Heresy is not native to the world; it is but a contrivance. All things can be conjoined
I’ve seen similar thoughts to this floating around, but not put together in exactly this way. And while I don’t think my theory is the most likely, I *do* think we have almost two months until the DLC, so I’m going to throw it out there anyway.
As a community, we seem to have largely accepted that Messmer is Marika’s child, which makes a lot of sense. He (presumably) calls her (presumably) mother, he has her statue behind him, and that Miyazaki interview (https://www.ign.com/articles/hidetaka-miyazaki-elden-ring-shadow-of-the-erdtree-interview) says that “Messmer stands on equal footing to these other demigods and children of Marika.”
But the phrasing of that has always stood out to me. It seems to very deliberately not say that Messmer is one of Marika’s children, just that he’s of equal significance to them. This could, of course, be a quirk of the translation, or an attempt to avoid spoilers about Maragon, or simply nothing. But what if Messmer isn’t one of Marika’s children, at least not in the sense that Godwyn is, or Morgott is, or even the Carian step-kids are? What if the closest equivalent to Messmer is not a rebellious son like Mohg or Rykard but someone entirely else? What if it’s Radagon?

Law of Regression

Radagon spends his whole life trying to embody the ideals of the Golden Order. And I do mean embody–even before he took the Elden Ring into his torso, he was bringing Caria into the fold by marriage, becoming a more complete champion by learning sorceries and incantations, and, if his prominence in the Stormcaller Church is any indication, casting his body in GO-sanctioned dragon cult lightning. It’s not enough for him to support Marika’s Golden Order: He has to be it.
There’s that (really excellent) Sinclair Lore video that goes into the psychological and metaphorical implications of Radagon chasing perfection. I, instead, will be focusing on space magic bullshit. What if a lord has to embody the order they preside over? I mean this in a political sense, like the theater of Putin hunting bears shirtless to show that his government is tough, but also in a metaphysical sense, that the lord is sustaining their order by exemplifying it. After all, the Elden Ring itself seems to stand for both the political rule and natural laws of the Lands Between, and changes to the (physical?) makeup of the ring can warp those pretty wildly. It would track that the Elden Lord would have similar rules, and what the lord embodies ends up affecting the age they rule in pretty fundamental ways. This could explain Melina asking you about your principles and ambitions while leveling up: your Tarnished’s physical attributes end up defining the type of Elden Lord you will be and the shape of your order.
This is a bit of a reach, but we can kinda see this in the other Elden Lords we encounter. In a very literal sense, Godfrey’s order includes beasts in positions of prominence, and he has a lion in his fucking back. More figuratively, Godfrey’s order has gone from bloody conquest to stately dynasty, and he’s a bloody conquerer turned stately dynast. We don’t know too much about Placidusax, but he’s a primal, draconic lord during a primal, draconic age, and his five heads could be an embodiment of the five finger sentience the beastfolk receive. At first, Radagon’s red hair seems to contradict this, but it actually makes a lot of sense: Because she couldn’t extinguish them entirely and instead gave them a job, the fire giants/Fell God/flame of ruin are part of Marika’s Golden Order, just marginalized and unwanted, and Radagon’s hair is an unwanted part of his body. There’s also a really interesting theory that I cannot seem to find about how the mending runes are all the bodies of the people who make them, and while that’s not exactly the same thing as the Elden Lord, it’s another potential case of the person and the order being one. It makes me wonder if this is Martin’s further critique of the idea that a good person makes a good monarch, and he’s taking it to a fairly horrifying extreme here, but that’s a tangent on a tangent.
So, Radagon’s attempts to be a paragon of the Golden Order could, in turn, shape what that order entails. And if Marika was trying to build a very particular order for herself, then influencing what Radagon is and wants to be could end up influencing that order as well. We haven’t reached a consensus on what the deal is with her and Radagon, but an interesting strain of theories is that she created him to later merge with, whether by ascending a Misbegotten or separating herself alchemically or making him out of a silver tear. That last one is especially interesting, since, with the Mimic Tear flavor text, it would mean she’s not the first Eternal Citizen to build their own lord, and that lords in general are something to be forged–deliberately constructed, artificial, crafted for a specific purpose. She made an aspiring Lord, a deeply insecure man trying to reshape himself to fit an ideal, and then put him in a position to enforce that ideal across The Lands Between. Whether she did this with Radagon’s buy-in, a direct command, or more subtle manipulation (“I’m sorry, it’s just, redheads really aren’t my type”), the result seems to be a custom-made lord and a custom-made order. And then she fuses with him, and I’m not sure exactly what that’s about, but being goddess and lord both would let her influence the order even more directly.
So, tl;dr: Marika shaped Radagon so he could shape her order, and made him Elden Lord so that his ideals would become The Lands Between. That’s why Radagon, gold-infused, FTH/INT, and desperate to be complete, embodies the Golden Order so well.
But the thing is, the Golden Order isn’t just defined by what it finds holy. That, despite being fairly willing to introduce new concepts into itself, there are a whole bunch of things it very explicitly rejects and oppresses. And if we have a lord to define all that it venerates, perhaps there could be a lord to define all it despies, who embodies everything blasphemous and heretical. Such a lord would need to have red hair without apology, of course, and probably partake in the forbidden dragon communion, and may have a connection with the Godskin, and would be big into snakes, and would certainly use flame, whether that’s bloodflame or the flame of ruin or both.
Oh, hey, we have an artist’s reconstruction of what that lord would look like: https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/eldenring/images/f/f7/ER_Messmer_the_Impaler.jpeg/revision/latest?cb=20240221155427

Law of Causality

So here is the actual meat of this theory: Messmer is, like Radagon, a creation of Marika, but instead of defining her Golden Order through positive example, he defines it through negative. Or, rather, if Radagon seeks to be complete in alignment to the Golden Order, Messmer is complete in opposition to it.
Pretty much the first thing people noticed about Messmer was that he seemed to have a lot of blasphemy going on without a single clear theme. We've seen him theorized as a Lucifer figure, cast out and taking on all sorts of perceived evils, or her wetworks agent, carrying out awful things she cannot connect directly to her rule. What I'm saying here is a variation of the latter: I'm sure he's done awful things to help Marika gain power, but his primary role is a metaphysical counterpoint to the golden Elden Lord, an attempt to define her order through what's prohibited, what it's fighting against. Marika is contriving a binary, and if she has a hero who embodies its virtues, she needs a villain who embodies its signs.
But so what, right? Even if this is true, and Messmer is an anti-Radagon, why do we care? Well, first off, because he's also an ante-Radagon. If the Lands of Shadow is where Marika became a goddess, that means she probably made Messmer before she made Radagon. If her overall goal was to craft the order she wanted, she didn't start by defining what it was for but what it was against. This fits with the repeated alchemical idea of separating to purify before conjoining, an extension of what we already see with Radagon, in line with exiling the Tarnished so they grow strong and run. It also reminds me a bit of Foucault on sexuality–the idea that ostensibly repressive Victorian discussions of sex and attempts to define perversion ended up creating the modern conception of sexuality. The focus on regulating “deviant” sexuality was key to determining “acceptable” sexuality and building up the discipline of study as a whole. The negative example preceded the positive one and the moralistic order itself.
This suggests that an order is more durable when it’s built in opposition to something, but that’s getting dangerously close to themes, and I promised space magic. The other reason that Messmer being a Radagon could matter is it tells us what Miquella is doing in the Lands of Shadow. If Messmer truly is some figure equivalent to the Elden Lord, then Elden Lord rules may apply to him too, and marrying an empyrean could make that empyrean into a god, with the lord helping to define the order. We know that Miquella “awaits the return of their promised Lord,” and I wonder if that lord is Messmer. This could give Miquella the ability to reshape, not the Golden Order directly, but what the Golden Order opposes, making space for the groups it marginalizes.
This is largely wild speculation, but there is a bit of a basis for it. It’s interesting that, of all the shardbearers, there are two that already declare themselves lords of something: Rykard and Mohg. If there is an equal and opposite anti-Elden Lord that embodies everything the Golden Order hates, both Rykard and Mohg could fit that pretty neatly. Rykard is straight up “the lord of blasphemy,” and Mohg’s an omen who embraced an outer god and whose followers use dragon communion. I’m not sure if I think they know about Messmer and are actively emulating him or just fitting into a space that a religious and moralistic cosmology leaves pretty conspicuously open, but each could be aspiring to the Elden Lord’s counterweight. And, of course, Mohg has Miquella.
The idea that Miquella compelled Mohg to kidnap them is, understandably, contentious. The only way that “mind-controlling someone into abducting you” maps onto the real world is victim-blaming. Within the fiction (and within the fiction alone), it’s possible given what we know about Miquella, who can make people love them and seems to have a master plan, but it’s also possible that Mohg abducting Miquella was that plan gone awry. Either way, Miquella has already been the consort of a blasphemous lord, but not in a way that led to their godhood–perhaps because they hadn’t given up their body and everything golden just yet. And with Mohg necessarily dead to start the DLC, if Miquella wants an anti-lord, they’ll have to look elsewhere.
But just becoming, like, Satan, doesn’t really seem to fit with what we know of Miquella’s goals. They’re scary, but they don’t seem mustache-twirlingly evil. In fact, if we take their cut ending as indication, their goal is a world where “all things flourish, whether graceful or malign.” They don’t want to excise grace completely, simply inverting the order where Messmer would be the ruling force and Radagon the hidden opposite. They want it all, blasphemy and fundamentalism both. And to have both, perhaps, just one lord isn’t enough. For raw, pure abundance, Miquella needs a heretical lord and an Elden Lord. They need Messmer, yes, but need you too. So, at last, all things can be conjoined.
Final tl;dr: Messmer is the anti-Elden Lord made to help define the Golden Order, and Miquella is going to three-tickets-to-Challengers Messmer and the player character in order to achieve real completion.
Misc thoughts:

• true lord of totality is turtle pope confirmed let’s go
• dlc turtle anti-pope also confirmed let’s go
• If Messmer is a Radagon, why does Messmer call Marika mother? Well, the better question is, if Marika made Messmer and Radagon both, why doesn’t Radagon call her mother? And hey, maybe he does–not trying to kinkshame.
• If we take the Law of Regression to mean mathematical regression (and after watching Levovit Lore’s video on the topic, I do), a linear equation can go infinitely negative as easily as it can go infinitely positive. A little more poetically, I picture a basic rational function (y=1/x), with two distinct curves, one heading up and one heading down, defining the vertical asymptote. And that asymptote, an invisible axis that makes the shape of everything else, is the binary Marika is ultimately making.
• The idea of the Elden Ring itself as a regression is interesting–a 2D model attempting to account for all data points. Like a regression, it creates an equation that can be extrapolated from. And, like a regression, it can’t really explain outliers.
• I wonder if Radagon embodying the Golden Order is related to Ranni and Miquella both giving up their bodies to achieve some sort of freedom–like they can’t escape the order built into themselves.
• Speaking of Foucault(‘s wikipedia page), his argument that the definition of perversion ended up creating a more holistic, less moralistic understanding of sexuality could match what’s going on here, with an embrace of the anti-lord leading to the breakdown of the strict binary.
• In place of lords needing to embody their order in general, it’s possible that Radagon’s attempt at perfection is specific to the Law of Regression–that all things need to converge in him.
• Since we know that Miquella doesn’t really like outer gods, I wonder if the issue with Mohg as an anti-lord was that he explicitly allied himself with the Formless Mother, and so joining with him would give her a door into the new order.
• If Messmer is supposed to be all things blasphemous, it’s actually pretty damning that he doesn’t seem to have omen or deathblight elements, so I’m banking on those showing up in phase 2.
• I have no idea what Marika’s ultimate goal is and make it pretty much whatever I need to be given the theory I’m gnawing at.

Writing part of this as I just finished chapter 3. Spoilers for a 6 year old game. Overall I think Primrose story up to this point was pretty good. Very dark but set up some interesting things.
For those of you who don’t know octopath is a JRPG by square enix that has 8 different playable characters each with a different stories with each story being split up into 4 chapters. It’s set in basic medieval setting. Typically you do each characters chapter 1 then all chapters 2 and so on because of the level curve. Primrose is the protagonist of one of these stories and her plot revolves around getting revenge for the death of her father who was killed at the hands of 3 men each with the mark of a crow, one on the the left arm, one on the right arm and one on the neck who is the leader. When the crows kill her father Primrose sees these marks while hidden and while the people are cloaked.
That’s the only lead she has. She becomes a danceprostitute kills her trafficker gets a map then kills the guy with the crow on his left arm. That’s chapter 1 and 2. She returns home to follow a lead by the left arm guy and runs into… Simeon
Let’s start with the good. His VA does a phenomenal job and his flair for the dramatic is a cool personality trait especially with the title of puppet-master. He also calls out the own cliche trope he’s a part of and does a maniacal villain laugh but that’s neither here nor there. That’s about it
Now for the bad. Simeon is portrayed as Primrose’s childhood love + continuing true love. She runs into him in her home town which he says he was drawn there by fate, somewhat suspicious but whatever. The narration says the first time Primrose ever felt peace since her father died is talking to Simeon. After his literally single line of dialogue (ok not literally, he has 30 lines of dialogue and yes I counted, fuck you) we skip ahead and beat the boss (the right arm) and Simeon appears and stabs Primrose. What?! He’s the bad guy?! Shocker I know.
So apparently Simeon is and always has been the head of this evil underground empire called the Obsidians and orchestrated the death of Primrose’s dad.
Why am I writing a rant about this then?
The first problem is this comes out of nowhere. There is no mention of Simeon at all prior to his introduction. He appears, is the most important living person in the protagonists life and one cutscene later he’s revealed to be the big bad evil guy.
I can’t possibly care about his betrayal I don’t know how this guy is and I don’t know why Primrose cares other than the story says so. It’s also just so predictable. I wouldn’t say any of this games story is especially exceptional but like child hood or past friend betrayal is in half of these stories. Olberic has Erhardt, Ophelia has Lianna, Therion has Darius and if you want to include general betrayal Alfyn has Miguel and Cyrus has Lucia (that’s 6 out of 8 characters for those keeping count at home). The moment he was introduced it’s just so obvious what will happen regarding this guy.
Also his back story… where do I begin. As I said before I’m writing this in chapter 3 so it’s not too fleshed out and I’ll add a section after chapter 4 but like, Simeon is a pedophile right? Like when primrose’s father is killed she is portrayed as like 13 and at this point Simeon is head of a smuggling ring that’s probably been operating for years. So he’s either this criminal mastermind that leads a gang as a child or is an actual adult who fell in love with a child. The game never calls this out though and we don’t know his age. Simeon is the families gardeners apprentice and seems to be portrayed as fairly young but not as young as primrose
This brings us back to the crow. The whole lead that kickstarted our journey. The thing literally tattooed onto these people’s bodies, remember that? Cause primrose sure didn’t. There’s is no reality where Primrose doesn’t see a crow tattooed on this dudes neck before or after he killed her father
“But…but… what if he got it tattooed right before he killed her father” well random straw man im glad you asked because the game makes sure to let you know that Simeon comforted primrose after her fathers death just to ensure either primroses incompetence or the games poor writing decisions.
You know when she does see the crow on Simeon again though? After he stabs her. Like does her vision only work if someone is actively dying?
Your childhood love had a crow tattooed on his neck: I sleep.
Shadow man literally wearing a cloak while your hiding behind a table walks by: real shit
This guy you haven’t seen in over a decade shows up to the same town as you “guided by fate” and you engage in long conversation about the past, you know the past where someone with crow tattoo killed your dad, hey wait a minute why does this guy have a…: I sleep
Guy literally stabs you and is wearing the exact same clothes as earlier and your on the floor bleeding out: real shit
You know, I don’t recall ever seeing anyone with glasses in this game. Yeah that’s probably it, Primrose is just literally blind. Anyway this is the end of my rant on part 3
In case anyone still has no clue what I’m talking about heres a video of the game his intro is from 4:30-11 and the post boss fight is at 29:05 —————————————————————————
Anddddd we’re back. Or well I am I guess you guys never left. You get the point.
First things first her seeing the crow only after getting stabbed is actually explain… kinda. The narration said she grabbed his scarf after she collapsed so my bad chief. Anyway…
GOD THE VA OF SIMEON IS SOOO GOOOOD. Shout out to Chris Hackney (he also voiced Dimitri, makes sense “kill every last one of them”). The VA of primrose (Laura Post) also goes so hard in this chapter
The final chapter is in this town called everhold famous for its theatre which Simeon actually owns which perfectly fits his character and makes for a great final stage (literally). The fact that he stabbed her in a place she could have lived or died for drama is also great (gotta love seeing villains fail based on their personality, if you can call it failing).
In this chapter Simeon makes a play based on Primrose’s life that brings back memories so we get to see more of her past. Simeon explains that he enjoys watching others suffer and Primrose’s life is like the ultimate tragedy and killing her father was partly to watch her suffer, mostly cause he was poking around in their business though but I digress
Skipping ahead we beat the boss and he calls primrose out on what this was all for, why she did all this etc which I’ll get too. This was actually all a dream sequence though. After a scene with her father she gets her composure back and we face him irl
And so we beat him. His life ends with a dagger to the heart and his play ends with loves embrace (the characters based on Simeon and primrose marry). She visits her father’s grave and she feels… nothing
Her story is about discovering a sense of purpose. This is a common theme throughout the stories and particularly with 3 people. Tressa, Primrose, and Olberic. Tressa is a naive young girl who wants to explore and find her place in the world. Primrose is filled with revenge and puts that before all else. Olberic is… old. Like primrose his backstory is filled with betrayal and death but he’s far past revenge he’s just seeking a sense of purpose and has nothing to live for (kinda like Gilbert from Fire Emblem 3 Houses, except YOU HAVE A DAUGHTER GILBERT YOU FUCKING…). Anyway of the 3 I think Primrose is the most interesting
Her quest for revenge is treated as unhealthy and obsessive. She willingly sold herself into human trafficking for years to get a lead and refuses to visit her father’s grave until after it was done. It’s the only thing keeping her alive, it’s her purpose, but as mentioned in the dream sequence of chapter 4 she doesn’t actually want revenge.
The scene where she finds comfort in her father in her head after Simeon, a manifestation of her own subconscious, uses her father’s words against her is beautiful. Her father’s silence over the course of the entire scene speaks volumes. He’s gone, and she can beg for forgiveness but she doesn’t need it, the only one she hurt is herself after all.
This whole thing was a quest to fill some hole in her heart but it doesn’t/didn’t work. But this also isn’t some friendship anime. This isn’t a story where the protagonist learns to move on and forget revenge. These people deserve to die and Primrose knows it. It isn’t treated as some unjust thing that will taint your soul. The path she set on is above all else a purpose. It certainly wasn’t healthy but taking revenge let her move on. Her story ends the same way Olberic starts, looking for a new purpose in life, one not from the demons of her past.
Primrose is a tragic character with probably the darkest story in the game and doesn’t get a happy ending. While it certainly had certain… writing choices… primrose was a compelling enough character to keep me engaged. The entire plot line of childhood love is kind of just dropped in the last chapter though, she just seems to stop caring about Simeon (she just like me Fr Fr). While Simeon is certainly entertaining the character driven story happens in spite of him not because of him.
Also according to Simeon’s wiki as I was looking up his voice actor he’s 126+ so the whole “girl I fell in love with” is a big yikes
Obligatory video, dream sequence starts at around the 12 minute mark
K thx bye

