26/01/2014 - WWE Royal Rumble
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Commentated by Jim Ross, JBL, and Michael Cole
We see some footage of superstars arriving to the arena today. The Authority arrive in a limousine; WWE Champion Randy Orton, Triple H, Stephanie McMahon, and Kane. Daniel Bryan is shown walking with Brie Bella. "The Animal" Batista shows up in a truck and flexes for the camera. The feed cuts and glitches out revealing a dark room with a empty rocking chair moving slowly. "We're here."
The iconic voice of Jim Ross welcomes us to the 2014 Royal Rumble as pyro erupts from the stage and the fans go wild. The Authority's music plays and the mood quickly shifts, the crowd rains down boo's. Here comes the WWE World Champion Randy Orton. Orton talks trash to some fans in the front row while Triple H, Stephanie McMahon, and Kane make their way out as well. Orton raises the title as HHH passes him a microphone. Orton is in a great mood tonight. He's got the night off and there will be 30 men all vying for a chance to get RKO'ed in the main event of Wrestlemania 30. The crowd chants, “Daniel Bryan” as Orton laughs and promises that Bryan doesn't stand a chance. If you want to win the Royal Rumble you have to be taller than these marks in the crowd, you can't be a front row wrestler like Daniel Bryan or CM Punk. The crowd breaks into a deafening “DANIEL BRYAN/CM PUNK!” chant as Orton highlights some of the past winners like himself, Triple H, and Batista. True superstars who all pass the airport test. Triple H takes the microphone and tells the fans to shut the hell up and respect greatness. The reason The Authority are out here is because they want an answer from Batista. Will The Animal join them, take the #30 spot, and win the Rumble to make the biggest Wrestlemania main event a reality? Batista's music hits and he gets a great reaction. First of all, Batista thanks the Pittsburgh fans and everyone in the WWE for welcoming him back with open arms. Batista has a ton of respect for Triple H and Orton after all those years in Evolution. They all shake hands and it looks like he's accepting the offer. Triple H tells Batista to make the right decision and do whats best for business. Batista gives the THUMBS UP! The Authority are all psyched up until.... Batista, who still has his thumb in the air, says "What's best for business.... is listening to these fans! Doing things the hard way, the same way he did it through his whole career. Batista didn't come back to be handed anything, he came back to prove he can still be The Animal. The man who beat Triple H in the main event of Wrestlemania.... The thumbs up is turned into a THUMBS DOWN! Kane charges at Batista but gets clotheslined! Randy Orton and Tripe H flee from the ring as The Animal delivers a Spinebuster to Kane and rattles the ropes! Triple H screams that Batista is going to regret this decision.....
A video package of the feud between Divas Champion AJ Lee and Mickie James is next. After AJ Lee defeated Naomi to retain her title on RAW, AJ declared she had no competition in the locker room. Cue the surprise return of Mickie James! Former psycho versus current psycho, legend versus future legend. They exchange verbal barbs over the next few weeks, with Mickie picking up some big wins and earning a title match. During a contract signing on the final RAW before the Royal Rumble, things finally turned physical and Mickie put AJ Lee through a table with a huge bulldog from the top rope! Everything comes to a head tonight with the championship on the line.
Tony Chimel lets us know that this contest is scheduled for one fall as Mickie James makes her entrance and gets emotional at the ovation from the audience in Pittsburgh. Divas Champion AJ Lee is next and she gets a mixed reaction; the fans love her but are definitely backing Mickie in this one.
AJ Lee (c) vs. Mickie James for the WWE Divas Championship
The match kicks off with AJ slapping Mickie across the face! James returns the favour and tackles AJ, raining down a flurry of punches. AJ Lee cowers into the corner but then takes advantage by slamming Mickie to the mat by her hair! AJ taunts Mickie and stomps her in the corner but when the champion charges, Mickie backdrops her over the ropes! Mickie hits a Thez Press from the apron and tosses AJ into the barricade!
They battle on the apron until AJ sends Mickie head first into the ringpost. Mickie seems genuinely hurt and the referee goes to check on her, allowing AJ to expose the turnbuckle on the opposite side of the ring. She shows no regard for her possibly injured challenger, ignoring the ref and dragging Mickie back into the centre of the ring. Out of nowhere, James nails the Mick Kick! AJ is down! 1-2-AJ gets her foot underneath the bottom rope! James goes for the Stratus-faction but AJ Lee launches her into the exposed turnbuckle! Mickie James is out cold! 1-2-3! AJ retains!
Result- AJ Lee wins by pinfall via exposed turnbuckle shot. (12:58)
The Royal Rumble tumbler is back! Stephanie McMahon is overseeing things as superstars enter to pick their spots in the Royal Rumble. We see Alberto Del Rio, Brodus Clay, and other superstars pick their numbers. Triple H and Paul Heyman in the background; they shake hands and it appears that HHH hands Heyman something before he walks off.
"The American Dream" Dusty Rhodes is here! He introduces his sons, the WWE World Tag Team Champions Cody Rhodes and Goldust! The champions hug their father and make their way to the ring for a Six Pack Challenge Elimination Match! After being on the wrong side of The Authority, The Rhodes Brothers have been put in quite the predicament as they look to retain their title's against all odds.
Cody Rhodes and Goldust (c) vs. The New Age Outlaws vs. The Prime Time Players vs. Truth & Consequences vs. Hunico and Camacho vs. The Uso's in a Six Pack Challenge Elimination Match for the WWE World Tag Team Championship
Everything breaks down right off the bat. Bodies are flying everywhere. The Uso's hit a pair of dives over the ropes onto a pile of opponents. Back in the ring Hunico and Camacho eat a pair of Superkicks. Uso Splash to Hunico! 1-2-3!
Jey Uso pins Hunico via Uso Splash (Hunico and Camacho are eliminated)
The Prime Time Players take their turn dominating. Titus hits a Sit-Out Spinebuster to Billy Gunn. Darren Young launches Road Dogg from the ring and dropkicks an incoming Jimmy Uso. Xavier Woods comes out of nowhere with a springboard DDT on Titus O'Neil! Darren Young gets hit with a spinning elbow from R-Truth! Woods and Truth connect with a double Scissor Kick on Titus for the 3 count.
R-Truth pins Titus O'Neil via Double Scissors Kick (The Prime Time Players are eliminated)
Road Dogg chopblocks R-Truth immediately and throws him into the ringpost. Woods gets some shots in on Dogg but turns around into a Fameasser from Billy Gunn! 1-2-3!
Billy Gunn pins Xavier Woods via Fameasser (Truth & Consequences are eliminated)
Road Dogg grabs one of the tag title belts and brings it in the ring. The referee tries to stop him but Billy warns the referee that Triple H will fire him if he gets in their way. Billy holds Goldust as Road Dogg charges with the title ---- Goldust low blows Billy Gunn and ducks; Road Dogg knocks out Billy Gunn with the title belt! Cody Rhodes grabs Road Dogg and hits the Cross Rhodes!
Cody Rhodes pins Billy Gunn via Cross Rhodes (The New Age Outlaws are eliminated)
We are down to two teams. The Rhodes Brothers and The Uso's. The teams gather themselves in opposite corners as the crowd swells to a fever pitch. All four slug it out in the middle. Double Superkick to Goldust sends him to the floor. Cody hits the Bionic Elbow to Jimmy! Alabama Slam to Jey! Cody is all fired up! Cody goes for the Cross Rhodes but nearly gets pinned on a roll up. Double Superkick to Cody! Both The Uso's climb to the top rope but Goldust comes back in and drops Jimmy right on his yambags! Goldust meets Jey on the other side and delivers a giant superplex! BUT JIMMY RECOVERS AND FLIES OFF THE TOP! USO SPLASH TO GOLDUST! 1-2-CODY BREAKS UP THE PIN! Cody hits a Disaster Kick to Jimmy but gets Superkicked by Jey! With his last gasp of energy, Goldust nails Jey with the Final Cut! 1-2-3! Cody and Goldust retain!
Goldust pins Jey Uso via The Final Cut
Result- Cody Rhodes and Goldust retain the WWE World Tag Team Championship. (15:59)
CM Punk is taping his wrists in the locker room when Corporate Kane approaches with a bunch of security. Punk stands up ready to defend himself. But Kane tells him to calm down. He's here with a gift from The Authority. Kane hands Punk a Rumble number from the tumbler and tells him on behalf of The Authority, they wish him luck tonight. Kane leaves as punk opens the ball and shakes his head.
A video package showcases the rivalry between the United States Champion Dean Ambrose and Rob Van Dam. After RVD became # 1 Contender, The Shield brutalized him in a 3 on 1 beatdown. The next week, Rob Van Dam attacked Ambrose with a steel chair and delivered a devastating Van Daminator. Ambrose got busted open but the blood seemed to turn him into some kind of maniac. A bloodied Ambrose cut an iconically intense promo backstage in the boiler room where he challenged RVD to a Hardcore match at the Royal Rumble. Rob Van Dam accepted and began to tap into his hardcore style, even going as far as to bring back his old friend Sabu to help him fend off repeated attacks by The Shield. Tonight this rivalry concludes in a Hardcore match for the US Championship.
Dean Ambrose (c) vs. Rob Van Dam for the United States Championship in a Hardcore Match
Van Dam starts off hot with a barrage of kicks to Ambrose. RVD hits his signature barricade legdrop from the apron! He pulls out a kendo stick and starts unloading on the champion. Ambrose stops the beating by raking RVD's eyes and then snapping the kendo stick in half. Ambrose goes berserk, stabbing RVD with the sharp part of the broken kendo stick repeatedly in the corner as JR tells the TV audience to put their kids to bed because "this match is going to be bowling shoe ugly folks". Van Dam slides out of the ring and we see he's bleeding profusely. Ambrose stalks his prey on the outside but RVD tosses a steel chair full speed at his head! RVD goes under the ring and grabs a couple of trash cans and a lid. He smashes Ambrose over the head with the lid and throws him in the ring. RVD sets up a table on the outside but is momentarily distracted, trying to wipe the blood out of his eyes which allows Ambrose to crush one of the trash cans over Van Dam's head. Like a shark that smells blood in the water, Ambrose pounces on RVD and unloads punches to his open cut. The referee pulls him off and checks on RVD. But Ambrose is not done. Far from it. He goes under the ring and grabs a barbed wired baseball bat! As he gets in the ring, RVD kicks the barbed wired bat into Ambrose's face! Spike DDT! Van Dam puts a trash can over Ambrose's head and props him in the corner. VAN TERMINATOR WITH A STEEL CHAIR INTO THE TRASH CAN! RVD slowly drapes his arm over Ambrose. 1-2-Dean somehow kicks out! They exchange punches in the middle of the ring until Ambrose bites RVD's bloody head!!! RVD punches Ambrose just to get him off of him but Dean rebounds with a lariat that turns RVD inside out! Instead of going for the pin, Ambrose picks up the barbed wired baseball bat and smashes RVD in the back repeatedly! Van Dam rolls to the apron but Ambrose follows him and starts grinding the barbed wire in RVD's face! Using the pure adrenaline of survival instinct, RVD reverses into a suplex over the ropes, sending he and Ambrose crashing through the table on the outside!
The fans chant "Holy shit!" as the announcers question how much more these guys, specifically RVD, can take. RVD is first to his feet and throws Ambrose in the ring. RVD climbs to the top rope but Ambrose hits the ropes and causes him to lose balance. He tosses RVD off the top rope onto a trash can! Ambrose goes under the ring and grabs a bag..... The referee tries to stop him but Ambrose shoves him to the ground and empties the contents all over the ring ---- IT'S THUMBTACKS! He turns around and catches a steel chair hurled at him by RVD! VAN TERMINATOR! Ambrose falls into the tacks! RVD goes up top! FIVE STAR FROG SPLASH INTO THE TACKS! "BY GAWD!" Cover! 1-2-Ambrose kicks out by shoving a handful of tacks into RVD's face! Van Dam screams in pain as a now bloody Ambrose pulls himself to his feet and smiles. DIRTY DEEDS ON THE TACKS! 1-2-3!
Result- Dean Ambrose wins by pinfall via Dirty Deeds onto thumbtacks! (22:22)
Rob Van Dam is taken out on a stretcher as Dean Ambrose sits bloodied in the corner, with thumbtacks all over him and the United States Title over his shoulder, admiring his work.
Writer's Note: This match writes RVD out for the foreseeable future to give him a well deserved break. Ambrose is put over as a sadistic, hardcore, psycho path on RVD's way out.
We cut backstage where Mark Henry and The Big Show are picking their numbers. Stephanie McMahon plays nice with the legendary giants, telling them that there are always advantages to helping The Authority. Mark Henry laughs her off and walks out but Big Show appears to contemplate her words. Daniel Bryan walks in and has a face off with Triple H. Bryan wants to pick his Rumble number but HHH tells him there's only one ball left. He teases not giving it to him but places it in his hands. Bryan opens it, shakes his head and smiles, saying he wouldn't expect anything less from The Authority.
A video package on the history of the Royal Rumble match is next, highlighting past winners, elimination records, and obscure statistics. Ladies and gentlemen. We promised you a great main event.
Main Event- 30 Man Royal Rumble Match
1. Daniel Bryan
2. CM Punk
The two heroes of our story; enemies of The Authority that have been given the insurmountable task of winning from the opening spots if they want to main event Wrestlemania. They slug it out and the fans love every second of it.
3. Big E Langston
The Intercontinental Champion gets a chance to showcase his abilities in full spotlight. He tosses Bryan and Punk around much to the chagrin of the crowd. Punk and Bryan team up to stop the onslaught and slow the big man down.
4. Mark Henry
The World's Strongest Man double clotheslines Punk and Bryan before squaring up with Big E. The two meaty men begin slappin' meat until Henry squashes the IC Champion in the corner and takes advantage.
5. Alexander Rusev
The Bulgarian Brute from NXT goes nose to nose with Mark Henry. Rusev kicks Henry in the head and then charges full speed, clobbering him and sending Mark crashing from the ring for our first official elimination of the night!
Alexander Rusev eliminates Mark Henry
6. Evan Bourne
Bourne quickens the pace of the match and hits a barrage of high flying moves until he meets the brick wall known as Rusev. Rusev gets Bourne in a precarious position and clotheslines him so hard that he takes a nasty backflip bump off the apron ala Paul London 2005.
Alexander Rusev eliminates Evan Bourne
Rusev turns around and realizes he's surrounded by Bryan, Punk, and Big E! He fights valiantly but it's no use. YES+ Knee by Bryan! Rusev is rocked but still standing! GTS by Punk! Rusev is STILL somehow on his feet but falls back against the ropes ..... A clothesline from Big E sends Rusev over the ropes for another elimination!
Big E Langston eliminates Alexander Rusev
7. Alberto Del Rio w/Ricardo Rodriguez
As a former World Champion and Royal Rumble winner, Del Rio has to be considered dangerous in this match. He hits a nasty double foot stomp on Big E and trash talks the fans as they boo him out of the building. Bryan and Punk hit a Hart Attack on Del Rio to a massive pop!
8. Kevin Nash
It looks like The Authority have a couple of tricks up their sleeve tonight. Nash immediately targets Punk and Bryan, savouring the boo's from the audience. Meanwhile, Big E nearly has Del Rio eliminated until Rodriguez hops on the apron and allows Del Rio to get the advantage by jamming him thumb in Big E's eye! Del Rio kicks Big E in the face and eliminates the Intercontinental Champion!
Alberto Del Rio eliminates Big E Langston
Del Rio and Nash team up to beat down Punk and Bryan.
9. John Cena
Business is about to pick up! Cena hits the ring and takes the fight to Del Rio and Nash! AA to Del Rio! Nash immediately takes Cena down with a big boot and mocks the fans, pretending to cry. Jackknife Powerbomb to Cena! Nash tosses Punk over the ropes but Punk skins the cat and starts kicking Nash in his surgically repaired knee's.
10. Big Show
Nash throws Punk into the ring post and has a face off with The World's Largest Athlete. Nash extends his hand, wondering if Show is going to take The Authority up on their offer. Big Show teases joining him --- psych! Knockout Punch by Big Show! Nash crumples to the mat. The fans love it as Big Show gets hyped up and then starts chopping Del Rio in the corner.
11. X-Pac
Another surprise return! But is this another legend doing the bidding of The Authority? Pac does some crotch chops and gets a good reaction as he fist bumps The Big Show and hits a Bronco Buster to Del Rio! But X-Pac cannot be trusted as he kicks Big Show right in the family jewels! Kevin Nash pulls himself to his feet and two sweets X-Pac! Nash goes to stomping on The Big Show as Pac charges for a Bronco Buster on Punk ---- Cena takes X-Pac's head off with a clothesline and then AA's him from the ring!
John Cena eliminates X-Pac
Cena, Punk, and Bryan all attack Kevin Nash and buy enough time for Big Show to recover. Show grabs Nash by the throat and pushes him back over the ropes!
Big Show eliminates Kevin Nash
Show, Cena, Punk, Bryan, and Del Rio all fight and try to eliminate each other as the buzzer sounds for the next entrant.
12. Bray Wyatt
The mood has shifted in the arena! Bray Wyatt comes in like an absolute killer, wrecking everyone in his path. Sister Abigail to CM Punk! Daniel Bryan is the last one standing and the crowd breaks out into thunderous "YES!" chants as Bryan and Wyatt exchange stiff slaps and beat the piss out of each other!
13. Erick Rowan
A coincidence or the puppet strings of The Authority? The Wyatt Family now has two members and begin to dominate. Big Show grabs their throats but Rowan breaks free with several headbutts! Big Show slumps back against the ropes --- Wyatt and Rowan dump him to the floor!
Bray Wyatt and Erick Rowan eliminate Big Show
Wyatt sits in the corner moving his hands like a orchestra conductor as Rowan chokes Daniel Bryan on the opposite side of the ring. Del Rio tries to eliminate John Cena.
14. Brodus Clay
The Funkasaurus is in no dancing mood, he knows how serious this opportunity is and he also knows what he's up against. As soon as he slides in the ring, Wyatt and Rowan put the boots to him. Clay fights back but it's no use. It's Wyatt Family domination as Bray hits a Sister Abigail and then Rowan throws the big man over the ropes.
Erick Rowan eliminates Brodus Clay
CM Punk is Bray Wyatt's next target but he fights for his life and hits a big roundhouse kick to Rowan! Bray has to fend for himself and he smiles, it's time to dance!
15. Kofi Kingston
Kingston is a house of fire, flying all over the ring. SOS to Bray Wyatt! Trouble in Paradise to Del Rio! Kingston springboards off the ropes but gets caught by Erick Rowan! Rowan press slams Kofi to the outside ---- Kofi lands on the barricade! He trust falls back into the crowd and they surf him around as the arena breaks out into huge "KOFI!" chants.
16. Santino Marella
Santino breaks out THE COBRA! Wyatt does the creepy spider walk which freaks Santino out ---- he eliminates himself and walks to the back!
Santino Marella eliminates himself
17. Ezekiel Jackson
As Jackson walks down to the ring, the crowd bring Kofi back to the barricade and he hops to the apron! Bray Wyatt launches himself into Kofi, sending him flying into in the arms of Ezekiel Jackson! Kofi is all pumped up at avoiding elimination twice but Jackson bodyslams Kofi on the floor! Kofi is now out and Big Zeke has his first elimination before he even gets in the ring!
Ezekiel Jackson eliminates Kofi Kingston
Jackson joins the match and exchanges some shoulder blocks with Erick Rowan. Bray Wyatt continues to brawl with Daniel Bryan while John Cena fights Del Rio.
18. Christian
Captain Charisma joins the match and finds himself squaring off with his old rival Ezekiel Jackson. Jackson gets him up for a Powerslam but Christian fights out and hits the Killswitch! Christian then ducks a Bray Wyatt clothesline and hits a Spear! Del Rio cheapshots Christian and tells the fans to shut up as he chokes Captain Charisma in the corner.
19. Chris Jericho
Y2J makes quite the entrance with a boatload of pyro. Jericho slaps Del Rio and locks in the Walls of Jericho! The ring begins to fill up now as strategy changes this late into the match; nobody wants to risk elimination at this point.
20. The Boogeyman
JBL gets real quiet all of a sudden as the legend crawls out and smashes a clock on his head! Boogeyman gets in the ring and begins eating a handful of worms! This gets Bray Wyatt's attention and the two spooky guys have a staredown. The Eater of Worlds vs. The Eater of Worms. Boogeyman sets Wyatt up for the Pumphandle Slam but Erick Rowan boots him in the head and then tosses him from the ring!
Erick Rowan eliminates The Boogeyman
21. Fandango w/Summer Rae
As Fandango dances his way to the ring, Christian and Jericho team up to eliminate Ezekiel Jackson.
Christian and Chris Jericho eliminate Ezekiel Jackson
Fandango sets his sights on Jericho and shows a more vicious side of himself, stomping Y2J relentlessly. Bray Wyatt and Erick Rowan try to eliminate Christian.
22. Luke Harper
The Wyatt Family is now at full strength. They dominate the field and Luke Harper clotheslines Fandango off the apron!
Luke Harper eliminates Fandango
Bray instructs them to eliminate Bryan but Punk and Cena have something to say about that.
23. Bad News Barrett
As Barrett picks the most opportune time to enter, The Wyatt Family gang up on Christian and Bray Wyatt tosses him out!
Bray Wyatt eliminates Christian
Chris Jericho puts up a fight, nailing Rowan with a Codebreaker! The numbers game is still in The Wyatt Family's favour --- Harper decapitates Y2J with a clothesline, and Wyatt eliminates him as well!
Bray Wyatt eliminates Chris Jericho
The clock begins to countdown so Barrett is forced to roll in the ring and Harper attacks him.
24. Shelton Benjamin
AIN'T NO STOPPIN' ME, NOOOO! The Gold Standard makes his return to WWE and gets a nice ovation from the Pittsburgh crowd. He single handedly ends The Wyatt Family's domination by diving onto all three of them! As Bray Wyatt scurries to his feet, Shelton greets him with a T-Bone Suplex! Erick Rowan charges full speed at Daniel Bryan but Bryan avoids him by pulling the rope down and Rowan crashes to the floor!
Daniel Bryan eliminates Erick Rowan
Rowan is pissed and starts dismantling the announce table until the referee's force him to leave. The ring is full of superstars with full intentions of headlining Wrestlemania. Bryan and Punk are spent. Cena too. Del Rio hides in the corner to stay alive. Shelton battles it out with Barrett and Harper. Wyatt pulls himself to his feet.
25. Batista
THE ANIMAL IS HERE! Batista is a one man wrecking crew. Spinebuster to Luke Harper! Batista Bomb to Barrett! Del Rio sneaks up and attempts to toss Batista out but The Animal reverses his momentum and eliminates Del Rio!
Batista eliminates Alberto Del Rio
Batista and Bray Wyatt lock eyes. Wyatt loves it and yells "Show me that Animal, David!" Batista crushes him with a Spear and then finds himself face to face with John Cena. Cena is much more exhausted and ends up getting Spinebustered for his troubles.
26. Roman Reigns
The powerhouse of The Shield enters the ring with bad intentions; Spear to Shelton Benjamin! Superman Punch to Daniel Bryan! Reigns and Batista do battle until Wyatt and Harper attack them ---- Batista and Reigns hit a pair of Spears to The Wyatt Family!
27. Dolph Ziggler
Ziggler comes down with a microphone and tells everyone in the ring that this is his year. Number 27 is the most coveted position as more people have won the Rumble from this spot than any other. He smashes Batista with the microphone and unloads punches on The Animal! Dolph with a Superkick to Barrett and a Zig Zag to John Cena! 10 superstars are left in the ring with 3 more to make their entrance.
28. Seth Rollins
The Architect of The Shield is here and he joins Roman Reigns as they go face to face with Wyatt and Harper! Electricity in the air folks! Things break down; Bray and Roman fight in the corner as Harper drops Rollins with a clothesline! John Cena hoists Luke Harper up and sends him to the floor with an AA!
John Cena eliminates Luke Harper
Bad News Barrett sneaks up and dumps Cena from the ring! John Cena is eliminated! Revenge for The Nexus at last!
Bad News Barrett eliminates John Cena
29. Sheamus
The Celtic Warrior imediately Brogue Kicks Shelton off the apron!
Sheamus eliminates Shelton Benjamin
Everyone fights as the clock counts down for our final entrant.
30. Brock Lesnar w/Paul Heyman
Now we know what Triple H gifted Paul Heyman earlier! The Beast enters the ring and F5's Bad News Barrett to the floor!
Brock Lesnar eliminates Bad News Barrett
Dolph Ziggler jumps on Brock's back and tries to choke him out but Lesnar reverses into an F5 position! Lesnar sends Dolph flying over the ropes!
Brock Lesnar eliminates Dolph Ziggler
Lesnar now targets Batista and hits a series of shoulder blocks in the corner. He picks The Animal up for an F5 but Batista fights out and clotheslines Brock out of the ring!!!
Batista eliminates Brock Lesnar
Brock is in shock along with the announcers and everyone in the arena. He starts pacing around the ring as Batista sets Bray Wyatt up for a Batista Bomb. Lesnar shoves the referee to the ground and slides back in the ring, tossing Batista out!
Brock Lesnar eliminates Batista
Lesnar smashes Batista with the steel steps and then F5's The Animal through the announce table! We're down to five as Rollins and Punk fight on the apron until Punk hits a GTS! Rollins crumbles unconscious to the floor!
CM Punk eliminates Seth Rollins
The final four of the 2014 Royal Rumble: CM Punk, Daniel Bryan, Bray Wyatt, and Roman Reigns. Punk and Bryan entered at number 1 and 2. Incredible accomplishment for them. Roman Reigns Spears Daniel Bryan and then sidesteps Bray Wyatt, sending him flying from the ring!
Roman Reigns eliminates Bray Wyatt
CM Punk hits a GTS on Reigns and all three men are down. Triple H walks down to the ring and rips his jacket off. Kane follows behind him. Punk pulls himself to his feet as tells them to bring it. Randy Orton RKO's CM Punk out of nowhere! The WWE Champion soaks in the boo's as he and Kane throw CM Punk out! "This is bullshit" yells the fans and JR agrees!
Randy Orton and Kane eliminate CM Punk
Triple H smiles and grabs the sledgehammer. Orton and Kane hold Daniel Bryan as HHH charges with the hammer ---- Roman Reigns Spears Triple H! CM Punk pulls Orton from the ring and they brawl into the crowd! Daniel Bryan takes Kane out with the YES+ Knee! With everyone out of the equation, Reigns and Bryan get three minutes of back and forth action, a proper finish to the Rumble. Reigns gets locked in a triangle choke but shows tremendous strength, lifting Bryan up and over the ropes! Bryan holds onto Roman and drags him over with him! They battle on the apron until Bryan viciously kicks Roman in the head! Reigns falls to the floor! Daniel Bryan wins the 2014 Royal Rumble!
Daniel Bryan eliminates Roman Reigns
Winner of the 2014 Royal Rumble: Daniel Bryan
Fireworks explode as Daniel Bryan leads the fans in a YES chant and points at the Wrestlemania sign.

