn't even that ahead. Overall however Damwon did have the advantage but Damwon made some mistakes and we realized that this isn't going to come easy.
 

Sunny Side Up

What is interesting about Suning is that they play around top which is rare and no other team do this. But because Biin is so good they were able to put out a great performance. SofM too was good on enabling Biin while making sure bot doesn't collapse.
 
So Nuguri was really important here. If there was ten ganks then he evaded nine of them. Since top side was Suning's win condition Nuguri did a really good job absorbing the pressure. Sometimes he doesn't even get help and was just expected to survive on his own.

Suning Roster on Paper vs Reality

I don't think Azir is a good pick overall and he is only okay in niche comp like this. But Angel isn't their star player and aside from that Syndra game he didn't really surprise anyone.
 
What is kind of funny is that if you look at Suning on paper they aren't really a scary team. Because one: they play around top side and who the heck play around topside today? Their mid and bot isn't that strong and they are not even that great at Macro. Don't they sound like a weak team? The problem is that you lose even if you know all that. Suning has a particular style and they perfected that style to a tee. (It's like that quote that the best swordman isn't afraid of man with hundred move but man who perfected one single move).

Shen pt. 2

So a lot of people was asking why Shen didn't fall behind like many other Shens. Shen is a level 6 champion and like many other level 6 champions he couldn't keep up the tempo in early game. Suning however played around it and let him grew in the jungle. It was a team effort to keep Shen in the game. Canyon however didn't just slack off. He was able to get many objectives and was really busy. On the other hand Shen was focusing on leveling. This is why Shen didn't fall behind.
 

Game 2

This is a world record game where we have the first pentakill in Worlds Final. This was a really good game from Suning who played almost perfectly. They gave Lucian and picked Syndra who is good against Lucian in exchange. Because Damwon picked Lucian Damwon picked an AP Jungler(Eve) which then they picked Rengar to counter. From a pick/ban point of view it was a work of beauty.
 
Looking at this comp you might have thought Damwon inted in pick/ban. They gave Angel Syndra who is almost a Syndra one trick, they gave Rengar who counters Eve, and they gave Suning Jhin/Leona two of the most contested pick in bot. But in reality, Damwon had the advantage. It was a winnable game for Damwon and there were many reasons why they lost but I think the biggest reason is their failure to adapt.
 
It seems Damwon struggled against Suning surprised picks. You have to play a little differently against Rengar and Showmaker especially seems to panic a bit. And Biin Fiora played flawlessly this game. Canyon and Showmaker to be hoenst made a lot of mistakes this game. There were times where Canyon died with summs and Showmaker didn't do well with Lucian. I wonder what would happen if they played with a bit more caution.
 
To be honest this game might have been a frustrating game for Nuguri. Because to be honest as long as Nuguri was able to hold Biin Damwon should've won. Ornn is really hard to break and they wasn't able to break Ornn but other lane collapsed. Nuguri said in interview that he was angry for playing weakside this game and other games. And to be honest this is a game he deserves to be angry because he was able to hold on his own against Fiora. He did his job but as a tank he can't really do anything when his team collapse. He is really good on Ornn but you can't win against Fiora as Ornn.
 

Lucian

This and Damwon giving G2 Lucian makes me think they are not ready with the pick. It is hard to get practice time with Lucian since he is so contested and if you picked Lucian you need an AP jungler which is also contested and hard to match with other champions. Lucian is a good pick I think everyone agrees with that. But sometime there is picks like that where because it is so contested not everyone are able play them(Like Kalista at her prime).
 

Why Eve Why Not Lillia?

Eve is really good at pressuring enemy team and are great in shutting down Fiora. I don't think the picks are the problem but the in game plays. But you can say that the comp they picked might not been bad but what they gave to enemy team is wrong. Syndra who is Angel best champion, Jhin and Leona the teir 1 bot lane champions. If you look at the game from this perspective then yeah the pick/ban isn't good from Damwon.
 