https://t.me/Screwdatt
https://mee6.xyz/i/GOrRCgaVe2
https://discord.gg/ygh87phpwx
Screwdatt, [5/8/2024 7:00 AM]
=== PPV SETANTA PACK ===
PPV SETANTA EVENT 01 Club brugge - fiorentina // UK Wed 8 May 5:45pm // ET Wed 8 May 12:45pm
PPV SETANTA EVENT 01 New york knicks - indiana pacers // UK Thu 9 May 1:00am // ET Wed 8 May 8:00pm
PPV SETANTA EVENT 02 Monaco - fenerbahce // UK Wed 8 May 6:00pm // ET Wed 8 May 1:00pm
PPV SETANTA EVENT 02 Vancouver canucks - edmonton oilers // UK Thu 9 May 3:00am // ET Wed 8 May 10:00pm
PPV SETANTA EVENT 03 Real madrid - bayern munich // UK Wed 8 May 8:00pm // ET Wed 8 May 3:00pm
PPV SETANTA EVENT 04 Barcelona - olympiacos // UK Wed 8 May 8:00pm // ET Wed 8 May 3:00pm
​
Screwdatt, [5/8/2024 7:00 AM]
=== PPV MOLA PACK ===
PPV MOLA EVENT 01 : Sportivo Luqueno vs Coquimbo Unido start:2024-05-08 22:50:00 stop:2024-05-09 03:10:00
PPV MOLA EVENT 02 : Rayo Zuliano vs Athletico Paranaense start:2024-05-08 22:50:00 stop:2024-05-09 03:10:00
PPV MOLA EVENT 03 : 2024 Stanley Cup Playoffs - Round 2 Game 2 : Boston Bruins at Florida Panthers start:2024-05-09 00:30:00 stop:2024-05-09 05:40:00
PPV MOLA EVENT 04 : Alianza Lima vs Cerro Porteno start:2024-05-09 00:50:00 stop:2024-05-09 05:10:00
PPV MOLA EVENT 05 : Nacional Potosi vs Fortaleza start:2024-05-09 00:50:00 stop:2024-05-09 05:10:00
PPV MOLA EVENT 06 : Cuiaba Esporte Clube vs Metropolitanos start:2024-05-09 00:50:00 stop:2024-05-09 05:10:00
PPV MOLA EVENT 07 : Cobresal vs Sao Paulo start:2024-05-09 01:20:00 stop:2024-05-09 05:40:00
PPV MOLA EVENT 08 : Botafogo vs LDU Quito start:2024-05-09 01:20:00 stop:2024-05-09 05:30:00
​
Screwdatt, [5/8/2024 7:00 AM]
PPV MOLA EVENT 09 : Sportivo Trinidense vs Boca Juniors start:2024-05-09 01:20:00 stop:2024-05-09 05:40:00
PPV MOLA EVENT 10 : Millonarios vs Bolivar start:2024-05-09 02:50:00 stop:2024-05-09 07:10:00
PPV MOLA EVENT 11 : 2024 Stanley Cup Playoffs - Round 2 Game 1 : Edmonton Oilers at Vancouver Canucks start:2024-05-09 02:50:00 stop:2024-05-09 08:10:00
​
Screwdatt, [5/8/2024 7:00 AM]
=== PPV UEFA PACK ===
PPV UEFA 01 - Real Madrid vs Bayern Munich 20.00
PPV UEFA 02 - Club Brugge vs Fiorentina 17.45
​
Screwdatt, [5/8/2024 7:00 AM]
=== PPV FLO SPORTS PACK ===
PPV FLO SPORTS TV 00 : FloWrestling Radio Live start:2024-05-09 17:00:00 stop:2024-05-09 21:00:00
PPV FLO SPORTS TV 00 : 2024 Lenoir-Rhyne vs Lander - NCAA Regional start:2024-05-09 21:30:00 stop:2024-05-10 01:30:00
PPV FLO SPORTS TV 00 : 2024 Evansville Otters vs Windy City Thunderbolts start:2024-05-10 01:35:00 stop:2024-05-10 05:35:00
PPV FLO SPORTS TV 00 : 2024 Moana Pasifika vs Chiefs start:2024-05-10 09:00:00 stop:2024-05-10 13:00:00
PPV FLO SPORTS TV 00 : 2024 Aces Hockey vs CWE White start:2024-05-10 13:10:00 stop:2024-05-10 17:10:00
PPV FLO SPORTS TV 00 : 2024 Lenoir-Rhyne Last Chance Meet start:2024-05-10 18:00:00 stop:2024-05-10 22:00:00
PPV FLO SPORTS TV 01 : 2024 Giro dItalia start:2024-05-08 12:20:00 stop:2024-05-08 16:20:00
PPV FLO SPORTS TV 01 : 2024 Lexington Legends vs Charleston Dirty Birds start:2024-05-08 16:35:00 stop:2024-05-08 20:35:00
​
Screwdatt, [5/8/2024 7:00 AM]
PPV FLO SPORTS TV 01 : 2024 George Mason vs Towson start:2024-05-08 21:00:00 stop:2024-05-09 01:00:00
PPV FLO SPORTS TV 01 : 2024 High Point Rockers vs Southern Maryland Blue Crabs start:2024-05-09 01:05:00 stop:2024-05-09 05:05:00
PPV FLO SPORTS TV 01 : 2024 World Olympic Qualifier start:2024-05-09 09:00:00 stop:2024-05-09 13:00:00
PPV FLO SPORTS TV 01 : 2024 Circuit de Wallonie (Exterioo Cycling Cup) start:2024-05-09 15:00:00 stop:2024-05-09 19:00:00
PPV FLO SPORTS TV 01 : 2024 North Team Grey vs Capital Team Royal start:2024-05-09 19:30:00 stop:2024-05-09 23:30:00
PPV FLO SPORTS TV 01 : 2024 Castrol FloRacing Night in America at Lincoln Speedway start:2024-05-10 00:00:00 stop:2024-05-10 04:00:00
PPV FLO SPORTS TV 01 : 2024 Queensland Reds vs Melbourne Rebels start:2024-05-10 11:30:00 stop:2024-05-10 15:30:00
PPV FLO SPORTS TV 01 : 2024 BIG EAST Outdoor Track & Field Championships start:2024-05-10 16:00:00 stop:2024-05-10 20:00:00
PPV FLO SPORTS TV 02 : FloRacing 24/7 start:2024-05-05 10:00:00 stop:2024-11-03 05:59:59
PPV FLO SPORTS TV 03 : 2024 Tour de Hongrie start:2024-05-08 15:00:00 stop:2024-05-08 19:00:00
PPV FLO SPORTS TV 03 : 2024 Hofstra vs Stony Brook start:2024-05-08 20:30:00 stop:2024-05-09 00:30:00
PPV FLO SPORTS TV 03 : 2024 York Revolution vs Lancaster Stormers start:2024-05-09 00:45:00 stop:2024-05-09 04:45:00
PPV FLO SPORTS TV 03 : 2024 Lexington Legends vs Charleston Dirty Birds start:2024-05-09 16:35:00 stop:2024-05-09 20:35:00
PPV FLO SPORTS TV 03 : 2024 Big East Softball Championship - Game #5 start:2024-05-09 21:00:00 stop:2024-05-10 01:00:00
PPV FLO SPORTS TV 03 : 2024 High Point Rockers vs Southern Maryland Blue Crabs start:2024-05-10 01:05:00 stop:2024-05-10 05:05:00
PPV FLO SPORTS TV 03 : 2024 Hitmen Navy vs SSK Green start:2024-05-10 13:00:00 stop:2024-05-10 17:00:00
PPV FLO SPORTS TV 04 : 2024 Big East Softball Championship - Game #1 start:2024-05-08 18:00:00 stop:2024-05-08 22:00:00
PPV FLO SPORTS TV 04 : 2024 CAA Softball Championship - Game 3* start:2024-05-08 23:00:00 stop:2024-05-09 03:00:00
PPV FLO SPORTS TV 04 : 2024 Kansas City Mavericks vs Idaho Steelheads start:2024-05-09 03:10:00 stop:2024-05-09 07:10:00
PPV FLO SPORTS TV 04 : 2024 Big East Softball Championship - Game #4 start:2024-05-09 18:00:00 stop:2024-05-09 22:00:00
PPV FLO SPORTS TV 04 : 2024 CAA Softball Championship - Game 6* start:2024-05-09 23:00:00 stop:2024-05-10 03:00:00
PPV FLO SPORTS TV 04 : 2024 Raging Tigers vs Weenerz start:2024-05-10 03:15:00 stop:2024-05-10 07:15:00
PPV FLO SPORTS TV 04 : 2024 Power Play 2 vs NS Green start:2024-05-10 13:00:00 stop:2024-05-10 17:00:00
PPV FLO SPORTS TV 05 : 2024 Elon vs UNC Wilmington start:2024-05-08 18:00:00 stop:2024-05-08 22:00:00
PPV FLO SPORTS TV 05 : 2024 Castrol FloRacing Night in America at Spoon River Speedway start:2024-05-09 00:00:00 stop:2024-05-09 04:00:00
​
Screwdatt, [5/8/2024 7:00 AM]
PPV FLO SPORTS TV 05 : 2024 CAA Softball Championship - Game 4 start:2024-05-09 18:00:00 stop:2024-05-09 22:00:00
PPV FLO SPORTS TV 05 : WNO23: Meregali vs Rocha Press Conference start:2024-05-10 00:00:00 stop:2024-05-10 04:00:00
PPV FLO SPORTS TV 05 : 2024 Hampton vs SHC start:2024-05-10 13:00:00 stop:2024-05-10 17:00:00
PPV FLO SPORTS TV 06 : 2024 Big East Softball Championship - Game #2 start:2024-05-08 21:00:00 stop:2024-05-09 01:00:00
PPV FLO SPORTS TV 06 : 2024 Adirondack Thunder vs Norfolk Admirals start:2024-05-09 01:05:00 stop:2024-05-09 05:05:00
PPV FLO SPORTS TV 06 : 2024 Anderson (SC) vs Wingate - NCAA Regional start:2024-05-09 19:00:00 stop:2024-05-09 23:00:00
PPV FLO SPORTS TV 06 : 2024 Big East Softball Championship - Game #6 start:2024-05-10 00:00:00 stop:2024-05-10 04:00:00
PPV FLO SPORTS TV 06 : 2024 GH White vs 93 Hockey White start:2024-05-10 13:10:00 stop:2024-05-10 17:10:00
PPV FLO SPORTS TV 07 : 2024 Long Island Ducks vs Staten Island FerryHawks start:2024-05-08 22:00:00 stop:2024-05-09 02:00:00
PPV FLO SPORTS TV 07 : 2024 Penticton Vees vs Salmon Arm Silverbacks start:2024-05-09 03:00:00 stop:2024-05-09 07:00:00
PPV FLO SPORTS TV 07 : 2024 CAA Softball Championship - Game 5 start:2024-05-09 20:30:00 stop:2024-05-10 00:30:00
PPV FLO SPORTS TV 07 : 2024 New York Boulders vs New Jersey Jackals start:2024-05-10 00:35:00 stop:2024-05-10 04:35:00
PPV FLO SPORTS TV 07 : 2024 US Express vs Worcester start:2024-05-10 13:20:00 stop:2024-05-10 17:20:00
PPV FLO SPORTS TV 08 : 2024 Big East Softball Championship - Game #3 start:2024-05-09 00:00:00 stop:2024-05-09 04:00:00
PPV FLO SPORTS TV 08 : 2024 Calgary Team Red vs South Team Gold start:2024-05-09 22:00:00 stop:2024-05-10 02:00:00
PPV FLO SPORTS TV 08 : 2024 Calgary Team White vs South Team Black start:2024-05-10 03:00:00 stop:2024-05-10 07:00:00
PPV FLO SPORTS TV 08 : 2024 Eels Green vs Btwn Bucket start:2024-05-10 13:20:00 stop:2024-05-10 17:20:00
PPV FLO SPORTS TV 09 : 2024 Hartford vs Juniata - Womens Lacrosse start:2024-05-09 00:00:00 stop:2024-05-09 04:00:00
PPV FLO SPORTS TV 09 : 2024 Gastonia Baseball Club vs Hagerstown Flying Boxcars start:2024-05-10 00:30:00 stop:2024-05-10 04:30:00
PPV FLO SPORTS TV 09 : 2024 UCI BMX Freestyle WCUP - FISE World Series France start:2024-05-10 13:30:00 stop:2024-05-10 17:30:00
PPV FLO SPORTS TV 10 : 2024 Short Track Super Series at Delaware International Speedway start:2024-05-09 00:30:00 stop:2024-05-09 04:30:00
PPV FLO SPORTS TV 10 : 2024 Long Island Ducks vs Staten Island FerryHawks start:2024-05-10 00:30:00 stop:2024-05-10 04:30:00
PPV FLO SPORTS TV 10 : 2024 HD 360 vs CWE Red start:2024-05-10 14:40:00 stop:2024-05-10 18:40:00
PPV FLO SPORTS TV 11 : 2024 Gastonia Baseball Club vs Hagerstown Flying Boxcars start:2024-05-09 00:30:00 stop:2024-05-09 04:30:00
PPV FLO SPORTS TV 11 : 2024 GHSA Outdoor Championships 1A-2/2A start:2024-05-10 00:30:00 stop:2024-05-10 04:30:00
PPV FLO SPORTS TV 11 : 2024 Seacoast Black vs NS Black start:2024-05-10 14:40:00 stop:2024-05-10 18:40:00
​
Screwdatt, [5/8/2024 7:00 AM]
PPV FLO SPORTS TV 12 : 2024 Toledo Walleye vs Wheeling Nailers start:2024-05-09 01:10:00 stop:2024-05-09 05:10:00
PPV FLO SPORTS TV 12 : 2024 North Team Blue vs Capital Team Green start:2024-05-10 00:30:00 stop:2024-05-10 04:30:00
PPV FLO SPORTS TV 12 : 2024 Swan Hockey vs Carolina start:2024-05-10 14:40:00 stop:2024-05-10 18:40:00
PPV FLO SPORTS TV 13 : 2024 SB All Stars vs Ice Scrappers start:2024-05-09 03:15:00 stop:2024-05-09 07:15:00
PPV FLO SPORTS TV 13 : 2024 Quebec Capitales vs Florence Yalls start:2024-05-10 00:44:00 stop:2024-05-10 04:44:00
PPV FLO SPORTS TV 13 : 2024 BGP vs Mass Attack start:2024-05-10 14:40:00 stop:2024-05-10 18:40:00
PPV FLO SPORTS TV 14 : 2024 Pond Frogs vs Horse Men start:2024-05-09 03:30:00 stop:2024-05-09 07:30:00
PPV FLO SPORTS TV 14 : 2024 York Revolution vs Lancaster Stormers start:2024-05-10 00:45:00 stop:2024-05-10 04:45:00
PPV FLO SPORTS TV 14 : 2024 Edinger vs CWE Black start:2024-05-10 14:40:00 stop:2024-05-10 18:40:00
PPV FLO SPORTS TV 15 : 2024 Phantoms vs Gerrihattricks start:2024-05-09 03:45:00 stop:2024-05-09 07:45:00
PPV FLO SPORTS TV 15 : 2024 GHSA Outdoor Championships 5A/7A start:2024-05-10 01:00:00 stop:2024-05-10 05:00:00
PPV FLO SPORTS TV 15 : 2024 Future Pros vs CWE Storm start:2024-05-10 14:50:00 stop:2024-05-10 18:50:00
PPV FLO SPORTS TV 16 : 2024 Surrey Eagles vs Alberni Valley Bulldogs start:2024-05-09 04:00:00 stop:2024-05-09 08:00:00
PPV FLO SPORTS TV 16 : 2024 GHSA Outdoor Championships 3A/4A start:2024-05-10 01:00:00 stop:2024-05-10 05:00:00
PPV FLO SPORTS TV 16 : 2024 GH Black vs 93 Hockey Red start:2024-05-10 14:50:00 stop:2024-05-10 18:50:00
PPV FLO SPORTS TV 17 : 2024 GHSA Outdoor Championships 1A-DI/6A start:2024-05-10 01:00:00 stop:2024-05-10 05:00:00
PPV FLO SPORTS TV 17 : 2024 Coastal Elite vs Ground Zero start:2024-05-10 14:50:00 stop:2024-05-10 18:50:00
PPV FLO SPORTS TV 18 : 2024 Florida Everblades vs Orlando Solar Bears start:2024-05-10 01:00:00 stop:2024-05-10 05:00:00
PPV FLO SPORTS TV 18 : 2024 The D2 Summit start:2024-05-10 15:00:00 stop:2024-05-10 19:00:00
PPV FLO SPORTS TV 19 : 2024 Thursday Night Thunder at Marshalltown Speedway start:2024-05-10 01:45:00 stop:2024-05-10 05:45:00
PPV FLO SPORTS TV 19 : 2024 AMG Grey vs Mole HC start:2024-05-10 15:00:00 stop:2024-05-10 19:00:00
PPV FLO SPORTS TV 20 : 2024 Americans vs Trolls start:2024-05-10 03:30:00 stop:2024-05-10 07:30:00
PPV FLO SPORTS TV 20 : 2024 Eeels Grey vs Prestige Green start:2024-05-10 15:00:00 stop:2024-05-10 19:00:00
PPV FLO SPORTS TV 21 : 2024 Brew Crew vs Mites On Ice start:2024-05-10 03:45:00 stop:2024-05-10 07:45:00
PPV FLO SPORTS TV 21 : 2024 Phil Portuese Northeast Regional Champs start:2024-05-10 16:00:00 stop:2024-05-10 20:00:00
​
Screwdatt, [5/8/2024 7:00 AM]
PPV FLO SPORTS TV 22 : 2024 Surrey Eagles vs Alberni Valley Bulldogs start:2024-05-10 04:00:00 stop:2024-05-10 08:00:00
PPV FLO SPORTS TV 22 : 2024 NMAA Outdoor Championships 1A-3A start:2024-05-10 16:00:00 stop:2024-05-10 20:00:00
PPV FLO SPORTS TV 23 : 2024 Team NA White vs SSK Gold start:2024-05-10 16:20:00 stop:2024-05-10 20:20:00
PPV FLO SPORTS TV 24 : 2024 Power Play vs JRC 1 start:2024-05-10 16:20:00 stop:2024-05-10 20:20:00
PPV FLO SPORTS TV 25 : 2024 Btwn Bucket vs SHC start:2024-05-10 16:20:00 stop:2024-05-10 20:20:00
PPV FLO SPORTS TV 26 : 2024 Rapid BJT vs Edge start:2024-05-10 16:20:00 stop:2024-05-10 20:20:00
PPV FLO SPORTS TV 27 : 2024 GH Green vs Bulls start:2024-05-10 16:20:00 stop:2024-05-10 20:20:00
PPV FLO SPORTS TV 28 : 2024 NCAA Softball Regional - #3 start:2024-05-10 16:30:00 stop:2024-05-10 20:30:00
PPV FLO SPORTS TV 29 : 2024 US Express vs Hollydell start:2024-05-10 16:30:00 stop:2024-05-10 20:30:00
PPV FLO SPORTS TV 30 : 2024 PAL White vs NS Green start:2024-05-10 16:30:00 stop:2024-05-10 20:30:00
PPV FLO SPORTS TV 31 : 2024 TSH vs Little Rhody Jr A start:2024-05-10 16:30:00 stop:2024-05-10 20:30:00
​
Screwdatt, [5/8/2024 7:00 AM]
=== AUSTRALIA STAN PACK ===
AU STAN SPORT AU EVENT 01 Club Brugge V Fiorentina Uefa Europa Conference League Semi Final Leg 2 2023/24 // UK Wed 8 May 5:40pm // ET Wed 8 May 12:40pm
AU STAN SPORT AU EVENT 02 Real Madrid V Bayern Munich Uefa Champions League Semi Final Leg 2 2023/24 // UK Wed 8 May 7:35pm // ET Wed 8 May 2:35pm
​
Screwdatt, [5/8/2024 7:00 AM]
=== UK DAZN PACK ===
UK DAZN UK 01 Total access may 6 // UK Mon 6 May 11:58pm // ET Mon 6 May 6:58pm
UK DAZN UK 02 Reims vs. Psg // UK Wed 8 May 3:28pm // ET Wed 8 May 10:28am
UK DAZN UK 03 Fleury 91 vs. Montpellier // UK Wed 8 May 3:28pm // ET Wed 8 May 10:28am
UK DAZN UK 04 Chess.Com masters day 1 // UK Wed 8 May 5:28pm // ET Wed 8 May 12:28pm
​
Screwdatt, [5/8/2024 7:00 AM]
=== UK VIA PLAY PACK ===
UK VIA PLAY 01 24/7 Channel Stream Viaplay sports 2 watch now // UK Wed 8 May 8:00am ET Wed 8 May 3:00am
UK VIA PLAY 01 24/7 Channel Stream Viaplay sports 2 watch now // UK Wed 8 May 4:00pm ET Wed 8 May 11:00am
UK VIA PLAY 01 24/7 Channel Stream Viaplay sports 2 watch now // UK Thu 9 May 12:00am ET Wed 8 May 7:00pm
UK VIA PLAY 02 24/7 Channel Stream Viaplay sports 1 watch now // UK Wed 8 May 8:00am ET Wed 8 May 3:00am
UK VIA PLAY 02 24/7 Channel Stream Viaplay sports 1 watch now // UK Wed 8 May 4:00pm ET Wed 8 May 11:00am
UK VIA PLAY 02 24/7 Channel Stream Viaplay sports 1 watch now // UK Thu 9 May 12:00am ET Wed 8 May 7:00pm
UK VIA PLAY 03 LALIGA Laliga news // UK Wed 8 May 2:00pm ET Wed 8 May 9:00am
UK VIA PLAY 03 LALIGA Viva laliga // UK Wed 8 May 6:00pm ET Wed 8 May 1:00pm
​
Screwdatt, [5/8/2024 7:00 AM]
UK VIA PLAY 03 NHL Florida boston // UK Thu 9 May 12:35am ET Wed 8 May 7:35pm
UK VIA PLAY 04 NHL Nhl tonight // UK Wed 8 May 2:00pm ET Wed 8 May 9:00am
UK VIA PLAY 04 NHL Vancouver edmonton // UK Thu 9 May 3:05am ET Wed 8 May 10:05pm
​
Screwdatt, [5/8/2024 7:00 AM]
=== CANADA DAZN PACK ===
CA DAZN CA 01 Rome open day 2 session 1 08th 5:00am/Chesscom masters day 1 08th 12:30pm
CA DAZN CA 02 Club brugge vs fiorentina // UK Wed 8 May 5:45pm // ET Wed 8 May 12:45pm
CA DAZN CA 03 Rome open day 2 session 2 // UK Wed 8 May 7:30pm // ET Wed 8 May 2:30pm
CA DAZN CA 04 Real madrid vs bayern munich // UK Wed 8 May 8:00pm // ET Wed 8 May 3:00pm
CA DAZN CA 05 Peterborough vs oxford // UK Wed 8 May 8:00pm // ET Wed 8 May 3:00pm
CA DAZN CA 06 Real madrid vs bayern munich (commentaires en français) // UK Wed 8 May 8:00pm // ET Wed 8 May 3:00pm
​
Screwdatt, [5/8/2024 7:00 AM]
=== USA DIRTVISION PACK ===
US DIRTVISION 01: Lincoln Speedway (PA) Its time to start the World of Outlaws vs. PA Posse rivalry for the week with the Gettysburg Clash. // UK Wed 8 May 11:15pm // ET Wed 8 May 6:15pm
​
Screwdatt, [5/8/2024 7:00 AM]
=== USA TRILLER PACK ===
US TRILLER TV 01 AEW Dynamite Episode 1924 // UK Thu 9 May 1:00am // ET Wed 8 May 8:00pm
​
Screwdatt, [5/8/2024 7:00 AM]
=== USA PEACOCK PACK ===
US PEACOCK 01 GOLF Pga works collegiate rd. 3 // UK Wed 8 May 8:00pm // ET Wed 8 May 2:00pm
US PEACOCK 01 SOCCER Chivas vs. Toluca (espanol) // UK Thu 9 May 1:00am // ET Wed 8 May 7:00pm
​
Screwdatt, [5/8/2024 7:00 AM]
=== USA NBA PACK ===
US NBA LIVE 01: Indiana at New York 8:00 PM ET
​
Screwdatt, [5/8/2024 7:00 AM]
=== USA NHL PACK ===
US NHL LIVE 01: Boston at Florida 7:30 PM ET
US NHL LIVE 02: Edmonton at Vancouver 10:00 PM ET
​
Screwdatt, [5/8/2024 7:00 AM]
=== USA MLB PACK ===
US MLB LIVE 01: Texas at Oakland 12:05 PM ET
US MLB LIVE 02: LA Angels at Pittsburgh 12:35 PM ET
US MLB LIVE 03: Toronto at Philadelphia 1:05 PM ET
US MLB LIVE 04: Detroit at Cleveland 1:10 PM ET
US MLB LIVE 05: NY Mets at St. Louis 1:15 PM ET
US MLB LIVE 06: Milwuakee at Kansas City 2:10 PM ET
US MLB LIVE 07: San Diego at Chi. Cubs 2:20 PM ET
US MLB LIVE 08: Miami at LA Dodgers 3:10 PM ET
US MLB LIVE 09: Arizona at Cincinnati 6:40 PM ET
US MLB LIVE 10: Baltimore at Washington 6:45 PM ET
US MLB LIVE 11: Chi. White Sox at Tampa Bay 6:50 PM ET
US MLB LIVE 12: Houston at NY Yankees 7:05 PM ET
US MLB LIVE 13: Boston at Atlanta 7:20 PM ET
US MLB LIVE 14: Seattle at Minnesota 7:40 PM ET
US MLB LIVE 15: San Francisco at Colorado 8:40 PM ET
​
Screwdatt, [5/8/2024 7:00 AM]
=== USA MILB PACK ===
US MILB 01 Dayton Dragons vs Lake County Captains // UK Wed 8 May 4:00pm // ET Wed 8 May 11:00am
US MILB 01 Worcester Red Sox vs Buffalo Bisons // UK Wed 8 May 10:05pm // ET Wed 8 May 5:05pm
US MILB 01 Inland Empire 66ers vs Lake Elsinore Storm // UK Thu 9 May 2:05am // ET Wed 8 May 9:05pm
US MILB 02 Lynchburg Hillcats vs Down East Wood Ducks // UK Wed 8 May 4:00pm // ET Wed 8 May 11:00am
US MILB 02 Buffalo Bisons vs Worcester Red Sox // UK Wed 8 May 10:10pm // ET Wed 8 May 5:10pm
US MILB 02 Spokane Indians vs Hillsboro Hops // UK Thu 9 May 2:05am // ET Wed 8 May 9:05pm
US MILB 03 Delmarva Shorebirds vs Kannapolis Cannon Ballers // UK Wed 8 May 4:00pm // ET Wed 8 May 11:00am
​
Screwdatt, [5/8/2024 7:00 AM]
US MILB 03 Binghamton Rumble Ponies vs Portland Sea Dogs // UK Wed 8 May 11:00pm // ET Wed 8 May 6:00pm
US MILB 03 Stockton Ports vs San Jose Giants // UK Thu 9 May 2:30am // ET Wed 8 May 9:30pm
US MILB 04 Wilmington Blue Rocks vs Jersey Shore BlueClaws // UK Wed 8 May 4:05pm // ET Wed 8 May 11:05am
US MILB 04 Somerset Patriots vs Altoona Curve // UK Wed 8 May 11:00pm // ET Wed 8 May 6:00pm
US MILB 04 Rancho Cucamonga Quakes vs Visalia Rawhide // UK Thu 9 May 2:30am // ET Wed 8 May 9:30pm
US MILB 05 Indianapolis Indians vs Louisville Bats // UK Wed 8 May 4:05pm // ET Wed 8 May 11:05am
US MILB 05 Lansing Lugnuts vs Great Lakes Loons // UK Wed 8 May 11:05pm // ET Wed 8 May 6:05pm
US MILB 05 Modesto Nuts vs Fresno Grizzlies // UK Thu 9 May 2:50am // ET Wed 8 May 9:50pm
US MILB 06 Rochester Red Wings vs Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders // UK Wed 8 May 4:05pm // ET Wed 8 May 11:05am
US MILB 06 Palm Beach Cardinals vs Jupiter Hammerheads // UK Wed 8 May 11:30pm // ET Wed 8 May 6:30pm
US MILB 06 Everett AquaSox vs Vancouver Canadians // UK Thu 9 May 3:05am // ET Wed 8 May 10:05pm
US MILB 07 Harrisburg Senators vs New Hampshire Fisher Cats // UK Wed 8 May 4:05pm // ET Wed 8 May 11:05am
US MILB 07 Clearwater Threshers vs Tampa Tarpons // UK Wed 8 May 11:30pm // ET Wed 8 May 6:30pm
US MILB 07 Tri-City Dust Devils vs Eugene Emeralds // UK Thu 9 May 3:05am // ET Wed 8 May 10:05pm
US MILB 08 Cedar Rapids Kernels vs South Bend Cubs // UK Wed 8 May 4:05pm // ET Wed 8 May 11:05am
US MILB 08 St. Lucie Mets vs Bradenton Marauders // UK Wed 8 May 11:30pm // ET Wed 8 May 6:30pm
US MILB 09 St. Paul Saints vs Toledo Mud Hens // UK Wed 8 May 4:05pm // ET Wed 8 May 11:05am
US MILB 09 Nashville Sounds vs Durham Bulls // UK Wed 8 May 11:35pm // ET Wed 8 May 6:35pm
US MILB 10 Richmond Flying Squirrels vs Erie SeaWolves // UK Wed 8 May 4:05pm // ET Wed 8 May 11:05am
US MILB 10 Lakeland Flying Tigers vs Daytona Tortugas // UK Wed 8 May 11:35pm // ET Wed 8 May 6:35pm
US MILB 11 Tennessee Smokies vs Chattanooga Lookouts // UK Wed 8 May 4:15pm // ET Wed 8 May 11:15am
US MILB 11 Fort Wayne TinCaps vs West Michigan Whitecaps // UK Wed 8 May 11:35pm // ET Wed 8 May 6:35pm
US MILB 12 Tennessee Smokies vs Chattanooga Lookouts // UK Wed 8 May 4:20pm // ET Wed 8 May 11:20am
US MILB 12 Carolina Mudcats vs Fayetteville Woodpeckers // UK Wed 8 May 11:35pm // ET Wed 8 May 6:35pm
US MILB 13 Akron RubberDucks vs Bowie Baysox // UK Wed 8 May 5:05pm // ET Wed 8 May 12:05pm
US MILB 13 Hartford Yard Goats vs Reading Fightin Phils // UK Wed 8 May 11:45pm // ET Wed 8 May 6:45pm
US MILB 14 Mississippi Braves vs Rocket City Trash Pandas // UK Wed 8 May 5:05pm // ET Wed 8 May 12:05pm
US MILB 14 Syracuse Mets vs Lehigh Valley IronPigs // UK Wed 8 May 11:45pm // ET Wed 8 May 6:45pm
US MILB 15 Greensboro Grasshoppers vs Bowling Green Hot Rods // UK Wed 8 May 5:05pm // ET Wed 8 May 12:05pm
US MILB 15 Brooklyn Cyclones vs Rome Emperors // UK Thu 9 May 12:00am // ET Wed 8 May 7:00pm
US MILB 16 Birmingham Barons vs Pensacola Blue Wahoos // UK Wed 8 May 5:05pm // ET Wed 8 May 12:05pm
US MILB 16 Asheville Tourists vs Winston-Salem Dash // UK Thu 9 May 12:00am // ET Wed 8 May 7:00pm
​
Screwdatt, [5/8/2024 7:00 AM]
US MILB 17 Montgomery Biscuits vs Biloxi Shuckers // UK Wed 8 May 5:05pm // ET Wed 8 May 12:05pm
US MILB 17 Fredericksburg Nationals vs Charleston RiverDogs // UK Thu 9 May 12:05am // ET Wed 8 May 7:05pm
US MILB 18 Amarillo Sod Poodles vs Corpus Christi Hooks // UK Wed 8 May 5:05pm // ET Wed 8 May 12:05pm
US MILB 18 Charlotte Knights vs Gwinnett Stripers // UK Thu 9 May 12:05am // ET Wed 8 May 7:05pm
US MILB 19 Oklahoma City Baseball Club vs Sugar Land Space Cowboys // UK Wed 8 May 5:05pm // ET Wed 8 May 12:05pm
US MILB 19 Dunedin Blue Jays vs Fort Myers Mighty Mussels // UK Thu 9 May 12:05am // ET Wed 8 May 7:05pm
US MILB 20 Peoria Chiefs vs Beloit Sky Carp // UK Wed 8 May 5:10pm // ET Wed 8 May 12:10pm
US MILB 20 Augusta GreenJackets vs Myrtle Beach Pelicans // UK Thu 9 May 12:05am // ET Wed 8 May 7:05pm
US MILB 21 Peoria Chiefs vs Beloit Sky Carp // UK Wed 8 May 5:15pm // ET Wed 8 May 12:15pm
US MILB 21 Hudson Valley Renegades vs Aberdeen IronBirds // UK Thu 9 May 12:05am // ET Wed 8 May 7:05pm
US MILB 22 Jacksonville Jumbo Shrimp vs Omaha Storm Chasers // UK Wed 8 May 6:05pm // ET Wed 8 May 1:05pm
US MILB 22 Norfolk Tides vs Memphis Redbirds // UK Thu 9 May 12:05am // ET Wed 8 May 7:05pm
US MILB 23 Arkansas Travelers vs Wichita Wind Surge // UK Wed 8 May 6:05pm // ET Wed 8 May 1:05pm
US MILB 23 Salem Red Sox vs Columbia Fireflies // UK Thu 9 May 12:05am // ET Wed 8 May 7:05pm
US MILB 24 Albuquerque Isotopes vs El Paso Chihuahuas // UK Wed 8 May 6:05pm // ET Wed 8 May 1:05pm
US MILB 24 Tulsa Drillers vs Midland RockHounds // UK Thu 9 May 12:30am // ET Wed 8 May 7:30pm
US MILB 25 Columbus Clippers vs Iowa Cubs // UK Wed 8 May 6:08pm // ET Wed 8 May 1:08pm
US MILB 25 Wisconsin Timber Rattlers vs Quad Cities River Bandits // UK Thu 9 May 12:30am // ET Wed 8 May 7:30pm
US MILB 26 Hickory Crawdads vs Greenville Drive // UK Wed 8 May 7:05pm // ET Wed 8 May 2:05pm
US MILB 26 San Antonio Missions vs Frisco RoughRiders // UK Thu 9 May 12:35am // ET Wed 8 May 7:35pm
US MILB 27 Sacramento River Cats vs Salt Lake Bees // UK Wed 8 May 7:05pm // ET Wed 8 May 2:05pm
US MILB 27 Las Vegas Aviators vs Round Rock Express // UK Thu 9 May 1:05am // ET Wed 8 May 8:05pm
US MILB 28 Springfield Cardinals vs Northwest Arkansas Naturals // UK Thu 9 May 1:05am // ET Wed 8 May 8:05pm
US MILB 29 Tacoma Rainiers vs Reno Aces // UK Thu 9 May 2:05am // ET Wed 8 May 9:05pm

