Weather Betting Ultimate Guide 🤑 All You Need to Know

I grew up in the heart of Harvey Lane. In the big house with the perfectly painted window frames and the grass in front that is always cut in the most symmetrical manner. The people that live in our town are the most helpful you could ever imagine. If a brick of your house is hanging only slightly lose, they will come by and help to fix it right away. If your dog runs away the entire neighborhood will be on the lookout. If you’re down with a cold your neighbor is quick to ring on your doorbell with a steaming pot of chicken soup. It’s a community filled with kindness and heartred.
That’s what my mother always says. It’s her version of hatred because the latter does clearly not exist anywhere near Harville.
Despite the apparent perfection I don’t enjoy living here at all. I hate the appearance when deep inside I know that not everyone can be this happy and friendly all the time. I clearly know that I’m not. I haven’t been ever since my father left my mother and me just the day before my fourteenth birthday. Without saying goodbye or giving a reason. The last thing I heard of him was the big fight he had with mum. I don’t know what they talked about, just that the smashing of the door would be the last I’d hear of my dad. I imagined my mother would be sad but she smiled nonetheless and told me how it is his own fault to voluntarily leave the most wonderful place on earth.
It didn’t take her long to find a replacement and get married again. Doug is even more enthusiastic than her and it makes the bile in my stomach move up every time I talk to him. Two years had passed already but I still couldn’t warm up to Doug being around. Not because he treated me badly in any way. He was always grinning and making dumb jokes. He'd cook dinner and help with my homework. On the outside, he was acting great but every time he was around my gut would scream that something was awfully off about him.
Admittedly I enjoyed my time in Harvey Lane when I was a child. Mum and dad would take me to the playground and I would play until my eyes could hardly stay open anymore and my feet were sore. That’s where I met my best friend, Elias, too. He has those types of eyebrows that always made him look a little mad and I think as he grew up we both started to take on the anger we were missing here. Back then though we’d happily play all day while my parents sat on the grass with the other families to have picnics and talk about the wonderful life of Harville. If you looked at the people here you might understand why they enjoy being here so much. There are no problems in our small town. We don’t have poverty, violence, or anger. Everything is regulated so you never have to worry even if you’re alone. Maybe the reason we never leave is that everyone that lives here is afraid of the reality of the world out there.
Of course, that’s only what it looks like on the outside. They don’t speak about the disappearing children in public after all. At first, I was too young to understand. Every year or so there would be whispers about another girl or boy being lost without a trace. I would hear dad speak to mum about the dangers of Harvey Lane and feel the anxiety build up.
“These things happen everywhere, Marcus. You are simply more aware of it due to the contrast. It’s easy to be upset by something when all you know is peace and harmony,” my mother said in a melodic voice.
“It’s easy to be upset when our child could be next,” my father responded in a stern tone.
That’s about the time mum noticed that I was eavesdropping. Her smile disappeared from her face for a split of a second. It was the last time they discussed the matter of the children at home. I, on the other hand, had lots of questions but at night when I was in bed dad came up to me to assure that I would never be in trouble.
“As long as you’re back inside before the street lights turn on, you will always be safe in here with your mother and I. Alright buddy?”
He patted my head and moments later I forgot all about the only dark side of Harville
--
That was a long time ago. I was far beyond the age of being home by dark and I knew for a fact that my dad would not be there when I got back.
Honestly, I had been trying to spend as much time away from home as I could.
I wasn’t exactly afraid that whoever or whatever was making children disappear would take me next. I was almost an adult by now. Besides, Elias always said that those kids weren’t taken. They ran away because they couldn’t bear this utopia that was more shine than substance. He wasn’t wrong. If it wasn’t for my only friend who was the only cynical person I knew here, I would have been long gone as well. But with him, I somehow had gotten used to the simple life we lived here. I didn’t know anything beyond it after all.
Things were going pretty alright considering everything. The last disappearance had been months ago and was not framed as one.
Dylan Dullens. The 13-year-old boy of one of the most well-known families around. The Dullens were always around when anything in town took place. Mrs. Dullens always organizes the annual Christmas festivities. She gets the big tree for the town center, takes care of decorations, and leads the carol singers through the streets. Mr. Dullens is the head of the homeowners association. He’s the one you need to talk to if you want the slightest change in town. And he’ll always forbid it with the most friendly smile. They have four other children which are all extremely popular and pretentious. When Dylan suddenly stopped coming to school everyone was told that he was sent to a prestigious boarding school across the ocean.
We knew it was a lie but nobody said a word. I think most parents were just glad their children were still around.
After Dylan, we hit a quiet phase concerning children but an exciting season for Harville. There were even more festivities, the few streets with broken pavement were repaired. The town looked better than ever before and its residents were so cheerful that it could hurt your eyes and ears. I gave up trying to talk to mum and Doug about any of the issues. They always had different reasoning and would simply try to convince me to join a club, a neighborhood party, or the scouts I had stopped joining any events in town a while ago and had tried to distance myself from my stepfather and mother as much as I could.
--
Ignorance can be bliss until the problem comes close enough for you to worry.
It started with a flicker of a street light. The way they do when the light is close to dying down. The bulb is tattered but not yet broken. A first warning sign that it needs change.
As I continued walking down the empty street to my home I passed the lamp with a flicker and looked up. Little insects were being attracted by the slowly vanishing light before it suddenly turned dark. It didn't feel too strange except the same thing happened a few feet further on the second street light of Harvey Lane. I took a quick turn around and the first light was shining bright.
I kept walking and the flickering followed me. Every lamp I passed until I finally started running. Right towards the pastel green door of my childhood home. I smashed the door shut, locked it three times, and carefully moved towards the window, my breath slow and my heart going fast.
All the lights were off.
I sighed and told myself that it must be a power outage. Those happen quite frequently here but when I walked my fingers to the light switch next to the door our home wasn't dark anymore.
“What are you doing here?”
My heart stopped a beat when I heard the deep voice behind me speak.
“Doug, what the fuck?” I shrieked.
“Julian, my boy, you know we don’t swear in this house,” he said, his mouth formed into a half-smile.
“Why were you standing in the dark?” I asked, my voice still slightly shaky.
“You shouldn’t be here, Julian. You know that right?” he said while moving a step closer.
His face and voice both sounded friendly but he was acting even stranger than normal.
“Not now and not then.”
“Uhm, where’s mum?” I nervously asked.
“Tonight’s the town meeting. Things aren’t going too well lately. Haven’t you noticed more people being sick? And the fields are too dry this year. It’s, apologize my directness, sub-optimal.”
He was right, I had to bring soup to three different neighbors in the last couple of days despite people hardly ever getting sick in Harville.
“Why didn’t you go with her? You never miss a meeting.”
“I had another obligation.”
Doug stared at me the entire time he was speaking. I could swear he didn’t even blink once. I felt incredibly uneasy being home alone with him but to my luck the doorbell saved me. It was Elias who came over to watch a movie together after he got stood up for a date. I’d never been happier to see him.
When we turned around Doug wasn’t around anymore.
-
We heard the news in the morning. Jeanie, the girl that lived three doors was gone. This time no bullshit explanation would be spreading through the town. This time we knew exactly that something terrible had happened. We knew because of the big bloodstain right in front of her house. There was an investigation that of course led to nowhere. People were mourning but they were doing it in the Harville way. Her parents didn’t show a single tear and nobody wore black. And everything in town went nice and swell. Even more than usual. There was no need for bringing soup. The streets were clean, the grass was green and the weather warm. Life moved on quite quickly. Everyone seemed to forget but Elias and I didn’t. All this time we thought we were safe now that we were older but Jeanie was already seventeen.
And I felt even more messed up knowing that I had been out there, right on this exact street the same night it happened. Was it somehow connected to the street lights?
--
The following week, Elias and I decided to do something we had never done before. We went to a town meeting. It started at 8 pm. I knew both mum and Doug would be there and after last week I had been avoiding them as much as possible. Especially when I saw the big bright smile on mum’s face when she prepared scrambled eggs while nonchalantly speaking about the girl that we lived next to disappearing. I could bet I saw her eye twitch a little when she spoke about how hard it will be to clean off the blood but that was all. We cycled down to the town hall but made sure to leave our bikes a street further to make sure nobody would see us. Nobody under the age of eighteen is allowed at the meetings. When we were sure that everybody was inside, we quietly made our way to the front hall.
It was empty. They were all in the big meeting room.
“Maybe this was a bad idea,” I whispered.
“Ssht.”
Elias quietly walked up towards the door which was opened just a crack. He waved me over and I reluctantly moved closer.
“They are all clapping,” Elias whispered as we hunched down next to the door.
“A big Harville congratulations to the Murries!”
The clapping became louder and cheering followed.
The Murries were the parents of Jeanie.
“We are all so happy to have you as a part of our community! We know best how wonderful the honor of sacrifice is,” Mr. Dullens spoke. “All our families have given and we all receive. Just the way it should be.”
My heart was racing and I wanted, no I needed, to hear about what kind of satanic ideas they were preaching but after the bit of cheering, they went on with the regular program as if nothing had happened.
--
“Sacrifice? What the actual fuck?” Elias almost shouted after we made our way back outside.
I stayed quiet for a while. I had known for a long time that something was off about the picture-perfect appearance of Harville. Just not how bad it was. The parents here give up their own children to have, what? A nice neighborhood? My entire body was shaking.
“That night,” I mumbled, “I think I was supposed to disappear.”
I thought about the street lights. If I hadn’t been freaked out by them so much, I wouldn’t have run home. It was almost like something was trying to warn me. Or someone.
“And maybe, my dad didn’t leave voluntarily either.”
​
eye | tcc

Hey all. Sorry, this is a long one.
It's been a blessedly long time since I've needed to post here. After receiving the C&D, Memaw backed off almost completely. Like one or two voicemails within the year, and she had flowers delivered to my house on my birthday. We finally moved across the entire goddamn country in August. We've been wanting to do this for a long time, and it feels so good to be a thousand miles away from it all. However, it seems like a nuclear meltdown is now happening on both sides of the family as a result. When it became time to move, I started limiting my social media presence a lot. We only told a handful of trusted friends we were moving. I wanted to just disappear, yet I still got an intrusive message from my flying monkey uncle offering us moving boxes. One thing I was super worried about was that Memaw had maintained a Highlights magazine subscription for DD#1 even after the C&D. I was so paranoid that somehow she would get our new address from the magazines being forwarded by USPS. The first magazine that got sent to our new address had a yellow forwarding sticker from the post office on it. The one we got last week had our new address typed correctly on it, and DD's name had been corrected, where before it had been spelled wrong.
She has our new address and updated the fucking magazine subscription to reflect it.
A few days later, when I'm still trying to process this shock and fear, she fucking calls my husband and leaves a voicemail.
"Hello [DH], this is Memaw. I just wanted to let you know I'm so happy to see you've started your new life. We always love you."
Please tell me this is exactly as crazy as I think it is. I feel like I'm being stalked, and some of the safety I felt being here is gone.
As if this wasn't bad enough, my MIL has LOST her goddamn mind. She's been a consistent problem since the very beginning of my relationship with my husband. She legitimately hates me, plays favorites with my kids; the list goes on. I was hoping I wouldn't have to post about her again on here but it's gotten out of control.
I started back on social media again after we moved, and have mostly been posting on my Facebook about how happy we are to be here and how pretty the weather is. I did make one post about how tough of an adjustment it's been moving to a small town and dealing with the comments we now get about how our kids dress. (Mainly my son who likes to wear skirts.)
I proceeded to recieve this UNHINGED email from her with my husband CCd:
" [BBRittz], it is not unusual that people make comments to me about your Facebook posts. This week though, those comments have been at a new high. Comments about you have been at a new low. People are concerned about your parenting capabilities & the safety of your children. For several reasons it would be prudent for you to monitor what you put out there. Your posts also reflect poorly on [DH] who is a Prince of a Man to tolerate what he does. Please, please, please think about your family before you post. If you want to journal, I would be happy to send you a book to scribe your thoughts, feelings & experiences. For you & you alone to read. [DH], I include you in this message So that you know that I have emailed [BBRittz]. People who know & love you are concerned about you & your family. None of us can do anything but I thought both of you should know what is happening in our world. Mom❤️"
Y'all, I blocked this bitch 6 years ago. The list of people who could be showing her stuff from my FB is very small and I proceeded to block them all.
My husband replied asking her what the hell kind of email was that, that she needed to stop villainizing me, and told her that she wasn't welcome to be around us unless she had a good apology ready to go.
A few days later, he received this text:
"Hi [DH]. Step by step, inch by inch I'm getting closer to my run for the U.S. / CDN Border. As soon as I get the call that my shipment has arrived in Toronto I'll be heading there. I need to UPS a large to you with the kiddos Christmas present in it. Please send me your address so I can get this done. Haven't heard from [DD#2, her favorite] since 8/19. Very strange after months of FaceTiming, visits, vacations... I detest the fact that [BBRittz, except she used my dead name I changed 5 years ago] has destroyed her family relationships & is now destroying ours. Closing doors for you & the kiddos to have a village to love, support & nurture you now & in the future. The destruction, drama, chaos, disrespect & manipulation that she has added to your life is the only thing I can apologize for. I am sorry about that. It is obvious how difficult living with her & her psychiatric issues is. She needs help - medications & therapy. It helped her before you knew her & it could help her again. I realize she is not willing. If she truly loved you & the children she would seek help to live productively with this illness. Please take care of yourself. I know the man you are & that you will take care of your family. Lots of love, XO"
This woman has never once talked to me about my psychiatric history. She is super buddy-buddy with Memaw and that whole side of my family and has just gobbled up whatever they've said to her about me for years. I'm in therapy, and idk what she thinks my illness is but I have CPSTD from being abused by my family, who she's getting the info from.
And the Facetime thing? My kid's tablet broke. But you can bet your ass I've taken her off their messenger apps now.
A lot of the MIL stuff will make more sense with background context, but I've already already gone on too long here. I guess I'll fill in the gaps over the next few days with our history.
I feel so exhausted, angry, defeated. Moving was supposed to get us away from all of this, and now it feels like they're down my throat more than ever and TEAMING UP about it.
Someone please tell me this is all as insane as I feel like it is. Any advice would be appreciated.
Thanks for reading this far. Y'all have helped me more than you know.