Millionaire Binn and Vietnam Rengar

But for people who watched the game Biin was insane this game and SofM showed us the peak of Rengar. The analyst desk talked about this but there is some freedom to Rengar. You can go lethality Rengar or Tank Rengar. Usually, for solo alne Lethality Rengar is perferred but SofM was insane with the ping pongs and stack management. Out of the three mustakteer champions: Camille, Fiora, Jax Fiora has the weakest team fighting but with that items, nothing really matter. No matter who you are if Fiora has that many items she has no equal.
 
Even I with that many items could've won.
 
"??????????????????" -Chat
 
Cloudtemplar is currently Plat 3 with a 42%(33 games) winrate on Fiora.

Game 3

If I have to describe this one game with one word it would be: Nuguri. If I have to do it in two then it would Nuguri and BeryL. I am oversimplifing a bit and of course other players did their part too and BeryL was really good but Nuguri was a whole another level. He was able to evade ganks, win lane, and win team fights. Usually it is almost impossible to evade ganks and win lane he really did everything he can do. BeryL also did really good job with Braum.
 
However this was also a close game. Biin picked Jax(one of the three sword champion), Angel on his Akali, and SofM on Nidalee. It was a close game and it could've been a frustrating game for Nuguri because he really everything he can. Especially that time when four of his team mates made bad judgment and died. It almost became the like second game where Nuguri lost because of his team mates when he was doing really well.

All Right, Then. Keep Your Secret

So... people have been asking about the Omnistone runes Biin and SofM used. The thing about Omnistone is that it could be unexpected to the enemy and surprise them of course sometime it also surprise you. It is a gamble and it is really fun to play around that randomness but at the end it is really just for fun. I am really unsure about this. If Wunder told us why then we could have known but Wunder said he is keeping as a secret for next year so... Use it with caution to your LP.
 

Damwon's Biggest Strength

One of the biggest strength Damwon have and also the most important thing in this meta is lane prioirity/dominace. Damwon's bot doesn't falter against HuanFeng/SwordArt and Nuguri is Nuguri so Mid is very important here. But Showmaker is on Syndra so he is able to get lane priority which creates a scenario where all three lane are winning which gives Canyon a lot of space. Because of this it wasn't huge to give Sunnin Nidalee.
 

RED vs BLUE

When you are Red Side you have to give them one pick so what Red usually does is they give the enemy one good pick and take two afterward. Usually Blue take Lucian and there are still many good picks leftover like Jhin, Leona, Syndra.
 
Let's make this simpler. If you are red side you are able to take 2 OP pick against their 1 OP pick. AND you have last pick so you can counter one of their pick. This is why everyone picks Red side. So why does people prefer blue side the early stage of Worlds? This is because not everything was solved. At that time Nidalee, Lillia, Graves was super contested and getting just one of them at the start gave you such big advantage in Jungle. But over time people started to figure out how to play around them so the OPness got smaller. BTW this is normal. Players always find counterpick/style against OP picks and find a way to counter the current meta.

Game 4

There isn't much to talk about this game. Suning seems a bit fatigued and mental seems... a bit down. Suning Pick/ban wasn't that good, their secret picks was already shown, and went into this game a bit worried and exited the game the same way. One important thing is that Showmaker is once again on Syndra and through many adc bans they picked Cait gaining lane priority, Pantheon and Leona has the same role but Pantheon was able to move faster than Leona, and once again they seek to play around top but Nuguri was able hold once again.
 
I think SofM regretted picking Graves this game. I think SofM didn't expect them to lose so much lane priority. Graves is a good pick when you have lane priority and when you don't have lane prioirity you want to pick a ganking jungler. Whether it is Lee sin, Jarvan, or any ganking jungler they would have worked better. As for Kindered wolf was basically in heaven with 3 lane priority giving them free reign. Graves can't gank can't make plays. Other picks would've been better.
 
As for Gankplank he doesn't have as much as outplay potential than Jax, Fiora, Camille so I think Damwon had an easier time dealing with him then the last three games. Of course Damwon did well in pick/ban but you don't win just off of pick/ban they also did well in-game. This is game that I expected to happen. But aside from game 4 all three games was really close and clutch.