Earth's orbit experiences an “Orbital Eccentricity”, 100,000 year cycle orbit and inclination variation, going from circular to elliptical, the hemispheres experience more or less sun or exposure to the sun for extended periods, causing ice ages. Scientists estimate we are near the minimum, a 6% change in solar energy. At peak, the earth experiences a change of 30%.
Modern Day Primates, in the wild and captivity, are able to communicate, near and far, using verbal and gesture components, even to other species. Have been observed using wood as tools, and in using medicinal plants to treat wounds.
44 million y a - Hominid ancestors acquire Herpes virus.
10 million y a - Primate ancestors develop genes to digest alcohol.
6 million years ago - Primate ancestors split from Chimpanzee/Bonobo line (15 million DNA mutations have occurred since then; each person born today has 100 mutations distinct to them, most don’t survive.)
5.3 m y a - Mediterranean Sea experiences the Messinian Salinity Crisis, for 600,000 years the Straight of Gibraltar closed off, causing the Mediterranean to shrink down to two inland seas with Italy and Greece separating them. Ends in the Zanclean Flood, a river of Atlantic sea water flows thru Gibraltar and fills the Mediterranean in 2 years.
5 m y a - Arabian-African continent reconnects with Asia. Land based Turtle species start going extinct.
4 - 3 m y a - Hominid ancestors acquire pubic lice from Gorillas (genetic evidence).
3.6 - 2.58 m y a - Considered the Neogene Period.
3.3 m y a - Stone tools found in Kenya and Ethiopia.
2.6 m y a - Mode One Stone Tools found in Ethiopia, would subsequently spread. Flourished to 1.7 million y a in southern and eastern Africa. Paleolithic (Old Stone Age) Era (2.6 m y a till end of last Ice Age, 11,000 y a). Subdivided into the Early- or Lower Paleolithic (c. 2,6 million years ago - c. 250,000 years ago); the Middle Paleolithic (c. 250,000 years ago - c. 30,000 years ago); and the Late- or Upper Paleolithic (c. 50,000/40,000 - c. 10,000 years ago)
2.58 million - 11,700 years ago - Considered the start of the Quaternary Period, and covers the Pleistocene.
2.4 – 1.4 m y a – Homo Habilis (4.5-3.5 feet tall).
2 m years ago - Earliest Hominids start eating meat.
1.9 – 1.8 m y a – Homo Rudolfensis.
1.89 m y a to 110,000 y a - Homo Erectus (first to leave Africa and spread across Asia).
1.8 m years ago - Mode One Stone Tools found on Java.
1.7 m years ago - Mode Two Stone Tools (slicing, hand-axe/butchering, evidence of drilling tools) appear in Kenya and southern Africa.
1.6 m years ago - Mode One Stone Tools found in northern China.
1.6 - 1.5 m y a - Africa, Turkana Boy dies, likely from a tooth cavity infection. He was either 8 or 11-12 years old and 61 inches tall. Brain 880 ccm.
1.5 m y a - Kenya, possible start of Hominids using fire to cook food. (increase in caloric intake, which would lead to evolution; however, Paranthropus Boisei is the local species, brain 500-550 ccm, 54 inches tall)
1 million years ago - Likely split between ancestor of Homo Sapiens and proto-Neanderthal-Denisovan species. (Mitochondrial DNA evidence.) South Africa, evidence of fire use for cooking.
1 m - 700,000 y a - Java, Java Man dies, brain 900 ccm. 5' 8" tall.
900,000 y a – Possible earliest use of boats.
820,000 - 580,000 y a - Durum Wheat develops out of natural hybridization with Einkorn Wheat (genetic analysis).
800,000? y a - Low world temperatures recorded. Height of Ice Age?
790,000 y a - Levant, oldest Fire hearths found. (Homo Heidelbergensis, 1,250 ccm brain, 69 in tall)
740,000? y a - Height of Ice Age?
7-200,000 y a – Homo Heidelbergensis (East Africa and Europe, likely first to hunt large animals with spears)
640,000? y a - Height of Ice Age.
550,000? y a - Height of Ice Age?
540,000 - 430,000 y a - Art: Sea shell formed into decoration by Homo Erectus. (Could indicate when sea shells began to be used as whistles and horns.)
530,000? y a - Interglacial Peak (between Ice Ages, high CO2 content in the atmosphere, 524-474,000).
500,000 y a - South Africa, evidence of Spears. Genetic evidence of Neanderthal spread from Europe to Caspian Sea, Denisovans occupied land from Caspian to the east.
450,000 y a - Earliest physical evidence of Neanderthal.
450,000 y a - Global temperatures had dropped, stayed that way for thousands of years.
430,000 - 230,000 y a - Durum Wheat cross-breeds with wild Goat Grass (genetic analysis).
400,000 y a - Interglacial Peak (between Ice Ages, 424-374,000).
400,000 y a - Germany, oldest Spears found. France (Terra Amata), possible evidence of manmade shelter using prepared wood.
360,000? y a - Height of Ice Age.
335-236,000 y a – Homo Naledi (South Africa, 4’9”)
310,000 y a - Interglacial Peak (between Ice Ages, 337-300,000).
300,000 y a – Mode Three Stone Tools (smaller knife-like, scrapers, developed in Europe by Neanderthals)
300,000-200,000 y a – Africa, Origin of Male Y-Chromosome that all current males are descended from. (40% of males do not reproduce.)
270,000? y a - Height of Ice Age.
240,000 y a - Interglacial Peak (between Ice Ages, 242–230,000).
200,000 y a - France, evidence of Neanderthals fishing. Africa, "Mitochondrial Eve," source of all Human Haplo-groups that everyone is descended from, existed at this time.
194,000-135,000 y a - Penultimate Glacial Period.
190,000 y a - Early physical evidence of Denisovans. (At least three interbreeding events would occur with Homo Sapiens. EPAS1 gene, hemoglobin concentration, Tibetan plateau.)
190,000-50,000 y a - Flores Island, evidence of tool use by the Human Hobbit.
170,000 - 80,000 y a - Body Lice evolve (genetic evidence, feed on human skin, live in clothing; evidence of clothing)
164,000 y a – South Africa, heat treating Silcrete Stone to enhance stone tool production.
140,000 y a - Homo Sapiens found in Europe.
130,000 y a - Evidence of humans in North America. Crete, earliest human settlements found on the island. Art: Neanderthal necklace made of eagle talons. Croatia: Neanderthal teeth show possible dental work.
125,000 y a - Interglacial Peak (between Ice Ages, 130-115,000). Sea levels 4-6 meters (18 feet) higher then today.
110,000-15,000 y a - Last Glacial Period. Grey Wolves would migrate from North America back to Asia prior to the maximum.
100,000-60,000 y a - Flores Island, bone fossil evidence of the Human Hobbit.
100,000 y a - Oldest example of proper human burial. South Africa, Pigment (paint) Creation Kit found. (would cover bodies in mud/clay and then spray the paint over the bodies, sun screen-protection from insects)
90,000 y a – Harpoons.
86,000-37,000 y a – Neanderthal and Homo Sapiens begin interbreeding, based on genetic evidence found so far.
75,000 years ago - Likely rise of Hunter Genotype in Homo Sapiens.
75,000 y a - Art: Drilled snail shells found in South African cave.
73,000 y a - South Africa (Blombos Cave), evidence of Red Ochre art on pieces of stone, stone with deliberate lines cut into it possibly representing count marks.
72,000 y a - South Africa, Beads found in cave.
70,000 y a - Mitochondrial DNA suggests this is when the Haplo-group of early humans migrated out of Africa to populate the rest of the world.
70-60,000 y a - Earliest evidence of bone and stone arrowheads (for Spear Throwers), found in South Africa. 64,000?
70,000 - 35,000 BCE - Neanderthal burials in Europe and Middle East.
68-16,000 y a – Smallpox evolves from an African Rodent Virus.
67,000 BCE - France, burial shows skulls with Trepanation (cutting holes to relieve brain pressure), earliest example of surgery.
65,000 y a - First humans settle Australia.
64,000 y a - Spain, oldest evidence found of Cave Art (Neanderthal hand).
61,000 y a - South Africa, possible evidence of a Sewing Needle.
60,000? y a - Height of Ice Age?
60,000 y a - Evidence of man/Neanderthal using herbal medicine.
55,000 - 40,000 y a - Italy, evidence of Neanderthal using Pine Tree Resin and Beeswax for hafting tools, in cave. (Beeswax can be used in making Candles.)
52,000 y a - Last evidence of Denisovans.
52,000 – 41,000 y a – Archaeological find of “Bast” tree fiber twisted into primitive cordage, possibly as handle for a Stone Tool. (meaning they had access to Clothing, Nets, Cord for Fishing or Hafting tools, rope; thinking processes of Counting, Sets, Patterns, and possibly abstract thinking)
50,000 - 10,000 y a - Mode Four Stone Tools (long blades).
50,000 y a - Australia, last evidence of megafauna. Siberia, needle made from bone found in Denisovan cave. Genetic evidence of Neanderthal spreading to western edge of China.
50,000 years ago - End point of development of Gatherer Genotype (can survive famine), Teacher Genotype (can handle new and different environments, analytical).
45,000 y a - Evidence of Neanderthal and Homo Sapien interbreeding. (Fossil found, DNA tested.) (France, to create stone tools required precision, “Soft Hammers” were likely used.)
44,000 y a - Evidence of art found in Indonesia.
44,000-40,000 y a - Europe experiences cold and dry weather, displacing populations.
43-42,000 y a - Germany, oldest musical instruments (flutes) found.
42,000 y a - Australia, skeleton of man suggests Atlatl use, pre-dating earliest evidence; earliest example of cremation found. Spain, small amounts of Natural Gold found in a cave.
40,000 y a - (Mankind is at the “Forager” level.) Last evidence of Neanderthal. (Inheritance of "STAT2" gene, immune response. HYAL2 gene, helps skin recover from sunburns.) China, test on body found that ate a lot of fresh water fish. Possible example of oldest petroglyphs. Beads found in Lebanon.
40,000 - 26,000 y a - Studying toe bones, showed they became smaller and weaker, indicating shoes were worn. Prior to this, shoes were likely bags wrapped around feet to protect from cold.
38,000 BC - First appearance of Mode Five Ground Stone tools on Japan. (rock was quarried; thin slivers of flint stone, attached to hafts, man is learning the use of a "handle" for tools and "leverage", create Adzes, Celts, and Axes; grinding helps to penetrate trees and was likely discovered when grinding plant matter; found buried with owners; were traded) Lasted till 14,000 BC. (Would not become popular elsewhere until 10,000 BC?) Germany: Clay Figurine featuring human with lion like appearance, thought to be earliest representation of a Deity.
35,000 BCE - Europe, earliest examples of "Venus figurines" found buried in graves (some showing they were deliberately broken or stabbed repeatedly); would later spread to rest of Eurasia. Early examples of skulls and long bones showing red ochre, indicating possible relic worship.
35,000 y a - Germany, flute made from a vulture bone found.
30,000 BCE – Solomon Islands, first humans settle (60 km sea voyage).
31,000 - 27,000 y a - Evidence of Pit Fire (Earthernware) Pottery developing.
30,000-20,000 years ago - Explorer genotype (Ice Age refugees, idiosyncratic, asymmetrical, contrarian mentality)
30,000 y a - Evidence of starch residue on rocks, indicating where plant matter was pounded and ground. (Would likely be the pre-cursor of developing bread from roots of cattails and ferns. Quern Grinding Stones would spread and gain popularity.) Georgia, Flax used as a textile (harvested, dyed, and knotted) found in Dzudzuana Cave. Fertile Crescent, Einkorn wheat harvested in it's wild form. Evidence of man using the Atlatl. Poland: Boomerang carved from mammoth tusk found. France, Lunar Calendar. Likely when Bolas (stone weight(s) and length of cord) began to be used.
28,000 y a - Europe, oldest evidence of rope.
25,000 - 15,000 BCE - Blood Type A develops in the Fertile Crescent. (able to survive Plague, Cholera, Smallpox)
27,000 y a - Australia, oldest example of petroglyphs found. Czech Republic, earliest example of "Weaving" of material together to create baskets and basic cloth. (Leads to counting and simple math, organizing.)
26,000-13,300 y a - Considered "Glacial Maximum", ice sheets extend to the 45th parallel north. (26,500 considered to be maximum glacial reach.)
23,000 - 12,000 y a – Europe, Perforated Batons found, made of antler, assumed to be a form of Atlatl that uses a leather strap or string to wrap around the spear and give it a slight spin, arrow or spear thrower (similar to Swiss Arrow). Right and left handed throwers find preference. Most carved with Horses, have one or two holes (one had 8 holes).
23,000 y a - Israel, Ohalo archaeological site, hunter-gatherer society (6 brushwood shelters, 132 stone tools some attached to hafts, stone Sickles, dwellings showed flint tools were made at entrance, cooking at other end, grind stone showed sand and cobbles to place and had U-shape of seeds around it) that grew/harvested Barley, Millet, Bromus (grass in same tax tribe as wheat/barley/rye, can be used for fermenting beverages, can be eaten by humans and animals), Rubus (same family as Rose plants, similar to blackberries), and various fruits (seeds from 13 different species), earliest evidence for “Bedding” material.
22,000 – 17,000 y a – France, Solutrean inhabitants make use of Antler.
21,000-17,000 y a - France, Atlatl's found in caves.
20,000 y a - Height of the Ice Age, sea levels 120 meters (360 feet) lower. Mode Five Stone Tools (microliths glued to handles, Fertile Crescent). Earliest example of a building/house found. Ukraine, Bullroarer (wood on rope that is swung around to create sound over long distance) found. Iraq-Iran, Zarzian Culture, had domesticated Dogs.
19,050? - 13,050 y a - Oldest Dryas Period, stadial, abrupt cooling period. Sea levels rose 10-15 m in 500 years.
17,000 BCE - Mesopotamia, Wild Emmer Wheat harvested.
18,000 - 17,500 y a - Siberia, earliest example of a domesticated dog found frozen. Germany, Bow and Arrows found. Early evidence of Darts used.
18,000 y a - Japan, oldest pottery discovered.
15,100 - 14,000 y a - Morocco, earliest example of a cemetery.
15,000 y a – Mode Five Stone Tools reach Europe. Southern France, cave art depicting possible Musical Bow, Nose Flute; "The Sorcerer," a figure showing human and many animal qualities (bison), made out of Clay.
15,000 – 10,000 y a – France, Stone Oil Lamps.
14,500 y a - Oldest example of bread making, Jordan desert.
14,160 - 13,820 y a - Archaeological find: infected tooth partially cleaned out with flint tools.
14,600 - 13,600 y a - "Melt Water Pulse," sea levels rose 16-24 m.
14,000? y a - Older Dryas Period, around 200 year cooling period.
13,500 - 8,200 y a - China, wild Rice domestication event occurs.
15-10,000 BCE - Himalayas, development of Blood Type B.
11,050 BCE - Syria, attempts at domesticating Rye.
13,000 y a - Greece, evidence of lentils found. Earliest evidence of Amber used in jewelry. Israel, archaeological evidence of beer like gruel for ceremonial purposes found at Haifa. Likely beginning of Slavery.
13,000 - 12,700 y a - Fertile Crescent, archaeological evidence of man corralling and using pigs.
12,900 - 11,700 y a - The Younger Dryas Period, when temperatures went cold instead of warming from the Last Glacial Maximum.
10,000 BCE - Jericho, considered mankind's first town, is established. Buildings of clay and straw, dead buried under homes. (Would reach 70 dwellings by 94,000 BCE.) Chickpeas domesticated. Earliest evidence of the Bottle Gourd being domesticated and used (Africa and Asia variety). Azerbaijan (Caspian Sea), petroglyphs of reed boats. Starting point of Ocarina type flutes. Cyprus, humans arrive. Germany, Jet artifact (Botfly larvae, which can be eaten). Curved Stone Oil Lamps.
11,700 y a - Considered the beginning of the Holocene.
9600 BCE - Southern Levant, earliest use of wild Emmer Wheat.
11,500 - 11,000 y a - "Melt Water Pulse," sea levels rose 28 m.
11,400 y a - Cypress, archaeological evidence of pigs (indicating they had been domesticated and brought from the mainland).
9400 - 9200 BCE - Jordan Valley, Fig trees found, indicating earliest agriculture since these trees could not reproduce.
9130 - 7370 BCE - SE Turkey, Gobekli Tepe, oldest known worship location.
9000 BCE - Syria, oldest (Saddle) Quern found. Mesopotamia, Copper first used. Bartering of Cattle and agricultural products likely occurring at this time.
9000 - 3300 BCE - Neolithic Era, roughly. Time period of when man has begun herding, before using bronze.
11,000 - 9,000 y a - Mesopotamia, domestication of Sheep; Rammed Earth construction technique developed. Iran, Domestication of Goat (focused on management of the animal, varieties would come later).
11,000-4,000 years ago - Warrior genotype (farmers, soldiers, inventors); Nomad genotype (life upon a horse, can handle different environments, good immune system)
11 or 10,000 y a - Last Ice Age ends.
8800 BCE - Emmer Wheat spreads beyond the Levant.
8700 BCE - Iraq, Copper pendant.
8500 BCE - Domestication of Barley. Domestication of peas occurs around this time. Turkey, Beer production found at Gobekli Tepe. Domestication of Cattle from the Aurochs (two separate populations, one in Mesopotamia [pop. 80], the other Pakistan). (Rendering cattle bones into Tallow allows for the creation of Candles. Beeswax also used.) Oregon, oldest pair of shoes found made from bark twine. Oats possibly start to be harvested, crop mirrors wheat (is like a weed).
8400 BCE – Cyprus, earliest dug Water Well (26 ft).
10,300 - 8,700 y a - China, Millet harvested.
10,200 - 9,500 y a - Emmer Wheat domesticated(?).
10,000 - 7,000 y a - Archaeological evidence of boats.
8000 BCE (10,000 years ago) – Genetic evidence of breeding Pigeons. Palestine, archaeological evidence of pastoralism. Pre-Pottery Neolithic people in the Fertile Crescent form perfectly smooth stone vases. Iran, Goat domestication. Believed to be when primitive dairy-cheese making began. Flax cultivation. China, Quern Grinding Stones. England, Antler used in headdress costume.
9,500 y a - Cyprus, earliest evidence of cat domestication. SE Anatolia, cold-working, annealing, smelting, lost wax casting of Copper.
7570 BCE – Indus Valley, Lapis Lazuli artifacts.
7500 - 5700 BCE - Anatolia, Catal Hoyuk develops as a spiritual center, found many clay figurines and impressions (feminine, phallic, hunting).
7400 BCE - A monolith ends up submerged in the Straight of Sicily.
7176 B.C. – Earth hit by one of the most massive Solar Storms from the sun ever recorded (visible at night with the magnetic field interaction).
7000 BCE - Archaeological evidence for pastoralism in Africa. China: evidence of mead (honey, rice, water fermented) in pottery; evidence of musical instruments. India, first archaeological evidence of Dance (cave art); evidence of dentistry. Armenian Highlands, art depictions of Cymbals. Durum Wheat made thru artificial selection in Europe and Near East. Greece, earliest evidence of grain silos. Turkey, Catal Hoyuk, art depiction of a Slinger. Afghanistan, Lapis Lazuli mined and traded to Indus and Mesopotamia societies. Europe, Cave Wall art of Honey Collecting.
7000 - 6600 BCE - China, domestication of Soy beans.
7000 - 6000 BCE - Turkey, domestication of Bitter Vetch. (Too bitter for human consumption without being boiled several times, has been found to be great for cattle feed.)
6500-3800 BCE - Ubaid Period (Mesopotamian citystates rise, evidence of specialized workers, evidence of taxation)
6500 BCE - Turkey, evidence of lead smelting at Catal Hoyuk. (Wrapping the dead in textiles, too.) China, archaeological evidence of Silk. Kosovo, oldest Ocarina found in Europe.
8,200 - 7,600 y a - Sea levels rise rapidly. Linked to North American great fresh water lake (Agassiz, Ojibway) sudden draining into Atlantic Ocean. 8,400 y a?
6050 BCE - Moldova, evidence of man extracting salt from a natural spring.
8,000 y a - Western Europe, white skin first appears. Iran: earliest evidence of irrigation; man starts choosing sheep for their wooliness, not just meat and skin (2-3,000 years later, would start wearing wool). Georgia, earliest evidence of wine. Spain, cave painting shows people collecting honey from a wild hive, using a container to hold. China, Buckwheat cultivated (near Tibetan plateau), possible first example of Influenza. Earliest evidence of the Ard Plow used (castrating bulls to train 4 years to become Draft Oxen, also means they can be used to haul logs thru and from forests). Mediterranean, Broad (Fava) Beans, Broccoli. Portugal: Almendres Cromlech, begins, aligned to equinox and solstice, occupied for 2,000 years, would become largest complex in Iberian peninsula, equal to other large complexes in Europe. Anatolia: Obsidian polished into mirrors. Spelt Wheat appears. First Stone hafted Axes. Earliest evidence of “Cock Fighting” game fowl. (Iraq, Kiln.)
6000 - 3500 BC - Mesopotamia (Sumer), Poppy domesticated.
7,8-5,000 y a - SE Turkey, Einkorn Wheat grown and domesticated.
5600 BCE - Evidence of The Black Sea Flood, turning the fresh water lake into a salt water sea, rose shorelines and displaced populations (source of flood myths in religions).
7500 y a - Earth experiences a cold climate period? Lasts for 500 or more years.
7500 y a - Earliest example of chickpeas being used. Poland, archaeological evidence of cheese making. Ukraine, Romania, earliest examples of traps used for hunting. Pakistan, evidence of Cotton found in copper beads. Egypt, earliest Combs found (placing a leaf in the teeth can create a primitive sound instrument).
5500-5000 BCE - Serbia, Copper Smelting.
5200 - 4700 BCE - Iran, earliest evidence of a wheel, for pottery, made of stone or clay.
7,000 y a - Earliest example of Dolmen, single chamber tomb, consists of two stones supporting another on top (table design), found in western Europe, would spread and be common 4000 - 3000 BCE in Europe. Iranian plateau, evidence of Bronze made with naturally occurring arsenic. Tin would replace as the major ingredient (and releasing non-toxic vapors) in the late 3000 BCE period. Iran, evidence of wine found, using sealed containers. China, Hemp domestication (smoking was likely cause for spread, Iron Age would use for production); Rammed Earth construction technique, Silkworm domestication begins. Egypt, Badarian culture starts farming, used boomerangs. Roundels, circular enclosure often with entrances aligned to solstice, would be constructed in Central Europe (Germany, 120-150 altogether). Siberia, oldest carpet found (likely a funeral gift, from Armenia, featured griffons). Mesopotamia: first use of Stamp Seals for government purposes; Rotary Quern milling stones are introduced. Armenia: possible origin of Apricots. Lake Zurich, cultivation of Pear. Indus Valley Civilization, using Bitumen aka Asphalt for waterproofing (a basket), adhesive. Bulgaria, Turquoise beads.
6950 - 6440 y a - Papua New Guinea, cultivation of Taro and Yam.
4800 BCE - Egypt, early evidence of peas being grown. Cairn of Barnenez, Brittany, England, begins (burial monument and later bronze age use, considered one of the oldest and largest man made structures).
4700 - 4200 BCE - The town of Solnitstata, considered the oldest known settlement in Europe. Built around a salt deposit.
6,500 y a - Croatia, earliest example of an oven found. Slovenia, dental filling made with beeswax. Indus Valley, irrigation. Wine production reaches Greece. Carnac Stones, Brittany, France; would become large complex of standing stones, menhirs, domens, tumuli (burial mounds, with passage tombs), large rectangle formed by stone. Americas: various tribes domesticated “chili peppers.” Bulgaria, Carnelian beads. Manufactured Red Pottery Oil Lamps.
4500-4000 BCE - China, Investment Casting develops.
4200 - 4000 BCE - Mesopotamia develops true, easy to spin pottery wheels.
6,000 y a - Earth experiences a cold climate period? (Starting maybe 500 years earlier and ending 500 years later.)
4000 BCE - (Mankind has achieved “Farmer status.”) (Thought to be when Cattle were turned into Oxen for Draft Animal purposes.) Egyptians start building big Brick structures; manufacturing Papyrus; Gold artifacts; (domesticated Donkeys?). Earliest examples of Kilns. NE Italy, archaeological find of Appleseeds. Sicily, evidence of wine found. Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Horse domestication begins (they became small and varied in size as compared to their wild ancestors). “Pontic Language Explosion”. [People from north of the Caspian and Black Seas migrated around Eurasia, ancestor of western languages. (shared origins with: milk, horses, sheep, cattle, pigs, goats, grain, copper, carts, yoke, weaving, mead; patrilineal clans)]. Earliest examples of Viticulture (wine making). Levant, earliest examples of harvesting Olives; start using grain Silos. Art: Earliest depiction of Shoes, Sandals. China: example of a Loom for Silk production; Ramie (similar to flax, requires chemical processing, not as popular, believed to be used for Egyptian mummy wraps). Persia (Iran), Mung Bean domestication?, Chang (precursor to Harp) found on artwork, made with sheep guts. Mesopotamia: Stamp Seals come into use; Mirrors made of Copper; 30-40% of animal bones in settlements were pork (understood to be a way of removing trash from community, easy to feed and raise many); Uruk clay tablet describes two temples owning a herd of 95 pigs to be rendered into soap to clean linen; clay pipes for sewage. Europe, farming reaches northern regions. Anatolia, Silver production.
4000 - 1000 BCE - Ethiopia, Teff is discovered (can feed people and livestock, building material).
3800 - 3500 BCE - Czech Republic, possible evidence of earliest plowed fields.
5,700 y a - Lolland Island, a blue eyed, dark haired, dark skin woman spits out some Birch Bark gum; oldest complete human genome extracted; had Mononucleosis ("kissing disease"). Possible archeological evidence of pit traps used for migrating animal hunting.
3630 BCE - Oldest example of silk fabric found.
3600 BCE – Pork bones in settlements (Levant, Mesopotamia) dropped to 16-30% of total livestock.
5,500 - 4,700 y a - Georgia, tomb found had honey remains on pottery. (This culture could identify Linden, Berry, and Meadow-Flower varieties.)
3500 BCE - City of Uruk: (Mesopotamia) begins outward expansion and influence, later first example of organized warfare (would influence Egyptians to start building pyramids); "Cylinder Seals," a type of noble seal, that can be rolled unto wet clay (would be popular until 1000 BCE). Iraq, Kish Tablet, considered to represent the early transition from pictographic to cuneiform. Mesopotamia, earliest Harps and Lyres found; Gold artifacts. Modern humans settle the western coast of Europe, hunter-gatherers. Egyptians show Cat domestication; Gold Smelting; used a vertical Gnomon as a primitive Sundial? Iran, Beer made from Barley. Armenia, earliest Leather Shoe found. China, Pottery in shape of silkworm indicates earliest example of Sericulture (silk worm production).
3500 - 3350 BCE – Mesopotamia, earliest evidence of wheeled vehicles. Indus Valley civilization uses Stamp Seals with a type of script.
3400 BCE (5,400 years ago) - First metal casting. France, Cow skull showing Trepanation found.
5,400 -5,100 y a - Itzi the Iceman dies in the mountains of Northern Italy. Had a copper axe. Earliest evidence of tattoos. Shoes made from two types of animal skin (bear and deer). Arsenic residue in his hair.
3300 BCE - Egypt, tomb paintings show people Dancing. Indus Valley, develop Sanitation.
3200 BCE - Examples of using symbols to represent real life objects (would go to form written language). Ireland, construction begins on Newgrange, largest passage tomb in Europe, aligned to winter solstice. Egypt, Bead made of Meteoric Iron found.
3100 - 2900 BCE - Jemdet Nasr period (following fall of Uruk) would be known as establishing Cuneiform as a proper language.
3100 BCE - Upper and Lower Egypt unified. Mesopotamia, likely evidence of the earliest Lute type device.
3000 BCE - Onset of Bronze. Mesopotamia, Irrigation; Glass Beads appear (possible side effect of making metal); possible earliest Iron working (required higher temperatures), cuneiform mention of Pigeons. Sumer, Medical text found on tablet, believed oldest ever found. Egypt, Hieroglyphs of Pigeons and use of Homing Pigeons for message delivery, first record of a Doctor named, Imhotep; Antimony harvested from rock and made into eye makeup; earliest evidence of domestic Donkeys in the south. Egyptian Mummies show evidence of Smallpox (deathrate 30% especially among babies, can leave people blind). Dromedary Camels likely domesticated in Somalia at this time. (Camel hair can be harvested for shelter and clothing, outer guard hairs make for water proof coats. Camel milk readily turns into yogurt. To turn into butter requires a clarifying agent and extended process.) Chicken reaches Europe from Asia. England, earliest Stone Circles found. Slovakia, Romania, earliest chainmail found. Sheep chosen for wooly coat, not long hair. China, Clay Bells found. India, River Buffalo domesticated (water buffalo); Jute grown for fiber (burlap). Northern Iran, earliest examples of Trumpets. SE Asia, earliest records of Radish. Pakistan, Terracota female figurines.
2800 BCE - Solid evidence of plowed fields. China, Copper smelting discovered. Babylon, evidence of manufacture of soap like substance.
2700 BCE - Chinese treatise on health. 40 kinds identified.
2650 BCE - Egypt, dental work found.
2630-10 BCE - Egypt, Pyramid of Djoser constructed by Imhotep, considered first.
2600 BCE – Egypt, domestication of Honey Bee complete.
2600 - 1900 BCE - Indus Valley, Stoneware Pottery (meaning fired at 1000 degrees Celsius), would become a major industry; (Ivory?).
2580-50 BCE – Egypt, creates first true Ocean Dock for sea trading vessels (with Indus Valley).
2560 BCE - Great Pyramid of Giza completed.
2500 BCE - Evidence of The Amber Road, trade route from the Baltic Sea to Mediterranean Sea. E Iran, Bactrian Camels domesticated. Iraq, "Lyres of Ur," considered world's oldest stringed instruments. Peru, oldest Sling ever found. Egypt, earliest depiction of a Khopesh (sword). Sumerian Clay Tablet with instructions for manufacturing soap (heating mixture of oil and wood ash, earliest record chemical reaction, used for washing woolen clothing). China, axes with Corundum (precious stone). Harappan Culture of Indus Valley, chicken used for Cock Fighting, not food.
2500 - 2000 BCE - Mali, domestication of Pearl Millet. Turkey, Meteoric Iron dagger.
2400 BCE - Sumer, description of Prostitution and a Brothel-Temple to Fertility Goddess.
2300 BCE - Mesopotamia, Urukagina of Lagash, considered the earliest Law Code. (Widows and orphans exempt from taxes, state pays for funeral expenses, the rich must pay in silver and cannot force the poor against will, checked power of priests, protect from usury, abolished polyandry). Iran, Quince (fruit). China, oldest Gnomon (painted stick that casts a shadow for sundial purpose).
2200 BCE - China, first known tax, using salt. Iraq, tablet reads “22 jars of Pig Fat” (each jar 18 liters of Lard, 396 liters total, require 45 adult pigs; likely used to make soap to clean wool of sheep before turning them into textiles)
2200-2000 BCE - Turkey, Iron Smelting.
2100 - 2050 BCE - City of Ur: Earliest written Code of Law discovered. References Butter. (Fines for bodily harm, references murder, robbery, adultery, rape. Two classes of people: free and slave.)
4000 - 3000 y a - Mesopotamia, earliest Scissors (shear, spring type). India, Mung Bean domesticated.
2000 BCE - Murals show horses pulling chariots. Horses become common in western Europe. England, Great Orme Mine started, would become largest copper mine in region (most productive between 1700 - 1400 BCE), used bone and stone tools. China, Bells made out of metal (Bellfounding); domestication of the Swamp Buffalo (water buffalo). Ghana, earliest evidence of Cowpea (black eyed pea). India, Canola/Rapeseed; Diamonds being used to drill beads. Egypt, Lupin Beans. Greece, Kale grown.
1900 BCE – Homing Pigeons used for warfare.
1800 BCE - Egypt, medical text on gynecological issues; Safflower for pigment. India, Iron working.
1754 BCE - Code of Hammurabi (recognized Prostitution and gave women protection and inheritance; theorized that a fertility goddess had a temple that offered sex workers).
1700 - 1200 BCE - (Late Bronze Age) 8 societies in Middle East: Aegean, Egyptian, Hittite, Canaanite, Cypriot, Mitanni, Assyrian, Babylonian. Considered a "globalized world system." Next time this would occur is today.
1700 BCE – Mesopotamia: The "Mari Letters" reference Minoan society, King Hammurabi; clay tablets list Trigonometry Tables and Applied Geometry (for land ownership, speculated to aid in construction).
1628 BCE - Island of Thera/Santorini experiences huge volcanic eruption, possibly causing a tsunami thru eastern Mediterranean.
1600-1500 BCE - Greece, Helmet formed of boar tusks found.
1600 BCE – Levant, Mesopotamia, Pork bones rarely found in settlements (banned from temples in Anatolia, Mesopotamia, Egypt). (Found amongst the poor classes, difficult to tax since it did not produce wool or milk or could plow a field.)
1550 BCE – Papyrus Ebers, Egyptian medical text, mentions Chlamydia.
1500 BCE - Modern Trumpet design found in eastern Mediterranean. India, Pigeon Pea domesticated. Egypt, Mercury found in tombs; archaeologists find earliest Sundials; Emerald mines. China, Water Clocks.
1400 BCE - Syria, Hurrian Songs, cuneiform music tablet in Ugarit. Greece, oldest body armor found, made of bronze, Dendra Panoply (not actually worn, more of a showpiece, but clear representation of body armor for battle). China, Meteoric Iron axeheads. Art representation of Scale Mail in Egypt. Art: representation of Shields.
1350 BCE - Turkey, Hittites chronicle Egyptian prisoners of war bringing "the plague.”
1300 BCE - Uluburun Shipwreck, off coast of Turkey, had 300 sixty pound copper ingots (10 tons), 1 ton of tin, and tin objects and ingots of colored glass (blue, rose, brown). From Cypress/Minoa.
1300? - 900? BCE - Eastern Mediterranean experiences a 300? year drought. (Could also be: Cypress 1200- 850. Syria 1250-1187. Galilee 1250-1100)
1279 BCE - Battle of Qadesh (Egypt vs Hittites).
1200 BCE (3,200 years ago) - Onset of Iron smelting. Earliest Camel saddles appear. Last appearance of Megaliths. India, earliest evidence of Firewalking.
1200 BCE - Eastern Mediterranean civilization collapse. Drought in Greece. Earthquake series.
1188-1177 BCE - Egypt suffers invasions from "The Sea People."
1185 BCE - Syria, Ugarit Letter, Famine.
1140? BCE - Ramses 6th, mummy found to have Smallpox. No record of people dying from Smallpox.
1100 BCE - Phoenicians establish nation. Europe, Iron Age.
1100? BCE - Earth experiences a cold temperature period?
1100-750 BCE - Egypt, Iron Smelting.
1070 BCE - Egyptian mummy found with Silk in hair, earliest evidence of Silk Road.
1000 BCE - Early Cuneiform script (late stages, still pictograph in nature). Bactria, Barbat (primitive lute). Egypt, Kenaf is grown for fibers, leaves can be eaten by animals and humans (similar to Jute and Hemp; rope, rough fabric, sails). Mediterranean, Cabbage domesticated. China, Iron Age. Sport: racing Homing Pigeons.
930 BCE - Camel bones found in Arabian peninsula. Jordan, earliest Bloomery for Iron working found.
800 - 600 BCE - Ethiopia, Sorghum Wheat begins to be harvested.
800 BCE - Considered the beginning of Ancient Greece, after the Mycenae Civilization. China, Bloomeries used.
700-500 BCE - The Illiad orally composed. India, Diamond mining starts.
708 BCE – Greece, Olympics, Discus Throw.
700 BCE - Turkey, first Coins in Lydia. Assyria, first equipment recognized as a Saddle for a Horse.
660 BCE – Massive Solar Storm hits Earth.
600 BCE - Earliest example of a Steel Sword.
600-400 BCE - Ancient Greece rise of scientific inquiry and philosophy
550 BCE - The Illiad written down.
540 BCE – Sri Lanka, earliest record of Pearls.
500 BCE - Camels used in warfare. Persians use kettle drums for military maneuvers, frighten enemies. Greece, Grape Syrup, early form of sweetener and preservative; earliest written mention of what could be Influenza. Blackberries consumed around Europe. Spain, Disk Quern developed. India, Cholera described in Sanskrit. Romans manufacture dipped Candles.
430 BCE – Athens, Typhoid Fever outbreak during siege by Sparta.
400 BCE - The "Celts/Gaeil" settle Ireland. Greece, the “Hippocratic Corpus” seventy collected medical texts, mentions Pneumonia, Meningitis, Valerian Root.
396 BCE - Olympics, horn blowing competitions.
314 BCE - China, first mention of Sweet Orange.
298 BCE - Foot powered Loom.
200 BCE - China starts making paper.

