Tier List: https://imgur.com/a/WcUX9AP
Good gravy, these visuals. This is the most visual flair they've ever had in a battle up until this point. More on the particulars later. Unfortunately the music is comparatively pretty weak and unmemorable, with the notable exception of the track that plays during Austin Powers' bits.
So, Daniel Craig Bond's first verse. "[insert Bond villains here] were not as crooked and rotten as your teeth are." that's a decent burn, but man, I always feel bad for Austin Powers when Bond says this. Powers looks genuinely hurt, quit bullying Powers, Craig Bond! "I'll go balls to the Walther on this wack twat in an ascot; Blast shots atcha like gas from the back slot of a fat Scot!" Intellectually I acknowledge that there is some somewhat clever wordplay going on here, but I can't say I particularly care for these lines. The "I'm licensed to kill; you couldn't get a learner's permit!" is an alright diss I guess. The lines comparing their filmography and tying in You Only Live Twice into the diss... I dunno, something feels so rote and lifeless about this burn. It's competent, but it's not doing much for me. The best part of this verse is easily the "B on D/beyond me" diss, fun wordsmithing there. The closer is competent, reference to Golden Gun, sure, that's fine, but I ain't writing home about it. I'll go into more detail about this towards the end, but I'm not a fan of this verse, I think Craig Bond as a rapper is a fairly bland character and that the background visuals are having to compensate hard for his lifelessness.
Austin Powers opens his verse by acknowledging that he has been catfished by Craig Bond, which I think is a ton of fun. The visual of Austin Powers splitting into rainbow versions of himself as his track with the horns starts blaring is just fantastic. "Basil Exposition told me this would be boring; but Jesus, man, even my mojo's snoring!" This isn't a particularly clever line or a powerful diss, mostly seems like an excuse to drop a couple references, but I'm in full agreement with Austin Powers here. Craig Bond's performance was boring. Austin Powers proceeds to mock Craig Bond for his hairless body, contrasting it with his own glorious chest bush. I love how much confidence Austin has in his sexiness despite not being the least bit conventionally attractive. I also love this set with Austin, his buddy, and these women all rocking out. The computer-generated visuals of Craig Bond's backgrounds are impressive, sure, but actually having this wacky set made for the battle really elevates it to a new level in terms of presentation. And all these close-ups of Austin's eyes, mouth, and ass getting slapped... much more flair than their usual fare. Austin Powers threatens to hypnotize Craig Bond with a strip tease and I just... look, I'm not saying these are great lines, on paper Austin does not have the strongest disses, but this verse is just so FUN. The dancing and choreography with Austin's visuals are top-notch, love him slapping his ass on the spinning bed. "You're defenseless, my rhymes can't be deflected, you're like all the sex I've ever had: unprotected!" is genuinely hilarious. "People want a hero with a little personality; no one wants to sit through your gritty reality" is definitely encapsulating the vibe I feel on the question of James Bond vs. Austin Powers. Powers then goes in for a nice blow with the line about them making Thunderball twice. "I'm one of a kind, you're always getting remade" goes hard, even harder nowadays than it did back when this was made. "You can't touch me, double oh behave" is a cute reference, but it's not anything more than that, same tier of verse closer as Craig Bond's.
Then we have the misfortune of returning to Craig Bond's gritty reality. "I can't believe I'm wasting my time with this clown, I should... be on an island with a fucking model by now" is really weak. It feels ad-libbed. You're not too cool for this rap battle Craig Bond, you're actually not nearly cool enough. Craig throws in a reference to the penis pumping joke from Austin Powers, we get a little failed interjection from Powers, and that's fun. Craig Bond does get a strong blow in with "but I'm the original model that your frilly ass mimics"; a powerful argument that you can't take away from Craig Bond.
Until Sean Bond comes in and takes that away from Craig Bond with a cheeky "I wouldn't exactly call you original". Good stuff. The BDSM joke is whatever. "Your performance doesn't stir me and I'm certainly not shaken" is an amusing reference to his famous quote, maybe a little obvious and corny, but what really helps sell it is the way it segueways into "if I wanted shitty acting in my action film, I'd go and watch Taken". Fun! "I don't need a Q to break your balls" is some good wordplay. I remember watching this with my family years ago, and my father groaned at Bond's closing Gold Bond joke and said "That's terrible." and... yeah, I kind of have to agree. It's a good jab and the wordplay isn't without its wit, but there's something so goddamned cheesy about it. Can't help but roll my eyes when he smugly looks at the camera and says 'Gold Bond'. It's the phrasing and line delivery, I think. This joke might have landed better if they refrained from trying to tie it into that famous quote.
Austin Powers makes a valiant effort to get back in the battle, but gets bitch slapped for his troubles.
There's something so... for lack of a better term... beta about the way Craig Bond comes in and touches Sean Bond's arm to get his attention. "The world has had quite enough rug-wearing misogynists" is accurate, albeit not the most clever.
Austin Powers shows Craig Bond up by carrying that line of argumentation further with an amusing bit about Sean Bond being a rapist. I love how uncomfortable Austin Powers seems.
"If they made a mini-me they'd have to cast Peter Dinklage"... that's so lame, guys. Come on.
"Or maybe they should cast a Bond who's actually English" winds up seeming like way stronger of a burn than it is for the fact that Sean Bond takes so much offense to it he feels the need to slap Craig Bond hard for it. Austin's awed reaction in the background is quite funny.
"Why, Pussy, aren't you the cunning linguist?" Har har har.
I like the way Craig Bond takes Sean Bond's wordplay and uses it to mount a counteroffensive, he delivers a couple real solid lines here.
Sean Bond's closer is pretty unremarkable. I guess I could charitably consider it to be of the same caliber as the closers for Craig Bond's and Powers' first verse closers, a cute little reference but nothing more. Austin Powers continues to be the best part of the battle as he rises up into the frame, enamored with his opponents.
Alright, so... I think Craig Bond gives one of the dullest and most unmemorable performances in ERB history. For one thing, his face is just not very expressive here; it's like he constantly has one facial expression. Even when his face is contorting a bit to try and express anger he still looks the same. I don't know to what extent that's just the actor's physical appearance, or if it's a deliberate choice as part of the Craig Bond persona, or what, but watching him perform feels like watching a flat line. It doesn't help that he just looks like some guy. Austin Powers and Sean Bond have very distinct and flashy appearances, but with Craig Bond it looks like they just brought in some random guy off the street and gave him a suit. Maybe that's accurate to Daniel Craig's Bond, but it's a problem for this rap battle regardless. This guy is so nondescript he's regularly getting upstaged by his backgrounds. Another issue I have with this battle is that it clearly does not respect the existence of Austin Powers as a rapper. I could be misremembering, but I believe I've heard that the creators said they didn't like the idea of a parody rapping against the character they're based on, and that this one ultimately got made because they could turn it into a Bond v. Bond battle. Personally I think the idea of having a parody go up against the original is vastly more interesting of a matchup and that Bond v. Bond is the thing that isn't really worth doing. I'd rather this have just been a battle between Austin Powers on one side with two verses and one or both of the Bonds on the other. I also want to say that this is one of the best and most un-NicePeter performances Peter has ever given; I had to go on the wiki and double-check to make sure Peter actually played him. I think Peter has an issue with a lot of his characters sounding same-y, but this sounds nothing like him. It doesn't look like him either; it's not just that the costuming is great, the dancing and mannerisms are real different from Peter's usual stuff. Just look at that pose he strikes on the right at 1:13. So good. One of Peter's best characters.
Anyhoo... I'd put this battle in B Tier, below Ghostbusters vs. Mythbusters but above Robocop vs. Terminator. The Craig and Sean Bonds have their moments, but their parts greatly pale in comparison to Austin Powers... but even then, Austin Powers' verse isn't that great, it's more supremely entertaining than expertly written. It shapes out to being a solid battle that still leaves a lot to be desired.
I don't care what anyone thinks, I'm saying Austin Powers>Sean Bond>Craig Bond. Austin Powers is the entire reason I revisit this battle.

"You're just a fragment of a fucked up, omnicidal alien who happens to have a symbiotic or parasitic relationship to me. You probably expected a different existence. So did I. We're in this mess together."

Victoria Dallon

Fanart by zearoe
This is a port of Ridtom's thread on Spacebattles, made with permission. I take no credit in reading through Ward to gather feats. I've only uploaded them to pastebin and organized them by powetype of feat.

~	Table of Contents
I.	Background
II.	Source Guide
III.	Enhanced Strength
IV.	Non-Powered Physicals
V.	Flight
VI.	Forcefield Durability
VII.	Forcefield Range/Control
VIII.	Emotional Aura
IX.	Miscellaneous (Gear, Tactics, Skill)

Sections VIII and IX are in the comments section due to size restraints.

I. Background

Victoria Dallon, otherwise known as Glory Girl was a young and upcoming member of a family of the New Wave - superheroes who broke convention by having public identities, helping protect the streets of Brockton Bay from the many superpowered villains within it. With an invincible forcefield, the ability to instill feelings of fear and awe in her enemies, and a sister who could heal her at a moment's notice, she was a rising star among a new generation of parahumans.
This wouldn't be how things played out. Leviathan attacked Brockton Bay, wrecking the city and killing many of its best capes, including New Wave members and Victoria's boyfriend. Then the Slaughterhouse Nine left Victoria on death's bed from acid exposure. Then her sister used her power to take advantage of and manipulate her body and mind, leaving her to be sent to a parahuman asylum with a horrifically mutated body. Then the world ended.
Now, capes across the planet are left to pick up the pieces. Healed physically, but shouldering the burdens of her past, Victoria still continues to try and use her powers as a hero. As Antares, she'd form a team named Breakthrough to track down and interfere with villain activity alongside other parahumans in similar circumstances from a therapy group, fighting to protect a world that had already all but fallen apart.

II. Source Guide

This is an abridged thread with a number of feats removed due to redundancy. For the complete thread, click here.
Feats are sourced with their respective chapters from Worm or Ward. Author statements are linked via imgur.

• Worm Chapter List
• Ward Chapter List

Scaling:

• Respect Bitch
• Respect Scion
• Respect Sveta (Spacebattles Thread)
• Respect Lung (Reddit), Spacebattles
• If not listed above,
  • Every Worm/Ward thread on respectthreads
  • Ridtom's Worm/Ward feats thread on spacebattles

Size References:

• For "X Titan interactions", Titans vary in size from being compared to multistory buildings, to the order of city blocks and even higher. A full list of size references for every Titan put together by Ridtom can be found here
• Lord of Loss' breaker form in Arc 11 is described as being "Endbringer-sized", so large/massive that he could disintegrate steel girders under his weight at this point, and being made of 'calcified steel'
• Cradle's mech has hands the size of a car and charges through buildings.

II. Enhanced Strength

Unabridged

Includes feats from The Wretch/Fragile One, Victoria's ranged extension of her forcefield, which is what supplies her strength.
See the section on Forcefield Range/Control for more details.

Striking Strength

Unarmed Striking

Concrete/Stone

• Lands hard enough to shatter a section of marble tile, then casually backhands a marble and oak table hard enough to 'annihilate' it
• Punches out a section of reinforced concrete as tall and wide as she is with three hits
• Strikes a giant construct so hard she shatters the stone lining of the ground floor of a building
• Punches through floors and while clearing a building of mercenaries
• Flying charges through ceilings, making holes large enough for her and groups to move through
• Rams the Wretch's arm into the ground, then spins, tearing up enough to grab a pipe underneath a speedbump
• An all-out flying tackle from her shatters a concrete building pad
  • Reference of what the buildings in the area she was in looked like

Metal

• Knees Cradle's mech hard enough to make it skid backwards, then damages it.
• Slams into Lord of Loss in his 'Endbringer-sized' breaker state, shattering his legs, which were large enough to damage houses below with falling debris. Another hit makes his breaker form start to crumble
• Punches Lord of Loss in the chest until she opens a hole wide enough to fly into.
• Breaks through Capricorn's metal and stone constrcts on multiple occasions
• Backhands a motorbike hard enough to 'demolish' it
• Damages Titan Skadi's armor after heating it with her laser cannon

Wood/Flesh

• Kicks apart a twelve foot pole of altered tree material created by Chris that was strong enough to shatter Tristans' stone creations
• Shatters a section of floorboards generated by Nursery, bruising the mass of flesh beneath and creating a hole big enough for breaker form Lord of Loss to fall through
• Explodes ninety percent of a 600-pound Brute-class cape into gore, then repeatedly smashes him apart until his regeneration fails
• Shatters the armor of a parahuman who surrounded themselves in bone and sends them flying
• Flies through a truck-sized insect

Distance

• Kicks a dumpster hard enough for it to go flying in a straight line twenty/thirty-five yards and skidding for three or five yards
• Sends one of Bitch's dogs flying. Implied later she could have torn through the dogs if she wanted to
• Sends a car flying into another parked car twenty feet in front of herself
• Repeatedly parries hits from Cradle's mech even after its whip-arm was over a hundred feet long, and its normal arms over 25
• While flying in the air fighting Titan Skadi, kicks her twelve ton gun flying so high she can perform multiple actions before it hits the ground below at terminal velocity
  • I'm not linking every time she flies or wields this gun as a feat, just keep in mind she is holding it for most feats in Arc 19 and 20.

Armed Striking

• A poorly controlled Wretch picks up a twenty foot steel beam and swings it hard enough to knock back an amped Lung
• Uses the Wretch's eight limbs to repeatedly raise and impale Lung with ten feet long spikes of building debris or Capricorn constructs, hundreds of pounds of concrete and stalagmites, and shattered tree trunks
• Rips a construction hook from a crane off its wires, then uses it to impale Lord of Loss in his bird form's wing
• Even with a cape messing with her attack accuracy, swings a construction crane hook on metal cables into Lord of Loss's head so hard she changes the trajectory of his tackle
  • Later lays beatdowns on this breaker state while using the cable to yank around Lord of Loss' limbs, with some limited success
• Rams her twelve ton cannon through the Impaler Titan's flesh

Biting

• Her forcefield sometimes has faces with mouths. With no input from Victoria, the Wretch bites and tears into the wood of trees nearby her
• Catches a man's fists and bites into it
• Bites through a metal wire that was restraining her
• Can user her forcefield's mouths to grasp objects even when coated in a nonadhesive slime

Lifting Strength

Objective

• Taylor Hebert claims Glory Girl can swing a school bus like a baseball bat
• Considers that she can bench a cement mixer. Tosses a man twenty to thirty-five yards in the air, with him rolling for another ten
• Claims she can overhead lift an SUV, and that she holds back most of the time
  • Wildbow clarifies these are ballpark estimations based on her experience. She hasn't tested her upper limits at this point
• Flips an 18-wheeler
• As Glory Girl, had a lifting strength limit of 14.8 Tons. As Antares, is given a 12 Ton gun that she regularly later uses as equipment

Grappling/Grip

Scaling

• Catches one of Bitch's dogs mid-tackle, then throws it at another dog
• Pins an angel mech who could lift a sword the length of two eighteen wheelers
• Manages to slightly alter a leap made by Titan Oberon, a 6-12 story tall giant whose leap was powerful enough to carry it a mile and a half
• Stops a charging mechanical suit made by Cradle, which previously ran through a building, and does so repeatedly while grappling with arms the size of cars

VS. Metal

• Victoria inserts her forcefield into Lord of Loss' chest cavity and then tears it wide open with the Wretch.
• Rips into Titan Skadi's body, which is made of metal plating
• Many examples of ripping apart the metals of cards, even using them as projectile weapons
• Rips off one of Snag's mechanical arms
• Crushes and rips Machine Army drones in half, even the smaller drones are the size of a washing machine

VS. Concrete/Stone

• Carves The Wretch's limbs into the ground as Victoria flies to hit a target
• Crushes a stone/metal cleaver created by Capricorn in its grip
• Repeatedly tears holes through walls and floors in a building while chasing the Pharmacist
• Crumbles a stone-metal construct created by Tristan in the shape of a riot shield

VS. Flesh/Wood

• Threatens to crush a shapeshifter as they constantly try to morph out of its grip
• Threatens to tear apart wooden buildings on multiple occasions
• Uses an open wound to start digging with her forcefield into Titan Oberon's flesh
• Drives her forcefield's fingernails into giant insects, then uses two more of her forcefield's arms to violently rip them in half, these insects are the size of trucks
• Uses her forcefield's fingernails and limbs to rip into and tear apart a large section of Titan Ophion's head
• Has her forcefield quickly rip off a man's head, then breaks the legs of six others in quick succession

Throwing

• Rips a boulder out of the ground and throws it like a bowling ball at a group of enemies. This boulder was tall enough to reach a person's hips, and Victoria claimed it was 250-300 pounds
  • The 300 pound estimation isn't likely to be accurate - a 'waist height' boulder would easily weigh a couple of tons
• Lifts and throws a section of reinforced concrete as tall as she is
• Throws coins with the same force as a low impact shotgun, killing a doppelganger of herself and much later a Simurgh-controlled cape
  • Victoria is probably underestimating here. Mythbusters found that penny fired out of a rifle at mach 3 does not penetrate concrete or lethally injure through bone
• Chucks cars at Titan Oberon, indenting its building-sized bulk
• Throws rocks the size of her head in a shotgun spray that destroys machine army portal drones
• Breaks a few ten foot long spider legs with thrown rubble that she gets from crushing concrete in her hands

IV. Non-Powered Physicals

Unabridged

Strength

Victoria isn't unusually strong for her build. That said she can still fistfight people without her enhanced strength, even when they have a larger build than her.

Speed

Victoria's power doesn't necessarily grant her noteworthy speed (outside of her flight). She still has quick reflexes and experience aimdodging.
Hand-to-Hand

• While looking away from the man, activates her power and slaps him away while he tried to reach for her throat from right next to her
• Activates her forcefield while a thinker with martial arts powers was mid-kick
• Times her punches with the movements of her opponents to nonlethally take them out with her forcefield down
• Yanks her arm out of a mutant dog's mouth before it could bite her
• Catches Damsel's fists with the Wretch before she can strike at her with her power
• Has her forcefield tear apart machine army drones in half a second
• Catches Sveta's tendrils

Reactions

• Maneuvers around Nailbiter's projectiles during her shield's downtime
• Does several maneuvers where she flies at full speed at opponents and suddenly stops right before them
• Is experienced in avoiding being shot by guns. Being human-sized, mobile, and flying far in the air just makes this difficult for most opponents
  • Goes through a group of 30 armed men and knocks most out without getting hit past her forcefield
  • Flies down from a street light and grabs a gunman before he can fire
• Catches a cape swung at her at "whip-crack" speeds after anticipating his movement
• Dodges Lung's flames, even after he manipulates them to chase her
• Reacts to and avoids charges from a Breaker who moved 5-7 times faster in his breaker state
• Swats aside a throwing dart midair

Unshielded Durability

Victoria rarely fights without her forcefield, these feats are examples of characters nullifying her powers, taking advantage of the cooldown period of her ability, or Victoria intentionally not using her powers.
Feats for her armor are under Equipment.

• Still manages to fly Taylor off for a little while after having most of her flesh eaten away by acid
• Gets back up by an unshielded hit from Lord of Loss
• Fights while carrying a gunshot wound to her arm
• Withstands being slightly exposed to Lung's flames
• Functional after full body burns and broken bones, dealing a finishing blow to the key point of Teacher's Shard
• Despite going through many Titan fights and having to relive various traumatic memories in Shardspace, notably standing tall despite other capes being exhausted
• Continues fighting while the Mathers Titan was making her body feel like it was melting alive and altering her perceptions to torture and deceive her
• Continues having the Fragile One fight while she nearly passes out from her injuries

V. Flight

Unabridged

Speed

• Sent flying by Ballistic's power and returns in two minutes
• Pushes eighty miles per hour
• Considers forty-five miles per hour an 'easy pace'
• Keeps pace with a train moving over 100 miles per hour
• Catches up to a fleeing motorbike
• Accelerates faster than someone can fall
• Vista needed to warp space so that a truck could keep pace with her
• Flies down from a building to fight giant insects near the ground. Starts to rip them apart with the Wretch, finishing and flying off before any of the pieces of them could hit the ground
• Directly enhances her striking speed with her flight, making her hit so fast a bystander says the hit looks like its from an "animated fight and they missed something"

Control/Maneuvering

• Uses her flight to cancel her movement when she's flung by an attack
• Can exert amounts of upwards or downwards force while staying on the ground to relieve pressure or keep her in place
• Can leverage her flight to counteract gravity-based powers
• Uses her flight to augment her hand to hand skills:
  • Doesn't need time to consider or maintain her footing, since her flight just keeps her momentum
  • Spontaneously flips herself with her flight while someone tries to perform a judo maneuver, reversing it
• Allows her to get a better vantage point of a battlefield
• Can perform mid-flight spins and not get too dizzy, at least compared to some other flying capes
• Flies well out of the view of a gunman above the clouds, then behind them, then distracts them with the noise of falling objects to catch them off-guard
• Works fine even with every muscle in her body paralyzed from a Master's power

VI. Forcefield Durability

Unabridged

Victoria's durability is primarily based around a forcefield that surrounds her. This section only covers the durability of it, not its range and control, which changes over the series.

General Rules

• Victoria is surrounded by a forcefield with her powers active. This is broken by "a good hit", but blocks the impact. After this, it takes 1-2 seconds to come back
  • When her forcefield 'pop's, it doesn't just vanish. It breaks at a specific point and disappears around it in a space of time Victoria calls 'a blink'. This way two attacks hitting different parts of her body fast enough are both blocked
• She has a loose sense of her forcefield, its shape and where things hit it, even esoteric attacks that bypass it entirely
• The shield can block sustained attacks and not break for "a few seconds", although Wildbow claims this would impact the 'recharge time'
• Can deactivate then reactivate her powers in a half-second
  • Does this to keep the Wretch from expanding out too far
  • Can use this feature to break out of grapples where the opponent is gripping her forcefield or make people fall off it
• Getting pinned by an object so large her forcefield can't contain it can disrupt her forcefield when it comes back

Power Interactions

• "Scion-level" hits, hits from Damsel of Distress' power, and hits from Torso can make the recharge time take upwards of five seconds
  • Another power with the same effect is Foil's, which the shield can still recover from
• Space-warping doesn't break the shield, but still distorts it
• A physics-altering attack doesn't break it, but 'clings' to it in a way that requires Victoria blink it on and off
• Powers that require physical contact don't do anything to the forcefield

Blocking Attacks

Shield Unbroken
Not all attacks "pop" Victoria's forcefield or leave her in a vulnerable state. Wildbow's statement claims the upper limit of this are hits delivered with enough force to knock someone out, or are augmented by some weapon. It's possible this isn't reflected in her actual feats in Ward, however.

Physical

• Normal people hitting it with limbs, swung melee weapons, and thrown items don't break it
• Blocks Taylor's bugs
• Stops thrown shurikens
• Withstands Sveta uncontrollably trying to crush her in a tentacle's grip, but is broken by direct strikes from them
• Stops a wire which skinned her hand
• Shoves from Custodian don't break it
• Muffles loud sounds, protecting her ears from a point blank rocket explosion

Liquids/Gases

• Watertight - water also doesn't stick to it, although there's enough crevices on her body for it to settle on her
• This stops Crawler's acid, but it covers her entirely once it's broken by a hit from him
• Blocks a friction-reducing slime
• Filters out small particles and harmful gases

Heat/Electricity

• Protects her from cold upper atmosphere temperatures
  • Insulates her from a snowstorm
  • Keeps heat from going out the same way it keeps heat from going in
• Protects her from flames breathed by an amped Lung that would have 'swamped houses and conventional buildings'. It's mentioned this is due to her field having a better time against sustained attacks, this lasted even through Lung escalating more in the fight
  • Blocks the heat from molten glass
  • Stops magma
  • It can still be broken by heat, as a disclaimer, the Ashen Titan does this
• Stops hits from electrical-based tinkertech guns
  • Electricity in general just doesn't go past her shield even when its drenched

Shield Broken
Victoria's forcefield "blocks" most things that interact with it and would seriously injure Victoria herself. This can be anything as small as a gunshot to stuff as powerful as Scion's continent-shattering beams.

Author Statements

• Would block, and subsequently be broken by one of Scion's beams
  • Victoria remembers this as having happened during Gold Morning
• She could potentially break her own shield if she hit something hard enough, due to the recoil
  • This doesn't preclude her from redirecting attacks with her own force that otherwise pop her shield
  • Another example of this. The Wretch is able to grapple with and hold back a charging mech suit designed by Cradle without breaking
• Another statement has him mentioning it 'flicker[ing] off' for a shorter period than her normal recharge time from these impacts, even for something like stubbing her toe on an anvil

Scaling

• Withstands having Ballistic's power used on her clothes, which sends her flying into the air. Ballistic accelerates objects to the "speed of a rifle shot" in "a fraction of a second"
• Stops a charging strike from Crawler, but this leaves her susceptible to his acid
• Repeatedly blocks hits from Lord of Loss, even after his Brute power progressively increases the impact to the point of damaging the ground under her
• Stops a punch that overpowers her own punch and sends her flying 15 feet
• Blocks multiple attacks from Cradle's mech, each sending Victoria flying 15-20 feet
  • This mech could tear through sections of a building with its arms
• Blocks direct attacks from Titan Skadi's axe arm
• Blocks a hit from Torso while she tried to morph it around him, Torso knocked over a building-sized Titan in one hit, flattening several city blocks

Blunt Force

• Rebounds baseball bat swings, recovering her shield between each
• Grabbed by mechanical arms that tore through walls easily, then gets smashed into a window and through drywall
• Blocks the explosion of a rocket launcher
• Arrests the momentum of a mutant dog charging at her, which could cave in walls by just thrashing around
• Protects her from collapsing buildings on multiple occasions
• Hit by a wrecking ball through a brick/concrete wall
• Stops sword blows and semitruck sized energy beams fired from angel-themed mechs multiple times in a fight, both as a sustained attack and a brief attack. These beams tear through four-story tall machines
• Hit by a shockwave from Titan Oberon that sends her flying into a building and a wall of hardened gas created by Titan Eve

Piercing

• As mentioned previously, it blocks bullets, even automatic gunfire and rifles
• Rebounds the bite force of Bitch's dogs
• Stops Nailbiter's claws, which punch into a building face and street
• Completely stops the momentum of a cape balled up in spiked, metal armor moving at "whip-crack" speeds
• Smashes through large sections of glass and plastic syringes loaded with noxious substances
• Blocks needles capable of piercing her armor, at least until they continue attacking when it's down

VII. Forcefield Range and Control

Unabridged

Victoria's forcefield changes with her during the events of Worm and Ward. This is primarily in the shape and range of it, but also the ability to move the forcefield independently of herself for attacks.
"The Wretch" or "The Fragile One" is just a ranged extension of her forcefield, which is where she sources her strength from. As such her forcefield doing a strength feat or Victoria doing a strength feat are interchangeable.

Pre-Ward (Glory Girl)

Is just a skintight forcefield. It surrounds herself in a bubble a few millimeters over her skin.

Ward Start (Arc 1) - Teacher Raid (Arc 16)

In Ward, after spending some time as a fleshy abomination because of Panacea then being cured, her forcefield 'adjusted' to that enlarged size and shape, completed with extra body parts and arms. Now she can 'interact' at a range using her invisible forcefield.
Range

• The full size of her forcefield is stated to be ten feet across
• Has many invisible limbs that can extend from Victoria and attack.
  • It having such a large range and being invisible takes a martial-arts using precog off-guard
  • Fights off enemies in multiple directions at once
  • Simply grabs and snaps the legs of a martial arts Thinker mid-kick
  • Takes advantage of the Wretch's range against a foe she's willing to kill by just blindsiding them with flight and letting it rip them apart
• Can use its range to grip/grab objects Victoria cannot.
  • Even with every one of Victoria's normal limbs pinned, grips and rips opponents off her or sends chunks of debris flying at her opponents
  • When her limbs aren't pinned, uses its limbs to enhance her leverage
• Her forcefield "expands" to its full size when it activates, letting her take advantage the force this generates.
  • Pushes someone off her while expanding, letting her grab and throw them off her

Control
Early Ward sees Victoria going from little to no control to being able to command it and work alongside it.

• These extensions move without Victoria thinking
• While Victoria is unable to move or take any actions, she can 'let it loose' and it begins attacking enemies nearby her
  • Muses that she could simply let it loose and have it grab Imp while she held Victoria at gunpoint and rip her apart
• Disarms opponents for Victoria
  • Again
• Has it carry a nearby table for cover when faced with gunmen, blocking bullets with it while she closes distance
  • Does the same for a metal-plated piece of wood
• At a certain point, has enough control over it to get it to grab and wield objects for her, but can't hold it back enough to stop it from breaking them
• The bubble made by her forcefield can move or stay still while she moves inside it. Uses this to smash an opponent around a battlefield while grabbing them
• Her forcefield doesn't get tired

Teacher Raid (Arc 16) - Firmament Blast (Arc 19)

Range
Unchanged.
Control
After the events of Arc 16, the Wretch no longer moves without Victoria commanding it, and she can fully control its movements.

• When Victoria starts to get dressed, the Wretch begins to help her
• Mentally commands it without putting much thought, having it gently brush aside an arm while she made no movements
• No longer hampers her flight
• Uses its limbs in tandem with Victoria to give her more support points to lift objects more easily than before
• Lifts Tristan while flying with her normal arms to her side
• Can freely rotate her forcefield, taking advantage of its many hands to 'fan' away noxious gas from Titan Eve

Firmament Blast (Arc 19.2) - Love Crater (Arc 19.8)

Range
After destroying a memory storage system in Shardspace, Victoria's powers change like many other capes. The first thing she notices is her forcefield is much smaller, no longer extending to her 12-ton-gun's handholds

• Her forcefield's range is three times smaller now, and she has fewer limbs to control
• One benefit now is her extra limbs are closer together, making it easier for her to grip and rip apart enemies. Cuts two arms of it into insects while using the other two to violently rip them in half, these being the size of cars

Control
Largely the same as before, although near the last arc it briefly goes back to moving without input from Victoria after she ceded control to her Shard for a time during her fight with Ophion.

Post-Love Crater (Arc 19.8-End)

After strengthening her bond with her Shard once more, Victoria gains full control of her forcefield and can extend/shape it at will, as long as it forms bodyparts or shapes she's held previously.
This is Victoria's control over it at the end of Ward, she keeps it even with six months without fighting.
Range

• Now can entirely separate her forcefield from herself and use and manipulate it at a distance
• Can instantly bring her forcefield back to her when at a distance by cancelling it and reinstating it. Shapes it into a giant barrier that protects her allies
• Without Victoria looking, it runs out of her and restrains an opponent
  • What this looks like to an outside observer
• One major limit is that once she extends the forcefield past something, like her clothes, she can't reach inside the forcefield with itself
• Sends her forcefield out to cross a distance of 30 feet
• Uses the fact it's invisible to deliver the the Dream serum while many people trying to interfere with her

Control

• Can now intentionally create mouths on her forcefield
• Moves and shapes her forcefield by thinking. Extends her limbs and spins it to clear dust obscuring Machine Army drones
• Expands her forcefield around the cracks of an object she shoved her arm to gain leverage and rip it in half. Continues to morph it to rip through the machine army
• Her control of her forcefield is tied to her mental state. Something that has a tangible effect while fighting Simurgh, a mind-altering Endbringer
• Has it fire her laser cannon at Simurgh while she flies in and saves allies
• Shapes it into a giant barrier that protects her allies
• Adjusts the size/shape of the forcefield to grapple a cape who could shift to two inches in size and back
• Forms arms to grip around the sides of a pillar blocking her view of Simurgh/Mathers, then leverages her strength to maneuver herself around while tossing high-speed projectile concrete
• Uses forcefield arms to apply pressure on a wound while she uses her normal arms to give first aid
• Has it lunge to attack while she stands still
• Can remove her forcefield from herself, then morph it around someone else. Makes openings on the forcefield to allow for Rain to use powers
• Against a faster opponent, uses the Fragile One to fight him at one side, and fistfights him normally at another side, overwhelming him

"You're just a fragment of a fucked up, omnicidal alien who happens to have a symbiotic or parasitic relationship to me. You probably expected a different existence. So did I. We're in this mess together."

Victoria Dallon

Fanart by zearoe
This is a port of Ridrom's thread on Spacebattles, made with permission. I take no credit in reading through Ward to gather feats. I've only uploaded them to pastebin and organized them by powetype of feat.

~	Table of Contents
I.	Background
II.	Source Guide
III.	Enhanced Strength
IV.	Non-Powered Physicals
V.	Flight
VI.	Forcefield Durability
VII.	Forcefield Range/Control
VIII.	Emotional Aura
IX.	Miscellaneous (Gear, Tactics, Skill)

Sections VIII and IX are in the comments section due to size restraints.