Hey everyone, this will be my first attempt at a serious post on this sub. I’m not exactly practiced in articulating my thoughts (I’m more of a fiction writer) so please bear bull with any mistakes and please correct me if I’m wrong. The last thing I want to do is spread misinformation, I’m not an expert (or a financial advisor) on any of this. I'm here to learn, not to teach.
This post will be the first in a series of me reading through the entire Diamond Handbook (2nd) and just commentating on points I find interesting or discussion worthy. I will be asking questions as well as giving my own personal thoughts based on my understanding of the events that have transpired. I became an ape right after the sneeze, and followed a lot of the discussions back then, but have been zen for a while so I haven't fully kept up with a lot of the new developments.
I haven't actually sat down and read DD in a long time, so I decided to give myself a refresher and actually look at the Diamond Handbook (2nd) for the first time. I had read a lot of these posts as they had come out, so I had never felt the need to look at the full PDF before. For the apes that haven’t read it either, I recommend giving it a read. You can find the full DD library in the pinned post of this sub, and the Diamond Handbook is the first one there.
As I have been reading it, I’ve quickly realized that some of the stuff is a little outdated. That can’t really be helped since so much DD has been done between then and now, but this brings me to the two reasons for this post. The Diamond Handbook is likely the first piece of DD a new ape will be recommended; I want to spark discussion to clear up some things that are misguided or outdated in this handbook. The second reason is more of a personal challenge. Whenever someone denies the legitimacy of the DD, an ape usually responds by saying something like “Well, read the DD and prove it wrong”. The average MOASS denier won’t do this though, in my experience they just think it’s ridiculous on a conceptual level, and won’t take the time to actually look through all the DD available and construct a proper debate. I can’t really blame them for this though, spending so much time on something you have no interest in doesn’t sound like a fun time.
But I have a lot of interest in this, and I am an aspiring author who writes 400K word fanfictions for fun. I’ve got the time and the writing willpower. I am very big into trying to understand how a reader will interpret a piece of my writing, so I’ll be looking through that lens and will be writing this with the assumption that you have already read the Diamond Handbook (2nd). Please take the time to respond/correct what I say here, I want to learn.
With all that out of the way, let’s get started.
​
The Mother of All Short Squeezes (MOASS) Thesis, Published on May 26, 2021, by u(slash)HCMF_MACEFACE
Before we even get into the meat of this section I already see a bit of an issue. A lot of the language implies that MOASS is imminent, take this section for example:

*“If you don't believe me, just look at the chart of GME which our DD (Due Diligence/research/analysis) has been forecasting for a while now. The below pattern has only preceded massive spikes in price, but this time, those on the other side of the trade are going to have a much harder time suppressing the price like they did in January and March. Thanks to the activity on 5/25, we have entered the end-game. The MOASS is beginning.”* 

I think most new apes will look at this, then look at the date of posting (three years ago), and think this is delusional thinking. They will say that MOASS did not ‘begin’ because it hasn’t happened yet. This would be pretty short sighted though, GME has always been a Deep Value investment, long positions are called long for a reason. ‘Buy and HODL’ is such a repeated mantra because that is the investment strategy most apes employ. Like most investments, it takes a long time to realize gains. Your retirement account will be growing for 40+ years before you cash that thing out, GME is my retirement plan so I don’t expect it to be much different.
Just because the sneeze happened in a week doesn’t mean MOASS will, in theory it should be a very long event as both the shorts and longs have a test of wills to see who caves first. However, the sneeze was the ‘beginning’ because it was exposed a lot of the fuckery that is going on in the market right now, I think that is the message that should be taken from this section.

*“These terms are key to understanding the theory and speculated value of a GME investment. Hyperlinks to Investopedia, "the world's leading source of financial content on the web", have been included for most market terms and concepts and it is recommended to check them out if they are not clear. We will be breaking down some of the more complex terms and concepts within the post and framing them within the context of GME.”* 

After the introduction, this post does a great job of explaining all the concepts of the stock market that are relevant to the MOASS thesis. However, I do wish it mentioned some other stock terms for the sake of new investors. Since none of the DD is supposed to be financial advice, I can’t really blame them for these omissions, but at the beginning the OP does say they wanted the post to be good for newer investors, so I think some more pointing in the right direction should’ve been provided. I do appreciate the link to Investopedia, but this DD is already a novel, and the average reader might forget about that link by the time they finish it. So an additional link should’ve been provided at the end.
The two big concepts I see missing are Options and Wash Sales/Stop-Losses.
Options are interesting because they create a different type of buying/selling pressure compared to just buying/selling stocks regularly. There are concepts like gamma ramps and stuff that can be relevant when discussing catalysts for price movement. However, options are pretty scary for most investors, I’ve only ever bought one, and forgot about it so it auto-exercised for me (lol), so it’s not a concept I would call essential. I just think it’s better to be educated than not.
The much more egregious omission is that of Wash Sales and Stop-Losses. Wash Sales are extremely dangerous to new investors who still make decisions based on emotions and are not used to the volatility that comes with GME.
If you are unfamiliar, a Wash Sale is when a person sells a stock at a loss, then buys the stock again within a short period of time. As an example, let’s say you bought a stock at $50, then the stock goes down to $40.00 and you no longer feel comfortable with your investment. You sell the stock at a loss. You lost $10.00 on this transaction, but it’s not all bad. When you go to do your taxes, you can report this $10.00 loss to the IRS. This is good because if you make a $10.00 profit off another trade, you now don’t have to take taxes out of that profit, since the IRS will see this as you breaking even in the grand scheme of your portfolio. You didn’t actually make any money, so they aren’t going to tax you for it.
A Wash Sale is triggered when you buy back the stock you sold in a short period of time, this can even apply if you buy a stock in the same sector. So if you buy a stock at $50.00, sell it at $40.00 then buy it again. That $10.00 loss you took can no longer be reported to the IRS as an actual loss. So when you make $10.00 on some other trade, the IRS won’t see you as breaking even, they will tax you on that $10.00.
For a stock as volatile as GME this can be very dangerous, I know people who brought in the peak, then as the price went back down they triggered a Stop-Loss (auto-sale you can program to trigger when a price falls), only to then buy back in when the stock dropped even lower, creating a wash sale that fucked their taxes.
We say “Buy and HODL” a lot, but I think the ‘why’ of it has been lost in the meme. I personally buy and HODL because averaging down is a lot better for me than accidently triggering a Wash Sale. I fucking hate the IRS and don’t want any of that smoke.

*“SPOILER: GME and \[Popcorn\] have tons of FTDs reported.”* 

I just kinda don’t like the mention of the Popcorn stock here, it has never been a deep value investment. If you are unfamiliar with the Deep Value investment strategy, please take a look at the old Roaring Kitty livestreams. In summary, Deep Value investing is defined by looking for stocks that are extremely undervalued and unpopular due to no fault of the company. These external factors that are making the stock undervalued can be anything, shorting, COVID, stuff like that. But what makes it a Deep Value investment is always strong management within the company. If the company is not mismanaged in any way, then it is very unlikely to go bankrupt, and will have opportunities to make a comeback. GME has Ryan Cohen leading, a proven successful businessman that has already taken precautions to ensure GameStop never goes bankrupt. Popcorn just doesn’t have that. It is very short-squeezable, but it’s not deep fucking value.

*“Short sellers must eventually close, or cover, their short position.”* 

Ok, but why ‘must’ they? This is another point I think has been lost in the memes. There are two problems with just saying ‘shorts must close’ without providing context. The first is the simple fact that there isn’t a due date. Unlike a common car loan or mortgage, a short position doesn’t operate on a time table. They can wait forever to close, unless they get margin called.
This next part I’m a little shaky on, I’m probably getting some things wrong here:
Ok, well how are they going to get margin called? The problem I see is that these Short Hedge Funds (SHF) are making a lot of money by selling naked shorts. It’s really hard to get margin called when they are literally printing money, and since they don’t have to report these their books just look to be filled with an infinite amount of cash.
So, there are a couple solutions to this:
1, Government regulation. If the SEC puts a stop to naked shorting, these SHF can’t print money anymore. Eventually the interest from their positions will eat them alive, and they will get margin called. Unfortunately, MOASS has the potential to destroy the economy like in 2008, so they probably aren’t too keen on just doing this without creating some kind of safety net. So I can’t really count on them to help, because the government has a vested interest in keeping MOASS from happening. It’s just not something I believe will be the catalyst. Although they might just do it on purpose given the right reason, like pinning the economic collapse on a scapegoat, or by GameStop forcing their hand by exposing the fraud somehow. I’ve seen a lot of apes hoping for one of these reasons to come to pass, but for me, I don’t see enough motivation from the participating parties.
2, A price run-up. If the price of the stock can unbalance the books of the SHF enough then they could also get margin called. I’m not counting on this either, since the price is manipulated by the process of naked shorting. Sure, they are digging a bigger grave when they suppress the price like this, but it can also help smaller SHFs with exiting their positions with OTC stuff. Over-The-Counter trades are trades made off the lit exchanges, historically it was intended to kind of simulate a transaction between two individuals, like buying a video game from a buddy off the books, no taxes, no regulation. Unfortunately, this is abused by institutions and can’t even be used by individuals, making dark pools of trades full of fraud and undermines the free market. Smaller SHFs that are more at risk of getting Margin Called due to their lack of collateral, can make OTC trades with the big naked-shorting market makers to ‘close’ their positions using fake shares. Of course, this only passes the buck so to speak, but it’s a viable strategy for them since the big SHFs that take on these ‘bucks’ are less likely to get margin called. A lot of historic short squeezes happen because a small SHF gets margin called, then drives the price up and causes a bigger SHF to get called, and so on until they’re all in the grave. This is why I don’t really give a shit if the price goes up to $80 in a week, it’s not enough, the buck has been passed. (To be clear, I don’t have proof that this is the reason for the uptick in OTC transactions, it’s just a theory. If a smarter ape than I can get on this that would be great.) But, even if a price run-up itself doesn’t cause MOASS, it may give motivation for the true trigger:
3, Interest Rates. Here is the big one that I look at, that I believe will be the true cause of MOASS. Now please, correct me if I’m wrong again, I am just an ape who dropped out of college. So, from what I understand a Short institution has to pay a certain amount of interest to the people they borrow the stocks from. This is the cost of borrowing and is how these Lenders make money. For a long time, the interest rate was at like 1%, this means that selling one naked short could cover the cost of the interest 100 times over. However, let’s say that the interest rate becomes 110%, sounds crazy, but this would mean that borrowing the share would cost more than the share. This would destroy the balances of the SHFs and ensure they get margin called. Why would this ever happen though? Because these lenders want to make money. These lenders are the real winners of MOASS, and they aren’t talked about enough in my opinion. Lenders can’t sell the shares they’ve lent out, their income is in the interest rates, there has to be a balance here between it being more profitable to lend the shares or to sell them. If Lenders start to think that lending their shares aren’t making them more money than the alternative, they will raise interest rates to make these profits until SHFs can’t pay them, then the SHFs have to return the shares, causing MOASS with the massive buyback, then lenders can just sell the shares on the way down. Lenders have a monetary business interest in causing MOASS, so they are the most likely cause of it in my opinion.