Recently, I got a chance to explore the new Adobe Captivate. It piqued my interest as it allows you to create responsive eLearning with the use of text and media blocks. Just like Rise 360, it doesn’t need manual authoring for different devices. I have used Rise 360 to develop a few responsive courses and considered comparing these two tools on various criteria.
Here is a high-level comparison that is purely from a usability perspective for developing eLearning.
CriteriaNew Adobe CaptivateArticulate Rise 360 Authoring environment/UIDesktop-based app with an easy, intuitive UIWeb-based app with easy navigation Learning curveQuick learning curve but compared to Rise 360, it might be steeper due to its advanced features and capabilities Quick learning curve Ease of useEasy to moderateEasy Quick start courses with real contentCurrently 16 courses with real content, new quick-start courses getting added on a bi-weekly basisHundreds of courses and micro- learnings with real and placeholder content Built-in responsive designYesYes Multi-device previewYesYes Interactivity/ Interactive elementsIntermediate to advancedIntermediate Course navigationSlide-based and long scrollLong scroll Customization capabilitiesHighly customizable Pre-built blocks and slides with customizable content, design, and functionalityLimited Pre-built blocks with customizable content and design Audio syncingYesNo Software simulation recordingYesNo Multimedia integrationYesYes Built-in asset libraryExtensive library of slide templates, characters, images, icons, audio, and video filesSmaller library including photos and illustrations Audio editing and text-to-speech audioYesNo Quizzing and assessmentAdvanced quizzing capabilities with up to 7 question typesBasic quizzing capabilities with up to 4 standard question types Course themesA couple of themes that can be customizedVariety of prebuilt course themes for all global elements Collaboration capabilitiesNot available yet, coming soon (Ref: https://www.adobe.com/products/ captivate/captivate-classic.html) Built-in review and collaboration tools Built-in accessibility featuresYesYes Integration with other toolsNo direct integration, any web object can be integrated using JavaScriptIntegrates with Articulate Storyline 360 Course translation/localizationNoYes Publishing formatsHTML5HTML5 and PDF SCORM/xAPI compatibilitySCORM, xAPI, and AICCSCORM, xAPI, AICC, and cmi5 Subscription planBoth annual and monthly subscription plans are availableOnly an annual subscription plan is available Access included in the plan· All-new Adobe Captivate · Adobe Captivate Classic · Extensive asset library · Live and on-demand training· Course authoring apps such as Rise 360, Storyline 360, and more · Review 360 app · Stock content · Live and on-demand training PriceUSD 33.99 per person per month (for individuals)USD 1,099 per person per year (for individuals)
Hope this comparison helps you gauge which tool is better suited for you. I think both tools have their own capabilities and limitations. Ultimately it will all boil down to your specific project/eLearning development needs and the given budget. Do share your thoughts and experiences with these tools.