I. Background

Victoria Dallon, otherwise known as Glory Girl was a young and upcoming member of a family of the New Wave - superheroes who broke convention by having public identities, helping protect the streets of Brockton Bay from the many superpowered villains within it. With an invincible forcefield, the ability to instill feelings of fear and awe in her enemies, and a sister who could heal her at a moment's notice, she was a rising star among a new generation of parahumans.
This wouldn't be how things played out. Leviathan attacked Brockton Bay, wrecking the city and killing many of its best capes, including New Wave members and Victoria's boyfriend. Then the Slaughterhouse Nine left Victoria on death's bed from acid exposure. Then her sister used her power to take advantage of and manipulate her body and mind, leaving her to be sent to a parahuman asylum with a horrifically mutated body. Then the world ended.
Now, capes across the planet are left to pick up the pieces. Healed physically, but shouldering the burdens of her past, Victoria still continues to try and use her powers as a hero. As Antares, she'd form a team named Breakthrough to track down and interfere with villain activity alongside other parahumans in similar circumstances from a therapy group, fighting to protect a world that had already all but fallen apart.

II. Source Guide

This is an abridged thread with a number of feats removed due to redundancy. For the complete thread, click here.
Feats are sourced with their respective chapters from Worm or Ward. Author statements are linked via imgur.

• Worm Chapter List
• Ward Chapter List

Scaling:

• Respect Bitch
• Respect Scion
• Respect Sveta (Spacebattles Thread)
• Respect Lung (Reddit), Spacebattles
• If not listed above,
  • Every Worm/Ward thread on respectthreads
  • Ridtom's Worm/Ward feats thread on spacebattles

Size References:

• For "X Titan interactions", Titans vary in size from being compared to multistory buildings, to the order of city blocks and even higher. A full list of size references fore very Titan put together by Ridtom can be found here
• Lord of Loss' breaker form in Arc 11 is described as being "Endbringer-sized", so large/massive that he could disintegrate steel girders under his weight at this point, and being made of 'calcified steel'
• Cradle's mech has hands the size of a car and charges through buildings.

II. Enhanced Strength

Unabridged

Includes feats from The Wretch/Fragile One, Victoria's ranged extension of her forcefield, which is what supplies her strength.
See the section on Forcefield Range/Control for more details.

Striking Strength

Unarmed Striking

Concrete/Stone

• Lands hard enough to shatter a section of marble tile, then casually backhands a marble and oak table hard enough to 'annihilate' it
• Punches out a section of reinforced concrete as tall and wide as she is with three hits
• Strikes a giant construct so hard she shatters the stone lining of the ground floor of a building
• Punches through floors and while clearing a building of mercenaries
• Flying charges through ceilings, making holes large enough for her and groups to move through
• Rams the Wretch's arm into the ground, then spins, tearing up enough to grab a pipe underneath a speedbump
• An all-out flying tackle from her shatters a concrete building pad
  • Reference of what the buildings in the area she was in looked like

Metal

• Knees Cradle's mech hard enough to make it skid backwards, then damages it.
• Slams into Lord of Loss in his 'Endbringer-sized' breaker state, shattering his legs, which were large enough to damage houses below with falling debris. Another hit makes his breaker form start to crumble
• Punches Lord of Loss in the chest until she opens a hole wide enough to fly into.
• Breaks through Capricorn's metal and stone constrcts on multiple occasions
• Backhands a motorbike hard enough to 'demolish' it
• Damages Titan Skadi's armor after heating it with her laser cannon

Wood/Flesh

• Kicks apart a twelve foot pole of altered tree material created by Chris that was strong enough to shatter Tristans' stone creations
• Shatters a section of floorboards generated by Nursery, bruising the mass of flesh beneath and creating a hole big enough for breaker form Lord of Loss to fall through
• Explodes ninety percent of a 600-pound Brute-class cape into gore, then repeatedly smashes him apart until his regeneration fails
• Shatters the armor of a parahuman who surrounded themselves in bone and sends them flying
• Sends a man skidding for ten feet, breaking his arm and doing damage to his spine despite him blocking her kick
• Flies through a truck-sized insect

Distance

• Kicks a dumpster hard enough for it to go flying in a straight line twenty/thirty-five yards and skidding for three or five yards
• Sends one of Bitch's dogs flying. Implied later she could have torn through the dogs if she wanted to
• Sends a car flying into another parked car twenty feet in front of herself
• Repeatedly parries hits from Cradle's mech even after its whip-arm was over a hundred feet long, and its normal arms over 25
• While flying in the air fighting Titan Skadi, kicks her twelve ton gun flying so high she can perform multiple actions before it hits the ground below at terminal velocity
  • I'm not linking every time she flies or wields this gun as a feat, just keep in mind she is holding it for most feats in Arc 19 and 20.

Armed Striking

• A poorly controlled Wretch picks up a twenty foot steel beam and swings it hard enough to knock back an amped Lung
• Uses the Wretch's eight limbs to repeatedly raise and impale Lung with ten feet long spikes of building debris or Capricorn constructs, hundreds of pounds of concrete and stalagmites, and shattered tree trunks
• Rips a construction hook from a crane off its wires, then uses it to impale Lord of Loss in his bird form's wing
• Even with a cape messing with her attack accuracy, swings a construction crane hook on metal cables into Lord of Loss's head so hard she changes the trajectory of his tackle
  • Later lays beatdowns on this breaker state while using the cable to yank around Lord of Loss' limbs, with some limited success
• Rams her twelve ton cannon through the Impaler Titan's flesh

Biting

• Her forcefield sometimes has faces with mouths. With no input from Victoria, the Wretch bites and tears into the wood of trees nearby her
• Catches a man's fists and bites into it
• Bites through a metal wire that was restraining her
• Can user her forcefield's mouths to grasp objects even when coated in a nonadhesive slime

Lifting Strength

Objective

• Taylor Hebert claims Glory Girl can swing a school bus like a baseball bat
• Considers that she can bench a cement mixer. Tosses a man twenty to thirty-five yards in the air, with him rolling for another ten
• Claims she can overhead lift an SUV, and that she holds back most of the time
  • Wildbow clarifies these are ballpark estimations based on her experience. She hasn't tested her upper limits at this point
• Flips an 18-wheeler
• As Glory Girl, had a lifting strength limit of 14.8 Tons. As Antares, is given a 12 Ton gun that she regularly later uses as equipment

Grappling/Grip

Scaling

• Catches one of Bitch's dogs mid-tackle, then throws it at another dog
• Pins an angel mech who could lift a sword the length of two eighteen wheelers
• Manages to slightly alter a leap made by Titan Oberon, a 6-12 story tall giant whose leap was powerful enough to carry it a mile and a half
• Stops a charging mechanical suit made by Cradle, which previously ran through a building, and does so repeatedly while grappling with arms the size of cars

VS. Metal

• Victoria inserts her forcefield into Lord of Loss' chest cavity and then tears it wide open with the Wretch.
• Rips into Titan Skadi's body, which is made of metal plating
• Many examples of ripping apart the metals of cards, even using them as projectile weapons
• Rips off one of Snag's mechanical arms
• Crushes and rips Machine Army drones in half, even the smaller drones are the size of a washing machine

VS. Concrete/Stone

• Carves The Wretch's limbs into the ground as Victoria flies to hit a target
• Crushes a stone/metal cleaver created by Capricorn in its grip
• Repeatedly tears holes through walls and floors in a building while chasing the Pharmacist
• Crumbles a stone-metal construct created by Tristan in the shape of a riot shield

VS. Flesh/Wood

• Threatens to crush a shapeshifter as they constantly try to morph out of its grip
• Threatens to tear apart wooden buildings on multiple occasions
• Uses an open wound to start digging with her forcefield into Titan Oberon's flesh
• Drives her forcefield's fingernails into giant insects, then uses two more of her forcefield's arms to violently rip them in half, these insects are the size of trucks
• Uses her forcefield's fingernails and limbs to rip into and tear apart a large section of Titan Ophion's head
• Has her forcefield quickly rip off a man's head, then breaks the legs of six others in quick succession

Throwing

• Rips a boulder out of the ground and throws it like a bowling ball at a group of enemies. This boulder was tall enough to reach a person's hips, and Victoria claimed it was 250-300 pounds
  • The 300 pound estimation isn't likely to be accurate - a 'waist height' boulder would easily weigh a couple of tons
• Lifts and throws a section of reinforced concrete as tall as she is
• Throws coins with the same force as a low impact shotgun, killing a doppelganger of herself and much later a Simurgh-controlled cape
  • Victoria is probably underestimating here. Mythbusters found that penny fired out of a rifle at mach 3 does not penetrate concrete or lethally injure through bone
• Chucks cars at Titan Oberon, indenting its building-sized bulk
• Throws rocks the size of her head in a shotgun spray that destroys machine army portal drones
• Breaks a few ten foot long spider legs with thrown rubble that she gets from crushing concrete in her hands

IV. Non-Powered Physicals

Unabridged

Strength

Victoria isn't unusually strong for her build. That said she can still fistfight people without her enhanced strength, even when they have a larger build than her.

Speed

Victoria's power doesn't necessarily grant her noteworthy speed (outside of her flight). She still has quick reflexes and experience aimdodging.
Hand-to-Hand

• While looking away from the man, activates her power and slaps him away while he tried to reach for her throat from right next to her
• Activates her forcefield while a thinker with martial arts powers was mid-kick
• Times her punches with the movements of her opponents to nonlethally take them out with her forcefield down
• Yanks her arm out of a mutant dog's mouth before it could bite her
• Catches Damsel's fists with the Wretch before she can strike at her with her power
• Has her forcefield tear apart machine army drones in half a second
• Catches Sveta's tendrils

Reactions

• Maneuvers around Nailbiter's projectiles during her shield's downtime
• Does several maneuvers where she flies at full speed at opponents and suddenly stops right before them
• Is experienced in avoiding being shot by guns. Being human-sized, mobile, and flying far in the air just makes this difficult for most opponents
  • Goes through a group of 30 armed men and knocks most out without getting hit past her forcefield
  • Flies down from a street light and grabs a gunman before he can fire
• Catches a cape swung at her at "whip-crack" speeds after anticipating his movement
• Dodges Lung's flames, even after he manipulates them to chase her
• Reacts to and avoids charges from a Breaker who moved 5-7 times faster in his breaker state
• Swats aside a throwing dart midair

Unshielded Durability

Victoria rarely fights without her forcefield, these feats are examples of characters nullifying her powers, taking advantage of the cooldown period of her ability, or Victoria intentionally not using her powers.
Feats for her armor are under [Equipment]().

• Still manages to fly Taylor off for a little while after having most of her flesh eaten away by acid
• Gets back up by an unshielded hit from Lord of Loss
• Fights while carrying a gunshot wound to her arm
• Withstands being slightly exposed to Lung's flames
• Functional after full body burns and broken bones, dealing a finishing blow to the key point of Teacher's Shard
• Despite going through many Titan fights and having to relive various traumatic memories in Shardspace, notably standing tall despite other capes being exhausted
• Continues fighting while the Mathers Titan was making her body feel like it was melting alive and altering her perceptions to torture and deceive her
• Continues having the Fragile One fight while she nearly passes out from her injuries

V. Flight

Unabridged

Speed

• Sent flying by Ballistic's power and returns in two minutes
• Pushes eighty miles per hour
• Considers forty-five miles per hour an 'easy pace'
• Keeps pace with a train moving over 100 miles per hour
• Catches up to a fleeing motorbike
• Accelerates faster than someone can fall
• Vista needed to warp space so that a truck could keep pace with her
• Flies down from a building to fight giant insects near the ground. Starts to rip them apart with the Wretch, finishing and flying off before any of the pieces of them could hit the ground
• Directly enhances her striking speed with her flight, making her hit so fast a bystander says the hit looks like its from an "animated fight and they missed something"

Control/Maneuvering

• Uses her flight to cancel her movement when she's flung by an attack
• Can exert amounts of upwards or downwards force while staying on the ground to relieve pressure or keep her in place
• Can leverage her flight to counteract gravity-based powers
• Uses her flight to augment her hand to hand skills:
  • Doesn't need time to consider or maintain her footing, since her flight just keeps her momentum
  • Spontaneously flips herself with her flight while someone tries to perform a judo maneuver, reversing it
• Allows her to get a better vantage point of a battlefield
• Can perform mid-flight spins and not get too dizzy, at least compared to some other flying capes
• Flies well out of the view of a gunman above the clouds, then behind them, then distracts them with the noise of falling objects to catch them off-guard
• Works fine even with every muscle in her body paralyzed from a Master's power

VI. Forcefield Durability

Unabridged

Victoria's durability is primarily based around a forcefield that surrounds her. This section only covers the durability of it, not its range and control, which changes over the series.

General Rules

• Victoria is surrounded by a forcefield with her powers active. This is broken by "a good hit", but blocks the impact. After this, it takes 1-2 seconds to come back
  • When her forcefield 'pop's, it doesn't just vanish. It breaks at a specific point and disappears around it in a space of time Victoria calls 'a blink'. This way two attacks hitting different parts of her body fast enough are both blocked
• She has a loose sense of her forcefield, its shape and where things hit it, even esoteric attacks that bypass it entirely
• The shield can block sustained attacks and not break for "a few seconds", although Wildbow claims this would impact the 'recharge time'
• Can deactivate then reactivate her powers in a half-second
  • Does this to keep the Wretch from expanding out too far
  • Can use this feature to break out of grapples where the opponent is gripping her forcefield or make people fall off it
• Getting pinned by an object so large her forcefield can't contain it can disrupt her forcefield when it comes back

Power Interactions

• "Scion-level" hits, hits from Damsel of Distress' power, and hits from Torso can make the recharge time take upwards of five seconds
  • Another power with the same effect is Foil's, which the shield can still recover from
• Space-warping doesn't break the shield, but still distorts it
• A physics-altering attack doesn't break it, but 'clings' to it in a way that requires Victoria blink it on and off
• Powers that require physical contact don't do anything to the forcefield

Blocking Attacks

Shield Unbroken
Not all attacks "pop" Victoria's forcefield or leave her in a vulnerable state. Wildbow's statement claims the upper limit of this are hits delivered with enough force to knock someone out, or are augmented by some weapon. It's possible this isn't reflected in her actual feats in Ward, however.

Physical

• Normal people hitting it with limbs, swung melee weapons, and thrown items don't break it
• Blocks Taylor's bugs
• Stops thrown shurikens
• Withstands Sveta uncontrollably trying to crush her in a tentacle's grip, but is broken by direct strikes from them
• Stops a wire which skinned her hand
• Shoves from Custodian don't break it
• Muffles loud sounds, protecting her ears from a point blank rocket explosion

Liquids/Gases

• Watertight - water also doesn't stick to it, although there's enough crevices on her body for it to settle on her
• This stops Crawler's acid, but it covers her entirely once it's broken by a hit from him
• Blocks a friction-reducing slime
• Filters out small particles and harmful gases

Heat/Electricity

• Protects her from cold upper atmosphere temperatures
  • Insulates her from a snowstorm
  • Keeps heat from going out the same way it keeps heat from going in
• Protects her from flames breathed by an amped Lung that would have 'swamped houses and conventional buildings'. It's mentioned this is due to her field having a better time against sustained attacks, this lasted even through Lung escalating more in the fight
  • Blocks the heat from molten glass
  • Stops magma
  • It can still be broken by heat, as a disclaimer, the Ashen Titan does this
• Stops hits from electrical-based tinkertech guns
  • Electricity in general just doesn't go past her shield even when its drenched

Shield Broken
Victoria's forcefield "blocks" most things that interact with it and would seriously injure Victoria herself. This can be anything as small as a gunshot to stuff as powerful as Scion's continent-shattering beams.

Author Statements

• Would block, and subsequently be broken by one of Scion's beams
  • Victoria remembers this as having happened during Gold Morning
• She could potentially break her own shield if she hit something hard enough, due to the recoil
  • This doesn't preclude her from redirecting attacks with her own force that otherwise pop her shield
  • Another example of this. The Wretch is able to grapple with and hold back a charging mech suit designed by Cradle without breaking
• Another statement has him mentioning it 'flicker[ing] off' for a shorter period than her normal recharge time from these impacts, even for something like stubbing her toe on an anvil

Scaling

• Withstands having Ballistic's power used on her clothes, which sends her flying into the air. Ballistic accelerates objects to the "speed of a rifle shot" in "a fraction of a second"
• Stops a charging strike from Crawler, but this leaves her susceptible to his acid
• Repeatedly blocks hits from Lord of Loss, even after his Brute power progressively increases the impact to the point of damaging the ground under her
• Stops a punch that overpowers her own punch and sends her flying 15 feet
• Blocks multiple attacks from Cradle's mech, each sending Victoria flying 15-20 feet
  • This mech could tear through sections of a building with its arms
• Blocks direct attacks from Titan Skadi's axe arm
• Blocks a hit from Torso while she tried to morph it around him, Torso knocked over a building-sized Titan in one hit, flattening several city blocks

Blunt Force

• Rebounds baseball bat swings, recovering her shield between each
• Grabbed by mechanical arms that tore through walls easily, then gets smashed into a window and through drywall
• Blocks the explosion of a rocket launcher
• Arrests the momentum of a mutant dog charging at her, which could cave in walls by just thrashing around
• Protects her from collapsing buildings on multiple occasions
• Hit by a wrecking ball through a brick/concrete wall
• Stops sword blows and semitruck sized energy beams fired from angel-themed mechs multiple times in a fight, both as a sustained attack and a brief attack. These beams tear through four-story tall machines
• Hit by a shockwave from Titan Oberon that sends her flying into a building and a wall of hardened gas created by Titan Eve

Piercing

• As mentioned previously, it blocks bullets, even automatic gunfire and rifles
• Rebounds the bite force of Bitch's dogs
• Stops Nailbiter's claws, which punch into a building face and street
• Completely stops the momentum of a cape balled up in spiked, metal armor moving at "whip-crack" speeds
• Smashes through large sections of glass and plastic syringes loaded with noxious substances
• Blocks needles capable of piercing her armor, at least until they continue attacking when it's down

VII. Forcefield Range and Control

Unabridged

Victoria's forcefield changes with her during the events of Worm and Ward. This is primarily in the shape and range of it, but also the ability to move the forcefield independently of herself for attacks.
"The Wretch" or "The Fragile One" is just a ranged extension of her forcefield, which is where she sources her strength from. As such her forcefield doing a strength feat or Victoria doing a strength feat are interchangeable.

Pre-Ward (Glory Girl)

Is just a skintight forcefield. It surrounds herself in a bubble a few millimeters over her skin.

Ward Start (Arc 1) - Teacher Raid (Arc 16)

In Ward, spending some time as a fleshy abomination because of Panacea, her forcefield 'adjusted' to that enlarged size and shape, completed with extra body parts and arms. Now she can 'interact' at a range using her invisible forcefield.
Range

• The full size of her forcefield is stated to be ten feet across
• Has many invisible limbs that can extend from Victoria and attack.
  • It having such a large range and being invisible takes a martial-arts using precog off-guard
  • Fights off enemies in multiple directions at once
  • Simply grabs and snaps the legs of a martial arts Thinker mid-kick
  • Takes advantage of the Wretch's range against a foe she's willing to kill by just blindsiding them with flight and letting it rip them apart
• Can use its range to grip/grab objects Victoria cannot.
  • Even with every one of Victoria's normal limbs pinned, grips and rips opponents off her or sends chunks of debris flying at her opponents
  • When her limbs aren't pinned, uses its limbs to enhance her leverage
• Her forcefield "expands" to its full size when it activates, letting her take advantage the force this generates.
  • Pushes someone off her while expanding, letting her grab and throw them off her
  • Uses her forcefield's wide area and her ability to dismiss it to escape a grab on a similar principle to shedding a jacket

Control
Early Ward sees Victoria going from little to no control to being able to command it and work alongside it.

• These extensions move without Victoria thinking
• While Victoria is unable to move or take any actions, she can 'let it loose' and it begins attacking enemies nearby her
  • Muses that she could simply let it loose and have it grab Imp while she held Victoria at gunpoint and rip her apart
• Disarms opponents for Victoria
  • Again
• Has it carry a nearby table for cover when faced with gunmen, blocking bullets with it while she closes distance
  • Does the same for a metal-plated piece of wood
• At a certain point, has enough control over it to get it to grab and wield objects for her, but can't hold it back enough to stop it from breaking them
• The bubble made by her forcefield can move or stay still while she moves inside it. Uses this to smash an opponent around a battlefield while grabbing them
• Her forcefield doesn't get tired

Teacher Raid (Arc 16) - Firmament Blast (Arc 19)

Range
Unchanged.
Control
After the events of Arc 16, the Wretch no longer moves without Victoria commanding it, and she can fully control its movements.

• When Victoria starts to get dressed, the Wretch begins to help her
• Mentally commands it without putting much thought, having it gently brush aside an arm while she made no movements
• No longer hampers her flight
• Uses its limbs in tandem with Victoria to give her more support points to lift objects more easily than before
• Lifts Tristan while flying with her normal arms to her side
• Can freely rotate her forcefield, taking advantage of its many hands to 'fan' away noxious gas from Titan Eve

Firmament Blast (Arc 19.2) - Love Crafter (Arc 19.8)

Range
After destroying a memory storage system in Shardspace, Victoria's powers change like many other capes. The first thing she notices is her forcefield is much smaller, no longer extending to her 12-ton-gun's handholds

• Her forcefield's range is three times smaller now, and she has fewer limbs to control
• One benefit now is her extra limbs are closer together, making it easier for her to grip and rip apart enemies. Cuts two arms of it into insects while using the other two to violently rip them in half, these being the size of cars

Control
Largely the same as before, although near the last arc it briefly goes back to moving without input from Victoria after she ceded control to her Shard for a time during her fight with Ophion.

Post-Love Crater (Arc 19.8-End)

After strengthening her bond with her Shard once more, Victoria gains full control of her forcefield and can extend/shape it at will, as long as it forms bodyparts or shapes she's held previously.
This is Victoria's control over it at the end of Ward, she keeps it even with six months without fighting.
Range

• Now can entirely separate her forcefield from herself and use and manipulate it at a distance
• Can instantly bring her forcefield back to her when at a distance by cancelling it and reinstating it. Shapes it into a giant barrier that protects her allies
• Without Victoria looking, it runs out of her and restrains an opponent
  • What this looks like to an outside observer
• One major limit is that once she extends the forcefield past something, like her clothes, she can't reach inside the forcefield with itself
• Sends her forcefield out to cross a distance of 30 feet
• Uses the fact it's invisible to deliver the the Dream serum while many people trying to interfere with her

Control

• Can now intentionally create mouths on her forcefield
• Moves and shapes her forcefield by thinking. Extends her limbs and spins it to clear dust obscuring Machine Army drones
• Expands her forcefield around the cracks of an object she shoved her arm to gain leverage and rip it in half. Continues to morph it to rip through the machine army
• Her control of her forcefield is tied to her mental state. Something that has a tangible effect while fighting Simurgh, a mind-altering Endbringer
• Has it fire her laser cannon at Simurgh while she flies in and saves allies
• Shapes it into a giant barrier that protects her allies
• Adjusts the size/shape of the forcefield to grapple a cape who could shift to two inches in size and back
• Forms arms to grip around the sides of a pillar blocking her view of Simurgh/Mathers, then leverages her strength to maneuver herself around while tossing high-speed projectile concrete
• Uses forcefield arms to apply pressure on a wound while she uses her normal arms to give first aid
• Has it lunge to attack while she stands still
• Can remove her forcefield from herself, then morph it around someone else. Makes openings on the forcefield to allow for Rain to use powers
• Against a faster opponent, uses the Fragile One to fight him at one side, and fistfights him normally at another side, overwhelming him

Back to Hub

Includes feats from The Wretch/Fragile One, Glory Girl's ranged extension of her forcefield. For more details, see this post.
For "X Titan interactions", Titans vary in size from being compared to multistory buildings, to the order of city blocks and even higher. A full list of size references fore very Titan put together by Ridtom can be found here.

Striking Strength

Material - Punches/Kicks

• Damaging people/capes
  • Hurts Ballistic through his armor, laying a beatdown on him before he can activate his power. For reference, this is what Ballistic's armor looks like
  • Even while holding back, destroys Valefor's jaw through a protective barrier
  • Shatters the armor of a parahuman who surrounded themselves in bone and sends them flying
  • Breaks the spine of a large mutant utilized by Teacher's mooks
  • Hits an enemy in two places as he tried to restrain and drag Victoria towards him, breaking his limbs
  • Explodes ninety percept of a 600-pound Brute-class cape into gore, then repeatedly smashes him apart until his regeneration fails
  • Sends a man skidding for ten feet, breaking his arm and doing damage to his spine despite him blocking her kick
  • Flies through a truck-sized insect
• Punching through wood and wooden planks
  • Punches into a building hard enough "[shatter] the wood exterior"
  • Kicks apart twelve foot pole of altered tree material created by Chris that was strong enough to shatter Tristans' stone creations
  • Breaks through wooden flooring
  • Shatters a section of floorboards generated by Nursery, bruising the mass of flesh beneath and creating a hole big enough for breaker form Lord of Loss to fall through
• Cracking/lightly damaging the ground
  • Hits the ground hard enough to crack asphalt
  • Punches concrete hard enough to sends cracks going out an unknown distance
  • When Victoria throws a punch at one of the Leviathan Twins and misses, the Wretch's extension of the punch hits hit ground next to her target, exploding it in a spray of rock and dirt
  • Stomps on metal keys hard enough to embed them into concrete
  • Smashes into a maze wall hard enough to send chunks of stone large enough that she was worried she killed people below her
  • Hits concrete hard enough to create fist sized chunks of rubble
• Destroying metal/machinery
  • Backhands a motorbike hard enough to 'demolish' it
  • The Wretch breaks the locking mechanism for a prison door
  • Repeatedly punches Lord of Loss in the chest until she opens a hole wide enough to fly into. Lord of Loss is described as being so large/massive that he could disintegrate steel girders under his weight at this point, and his breaker form is described as being made of 'calcified steel'
  • Strikes a door off its hinges
  • Kicks her mom while she's curled into a forcefield-projectile hard enough to send her flying into a roof hard enough to tear into it
  • Knees Cradle's mech hard enough to push the entire mass over a slick surface, then knocks parts of it to the ground and starts damaging the metal making it up. This mech has hands the size of a car and charges through buildings.
• Destroying large sections of concrete/stone, walls
  • Punches through a building's wall, then drags her arm through it to tear open a hole
  • When Victoria spins while The Wretch's limbs are in the ground, it tears through the ground with no resistance, grabbing a pipe under a speed bump to spray an electricity-powered villain
  • Strikes a snake construct large enough to pick up and move multiple people so hard she shatters "the stones and mortar that lined the lower half of the ground floor"
  • Punches through floors and while clearing a building of mercenaries
  • Sends Cryptid's mechanical arm into a wall, breaking it
  • Punches out a section of reinforced concrete as tall as she is with three hits
  • Breaks through Capricorn's metal-stone walls

Material - Flying Charges

• Lands hard enough to shatter a section of marble tile, then casually backhands a marble and oak table hard enough to 'annihilate' it
• Flies through the ceiling in an urban building
• Shatters Tristan's creations while flying at the ground, which are knee-high barricades made of rock
• Slams into the ground hard enough to break it and send a Fallen member slightly off his feet
• Hits the ground with the Wretch hard enough to generate a cascade of dirt and dust too thick for a group of parahumans to see through
• An all-out flying tackle from her shatters a concrete building pad
  • Reference of what the buildings in the area she was in looked like
• Slams into Lord of Loss in his 'Endbringer-sized' breaker state, shattering his legs, which were large enough to damage houses below with falling debris. Another hit makes his breaker form start to crumble
• Breaks part of Cretan's maze walls made of stone or concrete with flying charges to drop large chunks on a villain to distract them while she bypassed their defenses and hit them
• Throws herself into a ceiling, carving a furrow large enough for other members of Breakthrough to fit in
• Damages Titan Skadi's armor after heating it with her laser cannon

Striking with Weapons

• Taylor Hebert claims Glory Girl can swing a school bus like a baseball bat
• Lifts and smashes a bedframe
• The Wretch picks up a twenty foot steel beam beyond Victoria's reach and, after a large amount of trouble from Victoria in getting it to wield the weapon, swings it hard enough to knock back Lung after some extensive fighting. Lung quickly reverses the attack, though
• Uses the Wretch's eight limbs to repeatedly raise and impale Lung with ten feet long spikes of building debris or Capricorn constructs, even while Victoria was struggling against him
  • Does the same with hundreds of pounds of concrete and stalagmites, threatening to break them in its hands
• Gores Lung well into a fight with Goddess with a strike to his chest with a shattered tree trunk
• Taps Crystal's forcefield with her twelve ton gun hard enough to break it
• Rams the same cannon through the Impaler Titan's flesh
• Cuts a broken knife blade into a wall

Moving Objects/People

• Kicks a dumpster hard enough for it to go flying in a straight line at a man twenty/thirty-five yards away from her, with it skidding for another three or five yards
• Sends one of Bitch's dogs flying with a stirke, then heaves another off of herself
  • Implies she was holding back when talking about this in Ward, mentioning that "tearing through" Bitch's dogs was an option for her
• Sends a car flying into another parked car twenty feet in front of herself with a kick
• Sends part of the roof of Cradle's mech suit flying so far it would have taken several minutes to walk to its location. This suit was large enough that its hands could wrap around cars
  • Repeatedly parries hits from Cradle's mech even after its whip-arm was over a hundred feet long, and its normal arms over 25. This mech charges through buildings
• Even with a cape messing with her attack accuracy, swings a construction crane hook on metal cables into Lord of Loss's head so hard she changes the trajectory of his tackle, for reference his breaker state was large/massive enough at this point to collapse buildings after disintegrating steel girders via sheer mass
  • Later lays beatdowns on this breaker state while using the cable to yank around Lord of Loss' limbs, with some limited success
• Knocks a van out of the way of oncoming traffic
• While severely weakened, kicks a six inch stone like a football into a far away villain
• Kicks pieces of concrete hard enough for them to fly in straight lines and hit distant opponents in a firefight
• While flying in the air fighting Titan Skadi, kicks her twelve ton gun flying so high she can perform multiple actions before it hits the ground below at terminal velocity
  • I'm not linking every time she flies or wields this gun as a feat, just keep in mind she is holding it for most feats in Arc 19 and 20.