Series MVP

So Canyon received the series MVP which continues the feeling that Junglers are dominating the mvp spot after Ning, Tian. Some fan asked me if I can choose who would I choose for MVP. I think I would've chosen Nuguri because to put it simply Nuguri didn't have a single bad game this series. Canyon was a bit... bad in that Evelynn game but Nuguri did well all four games. Even the game they lost he still did well. I think Nuguri was the most consistent player and Canyon did really good but he didn't do good that Evelynn game.
 
BeryL did well too, Ghost did good too and Showmaker. Guys to be honest MVP is really just for show, for celebration. This is a team game everyone did their part to win the trophy. Who held the trophy highter doesn't really matter.

Best Players in Each Role in Worlds

I have always believed that whoever win Worlds are the best in their role ^{If you know my history you would know that to be true} and this is especially true this year. Think of any player that is better than Damwon's roster. There is none. Damwon roster is the best this Worlds.
 
However, who is the second/third is a bit more complicated. I think it is much more interesting to pick 2nd/3rd than to pick first since it is just Damwon.
 

2nd Best Players

Biin
SofM
Caps
Guys Guys Guys. This isn't World top 20 this is my own list. This is my subjective opinion and you can pick whoever you want. This isn't a poll rank. I will explain why I pick Caps later.
 
Marksman is a bit tricky but my pick contenders are: HuanFeng, Ruler, Rekkles
 

Huanfeng

Guys come on aside from that final series what other games did Huangfeng did bad on? Yes, there was some adc gap between him and Ghost but- people who play marksman will know this. They played top side games what can you do when you are playing weakside marksman? Suning always play around top side so how can you expect a weak side marksman to super carry? I am getting frustrating saying this so I am going to pick Huanfeng(lol).
Huanfeng
SwordArt

Why Caps?

Caps isn't as lane dominant as let's say Knight who is the second contender but he is a great playmaker. He made a lot of plays and are crucial to G2 and even in games they struggled Caps still made the best possible choice to win. I picked him because of his game changing playmaking potential.
 
I was going to put Sword as a joke but as you guys are rioting down there I am going to stop here.

Q&A

1. Was there a party?

a. No
 
b. Yes, but I just stayed for a while
 
c. Yes, but I didn't know
 
d. Yes, but I was banned
 
It's one of those

2. Cake?

I don't knw what taste it is since I didn't get get to eat it. I was going to throw the cake to fellow caster's face but then it had Damwon on it so I didn't want to ruin it.

3. Seed Change?

A lot of people have been asking that since we won Worlds would that give us 4 seed? I am not the one in charge but I don't think winning one Worlds automatically gives us 4 seeds. I think it is more about past achievements so this is only the start.

4. Next year?

So people have been asking what LCK will look like next year with the Franchising change and such. I don't know much but I think the region will be more competitive with the influx of money and slot security.
 
Come on guys its only been a couple hours since Damwon won please don't ask where I think the players are going...

5. Cloudtemplar's Schedule

I am not sure how they are going to do All-Star if at all but if they do it I will probably be there.
 
Starting soon I am going on a college tour and will meet many college students interested in League. I have already done this a few times but I am going to do more starting on Monday. If you wanted to meet tell your student council because they are the one giving out invites.
 
To be hoenst student council are such Chads. Like even when I was in High school I would see my seniors playing basketball or soccer and I think they are so cool. I usually just sit in a corner and talked about video game with my friends. I remember we would talked about last night game and break the game down. We would do our own draft and compare it. I think this is something our fellow gamers could relate like we would gather around during Lunch and talked about draft, pick/ban, and where/what we should play tonight.
 
I enjoyed it. It was my childhood and to be honest it was fun. I remember before video game we would make our story and people role play(it's kind of like DnD). Like we would have one DM and one artist and we will play out our story. One would be mage one would be barabainians and then DM would be like "Ah a monster appeared what would you do?" and we will be "attack", "run", "poke his butt hole". The story would go on for weeks and every time we had break we would gather around and play. It was really fun. Some people are laughing but I know some here could relates to it.
 

6. Stage, Opening

So to give my honest opinion I was quite dissapointed at first but then I was like "it's okay" at the end. The Galio wasn't too bad and I think at the end it got better. I don't think it's not that bad. It picked up at the end.