hi, you're on a rock floating in space. pretty cool, huh? some of it's water. fuck it. actually, most of it's water. i can't even get from here to there without buying a boat. it's sad. i'm sad. i miss you. HOW DID THIS HAPPEN? a long time ago... actually, never. and also now. nothing is nowhere. when? never. makes sense, right? like i said, it didn't happen. nothing was never anywhere. that's why it's been everywhere. it's been so "everywhere," you don't need a "where." you don't even need a "when." that's how "every" it gets. forget this. i wanna be something. go somewhere. do something. i want things to change. i want to invent time and space. and i know it's possible because everything is here, and it probably already happened. i just don't know when to start. and that's exactly where it started. big bang— pause woah. i paused it. i think there's a universe now. what's it made of? quarks and stuff. ah, that's a thing! in a place! don't like it? try a new place, at a different Time™. try to stick together, because the world is gonna get bigger and emptier. but it's not empty yet! it's still very full, and about a kjghpillion degrees. about no seconds later great news! the quarks are now happily married in groups of three, called a "proton" and a "neutron." and there's something else flying around that wants to join in, but can't cause it's too HOT. ten minutes later great news! the protons and neutrons are now happily married to each other! some of them even doubled up. about 380,000 years later great news! the electrons have now joined in. congratulations! the world is now... a bunch of gas in space. but it's getting closer together... ten million years later and it's getting closer together... 500 million years later and it's getting closer togeth—star is born it's a star new shit just got made! some stars burn out and die. bigger stars burn out and die with passion! and make some brand new way crazier shit. space dust! which allows for newer and more interesting stars to be made, and then die and explode into even crazier space dust! so now, stars have cool stuff around them, like rocks, ice, and funny clouds, which can make some very interesting things. like this ball of flaming rocks, for example. meteor hits earth holy shit, we just got hit by another ball of flaming rocks. and it kind of... made a mess. which is now the moon weather update: it's raining rocks from outer space. weather update: those rocks might've had water inside of them and now there's hot steam in the sky. weather update: cooler temperatures today and the floor is no longer lava. weather update... it's raining. severe flooding alert, the entire world is now an ocean. volcano alert. that's land! there'slifeintheocean what? something's alive in the ocean oh, cool. like a plant, or an animal? no! a microscopic speck. it lives in the bottom of the ocean and eats chemical soup, which is being served hot and fresh, made from gnarly space ingredients left over from when it was raining rocks or whatever. microscopic speck asexually reproduces oh yeah, and it can do that. reproduces three more times it has secret instructions written inside itself telling it how to build another one of itself. so that's pretty nifty, i would say. tired of living at the bottom of the ocean? now you can eat sunlight! using a revolutionary technique, you can convert sunlight into food. taste the sun! side effect, now there's oxygen everywhere and the sky is blue. then the earth might've been a snowball for a while. maybe even a couple of times. it's a sponge... it's a plant... it's a worm, and some other types of weird strange water bugs and strange fish. it's the Cambrian explosion: "wow, that's animals and stuff" but we're still in the ocean. hey, can we go on land? NO why? the sun is a deadly laser oh okay. not anymore, there's a blanket now the animals can go on land. come on, animals, let's go on land! "nope, can't walk yet." "and there's no food yet, so i don't care." 100 million years later okay, will you learn to walk if there's plants up here? "maybe," said some bugs. and fish. fish gasps for air five million years later okay, so i can go on land, but i have to go back in the water to have babies! idea: learn to use an egg. "i was already doing that" use a stronger egg. put water in it. have a baby, on land, in an egg. water is in the egg. baby, in the egg, in the water, in the egg. works for me. bye bye ocean 50 million years later and now everything's huge. including bugs. wanna see a map of the land? sure. Permian extinction oh, fuck, now everything's dead. just kidding, here are the survivors. keep your eye on this one, because it's about to become 75 million years later the dinosaurs. here's another map of the land. yeah, it broke apart. don't worry about it, it does that all the time. here comes a meteor. meteor strikes and the dinosaurs are gone it's mammal time, here come the mammals. look at those breasts. now they're gonna dominate the world, but one of them just learned how to grab stuff. and walk. no, like, walk like that. and grab stuff at the same time. and bang rocks together to make pointed rocks. "ouch" and set things on fire. "yeouch" and make crazy sounds with their voice: "gneurshk" which can mean different things. that's a human person! and now they're everywhere. almost. ice age! what? you can walk over here? cool. not anymore well i guess we're stuck here now. let's review: there's people on the planet. and they're chasing their food. fuck it. time to plant some grass. look at this. i get to control the food now. now everyone will want to be my friend and live near me. let's all build houses, except mine is bigger because i own the food. this is great! i wonder if anyone else is doing this. tired of using rocks for everything? use metal. it's underground. better farming was just invented in a sweet dank valley right in between these two rivers, and the animals are helping. guess what happens next? more food. and more people, who came to buy the food. now you need people to help make the food and keep track of the sales. and now you need houses for people to live in and people to make the houses and now there's more people and they invent things which makes things better and more people come and there's more farming and more people to make more things for more people and now there's business, money, writing, laws, power, Society coming soon to a dank river valley near you. meanwhile, out in the middle of nowhere, the horse is probably being tamed. why is all my metal so lame and lumpy? tired of using lame, sad metal? introducing: bronze. made from special ingredient tin from the far lands of Tin Land. i dunno, my dealer won't tell me where he gets it. also, guess what? egypt meanwhile, out in the middle of nowhere, they figured out how to put wheels on a horse. now we're getting somewhere. also, china and did i mention indus river valley civilization society count: 5 ... norte chico the middle east is getting more complicated. maybe because it's in the middle of the east. knock knock, er, clop clop. it's the... people with the horses? and they made an empire. and then everyone else copied their horses. greeks! ah look, it must be the greeks! er, a beta version of the greeks. let's check in with the indus river valley civilization: they're gone. guess who's not gone? china. new arrivals from india... maybe it's those horse people i was talking about... or their cousins or something... and they wrote some hymns and mantras and stuff... you could make a religion out of this. there's the bronze age collapse. now the phoenicians can get down to business also, can we switch to a metal that's a little easier to find? thanks. look who came back to israel, it's the twelve tribes of israel. and they believe in God just one though, and he's got like a ten-step program. here's some huge heads. must be the olmecs. the phoenicians make some colonies. the greeks copy their idea and make some colonies. the phoenicians made a colony so big it makes colonies. here comes the assyrian empire. never mind, it's the babyloni— media—it's the Persian Empire: "wow, that's big" enlightenment ah, the buddha was just enlightened. who's the buddha? this guy, who sat under a tree for so long that he figured out how to ignore the fact that we're all dying. you could make a religion out of this. oops, china just broke. but while it was breaking, confucius was figuring out how to have good morals. enlightenment ah, the greeks just had the idea of thinking about stuff. and right over here, alexander just had the idea of conquering the entire persian empire. it's a great idea. he was... great. and now he's dead. hopefully, the rest of the gang will be able to share the empire evenly between them. knock knock, it's chandragupta. he says "get the hell out of here. will you get the hell out of here if i give you 500 elephants? okay, thanks, bye" time to conquer all of india er most of india but what about this part? that's the tamil kings. no one conquers the tamil kings. who are the tamil kings? merchants, probably. and they've got spices! who would like to buy the spices? "me!" said the arabians, swiftly buying it and selling it to the rest of the world. hey, china put itself back together again, with good morals as their main philosophy. actually, they have three main philosophies: confucianism: have good morals taoism: go with the flow legalism: fuck you, obey the law out here, the horse nomads run wild and free, and they would like to ransack your city. nomads ransack china let's check the greekification levels of the greekified kingdoms: greekification overload. bye, said the parthians. bye, said the jews. hi, said the parthians, taking over the entire place. heyyyyy, said the romans, eating the entire mediterranean for breakfast. "thanks for invading our homeland," said the jews, who were starting to get tired of people invading their homeland. "hi, everything's great," said some guy who seems to be getting very popular and is then arrested and killed for being too popular, which actually makes him more popular. you could make a religion out of this. want silk? now you can buy it from china. they just made a brand new road to the world. conquers vietnam or you can get there on water "sick! new trade routes!" said india, accidentally spreading their religion to the entire southeast. hmm, that's a good place for an epic trading kingdom. there goes buddhism, travelling up the silk road. i wonder if it'll reach china before it collapses again. remember the persian empire? yep, said the persians, making a new one. axum is getting so powerful, they would like to build a long stick. has anyone populated madagascar yet? let's do it together. china is whole again... ...then it broke again still can't cross the sahara desert? try camels. "hell yeah! now we've got business," said the ghana empire, selling lots of gold. and slaves. "hi, i'm a member of the roman empire, and i was wondering is loving jesus legal yet?" "no" "actually, okay sure," said constantine, moving the capital way over here to be closer to his main rival. don't worry about rome, it won't fall. it's the golden age of india there's the gupta empire, not chandragupta, just gupta. first name chandra. the first. guess who's in rome? barbarians. what's a barbarian? "non-romans," said the romans, being invaded by non-romans. r.i.p. roman empire. actually just half of it, the other half is just fine, but it's not in rome anymore, so let's give it a new name. the mayans have figured out the stars oh, and here's a huge city, population: everyone. the göktürks have taken over the entire eurasian steppe. great job, göktürks. how's india? broken. how's china? back together. how's those trading kingdoms? bigger, and there's more of them. korea has three kingdoms. japan has a kingdom, it's the sunrise kingdom. intermission deep in the arabian desert, on the top of a mountain, the real god whispers in muhammad's ear. so, he goes down to the cube where everyone worships gods and he tells them their gods are all fake. and everyone got so mad at him that he had to leave town and go to a different town. you could make a religion out of this, and maybe conquer the world as well. the roman empire is long gone, but somehow the pope is still the pope. plus, there's new kingdoms all over europe. i wonder if there's room for moors. here's all the wisdom. in a house. it's the baghdad house of wisdom! just in time for the islamic golden age! "let's bring stuff to the coast and sell it, and become the swahili on the swahili coast," said the swahili on the swahili coast. remember this tiny space you have to go through to get from here to there? someone owns that now. wanna get enlightened in the middle of nowhere? the franks have the biggest kingdom in europe, and the pope is so proud that he invites the king over for christmas. "surprise! you're the new roman emporer!" said the pope, pretending to still be part of the roman empire. then the franks broke their kingdom into what will later be called france and not-france. the northerners, er, just "norse" if you don't have much time, are exploring. they go north, from the north to the northern north. and they find some land— two types of land!— and they name them accordingly. prankd they also invade some other places and get called many names, such as "vikings." there's the rus! the kievan rus! are they vikings? "i don't think so," said the kievan rus. okay, fair enough. the pope is ready to make some more emperors of the roman empire. the holy roman empire! it's actually germany, but don't worry about it. new kingdoms—CRISTIANIZE ALL THE KINGDOMS!! which brand would you like? "mine's better" "mine's better" "mine's better" "time to conquer england," said william. it's a bird! it's a plane! it's the seljuk turks! "aah!" said the byzantine empire, who's getting so small and almost doesn't exist anymore. "we need help!" they need help! so they call the pope. "hey pope, can you help us get rid of the seljuks? maybe take back the holy land on the way? come on, i know you want to take back the holy land." "yes, i do actually want to do that. let's do a crusade." crusade! they did many crusades. some of which almost didn't fail. but at least the italians got some sweet trade deals. goodbye mayans. hello toltecs! goodbye toltecs. hello mississippi! look at those mounds. there's the pueblo. i always wondered how to build a town in a cliff. guess who's here? khmer. where? here! and pagan is there. vietnam unconquered itself, korea just became itself, and japan is so addicted to art that the military might have to take over the government. china just invented bombs, and typing. and the mongols just invaded most of the universe. nice going, genghis! i bet that will last a long time. some of the islamic turks were unaffected by the mongol invasions because they were busy invading india. is it tonga time? i think it's tonga time. i just figured out where the swahili gets all of their gold. look at this chad! it means "lake." there's an empire there! right in the middle of africa! the king of mali is so rich, he's going on tour to let everyone know. "wow, that guy's rich," everyone said. the christians are doing a great job reconquering iberia, which will soon be called spain and not-spain. please remain christian. we will check in later to see if you're still christian when you least expect. whoops, half of europe just died. ming! china's back, yay! hey, khmer. time to share. new kingdoms, here and there. oh, look who controls all of the islands. it's the mahajapit. majahapit. mapajahit. mahapajit. mapajahit. ma-ja-pa-hit? oh, italy's real rich. time for them to care a lot about art and the ancient classics. it's kinda like a rebirth. here's a printer. let's make books! so you think you can conquer the byzantine empire? yep, said the ottoman turks. nice job, ottoman turks. oops, you missed a spot. don't forget to ban europe from the indian spice trade. "what? that's bullshit," said portugal, spiceless. "well i guess we'll have to find another way to india" "wait!" said christopher columbus, probably smoking crack. "if the world is round, let's go this way to india." "nah, don't worry, we already got this," said portugal. so chris goes to spain. "hey spain, wanna hire me to find india by going around back of the world?" "no" "please?" "no" "please?" "wtf" "no" "please?" "...okay" so he sails into the ocean, and discovers... more ocean. and then discovers the indies, and japan! let's draw a line to decide who gets which half of the world. the aztec and the inca empires are off to a great start. i wonder if they know that europe just discovered their continent. the hapsburgs are marrying into so many royal families, they might have to start marrying each other. move over, lithuania, here comes moscow. ivan wants to make russia great again. move over, timurids, maybe go invade india or something. persia just made persia persian again. let's make it the other kind of islam. the one where we thought the first guy should've been the other guy. hey, christians! do you sin? now you can buy your way out of hell! "that's bullshit. this whole thing is bullshit. that's a scam. fuck the church. here's 95 reasons why," said martin luther, in his new book which might have accidentally started the protestant reformation. "you know what would be magnificent?" said suleiman wearing an onion hat. "what if the ottoman empire was... really big?" which it is now. "what if russia was big?" said ivan, trying not to be terrible. portugal had a dream that they controlled the entire indian ocean, including the spice trade. and then that dream was real. and spain realized that this is not india, but they pillaged it anyway. "damn," said england and france. "we gotta start pillaging some stuff." then the dutch revolt, and all the hipsters moved to amsterdam. "damn," said amsterdam. "we gotta start pillaging some stuff." question one: can you get to india from north america? no, but at least there's beaver. question two: steal the spice trade. that's not a question, but the dutch did it anyway. and sugar... guess where all of the sugar is made? in brazil! stolen! in the caribbean! and it's so goddamn profitable, you might forget to not do slavery. the next thing on russia's to-do list is to get bigger. britain and france are having a friendly discussion about who should control the entire world. more specifically, ohio. then it escalates into a seven-year discussion, giving prussia a chance to show austria who's boss. but what about britain and france, did they figure out who's boss? yes they did! it's britain. guess who's broke? also britain! so they start taxing the hell out of america. "fuck you!" says america, declaring their independence and fighting for it, and france helps them win. now france is broke, and britain will have to send their prisoners to a different continent. wait, if france is broke, why do the king and queen still wear such fancy dresses? "let's overthrow the palace and cut all their heads off!" said robespierre, cutting everybody's heads off until someone eventually got mad and cut his head off. you could make a rel— no, don't. haiti is starting to like the idea of a revolution, especially the slaves, who free themselves by killing their masters. "why didn't we think of this before?" wait, who's in charge of france now? "me," said napoleon, trying to take over europe. luckily, they banished him to an island. but he came back! luckily, they banished him to another island. there goes latin america, becoming independent in the latin american wars of independence. britain just figured out how to turn steam into power, so now they can make many different types of machines and factories with machines in them so they can make a lot of products real fast. then they invent some trains. and conquer india and maybe put some trains there. "hey, china!" said britain. "buy stuff from us!" "nah, dude, we already got everything," says china. so britain tried to get them addicted to opium, which worked, actually. but then china made it illegal and dumped it all into the sea. so britain threw a hissy fit and made them open up five cities and give them an island. britain and russia are playing a game where they try to stop the other person from conquering afghanistan. also, the sultan of oman lives in zanzibar now: "that's just where he lives." india just had a revolution, and they would like to govern themselves now. "nope," said britain, governing them even harder than before. incoming telegram: HI I JUST SENT YOU A MESSAGE THRU A WIRE technology is about to go crazy! the united states finally figured out whether slavery is good or bad. it's bad, they decided, and then they continued manifesting their destiny, which is to kill the rest of the natives and take their land and maybe kick out the mexicans too. "i know! let's rape africa!" said europe, scrambling to see who could rape it the fastest. they never got ethiopia... britain and france are still hungry. they never got thailand... the united states ran out of destiny to manifest, so they're looking for more: hawaii! cuba! wait, spain controls cuba. well, blame something on them and go to war! what should we blame on spain? u.s.s. maine sinks "let's blame the maine on spain." so they blame the maine on spain. now we're in business. to celebrate, they kick panama out of panama and make a canal, connecting the two oceans. britain just found oil in the middle east. it makes cars go... china is so tired of being bossed around that they delete their old government and make a new, stronger government, which is accidentally weaker and is controlled by a guy from the previous government. europe hasn't had a war since the last war, so they start world war one. look at those guns! it's gonna be a great war, so great we won't need a second one. after it's over, they blame germany. russia went on strike, and the workers overthrew the government. now, everyone's paycheck is the same. communism in the soviet union... the arabs revolt and britain helps. now the ottoman empire is gone, so we can give the jewish people a place to live. hopefully the arabs won't mind. "let's cut the cake!" said sykes and picot, carving up the remains of the not-so-ottoman-anymore-empire. except turkey! turkey makes a brand new turkey! and then the saudis conquer arabia. it just seemed like the right thing to do. phone rings hello? yes, it's the 1920's calling. let's get to a car and drive to a party and listen to jazz on the radio and go to the movies. the economy is great and it will probably be great forever. just kidding. germany's back, featuring hitler, the angry mustache model, and he's mad at the jews for existing. japan is finally conquering the east, and they're so excited, they rape nanking way too hard. they should probably just deny it. hitler's out of control, so the international community tackles him and tries to explain to him why killing all of the jews is a bad idea. but he kills himself because they could explain it to him. that's world war two! bonus round! pacific showdown united states vs. japan FIGHT!! united states drops two extinction balls on japan FINISH HIM! let's unite all the nations and have some world peace! seems legit. "hi, im gandhi, and if britain doesn't get the hell out of india, i'm going to starve myself in public." britain leaves "wow, that worked?" bonus! now there's pakistan. actually two pakistans, one of them can be bangladesh later. the jews and the arabs finally figured out which one of them should live in the holy land. "me!" they both said at the same time. let's divide up the lands so we're both happy. SIKE! they both get angrier! look out, china! there's a new china in china. what's on the menu? communism! no thanks, said the other china, escaping to an island. i wonder which one is the real china...? there's the korean war. korea versus korea! nobody wins, then its on pause forever. let's meet the sponsors. oh, it's the two global superpowers. they're having a friendly debate over which economic system is good and which one is an evil virus of satan. and they both have atom bombs. FIGHT!! wait, no, that would be the end of the world. let's just keep it cool and spy on each other instead. and make sure we have enough atom bombs. "i'll race you to space." united states plants a flag on the moon now let's make more countries fight themselves. europe is tired of pillaging other continents, and the continents they were pillaging are tired of being pillaged. so here's a new map with new countries. now you can't tell who they're being pillaged by. the united states finally decided whether racism is good or bad. they decided it's bad, and the world agrees. south africa might need another minute to think about it. let's check the world population! woah. okay. technology is better too, that might keep happening. the soviet union decides to relax a little, and accidentally falls apart. europe makes a union, so now they can all use the same money. except britain, because they don't feel like it. let's check the mail... surprise! it's on the computer! whoops, someone just attacked america. i bet they'll remember that. phone call! surprise! it's in your pocket! wanna learn everything? surprise! it's on the computer! now your phone's a computer, which is in your pocket! whoops, the economy just crashed. don't worry, the big banks won't fail, because they're not supposed to. surprise!... flying robots. with bombs. wanna print a brain? some people have no friends. some people have no food. the globe is warming, and the ocean is full of plastic! "let's save the planet!" said everybody, not knowing how. "let's invent a thing inventor," said the thing inventor inventor after being invented by a thing inventor. that's pretty cool. by the way, where the hell are we? thanks for watching history i hope i mentioned everything

