I am in a terrible situation. I am on a corner lot and was the first to move in to our development. Fuckwad was the last. The back of my house faces the side of his. I can see everything he does, he cannot see my house.
Since he and his fruitcake wife moved in, they have been a constant pain in the ass.
My city rules are pretty strict. It started out with garbage cans. They cannot be visible from the street or others homes. I told him the rules, and was told to mind my own business. He has a drag race car and would randomly rev it at 10pm with little kids sleeping. Decided to use a pull trailer as storage. After driving it on my yard, I told him it violated 3 city codes-I was told to fuck off. He, of course, had to put up a shed, blocking my view of a duck pond that kids use to skate in the winter. It is also within 25 feet of my firepit. (illegal) He told me to move the pit. I said I did not have to. The city said, since he was negligent and out of code, If I burned his shed down, I would not be liable. (working on it)
He has used my yard to wash an RV trailer (not legal and trespassing) rent out said trailer (trespassing) parking it on my curb for days at a time (against code) spread shit from said trailer all over the neighborhood...called police-he had to rent a street cleaner. Hopefully fined.
Pushed his snow from his driveway with a four wheeler into the street (illegal) then onto mine and others yards (way illegal) When I told them it was illegal-fruitcake started yelling at me and said "What else are we supposed to do with it?" I told her to shove it up her ass. Then "this is not your HOA" No. we do not have an HOA, just strict city codes. I have called the cops on them many time. But I not a fan of being verbally abused for following the law and expecting people to say off my property.
I had to plant a row of trees just beyond the property line to prevent him from driving on my yard. He has now started clipping branches over his property so his fat ass can mow. I was going to do this over the summer, but will now only do my side. He has a right to do it, but is lawfully supposed to ask permission first. And he basically ripped instead of cut.
The kicker here-my wife keeps telling me to hold my tongue. I have tried, but if I fold, they will keep taking. He has no concern for anyone but him. He sucks as a neighbor. Everything he does, I can see. I cannot do anything to defend myself. I have thought about a cease and desist letter.
I am sure he says the same thing about me, but the law is on my side. I

