It was horrible.  Hey guys it's Leanna and I'm here today to talk about Aurora Rising by Jane Kristoff and Amy Kaufman. Oh my god I am so shook by how bad this was. So full disclosure when they first announced this book I was skeptical like I don't I can't tell you why I literally cannot but for some reason like the sixth sense like part of me as soon as I saw it heard of it saw that it was purple I was like I feel like I'm not gonna like this I don't know why I know nothing about it except who there is writing it and I love them so I should think it's gonna be great but something about it I was like I have a feeling this is not gonna be as good part of me was like rationally skeptical because I was like you did illuminate and you did good so doing another sci-fi series feels like you know bottling lightning twice like you know what I mean where I was like okay you did that so this seems too similar so it seems like it's like trying to be more of that but just you know you know like the yeah you know like pouring more water over the same coffee grounds like now you did it we got it like do something else now so I went into this it was fairly low expectations but also like I was like this j christofen amy coffman so I went into it thinking for some reason I don't think this is going to be my cup of tea but I do expect that at the very least it will be well written and that I'll come away from it going that wasn't my jam but well done it was executed well because they're good writers um it was not it was horrible it was such a pile of steaming garbage like I cannot even like I can't honestly believe that j christofen amy coffman wrote this like I'm shocked I gave this two stars just because like I couldn't bear the idea of giving it one star even though genuinely I think it deserves one star I might go back and change it later but I was like j christof one star what so for now as of filming this video it stands at two on my goodreads but it's horrible it's horrible okay so um I can't really talk about it without giving you spoilers so if you haven't read this and you still want to and you care about spoilers then I mean a lot of people love it so go ahead and read it and then come back if you didn't but pretty much from here on out the video is going to be spoilery so just uh I'm a huge fan of j christofen amy coffman and I hated this so take from that what you will so arorizing feels like a daytime television knockoff of so many good things and so it feels unoriginal and bad so that's just like even worse there's like the way that it ended was so bonkers that that's like part of the reason I gave it two stars is because it was I didn't like it and I thought it was crazy but it was inventive enough to where I was like I feel like that deserves some credit like wasn't that ending wasn't boring it was just bonkers so you know credit where credit is due so I didn't see that coming so I guess we may as well start with what it's about if you don't know I'm arorizing the tagline we were all given is they're not the heroes we wanted they're just the ones we could find which in and of itself pisses me the fuck off because it's the most misleading marketing and the most misleading tagline I've ever heard because from that I don't know about you but I for one would read that and go this is going to be a group of misfits a group of people who are stuck in a situation that they weren't anticipating weren't expecting were thrown into it are just randos that have got to make it work and that is not what this book is about this book is about elites who are extremely well trained to do the things that they are being asked to do so like fuck you that tagline doesn't belong here it doesn't that's not what this book is so from the outset I feel deceived basically it follows squad 312 who are all humans and other species in the future like the year it's like 300 years in the future or something we've been training at the aurora academy to basic it's like starfleet you know or like their mission is peace and then obviously ends up being warlike but like in theory it's like diplomatic the un of space so they've all been treating the training there to be pilots to be like techs to be like to study the languages like to basically starfleet so again knock off of something it's very much like star trek and these are like new graduates of the starfleet academy why don't we just go ahead and refer to it as the starfleet academy throughout the rest of this video because we may as well so there's like multiple perspectives in this book and it's too many that is if that was the only problem this book would be it would be fantastic but it doesn't help that there are so many perspectives that you keep jumping around and they are with a few exceptions they sound almost exactly the same so you don't really feel like you're in a bunch of different head spaces you kind of have to be like wait who is talking now so they are they are all the povs are all these cadets who are in this squad from the starfleet academy and then aurora and aurora was like in like cryo sleep and the the head of this squad from aurora academy starfleet academy whatever the fuck his name is tyler um before the draft uh he goes out into the fold which again knock off they describe it as like here's space and here's the point and here's the point you want to be and and there's like a hundred million years at light speed to get across but what if we took space and folded it so now they're touching and that's the fold and i was like that metaphor has been used and abused by so many sci-fi books and shows but okay you can do it too so he wanders into the fold and he discovers this ship where aurora has been in cryo sleep and like finds her and rescues her and brings her aboard and she was supposed to she wakes up thinking that it's only like a few days or months because she was heading to a colony with they were just like terraforming and colonizing and she was heading there to be with her family and she's like what the fuck it's 200 years later um which is fine like that's an interesting premise who's mystery girl and why has she been out here for 200 years so that's interesting you have my attention but aurora's perspective made me want to die she wakes up and like at the very first she doesn't realize it's 200 years in the future so like okay like i'll accept that she doesn't realize how crazy the situation is yet and she sees tyler thinks his face is very attractive then is like he's shirtless and his shirtless body is very attractive and oh my god he's pantsless too and that is also very attractive and that's like all she's thinking about and then she realizes that it's like 200 years in the future and she's like freaking out about that because what the fuck what the fuck and everyone i ever knew and loved is dead and where am i now and there's aliens around and she's like freaking out which is fine again i would freak out too she does not freak out enough though for the rest of the book like after initial freak out we get like constant repetition from all povs calling her this girl out of time just to remind you that that's her status her situation but the way that she behaves she's she's like snarky and like irritable and annoyed with the people around her like she would have such like severe shell shock and culture shock that if she reacted like with hostility i would be okay with it i would understand it but no she's like annoyed the way you are when you like go on a team project in like university and you can't stand the people you've been paired with and you're like oh i cannot even and i was like based on her situation like so sorry i had to take a two hour break because my neighbors decided that power washing was a good idea today so i've had second breakfast and i started reading a book i was getting saltier and saltier waiting for them to shut the fuck up so i'm in a prime mood to continue ranting i'm just even saltier now so two hours ago where was i aurora should be more triggered is i believe where i was left off yeah so pretty sure i covered her thinking he's hot which whatever and then she's yeah oh yeah she's super just like snarky all the time so when she gets in with this squad and we'll get into how she gets in with this squad in a second but being like around the other characters who are in squad 312 she's annoyed with them and like one of them is an alien actually two of them are aliens and she immediately instead of being like holy fuck like he's an alien like if i met someone who was just a different culture from me i would be like super careful and worried about how to behave around them and like not wanting to accidentally insult them and make them want to kill me like you know what i mean like she's a little extremely out of her depth but no she tells him he's being a jackass and like and is annoyed with how uppity he is and i was like this is not realistic like the tone of this feels like doctor who or like a daytime sci-fi show where people behave in a way that like is not remotely realistic for like an actual space situation but makes for like funny television you know what i mean so that's the tone of this whole book aurora herself should be way more shell shocked should be like kind of hysterical but no she's like we get frequent internal monologue where she's like oh my god everyone i ever knew was dead like everything i've ever known is gone just to remind us that that is the situation because her behavior certainly would not remind us of that being the situation because she doesn't behave like that's true she behaves like somebody who like you know missed their bus and is stranded in a city they've never been to before like that level of like a little out of their depth like if you took and got on the wrong flight and went to morocco instead of florida and you're like whoa not like it's 200 years in the future everyone i've known is dead aliens exist we're in space like you know what i mean and then in addition to her behavior being not realistic whatsoever in terms of what her situation is she like doesn't swear like she has something against swearing and like finally later on in the story one of the other characters was like why can't you swear like a normal person and she's like oh like is anything about me normal oh it's just like because up until that point it was driving me bananas and it continued to drive me absolutely bonkers that when she wanted to swear or express frustration she would say things like son of a biscuit and i was like i mean like we're talking like galactic mind breaking like completely shattering your reality situation and she's going son of a biscuit i can't i can't i cannot and then okay a rora at least is she was training to go to this colony so but she's not like training to be like an elite cadet in a space force so if her behavior was a bit casual a bit amateurish i that part would be believable her reaction to her