I’m so tired. Sleep wouldn’t help, but I could use some. It’s like my spirit is dying. But here I am, stuck, and I don’t know for how much longer.
I haven’t really posted an update since my post about having to walk to my doctors office in 90 degree weather, up hills, 9 months pregnant and in excruciating pelvic pain, by myself.
Yesterday I got my period for the second time since having Pickle #2 in July. I have endometriosis and my cramps are especially bad this month. I popped Motrin all day and laid out on the couch watching Game Of Thrones.
Last night before going to bed, I told Mr. Pickle to change Pickle #2 and clean up Pickle #1’s toys. I usually do both things myself, but he knows I am physically unable to when I’m on my period. He told me he wasn’t going to because he was going to sleep within the hour (I told him this at 11pm. He didn’t go to bed til 4AM). I told him “I’m not asking you, I’m telling you. The least you can do is change your son and clean up your other son’s toys.” He straight up ignored me. I went into the bedroom and sent him texts of how fucked up it was that there are two parents in this house yet one of them has to still haul ass while in tremendous pain while the other one is a lazy sack of shit.
Basically, I cussed him the fuck out. He said “keep talking shit and I’m really gonna hurt your feelings”, as if he ever needed a reason!
After coming home from the hospital, 3 days postpartum, everything basically went back to business as usual. Everything was on my shoulders. I started hallucinating because of how sleep deprived I was, caring for a newborn all night, caring for a toddler and newborn all day, and then having to clean because if I don’t do it, it doesn’t get done. My bleeding would go away for a day then come back heavy (not enough to soak a pad, but bright red weeks after I had the baby). I was pushing my body too hard and it was telling me to slow down, but I had no other choice.
Woke up this morning and he didn’t clean the toys up. He changed Pickle #2, at the very least.
This morning, he yelled at me from across the house for changing Pickle #1’s show on the tv from my phone. His show was over, I was putting something else on. It was unnecessary to scream at me over and when I checked him, he started calling me lazy, telling me all I do is sit around on my ass all day long and don’t do shit. I was calm at first, he does this shit on purpose. But then he started claiming he does MORE than I do!
I asked him who makes the doctors appointments? Could you even go into the doctors office and tell them what’s going on with the kids? Who does the grocery shopping? Who does the laundry? Who makes the meals? Who cleans the living room every night? How many diapers does Pickle #2 go through? How much does Pickle #2 eat each feeding and how often? Who does Pickle #1 come to for everything? Who gets asked when naptime and bedtime is every single day despite it always being the same time? Who do you ask for help for every single thing instead of using your fucking phone to look it up yourself? Who do you ask when you don’t wanna use your eyeballs to look for that one thing? Who gets up with the kids in the middle of the night? Who is in charge of bathtime? Who does the bedtime routine every night? Who makes sure this house stays in order? Who doesn’t get any fucking breaks because if she doesn’t do it, it doesn’t get done, no matter how long she was on strike for?
He was recording me for about 5 mins at this point. Lying to the camera as if people are gonna watch it. Blatantly lying about things he knows aren’t true. Just gaslighting the absolute fuck out of me. And he got it all on camera while laughing at me for being upset and telling me how I’m such a “horrible, ungrateful, broke as a joke, selfish ass bitch.” He kept insinuating I deserve to be treated like shit yet when I’d press him on why, he didn’t have anything to say. He knows he’s full of shit and projecting onto me.
He also said I was talking shit so “don’t write a check your ass cant cash.” To him, holding him accountable for his abuse is talking shit, so all bets are off and he can say the most hurtful things possible.
(2 weeks after giving birth, he called me a fat bitch. Later he said he knew to say that cause itd hurt me and that made it hurt more. He knows I struggle with my body image, especially after having a baby, and that I have disordered eating habits, possibly an underlying eating disorder. Why did he say that? Because I told him that we need to be on the same page when it comes to disciplining Pickle #1, The Binky Thief)
He even had the nerve to say I don’t take care of our kids.
He genuinely hates me, and I’m sure it’s because I call him out on his bullshit. He’s never sorry. He doesn’t feel bad. He escalates fights thinking it’ll make me back down and I don’t, and it makes him even more angry at me. I can’t count how many times he’s said he hates me.
And today, he told me he wishes I was dead. When I called him a disgusting human for saying that about his wife and the mother of his kids, he tried justifying it by claiming I wished death on him once and we both know that’s not true. Then laughed at me and said “aw, poor you” when I walked away and started crying.
And he got all of this on camera. Gaslighting me while recording proof then refusing to go back and listen to what he claimed he didn’t say.
I told him to send it to me, he refuses. He knows I’ll send it to my therapist.
Never have I ever treated this person badly. I’ve been more than forgiving, way more than I should have. Not once in our 7 year relationship have I even lied to him. I have no love left for this person, I don’t even care about him anymore. I don’t know if it’s hate or disgust, but my stomach rolls just sitting in the same room as him after he said those things to me.
I’m just so tired. I didn’t sleep at all last night. I haven’t eaten since Tuesday night because it makes my cramps worse. I’m in intense pain. He decided to disappear into the spare bedroom, so I can’t even rest because I have to be in the living room with the kids, otherwise Pickle #1 flips the fuck out.
I refuse to speak to him for anything.
I’m not depressed (I’m diagnosed with major depression and have been dealing with it better than ever) but I’m seriously down and this asshole picks at me constantly. I used to self harm and haven’t in about a year, but I’ve been getting that urge because he makes me so upset and feel so worthless that I just wanna get rid of these feelings the quickest way I know how. I’m working on my coping mechanisms (journaling, knitting, fucking cleaning, stuff like that) but my razor blade has been whispering to me.
Oh yeah, and my mom decided to contact me again. My son turned 2 on Monday and not one of my family members tried to reach out, yet my mom claims to give a fuck. Right, you didn’t wish us merry Christmas, didn’t check in my during my pregnancy, didn’t wish me a happy birthday, didn’t try to contact me after I had my second baby, and didn’t reach out to wish my son happy birthday. Yet you care? I told her I have no wishes to have any of them in my life because clearly they don’t want me in theirs and I’m done with people abandoning me.
If you’ve made it this far, thanks for reading. I just wanted to write this all down, sorta like an accountability thing. I’m not really looking for advice when it comes to the marriage, I know what needs to be done. Advice on whatever else you think I need to hear would be nice though.

Album First
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So I’ve been meaning to do this review for a while, but I am now only getting to do it. Grab your popcorn as it will be a long one. I know JDS is almost battled upon in this sub for the lower priced option for GYW shoes and I am unsure why. However upon starting this review I just want to point out that I’ve paid for each of these shoes with my own money, and all of these are my own personal experiences with the brand and shoes.
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Now for some backstory, I live in Canada and I have only been getting into personal style since about this time last year. I learned about fit and started learning about materials. The only thing I did not know much about were good shoes as myself, and everyone around me, only wore the typical Nike’s, Adidas, or Under Armour shoes and cheap fast fashion dress shoes. So I found this sub and went on a pursuit to learn about leather shoes and what to look for before buying. With that being said, Christmas was coming up, and with being a student I did not have many funds available to throw a bunch of money at shoes not knowing quality or fit, so decided to ask my parents for a pair for Christmas. I ended up ordering a pair of Thursday Boots Chukka’s on Amazon Canada, but they were too big and not the best QC, so exchanged for a half size smaller. Once again, a tad too big and more blemishes. I decided to return and look for similar budget brands. I came across John Doe Shoes on this sub. I emailed about sizing, and went for their 3x2 deal to get the best bang for buck.
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Order #1: 3x2 deal; Black Tannerie d’Annonay Black Cap Toe Oxfords, Burgundy Tannerie d’Annonay Double Monks, & Tan Horsehide Chromexcel Chukka Boots
Total Cost: $450 USD shipped
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So I placed my order and around 4 weeks later they shipped. I was so excited. After having to pay some taxes, because Canada and UPS, I got the shoes at my door and upon arriving from school I opened up and the smell of leather hit my room. It was great, but there definitely were some flaws.
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Oxford, Milo Last 10D: These overall I think were in the best condition out of all of them. I didn’t see many scratches or nicks, and not many stitching issues. I kind of wish the cap toe was a bit smaller as they crease in the cap toe, but no issues. I ended up using Reno Mat on these shoes this summer and I had to use a large rag to get no black on it by the end, unsure if this was paint on the leather or what, but it definitely feels much more like leather now. For reference I used black Saphir Cream and Navy Saphir Pat de Luxe, but only about twice on the shoes, I doubt all of this was from my leather care products.
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Double Monks, Milo Last, 10D: Now, I was skeptical if I would like the double monks, but I definitely enjoyed them to say the least, as you can tell by the foot imprint in the insole photos. I wore these all winter long. They came with a few small splotches of almost dye like colouring in places and the cap toe was once again a tad too big, but I brushed it off. Overall I enjoyed these shoes, had roughly the same issues with Reno Mat as the oxfords.
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Chukka Boots, Milo Last 10D: So these were my favourite shoe out of the bunch. I have never seen Horsehide Chromexcel mentioned much on this sub or on the internet so was intrigued. I love this leather. Same as the double monks, I wore these all winter here in Canada going to school. The are very comfortable now, and the creasing looks great. As for some issues I had with this pair, I noticed some loose looking grain on the side, but apparently this is normal for this leather. My main issues were two things, a cut in the upper and the heel block dye. As for the cut in the leather, it seems that when someone cut the welt on both pairs, the worker cut into the upper. I was disappointed at this. Also, the heel block dye on the edge of the heel block is black instead of just leaving it natural. Multiple days after getting home from school, this black dye would react with the winter weather and mix with the water and drip off and such. This resulted in a few black splotches in the upper and leaving black residue on the shelf they were on. I had to take a rag to them when I took them off after walking in snow to absorb the dyed water so it didn’t get on my other shoes.
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Overall, this order was a success. It got me into the world of GYW and I am happy for it. Build quality seemed very adequate for a GYW shoe. As for some of the issues, I emailed John Doe Shoes about them, being the cut upper and all of the shoes were almost bulbous in the sole as if they were over stuffed with cork. They got back to me apologetically, and offered to remake the chukkas or give me a 15% off coupon for a future order, which I took the latter instead of wasting the chukkas. They also stated the bulbous soles would flatten out with wear, they still never really did after extensive wear. As for the leather block dye, I was told they never heard of this issue and would do some tests, never heard back as of yet. Another weird thing I noticed is their insole has this thin stitching in all of the shoes, I asked what this was and received no reply. This isn't in my Meermin's. You can feel it with thin socks on.
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Order #2: Light Brown Chromexcel Boat Shoes
Total Cost: $84.00 USD
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I was wanting a pair of boat shoe or ranger moc style shoes for the upcoming summer season. I was looking at Sperry’s and Eastland’s, along with Rancourt’s at the time. I didn’t have the large budget of Rancourt’s, still being a student. Along with I wanted a bit more quality than Sperry’s or Eastland’s. I was kind of stuck in a rut. Here comes John Doe Shoes again, this time having a 40% off sale due to moving warehouses. What do you know, there was a pair of Carter boat shoes in the sample sale, but in size 9.5D. I emailed asking if they think it would fit and they were wary saying it wouldn’t be wise to size down. I ended up taking the risk and ordering as it was only $84 USD and I was willing to bet a half size wouldn’t make a huge difference. Long story short, they couldn’t find the shoes in the move after weeks of looking so they offered to make me a brand new pair, in a different leather as they no longer had Dark Brown CXL in stock, for no additional cost along with offering it in a 10D. That's Customer Service right there! I chose Light Brown Chromexcel as I still wanted to try this leather everyone raved about and they went to work crafting the shoes.
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Boat Shoes, 10D: So I got these in the mail and I was pleasantly surprised. They were a bit tighter than my other shoes, probably due to the moc toe shoe box being narrower. They were great looking shoes, however they definitely got hit by John Doe’s not so good QC. There were some dark splotches near the eyelets, along with a distinct cut in the leather in the middle of the heel counter. I could have contacted them and I am sure they would help me out, but I chose not to as I got them for such a low cost, it can’t be noticed unless up close, and these were going to be almost my work horse shoes for the summer so were bound to get wet and scuffed up anyways. I wore these for most of the summer and plan to wear them year round as I find them versatile. The chromexcel is definitely a great leather for this type of shoe. They got scuffed up, lightly rained on, etc. and still look great. Very happy with them. Would I buy this type of shoe again from them? Probably not. The huge sole is off putting and would prefer a much sleeker sole like on the Rancourt’s. Next time I want a ranger moc style, I think I am going to order some Rancourt’s. However, like I said, these are still great shoes and I will wear them for years to come!
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Order #3: Suede Derby’s
Total Cost: $142.80 USD
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So I bought a pair of cheap suede derbies on Amazon to have another pair of shoes in the rotation and to see if I enjoyed wearing such a shoe. I wore them a lot in the winter and with all pairs of cheap fast fashion shoes, they ended up being terrible to walk in all day after much wear, so I decided to get a good pair of Suede Bluchers. I was going to order from Meermin or Thursday Boots’ option, but ended up with, once again, John Doe Shoes. Not only because I still had that 15% off coupon from Order #1, but the suede leather is one of their cheaper options. So I contacted for the coupon code, and once I received it I placed the order.
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Suede Derby’s, Standard Last, 10D: So I got these back in May and I haven’t been able to wear them much between this whole pandemic and not having many places to go. However, I received the shoes and was pleasantly pleased with what I received for the price paid. The suede seemed nice, but definitely not the best quality suede out there. The nap seems to be quite short, but it gets the job done. There are some small blemishes here and there in the suede, but overall very pleased for what the purposes of this shoe are meant to provide. Only thing I did wish was better was the shoes not being fully lined. IDK if they missed it or all of their suede shoes are like this. It states on the site "fully lined". Very minor issue, but concerning.
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Overall Thoughts: Honestly and truly, I am happy with what John Doe Shoes provide at the price point they are listed at. They did their job and some. Would I recommend them? Hell yea I would, and definitely over Thursday Boots for the sake of higher quality leather and comfort in the long run. You get to choose what you want, along with having the ability to customize your shoes as they are MTO. Want some more speed hooks? Done. Want a brogues cap toe instead of a regular one? Done. Are there definitely higher quality shoes out there? Hell yes. I liked the feel and build quality of my Meermin shoes, my Canada West Romeo’s are comfortable and great FW beaters, along with hoping to try a pair of Grant Stone’s in the near future.
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Long review short, I definitely recommend JDS, however with some caveats. I, personally, would definitely recommend them if you are just getting started into GYW shoes and aren’t sure if they are for you, if you want good leather and are on a budget, or if you are looking for a nice pair of “shit-kickers”. They definitely don’t have the best QC out there and the build quality isn’t as nice as some other manufacturers. I would definitely go else where for dress shoes (oxfords, monks, or any shoe you’d wear with a suit/SC and slacks) as there are definitely more refined options that I found pay more attention to detail, along with having better QC, and you won’t have to worry about stains or nicks which you don’t want for dress shoes. There is Meermin, Spier & Mackay, or even Grant Stone for a little bit more $. I am currently looking at trying out their 420 boot for this FW to add to my rotation and may try a different size. Overall, a great budget pick, and their 3x2 deal honestly can’t be beat. I eventually want to get a pair of boots from them to literally see how much they can be beat up and how they truly handle the rain and snow, but no budget for that unless you want to provide some boots for me to beat up and review here, u/AnibalJDS ;)
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Thanks for reading my review folks, and I will sure be here to update you in the future if and when I buy more from them, along with a future Long Term Review!
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EDIT: For future reference in sizing, I haven't measured Brannock really at all, but I am 10D in Adidas NMD R1's, 9.5 in Canada West Romeo's. When I ordered these shoes I just went with 10D as that is roughly what I wore in sneakers. These are definitely TTS Brannock I would say. After tracing my foot, I am roughly 9.5E or so on Brannock going by measurements, right foot just slightly smaller by about a few mm's.