Lifting Strength

Objective

• Considers that she can bench a cement mixer. Tosses a man twenty to thirty-five yards in the air, with him rolling for another ten
• Claims she can overhead lift an SUV, and that she holds back most of the time
  • Wildbow clarifies these are ballpark estimations based on her experience. She hasn't tested her upper limits at this point
• Flies while carrying what she claims is a 350 pound box
• Boxes in a villain lying prone under a truck using construction supplies and a public mailbox
• Stops a car before it could get into a collision
• Flips an 18-wheeler
• Flings a metal bookcase across her apartment
• Picks up a chunk of concrete building rubble and has to dismiss the Wretch to avoid accidentally crushing it
• Lifts walls and roofing
• As Glory Girl, had a lifting strength limit of 14.8 Tons. As Antares, is given a 12 Ton gun that she regularly later uses as equipment
• Lifts a telephone pole to carry Sveta

Grappling Opponents

• Catches one of Bitch's dogs mid-tackle, then throws it at another dog
• Tosses Tattletale like a ragdoll, sending her flying across a room and smashing into Taylor hard enough to wind her and break a monitor
• Hurls Snag, a 250-300 pound individual, across a room
• Leverages her flight and strength to overpower Snag in a grapple, shattering floorboards under her in the process
• Overwhelms Chris and Kenzie in a grapple, knocking over Chris despite his twelve foot tall bulk
• Pins an angel mech who could lift a sword the length of two eighteen wheelers
• Manages to slightly alter a leap made by Titan Oberon, a 6-12 story tall giant whose leap was powerful enough to carry it a mile and a half
• Pushes away hundred foot long spear constructs, wide enough at the tip for Victoria to wrap her arms around
• Stops a charging mechanical suit made by Cradle, which previously ran through a building, and does so repeatedly while grappling with arms the size of cars
• Breaks free of ten machine army drones holding her via her breastplate with wires

Throwing Objects

• Lobs a motorcycle's engine block at Beast of Burden
• Rips a boulder out of the ground and throws it like a bowling ball at a group of enemies. This boulder was tall enough to reach a person's hips, and Victoria claimed it was 250-300 pounds. Was worried the Wretch would break it in half while gripping it
  • The 300 pound estimation isn't likely to be accurate - a 'waist height' boulder would easily weigh a couple of tons
• Flings a filing cabinet hard enough to leave a man in a pool of his own blood
• Lifts and throws a section of reinforced concrete as tall as she is
• Chucks concrete at Valefor hard enough to make him bleed
• Throws coins with the same force as a low impact shotgun, killing a doppelganger of herself
  • Victoria is probably underestimating throwing with "strength and force that could lift trucks" here. Mythbusters found that penny fired out of a rifle at mach 3 does not penetrate concrete or lethally injure through bone
• Chucks cars at Titan Oberon, indenting its building-sized bulk
• Throws rocks the size of her head in a shotgun spray that destroys machine army portal drones
• Throws rocks hard enough to punch holes through a cape, killing them
• Breaks a few ten foot long spider legs with thrown rubble that she gets from crushing concrete in her hands

Grip Strength

VS. Flesh

• Has to actively keep the Wretch in check to prevent it from ripping apart people near her, it doing so through impromptu body armor
• Even against a changer who could morph her body to resist it's grip, the Wretch still severely damages her after Victoria has it grip and start crushing her
• Has faces with mouths. One of these catches a man's fists and bites into it
• Against a giant opponent, finds an open wound and literally rips her forcefield into it
• Drives her forcefield's fingernails into giant insects, then uses two more of her forcefield's arms to violently rip them in half, these insects are the size of trucks
• Uses her forcefield's fingernails and limbs to rip into and tear apart a large section of Titan Ophion's head
• Rips off a section of her own leg after Ophion horrendously mutated it
• Tears ten foot long spider legs off of a parahuman
• Quickly rips off a cape's head, then breaks the legs of six others in quick succession

VS. Wood

• Catches a falling treelike protrusion the size of a telephone pole without physically touching it, her field's fingers digging into the material
• With no input from Victoria, bites and tears into the wood of trees nearby her
• Tears into the wall of a wooden building with impacts that "made the whole building complain". Catches a two-by-four Victoria throws to it, then while she's fighting off light constructs from a cape and distracting her, chucks it with enough force to knock her out
• Could have physically torn apart a small saloon building alongside Victoria

VS. Stone/Building Material

• Carves The Wretch's limbs into the ground as Victoria flies to hit a target
• Crushes a stone/metal cleaver created by Capricorn in its grip
• Repeatedly tears holes through walls and floors in a building while chasing the Pharmacist
• Crumbles a stone-metal construct created by Tristan in the shape of a riot shield
• Flies around chunks of buildings broken apart and sent flying by Oberon's breaker effect

VS. Metal

• Machines
  • Rips open a hole in a truck's wall even wider
  • Twists the metal of a railing around a door to seal it shut
  • Lifts a car in the air at a distance, violently tearing into the metal of it with its grip
  • Rips off one of Snag's mechanical arms
  • Rips a car apart, throwing portions of it so hard that it hit a cape with lethal force and still shattered a car window behind them after impacting them
  • Rips a construction hook from a crane off its wires, then uses it to impale Lord of Loss in his bird form's wing
  • Spot repairs her laser cannon by bending and twisting the metal on its shell
  • Crushes and rips Machine Army drones in half, even the smaller drones are the size of a washing machine
• Metal Objects/People
  • Tears out sections of Lord of Loss' breaker form
  • Flies by a vehicle at an angle they wouldn't expect her to be a threat from, and has the Wretch tear the roof off of it
  • Indents Weld's solid metal body
  • Victoria inserts her forcefield into Lord of Loss' chest cavity and then tears it wide open with the Wretch. Lord of Loss is described as being so large/massive that he could disintegrate steel girders under his weight at this point, and his breaker form is described as being made of 'calcified steel'
  • Tears out a section of railing to hand Foil
  • Rips into Titan Skadi's body, which is made of metal plating
  • Snaps a knife in half

It's actually a very simple method but it works. It is similar to follow trends but more specific and flexible than that, it can be done immediately in any niche.

1. Have a twist you can do, this advice only works if you bring something valuable to the table. EX: Challenge, mythbusting, fact checking, x things you missed, deep breakdowns, hot take,spectacle,
2. Follow the top creators in your niche
3. When they release a video, see if you can add your "twist" to the video's topic
4. Research if that twist has been done on the topic, if it is then look for another newly released video. If it's not then -
5. Quickly work on and release the video asap, just get the point across, this is very timely. Though I suppose if you had an amazing idea needing time, maybe a week is ok, just before the video's topic is completely forgotton and/or saturated.

Reasoning

You're not likely to create a trend being a small youtuber. It's still possible but a lot of times it doesn't really work. And once you're aware that a "thing" is trending, then it's basically over. Dozens of videos with their own little twist will be on it, then the viewers will burn out on it before your turn comes up. So just being aware of trends is not quite enough.
That's why when you see a big youtuber has made a video on a relatively untouched topic, this way you know it's 100% in the system, there's like a million+ people who already watched that video within the past day since it's just released. Then if you can add your twist to it's topic, and get that video up asap. The viewers are much more likely to "pull" your video from the algorithm based on them watching that big creator video. And if you do it early enough, your video will be in a tigher loop on that topic that gets passed around among the viewers of that video.
This is similar to making videos immediately on mainstream media stuff. Movie/game reviews right after release and such. But this let's you do things that are also not mainstream like indie games, commentary on internet culture, etc. Like for example hbomberguy's video on plagiarism. You can follow up with "10 more youtubers who plagiarize that hbomberguy missed" or what man carry thing did "every youtuber after that hbomberguy video dropped:". Most meatcanyon videos also uses this technique.
Overall, maybe your videos aren't bad after all. Maybe you're just not big enough to create immediate interests and have to borrow immediate interests from bigger creators and that's just fine starting out. Like how even MrBeast borrowed interest of Pewdiepie vs T-series to jumpstart his spectacle career.
​

I am a professional fire poi dancer and I am big on fire safety at my shows. I don't think anyone enjoys being burned, but it is commonly seen as part of the inherent risk of playing with fire . When I dance with fire poi (the burning balls [wicks] at the end of chains) I like to do moments of skin contact with the burning wick because of the effect that it gives in the performance. I don't care much about my arm hair, but I do like my skin. I had a talk with ChatGPT (yes, free version) about fire poi spinning in general, but then we geeked out for a bit on safety...

Things It said I was doing Right Already

It told me that I was already reducing the heat exposure on my skin by using kevlar monkey fist poi and that by using white gasoline for my fuel, I was already greatly reducing the heat coming off of the wick surface compared to other materials and fuels. I like that when I told it what I am already working with, it gave me a little pat on the back ... and then we dove into more detail...

Conversation Snippet

ChatGPT:
...It's important to note that fire performance carries inherent risks, and no technique or strategy can eliminate those risks entirely. It's crucial to prioritize safety, exercise caution, and seek guidance from experienced fire performers or instructors who can provide expert advice and mentorship to ensure safe and responsible fire performances.
Me:
yes I am aware of all of this, I am asking you to postulate on the theory, I am taking all of these precautions into account as a responsible person. What I am asking is for you to imagine or create some theories or potential things I could test (provided I adhere to proper risk management and safety precautions)... could you provide that?
ChatGPT:
Certainly! While it's important to approach theoretical concepts with caution and prioritize established safety practices, I can offer some speculative ideas for exploration in fire performance. Remember, it's crucial to test and assess these theories under controlled conditions, following proper risk management and safety precautions. Here are a few hypothetical ideas:

1. Surface Cooling Techniques: One potential theory to explore could involve the application of cooling agents or techniques to the skin before fire poi contact. Cooling the surface of the skin could potentially reduce the risk of burns by minimizing the heat transfer from the burning wicks. Experimenting with cooling gels, cooling sprays, or even incorporating temporary cold packs or ice cubes in strategic areas might be worth exploring.
2. Thermal Insulation Layers: Another theory to consider is the use of thermal insulation layers between the skin and the fire poi wicks. By incorporating insulating materials with low thermal conductivity, such as certain types of specialized fabrics or thermal barriers, it might be possible to create a buffer that reduces the transfer of heat to the skin.
3. Vapor Barrier Application: Applying a thin layer of non-flammable, heat-resistant substance to the skin before the performance could potentially act as a vapor barrier. This barrier might help minimize direct contact between the skin and the burning wicks, reducing the likelihood of burns. Experimenting with substances like silicone-based gels or specialized heat-resistant films could be explored.
4. Personalized Fire Safety Gear: Customizing fire safety gear specifically designed for skin contact moments could be worth investigating. Collaborating with experts in materials science and fire-resistant technologies, you might explore the development of gear that offers enhanced protection during close interactions with the fire poi, such as specialized heat-resistant gloves or arm sleeves.
5. Physiological Conditioning and Resilience: Exploring ways to enhance the body's natural defenses and resilience to heat may also be a theoretical area to explore. Engaging in specific training regimens, such as gradual heat exposure and desensitization techniques under controlled conditions, might potentially help the body adapt and reduce the risk of burns.

Summing up the Conversation

I went through a couple of these suggestions with ChatGPT and it gave me a recipe for creating a gel that forms a vapor barrier with cooling that I can just rub on contact parts of my skin. It explained the thermodynamics and physics behind why this might work, and gave me step by step instructions on how to make it.
I also went into the personalized fire safety gear as well. ChatGPT suggested plenty of experimental materials to test with.

What I get from this

Besides learning a ton about thermodynamics and being able to do some mythbusting (ChatGPT also confirmed that a technique taught to me about fire safety was not scientifically sound and explained the reason why)... I now will be able to start testing out some of these things as I craft them, and perhaps take my performance to some mindblowing level where people can't even believe what they are seeing. I can't even wait to see what other new physical and applicable technologies that ChatGPT can co-create with me.
The cool thing is that I am expecting that with this gel, I will be able to prolong contact with my skin, (well what looks like my skin but is actually a vapor layer,) for hopefully 3x longer time than normal. I will also be able to "hold" the wicks directly in my hands for what seems like an inhuman amount of time without getting burned. This means I can do some really interesting tricks you can't normally do with fire poi so it is going to be fun!
I will keep this thread updated on the journey.

I'm making this post before episodes 7 and 8, so there's a chance for this post to age hilariously poorly since the bodybuilders are all on one alliance, and they could all lose. But clearly it wouldn't be from lack of physical prowess, but because of their very poor strategy. They've demonstrated their impressive feats many times over in the show, thus far, and to my memory (correct me if I'm wrong), the only bodybuilder who has been eliminated so far has been Chun-Ri, a female bodybuilder. And she was facing a male MMA fighter, who is a professional grappler in a challenge that involved... grappling. All the other bodybuilders are still in as of episode 6, IIRC (and now they're all in alliance 2).
As a refresher to other feats I remember:

• Seol Kikwan got 5th place in his group in the hanging game, which heavily favored lighter, smaller people, since strength doesn't scale linearly with size.
• He then went on to put up a great fight against Agent H and even defeat him in an upset win.
• Kim Kang Min was unstoppable in that and surprised his much smaller lighter opponent with his ultra fast powerful legs. Didn't expect such a big guy to be so fast?
• In the sand challenge, the bodybuilder team absolutely demolished the mma fighter team. The MMA fighters thought they would win from endurance, but the bodybuilders maintained their endurance combined with far superior work capacity (carrying much more sand per go).
• Miracle's backflips - but he's also a dancer you say? More on that later.

So how is it that these "beach muscles" are beating out many athletes who engage in "functional training"? As some one who does a lot of recreational hypertrophy training, I was rooting for them a bit, but they exceeded even my expectations. I think the answer to their success boils down to a pretty simple statement: muscle is potential.
First, let me dispel a couple myths about bodybuilders:

• bodybuilders have "fake" or "low-quality" muscle compared to "functional" muscle
• bodybuilders have too much mass and are musclebound, which makes them unathletic and immobile/unflexible

Firstly, muscle is muscle. Athlete muscle is not any different from bodybuilder muscle. There's some myths about myofibrillar vs sarcoplasmic hypertrophy regarding this; I won't get into it but the tl;dr all training that adds muscle will develop both and there's no evidence pointing towards any type of training biasing one versus the other. The difference in output between athletes and bodybuilders is skill. Hypertrophy is the one type of physical adaptation that bodybuilders care about, while athletes train for various other adaptations that help their sport. A lot of bodybuilders are unathletic not because they have "fake" or "low quality" muscle, but because many of them don't train for any of the other physical/skill adaptations. The muscle certainly doesn't hurt them (more on this later).
Next, the idea of being musclebound clearly doesn't make much sense, unless you think all bodybuilders are the size of open IFBB pros, in which you might have a little bit of a case. You can see Miracle's insane athleticism as a dancer. He's a great example of a bodybuilder who has developed insane athleticism, and his muscles helped, not hurt him. Now look at Yun Sung Bin. Obviously he's an athlete, but he also picked up some bodybuilding style training and it shows. Is he jacked? Absolutely. Is he musclebound? Absolutely not. Again, we see a lot of bodybuilders today look wholly unathletic, but if we look at more classic silver and some era bodybuilders/strongmen, we can see that back then, due to their training styles, they were extremely athletic in addition to being huge. Many of them crosstrained in other sports and were exceptionally good. Here is a story about a doctor who believed all these myths about strength/hypertrophy training and then was proven wrong by massive bodybuilders doing insane feats of athleticism and mobility.
Now at face value, the musclebound argument doesn't make sense when you think about it for a second and realize that a lot of top level athletes have physiques rivaling or even bigger than many amateur bodybuilders (hmm wonder why). So where do steroids come in? Glad you asked. It's an open secret that top level athletes are basically all on PEDs. Then why don't they look like bodybuilders? Because they take PEDs for athletic performance and train for performance. Bodybuilders primarily train for hypertrophy and take PEDs for that purpose too. That's also part of why people automatically assume bodybuilders must be unathletic. Because a lot of the top pros are on a cocktail that is basically destroying their organs and making them unhealthy asf.
So why this info dump/mythbusting? Like I mentioned, muscle is potential. Yes, many bodybuilders don't train for athleticism, besides guys like Miracle who crosstrain. But what is athletic skill, if not just a multiplier for natural physical prowess? When training your muscles to be more efficient at something... bigger muscles = bigger potential. The reason athletes arenmt jacked like bodybuilders is because they only develop the muscle they need, its usually more efficient to train specifically for your skill than for more muscle. But if you make two untrained men learn a new skill, but one has a lot more muscle... you bet the muscular one's gonna get much better much faster. Not to mention - bodybuilders tend not to have any big muscle imbalances that might hinder an athlete down the line because they make sure to develop everything, not just the primary movers. I know this from physical experience - I've played many sports from childhood through adulthood. Used to be skinny, now am muscular. After a lot of dedicated musclebuilding, I can say that having the muscle definitely made me a beast in any athletic endeavor. I train for almost exclusively hypertrophy in the gym, and make my athletic adaptations on those muscles playing sports.
My final thought (tl;dr): the bodybuilders probably learned they were gonna be on the show, then dedicated a short period of time to train their athletic qualities. Newbie gains (diminishing marginal returns) dictate that you make the most gains the fastest when you first start out training a new skill. And since muscle is potential, imagine an incredibly jacked person (lots of potential) quickly and suddenly training their other athletic qualities for the first time. (This isn't to say that some of them weren't athletic already. Some obviously were).
Even shorter tldr -Skill/athleticism is just an efficient use of muscle. Now take someone with a shitton of muscle (high potential) and give them a athletic training, and see how monstrous they become rapidly

“In my opinion, Lighthouse International Group are one of the nastiest and most dangerous groups we have come across in 30 years of working in this field” — Graham Baldwin, Catalyst

About us

This forum was started by victims of Lighthouse International Group (LIG) as a place for victims, ex-members, their friends and relations to publish their experiences of LIG, anonymously if they wished, and through that to act as an information resource and warning to others about LIG’s activities.
The forum expanded to an unexpected number of people, and resulted in a large number of victims coming forward, publicly and privately, to tell their stories.
LIG Investigation is the name of an expanded group of victims who are taking on the role of formally coordinating evidence and information with police forces, authorities, and the media. The accounts are monitored and used by multiple people.
You can read some victim testimonies here:

• How Lighthouse International Group traps you
• My Lighthouse experience, part 1
• My Lighthouse experience, part 2
• Myth-busting Lighthouse International Group: part 1
• Myth-busting Lighthouse International Group: part 2
• What's the end game of this?
• Kris Deichler Lighthouse International Group

​
If you’re a member, an ex-member, victim, or a friend or relation of one, please contact us.
You are not alone. As of November 2022 there are around 50 people who are involved in providing information and evidence in relation to crimes committed by Lighthouse International Group.
You can contact us through Reddit, by sending a private message to u/lig-investigation, through the Questioning LIG website (https://q-lig.org), or via email at [lig.investigation@gmail.com](mailto:lig.investigation@gmail.com).
​
Current status
As of November 2022 we are currently helping to manage and coordinate multiple investigations into Lighthouse International Group by the police and relevant authorities.
Due to complexity this is taking longer than we hoped, but significant progress has been made and we are focusing our efforts on achieving justice for the victims.
​
The case against Lighthouse International Group
The LIG website claims they offer ‘coaching, mentoring and counselling services’ and states that their mission is to ‘help conscientious people overcome the obstacles to realising their god given potential and build optimal value in their lives.’
Sadly, this is far from the truth. Lighthouse International Group is being investigated for systemic fraud against multiple individuals and the State, operating since 2004.
A number of other crimes have been committed in pursuing the suspected fraud for which there is extensive evidence, including harassment, intimidation, extortion, deception, money laundering, false reporting and offences regarding modern slavery.
We have an increasing body of verifiable evidence from multiple victims that all tells the same story.
​
The response of Lighthouse International Group
The response of LIG to the complaints of victims and the subsequent activity is to deny and attack victims. This is known as DARVO: Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender. It is a common manipulation strategy of psychological abusers.
Anyone who dares to speak out against LIG, or even privately asks questions, are subjected to psychological abuse, threats, harassment and even multiple attempts at blackmail. LIG have created multiple websites attacking victims, and direct threats of harm have been made against victims, and their friends and family.
Simply, LIG are attempting to smear, intimidate and threaten victims into silence.
​
Media
April 2022 / Daily Mail, Saturday Star
May 2022 / Daily Mail
July 2022 / The Frankie Files 1, The Frankie Files 2
September 2022 / The Frankie Files 3
October 2022 / Miss Singh Question 1 (starts at 1:07), Miss Singh Question 2 (starts at 1:06:30), Miss Singh Question 3 (Starts at 0:52:25)
April 2023 / Daily Mail, BBC podcast, BBC documentary
​

FAQs

How do you know you’re right?
Because of the scale. Lighthouse likes to claim that this is just about two ex-members who want their money back. It isn’t. There are dozens, potentially hundreds, of victims, including ex-members, friends and relatives. Their experiences span all 18 years of LIG’s existence. We have dozens of people, who are completely unconnected, and whose time at LIG was separated by years, or even a decade or more, and they all have the same story about fraud, deception, extortion and threats.
Can I tell my story and remain anonymous?
Yes. You can create an anonymous Reddit identity and post in this forum, or you can contact us via our email address or website. All comments and posts go into a moderation queue. Posts and comments will be corroborated against evidence we hold, and with ex-members and victims. We will contact you privately and securely - but still anonymously if you like - to discuss what is happening, and what you’d like to do.
Are current members of Lighthouse also victims?
We believe so. The focus of our investigation is on the partners of Lighthouse International Group Holding Trading LLP, namely Shaun Jonathan Cooper, Christopher Nash, Warren Michael Vaughan, and Paul Stephen Waugh. We believe all other members to be victims of the Lighthouse leadership.
Do you help current Lighthouse members to escape?
Yes. Since this campaign began, multiple people have escaped from LIG, and several of them have said that posts on this forum, and other media activity, was a key reason as to why they left. If you are a current member and you have doubts, or if you want to escape, please talk to us. You can remain anonymous. We will help you in any way we can to get to safety.
Are victims of Lighthouse being supported?
Yes. LIG have been indiscriminate with their attacks, threats and abuse. All victims are being supported by this group, the police, their employers and other authorities and agencies as needed.
Are Lighthouse just the “healthy community” they claim?
No. Lighthouse International Group began with entrepreneurial networking and messaging around self-development, mentoring to success and “leading yourself”. LIG still claims that by joining you will make an extraordinary amount of money, through ‘human, material and financial value’. They also claim to provide clean water for children.
Testimony from victims, and LIG’s social media channels, tell a very different story. LIG are a very unhealthy community, full of abuse, threats, weird behaviours and religious extremism.
There is a strong emphasis that the LIG are a community that support individuals to ‘liberate’ themselves from toxic families and relationships. In practice, LIG uses psychological manipulation to isolate individuals from genuine support networks who question their involvement with the organisation. There is a direct correlation between becoming involved in LIG and becoming estranged from your family and friends.
LIG have stated they record every ‘mentoring’ and ‘counselling’ session between members. During these sessions members are manipulated and harassed into revealing personal information, thoughts and private experiences. LIG uses this information to coerce and manipulate victims into remaining in the group, or to blackmail ex-members and victims into remaining silent.
LIG are currently running vile campaigns of intimidation and bullying against ex-members, victims. LIG have even directly threatened harm against friends, families and victims’ employers. These threats are escalating, and are now being treated as direct threats of physical harm against victims.
Recently, members of Lighthouse have shared extreme religious ideology, including end of the world and “rapture” prophecies, and have previously published videos where Paul Stephen Waugh states he ‘doesn’t think the world will survive’.
What have victims lost to Lighthouse?
Simply, they lost control of their independence, their relationships and their finances. LIG isolates victims from any external voices, especially those expressing concern, and then systematically asset strips victims through manipulation, deception and extortion. This includes cash, investments, property, their career and their credit rating.
Do members of Lighthouse have any professional qualifications for the services they offer?
No. Despite offering mentoring and counselling none of the 4 partners, or any other member, have any professional or recognised qualifications in mentoring or counselling, and there is no professional oversight of Lighthouse.
Do Lighthouse follow Scientology style “fair game” practices against victims and ex-members?
Yes. There is evidence that threats made by LIG publicly and privately are being carried out.
Is Lighthouse a cult?
There is substantial evidence in regard to how LIG operates that fits the definition of a cult, such as the BITE Model. A number of experts in cults and oppressive / high-control groups also believe that Lighthouse are a cult.
How do Lighthouse make money?
LIG works as a MLM / pyramid scheme.
Prospective members are recruited by LIG members via on-line groups, professional websites, and even dating websites (for example Meetup, LinkedIn, Bark and Hinge).
We have descriptions, testimony, recordings, diagrams and “contracts” which describe LIG as a pyramid scheme. A pyramid scheme is a fraudulent way of making money, based on an ever increasing number of investors, and which promise unrealistic returns from imaginary investments.
It begins with coaching and mentoring towards personal or career goals, mental health services, couples counselling or parent groups. Once engaged victims are quickly encouraged on to other, more expensive programmes, before being given the opportunity to “invest”, at a cost of a minimum of £25,000.
Members of Lighthouse are encouraged to find their own ‘mentees’ to bring into LIG and therefore the cycle of investing continues which feeds the pyramid scheme, creating maximum financial gain for the senior members of LIG.
We have multiple documents and recordings which describe the workings of a pyramid scheme. These schemes have simply ludicrous and deluded idealised returns, where members think they will make billions. Yes, with a “b”.
LIG describes this as “investing in yourself”, but this simply involves transferring ever increasing amounts of money to LIG, and getting nothing in exchange.
Lighthouse makes big claims about impressive-sounding programmes, do results ever materialise?
No.
Are you libelling Lighthouse and the people there?
No. Everything we write has demonstrable, tangible evidence, from multiple victims, or is a fair and honest opinion formed from personal experiences and that evidence. Despite endless threats LIG have not filed any claim for libel or defamation against anyone.
Are the claims you make against Lighthouse a crime?
No. None of the claims we make, or the things we say, are against the law. We work with the police, specialist criminal lawyers, and with multiple media organisations, all of whom have active legal departments. At no time has there been any concern about the approach of the victims in highlighting, challenging and publicising the highly questionable activities of LIG.
Are you threatening the people at Lighthouse?
No. In fact, the reverse is true. We have never sent any threats or communications to LIG which could be construed in such a way. We communicate directly with the police and other authorities regarding LIG, and post ‘open letters’ to this forum. Our stated aim is the investigation and prosecution of LIG and its leaders for crimes against people and the state. Where LIG threatens and abuses victims we work with the police and specialist lawyers to manage and mitigate those threats. We don’t usually respond directly.
Are you “trolls”, and is there “dogpiling”?
No. These are just meaningless slurs used by LIG in an attempt to delegitimise complaints against them. The majority of people on this forum are ex-members, victims, or their friends or relations. Victims have a right to a voice, to speak out, and to be supported. We will not be silenced whilst we seek justice.
Do you allow LIG supporters to comment?
Yes. Anyone can post or comment on this forum, but activity from new or unknown users goes into a moderation queue. LIG members are welcome to post here, provided they don’t threaten, libel or “dox” victims.
Lighthouse wants you to meet them to resolve this, why don’t you?
We have met them. Meeting them was the start of the problem. The reasons LIG want to meet us are obvious: to discover or confirm identities of victims, and then to collectively bully, harass and intimidate those victims into silence.
Why is this taking so long?
Scale and complexity. We’re speaking to over 50 people, and the evidence from them is extensive: 100s of pages of messages and documents, and hours of recordings and videos.
Are you working with the media to highlight this?
Yes. Links to previous media activity are above, and there are other ongoing investigations into LIG which we are assisting with.

A common theme with recent LIG posts is attempting to fearmonger by implying that associating with a criminal is dangerous.
Firstly, this is a logical fallacy. Associating with a criminal does not make you a criminal (but collusion would). If my uncle is, unbeknownst to me, a paedophile does that association make me dangerous or a 'safeguarding risk'?
Secondly, it's important to also point out that this is all another form of deflection, which I described in this discussion. This fearmongering deflects the focus away from LIG having to address criticism.
Thirdly, not sure about one individual but the other is not a criminal from what I know. Past convictions do not now a criminal make. This individual brilliantly addressed this in this comment. To quote part of it:

instead of LIG following it's leaders / Jesus based advice saying the scales have been reset they try and shame me and try and give the impression I should carry my past around like a ball and chain around my neck for the rest of my life.

This quote is interesting because Paul himself said this some time ago in response to scrutiny for publicly naming and shaming a CSA survivor. I'll partly quote:

Would you like to destroy me for the rest of my life? Would you like us to follow you and wait for every slip and then nail you relentlessly as certain people are doing to me?

Putting aside that Paul is lying about this being a slip of the tongue, we can conclude, assuming intellectual, logical, and moral honesty/consistency, that you believe people are entitled to a second chance if they have paid their dues, no? So, why do you use this individual's past conviction in a fallacious attempt to fearmonger then? Why is Paul immediately absolved? Is it because Paul repented in Christ and the other individual only repented in the eyes of the law?
In conclusion, association with someone who has a present or past conviction, one you were not aware of, does not make you dangerous. It doesn't make you a 'safeguarding risk', or complicit in a crime, or a criminal yourself.
This applies to many of you associates too, association does not make you complicit in the alleged crimes of the senior leadership of LIG. There is still time to walk away, especially considering recent escalations. As I pleaded here, please don't go down a dark path.

The "Nifty Or Thrifty" article series takes a comprehensive look at the meta for PvP Cup formats: Psychic Cup, in this case. As is typical for the NoT series, I'll cover not only the top meta picks, but also some mons where you can save some dust with cheaper second move unlock costs and/or leveling up! Because for those on a stardust budget — and/or folks trying to save up some dust for the future — it can be daunting trying to figure out where to spend or not spend it.
So as I try to usually do, I will start with those with the cheapest second move unlock cost and steam ahead until we finally arrive at the expensive Legendaries. I do try and put extra emphasis on the thriftier stuff, especially for formats like this where you may not use some of these things much in the future. (For a rough guide to reusability, though, I will rank things with ♻️s, with three being solid in other Great League formats, two being okay in at least certain Cup formats, and only one being something that, honestly, you're unlikely to use again.)
Now let's get to it!

10,000 Dust/25 Candy

So while I try and review the meta pretty comprehensively in these writeups, I cut my teeth way back when I started (nearly 400 articles and 4 years ago!) by keying in on budget-friendly options to help folks that don't have every possible Pokemon already built and/or buckets of stardust just sitting around waiting to be spent. All that to say... I usually focus on the 10k category as much as possible, as they're typically the cheapest things to build from the ground up. Unfortunately, for this particular Cup that hardly has any starters or anything, there's barely anything here. But there IS one very valuable diamond in the rough, so let's take a look at this unfortuntely small group.
ALOLAN RAICHU ♻️♻️♻️
Volt Switch Wild Charge & Thunder Punch/Grass Knot
The only 10k option ranked in the Top 10 (and just barely!), AhChu's big advantage in this format is being one of very few things with a full moveset that can hit (nearly) everything for neutral damage... only Claydol and a couple Grass types dull Electric damage. Generally that all-Electric set is what you're going to want, but there IS a case for Grass Knot, especially with shields down, with which it can at least win the mirror (and threaten Claydol).
DELPHOX ♻️♻️
Fire Spin Flame Charge & Fire Blast
Plus side: as with AhChu, Delphox dishes out largely unresisted damage, and the Fire typing also resists Fairy damage. Downsides: needs to land a big expensive Fire Blast to beat things like Medicham, Wobbuffet, and Lugia, and usually just barely, and will fall victim to Water, Ground, and Rock damage that people bring to face down Victini. (Yes, that's gonna be a BIG thing... more later.) In the end, it's not an eye-popping track record, but Phoxy IS cheap and works well enough as a generalist that will obviously really burn through Steels.
SWOOBAT ♻️♻️
Air Slash Psychic Fangs & Aerial Ace
Can you tell we're already reaching a bit? I mean, you CAN do a lot worse... at least Swoobat deals neutral damage to most of the meta (Steels and Lunatone are laughing at it, though), and Psychic Fangs hits especially softly here, but does come with debuffing to the opponent, so... there's that? But yeah, the 10ks are really thin when this is your third best option among them.
And really all that's even left beyond that is GRUMPIG, which comes with Shadow Ball but can barely make use of it. Oh, and there's also XL SMOOCHUM, but that is deciedly NOT a cheap build (having to be fully maxed out), and really not worth considering at all unless you somehow already have one built. At least Claydol, Celebi, and Flyers detest it.