The Deck.
This was an 0-3 deck that had lost one game to a clear misplay, two others due to a combination of low deck strength and bad starting hands. Analyzing the deck, we can see a few issues to begin with.
First, it had a large graveyard theme with zero enablers. While theoretically it could get to the lategame and win by recurring Spinewoods Armadillo and Hollow Marauder, these types of decks are much better if they managed to nab a few copies of Desperate Marauder and Patient Naturalist to enable their synergies earlier.
Second, it is extremely underpowered. While it only plays a few objectively weak cards, it obviously has no rares and only one premium removal (Throw is premium removal in GW, but is much weaker in GB). This gives it very little catch-up potential if it gets behind. The two drop slot is particularly horrendous, as Bristlepack Sentry is near the bottom of the potential things that could fill it and have very few ways to attack in the deck. So it is likely to get behind, and stay behind before it could stabilize.
It also doesn't really hit the creature counts I want in my GB decks, which plays particularly poorly with the graveyard recursion and Rise of the Varmints.
On the draft and games, I unfortunately don't have them saved in 17lands, so you'll have to trust my writeup.
The Draft:
Pack 1 was Path to Exile as the only rare with Bounding Felidar, Jem Lightfoot, and Visage Bandit at uncommon. At common, the only thing even close to being first picked was a single copy of Desert's Due (which wheeled and made the deck). This was just a weak pack. I chose Path to Exile, because it could theoretically be splashed and was the cheapest of the relatively mediocre cards in the pack. Visage Bandit may have been better, but I didn't want to commit to blue on P1P1, and I certainly didn't want a multicolor card or a 7 drop. I do think it is worth asking if they are better than Path to Exile in a vacuum though..
In pack 1, I found myself in a pretty common place for me this format. I picked mostly noncreature spells as I saw no 2-for-1 commons like Vault Plunderer, signposts I could reasonably play (1 Jolene p1p7 with no green or red cards), or decent sized beaters. I just don't want to take Bridled Bighorn or Giant Beaver P1P3 or P3P4, not over removal anyway. This meant my first picks were Path to Exile, Repulse, Unfortunate Accident, Desert's Due, Seize the Secrets, and a Failed Fording in another particularly weak pack. I finished with a Bridled Bighorn, a Bristlepack Sentry just to have something to do on 2, and the 3 red cards.
Not much white was wheeling, so heading in to pack 2 I had a fair amount of green, blue, and black and needed to make a decision on what the deck would end up looking like. I was willing to jump to just about any reasonable color combination (probably B/x) if I opened a strong rare, as I didn't just much in the way of signals in the first draft. The rare was unfortunately Step Between Worlds, so I picked up Honest Rutstein and tried to solidify as a GB deck. My second pick was a Outcaster Greenblade, which along with two Desert's Dues also made me look for more deserts. I knew I needed to get large targets for Rutstein, and ended up picking up a Cactarantula and a Rictus Robber and little else.
In Pack 3, I first picked Hollow Marauder over Legion Extruder and a Blooming Marsh and picked up a Spinewoods Armadillo relatively late.
I decided to not play the second Throw From the Saddle due to the deck's creature count, which at 12 is definitely not at all where you want to be in GB. In hindsight, it should have been in over at least the Rise of the Varmints, which is near unplayable card without heavy synergy and particularly in this exact low style of low-creature deck (like a board pump at the least). I kept Thrash the Town and Snakeskin Veil in, but they suffer from the same problem.
Unfortunately, aside from an inexplicable P3P6 Spinewood Armadillo, I had few chance to pick up decent creatures in the latter packs, which I knew might be a weakness with the number of playables I had and the need to balance that with a least a few deserts.
The games:
Game 1 I had by far my best showing. The crucial decision came when I had a Bristlepack Sentry in play and a tapped Rattleback Apothecary, holding up a Desert's Due. My opponent had a 2-drop and a Gila Courser in BR. I made the call that it was unlikely that they would have an answer to Desert's Due in those colors)(thinking that the marginal chance of getting lifelink on the Bristlepack Sentry was worth the risk), and was blown out by Return the Favor after passing in what turned out to be a 7 for 1. Their Gila Courser lived, my two creatures died, and they hit a Thunder Salvo when I had a Voracious Varmint and Honest Rutstein in hand and no mana to even play a second card.
They ended up getting 2 At Knifepoints off the Courser before I finally found another removal spell and kept a creature on the board. I may have still lost to that synergy if I hadn't gambled on the extremely marginal chance that my opponent would lose their Gila Courser and still swing in with something, but at least I played a 2-drop and a 3-drop and the issue was a gameplay mistake.
Game 2, I had a 1 land hand with my top-end and mulliganed into a hand with no creatures but a Lush Oasis, Swamp, and Forest. My opponent simply curved out and I couldn't do much, being stuck at 3 lands for most of the game. The final turns consisted my GW opponent swinging with a Stagecoach Security into Rictus Robber plus token (they had Mystic Tether). Next, I had a Hollow Marauder (tapped, attacking to try to close the game out) and and 2 Bristlepack Sentries. The opponent used Throw From the Saddle to force a chump block by clearing out one of the Bristlepack Sentries, and also had a Sterling Supplier. I left myself down a card to a removal spell, but figured I needed to play risky given the mulligan and the opponent being low on cards.
Game 3, I had to make the choice whether or not to mulligan with 2 Swamps, Desert's Due, Badlands Revival, 2 Bristlepack Sentries, and Dance of the Tumbleweeds. I decided that I would do better keeping, and was paid off with a forest turn 1.
My opponent went Geyser Drake into Loan Shark plot + Geyser Drake, and stopped Desert's Due with a Phantom Interference. I kept hitting lands, so I decided it was best to keep Dance of the Tumbleweeds till I could make a creature and enable the Bristlepacks, which kept a Loan Shark from attacking but couldn't get in themselves.
Overall, I think there is an argument that I shouldn't have splashed, but I figured the deck needed late game card draw to close things out. The real weakness was that a turn 2 decision between Desert's Due on a 2/2 or a Bristlepack Sentry is just an extremely weak start to the game, and the deck was too creature and mill light with poor synergy.
My opinion of the format as it stands now is that it is relatively more color-balanced than last month, but both the bonus sheets and play boosters have made it an extremely high variance set. At the top-end, drafts will differ significantly depending on the number of rares they open or get passed. This draft had absolutely zero opportunities to play a strong rare, so it had to get there on synergy and failed. This is something I haven't liked. The drafts prior to this both had exceptional BW removal, but one had 3 Hollow Marauders and 2 Mourner's Surprise and coasted on that synergy while the latter only had one and didn't get enough going. I really didn't ever think you could just play high-value cards in an open color pair and get across the finish line; you needed to be doing something to go over the top.
Play boosters also play into this, and I find the combination of play boosters and 2 bonus sheets distasteful. The missing commons and the high number of 'bad cards' meant that for the first time in a while, I was sometimes struggling to hit playables. It did mean that no color could be forced, but it also meant that you couldn't easily salvage a draft by forcing a deep archetype.
Finally, I found that I have never had a format where I struggled with mana as much as this one. The high top-end and low depth meant that risky splashing was often something worth doing, but more than that the format didn't have any mechanic that helped substantially reduce non-games. That meant a larger than normal (for modern limited at least) number of games with hard mulligan decisions and losses from how your lands where shuffled into the deck. Of course, the format's tendency to go long also meant that it was much more likely to get into top-deck wars where hitting three or four lands is just something that happens.
At first, I liked the shenanigans you could get up to in the format (my first draft went the distance with Archive Trap). But as time went on, the combination of the set's high-variance nature and the Arena economy simply made it too stressful for me to play. The high of going 7-0 with a deck with multiple crazy bombs is just not equal to the low of going 0-3, especially when the economy says a 7-0 (+750) is worth half of what a 0-3 is (-1450).
I'm sure if I had infinite money or time, I could raise my win percentage back up to where I was when I last hit mythic. But I'm not going to spend $200 putting enough gems on my account that I won't care about a bad draft or two in a row, and I honestly was having a miserable time by my last few drafts.
Going forward, I wouldn't be surprised if my issues with this set persist. though really my biggest issue is with Arena's economy. I just don't like the high cost and poor EV of drafts in a ranked format, especially when the cards you get cannot be traded or redeemed for cash. My stress would almost instantly go away and I'd appreciate formats more if I could just pay either a marginal cost per draft or a single-lump sum to phantom draft a format. I think sets will keep being high variance, with few mechanics to prevent non-games, and almost the exact same cast of commons from set to set thanks to the new design skeleton and reduction of the number of commons.

When I was ten, I formed a junior detective squad.
Mom bought me the entire box set of What's New Scooby Doo, and I was inspired to start my very own detective gang. I held auditions outside the gymnasium at recess (serious enquiries only) after a number of kids tried to apply for the role of Scooby Doo despite me reiterating I was not interested in playing make believe.
When I was laughed at in class, I made posters strictly asking for SERIOUS wannabe detectives, even going as far as using my Mom’s printer to make flyers, sticking them all over the school.
Auditions were simple. I asked them to solve a simple riddle.
Whoever impressed me got to sign their name down, and I’d get back to them.
I spent three days sifting through kids who definitely had charm, but they lacked the intelligence of a junior detective. Most kids were only auditioning to make fun of me, anyway.
Still, though, I didn't give up.
My flyers had five requirements:
1). You had to be smart.
2). You were not allowed to be a scaredy cat.
3). You had to accept your inevitable death at the hands of our town’s evil villains.
4). You had to have a fully registered driving licence (I quickly changed this to a bike).
5). You cannot have a criminal record.
(I later scribbled this one out, writing over it. *“You cannot have any tardies.”
Narrowing the applicants down to three kids, all of whom failed to share my enthusiasm for solving cases. The kids I picked didn't even know how to make plans, and when I invited them to my house, they stole my Mom’s necklace.
I didn't even need to solve the mystery of who stole Mom’s necklace. The girl was wearing it at school. I punched her in the face, and was immediately sent to the principal’s office. When I was being given the mother all lectures, the door quietly opened, a head peeking through.
It was Ben Callows, a freckly kid with overgrown brown hair hanging in his eyes. Ben really needed a haircut.
He was always wearing the exact same baseball cap, and I found myself wondering if it was permanently glued to his head, stuck on top of unruly brown curls practically matted to his forehead.
In class, Ben was also known as Bloody Ben. In the second grade, the boy had a nosebleed in the middle of a spelling test, bleeding all over his paper.
It's not like he didn't try and detach himself from the name.
Ben brought in Digimon cards, so kids would call him Digimon Ben instead.
Then he “accidentally” spilled yoghurt down his shirt in hopes we would call him Yoghurt Ben. But no. The kids in our class were relentless in reminding him of his name. No matter what he did, he was still Bloody Ben, and when anything related to blood came up in class, fifteen pairs of eyes would swivel to him, like he had invented the concept of bleeding.
I feared the nickname would follow him to junior high.
Ben didn't wait to be let in. He didn't even knock, striding in with his arms folded. Over the years, Bloody Ben, had definitely soured his personality.
He smiled rarely, and when he did smile, someone was falling over or hurting themselves.
Which definitely strengthened the claims of him being a sociopath.
The rumor mill was churning, with the latest claiming Bloody Ben killed his cat. That wasn't true. Ben’s cat was seventeen with cancer, and that was why he was sobbing all the way through reading time.
According to Ellie Daly, however, Ben had killed and dissected his kitty, and buried her in his Mom’s flowers.
Now, my principal did not like being interrupted, especially when she was in the middle of screaming at me.
Principal Marrow was old old (like, thirty, in my ten year old mind) stick thin like a pencil, and always wore the same stained sweater.
She used to be pretty, but I was convinced she had kissed a frog and been cursed. After our old principal suffered a stroke, she stepped in as a temporary replacement, and since becoming principal, had banned my favorite book series, colored shoe laces, and hamburger helper, even officiating a uniform.
(vomit green shorts and a tee, and plain white sneakers).
Kids were convinced she was a witch, and I kind of believed it.
Principal Marrow’s whole existence was built on sucking the fun out of school.
I was already reprimanded for my mystery gang flyers.
Her office smelled of peppermint and she was definitely sneaking sips of whisky in her coffee cup. I could see the bottle sticking out of the trash.
She straightened up, folding her arms across her chest, squinty eyes narrowing at the boy. I had spent the whole time she was lecturing me trying not to cry, my fists bunched in my lap.
I took the distraction as the perfect opportunity to swipe at my eyes, allowing myself to breathe.
Ben Callows was her victim now.
I was right. The woman's voice was like a thunderclap in my ears.
“You better have a good reason for not knocking, young man.”
Ben wasn't fazed by her tone. “You took my Switch two weeks ago,” he said, “I want it back, or I’m telling my Mom.”
At first, I thought I'd misheard him.
No, I was pretty sure he'd threatened our principal.
I swore I heard all of the breath sucked from the room.
“I'm sorry,” Principal Marrow cleared her throat. Her soft tone was dangerous.
She wasn't being nice. The lady was about to explode.
I could see visible veins straining in her temples, her right eye twitching.
It was straight out of a cartoon.
“Did you forget something, Ben?”
Ben sighed, like she was inconveniencing him.
He held out his hand. “Please can I have my Switch back? It counts as stolen property. Give it back, or I'm telling my Mom.”
The kid put so much emphasis on the word please, I couldn't resist a smile.
I think our principal was too shocked to get angry.
“Get out.” She said, firmly. “I don't have your gaming device.”
“It's in your drawer.” Ben nodded to her desk, “Under your divorce papers and the restraining order ordered by Jake Willow, the seventeen year old boy you've been having math ‘tutoring sessions’ with.” He quoted the air, his gaze lazily rolling to me. “Tutoring”
Principal Marrow went deathly pale, her eyes darkening.
“Benjamin Callows–”
“The school already knows about the restraining order, but your uncle is the head of the Board of Education, so all you get is a slap on the wrist and a warning to leave the boy alone."
Ben continued, and I found myself mesmerised by his words. He was a natural, his expression stoic, mouth curved with satisfaction that wasn't quite a smile. “However.” He held up his phone, pulling it away at the exact moment the teacher attempted to grab it. “You were outside Jake Willow’s house at 6:12am, drunk, and trying to climb through his window, which, I think violates the restraining order, does it not?”
Ben pretended to think real hard, his gaze flicking to the ceiling.
“I mean, I'm just a kid, right?” His mouth curled into the hint of a smirk
“What do I know, huh?”
Principal Marrow’s expression twisted, her lip wobbling.
“Mr Callows, remove yourself from my office, or I am calling your father.”
Leaning comfortably against the door, Ben’s lip twitched.
“Why? Are you planning on telling my Dad about your relations with a teenage boy, or will I have to tell him instead?”
I was enthralled, and fully disgusted, making a move to inch away from the woman.
“But it doesn't end there.” Ben continued. He straightened up, taking slow, intimidating steps towards the woman's desk. “You don't even want Jake, do you? Because, once upon a time, you were in love with his father. Jason Willow. You despised him for rejecting you, so you decided to defile his son.” Ben leaned over the principal’s desk, slipping his hand into the drawer, and pulling out his switch.
Painfully slowly.
She stood there, speechless, her shoulders trembling.
Ben smiled, and I found myself liking it.
“Thank you!” He said, waving the console in her face. Ben mimed locking his mouth and throwing away the key.
“My lips are sealed.”
Ben’s half lidded eyes found mine. “Are ya coming, Panda?”
I forgot my own nickname.
Panda.
I wore my Mom’s eyeliner because I thought it looked cool.
It did not.
Finding my breath, I snapped out of it.
Jumping up, I followed him out of the office, and when the two of us were safely on the hallway, I burst into hysterical giggles. “How did you know all of that?!” I whisper- shrieked.
Ben surprised me with a splutter. “Wait. You believed me?”
Something very cold trickled down my spine.
I stopped walking. “You lied?”
He shrugged. “I had a dig around her office before she caught me a few days ago,” Ben swung his arms, a smile curling on his mouth. “There's no restraining order, but there is prescription anti-psychosis medicine, and an extremely detailed story on her laptop about a teachestudent romance, which I presume is a self insert.”
Ben shot me a sickly grin. “The school refused to make her condition public.”
He prodded at his own cotton shirt embroidered with the school emblem.
“Why do you think she's made all these dumb rules? The woman is a certified Looney Tune.”
I nodded slowly. “Wait. What about Jake and his dad?”
“I made them up.”
I choked out a laugh. “And… the video?”
Ben walked faster, pulling out his phone and shoving it in my face. The video was real. Principal Marrow was walking around in circles, draped in her nightgown. “It's her own house,” he explained. “She locked herself out.”
Nodding slowly, I was in awe. Bloody Ben was kind of fucking amazing.
“But the restraining order isn't real.”
Ben raised a brow, coming to an abrupt halt. It was his smile that cemented his place in my gang. His lack of empathy for a woman he had gaslit into being a disgusting human being. Ben Callows wasn't exactly what I was looking for, but he fascinated me. Maybe for the wrong reasons. “Her filing cabinets are filled with tinned cat food, Panda,” he said with an exaggerated sigh, “I’m not psychic, but I thiiiiink we’ll be okay.”
I turned to him, unable to stop myself jumping up and down with excitement.
“Will you be my first?!”
Ben inclined his head. “Will I be your what?”
I shook my head. “Sorry. I mean, will you join my mystery gang?”
The boy’s eyes lit up, and I shoved him playfully.
“To solve real cases,” I corrected myself. “Not make them up.”
Ben wore a real, proper smile. But there was something in his eyes, a darkness that was so hollow and polluted and wrong, I pretended not to see it for the sake of his smarts and intellect. “Well, if you insist, sure!” Ben held out his hand, and I shook it. I'll be your first.”
We found our second member, who was, ironically, looking for her glasses under the table in class. Lucy Prescott, the quiet girl, was born to be with us.
The class eraser went missing, and she found it in the blink of an eye.
When questioned, Lucy’s face turned as red as her hair. “I asked everyone in the class and followed the clues to the last person who had it,” she pointed to Chase Simpson. “Which was Chase, who was throwing it at Marcus Calvin.”
Twisting around in my chair, I aimed to get Ben’s attention. But he was already looking at me, chin resting on his fist, eyes ignited with excitement.
The two of us cornered Lucy after class, and when she motioned for us to get back, I dragged Ben (who was a little too excited) to my side.
Lucy looked mildly horrified when I said, dangerous cases, though her expression pricked with intrigue.
She agreed, her gaze lingering on Ben, cheeks smouldering.
Our last two members were a surprise.
Violet Evergreen was what you would call popular on the middle school hierarchy. Not just because her mother was the mayor, but because Violet could get away with murder. The girl refused to wear the school uniform, coloring a single purple streak in her hair to cement herself as the it girl.
She was also one of the girls who started the Bloody Ben rumor.
Ben, Lucy, and I were sitting on the grass during recess, trying to come up with a name for our detective service, when Violet came storming over, hands planted on her hips. She was copying how her mother held herself during town meetings.
“What are you doing?” Violet demanded.
Lucy opened her mouth to answer, Ben nudging her to shut up.
“Making a mystery gang.” I told her. “Why?”
Violet inclined her head. “Oh.” She folded her arms. “Well, can I join?”
Ben stood up, stepping in front of the girl. Violet didn't move, stubbornly standing her ground. “Sure.” Ben flashed a grin that didn't quite reach his eyes. He stepped closer to her, his smile widening. “If you can pass the test.”
Violet’s lip curled. She took a single step back. “What kind of test?”
Ben nodded to me. “Meet us at the swimming pool at 8pm.”
To my surprise, Violet nodded. “Do I need to bring anything?”
“Nope!”
8pm. The four of us met outside the local swimming pool.
Violet was already on the other side of the fence, waving.
“Hey guys!”
I noticed Ben’s expression, his eyes darkening, lip curling.
Still though, he maintained positivity, vaulting over the fence.
“You made it!”
I followed him, helping Lucy, who was immediately freaking out. I didn't blame her. The pool looked cold and dark, a hollow oblivion carved into the ground.
Ben and Violet stood on the edge, the two of them shoulder to shoulder.
Violet Evergreen was braver than I thought.
Standing with her arms at her sides, Violet's hands clenched into fists.
“What's the test?” Violet said, her gaze glued to bleeding black depths.
“I don't know,” Ben murmured, his voice teetering on a giggle. He leaned forwards, arms spread out. “I didn't think you'd actually come meet us.”
Violet hummed, stretching out her leg, teasing it across the surface. “Was that the test?”
The boy leaned back. I caught the glint of a grin under the floodlights. “Nah.”
Before I knew what was happening, he shoved Violet into the pool. The girl didn't scream or shriek, she just hit the surface, sinking into pitch dark nothing.
“Sink or swim,” Ben said in a low murmur, when Violet’s head bobbed under water. I could see her shadow under the surface, imagining the freezing cold depths pulling her down.
“Drown, and you can't join us.”
It was so quiet, suddenly. The three of us staring into rippling water.
A minute passed, and my tummy started to twist.
“Fuck.” Ben’s expression stayed stoic. I wasn't expecting him to say a bad word.
He cocked his head. “I thought she could swim.”
I hit him, holding in a cry. “You need to get our parents!”
But he didn't listen to me, taking a single step, and dropping into the pool.
I fell to my knees, scanning the water.
Lucy was crying. “Are they dead?!” she shrieked.
“Shhh!” I was watching two shadows lingering under the water.
Violet broke through. I expected her to be crying, but her expression was unwavering. She was silent. I thought the splashing underneath her was her legs trying and struggling to tread water, before Lucy shoved me. Hard.
“Panda! What do we do?!”
Looking closer, Violet was perfectly still, her gaze on the sky.
While she shoved Ben under the water, drowning him.
Violet’s eyes sparkled, and somehow, I knew she belonged in my gang.
Her gaze found mine, glinting with that darkness, that poisonous streak I found myself drawn to. It was a starving, insatiable need to understand a fractured mind. Know your enemy.
“Do you want to see if Ben’s a witch?” Violet asked me, her tone something else entirely. This girl did not make sense, using barely her finger to drown Ben Callows. I knew she was wrong.
I knew there was something loose, something unlocked and unbridled and drowning inside her mind and heart.
But I wanted more of her. I wanted Violet Evergreen in my detective gang.
I think that is why I stood there, frozen.
When the thrashing stopped, Ben broke through.
He wasn't coughing or spluttering, his head inclined. “You didn't drown.”
Violet climbed out of the pool, offering her hand. “And you're not a witch.”
He declined her hand, taking the steps instead.
I asked Violet in a shaky voice. I was trembling with terror, but I was excited.
Exhilarated.
“Violet, will you join my gang?”
She didn't answer me until we were sharing hot cocoa in my house.
I told Mom we fell in the pool, and she believed me. I should have told her that my friends were sociopaths, and I was kind of maybe in love. Violet sipped her cocoa, nodding with a smile I didn't recognise. Violet never smiled at school.
Well, she did. But it was always the prick of a cruel smirk.
I don't think her smile was genuine, but she was definitely enjoying herself.
Our last member came to us, instead of finding him.
Jules Howell, a straggly brunette pushed his way in front of me in the lunch line. I didn't really know the kid.
He sat at the back of the classroom and slept through most of class. I did like his accent though.
Jules had moved from Melbourne in the second grade. He didn't talk much.
When he did, I found myself enveloped in his voice, which sounded like water to me, a bleeding cadence to his tone.
Jules piled his plate with fries, smiling widely at the lunch ladies.
“I saw you last night.” He murmured through that perfectly moulded grin.
“Saw me where?”
“At the pool,” Jules said. “You, Bloody Ben, Violet Evergreen, and that Lucy girl. You were doing a suiciding pact.”
“That's not what we were doing.” I said, “What's a suiciding pact?”
“When you kill yourself together.” Jules said. “I saw it in a scary movie my Mom was watching.”
I grabbed a fork. “We weren't doing that.”
His eyes were strange when I took the time to notice them. The excited gleam had fizzled out. Jules’s hands tightened around his tray. “Then what were you doing?”
I didn't reply, making my way over to our usual table. Ben was already waving me over, Violet and Lucy holding up the flyers we were making.
THE REDBLOOD DETECTIVES.”
Do YOU need our help? We can find/solve anything! Contact us on the number below. (We take donations!)
When I bothered turning around, Jules was lost in the crowd of kids.
We were on our first official case, searching for Mrs Lake’s missing mail, when Jules appeared seemingly out of nowhere. And with him, a golden retriever puppy he introduced as Arlo.
It took a dog jumping up at them for Violet and Ben to find their real smiles, their real selves slowly seeping through these facades they had built around themselves. Ben dropped to a crouch, ruffling the dog's ears, his smile faint.
“Who's a good boy?” He chuckled.
Arlo didn't move, tail wagging, eyes bright.
Ben motioned the dog towards him, but Arlo stayed put.
Jules joined us…quietly.
I don't remember asking him, or even him asking me.
He just became part of us, side by side with Arlo.
We soon came to quickly realize that our town was boring.
There were no monsters or thieves, or soul sucking demons. No criminals or serial killers. Not even one missing person. We did, however, get calls about missing cats. I turned eleven years old, patiently waiting for a murder or a kid going missing. But there was nothing.
All we did was chase cats, and the occasional dog. Maybe a budgie if we were lucky. Twelve years old, our detective club became a joke.
The five of us (and Arlo hiding under the table) were trying to pinpoint Mrs Tracy's lost hamster, when three girls came over, dumping their soda all over us.
We watched crime shows for inspiration on catching killers.
Ben’s favorite crime was one that happened in the 80’s in our town.
2 girls murdered.
Their intestines stuffed into envelopes and mailed to family members.
“That's what we should be solving,” he told me one night, “Not missing cats.”
Thirteen years old, we lay in Violet’s backyard under the cruel glare of the summer sun. We called it working and didn't like to admit it was hanging out, or that we were even friends. However.
That didn't stop us growing closer.
Even if it wasn't quite the way I’d expected.
I proposed a plan, standing up, wobbling a little off balance.
“I've got it.” I said, my voice kinda slurry from Violet’s special summer cocktail, which was just random alcoholic beverages we found, thrown into a blender, and diluted with water.
The town wasn't taking us seriously.
So, we were going to make our own mysteries.
I ordered a full-scale assault on our small town. One that they could not ignore. Ben stamped on Mrs Mason’s flowers, and Lucy threw mud pies at people's cars. Jules trashed the high school gym, and Violet and I spray painted threats and warnings on every store window. Now, this did cause panic, but also an official curfew.
Thirty minutes before curfew, we met in our usual spot, deep in the forest near the lake. Ben yelled at me when I was three minutes late. He was real passionate about finding a real mystery.
“You're late.” Ben was sitting on a rock waving a stick in Arlo’s face.
The dog still wasn't going near him, whining softly.
I took my place, muttering an apology. “I had to lie to my Mom.”
Violet, sitting with her legs crossed, idly digging her manicure into the dirt, suggested we buy mannequins and masquerade them as dead bodies, hanging them from the school rafters.
Lucy, who had slowly grown out of her shell, becoming a lot more outspoken, nudged her. “That's a stupid idea.”
The girl groaned, leaning into her. “Urgh. You're right.”
Jules was the only energetic one, standing on the tireswing.
He jumped down, definitely twisting his ankle.
But his smile only widened, kind of like he enjoyed being in pain.
“Why don't we pretend to be kidnapped?” He said, pulling the hood of his sweatshirt over blondish curls growing out. Jules did a dramatic spin, his eyes shining. “We can ‘go missing’ for like a week, and then when our parents are really scared, we can turn up, and tell them we escaped a kidnapping.” His lips split into a grin.
“And then we solve our own kidnapping!”
Ben awkwardly patted Arlos head, only for the dog to pull away with a snort.
“I like it,” he murmured. “I'm in.”
Jules’s idea was stupid.
But.
It was worth a shot.
The five of us agreed to meet the morning after with enough food and supplies for a week. Then we were going to hike to the next town, and hide out for a week. It was an almost perfect plan, using ourselves as victims of our own mystery.
Packing as much as I could, I kissed my mother goodbye (I told her my pack was for a picnic) and set off to the rendezvous we agreed on.
When I arrived, I was the first one there. I checked and re-checked my pack.
I waited ten minutes, unable to contain my excitement.
Then 20 minutes.
It was getting kind of cold.
One hour.
I sat on a rock for enough time to watch the sky change color.
When the clouds were orange, I stood up and stumbled back home. They had gone without me. Mom lectured me when I got home, and I stuck to the plan of pretending my friends had gone missing, even if I they had betrayed me.
Ben said he'd text me when he arrived at the redervous. I at least expected him to text an explanation, but there was nothing. I was in the dark, and after three days of nothing, our town finally began to take us seriously.
“Our children have been kidnapped!” The adults were screaming.
Mom was crying in the kitchen, praying to a god I knew she didn't believe in that I wasn't taken next. I was interviewed and stuck with the exact same story I came up with when I was with the others. Our plan was to return after a week, claiming to be locked up in a dark room with a masked man.
I told my Mother and the other parents that I didn't know where my friends were, repeating the same thing over and over again until I was tongue tied.
“I saw them the day before they went missing, and… yes, everything seemed okay.” I slowly sipped my glass of milk provided, looking the sheriff directly in the eyes.
“No, I didn't notice anything suspicious, sheriff. Yes, I'm sure, sir. No, they didn't tell me anything.”
It was Ben’s mother who shattered my mask.
“Did I know about… what?” I whispered.
Something warm filled the back of my mouth, foul tasting milk erupting up my throat. I leaned forward, trying to look Mrs Callows in the eye. “No, I… I didn't know about Ben’s…condition.”
Mrs Callows was screaming at me about her son’s troubled past when I barfed all over myself, my eyes burning.
In the privacy of my own room, I sobbed until I couldn't breathe.
I tried to tell Mom, but we had come so close.
One more day, and the others would be back.
But that day came. I sat cross legged at our usual spot, which was now covered in police tape. I waited for their thudding footsteps, their laughter congratulating each other for coming up with a great plan. I waited, my face buried in my knees, for my friends.
It was dark when my phone vibrated, and I'd fallen asleep.
I wasn't scared, forcing myself to my feet.
“Where are you?” Mom yelled down the phone.
“Coming home now.” I muttered.
“Sorry.” I paused, holding my breath against a cry. “Mom.” I broke down, forcing my fist into my mouth to hide my squeak. “Mommy, did they come back?”
Mom didn't reply for a moment.
“I'm so sorry, baby.” She whispered, ending the call.
I took my time walking home that night.
There were no stars in the sky.
When a hand clamped over my mouth, I could smell him.
When he dragged me back, stabbing a kitchen knife into my throat, I stared at the sky and looked for stars. His arms were warm around me, violently pulling me into the back of a pickup truck. The pickup truck he'd said he was bringing.
It was his grandfather's, and he could just about drive it.
Hitting the backseat, my body was numb, my thoughts in a whirlwind.
The pickup flew forwards, and I remembered how to move.
I rolled off the seat, my hands pinned behind my back.
Twisting around, blinking in the dim, I could feel something warm, something seeping across upholstery seats. Blood.
It was everywhere, sticky on my hands and wet on my face when I struggled to get up. I was lying in someone's blood.
A scream clawed its way out of my throat.
The pickup flew over a pothole, and something dropped off the seat.
Arlo’s leash.
I screamed again, this time his name gritted between my teeth.
I didn't stop screaming until the jerking movement stopped. The doors opened, pale light hitting me in the face.
Flashlight. Warm arms wrapped around me, pulling me from the car, and then, pulling me by my hair, into our old tree house. It was always our secret place, our saving grace on the edge of town.
The flickering candlelight caught me off guard, illuminating my surroundings.
Two bodies slumped over each other, lying in stemming red.
I felt suffocated, like I was going to die. I screamed, and that warm hand cradled my mouth again, gagging my cries.
Violet and Jules.
There was something wrong with them. And it was only when I forced myself to look closer, when I realized their insides had been carved out, heart, stomach, everything, pulled out.
There was paper on the floor.
No, not paper. Envelopes.
Envelopes stuffed with gore, bright red leaking through white.
Shuffling back, my brain was too slow to react, while my body was trying to vault to my feet, only to be violently pulled back by my ponytail.
I felt his fingers twining around my hair, revelling in my screams.
With another tug, my head was forced forwards.
Orange candlelight felt almost homely, this time lighting up a third body.
Lying on their back, curled up, pooling scarlet dried into the floorboards, their wrists restricted with duct-tape.
I could feel blood underneath me, sticky, a congealing paste.
“Do you know what happened on October 3rd, 1987, in our town?”
Lucy Prescott stood over me, her arms folded across her chest.
I managed to shake my head, when she grabbed Ben’s legs, dragging him under the candlelight. I dazedly watched her stroke the blade of a carving knife, the teeth already stained scarlet. “The intestine murders.” Lucy hummed, tracing the knife down the floorboards.
“A man murdered two high school girls, carving out their insides and sending their pieces to their loved ones.”
Lucy's eyes found mine, ignited in a familiar gleam. I saw it in Principal Marrow’s office. Then the swimming pool. The cafeteria. “It was the sheriff's only murder case, Panda. Ever since then, our town has been boring. There's no mysteries to solve. Nothing to find.”
The girl jumped to her feet, retrieving a blood stained envelope.
She held it up, a smile curved on her lips. The girl turned around, and I heard a horrific squelching sound. Lucy held up a bright red sausage, ripped into it, and slipped it into the white paper.
“But I can change that.” she said, in a giggle.
“I can create a real serial killer, who we can hunt down together.”
Lucy stabbed the blade into the floor, laughing.
“Or! I can bring a fan-favorite back! I can bring the intestine killer back from the dead!”
Her gaze flicked to the others. “There are casualties, of course. The story is, I was kidnapped with Ben, Violet, and Jules. The scary intestine killer killed them, and I managed to get away.”
Lucy shuffled over to me, her eyes wide. “Then! He came back and struck again!”
With those words, she shoved me onto my back.
“First he took Violet,” Lucy hummed, tracing the blade down my shirt.
“Then… Jules.” I squeezed my eyes shut, pulling at the restraints around my wrists. “Then Ben.” her breath tickled my cheek. “And finally… Panda.”
Lucy lifted the knife, and I accepted my death.
Until a low rumble in my ears.
Shouting.
Thundering footsteps, followed by the pitter-patter of paws.
“Lucy!” The sheriff was screaming, and the girl stumbled to her feet, the knife slipping from her fingers. Lucy stumbled, tripping over Ben’s body.
“He got away!” she shrieked. “He…he killed them! Oh, god, please help me!”
I don't think Lucy even realised the traces she'd left behind.
The blood slick on her fingers, her manic, grinning smile full of mania.
I was looking for stars when an officer crouched over me.
I couldn't understand what she was saying.
Her voice was white noise.
“Rachel? Hey, try and sit up, honey. You Mom is on her way.”
Instead of listening to her, I curled into myself.
My gaze found Arlo sticking his nose in Ben’s hair, trying to nudge the boy awake.
I didn't fully register the next few days.
They went by in a confusing blur.
Part of me tried to eat, and spent hours with my head pressed against the toilet seat.
I could still see the slithering, scarlet remains of my friends every time I closed my eyes. There was so much red, soaked in that hunting orange light.
Blood that I could still see, a starless sky that stretched on forever.
Weeks went by.
Then months.
I think I turned 14. I wasn't sure. I didn't feel alive anymore.
I stood at my friend’s funerals with a single rose I dropped into their casket.
Violet’s mother was quick to cover the whole thing up.
Lucy's plan didn't work after all.
Our town’s murder cases stayed stagnant at one.
It's been four years since my friends were murdered by our ’Velma’.
Now, at seventeen, Mom asked if I wanted to visit Lucy in juvie.
I'm not even upset or angry anymore.
I want to know why.
Ben picked me up. Arlo was at his side, wagging his tail.
Ben was…different. He'd dumped his baseball cap and gotten a haircut, swapping his old wardrobe of drab colors for an attempt at changing style.
That day, he looked awkward in a short sleeved tee and shorts.
At school, Ben is no longer Bloody Ben.
Now, he is Survivor Ben.
I’m still Panda.
Every time I was with him, I felt like my soul was being sucked out.
Guilt so deep, so fucking painful, I lost my breath.
I live knowing that I immediately assumed it was him that day.
Ben was barely alive when I found him. Lucy had started to carve into him before remembering she needed me.
After admitting it to him, his lips formed a small smile.
“Can I tell you a secret?” He said to me, at sixteen.
"Yeah?"
Whatever he was going to say, Ben never told me.
Presently, I nodded at the dog’s new collar.
“Peppa Pig themed?”
The boy shrugged, ruffling Arlo’s ears. “FYI, he chose it.”
“It's cute.” I said. “Very… chic.”
We didn't speak the whole ride, but Ben did entangle his hand in mine.
We spent half an hour outside the detention centre. I was panicking, and Ben was trying to hide that he was panicking. In the end, we joined hands, and strode through the doors together.
Lucy greeted us with a wide smile. Just as psychotic.
The orange jumpsuit suited her, though I had zero idea why.
“Hey Arlo!” she giggled at the dog, and Ben pulled the pup onto his lap.
“Ben.” She sighed. “I wish I got to finish you. I would have loved to solve the mystery of your gutted corpse.”
Ben’s smile was wry. “Nice to see you too.”
Behind a glass screen, I asked Lucy one simple question.
“Why?”
Lucy didn't reply. Or she did, but it was just nonsensical bullshit.
But there was one thing she said has stuck with me, chilling me to the core.
I am fucking terrified of Lucy. Of what's she's done, and what she's capable of doing.
It was a throwaway line, and I don't even think Ben noticed.
Or he did, and was in denial.
Lucy's smile was wide, her eyes empty pools of nothing.
The exact same glint in Ben’s eyes.
Jules’s eyes.
Violet’s eyes.
Like something was gnawing away at their psyche, twisting and contorting it, filling them with darkness, poison, that was so vast, so endless, I had craved it as a child. I still don't know what it is.
But I'm going to find it.
Lucy's laugh was shrill, and next to me, Ben didn't move a muscle.
“I don't even wear glasses!”