Pet Psychic Princess (PPP) has struck again. As my DH continues to grow better at maintaining his personal boundaries, I got to watch this one mostly on the sidelines and focus on just supporting DH.
Now what exactly PPP did is largely immaterial, just petty Facebook posts with incorrect information my DH pointed out as incorrect. PPP escalated this to a fight in the comment section, and was (gasp) surprised that other people saw this public Facebook argument. She then went to a phone argument with DH.
What gets me with this phone argument is that all of the random crap she spewed at DH last year when she lost the plot, the stuff she then claimed she didn't mean and was just a medication issue, all sprang up. The points she tried to bring up most often involved my parents, and my DH liking them.
See, my parents are generous in every sense of the word. You need help? They're there making meals, helping with heavy labor, tutoring you in math, or buying you the clothes you need. Nothing they give has strings attached, and if what they give you is a loan instead of a gift they say so. Even then they don't charge interest, and if something happens in a month and you can't pay them then they understand and don't push. Basically they are simply good people who like to help others.
So when I started dating DH and told my mother he was going out to the barn at night in below freezing weather in an unlined denim jacket, she bought him a new Carhart jacket for Christmas. Every Christmas and birthday since she's gotten him something, usually something he can use like flanel lined pants or nice work shirts. Nothing super extravagant, just nice thoughtful things. According to PPP though this is just my parents in general (and mother in particular) buying DH's love. It couldn't be that my mother has been treating him with respect, support, and kindness since the day he met her.
I feel that PPP cannot fathom the idea of giving freely and without thought of personal benefit. I can't remember a gift PPP ever gave that didn't have some kind of string attached, and neither can my DH. So when she sees others giving gifts, it must be to their personal benefit somehow. It's pretty sad that to her a gift must be some form of control or manipulation.
I just know that this is going to blow out into somehow trying to exclude my parents from my family's holiday again. I'm going to bet my DH $20 that PPP is going to melt down again over my family daring to include my parents in the holidays too. Especially as I've talked to my DH about my parents essentially getting minimized past holidays due to PPP's pouting, and this year they get first pick of times for both Thanksgiving and Christmas. I've told DH to tell me when he's going to tell PPP that so I can make popcorn for the show.

hi, you're on a rock floating in space. pretty cool, huh? some of it's water. fuck it. actually, most of it's water. i can't even get from here to there without buying a boat. it's sad. i'm sad. i miss you. HOW DID THIS HAPPEN? a long time ago... actually, never. and also now. nothing is nowhere. when? never. makes sense, right? like i said, it didn't happen. nothing was never anywhere. that's why it's been everywhere. it's been so "everywhere," you don't need a "where." you don't even need a "when." that's how "every" it gets. forget this. i wanna be something. go somewhere. do something. i want things to change. i want to invent time and space. and i know it's possible because everything is here, and it probably already happened. i just don't know when to start. and that's exactly where it started. big bang— pause woah. i paused it. i think there's a universe now. what's it made of? quarks and stuff. ah, that's a thing! in a place! don't like it? try a new place, at a different Time™. try to stick together, because the world is gonna get bigger and emptier. but it's not empty yet! it's still very full, and about a kjghpillion degrees. about no seconds later great news! the quarks are now happily married in groups of three, called a "proton" and a "neutron." and there's something else flying around that wants to join in, but can't cause it's too HOT. ten minutes later great news! the protons and neutrons are now happily married to each other! some of them even doubled up. about 380,000 years later great news! the electrons have now joined in. congratulations! the world is now... a bunch of gas in space. but it's getting closer together... ten million years later and it's getting closer together... 500 million years later and it's getting closer togeth—star is born it's a star new shit just got made! some stars burn out and die. bigger stars burn out and die with passion! and make some brand new way crazier shit. space dust! which allows for newer and more interesting stars to be made, and then die and explode into even crazier space dust! so now, stars have cool stuff around them, like rocks, ice, and funny clouds, which can make some very interesting things. like this ball of flaming rocks, for example. meteor hits earth holy shit, we just got hit by another ball of flaming rocks. and it kind of... made a mess. which is now the moon weather update: it's raining rocks from outer space. weather update: those rocks might've had water inside of them and now there's hot steam in the sky. weather update: cooler temperatures today and the floor is no longer lava. weather update... it's raining. severe flooding alert, the entire world is now an ocean. volcano alert. that's land! there'slifeintheocean what? something's alive in the ocean oh, cool. like a plant, or an animal? no! a microscopic speck. it lives in the bottom of the ocean and eats chemical soup, which is being served hot and fresh, made from gnarly space ingredients left over from when it was raining rocks or whatever. microscopic speck asexually reproduces oh yeah, and it can do that. reproduces three more times it has secret instructions written inside itself telling it how to build another one of itself. so that's pretty nifty, i would say. tired of living at the bottom of the ocean? now you can eat sunlight! using a revolutionary technique, you can convert sunlight into food. taste the sun! side effect, now there's oxygen everywhere and the sky is blue. then the earth might've been a snowball for a while. maybe even a couple of times. it's a sponge... it's a plant... it's a worm, and some other types of weird strange water bugs and strange fish. it's the Cambrian explosion: "wow, that's animals and stuff" but we're still in the ocean. hey, can we go on land? NO why? the sun is a deadly laser oh okay. not anymore, there's a blanket now the animals can go on land. come on, animals, let's go on land! "nope, can't walk yet." "and there's no food yet, so i don't care." 100 million years later okay, will you learn to walk if there's plants up here? "maybe," said some bugs. and fish. fish gasps for air five million years later okay, so i can go on land, but i have to go back in the water to have babies! idea: learn to use an egg. "i was already doing that" use a stronger egg. put water in it. have a baby, on land, in an egg. water is in the egg. baby, in the egg, in the water, in the egg. works for me. bye bye ocean 50 million years later and now everything's huge. including bugs. wanna see a map of the land? sure. Permian extinction oh, fuck, now everything's dead. just kidding, here are the survivors. keep your eye on this one, because it's about to become 75 million years later the dinosaurs. here's another map of the land. yeah, it broke apart. don't worry about it, it does that all the time. here comes a meteor. meteor strikes and the dinosaurs are gone it's mammal time, here come the mammals. look at those breasts. now they're gonna dominate the world, but one of them just learned how to grab stuff. and walk. no, like, walk like that. and grab stuff at the same time. and bang rocks together to make pointed rocks. "ouch" and set things on fire. "yeouch" and make crazy sounds with their voice: "gneurshk" which can mean different things. that's a human person! and now they're everywhere. almost. ice age! what? you can walk over here? cool. not anymore well i guess we're stuck here now. let's review: there's people on the planet. and they're chasing their food. fuck it. time to plant some grass. look at this. i get to control the food now. now everyone will want to be my friend and live near me. let's all build houses, except mine is bigger because i own the food. this is great! i wonder if anyone else is doing this. tired of using rocks for everything? use metal. it's underground. better farming was just invented in a sweet dank valley right in between these two rivers, and the animals are helping. guess what happens next? more food. and more people, who came to buy the food. now you need people to help make the food and keep track of the sales. and now you need houses for people to live in and people to make the houses and now there's more people and they invent things which makes things better and more people come and there's more farming and more people to make more things for more people and now there's business, money, writing, laws, power, Society coming soon to a dank river valley near you. meanwhile, out in the middle of nowhere, the horse is probably being tamed. why is all my metal so lame and lumpy? tired of using lame, sad metal? introducing: bronze. made from special ingredient tin from the far lands of Tin Land. i dunno, my dealer won't tell me where he gets it. also, guess what? egypt meanwhile, out in the middle of nowhere, they figured out how to put wheels on a horse. now we're getting somewhere. also, china and did i mention indus river valley civilization society count: 5 ... norte chico the middle east is getting more complicated. maybe because it's in the middle of the east. knock knock, er, clop clop. it's the... people with the horses? and they made an empire. and then everyone else copied their horses. greeks! ah look, it must be the greeks! er, a beta version of the greeks. let's check in with the indus river valley civilization: they're gone. guess who's not gone? china. new arrivals from india... maybe it's those horse people i was talking about... or their cousins or something... and they wrote some hymns and mantras and stuff... you could make a religion out of this. there's the bronze age collapse. now the phoenicians can get down to business also, can we switch to a metal that's a little easier to find? thanks. look who came back to israel, it's the twelve tribes of israel. and they believe in God just one though, and he's got like a ten-step program. here's some huge heads. must be the olmecs. the phoenicians make some colonies. the greeks copy their idea and make some colonies. the phoenicians made a colony so big it makes colonies. here comes the assyrian empire. never mind, it's the babyloni— media—it's the Persian Empire: "wow, that's big" enlightenment ah, the buddha was just enlightened. who's the buddha? this guy, who sat under a tree for so long that he figured out how to ignore the fact that we're all dying. you could make a religion out of this. oops, china just broke. but while it was breaking, confucius was figuring out how to have good morals. enlightenment ah, the greeks just had the idea of thinking about stuff. and right over here, alexander just had the idea of conquering the entire persian empire. it's a great idea. he was... great. and now he's dead. hopefully, the rest of the gang will be able to share the empire evenly between them. knock knock, it's chandragupta. he says "get the hell out of here. will you get the hell out of here if i give you 500 elephants? okay, thanks, bye" time to conquer all of india er most of india but what about this part? that's the tamil kings. no one conquers the tamil kings. who are the tamil kings? merchants, probably. and they've got spices! who would like to buy the spices? "me!" said the arabians, swiftly buying it and selling it to the rest of the world. hey, china put itself back together again, with good morals as their main philosophy. actually, they have three main philosophies: confucianism: have good morals taoism: go with the flow legalism: fuck you, obey the law out here, the horse nomads run wild and free, and they would like to ransack your city. nomads ransack china let's check the greekification levels of the greekified kingdoms: greekification overload. bye, said the parthians. bye, said the jews. hi, said the parthians, taking over the entire place. heyyyyy, said the romans, eating the entire mediterranean for breakfast. "thanks for invading our homeland," said the jews, who were starting to get tired of people invading their homeland. "hi, everything's great," said some guy who seems to be getting very popular and is then arrested and killed for being too popular, which actually makes him more popular. you could make a religion out of this. want silk? now you can buy it from china. they just made a brand new road to the world. conquers vietnam or you can get there on water "sick! new trade routes!" said india, accidentally spreading their religion to the entire southeast. hmm, that's a good place for an epic trading kingdom. there goes buddhism, travelling up the silk road. i wonder if it'll reach china before it collapses again. remember the persian empire? yep, said the persians, making a new one. axum is getting so powerful, they would like to build a long stick. has anyone populated madagascar yet? let's do it together. china is whole again... ...then it broke again still can't cross the sahara desert? try camels. "hell yeah! now we've got business," said the ghana empire, selling lots of gold. and slaves. "hi, i'm a member of the roman empire, and i was wondering is loving jesus legal yet?" "no" "actually, okay sure," said constantine, moving the capital way over here to be closer to his main rival. don't worry about rome, it won't fall. it's the golden age of india there's the gupta empire, not chandragupta, just gupta. first name chandra. the first. guess who's in rome? barbarians. what's a barbarian? "non-romans," said the romans, being invaded by non-romans. r.i.p. roman empire. actually just half of it, the other half is just fine, but it's not in rome anymore, so let's give it a new name. the mayans have figured out the stars oh, and here's a huge city, population: everyone. the göktürks have taken over the entire eurasian steppe. great job, göktürks. how's india? broken. how's china? back together. how's those trading kingdoms? bigger, and there's more of them. korea has three kingdoms. japan has a kingdom, it's the sunrise kingdom. intermission deep in the arabian desert, on the top of a mountain, the real god whispers in muhammad's ear. so, he goes down to the cube where everyone worships gods and he tells them their gods are all fake. and everyone got so mad at him that he had to leave town and go to a different town. you could make a religion out of this, and maybe conquer the world as well. the roman empire is long gone, but somehow the pope is still the pope. plus, there's new kingdoms all over europe. i wonder if there's room for moors. here's all the wisdom. in a house. it's the baghdad house of wisdom! just in time for the islamic golden age! "let's bring stuff to the coast and sell it, and become the swahili on the swahili coast," said the swahili on the swahili coast. remember this tiny space you have to go through to get from here to there? someone owns that now. wanna get enlightened in the middle of nowhere? the franks have the biggest kingdom in europe, and the pope is so proud that he invites the king over for christmas. "surprise! you're the new roman emporer!" said the pope, pretending to still be part of the roman empire. then the franks broke their kingdom into what will later be called france and not-france. the northerners, er, just "norse" if you don't have much time, are exploring. they go north, from the north to the northern north. and they find some land— two types of land!— and they name them accordingly. prankd they also invade some other places and get called many names, such as "vikings." there's the rus! the kievan rus! are they vikings? "i don't think so," said the kievan rus. okay, fair enough. the pope is ready to make some more emperors of the roman empire. the holy roman empire! it's actually germany, but don't worry about it. new kingdoms—CRISTIANIZE ALL THE KINGDOMS!! which brand would you like? "mine's better" "mine's better" "mine's better" "time to conquer england," said william. it's a bird! it's a plane! it's the seljuk turks! "aah!" said the byzantine empire, who's getting so small and almost doesn't exist anymore. "we need help!" they need help! so they call the pope. "hey pope, can you help us get rid of the seljuks? maybe take back the holy land on the way? come on, i know you want to take back the holy land." "yes, i do actually want to do that. let's do a crusade." crusade! they did many crusades. some of which almost didn't fail. but at least the italians got some sweet trade deals. goodbye mayans. hello toltecs! goodbye toltecs. hello mississippi! look at those mounds. there's the pueblo. i always wondered how to build a town in a cliff. guess who's here? khmer. where? here! and pagan is there. vietnam unconquered itself, korea just became itself, and japan is so addicted to art that the military might have to take over the government. china just invented bombs, and typing. and the mongols just invaded most of the universe. nice going, genghis! i bet that will last a long time. some of the islamic turks were unaffected by the mongol invasions because they were busy invading india. is it tonga time? i think it's tonga time. i just figured out where the swahili gets all of their gold. look at this chad! it means "lake." there's an empire there! right in the middle of africa! the king of mali is so rich, he's going on tour to let everyone know. "wow, that guy's rich," everyone said. the christians are doing a great job reconquering iberia, which will soon be called spain and not-spain. please remain christian. we will check in later to see if you're still christian when you least expect. whoops, half of europe just died. ming! china's back, yay! hey, khmer. time to share. new kingdoms, here and there. oh, look who controls all of the islands. it's the mahajapit. majahapit. mapajahit. mahapajit. mapajahit. ma-ja-pa-hit? oh, italy's real rich. time for them to care a lot about art and the ancient classics. it's kinda like a rebirth. here's a printer. let's make books! so you think you can conquer the byzantine empire? yep, said the ottoman turks. nice job, ottoman turks. oops, you missed a spot. don't forget to ban europe from the indian spice trade. "what? that's bullshit," said portugal, spiceless. "well i guess we'll have to find another way to india" "wait!" said christopher columbus, probably smoking crack. "if the world is round, let's go this way to india." "nah, don't worry, we already got this," said portugal. so chris goes to spain. "hey spain, wanna hire me to find india by going around back of the world?" "no" "please?" "no" "please?" "wtf" "no" "please?" "...okay" so he sails into the ocean, and discovers... more ocean. and then discovers the indies, and japan! let's draw a line to decide who gets which half of the world. the aztec and the inca empires are off to a great start. i wonder if they know that europe just discovered their continent. the hapsburgs are marrying into so many royal families, they might have to start marrying each other. move over, lithuania, here comes moscow. ivan wants to make russia great again. move over, timurids, maybe go invade india or something. persia just made persia persian again. let's make it the other kind of islam. the one where we thought the first guy should've been the other guy. hey, christians! do you sin? now you can buy your way out of hell! "that's bullshit. this whole thing is bullshit. that's a scam. fuck the church. here's 95 reasons why," said martin luther, in his new book which might have accidentally started the protestant reformation. "you know what would be magnificent?" said suleiman wearing an onion hat. "what if the ottoman empire was... really big?" which it is now. "what if russia was big?" said ivan, trying not to be terrible. portugal had a dream that they controlled the entire indian ocean, including the spice trade. and then that dream was real. and spain realized that this is not india, but they pillaged it anyway. "damn," said england and france. "we gotta start pillaging some stuff." then the dutch revolt, and all the hipsters moved to amsterdam. "damn," said amsterdam. "we gotta start pillaging some stuff." question one: can you get to india from north america? no, but at least there's beaver. question two: steal the spice trade. that's not a question, but the dutch did it anyway. and sugar... guess where all of the sugar is made? in brazil! stolen! in the caribbean! and it's so goddamn profitable, you might forget to not do slavery. the next thing on russia's to-do list is to get bigger. britain and france are having a friendly discussion about who should control the entire world. more specifically, ohio. then it escalates into a seven-year discussion, giving prussia a chance to show austria who's boss. but what about britain and france, did they figure out who's boss? yes they did! it's britain. guess who's broke? also britain! so they start taxing the hell out of america. "fuck you!" says america, declaring their independence and fighting for it, and france helps them win. now france is broke, and britain will have to send their prisoners to a different continent. wait, if france is broke, why do the king and queen still wear such fancy dresses? "let's overthrow the palace and cut all their heads off!" said robespierre, cutting everybody's heads off until someone eventually got mad and cut his head off. you could make a rel— no, don't. haiti is starting to like the idea of a revolution, especially the slaves, who free themselves by killing their masters. "why didn't we think of this before?" wait, who's in charge of france now? "me," said napoleon, trying to take over europe. luckily, they banished him to an island. but he came back! luckily, they banished him to another island. there goes latin america, becoming independent in the latin american wars of independence. britain just figured out how to turn steam into power, so now they can make many different types of machines and factories with machines in them so they can make a lot of products real fast. then they invent some trains. and conquer india and maybe put some trains there. "hey, china!" said britain. "buy stuff from us!" "nah, dude, we already got everything," says china. so britain tried to get them addicted to opium, which worked, actually. but then china made it illegal and dumped it all into the sea. so britain threw a hissy fit and made them open up five cities and give them an island. britain and russia are playing a game where they try to stop the other person from conquering afghanistan. also, the sultan of oman lives in zanzibar now: "that's just where he lives." india just had a revolution, and they would like to govern themselves now. "nope," said britain, governing them even harder than before. incoming telegram: HI I JUST SENT YOU A MESSAGE THRU A WIRE technology is about to go crazy! the united states finally figured out whether slavery is good or bad. it's bad, they decided, and then they continued manifesting their destiny, which is to kill the rest of the natives and take their land and maybe kick out the mexicans too. "i know! let's rape africa!" said europe, scrambling to see who could rape it the fastest. they never got ethiopia... britain and france are still hungry. they never got thailand... the united states ran out of destiny to manifest, so they're looking for more: hawaii! cuba! wait, spain controls cuba. well, blame something on them and go to war! what should we blame on spain? u.s.s. maine sinks "let's blame the maine on spain." so they blame the maine on spain. now we're in business. to celebrate, they kick panama out of panama and make a canal, connecting the two oceans. britain just found oil in the middle east. it makes cars go... china is so tired of being bossed around that they delete their old government and make a new, stronger government, which is accidentally weaker and is controlled by a guy from the previous government. europe hasn't had a war since the last war, so they start world war one. look at those guns! it's gonna be a great war, so great we won't need a second one. after it's over, they blame germany. russia went on strike, and the workers overthrew the government. now, everyone's paycheck is the same. communism in the soviet union... the arabs revolt and britain helps. now the ottoman empire is gone, so we can give the jewish people a place to live. hopefully the arabs won't mind. "let's cut the cake!" said sykes and picot, carving up the remains of the not-so-ottoman-anymore-empire. except turkey! turkey makes a brand new turkey! and then the saudis conquer arabia. it just seemed like the right thing to do. phone rings hello? yes, it's the 1920's calling. let's get to a car and drive to a party and listen to jazz on the radio and go to the movies. the economy is great and it will probably be great forever. just kidding. germany's back, featuring hitler, the angry mustache model, and he's mad at the jews for existing. japan is finally conquering the east, and they're so excited, they rape nanking way too hard. they should probably just deny it. hitler's out of control, so the international community tackles him and tries to explain to him why killing all of the jews is a bad idea. but he kills himself because they could explain it to him. that's world war two! bonus round! pacific showdown united states vs. japan FIGHT!! united states drops two extinction balls on japan FINISH HIM! let's unite all the nations and have some world peace! seems legit. "hi, im gandhi, and if britain doesn't get the hell out of india, i'm going to starve myself in public." britain leaves "wow, that worked?" bonus! now there's pakistan. actually two pakistans, one of them can be bangladesh later. the jews and the arabs finally figured out which one of them should live in the holy land. "me!" they both said at the same time. let's divide up the lands so we're both happy. SIKE! they both get angrier! look out, china! there's a new china in china. what's on the menu? communism! no thanks, said the other china, escaping to an island. i wonder which one is the real china...? there's the korean war. korea versus korea! nobody wins, then its on pause forever. let's meet the sponsors. oh, it's the two global superpowers. they're having a friendly debate over which economic system is good and which one is an evil virus of satan. and they both have atom bombs. FIGHT!! wait, no, that would be the end of the world. let's just keep it cool and spy on each other instead. and make sure we have enough atom bombs. "i'll race you to space." united states plants a flag on the moon now let's make more countries fight themselves. europe is tired of pillaging other continents, and the continents they were pillaging are tired of being pillaged. so here's a new map with new countries. now you can't tell who they're being pillaged by. the united states finally decided whether racism is good or bad. they decided it's bad, and the world agrees. south africa might need another minute to think about it. let's check the world population! woah. okay. technology is better too, that might keep happening. the soviet union decides to relax a little, and accidentally falls apart. europe makes a union, so now they can all use the same money. except britain, because they don't feel like it. let's check the mail... surprise! it's on the computer! whoops, someone just attacked america. i bet they'll remember that. phone call! surprise! it's in your pocket! wanna learn everything? surprise! it's on the computer! now your phone's a computer, which is in your pocket! whoops, the economy just crashed. don't worry, the big banks won't fail, because they're not supposed to. surprise!... flying robots. with bombs. wanna print a brain? some people have no friends. some people have no food. the globe is warming, and the ocean is full of plastic! "let's save the planet!" said everybody, not knowing how. "let's invent a thing inventor," said the thing inventor inventor after being invented by a thing inventor. that's pretty cool. by the way, where the hell are we? thanks for watching history i hope i mentioned everything