situation is not believable but her being amateurish is fine the rest of the squad who are actually elites they're not misfits in any way shape or form their behavior is so juvenile their banter is so juvenile and so inappropriate for the situations that they are in their reactions to things are so irrational and like if they were civilians thrown into a situation like this where they're not used to self-sacrifice they're not used to taking orders they're not used to like being practical then maybe then maybe i would say this kind of behavior makes sense but they've been training for this so the way they behave around each other where they think it's appropriate to to throw in a joke at all times literally all times no matter what the level of situation whether it's just like some trouble with the gear or they think they're gonna die the banter is like daytime sci-fi television and like like really bad ya it's so cringy and like every single one of them is just like snark tm just constantly and i was like i snark has to be appropriate has to be clever and it can't be all the time and it can't be every single character like it it doesn't work then you have to have like something to balance it out like that's why johnny depp's character worked so well in pyres of the caribbean in the first one after that they also missed the mark the way that this book did johnny depp's character is used his character is used sparingly and it is a fantastic like counterpoint to how serious um like wil turner's character is and how serious um elizabeth swan's character is an even honestly barbosa compared to him like they're very different in their and each of them has a moment here or there where they might see something funny but it's balanced so this is not balanced this is why every pov feels the same minus one and we'll get to him because they are all extremely rational extremely selfish and extremely snarky all the time and i i i'm i can't take seriously the situation they're in it's not funny it's not appropriate and and and and and and we'll get to how bonkers the plot is i mean i'm just getting started this is gonna be a long video so just settle in illuminay the illuminay files which i love again i love j christoff's writing and amy koffman and illuminay i haven't read anything else by her so in illuminay the main if you've read it then you know and if you haven't i'll tell you it's sci-fi but the main characters in each of the books tend to be people who are thrown into a situation that they were not prepared for that they are not necessarily in some cases yes some cases know where they are just civilians um perhaps they have some training or background that is applicable to what is happening to them but they are not like part of a government force they're not part of a a military like they're just passenger civilians who have like who have to like like take it upon themselves to save everyone because no one else will so their reactions to things are at times like they kind of like freak out and lose it or like they're slightly too casual than is appropriate but it comes across in illuminay as being like people out of their depth and kind of dealing with it and like kind of needing humor um because this is a little overwhelming and if you're not gonna crack jokes you're probably gonna crack under the stress of it and that works to great effect and it's perfect because that is kind of how humor like that in a situation like that would work like battlefield humor where you're like i'm freaking out right now so i'm gonna make a joke so that i stop freaking out because this is too much for me to deal with right now so like let's laugh and not think about how we're all gonna die like that's how illuminay is and the fact that and the people in illuminay take their situation far more seriously which given that they're civilians if they didn't it would be more forgivable and they do they do take it seriously as much as they are able and as and they make decisions as as rationally as they are able given that they're not trained for this and it's great it works wonderfully and there's a ton of humor and snark and and humor situations that arise from what's going on because they're just kind of winging it um it doesn't work in a roar rising when everyone here is being snarky as fuck like constantly and it's not funny like again it's not clever and the snark is so inappropriate for these circumstances because they are supposed to know what they're doing they know what they signed up for and the situation they're thrown in is a little more than what they've signed up for for sure but their reactions are not appropriate so if you want me to take this story seriously because the way that overall the book goes you get the sense that this isn't one giant joke this isn't like an episodic daytime sci-fi show where it's just for like shits and giggles and alien jokes like it it's supposed to be like an actual meaningful story where you feel for the characters that is impossible when they're behaving in a way that makes no sense for them it's not appropriate for the circumstances and completely undermines any emotional impact of any situation again if they if the sense was that they are making jokes because they're freaking out and that's what's going on here okay but that is not how this comes across they have the most devil may care attitude all the time but also simultaneously you're like oh my god we're all gonna die we're freaking out and like it doesn't read true it's it's very difficult to empathize with any of it i was i wanted them all to die frankly like i did not care Aurora most of all because son of a biscuit was she annoying okay so so the tone of it the way it's written is just very difficult to get into for me very difficult to sympathize with and i think is horribly done it was also inconsistent um there are things about the world like the way that uh people would say things that does not make sense for the world the two examples that stand out in my mind i didn't take notes because i never do but these stood out in my mind enough to like remember them they keep referring to humans from like people from earth people who even if they aren't because this is the future so there's people like we've gone beyond earth um that's why Aurora 200 years goes on her way to a colony on another planet and they refer to earth than things and earth than people as terran um as being like terran is the word that they use and the humans use that word as well the future humans so there's a and they they use it frequently they talk about like terran customs and terran history and the people of old terra and like that's how it's referred to which is fine but one of the future humans not aurora again if aurora said this i'd buy it but she doesn't one of the other i think it's tyler the like squad leader he says at one point what on earth is going on don't think that would be a saying anymore it's possible we do have some like vestigial structure type um like phrases that we use to this day like in our world but because it seemed so pervasive that they constantly say terra and they have a whole new religion they have all these new things and new expressions and new slang but for some reason what on earth is going on is still like a thing like in other sci-fi tv shows the bad ones characters will say like what in the verse is going on because now we're talking on a universe scale which is more appropriate when you're talking about intergalactic travel and life so like the moment he said what on earth is going on i was like you're in a spaceship right now in the middle of outer space what do you mean what on earth is going on you're not even fucking on earth but so little stuff like that like you got to pay attention to detail like i hold j and amy to a high enough to a higher standard like if this was some debut novel also sidebar yeah if this was their debut like this was if i was reading their backlist and after having read illuminate and never night and all these other books that i was like i want more so i went back to what the first thing is that they ever wrote and i read this i'd be like yikes they've really improved with time like i'm glad i didn't read this when it came out because then i would never have read anything of their later work but this is their newest so there's i don't understand this retro grass anyway um yeah so i expect better because they not only have they written plenty of other stuff before they've written sci-fi before so this is not an this is it should be in their wheelhouse that kind of attention detail and given how detailed j's world building is in never night um i there's no excuse for this another example of this kind of inconsistency and like nitpicky but i think uh worthy of note um there are different alien races that are described to us um like they have names um the way that in star trek you have Vulcans um like they they are referred to as specific cultures specific species but there's a moment where we're in the pov of again not aurora and not even a human we're in the pov of one of the alien members of the squad 312 and they're like on um it's not a planet it's not a station but they're like they're in a place and on this screen pops up something and he's describing um what he's seeing on the screen because also all of this is told in first person present tense which is weird but anyway he sees what pops up on screen and he says that it's an alien and then he kind of describes what he looks like and he doesn't say he doesn't later tell us the name of that species he doesn't nothing he just says he's an alien and i'm like alien to you alien to a human what the f*** does that mean like you're not even on earth right now you're on some like space station planet thingy you yourself are not a human so as far as we're concerned you're an alien so when you are looking at this and saying there's an alien that popped up on screen what does that mean by what metric are they alien alien to what so as soon as he said that i was like what again if aurora had said that or thought it i'd be like yeah she's adjusting to the whole existence of aliens period so if at right now she's still absorbing all this and it's just like all of them they're aliens like i'd be fine with that thought process no problem but no it's an alien character who is thinking this like what the f*** there's other ways to handle it like i just you could have conveyed to the reader that this person that popped up on screen was a non-human is very annoying to me okay so the plot is bonkers and it is a total ripoff of firefly if you've ever watched firefly the tv show and then the movie serenity this is a really sorry upside down this is a really shitty version of firefly mixed a little bit with six of crows with a guest appearance by thranduil from the hobbit yikes to all of that so for those who don't know firefly does actually follow a band of misfits which