May got out to a lightning start for me, continuing the torrid April pace for a while before cooling off a bit in the back end of the month. That's partially by design, as I jumped into a pair of longer games (one enormously so) which I won't finish until deeper into June, but I've also noticed I'm slowly bleeding gaming time from my evenings. As my kids get incrementally older and the days grow incrementally longer entering summer, an hour that would previously be my own is now deferred to them, and that adds up over the course of an entire month.
Not that I'd trade my kids, you understand.
(Games are presented in chronological completion order; the numerical indicator represents the YTD count.)
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#27 - Contra: Hard Corps - GEN - 8/10 (Great)
It's been fascinating to watch the Contra series evolve over time, and Hard Corps on the Sega Genesis is no different. With no Mode 7 (the SNES' proprietary isometric viewpoint mode) available on the system, necessarily some of the top down content from Contra III would need to be altered or removed, and that begged the question of what would take its place: after all, a return to basic sidescrolling action might feel like a big step down, and we can't have that. So I think I expected Hard Corps to throw in a new wrinkle to keep the formula a bit more fresh. What I did not expect was for it to make three enormous changes.
For one, Hard Corps has four different characters to choose from, and each is actually unique. It's not just the look - where else can you play a cybernetic wolfman? - but they've got different sizes and hurtboxes as well. And while each starts with the same basic low power machine gun, each has a completely different loadout of possible weapon upgrades, ensuring that all four play very differently from one another outside of the fundamentals of movement. To that end, the two weapon toggle of Contra III is expanded in Hard Corps, allowing you to hold all four of your upgraded weapons simultaneously and switch between them at will, which adds a new layer of depth and strategy to the action. Building upon this notion of enhanced player choice even further, the second big change is that the game has branching paths. After the first stage you make a choice that determines where you head for the second level, and then later on you make another choice that creates further divergence, such that the game has four main endings (and a secret fifth!), all with their own dedicated unique stages. It's for that reason possibly the most replayable game so far in the franchise; I myself did a run through of each ending using a different character per run to get a feel for them all.
This leads to the final big change, which is the only one I don't regard a resounding success: the entire game is basically a boss rush. Let's zero in on the main path that I followed on my primary playthrough and add up all mini-bosses and full boss phases. What number might you expect that to come out as? A dozen or so? Well, sorry about your naiveté, but the answer is 43: it's bosses all the way down. This is a MUCH more mentally taxing load than previous Contra games where you could kind of skate through the non-boss sections with good fundamentals. And that's just one of four possible paths through the game! It's absurd! It's also way more fun than it sounds it would be from the description, but I've heard people say Hard Corps is the toughest Contra game and now I know why. I do miss just running and gunning and dropping dudes in one hit before a thrilling finale; it's hard to be properly wowed by a boss fight when that's all you ever see. But nevertheless Contra: Hard Corps is lives up to the legacy of greatness the franchise had up until that point established...just steel yourself mentally for the extensive memorization it requires of you.
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#28 - Ancient Enemy - PC - 5.5/10 (Semi-Competent)
Solitaire is one of those games that nobody really wants to play. It’s a game of convenience and opportunity, only attractive in the absence of something better, which is to say “nearly anything else at all.” Slightly more entertaining are variations on the form, such as Mahjong Solitaire or Free Cell, where certain cards/tiles are locked until the ones above them have been cleared away. These are still just time wasting games for people with nothing else to do, but when presented as a discrete set of challenges there’s a bit more appeal. Do you know they say that every one of the 32,000 numbered games of FreeCell on classic Windows operating systems was supposedly beatable? Did you know a very bored teenage me once decided to see if I could prove it by playing and beating every single unique game of FreeCell in order? I got into the low 30s or so before I questioned what the hell I was doing with my life and wisely moved on.
Well, Ancient Enemy is a game for people with nothing better to do, masquerading as a game that would qualify as "something better to do." It’s an RPG, I guess, but the gameplay revolves entirely around a solitaire variant. You have a deck of “stock cards” numbered 0-9 and start each encounter (“hand”) by flipping the top one. Then on the board you have to collect a card with a number adjacent to the one you’re displaying - 0 serving as a bridge between 1 and 9. Getting a card reveals any card trapped immediately below it and enables that card to be collected as well. If you can’t make a move, you can flip a new stock card over to get a random new number until your deck runs out. Some levels are simple puzzles in this vein, trying to clear all the cards from the board. Most encounters though are battles, where you do the exact same thing, except the color of the card you collect enables you to attack, defend, or cast a spell. So it’s turn-based combat, except each turn is you basically clearing as many cards as you can from the board to juice up your attack or bolster your defense, and that’s about it.
Now, at first, this is actually way more fun than I’m making it sound. I mean, I like solitaire type games for what they are, and the extra mechanics definitely do enrich the experience. You get consumable wild cards, battle boards have bonus cards with instant benefits, you get powers that manipulate the board, new types of cards appear, all good stuff. The problem is that the game completely runs out of these new ideas about a quarter of the way through, at which point you’re just going through the motions until the end, accompanied by a complete nothing of a story that I was confident I had figured out, only to find that the ending was somehow worse than the cliche I’d been anticipating. Thus, the game sadly settled into that exact same niche of games it was supposed to improve upon and supplant. Which I suppose is ok…if you’ve got nothing better to do.
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#29 - Snakebird Primer - PC - 7/10 (Good)
I follow a general rule of always playing game franchises in order, but Snakebird Primer is a unique case wherein the developers of the original Snakebird decided that it was too off-putting to new players, and so they made a sequel that they explicitly wanted newcomers to play first. A "primer" in truth to ease you into the overall Snakebird challenge, as it were. So when I decided to check out Snakebird, I thought all right: just this once I'll do it your way.
So how does Snakebird Primer shake out? Well...it's fine. It's a jaunty kind of puzzle game, with bright colors, friendly art and music, and general good vibes. In each stage you control one or more segmented "snakebirds" and have to get them all to the rainbow portal to complete the level. Sometimes you need to eat fruit to open the portal as well, but that's the entire game in a nutshell. It's a very simple concept, complicated only by the fact that a snakebird that has no body segments touching the ground will fall, and so each stage is a kind of pathing challenge, tasking you to figure out the right order of operations to reach the end. The levels are very well paced and designed if you just go in order: there aren't any hand-holdy tutorials, but new ideas are introduced organically at various intervals, and the challenge always feels reasonable, especially because you can undo any number of moves at will, like stepping through code to find an error.
There is, however, a significant difficulty spike for the last couple levels, which is pretty jarring. And when you add to that the fact that the designer of Baba Is You said he built a lot of his design philosophy around the original Snakebird, I've got to admit I'm a lot less keen on checking that one out. It's in that same realm of "enter these six dozen commands in precisely the right order" that made Baba Is You eventually feel more tedious and frustrating to me than anything else, so I think for now I'm happy to have just played the "lite" version instead.
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#30 - It Takes Two - PS4 - 8.5/10 (Excellent)
When trying to write down a genre for It Takes Two in my tracking spreadsheet, I wanted to put "Yes". It's as though the developers wanted to make a bunch of different kinds of games and, rather than accepting any limitations (self-imposed or otherwise), they just found a way to do it all at once. It Takes Two is a platformer. It's a third-person shooter. It's a puzzle game. It's a rhythm game. It's a racing game. It's a stealth game. It's a boss battling action adventure. It's a minigame collection. It's a romantic comedy. It's an exploration playground. One minute you're flying around on a jetpack chucking Captain America shields at devils and the next you're literally playing a timed game of chess. None of the things that It Takes Two does would be characterized as masterpiece forms of their respective genres, but that's not the point. There's sufficient depth and development of each mechanic that it never feels like a lazy tack-on to check a box - and that in itself is beyond impressive - but it's the sheer number of different ideas tossed into this package that make it truly special.
It's hard for me to even review this game, frankly. Part of that is because I feel a strong bias towards the game for the audaciousness of what it tries to achieve, and for the way it inspires me to keep stretching myself in new ways however I can. But it's also hard because I don't remember the whole thing. It Takes Two is both fresh in memory, having just finished it, and yet far away and mingled in my mind with similar bits of similar other adventures (Tearaway foremost among them). Why is that? Well, I first booted up It Takes Two in May of 2022 as a co-op experience to share with my wife - quite fitting, as it turns out, given the nature of the game's plot of trying to reconcile an embattled couple. We'd only play in smaller bursts of 1-2 hours at a time, but every session we played it felt like we were playing a new, different game. Music to my ears, but much harder on my gaming-challenged wife, who took longer to adjust to each mechanical shift. Pretty soon we were playing less and less often, even as I was playing a game like Tearaway early on that occupied some similar design space in my head. Soon we stopped playing at all. When I tried to suggest resuming this title over the past year, I was repeatedly rebuffed until finally a month ago I managed to wear her down enough that we picked it up again for about an hour a week. So it is that the first half of the game is fuzzy and nebulous to me, even as I recall that I loved playing, whereas the back half is much fresher, and it's nigh impossible for me to separate my wife's frequent frustrations from my own experience - especially since I've been playing on a controller experiencing heavy stick drift, so managing the camera was a nightmare through no fault of the game's.
All that said, how could I not recommend this game? It's best played with two experienced gamers, but the story only fully lands if you play as a couple, so there's a bit of potential for a disconnect there, as I experienced. It's not a perfect game. But it is an incredibly ambitious one that had me routinely grinning from ear to ear, despite the grumblings on the couch next to me. When I pointed out to my wife that we finished the game in May 2024, almost to the day when we started back in '22, she said "They should've called it It Takes Two Years." We're both glad it's over, but I think for very different reasons.
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#31 - Rogue Legacy 2 - PS5 - 7/10 (Good)
Some game sequels try to really shake things up and try something different from the one before. Final Fantasy is probably the biggest and most obvious example of this, but you can also see it in virtually every Super Mario Bros. game, in the Castlevania series, and the list goes on extensively from there. On the other hand, some game sequels treat their predecessors like rough drafts to be perfected. With these, the idea is to take the vision for the previous game, use the increase in time/budget/developer expertise now available, and try to execute on it more completely than was possible before. When a game like this is successful, there becomes almost zero reason to ever play the original game (other than possibly its story), because the new version has replaced it entirely as the definitive experience.
Rogue Legacy 2 is one of these latter types of games. Everything from the first game is pretty much still there (bosses excepted): enemies, basic combat and room design, character classes, traits, progression, etc. It immediately feels like "Hey, I've played this before," yet a cursory look reveals a huge wealth of additional content over the first game. Classes are better differentiated, you get new weapons, more spells, special abilities, new items, new upgrades, new explorable regions, new mechanics, new new new. It truly is a total replacement for Rogue Legacy 1 in this regard, a "go ahead and uninstall that thing forever because we've got it all right here and then some" type of mission statement. I was amazed at how I kept finding ever more avenues of progression and discovery, even many hours into the game, In fact, I never did manage to play as every class, and each class has a variant form as well, most of which I didn't even unlock. It's overflowing with stuff.
And I think that's why it didn't work quite as well for me as the first game: it's all too much. Now there are four different types of currency, all acquired in different ways, all for different upgrade paths. You're always competing with yourself on what to level up between runs because there are too many choices and all of them seem pretty good, but as you're finding your early groove the game throws a big wrench in there: labor costs. While each upgrade has a set gold cost that increases as you level it up, early on the game adds a universal tax mechanic to the entire upgrade tree, making it increasingly prohibitive to spend your money on stuff, and it feels awful. Rogue Legacy 1 had a similar system where each upgrade cost 10g more than the previous, but in the sequel these escalate far more rapidly, to the point where you'll complete a huge run and still feel like you can only afford one or two upgrades that barely move the needle. It's a pure inflationary grinding system meant to pad playtime, and I'm not about that. I played RL1 through multiple New Game + levels, but I was thrilled to beat RL2's final boss and move on because the economy is so frustrating. Other than that though, it's got quite a lot going for it.
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#32 - Undertale - PS4 - 7/10 (Good)
When is some information too much information? Undertale is notorious for its rabid fan community insisting that there is only one "right" way to play the game, and so if you've ever heard of Undertale there's a good chance you already know what that preferred method is: pacifism. Undertale takes a unique approach to the JRPG in two primary ways: first, that defending against enemy attacks is an active system pretty much akin to dodging in a bullet hell game, and second that you almost never actually need to choose the "Fight" command from the battle menu in order to succeed in an encounter. The argument from the community is that you must play in this fully pacifist manner, largely because of a design decision that thoroughly punishes players who do not, only revealed after the game's conclusion. Thus, these players are "helping" curious newcomers by saving them from falling victim to a fairly vindictive design choice that would create a lot of frustration.
The problem with that approach is that Undertale makes it abundantly clear from the outset that you have the option for these alternative combat approaches, trains you on how to use them, and then gives you a positive feedback loop for choosing that direction with your gameplay. Which means the discourse surrounding this game effectively undermines not only the game's own ability to surprise and educate you, but also the authorial intent of that same design decision, which in context is a conscious player decision to go against the grain and suffer the possible consequences of doing so. In short, I wish I'd never heard of Undertale before I played it, as I'm sure I would've had a much better time.
As it stands, Undertale is still a highly creative take on the genre that, despite an aesthetic I didn't care for and writing that leaned a bit too hard at times into "lol I'm so random" territory for my tastes, still managed to get me invested with some of its characters and even make me laugh aloud at times. I was particularly impressed with that aforementioned approach to combat, as each enemy introduced unique hazards to avoid, so fighting a new monster was far more exciting here than in a standard turn-based RPG where the only meaningful question is "How much damage did this whatever move do to me?" So for those reasons I applaud Undertale. Even still, there's a lot of walking back and forth with no major purpose beyond "it was decided the game should be a little bit inconvenient here," adding some unnecessary tedium to the mix. In short, Undertale's a generally good time, but if you want it to be even better, just pretend you haven't read anything I just said.
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#33 - Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales - PS5 - 7.5/10 (Solid)
2018 was a big year for Miles Morales. In the fall he showed up in the PS4 title Marvel's Spider-Man as a major supporting character, and by the end of the year he was stunning cinema audiences in the fantastic Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse as the primary protagonist. It's no surprise then that by 2020, with his brand so hot, Sony and Insomniac Games would cash in with a follow-up title to the hit PS4 game with Miles front and center. And for the most part, the game is what you'd expect it to be from that basic pitch: more of the same from 2018, only focusing on Miles' family, his new home of Harlem and its people, and his path to becoming a fully fledged hero in his own right. That's all fine, but here's the problem: all of it has been done better before, and recently to boot. Miles' story of personal growth and family drama was handled better in the Spider-Verse series, even though MSM:MM wisely walks chooses to walk some different beats along the way. "Superhero of Harlem" was done masterfully by Netflix with the Luke Cage series (the first season, at least) back in 2016, and MSM:MM doesn't even try to address any issues beyond the most surface level. And the "more of the same" gameplay?
Well, admittedly that's still pretty good. Web swinging is as fun as ever to the point that there's an XP challenge to web swing at high speed for a full cumulative hour of real time and I caught myself thinking, "Hmm, maybe..." There are fast travel points that unlock relatively early on, but the joy of traversal feels like the main point of the game, so why would you bother? Miles also gets some new Spidey moves related to his bio-electric powers, and these are really fun and impactful to pull off, such that "more of the same" isn't in this case a damning phrase. And yet, it's also distinctly not "more, but better." In order to emphasize your new powers, the goons you fight (now including women for the first time I can recall ever seeing in a superhero game like this) have upgraded their own abilities as well, which means the simple pleasure of chaining big combos is a bit diminished. Maybe this enemy just blocks all your basic attacks and stops you cold. Maybe this one turns the tables to dodge and counter you. Or maybe you're just constantly surrounded by a flood of dudes with guns and rocket launchers and you feel like you never get a chance to press "punch" without being thoroughly punished.
Now add to that the game's relatively brief length and general lack of meaningful activities compared to its predecessor, as well as its truly awful villains and the ho-hum plot that they service, and you've got a title that's decidedly a step back from what came before. Of course, what came before was excellent, so even a step back still lands you in territory that's quite fun to play around with. My 6-year-old summed it up best when he came downstairs to ask me a question one day and caught me playing: "Whoa...how are you Spider-Man?!" Which is to say that Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales is a game that really makes you feel like a wannabe Spider-Man who hasn't gotten it all figured out just yet. And I guess that's all right.
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Coming in June:

• I've had less time for PC gaming lately for a couple of different reasons, but I'm expecting that to be a temporary thing, and I don't think I'm in danger of failing to finish Mass Effect 3 by the end of June. I didn't realize the version of the game I had included all the DLC. Nor did I actually know what any of the DLC was. So I was quite a ways into the game and feeling great about my progress when I got suspicious that the section I was playing wasn't actually base game content. I looked it up and found that, in fact, about 90% of what I'd played to date was DLC and I'd barely actually started the base game itself. That explains why the main story was taking a while to get off the ground, at any rate.
• Speaking of getting off the ground, my journey through The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom began impatiently a few months after release, but I took an extended break from the game and have now spent pretty much all of May continuing my thorough trek through the game world. I'm well over 200 hours into the game and am only several days away from having explored the entirety of the game's map. At which point I believe I'll finally advance the main quest past its initial stage.
• In my review for Rogue Legacy 2 above I mentioned the Castlevania franchise, which I feel I can speak to as a whole given that I've finished nearly every game in the series to date. Unsurprisingly I felt most drawn to the metroidvania style games, so there was a layer of disappointment in exhausting the last of those to discover. Disappointment that will soon be temporarily eradicated when I boot up Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night, produced by that same creative mind.
• And more...

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I thought I'd come here and ask since you guys seem to make crazy cool stuff. In my own personal craziness I like to make everything at least look accessible by my employees, like the doors behind ticket booths and such. I want to build fake roof access for buildings in my park, but I don't want to use path stairs as that would simply be too long, and I really don't like how the steel tower block works in the supports tab, does anyone have any ideas on how to build a convincing looking ladder?

So I'm not the best with relationships I stayed 8 years with someone I didn't love. But I've been with my current girlfriend for 7 months and it's been fantastic. Rarely fighting besides both of us learning from our toxic past. And I try to keep communication open as much as possible. Now for some back story I struggle really hard with insecurities after my last relationship. So me being a dip shit one night we got drunk and I got on her phone and say she was still snap friends with people's she's flirted with slept with and or sent pictures to. I told her I'm not comfortable with that and they were removed after a fight about me breaking trust going on her phone. No fast forward things lately have felt off. She keeps telling me I'm projecting these feelings because Im trying to self destruct. And recently she had her own mind fart and was like I've talked to this girl before E and sent pictures I shouldn't be here friend. This was 2 months after the fight so I was like hey she's respecting boundaries. I think it's just because she was showing me text and forgot and got embarrassed. But last night she had told me "this might sound weird" but my friend k found a girl I dated in middle school L and proceeds to tell me about their gay inter racial relationship and why it was important then so I'm like cool maybe they'll find her. Then that night after intimacy she brings up her friend found her and now they're friends on tik Tok I told her why. If you dated her why would you want to be involved again. I felt like it was directly apart of my boundaries I brought up before so she gets mad and impulsive and just blocks her and ask if that's what I wanted. Then tells me I ruined the romantic night and it'll never happen again, meaning talking about ex's after intimacy. I just woke up this morning and most times I just forgive and forget but I just fell like I'm being dumb and not seeing the obvious.

I know some probably won’t believe me, but this story is 100% true. The only thing I’ve life about in this story are the names. This really did happen to me and my family
Prologue: This is very long story, and will be split into two parts, so be prepared for a bumpy ride. To premise this trilogy, there are a couple thing you need to know. We are on a vacation to LA. My mom, Allie, is a doctor, and my dad, Joel, works in IT. They’ve got three kids. Me, Henry, my twin brother, Jake, and my younger sister, Ella. All names in this are replaced with fakes. None of us have been to LA before, but my parents have travelled the world, so they know how travelling works. My brother and I are both in the school band. We arrive from LA back home at midnight on the 6th of April, then leave for a school band trip to Portugal on the 8th. I am the lead drummer for all three bands, and one of only four basses in the choir, so I cannot miss the trip. My brother plays bass, but there are others who can play bass in the band. This information is to be used for all three parts of this story.
Part 1: The Drive The story starts at our Airbnb in LA. We have to leave the airport to go home. The plane leaves at 11:00pm and my dad wanted to leave at 7:00pm just to be safe. My mom said that it was fine and that we could leave at 8:00pm, my dad agreed. So the time was set. 8 PM, we would leave. We leave a little late, 8:05-8:10, because Ella, who’s 7 years old, was making a fuss. We leave, and take the 40 minute drive to LAX.
We arrive at the airport, and my dad gets into the six lanes of traffic that are converging into 1 lane going into LAX. We wait in our rental car for 30 minutes, and we have to go to the rental car return. My dad starts driving while following the signs. He takes a right, takes a right, then takes a right, and we’re right back at the six lane hellhole. My dad sees this, goes “hell no”, and turns around ON THE FREEWAY. Nothing bad happens, no horrific injuries. And we go back the way we came, through the rental car return road, making sure to follow every sign TO THE LETTER. It takes us right back.
My dad is panicking, because at this point, the plane leaves in 1:40, and we’re not in the airport. Anybody who’s travelled knows that that’s risky. My dad starts telling us in the car to look on the maps and figure out a way in. The only person who listens is my brother and my mom. My sister is playing Minecraft, and I’m listening to a podcast. After about five minutes, my dad starts yelling and I hear him, “RENTAL CAR RETURN, LOOK IT UP!!!”. This is when I realize that something is wrong. So I started to help.
My sister still playing on her iPad, we look for rental car returns. I keep asking him which one, but there’s so much yelling going on in the car that he can’t hear me. I could not tell you what the was yelling about. Because of the way LAX was built and how it expanded so quickly, the car returns are 2 miles in a different direction on the freeway, which is why the signs were telling us to go back there.
My mom says she found a way, not on Apple maps though, she just looked on a satellite map. Big mistake, because we get there and there’s a giant concrete barrier blocking our way. At this point, we’re all panicking because the plane leaves in an hour. Finally my dad yells out “Search up Hertz car returns!”. We find it, we drive there, and my dad being a “Gold Member” doesn’t have to do any paperwork when signing off the car. He just leaves the car and its keys, tells us to sprint to the shuttlebus to hold it while he signs off on the car.
We get in the shuttle bus, and my sister starts to cry. She left her new water bottle in the Airbnb. There’s no way in hell we’re going now, so we tell her to suck it up. My parents are completely convinced that we’re missing the flight, my brother is trying to be optimistic, while I am stressing out, trying to figure out a way to get there faster, because the shuttle bus went right back in the six lane hell that we had to go for a half an hour.
We sit in the shuttle bus for 20 minutes waiting, and we finally make it to the first terminal. The way LAX is structured is It’s like a horseshoe. Going from one, curving, then to six or seven. We have to be at terminal six. We’re not gonna make it. There’s 40 minutes left, and it took 20 minutes to get to the first terminal. I’m panicking, thinking, and I realize why can’t we just walk? I told my dad and he says that might just work, because it’s a horseshoe, and terminal seven is closer than terminal four by walking. So we tell the shuttle bus driver to stop the bus and let us off.
We SPRINT to the gate, and it takes us 10 minutes. We get to the desk and the lady there says “What flight?” My dad says Toronto. The lady makes a 😬 face. She says “Put a bag on each scale. I’ll do this, you run.” We all thank her furiously, then run. There’s 30 minutes, and we just got in the building, haven’t even got through security yet. He get to security, and this is LAX, what you would assume to be a VERY busy airport, and the security is completely empty, save or two or three people. We see this, and parents, although they were already sprinting, realize that there really is a chance we could make the flight, so they start to really, really sprint as fast as we could keep up. I’m surprised our legs didn’t come off.
10 minutes before the flight leaves, we get out of security. As we’re all sprinting down the hall, home alone style, I turn around and see that my mom and my sister have vanished, I tell my dad, then sprint back. Turns out they’re in a souvenir shop, getting gifts for mom’s coworkers, and Ella’s teachers. I yell at them, “What the hell are you doing?!?!?! RUN!!!” We get to the gate less than 5 minutes before the plane left. We made it.
We get to our seats, and relax. Everything is going well. Then, about an hour and a half into the flight, my dad hears a loud thump, coming from right in front of him. It’s an overnight flight, so everyone around him is asleep. He looks out to the aisle and sees a pair of legs on the floor… End of Part 1