Thank you for this week's wonderful mail!
u/3720to1_ - Hope I got your username right! The postcard you sent is adorable! Thank you so much for spreading cheer. Halloween plans include putting up my Nightmare Before Christmas Xmas tree, dressing the dog up as Zero (from NBC), and running a virtual Halloween half marathon! Hope you have a fun holiday!
u/feellikebeingajerk - Thanks for the Governors' Mansion pc! I bet it's gorgeous during Xmas time! Also, love the stamp!
u/sparksf - Hope I got your username right! Had to do a double take with the post card. San Diego Zoo is local to me! Did you visit San Diego in the recent past?
u/imokreally - Thank you for the wonderful surprise card and goodies! I agree about the cool weather. I am TOTALLY ready for some cold and cloudy days! Stay well! (Thank you for the amazing stamps btw.)
u/221B (another one I hope I get right!) Small world moment -- my FIL is from Ketchikan! I'm sure he's going to be all excited when I show him the PC you sent. :)
u/josephineismyhero - Thank you for the beautiful card! I can't wait to put it up next to my Halloween "Xmas" tree. My favorite fall food is soup, too! Soups are my specialty dish, so I'm always excited to cook during fall and winter.

hi, 🤚 you're on a rock 🗿 floating in space. 🌖 pretty cool, 😎👍 huh? 😕❔ some of it's water. 🤽‍♂️ fuck it. 🚮 actually, most of it's water 💦 . 🐃⛲ i 😀 can't even 🌒🌒🌒 get 🉐 from here 📍 to there without buying 🛍 a boat. ⛴⚓ it's sad. 🙍 i'm sad. 🙁😔 i 😭😭😭😭😭miss you😭😭😰😰😰.
HOW DID THIS HAPPEN?🤔🤔
a long time 🕗 ago... actually, never 🙅‍♂️. and also now. nothing 🚯 is nowhere. when? never. makes sense, right 🤓? 🗯 like 🥰 i 😊 said, it 🚮 didn't happen 🤷‍♀️. nothing 🚯 was never anywhere🤷‍♂️. that's why it's been everywhere 😱. it's been so 🆘 "everywhere," you 😊 don't need a "where." you 😀 don't even 🌃 need a "when." that's how "every" it 🚮 gets. 🉐
forget this 😤. i wanna be something 👨‍🔧. go somewhere 🇵🇰. do something 🏀⚽️. i 😊 want things to change. i 😀 want to invent time ⏱ and space. 📡👨‍🚀📡👨‍🚀📡👨‍🚀 and i know it's possible because everything is here, 📍🈁 and it 🚮 probably already happened. i just don't know when to start 😔. 🆕
and that's exactly where it 🚮 started 😳😳😳😳😳😳😳😳😳😳😳😳😳😳😳
big bang — pause ⏸
woah. I paused it. 🚮 i think 🤔💭 there's a universe now. what's 😦 it 🚮 made of? quarks and stuff. ah, that's a thing! in a place! 🥈 don't like 🏩😻 it? 🚮 try a new 🌚 place, 🏆 at a different Time™. try to stick 🥍 together, because the world 🌏 is gonna get bigger and emptier. but it's not 🚯 empty 🈳 yet! it's still very full, and about a kjghpillion degrees. 🥵🥵🥵
about no seconds 🥈 later
great 👍 news! the quarks are 👉 now happily married in groups 👥 of three, 🥰 called a "proton" and a "neutron." and there's something else flying 🥏 around that wants to join in, but can't cause it's too HOT 🔥🔥🔥.
ten minutes later
great news! 🆕 the protons and neutrons are 👉 now happily married to each other! some of them even 🌘 doubled up.
about 380,000 🤭 years later
great 👍 news! 📰 the electrons have now joined in. congratulations! 🎉🎆 the world 🌍 is now... a bunch of gas ⛽️ in space. 🌕 but it's getting closer together...
ten million years later 👴
and it's getting closer together...
500 million years later 👴
and it's getting closer togeth—
star is born 👶
it's a star 🌟
new 🆕 shit 💩 just got made!
some stars ✨ burn out 😛 and die 💀. ⚱ bigger stars ⭐⭐⭐ burn out 😝 and die 🎲 with passion! and make some brand ™️ new way crazier shit.
space dust!
which allows for newer 🌑🆕 and more ➕ interesting stars 🎇🤩🔭 to be made, and then die ⚰ and explode 🧨 into even crazier space 🌖 dust!
so 🆘 now, stars ☪✨ have cool 👍 stuff 🥙🥙🥙 around them, like 👭😄 rocks, 🧗‍♂️🧗‍♀️ ice, 🏒🍧⛸ and funny 😃 clouds, 🌨 which can make some very interesting things. like 😚 this ball 🏐🏐🏐 of flaming 🔥 rocks, 🧗‍♂️🗿 for example.
meteor hits 👊 earth
holy shit, 💩💩💩 we just got hit 👊 by another ball 🍙 of flaming 🔥 rocks. 🧗‍♂️ and it 🚮🚮🚮 kind of... made a mess. which is **now the moon 🌝 **
weather update: it's raining ⛈🌧 rocks 🗿🧗‍♂️ from outer space. 🌘
weather update: those rocks 🗿🧗‍♀️ might've had water 🚰 inside 💠 of them and now there's hot 🥵 steam 🚂 in the sky. 🌈
weather update: cooler 😎 temperatures 🤒 today and the floor 🤣 is no 😶 longer lava.
weather update... it's raining. ⛈🌂
severe flooding alert, the entire world 🌎 is now an ocean. 🐋
volcano alert 🚨 .
that's land!
there'slifeintheocean
what? 😦
*something's alive in the ocean 🌊 *
oh, cool. 🆒 like 👩‍❤️‍💋‍👩 a plant, 🍀 or an animal? 🦐 no! 🚳 a microscopic speck. it 🚮 lives in the bottom ⤵️ of the ocean 🇮🇴🇮🇴🇮🇴 and eats 🍽 chemical soup, 🥫 which is being served hot 🍧 and fresh, ⛲ made from gnarly space 🌌 ingredients left 🤛🛅↙️ over 🌄 from when it 🚮 was raining ⛈ rocks 🧗‍♀️ or whatever.
microscopic speck asexually reproduces
oh yeah, and it 🚮 can do that.
reproduces three 🍆🥰 more ➕ times
it 🚮 has secret 🤐 instructions written inside 💠 itself telling 🗣 it 🚮 how to build 🏪👷⚒ another one 🔂 of itself. so 🆘 that's pretty nifty, i 😊 would say. 🗣
tired 💤 of living at the bottom ⏬🔻 of the ocean? 🐙
now you 😊😀 can eat 🍽 sunlight!
using a revolutionary technique, you 🤟😀 can convert sunlight into food. 🍽
taste the sun!
side 🚄 effect, now there's oxygen everywhere and the sky 🌆 is blue. 🈳
then the earth 🌎🌍 might've been a snowball for a while. maybe even 🌜 a couple 👩‍❤️‍👩 of times. ⌚⌚⌚
it's a sponge... it's a plant... it's a worm, 🐛 and some other types ⌨ of weird 😕 strange water ⛵ bugs 🐛 and strange fish. 🦈🦈🦈
it's the Cambrian explosion: "wow, ❕😮 that's animals 🐷 and stuff" 🥙
but we're still in the ocean. 🇮🇴 hey, can we 🌿 go on land? 🛫
NO 🙅‍♂️
why?
the sun 🌤 is a deadly ☠ laser
oh okay. 👌
not anymore, there's a blanket 🥰
now the animals 🙊🐥 can go on land. 🛫 come on, animals, 🐙 let's go on land! 🛫
"nope, 🙅 can't walk 🏃 yet."
"and there's no 📵 food 🥐 yet, so i 😊 don't care." 💅
100 million years later
okay, 👌👌👌 will you 😀 learn 📖 to walk 🚶‍♀️ if there's plants 🏡 up here? 📌
"maybe," said some bugs. 🐜 and fish. 🐬
fish gasps for air 💨
five million years later
okay, 👌 so i 😀 can go on land, 🛫 but i 😀 have 🈶 to go back 🤚⬅️🤚⬅️🤚⬅️ in the water 🚣 to have babies!
idea: learn 📕 to use an egg. 🐣
"i 😊 was already doing that"
use a stronger 💪 egg. 🍳 put 🚮 water 🚰 in it. 🚮 have 🈶 a baby, 🐤🐣🐤🐣🐤🐣 on land, 🛫 in an egg. 🐣 water 🚰 is in the egg. 🥚 baby, 🐥🤰 in the egg, 🍳 in the water, 🤽‍♀️ in the egg. 🐣🐣🐣
works 💼 for me. bye bye ocean
50 million years later
and now everything's huge. including bugs. 🐜🐝
wanna see 👁 a map 🗺 of the land? 🛫 sure.
Permian extinction
oh, fuck, now everything's dead. 💀⚱
just kidding, here 🈁 are 👉 the survivors. keep your eye 👁😚 on this one, 🔂 because it's about to become
75 million years later
the dinosaurs. 🦖
here's 📍 another map 🗺 of the land. 🛫 yeah, it 🚮 broke apart. don't worry about it, 🚮 it 🚮 does that all the time. ⌛🕦🕥 here 📍 comes a meteor.
meteor strikes
and the dinosaurs 🦕 are gone
it's mammal time, 🕰🕛 here 📍 come the mammals. look 👀👀👀 at those breasts.
now they're gonna dominate the world, 🌎 but one 🔂 of them just learned how to grab stuff. 🥙 and walk. 🏃‍♀️ no, 🚳 like, 😄 walk 🚷 like 👬 that. and grab stuff 🧸 at the same time. 🕕 and bang rocks 🗿🧗‍♂️🗿🧗‍♂️🗿🧗‍♂️ together to make pointed ✴️ rocks. 🧗‍♂️🧗‍♀️
"ouch"
and set things on fire. 🕯
"yeouch"
and make crazy 🤪 sounds 🔕🔊 with their voice:
"gneurshk"
which can mean 😏 different things.
that's a human 🏊‍♀️ person!
and now they're everywhere. almost.
ice age!
what? 😦 you 🤟 can walk 👣 over 🤭 here? 📌 cool. 🆒
not anymore
well i 😀 guess we're stuck 😝 here 📌 now.
let's review: there's people 👨‍👨‍👦‍👦 on the planet. 🌗 and they're chasing their food. 🥟
fuck it. 🚮 time 🕚 to plant 🌱 some grass. 🍃
look 👀 at this. i 😊 get 🉐 to control 🛂 the food 🍑🍿 now. now everyone will want to be my 😀😀😀 friend 🐶 and live near me. let's all build ⚒ houses, 🏚 except mine is bigger because i 😀 own the food. 🍽
this is great! 🇬🇧 i 😀 wonder if anyone else is doing this.
tired 💤 of using rocks 🗿🧗‍♀️ for everything? use metal. 🤘 it's underground.
better 🎰 farming 🚜 was just invented in a sweet 🍯 dank valley right ↔️ in between these two ✌ rivers, and the animals 🐻🏇🦖 are 👉 helping. 🆘
guess what 😦😦😦 happens next?
more ➕ food. 🧀🍩 and more ➕ people, 👩‍👦👨‍👧‍👧👨‍👧 who came to buy 🛍 the food. 🍲 now you 😀 need people 👨‍👨‍👧 to help 🆘 make the food 🥮 and keep track ⏭ of the sales. 💰 and now you 😀 need houses 🚪 for people 👭👭👭 to live in and people 👩‍👩‍👧‍👦 to make the houses 🏡 and now there's more ➕ people 👩‍👦👩‍👩‍👦‍👦 and they 👩‍👩‍👦‍👦 invent things which makes things better 🎰 and more ➕ people 👨‍👦 come and there's more ➕ farming 🚜 and more ➕ people 👨‍👧👨‍👨‍👦 to make more ➕ things for more ➕ people 👨‍👩‍👧‍👦 and now there's business, money, writing, laws, power,
Society
coming soon 🔜 to a dank river valley near you. 🤟😀
meanwhile, out 😝 in the middle 🖕 of nowhere, the horse 🎠🐴 is probably being tamed.
why is all my 😀 metal 🤘 so 🆘🆘🆘 lame and lumpy?
tired 😪 of using lame, sad 😔 metal? 🤘 introducing: bronze. made from special ingredient tin from the far lands of Tin Land. 🛫 i 😀 dunno, my 😊 dealer won't tell 🗣 me where he 💁‍♂️ gets 🉐 it. 🚮 also, guess what? 😦
egypt
meanwhile, out 😜 in the middle 🖕 of nowhere, they 💁 figured out 😝 how to put 🚮 wheels 🎡 on a horse. 🏇 now we're getting 🉐 somewhere. also,
china
and did i 😊 mention
indus river valley civilization
society count: 5
...
norte chico
the middle east 🌏 is getting 🉐 more ➕ complicated. maybe because it's in the middle of the east. 🌏
knock knock, er, clop clop. it's the... people 👨‍👨‍👧 with the horses? 🏇 and they 👩‍👩‍👦‍👦 made an empire. and then everyone else copied their horses. 🏇
greeks!
ah look, 👁 it 🚮 must be the greeks! er, a beta version of the greeks.
let's check ☑️ in with the indus river valley civilization: they're gone. guess who's not 🚯 gone? china.
new arrivals 🛬 from india... maybe it's those horse 🐴 people 👩‍👩‍👧 i 😀 was talking 🗨 about... or their cousins or something...
and they 👩‍👩‍👦‍👦 wrote some hymns and mantras and stuff...
you 🤟🤟🤟 could make a religion ⛪🔯 out 😜 of this.
there's the bronze age collapse.
now the phoenicians can get 🉐 down ⤵️⬇️ to business
also, can we 👩‍👩‍👦‍👦 switch to a metal 🤘 that's a little easier to find? 🔍 thanks. 🙌
look 👁 who came back ↩️ to israel, 🇮🇱 it's the twelve tribes of israel. 🇮🇱
and they 💁 believe in God
just one 1️⃣ though, and he's 💁‍♂️ got like 👫👫👫 a ten-step 🔟🚶 program. 📻
here's 📌 some huge heads. 💆‍♂️ must be the olmecs.
the phoenicians make some colonies. the greeks copy their idea 💡 and make some colonies. the phoenicians made a colony so 🆘 big it 🚮 makes colonies.
here 📍 comes the assyrian empire. never mind, 🤯 it's the babyloni— media—
it's the Persian Empire: "wow, ❕ that's big"
enlightenment
ah, the buddha was just enlightened. who's the buddha? this guy, 👨 who sat under a tree 🍃 for so 🆘 long that he 💁‍♂️ figured out 😜 how to ignore the fact that we're all dying. you 😊 could make a religion ⛪ out 😝😝😝 of this.
oops, 💦😖 china 🇨🇳 just broke. but while it 🚮 was breaking, 💔 confucius was figuring out 😜 how to have 🈶 good 🙅‍♂️ morals.
enlightenment
ah, the greeks just had the idea 💡 of thinking 🤔 about stuff. 🥙
and right 🤜 over 🤬🤬🤬 here, 🈁 alexander just had the idea 💡 of conquering the entire persian empire. it's a great 🇬🇧 idea. 💡 he 💁‍♂️ was... great. 🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧 and now he's 💁‍♂️ dead. ⚰ hopefully, the rest 🛏 of the gang will be able to share the empire evenly between them.
knock knock, it's chandragupta. he 💁‍♂️ says 🗣 "get 🉐 the hell out 😜😜😜 of here. 📌 will you 😀 get 🉐 the hell out 😜😝 of here 📍 if i 😊 give you 🤟 500 elephants? 🐘 okay, 👌 thanks, 🙌 bye"
time to conquer all of india
er
most of india
but what 😦 about this part? 〽️ that's the tamil kings. 🤴 no 🚳 one 🔂🔂🔂 conquers the tamil kings. 👑 who are 👉 the tamil kings? 👑 merchants, probably. and they've got spices!
who would like 💛👩‍❤️‍💋‍👩 to buy 🛍 the spices? "me!" said the arabians, swiftly buying 🛍 it 🚮 and selling it 🚮 to the rest 🛏 of the world. 🗺🌎
hey, china 🇨🇳 put 🚮 itself back ⬅️🤚 together again, with good 🦸‍♀️❇️ morals as their main philosophy. actually, they 💁 have 🈶 three 🥰 main philosophies:
confucianism: have 🈶🈶🈶 good 🉑🌟🙅 morals
taoism: go with the flow
legalism: fuck you, 😀 obey the law
out 😝😛 here, 📌 the horse 🐴🐴🐴 nomads run wild 🐯 and free, 🆓 and they 👩‍👩‍👦‍👦 would like 👩‍❤️‍💋‍👩 to ransack your city. 🇻🇦
nomads ransack china
let's check ✔️ the greekification levels 🎚 of the greekified kingdoms: 🇬🇧 greekification overload. bye, said the parthians. bye, said the jews. hi, said the parthians, taking over 🤬🤭 the entire place. 🏟🏟🏟
heyyyyy, said the romans, eating 🍽 the entire mediterranean for breakfast. 🥓 "thanks 🙌 for invading our homeland," said the jews, who were starting 💫 to get 🉐 tired 😫 of people 👩‍👦 invading their homeland.
"hi, everything's great," 🇬🇧 said some guy 👨 who seems to be getting 🉐 very popular and is then arrested and killed for being too popular, which actually makes him more ➕ popular. you 🤟 could make a religion 🛐 out 😝😛 of this.
want silk? 🕸 now you 😊 can buy 🛍 it 🚮 from china. 🇨🇳 they 💁 just made a brand new 🇵🇬 road 🛣 to the world.
conquers vietnam
or you 🤟😀 can get there on water
"sick! 😷 new 🇳🇿 trade routes!" said india, 🇮🇳 accidentally spreading their religion ☦ to the entire southeast. ↘️
hmm, that's a good 📈 place 🚩 for an epic trading kingdom. 🇬🇧
there goes buddhism, ☸ travelling 💱💱💱 up the silk 🕸 road. 🛣 i 😀 wonder if it'll reach china 🍚 before it 🚮 collapses again.
remember the persian empire? yep, said the persians, making a new 🌚 one. 🔂
axum is getting 🉐 so 🆘 powerful, they 💁 would like 💒 to build 👷‍♀️ a long stick. 🥍
has anyone populated madagascar 🇲🇬 yet? let's do it 🚮 together.
china is whole again...
...then it 🚮 broke again
still can't cross ✝ the sahara 🇪🇭 desert? 🐪 try camels. 🐪
"hell yeah! now we've got business," said the ghana 🇬🇭 empire, selling lots of gold. and slaves.
"hi, i'm a member of the roman empire, and i 😊 was wondering
is loving 💑💝 jesus legal 📝 yet?"
"no" 🇳🇴
"actually, okay 👌 sure," said constantine, moving 📦 the capital 🔠🔠🔠 way ↕️ over 🤭 here 📍🈁 to be closer to his 🐍🐍🐍 main rival. don't worry about rome, it 🚮 won't fall. 🍁
it's the golden age of india
there's the gupta empire, not 🚯 chandragupta, just gupta. first 🌛 name 📛 chandra. the first. 🌓
guess who's in rome? barbarians. what's 😦 a barbarian? "non-romans," said the romans, being invaded by non-romans. r.i.p. roman empire. actually just half of it, 🚮 the other half is just fine, but it's not 🚯 in rome anymore, so 🆘 let's give it 🚮 a new 🇵🇬 name. 📛
the mayans have 🈶 figured out 😛 the stars
oh, and here's 📌 a huge city, 🇻🇦 population: everyone.
the göktürks have 🈶 taken over 🌄🤬 the entire eurasian steppe. great 🇬🇧 job, 💼 göktürks.
how's india? 🇮🇳 broken. 🏚 how's china? 🍚 back together.
how's those trading kingdoms? 🇬🇧 bigger, and there's more ➕ of them.
korea 🇰🇵 has three 3️⃣ kingdoms. 🇬🇧 japan 🍥 has a kingdom, 🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧 it's the sunrise 🌄 kingdom. 🇬🇧
intermission
deep in the arabian desert, 🏝 on the top 🔝 of a mountain, 🌁🗻 the real god whispers in muhammad's ear. 👂 so, 🆘 he 💁‍♂️ goes down ⏬🙃 to the cube where everyone worships 🕍 gods and he 💁‍♂️ tells 🗣 them their gods are 👉 all fake. and everyone got so 🆘 mad 💢 at him that he 💁‍♂️ had to leave 🍃 town and go to a different town. you 🤟 could make a religion 🔯 out 😜 of this, and maybe conquer the world 🗺🌍 as well.
the roman empire is long gone, but somehow the pope is still the pope. plus, ➕ there's new kingdoms 🇬🇧 all over 🌄 europe. i 😀 wonder if there's room 🧖‍♀️ for moors.
here's 📌 all the wisdom. in a house. 🚪 it's the baghdad house 🏡 of wisdom! just in time 🕟 for the islamic golden age!