is what this purported to be but it is not but firefly does follow a ragtag crew of like outlaws very sort of wild west style and they uh have agreed to take on passengers for the cash and they'll agree to transport cargo for cash like they'll pretty much do anything for cash and a lot of illegal stuff so um there's like the main crew and then there are a couple of passengers and they discover that one of these passengers his cargo is actually another person and that person was like kind of in cryo sleep and when she wakes up she's kind of weird and wonky and like seems to have like extraordinary powers and she's not making a lot of sense and she's one of the passengers sister and he rescued her because the government was doing stuff to her so she's basically aurora and then the rest of the crew is like well what the fuck are we gonna do with her we did not sign up for this um and then they're kind of stuck with her and they when the government does come for in firefly for a river um the crew decides like you know what no like we're not going to let the government take her um and they decide to make it their problem that's literally the plot in the beginning of aurora rising they've discovered aurora like ty saved her from cryo sleep but so now they've gone off on their squad mission meanwhile aurora has been told in a very cryptic mysterious like you know the government's watching kind of way that she shouldn't trust what she's being told she shouldn't let anyone take her back to terra she should be a stowaway on squad 312 ship uh squad 312 discovered their stowaway and we're like what the fuck why is aurora on our ship why is this our problem and then the government comes to try to collect aurora and then well at first they want to give her to the government but then they're like just kidding the government's going to kill us as witnesses too and aurora displays her voodoo powers and kill some of the government so they're like this is our problem now and they decide to help aurora escape so that's literally firefly except shitty so aurora seems to have these mysterious powers that like get woken up whenever she's like unconscious or gets knocked out or gets threatened she gets like possessed and like voodoo demon style like has telekinetic powers and like doesn't know what she's doing it doesn't remember it um which is fine like this is sci-fi so if this was happening in a fantasy book i'd be like okay but it's sci-fi so i was like i guess like it kind of comes across as like a sleeper cell and sleeper cells are things so the fact that she would be triggered by a keyword or the fact that every time she gets knocked out like a part of her like subconscious brain comes to the force like something like that like i'll i'll bite that's possible the fact that she would display telekinetic ability is like i mean yeah it's sci-fi so like i guess it's possible like i'll bite again that like they figured out a way to like trigger a human mind to do that like okay but the way it comes across is very like her eyeball changes color and that's why her hair is white and it's basically like superhuman and very very magical like the way it comes across and i don't mean magic like a good way just like this seems like it's magic not science that okay and so they're all a little terrified of aurora as they would be and aurora is like oh for knows what's happening to me but it once again most of the time like in her internal monologue she's like i'm a girl out of time and it's everyone i ever knew is dead and like i wonder what this power inside of me is it's kind of frightening and then goes about her day being irritated annoyed generally emotional as a teenage girl would be and i was like i would be having such a crisis of identity and reality i would be terrified of what's inside me like i'm possessed by a demon is how this comes across because you lose control of your mind and body and do things that you don't remember doing i would be losing my shit if i was 200 years in the future i don't recognize anything or any one there are aliens there's something inside me like i would have a mental breakdown but she's like dang this is like a lot to handle but back to being annoyed that this guy is being so condescending because she gets annoyed when people talk down to her even though she's from 200 years ago so she doesn't know how anything works and she's like i'm not stupid and i'm like i don't think that's where my head would be at i don't think i'd be offended if somebody was condescending or afraid i'd be like i'm afraid to like please lock me up like i don't know what's happening and i can't control it so i don't know please knock me out i want to die now she's now she's cool so in one of her like witchy voodoo spells she sets she like like forces some like the other crew to like back away from her and sets the coordinates to go to this place that's like a a planet made out of spaceships all joined together kind of like an outlaw outpost city thingy so that's where they're going and they're like why are we going there she's like i don't know because i don't remember plugging that into the thing but i guess we'll have to find out and so they're like okay so they go there and like they have to go buy clothes and like fit in because they're all on the run now and this is again where i got annoyed with the crew because the whole time they're just cracking lies making all kinds of jokes when they get there the the sassy super flirty twin sister of ty is gonna she's like oh i don't trust you to buy clothes none of you have the fashion sense that i do and she buys heels for herself and i was like if you behaved like this and were a civilian i would be fairly annoyed at your inability to comprehend like the gravity of your situation but you are an elite from a rora academy and this is where your head is at like selena sardovian which that's not good coming from me that's what i hate about selena but that's what she's like so she goes off and someone makes them like oh my god i'll never be able to understand how you can run in heels and she's like aren't they fabulous and i was just like what what even is this if she was like if they were caught wearing whatever they just happened to have on them they were civilians like add up like in those slasher movies where like it's prom night and now they're on the run so like the girls are all on the run in ball gowns and heels like that just is what it is you didn't plan for it and if that's what would have if that's what was happening here where she just happened to be wearing heels because they were at some like space gala and that was what she was wearing and they're like wow you can run in heels and she's like yeah i can run in heels i'd be okay but she's sought out heels in this situation where she should anticipate they would need to possibly run because they are fugitives like what you deserve to die and then like one of the characters oh there's another inconsistency that drove me absolutely bonkers ty's like childhood best friend slash like girl that he banged and is now like super jealous because like they're like not dating but they're both like we definitely slept together so there's like tension um she has an australian accent and i don't understand that because they are childhood friends so like they talk about having memories from like when they were five that they knew each other that long so why doesn't he have an australian accent they clearly grew up in the same area around the same people why the fuck does she have an australian accent i don't understand why she would have one at all because they're not taren i mean like they're humans but they don't seem to have grown up on earth so why the fuck does she have an australian accent is it just because she named you're australian so wouldn't that be fun like sure if you want to make this whole thing a giant joke then go for it or write in an actually legit reason for her to have an australian accent like maybe make one of the characters that didn't grow up with this other character have an australian accent that would make more sense but why why so plot is bonkers so yeah so when they're on this this planet of ship things there's like a situation where like they have to steal this artifact because aurora's had another like voodooie witch moment where she drew something on the wall and they're like that thing is a thing thing that we recognize and some evil like mob boss guy who's throwing a party conveniently has that thing in his vault and so let's go to the party and like infiltrate and like get the thing and i was like anytime i see a tv show where like it's one of those like they're doing the party episode like that's what this is this is the party episode where it's an excuse to have your people dress up in like fun clothes and i was like okay we're doing this so they go to this thing and like they steal it and they keep getting attacked by government thingies that have masks on and when they everything goes fine they get the thing and they get back on the ship but like two of their crew like strip the armor from the government thing so they could impersonate the government people and they have footage of it and these government people they're like infected by like a plant like virus like their eyes have like our plants like leaves coming out of their eye sockets they don't have eyeballs and there's like moss on them and they're like there's there's they're clearly not okay and one of them is somebody that aurora recognizes from 200 years ago so they're like what so they have this device and this device seems to like be like a star map to the colony that she was originally supposed to go to that nobody believes existed but she's like i swear it existed i swear that's where i was meant to be going and they're like the records don't say that but she's like the government's hiding it and these people were meant to be there with me and they're made out of plants now so let's go there and find out what's happening so that's what they do they get there and like before i i don't want to get to what happens on that planet yet because i realized that i have not yet addressed thranduil and that deserves like a full 10 minutes of my attention because fucking thranduil he's probably the most interesting character and the most believable in terms of like his reactions to stuff and yet his plot arc is them by far the most nauseating and i wanted to die because thranduil alien dude who i'm not joking like he's just like oh my god and this too like aurora keeps making jokes and calling him lord elrond and like referring to him like using lord of the rings jokes about him so it's not remotely subtle and like there's all these jokes about how like no one gets her jokes because it's from 200 years ago so not only does the alien not get it because he's an alien the other humans are like what so they still say what on earth is going on but they don't