Article text due to paywall:

World’s Biggest Construction Project Gets a Reality Check

Saudi Arabia’s plans for twin 105-mile-long skyscrapers have lost momentum amid spiraling costs and construction glitches

*By Elliott Brown and Rory Jones
The engineers saw a mountain-sized problem.
For weeks, thousands of trucks and diggers had worked 24 hours every day, scooping millions of cubic feet of sand at the world’s biggest construction project known as Neom in Saudi Arabia. But the workers had dumped the massive pile of dirt—now hundreds of feet wide—in the very spot where architects planned to dig a waterway out to the Red Sea.
So, the trucks and diggers went back to work, picking it all back up and making a new mountain of sand nearby in a costly hiccup that epitomizes the Saudi project’s turbulent journey from an audacious concept to a sprawling operation that has faltered in its execution.
Defying skeptics, Saudi Arabia is barreling ahead with hundreds of billions of dollars in projects at Neom, a built-from-scratch region the size of Massachusetts, typified by sci-fi architecture, an arid ski resort and a laundry list of flashy projects meant to attract a population larger than New York City’s.
None is more brazen than a multitrillion-dollar pair of skyscrapers taller than the Empire State Building designed to run 105 miles long and house nine million people, the flagship development dubbed “The Line.” Its champion, Saudi Crown Prince and de facto ruler Mohammed bin Salman, has likened the project to Egypt’s Great Pyramids.
The kingdom in recent months downsized the Line’s first phase, facing the reality of costs at a time the country is spending far more than it is taking in. Now organizers plan to initially build around 1.5 miles of the structure by 2030, rather than the roughly 10-mile first chunk that had previously been envisioned, multiple people briefed on the plans said. Still, even that truncated section would be by far the world’s largest building, the equivalent of more than 60 Empire State Buildings of square footage.
Asked in a CNBC interview last month about a Bloomberg report on the scaled-back first phase, Saudi Minister of Economy and Planning Faisal Al Ibrahim signaled the long-term ambitions for the Line remain the same.
“There is no change in scale—it is a long-term project that is modular in design,” he said, adding that “today, the economy in the kingdom is growing faster, but we don’t want to overheat it.”
The stakes for Saudi Arabia are as outsized as Mohammed’s ambition. Neom is the ultimate symbol of his plans to transform the kingdom’s economy, reduce its dependence on oil revenue, and make it a magnet for money and talent from around the world. But he risks squandering much of the country’s cash on an unprecedented experiment in city building that could prove too difficult to deliver.
“Mohammed bin Salman is gambling here,” said Madawi al-Rasheed, a visiting fellow at the London School of Economics and a member of a group calling for democratic reform in Saudi Arabia, an absolute monarchy.
“Spending so much money should in theory generate a tangible leap in the Saudi economy,” she said, but much of the cash so far was spent on foreign consultants and architects.
A mountain of challenges lies ahead. More than 100,000 additional construction workers must be housed in a barren corner of the kingdom’s vast desert, two hour’s drive from any sizable city. Neom’s needs for steel, exterior glass and other materials are so massive they may push up global prices and be difficult to source. Planners worry the unique central concept of the Line, a vertical city housed in twin skyscrapers the length of Delaware, could prove to be an unappealing place to live.
At the same time, the scaled-back plans for the Line put a spotlight on Neom’s enormous bill for what is now poised to be a midsize city. Neom executives now expect fewer than 200,000 residents in the project’s first phase—the population of Knoxville, Tenn.—a current and former employee familiar with the plans said. Yet Neom is spending on vast infrastructure intended for millions of people, including a giant airport, a high-speed train running through a 20-mile mountain tunnel, massive desalination plants and large civic features in the Line such as an opera house, the former executive said.
The price tag keeps rising. The projected cost of a ski resort in the region’s arid mountains has more than doubled over two years to $38 billion as of October, according to Neom documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. Real estate advisory Knight Frank estimates more than $237 billion of construction contracts have already been commissioned at Neom.
Even for one of the world’s largest exporters of crude oil, Neom might just be too expensive. Its official cost estimate is $500 billion, 50% more than the country’s entire federal budget for the year and more than half the value of its sovereign-wealth fund.
Executives working on the project dismiss that number as unrealistically low. The first 1.5 miles of the Line alone is estimated internally to cost more than $100 billion, two people familiar with the plans said.
If it were fully built, Neom employees expect the true price of the Line would be well in excess of $2 trillion. Construction costs per square foot are more than double what is standard on other Middle East towers, they said.
This makes it unlikely Neom will attract significant private investment to fund future phases of the Line, they say. It has been funded thus far by the Saudi government.
Neom is the centerpiece of an overhaul of Saudi Arabia’s economy and identity that Mohammed began in 2015 when his father ascended the throne. Then 29 years old, the son of King Salman outmaneuvered potential heirs and rapidly consolidated power.
Hungry for change, Mohammed allowed more Western cultural norms and eliminated restrictions that forbade mixing of sexes, women drivers and cinemas. He also put even tighter limits on speech, crushing dissent over the rapid change.
The plan, Vision 2030, called for an array of new non-oil industries such as entertainment and technology and building mega-sized real-estate developments to help it become a global tourism hub.
Mohammed’s team sought proposals from the world’s top architects for ideas to design Neom. The avant-garde Los Angeles designer, Morphosis Architects, headed by Pritzker prize winner Thom Mayne, pitched a city that was 100 miles long and 1.2 miles—or two kilometers—wide, with buildings spread across the ground.
The prince had a different idea.
“I told the team, how about if we take that two kilo and we flip it to two towers to the whole line,” he said in a Discovery Channel documentary last year, clapping his hands together vertically like someone closing a book.
The idea of the skyscraper city was born.
Architects got to work designing a pair of parallel towers 650 feet apart, shrouded in a shimmering mirror glass coat that reflects red desert sand and azure blue sea. At their highest, the towers are slated to rise 1,640 feet above the desert floor, although they will be less tall in spots depending on the terrain they are traversing.
Internal documents from 2021 call for more than seven billion square feet of floor space—29% larger than all of the buildings in New York City put together and the size of more than 2,000 Empire State Buildings. Apartments, offices, schools, police stations, museums and a royal palace would be peppered inside.
Stunning—and costly—architecture is a priority. Mohammed told Neom executives he wants a sense of “zero gravity” with features appearing to defy physics and float, former executives said.
A linear city has long captivated urban planners. In 1882, Spanish architect Arturo Soria y Mata proposed an elongated urban development that inspired the “Ciudad Lineal” district of Madrid. The Line has been compared internally to Epcot Center, a former Neom executive said, the 1960s-era complex at Disney World that was intended to be a futuristic city dependent on high-speed rail. It was abandoned after Walt Disney ’s death. Epcot later became a theme park.
A linear city as big as the Line is at odds with how humans have developed cities for millennia: naturally building outward in a circular manner, typically around a core.
“It’s battling against the entire history of the way cities are founded and grow,” said John E. Fernandez, professor in the department of architecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Even supporters say it is an experiment that could easily fail in practice.
In a planning document under a heading of “Key Concerns,” an employee said four different times that by fixating on building miles-long skyscrapers, Neom had turned the normal design process inside out. “USE would usually drive DESIGN. We are using DESIGN to drive USE,” the anonymous comment said.
The shape has added to challenges.
In 2020, before Mohammed unveiled the project, he asked employees to move the Line’s western end a few miles because he preferred the terrain, said people familiar with the request. Designs had to shift slightly across the entire 105 miles, causing months of extra work.
Architects have struggled to find the best ways to mix sunlight and open space in the interior. Internal documents show they wrestled with how to differentiate neighborhoods so as not to create a monolithic block—opting to build distinct half-mile sections with a different look and feel. They worried about drab living conditions at the base of the interior, given that the height of the towers would allow little light down low.
According to planning documents, designers proposed leaving gaps atop the modules to “bend” the structures around the curvature of the earth, which arches about 8 inches per mile.
Planners fretted over the billions of birds that fly on a migration route—a less-than-ideal location for a 1,600-foot-tall glass mirror.
“It is inevitable that a significant number of birds will perish,” designers wrote, with an illustration of a dead northern flicker, a woodpecker.
Looming over Neom is an inauspicious history of city-building projects, which typically die on the drawing board. Those that are built are usually scaled down, and often considered sterile.
One of modern history’s largest is Brasília, the Brazilian capital that strained the country’s finances when it was constructed in the late 1950s. After opening, residents complained of lifeless streets and a lack of neighborhood feel in the curated modernist center, which today holds less than half its expected population of 500,000. Instead, far more residents live in and around satellite towns initially built for its construction workers.