50,000 Dust/50 Candy

While thr 50k category is typically the largest, with the derth of 10k options this time around, it's especially important this time as probably the best place to try and get "thrifty". And there's at least one prominent option that doesn't even require a second charge move at all! Let's dive in....
BRONZONG ♻️♻️
Feint Attack Payback & Heavy Slam
If you've ever run Bronzong before (and yes, it's been quite good in certain past metas, and in Ultra League), surely it was with Confusion and Psyshock. Heck, you may not have even known it had Feint Attack, because who would ever run that? Well, players in Psychic Cup want exactly that, along with Payback, to deal super effective damage to darn near everything in the format. (Only a half dozen Pokemon -- consisting of Fighters, Fairies, and one notable Dark type -- manage to take only neutral damage from Dark moves.) Problem is that Feint Attack generates only the average 3.0 Energy Per Turn, and Payback is pretty costly at 60 energy, so despite being decently bulky and having a very favorable Steel subtyping that allows Bronzong to double resist Psychic damage and resist nine other relevant typings, Zong needs a good second move that does decent damage for an affordable cost. Psyshock makes no sense since it's heavily resisted, and regular Zong move Bulldoze doesn't make a lot of sense as it costs the same amount of energy as Payback but deals less damage and is not nearly as widely super effective. So we turn instead to so-so PvP move Heavy Slam, which at least costs only 50 energy, gets STAB, and is resisted only by the few Fires, Waters, and Steels in the format, plus Alolan Raichu; it picks up wins versus Claydol, Galarian Rapidash (super effective damage from Slam!), and Slowbro. You'll never see this sort of moveset be recommended outside this format, but here in Psychic Cup, it's the way to go.
MALAMAR ♻️♻️
Psycho Cut Foul Play & Hyper Beam/Superpower
There are several things in this format that have solid Dark/Ghost moves to wail on most everything else for super effective damage, and several things that double resist Psychic damage (all the Steels in the format, for example), but there is nothing else in Psychic Cup that really does both... and Malamar actually triple resists Psychic! (Psychic resists Psychic, and Dark double resists Psychic, hence the Dark/Psychic Malamar triple resists. See, I can do maths!) Put it all together, and you can see why so many of us content creators were recommending getting a good Malamar during Ixkay Research Day. It's very dominant versus the entirely of the format too, and not just the core meta. Basically bring a Fairy or something with Charm (or a couple specific things like Metagross, Celebi, sometimes Galarian Slowking, and Medicham, who remains a part of this meta in very large part because of Malamar), or Malamar could shred your whole team. Thank goodness it doesn't have a Dark fast move as well or it's likely NOTHING would be able to beat it. And things don't get much better in other shielding scenarios either. Too bad that it's pretty limited outside of formats like this.
Last note: yes, you actually do want Hyper Beam as the second move alongside Foul Play. Fast move Psycho Cut can actually get to it in meaningful spots, and the other charge move optiosn will never deal better than neutral (and usually resisted) damage anyway. Superpower at least deals neutral to enemy Malamar and Steel, Rock, and Ice types, but you really won't find yourself wanting that nearly as often as you may want the pure KO power of Beam.
GALARIAN RAPIDASH ♻️♻️
Fairy Wind Body Slam & Megahorn
And if you think Malamar looks scary, get a load of THIS. 👀 Running with brand new fast move Fairy Wind, G-Dash kind of has it all: Fairy damage for stuff like Malamar and Medicham and Latios, Megahorn to deal BIG damage to everything in the format (and super effective damage to the vast majority, as Psychic types are weak to Bug damage), and super spammy Body Slam to wear down most everything else. About the only things it doesn't want to run into are Steels, as they resist all three of those moves, but most everything else is fair game. Note that in 1v1 shielding, its only losses that are NOT Steel types are Alolan Raichu, Victini, G-Bro, and Charm Gardevoir. That's it... that's the list. Ride like the wind, indeed.
GALARIAN SLOWKING ♻️♻️
Hex Shadow Ball (& Sludge Wave?)
Savings alert, as G-King really doesn't need any charge move other than just Shadow Ball... it does all the damage it needs to with Ball and Hex, which isn't surprising considering that the total number of things in this meta that Ghost does NOT hit super effectively can be counted on one hand, even if that hand had a terrible run-in with an ill-tempered paper shredder... twice! (Just three total things: Normals Oranguru and Girafathingy, who actually resist Ghost, and Dark type Malamar, who takes neutral.) G-King would be THE Pokemon to beat here except for one little problem: it is rather fragile. I mean, its bulk is fine enough, but being half-Poison means it takes neutral (rather than resisted) damage from Psychic damage and is vulnerable to Ground (hello there, Claydol), though on the plus side it at least resists Fairy damage. In other words, a big of an RPS nightmare may unfold, but at least G-King can dish it out to just about everything even in most bad matchups on the way out. If you have a good one and are still questioning what to plug in on the back end of your team, G-King is likely to offer a pretty good answer.
CLAYDOL ♻️
Mud Slap Shadow Ball & Rock Tomb
Ah, Niantic's long-time pet project. They have tweaked Claydol so obviously and so often that it almost became a joke, adding Earth Power in May 2019, Mud Slap in July 2019, Ice Beam and Shadow Ball in January 2021, and finally Rock Tomb when that move was revamped in November 2021. Clearly somebody over there REALLY wants to make it work. And in this format, even PvPoke really wanted to make it work too, listing it in the Top 5. On paper, this is finally a format where it SHOULD indeed be awesome, perfectly countering the potent Steels (Bronzong, Metagross, Jirachi), Poisonous Galarian Slows, and Alolan Raichu and Lunatone (with both Electric and Rock types also being weak to Ground and ineffective against it), right? Right? Problem is that despite all the move tweaking, it's just remained mediocre at best, and that seemed to be the case in early looks here where PvPoke's and my initial meta lists had it with the obvious Shadow Ball and slightly-less-obvious Earth Power to emphasize its niche role in hammering on the things I listed above that are all weak to Ground. Problem is that in that configuration, it STILL looked mediocre, unable to reliably overcome G-King or even Bronzong that a Ground type really should be beating, and it fell short against Hypno and Medicham (both running Ice Punch) as well. But it turns out that with that very last and latest update, maybe Niantic finally got it right, as it is humble Rock Tomb that seemingly pushes Claydol, finally, into a bona fide meta option. It's not because of Rock Tomb offering special coverage either, as Claydol actually still loses to every Flying and Ice type in the format except Galarian Articuno. But what Tomb does bring is a guaranteed debuff to the opponent's Attack, giving Claydol the extra time it needs to finish G-King, Zong, Medi, and Hypno off. The effect is very similar in 2v2 shielding as well, with Rock Tomb beating Hypno and winning the mirror match, neither of which Earth Power can reliably replicate. Perhaps even more amazingly, Rock Tomb by itself can beat everything it can with Shadow Ball/Rock Tomb in 2v2 shielding! Rock Tomb is NOT a great move (still dealing far less damage than you'd hope for 60 energy), and Claydol is NOT a great Pokemon, but somehow, for one brief shining moment, it somehow all just works. Claydol fans... this is your first, best, and likely also last chance to take Claydol out for... well, a spin. 😵😏
HYPNO ♻️♻️♻️
Confusion Shadow Ball & _____ Punch
And now we get into one Psychic type that most players have probably actually used at some point, old reliable Hypno. Yes, it has Shadow Ball, which is a great start. Yes, it's quite bulky and can simply outlast a number of things. And yes, it has a variety of Punches that usually deal neutral damage and sometimes get in for super effective. But the problem Hypno has is being a little slow due to relying on basically-always-resisted Confusion. I usually try and keep 'Nifty or Thrifty' reviews relatively high level and stick mostly with the 1v1 shielding scenarios, but in this particular case, that scenario tells a sad story (including for Shadow Hypno as well). But that undersells Hypno, as it's much better in 2v2 shielding or especially with shields down. I do recommend it as a space filler on teams, especially if you already have it on hand and (understandably) don't feel inclined to invest too heavily into a one-week format like this with other stuff in this article. Hypno will rarely feel truly dominant, but it can certainly hold the line just fine. And as for which Punch to go with, they all have merit, so decide it you want to burn Steels (Fire), freeze Claydol (Ice), or just go for a decent all-arounder (Thunder). Good luck!
MEDICHAM ♻️♻️♻️♻️
Counter Ice Punch & Power-Up Punch/Psychic/Dynamic Punch
Yes, Medicham is awesome in PvP, but can even it survive in a meta chock full of things that resist its main moves? Well, if you have a decent ranking one, it's viable-ish despite everything working against it. What Medi DOES do well is win the few neutral-on-neutral battles -- those versus Steels (Metagross, Bronzong), Rock type Lunatone, and Dark type Malamar -- where both sides are dealing neutral damage to each other throughout (with one half of their typing being weak, the other half resisting, and thus = neutral!)... and then Slowbro for some reason (despite Slowbro resisting literally ALL of Medi's moves). As crazy as it may sound, yes, I think you want to run Counter and Power-Up Punch here, because despite never dealing greater than neutral damage, Counter + PuP does still add up. PuP also pumps up Ice Punch, which is Medi's one interesting weapon here for how it hits nearly everything for neutral and comes in with super effective damage in some key spots (Claydol, Xatu, Lugia), especially Latios, where a PuP'd Ice Punch becomes quite deadly. I don't necessarily recommend Medicham here, but it's not as insane an idea as you might think at first.
ALAKAZAM ♻️♻️
Psycho Cut Fire Punch & Shadow Ball
Fastest Shadow Ball in Psychic Cup. Let me repeat that for those in the back: fastest Shadow Ball in Psychic Cup right here, on Alakazam with Psycho Cut. Look, even in a format where 'Zam resists so much incoming damage, it's still very flimsy and it WILL be betrayed by its lack of bulk, but it also hits hard and fast like a rocket sled from Mythbusters and takes a number of big things down with it, like Bronzong, Claydol, Metagross, G-King and Slowbro, and more. Shadow Zam is obviously even MORE of a glass cannon and can no longer overcome Bronzong or Slowbro, but does pick up Lugia and Hypno in their place. If you like fast battles and blazes of glory, Alakazam is worth a look.
GALARIAN SLOWBRO ♻️♻️
Poison Jab Sludge Bomb & Focus Blast
Admittedly you won't often want Focus Blast, but it DOES help when shields are down by punching out Lunatone and Malamar, the latter especially being worth it. But those shieldless results are also about the best you'll see out of G-Bro, as it just barely clings to relevance with shields in play. Like Galarian Slowking, it unfortunately takes neutral from Psychic, and its Poison moves are blunted by the key Steels and Rocks and Claydol here, making them far more cusrse than blessing. It's an uphill battle for G-Bro.
SLOWBRO ♻️♻️
Water Gun Ice Beam & Water Pulse
OG Slowbro doesn't really have it much better, despite having some fantastic theoetical things going for it: dealing super effective damage to Claydol and Fires and Rocks (and Flyers thanks to Ice Beam), dealing widespread neutral damage to most everything else, and actually resisting Steel and Fire damage. SOME of that shines out, with wins versus Victini, Metagross, Claydol, and Lunatone, giving it some interesting potential niche use. But it just doesn't really capitalize against anything else. Even pushing to 2v2 shielding only manages to add on Wobbuffet and Xatu (barely). I've seen a LOT of talk about Slowbro, and I sorta get it, but when you peel back the curtain and give it a long hard look, it just doesn't do as much as it feels like it should. There will be teams that absolutely benefit from it, but just don't ask it to do much beyond its very niche role.
LUNATONE ♻️
Rock Throw Rock Slide & Moonblast
Rinse and repeat here. Lunatone SHOULD have a nice little niche with its full Rock moveset dealing wide neutral damage -- and super effective damage where it counts, such as versus Fires and Flyers -- and Moonblast theoretically being a killer versus Malamar. But as with Slowbro, [it doesn't quite work out that way. Victini and Flyers go down, yes, but basically nothing else, at least with any kind of consistency. I like Lunatone a lot more in concept than I think anyone will in reality.
XATU ♻️
Feint Attack Ominous Wind & Aerial Ace
Why oh why couldn't Ominous Wind have gotten the same damage boost that Ancient Power and Silver Wind did in this season's move shakeup? I mean, I KNOW why (hint: it rhymes a bit with "cheetah cheetah"), but dang, missed opportunity here. Instead, Wind is left dealing a mere 45 base damage, so even having that and Feint Attack -- both super effective versus everything here that doens't rhyme with "Nala Bar", "Gee, Raph, Uh... Big!", or "You Rang, Guru?" -- leaves Xatu pretty tame. Certainly viable, though, with nice wins versus Claydol (resisting Ground damage is big), Wobb, fellow Flyer Lugia, the Slows, and even the big Steels that normally feast on Flyers. It can even hang in there long enough to clip Latios' wings, which is no small thing. It has been literally years since Xatu made a name for itself in very early Silph Arena metas, but like am aging, retired boxer, Xatu may have one more good fight left in it.
MEOWSTIC ♻️
Sucker Punch (Male)/Charm (Female) Energy Ball & Thunderbolt (Male)/Shadow Ball (Female)
Gonna give the slight edge to the male version here, seeing as how it comes with Dark fast move Sucker Punch and can beat out Bronzong, Claydol, Lugia, and Slowbro. But the female version clocks in as an odd Charmer that also has Shadow Ball (though it's very unlikely to reach it multiple times, or perhaps even once!), and it beats Malamar, Medicham, Xatu, and Latios instead. (Both beat out Lunatone and Wobbuffet.) Yes, even I'll admit these are both a reach, but hey, when else would you ever even consider using them? It's now or never, Meowstic fans!
GIRAFARIG ♻️♻️
Tackle Psychic Fangs & Thunderbolt
OH MY. Do you know how excited I am to be closing out a section in a 'Nifty Or Thrifty' article with my homie Farigamariff and it NOT be a total joke? My boy is legit here, folks! Despite running with extremely average (even post-buff) Tackle, resisted Psychic Fangs, and slowish Thunderbolt, Girafathing manages to pick off Claydol (who resists all of that but Tackle!), Hypno, G-King, Lunatone (who resists everything but Bolt), and Bolt-weak Slowbro, Lugia, and Xatu. As a Psychic/Normal type, Figamiraff actually resists Ghost damage, which is handy in those Hypno, Xatu, and especially G-King wins. And while it's NOT a pretty picture with shields down, it does manage to stay pretty consistent in 2v2 shielding, owing to the resisted but still impactful (thanks to opponent debuffs) Psychic Fangs. Shadow Ragafiraf is just a sidegrade here (losing Lunatone but gaining Celebi instead) but is the more promising of the two in other Great Legaue formats, so if you're building a Farigirif from the ground up, I'd probably recommend Shadow. But either way... yes, this is a legit, valid pick in a meta for the first time in multiple years, and that's awesome. If you feel like stretching your neck out for this format, this is a very fun and zany way to do so! 🦒

75,000 Dust/75 Candy

Well, there's no sugar coating it... there are some very good picks in this and the 100k section, requiring heavier investments and pushing all "thriftiness" off the raft. The good news is that several of them do not strictly require a second charge move, and those that do benefit from them most are likely to have some playability beyond just Psychic Cup, so there's still opportunity for some savings and investments that are truly worth it where you can't be too thrifty. Let's see what we've got....
METAGROSS ♻️
Bullet Punch Meteor Mash (& Earthquake?)
Metagross only very rarely has much impact outside of Master League, but it IS still a solid Steel for metas where you want actual Steel damage. This here is one of them, with Metagross dishing out big neutral-or-better (super effective versus Ice, Rock, and most importantly, Fairy types!) damage to mostly everything (AhChu, Waters, Fires, and other Steels do resist). Put it all together, and this is likely to be Metagross' best Great League meta ever, particularly if you have one with good PvP IVs, which adds on wins versus Bronzong (one of very few spots where Earthquake actually matters) and Galarian Rapidash (who amazingly is otherwise able to at least force a tie -- if not win outright -- with neutral Megahorn and its other moves being resisted). You CAN pay for Earthquake if you want to, but it is literally only versus other Steels that it might maybe sometimes turn things in your favor... everything else can be had with just Meteor Mash. As scary as it looks, though, I generally don't recommend Shadow Metagross, as it is... well, gross in comparison, walloping Fairies but falling short versus stuff like Bronzong, G-King, and Malamar that non-Shadow Gross can handle. If you insist on Shadow anyway, you're best with one with a little extra Attack to at least win mirror matches... and you retain everything else of note still.
Don't have a sub-1500 CP Metagross? As crazy as it may sound, you're really not much worse off with its pre-evolution METANG, who has much less inspriring Steel moves but still replicates most of what its big, four-legged bro can do anyway. And in this case, Shadow is on equal footing.
GARDEVOIR ♻️♻️
Charm Shadow Ball *
Yep, you really don't need any second charge move here. Heck, 95% of the time, you won't need ANY charge moves here, since we're talking about Charm, but hey, it IS Shadow Ball, so that's an easy call to TM to as necessary. But this is all about that tap tap tapping and Charming down a wide swath of the meta, particuarly emo (aka Shadow](https://pvpoke.com/battle/multi/1500/custom/gardevoir-shadow/11/1-3-0/2-1/psychic)) Gard, which is basically a straight uprade with added wins versus Hypno, Claydol, and sometimes Wobbuffet too. Make no mistake, though: Gardevoir is very glassy (especially as a Shadow, of course) and basically HAS to have shields to hide behind, but if she does and you can avoid Steel, Poison, and Fire types (and super thicc Cresselia), Gardevoir can run roughshod over entire teams. Charm is always good, but especially in a meta where so little resists it.
And yes, this is also that rare meta with Charm GALLADE actually makes sense, and as with Gardevoir, you really don't need a second move. (Just stick with widely neutral Leaf Blade.) Also like Gardevoir, Shadow is better (though only slightly, in this case, with a new win versus Alolan Raichu). If you intend to run Charm, you're still much better off going with Gardevoir (Gallade taking neutral from Psychic damage while Gard resists it is just one of many reasons), but uh... perhaps double Charm could run both? (But please don't, pleaseandthankyou. 😅)
ORANGURU ♻️♻️♻️
Confusion Foul Play (& Psychic?)
Never imagined I'd ever be saying anything was "a worse Garifirag", but here we are. The good is that Oranguru has widely super effective Foul Play and the same resistance to Ghost moves as its fellow long-necked Psychic/Normal buddy. The bad is that its locked behind widely resisted Confusion, and thus struggles to bring Foul Play to bear. You can run it, and it's one of the safer investments for multiple formats (even Open, on the right team) moving forward, but it's far less exciting than it should be in Psychic Cup. Even with shields down!
MR. RIME ♻️♻️
Ice Shard Ice Punch & Icy Wind
Another good news/bad news story in the making here. The good is having a moveset resisted only by Steels (and the very few Waters) in the format, big debuffer Icy Wind as part of it, and results that get better and better the longer the battle goes. (Oh, and absolutely obliterating Latios, Claydol, Flyers, and Grasses.) The bad is losing to most everything else, to include Malamar, the Fairies, the Steels (of course), Fires and Rocks amd Waters (again: of course), and big names like Medicham, AhChu, Hypno, and Galarian Slowking. Way to cool off the hype there... sorry!

100,000 Dust/100 Candy

We're almost done! There ARE some impactful Legendaries and Mythicals to cover, so let's blow through and bring this on home!
VICTINI ♻️♻️♻️
Quick Attack V-Create (& Overheat?)
If you had asked me a week ago about Psychic Cup and Victini's place in it, I would have said it was viable, but [held back by Confusion. But now, after the increased energy coming from the buffed Quick Attack, it looks freaking terrifying. Now it can beat Hypno, Cresselia, Lugia, and even Fire-resistant Latios in 1v1 shielding, and add on potentially Malamar, AhChu, and Claydol with shields down. I don't know that a second move is strictly required if you're strapped for candy and/or dust, as V-Create does nearly all the heavy lifting on its own, but it's worth noting that Overheat helps significantly (particularly in 0v0 shielding) to outrace Bronzong, which is obviously a significant pickup. Also note that Quick Attack Victini is suddenly tearing it up in even Open Great League, much less Limited metas, so this is looking like a very safe investment for even when Psychic Cup has faded from the rear view mirror. It's a great time to build yours up if you didn't already push it past 1500 CP. But you wouldn't have done that after being being advised to keep it at Great League level, now would you? 😉 There's a reason Victini is currently ranked #1 in Psychic Cup Smoke 'em (literally) if you got 'em! 🔥
SHADOW LATIOS ♻️♻️
Dragon Breath Dragon Claw
I'm going to assume if you have a Latios under 1500, it's likely Shadow, so that's what I'll be focused on here... but yes, non-Shadow is fine too if you've gotten REALLY lucky with research-level Latios trades. But Shadow Latios is thankfully not a downgrade, just a sidegrade, trading in Xatu and Victini that non-Shadow can get VERY close wins against (surviving with 3 or less HP) for relatively comfortable wins versus Alolan Raichu and Medicham instead. Steels and Fairies resist Dragon damage, but other than them, Latios is a great generalist that piles on damage very, very quickly regardless of the opponent's supply of shields. You do need to have an escape plan if a Steel or especially Fairy shows up, though. 😬 And as with other glassy stuff like Gardevoir, Latios ideally needs at least one shield to hide behind.
CRESSELIA ♻️♻️♻️
Psycho Cut Grass Knotᴸ & Moonblast
The name of Cress' game is bulk and neutral damage charge moves, and that can carry it quite a ways. Yes, Grass Knot can ruin some poor Claydol or Slowbro's day, and Moonblast makes Malamar and Latios and Medicham cry, but generally Cresselia is just outlasting stuff in neutral-on-mostly-neutral slugfests. It's quite excellent with shields down, but loses effectiveness when pushed to two shields, so plan her spot in your lineup accordingly if you plan to deploy one.
LUGIA ♻️♻️♻️
Dragon Tail Sky Attack (& Aeroblastᴸ or Hydro Pump?)
Yet again the non-Shadow and more easily acquired Shadow Lugia remain pretty close in performance, the main difference being that non-Shadow holds up long enough to take down Victini, while Shadow instead overpowers Malamar. It's also well worth noting that in shieldless and 2v2 shielding, it is Shadow Lugia that pulls slightly ahead, trading in Hypno and Slowbro for wins versus Victini, Cresselia, and Gardevoir in 0v0 and picking up Victini and Alolan Raichu in 2v2 shield (no new losses in that case). ALSO note that a second move doesn't do a lot of good for you in simulations, but if you WANT to shell out for a second move (Lugia IS okay in other GL metas and a relatively safe investment), Legacy Aeroblast is best, but Hydro Pump is an acceptable replacement that could surprise Victini or Claydol (and deals BIG neutral damage to Steels too).
JIRACHI ♻️♻️♻️
Charge Beam Doom Desire & Dazzling Gleam
If you ever needed a sign that this is a very strange meta that turns a lot of norms on their collective heads, it is this: Charge Beam is a recommended move. Even better: Charge Beam is a recommended move on something that doesn't get STAB with it and DOES with significantly better PvP move Confusion. But of course, Confusion is widely resisted and Charge Beam is widely not, so that's what we're going with. And you know what? It actually works, with Charge Beam leading directly to wins over things you'd expect Electric damage to help with (Slowbro and Lugia), but also one you probably wouldn't think of: Malamar. That last one is really won by way of super effective Dazzling Gleam, but it's only because of the energy gains of Charge Beam that Jirachi gets there in time anyway. And this is no fluke: JIrachi remains quite consistent in shieldless and 2v2 shielding matchups as well. Just this once, it's time to TM away from Confusion for a week. Just make sure to switch back when Psychic Cup is over and you wanna use Jirachi again. 😉
CELEBI ♻️♻️
Magical Leafᴸ Seed Bomb & Leaf Storm
Well, just like Jirachi, Celebi also comes with Charge Beam and Dazzling Gleam, though in this case I don't think you want either. Because Celebi comes with a better alternative to both Charge Beam and Confusion with Magical Leaf, and can run a full (oft-unresisted) Grass moveset with Seed Bomb and Leaf Storm as well, making it a handy generalist that hates especially hard on Claydol and Alolan Raichu and somehow even beats Metagross, but otherwise wants to avoid Steels and Fires like the plague, among other things. Celebi isn't anything super special, if I'm being honest, but if you have a good one, dealing as much neutral damage as it does is a valuable thing in Psychic Cup.
GALARIAN ARTICUNO ♻️♻️
Psycho Cut Ancient Power & Brave Bird
Sure, if you've been lucky enough to A.) encounter one under 1500 CP, B.) actually catch the blasted thing, and C.) had enough resources to get it double moved, then yeah, you can use it here as perhaps the most showoffingest of showoffs ever. And then go buy some lottery tickets.
SHADOW MEWTWO ♻️♻️
Psycho Cut Shadow Ballᴸ & Psystrikeᴸ
So earlier when I said that Alakazam had the fastest Shadow Ball in the format? That was true... but it's actually just tied for fastest, because Mewtwo can get to it just as quickly. And while it lacks the addition pressure of Fire Punch like Zam and is somehow even squishier than Zam too, Shadow Mewtwo still performs on a similar level, and what better time to use it, right?
FEELIN' LUCKY?
In this extra section, I cover a few mons that are no less "nifty" than those in the main article above, but require maxing or at least almost maxing out, so they are FAR from "thrifty"! I already mentioned SMOOCHUM earlier, but there's just a couple more....
WOBBUFFET ♻️♻️
Charm/Counter Mirror Coat & Returnᴸ
Normally seen with Counter, and that actually does kinda work here, but if I were to use Wobb in this format, I'd probably do so with Charm. Admittedly neither are great, and I would NOT advise the heavy investment in the here and now. But if you have already built Wobb in the past, it has play here.
And uh... well, wow, I guess that really is it. I mean, there's SLOWPOKE and Shadow Slowpoke) and even GALARIAN SLOWPOKE, but they're really not anywhere near worth that kind of investment. And don't try to get cute with stuff with favorable Hidden Power types either... it doesn't actually work.
But I have worked, and can happily now declare that this article is a wrap! As always, I hope my ramblings help you balance the cost of where to save yourself some hard-earned dust (and candy!) and put together a competitive and FUN team. If I was successful in that, then it was all worth it.
Until next time, you can always find me on Twitter for regular PvP analysis nuggets, or Patreon. And please, feel free to comment here with your own thoughts or questions and I'll try to get back to you!
Thank you for reading! I sincerely hope this helps you master Psychic Cup, and in the most affordable way possible. Best of luck, and catch you next time, Pokéfriends!

The "Nifty Or Thrifty" article series takes a comprehensive look at the meta for PvP Cup formats: Psychic Cup, in this case. As is typical for the NoT series, I'll cover not only the top meta picks, but also some mons where you can save some dust with cheaper second move unlock costs and/or leveling up! Because for those on a stardust budget — and/or folks trying to save up some dust for the future — it can be daunting trying to figure out where to spend or not spend it.
So as I try to usually do, I will start with those with the cheapest second move unlock cost and steam ahead until we finally arrive at the expensive Legendaries. I do try and put extra emphasis on the thriftier stuff, especially for formats like this where you may not use some of these things much in the future. (For a rough guide to reusability, though, I will rank things with ♻️s, with three being solid in other Great League formats, two being okay in at least certain Cup formats, and only one being something that, honestly, you're unlikely to use again.)
Now let's get to it!

10,000 Dust/25 Candy

So while I try and review the meta pretty comprehensively in these writeups, I cut my teeth way back when I started (nearly 400 articles and 4 years ago!) by keying in on budget-friendly options to help folks that don't have every possible Pokemon already built and/or buckets of stardust just sitting around waiting to be spent. All that to say... I usually focus on the 10k category as much as possible, as they're typically the cheapest things to build from the ground up. Unfortunately, for this particular Cup that hardly has any starters or anything, there's barely anything here. But there IS one very valuable diamond in the rough, so let's take a look at this unfortuntely small group.
ALOLAN RAICHU ♻️♻️♻️
Volt Switch Wild Charge & Thunder Punch/Grass Knot
The only 10k option ranked in the Top 10 (and just barely!), AhChu's big advantage in this format is being one of very few things with a full moveset that can hit (nearly) everything for neutral damage... only Claydol and a couple Grass types dull Electric damage. Generally that all-Electric set is what you're going to want, but there IS a case for Grass Knot, especially with shields down, with which it can at least win the mirror (and threaten Claydol).
DELPHOX ♻️♻️
Fire Spin Flame Charge & Fire Blast
Plus side: as with AhChu, Delphox dishes out largely unresisted damage, and the Fire typing also resists Fairy damage. Downsides: needs to land a big expensive Fire Blast to beat things like Medicham, Wobbuffet, and Lugia, and usually just barely, and will fall victim to Water, Ground, and Rock damage that people bring to face down Victini. (Yes, that's gonna be a BIG thing... more later.) In the end, it's not an eye-popping track record, but Phoxy IS cheap and works well enough as a generalist that will obviously really burn through Steels.
SWOOBAT ♻️♻️
Air Slash Psychic Fangs & Aerial Ace
Can you tell we're already reaching a bit? I mean, you CAN do a lot worse... at least Swoobat deals neutral damage to most of the meta (Steels and Lunatone are laughing at it, though), and Psychic Fangs hits especially softly here, but does come with debuffing to the opponent, so... there's that? But yeah, the 10ks are really thin when this is your third best option among them.
And really all that's even left beyond that is GRUMPIG, which comes with Shadow Ball but can barely make use of it. Oh, and there's also XL SMOOCHUM, but that is deciedly NOT a cheap build (having to be fully maxed out), and really not worth considering at all unless you somehow already have one built. At least Claydol, Celebi, and Flyers detest it.