know who tolkin is so that's fine so yeah that's where aurora's headspace is at she's not having a mental breakdown she's cracking wise about how this alien who she may be offending um she's annoyed with his attitude and she calls him lord elrond multiple times i wanted to die anyway he's like silver haired pointy-eared super tall super strong warrior part of his race and there's like a whole backstory about why he's like shunned by his people because there was like a civil war and blah blah and it doesn't matter so he's got a massive chip on his shoulders basically it's a reason for him to be like brooding and like self-hating but he's like joined aurora's academy and like wants to like do better but he's got this inner violence that he's like struggling with and i was just like oh my god i can't deal with this so he's the brooding bad boy who looks like rando wheel and um he uh the moment he sees aurora he seems extremely protective of her instantly and um that's because he imprinted on her it's uh they referred to it as the pole and there's some bullshit about how everything in like everywhere has a gravity to it and that like your gravity manages my gravity and that like i didn't want to tell you that this is like he doesn't he thinks it's a he should fight it because she shouldn't have the burden of this like mating bond on her because he never expected it he says all that bullshit about how i after the war that he went through and all the pain in his heart he never expected to feel anything for anything or anyone ever again and let alone for a human but he can't deny this pole so every time aurora is in danger at all he's like what the fuck and like comes in there and sweeps in and gets ultra defensive and violent and it's horrible but fine okay so he's like not telling her about it which i feel like is a good choice but of course then when he goes like full psycho and attacks one of the crew because the crew pulls out like a stun gun and tries to use it on aurora and he loses his shit about it and is like has to be talked down and the tie the head of the their squad is he knew about the mating bond because he was like you're acting weird and uh he's like you told me you could keep this under control and he's like i thought i did but i have i have brought dishonor upon my family kind of thing and i was like i can't deal with this and so he decides to explain to aurora why he reacted this way and about this whole mating bond thing and how like no pressure like we're going to get through this mission we're going to make sure she's safe and then after that he's going to piece the fuck out and let her live her life because this shouldn't be her problem but just as an fyi that's why he's acting the way he is but no pressure girl like i will die for you but like you know no worries like if you don't like me it's chill and she's like as you would be i guess like if brandy will came up to me and was like you are my reason for breathing i'd be like aha wow it's a lot to deal with on top of everything else but she's like okay so when they get to the planet whereas the colony that she was supposed to be going to 200 years ago um they discover pretty much instantly that everything is covered by these weird planty things that seem to be infecting the people that are after them and um there are chimpanzees there that are also infected by it and there's like a whole joke about that about other the other aliens like not knowing what a chimp is because the humans try to explain that it's like a hairy human that's not as smart and like they try to explain that they sent chimps into space and they're like they sound very smart and they're like oh no like it's automated like we just send them to see what would happen and like it's this whole thing they really make it into a thing and i was just like are you soap boxing about how wrong it is that we use animals like i agree with you but are we doing that right now like why so everything on the planet that was meant to be this colony is infected by this plant thing um and i feel like the moment i saw that which is pretty apparent the moment that they land oh yeah they do crash land because the government is after them so they can't leave they have to try to actually find the colony and hope that there are parts they can use to fix their ship which is you know very convenient for the plot so they get out of the ship and put on their hazmat gear and whatever and start trekking to like try to find the colony and find their equipment and they're encountering chimps and the land infected by this plant thing and then humans and the humans are basically just like vessels for this hive minded plant monster that wants to take over the universe and has been dormant and one of the ancient races of aliens from the before time defeated the evil demon monster plant and um like it's been lying low and ever since then and so it's like having its res it's resurgence because like people came to this planet and like gave it what it needs and aurora is like the secret weapon of this ancient alien race and that's why she's getting all witchy and voodoo-y because she is like the key to destroying them once again to defeating them once again you don't know how because she talks about her dad and her mom who are dead from the from when she remembers and she's just like a normal girl and there's no sense of like her being experimented on by the government or her anything like that just for some reason she's a vessel for this alien race and is the secret weapon for defeating the hive minded evil alien devil plant that wants to take over the universe that's that's the plot of aurora rise what i don't i don't when i got to the plant thing and all these humans that were like talking as like you will join us and become one with the us that is this plant thing and like and one of the crew the australian one gets infected so we get like internal monologue of her getting infected and becoming one with the thing which was frankly like kind of chilling and that was like probably why i gave this two stars that and i because jay maybe wrote it and i couldn't bear to give it one but the whole plant thing at the end i was like this is genuinely unnerving it's bonkers and stupid and i don't think this is a good plot but i'm creeped out right now for sure this plant thing is really terrifying and her like slowly transitioning from like i want an eye field to we are one and then she's psychically like fights the thing off which is just unbelievable like the way it's written is it again feels like magic where she's like they are in my mind but i am in theirs and i can hold them off long enough for my crew to escape so they do everybody except australian girl who thai is in love with and he's getting all weepy over and uh they escape and they're like well aurora is now like the secret weapon so we better go and find what makes her work and defeat the alien plant thing which is still hanging out and that's what the next book will be about and presumably they're going to try to find a way to save australian girl who they left on that planet to become part of the plant thing i don't even know what to say it's so bad it's tragically bad i i have no words like mating bond are you fucking serious right now like i what i got to that like and oh my god when they were on the the plant planet and like aurora starts being like you know maybe i would grow to like you it's time did you ever think of that and he's like no i never thought that at all and i wanted to die i was like this is so weird and ground so why is this happening and like there's some bullshit about like her being the stars in the sky and his gravity and just oh god it was the most nauseating thing i've ever read oh god anyway this is devolving into just emotional venting and i have nothing more constructive to say just that i don't understand how amy coffin and j christoph wrote this book i don't understand what happened who let this happen this was one of the worst things i've ever read like let me know in the comments down below how you feel about this book um yeah i got nothing more to say post videos on saturdays so like and subscribe i'll see you next saturday


If you're one of our followers, this is a different unboxing than normal. It's not a pin or an ink. This is one of our other writing accessories. It's the Estherbrook B Book Holder and it's a brass book or a page holder that is really handy and also really, really well-made and it's adorable. This is the packaging. It keeps it really safe in this thick cardboard box with the foam insert and here's a better look at how it's made. It's got the embellished B on the top there and the Estherbrook logo is on the back side of that B and then you have these two extensions, but plenty of space there in between to give you room to tuck it around your notebook or a book or just a chunk of pages, whatever is helpful for you in the moment. The Estherbrook B Book Holder measures about three inches by three and a quarter inches. And here is a quick look at how you might want to use this book holder. You just slide it right over the edge of your pages of your notebook or book. It's great for a really nice looking way to hold your journal open while you're writing. This is the rose gold. It's also released in brass. Check it out at pinchlay.com.