Scant progress

Seven years after launch, little has been completed other than Neom’s film studios and a sprawling new royal complex that boasts giant palaces, a golf course and at least 10 helipads, satellite images show.
Beyond the Line, Neom has a bevy of superlative-packed projects, all of them complex.
Neom is so big it has its own large-scale construction projects simply to prepare for bigger projects. A port is needed to receive materials, and Neom is spending more than $5 billion to build housing for construction workers, according to the Middle East business-trade publication MEED, which tracks Neom contracts.
Engineers and administrative workers live in a handful of Neom-built communities with schools, basketball courts, a Burger King, a Starbucks and a Hampton Inn where rooms run above $400. The first such camp already needs to be partially demolished: After a design change, the Line is now due to run right through the community, where housing is already at capacity, former employees said.
Despite being billed as zero emissions, Neom recently sought contractors to build two gas power plants totaling 800 megawatts to power the region until greener energy is sourced.
To demonstrate progress to the crown prince, engineers started putting in the foundations for the Line a couple of years ago even before architects had figured out what would go above—an unusual way to build such a massive development, engineering experts said.
Architects soon decided the first phase should be built somewhere else, leaving the Line’s initial foundations abandoned for now, said people familiar with the matter.
For over a year, the bulk of the work has been a digging operation—the world’s largest, Neom says. Four-lane makeshift construction roads are clogged with lines of dump trucks; diesel fumes from trucks and generators permeate the air.
Significant digging work has gone into swaths that even before the recent pullback weren’t scheduled to be completed for decades. Satellite images show a 60 mile gash through the desert.
The current focus is a seaside middle section, where Prince Mohammed wanted the building constructed atop a new marina that could hold the world’s biggest cruise ships. Workers are digging a hole 50 feet below sea level, over 450 acres in size. It was there that workers had excavated a small mountain of dirt, only to find it was in the wrong place.
Once foundations are laid, a key test will be if and when Neom awards the costly contracts to start vertical construction—a crucial milestone that makes it difficult to turn back.
Another question is height. Numerous executives working on Neom have questioned the need for a 1,600-foot-tall building—which carries extra engineering challenges, higher costs and makes evacuation difficult in an emergency.
Renowned British architect Peter Cook, who is involved in the Line, called the project’s height “a bit stupid and unreasonable,” according to comments published in the U.K.-based Architect’s Journal. In a later documentary, Cook, who is overall praiseful of the project, called the Line “puzzling even to those who are involved in designing it.”

Date: 05/07/2024

Reading time: 12 minutes, 2592 words

🪖 Military

Media's Soldier belongs to Armenia's Special Forces Unit - Ministry of Defense

A video titled “Residents of Kirants spotted a soldier from Azerbaijani special forces” is currently circulating on social media and social networks. The Ministry of Defense of the Republic of Armenia informs that the individual shown in the video is a soldier of the special purpose unit of Armenia.

Armenpress, Armenian Defense Ministry denies allegations that Azerbaijani special forces appear in Kirants

Prime Minister points հis biggest failure

Nikol Pashinyan described 44-day war as the most significant failure of his administration. He made this statement during a press conference on May 7, in response to a question from "Armenpress" regarding his biggest failure.

Armenpress

🏛️ Politics & Government

Pashinyan warns halting border delimitation process could lead to war

Armenian PM Nikol Pashinyan said the government has initiated the process of delimitation of the Armenian-Azerbaijani border from the Tavush region. The PM said the process is aimed at preventing war with the aim of preventing war. He said war is deemed necessary by various internal and external forces to effect a change of power in Armenia.

Armenpress, Armenian and Azerbaijani Foreign Ministers to Discuss Incorporating Almaty Declaration into Peace Treaty, Pashinyan: Almaty Declaration is an irreversible reality as a basic principle of Armenia's border delimitation with Azerbaijan, Delimitation aims to make war senseless, illogical and unfeasible – Armenian PM

The government will soon approve the housing security program for those forcibly displaced from Artsakh

Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan announced at the press conference held on May 7. The housing security program for our compatriots forcibly displaced from Artsakh will be presented and approved. Priority will be given to certain social groups: families of fallen servicemen, families with minor children.

CivilNet

Pashinyan and Aliyev will not participate in the Victory Parade in Moscow

The leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan will not participate in the traditional Victory Parade in Moscow on May 9. Leaders of Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Cuba, Laos and Guinea-Bissau will participate. The Kremlin attaches great importance to the May 8 Pashinyan-Putin meeting.

CivilNet

Armenia, UNDP to continue active cooperation in three directions

Armenian Deputy Foreign Minister Mnatsakan Safaryan held a meeting with UN Assistant Secretary-General and UNDP Director of the Regional Bureau for Europe and the CIS countries Ivana Živković. The parties have expressed readiness to continue active cooperation in the direction of sustainable development in Armenia.

Armenpress, UNDP programs in Armenia discussedby Deputy Prime Ministerand UN Deputy Secretary General

CSTO didn’t want to come to Armenia as an ally, but as a peacekeeper - Prime Minister

Nikol Pashinyan: CSTO wanted to come to Armenia not as an ally, as is customary, but as a peacekeeper. "What do peacekeepers need? They need a war. When is war possible in this situation? When we refuse the process of delimitation," he said.

Armenpress

Prime Minister claims all referendums on Armenian Constitution were falsified

Nikol Pashinyan says the issue of the Constitution of the Republic of Armenia is an internal matter. The goal of shaping the agenda of the new constitution is to establish justice based on laws passed through popular consensus.

Armenpress

Armenia moves towards its sovereignty, which is indisputable - PM

Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan says the Republic of Armenia does not agree to others making decisions for it. Armenia is advancing towards its sovereignty, says PM, referring to the issue of shifting away from Russia and developing relations with the European Union. "After our sovereignty is registered, we will determine, within the framework of our sovereignty, with whom and what kind of relations we will have," he said.

Armenpress

Prime Minister assures Armenia's territory of 29,743 square kilometers will remain unaltered

Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan assures Armenia's territory of 29,743 square kilometers will remain unaltered. He said the uniqueness of this number is in that it rests on the pillar of legitimacy.

Armenpress

PM Pashinyan clarifies misunderstandings regarding November 9 Trilateral Statement

Point 9 of the trilateral statement of November 9, 2020, does not pertain to connection between Azerbaijan and the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic, the Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said. Point 9 specifically addresses the unblocking of regional economic ties, noting that Azerbaijan has not unblocked any of our roads.

Armenpress, "In the ninth point of November 9, there is no mention that any territory should be outside the control of the Republic of Armenia." Pashinyan

Pashinyan, Putin to address all issues on bilateral and multilateral agenda

Nikol Pashinyan will leave for Moscow on May 8 to chair the sitting of the Supreme Eurasian Economic Council. The Prime Minister will also meet with the President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin.

Armenpress, The meeting between Pashinyan and Putin on May 8 is very important in the Kremlin. Ushakov, Pashinyan outlines agenda for May 8 meeting with Putin in Kremlin, Armenian PM confirms he will meet Russia’s Putin in Moscow on May 8

Border pillars are pillars of security guarantees, pillars of security - PM

Armenia-Azerbaijan border posts being installed in Tavush Province are the pillars of Armenia’s security guarantees, PM Nikol Pashinyan said. The posts will become a security guarantee for the people of Voskepar, Kirants, Berkaber, Baghanis and the Republic of Armenia in general.

Armenpress

Managing, reducing, and nullification enmity with Turkey and Azerbaijan" – Prime Minister

Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan presented his vision regarding Armenia's relations with regional states. He said Armenia needs to deepen and develop neighborliness with Georgia and Iran, manage, reduce, and nullify enmity with Turkey and Azerbaijan.

Armenpress

Armenia hopes to normalize relations with Baku by November, says Pashinyan

Armenia's prime minister says he hopes to sign a peace deal with Azerbaijan by November. November is the month Azerbaijan is set to host this year’s U.N. climate talks. The two countries’ top diplomats are set to meet Friday in Kazakhstan for their first talks in nearly three months.

CivilNet, I share the idea of signing a peace agreement by November. Pashinyan, Armenia ready to sign peace deal with Azerbaijan by November on the basis of agreed principles – PM

We expect respect for RA and its citizens. Pashinyan about the possible ban of Russian channels

Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan also addressed the possible ban on the broadcasting of Russian TV channels in Armenia. He stressed several times that they "expect respect for the Republic of Armenia and its citizens. If the demands are not met, he excludes broadcasting of those televisions in Armenia if not met. On March 30, HRTC reported on the territory of Armenia about blocking the broadcasting.

CivilNet

We have reached an agreement with Azerbaijan on many issues through "ping-pong diplomacy". Mirzoyan

Ararat Mirzoyan spoke about the negotiations with Azerbaijan at a press conference with his Hungarian counterpart. He expressed cautious optimism regarding the upcoming meeting with the Foreign Minister of Azerbaijan in Almaty.

CivilNet

U.S. Ambassador to Azerbaijan Pays First Visit to Shushi Under Pressure from Baku

U.S. Ambassador to Azerbaijan Mark Libby made a visit to the occupied town of Shushi in Nagorno-Karabakh today following public pressure from Azerbaijani officials. Libby was lambasted by an opinion piece entitled “High time to declare US ambassador persona non grata”

CivilNet

EBRD President comments on Armenia's prospects of becoming part of the EU

Speaking at a press conference ahead of the EBRD Annual Meeting and Business Forum in Yerevan, the bank's President Odile Renaud-Basso responded to a question on whether Armenia will integrate into the EU. Earlier, Armenian Parliament Speaker Alen Simonyan said the most correct and desirable option for Armenia is to apply for EU candidate status.

ArkaAm, EBRD invests 2.5 billion euros in 210 projects in Armenia - President, Armenia has fintech development potential. President of EBRD, The EBRD president commented on Armenia's prospects of joining the EU, EBRD has invested 2.5 billion euros within the framework of 210 projects in Armenia. president of the bank

U.S. State Department has no comment onMirzoyan-Bairamov meeting in Kazakhstan

US State Department refrained from commenting on upcoming meeting of Armenian and Azerbaijani Foreign Ministers Ararat Mirzoyan and Jeyhun Bayramov in Kazakhstan. State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said he had no comments on it or any expectations.

ArkaAm

Armenia will make every effort to organize 2027 World Weightlifting Championships at a high level – PM

Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan received the heads of the International Weightlifting Federation (IWF) Mohammed Jalood and Secretary General Antonio Urso. The 2027 World Weightlifting Championships will be held in Armenia for the first time.

ArmRadio

Alen Simonyan, Ivana Živković sign a document

National Assembly President Alen Simonyan and UN Assistant Secretary-General and UNDP Director of the Regional Bureau for Europe and the CIS countries Ivana Živković signed a document on the implementation of the Second Programme – Fostering responsiveness, efficiency, transparency and inclusiveness (Modern Parliament for a Modern Armenia) The goal of the programme is to support the development of the parliamentary capacities through training, expertise and consultation.

Armenpress

AIM Congress 2024 kicks off in Abu Dhabi

AIM Congress 2024 kicked off today in Abu Dhabi under the theme "Adapting to a Shifting Investment Landscape: Harnessing New Potential for Global Economic Development". Over 100 ministers, city mayors and central bank governors, 900 speakers, and more than 12,000 delegates.

Armenpress

“By Your Side”: IDBank's new support program for displaced Artsakh citizens

IDBank is launching a long-term social support program for forcibly displaced residents of Nagorno-Karabakh. This time, the program includes about 150 minor children from 42 families forcibly displaced. Until the end of the year, IDBank will provide idplus gift cards worth AMD 40 000 every month for each child-beneficiary.

Armenpress

Macron and Xi Jinping have urged for the establishment of a Palestinian state

Chinese President Xi Jinping and French President Emmanuel Macron endorsed establishment of an independent Palestinian state along the 1967 borders. Paris and Beijing consider the ceasefire in the Middle East and the protection of the civilian population of Gaza as an important issue.

Armenpress

"Tvapatum" media conference has started in Yerevan

Tvapatum media conference is being held within the framework of Armenia's media development program. The project is funded by the US Agency for International Development and implemented by Internews in partnership with the Center for Media Initiatives, the Yerevan Press Club and the Zinq Network.

CivilNet

Pashinyan said why he did not participate in Putin's inauguration

Nikol Pashinyan will not participate in inauguration of Russian President Vladimir Putin. He attended inauguration of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on June 3, 2023. PM will leave for Moscow on May 8 to participate in the jubilee summit of the Eurasian Economic Union.

CivilNet

Some 7,104 people died in Armenia in January-March, up 4.9% yoy

Some 7,104 people died in Armenia in January-March 2024, which is 4.9% more than in the same time span of 2023. More than half of the people (55.9%) died of diseases of the circulatory system. The second largest cause of death were cancer diseases (18.3% or 1,299 people, an increase of 4.1%)

ArkaAm

Armenia's permanent population increases

Armenia's permanent population, as of April 1, 2024, was 3,039,700 against 2,941,500 as of the same period in 2023. The urban population amounted to 1,958,700 inhabitants, with 1,127,000 inhabitants in Yerevan. In rural areas, the number of population is 1,081,000.

ArkaAm

LIVE: Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s press conference

CNN.com will feature iRep

ArmRadio

💵 Economy

Armenia’s Economy Minister to visit the USA

Armenia's Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan will visit the United States of America from May 9-15, 2024. The purpose of the visit is to participate in the Americas Competitiveness Exchange program. The PM’s decision is posted on e-gov.am.

Armenpress

World migration report 2024 reveals 650% increase in international remittances

The International Organization for Migration (IOM) launched the World Migration Report 2024. The report highlights that international migration remains a driver of human development and economic growth. The number of displaced individuals due to conflict, violence, disaster, and other reasons has surged to the highest levels in modern-day records, reaching 117 million.

Armenpress

Transportation and communications important sectors for investment in South Caucasus - head of EBRD

Transportation and communications are important sectors for investments in the South Caucasus region, EBRD President Odile Renaud-Basso said. Earlier it was reported that the bank will finance the construction of the 24-kilometer southern section of the Sisian-Kajaran road of the North-South international transport corridor. The total cost of the project is estimated at about $1 billion.

ArkaAm, EBRD invests 2.5 billion euros in 210 projects in Armenia - President, Transport and communications are important areas for investment in the South Caucasus region. Head of EBRD, EBRD has invested 2.5 billion euros within the framework of 210 projects in Armenia. president of the bank

EBRD forecasts 5% growth of Armenia's economy in 2024 and about 5% in 2025

EBRD President Odile Renaud-Basso said Armenia's economic growth of 8.7% in 2023 was very impressive. Main growth boosters in 2024 will be high domestic demand, hospitality, construction, information and communication technology sectors. The flow of refugees from Nagorno-Karabakh has had a big impact on Armenia's economy, she said.

ArkaAm, EBRD invests 2.5 billion euros in 210 projects in Armenia - President, The EBRD expects economic growth in Armenia to be 5% in 2024 and about the same - around 5% - in 2025., EBRD has invested 2.5 billion euros within the framework of 210 projects in Armenia. president of the bank

🎭 Culture

Criminal proceedings have been initiated in the case of harassment against journalist Zhirayr Voskanyan

Criminal proceedings have been initiated in relation to the incident of harassment in one of the Yerevan clubs against journalist Zhirayr Voskanyan. The criminal proceedings were initiated under the articles of hooliganism and self-righteousness within the group.

CivilNet

Eurovision Song Contest 2024: First Semi-Final

The first 15 artists compete in the first Semi-Final of Eurovision Song Contest 2024. 10 will qualify for Saturday’s Grand Final.

ArmRadio

Ambassador visits Armenian pavilion at ATM Dubai 2024 exhibition

Armenia’s Ambassador to Armenia Gegham Grigoryan visited the Armenian pavilion at the ATM Dubai 2024 international exhibition. The visitors got the chance to explore the beautiful exhibition of Armenia Travel team, showcasing the rich culture, stunning landscapes, and warm hospitality.

ArmRadio

⚽ Sport

Champions League Return Legs Kick Off

Paris Saint-Germain, the French champion, will host Borussia Dortmund in Paris. In their first leg, the German team won by a narrow margin. The match is scheduled to start at 23:00 Yerevan time. Real Madrid and Bayern Munich will play on May 8. The first match between these clubs ended in a draw with a score of 2-2.

Armenpress

Donations to Armenia:

Himnadram
ServicemenFund
Armenian Wounded Heroes
ArmeniaFund

Hello, people! I love studying European history and was very inspired by a video made by Dieu Le Roi listing every state of the Holy Roman Empire that made me think about how cool it would be to make a series showing the history of every state of the Holy Roman Empire, though I first thought about the opening. Here are my thoughts:
The opening would be similar to the one from Game of Thrones, with a map of Central Europe being displayed. The start would be the border between Middle Francia and East Francia disappearing through Otto's conquests, then crowns and bishop hats appearing in the several very autonomous states that were formed. At some point, the Pope’s Triregnum and the Emperor’s crown would approach one another just south of the Alps in the map and clash, with the space between them being the starting point of a crack in the map that would be the shape of the frontiers of the Italian city-States, representing the Investiture Controversy and how the fights between Popes and Emperors was essential to the fragmentation of Northern Italy. The screen would move away, showing first the Great Interregnum that happened from 1250 to 1273 happening through the disappearance of the Holy Roman Emperor's crown. After that, the Babemberg coat of arms would be in Austria, disappear, then the Wittelsbach coat of arms would go from Bavary to Austria. Some areas of the map (the electorates) would have their rulers' crowns reuniting in Frankfurt and the Holy Roman Emperor's Crown would appear again in the middle of them, then the rise of the Habsburgs in Austria would be shown through the appearance of their coat of arms in Switzerland, which would move to Frankfurt with the Emperor's crown being put over it (this part would happen at the same time as the one with the electors), go to Austria, "kick" the coat of arms of the House of Wittelsbach and grow in size, always with the map being yellow under it, then several curve lines would shoot from Vienna to the capitals of realms which the Habsburgs acquired through marriage through all of Europe, which themselves would turn yellow and raise little crowns to represent those acquisitions, and a visibly wide line would shoot from Madrid to the west of the screen, not showing it but referencing that the Habsburgs had most of the American Continent for a time. Then random things would be shown, like the promotion of places to Free Imperial Cities through the change of colours in their territories and the kicking of the crowns of the state rulers that used to rule over those cities before their promotions to Free Imperial Cities. That could be followed by a bunch of ships and carriages moving between several of those cities and others in North Germany to reference the Hanseatic League. Since Italy was partially still nominally under the HRE by that time, the Renaissance could be shown through the style of the opening animation being since the start like the style of those Medieval illuminated manuscript drawings, but in Italy starting to become more realistic, like Renaissance paintings, and with that spreading to the rest of the screen as the opening continues. After that, Bohemia would get partially purple to represent the Hussite movement and the territory where Martin Luther started preaching his Protestantism would become blue and spread to most of the Protestant regions of the time, with Bohemia becoming blue as well, since the Hussites joined the Protestants. The Pope’s Triregnum, several Bishop hats from all of the Empire and the Holy Roman Emperor’s crown would position themselves around those blue areas in the map, as if containing and fighting against Protestantism, representing the Religious wars of the time. When the Peace of Westphalia happens, the Holy Roman Empire, which in the map would until then be represented by an unified territory of slightly different colours, would be partially cut in size (because it was indeed reduced) and each region, instead of only having marginally different colours, would have very distinct and vibrant colours, all of that united only by a dotted red line around the territory of the Empire, and the crowns of the governors of all those realms (dukes, counts, kings, Bishops, Archbishops, et cetera) would appear and grow in size while the Emperor’s crown, in Vienna, would diminish, representing how the Holy Roman Empire became much more divided after 1648 and local princes had by then much more authority than the Emperor. The Siege of Vienna would then be shown, with some animated attacking element coming from Ottoman-dominated Hungary to Vienna, but with miniatures of winged hussars and other soldiers from stated of the Holy Roman Empire and kick out whatever the animated attacking Ottoman element may be (I do not know how it could be fittingly represented). Then several wars in which the Holy Roman Empire was involved, like the War of Austrian Sucession, would be represented, with the French Revolution being the final one and the map changing a lot due to German Mediatization. In the end of the opening, the camera view would descend to the lowest point of the map and quickly go forward to the north, now horizontally showing all the brightly colored regions (allowing for geography to be included as well) and several crowns and clashing against one another, carriages and soldier miniatures moving, floating treaty papers and other things being shown through the way, ending with the title of the series being shown when the camera reaches the frontier with Denmark, showing a big and stylized "Holy Roman Empire" title, with some elements from the episode in which the opening is happening being displayed around the title. At all times during the opening, big cities would be displayed with some small (relative to the screen) fortifications and famous buildings rising from the ground (or flourishing mechanically like in the Game of Thrones opening) and continuously expanding, maybe with patrician coats of arms appearing a little bit as well, especially in the Free Imperial Cities, representing how, despite all the fights, conflicts and wars, cities were growing and becoming more and more important during all this time. The opening theme would be “Our Destiny” by the band “Two Steps From Hell”, because that song sounds very epic, in a way that really reminds you about big movie adventures in the Middle Ages (and Modern Era, of course), plus being only melody, not having lyrics, thus not bothering the audience, which would be focused on what is happening in the screen. It would be a long opening judging by the amount of elements and the extension of the song, but that would not be a bothersome aspect, in my opinion. Some other things that could be in the opening would be the appearance/emergence of different styles of architecture (Romanesque, Gothic, Baroque, et cetera) during the previously mentioned rise of buildings from the ground. Additionally, the series itself would have seasons with several episodes, with individual episodes covering specific things (like the Medici Bank, the history of Nuremberg or the election of an important Emperor), while arcs would cover extended historical events (like Empire-wide wars, the Investiture Controversy, that one long Interregnum, et cetera), season endings representing crucial things in the Empire’s history (the resolution of the Investiture Controversy, the election of the first Habsburg Emperor, the Peace of Westphalia, the French Revolution in the very ending of the series, among others), with the seasons I thought about being the following: season 1 is from the Frankish Empire to the formation of the Holy Roman Empire by Otto I, Otto I to the end of the Investiture Controversy as season 2, the Renaissance as season 3 (this one being highly focused on Italy and with Luther nailing his 96 complaints being the post-credits scene of the final episode), the Hussite Movement and Protestant Reformation as season 4 (ending with the Peace of Westphalia) and the rest of the Modern Age as season 5, ending with the French Revolution but with the episode being specifically about the history of Austria allowing for part of the episode happening after the Holy Roman Empire, maybe (very maybe) showing the Confederation of the Rhine, German Unification and, the World Wars and the current era. Every single state with Imperial Immediacy would have its history shown in one episode, with some small states with not very long histories and physical proximity being put in the same episodes. Some episodes would be longer than others, with Austria's episode (the final one, with its foundation, the rise of the Habsburgs, the French Revolution and all) being the lenght of a movie. What do you think about this idea?

In just over a decade Canva went from creating yearbooks for Australian high schools to over 135M users and a $40B valuation.
Melanie Perkins and Cliff Obrecht (now husband and wife) founded Fusion Books in 2007 allowing Australian students to design their school yearbooks.
A few years later, they were the biggest supplier of yearbooks in Australia. And the foundations of Canva were put in place.
Then in 2013, the couple along with technical co-founder, Cameron Adams, launched Canva to a 50k-person waiting list.
Along with their mission to empower everyone in the world to design anything and publish anywhere - the team had two ambitious goals in building Canva:

1. Build one of the world’s most valuable companies. 💵
2. To do the most good they can do. 🌱

Safe to say they achieved both. And in doing so, Canva has become one of the biggest success stories of the last decade - especially from a non-USA startup.
This is the story of how Canva went from Zero to One. 🚀 Click here to read the full deep dive.

Business model: How Canva makes money

Canva’s business model is simple - but slightly different from a typical SaaS.
Usually, SaaS businesses choose between Freemium and Free Trial (among others) to convert users to monetization.
But Canva uses both.
They have an awesome Free Plan that is sufficient for (probably) most people.
Then they have three paid plans: Canva Pro, Canva Teams, and Enterprise.
All of these offer more business features such as brand kits and more specialized features such as their background remover. With Enterprise offering a more tailored experience for companies that will have over 100 users.
And then lastly, although not making money, Canva also offers free premium features for educators and NPOs - in line with them doing good!