"let's bring stuff 🥙 to the coast 🇨🇮 and sell it, 🚮 and become the swahili on the swahili coast," 🇨🇮 said the swahili on the swahili coast. 🇨🇮
remember this tiny space 🌕 you 😊 have 🈶 to go through to get 🉐 from here 🈁 to there? someone owns that now.
wanna get 🉐 enlightened in the middle 🖕🖕🖕 of nowhere?
the franks have 🈶 the biggest kingdom 🇬🇧 in europe, and the pope is so 🆘 proud 😤 that he 💁‍♂️ invites the king 👑 over 🌄 for christmas. 🎄 "surprise! 🤭 you're the new 🇳🇨 roman emporer!" said the pope, pretending to still be part 〽️ of the roman empire. then the franks broke their kingdom 🇬🇧 into what 😦 will later 🕡🕗 be called france 🇫🇷 and not-france. 🚯
the northerners, er, just "norse" if you 😀 don't have 🈶 much time, 🕔 are 👉 exploring. they 💁 go north, 🇰🇵 from the north 🇰🇵 to the northern 🇬🇧 north. 🇰🇵 and they 💁 find 🔍 some land— two 👬 types ⌨ of land!— and they 💁 name 📛 them accordingly.
prankd
they 💁 also invade some other places 🏆 and get 🉐 called many names, 📛 such as "vikings."
there's the rus! the kievan rus! are 👉 they 👩‍👩‍👦‍👦 vikings? "i 😊 don't think 🗯 so," 🆘 said the kievan rus. okay, fair enough.
the pope is ready to make some more ➕ emperors of the roman empire. the holy roman empire! it's actually germany, but don't worry about it. 🚮 new 🇳🇨 kingdoms—
CRISTIANIZE ALL THE KINGDOMS!!
which brand ™️ would you 😀 like? 💖
"mine's better"
"mine's better"
"mine's better"
"time 🕥 to conquer england," 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿💷 said william.
it's a bird! 🐥 it's a plane! ✈️ 👨‍✈️ it's the seljuk turks!
"aah!" said the byzantine empire, who's getting 🉐 so 🆘 small 🌤 and almost doesn't exist anymore. "we 🌿 need help!" 🆘 they 💁 need help! 🆘 so 🆘 they 💁 call 🤙 the pope.
"hey pope, can you 😊🤟 help 🆘 us get 🉐🉐🉐 rid of the seljuks? maybe take back ↩️ the holy land 🛫 on the way? 🌌 come on, i 😀 know you 😊 want to take back 🤚 the holy land." 🛫
"yes, ☑️ i 😊 do actually want to do that. let's do a crusade."
crusade!
they 👩‍👩‍👦‍👦👩‍👩‍👦‍👦👩‍👩‍👦‍👦 did many crusades. some of which almost didn't fail. 💩 but at least the italians 🍝 got some sweet 🍪 trade deals.
goodbye 👋👋👋 mayans. hello toltecs! goodbye 👋 toltecs. hello mississippi! look 👁 at those mounds.
there's the pueblo. i 😊 always wondered how to build 🏨🏛🏨🏛🏨🏛 a town in a cliff.
guess who's here? 📍 khmer. where? here! 📌 and pagan is there. vietnam 🇻🇳 unconquered itself, korea 🇰🇷 just became itself, and japan 🍥 is so 🆘 addicted to art 🎭 that the military 🎖 might have 🈶 to take over 🌄🤬 the government.
china 🍚 just invented bombs, 💣 and typing. ⌨⌨⌨ and the mongols just invaded most of the universe. nice going, genghis! i 😀 bet 🎰 that will last 🌗 a long time. 🕤
some of the islamic 🇮🇷 turks 🇹🇨 were unaffected by the mongol invasions because they 💁 were busy invading india. 🇮🇳
is it 🚮 tonga 🇹🇴 time? 🕛 i 😊 think 🤔 it's tonga 🇹🇴 time. 🕚
i 😀 just figured out 😛 where the swahili gets 🉐 all of their gold.
look 👁 at this chad! 🇹🇩 it 🚮 means 😏 "lake." there's an empire there! right 👉 in the middle 🖕 of africa!
the king 🤴 of mali 🇲🇱 is so 🆘 rich, 🤑 he's 💁‍♂️💁‍♂️💁‍♂️ going on tour to let everyone know. "wow, ❗ that guy's 👷 rich," 🤑 everyone said.
the christians are 👉 doing a great 🇬🇧 job 💼 reconquering iberia, which will soon 🔜 be called spain 🇪🇸 and not-spain. 🚯 please 🙏 remain christian. we 🌿 will check ☑️ in later 🕣 to see 👀🙈 if you're still christian when you 🤟😊 least expect.
whoops, 🤭 half of europe just died.
ming! china's 🍚 back, 🔙⬅️ yay! 👏
hey, khmer. time 🕔🕔🕔 to share. new 🌑 kingdoms, 🇬🇧 here 🈁 and there.
oh, look 👀 who controls 🛂 all of the islands. 🇫🇴 it's the mahajapit.
majahapit.
mapajahit.
mahapajit.
mapajahit.
ma-ja-pa-hit? 👊
oh, italy's 🇮🇹 real rich. 🤑 time 🕡 for them to care 💅 a lot about art 🥋🖌🎭 and the ancient 📜 classics. it's kinda like 👍 a rebirth.
here's 🈁 a printer. 🖨 let's make books! 📙📕
so 🆘 you 😀😀😀 think 🗯 you 😀 can conquer the byzantine empire? yep, said the ottoman turks. 🇹🇨 nice job, 💼 ottoman turks. 🇹🇨 oops, 😣 you 🤟 missed a spot. 🦒 don't forget to ban ✋ europe from the indian 🍛 spice trade.
"what? 😦 that's bullshit," said portugal, 🇵🇹 spiceless.
"well i 😊 guess we'll have 🈶 to find 🔎 another way 🌌 to india"
"wait!" 🚏 said christopher columbus, probably smoking 🚬 crack. "if the world 🌏 is round, ⚪ let's go this way 🌌 to india." 🇮🇳
"nah, don't worry, we 🌿 already got this," said portugal. 🇵🇹
so 🆘 chris goes to spain. 🇪🇸 "hey spain, 🇪🇸 wanna hire me to find 🔍 india 🇮🇳 by going around back 🔙 of the world?" 🌐
"no" 😶
"please?" 🙏
"no" 📵
"please?" 🙏
"wtf"
"no" ⛔
"please?" 🙏
"...okay"
so 🆘 he 💁‍♂️ sails into the ocean, 🐬 and discovers... more ➕ ocean. 🏄🦐 and then discovers the indies, and japan! 🗾🎑 let's draw 📏 a line 〰️ to decide who gets 🉐 which half of the world. 🌐
the aztec and the inca empires are 👉 off 📴 to a great 🇬🇧 start. 🆕 i 😊 wonder if they 💁 know that europe just discovered their continent.
the hapsburgs are 👉 marrying into so 🆘 many royal 👸 families, they 💁 might have 🈶 to start 🆕 marrying each other.
move over, 🤬 lithuania, 🇱🇹 here 🈁 comes moscow. ivan wants to make russia great 🇬🇧 again.
move over, 🌄 timurids, maybe go invade india 🇮🇳 or something. persia just made persia persian again.
let's make it 🚮 the other kind of islam. 🕌☪ the one 🔂 where we 🌿 thought 💭 the first 🥇🌛 guy 💂👱 should've been the other guy. 👷
hey, christians! do you 😊🤟 sin? now you 🤟🤟🤟 can buy 🛍 your way ↕️ out 😜😛 of hell!
"that's bullshit. this whole thing is bullshit. that's a scam. fuck the church. ⛪ here's 📌 95 reasons why," said martin luther, in his 🐍 new 🆕 book 📘 which might have 🈶 accidentally started the protestant reformation.
"you 🤟 know what 😦 would be magnificent?" said suleiman wearing an onion hat. 🤠 "what 😦 if the ottoman empire was... really big?" which it 🚮🚮🚮 is now.
"what 😦 if russia was big?" said ivan, trying not 🚯 to be terrible.
portugal 🇵🇹 had a dream 💭 that they 💁💁💁 controlled the entire indian 🇮🇴 ocean, 🌊 including the spice trade. and then that dream 💭 was real.
and spain 🇪🇸 realized that this is not 🚯 india, 🇮🇳 but they 💁 pillaged it 🚮 anyway. "damn," said england 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 and france. 🇫🇷 "we 👩‍👩‍👦‍👦 gotta start 🆕 pillaging some stuff." 🥙 then the dutch 🇸🇽 revolt, and all the hipsters 🚴 moved to amsterdam. "damn," said amsterdam. "we 👩‍👩‍👦‍👦 gotta start 🆕 pillaging some stuff." 🥙
question ❔ one: 🔂 can you 🤟 get 🉐 to india 🇮🇳🇮🇳🇮🇳 from north 🇰🇵 america? 🇺🇸 no, 🙈 but at least there's beaver.
question ❓ two: 👭 steal the spice trade. that's not 🚯 a question, ❔ but the dutch 🇸🇽 did it 🚮 anyway.
and sugar... guess where all of the sugar is made? in brazil! 🇧🇷🇧🇷🇧🇷 stolen! in the caribbean! 🇧🇶 and it's so 🆘 goddamn profitable, you 😊😀 might forget to not 🚯🚯🚯 do slavery.
the next ➡️ thing on russia's to-do list is to get 🉐 bigger.
britain 🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧 and france 🇫🇷 are 👉 having 🈶 a friendly discussion about who should control 🛂 the entire world. 🌐 more ➕ specifically, ohio. then it 🚮 escalates into a seven-year 7️⃣ discussion, giving prussia a chance to show 📺 austria 🇦🇹🇦🇹🇦🇹 who's boss. but what 😦 about britain 🇬🇧 and france, 🇫🇷 did they 💁 figure out 😛 who's boss? yes ✔️ they 💁💁💁 did! it's britain. 🇬🇧
guess who's broke? also britain! 🇬🇧 so 🆘 they 👩‍👩‍👦‍👦 start 🆕 taxing the hell out 😜 of america. 🌎 "fuck you!" 😊 says 🗣 america, 🇺🇸 declaring their independence and fighting 🥊 for it, 🚮 and france 🇫🇷 helps 🆘 them win. 🏆 now france 🇫🇷 is broke, and britain 🇬🇧 will have 🈶🈶🈶 to send their prisoners to a different continent.
wait, 🚏 if france 🇫🇷 is broke, why do the king 🤴 and queen 👸 still wear such fancy 💠 dresses?
"let's overthrow the palace and cut ✂️ all their heads 🤕 off!" 📴 said robespierre, cutting 🈹🥩🈹🥩🈹🥩 everybody's heads 💆 off 📴 until someone eventually got mad 💢 and cut ✂️ his 🐍 head 💆 off. 📴
you 😀 could make a rel— no, 🙉 don't.
haiti 🇭🇹 is starting 🔯 to like 💖 the idea 💡 of a revolution, especially the slaves, who free 🆓 themselves by killing their masters. "why didn't we 👩‍👩‍👦‍👦 think 🤔🗯 of this before?"
wait, 🚏 who's in charge of france 🇫🇷 now? "me," said napoleon, trying to take over 🤬🤭 europe. luckily, they 💁 banished him to an island. 🇲🇵 but he came back! luckily, they 💁 banished him to another island. 🇻🇬
there goes latin ✝ america, 🌎 becoming independent in the latin ✝ american 🗽 wars of independence.
britain 🇬🇧 just figured out 😜 how to turn steam 🚂 into power, 🔌 so 🆘 now they 💁 can make many different types ⌨ of machines 🎰 and factories with machines 🤖 in them so 🆘 they 💁 can make a lot of products real fast. then they 👩‍👩‍👦‍👦 invent some trains. 🚋 and conquer india 🇮🇳 and maybe put 🚮 some trains 🚂 there.
"hey, china!" 🇨🇳 said britain. 🇬🇧 "buy 🛍 stuff 🥙 from us!" "nah, dude, we 👩‍👩‍👦‍👦 already got everything," says 🗣 china. 🍚 so 🆘 britain 🇬🇧 tried to get 🉐 them addicted to opium, which worked, actually. but then china 🍚 made it 🚮 illegal and dumped it 🚮 all into the sea. 🐙 so 🆘 britain 🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧 threw a hissy fit and made them open 😮 up five 5️⃣ cities and give them an island. 🇹🇨
britain 🇬🇧 and russia are 👉 playing 👾 a game 🎴 where they 👩‍👩‍👦‍👦 try to stop 🚫🚫🚫 the other person 👱‍♀️ from conquering afghanistan. 🇦🇫
also, the sultan of oman 🇴🇲 lives in zanzibar now: "that's just where he 💁‍♂️ lives."
india 🇮🇳 just had a revolution, and they 👩‍👩‍👦‍👦 would like 😚 to govern themselves now. "nope," 🙅 said britain, 🇬🇧 governing them even 🌜🌛 harder than before.
incoming telegram: HI I 😊 JUST SENT YOU 😀😊 A MESSAGE 🗨 THRU A WIRE
technology is about to go crazy!
the united 🇺🇳 states 🇺🇸 finally figured out 😜 whether slavery is good 🉑 or bad. 🦹‍♂️ it's bad, 📉🦹‍♂️ they 👩‍👩‍👦‍👦 decided, and then they 👩‍👩‍👦‍👦 continued manifesting their destiny, which is to kill 🚬 the rest 🛌😪🛌😪🛌😪 of the natives and take their land 🛫 and maybe kick 🦶🛴 out 😝😜 the mexicans 🌮 too.
"i 😀 know! let's rape africa!" 🇿🇦🇿🇦🇿🇦 said europe, scrambling to see 🙈 who could rape it 🚮 the fastest. they never got ethiopia...
britain 🇬🇧 and france 🇫🇷 are 👉 still hungry. they never got thailand...
the united states 🇺🇸 ran out 🥺 of destiny to manifest, so 🆘 they're looking 🚺👀 for more: ➕
hawaii!
cuba!
wait, 🚏 spain 🇪🇸 controls 🛂 cuba. 🇨🇺
well, blame something on them and go to war! what 😦😦😦 should we 🌿 blame on spain? 🇪🇸
u.s.s. maine sinks
"let's blame the maine on spain." 🇪🇸
so 🆘 they 💁💁💁 blame the maine on spain. 🇪🇸
now we're in business. 📉
to celebrate, 🥂 they 💁 kick 🦵 panama 🇵🇦 out 😛😜 of panama 🇵🇦 and make a canal, connecting the two ✌✌✌ oceans. 🐙🏄
britain 🇬🇧 just found oil 🛢 in the middle 🖕 east. 🌏 it makes cars 🚐 go...
china 🍚 is so 🆘 tired 😴 of being bossed around that they 💁 delete ❌ their old 👴 government and make a new, 🇳🇨 stronger 💪 government, which is accidentally weaker and is controlled by a guy 💂 from the previous ⬅️ government.
europe hasn't had a war since the last 🌜 war, so 🆘 they 👩‍👩‍👦‍👦 start 🆕 world 🌎 war one. 1️⃣ look 👀 at those guns! 🔫 it's gonna be a great 🇬🇧 war, so 🆘 great 🇬🇧 we 🌿 won't need a second 🥈 one. 1️⃣ after it's over, 🤬 they 👩‍👩‍👦‍👦 blame germany.
russia went on strike, and the workers 👨‍🏭 overthrew the government. now, everyone's paycheck is the same. communism in the soviet union...
the arabs 🇸🇾 revolt and britain 🇬🇧 helps. 🆘 now the ottoman empire is gone, so 🆘 we 👩‍👩‍👦‍👦 can give the jewish people 👭 a place 🚮 to live. hopefully the arabs 👳‍♀️ won't mind. 🤯
"let's cut ✂️ the cake!" 🥮 said sykes and picot, carving 🏎 up the remains of the not-so-ottoman-anymore-empire. 🚯
except turkey! 🦃 turkey 🦃 makes a brand ™️ new 🇹🇷🇹🇷🇹🇷 turkey!
and then the saudis 🇸🇦 conquer arabia. 🇸🇦 it 🚮 just seemed like 🥰 the right ▶️ thing to do.
phone rings
hello? 👋 yes, 🆗 it's the 1920's calling. 🤙 let's get 🉐 to a car 🏎 and drive to a party 🍕 and listen 👂 to jazz 🎷 on the radio 📻📻📻 and go to the movies. 🎥 the economy is great 🇬🇧 and it 🚮 will probably be great 🇬🇧 forever. ♾ just kidding.
germany's back, 🤚 featuring hitler, 👊 the angry 👿😡 mustache 👨 model, and he's 💁‍♂️ mad 😡 at the jews for existing.
japan ⛩ is finally conquering the east, 🌏 and they're so 🆘 excited, they 💁 rape nanking way 🌌 too hard. they 👩‍👩‍👦‍👦 should probably just deny ❎ it. 🚮
hitler's out 😝 of control, 🎛 so 🆘 the international 🌍🌐 community tackles him and tries to explain to him why killing all of the jews is a bad 🦹‍♀️ idea. 💡 but he 💁‍♂️ kills 🚬 himself because they 💁 could explain it 🚮 to him. that's world 🌐 war two!
bonus round! 🔃 pacific showdown
united states 🇺🇸 vs. japan 🇯🇵
FIGHT!!
united states 🇫🇲 drops 💦 two 👬👬👬 extinction balls 🥎🎾 on japan
FINISH HIM!
let's unite all the nations 🇸🇿 and have 🈶 some world peace! seems legit.
"hi, im gandhi, and if britain 🇬🇧 doesn't get 🉐 the hell out 😛😝 of india, 🇮🇳 i'm going to starve myself in public." 🚅🚉🚅🚉🚅🚉
britain leaves
"wow, 😮❗ that worked?"
bonus! now there's pakistan. 🇵🇰 actually two 2️⃣ pakistans, 🇵🇰 one 1️⃣ of them can be bangladesh 🇧🇩 later. 🕧🕧🕧
the jews and the arabs 🇸🇾 finally figured out 😝😜 which one 1️⃣ of them should live in the holy land. 🛫 "me!" they 👩‍👩‍👦‍👦 both said at the same time. ⌛🕗 let's divide ➗➗➗ up the lands so 🆘 we're both happy. 😺 SIKE! they 👩‍👩‍👦‍👦 both get 🉐 angrier!
look 👁 out, 😛 china! 🍚 there's a new 🇳🇿 china 🇨🇳 in china. 🇨🇳 what's 😦 on the menu? communism! no 🔕 thanks, 🙌 said the other china, 🇨🇳 escaping to an island. 🇲🇵 i 😀 wonder which one 1️⃣ is the real china...?
there's the korean war. korea 🇰🇷 versus korea! 🇰🇷 nobody wins, 🏆 then its 🚮 on pause ⏸ forever. ♾
let's meet the sponsors. oh, it's the two 👬 global superpowers. 🦸‍♀️🦸‍♂️ they're having 🈶 a friendly debate over 🤭 which economic 📉 system is good ✨❇️ and which one 🔂 is an evil 🙉🐍 virus of satan. and they 👩‍👩‍👦‍👦 both have 🈶 atom ⚛ bombs. 💥 FIGHT!! wait, 🚏 no, 📭🙅 that would be the end 🔚 of the world. 🌎 let's just keep it 🚮 cool 👍🕶 and spy 🕵️‍♀️ on each other instead. and make sure we 🌿 have 🈶 enough atom ⚛ bombs. 💣
"i'll race 🚵‍♀️🏍 you 🤟 to space." 🌕👨‍🚀
united states 🇺🇸 plants 🎍 a flag 🇸🇧 on the moon
now let's make more ➕ countries fight 🥊 themselves.
europe is tired 😴 of pillaging other continents, and the continents they 💁 were pillaging are 👉 tired 😪💤 of being pillaged. so 🆘 here's 📍 a new 🇵🇬 map 📍 with new 🇳🇨 countries. now you 😊🤟 can't tell 🗣 who they're being pillaged by.
the united states 🇺🇸 finally decided whether racism is good 🆗 or bad. 🦹‍♂️ they 💁 decided it's bad, 〽️ and the world 🌎 agrees. ☑️ south 🇿🇦 africa 🇿🇦 might need another minute to think 🗯 about it. 🚮
let's check ✔️☑️ the world 🌍 population!
woah. okay. 👌
technology 📱 is better 🎰 too, that might keep happening.
the soviet union 🇪🇺 decides to relax ☺️ a little, and accidentally falls ⛅ apart.
europe makes a union, 🇪🇺 so 🆘 now they 👩‍👩‍👦‍👦👩‍👩‍👦‍👦👩‍👩‍👦‍👦 can all use the same money. 💸 except britain, 🇬🇧 because they 👩‍👩‍👦‍👦 don't feel like 💜 it. 🚮
let's check ☑️ the mail... surprise! ❕😮 it's on the computer! 🤖
whoops, 🤭 someone just attacked america. 🇺🇸 i 😀 bet 🎰 they'll remember that.
phone 🤳 call! 📲 surprise! ❗🤨 it's in your pocket! wanna learn 📖 everything? surprise! ❕🤭 it's on the computer! 🖱 now your phone's a computer, 🖱 which is in your pocket!
whoops, 🤭 the economy just crashed. don't worry, the big banks 🏧 won't fail, 💩 because they're not 🚯 supposed to.
surprise!... flying 🚁 robots. 🤖 with bombs. 💣
wanna print 🐾 a brain? 🧠
some people 👨‍👧‍👧👬 have no ❌ friends. 🐕 some people 👨‍👩‍👦‍👦 have no 🙈 food. 🌶🥩 the globe 🌏 is warming, ♨️ and the ocean 🦑 is full 🌝 of plastic!
"let's save 🔖🔖🔖 the planet!" 🌕🌔 said everybody, not 🚯 knowing how.
"let's invent a thing inventor," said the thing inventor inventor after being invented by a thing inventor. that's pretty cool. 😎
by the way, 🌌 where the hell are 👉 we? 🤔🤔🤔
thanks for watching ⌚👁 history
i hope 🙏 i 😀 mentioned everything