50,000 Dust/50 Candy

While thr 50k category is typically the largest, with the derth of 10k options this time around, it's especially important this time as probably the best place to try and get "thrifty". And there's at least one prominent option that doesn't even require a second charge move at all! Let's dive in....
BRONZONG ♻️♻️
Feint Attack Payback & Heavy Slam
If you've ever run Bronzong before (and yes, it's been quite good in certain past metas, and in Ultra League), surely it was with Confusion and Psyshock. Heck, you may not have even known it had Feint Attack, because who would ever run that? Well, players in Psychic Cup want exactly that, along with Payback, to deal super effective damage to darn near everything in the format. (Only a half dozen Pokemon -- consisting of Fighters, Fairies, and one notable Dark type -- manage to take only neutral damage from Dark moves.) Problem is that Feint Attack generates only the average 3.0 Energy Per Turn, and Payback is pretty costly at 60 energy, so despite being decently bulky and having a very favorable Steel subtyping that allows Bronzong to double resist Psychic damage and resist nine other relevant typings, Zong needs a good second move that does decent damage for an affordable cost. Psyshock makes no sense since it's heavily resisted, and regular Zong move Bulldoze doesn't make a lot of sense as it costs the same amount of energy as Payback but deals less damage and is not nearly as widely super effective. So we turn instead to so-so PvP move Heavy Slam, which at least costs only 50 energy, gets STAB, and is resisted only by the few Fires, Waters, and Steels in the format, plus Alolan Raichu; it picks up wins versus Claydol, Galarian Rapidash (super effective damage from Slam!), and Slowbro. You'll never see this sort of moveset be recommended outside this format, but here in Psychic Cup, it's the way to go.
MALAMAR ♻️♻️
Psycho Cut Foul Play & Hyper Beam/Superpower
There are several things in this format that have solid Dark/Ghost moves to wail on most everything else for super effective damage, and several things that double resist Psychic damage (all the Steels in the format, for example), but there is nothing else in Psychic Cup that really does both... and Malamar actually triple resists Psychic! (Psychic resists Psychic, and Dark double resists Psychic, hence the Dark/Psychic Malamar triple resists. See, I can do maths!) Put it all together, and you can see why so many of us content creators were recommending getting a good Malamar during Ixkay Research Day. It's very dominant versus the entirely of the format too, and not just the core meta. Basically bring a Fairy or something with Charm (or a couple specific things like Metagross, Celebi, sometimes Galarian Slowking, and Medicham, who remains a part of this meta in very large part because of Malamar), or Malamar could shred your whole team. Thank goodness it doesn't have a Dark fast move as well or it's likely NOTHING would be able to beat it. And things don't get much better in other shielding scenarios either. Too bad that it's pretty limited outside of formats like this.
Last note: yes, you actually do want Hyper Beam as the second move alongside Foul Play. Fast move Psycho Cut can actually get to it in meaningful spots, and the other charge move optiosn will never deal better than neutral (and usually resisted) damage anyway. Superpower at least deals neutral to enemy Malamar and Steel, Rock, and Ice types, but you really won't find yourself wanting that nearly as often as you may want the pure KO power of Beam.
GALARIAN RAPIDASH ♻️♻️
Fairy Wind Body Slam & Megahorn
And if you think Malamar looks scary, get a load of THIS. 👀 Running with brand new fast move Fairy Wind, G-Dash kind of has it all: Fairy damage for stuff like Malamar and Medicham and Latios, Megahorn to deal BIG damage to everything in the format (and super effective damage to the vast majority, as Psychic types are weak to Bug damage), and super spammy Body Slam to wear down most everything else. About the only things it doesn't want to run into are Steels, as they resist all three of those moves, but most everything else is fair game. Note that in 1v1 shielding, its only losses that are NOT Steel types are Alolan Raichu, Victini, G-Bro, and Charm Gardevoir. That's it... that's the list. Ride like the wind, indeed.
GALARIAN SLOWKING ♻️♻️
Hex Shadow Ball (& Sludge Wave?)
Savings alert, as G-King really doesn't need any charge move other than just Shadow Ball... it does all the damage it needs to with Ball and Hex, which isn't surprising considering that the total number of things in this meta that Ghost does NOT hit super effectively can be counted on one hand, even if that hand had a terrible run-in with an ill-tempered paper shredder... twice! (Just three total things: Normals Oranguru and Girafathingy, who actually resist Ghost, and Dark type Malamar, who takes neutral.) G-King would be THE Pokemon to beat here except for one little problem: it is rather fragile. I mean, its bulk is fine enough, but being half-Poison means it takes neutral (rather than resisted) damage from Psychic damage and is vulnerable to Ground (hello there, Claydol), though on the plus side it at least resists Fairy damage. In other words, a big of an RPS nightmare may unfold, but at least G-King can dish it out to just about everything even in most bad matchups on the way out. If you have a good one and are still questioning what to plug in on the back end of your team, G-King is likely to offer a pretty good answer.
CLAYDOL ♻️
Mud Slap Shadow Ball & Rock Tomb
Ah, Niantic's long-time pet project. They have tweaked Claydol so obviously and so often that it almost became a joke, adding Earth Power in May 2019, Mud Slap in July 2019, Ice Beam and Shadow Ball in January 2021, and finally Rock Tomb when that move was revamped in November 2021. Clearly somebody over there REALLY wants to make it work. And in this format, even PvPoke really wanted to make it work too, listing it in the Top 5. On paper, this is finally a format where it SHOULD indeed be awesome, perfectly countering the potent Steels (Bronzong, Metagross, Jirachi), Poisonous Galarian Slows, and Alolan Raichu and Lunatone (with both Electric and Rock types also being weak to Ground and ineffective against it), right? Right? Problem is that despite all the move tweaking, it's just remained mediocre at best, and that seemed to be the case in early looks here where PvPoke's and my initial meta lists had it with the obvious Shadow Ball and slightly-less-obvious Earth Power to emphasize its niche role in hammering on the things I listed above that are all weak to Ground. Problem is that in that configuration, it STILL looked mediocre, unable to reliably overcome G-King or even Bronzong that a Ground type really should be beating, and it fell short against Hypno and Medicham (both running Ice Punch) as well. But it turns out that with that very last and latest update, maybe Niantic finally got it right, as it is humble Rock Tomb that seemingly pushes Claydol, finally, into a bona fide meta option. It's not because of Rock Tomb offering special coverage either, as Claydol actually still loses to every Flying and Ice type in the format except Galarian Articuno. But what Tomb does bring is a guaranteed debuff to the opponent's Attack, giving Claydol the extra time it needs to finish G-King, Zong, Medi, and Hypno off. The effect is very similar in 2v2 shielding as well, with Rock Tomb beating Hypno and winning the mirror match, neither of which Earth Power can reliably replicate. Perhaps even more amazingly, Rock Tomb by itself can beat everything it can with Shadow Ball/Rock Tomb in 2v2 shielding! Rock Tomb is NOT a great move (still dealing far less damage than you'd hope for 60 energy), and Claydol is NOT a great Pokemon, but somehow, for one brief shining moment, it somehow all just works. Claydol fans... this is your first, best, and likely also last chance to take Claydol out for... well, a spin. 😵😏
HYPNO ♻️♻️♻️
Confusion Shadow Ball & _____ Punch
And now we get into one Psychic type that most players have probably actually used at some point, old reliable Hypno. Yes, it has Shadow Ball, which is a great start. Yes, it's quite bulky and can simply outlast a number of things. And yes, it has a variety of Punches that usually deal neutral damage and sometimes get in for super effective. But the problem Hypno has is being a little slow due to relying on basically-always-resisted Confusion. I usually try and keep 'Nifty or Thrifty' reviews relatively high level and stick mostly with the 1v1 shielding scenarios, but in this particular case, that scenario tells a sad story (including for Shadow Hypno as well). But that undersells Hypno, as it's much better in 2v2 shielding or especially with shields down. I do recommend it as a space filler on teams, especially if you already have it on hand and (understandably) don't feel inclined to invest too heavily into a one-week format like this with other stuff in this article. Hypno will rarely feel truly dominant, but it can certainly hold the line just fine. And as for which Punch to go with, they all have merit, so decide it you want to burn Steels (Fire), freeze Claydol (Ice), or just go for a decent all-arounder (Thunder). Good luck!
MEDICHAM ♻️♻️♻️♻️
Counter Ice Punch & Power-Up Punch/Psychic/Dynamic Punch
Yes, Medicham is awesome in PvP, but can even it survive in a meta chock full of things that resist its main moves? Well, if you have a decent ranking one, it's viable-ish despite everything working against it. What Medi DOES do well is win the few neutral-on-neutral battles -- those versus Steels (Metagross, Bronzong), Rock type Lunatone, and Dark type Malamar -- where both sides are dealing neutral damage to each other throughout (with one half of their typing being weak, the other half resisting, and thus = neutral!)... and then Slowbro for some reason (despite Slowbro resisting literally ALL of Medi's moves). As crazy as it may sound, yes, I think you want to run Counter and Power-Up Punch here, because despite never dealing greater than neutral damage, Counter + PuP does still add up. PuP also pumps up Ice Punch, which is Medi's one interesting weapon here for how it hits nearly everything for neutral and comes in with super effective damage in some key spots (Claydol, Xatu, Lugia), especially Latios, where a PuP'd Ice Punch becomes quite deadly. I don't necessarily recommend Medicham here, but it's not as insane an idea as you might think at first.
ALAKAZAM ♻️♻️
Psycho Cut Fire Punch & Shadow Ball
Fastest Shadow Ball in Psychic Cup. Let me repeat that for those in the back: fastest Shadow Ball in Psychic Cup right here, on Alakazam with Psycho Cut. Look, even in a format where 'Zam resists so much incoming damage, it's still very flimsy and it WILL be betrayed by its lack of bulk, but it also hits hard and fast like a rocket sled from Mythbusters and takes a number of big things down with it, like Bronzong, Claydol, Metagross, G-King and Slowbro, and more. Shadow Zam is obviously even MORE of a glass cannon and can no longer overcome Bronzong or Slowbro, but does pick up Lugia and Hypno in their place. If you like fast battles and blazes of glory, Alakazam is worth a look.
GALARIAN SLOWBRO ♻️♻️
Poison Jab Sludge Bomb & Focus Blast
Admittedly you won't often want Focus Blast, but it DOES help when shields are down by punching out Lunatone and Malamar, the latter especially being worth it. But those shieldless results are also about the best you'll see out of G-Bro, as it just barely clings to relevance with shields in play. Like Galarian Slowking, it unfortunately takes neutral from Psychic, and its Poison moves are blunted by the key Steels and Rocks and Claydol here, making them far more cusrse than blessing. It's an uphill battle for G-Bro.
SLOWBRO ♻️♻️
Water Gun Ice Beam & Water Pulse
OG Slowbro doesn't really have it much better, despite having some fantastic theoetical things going for it: dealing super effective damage to Claydol and Fires and Rocks (and Flyers thanks to Ice Beam), dealing widespread neutral damage to most everything else, and actually resisting Steel and Fire damage. SOME of that shines out, with wins versus Victini, Metagross, Claydol, and Lunatone, giving it some interesting potential niche use. But it just doesn't really capitalize against anything else. Even pushing to 2v2 shielding only manages to add on Wobbuffet and Xatu (barely). I've seen a LOT of talk about Slowbro, and I sorta get it, but when you peel back the curtain and give it a long hard look, it just doesn't do as much as it feels like it should. There will be teams that absolutely benefit from it, but just don't ask it to do much beyond its very niche role.
LUNATONE ♻️
Rock Throw Rock Slide & Moonblast
Rinse and repeat here. Lunatone SHOULD have a nice little niche with its full Rock moveset dealing wide neutral damage -- and super effective damage where it counts, such as versus Fires and Flyers -- and Moonblast theoretically being a killer versus Malamar. But as with Slowbro, [it doesn't quite work out that way. Victini and Flyers go down, yes, but basically nothing else, at least with any kind of consistency. I like Lunatone a lot more in concept than I think anyone will in reality.
XATU ♻️
Feint Attack Ominous Wind & Aerial Ace
Why oh why couldn't Ominous Wind have gotten the same damage boost that Ancient Power and Silver Wind did in this season's move shakeup? I mean, I KNOW why (hint: it rhymes a bit with "cheetah cheetah"), but dang, missed opportunity here. Instead, Wind is left dealing a mere 45 base damage, so even having that and Feint Attack -- both super effective versus everything here that doens't rhyme with "Nala Bar", "Gee, Raph, Uh... Big!", or "You Rang, Guru?" -- leaves Xatu pretty tame. Certainly viable, though, with nice wins versus Claydol (resisting Ground damage is big), Wobb, fellow Flyer Lugia, the Slows, and even the big Steels that normally feast on Flyers. It can even hang in there long enough to clip Latios' wings, which is no small thing. It has been literally years since Xatu made a name for itself in very early Silph Arena metas, but like am aging, retired boxer, Xatu may have one more good fight left in it.
MEOWSTIC ♻️
Sucker Punch (Male)/Charm (Female) Energy Ball & Thunderbolt (Male)/Shadow Ball (Female)
Gonna give the slight edge to the male version here, seeing as how it comes with Dark fast move Sucker Punch and can beat out Bronzong, Claydol, Lugia, and Slowbro. But the female version clocks in as an odd Charmer that also has Shadow Ball (though it's very unlikely to reach it multiple times, or perhaps even once!), and it beats Malamar, Medicham, Xatu, and Latios instead. (Both beat out Lunatone and Wobbuffet.) Yes, even I'll admit these are both a reach, but hey, when else would you ever even consider using them? It's now or never, Meowstic fans!
GIRAFARIG ♻️♻️
Tackle Psychic Fangs & Thunderbolt
OH MY. Do you know how excited I am to be closing out a section in a 'Nifty Or Thrifty' article with my homie Farigamariff and it NOT be a total joke? My boy is legit here, folks! Despite running with extremely average (even post-buff) Tackle, resisted Psychic Fangs, and slowish Thunderbolt, Girafathing manages to pick off Claydol (who resists all of that but Tackle!), Hypno, G-King, Lunatone (who resists everything but Bolt), and Bolt-weak Slowbro, Lugia, and Xatu. As a Psychic/Normal type, Figamiraff actually resists Ghost damage, which is handy in those Hypno, Xatu, and especially G-King wins. And while it's NOT a pretty picture with shields down, it does manage to stay pretty consistent in 2v2 shielding, owing to the resisted but still impactful (thanks to opponent debuffs) Psychic Fangs. Shadow Ragafiraf is just a sidegrade here (losing Lunatone but gaining Celebi instead) but is the more promising of the two in other Great Legaue formats, so if you're building a Farigirif from the ground up, I'd probably recommend Shadow. But either way... yes, this is a legit, valid pick in a meta for the first time in multiple years, and that's awesome. If you feel like stretching your neck out for this format, this is a very fun and zany way to do so! 🦒

75,000 Dust/75 Candy

Well, there's no sugar coating it... there are some very good picks in this and the 100k section, requiring heavier investments and pushing all "thriftiness" off the raft. The good news is that several of them do not strictly require a second charge move, and those that do benefit from them most are likely to have some playability beyond just Psychic Cup, so there's still opportunity for some savings and investments that are truly worth it where you can't be too thrifty. Let's see what we've got....
METAGROSS ♻️
Bullet Punch Meteor Mash (& Earthquake?)
Metagross only very rarely has much impact outside of Master League, but it IS still a solid Steel for metas where you want actual Steel damage. This here is one of them, with Metagross dishing out big neutral-or-better (super effective versus Ice, Rock, and most importantly, Fairy types!) damage to mostly everything (AhChu, Waters, Fires, and other Steels do resist). Put it all together, and this is likely to be Metagross' best Great League meta ever, particularly if you have one with good PvP IVs, which adds on wins versus Bronzong (one of very few spots where Earthquake actually matters) and Galarian Rapidash (who amazingly is otherwise able to at least force a tie -- if not win outright -- with neutral Megahorn and its other moves being resisted). You CAN pay for Earthquake if you want to, but it is literally only versus other Steels that it might maybe sometimes turn things in your favor... everything else can be had with just Meteor Mash. As scary as it looks, though, I generally don't recommend Shadow Metagross, as it is... well, gross in comparison, walloping Fairies but falling short versus stuff like Bronzong, G-King, and Malamar that non-Shadow Gross can handle. If you insist on Shadow anyway, you're best with one with a little extra Attack to at least win mirror matches... and you retain everything else of note still.
Don't have a sub-1500 CP Metagross? As crazy as it may sound, you're really not much worse off with its pre-evolution METANG, who has much less inspriring Steel moves but still replicates most of what its big, four-legged bro can do anyway. And in this case, Shadow is on equal footing.
GARDEVOIR ♻️♻️
Charm Shadow Ball *
Yep, you really don't need any second charge move here. Heck, 95% of the time, you won't need ANY charge moves here, since we're talking about Charm, but hey, it IS Shadow Ball, so that's an easy call to TM to as necessary. But this is all about that tap tap tapping and Charming down a wide swath of the meta, particuarly emo (aka Shadow](https://pvpoke.com/battle/multi/1500/custom/gardevoir-shadow/11/1-3-0/2-1/psychic)) Gard, which is basically a straight uprade with added wins versus Hypno, Claydol, and sometimes Wobbuffet too. Make no mistake, though: Gardevoir is very glassy (especially as a Shadow, of course) and basically HAS to have shields to hide behind, but if she does and you can avoid Steel, Poison, and Fire types (and super thicc Cresselia), Gardevoir can run roughshod over entire teams. Charm is always good, but especially in a meta where so little resists it.
And yes, this is also that rare meta with Charm GALLADE actually makes sense, and as with Gardevoir, you really don't need a second move. (Just stick with widely neutral Leaf Blade.) Also like Gardevoir, Shadow is better (though only slightly, in this case, with a new win versus Alolan Raichu). If you intend to run Charm, you're still much better off going with Gardevoir (Gallade taking neutral from Psychic damage while Gard resists it is just one of many reasons), but uh... perhaps double Charm could run both? (But please don't, pleaseandthankyou. 😅)
ORANGURU ♻️♻️♻️
Confusion Foul Play (& Psychic?)
Never imagined I'd ever be saying anything was "a worse Garifirag", but here we are. The good is that Oranguru has widely super effective Foul Play and the same resistance to Ghost moves as its fellow long-necked Psychic/Normal buddy. The bad is that its locked behind widely resisted Confusion, and thus struggles to bring Foul Play to bear. You can run it, and it's one of the safer investments for multiple formats (even Open, on the right team) moving forward, but it's far less exciting than it should be in Psychic Cup. Even with shields down!
MR. RIME ♻️♻️
Ice Shard Ice Punch & Icy Wind
Another good news/bad news story in the making here. The good is having a moveset resisted only by Steels (and the very few Waters) in the format, big debuffer Icy Wind as part of it, and results that get better and better the longer the battle goes. (Oh, and absolutely obliterating Latios, Claydol, Flyers, and Grasses.) The bad is losing to most everything else, to include Malamar, the Fairies, the Steels (of course), Fires and Rocks amd Waters (again: of course), and big names like Medicham, AhChu, Hypno, and Galarian Slowking. Way to cool off the hype there... sorry!

100,000 Dust/100 Candy

We're almost done! There ARE some impactful Legendaries and Mythicals to cover, so let's blow through and bring this on home!
VICTINI ♻️♻️♻️
Quick Attack V-Create (& Overheat?)
If you had asked me a week ago about Psychic Cup and Victini's place in it, I would have said it was viable, but [held back by Confusion. But now, after the increased energy coming from the buffed Quick Attack, it looks freaking terrifying. Now it can beat Hypno, Cresselia, Lugia, and even Fire-resistant Latios in 1v1 shielding, and add on potentially Malamar, AhChu, and Claydol with shields down. I don't know that a second move is strictly required if you're strapped for candy and/or dust, as V-Create does nearly all the heavy lifting on its own, but it's worth noting that Overheat helps significantly (particularly in 0v0 shielding) to outrace Bronzong, which is obviously a significant pickup. Also note that Quick Attack Victini is suddenly tearing it up in even Open Great League, much less Limited metas, so this is looking like a very safe investment for even when Psychic Cup has faded from the rear view mirror. It's a great time to build yours up if you didn't already push it past 1500 CP. But you wouldn't have done that after being being advised to keep it at Great League level, now would you? 😉 There's a reason Victini is currently ranked #1 in Psychic Cup Smoke 'em (literally) if you got 'em! 🔥
SHADOW LATIOS ♻️♻️
Dragon Breath Dragon Claw
I'm going to assume if you have a Latios under 1500, it's likely Shadow, so that's what I'll be focused on here... but yes, non-Shadow is fine too if you've gotten REALLY lucky with research-level Latios trades. But Shadow Latios is thankfully not a downgrade, just a sidegrade, trading in Xatu and Victini that non-Shadow can get VERY close wins against (surviving with 3 or less HP) for relatively comfortable wins versus Alolan Raichu and Medicham instead. Steels and Fairies resist Dragon damage, but other than them, Latios is a great generalist that piles on damage very, very quickly regardless of the opponent's supply of shields. You do need to have an escape plan if a Steel or especially Fairy shows up, though. 😬 And as with other glassy stuff like Gardevoir, Latios ideally needs at least one shield to hide behind.
CRESSELIA ♻️♻️♻️
Psycho Cut Grass Knotᴸ & Moonblast
The name of Cress' game is bulk and neutral damage charge moves, and that can carry it quite a ways. Yes, Grass Knot can ruin some poor Claydol or Slowbro's day, and Moonblast makes Malamar and Latios and Medicham cry, but generally Cresselia is just outlasting stuff in neutral-on-mostly-neutral slugfests. It's quite excellent with shields down, but loses effectiveness when pushed to two shields, so plan her spot in your lineup accordingly if you plan to deploy one.
LUGIA ♻️♻️♻️
Dragon Tail Sky Attack (& Aeroblastᴸ or Hydro Pump?)
Yet again the non-Shadow and more easily acquired Shadow Lugia remain pretty close in performance, the main difference being that non-Shadow holds up long enough to take down Victini, while Shadow instead overpowers Malamar. It's also well worth noting that in shieldless and 2v2 shielding, it is Shadow Lugia that pulls slightly ahead, trading in Hypno and Slowbro for wins versus Victini, Cresselia, and Gardevoir in 0v0 and picking up Victini and Alolan Raichu in 2v2 shield (no new losses in that case). ALSO note that a second move doesn't do a lot of good for you in simulations, but if you WANT to shell out for a second move (Lugia IS okay in other GL metas and a relatively safe investment), Legacy Aeroblast is best, but Hydro Pump is an acceptable replacement that could surprise Victini or Claydol (and deals BIG neutral damage to Steels too).
JIRACHI ♻️♻️♻️
Charge Beam Doom Desire & Dazzling Gleam
If you ever needed a sign that this is a very strange meta that turns a lot of norms on their collective heads, it is this: Charge Beam is a recommended move. Even better: Charge Beam is a recommended move on something that doesn't get STAB with it and DOES with significantly better PvP move Confusion. But of course, Confusion is widely resisted and Charge Beam is widely not, so that's what we're going with. And you know what? It actually works, with Charge Beam leading directly to wins over things you'd expect Electric damage to help with (Slowbro and Lugia), but also one you probably wouldn't think of: Malamar. That last one is really won by way of super effective Dazzling Gleam, but it's only because of the energy gains of Charge Beam that Jirachi gets there in time anyway. And this is no fluke: JIrachi remains quite consistent in shieldless and 2v2 shielding matchups as well. Just this once, it's time to TM away from Confusion for a week. Just make sure to switch back when Psychic Cup is over and you wanna use Jirachi again. 😉
CELEBI ♻️♻️
Magical Leafᴸ Seed Bomb & Leaf Storm
Well, just like Jirachi, Celebi also comes with Charge Beam and Dazzling Gleam, though in this case I don't think you want either. Because Celebi comes with a better alternative to both Charge Beam and Confusion with Magical Leaf, and can run a full (oft-unresisted) Grass moveset with Seed Bomb and Leaf Storm as well, making it a handy generalist that hates especially hard on Claydol and Alolan Raichu and somehow even beats Metagross, but otherwise wants to avoid Steels and Fires like the plague, among other things. Celebi isn't anything super special, if I'm being honest, but if you have a good one, dealing as much neutral damage as it does is a valuable thing in Psychic Cup.
GALARIAN ARTICUNO ♻️♻️
Psycho Cut Ancient Power & Brave Bird
Sure, if you've been lucky enough to A.) encounter one under 1500 CP, B.) actually catch the blasted thing, and C.) had enough resources to get it double moved, then yeah, you can use it here as perhaps the most showoffingest of showoffs ever. And then go buy some lottery tickets.
SHADOW MEWTWO ♻️♻️
Psycho Cut Shadow Ballᴸ & Psystrikeᴸ
So earlier when I said that Alakazam had the fastest Shadow Ball in the format? That was true... but it's actually just tied for fastest, because Mewtwo can get to it just as quickly. And while it lacks the addition pressure of Fire Punch like Zam and is somehow even squishier than Zam too, Shadow Mewtwo still performs on a similar level, and what better time to use it, right?
FEELIN' LUCKY?
In this extra section, I cover a few mons that are no less "nifty" than those in the main article above, but require maxing or at least almost maxing out, so they are FAR from "thrifty"! I already mentioned SMOOCHUM earlier, but there's just a couple more....
WOBBUFFET ♻️♻️
Charm/Counter Mirror Coat & Returnᴸ
Normally seen with Counter, and that actually does kinda work here, but if I were to use Wobb in this format, I'd probably do so with Charm. Admittedly neither are great, and I would NOT advise the heavy investment in the here and now. But if you have already built Wobb in the past, it has play here.
And uh... well, wow, I guess that really is it. I mean, there's SLOWPOKE and Shadow Slowpoke) and even GALARIAN SLOWPOKE, but they're really not anywhere near worth that kind of investment. And don't try to get cute with stuff with favorable Hidden Power types either... it doesn't actually work.
But I have worked, and can happily now declare that this article is a wrap! As always, I hope my ramblings help you balance the cost of where to save yourself some hard-earned dust (and candy!) and put together a competitive and FUN team. If I was successful in that, then it was all worth it.
Until next time, you can always find me on Twitter for regular PvP analysis nuggets, or Patreon. And please, feel free to comment here with your own thoughts or questions and I'll try to get back to you!
Thank you for reading! I sincerely hope this helps you master Psychic Cup, and in the most affordable way possible. Best of luck, and catch you next time, Pokéfriends!

The "Nifty Or Thrifty" article series takes a comprehensive look at the meta for PvP Cup formats: Psychic Cup, in this case. As is typical for the NoT series, I'll cover not only the top meta picks, but also some mons where you can save some dust with cheaper second move unlock costs and/or leveling up! Because for those on a stardust budget — and/or folks trying to save up some dust for the future — it can be daunting trying to figure out where to spend or not spend it.
So as I try to usually do, I will start with those with the cheapest second move unlock cost and steam ahead until we finally arrive at the expensive Legendaries. I do try and put extra emphasis on the thriftier stuff, especially for formats like this where you may not use some of these things much in the future. (For a rough guide to reusability, though, I will rank things with ♻️s, with three being solid in other Great League formats, two being okay in at least certain Cup formats, and only one being something that, honestly, you're unlikely to use again.)
Now let's get to it!

10,000 Dust/25 Candy

So while I try and review the meta pretty comprehensively in these writeups, I cut my teeth way back when I started (nearly 400 articles and 4 years ago!) by keying in on budget-friendly options to help folks that don't have every possible Pokemon already built and/or buckets of stardust just sitting around waiting to be spent. All that to say... I usually focus on the 10k category as much as possible, as they're typically the cheapest things to build from the ground up. Unfortunately, for this particular Cup that hardly has any starters or anything, there's barely anything here. But there IS one very valuable diamond in the rough, so let's take a look at this unfortuntely small group.
ALOLAN RAICHU ♻️♻️♻️
Volt Switch Wild Charge & Thunder Punch/Grass Knot
The only 10k option ranked in the Top 10 (and just barely!), AhChu's big advantage in this format is being one of very few things with a full moveset that can hit (nearly) everything for neutral damage... only Claydol and a couple Grass types dull Electric damage. Generally that all-Electric set is what you're going to want, but there IS a case for Grass Knot, especially with shields down, with which it can at least win the mirror (and threaten Claydol).
DELPHOX ♻️♻️
Fire Spin Flame Charge & Fire Blast
Plus side: as with AhChu, Delphox dishes out largely unresisted damage, and the Fire typing also resists Fairy damage. Downsides: needs to land a big expensive Fire Blast to beat things like Medicham, Wobbuffet, and Lugia, and usually just barely, and will fall victim to Water, Ground, and Rock damage that people bring to face down Victini. (Yes, that's gonna be a BIG thing... more later.) In the end, it's not an eye-popping track record, but Phoxy IS cheap and works well enough as a generalist that will obviously really burn through Steels.
SWOOBAT ♻️♻️
Air Slash Psychic Fangs & Aerial Ace
Can you tell we're already reaching a bit? I mean, you CAN do a lot worse... at least Swoobat deals neutral damage to most of the meta (Steels and Lunatone are laughing at it, though), and Psychic Fangs hits especially softly here, but does come with debuffing to the opponent, so... there's that? But yeah, the 10ks are really thin when this is your third best option among them.
And really all that's even left beyond that is GRUMPIG, which comes with Shadow Ball but can barely make use of it. Oh, and there's also XL SMOOCHUM, but that is deciedly NOT a cheap build (having to be fully maxed out), and really not worth considering at all unless you somehow already have one built. At least Claydol, Celebi, and Flyers detest it.

50,000 Dust/50 Candy

While thr 50k category is typically the largest, with the derth of 10k options this time around, it's especially important this time as probably the best place to try and get "thrifty". And there's at least one prominent option that doesn't even require a second charge move at all! Let's dive in....
BRONZONG ♻️♻️
Feint Attack Payback & Heavy Slam
If you've ever run Bronzong before (and yes, it's been quite good in certain past metas, and in Ultra League), surely it was with Confusion and Psyshock. Heck, you may not have even known it had Feint Attack, because who would ever run that? Well, players in Psychic Cup want exactly that, along with Payback, to deal super effective damage to darn near everything in the format. (Only a half dozen Pokemon -- consisting of Fighters, Fairies, and one notable Dark type -- manage to take only neutral damage from Dark moves.) Problem is that Feint Attack generates only the average 3.0 Energy Per Turn, and Payback is pretty costly at 60 energy, so despite being decently bulky and having a very favorable Steel subtyping that allows Bronzong to double resist Psychic damage and resist nine other relevant typings, Zong needs a good second move that does decent damage for an affordable cost. Psyshock makes no sense since it's heavily resisted, and regular Zong move Bulldoze doesn't make a lot of sense as it costs the same amount of energy as Payback but deals less damage and is not nearly as widely super effective. So we turn instead to so-so PvP move Heavy Slam, which at least costs only 50 energy, gets STAB, and is resisted only by the few Fires, Waters, and Steels in the format, plus Alolan Raichu; it picks up wins versus Claydol, Galarian Rapidash (super effective damage from Slam!), and Slowbro. You'll never see this sort of moveset be recommended outside this format, but here in Psychic Cup, it's the way to go.
MALAMAR ♻️♻️
Psycho Cut Foul Play & Hyper Beam/Superpower
There are several things in this format that have solid Dark/Ghost moves to wail on most everything else for super effective damage, and several things that double resist Psychic damage (all the Steels in the format, for example), but there is nothing else in Psychic Cup that really does both... and Malamar actually triple resists Psychic! (Psychic resists Psychic, and Dark double resists Psychic, hence the Dark/Psychic Malamar triple resists. See, I can do maths!) Put it all together, and you can see why so many of us content creators were recommending getting a good Malamar during Ixkay Research Day. It's very dominant versus the entirely of the format too, and not just the core meta. Basically bring a Fairy or something with Charm (or a couple specific things like Metagross, Celebi, sometimes Galarian Slowking, and Medicham, who remains a part of this meta in very large part because of Malamar), or Malamar could shred your whole team. Thank goodness it doesn't have a Dark fast move as well or it's likely NOTHING would be able to beat it. And things don't get much better in other shielding scenarios either. Too bad that it's pretty limited outside of formats like this.
Last note: yes, you actually do want Hyper Beam as the second move alongside Foul Play. Fast move Psycho Cut can actually get to it in meaningful spots, and the other charge move optiosn will never deal better than neutral (and usually resisted) damage anyway. Superpower at least deals neutral to enemy Malamar and Steel, Rock, and Ice types, but you really won't find yourself wanting that nearly as often as you may want the pure KO power of Beam.
GALARIAN RAPIDASH ♻️♻️
Fairy Wind Body Slam & Megahorn
And if you think Malamar looks scary, get a load of THIS. 👀 Running with brand new fast move Fairy Wind, G-Dash kind of has it all: Fairy damage for stuff like Malamar and Medicham and Latios, Megahorn to deal BIG damage to everything in the format (and super effective damage to the vast majority, as Psychic types are weak to Bug damage), and super spammy Body Slam to wear down most everything else. About the only things it doesn't want to run into are Steels, as they resist all three of those moves, but most everything else is fair game. Note that in 1v1 shielding, its only losses that are NOT Steel types are Alolan Raichu, Victini, G-Bro, and Charm Gardevoir. That's it... that's the list. Ride like the wind, indeed.
GALARIAN SLOWKING ♻️♻️
Hex Shadow Ball (& Sludge Wave?)
Savings alert, as G-King really doesn't need any charge move other than just Shadow Ball... it does all the damage it needs to with Ball and Hex, which isn't surprising considering that the total number of things in this meta that Ghost does NOT hit super effectively can be counted on one hand, even if that hand had a terrible run-in with an ill-tempered paper shredder... twice! (Just three total things: Normals Oranguru and Girafathingy, who actually resist Ghost, and Dark type Malamar, who takes neutral.) G-King would be THE Pokemon to beat here except for one little problem: it is rather fragile. I mean, its bulk is fine enough, but being half-Poison means it takes neutral (rather than resisted) damage from Psychic damage and is vulnerable to Ground (hello there, Claydol), though on the plus side it at least resists Fairy damage. In other words, a big of an RPS nightmare may unfold, but at least G-King can dish it out to just about everything even in most bad matchups on the way out. If you have a good one and are still questioning what to plug in on the back end of your team, G-King is likely to offer a pretty good answer.
CLAYDOL ♻️
Mud Slap Shadow Ball & Rock Tomb
Ah, Niantic's long-time pet project. They have tweaked Claydol so obviously and so often that it almost became a joke, adding Earth Power in May 2019, Mud Slap in July 2019, Ice Beam and Shadow Ball in January 2021, and finally Rock Tomb when that move was revamped in November 2021. Clearly somebody over there REALLY wants to make it work. And in this format, even PvPoke really wanted to make it work too, listing it in the Top 5. On paper, this is finally a format where it SHOULD indeed be awesome, perfectly countering the potent Steels (Bronzong, Metagross, Jirachi), Poisonous Galarian Slows, and Alolan Raichu and Lunatone (with both Electric and Rock types also being weak to Ground and ineffective against it), right? Right? Problem is that despite all the move tweaking, it's just remained mediocre at best, and that seemed to be the case in early looks here where PvPoke's and my initial meta lists had it with the obvious Shadow Ball and slightly-less-obvious Earth Power to emphasize its niche role in hammering on the things I listed above that are all weak to Ground. Problem is that in that configuration, it STILL looked mediocre, unable to reliably overcome G-King or even Bronzong that a Ground type really should be beating, and it fell short against Hypno and Medicham (both running Ice Punch) as well. But it turns out that with that very last and latest update, maybe Niantic finally got it right, as it is humble Rock Tomb that seemingly pushes Claydol, finally, into a bona fide meta option. It's not because of Rock Tomb offering special coverage either, as Claydol actually still loses to every Flying and Ice type in the format except Galarian Articuno. But what Tomb does bring is a guaranteed debuff to the opponent's Attack, giving Claydol the extra time it needs to finish G-King, Zong, Medi, and Hypno off. The effect is very similar in 2v2 shielding as well, with Rock Tomb beating Hypno and winning the mirror match, neither of which Earth Power can reliably replicate. Perhaps even more amazingly, Rock Tomb by itself can beat everything it can with Shadow Ball/Rock Tomb in 2v2 shielding! Rock Tomb is NOT a great move (still dealing far less damage than you'd hope for 60 energy), and Claydol is NOT a great Pokemon, but somehow, for one brief shining moment, it somehow all just works. Claydol fans... this is your first, best, and likely also last chance to take Claydol out for... well, a spin. 😵😏
HYPNO ♻️♻️♻️
Confusion Shadow Ball & _____ Punch
And now we get into one Psychic type that most players have probably actually used at some point, old reliable Hypno. Yes, it has Shadow Ball, which is a great start. Yes, it's quite bulky and can simply outlast a number of things. And yes, it has a variety of Punches that usually deal neutral damage and sometimes get in for super effective. But the problem Hypno has is being a little slow due to relying on basically-always-resisted Confusion. I usually try and keep 'Nifty or Thrifty' reviews relatively high level and stick mostly with the 1v1 shielding scenarios, but in this particular case, that scenario tells a sad story (including for Shadow Hypno as well). But that undersells Hypno, as it's much better in 2v2 shielding or especially with shields down. I do recommend it as a space filler on teams, especially if you already have it on hand and (understandably) don't feel inclined to invest too heavily into a one-week format like this with other stuff in this article. Hypno will rarely feel truly dominant, but it can certainly hold the line just fine. And as for which Punch to go with, they all have merit, so decide it you want to burn Steels (Fire), freeze Claydol (Ice), or just go for a decent all-arounder (Thunder). Good luck!
MEDICHAM ♻️♻️♻️♻️
Counter Ice Punch & Power-Up Punch/Psychic/Dynamic Punch
Yes, Medicham is awesome in PvP, but can even it survive in a meta chock full of things that resist its main moves? Well, if you have a decent ranking one, it's viable-ish despite everything working against it. What Medi DOES do well is win the few neutral-on-neutral battles -- those versus Steels (Metagross, Bronzong), Rock type Lunatone, and Dark type Malamar -- where both sides are dealing neutral damage to each other throughout (with one half of their typing being weak, the other half resisting, and thus = neutral!)... and then Slowbro for some reason (despite Slowbro resisting literally ALL of Medi's moves). As crazy as it may sound, yes, I think you want to run Counter and Power-Up Punch here, because despite never dealing greater than neutral damage, Counter + PuP does still add up. PuP also pumps up Ice Punch, which is Medi's one interesting weapon here for how it hits nearly everything for neutral and comes in with super effective damage in some key spots (Claydol, Xatu, Lugia), especially Latios, where a PuP'd Ice Punch becomes quite deadly. I don't necessarily recommend Medicham here, but it's not as insane an idea as you might think at first.
ALAKAZAM ♻️♻️
Psycho Cut Fire Punch & Shadow Ball
Fastest Shadow Ball in Psychic Cup. Let me repeat that for those in the back: fastest Shadow Ball in Psychic Cup right here, on Alakazam with Psycho Cut. Look, even in a format where 'Zam resists so much incoming damage, it's still very flimsy and it WILL be betrayed by its lack of bulk, but it also hits hard and fast like a rocket sled from Mythbusters and takes a number of big things down with it, like Bronzong, Claydol, Metagross, G-King and Slowbro, and more. Shadow Zam is obviously even MORE of a glass cannon and can no longer overcome Bronzong or Slowbro, but does pick up Lugia and Hypno in their place. If you like fast battles and blazes of glory, Alakazam is worth a look.
GALARIAN SLOWBRO ♻️♻️
Poison Jab Sludge Bomb & Focus Blast
Admittedly you won't often want Focus Blast, but it DOES help when shields are down by punching out Lunatone and Malamar, the latter especially being worth it. But those shieldless results are also about the best you'll see out of G-Bro, as it just barely clings to relevance with shields in play. Like Galarian Slowking, it unfortunately takes neutral from Psychic, and its Poison moves are blunted by the key Steels and Rocks and Claydol here, making them far more cusrse than blessing. It's an uphill battle for G-Bro.
SLOWBRO ♻️♻️
Water Gun Ice Beam & Water Pulse
OG Slowbro doesn't really have it much better, despite having some fantastic theoetical things going for it: dealing super effective damage to Claydol and Fires and Rocks (and Flyers thanks to Ice Beam), dealing widespread neutral damage to most everything else, and actually resisting Steel and Fire damage. SOME of that shines out, with wins versus Victini, Metagross, Claydol, and Lunatone, giving it some interesting potential niche use. But it just doesn't really capitalize against anything else. Even pushing to 2v2 shielding only manages to add on Wobbuffet and Xatu (barely). I've seen a LOT of talk about Slowbro, and I sorta get it, but when you peel back the curtain and give it a long hard look, it just doesn't do as much as it feels like it should. There will be teams that absolutely benefit from it, but just don't ask it to do much beyond its very niche role.
LUNATONE ♻️
Rock Throw Rock Slide & Moonblast
Rinse and repeat here. Lunatone SHOULD have a nice little niche with its full Rock moveset dealing wide neutral damage -- and super effective damage where it counts, such as versus Fires and Flyers -- and Moonblast theoretically being a killer versus Malamar. But as with Slowbro, [it doesn't quite work out that way. Victini and Flyers go down, yes, but basically nothing else, at least with any kind of consistency. I like Lunatone a lot more in concept than I think anyone will in reality.
XATU ♻️
Feint Attack Ominous Wind & Aerial Ace
Why oh why couldn't Ominous Wind have gotten the same damage boost that Ancient Power and Silver Wind did in this season's move shakeup? I mean, I KNOW why (hint: it rhymes a bit with "cheetah cheetah"), but dang, missed opportunity here. Instead, Wind is left dealing a mere 45 base damage, so even having that and Feint Attack -- both super effective versus everything here that doens't rhyme with "Nala Bar", "Gee, Raph, Uh... Big!", or "You Rang, Guru?" -- leaves Xatu pretty tame. Certainly viable, though, with nice wins versus Claydol (resisting Ground damage is big), Wobb, fellow Flyer Lugia, the Slows, and even the big Steels that normally feast on Flyers. It can even hang in there long enough to clip Latios' wings, which is no small thing. It has been literally years since Xatu made a name for itself in very early Silph Arena metas, but like am aging, retired boxer, Xatu may have one more good fight left in it.
MEOWSTIC ♻️
Sucker Punch (Male)/Charm (Female) Energy Ball & Thunderbolt (Male)/Shadow Ball (Female)
Gonna give the slight edge to the male version here, seeing as how it comes with Dark fast move Sucker Punch and can beat out Bronzong, Claydol, Lugia, and Slowbro. But the female version clocks in as an odd Charmer that also has Shadow Ball (though it's very unlikely to reach it multiple times, or perhaps even once!), and it beats Malamar, Medicham, Xatu, and Latios instead. (Both beat out Lunatone and Wobbuffet.) Yes, even I'll admit these are both a reach, but hey, when else would you ever even consider using them? It's now or never, Meowstic fans!
GIRAFARIG ♻️♻️
Tackle Psychic Fangs & Thunderbolt
OH MY. Do you know how excited I am to be closing out a section in a 'Nifty Or Thrifty' article with my homie Farigamariff and it NOT be a total joke? My boy is legit here, folks! Despite running with extremely average (even post-buff) Tackle, resisted Psychic Fangs, and slowish Thunderbolt, Girafathing manages to pick off Claydol (who resists all of that but Tackle!), Hypno, G-King, Lunatone (who resists everything but Bolt), and Bolt-weak Slowbro, Lugia, and Xatu. As a Psychic/Normal type, Figamiraff actually resists Ghost damage, which is handy in those Hypno, Xatu, and especially G-King wins. And while it's NOT a pretty picture with shields down, it does manage to stay pretty consistent in 2v2 shielding, owing to the resisted but still impactful (thanks to opponent debuffs) Psychic Fangs. Shadow Ragafiraf is just a sidegrade here (losing Lunatone but gaining Celebi instead) but is the more promising of the two in other Great Legaue formats, so if you're building a Farigirif from the ground up, I'd probably recommend Shadow. But either way... yes, this is a legit, valid pick in a meta for the first time in multiple years, and that's awesome. If you feel like stretching your neck out for this format, this is a very fun and zany way to do so! 🦒