So I bought an item recently before I was clued up on scams - the seller had no reviews, no other items listed, a random bunch of letters as a username and only had Royal Mail as an option for postage. They sent me the vinted generated postage label as ‘proof of postage’ and ignored when I asked for the postage receipt. The sender address was a generic name and business unit (when I googled it, it came up with another thread on here about a scammer selling similar items). I had a bad feeling so researched hallmarks of vinted scams and felt stupid for falling for it. I let vinted know and they refunded me almost immediately. Weirdly the item arrived a few days ago so it wasn’t a scam after all. Has anyone else had this happen? I’m so confused as it seemed so much like a scam! The seller has been blocked now but I will let vinted know it arrived as it’s the right thing to do.
I’ve been hypervigilant since and have been refunded on another purchase because when I checked on it, the listing was removed and it said ‘member blocked’ so I asked vinted if it was a scam and they refunded me. The seller had lots of good reviews. I’m now worried this item will turn up too - I’ve since purchased both items again (different listings)

Hello, 2month carnivore here, I would like to ask what other things you guys do besides eating meat and fat that gave you massive improvements combined with the diet. Anything that helps counts so don't hesitate and share it.
Here are some things I've implemented while on this diet and tried + positive results.

• Fasting: Started with the goal to do 24h fast, but felt so good I pushed it to 84h fast which I just broke today morning! The reason for that was to increase my BMR (base metabolic rate) which I have messed up with living on calorie deficit for a lot of my life (1500cal a day instead of 2200cal for example) and yes I'm aware calories don't count, but my point is I was undereating.
  
• Sprinting: Found this recently after watching interview Dr Sean O'Mara who explains how sprinting is the most optimal way to get rid of visceral fat. That type of fat is invisible to us and anyone can have dangerous amounts of it even while looking "fit/normal". This type of fat can be in brain, organs and muscles. This blocks blood flow in blood vessels. They mention carnivore diet as a good approach, but sprinting can directly fix it relatively quick.
  
• Iodine: A misunderstood mineral we used to have in our diet long ago that was usually acquired from fish and near coast of animals that ate soil rich in it. I take 20drops of lugols 2% solution, but do your own research. I watched interview of Dr Elizabeth Bright for this knowledge and read up on people using it on product reviews to gain my confidence to do the same. My personal experience it made me 5-10% more energetic and clear minded. This can differ for everyone depending how toxic you are of bromide.
  
• Sea salt: This one most people know, but for some who don't; I use celtic sea salt that is dried and unrefined. More minerals and it's not bleached like table salt. Dr.Brownstein has a book about salt and how it's important to get half to one table spoon a day. Some carnivores do no salt, I use it for the minerals and think it's logical we used to get them from the animals back in the day and it's simply not in the meat we eat this day.
  

Overall as I said I'm not my 100% yet. Had some cheat days as recent as last week with my work dinner, got free hamburger and threw it up during night and had to go home next day after 2h work because I felt so nauseous. Maybe I'm not fully adapted yet and simply need more time. Or maybe it's one of the things I mentioned above that will help me resolve and start thriving. At least I have extra energy everyday to keep finding cool new things that help me move closer to my goal of thriving.

Disclaimer: this recipe does require an ice cream maker. I have this one. I got it on Facebook marketplace for like $20.
Also, this isn’t sugar free. Sugar helps to keep the ice cream from freezing into a block. I would not recommend trying to replace the sugar. So it’s not as low calorie as something like Halo Top, but it’s still pretty low cal for a homemade ice cream.
The chocolate tastes like a Wendy’s frosty. 😋
CHOCOLATE:
Makes 6 1/2 cup servings, 121 cals per serving.
Ingredients:
1 cup whole milk
2 cups unsweetened almond milk
1/2 cup sugar
5 tbs. cocoa powder
2 tbs. cornstarch
1/4 tsp Xanthan gum
1 tsp vanilla extract
In a saucepan, bring 2 cups of the milk to a simmer. In a separate bowl, mix the third cup of milk with the sugar, cocoa powder, and cornstarch. Add the milk/sugacornstarch mixture to the simmering milk. Add the Xanthan gum. Cook for a minute or two longer, whisking constantly, until slightly thickened. Whisk in vanilla. Remove from heat and allow to cool completely. Churn mixture in your ice cream mixer according to the machine directions.
VANILLA:
6 1/2 cup servings, 112 cals each
1 cup whole milk
2 cups unsweetened almond milk
1/2 cup sugar
3 tbs cornstarch
1 tsp vanilla extract
Same process as chocolate, just without the cocoa powder.
MINT CHOCOLATE CHIP:
6 1/2 cup servings, cals depend on how much chocolate you add
1 cup whole milk
2 cups unsweetened almond milk
1/2 cup sugar
3 tbs cornstarch
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 tsp mint extract
Chocolate chips to taste
Same as other flavors, just add the chocolate chips into the ice cream machine during the last few minutes of churning (obviously the chips will add cals).
Enjoy!

It's well known that Tolkien didn't particularly like France or its culture, but we love him anyway. And unfortunately, it took a long time for his incredible books to reach France and French-speaking countries. And even today, it's complicated... because yes, not everything has been translated.
You've probably read “The fall of Numeror” recently or “Tolkien's letters, revised and expanded”, well, we're still waiting for them... (And we never got the 12-volume Middle-Earth story! Thanks wiki)
Speaking of translations, here's the crux of the matter. Tolkien came to us at a time when heroic fantasy and its derivatives were not particularly well regarded and, above all, not well known, even among young people. It's very niche, in fact.
The Hobbit was published in 1969 in France, and yet no publisher other than “Christian Bourgois” wanted to translate The Lord of the Rings until 1972/1973. Quite simply because of the high cost of translation, and because they felt that the French couldn't possibly be interested in a work that was so foreign in its references. "They could only see the Germanic legend". We've come a long way in the meantime, phew!
The first translation we had (by Francis Ledoux) contained errors and questionable translation choices. Here are a few examples:

• Frodo is called “ Frodon ” for a pronunciation issue (same for Bilbo who becomes " Bilbon ").
  
• Vala is always in the singular, never in the plural (but the translator didn't yet have the Silmarillion).
  
• Mirkwood becomes “ Forêt Noire ” (black forest) because it sounds ’German” (sic)
  
• Rivendell is called “ Fondcombe ” for some reason; “fond” (lower part) and “combe” (deep valley).
  

But here's the problem: despite the choices, we've got used to this translation, yet a new one (by Daniel Lauzon) appeared a few years ago, and it's creating even more problems than before!

• Fondcombe became " Fendeval " (!!), "fend" for to split, "de" the article of, and "val" which is a fairly wide valley. So in English, it would be the Elrond residing in the "Large Split Valley".
  
• Mirkwood became the “Forêt de Grand'Peur ” (literally the forest of great fear). Well, it's still okay there, even if we don't really understand where it comes from.
  

The problem is that in the films, they use both the French words from the old translation and the English words. They say "Fondcombe and Mirkwood". No consistency.
But all that's nothing, there's much worse!
Aragorn's name hasn't changed (phew), but his nickname is still a problem. You see, in English, it's “Strider”, and that sounds cool to Americans/Englishmen (at least, I imagine it does), except that it had to be translated because it sounds too much English in a text entirely in French... Strider was translated as “Grand-Pas” (literally big step). Yes, it's Aragorn Big Step. Laugh at us!
Except that the new translation has changed, and he becomes “Aragorn l'arpenteur” (Aragorn the Surveyor). Why the surveyor? Because he travels a lot. But I don't really see Aragorn as a topographer, because that's exactly what you think of when you read the word in French.
I'm not saying all this to throw pebbles at the translators, especially the first one. He had to make do with what he had, and he did pretty well overall. But it often creates confusion with the addition of translation... It makes me think I should read Lotr in English in its entirety, but laziness has meant I read in my native tongue.
Another huge problem: the songs and poems.
Tolkien uses very precise poetic meter and rhymes in keeping with his language. Inevitably, literal translations don't work in other languages, and this creates disasters. The poor translators have to make drastic changes, and it feels bad. But then, I suppose it's the same story with other languages.
Thanks for reading! (sorry for the grammar and syntax errors)

Hey everyone,
I’m super excited to share something I’ve been working on: ProRes. It's an AI-powered tool that helps you create awesome resumes and cover letters with ease.
Why I Made ProRes
I help do mock technical interviews at my alma mater and I’ve seen so many talented people struggle to get interviews, not because they’re not qualified, but because their resumes and cover letters don’t do them justice. It sucks to see great folks miss out on opportunities just because their application didn’t stand out. That’s why I created ProRes - to help people showcase their skills and experience in the best possible way and boost their chances of landing those interviews.
What’s Cool About prores.ai?