*“This is the GME MOASS thesis. GME is a stock that stands to hit an unprecedented price point due to the fact that manipulators of the market have failed to bankrupt GameStop thanks in huge part to the Legendary Keith Gill AKA* u(slash)DeepFuckingValue*, Ryan Cohen, and all of the GME investors who took part in this saga. It may not be today, this week, or even this month, but one day soon, these toxic participants have no choice but to buy the stock to close out their short positions.”* 

I don’t think this is necessarily inaccurate, but I think it’s misguided, and the language here is a bit to emotive for my taste. I think the reason the company didn’t go bankrupt is because of the strategic share offering made by Ryan Cohen to build up more cash than the company’s valuation (at the time). All the other stuff was just dressing, DFV and retail did not make RC do this, this move by RC is what ensured the company literally can’t go bankrupt, until then (and at the time this was posted) it was still a risk in my opinion. So this huge thanks feels kinda like a pre-cum celebration, and I've never really liked putting Keith on a pedestal, he's just an individual investor, just like the rest of us.
​
FAQ, Published April 12, 2021, by u(slash)BYE_TRIANGLE

*“Why does Holding do anything?”* *“They need your shares to cover their short positions! They got greedy. Thinking GameStop would fail, the short sellers started Naked Shorting the stock. Long story short they created synthetic stocks with their special privileges as Market Makers. But they can’t cover a short with a synthetic share. So because of the Naked Shorting, the Short Sellers, multiple large greedy money managers, and Hedge Funds need a total number of shares greater than the number available to purchase. THEY NEED EVERY SHARE, EVEN YOURS CONAN!”* *“aRe YoU GuYs MaNipuLatIng THe MaRKeT?!”* 

Holding does something else that I think is really important. It proves that retail is not responsible for the manipulation of the price. You see it in the mainstream media every time the price fluctuates, they say that retail and Roaring Kitty is driving the price up for the memes, and that the ‘meme stock craze is dead’ whenever the price falls, claiming that retail is selling. However, it quickly becomes clear to anyone with the willingness to research that retail holds. Holding doesn’t move the price at all, so they literally can’t blame this sub for the fuckery that happens.
Now, on the flip side, I know people on the old sub to buy and sell with these fluctuations, they did it during the sneeze and I’ve seen comments claiming to do it last week. I think this is why Roaring Kitty really had to speak to congress about this, because a legitimate-seeming argument could be made that retail was buying and selling at high volumes. The loss and gain porn on the old sub could be presented as evidence. Here though, apes hold, we glaze purple doughnuts.
So when MOASS does happen, the massive price increase will be only due to buying pressure from SHFs, so they are the only ones that can take the blame for what happens next.

*“No one knows how high the squeeze could take the stock price. The best rational reasoning says that these numbers \[500k per share\] are possible through the laws of supply and demand. Furthermore, it is likely that the Short Percentage is a lot higher than reported, with many suggesting that the short-sellers, cumulatively, need more than 100% of the float to cover.”* 

A lot of naysayers will claim people are insane for thinking that phone number prices are possible. They will cite that it would make the company’s valuation higher than the amount of money in the world, which is true. However, with the nature of fraudulent naked shorts being fake, the price is fake too, and the valuation of the company doesn’t necessarily mean that the whole float will be sold at those prices. Yes, it shouldn’t be possible, by all accounts it wouldn’t make sense, but it is possible due to the naked shorting. Also, institutions that own shares likely won’t HODL out for the phone number prices, they will sell when they think it’s safe, and when they won’t get in trouble with the SEC for destroying the economy. The infinity pool (the shares that will be sold at these prices) will be a small fraction of the total amount even among retail investors. So the argument that I see against the possibility of this doesn’t hold a lot of weight.
Keep in mind that even though ‘buying pressure’ moves the price up, someone has to be willing to sell in order for someone to buy. So as the price creeps up from $100 to $1000 to $100000 to $8675309 someone will be selling on the way up to get there.

*“Synthetic long positions could be used to disguise their short positions as well, the mechanisms behind this practice utilize the options markets and could explain some of the crazy options activity that we have seen in GameStop the last few months.”* 

So uhm… I don’t understand ‘Synthetic Longs’ at all. Could an ape with more wrinkles elaborate on this? From what I can extrapolate, this may refer to an institution purchasing a naked shorted share from someone else?

*“While at the same time they employed the use of social engineering to slowly depress the positive sentiment for the stock on Reddit and elsewhere.”* *“You may have been called a Shill for one of a number of reasons. This community is very inclusive and open to everyone, but because of the blatant attacks this forum has suffered a lot of people are understandably paranoid. (Myself included). Please, unless you really are a shill, don’t take it personally.”* 

I want to address this, because there is a lot of misconception about SuperStonk. A lot of people will claim that this sub is just an echo chamber cult that can’t handle anyone questioning the narrative. This may seem true on the surface, but I think the reality is just that we’ve become hyper sensitive to the social engineering the old sub fell victim to, and I remember this sub being attacked with that as well. So whenever we see a post that has extremely emotive language, we become skeptical and down vote it. Emotions have no place in investing, that is a common rule touted in even the oldest investing books, so posts that try to incite an emotional response are shot down. Apes aren’t about to be manipulated again. That being said there are emotive posts that still get upvoted, ones with positive hype-filled narratives. Since these get upvoted and the negative ones don’t that sometimes gives the impression of an echo chamber. This is because the facts do support the MOASS thesis, so a hype title and opening paragraph is just more agreeable with the facts-based narrative. Some people are just scrolling on their phone and don’t have time to read the whole post.
However, if you go into the comments of these posts, there are apes investigating the profile history to determine if posters are bots, regardless of the pushed narrative. If you look past the upvote counter, apes are very skeptical of any post that isn’t based in fact or harmless memes. The comments rule the post, and I have to say I’ve very proud of this sub for staying vigilant in the wake of Reddit restricting moderation tools.

*“Ryan Cohen clearly believes in Gamestop, to the point of announcing that he will be taking equity as compensation. In fact, as of writing this all of the new Gamestop board members are going to be taking equity as compensation. This is seen as an incredibly bullish sign of the company's future success.”* 

This is one of the principles of Deep Value investing, I wish this was elaborated on more of why this is bullish. This means that the board, and more importantly Ryan Cohen, is tying their individual self-worth to the company. Due to this tie, they will essentially ‘go down with the ship’ if the company goes down. This means that the board and Ryan actually have an interest in the company doing well, instead of having an interest in making money off the company. You may think this sounds like the same thing, but it’s not. If RC cared more about money than the company, then he could destroy the company to make money (this is what’s happening to popcorn), but by tying his worth to the shares, the only way for him to become richer is for the company to flourish.
I don’t really like the language being used here, stuff like ‘clearly believes’ ‘seen as incredibly bullish’ are all pretty emotive and doesn’t actually explain why these are positive growth signs for the company, they are just saying it is ‘bullish’, the average new investor isn’t even going to know what that really means. Even though GME is extremely manipulated, causing Technical Analysis to become increasingly difficult to depend on, the investment is still rooted in fundamentals of deep value.

*“Below is a shortlist of some of the potential catalysts people are speculating about:* 

-A Stock Split, or some similar move from Gamestop that recalls shares
-Gamma Squeeze
-Gamestop’s Q1 Earnings Call
-Some speculate Gary Gensler (Newly appointed head of the SEC), may make some move that sets things in motion
-DTCC rule changes taking effect
-Appointment of a new CEO”
Yeah… this feels bad man. I’ve talked about this already, but we can rapid fire down this list.
The stock split didn’t work out, since those in charge of distributing the splits did it fraudulently. Gamma Squeeze is the kind of thing that could trigger a smaller hedge fund to get margin called and cause a domino effect, but I’ve shared my theory of the OTC action. Earnings are nice, but public sentiment has always been more tied to the media manipulation than actual facts. Fucking Gary.
On the subject of bringing in new talent, I do feel like a big move will happen soon. We’ve already seen a lot of job offerings from the Corporate side of GameStop so this could be the next phase of the plan. I really think that RC has spent these last few years taking precautions to make sure the company can’t go bankrupt, the last thing he wants is to turn out like Toys-R-Us. A lot of downsizing happened, so now he can start thinking about upsizing again.
I’m not necessarily saying that these things can’t trigger the squeeze, but I am saying that depending on something to start it is just inviting disappointment. I think the ‘no dates’ rule has been sorely forgotten lately with all the hype and speculation around Roaring Kitty’s tweets and stuff. I am a zen ape, it happens when it happens.

*“First of all, it is incredibly important to note your potential biases when determining if someone is just a shill trying to spread FUD. Not all FUD is invalid, someone may bring up a solid point against an otherwise great DD, and that could scare you. Remember that just because you do not like what someone is saying, doesn’t make it invalid. It is important users here work with constructive criticism to refine their theories.”* 

Damn, wasn’t I just talking about this? This critique isn’t going to just be wagging fingers, this is really good stuff that still applies today, and from what I’ve seen apes are doing a great job of distinguishing between FUD and legitimate criticism. I also want to take a second to thank the mod team, especially after their tools were restricted, they’ve been a great help.

*“…but since then retail investors have been buying on every single dip in the price… That's more than two whole months of buying-the-dip. Now, I will not speculate on numbers here, if you want to know more you will have to read the DDs on that.”* 

This is pretty outdated now. Apes have been buying for three years now, and with the advent of Direct Registering we have a much better idea of how much apes hold. I can say with confidence now that retail owns a floats worth of shares. Since there is so much naked shorting, a lot of institutions probably own their own floats too.
I glaze those purple doughnuts, yum.
​
Citadel Has No Clothes, Published March 14, 2021, by u(slash)ATOBITT
Ohhhh, this one is special to me, I read it when it first came out, first time I was there on release night. Let’s see how it hodls up.

*“TL;DR - Citadel Securities has been fined 58 times for violating FINRA, REGSHO & SEC regulations. Several instances are documented as 'willful' naked shorting. In Dec 2020 they reported an increase in their short position of 127.57% YOY, and I'm calling bullsh\*t on their shenanigans.”* 

58 times. I don’t actually know how much that number has gone up, but I’m sure it has. I am reminded of an old saying, that if the punishment for a crime is a fine, then it only a crime for the poor. The crime being done to GME is class warfare, it’s nothing less.

*“$295,347,948,000 of that is split into options (calls & puts), while $78,979,887,238 (20.52%) is allocated to actual, physical, shares (or so they say). The rest is convertible debt securities.”* 

This is why I’m skeptical that it’s even possible for Citadel to get margin called by a normal price run-up. Let’s do some math here. GME’s float is at 232 million-ish shares, let’s say they shorted 300% of that, just to be conservative (lmao), so that’s 696 million. To take what the first post said, Margins don’t get called unless an entities’ collateral becomes less than 80% of what they’ve borrowed. If they use their entire $384,926,232,238 portfolio as collateral, then GME would have to soar to a price of… divide by 4, multiply by 5… $691.32 per share. That may sound relatively reasonable, but I don’t think a normal catalyst would be enough for that. I really think interest rates are the key, think about it, if they have to pay like 30% interest on all of those shares, their portfolio will be reduced by that much (kinda) and we can find a much more reasonable midpoint. Now brace yourselves, I’m about to spend an unreasonable amount of effort on something that is probably wrong because I don’t know shit about fuck about margins or getting called (I have a cash account and I lack rizz).
In order to calculate that we gotta do one of those double equation variable bullshit things we all hated in school, I forgot what they were called but I remember how to do them.
So, we have a few variables:
C = Citadel’s Portfolio = $384,926,232,238
S = Shorted Shares = 696,000,000
I = Intrest = 0.30
X = Price Per Share
Y = Citadel’s new portfolio amount after paying interest
So, X and Y are undetermined, but we have two equations to work with
C – I(X*S) = Y
This one calculates how much money is going to be in citadels new portfolio after paying interest, we calculate the interest by multiplying the cost per share, by the amount of shorted shares, and multiplying that by the interest rate, then subtracting it from their total portfolio.
Y * 1.25 = X * S
This one calculates the total amount those shorted shares have to be in order for Citadel to get margin called, by multiplying their new portfolio by 5/4 and calculating the total cost of the shares.
X * S has a direct value; we can plug the left side of the second equation into the first to get
C – I(Y*1.25) = Y
Now we just gotta isolate Y on one side of the equation.
C = Y + 0.3(Y*1.25)
C = 1.3Y * 0.375
C= 0.4875Y
C * 0.4875 = Y
Y = $187,651,538,216.03
Now we gotta find X, we can just plug in the other stuff.
(Y* 1.25)/ 696,000,000 = X
X = $337.02 per share for shitadel to get margin called on 30% interest.
Holy shit, now that’s what I call reasonable. See how much interest can completely fuck a portfolio? They lost almost half of their portfolio value to a 30% interest to this. This is why the whole market will bleed red on the run up to MOASS, they will have to sell half of their portfolio just to pay the interest.
Citadel is probably not a good example of this, since they print the naked shorts themselves... so they would be paying interest to... themselves... when they borrow them? Citadel is so fucked up, I don't have enough wrinkles for this.
But hey, I think the concept of what I said is fine. High interest rates can reduce collateral and cause margin calls. Hey, just out of curiosity, how much is the borrowing interest rate looking now?
16.5%
SHF are fucked.
​
Anyway, I’m writing this on a Wordpad document so I’m not sure if I’ve come up on the character limit, but I think I’m getting close so I’ll end this part here. Please let me know what I’ve got wrong or any insights you want to share, I’ll be sure to talk about any interesting comments when I do a part 2!
TLDR: I am reviewing the Diamond Handbook (2nd) and seeing what has changed in the three years since it’s been compiled. I have a bias in thinking that high borrowing interest rates are what will cause MOASS, and that is shown here. This is not meant to be an impartial analysis, just my thoughts. Not financial advice.