75,000 Dust/75 Candy

Well, there's no sugar coating it... there are some very good picks in this and the 100k section, requiring heavier investments and pushing all "thriftiness" off the raft. The good news is that several of them do not strictly require a second charge move, and those that do benefit from them most are likely to have some playability beyond just Psychic Cup, so there's still opportunity for some savings and investments that are truly worth it where you can't be too thrifty. Let's see what we've got....
METAGROSS ♻️
Bullet Punch Meteor Mash (& Earthquake?)
Metagross only very rarely has much impact outside of Master League, but it IS still a solid Steel for metas where you want actual Steel damage. This here is one of them, with Metagross dishing out big neutral-or-better (super effective versus Ice, Rock, and most importantly, Fairy types!) damage to mostly everything (AhChu, Waters, Fires, and other Steels do resist). Put it all together, and this is likely to be Metagross' best Great League meta ever, particularly if you have one with good PvP IVs, which adds on wins versus Bronzong (one of very few spots where Earthquake actually matters) and Galarian Rapidash (who amazingly is otherwise able to at least force a tie -- if not win outright -- with neutral Megahorn and its other moves being resisted). You CAN pay for Earthquake if you want to, but it is literally only versus other Steels that it might maybe sometimes turn things in your favor... everything else can be had with just Meteor Mash. As scary as it looks, though, I generally don't recommend Shadow Metagross, as it is... well, gross in comparison, walloping Fairies but falling short versus stuff like Bronzong, G-King, and Malamar that non-Shadow Gross can handle. If you insist on Shadow anyway, you're best with one with a little extra Attack to at least win mirror matches... and you retain everything else of note still.
Don't have a sub-1500 CP Metagross? As crazy as it may sound, you're really not much worse off with its pre-evolution METANG, who has much less inspriring Steel moves but still replicates most of what its big, four-legged bro can do anyway. And in this case, Shadow is on equal footing.
GARDEVOIR ♻️♻️
Charm Shadow Ball *
Yep, you really don't need any second charge move here. Heck, 95% of the time, you won't need ANY charge moves here, since we're talking about Charm, but hey, it IS Shadow Ball, so that's an easy call to TM to as necessary. But this is all about that tap tap tapping and Charming down a wide swath of the meta, particuarly emo (aka Shadow) Gard, which is basically a straight uprade with added wins versus Hypno, Claydol, and sometimes Wobbuffet too. Make no mistake, though: Gardevoir is very glassy (especially as a Shadow, of course) and basically HAS to have shields to hide behind, but if she does and you can avoid Steel, Poison, and Fire types (and super thicc Cresselia), Gardevoir can run roughshod over entire teams. Charm is always good, but especially in a meta where so little resists it.
And yes, this is also that rare meta with Charm GALLADE actually makes sense, and as with Gardevoir, you really don't need a second move. (Just stick with widely neutral Leaf Blade.) Also like Gardevoir, Shadow is better (though only slightly, in this case, with a new win versus Alolan Raichu). If you intend to run Charm, you're still much better off going with Gardevoir (Gallade taking neutral from Psychic damage while Gard resists it is just one of many reasons), but uh... perhaps double Charm could run both? (But please don't, pleaseandthankyou. 😅)
ORANGURU ♻️♻️♻️
Confusion Foul Play (& Psychic?)
Never imagined I'd ever be saying anything was "a worse Garifirag", but here we are. The good is that Oranguru has widely super effective Foul Play and the same resistance to Ghost moves as its fellow long-necked Psychic/Normal buddy. The bad is that its locked behind widely resisted Confusion, and thus struggles to bring Foul Play to bear. You can run it, and it's one of the safer investments for multiple formats (even Open, on the right team) moving forward, but it's far less exciting than it should be in Psychic Cup. Even with shields down!
MR. RIME ♻️♻️
Ice Shard Ice Punch & Icy Wind
Another good news/bad news story in the making here. The good is having a moveset resisted only by Steels (and the very few Waters) in the format, big debuffer Icy Wind as part of it, and results that get better and better the longer the battle goes. (Oh, and absolutely obliterating Latios, Claydol, Flyers, and Grasses.) The bad is losing to most everything else, to include Malamar, the Fairies, the Steels (of course), Fires and Rocks amd Waters (again: of course), and big names like Medicham, AhChu, Hypno, and Galarian Slowking. Way to cool off the hype there... sorry!

100,000 Dust/100 Candy

We're almost done! There ARE some impactful Legendaries and Mythicals to cover, so let's blow through and bring this on home!
VICTINI ♻️♻️♻️
Quick Attack V-Create (& Overheat?)
If you had asked me a week ago about Psychic Cup and Victini's place in it, I would have said it was viable, but [held back by Confusion. But now, after the increased energy coming from the buffed Quick Attack, it looks freaking terrifying. Now it can beat Hypno, Cresselia, Lugia, and even Fire-resistant Latios in 1v1 shielding, and add on potentially Malamar, AhChu, and Claydol with shields down. I don't know that a second move is strictly required if you're strapped for candy and/or dust, as V-Create does nearly all the heavy lifting on its own, but it's worth noting that Overheat helps significantly (particularly in 0v0 shielding) to outrace Bronzong, which is obviously a significant pickup. Also note that Quick Attack Victini is suddenly tearing it up in even Open Great League, much less Limited metas, so this is looking like a very safe investment for even when Psychic Cup has faded from the rear view mirror. It's a great time to build yours up if you didn't already push it past 1500 CP. But you wouldn't have done that after being being advised to keep it at Great League level, now would you? 😉 There's a reason Victini is currently ranked #1 in Psychic Cup Smoke 'em (literally) if you got 'em! 🔥
SHADOW LATIOS ♻️♻️
Dragon Breath Dragon Claw
I'm going to assume if you have a Latios under 1500, it's likely Shadow, so that's what I'll be focused on here... but yes, non-Shadow is fine too if you've gotten REALLY lucky with research-level Latios trades. But Shadow Latios is thankfully not a downgrade, just a sidegrade, trading in Xatu and Victini that non-Shadow can get VERY close wins against (surviving with 3 or less HP) for relatively comfortable wins versus Alolan Raichu and Medicham instead. Steels and Fairies resist Dragon damage, but other than them, Latios is a great generalist that piles on damage very, very quickly regardless of the opponent's supply of shields. You do need to have an escape plan if a Steel or especially Fairy shows up, though. 😬 And as with other glassy stuff like Gardevoir, Latios ideally needs at least one shield to hide behind.
CRESSELIA ♻️♻️♻️
Psycho Cut Grass Knotᴸ & Moonblast
The name of Cress' game is bulk and neutral damage charge moves, and that can carry it quite a ways. Yes, Grass Knot can ruin some poor Claydol or Slowbro's day, and Moonblast makes Malamar and Latios and Medicham cry, but generally Cresselia is just outlasting stuff in neutral-on-mostly-neutral slugfests. It's quite excellent with shields down, but loses effectiveness when pushed to two shields, so plan her spot in your lineup accordingly if you plan to deploy one.
LUGIA ♻️♻️♻️
Dragon Tail Sky Attack (& Aeroblastᴸ or Hydro Pump?)
Yet again the non-Shadow and more easily acquired Shadow Lugia remain pretty close in performance, the main difference being that non-Shadow holds up long enough to take down Victini, while Shadow instead overpowers Malamar. It's also well worth noting that in shieldless and 2v2 shielding, it is Shadow Lugia that pulls slightly ahead, trading in Hypno and Slowbro for wins versus Victini, Cresselia, and Gardevoir in 0v0 and picking up Victini and Alolan Raichu in 2v2 shield (no new losses in that case). ALSO note that a second move doesn't do a lot of good for you in simulations, but if you WANT to shell out for a second move (Lugia IS okay in other GL metas and a relatively safe investment), Legacy Aeroblast is best, but Hydro Pump is an acceptable replacement that could surprise Victini or Claydol (and deals BIG neutral damage to Steels too).
JIRACHI ♻️♻️♻️
Charge Beam Doom Desire & Dazzling Gleam
If you ever needed a sign that this is a very strange meta that turns a lot of norms on their collective heads, it is this: Charge Beam is a recommended move. Even better: Charge Beam is a recommended move on something that doesn't get STAB with it and DOES with significantly better PvP move Confusion. But of course, Confusion is widely resisted and Charge Beam is widely not, so that's what we're going with. And you know what? It actually works, with Charge Beam leading directly to wins over things you'd expect Electric damage to help with (Slowbro and Lugia), but also one you probably wouldn't think of: Malamar. That last one is really won by way of super effective Dazzling Gleam, but it's only because of the energy gains of Charge Beam that Jirachi gets there in time anyway. And this is no fluke: JIrachi remains quite consistent in shieldless and 2v2 shielding matchups as well. Just this once, it's time to TM away from Confusion for a week. Just make sure to switch back when Psychic Cup is over and you wanna use Jirachi again. 😉
CELEBI ♻️♻️
Magical Leafᴸ Seed Bomb & Leaf Storm
Well, just like Jirachi, Celebi also comes with Charge Beam and Dazzling Gleam, though in this case I don't think you want either. Because Celebi comes with a better alternative to both Charge Beam and Confusion with Magical Leaf, and can run a full (oft-unresisted) Grass moveset with Seed Bomb and Leaf Storm as well, making it a handy generalist that hates especially hard on Claydol and Alolan Raichu and somehow even beats Metagross, but otherwise wants to avoid Steels and Fires like the plague, among other things. Celebi isn't anything super special, if I'm being honest, but if you have a good one, dealing as much neutral damage as it does is a valuable thing in Psychic Cup.
GALARIAN ARTICUNO ♻️♻️
Psycho Cut Ancient Power & Brave Bird
Sure, if you've been lucky enough to A.) encounter one under 1500 CP, B.) actually catch the blasted thing, and C.) had enough resources to get it double moved, then yeah, you can use it here as perhaps the most showoffingest of showoffs ever. And then go buy some lottery tickets.
SHADOW MEWTWO ♻️♻️
Psycho Cut Shadow Ballᴸ & Psystrikeᴸ
So earlier when I said that Alakazam had the fastest Shadow Ball in the format? That was true... but it's actually just tied for fastest, because Mewtwo can get to it just as quickly. And while it lacks the addition pressure of Fire Punch like Zam and is somehow even squishier than Zam too, Shadow Mewtwo still performs on a similar level, and what better time to use it, right?
FEELIN' LUCKY?
In this extra section, I cover a few mons that are no less "nifty" than those in the main article above, but require maxing or at least almost maxing out, so they are FAR from "thrifty"! I already mentioned SMOOCHUM earlier, but there's just a couple more....
WOBBUFFET ♻️♻️
Charm/Counter Mirror Coat & Returnᴸ
Normally seen with Counter, and that actually does kinda work here, but if I were to use Wobb in this format, I'd probably do so with Charm. Admittedly neither are great, and I would NOT advise the heavy investment in the here and now. But if you have already built Wobb in the past, it has play here.
And uh... well, wow, I guess that really is it. I mean, there's SLOWPOKE and Shadow Slowpoke) and even GALARIAN SLOWPOKE, but they're really not anywhere near worth that kind of investment. And don't try to get cute with stuff with favorable Hidden Power types either... it doesn't actually work.
But I have worked, and can happily now declare that this article is a wrap! As always, I hope my ramblings help you balance the cost of where to save yourself some hard-earned dust (and candy!) and put together a competitive and FUN team. If I was successful in that, then it was all worth it.
Until next time, you can always find me on Twitter for regular PvP analysis nuggets, or Patreon. And please, feel free to comment here with your own thoughts or questions and I'll try to get back to you!
Thank you for reading! I sincerely hope this helps you master Psychic Cup, and in the most affordable way possible. Best of luck, and catch you next time, Pokéfriends!

I’m writing this post after seeing a certain question repeatedly popping up regarding Kaido. I would understand the confusion and want to know more about it a year or two ago when a lot about Kaido was still shrouded in mystery. However, as things are currently, we have already gotten our answer to this question – Kaido is simply not suicidal.
Even without speculating as to why he has not been shown trying seemingly foolproof methods of suicide, drowning or eating another Devil Fruit, everything that has been presented about Kaidou up to this point suggests that his real motives are more complex. Even if we assume Kaido cannot drown due to his Fish Fish Fruit, the sure-fire way to die by eating another Devil Fruit still remains and we know very well he had several Devil Fruits in his possession (stolen by Ulti, one of the Numbers and Yamato). The simple assertion that he wants to die is based on oversimplified reading comprehension and taking various phrases out of context, particularly during his introduction scene in Chapter 795.
An unofficial translation begins the narration of this scene by saying Kaidou "was looking for a place to die"; however, the actual translation reads "The man claimed that he was searching for a place to die", referring to Kaidou's interaction with Urouge.
https://preview.redd.it/2wtxa98n93m91.png?width=975&format=png&auto=webp&s=735f2ac6ce7e2a4a926802f22c1968c35c0e205c
As the narration goes on, it is steadily made clear that rather than being a simple death seeker, Kaidou has been so resistant to conventional murder and execution methods inflicted on him by others that it has led to him making suicide a "hobby" (趣味 shumi**?**), which is defined as a leisure activity. This is the first and last time it was mentioned or shown that Kaido tried to commit suicide.
Later chapters provide more information regarding Kaidou's actions during his introduction scene as well as his views. In Chapter 954, it is revealed that Kaidou actually intended to go to the Kid Pirates' hideout where he landed during his suicide attempt, as Scratchmen Apoo was his subordinate and had sold out the Kid and Hawkins Pirates.
https://preview.redd.it/7xk994zn93m91.png?width=975&format=png&auto=webp&s=dde9b9165064eca37cfc9a6d497e0f5709fe94b1
Thus, he did not simply randomly end up on the island after failing to kill himself. Kaidou has also demonstrated other goals, such as becoming the Pirate King and conquering the world, indicating that death is not his sole goal.
A more clear indication of how Kaidou views death is given in Chapter 994. In it, Kaidou claims that death is what "completes" a person.
https://preview.redd.it/c2qhmpto93m91.png?width=765&format=png&auto=webp&s=0505d8e6255e14188c28960db6f6418e82de601d
He put forward Whitebeard as an example of a good death, saying his fellow Emperor "did it right" both in that chapter as well as in his introduction scene. Kaidou wishes to die in the same way as Whitebeard, and this is the main reason for his objective of starting the greatest war ever seen in the world. Every single action Kaido took up to the point of his defeat matches up to this goal:

• He is always looking for strong soldier for his army (Chapter 795)
• He made a deal with Joker and Caesar to make him SMILE Devil Fruits (Chapter 922)
• He wanted to go to Marineford so he could fight in the “War of the Best”
• Ever since he was a child all he knew was War and fighting (Chapter 1049)
• He came to Wano and established factories to create the weapons needed (Chapter 922)
• He made an Alliance with Big Mom to find the Ancient Weapons first and then One Piece later (985)

Thus, it is not simply death he craves, but rather the glory that comes with it, and if his leisurely suicide attempts actually carry a desire to try and die, then it is clear why the attempt shown was so extraordinary.
https://preview.redd.it/zq5ysa0kg4m91.jpg?width=1024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f2762ba1dc2c3a35255e017972b7415f0b126609
“But isn’t Kaido bored with this World which in turn made him a depressed alcoholic who tries to kill himself?”
No. This is nothing but fan speculation. I can see how people can take all of these individual things and weave them into a story of depression and suicide but this isn’t the case. Kaido’s “depression” is simply a byproduct of his drinking and his drinking is a byproduct of the way he fights. In Chapter 1037 we see that by consuming alcohol, the strength of Kaido’s Haki grows and with it come certain “Modes” that Kaido enters and circles around. One of these modes is “Depressed Drunk” (Ochikomi Jogo), showing us that he isn’t really depressed at all.
https://preview.redd.it/tp1oiq3s93m91.png?width=455&format=png&auto=webp&s=66e71db52df34574e68be390cf9d0cd5b0ebf8b9
At most, Kaido is simply a character that grew up as a child soldier fighting a War and not knowing anything other than that who eventually got bored with how "peaceful" the World has become.

Credits

Majority of this post was taken from the "Mythbusters" section of One Piece Wiki regarding the myth of Kaido wanting to die.

I've been seeing the promos for the new season, and can't help but think it's going to be a massive fail.
Bad enough Angelo leaves, but they replace him with someone obviously way less experienced than him. I love Lucky, but he's gonna have to carry the whole show now, IMO.
Yes, I know Alex Wagner Taylor (-?) isn't a total newb, but this smells of Motor Mythbusters, where Faye was put in the show (for 'eye appeal'?), but (IMO) wasn't a good fit. I couldn't even finish the eps, tbh.
Oh, and if anyone thinks I'm bashing on Faye -- farthest thing from my mind. I happily watch anything she's in.

Spoiler Alert - Naturally
​
Around 1:17:10 into the film, we're introduced to fictional Japanese Prime Minister Tstutomu Nakushima. He's depicted in the back seat of a snazzy luxury vehicle, anxious he's going to be late to the funeral he's about to attend. His car is sitting all-but precisely dead-middle of London's Chelsea Bridge, stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic.
Once the attacks on the world-leaders begin, a pair of ambulances drive by with suicide-bombers in them. Their bombs take out the supports of the bridge, and it subsequently collapses. The car slides backwards, and back-first into the river. The rear window blows out, and the car fills with water and then immediately cuts away. This carries the implication that Nakushima and his driver died either on impact or drowned immediately afterward.
So I did a little research. Chelsea Bridge isn't that high over the water, around 40 Feet when the water level is lowest. For the sake of argument, lets say it was precisely 40 feet from the bottom-most point of contact on the car's rear-end, and the sufrace of the water. While I could see perhaps the window blowing out as depicted, this plunge into the water feels survivable. This feels especially true if both ministedriver allowed time for the water to fill the car, then swim out the doors as depicted on Mythbusters. The actor playing Nakushima does look older, but perhaps only in his 50's or 60's. I feel that he should've been able to survive that bombing/plunge.
Can anyone shed some light on this?

Disclaimer: I am a pretty whitebread guy whose combat experience amounts to six years of fencing, and those six years were a while ago. I weigh 175 lbs sopping wet. It was 170 lbs on the last post, but my wife has really ramped up the home cooking now that summer has started.
​
Alma Reynard: Solid no. She's got actual bodies of people she just now killed in her garage. Unless my middle and last name randomly changes to Scott Card, I'll only take this 1/10 times.
​
Sierra Knox: Tentative no. She seems tough. Being a racecar driver requires nerves of steel, and more importantly often some muscles of steel to accompany that. She'll Knox my berry farm unless I can somehow take advantage of her temper to get her to make a bad move during the fight. I take it 4/10 times.
​
Robert Knox: Tentative... yes? He's old, and needs contacts, and seems decidedly past his prime. If anything I'll feel slightly bad for beating him up, but I'll take solace in the fact that at least I'm not making him kill his own daughter beforehand. Call me Gordy, cuz I'm cutting this Knox in half 6/10 times.
​
Rico Delgado: A reasonably solid no. Drug lord who absolutely kills people rather personally, even if it kinda feels like he's reaching the end of his prime? I don't like my chances. Depending on how much the cocaine is affecting him I may be able to get in some good hits, but even that's just me taking any *puerto* in a storm. I win against the man with the golden gun 2/10 times.
​
Jorge Franco: Extremely solid yes. Master Roshi looking ass, drugged up old dude vs late twenties musician? Unless he's got some secret kung fu I don't know about, I'm going to trash his ponytail so hard he'll wish he was in another life as the dictator of sPAIN. I kick his butt 9/10 times.
​
Andrea Martinez: Another tentative yes. She looks to be in good shape, and you don't get in that good with a drug cartel unless you've killed somebody, but that long spent as a lawyer instead of doing actual dirty works means I think I can take this one. I don't know if she's ever spent time as a prisoner, but if she has, the might of con 'Drea may be the powerhouse of the cell, but I'll spank it good 7/10 times.
​
Vanya Shah: This one I'm less Shah about. She was a former pirate, and pirating the final season of Game of Thrones is the closest I've ever come to that. (We all carry past shames in our lives.) Could go either way, to be honest, so I'll call it a toss up at 5/10.
​
Dawood Rangan: I struggled with this one, because how can a mere mortal such as I hope to overcome the meme - the myth - the legend? Meme take is that boys in Dawood turn me inside out and I take it 0/10 times (non meme I think I can take an overweight Indian dude at least 6/10 times don't @ me)
​
Wazir Kale, the Malestrom: Genuine badass, and I've gotta give the guy plenty of respect for it. If he was ever coming towards me with death in his eyes I'd had to beg him to peas just kale me now and be done with it. The times I don't get wiped out? 0/10.
​
Janus: Reminds me of my grandpa. That guy smoked a lot too. Ended up dying of lung cancer, just like my other grandpa who was much less racist (and more to the point, two faced, HEYO GREEK MYTHS GET EM WHILE THEY'RE HOT). I trash his ass, which no doubt smells disgustingly of cigarettes and Depends, 10/10 times.
​
Nolan Cassidy: A bodyguard. Who is, game mechanics notwithstanding, supposedly trained in both ranged and hand-to-hand combat. I don't think I stand much of a chance here, I'll give it to myself maybe 1/10 times if I get lucky and he's magically replaced by a voice actor with a directionally featured last name.
​
Sophia Washington: The more impulsive and emotional of the Washington twins. I feel like I can maybe work with that? Despite her past as an adventurer extraordinaire, I get the feeling that a lot of her success came from money. Still, some of that money is bound to have gone into martial arts training, so I'll err on the side of caution and say that I only chop down her cherry tree 6/10 times.
​
Zoe Washington: A cooler headed Washington, and one who deeply resents the middle class. I may be a bit fucked here, especially since she's dated not-Indiana-Jones and he probably showed her some tricks. I'd lay a crisp $1 bill that I'd only manage to get the upper hand mayyyyybe 4/10 times, more like 3/10.
​
Athena Savalas: She's an old lady banker. Not exactly worried about this one - goddess of wisdom she ain't. Who stands in front of a breakable window like that when you've got an assassin after you? Her last name means either "snake" (if you take it as Greek) or "question" (if you take it as Hindi), but even the first one doesn't worry me too much. I'd say I'll make her stocks crash 9/10 times.
​
Tyson Williams: Reasonably confident about him. "Mike" isn't exactly his first name, after all, and he's sick besides. I don't manage to beat him at least 8/10 times I'd eat my hat.
​
Ljudmila Vetrova: Muscular and athletic, but in a swimmery kind of way and I'm not sure how often (if ever) she's had to engage in hand to hand combat. Besides which I'd much rather she seduce me in a whirlwind romance and steal all my cash, whispering that I have the favor of the people in my ear. Or in Slavic, the... well, I'm sure you can guess. I'll say I can manage it at least 6/10 times.
​
Steven Bradley: This dude lifts, so that's an immediate point to him over my skinny ass, but on the other hand he comes off as a bit of a coward who would scream a high A above C the first time anyone actually laid a hand on him. Taking him out would be like shooting fish in a barrel (or a scooter), which that one Mythbusters episode proved is actually pretty easy so long as you paint the interior of the barrel white and add transparent windows to improve visibility. And also use a minigun. I think I might actually manage this one, 7/10 times.
​
*Next up: Hitman 3.*