• Easy to Use: You don’t need to be a tech wizard or a writing pro to use it.
• AI Magic: Our AI gets the job description and tailors your resume and cover letter to fit perfectly.
• Tailor-Made Applications: Easily customize your resume for specific jobs to make sure it highlights what each employer is looking for.
• Flexible: You can tweak and customize everything to make sure it’s just right for you.
• Saves Time: No more spending hours trying to write the perfect resume or cover letter from scratch.

How It Works

1. Enter Your Info: Pop in your work experience, skills, and all that good stuff.
2. Describe the Job: Copy paste the information from the job listing, Title, company, and job description.
3. Generate: Let ProRes work its magic and create a polished resume or cover letter for you.
4. Customize: Make any tweaks you want in the built in editor to add your personal touch.

I really think ProRes can help a lot of people out there, whether you’re just starting your career or have years of experience. It’s all about making sure you get noticed for the right reasons.
Give it a try and let me know what you think! Your feedback would mean the world to me as I keep working on improving the tool.
Do you think adding a “bot” that would apply to jobs on your behalf would be a cool addition?

Final draft: https://imgur.com/a/iZ0u7YT
The brief from u/NobsiTheUnitato in the original thread

Cayman GT4 in the style of a german taxi. Text in acumin variable concept black on both door panels so passengers can read it clearly. Some stupid taxi/transportation related play on words or joke under the Taxi lettering Sponsors are all german known things. Aldi, lidl, rewe, Paulaner (spezi)...etc Left back bumper has number to call, right back bumper has the "taxi Number" of company. One mirror is just in a chalk-grey because the taxi company didnt wanna pay for painting the replacement part. Roof has ominous black box that may or may not contain taxi gps/equipment stuffs.

I think I managed to do most of it, other than the left rear bumper as that has the race number which gets in the way, and I think it's more accurate to leave a bit blank.
I included the sponsors as a lightly chromed/reflective, rather than a loud colour themselves, so that at a glance, it's just a beige german taxi paintjob but it still looks like a race car - I went down the path of "race livery inspired by German Taxis" rather than literally "just a german taxi" as that would feel a bit lazy as a paintjob to just paint it beige, slap a taxi sign on it and call it a day!
Still tweaking at the moment before I put it on Trading Paints, but this was a fun little challenge and hope you enjoy!
Now to go get some last bits of Indy 500 prep in before I get back to this!
PS: Thanks to everyone who suggested stuff, some really cool + creative ideas and I may get round to some of them in the coming weeks regardless

I feel like I should experiment more instead of just using the obvious ones, but also there are plenty I just haven't discovered.
I mainly use 1899 handgun as a primary, sometimes paired with a Mauser pistol for effective dual wielding (thought about getting a second 1899 for that), if it's less about effectiveness and more about looking cool, I use a pimped out Schofield revolver.
Litchfield repeater - seems like the best one but I've been using it forever.
Double barrel for shotty
Rolling block for long range
Additional loadout obviously bow, varmint rifle, and often a sawed off shotgun
Sometimes I'll throw a dynamite or fire bottle, but mainly if a big party of bounty hunters is very close but hasn't seen me yet, or just to burn people for fun.
The lasso is obv fun and can be used to sweep someone away if you don't wanna have to kill them but they're shooting at you.
On the other end of the spectrum, it's fun to hack away at unarmed innocents with a machete or any other bladed weapon
Ammo: Mostly express, only really switch to high velocity or normal when I'm running low. Split point when using deadeye (only found out split point uses less deadeye after I finished the epilogue). Almost never explosive ammo (seems like a hassle finding fat to craft). For shottys I use normal - I find the idea of a cluster of buckshot ripping people apart quite satisfying

Hello, I'm not that techy guy. But knows how to run a computer. But then I've experienced this rookie mistake. I've downloaded a malicious program a .exe which is I didn't thought as. After I installed my pc detected it as a Trojan and I immediately block it and delete the installer. I haven't had the time to screenshot the prompt, as I immediately blocked i. After that I ran scan using my windows security and found no threat. I'm still not complacent after what happened. I bought premium bitdefender to ran different scans. System scan, vulnerability scan, as well as quick scan every day after I open my pc. I tried contacting a techy friend to find any random files which has letters, numbers and special characters file name inside the %appdata%
I'm still worried how can I know if I'm really safe and free

I just have to gush about her for a hot minute because she is just so unbelievably fantastic. She is the kindest, most understanding and patient person I have ever met. She meets sadness with comfort, frustration with understanding and concerns with support. She has consistently supported me through everything I have struggled with, and is such an empathetic and understanding person it's incredible. She maintains her own boundaries and prioritises respecting others boundaries too, and she has passion for helping others. She is so creative, she's made me some absolutely beautiful handmade gifts and written me letters I've cried with happiness reading. She instantly took an interest in researching butch history / identity when we got together (completely unprompted) and I feel so cared for and understood. We so easily split even mundane and boring tasks and planning between us because we're both so excited about spending time with one anothemaking eachother happy. She is an incredible woman and I have been so lucky to call her mine. We've been together 1.5 years, known eachother for almost 3, and I just can't even put into words how amazing this girl is and how much I love supporting and loving and caring for her. People share many different kinds of experiences on this sub, so I thought I'd add some positivity into the mix because love is cool af and gives alot of hope :)

