Hey guys it's Liana and I'm here to do a talk about Rebecca by Daphne de Morier. Also here to talk about the various adaptations of Rebecca. I say various, I mean the Hitchcock one and then the one. I've seen snippets of the made for TV one, which I can't really address because I haven't really watched it. So, Rebecca by Daphne de Morier, 5 out of 5 stars loved this book, adored this book. I had seen the Hitchcock movie version of it several times before reading it. I hadn't seen it that recently before reading it. I'd seen it enough to where I remembered the broad stroke and I remembered liking it, but it wasn't super fresh in my brain when I picked up the book. But the main impetus for picking up the book was really wanting to finally read it, which I had intended to for some time before watching the new adaptation, which I did and I did not really care for. So, Rebecca, quick review slash synopsis. Rebecca is a classic for a reason. It was written in the 1920s, 30s by Daphne de Morier. So for when it was written it was a contemporary book. And it follows the story of an unnamed narrator who is this young, kind of friendless, poor girl who's in Monte Carlo because she's a paid ladies companion to this kind of gauche, really unlikeable, but ultimately harmless rich lady. Because of this rich lady's meddling and nosiness, she's the one that spots this famous, extremely wealthy widower, Maxim de Winter, who famously owns Manderley, this great estate, and who famously, recently, lost his first wife, Rebecca, in some tragic way, which remains unclear for a large portion of the book. And it's one of the mysteries our narrator is trying to piece together because everyone seems to know the story of Maxim and Rebecca, except for her, the new wife, because he marries this young girl. He meets her in Monte Carlo, he's quite a bit older than her, and he finds her youth quite refreshing and charming. And she's very unwilling to believe that he genuinely loves her, but for whatever reason he wants to marry her, and she's like, well, I'm poor and I'm super in love with you. And yep, sure, let's get married. So he takes her to Manderley, where things go downhill very quickly, because Manderley is filled with metaphorical ghosts, i.e. the memory of everything that's happened to Maxim before he met our narrator that our narrator knows nothing about and is too scared and too unsure of herself to really ask him about. So he finds a lot of things triggering, and the house is littered with things that keep the memory of Rebecca alive, like her R is monogrammed on all of their stuff, all of her old correspondences everywhere. The housekeeper, who's really the one haunting Manderley, was obsessed with her former lady, Rebecca, keeps telling the new Mrs. de Winter all the way, is that the former Mrs. de Winter used to handle things. The book is this slow, creeping kind of gothic novel where you follow our narrator, who's very much out of her depth and very much has impostor syndrome, and is trying to figure out what exactly went down between Maxim and Rebecca, what their relationship was like, what he sees in her, because it's becoming very clear how different she is from Rebecca, so she keeps measuring herself up to this memory of a person she's never met before, and has conflicting reports on, depending on who she talks to, what Rebecca was really like, although everyone seems to agree that Rebecca was the kind of person that you don't forget. But there does seem to be something also more to how Rebecca died. So it's kind of this slow, creeping character study gothic mystery that I devoured. I loved the book so much, and I have to say, the Hitchcock version is extremely loyal to the book, and interestingly, I always think of these as old books and adaptations of them as being a really new thing that happens way after the fact. Like if somebody adapts Jane Eyre, like Charlotte Bronte didn't even know movies would be a thing ever. So like those are two really divorced things. However, Hitchcock adapting to Maury's work was like nowadays adapting Harry Potter or adapting to Hunger Games. Like the author is alive and well and just wrote it. So this book, like the movie that Hitchcock made came out only a few years after this book was published, which was kind of shocking to me to realize that, that Daphne de Maury was around to see it. Like not just around, but like she literally just written the thing. So it wasn't yet this like known classic that everyone has been talking about for years and years and years. It was like adapting the Hunger Games. And so Hitchcock I know rather famously or infamously was really frustrated with American, the American film industry because it required him to censor the book. It required him to change the story in order to be less salacious or less negative or whatever. So like he was really frustrated with that, but he did work his way around it and like considering the constraints and considering how frequently, especially older movies, all the new ones as well, but especially older movies tended to not be true to their source material. Like the old black and white version of Pride and Prejudice with Laurence Olivier, who was also in Rebecca, is like nothing like the book Pride and Prejudice. I like that movie. It's a lot of fun, but it's very different from Pride and Prejudice, the book. So Hitchcock did actually a brilliant job of really adapting Rebecca in a way that's true to the book. And he had the added trouble of having to work around the censors in old Hollywood. And he did a really good job of working around that and still staying true to the feeling, the tone and the message of the book. So Bravo to Hitchcock as an excellent movie. The book is a classic for a reason and that movie is a classic for a