When I was 21, I took a part-time job working the cashier at a liquor store down the street from my house. I worked 2-3 shifts a week, not enough to make any real money but it helped a struggling college student like me pay rent.
One night I’m working the closing shift - 8 to midnight - when 2 men walk in wearing ski-masks. I immediately knew what was happening and threw my hands in the air. No chance I was going to get shot over a part time job.
One of the men jumped over the counter and I opened the register for him. (Again, don’t expect me to be the hero) The other bandit walked around and collected phones from everyone in the store so we wouldn’t call the police. He took my phone, my co-worker's phone, and the phones of two other customers who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
The last thing he said before he left was, “Everyone sit the fuck down and count to 300. Your phones will be in the parking lot” and then they were gone.
I remember one customer actually started counting out loud before my co-worker shouted to him, “Dude, don’t count to 300, its 5 minutes, just watch the clock ya dummy’ gesturing to the clock hanging on the wall.
I quit that night. Not like I had a career there or anything, I thought I could probably find a new gig pretty easily, and I did. By the next week I was a part-time secretary filing papers at local law firm that mostly deal with DUIs and Public Intoxication charges from the local college. It all worked out much better for me.
I got over the trauma from the robbery fairly quickly. It's not like anyone got hurt or anyone made any threatening gestures to me. A couple of guys took $246 from a liquor store, and I just happened to be there to witness it, that’s all.
At the time I lived in a small one-bedroom shotgun house. If you don’t know what a shotgun house is, it’s a small house, usually only about 12-15 feet wide and not much longer. If you walk in the front door, you’d be standing in my living room/bedroom and beyond that there was a small kitchen and bathroom. Not exactly the living in the lap of luxury but, like I said, I was a broke-ass college student who needed to ball on a budget and having a place all to myself for the first time in my life was just about the greatest thing that ever happened to me.
One night about 2 weeks after the robbery I got a call on my cell phone from a blocked number. I answered.
“Hello….hello?....Helllooooooooo”
Click. The line went dead. I didn’t think anything of it. Probably just another robo-call. I generally averaged like 3-4 of those a day. I put my phone down and kept studying.
For the next week I started getting calls from that unknown number just about every day. Usually around the same time too, generally about 9pm. I would come home from work, do a little bit of homework, make myself something to eat and jump in the shower. Like clockwork, I would get the call as soon as I exited the bathroom and was walking around my house in a towel drying my hair. The calls always went the same way.
“Hello?..Hello? Helloooooooooo?”
Click.
Towards the end of the week, I started having fun with it. I would say fun things to entertain myself or to try to bait the person on the other end of the call to say something.
“Hello?......oh, I know who this is, this is my secret admirer isn’t it? Aren’t you sweet? I still haven’t received my flowers”
Click.
The more I talked into the silent phone the longer the line would stay active.
“Hello?...oh, its my boyfriend! Hey muscle man, when are you going to take your girl out to dinner? I’m starved for affection over here”
Click.
I would finish these calls, laugh a little bit to myself, pour a glass of wine and watch some trash television until I fell asleep. It was kind of fun to be honest. Like me and some stranger had some goofy little connection that we didn’t have to share with anyone else. I know that sounds weird, but I genuinely didn’t even think there was another human on the other end of the call and I liked the routine of it – take a shower, bitch to my imaginary boyfriend, pour a glass of wine and enjoy my night.
I didn’t receive any calls that weekend and to be honest, I was a little disappointed. I was worried whoever was calling me, whether it be man or machine, might be through with our talks and had moved on.
On Monday the flowers came.
I was walking back to my shitty little hovel after work when I noticed something on my front porch. I couldn’t see what it was in the darkness (the sun was setting early this time of year) but as I got closer, I noticed it was a bouquet of flowers in a cheap plastic vase. I stared at the flowers for a moment before digging my keys out of my purse and letting myself inside. I put the flowers on the kitchen table and noticed a small card tucked beneath some petals.
FROM YOUR SECRET ADMIRER
I shuddered. I should have called the police but I didn’t. Instead, I called a friend of mine, Jake. I explained the situation and asked him to come spend the night.
When Jake got there, he begged me to call the cops. He told me this could be a serious situation and even though he was willing to help in any way possible he wouldn’t be able to spend every single night here with me. Jake was a great guy.
I should have listened to him, but my line of thinking was that it was just flowers. Sure, maybe some psycho was stalking me, but it could also just as easily be from a friend. Or maybe even a real-life secret admirer who would reveal himself in due time and profess his undying love for me. Now that I’m writing this out, maybe those two things aren’t mutually exclusive.
I didn’t receive a call that night and Jake slept on my little love seat at the foot of my bed. In the morning we hugged, I thanked him, and we went to our respective classes.
That night I got a call.
“Hello?......did you send me the flowers?”
Click.
Another week went by without incident and I started receiving the calls again like clockwork, right as I exited the shower.
“Hello?…..Well, shiver me timbers! If it isn’t Long John Silver”
Click.
“Hello?…..Sir, I think you have the wrong number, this is an Applebee’s”
Click.
“Hello?.....Listen, I have a headache and a ton of work to do, can we not do this tonight?”
Click.
I didn’t receive any calls over the weekend just like the last week and life carried on. The flowers were starting to wilt so I threw them out and I left the cheap plastic vase on the front porch in case my secret admirer wanted it back. By the time I got home from work on Monday it was gone.
Monday night started just like the previous two Mondays. Got home, did a little reading, made myself some tacos and jumped in the shower. As expected, the phone rang just as I left the bathroom.
“Well, well, well if it isn’t my secret admirer”
“uh….this is Jake”
I looked at my phone and saw the caller ID was indeed Jake’s number. I guess me and the unknown number had just settled into such a routine I hadn’t even looked to see who was calling.
“Oh, shit, what’s up Jake?”
“Me and Evan are going to Murphy’s. Its 50-cent beer night, wanna come?”
“uh..” I ran through tomorrow’s schedule in my head and decided I could skip my early class, I was ahead in the reading anyway, “Yeah for sure, I’ll meet you guys there in, say, 30 minutes?”
“Sounds good”
“Awesome. See ya”
As soon as I put the phone down it started ringing again. Unknown Number.
“Hey, I thought you forgot about me. I’m going out tonight, see you at Murphy’s? Its 50 cent-“
Click.
Rude.
The bar was packed when I got there. It always is on 50 cent beer night. Drunk 18-year-olds danced on tables and nearly every stall in the women’s restroom was occupied by sorority girls either crying or barfing up their $4 worth of beer.
I found Jake and Evan standing near the bar at the back of the room. Jake waved me over. Evan was chatting up some sophomore who was smiling despite the mascara running down her cheeks.
Jake put plastic cup of beer in my hand and we bumped glasses before chugging it and crunching the flimsy plastic cups in our hands. This was our little tradition. First beer of the night always had to be slammed and crushed.
“Your secret admirer give you any more trouble?” Jake asked, waving the bartender over with a dollar bill.
“Trouble? No,” I replied, ‘Fucker keeps calling me though”
“If you ever feel unsafe, or worried or anything like that, just give me a call, ok?” His face was serious, “I really don’t like what is happening here and I don’t want anything to happen to you. I can come sleep on your couch whenever you want, or you can come sleep at my place. I just want to know you are safe”
“Jake…you live in a fraternity house. There is no place on earth where I would feel more uncomfortable spending the night”
Jake smiled, “Good fucking point” he said putting another cup in my hand, “Offer still stands”
We drank until the bar kicked us out. Evan and Ms. Mascara hopped into the nearest cab and sped off, but Jake and I spent another hour walking around, talking, telling jokes and watching a particularly drunk freshman climb a tree in attempt to avoid a police officer with a breathalyzer. The police officer was threatening the student with a taser when Jake leaned in and kissed me. I kissed him back.
“I want you to come back to my place tonight” he said, putting his arm around my shoulders.
“I told you, no fraternity houses for me”
“Oh yeah…your place?” he asked, moving his eyebrows up and down.
I laughed, “you look like Mr. fucking Bean” I told him, “Not tonight, it’s already crazy late, but I’ll call your tomorrow, ok?”
“Ok” he said dejectedly, “we’ll talk tomorrow”
I kissed him one last time before hailing a cab and heading home.
I walked into the little rat’s nest I called home and poured myself a glass of water, chugged it and went into the bathroom to take my makeup off. It was LATE. I had already made up my mind that I wasn’t going to any classes tomorrow, I deserved a day off and I didn’t have work tomorrow either.
I woke up the next morning late, around 11:30, and checked my phone. 20 missed calls. 5 from Evan. 6 from other friends of mine, a few from numbers I didn’t have saved and 5 from an unknown number. What the fuck happened last night? I felt like absolute shit. Scratch that. I felt like re-fried dogshit. My head was killing me and I was liable to throw up at any moment. I poured myself a glass of water, puked it up, poured another one and kept that one down. My hangover cure isn’t like other peoples, I liked to exercise. Call me crazy but it works. My sister says her cure is eating burnt toast. I tried that, but it just makes me want to puke more. I like to go on a run. Well, on a day like today, a walk is more likely, so I got dressed, popped in my air pods and headed for my front door.
I opened the door just as a heavy-set and mustachioed middle aged white man was about to knock on my door and his fist missed the moving door and bopped me on the top of my head.
“Ow, what the fuck? Who are you?” I said, startled by the sudden and undeserved assault.
“Oh shit ma’am” The bumbling idiot said as he moved his hands to the top of my head in some vain attempt to right his wrong
“Don’t fucking touch me” I snapped, backing away from the man, “Who are you?”
“Yes ma’am, I am Detective Hartline and this my partner, Detective Foster”, he said gesturing to black woman leaning up against the hood of a sedan parked in front of my house, “A man we believe to be a friend of yours was attacked late last night and we’ve been told by a Mr. Evan Roper that you were with him just before the attack. We are just trying to see if you had any information that might help us catch the man who hurt your friend”
“What? Who?” I asked, my mind still unsure if it wanted to wake up and deal with the day.
“A Mister.…” The idiot detective checked his notes while Detective Foster shook her head in disappointment, “Jake Shultz. A Mr. Jake Shultz”
I stood frozen in place. Time seemed to slow down. My mind raced back to last night. I could feel the blood draining from my face. Jake lived not half a mile from the bar. He must have been attacked on his walk home. But who would attack Jake? He was 6’2 and built like lumberjack - not an easy target. I remembered the kiss we shared under the tree where a freshman was about to be tasered.
“HUUUUEEEEGGUUUUU”
I vomited right there on my front porch.
“Oh well god damn I just got these shoes” Detective Hartline complained. Detective Foster snickered.
They took me to the hospital to see Jake and it was there I told the police everything. The phone calls, the flowers, how Jake had stayed at my house that night. They didn’t care.
“Miss” Detective Foster cooed to me like she was comforting a lost child, ‘I know you and Jake have a history. I know y’all are close and this hard for you, but we need to focus on last night”. She handed me a cup of water. “I know its hard to watch these CSI shows and not think there are conspiracies everywhere. That a wrong number is never just a wrong number, but just because one day a secret admirer bought you flowers doesn’t mean there is a serial killer or something like that on the loose. And it definitely doesn’t mean you are at fault for anything that happened to Jake here. Sometimes things like this just happen. Life’s and bitch and it’s a cold world, but we all have to work together to make the best of it.” She held my hand in hers and used her other hand to push my chin up so my eyes met hers, “If you remember anything at all, here is my card” She put the piece of paper in my hand and closed my fist around it, “We’ll leave you alone with him now. His parents should be here in about an hour” She stood up and started for the door, “Lets go Hartline”
Detective Hartline jumped to attention from where he was seated near Jake’s hospital bed and quickly walked over to me, “We’ll get whoever did this” He said, “and uh, sorry about, uh” He gently patted me on the head like I was a fucking rabbit or something. “Goodbye”
I watched as he did that awkward little half-walk half-run to catch up to his partner, then they were gone.
Jake looked horrible. He was unconscious or maybe just asleep, I’m not sure, but I was glad for that. If I had heard him talk in that moment I think I would have broken down. This was my fault. I told the fucking piece of shit flower guy where I was going. I practically invited him to the bar with us and now Jake’s life was forever changed.
He had suffered massive head trauma. The police suspect a crowbar to the back of the head. His face was a swollen mess of black and blue with areas where blood dried black. He had suffered multiple broken ribs, a collapsed lung and his left hand was completely severed from his body. No one knows where it went.
I looked at the stump on his left and arm immediately puked in the wastebasket. I wanted to leave before his parents arrived, I couldn’t handle seeing them now. I took the wastebasket with me, it felt rude not to.
That night I received a call from the unknown number.
“Why the fuck did you do that to Jake, you have no right, I don’t even fucking know yo-“
Click.
I stood in the middle of my room in my bath towel in a fury at some unknown and unseen person. For the first time in my life, I experienced true and untethered rage. I wanted to find out who this person was and I wanted them dead. I screamed at the top of my lungs like I was about hulk-out or something and this sounds lame but it felt amazing to actually release some of this frustration, this fear, this rage in a single cathartic action. I started to fill my lungs for a second, even louder and even hulkier scream when there was a knock on my door.
I snapped out of my mania and immediately felt like an idiot, standing the middle of the room in my towel dripping wet, arms out to my sides akimbo and my face red with fury.
“Uh… who is it?” I shouted towards the door.
The answer was another round of knocks. Harder this time.
“I can’t come to the door right now, I’m uh…shitting! Who is it?”
Silence. I stood statue still in the middle of the room. The tension of the moment and the cool water dripping from my hair down my back made my body explode with goosebumps. The world seemed to go silent expect for the rickety fan in my room creaking with each revolution, then I heard it.
“Hello?..Hello? Helloooooooooo?”
I could barely make out a woman’s voice muffled through the door. The tension diffused a bit at that point. “I ain’t afraid of no sorry ass bitch, catch me outside how bout dat?” I said to myself in my best impression of some horrible little girl I had seen once on the Dr. Phil show.
“I’m sorry,” I shouted back thru the door, “I can’t come to the door right now. Please come back tomorrow”
The voice from the door replied, this time louder, “Hello?…..Well, shiver me timbers! If it isn’t Long John Silver”
My heart was caught in my throat.
“Hello?…..Sir, I think you have the wrong number, this is an Applebee’s”
My breathing quickened and I instantly regretted not buying window curtains when I moved in.
“Hello?......oh, I know who this is, this is my secret admirer isn’t it? Aren’t you sweet? I still haven’t received my flowers”
I was hearing my own recorded voice being played back to me. I grabbed my phone and the clothes I had worn that day from the floor and sprinted for the bathroom.
“I’m calling the police!” I shouted as the pre-recorded messages switched back to knocking, only this time even harder.
I locked myself in the bathroom and called 911. The operator wanted me to stay on the line with her throughout this entire ordeal but I had talked to enough strangers today. I dressed myself, quickly and quietly, listening for any signs that the intruder may have made it inside my house. I heard the front door swing open, I honestly don’t think it was even locked and I listened as someone with heavy footfalls made a few steps into the living room/bedroom and then fell silent.
“The police will be here any minute!” I yelled and listened as the footfalls retreated back on to the porch and then disappeared.
The police arrived minutes later, but I refused to leave the bathroom until I heard the familiar voice of Detective Foster.
“I heard your address on the radio and I came running” She said, “You may be on to something about this guy”
The stalkeflower guy/Ted Bundy wannabe stole a picture of me from a cork board in my bedroom. A police officer stayed on my porch the entire night but I didn’t sleep. I just sat awake thinking about Jake. About what a fucking idiot I was for letting all of this happen. Why was it happening to me? What did I do to deserve this? I guess that’s one of those questions I won’t get an answer for until I get to Heaven, or you know, the other place.
I didn’t receive a call for the next two weeks. I lost my police protection. Jake woke up and moved back home with his parents. He would start school again next semester. There was a brief period towards the end of those two weeks where for the first time since that night out with Jake, that I actually felt happy. Like things were going my way. I was calling Jake every night and made plans to make the 5-hour drive to his parent’s place that weekend to visit him. We were kinda, “goin’ steady” as my grandpa would put it. I couldn’t wait for the weekend.
On Tuesday night I received a call from an unknown number. I answered it but I didn’t speak. I just listened to the breathing on the other end until the call disconnected 19 seconds later. I immediately called Detective Foster and told her about the call as she instructed me to do, she needed to log every single call to see if there was a pattern. I stayed up late that night, thinking.
Eventually sleep came for me. I fell asleep with the TV on. I don’t remember what exactly I was watching but I like TV shows that make me feel smart like Jeopardy! or Mythbusters or Keeping up with the Kardashians so it was probably one of those.
The next morning, I woke up to the worst smell I have ever experienced in my life. It was like that sweet/rotten smell you get when you leave a trashbag out in the sun too long, but magnified by like, a million. I woke up gagging. I immediately jumped out of bed and ran out of the front door of my house dry heaving. I regained my composure, put my shirt over my nose and ventured back into my house to find out what was making such an awful smell.
I found it in the kitchen. I have a little kitchen table tucked in the corner of the room. When I entered, I saw the table was set for two. Two sets of plates, forks and knives, two glasses filled with wine and in the middle of the table sat a serving plate with a chrome lid. On the plate closest to my bedroom door sat a card similar to the one I found in the flowers a few weeks ago. I opened it and it read
I CAN’T AFFORD APPLEBEES I HOPE THIS IS GOOD ENOUGH
I opened the lid that covered the serving tray and found exactly what I expected. Jake’s left hand, rotted to the bone and crawling with maggots.
The cops where there within 5 minutes. I was shaking. This person had been in my home. My tiny little shitty house that can literally spit the length of (I’ve tried). He probably sat for a while watched me sleep. Helped himself to the food in my fridge, used my toilet. He could have touched me.
The police re-instated my protection and stationed a cop on my front porch again. God knows how long that would last. Another week and they’d decide it was a waste of time and then I’d be left alone again. An easy target. A sitting duck. Any boy over 17 after my Aunt Barb has had more than 2 glasses of wine. I was fucked and I knew it.
I stopped going to classes. I started sleeping under my bed and I had a knife on me literally 24/7. I stopped going outside and was getting pale. I wasn’t exercising and started gaining some weight. Just imagine a female Michael Myers and that’s what I was starting to look like.
It was the last night of my police protection. Imagine that. The last night. I was under my bed about to drift off into sleep when I heard a thud from the front porch. Adrenaline coursed through my veins and my hands floated to the bedframe above my head where I had taped a collection of my favorite stabbin’ knives. I had knives hidden pretty much everywhere in the house at this point. (Probably not the safest to have knives taped above your head while you are sleeping but a girl has got to do what a girl has got to do to, ya know, not die)
I held my breath and waited for the inevitable. For some masked killer to come screaming thru my house with a chainsaw or a meat hook or a garrote, but I was ready.
Half past 2am the door creaked open and I watched as a man with heavy boots and a ski mask stepped over the body of the police officer on my front porch then did a dainty little tip-toe around the quickly expanding pool of blood around the officer’s head. Immediately upon entering he saw that my bed was empty, and not only that, but was perfectly made. The covers tightly tucked and the comforter on top fresh, smooth and unblemished. The cop-killer’s feet were no more than 2 feet in front of my face.
The masked assailant pulled out a walkie-talkie and spoke quietly into it.
“I don’t think she’s here”
Then a massive racket sounded from the kitchen. Pots and pans cascaded onto the linoleum floor. I turned my head around to see a second man crawling out of the lower cabinets of my kitchen.
“Oh my goooooooood, duuuude, I’ve been in there for, like, 5 hours,” He stretched his arms way above his head and moaned as he bent backwards trying to stretch out his back, “Oh my god dude did you hear that?”
I froze.
“My back just cracked like crazy! Can you get scoliosis or is it something you are born with?”
The cop killer fiercely shushed his accomplice up, ”Did you not hear me? She’s not here. The bed is empty”
“Oh. No” said the man in the kitchen still stretching, this time his legs.
“Yeah oh no, I just killed a cop for nothing”
“No, I mean, Oh….pause…no. Like, no, you are wrong.” The stretching man said, now opening the refrigerator, “She’s under the bed”
I sprang into action diving out from under the bed and plunging my knife deep into the foot of the cop killer. He screamed and brought his fist down hard on the back of my head sending me belly down on the floor, but only for a moment. I was back on my hands and knees and crawling for the door in a quarter second. I made it half way out the front door and was fumbling with the holster on the dead cop’s waist when I was pulled back into the house by my ankles.
The two men threw me onto the bed. One of them held me down while the other one started to rip at my clothes, which at this point was just an oversized sleep shirt and my panties. I struggled to get higher on the bed towards the headboard which was fine by my attackers – as long as I was still on the bed. I inched my way closer and closer to the headboard and the cop killer got on the bed with me, straddling me with his legs. He leaned over me and brought his face close to mine.
“I’ve been dreaming of this since I saw you in that liquor store. When I took your phone I added your number to mine and I started tracking you on the Find My Friends app. I love it when a good plan comes together”
“Me too,” I said pulling out a knife I had taped behind the headboard and plunging it deep into the man’s eye.
He screamed and fell to the floor convulsing. The other accomplice screamed and jumped on me, grabbing my hands and pinning them under his legs, his crotch dangerously close to my face. Dangerous for him, not for me, I would have bitten that shit off, but I didn’t have to.
He started to say something to me
“I hope y-“
When his head exploded. Standing in the doorway were Detectives Foster and Hartline guns drawn. They had saved me. They had been parked a few blocks away as backup just in case something happened. When I crawled onto the dead cop to try and get his gun, I accidently pressed a button on his radio – broadcasting my screams directly to the Detectives. Here’s to happy accidents.
I don’t have an ending for this story. Mostly because it hasn’t ended for me. I have trouble being alone now and I have even more trouble sleeping. I can’t be in dark rooms. I don’t trust people and I have a hard time getting close to anyone. I haven’t talked with Jake in 2 years and just the sight of Orzo soup makes me think of those maggots crawling in his detached and rotting hand. I even took the doors off the kitchen cabinets in my parents’ house where I am still living.
I’m not sure if my story will ever end. Maybe one day I’ll find the right therapist and I’ll finally be able to get the house with the picket fence, a golden retriever and 2.5 kids, but at the moment its looking like I’ll probably grow old in a fortified cabin surrounded by land mines and 9 trained German Shepherds, but we’ll see. I’m still young, I have a lot of time left on this earth – time that I’ve fought for. Time that I’ve earned. So, we’ll see. But I’m not giving up my knives.

On my trip through watching 1980s gymnastics on youtube in as much a chronological order as I could I spent a good day watching the 1981 European Championships.
Why you might ask if you know anything about 1980s competitions on youtube would I do that. Most video from that era is heavily edited down, 2 hour AAs in 30 minutes or an hour if you are lucky. The 1985 Event Finals on ABC doesn't even show the gold winner on uneven bars because she was so far ahead the tv people deemed it boring and they only showed the fight for silver. Event finals are often edited down to just the winners. Not to mention that a lot of it is of terrible quality. But the 1981 European Championships are unique on youtube and actually kind of amazing.
Almost eight hours of uncut high quality film footage with no commentaries. You can see fine details and hear the general sound of the meet between floor music (to include the fact that every vault landing sounds like it's a crack of a falling tree it's a wonder any gymnast survived the 1980s).
But in particular I found myself watching the uneven bars event finals with with particular attention because I was watching a bars final with 2 Soviets, 2 Bulgarians, 2 Hungarians, a Romanian and an East German and the camera lingers on their hands as they are preparing the bars and chalking up. And they've all (or nearly all I didn't track every gymnast) got grips on.
Including the Romanian.
That ran counter to the received wisdom I had as a gym fan and from watching 1990s gymnastics that east bloc gymnasts didn't wear grips. I had remembered a comment given to NBC in the mid 2000s by a Ukrainian coach that they couldn't afford to train their younger gymnasts with grips and when given the choice the senior gymnasts often chose to continue not to use grips because they were simply not used to them.
So I started to track when and where I saw gymnasts from those countries I thought of as "no grips" countries wearing grips. I suspected that it was a financial consequence from the collapse of the communist system that carried through to eastern europe as those countries' gymnastics programs were lacking in funds. My observations of the 1980s suggest this to be the case.
Romanian gymnasts are rarely seen with grips on and that film from 1981 is essentially the last time I saw it.
There were occasional 1980s Chinese bars workers wearing grips.
Soviet gymnasts were all wearing grips until 1987-88 and then it was the youngest gymnasts who weren't wearing them. Shushunova was a grip using bars worker.
To the extent I saw North Korean bars workers in the 1980s they wore grips, but I saw them so rarely I don't think I could say they did so categorically.
The East Germans used grips right through the end of the East German state. Which brings me to my second grips history mythbusting. I have seen it be said that round off bars mounts aren't possible to do with grips on and I took that as true. Until I watched Michelle Goodwin of the United States do a round off arabian bars mount with grips on at the 1982 World Cup and Gabriela Fahnrich do a round off back straddle over the low bar at the 1985 European Championships. I mentioned this discovery to a former MAG friend of mine who seemed surprised I'd been told that it wasn't possible because just as a goof he'd played around with round off arabians to the high bar and he described the sensation of doing so with grips on as not particularly strange or difficult. As far as I can see the two other East Germans who used a round off back tuck over the low bar mount, Martina Jentsch for whom it was named and Dorte Thummler both did so with grips on.
TLDR: In the very later stages of the collapse of communism many gymnasts were trained as juniors to work bars without grips and that persisted in those countries likely because of financial considerations. Grips were used by many Eastern Bloc gymnasts throughout the 1980s with only the very occasional examples of grips being worn by Romanian or Chinese gymnasts.
If you are curious about the 1981 European Championships footage: AA Sub 1, AA Sub 2, EF VT, EF UB, EF BB, EF FX
ETA: correction

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/laura-higginson-paracetamol-overdose-nhs-b1953682.html
This news article showcases an important professional and ethical point for healthcare professionals.
TLDR:

• Laura Higginson died after being repeatedly overdosed with paracetamol.
• The mother-of-two was admitted to Whiston Hospital, Merseyside, in April. She died two weeks later from multi-organ failure and sepsis.
• Hospital has admitted to the overdose but denied it caused her death. But expert reports have questioned the trust's account of what happened. The patient weighed just 36kg, whilst the dosage of paracetamol prescribed was for a normal adult dose. She was given 6 doses.
• The CPS is considering whether to bring charges of manslaughter against hospital.
• The overdosing of underweight adults on NHS hospital wards was flagged by the safety watchdog, the Healthcare Safety Investigation Branch, in a report earlier this year.
• The overdose mistake was recognised by staff on the third day but Laura’s family were never told.
• The trust did not record the error as an incident and only started an investigation 14 months later when concerns were raised by Laura’s family.
• There have been six incidents at the St Helen’s trust over the last four years where patients received a higher dose of paracetamol than they should have due to low body weight.
• Dr Charles Millson, clinical lead for liver disease at York Hospital, told a coroner after reviewing Laura’s case in 2020: “I have to conclude that liver failure was caused by the paracetamol overdose…this lady did receive a significant excess of paracetamol and that it was this overdose that caused the liver to fail and the sepsis resulted.
• Mr Higginson only learned about the overdose of paracetamol when he was given a copy of a post-mortem report by his GP months after Laura’s death.
• In a letter to the hospital, seen by The Independent, he raises the question why the autopsy was not carried out for a coroner and lists multiple mistakes including the wrong date of birth for Laura and her weight being 23kg heavier than she was.
• Her husband Antony says the subsequent investigation report is “littered with inaccuracies’ A third coroner has now opened an inquest into Laura’s death.
• The trust accepted there is no record of the overdose being discussed with Laura or the family and it has admitted an incident report should have been filed at the time.
• This admission and formal apology from the trust’s chief executive only came several years after Laura’s death.”

​
Possible Medical School Interview questions:
1) What are some of the issues highlighted by this newspaper article?

• This is an incredibly sad case history of a patient who was prescribed the wrong dosage of paracetamol, which according to investigations could have caused liver failure according to a liver specialist, which resulted in sepsis (overwhelming infection of the body) and thus death.
• The husband was not told of this error.
• There was multiple mistakes during the investigation report.
• There seems to be a history of errors involving incorrect dosing of patients (according to their body weight).
• An apology from the Hospital Trust's Chief Executive came several years after the death of the patient.
• This highlights the duty of candour that all professionals have. It is the duty of the organisation to be open and transparent with people who use services. It sets out some specific requirements providers must follow when things go wrong with care and treatment

2) What is the Duty of Candour?

• There is the GMC Duty of Candour for professionals (as individuals). "Every healthcare professional must be open and honest with patients when something that goes wrong with their treatment or care causes, or has the potential to cause, harm or distress."
• There is also the organisation Duty of Candour a statutory duty of candour be imposed on healthcare providers. Which is regulated by the CQC.
  
• Openness – enabling concerns and complaints to be raised freely without fear and questions asked to be answered.
  
• Transparency – allowing information about the truth about performance and outcomes to be shared with staff, patients, the public and regulators.
  
• Candour – any patient harmed by the provision of a healthcare service is informed of the fact and an appropriate remedy offered, regardless of whether a complaint has been made or a question asked about it.
  

​
3) Why is it important for a health professional to be open and transparent?

• Professionals have a duty to be open and honest with patients, or those close to them, if something goes wrong. This includes apologising.
• This will encourage a learning culture by reporting adverse incidents that lead to harm, as well as near misses. This will reduce future harm to patients.
• Lessons are learnt from analysing adverse incidents and near misses. Lessons are shared with the healthcare team. Concrete action follows on from learning. Practice is changed where needed.
• Failing to be open with a patient about a near-miss could damage their trust and confidence in you and the healthcare team, and future health contacts.

Conclusion:
It is very important for medical students and healthcare professionals to be open and honest. Medical mistakes happen. And there is a responsibility from the doctor to acknowledge the issues.
See a sample of previous issues where they had not been acknowledged/tried to cover up by healthcare staff.
Medical students are vitally important in all of this. In this particular case, a wrong kidney was removed, but a medical student picked this up during the operation and had mentioned this to the surgeon, who dismissed that.
Everyone makes mistakes, and no one is infallible. But what decides between a doctor and a role model compared to the healthcare professionals caught are the decisions that they make when they come to acknowledge their mistakes.