📷
Hi, you're on a rock, floating in space. Pretty cool, huh? Some of it's water. Fuck it, actually, most of it's water. I can't even get from here to there without buying a boat. It's sad. I'm sad. I miss you.
H O W D I D T H I S H A P P E N ?
A long time ago... actually, never, and also now, nothing is nowhere. When? Never. Makes sense, right? Like I said, it didn't happen. Nothing was never anywhere. That's why it's been everywhere. It's been so everywhere, you don't need a "where". You don't even need a "when". That's how "every" it gets.
...
Forget this, I wanna be something, go somewhere, do something. I want things to change, I want to invent time and space, and I know it's possible because everything is here, and it probably already happened. I just don't know when to start... and that's exactly where it started.
⏪
Woah, I paused it. I think there's a universe now. What's it made of?
Q U A R K S A N D S T U F F
Ah, that's a thing, in a place! Don't like it? Try a new place, at a different time. Try to stick together, because the world is gonna get bigger and emptier... but it's not empty yet. It's still very full, and about a kjghpillion degrees.

Great news! The quarks are now happily married in groups of three, called a "proton" or a "neutron", and there's something else flying around that wants to join in, but can't cause it's still too
H O T

Great news! The protons and neutrons are now happily married to each other! Some of them even doubled up.

Great news! The electrons have now joined in.
Congratulations, THE WORLD IS NOW a bunch of gas in space... but it's getting closer together...
<10 million years later>
...and it's getting closer together...
<500 million years later>
...and it's getting closer toget-
BOOMI T ' S A S T A R
New shit just got made! Some stars burn out and die. Bigger stars burn out and die with passion and make some brand new way crazier shit.
S P A C E D U S T
...which allows for newer and more interesting stars to be made, and then die and explode into
E V E N C R A Z I E R S P A C E D U S T
So now, stars have cool stuff around them, like rocks, ice and funny clouds, which can make some very interesting things. Like this ball of flaming rock, for example...

Holy shit, we just got hit by another ball of flaming rocks, and it kind of... made a mess, which is
N O W T H E M O O N
Weather update! It's raining rocks from outer space. Weather update! Those rocks might have had water inside of them and now there's hot steam in the sky. Weather update! Cooler temperatures today and the floor is no longer lava. Weather update! ...it's raining. Severe flooding alert! The entire world is now an ocean. Volcano alert!
T H A T 'S L A N D !
there's life in the ocean.
What?
S O M E T H I N G ' S A L I V E I N T H E O C E A N
Oh, cool! Like, a plant or an animal? No, a microscopic speck! It lives at the bottom of the ocean and eats chemical soup, which is being served hot and fresh, made from gnarly space ingredients left over from when it was raining rocks or whatever...

Oh yeah, and it can do that.

It has secret instructions written inside itself, telling it how to build another one of itself. So, that's pretty nifty, I would say. Tired of living at the bottom of the ocean?
N O W Y O U C A N E A T S U N L I G H T
"Using a revolutionary technique, you can convert sunlight into food."
T A S T E T H E S U N
Side effect: Now there's oxygen everywhere and the sky is blue. Then the Earth might have been a snowball for a while, maybe even a couple of times.
It's a sponge, it's a plant, it's a worm, and some other types of weird, stranger water bugs and strange fish.
I T ' S T H E C A M B R I A N E X P L O S I O N
Wow, that's animals and stuff, but we're still in the ocean. "Hey, can we go on land?"
N O
"Why?"
T H E S U N I S A D E A D L Y L A Z E R
"Oh, okay."

N O T A N Y M O R E T H E R E ' S A B L A N K E T
Now the animals can go on land. Come on animals, let's go on land! "Nope, can't walk yet, and there's no food yet, so I don't care."
<100 million years later>
Okay, will you learn to walk if there's plants up here? "Maybe," said some bugs, and fish.
"Eh."
"Eh."
"Eh."

"Okay, so I can go on land, but I have to go back in the water to
H A V E B A B I E S
Idea: Learn to use an egg. "I was already doing that!" Use a stronger egg, put water in it, have a baby on land, in an egg. Water is in the egg. Baby, in the egg, in the water, in the egg. "Works for me."
B Y E B Y E O C E A N
<50 million years later>
And now everything's huge, including bugs. Wanna see a map of the land? Sure.

Oh, fuck, now everything's dead. Just kidding, here are the survivors. Keep your eye on this one, because it's about to become...
<75 million years later>
...the dinosaurs. Here's another map of the land. Yeah, it broke apart. Don't worry about it, does that all the time. Here comes a meteor.

A N D T H E D I N O S A U R S A R E G O N E
It's mammal time, here come the mammals. Look at those breasts. Now they're gonna dominate the world, but one of them just learned how to grab stuff and walk. No, like, walk like that, and grab stuff at the same time, and bang rocks together to make pointed rocks.
"Ouch."
And set things on fire.
"Yeouch."
And make crazy sounds with their voice.
"Gneurshk."
Which can mean different things.
T H A T ' S A H U M A N P E R S O N
And now they're everywhere...almost.
I C E A G E
What? You can walk over here? Cool!
N O T A N Y M O R E
Well, I guess we're stuck here. Let's review: There's people on the planet, and they're chasing their food. "Fuck it, time to plant some grass. Look at this, I get to control the food now. Now, everyone will want to be my friend and live near me. Let's all build houses, except mine is bigger because I own the food." This is great! I wonder if anyone else is doing this?
Tired of using rocks for everything? Use metal! It's underground. Better farming was just invented in a sweet dank valley right in between these two rivers, and the animals are helping.
G U E S S W H A T H A P P E N S N E X T ?
More food, and more people who came to buy the food. Now you need people to help make the food and keep track of the sales, and now you need house for people to live in and people to make the houses and now there's more people to make more things for more people and now there's business, money, writing, laws, power.
S O C I E T Y
Coming soon to a dank river valley near you! Meanwhile, out in the middle of nowhere, the horse is probably being tamed.
Why is all my metal so lame and lumpy? Tired of using lame, sad metal? Introducing:
B R O N Z E
Made from special ingredient: Tin, from the far lands of Tin Land. I don't know, my dealer won't tell me where he gets it. Also, guess what?
E G Y P T
Meanwhile, out in the middle of nowhere, they figured out how to put wheels on a horse. Now we're getting somewhere. Also...
C H I N A
And did I mention...
I N D U S R I V E R V A L L E Y C I V I L I Z A T I O N

N O R T E C H I C O
The Middle East is getting more complicated. Maybe because it's in the middle of the East. Knock knock, er, clop clop, it's the people with the... horses, and they made an empire, and then everyone else copied their horses.
G R E E K S
Ah, look, it must be the Greeks... er, a beta version of the Greeks. Let's check in with the Indus River Valley Civilization... they're gone. Guess who's not gone?
C H I N AN E W A R R I V A L S I N I N D I A M A Y B E I T W A S T H O S E H O R S E P E O P L E I W A S T A L K I N G A B O U T O R T H E I R C O U S I N S O R S O M E T H I N G A N D T H E Y W R O T E S O M E H Y M N S A N D M A N T R A S A N D S T U F F
You could make a religion out of this.
There's the Bronze Age collapse.
N O W T H E P H O E N I C I A N S C A N G E T D O W N T O B U S I N E S S
Also, can we switch to a metal that's a little easier to find? Thanks. Look who came back to Israel: It's the twelve tribes of Israel.
A N D T H E Y B E L I E V E I N G O D
Just one, though. He's got, like, a ten step program.
Here's some huge heads, must be the Olmecs. The Phoenicians made a colony so big it makes colonies. Here comes the Assyrian Empire. Never mind, it's the Babyloni- Media-
I T ' S T H E P E R S I A N E M P I R E
Wow, that's big.