Hey~ So I am in Canada and am offering to people to send them whatever from the TCG they are after if they don't want to wait, or whatever. I know forwarding services are expensive; Ive used my fair share over the years.
Anyway, if anyone is looking to get the booster box, decks, or both, feel free to let me know! I love being able to offer to help the community :) For shipping, a booster box and both decks to the US it would be $196.73 CAD I just ask you pay up front because I wouldn't be able to return the cards if minds are changed.
OH! I forgot to add, Ive been selling merch on here and the discord for a while now, so if anyone is concerned I do have a number of people on both who can vouch for me and all.

Hello and greetings once again my fellow CUEnthusiasts!
Today on Coaches Corner I’m going discuss what I think many players would love some insight on, building your collection and working towards completion. This is going to potentially be a multi, or at minimum a 2 part series. There’s so much to cover that pertains to both and as I write, more keeps coming to mind lol.
While most of what I write is geared more towards newer players, free to play and more casual investors, there will be points shared that may be beneficial to anyone. Regardless the collection you have or even if you don’t care about building/completion.
Once more, a lot of what I’ll be covering will relate to both topics, I will go into more detail and differentiate when applicable if needed.
I’ll kick off this mini series thing with Part 1, where I’ll look at why New Cards are important and also share some of my insights and experience with Card Packs and currency(Gems and Coins).
This is in no way a guide for which packs to only open or where to strictly spend your currency. There are many great packs that aren’t listed and a few of my favorites also aren’t mentioned. It’s more my experience based on how some packs can help with the topics we’re discussing more than others is all. Your coins and gems are always yours to do with as you please :)
Regardless your time spent on cue, the majority of players want and chase new cards. It’s not uncommon to get some pretty wild offers early on, so new cards will and should always be a focus where possible for building and completing your collection. If you’ve ever posted a new card in game, especially early after it drops, you’ll know exactly what I mean. So I’ll leave it at that.
What I would like to discuss is knowing what to pull, and when to pull (I should note, the term “pull” means open packs, as in pull the new card from a pack). I’ll ask as well because I was away for a while and just returned recently to CUE, if I miss any note worthy packs that I didn’t discuss, please comment below and provide a bit as to why it’s a good pack to hit please. I know there’s a few new ones since I came back, and if they’re relevant, it would help to be made aware :)
I won’t cover every single pack but touch briefly on noteworthy ones that are both popular and, based on my personal experience, are worth a mention as they’re relevant to todays topics. I hope this may help when selecting what currency you save up and when to use them to maximize achieving your goals for your collection.
I again want to strongly emphasize. This in no way is a guide on how to 100% get the cards you want, which packs to open and how to spend your gems/coins.
This is however based off my experience in CUE, other trading card apps I’ve been on, and when seeing trades and helping evaluate trades when I pop into discord. I think it’s safe to say, most players who are complete or close to it and the ones who have been around for years, probably already know, have experienced, or used some of this.
I’ll start with what I would watch for in a pack and a new card.
Other than keeping an eye on social platforms for what’s being hyped up, there’s 2 things I look for before I pull for a new card or a pack in general.
The Collection the new card and/or the pack is associated with. And the playability of the new card.
What I look for in a collection first is, if the collection is part of the meta and in demand. Is this collection being played a lot and are many people looking for cards from the collection. I then check what and how many value/meta/very playable limited legendary and limited epics are in the collection. If there’s a decent amount (4-5 or more) this can check off the box for a worth while pack.
Next I look into the new card. How good is it? How scarce is it potentially going to be? And is there demand? While I primarily look to the first point when selecting a good pack, you’ll make the best bang for your currency if both these points are checked off. I’ll break this down a bit.
In regards to the new card, I mainly want its rarity to be limited epic or limited legendary when using it to trade. As I’ve covered before, most limited rares and below are relatively easy to obtain/complete and tend have less played cards as most decks are composed mostly of limited epics and higher. It’s of course still ok to pull/get lower rarity new cards to trade if you have lower rarity needs. These 2 rarities I mentioned though, are important for building and completion as they have the majority of valuable and playable cards amongst them.
I would recommend to try to focus and/or wait for a new card that is as playable and as much a meta deck staple as possible. This just means it’ll have demand.
Next I want to go over how gem cost and pull rates can factor in. I’m going to cover coins separately because they’re used a bit differently.
I do just want to quickly explain pull rates. The pull rate is the % chance you have of getting the specified card if you open 1 pack. For example, if the rate is 25%, when you open 1 of that pack, you have a 25% (1/4) chance of getting that card. It’s not if I open 4 packs, I should 100% get the card by the fourth pack.
Here’s how Gem Costs and Pull Rates COULD factor in.
The lower the gem cost and/or the higher the pull rate %, the more available the card could be. It doesn’t mean you’ll get worse results trading cards in packs that are one or both of these. It just means you may have a shorter window to maximize the cards potential trade power. Packs with high gem costs and/or lower pull rate %, are usually the ones that will be more in demand, be more scarce, and see some of the better offers. Kinda makes sense.
If a pack meets all the criteria we’ve gone over, it’s usually a good one to invest in. Again it’s your choice in the end. You’ll also get accustomed to making the best choice for you and your collecting goals as time goes and you become more well versed in the app. There’s a wide variety of packs to cater to every playecollector!
Before we proceed I want to offer some advice. Don’t send trades taking a wild over pay from people looking for a new card just because it’s new and in demand. It could get declined, as well, reflect bad on you and land you on a block list. Let them choose to do so if/when they send a trade. With the information coming up, there shouldn’t even be a need to.
When you do have and want to trade a new card my advice is always to just post it asap for trade in game and wait to see what comes in. Be patient, you’re not obligated to take the first or any offer just because it came it. Your cards, you get what you want. To elaborate as well, be realistic. One can’t expect the best offers and only look/wait for that every time. Remember too, sometimes you’re on a bit of a clock. As time goes and the card becomes less scarce, demand will/may drop, and good offers you had and waited on, may not come again. This is the game of a collector lol. Comfort will come with experience so don’t sweat it too much. But I felt it’s good to know as well.
I want to also point out to always check the demand of the new card before you post the card in game, accept incoming trades or pull/trade for more copies of a new card. Go to the trade screen and type in the name of the card and check the “Wanted” section to see roughly how many people are looking for it and toggle to the “Offered” section to see how many people are posting it for trade. This will give a very rough idea as to the supply and demand of the new card. If there’s few people looking and lots of people offering, it’s safe to assume demand is low. This is important because you don’t want to waste currency or your dupes for something that’s not gonna move, and you want to move new cards asap.
The way I view currency in general
Gems are mainly used to acquire mostly limited cards, either new or previously released.
Coins are mainly used for obtaining new or previously released basics or the collection of the day pack. I’ll quickly note, it’s rare to fill out your limiteds off basics. It still can happen, but far less frequently and efficiently. The ladder bit is in regards to trading basics, as limiteds can also be acquired via coin packs and I’ll touch on that soon.
So what are some decent/popular packs to look for to use your currency to help build/complete your collection?
I’ll start with gems packs just because most people want to use them the most efficiently, coins too, but there’s usually less opportunity for them as far as getting best bang for your buck so to speak.
Once more, we’re going to keep in mind everything I’ve gone over so far. And I again want to emphasize, I’m not trying to tell you exactly what packs to open and to disregard the rest. These were just some, from my experience, that are better to leverage for the topics today. Again each pack can cater to a different collector and their needs and wants. Just to be clear lol.
League Spotlight:
There’s a number of points I’m going to touch on because this is a popular pack, if not the most popular.
With a low gem cost and a not terrible pull rate for a limited legendary. Typically featuring 6 different Limited Legendary cards with the potential to pull other random limiteds, it has good bang for the gem cost. If pulling this pack, I’d recommend pulling the 3 for 2 at 50 gems.
Best to hit if you have a somewhat decent balance to be effective. You can fill limited card needs, get decent limiteds and more. I find if you can only do the 50 a few times your gems are better used elsewhere.
What can also be very beneficial is when these packs feature at least 2 or more Limited Legendary cards that have value and demand prior to spot light.
One very important thing to be aware of. The limited legendary cards featured are almost always impacted value wise as they’re far more available, again because the pack is popular. And when there is 2 or more value ones featured, the pulls tend to drastically increase leading to market saturation and value decline.
If you’re ok with playing for the long run, their values tend to creep back, but over a long period. The only other downside, there’s never new cards in these packs, only previously released ones. So there’s typically less people looking for the cards from spot light, other than the featured value ones, or those who need them, and you usually won’t see the same offers that you would a new card for spotlight cards. The upside is the ability to get very playable or meta Limited Legendary cards if you need them at an amazing price.
Finder packs, Choose your Fate/Destiny, Grab Bag and the 1500 gem pack(I forgot what it’s called but shows up periodically, again it’s a new one for me lol):
I liken these to spotlight packs because they’re more for if you have needs from that collection or specific rarities of limited cards. It’s worth noting, values aren’t impacted much by these as they’re not as heavily pulled like spotlight is.
Much like spotlight, these tend to not feature a new card so the trades aren’t expected to be the same as ones you’d typically see for a new card. And they usually cost around 150 gems or more per pack. If you’re free to play or a minimal investor and have fewer card needs, I feel your gems can be better used elsewhere. These can be worth it if you have many needs that you want to target or in general depending on the pack.
And lastly, these are the packs I feel are consistently worth the investment in relation to building and completing, especially when they can check off both boxes I mentioned earlier!
Although they can be a bit pricy and pull rates aren’t the best, it can be worth it to just save up to hit them a bit as I find they have the best return on investment.
They are, The (Album) legendary seeker pack (I believe that’s what it’s called, I do mistake it sometimes. Please correct me so I can edit this if so lol), and the Sunday epic pack. There are others but they fall under what I’ve already gone over.
The seeker pack is from a particular Album like arts or science for example. The ones you want to keep an eye out for are the ones that you always get a limited legendary, and I believe a couple of lower rarity limited cards guaranteed from that particular album, in addition to a % chance at a new limited from that album. The cost and pull rates can make these scarce, especially if they’re a good card and epic/legendary rarity but this can also cause heavy pulls and saturation, again, check supply and demand. These tend to see good and sometimes great offers early, usually the same rarity as the new card. And if they’re scarce, they can sometimes hold value over time.
The Sunday Epic drops, well, every Sunday. The gem cost again is on the steep side, I believe 160 gems per pack, and pull rates are not too bad. What these offer however can be really useful. There’s lots of playable and value limited epics and from my experience, hitting this even a few times usually wields a decent limited epic two. Not to add what may come in if you hit the new limited epic and post it in game. The new limited epics in these packs tend to always trend to the more scarce side regardless of playability or value just due to the cost and rates.
These are the ones that to me stand out as they have had the best results for me. I’ve completed once, broke my collection willingly, completed again, took a long break and came back and completed once more. Done the dance a few times lol.
Again, I’m not saying there aren’t other worth while packs as there’s a few I enjoy that I didn’t list. But these are the ones I feel are most relevant to the topic at hand. You want to save up enough to at least try to get yourself a copy for yourself and a dupe or 2 if you’re trying for completion, or a copy or 2 to trade if you’re just looking for cards for your collection to play. These are also good to use to build decent dupes for future trades if you’re complete or have a few needs left to bait out those last cards.
Lastly coins. These are pretty straight forward as there’s not much variety wise like gem packs to spend them on. The ones I feel are best suited to today’s topic for coins are as follows:
First, the Collection of the Day coin pack version for a new limited card. You mainly want to pull on this pack if it meets both the limited card and collection criteria I’ve gone over. With the chance to pull limited cards from the same collection as the new card and the new card itself, this will be one of the good packs to invest your coins in when the criteria is met.
Lastly, and as of the time of this post. In the Basic packs section along the top row, there’s 3 coin packs, and 1 rotates out, and a new one rotates in, every few days. Disregard the other 3 below. You want to wait for one of those packs to meet the collection criteria, and only if you’re going to spend a decent stack on these, as it can take many coins to hit those value limiteds. The new cards in these are always basics and don’t yield much return, what makes them worth while is there’s a chance to pull a limited from the same collection, so if you have value needs of that particular collection or want good cards to trade, wait for this kind of pack to arrive that meets, what I consider, a good collection to pull for.
Im going to end here as I feel I’ve covered, in detail, some of the key points regarding new cards and packs and how they can be applied to building/completing. Next time I would like to go over some strategies you can use with the cards already in your collection and some tips on how to use them to their maximum potential for building/completing your collection.
As always, thank you for taking a moment to drop in. Always feel free to comment below if there’s any questions or if there’s any Trading or Collecting topics you’d like me to cover. I’ll do my best to respond. You can find me on the main discord server, link is in the sub description. Happy Trading and keep it Cue, see you in game!
Next time on Coaches Corner with WadeTheHeathen:
We’re going to jump into part 2 of Building your Collection and Working Towards Completion, this time discussing some strategies and tips for how to use the cards already in your collection! Hope to see you then!