Canva’s Growth

Canva launched in 2013. But the idea for it started years before.
Melanie and her then-boyfriend Cliff were studying together at the University of Western Australia.
Melissa was studying Psychology and Commerce but was so passionate about design that she taught design programs to other students.
This is where she realized there was a problem.
It would take her students hours to learn the basics of the design tools on the market and the whole semester to become proficient.
A problem she felt was so obvious and needing to be filled that she dropped out of university to pursue it.
To build up some business acumen and money, as well as to test her hypothesis, she and Cliff started Fusion Books - a customizable yearbook tool for high school students in Australia.
Essentially an extremely niche testing ground for Canva.
The idea was a hit. It became the largest yearbook supplier in Australia and still runs profitably today.
This prompted them to go all-in on Canva.
They found a technical co-founder, Cameron Adams, to build the platform and raised $3M in Seed funding.
And so the journey began.
Canva built hype for their launch by creating a public waitlist - which reached 50k people by the time of launch in 2013.
By the end of 2014, Canva already had over 100k users, launched their iPad app, and had ~2M designs created on the platform.
In 2015, Canva launched Canva for Work (now Canva Pro), reached 50 Canvanauts (employees), surpassed 50M designs created, and reached a valuation of $165M.
In 2017 Canva became profitable and launched a bunch of new features and products, including animations, Canva Print, their Android app, and launched in 100 languages.
Canva became a Unicorn in 2018 with their $40M investment round. And made their first acquisition, buying Zeetings to double down on presentations. They also hit 1B designs.
Their acquisitions and new products continued and by the end of 2021, Canva had over 75M MAUs and was valued at $40B after raising an additional $200M.
As of now, Canva has over 135M MAUs, over 4,000 Canvanauts, and more than 15B designs in the last decade - over 200 new designs created per second.

Key Success Factors (KSFs)

There have been so many reasons for Canva’s rocketship success. Here are four that stood out to me, particularly for Canva’s earlier stages of growth:
🌍 1. Solved a BIG, Painful Problem
It seems a bit ridiculous that it took so long for a tool like Canva to exist.
And that’s exactly how Melanie felt, saying that the problem felt so obvious she feared someone else would beat her to it if she didn’t move fast enough.
But hindsight is always 20/20.
Back in the 2000s it probably seemed even more ridiculous that non-designers would need a tool for design.
But luckily for us, Melanie realized this counterintuitive nature of design tools from teaching design programs at university.
Her students struggled to learn the basics.
It took them entire semesters to proficiently learn a new tool.
Plus, for just about everything you wanted to create you needed another tool - which also took a semester to learn.
Think about Canva today - graphics, animations, videos, presentations, documents, graphs and visualizations, and more.
Before Canva you needed: Photoshop, Illustrator, Premiere, Powerpoint, Word, Excel, plus a whole bunch more.
Now I’m not suggesting that Canva does any one of these as well as the specialized tool - but it doesn’t need to - nor is it trying to.
Canva wants to be a suite of design tools hosted on one web-based platform. Giving you easier-to-use tools, simple templates, and more ways to collaborate.
Before Canva, this didn’t exist. Before Canva non-designers generally felt hopeless.
Before Canva even launched they had 50k people on their waitlist - this idea was going to be huge!
Now Canva has over 135M MAUs, in over 190 countries, and over 100 languages.
It’s often better to solve a deeply painful problem for a small group of people, than a meh problem for a large group of people.
Well… Canva does both.
Canva solves a deeply painful problem for a MASSIVE group of people.
👶 2. Simplified Everything
Most often, the best solutions are the simplest.
And Canva is a great example.
Canva is the simplest solution.
Canva creates what I like to call a Simplicity Flywheel. Canva is simple to:

• Find 🕵️
• Get started 🌟
• Use 🧰
• Share 📢

Simple to find 🕵️
Google something like “how to design a logo” and guess what pops up on the first page?
Canva.
Try something like “how to choose brand colors”.
Canva.
Okay one more, Google “how to make a YouTube thumbnail”.
Two videos of some guy telling me I can make free thumbnails that convert? Huh?
Oh wait - guess what platform he uses?
Canva.
With the Canva thumbnail tutorial right underneath it by the way!
Canva has done an excellent job with content marketing - popping up on the first page for just about every use case imaginable, but more on this later.
Simple to get started 🌟
Canva has spent countless hours perfecting its onboarding process.
They identified that it wasn’t only the complexity of tools they needed to solve for, but also people’s confidence to design.
This is why they have structured their onboarding to get you to complete a design in a few minutes. If you don’t do it straight away, they make sure to remind you via email.
You get to see how quick and easy the platform is to use. And you make a cool design.
An instant confidence boost.
Canva also provides a ton of content on how to use their platform, how to achieve certain jobs (designs), and how to design better - making their users even more confident in getting started.
You may have noticed a common theme of content here - I promise its section is coming.
Simple to use 🧰
The core feature of Canva.
Create beautiful designs, without all the fuss of a highly technical tool like Photoshop.
It's simple to use - for everybody.
Canva has become their vision of an all-in-one design platform, where anyone can bring their creative visions to life.
No steep learning curves.
No need for more tools.
Simple to share 📢
One of the most critical parts of the flywheel is how simple Canva is to share.
Canva achieves this in a few ways.
The Canva Simplicity Flywheel then starts again.
🪴 3. Created Valuable Content
“The best marketing is education” - Regis McKenna, the key person behind marketing the first Apple Computer.
Canva is a prime example of this quote.
All of their content is made to help users create better designs - specifically on Canva.
Canva now dominates SEO by providing valuable content to their (potential) users.
In fact, Canva didn’t do any paid advertising until after 10M MAUs.
I’ve teased this part of the deep dive for a while now. So I guess I better deliver. Although Canva’s content strategy has been so incredible, I would have to actually try to not let it deliver value to you.
Strategy 🎯
Canva takes a wide-scope, but targeted, actionable approach to their content marketing.
Their key driver for content is creating value-adding pieces that help their users build up their design skills and get the most value out of Canva.
In fact, Canva launched with over one million templates, elements, and fonts.
This removes the friction to design - back to the simplicity.
How 📜
Canva does this by using a jobs-to-be-done intent strategy, i.e., solutions to tasks such as “how to create a LinkedIn carousel”.
They create for super-specific use cases.
But they create for all the use cases. And I mean ALL (the wide-scope part of their strategy).
Canva has six different blogs on just Wedding Photography - and how Canva can fit into it.
I mentioned above how Canva dominates Google searches. This is because they have just put out thousands of high-quality blog posts on just about every design topic imaginable.
They are experts in understanding their potential customers and their search intents - understanding what they could be trying to achieve and connecting them with a specific solution on Canva.
As in the earlier example: “how to choose brand colors” leads you to Canva’s article on their color palette generator, the psychology of color, how to choose colors for your business, and about eight of their YouTube videos on the same topic.
Safe to say I would be able to confidently choose my brand’s colors after this.
Canva gives each potential search intent its own landing page. Which in return builds backlinks for them (other websites linking to Canva). This is intentional.
Canva created tools and pages that can easily be referenced in journalists’ or bloggers’ content - giving Canva more domain authority and higher ranks.
To put this practically, imagine I’m a journalist writing about the rise of SMBs on social media.
I talk about how they’re creating unique content to build an audience. I want to help my readers as much as possible, so I find a tool that can create unique content for social media.
Guess what pops up as my first choice? (not this again… 🤣)
By now I hope you guessed it.
Canva.
And so I link Canva in my article. This not only boosts Canva’s domain authority, but also sends users directly to Canva.
Why 🧩
It’s simple.
Focusing on education and not selling brings your users closer to repeat value - and that’s the best sales tool out there.

Actions you can take to replicate Canva’s success

There is so much to learn from Canva - here are four key actions you can take and replicate into your business:
Introduce scarcity 🔢
One cool way Canva grew before even launching was to use a waitlist.
It’s nothing new nowadays - but still, a lot of people don’t use it.
A waitlist helps test for interest in an idea, but also by using it to limit access to your product, you get the benefit of scarcity.
Canva grew its waitlist super creatively.
They showed people the cool designs and templates from Canva - but you couldn’t get in.
However, you knew that some people were allowed in.
How you may ask?
Canva started to generate buzz within the design community and similar groups who needed design tools.
They reached out to the press, blogs, podcasts, and conferences to offer them early access for their audiences.
That’s how you got in early. That’s how you became a cool kid (at least I’m guessing it made you cool).
Also, anyone who Tweeted about Canva usually “coincidentally” reached the top of the waitlist.
Canva was awesome at generating hype through scarcity.
It shows. 50k people were on the waitlist at launch.
It’s a powerful tool to grow.
People want what they can’t have.
The key to scarcity is you want to be publicly oversubscribed.
You want people to see that others are interested. This makes them think that your product is something worth checking out.
So find a way that you can publicly limit access to your product or a new feature for it.
Find a desperate crowd 🫙
One of the key puzzle pieces to Canva’s success was finding an audience that was desperate for a product to solve their problem - simple and quick designs.
There are tens of millions of freelancers, SMBs, and solopreneurs who lack design skills but need to market themselves and their businesses. And Canva makes this easy.
Canva also entered when Facebook marketing was taking off like a rocketship and the above mentioned people not only needed content - but they needed loads of it.
Canva could do that.
So what does this mean for you?
It’s much harder to make a profitable business by solving a “cherry-on-the-top” problem.
You want to find a problem that people care deeply about. A “whole meal” problem.
Even if this means targeting a smaller group of people. It’s worth sacrificing at the beginning.
Because it will be much easier to market and sell to people who have a desperate need for a solution than people who would just sort of like one.
It becomes much easier to expand after you have your core users. Talking about your core users…
Find your entry wedge customer 🧀
Melanie, Cliff, and Cameron were super smart in recognizing they needed to find and leverage an entry point for Canva (from Fusion Books’ super niche audience).
They perfectly identified SMBs as this wedge to break in.
In 2013, SMBs were flocking to Facebook to market. But the problem once again came back to the complexity of design tools at the time.
These SMBs needed professional-looking designs - cover photos, social media posts, flyers, event banners, etc. - and they needed them quickly and easily.
In stepped Canva.
They positioned themselves to appeal to this huge pain point of SMBs. Specifically their marketing teams (sometimes this was the founders themselves or freelancers serving many SMBs).
Once Canva started to wedge itself in these SMBs, it became easier to convert these individual users into teams using Canva. As well as having the authority to expand to bigger enterprises.
Going to market is hard.
Don’t make it any harder for yourself by trying to target everyone at the beginning.
Find a subset or niche that will help open the door for you.
It also helps your messaging be more targeted, making customer acquisition a bit easier.
Leverage reciprocity 🎁
Refer one person you think would enjoy this newsletter to see this Action to Replicate (for all future deep dives).
I feel like in every one of these deep dives there’s been a consistent golden thread:
Give. Give. Give.
In business, those who give the most get the most.
Want to build trust with potential customers?
Provide real value.
Want to convert more free users to paid users?
Provide more value.
Want to keep users happy and not churning?
Just keep providing value.
Make it seem silly for them to stop using your product.
Build a relationship with your users to the point where they don’t want to stop using your product. And not just because it serves their needs.
But because they also like you and your brand.
And why does giving value through content achieve this so well?
Because not only does it build trust, loyalty, and authority.
But it also leverages reciprocity.
Your users will want to give something of value to you (a referral, a share, or a subscription) because you first gave something of value to them (articles, newsletter, tools, videos, free features)
Reciprocity is powerful. Use it.

In just over a decade Canva went from creating yearbooks for Australian high schools to over 135M users and a $40B valuation.
Melanie Perkins and Cliff Obrecht (now husband and wife) founded Fusion Books in 2007 allowing Australian students to design their school yearbooks.
A few years later, they were the biggest supplier of yearbooks in Australia. And the foundations of Canva were put in place.
Then in 2013, the couple along with technical co-founder, Cameron Adams, launched Canva to a 50k-person waiting list.
Along with their mission to empower everyone in the world to design anything and publish anywhere - the team had two ambitious goals in building Canva:

1. Build one of the world’s most valuable companies. 💵
2. To do the most good they can do. 🌱

Safe to say they achieved both. And in doing so, Canva has become one of the biggest success stories of the last decade - especially from a non-USA startup.
This is the story of how Canva went from Zero to One. 🚀 Click here to read the full deep dive.

Business model: How Canva makes money

Canva’s business model is simple - but slightly different from a typical SaaS.
Usually, SaaS businesses choose between Freemium and Free Trial (among others) to convert users to monetization.
But Canva uses both.
They have an awesome Free Plan that is sufficient for (probably) most people.
Then they have three paid plans: Canva Pro, Canva Teams, and Enterprise.
All of these offer more business features such as brand kits and more specialized features such as their background remover. With Enterprise offering a more tailored experience for companies that will have over 100 users.
And then lastly, although not making money, Canva also offers free premium features for educators and NPOs - in line with them doing good!

Canva’s Growth

Canva launched in 2013. But the idea for it started years before.
Melanie and her then-boyfriend Cliff were studying together at the University of Western Australia.
Melissa was studying Psychology and Commerce but was so passionate about design that she taught design programs to other students.
This is where she realized there was a problem.
It would take her students hours to learn the basics of the design tools on the market and the whole semester to become proficient.
A problem she felt was so obvious and needing to be filled that she dropped out of university to pursue it.
To build up some business acumen and money, as well as to test her hypothesis, she and Cliff started Fusion Books - a customizable yearbook tool for high school students in Australia.
Essentially an extremely niche testing ground for Canva.
The idea was a hit. It became the largest yearbook supplier in Australia and still runs profitably today.
This prompted them to go all-in on Canva.
They found a technical co-founder, Cameron Adams, to build the platform and raised $3M in Seed funding.
And so the journey began.
Canva built hype for their launch by creating a public waitlist - which reached 50k people by the time of launch in 2013.
By the end of 2014, Canva already had over 100k users, launched their iPad app, and had ~2M designs created on the platform.
In 2015, Canva launched Canva for Work (now Canva Pro), reached 50 Canvanauts (employees), surpassed 50M designs created, and reached a valuation of $165M.
In 2017 Canva became profitable and launched a bunch of new features and products, including animations, Canva Print, their Android app, and launched in 100 languages.
Canva became a Unicorn in 2018 with their $40M investment round. And made their first acquisition, buying Zeetings to double down on presentations. They also hit 1B designs.
Their acquisitions and new products continued and by the end of 2021, Canva had over 75M MAUs and was valued at $40B after raising an additional $200M.
As of now, Canva has over 135M MAUs, over 4,000 Canvanauts, and more than 15B designs in the last decade - over 200 new designs created per second.

Key Success Factors (KSFs)

There have been so many reasons for Canva’s rocketship success. Here are four that stood out to me, particularly for Canva’s earlier stages of growth:
🌍 1. Solved a BIG, Painful Problem
It seems a bit ridiculous that it took so long for a tool like Canva to exist.
And that’s exactly how Melanie felt, saying that the problem felt so obvious she feared someone else would beat her to it if she didn’t move fast enough.
But hindsight is always 20/20.
Back in the 2000s it probably seemed even more ridiculous that non-designers would need a tool for design.
But luckily for us, Melanie realized this counterintuitive nature of design tools from teaching design programs at university.
Her students struggled to learn the basics.
It took them entire semesters to proficiently learn a new tool.
Plus, for just about everything you wanted to create you needed another tool - which also took a semester to learn.
Think about Canva today - graphics, animations, videos, presentations, documents, graphs and visualizations, and more.
Before Canva you needed: Photoshop, Illustrator, Premiere, Powerpoint, Word, Excel, plus a whole bunch more.
Now I’m not suggesting that Canva does any one of these as well as the specialized tool - but it doesn’t need to - nor is it trying to.
Canva wants to be a suite of design tools hosted on one web-based platform. Giving you easier-to-use tools, simple templates, and more ways to collaborate.
Before Canva, this didn’t exist. Before Canva non-designers generally felt hopeless.
Before Canva even launched they had 50k people on their waitlist - this idea was going to be huge!
Now Canva has over 135M MAUs, in over 190 countries, and over 100 languages.
It’s often better to solve a deeply painful problem for a small group of people, than a meh problem for a large group of people.
Well… Canva does both.
Canva solves a deeply painful problem for a MASSIVE group of people.
👶 2. Simplified Everything
Most often, the best solutions are the simplest.
And Canva is a great example.
Canva is the simplest solution.
Canva creates what I like to call a Simplicity Flywheel. Canva is simple to:

• Find 🕵️
• Get started 🌟
• Use 🧰
• Share 📢

Simple to find 🕵️
Google something like “how to design a logo” and guess what pops up on the first page?
Canva.
Try something like “how to choose brand colors”.
Canva.
Okay one more, Google “how to make a YouTube thumbnail”.
Two videos of some guy telling me I can make free thumbnails that convert? Huh?
Oh wait - guess what platform he uses?
Canva.
With the Canva thumbnail tutorial right underneath it by the way!
Canva has done an excellent job with content marketing - popping up on the first page for just about every use case imaginable, but more on this later.
Simple to get started 🌟
Canva has spent countless hours perfecting its onboarding process.
They identified that it wasn’t only the complexity of tools they needed to solve for, but also people’s confidence to design.
This is why they have structured their onboarding to get you to complete a design in a few minutes. If you don’t do it straight away, they make sure to remind you via email.
You get to see how quick and easy the platform is to use. And you make a cool design.
An instant confidence boost.
Canva also provides a ton of content on how to use their platform, how to achieve certain jobs (designs), and how to design better - making their users even more confident in getting started.
You may have noticed a common theme of content here - I promise its section is coming.
Simple to use 🧰
The core feature of Canva.
Create beautiful designs, without all the fuss of a highly technical tool like Photoshop.
It's simple to use - for everybody.
Canva has become their vision of an all-in-one design platform, where anyone can bring their creative visions to life.
No steep learning curves.
No need for more tools.
Simple to share 📢
One of the most critical parts of the flywheel is how simple Canva is to share.
Canva achieves this in a few ways.
The Canva Simplicity Flywheel then starts again.
🪴 3. Created Valuable Content
“The best marketing is education” - Regis McKenna, the key person behind marketing the first Apple Computer.
Canva is a prime example of this quote.
All of their content is made to help users create better designs - specifically on Canva.
Canva now dominates SEO by providing valuable content to their (potential) users.
In fact, Canva didn’t do any paid advertising until after 10M MAUs.
I’ve teased this part of the deep dive for a while now. So I guess I better deliver. Although Canva’s content strategy has been so incredible, I would have to actually try to not let it deliver value to you.
Strategy 🎯
Canva takes a wide-scope, but targeted, actionable approach to their content marketing.
Their key driver for content is creating value-adding pieces that help their users build up their design skills and get the most value out of Canva.
In fact, Canva launched with over one million templates, elements, and fonts.
This removes the friction to design - back to the simplicity.
How 📜
Canva does this by using a jobs-to-be-done intent strategy, i.e., solutions to tasks such as “how to create a LinkedIn carousel”.
They create for super-specific use cases.
But they create for all the use cases. And I mean ALL (the wide-scope part of their strategy).
Canva has six different blogs on just Wedding Photography - and how Canva can fit into it.
I mentioned above how Canva dominates Google searches. This is because they have just put out thousands of high-quality blog posts on just about every design topic imaginable.
They are experts in understanding their potential customers and their search intents - understanding what they could be trying to achieve and connecting them with a specific solution on Canva.
As in the earlier example: “how to choose brand colors” leads you to Canva’s article on their color palette generator, the psychology of color, how to choose colors for your business, and about eight of their YouTube videos on the same topic.
Safe to say I would be able to confidently choose my brand’s colors after this.
Canva gives each potential search intent its own landing page. Which in return builds backlinks for them (other websites linking to Canva). This is intentional.
Canva created tools and pages that can easily be referenced in journalists’ or bloggers’ content - giving Canva more domain authority and higher ranks.
To put this practically, imagine I’m a journalist writing about the rise of SMBs on social media.
I talk about how they’re creating unique content to build an audience. I want to help my readers as much as possible, so I find a tool that can create unique content for social media.
Guess what pops up as my first choice? (not this again… 🤣)
By now I hope you guessed it.
Canva.
And so I link Canva in my article. This not only boosts Canva’s domain authority, but also sends users directly to Canva.
Why 🧩
It’s simple.
Focusing on education and not selling brings your users closer to repeat value - and that’s the best sales tool out there.

Actions you can take to replicate Canva’s success

There is so much to learn from Canva - here are four key actions you can take and replicate into your business:
Introduce scarcity 🔢
One cool way Canva grew before even launching was to use a waitlist.
It’s nothing new nowadays - but still, a lot of people don’t use it.
A waitlist helps test for interest in an idea, but also by using it to limit access to your product, you get the benefit of scarcity.
Canva grew its waitlist super creatively.
They showed people the cool designs and templates from Canva - but you couldn’t get in.
However, you knew that some people were allowed in.
How you may ask?
Canva started to generate buzz within the design community and similar groups who needed design tools.
They reached out to the press, blogs, podcasts, and conferences to offer them early access for their audiences.
That’s how you got in early. That’s how you became a cool kid (at least I’m guessing it made you cool).
Also, anyone who Tweeted about Canva usually “coincidentally” reached the top of the waitlist.
Canva was awesome at generating hype through scarcity.
It shows. 50k people were on the waitlist at launch.
It’s a powerful tool to grow.
People want what they can’t have.
The key to scarcity is you want to be publicly oversubscribed.
You want people to see that others are interested. This makes them think that your product is something worth checking out.
So find a way that you can publicly limit access to your product or a new feature for it.
Find a desperate crowd 🫙
One of the key puzzle pieces to Canva’s success was finding an audience that was desperate for a product to solve their problem - simple and quick designs.
There are tens of millions of freelancers, SMBs, and solopreneurs who lack design skills but need to market themselves and their businesses. And Canva makes this easy.
Canva also entered when Facebook marketing was taking off like a rocketship and the above mentioned people not only needed content - but they needed loads of it.
Canva could do that.
So what does this mean for you?
It’s much harder to make a profitable business by solving a “cherry-on-the-top” problem.
You want to find a problem that people care deeply about. A “whole meal” problem.
Even if this means targeting a smaller group of people. It’s worth sacrificing at the beginning.
Because it will be much easier to market and sell to people who have a desperate need for a solution than people who would just sort of like one.
It becomes much easier to expand after you have your core users. Talking about your core users…
Find your entry wedge customer 🧀
Melanie, Cliff, and Cameron were super smart in recognizing they needed to find and leverage an entry point for Canva (from Fusion Books’ super niche audience).
They perfectly identified SMBs as this wedge to break in.
In 2013, SMBs were flocking to Facebook to market. But the problem once again came back to the complexity of design tools at the time.
These SMBs needed professional-looking designs - cover photos, social media posts, flyers, event banners, etc. - and they needed them quickly and easily.
In stepped Canva.
They positioned themselves to appeal to this huge pain point of SMBs. Specifically their marketing teams (sometimes this was the founders themselves or freelancers serving many SMBs).
Once Canva started to wedge itself in these SMBs, it became easier to convert these individual users into teams using Canva. As well as having the authority to expand to bigger enterprises.
Going to market is hard.
Don’t make it any harder for yourself by trying to target everyone at the beginning.
Find a subset or niche that will help open the door for you.
It also helps your messaging be more targeted, making customer acquisition a bit easier.
Leverage reciprocity 🎁
Refer one person you think would enjoy this newsletter to see this Action to Replicate (for all future deep dives).
I feel like in every one of these deep dives there’s been a consistent golden thread:
Give. Give. Give.
In business, those who give the most get the most.
Want to build trust with potential customers?
Provide real value.
Want to convert more free users to paid users?
Provide more value.
Want to keep users happy and not churning?
Just keep providing value.
Make it seem silly for them to stop using your product.
Build a relationship with your users to the point where they don’t want to stop using your product. And not just because it serves their needs.
But because they also like you and your brand.
And why does giving value through content achieve this so well?
Because not only does it build trust, loyalty, and authority.
But it also leverages reciprocity.
Your users will want to give something of value to you (a referral, a share, or a subscription) because you first gave something of value to them (articles, newsletter, tools, videos, free features)
Reciprocity is powerful. Use it.