All right. I want to start off by saying a little something about the talk I was originally planning to give. May it rest in peace. I'm not going to give this talk, but I want to say just a word about what it would have been. I was going to give a talk on the general subject of so-called national divorce. And I want you to know that the website, the domain, nationaldivorce.com, is in good hands. I own it. It was not cheap, by the way. That was not the usual $10 domain that you buy on Namecheap. But man, was it worth it. Because I released a book that I give away for free, and it's called National Divorce, The Peaceful Solution to Irreconcilable Differences. So that's what's waiting for you at nationaldivorce.com. If you look through this thing, I hope you will agree with me that after you read chapter 1, you will not look at the world the same way ever again. Chapter 1 is I couldn't be prouder of chapter 1 of that book. Now you can also get it through the miracle of technology.  I say, turn them on. Turn those cell phones on, because you can get this My Little E-book, National Divorce, delivered to you instantly this very minute. All you have to do, you're going to text the word national to the number 666866.  How about that? Now I could have programmed it where you go 666866 and you type in divorce. But then I felt like, what if your spouse is looking at what you're doing? They might get the wrong idea. So the word is national. All right, well instead of that talk, I'm giving a different talk. And there's a reason. There's a reason that there is no title given for my talk on your program. It's just luncheon with me. Now usually the reason is I forgot to give them the title until it was too late, and the programs had already been sent to the printer. But at this time, there was a reason behind it. It's because I'm giving a talk that Lou Rockwell does not want me to give. And it's called The Lou Rockwell I Know. Now Lou would hate this. This is the last thing in the world Lou wants. And in that way, he's very much like Ron Paul. Doesn't want people talking about him. He's happy to just do his work. Doesn't need public praise. Well, doggone at Lou, you're just going to have to sit there and take it. That's what I have to say to you, OK? I first met Lou in 1993, which all of a sudden just like in the blink of an eye has become like forever ago. 1993 is forever ago all of a sudden. I met him at the Mises University program. And even then, he was this soft-spoken figure, towering figure. I wasn't so sure I should speak to him. And then I saw him deal with a student. He probably won't even remember this. There's a student who clearly did not know who Lou Rockwell was. And went up to him and said, could I get a couple of more pillows for my dorm room, please? And Lou was so gracious in how he handled this situation there was no sense of, do you realize I'm Lou Rockwell? He got him the pillows. I was one of the very first summer fellows of the Mises Institute in 1995. And that summer, my grandfather fell ill, very, very ill. As a matter of fact, I began to find out that he was more or less on his deathbed and that he was asking the doctors, or I beg your pardon, he was asking family members, how long till Tom gets back home? I was in Alabama for the summer. How much longer till Tom comes back? And they told him, August, whatever. And he said to himself, I've got to hang on till then. So I found out about this. And Lou paid for me to fly home, to see my ailing grandfather before he died. Lou has done private, unknown kindnesses like this his whole life. Kindnesses that, as we all know, are not always reciprocated. Now Lou and his work have great personal significance for me as I'm going to share with you in a few moments. But the significance of Lou Rockwell for the Austrian school and for the world are of somewhat more general interest, so I'm going to begin there. We look at Ludwig von Mises. We look at a man of towering intellect and prolific output. And that figure of Mises can have the effect of obscuring just how desperate the Austrian movement was after World War II. Now as most of you in this room know, Mises himself held only an unpaid position at New York University where he directed his small seminar. Hayek, for his part, although he did not withdraw entirely from economics, as we know from the denationalization of money and his essays in A Tiger by the Tail, had nevertheless moved into related but distinct fields by that time. There was no institutional support for the Austrian school, and the number of people working in the tradition actively was desperately small. Now of course, the Austrian school got a major shot in the arm. I feel funny using that expression after 2020 when Hayek won the Nobel Prize in 1974, the year after Mises' death. And that same year, the South Royalton Conference was held in Vermont, and the remnant of Austrian scholars met there. And it's from that event that we often date the Austrian revival. But Joe Salerno, who of course is academic vice president of the Mises Institute, points out that we cannot overlook the significance to the Austrian movement and the Austrian revival of Murray Rothbard's man economy and state. After all, where did all these people who showed up at the South Royalton Conference come from? They had all been reading that book. And that was a book Mises himself had praised, and we know from his private papers that Mises' praise of Rothbard's work to individual correspondence was even more effusive than the praise he had uttered in public. Man economy and state, Joe says, kept the Austrian school alive. And I think we can say that Lou's founding of the Mises Institute was a watershed event of similar significance. And I'd like to quote here a passage from an article by Joe Salerno, who says this. When Rockwell founded the Ludwig von Mises Institute in 1982, he had single-handedly laid the institutional foundations for the restoration of sound Austrian economics, Austrian economics unabashedly inspired by the scientific vision of Ludwig von Mises. The Mises Institute was indispensable for rescuing the modern Austrian movement that had been initiated by Rothbard in 1962, and by the early 1980s was manifestly foundering. When Rockwell suggested the idea of an Austrian journal as an integral component of this institutional rescue effort, Rothbard immediately saw merit in the idea and seized upon the journal as the main instrument for reclaiming Austrian economics from those who had stripped it of its essential Misesian content in search of acceptance by mainstream economists. Hence Rothbard pushed for a distinctive and bold name for the journal that would proudly and explicitly proclaim Austrian economics as an alternative to the prevailing neoclassical Keynesian synthesis. He was opposed in this by a number of younger Austrians who argued for a less provocative and more nondescript name like the Journal of Market Process. But Rothbard perceptively recognized this concession on the journal title as a cover for and first step toward watering down the praxeological core of Austrian economics. I'm reminded of an incident some years ago in which a New York Times reporter showed up at the Mises Institute. Now, if this had been a typical libertarian institution, why the red carpet would have been rolled out for this reporter? Why, hello, good New York Times reporter, sir. We'd like to tell you about all the wonderful work we're doing here. And of course, we're confining ourselves to the range of opinion that you've so graciously allowed us. This was not exactly Lou Rockwell's reaction to finding out that a New York Times reporter had shown up at the Mises Institute. Lou's office, if you've been to the Mises Institute, you know is on the second floor. Lou found out there's a New York Times reporter in the building. He came shuffling right down those stairs and told the reporter that you're a mouthpiece for the regime and you're going to have to leave. And then he went right back up to his work. That's a boss. That's a boss move right there by all Lou Rockwell. Now nowadays, we observe many thousands of people working in the Austrian tradition and the great works of the school being read by millions. And we take this for granted. But this itself is an outcome of the work of Lou Rockwell and the Mises Institute. Because again, in 1982, there was no guarantee that the Austrian school would continue to grow and flourish instead of wither and fade. Lou brought the brightest students from around the world to the Mises Institute for entire summers to participate in the Summer Fellows Program before they went off to become significant academics in the United States and Europe. Now, I myself was a resident scholar at the Mises Institute from 2006 to 2010. And during the summers, I had weekly parties at my house. And this gave me the opportunity to get to know outside the confines of the Institute, the Summer Fellows. And I can tell you, these were truly the cream of the crop. And man, what fun we had, playing games, eating, a little drinking. I don't know why this is, but the American students always went way overboard and the European students were always moderate and in control of themselves. I don't know why that was. The American students would stumble out of our house and the Europeans would say, why thank you for having us at your home. All right, well, I don't know why that is, but that was the case. And we used to play, I don't know if you've ever played this game. There's a game called Mafia that you can play with a large group of people. And you have to figure out which people in the group are in the mafia. And I don't know why the Poles and the Germans were just such vicious opponents of each other through this whole game. I don't understand all these ethnic hatreds in Europe, but what fun we had and to be able to see them all now, accomplishing great things all over the world is a genuine thrill. And they worked with Mark Thornton and, of course, primarily Joe Salerno as the director of the Summer Fellows program on their research. And the idea was they would take their work and by the end of the summer forge it into a publishable article in a peer-reviewed journal. And that would thereby give these students a massive academic and career advantage over their peers. I remember one student in particular who was being examined by the faculty at the Mises University program. At the conclusion of the course of study at the Mises University, we have an oral exam. And we find out who the best students are. And there was one student who was so extraordinarily learned that Walter Block, who was, of course, one of the examining professors, said to him, you belong on this side of the table with us doing the questioning. We shouldn't be asking you questions. These are the kinds of people Lou managed to find. Not to mention the Mises Institute's website is the greatest online resource for libertarianism ever created. All the major books are there in the Austrian tradition. The entire print runs of journals like the Journal of Libertarian Studies or the Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics are available there. As are all the issues of the Libertarian Forum. And even left and right, the short-lived but highly interesting publication Rothbard edited with Leonard Ligio. Lou solicited courses from some of our top scholars and longtime libertarian stalwarts, scholars any libertarian in his right mind admires, like Robert Higgs and Paul Cantor and Ralph Raco. And these courses cover history, literature, economics, philosophy. And of course, they're available to view for free at Mises.org. We find there also all the named lectures at every one of the Austrian scholars conferences later renamed the Austrian Economics Research Conference. That's the annual event at which the latest research in Austrian economics and related fields is presented. And as I mentioned before, every year, of course, we have the Mises University Program, where I myself first encountered the Mises Institute. It's an intense week-long instructional seminar over the summer, attended by college students around the world. It made me intellectually who I am today. And you can watch previous year's Mises University programs for free on the website. And that's not to mention the thousands and thousands of original articles that have been published on Mises.org, helping people understand current events in light of the Austrian school or the Austrian economics bootcamp that gives you a quick primer in Austrian economics. Or Hunter Hastings' important Austrian economics for business, for entrepreneurs program. All of this is thanks to Lou Rockwell. Now, let me pause also to say that thanks to Lou's good judgment, the Mises Institute is currently in excellent hands under President Jeff Deist.  