reason. And I recommend both. Now, a new adaptation would not have those kind of censorship restrictions that Hitchcock was faced with. So you would imagine that nowadays you would be because of like the better technology for filmmaking and the more freedom that is given to filmmakers to put anything really on screen, you shouldn't really be able to make the shit out of Rebecca now. You're unleashed. Go ahead and make it true and salacious and dark and whatever. And the new adaptation, it's like it was adapted by somebody that had only ever read the cliff notes. And this is the type of story where it's not plot driven, it's entirely character driven. So you really can't cliff notes it because like if you cliff notes it, yeah, here's a bear outline of plot events, but the plot events are really not the point. And if you change any of the details of the day to day, of the small events of the book that define these characters' lives, identity and memory, then you've missed it. You've completely missed what Rebecca is about. And that's how the new adaptation felt. It felt like, yeah, we got sort of the basic plot beats down, but the whole point of the story is entirely missing because it isn't, the point of Rebecca isn't that two people meet in Monte Carlo, fall in love and move to Manderley. The point of that whole setup in the beginning is the fact that it's setting up that our narrator is really unclear and uncertain and uncomfortable about what exactly Maxim sees in her. The film makes it entirely unambiguous that Maxim, played by the way too young-looking army hammer and the way too old-looking Lily James is our narrator, they are way too close in age. Part of the story, this isn't just like, oh, well, you know, we like it better when they're closer in age. It is relevant to the story that there is an enormous age gap between them. It is kind of the point of the story. You're supposed to get this feeling that this young narrator who doesn't know, hasn't seen anything of the world, hasn't seen anything of life, isn't really comfortable in her own skin yet. She's that young and poor and inexperienced.  That's 20, he's almost double her age. And he's already had a wife who died. He already did the whole had a wedding, started building a life with somebody else, has settled in his own skin, knows who he is, and is kind of gruff, but also very casually confident because of his wealth and experience and age and position in society. This disparity between them is the point of the story. It is on that that everything hinges. And the movie immediately strips that away. It immediately makes it completely clear to us that Maxim is very much into the narrator. He's very affectionate. They're very friendly with each other. They're always like hugging and kissing.  Whereas both in the book and in the Laurence Olivier adaptation, you can tell that he likes her, but he's still very distant and quite cold. And he can say things that are, when he makes fun of her, it's a little bit mean. Like he's not abusive, but he's just kind of, he's kind of patronizing, which only adds, it piles onto the already present age and class disparity. And the fact that he kind of like pats her on the head and is kind of patronizing, only adds to that. And it's that upon which that we build to really have the narrator really doubt herself. Like she's already like uncertain and that she gets to Manderley where like there's the memory of Rebecca everywhere and she's already really uncertain about how he feels about her and why he even married her. And then Rebecca's everywhere and she's like, am I supposed to live up to this or not? Or like, am I just a pet to him? Am I like the dog? Like that she's like completely losing it in her own head because of this, which isn't possible or believable in the new movie because they're like, it's a marriage of equals other than the money thing. He's clearly into her. They seem to be close in age. They seem to be comfortable with each other.  Then I'm like, well, then you don't want to adapt Rebecca. That's what Rebecca is about. It's not like a bug. It is a feature. It is what the story is about. So you just cannot adapt it. That's like if you adapted Othello but decided to make Othello white. And we're like, oh, we just decided, you know, it would be easier if like Desdemona and Othello were both white. And you're like, that's like literally the point of Othello is that he is black and like how that affects everything. So if you don't want to have a movie where the main characters who are romantically involved have a huge age disparity and the main female character has very little agency and is very doubting of herself and the older man is kind of mean and controlling. If you don't want to tell a story like that then you don't want to adapt Rebecca. That is what Rebecca is about because because because because with like trying not to be spoilery there's a point in the book where all of this kind of comes to a head. And because we've Daphne de Morier and Hitchcock so expertly kind of let us down this path of more and more doubt, of more and more uncertainty, of more and more discomfort and imposter syndrome and just like psyching out the narrator and the reader that only get to this point in the book and in the Hitchcock movie where everything comes to a head and things are being brought to the surface that is a huge and critical moment in both the book and the Hitchcock movie that is it works so well and it is such again without spoilers like it's just been very clearly building to this point and if for that reason that point is just so powerful and it is not at all powerful or even really in any way different from the rest of the movie in the new one because we didn't really get to that point we weren't really getting