Ah, the Buddha was just enlightened! "Who's the Buddha?" This guy, who sat under a tree for so long that he figured out how to ignore the fact that we're all dying. You could make a religion out of this!
Oops, China just broke, but while it was breaking, Confucius was figuring out how to have good morals.
Ah, the Greeks just had the idea of thinking about stuff, and right over here, Alexander just had the idea of conquering the entire Persian Empire. It's a great idea, he was great... and now he's dead. Hopefully the rest of the gang will be able to share the empire evenly between them.
Knock knock, it's Chandragupta. He says "Get the hell out of here. Will you get the hell out of here if I give you 500 elephants?" "Okay, thanks, bye."
T I M E T O C O N Q U E R A L L O F I N D I A
Or...
M O S T O F I N D I A
But what about this part? That's the Tamil Kings, nobody conquers the Tamil Kings. Who are the Tamil Kings?
M E R C H A N T S P R O B A B L Y A N D T H E Y ' V E G O T S P I C E S
"Who would like to buy the spices?" "Me!" said the Arabians, swiftly buying it and selling it to the rest of the world.
Hey, China put itself back together again, with good morals as their main philosophy. Actually, they have three main philosophies.



Out here, the horse nomads run wild and free, and they would like to ransack your city.

Let's check the Greekification levels of the Greekified kingdoms. GREEKIFICATION OVERLOAD! "Bye," said the Parthians. "Bye," said the Jews. "Hi," said the Parthians, taking over the entire place. "Heeeeey" said the Romans, eating the entire Mediterranean for breakfast. "Thanks for invading our homeland," said the Jews, who were starting to get tired of people invading their homeland.
"Hi, everything's great," said some guy who seems to be getting very popular and is then arrested and killed for being too popular, which actually makes him more popular. You could make a religion out of this!
Want silk? Now you can buy it from China. They just made a
B R A N D N E W R O A D T O T H E W O R L D

Or you can
G E T T H E R E O N W A T E R
"Sick! New trade routes!" said India, accidentally spreading their religion to the entire southeast. Hmm, that's a good place for an epic trading kingdom.
There goes Buddhism, travelling up the Silk Road. I wonder if it will reach China before it collapses again?

Remember the Persian Empire? "Yep," said the Persians, making a new one. Axum is getting so powerful, they would like to build a long stick. Has anyone populated Madagascar yet? Let's do it together!
C H I N A I S W H O L E A G A I NT H E N I T B R O K E A G A I N
Still can't cross the Sahara Desert? Try camels.
H E L L Y E A H N O W W E ' V E G O T B U S I N E S S
...said the Ghana Empire, selling lots of gold... and slaves.
"Hi, I'm a member of the Roman Empire, and I was wondering...
I S L O V I N G J E S U S L E G A L Y E T
"No."
"Actually, okay, sure," said Constantine, moving the capital way over here to be closer to his
M A I N R I V A L
Don't worry about Rome, it won't fall.
I T ' S T H E G O L D E N A G E O F I N D I A
There's the Gupta Empire, not Chandragupta, just Gupta... first name Chandra... the First.
Guess who's in Rome?
B A R B A R I A N S
What's a barbarian? "Non-Romans," said the Romans, being invaded by non-Romans. R.I.P. Roman Empire... actually, just half of it, the other half is just fine, but it's not in Rome anymore, so let's give it a new name.
T H E M A Y A N S H A V E F I G U R E D O U T T H E S T A R S
Oh, and here's a huge city. Population: Everyone. The Göktürks have taken over the entire Eurasian steppe. Great job, Göktürks. How's India? Broken. How's China?
B A C K T O G E T H E R
How's those trading kingdoms?
B I G G E R A N D T H E R E ' S M O R E O F T H E M
Korea has three kingdoms. Japan has a kingdom, it's the Sunrise Kingdom.

Deep in the Arabian desert, on the top of a mountain, the real God whispers in Muhammad's ear. So, he goes down to the cube where everyone worships gods and tells them their gods are all fake, and everyone got so mad at him that he had to leave town and go to a different town. You could make a religion out of this, and maybe conquer the world as well.
The Roman empire is long gone, but somehow, the Pope is still the Pope. Plus, there's
N E W K I N G D O M S A L L O V E R E U R O P E
I wonder if there is room for Moors?
Here's all the wisdom in a house. It's the Baghdad House of Wisdom, just in time for the
I S L A M I C G O L D E N A G E
"Let's bring stuff to the coast and sell it, and become the Swahili on the Swahili Coast," said the Swahili on the Swahili Coast.
Remember this tiny space you have to go through to get from here to there? Someone owns that now!
Wanna get enlightened in the middle of nowhere?
The Franks have the biggest kingdom in Europe, and the Pope is so proud that he invites the King over for Christmas. "Surprise! You're the new Roman Emperor!" said the Pope, pretending to still be part of the Roman Empire. Then, the Franks broke their kingdom into what will later be called France and not-France.
The Northerners, or just "Norse" if you don't have much time, are exploring. They go north, from the north to the northern north, and they find some land. Two types of land, and they name them accordingly.

They also invade some other places and get called many names, such as "Vikings". There's the Rus, the Kievan Rus. Are they Vikings? "I don't think so," said the Kievan Rus. Okay, fair enough.
The Pope is ready to make some more emperors of the Roman Empire: The Holy Roman Empire. It's actually Germany, but don't worry about it.
New kingdoms!
*C H R I S T I A N I Z E A L L T H E K I N G D O M S
Which brand would you like?
"Mine's better."
"Mine's better."
"Mine's better."
"Time to conquer England," said William.
It's a bird, it's a plane!
I T ' S T H E S E L J U K T U R K S
"Aah!" said the Byzantine Empire, who's getting so small and almost doesn't exist anymore. "We need help!" They need help, so they call the Pope. "Hey Pope, can you help us get rid of the Seljuks, maybe take back the Holy Land on the way? C'mon, I know you want to take back the Holy Land." "Yes, I do actually want to do that. Let's do a Crusade."
C R U S A D E
They did many Crusades, some of which almost didn't fail, but at least the Italians got some sweet trade deals.
Goodbye Mayans.
H E L L O T O L T E C S
Goodbye Toltecs.
H E L L O M I S S I S S I P P I
Look at those mounds.
There's the Pueblo. I always wondered how to build a town in a cliff.
Guess who's here? Khmer. Where? Here, and Pagan is there. Vietnam unconquered itself, Korea just became itself, and Japan is so addicted to art that the military might have to take over the government. China just invented bombs and typing, and the Mongols just invaded most of the Universe. Nice going, Genghis! I bet that will last a long time.

Some of the Islamic Turks were unaffected by the Mongol invasions because they were too busy invading India.
Is it Tonga time? I think it's Tonga time.

I just figured out where the Swahili gets all their gold. Look at this chad! It means "lake". There's an empire there, right in the middle of
A F R I C A
The King of Mali is so rich, he's going on tour to let everyone know. "Wow, that guy's rich," everyone said.
The Christians are doing a great job reconquering Iberia, which will soon be called Spain and not-Spain. Please remain Christian, we will check in later to see if you are still Christian when you least expect it.
Whoops, half of Europe just died.
M I N G
China's back, yay!
Hey, Khmer, time to share. New kingdoms, here and there. Oh, look who controls all the islands, it's the Mahajapit.

Majahapit.

Mapajahit.

Mahapajit.

Mapajahit.

Ma... ja... pa... hit?

Oh, Italy's real rich, time for them to care a lot about art and the ancient classics. It's kinda like a rebirth. Here's a printer, let's make books!
So you think you can conquer the Byzantine Empire? "Yep," said the Ottoman Turks. Nice job, Ottoman Turks. Oops, you missed a spot. Don't forget to ban Europe from the Indian spice trade. "What? That's bullshit!" said Portugal, spiceless.
W E L L I G U E S S W E ' L L H A V E T O F I N D A N O T H E R W A Y T O I N D I A
"Wait!" said Christopher Columbus, probably smoking crack. "If the world is round, let's go this way to India!" "Nah, don't worry, we already got this," said Portugal. So, Chris goes to Spain. "Hey Spain, wanna hire me to find India by going around back of the world?"
"No."
"Please?"
"No."
"Please?"
"No." "wtf"
"Please?"
"...okay."
So he sails into the ocean and discovers... more ocean, and then discovers the Indies and Japan! Let's draw a line to decide who gets which half of the world.
The Aztec and the Inca empires are off to a great start. I wonder if they know that Europe just discovered their continent.
The Habsburgs are marrying into so many royal families, they might have to start marrying each other.
Move over, Lithuania, here comes Moscow. Ivan wants to make Russia great again. Move over, Timurids, maybe go invade India or something. Persia just made Persia Persian again. Let's make it the other kind of Islam, the one where we thought the first guy should've been the other guy.
"Hey Christians, do you sin? Now you can buy your way out of Hell!" "That's bullshit, this whole thing is bullshit, that's a scam, fuck the Church, here's 95 reasons why," said Martin Luther, in his new book which might have accidentally started the Protestant Reformation.
"You know what would be magnificent?" said Suleiman, wearing an onion hat. "What if the Ottoman Empire was... really big?" which it is now. "What if Russia was big?" said Ivan, trying not to be terrible.
Portugal had a dream that they controlled the entire Indian Ocean, including the spice trade, and then that dream was real. And Spain realized that this is not India, but they pillaged it anyway. "Damn," said England and France, "we gotta start pillaging some stuff." Then the Dutch revolt, and all the hipsters moved to Amsterdam. "Damn," said Amsterdam, "...we gotta start pillaging some stuff."
Question one: Can you get to India from North America? No, but at least there's beaver. Question two: Steal the spice trade. That's not a question, but the Dutch did it anyway.
S U G A R
Guess where all the sugar is made? In Brazil... stolen! In the Caribbean, and it's so goddamn profitable, you might forget to do slavery.
The next thing on Russia's to-do list is to get bigger.
Britain and France are having a friendly discussion about who should control the world, more specifically, Ohio. Then, it escalates into a seven-year discussion, giving Prussia a chance to show Austria who's boss. But, what about Britain and France, did they figure out who's boss? Yes, they did, it's Britain. Guess who's broke? Also Britain. So, they start taxing the hell out of America. "Fuck you!" said America, declaring their independence and fighting for it, and France helps them win. Now, France is broke, and Britain will have to send their prisoners to a different continent.
Wait, if France is broke, why do the King and Queen still wear such fancy dresses? "Let's overthrow the palace and cut all their heads off!" said Robespierre, cutting everybody's head off until someone eventually got mad and cut his head off. You can make a reli-
No, don't.
Haiti is starting to like the idea of a revolution, especially the slaves, who free themselves by killing their masters. "Why didn't we think of this before?"
Wait, who's in charge of France now?
M E
Said Napoleon, trying to take over Europe. Luckily, they banished him to an island.
B U T H E C A M E B A C K
Luckily, they banished him to another island.
There goes Latin America, becoming independent in the Latin American wars of independence.
Britain just figured out how to turn steam into power, so now they can make
M A N Y D I F F E R E N T T Y P E S O F M A C H I N E S A N D F A C T O R I E S W I T H M A C H I N E S I N T H E M S O T H E Y C A N M A K E A L O T O F P R O D U C T S R E A L F A S T
Then they invent some trains and conquer India, and maybe put some trains there. "Hey, China!" said Britain, "buy stuff from us!" "Nah dude, we already got everything," says China, so Britain tried to get them addicted to opium, which worked actually, but then China made it illegal and dumped it all in the sea, so Britain threw a hissy fit and made them open up five cities and give them an island.
Britain and Russia are playing a game where they try to stop the other person from conquering Afghanistan. Also,
T H E S U L T A N O F O M A N L I V E S I N Z A N Z I B A R N O W
That's just where he lives.
India just had a revolution and they would like to govern themselves now. "Nope," said Britain, governing them even harder than before.

T E C H N O L O G Y I S A B O U T T O G O C R A Z Y
The United States finally figured out whether slavery is good or bad. It's bad, they decided, and then they continued manifesting their destiny, which is to kill the rest of the natives and take their land and maybe kick out the Mexicans too.
"I know, let's rape Africa!" said Europe, scrambling to see who could rape it the fastest.
T H E Y N E V E R G O T E T H I O P I ^^^^^^A
Britain and France are still hungry.
T H E Y N E V E R G O T T H A I L A N ^^^^^^D
The United States ran out of destiny to manifest, so they're looking for more.
H A W A I IC U B A
Wait, Spain controls Cuba. "Well, blame something on them and go to war. What should we blame on Spain?"

"Let's blame the Maine on Spain." So they blame the Maine on Spain. Now we're in business. To celebrate, they kick Panama out of Panama and make a canal, connecting the two oceans.
Britain just found oil in the Middle East.
I T M A K E S C A R S G ^^^^^^O
China is so tired of being bossed around that they delete their old government and make a new, stronger government... which is accidentally weaker and is controlled by a guy from the previous government.
Europe hasn't had a war since the last war, so they start World War One. Look at those guns! It's gonna be a great war, so great we won't need a second one. After it's over, they blame Germany.
Russia went on strike and the workers overthrew the government, now everyone's paycheck is the same.
C O M M U N I S M I N T H E S O V I E T U N I O N
The Arabs revolt and Britain helps, now the Ottoman Empire is gone, so we can give the
J E W I S H P E O P L E A P L A C E T O L I V E
Hopefully the Arabs won't mind.
"Let's cut the cake!" said Sykes and Picot, carving up the remains of the not-so-Ottoman-anymore-empire.
E X C E P T T U R K E Y T U R K E Y M A K E S A B R A N D N E W T U R K E Y
And then the Saudis conquer Arabia. It just seemed like the right thing to do.

"Hello?" "Yes, it's the 1920's calling. Let's get to a car and drive to a party and listen to jazz on the radio and go to the movies! The economy is great and it will probably be great forever... just kidding."
Germany's back, featuring Hitler, the angry mustache model, and he's mad at the Jews for existing.
Japan is finally conquering the East, and they're so excited, they rape Nanking way too hard. They should probably just deny it.
Hitler's out of control, so the international community tackles him and tries to explain to him why killing all the Jews is a bad idea, but he kills himself before they could explain it to him.
T H A T ' S W O R L D W A R T W O
Bonus round! Pacific Showdown! United States vs. Japan! FIGHT!


Finish him!

Let's unite all the nations and have some
W O R L D P E A C E
Seems legit.
"Hi, I'm Gandhi, and if Britain doesn't get the hell out of India, I'm going to starve myself in public."

"Wow, that worked?"
Bonus, now there's Pakistan. Actually, two Pakistans. One of them can be Bangladesh later.
The Jews and the Arabs finally figured out which one of them should live in the holy land. "Me!" they both said at the same time. Let's divide up the lands so we're both happy.
S I K E ! T H E Y B O T H G E T A N G R I E R
Look out, China! There's a new China in China! What's on the menu? Communism! "No thanks," said the other China, escaping to an island. I wonder which one is the real China?
There's the Korean War, Korea vs. Korea! Nobody wins, then it's on pause forever. Let's meet the sponsors. Oh, it's the two global superpowers. They're having a friendly debate over which economic system is good and which one is an evil virus of Satan.
And they both have atom bombs.
FIGHT!
Wait, no, that would be the end of the world. Let's just keep it cool and spy on each other instead... and make sure we have enough atom bombs. "I'll race you to space!"


Now let's make more countries fight themselves.
Europe is tired of pillaging other continents, and the continents they were pillaging are tired of being pillaged, so here's a new map with new countries. Now you can't tell who they're being pillaged by.
The United States finally decided whether racism is good or bad. They decided it's bad and the world agrees. South Africa might need another minute to think about it.
Let's check the world population!

Woah.
Okay.
The Soviet Union decides to relax a little and accidentally falls apart.
Europe makes a union so now they can all use the same money, except Britain, because they don't feel likt it.
Let's check the mail. Surprise, it's on the computer!
Whoops, someone just attacked America, I bet they'll remember that.
Phone call. Surprise, it's in your pocket! Wanna learn everything? Surprise, it's on the computer! Now your phone's a computer, which is in your pocket!
Whoops, the economy just crashed. Don't worry, the big banks won't fail, because they're not supposed to.
Surprise! Flying robots... with bombs!

Wanna print a brain?
Some people have no friends. Some people have no food. The globe is warming.
A N D T H E O C E A N I S F U L L O F P L A S T I C
"Let's save the planet!" said everybody, not knowing how.
"Let's invent a thing inventor," said the thing inventor inventor after being invented by a thing inventor. That's pretty cool.
By the way, where the hell are we?
THANKS FOR WATCHING HISTORY I HOPE I MENTIONED EVERYTHING