And his achievements at the Mises Institute deserve a hearty job well done by everyone who cares about this institution. Now, these days in my spare time, I'm a bit of an oddball eccentric. In my spare time, I've been reading the Stoics, particularly Seneca. Now, Seneca humanizes Stoicism to an extent, but the strict principles he calls us to, although I recognize in them an undeniable nobility, often seem out of my reach. And yet it occurred to me the other day, I know a Stoic, Lou Rockwell. First, there's his temperament. I have never seen Lou lose his temper, or appear distraught, or let his emotions get the better of him. I have never known anyone who is so consistently in command of himself, precisely as the Stoics urged.  Some of you are old enough to remember. There's an episode in which Ted Danson plays a snooty, arrogant, and expensive hairdresser who absolutely ruins the hair of Elaine, who's played by Mary Lou Henner. She had saved up her money to go to this hairdresser to get her hair done for a fancy event. Well, back at the garage, the Alex Rieger character talks her into going back to the salon and demanding her money back. He goes with her. Louis de Palma, played by Danny DeVito, also goes to the salon. At one point, Elaine, in an act of revenge for the terrible hairstyling, is about to dump a huge bowl of red hair dye all over Ted Danson's character. At the last second, Alex talks her out of it. If you do that, Elaine, he says, you'll be no better than he is. And she stops and says, you're right. I am too good to do this, and they walk out. And then Louis says, she may be too good, but I ain't, and he dumps it on the guy's head. Now let's apply this tale to the life of our subject, Lou Rockwell. The stoic, you will recall, is unperturbed by outside events, and that includes the attacks of critics. I do not believe in the nearly 30 years I have known Lou Rockwell, I have seen him respond to critics even once, not even once. Somebody who looks at the situation we face today and concludes that the real threat is coming from the right rather than a left that controls all institutions and the media and demonizes dissidents anywhere in the world where they emerge is in some sense not intelligent enough to be worth responding to. Somebody who has accomplished nothing and has absolutely nothing to show for himself in terms of the libertarian movement, attacking somebody like Lou Rockwell who has made every single key text in the Austrian tradition available to the entire world does not need to be responded to. On some level I get that, and I admire Lou for not wasting his time and just continuing his work. It must make them crazy that not a single thing they say appears to affect him at all. They want him to lash out, and yet he doesn't. He doesn't even swat them away as he would an ordinary bug. That's a boss move. But remember, there's Alex Rieger and there's Louis De Palma. Lou may be too dignified to reply to his critics, but I ain't. I've responded to Lou's critics, I can tell you that. And I know they don't deserve a response, but they're losers and for some reason I feel compelled to make them know they're losers. Oh, Lou's critics are just so concerned about police abuse, but who was it who featured and promoted the late great Will Grig by far our greatest voice on that subject at a time when official libertarianism pretended Will Grig didn't exist. Of course it was Lou.  Yet for many of them, supporting wars that led to hundreds of thousands of avoidable deaths of those very people is somehow not disqualifying. Because after all we're told, hey, Bill Weld changed his mind later, so that's okay. And by a happy coincidence, he changed his mind right around the time he happened to be making an appeal to libertarians. I'm sure that was super sincere. Lou's critics have every possible advantage. They hold only officially approved opinions, which means they don't face the withering hostility of every major institution the way Lou does. Some of his critics have funding sources at their disposal that should have helped propel them to superstardom. Yet I know one think tank official who in effect has to bribe conferences to let him speak since nobody would so much as cross the street to hear this guy. And yet even though Lou's critics have sheepishly followed all the rules laid out by the establishment, being careful to avoid certain topics, making sure to demonize dissidents just the way the regime demands, honoring the states anointed like Dr. Fauci, Lou, despite all this, is still vastly more popular among libertarians than they are. And this makes them crazy. Why, we've done everything we were supposed to. We still can't touch this guy. But maybe, dear critics, that's precisely why you can't touch him. Lou has an expression, the regime libertarian that sums up the people in the libertarian movement who have done nothing but cause problems and undermine the message we're trying to convey. Here's Lou on the regime libertarian. The regime libertarian believes in the market economy more or less, but talk about the Federal Reserve or Austrian business cycle theory and he gets fidgety. His magazine or institute would rather invite Janet Yellen for an exclusive cocktail event than Ron Paul for a lecture. The regime libertarian loves the idea of reform, whether it's the Fed or the tax code or government schools, whatever. He flees from the idea of abolition. Why, that just isn't respectable. He spends his time advocating this or that tax reform effort instead of simply pushing for a lowering or repeal of existing taxes. It's too tough to be a libertarian when it comes to anti-discrimination law, given how much flak he's liable to get, so he'll side with left liberals on that, even though it's completely incompatible with his stated principles. He is anti-war, sometimes, but certainly not as a general principle. He can be counted on to support the wars that have practically defined the American regime and which remain popular among the general public. He sups in happy concord with supporters of the most egregiously unjust wars, but his blood boils in moral outrage at someone who told an off-color joke 25 years ago. That sums it up. We all know those people. We all know those people. When my phone rings and I see that it's Lou, I always race to answer it. He's always got something interesting to tell me, or truth be told, sometimes a bit of gossip from our crazy movement. A couple of times this year, I have answered the phone only to be told that he had called by accident and I cannot tell you what profound disappointments those moments were. Now, as I mentioned earlier, I knew Lou would hate a talk called The Lou Rockwell I Know, which is the title of this talk I'm delivering right now. So that is indeed why we gave it the bland title, Lunch with Tom Woods. So as you can see, I had to trick Lou into sitting down and letting himself be praised. But Lou, I hope you will forgive my doing this one thing presumably against your will. I lost my father tragically in 1996 and since that time, you have been very much a father figure to me. You've supported me through thick and thin. And no matter what happens, I've always thought Lou will know what I should do. Few people are so fortunate to know someone as consistently wise. I have so often been a parasite on your strategic brilliance as I've gone to you again and again for advice. You and Roger McAfrey are the two people I consult when I want to be absolutely certain of the path I should take. With the Mises Institute, you built something lasting which thanks to your good judgment is in good hands and which has boldly and courageously resisted the evils of the age while setting them against an appealing alternative of freedom, prosperity, and peace. Those of us who have had the good fortune to know you personally have encountered one of the kindest and most generous souls they are ever likely to meet. Lou, you are a true gem and my life has been greatly enriched by having you in it. I speak for libertarians everywhere when surveying your accomplishments, I declare you one of our great benefactors and say thank you for a job well done and a life well lived. Thank you.


Hello friends, welcome back to another episode here on the channel. I hope you're all doing great and for anyone new to the channel, my name is Lee, also known as Osiris in today's episode. Before I break my mic, we are continuing on with our VGC series 10 content. And today we are featuring what everyone asked for last week, a Mewtwo team. So we're kind of carrying on playing the little bit more obscure Pokemon that are available restricted wise in the format. And obviously Mewtwo is one of those. Mewtwo, psychic type, pure psychic typing and not commonly seen. I haven't played a single one this season and I haven't even, yeah, haven't even seen one and probably for a few reasons. Like I love Mewtwo as a Pokemon, I love it as a restricted, but it is outclassed in pretty much every department by Shadow Rider Color X. So why would you kind of opt to play the kind of non optimal side of that? Well, if you do enjoy it, then you can go for it. And that's what we're trying to do in this team today. We've went with a different kind of route. It's got amazing coverage. Mewtwo gets ice beam, blizzard, fire blast. It gets a raw sphere, gets the list goes on. But we try to kind of accommodate something in the team that can kind of work against the current meta. We'll get into the details of the team in a moment and while we get into the battles, as always, there will be a poker face down below. If you want to try the team out for yourself and at the end of the episode, we'll throw a rental up with Mewtwo. We obviously have got the guzzload in there as well, the elephant in the room. We've got a shout about it and it has got the psychic seed. We've got indeedy for support with the psychic terrain as well. Helps with the expanding force with Mewtwo. The redirection is really useful as well. Got Whimsicott in there for a bit of speed control because we are going to need it. And we've got a special tech on Whimsicott, which I think helps support this particular build quite well. So we'll get into that. Hopefully, we can reveal that in-game. Urshifu gives us a water type as well, as well as a fire type and a little bit of kind of priority if the psychic train is not on the field and then Zapdos as well. Field gives us ground immunity that we need and also a way to kind of have a nice switch into something like Zashian as well with the Rocky helmet there. We'll resist those attacks that it throws out and just gives us a little bit more stability against those Pokemon, as well as things like Kyoga as well. So that is the team. Hopefully, you enjoyed today's episode. Let me know your thoughts on Mewtwo down below. As I say, I love it. It is the original, the OG, and it's nice to be able to feature it. I just feel like it has a very hard time in a format where they've kind of created this brand new horse Pokemon that just does everything that Mewtwo can do, just a little bit better. So they need to give Mewtwo a buff in Gen 9 just to kind of give it that lease of life that we know it can. And we all want it. We're all clamoring for it as fans. So sit back. Hope you enjoyed today's episode, friends. And without further ado, we'll get into game one of today's video. First up today, we have a groudon, Zaptos, Cherrim, Enti, Dusclops, and Incineroar. So a pretty cool looking team really like it. You've got the groudon there providing the sun, supporting the Cherrim. Obviously gives an attack and special defense boost to anything it's partnering while the sun's on the field. So gotta be aware of that. Enti gonna be there, gonna disrupt with things like Snarl as well as potentially the Incineroar there. But we do have the psychic train that will kind of detract the use of fake out at least from the Incineroar. Do we just go psychic mode, full psychic mode? I feel like we could do.  