7. Oberservor

To be really honest the Obseror was really meh. It was kind of frustrating because I am seeing so many things but they are not showing them. I am good at casting from watching minimap and it is something I am proud of but... At one point we just stopped talking about things because we know that the oberservor won't show them. It is not like they can hear us so we can't really do anything about it...
 
But it's okay cause Damwon won. These things happens time to time let's just move on. When we host it we will do better.

8. Crowd

A lot of people was complaining about the crowd and how it was a library. Let's be the better man here and let it slide. And to be honest LPL crowd didn't have obligation to cheer for us. Just like how LCK fan doesn't have to cheer for them they don't also have to cheer for us. These things sometime happens in Sport like people would go completely silent after a homerun from other team.
 
And someone pointed this out but at least they didn't boo'ed us. When I was playing against TPA the whole crowd was cheering for TPA. Like when they killed a ward they would chant "TPA, TPA, TPA"(because of screen sneak peak/cheating incident everyone hated Azu Frost at that time). As long as they don't cheer against or boo us I am okay with it. You guys are asking too much.

10. Hope for LCS?

I think they either have to grow their player domestically or they have to be more open to spending money. I said this before but I think having more S tier player in a region elvate the region as a whole. So they might want to get more S tier player to NA. They don't want to come? Slap them with so much money they are having a second thought, second house, and second wife.
 
To be honest though they are already spending way too much money. What they have to do is spend money on the right player and cut those who does not deserve it. They have to paint the region as a region that pay you a lot if you perform and not just give money for free. Right now they are just spending money they have to spend money more realistically and smartly.
 
I am not saying they should get more Korean but just imports in general.

11. Championship Skin

I wanted to see Nuguri pick Ornn but tank champion in general doesn't get much love. And Nuguri Kennen have always came out when they needed him the most so I think it is okay for him to pick Kennen.
 
Canyon said it is either Graves or Nidalee and I think those two are fine. Probably going to sell a lot once it come out. Oh he said he picked graves? That's pretty cool.
 
As for mid he said he is picking TF which is fine. Akali would have been good too since he got famous for the pick but I don't think he picked her this World. I am not sure about Syndra since she already have a skin. Picking TF is actually kind of huge since he was one of the oldest champion and was in and out of the meta quite often. He is quite popular too.
 
Hmm I wonder who Ghost is going to pick. Oh he is picking Jhin? Hmm I don't think Jhin fit quite well... Draven? I don't think that sell well so I am not sure... Ashe? Ashe is good too Ashe is also a beta champion like TF. She is also many people's first champion because of tutorial... Wait they changed it? It's no longer Ashe? I guess time changes but wow I can't beleive they changed it... I feel old now.
 
BeryL should just pick Pantheon. It is going to sell well too. What? He is picking Leona? Oh man Pantheon skin would have been nice because you flex him in any role so he is more versatille. I guess I have to respect his personal opinion. Hopefully the skin would look good.

Conclusion

I know it is easy to just say LCK won and celebrate but this didn't come in one day. This came with many hardworks and please don't think only Damwon contributed. A lot teams worked hard for this moment and they made each other strong doing so. So many of them were like "I don't want to fight cause we might lose" then the coaches will be like "fight cause that's the only way we can get better." The teams decided to change and this is the result of it.
 

The Future of Cloudtemplar channel

So I have been doing this kind of stuff for a while and this one marks the final episode of the year. I've done this with Pony, with guest speaker, and even just myself and I am thankful for the fans and the attention I have gotten. From a youtuber perspective it is really hard for a hours long video to get any view. In Youtube short video are the one that get attention and viewership. Even I don't want to watch hour long video so I really appreciate you guys watching.
 
I have said this before but I have many things to learn and improve on. I don't have talent, I don't have skill, and all I can really do is try my best. There is a lot of time where I just want to stop everything and I wonder do I really need to do this much? Do I really need to live a life where I get cussed everyday? I have confidence that I can do this but it is hard somtimes. Most people don't know how hard I work and to be honest that's just life. You work hard nobody notices and you make one mistakes everyone notices. I guess that's just something we have to overcome. Anyway thank you guys for the support see you guys next time.