Due to a family emergency, I will be leaving Taiwan (permanently) before my tax refund hits my bank account.
Does anyone know if I can still use my debit card (from Changhwa bank, with a foreign PIN number) abroad, if my ARC is cancelled?
I’m worried that I won’t be able to access this money at all. If anyone has any experience with this, I would really appreciate your insight!

Just got back from Vietnam - North to South tour over a couple of weeks around my partner's birthday. Absolutely loved the experience and would love to visit again and slow down the travel to take things in a bit more.
I have some tips for folk from my own experience. I'm from the UK - and specifically Cornwall where tourism is a mainstay of our local economy and I know what it's like to have your land flooded with tourists.
1: the pound is roughly 30000 Vietnamese dong, so divide by 3 and knock off some noughts. It's easier to knock off the last three 0s from the dong price first. Very important for weighing up the personal value of something you might buy/are being hassled to buy.
2: Security at airports is not like our biometric passport scanners in the UK - it's guys in very officious looking uniforms taking their sweet time to weigh up whether you should be let in (or out) of the country. Bear this in mind for planning follow up transport or arriving for a flight. Huge queues. It took about an hour after arriving to get through security, and an hour and a half when departing for our UK flight (important as they were shutting the doors by the time we got through security).
3 phone data - while queuing to get into the country in Ho Chi Minh, we opted to buy some local SIM cards from a stall next to the queues. They were £8 each and gave us unlimited data for our 2 weeks. Ideal. Might be able to get it cheaper but convenience after 20 hours of travelling was worth it. EDIT - thanks to u/phantasizer for pointing out these stalls aren't legit. Our experiences were the sim cards worked fine but see their comment below.
4 airport transfers - take advantage of these where offered. Again, just takes the stress out of things as we found the country quite overwhelming, especially HCMC and Hanoi (overwhelming in a good way though).
5 city markets - we went to Hanoi, Cat Ba, Hoi An, Phú Quoc and Saigon and in each place there was a sizeable (Cat Ba was smaller) market advertised as a "must see" experience but in truth is the same place selling knock off clothes, luggage, souvenirs, food ingredients, etc. Every fourth or fifth stall is EXACTLY the same stuff. It gets boring after 10 minutes. Would advise visiting this wherever you are on your last day to buy some stuff to take home rather than lugging it around.
6 scooters - I wouldn't consider this unless you know how to ride a scooter, especially in the cities. Vietnamese traffic is an organic wonder to beyond from the safety of a taxi.
7 crossing the road - for UK folk, they drive on the other side in Vietnam. Very important to look both ways but believe the hype, pick your moment and go confidently - Vietnamese also have incredible spacial awareness to avoid you.
8 GRAB - download the app, add your card and Grab away. Again, speaking of convenience and least stress, you will quickly appreciate not walking for 20 minutes in +30° city heat and choosing to take an air conditioned taxi. For comparison, a trip that would cost about a tenner in UK costs a £1. Incredible value for your wallet, comfort and time.
9 food - try everything. OK, maybe Thit Cho on Hanoi is a stretch too far for the average Brit but everything else should be experienced. Personal favourites were Hotpot (so wish we had similar in UK) and BBQ where it's in the middle of the table and you do all the grilling. You can find Pho for equivalent of about £1 if you need shoestring food.
10 wine - some places sell local Dalat wine which is OK but wine is not a big deal in Vietnam and is usually at least UK price if not more. My partner found this hard as she doesn't like beer and didn't want to drink cocktails all holiday. Dalat is perfectly good plonk though - white and red.
11 Hoi An - don't believe the hype. We spent too long here (so sorry Saigon, you weren't as loved as you should have been). It can be done in a day and you've experienced it all. Reviews were lead to believe there was more to it. Nightlife was a laugh in a trashy way though if you want to do the whole Brits abroad thing.
12 Be respectful - my experience was that Vietnamese are a country of grinders who work all hours of the day. So speaking of Brits (or anyone else) abroad be respectful that not everyone you see is there for your photo opp or to help you and those in markets and hospitality are making a living, so don't waste their time. British especially are a nation of window shoppers and I'm not sure that came across too well on our travels. Try to be low key while you weave around the lives of Viet folk.
13 Learn to confidently say "no thanks" - politely saying "no thanks, just looking" and moving on is a valuable tool for getting through certain touristy areas. Engaging with folk will both give that person the wrong expectations and exhaust you in the process.
14 Google Translate - download this and use for basic enquiries. I don't think I was saying Xin Chao, Cam On or Tam Biet properly, so for anything beyond that, I have no clue. Don't assume people speak English - some are good enough to say Hello first to get past that.
15 Find a spot and just watch - find a coffee shop, relax and watch a very different people go about their lives. Things I enjoyed: how cool all the young people are; how obsessed the young folk are about selfies; care of children; karaoke round the dinner table (understand not to everyone's taste); friends enjoying a hotpot; lads fighting a crab into said hotpot; groups of friends having animated toasts after work; care of old folk; many and varied ways to use a scooter to carry people, goods, materials, flat screen TVs, dogs.
16 Beers in order of my personal taste - Saigon Red; Larue; Saigon Special; Hanoi; 333
17 Beer St in Saigon - go walk through it. I have never seen anything like it. Don't necessarily stop there but go observe it's wild, perverse nature.
18 If staying in a hotel, before you head out for the day, soak a flannel in water, put it in a glass, put the glass in the fridge. You will appreciate it when you get back from your enevitablely roasting walk around town (mad dogs and Englishman..).
19 pack for very hot weather (in May at least). I took a set of clothes for UK - these were worn to and from the airport and otherwise lived at the bottom on my bag. Otherwise, shorts, t-shirts and light shirts to keep the sun off. Even cotton t-shirts felt too much at times. My favourite items were a matched black linen shirt and shorts I bought out there. Pretty much lived out of them exclusively towards the end of the trip. Must have announced my musky presence from a great distance. Utilise the laundry services for sure.
20 ignore the rubbish - try to tune it out and adjust your hygiene expectations. This is important as in two weeks, I got blisters, bites, at anything and yet came away without food poisoning, infection or anything else. It's an eyesore at times to these soft UK eyes but don't let it ruin the trip. Hope Vietnam authorities can do more to handle that as it'll mount up the more the country is discovered.
Sure there's more but just offloading after getting back. Hope it helps.
EDIT: More to add

1. Cash is king but card is accepted - in the UK, because of COVID, cash has definitely taken a back seat to contactless payment. I've rarely had to use cash other than to pay for things off FB marketplace. Vietnam isn't like that, despite being at least as technologically advanced as the UK in certain respects. Always have some dong on you. Few hundred thousand covers small purchases like water, Bahn Mi for the road, restorative coffee, etc. A lot of places do accept card but can come with a 3% fee. And get ready as they take the card and put it into the machine - it's not a scam (at least, I don't think it is) just how it's done. The card machine is handed to you for pin and then half the time they need a signature on the receipt. Monzo is a good bank for travelling as you get free ATM withdrawals on their side up to £100 and you can instantly see the conversion of the latest transactions.
   
2. Ice cubes - when I got my travel vaccines, I was told to be wary of ice as much as tap water. From experience, iced coffee from most coffee shops has been fine (thankful in the heat) and cocktails with ice also fine. I'd maybe avoid the street side iced drinks and stick to modern looking bars, coffee shops and hotels to be on the safe side.
   
3. Geckos - you may see geckos in hotel rooms and elsewhere. Fear not, they are harmless and like to feast on mosquitos. As with any wild animal though - and includes all the cute looking street dogs - observe from a distance. We shared our cabin in Phu Quoc with a foot long Tokay Gecko which absolutely freaked us out for an evening until the manager told us it's fine and just to leave it be and it'll keep it's distance. Definitely the coolest wild creature I saw.
   
4. Overnight train to Da Nang - if you want to traverse the length of the country and save some time, get the Night Train to Da Naaaang (cue: Madness). Pay the extra for your own cabin. It's relatively comfortable and the next day you can while away the morning watching the mountains and coast roll by. You get complimentary snacks, drinks and a simple breakfast as well.
   
5. Cat Ba Express - originally, we planned to make our own way to Cat Ba by taxi>train,>ferry>taxi. At last minute, I scrapped that off of a recommendation on here and went with a company called Cat Ba Express. For £20 each, we got a return - hotel-to-hotel on an air conditioned bus and on the way back took up the option of a cable car over the water from Cat Ba to Haiphong. Well worth it, again for convenience and time.
   
6. Safety - prompted by u/G_saxboi comment below, while we both felt safe for the majority of the trip, do use common sense when out and about. If you need to get your bearings, find a coffee shop, have a sit down and a drink, and check then - being glued to your phone while walking around isn't the best advice in most touristy parts of the world.
   

Regarding Beer St in Saigon - you can walk through albeit hassled to come for a drink but enter any of those establishments at your own risk.
Also, generally good advice not to engage with anyone who randomly comes up to you. Just say "no thanks" and move on.

Ok before I start I just want to say, please be kind as it can happen to the best of us.
We just got to Cancun.. and this is our first time here and we are travelling with an infant and parents. At the airport after we picked up our luggage and were heading out, we were approached by a gentleman who asked us if we are looking for transportation. We had booked a private transportation to our resort using BD experience. He said they he was from BD experience and started going on about our resort, Cancun, handed us a map and then “invited us for a free breakfast along a ferry ride in exchange for the 90 mins talk and tour of the Dreams resort. He told us it would cost us $40 to be paid in cash - which we paid (I know, we got scammed l- I don’t know what was I thinking!) gave us a receipt that I had signed and everything but before we could get out he took a picture of us saying that it would help him find us to pick up the next day. He took my phone number (I know I shouldn’t have given to him- that was incredibly stupid of me) and took out a phone and just quickly took a picture of us before we could even say no. In hindsight It was shady in all aspects. He told us to not tell our hotel about this conversation as well as show our Visa card when we get picked up the for the “tour” (mind you he took cash earlier). Honestly I could care less about the $40. I just want to know if him taking a Picture of us and having my phone number going to cause an issue during our travel or afterwards if we don’t go. Should we let the hotel reception know that if they come to pick us up? I blocked his number. Has anyone had similar experience?

Hi guys. I am making this publication because I feel worried and I would like you to please read my case and respond to me based on your experience. I really need it... and I don't know if it's this the right forum...
I am a 25 year old man who attends parties and drinks alcohol occasionally and with self-control, my head may spin, but I am always aware and remember everything. On Saturday, May 11, I attended a party where I went alone and was drinking and socializing with different groups. I have no idea how much I drank all night, but it was several sips of a 6% vodka carbonated drink. I believe that from 11 p.m. until 4 a.m it will have been 1 liter in total, I think. I usually drink little by little, but when the party got exciting around 3:30 a.m It was when I started drinking the drink as if it were water (By then I had already joined another group). At 4:20 a.m They were already throwing us out of the place because they were already closing and I left with this group walking towards the whereabouts (which was 20 minutes from where we were). By then my condition was normal, I was not sleepy and much less drunk, I was super aware of what was happening around me. A few minutes later while I was walking... in the blink of an eye I wake up in a hospital with an serum IV, but only for a brief moment because then in another blink of an eye I remember that I am getting to my room with the help of my relatives and the first thing I do is turn on my PC, I could barely write and I tried to look for answers and what had happened, but my head hurt a lot like I had a hangover. (My jacket, my glasses, my cell phone, my card were stolen, and the password had been changed on one of my emails) After that I don't remember much, I think I went to sleep and got up the next day in the early morning more aware. That day I had not eaten anything all day.
In my emails he said he had done a transfer at 4:52 a.m. and another at 08:06 a.m. and I wonder: How? Because to enter mobile banking you need a pin number (I don't have my fingerprints registered in the app, only to unlock my cell phone) and then according to my Google route at 4:48 a.m. I was already at the whereabouts, where they found me lying on the ground 3 hours and later notified my relatives. Why can't I remember anything? Is it possible that I was drugged or did I just drink too much? This is the first time this has happened to me and I am worried about how I was able to be so accessible to give important information, because I have no signs of having been physically attacked and to this day I have a slight taste bitter in my mouth.
My mom shows me the photos of that day in the hospital where I look terrible, my eyes drooping, staring at nothing, and super serious. She said that sometimes she would shake (maybe from the cold) and she could barely get up. The only words I said to my mother were: How did you get there? How did you find me? She also says that I was the one who had given the number when the police had found me lying there. (He tells me all this days later)
It's been 1 week since then, I've cried a lot and I can't sleep because I can't understand how this happened to me, but I'm grateful to God for being alive and without any injuries.
Has something like this happened to you? Some answer? How does the body of a person with excess alcohol function? Do they really faint? In the sense that they faint fall to the ground? Or is there another type of internal fainting? I'm new to this and I would appreciate if you could answer me, please. Sorry for my English, I'm using a translator.
Thank you.