I mean, Guzzlord could come in and do some work. I think Guzzlord could actually be quite good here, to be honest. Let's go psychic mode first. Let's go Guzzlord. I'm feeling good about Guzzlord. And our last Pokemon. Do we go Urshifu or do we go something like Zaptos? I think Urshifu makes a lot more sense here even though the sun will be up on the field for most of the battle. If not all of the battle. But Urshifu with its critting surgeon strikes can help us out here. Come on, Mewtwo. Let's not get two losses today. We want at least two wins. At least two wins. That's what we want. So hopefully we can do it. I believe in Mewtwo.  It can do some good work. And we got anti-groud on. We got a great target for expanding force. Turn one. If we wanna go down that route. Now you've gotta expect that my opponent probably is going to snarl, snarl us, snarl. So that, do we just, do we just, do we just, do we just expand and force? It's whether or not we keep the Indidi in, you know? Like Indidi here not really providing much support. There's double target attacks on both Pokemon from the anti from the groud on. We could kind of keep the Indidi for a little bit later. Maybe we could get something like Guzzload on the field. We could get Guzzload on the field and then just protect me too. And then next to him, we got the expanding force.  We could just double expand and force. Let's just do that. Let's just do that.  It's, it's okay. We do survive that. We're gonna go down to the recall damage, scoffed anti, did not expect that. Let's see how much this does. Okay. The groud on should go down the next turn. Single target precipice blades Indidi should take and then the Indidi should finish off the groud on unless there's a heat crash. But I still think we're gonna be able to take that although we do outspeed the groud on and Indidi gonna be able to kind of, yeah, clear the field. Okay. So not the best of starts, but not the worst. They've got two Pokemon left. We got three. Now, did we bring Guzzload? Yeah, let's bring in the Lord. Bring in the Lord. We may as well. We may as well. It is the first game of today's episode. It's very fast pace. We're gonna get the Guzzload onto the field. See what I can do. Cheren coming out. Okay. Well, what's Cheren gonna do in Zapdos? All right. Well, this isn't actually too bad. This isn't too bad at all because we just snarl and expand in force, I guess. Do we need to worry too much about what my opponent can do to Guzzload? Not really. I mean, Zapdos. I mean, we could just follow me. Could just follow me. I mean, the other thing to do is probably just protect here and just snarl. We could get rid of the Cheren. Cheren's probably a nice target right now with the sun up, the flamethrower. We'll probably be able to knock it out in one hit. I don't worry about Guzzload getting taken down here and then Guzzload can finish this up. What am I doing with Guzzload on the field right now? What am I doing? What are we doing? Don't say I don't do requests because here we are. This Mewtwo was quite the thing to put together. So they double up into the DD slot, which is fine. Guzzload should be able to get rid of the Cheren. Come on, don't let us down. Okay, not as powerful as I thought, but not too bad. I think we'll just expand in force now and we'll just go for the snarl because I think at this point, we'll get the Zapdos weakened down. Urshavu can come in and do its thing, but Guzzload is going to be able to win this match by itself pretty much here because just the psychic seed boost is going to be enough to handle Zapdos and Cheren. I wonder if our snarl is enough to take down the Cheren here as it goes for its solar blade. Not even enough to take the DD down. This DD is a beast, so we might be able to just do this between the two of these Pokemon here. We'll get the crit on the Zapdos, which is helpful, so the expanding force does get rid of the Cheren. Snarl coming out, star boosted, doing a nice chunk of damage to that Zapdos and probably in range now of a dog pulse, maybe, maybe. The game's over. The game is over. My opponent has just lost to Guzzload. Here we go, the lord of the Guzz. There we go, canceled. So very good game to my opponent. Nice one and nice and quick for us to kick off with today, of course, we might be able to get another couple of games and we've got one win with me too, so that is all that matters, right? Now the rest of this episode is going to be a lot of fun, so good game to my opponent. We'll jump into game two of today's episode. Up next we have another Groudon. Groudon, Tapulele, Whimsicott, Porygon II, Cinderace, and Kingdra. Bit of a weird team because seeing Kingdra in there with the Groudons, it's not something you generally see, Kingdra there, I'm assuming for the kind of the rain matchup. So you've got a Pokemon that can operate within the rain. Got Tailwind, you got Trick Room. Tailwind on the Whimsicott, Trick Room on the Porygon II. There's Psychic Terrain as well there. I think we've got to be careful against the Lele with something like Guzzload. Will be a little bit of a problem for us to deal with and also the Kingdra as well, which will naturally outspeed us. Mewtwo gonna be good. Maybe we go Whimmy Mewtwo here.  Or play around the Trick Room. I do want to bring. Actually, I think Urshavu's very good here. Like Urshavu's pretty solid against Porygon II. It's very difficult against the Lele though. That's the only issue I would say. Like we could go Didi Guzzload. I feel like Guzzload's good for the Trick Room if they do kind of counteract our play with that side. And maybe end up with something like Urshavu. Or like Didi can be good because we've got, we've actually got Shadow Ball, which can work. So it's maybe a little bit more consistent against this one. We'll see. But I would imagine P2 comes to this one with Groudon. I don't know if we'll see Kingdra. But I can imagine Lele, Groudon, P2, maybe Cinderace. Oh, Whim's a cut. Okay. So, Mewtwo. Well, we're going to get, I think we're going to get smacked around. Oh, they're going to try and smack us around with a Shadow Ball. I would imagine here. They might go for a Moonblast potentially with the Lele. We don't have Shadow Ball. I mean, we could Trick Room. We could Trick Room. Because they're not going to expect that. We could Trick Room and just Moonblast into the Lele counteract. I mean, we could Trick Room as well and just switch into the Guzzlord, you know? That puts us in a really good spot. It just makes it difficult. Well, can we deal with the opposing Whimmy? That's the thing. You know? And the Dazzling Dream coming out would not be ideal. Where we could just go for Moonblast, break the sash on something like Whim's a cut or yeah, we'll Moonblast and we'll Trick Room. Because I feel like they're going to tail end, yeah. They're going to Shadow Ball as well, I think. The problem is if it's specs, Lele, it causes us a few issues because this might be enough to take us down. No, it's nowhere near strong enough. Okay, that's fine. We'll let the Moonblast into Lele. They're like, why is this me too so slow? But it's all all right because we can now expand and force and that should be enough to kind of clear the field alongside of Moonblast, of course. So we'll expand and force and we'll Moonblast. Moonblast is a Lele because I think then Guzzlord can come in and kind of clean up if these two go down, you know? If the Whimmy's not sashed, which it is. Okay, it's going to get a Moonblast off but that's kind of fine. We get rid of the big threats to Guzzlord and now Guzzlord's going to have a fairly easy time when it hits the field. Ooh, trick room, trick room. There we go. Well, we can tailwind now because we don't really care about their tailwind.  So that kind of works out for us. See what they're bringing. Pyrobutt. Pyrobutt, that's all right. We don't mind that because we'll have to speed it with an expanding force and we'll be able to, we might not be able to get rid of the Cinderace, you know? But we'll be able to get rid of the Whimmy, get rid of their speed control and then our speed control's going to last a little bit longer than theirs, you know? So the expanding force now, I'll be surprised if it doesn't get the Cinderace to be honest. Not quite strong enough. Okay, well, it's a nice chunk of damage regardless where they go and after the Mewtwo, Ironhead going for that Steel Typing, which is, ooh, into the Whimmy. So the Mewtwo gets to live another day. That is perfect for us. Okay, well, we might be able to play into Whimmy's special item here because we're going to be able to get another expanding force off. I think there's a one or two turns left of Psychic Train 2 maybe, I think. Because I kind of would like to use the Memento. There's two turns. The Till Wind runs out next turn. I mean, they can't, maybe we could just moonblast the Groudon as well. And then what have we got to come in? Diddy Guzzlord, oh, we're going to be kind of fine. Yeah, I mean, we just moonblast Groudon. We could have protected Whimsical here but there's not really much, there's no need to. Um, wow, it does so much damage to Groudon. So much damage. Mewtwo's, Mewtwo is a beast. Wonder if that was like a salt-less cinderace. I don't think so. Might have been. It took it pretty well. Wow, Mewtwo, Whimmy, just doing its thing. So very good game to our opponent. Another quick one for us. So we might even get a few more games in today than we had planned. But Mewtwo, Mewtwo doing all right. So with that, good game to our opponent. We'll jump straight into game