Splinter is inspired by the slicing and mirror powers that the witness uses during the lightfall and tfs trailer. This is basically just a fun idea as to what a 'witness subclass' would look like.
Visuals: The splinter subclass would have its designs consist of broken glass and reflecting mirrors. Its energy would be a pale red with bright white streaks. Enemies killed by a splinter debuff would have look as if they were sliced into red segments before disappearing. Lore: If stasis is control and strand is going with the flow, splinter is ignorance. Rather than controlling or flowing with the universe, you have to actively deny its rules to use splinter. The witness carved a hole in the traveller by ignoring the strength of its shell.
GAMEPLAY:
Verbs:
Cut - enemys hit by cut take a small amount of damage and are given one stack of cut. If they receive 100 stacks, they will be hit by dismantle.
Visual: Cut would look like a small red slice going across the enemy's body
Dismantle - when an enemy is 'dismantled' they will receive a moderate amount of damage over the course of 1.5 seconds. Other enemies hit by dismantle will be given a varying amount of cut stacks, depending for how long they were in the aoe. Cut and dismantle would be your bread and butter for general ad clear. Dismantle would also stun overloads.
Visual: Where cut is one single slice, dismantle is a flurry of these slices going across the inflicted targets body, as if they're being diced.
Displacement - enemies affected by displacement are initially slowed by 60%, before going back to normal speed over the course of 3 seconds. Projectiles slowed by displacement are permanently slowed by 50%, and their damage decreased by 15%.
In pvp: Displacement would slow players by 30% and gradually return them to normal over 3 seconds.
Visual: Normal enemies that have been displaced would look like segment of their body have been cut offer and separated. These pieces eventually fuse back together as the slow effect decreases. Boss enemies would simply have a red hue to show they have been affected by displacement.
Rend - A high power single tick of damage in a small radius. This would be more helpful for taking care of healthier targets quickly. Hitting a barrier champion while they are shielded stuns them.
Visual: Rend would appear like a gash in the air, as if the universe itself was cut open. This gash would stay for half a second after a rend attack. This gash would look similar to the portals made by vergil in dmc5 (although more red instead of blue)
Guard points (splinter's main gimmick) When using a splinter powered melee, the first 0.3 seconds of the attack while have a guard point. If an enemy hits while the guard point is up, you will receive 60% reduced damage and be immune to one shots. It will also boost the damage of the melee by 50%. Projectiles will also proc the guard point depending on the overall damage of the projectile. Enemies hit by a guard point empowered melee are briefly flinched.
Visual/audio: When in the 'guard point stance' your guardian will radiate red splinter energy with white streaks. When hitting the guard point, the white streaks will turn black and make it resemble an impact frame.
The audio and animation of the melee would also change to make the attack feel more impactful.
Reflective plating - while reflectjve plating is active, gain 20% dr and empower your guard points to be more effective. Guard points with reflecting plate now active in the first 0.7 seconds of the melee rather 0.3, and will increase the damage resistance to 90%. Lastly, projectiles that hit the guardian while guard point is active will reflect back to the enemy (although for reduced damage)
In pvp: The only difference with pvp is that your head hit box will not be immune to one shots.
Visual: Reflective plating will look similar to guard point, the energy will just be much less intense.
Rupert drop (probably not what it would be in game but bubbles already taken) - Rupert drops are the splinter subclass pickups (even though you don't actually pick them up). Rupert drops are a hybrid between stasis crystals and tangles. They can be for either cover or they can be shot to pop into a small cutting explosion. When shot by their creator or allies, rupert drops will move away from where they were hit, the bigger tha damage, the faster it moves. Ruperts drop would have a 15 second cool down and be generated by killing enemies with rend.
Visual: Rupert drops would look like giant bubbles roughly the size of a guardian. when taking damage, they slow crystallize before exploding into shards of glass.
When spawning in. The rupert's drop would look as if its slowly being formed by pieces of glass coming out of the gash made by the rend.
Grenades:
Shred grenade - explodes on impact to create a moderately sized explosion (slightly larger than a scatter grenade) that would deal a total of 110 stack of cut over the course of 0.75 seconds.
Cleave grenade - sticks to target before exploding into a small radius rend attack.
Dispersing grenade - explodes into a field of displacement that slowly implodes to create a small displacement explosion. The initial field would act similarly to a dusk field grenade, while the implosion would be similar to a snare bomb in damage.
Subclasses:
Each of the subclasses would mirror the arc subclasses in a way, Since splinter would be the darkness antithesis to arc (like solastasis, void/strand)
Ronin - hunter subclass Where arcstriders use their hand to hand prowess and expertise with the pole arm, Ronin use their skill with the blade to fell even the largest of does with a single slash.
Ronins are inspired primarily by heroes from old samurai movies. Wandering swordsman who could defeat armies with nothing but their trusted sword.
The gameplay fantasy of ronin would consist of well timed guard points and high power single target damage using rending attacks. The subclass would have a higher skill ceiling than most, rewarding knowledge of enemy attack patterns with high damage attacks.
Melee - Unsheathing strike (2 charges) Striking enemies with your katana inflicts them with 30 stacks of cut. Standing still before attacking will increase the damage of the strike by 15%. When empowered by a guard point, the strike will deal 60 stacks of cut in a large radius.
Visual: The splinter katana's is made up of various uneven panes of broken glass. When empowered, the katana's blade goes from red and white to pure black.
Super - shimmering blade (roaming/one off) The Ronin unsheathes their blade when beginning the super. While in super, there are 2 attacks. Light attack - fast slashes that each deal 40 stacks of cut. Heavy attack - quickly sheathe the blade and become immobile. Releasing the attack button has the Ronin slash the air and rend every enemy in a large radius. This attack ends the super immediately.
Holding the attack for a longer period of time increases the damage of the rends, fully maxxing out at an 80% boost.
During the release of the attack, a guard point is active for 0.3 seconds (0.7 when reflective plating is active). Hitting the guard point immediately increases the attack damage to 80%, while also further boosting the range and damage by 15%.
Aspect 1 - crossguard slash After a successful guard point, follow up with a second slash that rends the opponent. Killing an enemy with slash regenerates 50% of your melee charge.
Aspect 2 - quickdraw sheathe Gives hunter a guard point during initial activation. Successful guard points now boost class a ability regeneration by 150% for 4 seconds.
Blastmarine - Titan subclass Blastmarines mirror arc strikers as both are 'soldier' subclasses. Where strikers are frontline fighters, blastmarines are the 'heavy artillery' weapons experts of their fireteam.
Where ronin are calm, collected samurai, Blast marines are loud, explosive 80s action heroes. Big guys with bigger guns.
The blastmarine gameplay fantasy consist of being the heavy weapons guy, battling the hordes of their enemies with their cutting and dismantling projectiles.
Melee - Knucklebuster Raise your left arm briefly (this is when the guard point is active) before cocking back their right arm's wrist cannon. Hitting enemies with this inflicts them with 50 stacks of cut. When empowered, the radius of the blast is increased and inflicts 80 stacks of cut
Visual: The guard point would resemble a boxer blocking a punch before counter attacking with a jab. The wrist cannon would resemble the red arm punch from ultrakill. The attack would also end with the blastmarine pumping their arm like a shotgun (cus it would look cool)
Super - devastator cannon (one off) The blastmarine would ready the cannon onto their shoulder (similarly to a scorch cannon). The cannon would need to be charged fo a short period before firing. The initial blast would deal high single target damage before imploding into this cloud large cloud of dismantling slashes. This cloud would last front seconds before disappearing.
Visual: the devastator cannon would look similar to a halo spartan laser, just much bigger and with a much bigger blast radius.
Aspect 1 - coverfire blaster Rally barricades now spawn in a heavy cannon for the blastmarine and their allies to pickup. This cannon fires at 300 rpm and has a total 25 rounds that it can fire before disappearing. These shots have a small aoe effect and each deal 20 stacks of cut. Continuous damage with the turret Grant's reflective plating. This aspect would act similarly to a gauss cannon from halo.
Aspect 2 - ballistic bombard
Enhance the functionally of your splinter grenades.
Shred grenade - improved radius and total damage and duration (now deals 170 stacks of cut over 1.5 seconds) Cleave grenade - can now be charged to skip across the ground up to 3 times. Each bounce creates a rend.
Dispersing grenade - increased radius of initial field and increased damage of implosion. Initial field now pulls in enemies and flinches them.
Glassformer - warlock subclass (name tbd) Where stormcaller is harmony within, the glassformer embraces the chaos of splinter to conquer the battlefield.
glassformers are inspired from crackpot scientists from monster movie. Creating inconceivable creations.
The gameplay of glassformers revolves around using rupert drops and creating unpredictable combinations.
Melee - broken flurry (2 charges) The glassformer sends a burst of 8 panes of splinter. Each pane inflicts 6 stacks of cut. When empowered, the total amount of panes increases from 8 to 12, they also can increased tracking to targets.
Visual: Each of the panes would shoot off from the glassformer's fingertips. When empowered, the panes turn black.
Super - razing burst (one off) The glassformer raises a giant ruperts drop infront of them, before slashing it with their splinter infused hand and rending it, this creates a large ape explosions that dismantle enemies in its radius. Enemies near the giant gashes are slowly pulled in.
Visual: Razing burst is essentially a large spherical blender that would pull in enemies not originally caught in its blast.
Aspect 1 - fracturing chasm Rends now linger for a longer duration and suck in enemies in radius of it. Killing enemies that are pulled grants reflective plating.
Aspect 2 - chromatic concoction Inflicting ruperts drops with elemntal verbs gives the explosion that property. (For example, applying jolt to the rupert's drop gives the explosion jolt.) A singular bubble can hold up to 3 new verbs.
Visual: When a verb is given to the ruperts drop, the respective subclass energy will begin swirling around the inside of the drop. The more verbs, the more colours swirling around.
Fragments: Fragments would be obtained similarly to strand, killing enemies with splinter will have a chance to give a 'shard of splinter'
Killing targets with rend reduces rupert's drop cooldown (0.5 seconds per enemy)
Apply more cut stacks
Picking up orbs of power grants reflective plating
Rapid finale blows with dismantle grant grenade energy
Precision finale blows against displaced enemies creates a displacing explosion
Super finale blows create cutting explosions.
Conclusion: I'm ngl this post is wayyyy longer than I thought it'd be. I wanted to just spitball an idea I had the other day for a new subclass

"I wanted to nab the thief while Exbo here wanted to get his buddy back. Although it was our first meeting, we fought together. That guy may have escaped, but we've decided to battle together from now on. Even if I meet new Pokemon along the way, I will still treat them the same way, because to me...Pokemon are my partners! We work alongside for the same goals, because...we are partners!"
Gold was raised around Pokemon, his home having so many it was known as the Poké House to those in the community. But after a chance encounter leads to his Pokemon being stolen and being the sole witness to a boy stealing Professor Elm's Totodile, Gold gives the police a false description of the thief before setting out with a Pokedex and a Cyndaquil to hunt him down himself. Along the way, Gold demonstrates a deceptive fighting style, often using his cue to send Pokeballs in strange directions and using other members of his team to hide the key play another Pokemon is performing, as well as an ability to nurture the full potential out of any Pokemon from as early as them being in an egg, earning him the moniker of 'the Hatcher'. With these skills, Gold would prove a key player as he faced off against the likes of a revived Team Rocket, a masked man seeking to rewrite time, and even Arceus themselves.
All feats are tagged with the chapter they appear in.