Source

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Rows: ~100

Questions	Answers
My father wrote ten books on an IBM Model D because he absolutely hated the Selectric. Do you understand his point of view?	HELL YES. Your father knew how to WRITE. The Executives were amazing amazing amazing amazing amazing typewriters because they supported PROPORTIONAL LETTER SPACING!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I get shivers just thinking about that. Their only drawback was the inability to swap typefaces, but other then that, the print and text is BEAUTIFUL. Especially some of the lesser available typefaces (the names of which currently elude me). Amazing, and considerably reliable. Also easier to service, as they were more traditional typewriters with typebars and not the Selectric Golf Ball Element.
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I understood none of this, but the sheer joy and passion of it made me feel happy.	Hahahahaha yes, I am a nerd. Most typewriters are monospaced, meaning each character occupies the same amount of space. A period and the M would both be spaced the same. Proportional spacing is what you're reading right now. The period takes up much less space than the M. The Executive is one of only three (i believe) proportional typewriters. It had six escapement, with the smallest character occupying two units, and the largest occupying around 5. Made for some lovely typography.
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[removed]	I haven't been able to acquire one yet, but just looking at the work they make makes my mouth water. Is that normal?
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[removed]	Uh, I think you might be, but don't worry you're not alone!!!
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I'm getting so many Sheldon on the Valentines train ride vibes from this thread it's scary! edit: spelling	Might you be able to elaborate? Is it a good thing?? Lol
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We don't kinkshame here.	well, I guess beautiful typography is my kink....
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What if kink shaming is my kink? __________________ Then shame on you.	what even is reddit.... IDK if this'll help, but shame...shame on all of ye. Just roll around in all that shameful shame. Just like that... how shameful
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Proportional fonts are a nice upgrade, but their interword spacing is still fixed. The real mechanical marvels were the typesetting machines. Unfortunately, getting a working Linotype or Monotype may be a bit excessive, and then there's the lead poisoning to worry about...	The Linotype machines always amazed me. Most of them got destroyed with the advent of computer typesetting in the 80s. Just heard of a guy who got two of them! Truly wonderful machines...the Verityper was also a magnificent beast, called a cold typesetting machine. It was a typewriter which later had proportional, but also allowed you to switch through multiple typefaces with a dial, based on the brilliant Hammond Typewriter that was invented in 1888. James Hammond was the man!!!
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I saw a Linotype in action at a print museum (Museu Nacional da Imprensa) in Porto (Portugal) - they had everything working, apart from the lead casting (for health and safety reasons). It was an astounding sight, and I spent well over an hour admiring and studying the contraption.	Shame, they could have cast tin!!
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Was there letter specific kerning? Like did a W followed by a d have the d closer to the W than another W because of the space under the angle?	every character was assigned a specific amount of subspaces so that they would be even with the neighboring letters on other sides. Other then that, I'm not sure what you are asking
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I thought the Selectrics also supported proportional letter spacing. I took typing in junior high on a Selectric and I must not have noticed.... I think what it really came down to was he wanted to feel himself hitting the paper one letter at a time. The Selectrics don't give you that satisfaction, even though they're faster. He was old enough he started his career on a manual....he ended up giving that machine to me as a toy when I was a kid. You really, really had to punch it. Wish I could remember the model- all I remember is the color, turquoise blue. He replaced the Executive with a Leading Edge word processor in 1986 and wrote 15 more books on PCs, but I'll always remember him in front of a typewriter. Thanks for responding!	No problem, thank you so much for sharing! I love hearing about peoples experiences with these machines. Honestly you have to type pretty damn fast to notice a speed difference. Even the selectric may not be the fastest. The Praxis is damn fast. I peak at 153wpm. On a manual typewriter its about 120. There certainly is a detriment with the higher key travel, but some people could pound along on manuals at close to 200. Mindblowing.
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Dad and I were both north of 110 wpm, pretty sure he was around 130-135. Fast enough to notice the lag.	The lag is mostly in the return I feel. The selectric takes its time. That's where the Praxis shines, it returns fast!
​	That's pretty fast!!
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Here I thought I was fast because I peaked at 90 on a regular keyboard 😐	Hey that's pretty good!!! Average is 45
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Not the selectric - it could only switch between 10 and 12 characters per inch - but IBM made an electronic golfball typesetter called the “Composer” that had a memory and proportional spacing. It would print in much higher quality than the standard golfball selectric.	IBM experimented with a lot of magnetic memory systems and card readers. Like the memory writer. They had some cool stuff happening!
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Helvetica. My boss in 1972 ordered one with Hevetica since he hated the standard courietimes new roman font	Helvetia is hard to come by on typewriters
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Lol, my father was an IBM Selectric repairman. I don't know how he felt about the model D, but I know that Selectrics broke often enough that he always had plenty of work. _________________ The price difference between the two was equivalent to around $1K today. Historians don't make bank, so it seemed eccentric at the time. He used the crap out of it; no question he got his money's worth.	I have people still pounding away on the selectric! Last one I serviced had gone 15 years since it was last checked.
Have you come across any mechanical DVORAK typewriters, and if so how often do you see them?	I have only seen one DVORAK typewriter, it was a custom mod by a talented IBM selectric tech. Otherwise, they are very rare. I have heard rumors of two manuals out in the wild, but QWERTY was the layout that took the Americas by storm. Keyboard layouts change by languages, and DVORAK was designed to work well with English as it's based on key frequency percentages. It is a tricky modification to do, but not impossible!!
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Groovy, I have been using DVORAK on my keyboard for years and was curious how possible it was to find a typewriter. Thank you for the info : D	No problem! Forewarning, it wouldn't be a cheap conversion!
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Is Dvorak worth messing with if one never learned to type the "correct" way, i.e. just using 2-3 fingers on each hand? I can type fairly fast in my own style - I did Mavis Beacon and some other things through the years to try to re-train myself, but have never been able to un-learn my unique system.	I'll be honest, there is no real speed difference between the two unless you are at world record speeds around 300wpm, where it would be too slow to move your fingers to another row to type a common letter. Most normal people can get along well on either layout, and will never ever notice a perceivable speed difference.
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I can't think of a context other than competitive typing if that's a thing, where typing any faster than the average typing speed of most office workers would give you any edge. __________________________ well you need to type pretty fast when for example writing down stuff that is said in court or sth. tho i think today they use some weird specialised keyboards that are very different looking from normal ones. also would be useful to type fast when you are in studies and taking notes of what is said.	The court machines are called stenographs, and they write in shorthand by allowing the user to press multiple paddles at the same time to generate entire words or phrases.
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[deleted]	Ah those split ones, yes. Sometimes I will hit a right side key with my left hand! I could never
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The only way to do DVORAK on a selectric would be to make a custom golf ball wouldn't it?	Not at all. You'd need to understand how a selectric works. You can do DVORAK with standard balls. Each ball has rows and columns, and there is a rotate and tilt mechanism that indexes a letter. That is all controlled by the Wiffel Tree, a 6 bit binary to mechanical decoder. The keys themselves press down on a series of interposed rods which correspond to the yes no input of binary. It's that input that drives the letters. The interposed rods run the entire length of the keyboard, so all one needs to do, is shuffle around the appropriate key latch leavers, and then swap the key caps. The A latch rod will always pull the interposers to correspond with the binary input for the letter a, regardless of its position on the keyboard. I will say that the key leavers are independent of the latch rods (I believe) so that should also allow you to move letters down rows as well.
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Interesting - I knew the theory behind it, I assumed the key latch levers wouldn't be interchangeable. I'm keeping my eye out to buy a selectric one day, not because I need one, but just because I want to take it apart. I've read they use a bunch of ball bearings as an interlock to block multiple keypresses at once which is pretty clever.	Yes! It is a very interesting machine.
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Usually (based on a sample of one) if you use dvorak you are already touchtyping so might as well get blank keys 😁	My laptop keyboard existed scrambled forever, I touch type, didn't need the letters
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What do you think about the LEGO typewriter?	The lego typewriter, boy. I blogged about that one in length, but in short I was very impressed. There were a few areas where I thought the design could have been better, but the overall mechanics (being lego) impressed me. Especially the escapement. A brilliant blend of technics and system that emulated some of the real life mechanical components of the typewriter! Overall aesthetics were cool too, reminded me a lot of some Depression era machines like the Royal Signet.
Any chance you get to work on an item from the Tom hanks collection?	Yes.
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Any link to this blog I’m certain the group over at /lego would appreciate it	Hey, will do!
Dude, this is so cool. My dad was a typewriter mechanic from like 1970-90. I wish he was still around, I know he’d have a ton to ask you about how things have changed in the biz. To my actual question: You mentioned the Model M is your daily driver when using a computer. Have you tried any of the newer mech switches and, if so, do you have any favourites that could compete with the buckling springs on the M?	I will follow up and say things have changed a lot in the biz! Especially from what I hear from older techs, and what I uncover from the archeology of sorts while working. Even older clients. The internet has been an amazing resource to buy, sell, connect, and find parts. There is a flip side, none of these things are made or done anymore, so parts and expertise is hard to come by. Things have gotten a lot more coveted, even in the past 5 years. Key ring remover pliers now fetch $300 apiece. Crazy.
​	I'm not a keyboard guy, I feel like I'm the wrong person to ask about this lol. I grew up on a cheap Dell keyboard, but I loved it. I wanted something that bridged typewriters more closely with computers. And it was hard to argue with the legacy of the M. With so many keyboards and switch types available, I'm sure there are others out there that I would like, but I feel like the buckling spring is the most tactile.
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The “springhook” was my favourite tool when I was a Customer Engineer in IBM Office Products group in 1977-1980...	I use a snag fixer, but yes! Invaluable
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Wow $300. My father was a CE. I have all sorts of odd specialty tools laying around. I also have an Executive typewriter that I think he restored. He was fixing typewriters when he first started with IBM in the late forties.	I know some old IBM guys who have the old tools. I have a pair of IBM pliers sitting around. Never use them because I don't know what they do lol
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FWIW I have a cheap Dell buckling spring keyboard and it's awesome. I'd still be using it but my latest rig doesn't have a PS/2 port.	I had no idea dell made buckling springs!!!! The other reply yes, hit that up. I use a PS/2 to USB for my IBM and its fantastic. I can't out type it! Can't believe they got rid of a perfectly good connector. I don't get it. The IBM personal system 2 was actually the second computer to feature the model m. Don't recall the name of the first bit it's lesser known. The predecessor to that board came out on the IBM 5150, a legend among computing, and had the Model F board. Really the best computer at the time, beating the Apple II and everyone else until Apple released the macintosh in 84.
I would imagine these days it's a very specific profession, do you see a lot of business?	I do indeed! I am currently backlogged about six or seven machines. Just had a lady drop off two machines for repair this morning. A lot of writers, enthusiasts, etc use them. Not just collectors!! They're still in professional use.
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[deleted]	You'd be surprised! I certainly am and I'm the one doing it lol
My grandfather was the inventor of the golf ball on the selectric for IBM, I've got the 1 millionth Electric Selectric in my den, of course it doesn't work......can you fix it? https://www.nap.edu/read/4779/chapte5 https://imgur.com/RoKkuWI https://imgur.com/6L13Pwq	Hell yes I can! Probably. Hit me up, no idea how you wanna get it to me, but it sounds like a badass project! I'm down :)
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Holy fuck that's awesome. How has it gotten to that condition though? Even if it doesn't work you should get it looking ship shape, its a baller.	It will live again, just let me at it lol
Have you ever seen Fringe (sci-fi show)? There's a typewriter repair shop that's featured several times in the early seasons, along with an old typewriter with an offset Y. Watching that show, I always wondered if such shops still existed. And I'll never forget the carriage return sound from all those Jr. High reports. I'm weirdly glad you do what you do!	thanks man! I'm living the dream as long as it'll carry me! I have not seen that show, but now I am interested.
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Fringe is an awesome show. When I saw your AMA, I thought the same thing about the typewriter repair shop. Worth watching the show besides.	I gotta check it out!!! Wonder if it's a real shop...maybe I know them....
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Yea, put the typewriter down and go binge Fringe. You will not regret it. Then find yourself an IBM Selectric 251	HA! thanks for the show rec!
How curled is your mustache and how is it in Portlandia these days?	I'm 21, too young for a nice curly mustache!!
How often does Tom Hanks call you?	Tom Hanks is a wonderful person :)
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Don't let any Qanon tell you otherwise.	Ouch, hope u/kirtaner-420chan takes care of them!!!
[deleted]	Probably just needs to be cleaned a little, then lubed. Check where the platen ratchets. That is likely the problem area. You could also have an issue with the repeat key sticking.
Any reason why you exclude the Corona 4 from your repair list?	You NOTICED. That little ffff...... uuuu yeah. It's a pos. Finicky, poor access for adjustments, weak components, foolhardy mechanisms, not to mention I got screwed out of a lot of money involving some of those when I first started out. I hate them, they hate me, end of story.
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Haha, yeah I bought a while back and would love to get it in working order (pics) but it was beyond my non-existent skill level. I do have another model (I think it's an underwood) in storage that I would like to get up and running as well. I'll reach out once I can locate it!	no thanks lol
[removed]	I listen to a lot of music, I love it. My personal favorite has always been the Illinoise album by Sufjan Stevens.
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Thoughts on the new Sufjan tunes that came out a few days ago?	I am enjoying his newer album, not as much as his earlier work though. I feel like his style has evolved greatly, which is a good thing, that's growth, it just doesnt hit me like it used to!
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Carrie and Lowell is his finest work in my opinion. It harkens back to his earlier stuff, but the musicianship and production are top tier. Also, yay typewriters! Thanks for the AMA.	I love that album as well, there are some tracks that I find really beautiful, like Beloved of John, and Blue bucket of gold (I think those are the names)? But for me, illinoise will always be the masterpiece.
I thought you might enjoy a typewriter story. My wife's father worked for Smith-Corona. There was a bunch of abandoned parts in the warehouse, and he asked his supervisor if he was able to build typewriter from those parts, could he keep it. The supervisor agreed, thinking there was no way to make anything from that mishmash of parts. He did it! That was my wife's high school graduation present, and she used it all through college. We still have it and it still works great. Personally, I grew up near Endicott (home of IBM) and learned to type on a Selectric. Keep up the good work. I'll ask a question just so the mods don't delete this: Do you need any specialized tools to be a typewriter technician?	I am absolutely in love with that story! Reminds me of that one Johnny Cash song where he builds a Cadillac by stealing the parts. Excellent story, cherish that machine!!! It is not an easy feat, that's for sure, and takes a special kind of genius. As far as your question goes, yes and no. I cant seem to find specialized tools, i really just need those keytop removers, but nowadays they are $300 a pair. I did recently aid in the creation of a screwdriver set made by chapman to specifically work on typewriters. Excellent set, and a worthy project. A must have for any typewriter tech! Other than that, I have made do.
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Well, since we’re telling our father’s typewriter stories… After the war, my father was temporarily assigned to repair IBM typewriters in huge typing pool for the Social Security Administration. The pool consisted of 150 IBM typewriters, 150 Remington and 150 Smith Corona. I imagine the noise was deafening. Each company had one repairman who spent the entire day roaming around fixing machines. The SSA would only hire typists who were war widows or the wives of disabled veterans.	Thanks for the story, that's fascinating!
Do you use Interrobang at all ‽‽!!‽‽ or ¡¡¿¿??!! I always lose upside down interrobang.	I have not! But you can always type a ? and backspace with a ! over it. Or if you dont have !, type a period and backspace an apostrophe over it. For upside down, find a Hispanic typewriter.
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I tried but they're not aligned so it looked bad	varies by machine. You can hold the carriage release and line it up carefully yourself!!
​	http://imgur.com/gallery/lY4tUgn
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So clean, I'll show you how mine fucks it up in an hour	LOL
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https://imgur.com/a/xTyFp34 The first one came out fine for some reason -- usually it's like the second two, where there's ghosting of the question mark (though when I looked it up to check that was the right term, it seems that might be my fault for typing wrong). I've got some gripes with the machine, I'll send you in a PM for advice.	Yeah, no two typewriters are equal. I had a designated exclamation on mine so I kinda cheated. You don't have to type the period since the dot is already there for the question mark
Would it be worth shipping a 1950ish Royal to you for a repair?	That is up to you. 1950? Sounds like an FP. An INCREDIBLY fine writing machine. You'd foot the bill both ways, plus the $20 deposit and the repair. One of the best royal standard typewriters ever made! I wrote with one for a few years, sold it sadly last week.
What’s a typewriter?	Isn't that the million dollar question my man. A typewriter, well, its...how do I put this.. a machine that writes, by typing.
​	But in all seriousness, it's a mechanical machine that is designed to print letters in emulation of printed type by allowing a user to input specific characters. There's too many different types to really group a definition, so it really truly is a machine that writes by typing, where type is what we consider to be a solid impressionable character that delivers ink to a medium in the shape of a legible character.
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So... like a computer?	Yes, and also no. Typewriters are single purpose, and manual typewriters dont need electricity. They are mechanical and operate solely by human input.
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Can I play games on it?	Yes! Tic tac toe, hangman, uh.... you can have contests to see how far you can throw them.
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Then I call you, right? This man’s a genius!	Yep!!! I tell all the new owners to throw them lol. The hustle is real!
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A reverse iPad	this guy^
You mentioned youre using a vintage keyboard to type this, are you into mechanical keyboards or would you say you’re particular about the kind of keystrokes you like the most, be it typewriter or modern keyboard?	I am very fickle about the feel of my keyboards. I got the IBM because I wanted a nice tactile feel. I HATE those flat laptop pos's. As far as typewriters go, I hates silents. While I like the lower noise, the silencer mechanisms all rely on a deceleration mechanism that I feel negatively impacts the feel. I like a smooth action, a sharp strike, and a quick rebound. 1930s Royal Portables are great, and I LOVE the Olympia SM3.
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You need to join us in the madness over at mechanicalkeyboards!	Oh no....I'm not sure lol
What's your preferred method of dealing with an old, hardened platen? Chicago here too, btw. I've got an Olivetti Lettera 32 and a Royal O Portable.	There is no good way to "rejuvenate" rubber. It is a material that constantly degrades. I replace the rubber via J.J. Short. Generally if it is in good shape and feeds paper well, I leave it alone. It is not something that is always necessary
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This. I have a Hermes Baby with a hardened platen and would love to restore.	Not hard to work on at all! Send the platen off for best results. I would not recomend turbo platen. Right now JJ short is really the only place.
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is thata a Hermes......Baby!!! a Hermes model Baby or a model Hermes Baby?? _________________ This model. The Hermes Rocket was a name for a nearly (possibly completely) identical model.	I will confirm that they are completely identical.
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What sort of problems does hardened platen cause?	They will either not feed the paper well, rarely damage the ribbon or wear on the type, or simply crack and fall apart. The type is hardened steel so I wouldn't worry about that, but it can cut holes in your ribbon or even the paper.
What is your favorite typewriter and why do you like it best?	Well, I have become the leading expert in the Williams typewriter co. I think it is one of the most unique and beautiful machines ever made.
​	For typing, I love my Royal P from 1930, and my 50s Olympia SM3. They have that nice smooth feel and sharp rebound that I like, while printing super crispy and clean!
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Seems amazing for a 21 year old to become the leading expert in a class of typewriters. Good going. Prior to Typewriters what sorts of thing interested you ? Was there another topic you got heavily entrenched in ?	Oh god lol. I was OBSESSED with the ocean. Oceanography, marine biology, even shipbuilding. This was all before the age of 10. No sports or video games for me. Only fish. I consumed every YouTube video, book, and documentary. I watched finding Nemo so many times the VHS tape corrupted. It was my dream to become a marine biologist, I loved everything about it. I also had no friends, I mean, no kindergarteners were interested in sea surface currents and migration patterns, or the food sources for chemosythesizing organisms populating the hydrothermal vents. I looked up to Robert Ballard too! The guy who found the titanic (another obsession) For about 12-13 years I kept both freshwater and saltwater tanks. I sold my tank this summer, sad moment, I miss keeping fish considerably. But you know, dreams die out. I also wanted to be an artist but I don't think I have what it takes! I also had a long invested interest in photography! I love film photography :)
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This is the best response so far, IMO. I respect OP's current love for all things typewriter, but this one hit me hardest. I think most of us had obsessions when we were young. Myself, I wanted desperately to be an astronaut. (I am not an astronaut today.) It's great to see someone in love with their current pursuit and simultaneously acknowledging they grew up loving something else.	Hey thanks for that! And ya know, I still love fish. I'm not going to be a biologist by any stretch, but I'll never stop loving the ocean. Getting rid of that tank wasn't easy. I'm still passionate about it, but just not in a way I can pursue.
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You could have a Viking funeral for typewriters you hate — and thus two world collide.	Yes, I will do such for the royal classic of 2020
You need to get in touch with u/jamescookartwork https://www.reddit.com/interestingasfuck/comments/ocuzhs/i_make_drawings_using_the_letters_and_numbers/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf	I am familiar with him, as well as multiple other type artists! I sold a Greek keyboard machine to one a while back and have dabbled in it myself!
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Hey, other question - if you were to design a ‘modern’ typewriter from scratch, what would ‘modern’ typewriter mean to you and what kinds of features would you include?	It would be more artistic. I toyed around with the idea of a single element so one could swap type. It would also be portable, I love the Williams design. A non rotary escapement would be fun, glass keytops obviously, maybe octogon, maybe square, a polished metal body with leather accents.... something that looks modern, but is well machined. Who knows?
Is 3D printing useful for replacement parts for vintage typewriters?	Yes, some people use rubberized mediums for feet! A buddy of mine, Steve dade, made the best rubber feet in the business. He passed away recently so a lot of folks are turning to printing. I've also used it to replace a lot of platen knobs.
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Sorry about your friend.	Thanks, he will be missed
Interesting. I was a IBM OPCE (Office Products Customer Engineer) in the late Seventies but switched to repairing electronic devices (terminals, printers, PCs). It was only after I stopped repairing mechanical typewriters that I realised that the mechanical devices had one major advantage over electronic devices; you could see for the most part what was wrong. Even adjustment and repairs were easier. Are parts still available for the IBM golfball typewriters?	Parts are available! I have a fair bit, and you can still find NOS if you know where to look. I even have a can of the original Topaz Bronze touchup paint! Usually parts machines are the source nowadays.
Noticed the medium format film border. What’re you shooting with?	Sharp eye! Portra 400 on my Hasselblad 500c. I since sold that camera and got a CM, but miss my C.
What are some good sources to purchase vintage typewriters?	Anyone reputable. I mean, me lol. I can also recomend Gramercy, Berkeley, Messa, and Cambridge typewriter to support brick and mortar. Also Tampa, Nashville, And Stephentown typewriter. There's typewritermuse in LA, Phoenix typewriter, typewriter justice, unplug typewriter co...and a few others I might be forgetting. For canada check out Yeg typewriters. Mexico and spain there is ElGranero typewriter, Mr. And Mrs. Vintage for the UK, northern Europe, and Australia. Also Charlie foxtrot. I'm sure I'm missing some but I know all these guys and they're legit!! Ken from california California typewriter (the tom hanks doc) works at Berkeley now. Stay away from Colombo collection for one. She does bad work, unreliable, overpriced, and rips off good techs like me. Jon posey is a pedophile stay away, but he doesnt sell much. Uhhhh on other guy who was a weasel, typewriter collection or something. Eh, cant avoid them all!
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[deleted]	It's not publicized. And frankly I'm trying to stay out of the middle of it. Just the things he did to me personally, and to others I know including a minor who had it the worst. Some people are just a little fucked up.
​	As far as photography, I love my hasselblad, I process 120 and 135 at home. Both black and white and C41. I also have an enlarger where I make black and white prints, but have yet to dive into RA4 color printing.
What kinds of people make up your customer base?	Oh boy. Small office workers, authors, poets, artists, business owners, collectors, and anyone who needs or uses typewriters. Even inmates.
I'm a little older than you. My first job (in the '50s) was typing envelopes for advert mailers on a 1930's Underwood exactly like this. I really loved that machine, bitch though it was. I think it weighed more than I did. Is there any chance I could find one today and buy it? I'm sure it would cost much more than the original!	Underwood 5, I have had many. You can find them all over, the most mass produced typewriter in the states basically. They made millions! They can be had anywhere from $5 to $500, though I wouldn't pay more than 300 for one in superb shape, and 500 max for absolutely beyond mint. $150 is a fair price to pay for working, and I'd charge about $200 for one I've serviced. I am currently repairing one for a client who does sales. Check out the Vintage Mancave on etsy, he may be selling one, and I may have worked on it.
In your opinion is there likely to be a good new typewriter ever brought to market? Not like the plastic thing at Michaels	No, not at all. And its complicated why. Royal released that Michaels one as the Royal Classic. I've used it, it sucks. The epoch is bad too. Back in the day, a good mid sized typewriter like the 1960s Remington Quiet-Riter cost an equivalent 1600$ in today's money. It was solid steel. The Royal Classic retails at around $200. There is no possible way a company can make money on a high quality machine, they simply cost way more to make than people these days are willing to pay. They were the laptops of the era, in price too. Back when the typewriter was the only method of print writing available, the price was justified much like it is for a computer today. All that manufacturing now has to be packed in as cheaply as possible to retail at a fraction of the price in a market that already has plenty of amazing machines.
​	In short, it isnt going to happen on a commercial scale. I myself have thrown around designs and concepts for a new machine, but they would all need to be hand made, and the price would be outrageous.
Can you tell me more about this typewriter that I bought for my daughter? She loves it, although I bought it on a whim from eBay. https://reddit.com/typewriters/comments/kzfnvn/my_new_to_me_1947_i_think_smithcorona_silent_4s/	Excellent machine. Very sturdy, reliable, and great to type on. Wartime model, 1940s, serial number would tell you more and that's located on the right side of the frame under the ribbon cover. Very common, I have a beater sitting on a shelf waiting to be serviced and sold. Great first typewriter! Hanks likes these too I hear.
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Need to get on that typewriterdatabase internet thing, it would appear. Thank you! Good luck in your ongoing endeavors!	Ted munk's site, excellent resource
Are you hiring?	Hahahahaha maybe one day. I don't make enough to pay a fair wage and I don't have a brick and mortar yet. One day I will though, I'm not a socialite and I'd need help with the customer side of things, not to mention some bits of the servicing.
​	I'm a believer in paying livable wages, yes I'd pay 15$ an hour and not a dot under, even if it meant I had to pay myself that much too! One day I will, but not today. Or tomorrow. Or for a while actually. Local rent is 3k a month!
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When is the last time you increased rates? $45/hr for a niche specialty, in a city, is way too low.	Earlier this year! I'm always afraid of driving people away because I'm too expensive. But thanks for the sentiment! You're one of god knows how many now who think I should up things.
Do you make any scratch in the area of Hollywood prop rentals and consulting? Up until a few years ago, there was a typewriter repair shop in my area that always felt like "how is that place still in business?" and as far as I understood, the fellow got by in part because occasionally, for a big-budget, super-serious movie, instead of any random old-time, clackety-clack typewriter, they could go to him and be like "we need a period-accurate typewriter that a Des Moines newspaperman would be using in 1939" and he'd hook 'em up for the Spielberg bucks.	No, I'm in an odd place to do that, but I know of people who do! I feel like in some areas they aren't quite as accurate, but at the end of the day few people notice. If someone ever hits me up, I'm game. Typewriters rule!
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If you had to change careers right now what would you switch to?	I'd probably go into welding. I'm good at it, and it makes money. I'd need to go get a certificate though. Fun stuff. Honestly people tell me I'm capable of more, but I enjoyed it. I'd rather do that than some sucky corporate job.
A lot of people have idols or heroes they look up to. Who is yours?	Ah, and the second part of your question, yes and no. Not for typewriters, I had people I admired early on, like charlie from typewriter justice and duane from Phoenix typewriter. Great people, super kind.
​	I also looked up to Grant Imahara from mythbusters. I was always extremely self conscious about being asian when I was younger, and Grant was one of the first people I ever saw that I thought was cool, and made me feel better about myself. I'd say the same about markiplier and Eugene from the try guys. I thought they were cool people, not because they were Asian. Learning they were both also Korean helped me a lot during highschool. I'm now watching Kim's conscience on Netflix, and I can enjoy it without feeling uncomfortable.
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'capable of more' sounds like you can really do anything you put your mind to. That's something to be very proud of :) Thanks for the consistently fantastic answers! I hope your weekend is going great.	Thanks for the questions!!
I’m so glad I found you. I have an Olivetti mechanical with electric assist that uses ball technology similar to the IBM Selectric. It dates to the mid 70s and I’ve been told it’s the only machine of its type that can use plastic one-use ribbon and cloth reusable ribbon. My dream is to get her running smoothly again as I love the feel of her action. Have you worked on any Olivetti’s?	I have! They can be tricky, the Olivetti ball system is a little more scarce. I haven't seen ribbons around lately, but I'm sure the old cartridges can be refilled
Know anything about the Facit T2? I recently received one from a relative and did some minor repairs on it. Pretty fun to work on and type on, but the only think I know about it is that it was made in the 60s and is Swedish.	Not particularly. Facits are excellent machines, and the favorites of a few of my colleague buddies! Particularly Jack from Tampa Typewriter who would talk your ear off about the facit. The swedes made good typers!
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Considering it had been sitting in a basement for decades and all I had to do was tighten and lube the levers that cause the gears in the escapement to move (sorry, I know 0 technical terms), I'd say it's a pretty well-made machine. I saw that you shoot film, too. We have a lot in common.	As nerds often do....

SX270 video tests
I've been doing tests with the SX270 camera for some time now. Because we have the state forest behind our property, I often go there at night to take photos.
I carry an SX270 in my left pocket and an SX280 in my right.
I have done many tests involving finding more info about the white orbs appearing as rain/moisture and finding out what caused missing 509. These results prove that 509 was an unsuccessful attempt at taking a video, that caused the camera to die and that intentional deletion using a computer is highly unlikely.
It's important to research things properly in order to find good answers.
This is a list of tests, its kind of like mythbusters doing a show on the SX270:
-Getting moisture on the lens - blurry image
-Getting the flash wet with rain - instant cutout
-Dropping the camera on my bed, while taking a video - battery cutout
-Removing the back covebattery while taking a video - battery cutout
-Removing the SD card while taking a video/image - software crash
-Getting the battery/sd card wet - file won't save, no missed file though
-Blocking the SD card terminals while taking a video/image - file won't save, no missed file though
-Reducing the battery length so the terminals press less firmly - 0 byte/skipped file
So it's the last test in particular that is the main cause of skipped files. It's this flaw that the SX270 is famous for - the low battery while filming issue that often causes it to cut out without shutting down properly.
The first batch of SX270's required alot of them to be returned to the factory. The firmware update 1.02 did fix some of the filming issues, however it's known to still occur. On my camera sometimes the camera cuts out randomly for no reason at all.
When a film starts recording, the camera goes from showing a full battery to being almost flat. Using the zoom control places more strain on the battery as well.
If it dies, only a .dat file will be saved instead of an .mp4 file.
It all depends upon what critical moment the camera cuts out at.
There are 2 types of missing file anomalies that I've decided to name:
Class A missing file anomalies
The .dat file will still be there, but will be 0 bytes. Its sector space also won't be there.
Class B missing file anomalies
No file will be present at all. That number is skipped. Its sector space won't be there either.
This is what missing file 509 is. It's an unsuccessful attempt at taking a video where the low battery causes the to camera die, which results in a missing file and missing sector space.
Even though Lisanne had an improved firmware version of 1.02, it's still known to occur on some occasions, worn/overused batteries cause this as well, but it's also possible she dropped the camera while taking a video.
On the Imperfectplan website, there are the file allocations for missing file 509:
File Sector from to
IMG_0504.JPG 3317760 3323519
IMG_0505.JPG 3323520 3334591
IMG_0506.JPG 3334592 3344767
IMG_0507.JPG 3344768 3357439
IMG_0508.JPG 3357440 3368959
IMG_0509.JPG xxx xxx << Missing file 509 and sector space
IMG_0510.JPG 3368960 3370879
IMG_0511.JPG 3370880 3373631
Intentional file deletion using camera/computer
File Sector from to
IMG_0780.JPG 4206592 7241727
IMG_0781.JPG 7241728 10231807
?MG_0782.JPG 10231808 13352959 << Deleted file
IMG_0783.JPG 13352960 16084991
IMG_0784.JPG 16084992 18968575
IMG_0785.JPG 18968576 22077439
IMG_0786.JPG 22077440 25258500
?MG_0782.JPG still recoverable for small amount of time, sector space present
Class A missing file anomalies
File Size
IMG_0787.JPG 1,941,103
IMG_0788.JPG 1,810,377
MVI_0789.DAT 0 < 0 Byte file
IMG_0790.JPG 1,727,369
IMG_0791.JPG 1,795,893
IMG_0792.JPG 1,400,899
IMG_0793.JPG 1,724,260
File Sector from to
IMG_0787.JPG 4206592 6148095
IMG_0788.JPG 6148096 7958527
MVI_0789.DAT 0 << 0 Byte file
IMG_0790.JPG 7958528 9687039
IMG_0791.JPG 9687040 11485183
IMG_0792.JPG 11485184 12890111
IMG_0793.JPG 12890112 16071272
Class B missing file anomalies
File Size
IMG_0527.JPG 1,447,618
IMG_0528.JPG 1,386,692

 **<< Missing file 529 and sector space** 

IMG_0530.JPG 3,524,698
IMG_0531.JPG 2,745,239
MVI_0532.MP4 25,842,027
IMG_0533.JPG 3,208,678
File Sector from to
IMG_0527.JPG 1926106624 1927581183
IMG_0528.JPG 1927581184 1929088511

 **<< Missing file 529 and sector space** 

IMG_0530.JPG 1929088512 1932529151
IMG_0531.JPG 1932529152 1935281663
MVI_0532.MP4 1935281664 1935379967
IMG_0533.JPG 1935379968 1938591232
Using a computer to delete photo 533 for example, all that does is slightly change out the partition table entry for IMG_0533JPG. The sector space that file once occupied will still be there, the file will be recoverable for a certain amount of time, using RStudio or Winhex for example.
MVI_0516MP4 d ! S ! 9;;2IMG_0518JPG d ! S ! *9¦ƒ IMG_0519JPG d ! S ! J9h IMG_0521JPG d ! S ! l9¦ù MVI_0520MP4 d ! S ! i9šƒy IMG_0522JPG ! S ! ê;a MVI_0523DAT ! S ! 6= PIMG_0524JPG ! S ! <1= IMG_0525JPG ! S ! =Öe IMG_0526JPG d ! S ! 2=Œy IMG_0527JPG d ! "S ! –å IMG_0528JPG d ! S ! ÃåÄ( IMG_0530JPG d% ! S % ! ñåZÈ5 IMG_0531JPG + ! S + ! Zæ—ã) åMG_0533JPG ! "S ! ±ææõ0 MVI_0532MP4 , ! S , ! ®ækQŠIMG_0534JPG d ! S ! …ðDU, MVI_0535DAT ! S ! öéïݺ IMG_0536JPG d ! S ! ~éÄ% IMG_0537JPG d ! S ! Éé!!& MVI_0538DAT d ! S ! öë 0 IMG_0539JPG ! S ! Œë Q( IMG_0541JPG ! S ! àëñš. MVI_0540MP4 d ! S ! Ýë ”ž
Same results when photo 536 gets deleted using the camera's delete function:
MVI_0516MP4 d ! S ! 9;;2IMG_0518JPG d ! "S ! *9¦ƒ IMG_0519JPG d ! "S ! J9h IMG_0521JPG d ! "S ! l9¦ù MVI_0520MP4 d ! S ! i9šƒy IMG_0522JPG ! "S ! ê;a MVI_0523DAT ! S ! 6= PIMG_0524JPG ! "S ! <1= IMG_0525JPG ! "S ! =Öe IMG_0526JPG d ! "S ! 2=Œy IMG_0527JPG d ! "S ! –å IMG_0528JPG d ! "S ! ÃåÄ( IMG_0530JPG d% ! "S % ! ñåZÈ5 IMG_0531JPG + ! "S + ! Zæ—ã) åMG_0533JPG ! "S ! ±ææõ0 MVI_0532MP4 , ! S , ! ®ækQŠIMG_0534JPG d ! "S ! …ðDU, MVI_0535DAT ! S ! öéïݺ åMG_0536JPG d ! "S ! ~éÄ% IMG_0537JPG d ! "S ! Éé!!& MVI_0538DAT d ! S ! öë 0 IMG_0539JPG ! "S ! Œë Q( IMG_0541JPG ! "S ! àëñš. MVI_0540MP4 d ! S ! Ýë ”ž
It's important to do your research properly.
You can't just assume that because a file can't be recovered it must have been deleted using a computer, which is what the dutch forensics have carelessly concluded. There are many ways to cause a camera to malfunction that require extensive tests.
Intentionally deleted files will be missing their filename.
(unless they are deleted straight after the photo is taken, then that taking and deletion event becomes completely unnoticeable, as long as 1 more photo is taken.)
But a deleted file won't be missing its sector space.
As more photos are later taken down the track, the SX270 will re utilize the sector space of that deleted file. No file, no sector allocation means a likely battery cutout while filming.
In conclusion, Lisanne attempted to take a video, the battery showed its usually low status and the camera died.
What I think is that if she hadn't tried to take a video, she probably would have otherwise taken many more successful images at smallstream 508.
509 wasn't intentionally deleted, it never materialized as a file in the 1st place.
Once it convinces you of this, you realize it's kind of funny. It's like, here is the 2nd last known photo of Kris and Lisanne.
We'd show you the last known photo, but the perpetrator has murdered these girls and deleted it, because he doesn't want you seeing him with them.
Known as the partition table conman, he follows tourists around on trails and murders them. Then he uses a computer to erase the last known photos they took. After doing this he uses a defragmentation tool to painstakingly remove the file's sector allocations. It's his signature trademark style that has clearly been perpetrated here. lol
But if you do get your hands on an SX270/SX280, doing experiments removing the battery out while filming, then viewing the results in Winhex, I'd be interested in seeing the results.