three. Okay, we've got another team. It's a pretty hard one up next. It's going to be Yveltal, a Turtonator, the Rillaboom, Stack Attacker, Amungus, and Celestealer. Yeah, pretty nasty looking team. Obviously restricted versus restricted. We're at a disadvantage. The Yveltal has a massive advantage over something like Mewtwo. We're going to have to rely quite heavily on Zapdos in this match. I think Urshavu as well is quite good. Speed control on my opponent's side is going to be mainly Trick Room. You would imagine the Stack Attacker and the Turtonator. We're going to have to watch out for Iron Defenses as well. So that's why Urshavu can come in quite useful. Okay, so Whimmy might not be too bad in this game, but maybe not as a lead. I think we bring Mewtwo regardless, but maybe don't bring Mewtwo up top. I think maybe go Zapdos as a lead. They're going to try and get rid of Zapdos early on, I think. Could go Zapdos. Do we need Whimmy? Zapdos, Goozlord, Mewtwo, and Urshavu, I think. That's what we're going to go with. Right, we've got to bring Mewtwo. We can't not bring our restricted. I, Mewtwo, can do some work. We're not going to have our terrain though, which is not great for expanding force, but Mewtwo can still do some work. I feel like we're going to be relying heavily on hurricanes hitting something like the Rillaboom, you know? Okay, well, all they've got is Rock Slide. Then we're kind of all right, because we can just wide guard on that, and we can just go for, I mean, do they keep you Veltal on the field? That's the big thing. Like, or do they switch it out to like Amungus? Which could be, I think you switch, you switch you Veltal out. I think we'll go for, I mean, we could go Flamethrower. We could just double up into Stack Attacker here. Flamethrower, or we could play it safe. We could play it safe, completely safe, and just go Thunderbolt and Wide Guard. But I do think they go for the Trick Room. But we reveal the Wide Guard, right? Yeah, they're going to bring in Amungus. Yep. Trick Room. But they know we've got the Wide Guard now, so there's a lot going to be like a prime target for the Spawn the next turn, I think. Yeah. Trick Room. Okay. This is where DeeDee would have been good, because DeeDee's the only thing on our team with safety goggles. So we've got to kind of try and play around these sleep turns. We can protect Zaptos here, and I think just go for Flamethrower and to Amungus, although Guzzlord's probably going to get put to sleep. Well, DeeGaft is Zaptos. Maybe not. I think you want to stop the Wide Guard first. There's a Gyro Ball into Zaptos, and Spawn into Guzzlord. Yeah. Okay. Now they're going to put Zaptos to sleep, which you can't really afford to go to sleep. I think out of everything, maybe. Hmm. Yeah, we need Oshifu, Alive and Kicking. Uh... Let's just Flamethrower into the Amungus. It's kind of a waste, though, because they got... Okay. Turtonator coming in. All right, well, probably see a rock slide here. You've got to imagine. This is where Oshifu would have been the better switch, really, but you don't want to bring Oshifu in on a Spawn. That's the only thing, you know? Rock slide, and they do some fat damage. Yep. But we take it pretty well, you know? The problem is that this Turtonator is going to start and get these probably iron defenses up, which is not ideal. We could Trick Room, although I think they're probably Gyro Ball now. So it might be better to bring Zaptos back in. Actually, no. We'll protect here. We'll stall a turn, and then we'll switch to the next turn. And I think we Dark Pulse. We Dark Pulse into Turtonator. Just get some damage on the board. See, I can see Iron Defense, Gyro Ball. Yeah. Come on, Guzzlord. You need to wake up. You need to wake up. Right, we need to switch out. Let's go onto Zappy. We need to stop the Trick Room more than anything, really, you know? I know Turtonator is a bit of an issue right now, but if we can just get some damage onto the Stack Attacker, the problem is the body press is going to absolutely nuke Guzzlord this next turn probably, which is not ideal. We've got enough to stall out the Trick Room turns, I think. A little bit of damage from the Rocky Helmet will be useful. We get the Static as well, which is nice. Okay. Rocky Helmet damage, doing a good chunk body press. This will take Guzzlord down yet. No hope, but we can bring in Urshifu, I guess, now. The damage is due to him back to normal, so we've got an option where we can bring in Mewtwo and Hurricane, or we can bring in Urshifu and toggle it down. Like, we can't let the Trick Room get set up again. That's the big thing for us. I think probably Urshifu. Yeah, can we take, we can probably take a body press. We can probably take a body press from Turtenator. Now we could go Roost and Surgeon Strikes into Stacker and we could go Hurricane. Hope for the confusion into Turtenator. Just we can't really afford to lose Zapdos here. That's the only issue. That would be my only issue. Like, we cannot afford to lose Zapdos because it's like our best way to deal with the Veltel. Is a body press gonna be enough? I don't think so. I don't think so. But we don't wanna kind of Roost in front of it, just in case. Let's Hurricane it. Let's Hurricane it and let Surgeon Strikes into Stacker. Okay, Stacks switching out. Oh, Moongus, Rocky Helmet. Do hit the Hurricane, which is useful.  Should we get the confusion? No. Surgeon Strikes. This is Rocky Helmet, we're done. We are done. Body press into Urshifu. Yeah, we can take that. Okay, well. Hurricane will get a Moongus. And then I think we just protect Urshifu, right? Do we attack? Cause they're gonna body press again, I think. Let's just protect and hope our Hurricane hits. Cause they're gonna rage powder, I think, yeah. And then they're gonna body press into Urshifu. I had a margin. We miss, we miss. Okay, we got another chance at this. We got another chance at this. We get the Hurricane this time and then the Surgeon Strikes should get the Turtonator. Should. Yeah, okay. Just need the Hurricane to hit and then we're all good. It hits. Gonna be enough. The Moongus going down, that's great. So can we get, can we get the Turtonator? Hopefully, come on Urshifu, you know you wanna do it.  It goes like literally zip because it's got the ability, the ability. No crits, no crits allowed. I forget about that. All right, well, let's just be got a whole lot harder to deal with. We saw the damage Hurricane did before though. So maybe a Hurricane could. Okay, well an Aurora Sphere will get Stacker, 100% with Mewtwo. So we can try and Hurricane the Turtonator again. We'll go for the Aurora Sphere into Stacker. That will get it 100%. We just need the Hurricane to hit. If we get Confusion as well, that would be huge for us. Huge, because then if it comes down to Evaltor, we can just double Evaltor with Zapdos Mewtwo. Turtonator protects, which is actually not too bad because this will be able to get. Yeah, and I think what we'll probably, do we just double? The problem is Sucker Punch from the Evaltor this next turn. Sucker Punch. We could scout it out. We could scout it out. Sucker Punch is definitely coming. Do they sucker and body press Zapdos? It's kind of risky though, right? But Mewtwo is literally unable to do anything here if Sucker Punch is coming out. And you would imagine Sucker Punch will come out. Do they concentrate more down onto the Zapdos? I would think you're probably more concerned about the Zapdos really. So Sucker Punch into the Zapdos makes a lot more sense. Whereas we could probably go, let's go for this. Thunderbolt and Aurora Sphere, let's double into the Evaltor. Because I think you might, you might go after, okay, okay, no. They go straight, they just played straight. Go for the Mewtwo. Can a Thunderbolt deal with the Evaltor? Goes down next turn. How much is the body press gonna do? Quite a lot, I'd imagine. Okay, we'll take another one of those. We'll take another one, start it coming out as well. So that's pretty huge. The problem is Sucker Punch now is gonna, we're in range with Sucker Punch, but we can roost this off. Problem is when body press comes in, we take away a flying type. So we almost need to be paralysed this turn. Can we take it though? We can, we can. Okay, we're not gonna take another one though. We need the fully parries. We need the fully parry. That's what we need. We do need that. I mean we could Hurricane, but if they just click the Sucker Punch button again, that's the trouble. We need the fully parry. That is the only way we can win this. We need the fully parry on the Turtonator. They're not Sucker Punching, so we could have kind of just T-Ball it, but then we'd need the fully parry regardless anyway, so we still need the fully parry. It's now coming out. Yep. Oh my God, there's so much damage. So much damage with the life orb. It is paralysed, we get it, you know. We need double fully parry, because I don't think they snarl here. I think they Sucker Punch again here. I don't think we're gonna be able to do this. We need like double fully parry and them to Sucker Punch here. That's what we need. We need them to Sucker Punch and then be fully paralysed, yeah. Sucker Punch, we need them to be fully paralysed and we're back in this. If they don't and they get the body pressed off, then we're done. Then we're done. Yeah, it gets it, so that's it. That's it. Turtonator, too much. Could not stand up to it. I mean, we could have, we could have maybe played the Mewtwo a little bit more carefully, but you know, we over thought it at the time. Very good game to my opponent. Mewtwo's done well today. We couldn't expect to do really any better with it. It would have been nice to play Shadow Rider Kaurak's team, but again, it is Mewtwo and we came up against a pretty hard matchup in that last one. So friends, we're gonna wrap it up there. Here is the rental for today's team. I hope if you do try out the Mewtwo, obviously it's not the most streamlined Pokemon. It's not the best Pokemon in the format restricted wise, for sure, but it is a lot of fun to play around with. I think the team's really fun as well. We didn't really get to see the Memento today, which is a little bit sad, but it does give you a way around things like Kalorex, things like Zashin. If you are in a really tight spot, you kind of wanna get your tail wind up, wait till you're down to the Zash Memento, get rid of Wimmy, gives you that kind of free switching as well, the next turn, which can always be quite helpful and then gives a lot of room to the other Pokemon on the team. So friends, have a lot of fun with the team if you do try it out. I'd love to hear your thoughts on today's build and down in the comment section, just let me know and we'll wrap up there. So thank you so much for tuning in. Have a great rest of your day, take care of yourselves and I'll see you all for another episode on the channel very soon. So until then, take care and bye-bye.