Gold

Physicals

Strength

• Shattered the Masked Man's mask with his cue¹⁷²
• With Silver, holds back a large metal boulder⁹⁸

Durability - Blunt Force

• Kicked in the face by Crystal⁴⁶⁰
• Struck in the back by Whitney's Miltank¹⁰⁵
• Kicked away by Sapphire while in a suit of armour³²⁸
• Hit back by the Masked Man¹⁷²
• Slammed into the ground by Ho-Oh¹⁶⁶
• Sent flying back from Arceus hitting the ground near them⁴⁵³
• Hit away by Arceus⁴⁵⁴
• Kicked by Arceus⁴⁵⁹

Durability - Other

• Thrown about by water as an island sized water construct strikes the Battle Tower³²⁹
• Sent flying into a distant wall by Guile³³⁴
• Bitten on the hand by Silver's Totodile⁹⁸
• Falls a distance onto a beach after his Mantine was struck out of the air by Lugia¹⁴⁸
• Struck by Masked Man's Deliberd's Icy Wind¹¹³
• Caught in Masked Man's Deliberd's Blizzard¹¹³
• Seemingly caught in Jirachi's Doom Desire³³⁴
• Seemingly knocked back by a beam from Arceus⁴⁵⁹

Speed

• Dodges an attack from a group of Bellsprout⁹⁷
• Dodges a beam from a Gyarados¹¹²
• Dodges a beam from Arceus⁴⁵³
• Dodges a spike trap suddenly appearing from a wall⁹⁸
• Saves a girl from an Ursaring strike¹⁰¹

Skill

Cue Shots - Regular

• Curves a Pokeball behind an opponent⁹³
• Hits Aipom's ball to the top of a tree, where they're then released⁹¹
• Hits a fleeing Pokemon with enough force to relocate its jaw¹⁰¹

Cue Shots - Ricochet

• While being swept away in a river in a storm, hits Exbo's ball so it rebounds off of two surfaces and gets him safely to shore⁹⁵
• Bounces a pokeball repeatedly between the walls, ceiling, and floor of a room with a single strike to make several Yanma dizzy¹⁵⁴
• Ricochets a Friend Ball repeatedly around two Pokemon before hitting a Heavy Ball at their two feet, sending both pokeballs to Gold's and Silver's hands respectively¹⁰¹

Other

• Throws his cue to block a pair of shutters from closing on Emerald³²⁸
• Drops a distance onto a board on a rough sea, maintaining balance for a short distance due to it being 'not so different' from skateboarding¹⁴⁶

Intelligence

Battles

• On numerous occasions has used a Pokemon as a distraction while a second Pokemon enacts his actual strategy in secret¹¹¹
• Returns Aibo before curving his ball around an opponent, allowing him to strike their behind⁹³
• Has the other Pokedex holders withdraw their Pokemon before having Aibo ride his skateboard with them at Guile Hideout, allowing all the Pokemon to be released directly on top of him³²⁹
• Throws Aibo in front of a charging Donphan before he uses his tail to pull himself to safety, in that brief moment successfully confusing the Pokemon and causing them to charge into a wall⁹⁶
• Goads a team of Bellsprout into stacking on top of each other, allowing Cyndaquil to take them all out at once⁹⁷
• Has a school of Remoraid attack Lugia's mouth, stopping the legendary from closing it and being able to use Aeroblast¹⁴⁸
• Calculates how long a Pokeball could endure a Dragonite's Hyper Beam, uses the fact that said Hyper Beam is not changing direction in midair to tell that its trainer isn't present to give it orders, and uses this to get the Dragonite to attack in a specific direction and allow Togbo to attack them from behind⁴⁴⁴

Deception

• Drops a straw doll from a tree as a decoy, allowing him to get behind the Masked Man to attack him¹⁰⁴
• Disappears in a smokescreen, intending to drive the Masked Man into pursuing him through a forest, while he had actually climbed a tree so he could climb back down when the coast was clear to save a trainer and his Pokemon¹⁰⁴

Other

• Modifies his skateboard with bike parts¹⁰⁵
• Hits Aipom's ball up a tree to release him before using a heavy pack as a counterweight to lift him up⁹¹
• Uses the fact Yanma have 360 degree vision in a plan to make them dizzy and have one drop a baby¹⁵⁴
• Has Aipom strike the centre of a stack of blocks, allowing the rest of his team to easily smash through the entire stack while they previously were only able to break through a few, winning him the round against a Machamp which could easily smash through stacks on his own⁴⁴³
• Memorizes all the obstacles on a course by going along it the wrong way on his skateboard, allowing him to guide his Togepi around it flawlessly when the Pokemon was blinded⁴⁴²
• Had the foresight to hold onto Emerald's broken mechanical hand, causing Archie to grab hold of it and allowing Gold to let him drop³³⁵

Gear

Pokedex

• His Pokedex shows a Pokemon's strength and attacks⁹⁵
• Identifies four Pokemon at once¹⁰³
• Identifies an attack as the Pokemon is lunging towards him¹⁰³
• Can perform trades with other Pokedex owners¹⁰⁹
• Is capable of tracking the energy of a specific Pokemon the owner has made contact with¹⁴⁹
  • Can't do this if the Pokemon's been caught by someone else⁴⁹
• When three Pokedexes in possession of their true owners are close to each other, all of them make a noise¹⁴⁶

Pokeballs

• Pokemon are held in pokeballs, which have a translucent top which Gold can see Pokemon through⁹³
• They and their Pokemon can return to Gold's hand as he wishes⁹³
• Protect Pokemon from attacks, though they can be destroyed⁴⁴⁴
• Pokemon can move their balls from the inside¹⁰⁷

Cue

• A cue, which he uses to perform trick shots with his pokeballs⁹³
• Clashes with Guile Hideout's sword³²⁹
• Used to quickly change his direction on a skateboard⁹⁶
• Throws it to stop metal shutters from closing on Emerald³²⁸
• Is collapsible³²⁸
• Holds it in his clothes, not his bag¹⁴⁵

Other

• His pokegear allows him to make and take calls⁹⁵
• A pair of goggles, used to protect him from the likes of Exbo's Smokescreen⁹⁸
  • Protect him from Sunbo's Flash¹⁰⁰
• Carries rope to climb up a pagoda⁹⁷
• Uses a skateboard to get around⁹⁵

Other

• Is given the title of 'The Hatcher' by Professor Oak, with him causing a Pichu egg to hatch the instant he touched it¹⁷⁸
  • This ability was developed due to him having lived with Pokemon he considered his family all his life, and allows him to draw out the full potential of a Pokemon¹⁸⁰
  • A Pokemon will have its personality influenced by the emotions felt by Gold as they hatch¹⁷⁹
• Guides his team into winning the Skill, Jump, Stamina, Speed, and Power Pokeathlon courses^442-443
• Despite all his skill, still cheats at pool at a games corner¹⁰⁷

Aibo the Ambipom

As An Aipom

Physicals

• Breaks a block with his tail⁴⁴³
  • When deliberately placing cracks on the centre of the top tile, Aibo could smash through ten plates at once⁴⁴³
• Holds up Gold while clutching a branch with his tail⁹¹
• Lifts up and throws an enormous Snowball⁴⁴²
• Thrown about by water as an island sized water construct strikes the Battle Tower³²⁹
• Struck away by a Donphan's Horn Attack⁹⁶
• Catches a nearby Sunkern in his tail so that Gold can catch them⁹⁹
• Reacts fast enough to catch Gold after the floor's broken beneath them⁹⁷
• Rapidly spins Gold's cue with his tail to enhance Exbo's fire³²⁸

Moves

• Scratch - Aibo repeatedly scratches a foe⁹¹
• Swagger - Confuses a Hoothoot, causing it to attack its trainer instead of falsely calling out that a timer's up⁹²
  • Is briefly in front of a charging Donphan before getting pulled away, with the Donphan getting confused and crashing into a wall⁹⁶
• Double Team - Creates an illusionary duplicate, allowing him to dodge an attack¹¹³
• Agility - Greatly increases Aibo's speed¹⁷²
• Baton Pass - Passes stat increases, such as that gained through Agility, to another of Gold's Pokemon¹⁷²
• Double Hit - Allows him to attack opponents on opposite sides of him at the same time with his tail, and immediately causes him to evolve⁴⁴⁸

Other

• Hears the sound of Unown through a wall in some ruins¹⁰⁰
• Has the ability Run Away⁴⁴²

As An Ambipom

Physicals

• Sent flying back from Arceus hitting the ground near them⁴⁵³
• Poked back by Arceus⁴⁵¹
• Hit by a beam from Arceus⁴⁵⁹