psyched out we weren't really doubting ourselves so much so by the time you get to that point it doesn't really like we haven't gone down this journey so it just falls flat doesn't work doesn't have the same weight it's it's that's the plot to Rebecca it isn't the things that happen because the things that happen do happen in the new one they need they get an area they go to Manderley there's Rebecca stuff everywhere we kind of unravel the mystery of what happened between him and Rebecca before the narrator came into it those events happen but that's not what Rebecca is about Rebecca is about the emotional and identity journey of the narrator and the narrator has to be doubting herself and be uncertain and uncomfortable and demure and lacking in agency in order for that to work because that is the story that is what it's about so I just and it's really beautiful in the new adaptation I mean they filmed it in beautiful in beautiful locations the costumes are great it's very art deco it's very stylish I love a lot of the cinematography a lot of the shots of the house um there's really artful shots of you know the narrator in the house and finding things and Armie Hammer and Lily James are really beautiful people they have chemistry like they look good together but that's just it's not Rebecca it's just not how whereas the Hitchcock version like Laurence Leivigay like straight up Maxim de Winter he's legit that's how I would picture Maxim de Winter like yes I'd see in the movie first but like either way like he's absolutely playing that role the way he should he's the perfect choice for it you can see why she would fall for him because he's very handsome and he's charming when he wants to be but he's also quite removed austere patronizing like he's a he's a tough nut to crack and because of the limitations placed on Hitchcock he needed an actor that could bring some subtlety to the role and sort of say the things that Hitchcock wasn't allowed to say overtly and Laurence Leivigay the livers Laurence Leivigay absolutely filled in those gaps for Hitchcock and that's why it works and uh I want to say Fiona Joan Fontaine who plays the narrator in they were in the Hitchcock movie she's absolutely fantastic at first being this ingenue who's I mean I think she was she was actually older obviously the narrator is supposed to be but the way she plays the role still brings to the forefront and really puts the the viewer in mind of a person who is younger who is uncertain who is out of their depth and they they have great chemistry you can see that they would have affection for each other but it is uncertain it is not of equals there is this imbalance of power of experience of wealth of place puts them and their marriage and everything off kilter and it is so expertly done in the film by Hitchcock in a way that you would think that nowadays we'd only be able to do even better because we can really get those like close-ups of people like cinematography can do a lot of things it didn't do back then we can really play some tricks with the camera we can really have the characters be as as dark as they need to be to really be true to the book and yet the new one is completely missed to the point never a backup and like honestly it didn't war to try to clean it up then the Hitchcock version which was told that it needed to clean it up I just I don't understand I don't and I think the choice of R.M.A. Hammer and the lead James when I first saw that I already was like they seem a bit too close and age for that to be appropriate however I do think it's in the wheelhouse of both those actors to play those roles more the way that Joan Fontaine and Laurence Olivier did were you feel the age difference even if there isn't really that age difference present so much but the way that they were instructed and directed it's they don't play it that way they play it where they're more like you'd see in a rom-com nowadays where they get to know each other and they like each other and there's some communication but she's confident and they bring right in a bunch of scenes for her to have more agency and to have more hoodspot and I'm like I understand the desire to have females portrayed as having agency nowadays but then again don't adapt Rebecca because the point of Rebecca is to have this character in the beginning be completely lacking in self-confidence it doesn't work if she's confident it doesn't that's not Rebecca anyway yeah let me know the comments down below if you've read Rebecca if you've seen the different versions of it and what you think of the different versions of it I also would like to just briefly plug and highly commend to you if you have seen the Hitchcock version well I recommend you watch the Hitchcock version just generally you should absolutely watch it and then if you have seen it or if you now will see it my favorite British sketch comedy show they did a sketch that was based on the old Hitchcock Rebecca and it is so funny I've watched that sketch so many times and I show it to people all the time the premise of the sketch is that in old Hollywood the old Hollywood producer said if you're making a movie called Rebecca you better have a name called Rebecca in it and so they said well in the first cut they did it that that way and where the instead of being an unnamed narrator the main character is Rebecca and I'll make you that doesn't work it's a really funny sketch if you've seen the Hitchcock Rebecca because it's also making fun of kind of the slightly more dramatic tone of old black and white movies and it's hysterical I highly recommend anyway let me know in the comments down below all the things Rebecca related Daphne de Maury related old Hollywood versus new Hollywood all of the things I post videos on Saturdays other random times as well but definitely Saturdays so well like and subscribe and I'll see you when I see you bye