The aim of this thread is to move away from pushing individual threads to EA representatives and give them a single place to review their nonsense. Useful feedback can be in many forms but an easy format would be provide your observation, show data or proof and suggest a solution. Feel free to comment on other's suggestions. An example could be:
Observation: The Power Up program is not successful.
Data: Provide links to any number of the dozens of complaint posts related to power ups.
Suggestion: Allow players to power down and sell the players or ensure the best version of a card is always a power up.

Yo. Selling a big chunk of my collection. Made this a separate post on my profile because I can pin it and can't write all this in the previous post with the pic showing them all (and myself) off lol. May as well put a post up here advertising since most of you are transformers nerds like me
All don't include their retail box however are complete unless otherwise stated.
Any collector cards that would have come with them are missing.
Shipping will be massively dependent on which country you're from - ^ Most shipping for these figures to anywhere abroad would be about £10. £3 If you're from the uk :)
Also feel free to send me an offer! I'm not COMPLETELY dead set on the prices.
💎Pics:-
https://imgur.com/a/HTyLpbB
https://imgur.com/a/9mlERIF
💎Complete figures:-
❤️Jujiang KO Oversized CW Superion £250
❤️CW Victorion £200
❤️IT Star Saber £130 (HELD)
❤️Oversized Masterpiece Grimlock £85 (HELD) - (I managed to find his crown!)
❤️MDLX Optimus Prime £80
❤️MDLX Bumblebee £60
❤️MDLX Cliffjumper £60
❤️Legacy Nova Prime £50 (HELD)
❤️WFCK Ultra Magnus £45
❤️Legacy Bulkhead £35
❤️Yes Model Hot Spot + First Aid £35
❤️SS2 Optimus Prime £35
❤️TF4 Slog £35
❤️WFCK Warpath + Upgrade Kit £30 (HELD)
❤️Legacy Armada Hot Shot £25
❤️TR Kup £25 (HELD)
❤️SS86 Jazz £25
❤️SSB NEST Bumblebee £25
❤️TF5 Slug £25
❤️TF4 Slash £20
💜Unique Toys Bruticus £400
💜Legacy Menasor £150
💜DX9 Galvatron £100
💜DX9 Astrotrain £85 (HELD)
💜Jinbao Bruticus £80 (HELD)
💜MDLX SG Optimus Prime £80
💜MDLX Nemesis Prime £80
💜WFCS Reflector 3 Pack £60 (HELD)
💜KO MP Shockwave £55 (HELD)
💜Legacy Blitzwing £50
💜WFCS Shockwave £50 (HELD)
💜WFCS GM Shockwave £50
💜BBM Mechanical Alliance Soundwave £50
💜BBM Mechanical Alliance Blitzwing £50
💜BM Nitro Zeus £45
💜Legacy Soundwave + Cassettes £45
💜DNA Design Scourge Upgrade Kit £40
💜Iron Factory DJD 3 Pack £40
💜WFCS Soundblaster £35 (HELD)
💜WFCS Takara Mall Nemesis Prime (HELD)
💜WFCE Starscream £35
💜WFCE Skywarp £35
💜WFCE Thundercracker £35
💜WFCK Cyclonus £35
💜SS86 Sweep £35
💜Buzzworthy Seeker Trooper £35
💜Legacy Nacelle £35
💜Legacy Cloudcover £35
💜Legacy Dirge £35
💜Legacy Armada Starscream £35
💜WFCE Runamuck £30 (HELD)
💜Legacy Shrapnel £25 (HELD)
💜Legacy Kickback £25 (HELD)
💜Legacy Bombshell £25 (HELD)
💜Buzzworthy Quintesson Troop £25
💜Buzzworthy G2 Cybertronian Troop £25
💎Incomplete figures:-
❤️Masterpiece MP-10 Optimus Prime £95
(Includes Axe, Gun and Matrix Accessories)
❤️Toyworld TW-F09 Bumblebee Movie Optimus Prime Deluxe Edition £150
(Missing the 2 box containers)
❤️POTP Rodimus Prime £20 (HELD)
(Only the smaller Hot Rod available with his big gun)
❤️Buzzworthy Battle Damaged Ironhide + Prowl £50
(Missing Blast Effect parts and Prowl's Siren)
💜Jinbao Predaking £65
(Missing Razorclaw's 2nd Lion Head)
💜War For Cybertron Trilogy Spoiler Megatron 2 pack £35
(Only includes Megatron with his fusion cannon and sword - Missing Fossilizer and any other accessories)
💜WFCS Apeface £10 (HELD)
(Missing Gun and Shield)

What’s the Difference Between On-Page SEO and Off-Page SEO?

On-page SEO focuses on optimizing parts of your website that are within your control, while off-page SEO focuses on increasing the authority of your domain through content creation and earning backlinks from other websites. To further understand the difference between the two, you have to understand, at a basic level, how search engine algorithms work. Let’s break it down.
There are two main buckets that search engines (SEO) look at when evaluating your site compared to other sites on the web.

1. On-page SEO looks at what your site (or your page) is about
2. Off-page SEO looks at how authoritative and popular your site is

On-Page vs. Off-Page SEO: What’s the Difference?

Put simply, what you rank for is largely determined by on-page factors, while how high you rank in the search results is largely determined by off-page factors.

How Does Each Type of SEO Affect Your Rankings?

What is On-Page SEO?

On-page SEO (also known as “on-site” SEO) is the act of optimizing different parts of your website that affect your search engine rankings. Where your website appears in search engine results pages is determined by a number of ranking factors including site accessibility, page speed, optimized content, keywords, title tags, etc. On-page SEO is about optimizing the stuff that you have control over and can change on your own website.

On-page SEO checklist:

How do you make sure your on-page SEO tactics are up to snuff? Here is a helpful checklist for on-site optimizations that can help curate your strategy.

Title Tags

Put your targeted keywords in the title tag of each page on your site. There are many best practices that go into writing an effective title tag.

• Limit your title tags to 55-60 characters (including spaces)
• Push the keyword closer to the beginning of the title (ONLY if it sounds natural)
• Don’t stuff your keywords
• Include brand at the end of the title tag, separated by a pipe bar () Example: “Chicago SEO Digital Third Coast”

Headings (H1)

Headings are usually the largest words on the page, and for that reason, search engines give them a little more weight than your other page copy. It is a good idea to work your target keywords into the headings of each web page but make sure you accurately reflect your page’s great content.
Make sure your H1s limited to one per page, all other headers are H2 or H3

URL structure

Put keywords into your URLs if possible. However, do not go changing all of your current URLs just so they have keywords in them. You shouldn’t change old URLs unless you plan on redirecting your old ones to your new ones. Consult a professional before doing this.

• Label your directories and folders in a way that makes sense for users
• Don’t repeat keywords in your URL more than once. Keywords are helpful, but overdoing it effects user experience. Example: /best-socks-comparison-best-socks-best-socks?
• Keep URLs as short as possible

Alt text for images

Any content management system should allow you to add something called “alt text” to all images on your website. This text isn’t visible to the average visitor – alt text is in fact used by screen reader software to help blind internet users understand the content of your images. Search engines crawl images in a similar way, so inserting some relevant keywords while accurately describing the image will help search engines understand your page’s content.
Writing an alt attribute for each image keeps your website in compliance with WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines). Keep the following things in mind when writing alt text:

• Thoroughly describe the image in 8-10 words
• Include your targeted keyword where it sounds most natural
• Include, if relevant, a geo-locator (e.g., Chicago)

Fast-loading pages, or page load speed

Google wants to help its users find what they’re looking for as quickly as possible to provide the best user experience. Therefore, optimizing your pages to load faster helps your site rank higher in the search results.
Google has a tool called PageSpeed Insights that will analyze your site on both mobile and desktop. and then suggest tips to optimize page speed. There are also several quick fixes to eliminate whatever is bogging your site down and slowing your page load time. Key site speed factors to consider:

• Minimizing HTTP requests
• Making sure server response time is <200ms
• Setting browser caching to at least a week or longer
• Enabling Gzip compression
• Having image sizes under 100kb (.jpg, .png, .gif)
• Placing all CSS in an external style sheet
• Minifying all JS, CSS and HTML
• Prioritizing above the fold content loading

Mobile Friendliness

In recent years, Google has prioritized mobile page loading speed as a key ranking metric.
How do you know if your website is mobile-friendly? Unfortunately, Google recently dropped support for some free public tools that helped. However, you can now use Google Search Console to analyze this type of information. Specifically, the Core Web Vitals report can help you identify if your mobile pages are loading slower than they should be.

Page Content

The content on your pages needs to be useful to people. If they search for something too specific to find your page, they need to be able to find what they’re looking for. It needs to be easy to read and provide value to the end user. Google has various ways to measure if your content is useful.

• Aim for at least 500 words of copy. Although there is no exact formula for how many words a page should have, Google seems to prefer when a page has a lot of relevant and helpful content surrounding your topic.
• Copy must be unique to each page, not duplicated from other pages on your site, and should directly address your visitors’ search queries
• Push the keyword closer to the beginning of the title, but ONLY if it sounds natural

Internal Linking

Linking internally to other pages on your website is useful to visitors and it is also useful to search engines. Here’s an internal link to another blog post on our site that talks more about internal linking. Very meta.
When adding internal links, make sure to have relevant anchor text. Anchor text is the clickable text in a hyperlink (usually indicated by blue font color and underline). To optimize your anchor text, make sure the selected word or phrase is relevant to the page you’re linking to.
On-page SEO ensures that your site can be read by both potential customers and search engine robots. With good on-page SEO, search engines can easily index your web pages, understand what your site is about, and easily navigate the structure and content of your website, thus ranking your site accordingly. As a best practice, make sure your page content includes 1-3 relevant internal links.

Schema Markup

Adding structured data helps Google better understand the content of a page. Google also uses certain types of structured data to display “rich results” in SERPs such as a recipe with start ratings or step-by-step instructions with an image carousel. These rich results often appear at or near the top of SERPs and generally have higher click-through-rates than normal organic listings.
Google prefers structured data to use schema.org vocabulary, and recommends using JSON-LD format. They also provide a handy Rich Results Test tool to check your code. While there are a variety of ways to add structured data to your website (plugins, Google Tag Manager, etc.), it’s always best to get a professional involved if you’re not comfortable writing code.
Check out Google’s guide to structured data and rich results here.

Social Tags

Having your content shared on social tells Google that people find your content relevant, helpful and reputable. Not every page on your site is share-worthy, but you can optimize the pages that are with these tips:

• Make sure you have Open Graph tags and Twitter Cards installed
• Make it easy with “tweet this quote” links, or social share buttons for each post

Core Web Vitals

User experience is key to a website’s long-term success. In spring 2020, Google unveiled Core Web Vitals, a common set of signals that they deem “critical” to all users’ web experiences.
The purpose of these signals is to quantify the user experience with a website, from page visual stability and load time, to interactive experiences.

• Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) – measures perceived page loading speed and marks the point at which the majority of the page content has downloaded.
• First Input Delay – quantifies user experience of a user’s initial engagement with a page.
• Cumulative Layout Shift – quantifies the amount of layout shift on visible page content and measures visual stability of a page. It’s usually causes by images without dimensions, dynamically injected content, web fonts causing FOIT/FOUT, and other embeds added without dimensions.

To check your LCP score, access your Google PageSpeed Insights and make sure your page hits LCP within 2.5 seconds. To accomplish this, remove unnecessary third-party scripts that may be running, upgrading your web host, activating “lazy loading” so page elements load only as users scroll down the page, and remove any large page elements that may be slowing it down.
One of the simplest ways to optimize cumulative layout shift is to add height and width dimensions to each new site element. Also, avoid adding new content above existing content on a page (unless responding to user interaction).

Page Experience

Google is working on a new ranking signal (likely to come out in 2024) that prioritizes websites with positive user experiences.
The ‘page experience signal’ will consist of Core Web Vitals, plus mobile-friendliness, safe-browsing, HTTPS security, and intrusive interstitial guidelines.
According to Google, “optimizing for these factors makes the web more delightful for users across all web browsers and surfaces, and helps sites evolve towards user expectations on mobile. We believe this will contribute to business success on the web as users grow more engaged and can transact with less friction.”