Moves

• Double Hit - Strikes a foe with his tails⁴⁵¹

Other

• Is level 83 and has the Technician ability⁴⁵⁶

Exbo the Typhlosion

As A Cyndaquil

Physicals

• Breaks through a wooden floor⁹⁷
• Gets bitten and scratched by Silver's Totodile⁹⁸
• Intercepts an attack which is about to hit Gold¹⁰³

Moves

• Ember - Shoots a tall pillar of fire from his back, burning Silver's hand while he's hanging on to a tall branch⁹⁴
  • Knocks out a tower of Bellsprout at once⁹⁷
  • Hits back a Primape while boosted by Sunbo's Sunny Day¹⁰⁸
  • Rapidly heats a large metal boulder, allowing Totodile to cool and shatter it with Water Gun⁹⁸
  • Creates a ring of fire around Silver to stop him from escaping⁹⁴
  • Breaks through a wall in a ruin¹⁰⁰
• Tackle - Exbo charges into an opponent⁹⁸
• Smokescreen - Covers an area in obscuring smoke⁹⁸

Other

• Used to cook food for Gold, though he increases the heat and quickly burns it¹⁰⁰
• Can't emit fire while bound up¹⁰⁰

As A Quilava

Physicals

• Alongside Silver's Croconaw and Crystal's Bayleef, stops Lugia's wing from crushing their trainers and hold it up before evolving¹⁴⁸
• Struck by Silver's Croconaw's Water Gun¹¹¹

Moves

• Ember - Works alongside Silver's Croconaw and Crystal's Bayleef to slightly deflect Lugia's Aeroblast¹⁴⁷
• Double Team - Creates an illusory duplicate, making Croconaw bite down on nothing¹¹¹
• Flame Wheel - Creates a wheel of fire around him, catching several Pokemon¹¹⁴

As A Typhlosion

Physicals

• Breaks three blocks with a punch⁴⁴³
  • When Aibo deliberately placed cracks on the centre of the top tile, Exbo could smash through ten plates at once⁴⁴³
• Alongside Silver's Croconaw and Crystal's Bayleef, continues to hold up Lugia's wing to stop it from crushing their trainers¹⁴⁸
• Thrown about by water as an island sized water construct strikes the Battle Tower³²⁹
• Sent flying back from Arceus hitting the ground near them⁴⁵³
• Hit by a beam from Arceus⁴⁵⁹

Moves

• Blast Burn - A stream of fire which, alongside eleven other Pokemon, destroys an island-sized water construct^335-336
  • Seems to knock back Arceus' head⁴⁴²
• With an unnamed fire attack enhanced by Aibo rapidly spinning Gold's cue, creates a powerful blast of fire which knocks back Guile Hideout³²⁸

Other

• Is level 84 with the ability Blaze⁴⁵⁶

Sunbo the Sunflora

As A Sunkern

Physicals

• Bounces extremely high, bringing Exbo's Pokeball up close to a flying Skarmory⁹⁹

Moves

• Flash - Emits a bright light which blinds several Team Rocket grunts and their Pokemon¹⁰⁰
• Growth - Presumably increases Sunbo's strength, though its effect has not been clearly shown¹⁰³
• Mega Drain - Presumably absorbs energy from an opponent, but it's not seen in use¹⁰⁴
• Sunny Day - Increases the power of nearby fire-type moves¹⁰⁸
• Giga Drain - Absorbs the energy of a Magcargo and a Sloking alongside Crystal's Parasect¹⁶⁴

As A Sunflora

Physicals

• Sent flying back from Arceus hitting the ground near them⁴⁵³
• Hit by a beam from Arceus⁴⁵⁹

Moves

• Sunny Day - Increases the strength of Exbo's fire attacks¹⁷²
• Solar Beam - Used off-screen⁴⁵⁹

Other

• Is level 75 with the ability Chlorophyll⁴⁵⁶

Polibo the Politoed

As A Poliwag

Moves

• Water Gun - Sends a Donphan flying back with a stream of water¹⁰⁸

Other

• Draws water from underground while using water type moves¹⁰⁹

As A Politoed

Physicals

• Breaks a block with a punch⁴⁴³
  • When Aibo deliberately placed cracks on the centre of the top tile, Polibo could smash through ten plates at once⁴⁴³
• Alongside Red's Poliwrath, breaks apart Archie's armour³³⁵
• Struck with Guile's knee³³⁵
• Sent flying back from Arceus hitting the ground near them⁴⁵³
• Hit by a beam from Arceus⁴⁵⁹
• Struck by Masked Man's Deliberd's Icy Wind¹¹³
• Caught in Masked Man's Deliberd's Blizzard¹¹³
• Dodges a beam from a Gyarados¹¹²
• Dodges a beam from Arceus⁴⁵³

Moves

• Water Gun - Harms Tyranitar with a stream of water, possibly shooting three streams at once though this could simply be representing how fast Silver's Murkrow is moving to block it¹¹¹
• Whirlpool - Creates a whirlpool at the Lake of Rage to stun a Gyarados¹¹²
  • Uses the destroyed rubble left behind by a giant Piloswine to defeat it, with Silver reasoning that it can do so because the Piloswine's earthquake shockwaves made the solids act like liquids¹¹⁰
• Double Slap - Repeatedly hits an opponent¹¹²
• Dynamic Punch - Polibo lunges forwards with a powerful punch¹¹³
• Hypnosis - Puts a crowd of Pokemon to sleep at once¹⁶⁶
• Perish Song - Instantly knocks out Masked Man's Delibird, but also knocks out Polibo himself¹⁷²
• Bounce - Used off-screen⁴⁵⁹

Other

• Is level 80 with the ability Water Absorb⁴⁵⁶

Sudobo the Sudowoodo

Physicals

• Lifts up a large piece of rubble¹⁶⁶
• No-sells Whitney's Miltank's Tackle and Exbo's Ember¹⁰⁵
• Sent flying back from Arceus hitting the ground near them⁴⁵³
• Hit by Silver's Ursaring's Fury Swipes¹¹¹
• Bitten by Ho-Oh¹⁶⁶
• Hit by a beam from Arceus⁴⁵⁹

Moves

• Focus Punch - Strikes a Rhydon, knocking it out¹⁰⁶
• Low Kick - He extends his leg forwards at crazy angles, tripping up an opponent¹¹¹
  • Seemingly used fast enough to create afterimages⁴⁵⁵
• Dynamic Punch - Lunges forwards with a powerful strike which breaks stone¹¹¹
• Mimic - Sudobo uses the move his opponent's most recently used, allowing him to trade Fury Swipe blows with Silver's Ursaring¹¹¹
• Mud Slap - Throws up mud in a failed attempt to hold off Ho-Oh¹⁶⁶
• Flail - After being bitten by Ho-Oh, sends the legendary flying away¹⁶⁶
• Rock Tomb - Used off-screen⁴⁵⁹

Other

• Is level 78 with the ability Sturdy⁴⁵⁶
• Is capable of growing to create a highly convincing tree disguise, shrinking when revealing himself¹⁰⁶
  • Tricks a Gligar into landing on him like this in order to catch it¹⁰⁷

Togebo the Togekiss

As A Togepi

Physicals

• Immediately after hatching knocks Gligar back a short distance before getting hit away¹⁰⁷
• Seemingly endures part of a Dragonite's Hyper Beam after the Pokeball took the brunt of the attack (with said beam being able to destroy stone), then takes out the Dragonite with an attack to the back of the head⁴⁴⁴
• Struck away by a Dotrio⁴⁴²
• Sent flying back from Arceus hitting the ground near them⁴⁵³
• Struck away by Arceus before being hit point-blank by a beam⁴⁵⁹
• Hit by a beam from Arceus⁴⁵⁹

Moves

• Metronome - Uses a random move, in its debut appearance hitting a Gligar with a beam strong enough to knock them out¹⁰⁷
• Double Edge - Pierces into a Tyranitar's foot, taking it down¹¹¹

Other

• Is level 81 with the ability Hustle⁴⁵⁶
• Runs at full pelt around an obstacle course, following Gold's commands to dodge obstacles⁴⁴²
• Is a delinquent from birth due to Gold taking them to Game Corners while they were still an egg¹⁰⁷

As a Togekiss

Physicals

• Flies carrying Gold⁴⁶⁰

Moves

• Double Edge - Charges into Arceus, staggering them⁴⁵⁹

Tibo the Mantine and 20 Remoraid

Moves

• Water Gun - The Remoraid all blast Lugia with streams of water, forcing its mouth to stay open¹⁴⁸

Other

• Flies through the air with Gold hanging on with his cue¹⁴⁷

Pibu the Pichu

Moves

• Enhanced by Raikou's power, releases a powerful electric blast dubbed Super Rising Thunder to attack Pryce¹⁸⁰