Today is April 27th and we're in this still in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic. I'm Ken Burtness coming to you from Haleva on the North Shore. I don't know how many of you saw the Time Magazine latest issued, but it came to my house today and mentioned that for the first time we're at a million people who have died in this country from the coronavirus, very sobering statistic. The thing we're tracking right now is the beta-alpha-2 variant of Omicron itself very, very contagious and the percentage of positives for coronavirus due to this beta-alpha-2 variant is increasing. The one thing that scientists are really worried about is we don't yet know how effective our vaccines are gonna be against this particular variant. To talk about this and other things, I have my good friend, Steve Katz, with me today. You probably recognize him. He was the host for a number of years right here on Think Tech Hawaii on the program Shrink Wrap, which I always admired the title to that. That was always a lot of fun. Steve, like other therapists, has an overwhelming caseload since the pandemic began and he just comes to us after leaving the client and I really appreciate, Steve, you being here. I know you're very busy. Welcome to the program. Well, thank you very much, Ken. It's lovely to talk with you, whether it's just the two of us or to all six people. One of the things Steve and I talked about earlier, was I asked him about his clients and asked him what they were bringing up when he talked with them about the coronavirus. And Steve told me, he said, well, they don't talk about the coronavirus very much. He said, for them to be talking about the coronavirus would be like fish talking about water. It's an overwhelming reality, it is there all the time. And so they wind up talking about the other problems that I have that are exacerbated so much by the pandemic. Steve, I was hoping, one, I love the metaphor. I thought the metaphor was very appropriate. And I was wondering if you could tell us a little bit about your ideas on this. Well, it's not hard to remember because it seems like every time I have a session, I come up with good examples. I mean, I'm a marriage and family therapist. So my focus is about human relationships. And people always have issues, trying to get along with each other, to love each other in a kind way and to maximize that. And that's usually why they come to see me.  And that's always the case, except now there's like, like I said, there's always people coming, but there's a lot more people coming because relationships can be stressful. And a lot of times, most of the time, people don't need to see a therapist. A certain number of people do, but a lot more do because the stress that they're starting out from when everything is okay is already quite high, it's up to here. But when regular issues come up, whether it's between a husband and a wife, between parents and children, bosses and workers, it just puts it over the top because they're already stressed out from just trying to deal with all the regulations and the dangers of the coronavirus. So it doesn't take that much, things that normally they can handle on their own, they can't because there just isn't the bandwidth for it anymore. And you have somebody in your family who's sick and in the beginning of the coronavirus, the first, I don't know, whatever it was, year, 18 months, you couldn't see them in the hospital. You know, you could have a family member who's dying and you can't see them. So it brings an already stressful situation of having a family member who's sick or dying and makes it so much worse because of the added problems or you have somebody, you know, we live here in Hawaii, you have somebody that is not doing well on the mainland and you can't go see them because it's too dangerous. And even now that they've lifted a lot of the regulations, people are still very worried, especially now because of the new variant, numbers are going up all over again. So has that answered your question? Yeah, and when we talked earlier, you described it as background noise, which I also thought was very descriptive, that normally in our life, we have all this background noise, but with the pandemic, the background noise has become so loud that it's overwhelming, which again was a very good way to describe it. My question to you is, how do we deal with people who are so overwhelmed that seems overwhelming in itself for us to deal with? How do we help them, the people who feel overwhelmed? Well, sometimes it's just helpful to reflect back what's going on because it's sort of like background noise. After a while, you don't hear it, white noise, right? And unless somebody, until it gets turned off, it's sort of like, when the refrigerator is running, you don't hear it until it shuts off. It's like that.  Or somebody comes in and they're having a lot of problems just doing their life now and you point out, well, it's not just you. There's all these new problems that everybody has right now. Everybody in the world has right now. And it's not really that surprising that you're feeling the way you do. Just naming it, calling attention to it, sometimes, you know, allow somebody to take a breath. Let's talk about breath for a second because that's where I was thinking that it was leading. You know, when the noise gets so loud for me and it's just overwhelming, and then all of a sudden it cuts off and there's this great feeling of well-being. Yeah. All of a sudden I take this and my God, I hadn't realized it was so loud. And now the quiet comes in and washes over me and I feel good. How do you feel? Well, one way that I am very, very lucky because I accidentally stumbled upon a wonderful solution. Up until the pandemic happened, I had a regular office in Kailui in a medical office building here. And at first I had to deal like everybody else, everybody moved online. And so I was doing telehealth, which I found personally exhausting. I don't know why, but it's looking at somebody on a screen. I mean, this is not everybody's like, this is me. I found that like really tiring and less effective because people were at home, they had all these distractions. People don't tend to take it as seriously if they don't have to go somewhere and be separated from their normal habitat.  