What is Off-Page SEO?

Off-page SEO focuses on increasing the authority of your domain through the act of getting links from other websites.
A good analogy for how authority works is this. If you have a bathtub with rubber duckies in it (the ducks are your pages), and you start filling the tub with water (links), your duckies are all going to rise to the top.
This is how a site like Wikipedia ranks for pretty much everything under the sun. It has so much water in its bathtub that if you throw another rubber duck in it, it’s going to float to the top without any other effort.
There’s a score called “Domain Authority” that calculates how authoritative your website is compared to other sites. You can type your domain name into here to see your score.

How to optimize for off-page SEO

There are several factors that influence your off-page SEO rankings. While each one is tackled with different strategies, they share an overarching goal of building the trust and reputation of your website from the outside.

1. Inbound links
2. Social media marketing
3. Guest blogging and guest posting
4. Unlinked brand mentions
5. Influencer marketing

The biggest off-page SEO factor is the number and quality of backlinks to your website. Some examples of ways you can build links to your website are:

• Creating awesome content that people want to link to because it is valuable. For example, this super helpful blog post about how to improve about us pages. The post provides a ton of actionable recommendations. People tend to link to content that is useful. Creating an online tool for your industry is another powerful content type. Things like online calculators tend to get the most backlinks out of all content types because they help people accomplish a goal.
• Social media shares of your content that ultimately generate links.
• Outreach e-mails to influencers in your industry that ultimately link to you.
• Guest blogging on sites related to yours. These guest posts will have links back to your site.

While link quantity is still important, content creators and SEO professionals are realizing that link quality is now more important than link quantity. As such, creating shareable content is the first step to earning valuable links and improving your off-page SEO.
How many links do you need for good off-page SEO? That is a tough question and it’s going to be based on the domain authority of your competitors, as you want to make sure you’re playing in the same sandbox.
SEOs also used to believe that buying links was a valid way of link building; however, Google will now penalize you for buying links in an attempt to manipulate page rank. You can also be penalized for submitting your links to link directories whose sole purpose is to increase your domain authority. Again, quality wins out over quantity when it comes to link building.

Is On-Page or Off-Page SEO More Important?

It’s not about choosing between on and off-page SEO, that would be like having to choose between a foundation or a roof for your house. On-page and off-page SEO work together to improve your search engine rankings in a complementary fashion.
However, SEOs generally advise getting your on-page SEO ducks in a row before focusing too much on off-page SEO.
Just like building a house, you want to set the foundation first before building the rest of the house. Like a foundation, you may need to come back and do some maintenance to your on-page SEO from time to time. Balancing the two will help make your website “bilingual” so that your users can understand it as well as the search engine robots- and that’s how your rankings start to improve.

SEO #onpageseo #Offpageseo #Corewebvitals

(Part 2 out now)
I woke up with a cough of blood and pain. I felt something metal with my hands as I looked down. A long stint of rebar poked out of my ribcage and through my chest plate, covered in a mix of my blood and the bile of a bug.
I reached down and grabbed my Senator, feeling its trusty weight in my hands. I haphazardly tried to place the barrel against the portion of rebar sticking out of my back. This had better work, I thought. I pulled the trigger once and with a loud Crack I felt the vibration from the shot in my stomach. I tried to choke down vomit and pulled the trigger twice more Crack, Crack. With the third shot the rebar gave way and I rolled to my side and collapsed on the ground. Agony shot through my body as I hit the dirt.
I realized then, Hmmph, they left me. During Extraction one of the other divers called in a 500kg as we were about to board Pelican 1. She had thrown it over one of those damned chargers in an effort to kill one last bug but... it started charging us. I was the last one in line and just as I was about to board... i was thrown 200 feet away from extraction site. I don't blame them. I'd have left me too. We had successfully evacuated a number of scientists and other military personnel, but we'd lost the planet. No hard feelings I guess.
I tried to pull my mind away from those thoughts and just focused on one. Survive. I pulled myself to my knees and looked at the rebar again. Cant park there bud, I thought tryna cheer myself up. I had dropped my senator when I fell and ended up with two free hands. I reached down and with the assistance of my servo-assited armor prepared to wrench the rebar from my chest. Alright, count of three, I thought. One my heartrate quickened. Two I adjusted my grip ever so slightly. Three I ripped the metal rod out and felt a hot stinging pain shoot through my body. I quickly grabbed a stim and applied it.
I winced as the stim numbed my broken ribs and began rapidly working to heal them and my open chest wound. After a couple seconds, I could stand.
I took quick stock of my inventory. My Senator with 23 rounds left, two ration packs, a canteen of water, 1 stim, a knife, and a bag of oatmeal. Oatmeal? Seriously? I'd rather have ammo but... beggars can't be choosers.
I looked around me. Snow and beaten down rubble surrounded me. This was some kind of research station, I think. Didn't bother grabbing the name. Cold as hell and nothing really around to get my bearings. Great. I thought. Im gonna die inside a freezer. I started looking through the rubble for anything useful. I found a corpse of one of the scientists that hadn't made it to evac. I grabbed the ID card off his jacket. Figured It'd get me inside a building if there were any left standing. I crawled out of the rubble and onto the snowy tundra.
The sun had set and with it most of the light I would've been able to utilize. I scanned the horizon for a blinking light. Blinking like meant beacon. Beacon meant possible radio, maybe some ammo. I clocked one to the southwest and began walking that direction senator drawn.
I spotted a few distant bug patrols illuminated by moonlight but they had no interest in me. I kept my head down and kept moving towards the light. Details started to take shape and I could see this was a research station. Perfect I thought.
I reached the door and used the key card. There was a Beep and the red light flashed green. The door cracked open before jamming. Oh no you dont, I thought and with one hand yanked the door open. I closed it behind me with the same hand to keep the wildlife disinterested.
Inside was dark and damp. I had lost the seal integrity on my suit so there was barely any oxygen regulation. Didn't need it on this planet but still, it's a bitch to fix. I turned my flashlight on and started scanning the room for a light switch. I found one but wouldn't ya know it... dead. At least the beacon had power. I walked over to the radio and pulled off my helmet. I wedged the flashlight in my neck and leaned my head to the side. I started flipping switches and turning dials to see if there was a response. Nothing. Id have to find the master terminal. I grabbed the flashlight and donned my helmet again. I began scanning the room again before I heard it. A little shuffle behind me. I turned quickly and drew my senator raising it at the source of the sound.
It was a small child. At least... thats what it appeared to be. At first glance I could see bindings on its legs and arms. A hospital gown with little ducklings on it and a teddy bear tucked under its arm. I lowered my senator as it spoke.
"Dr. Mehon told me to wait here. He said hed be right back."
Dr. Mehon was probably dead I thought. I knelt down and put my hand on the child's shoulder. "Whats your name kid?"
"3". I felt a rage build up. I swallowed it quickly.
"Well 3, what uh... why.. why do you have bin.." I stopped myself. Whatever those scientists were doing here...
3 looked up at me and I noticed it. A cat like set of eyes. Other little details started to click as well. Four fingers on each hand, slightly pointed ears, a discoloration of skin and a rigid scale-like spine on the shoulder.
"The radio doesnt work mister." 3 seemed to have understood their situation. "Dr Mehon destroyed it before he left."
I realized then that it was unlikely either of us would make it off this planet alive.
EDIT: Part 2 out now! (Part 2's a lil shorter) I Didnt think itd get this many upvotes and comments. Ill keep writing then. Feel free to suggest names for 3!

Hi all,
Thanks for the invite to the group.
Below are all the locations I've signed up to which allow referrals and pay you in return for them.
I'll try to be as good at explaining where I can. For ease I have hidden referral links just incase the sites dont allow sharing in "public" forums such as this.
Banking apps: 1. Monzo Offer: Spend no minimum, make £5 Referral link Steps: - You’ll need to be a UK resident aged 16 or over with an open Monzo account of any kind. You have 30 days to: - download the Monzo app - apply for a current account or business account - add some money and pay for something using Monzo (no minimum amount) - The referral’s complete and we’ll both get £5

1. Zing Works similar to Revolut/Wise, foreign currency banking essentially. Offer: Spend £5 minimum, make £20 Referral link Steps:
2. You'll need to be a UK resident aged 18 or over with an open Zing account You have until 31st May to:
3. Sign up by following the link above to the referral landing page form and following the instructions.
4. Register using a mobile number
5. Download the Zing app and be successfully on-boarded as a customer for the first time using the same details as above.
6. Top up your Zing account
7. Spend £5 using virtual card, google/apple pay or order a card and spend that way too (but this might take too long to arrive)
8. once promotion has ended, within 30 working days we should receive £20 each. You can refer up to 20 people each to make £400 yourself, but has to be completed by above date.
   
9. Zilch Virtual banking app, cashback on spending at loads of retailers online and in store via google/apple pay. Offer: Spend no minimum, make £5 (to spend towards one of above retailers) Referral link Steps:
   
10. sign up
    
11. set up pay now option
    
12. set up pay anywhere
    
13. purchase/ spend something
    
14. receive £5 once transaction has registered.
    

Please note that this app has a credit facility, so make sure pay now option is set up so you dont affect your score incase you're prone to missing payments. Some point after registration Zilch may show up on your credit report, mine showed up after a few months. Cashback received varies but minimum is 0.5%.

1. Freetrade Stocks and shares platform Offer: Deposit minimum £50, receive 1 share between £10-£100. Referral link Steps:
2. sign up using the link
3. fill in the W-8BEN form
4. deposit £50, no need to spend it on purchasing shares. Unless you want to of course.
5. receive a free share valued between £10-£100

Please note your capital is at risk if purchasing shares. So if you want to play safe deposit minimum £50, dont spend and receive the free share to do as you wish with. If you want to try the platform, then by all means go for it. I just have to state your investment is at risk due to the nature of stocks and shares. If you decide to refer your friends, you get up to 10 referrals a month.
Cashback platforms: Some of the below can be combined with cashback or gift card places like Zilch (above) / Chase / Cheddar and Jam Donut (below) for example, to save and make even more money back.

1. Topcashback Cashback site where you can each money on every days online purchases Offer: Purchase using the platform and reach the £10 threshold for cashback. Referral link Steps:
2. sign up
3. use the site to find a retailer you shop with
4. purchase item
5. get cashback each time you do
6. build up £10+, that's yours to then cash out and spend as you wish via bank account/paypal/gift cards
   
7. Quidco Cashback site where you can make money on every day purchases Offer: Purchase using the platform and reach £5 threshold for cashback. Referral link Steps:
   
8. sign up
   
9. use the site to find a retailer you shop with
   
10. purchase item
    
11. get cashback each time you do
    
12. build up £5+, that's yours to then cash out and spend as you wish via bank account/paypal/gift cards
    
13. you'll get £15 once accomplished the above
    
14. Cheddar App that pay you money instantly for purchasing gift cards Offer: £5 for referring Referral link Steps:
    
15. sign up
    
16. link bank account
    
17. purchase gift cards
    
18. each cashback
    
19. withdraw once you reach £5 threshold
    
20. when you buy your first gift card, the referrer gets £5 also.
    
21. JamDoughnut App that pay you money instantly for purchasing gift cards Offer: £3 for using app for 1st time. Referral link Steps:
    
22. sign up using the link and input my code LA9G
    
23. link bank account
    
24. purchase gift cards
    
25. each cashback
    
26. when you cash out your funds for first time
    
27. Airtime Rewards App that pays you for spending in store or online, you can use the pot to go towards your phone bill (various ones available) or to gift to another members phone number instead. Offer: Sign up within 7 days and get £2 Referral link Steps:
    
28. sign up using the link and input my code if requested, LKMDEP7M
    
29. link a bank card you will spend with
    
30. use the linked card to make purchase various shops in store or online as per mentioned on airtime app within 7 days
    
31. we both get £2
    

This app is quite good to use, haven't really paid for my phone bill for over a good couple of years now.
Other cashback / reward offers: 1. E.On Next Sign up and get £50 credit on your bill Referral link T&Cs apply here

1. Community Fibre Sign up and get £50 Amazon gift card Referral link
   
2. Smarty Sign up and get £10 voucher for Amazon, John Lewis or Uber Referral link
   

Hi! I'm in RDJ for a few weeks for work in June-July, but I have some time off! would appreciate any places/locations to get:
- trinkets, ie jewelry and little figurines, enamel pins, vintage post cards and posters, etc
- only-in-brazil products, like the loccitane au bresil line
- records and vinyl, feel free to recommend any artists to check out that i could support
- places to socialize, i'm there for 3 weeks so it would be great to make new friends
- any cute/interesting exhibitions or places to check out besides the tourist checklist, like cat cafes or historical showings, local plays, workshops or events!
Thank you!!
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