And so I didn't like to tell health. So then it got to the point where I was working in the office but everybody had a mask on. And to be a therapist and not be able to tell, is this person frowning or smiling or to read facial cues, I thought was impossible. So I went to the store and I bought two big tents and I put them up in my backyard and I'm very lucky because my backyard is on Kailua Beach. So somebody comes in and we've replaced the background noise of the pandemic with the sound of waves and birds and trees.  I don't have to say a word. Immediately the stress level comes down from being out in nature, from hearing those sounds that I just described. I'm already helpful without opening my mouth which is usually a good idea. That's terrific and I can vouch for that because I've been with Steve in his backyard many times and it is glorious, Steve. I mean, we were so lucky to live here to not take advantage of it would really be, I mean, it was an accident. I did it out of necessity and then it, all of my clients that I used to see in the office are telling me when this thing is over, don't go back to the office, just do it here. I mean, so that's one thing. I mean, and in general, being in nature is incredibly therapeutic.  Terrific. Serious, yeah. Great. Great name. I have plenty of clients who are surfers and that's their therapy. Some of them are in the water every single day. Myself, I jog on the beach and do all my exercise and then jump in the ocean. And, you know, I feel like it would be sinful not to take advantage of it because to, you know, work on my own mental health is helping my clients so I don't feel too selfish if I can spend, you know, one to two hours a day doing that, better at my job and happier person. And I think that's true for everybody. I mean, there's no panacea. You know, I don't tell people to do exactly what I'll do. I'll share with them what I do and, you know, and say, well, maybe this will work for you. Maybe not, you know, but it's something else. One of the things that, well, this is going way back. I have to admit, but when I started off counseling, I was in a medical building like you were too. And I started off counseling adolescents. That was my first quiet load was strictly adolescents. And I had a very hard time counseling in that medical building. It was my turf. It was not their turf. They were not comfortable in that medical building. And then nature took a hold.  And my medical building got split right down the middle. Oh, wow. And luckily this happened early in the morning. Nobody was there. But when I came to work that day, the building was leaning in half. And there was this big half between. And so not having anything to do, the group that I was working with, which was a group of six counselors and a director. And we moved to my little apartment, started there, but then we rented a house. But before then, when I was in that medical building, I did everything I could just to simply get out of the medical building. I took my adolescence and we went to a park. Sometimes we would shoot baskets, took them places where it was more their turf. And I think that's, I looked toward that as one of the possibilities, sort of the unexpected advantages when something terrible happens, like an earthquake or a coronavirus pandemic. There's always different ways we can do things because like you say, all the clients are different and they have different needs and they react to things differently. So it's always an interesting phenomena. And one thing as therapist, you're never bored. No, I'm never bored. And I have some clients I find are much more comfortable walking and talking. So we walk along the water's edge. And it's great because the water makes enough noise so our conversations are still private. It just looks like, you know, we're two people like all the other people walking along the beach. I remember when I first started, I had, this is probably not a good insurance thing. I don't do it anymore. Who's ever listening? I would go driving in a car with a client because they were comfortable doing that. We're just sitting in a car looking at an overlook. Something, like you say, it's more their turf. It's not my turf, you know, something more familiar.  I don't find that comfortable. Truly, and I'm going to a lot of doctor's offices and that's no fun. Yeah, you know, it's a little white coat syndrome. Yeah, exactly. Let me go back to the family thing.  Maybe you could talk a little bit about the differences and some of the things you do in when you're counseling couples, when you're counseling parents and when you're counseling kids. Could you tell us a little bit about the differences there and how that goes? Well, with couples, you mean in general, not in terms of the pandemic? Just with the pandemic being the overall reality, but with the general problems? Well, in general, I always tell couples, I have three clients.  So I also had to get very comfortable with listening to somebody tell me something, saying like, you know, it happened like this. We were crossing the street and, you know, there was a big pothole. And then somebody else saying, that never happened. I wasn't with you that day. And me saying, I agree with you, to both of them. Because I wasn't there, first of all, and I don't believe that either one of them is lying to me intentionally, right? Yeah. So when I'm saying that, when I agree with them, what I really mean is I want to validate that they're being as honest and as truthful as they can be from where they are at. And to, I'm not the grand arbiter of the truth. And it's not for me to fix it. And, you know, I see my role in all those situations, whether it's couples, individuals, families, as helping them figure it out. I don't come up with the answers. I try not to even give advice for two reasons. People don't take it. And I don't know. And I know I'm at my best when I know that I don't know the answers. I see my role as, you know, sort of staying behind, staying with them, listening, reflecting and helping them figure out how to make things work better. And with couples I've learned, it's not my culliana to decide who should stay together and who should break up. So people all the time will say, so do you think, you know, there's any hope for us? Should we just call this thing off? That's not my call. I don't know. I'm amazed sometimes to me, you know, I would, I think, you know, they've been yelling at each other for an hour now. This is probably the last time I'm ever gonna see them. And at the end of the yelling for an hour, they say same time next week. And with children, when I say children, I mean anyone that is under 18, still a minor legally. Sometimes I'm faced with a special problem in that I give them the same confidentiality speech that I give everybody. And with a little extra thing, because they're a minor, I tell them I will not share anything with anybody, including their parents, unless I see it as imminently dangerous to themselves or somebody else. Sometimes that's a hard call. It's not black or white, right? And it's, I don't have a hard line on that. Sometimes, you know, I've been a parent, I'm still a parent. And I think, well, if I were in their shoes, how would I feel if the therapist kept this information for me? So what I always try to do is see the problem is if I betrayed the trust of the minor child, then I'm gonna lose that, right? So what I always try to do first, and this actually works with couples also, cause sometimes one member of a couple will tell me something and say, oh, don't tell my partner. First thing to do is try to get them to tell their partner or in the case of a child to tell their parents what's going on, to try to convince them that this is really, you know, that openness and honesty in the long run is definitely a better way to go. Unless, you know, if I think that the parent is dangerous to the child, and yeah, I'm not gonna do that, then there's other issues, but that's how I deal with that. And then family dynamics is probably the trickiest, you know, when I've got the parents and multiple children all there together.  That's tricky, you know, and sometimes you, you know, I've learned probably in one of your classes, Ken, like how sometimes you strategically side with one person or another, and you make it very obvious, you'll say, oh, you put your chair over next to this, but I think I'm gonna decide with Johnny over here this time, let's see what that feels like. And another thing that I particularly like to use because of my theater background is role play, to try to get people to see what it feels like to be the person that they're fighting with, to sit in their shoes. That is a very powerful tool that I like to use a lot, because it really can light a little light bulb in somebody's head to see what it feels like to be on the other side. Yeah, absolutely. You know, I know you also do groups and like group counseling is I do too. One of the best experiences I ever had with dealing with parents and a child is family group therapy. And I got this in my first crack out of the box, my mentor showed me how to do this and we would bring in three or four families, mother, father, child, three or four of these trios. And we would sit down and we would have them talk about things that are bothering them. And the fascinating thing to me and the most therapeutic thing that I ever saw was the fact that the parents never listened to their own kid, but they listened very closely to the other kids in the group. And the kids who never listened to their parents listened very carefully to the other parents in the group. And it opened up communication like I've never seen before since and it was a fascinating, fascinating way to do family therapy. There are many ways like you're pointing out, many ways to reach people and it depends upon our situations and certainly in our situation with the coronavirus it's very unique and very different for us. I love groups as well. And I did some of that family group stuff when I was working for Salvation Army in a drug treatment place. They would have family sessions without the person with the addiction. We would eat once, I think it was once a week at a church, all the families together, there'd be a whole bunch of families. And yeah, it's exactly what you're saying. It's like we can't hear the people that we were so tightly connected to but if it comes from the outside, so I guess our defenses drop a little bit with just somebody listening to somebody else and then this little thing goes always like, oh yeah, that's what I heard so-and-so say. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's very, group therapy is super powerful. The hardest part is getting people to join up. Groups are really hard to start. People, there's so much stigma and shame and people don't want the world to know about their particular problems. Everybody somehow thinks that nobody's got problems like we have until they get into the other room with everybody else and they go away thinking, oh boy, we're so much better off than they are. Truly. Well, we could talk about that a lot, but like you say, we're running short. I wanted one last question for you before we call it a day. What's the one thing that you've tried recently that's looked very promising? What's the one thing that you're looking forward to doing more of as far as helping people in your work? Because I think we're gonna need lots of new things, not only because of the coronavirus, but because of all the other new pressures and new things that are happening in the world today. So if you could just sort of give us a preview of what might be coming up or what looks promising? I probably should have studied your questions more carefully before I came on. One thing, I don't know, one thing, this is not a new thing, and it's something that I've done from time to time, especially when I'm working with a couple where they're really on the brink, they can't talk to each other at all. I'll have them sit facing each other, looking each other in the eyes for three minutes without speaking. And there's something about that that softens people. Very often tears start to flow or laughter will happen.   I agree, I think that's a very powerful technique. One of the things that when we're looking at each other and arguing, we tend to be saying the same things over and over and over again. And just sitting there like you're saying, looking at each other, you're not saying those things over and over again. You're not opening old wounds.  Some of those good feelings. The other thing I'll do sometimes, people, one of the problems with the pandemic is you can't touch people, but if they're a couple, they're still touching each other, thank goodness, hopefully. And I asked them to hold each other and to synchronize their breathing together. And to do that for a couple of minutes, again, without talking, just holding each other and feeling their body against the other person's body and getting their breath in time with each other. I see it says one minute now. Steve, I can't thank you enough for coming on the show. It's just always such a pleasure talking to you and trading ideas because the field that we're in is so difficult with so few answers, especially with the new things that are happening with the coronavirus and how to deal with grief, for instance, with the war in the Ukraine and just everything that is happening that seems to be, like we said before, overwhelming. So thank you so much for being here. I also wanted to thank the Think Tech of Hawaii people. I wanted to thank Jay and Haley and Mike and Eric and all the people who make this show possible and again. Thank you, Ken. Thank you for having me. It's always a delight to talk to you. Absolutely. And thanks again, Steve. Bye-bye. Bye-bye, everybody.


Are Christian sinners, are we sinners saved by grace, or are we just saints and saints only? Sometimes the language can be a bit confusing, and so we need to be clear on what we say certain things. We know what it is that should be meant. The Bible is clear that every single person that's ever lived, that's ever been born, saved Jesus, they have been born as a sinner. We have inherited a nature to want to sin. Simply look at any one-year-old, two-year-old, three-year-old, any child, and you'll see just the nature, the propensity to do things even without being taught. So we are sinners in the sense that we all sin, but once a person places their faith in Christ, are they still sinners? Even if that person sins? Well, we're told that we all will sin. As a matter of fact, if we listen to what John says in 1 John 1, verse 8, he says that if we have, say we have no sin, then we are deceiving ourselves, and the truth is not in us. In other words, we do sin. And he's writing to believers, so we do sin. However, you'll find this out, that we won't find anywhere in the Bible where a believer, a saint, is called a sinner. That's important, because how we're called, how we're viewed by God, ultimately is the more important thing. Not what we might do from time to time. However, and I use that phrase from time to time, because if we're in the habit of practicing sin, then we are not saints. We have not been saved. The Bible says the one who practices sin, and the word this used here over in the Greek is hapoion, which is the one that's doing, the one that's practicing, tain ha-martian, which is practicing the sin. So that person that lives a lifestyle of sin, that person is a sinner. Saints, however, are not such people. Paul talks about our new life, and that we are saved in Romans 6. He says that even so, consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive in Christ. That's very important.   If you have placed your faith in Christ. Remember, Jesus did not come for those that are healthy, those that have no need, but he came for those that are sinners. He says, this, it is not those who are healthy who need a physician, but those who are sick. I did not come to call the righteous, but to call the sinners, to call the sinners to what? For the sinners to become righteous, for the sinners to be holy. He is the one that makes us holy. Now that's important, because Paul makes this argument, this taping, because of thus, then I am not a sinner. So therefore, but he says, first 7 chapter 3 of Romans, he says, but if through my lie, the truth of God abounded to his glory, why am I also being judged as a sinner? In other words, you should not judge me or look at me as a sinner. I am not a sinner. I am a saint. I may have, I may sin. I might miss the mark. I might do some things that are not right, but ultimately it's going to be how God looks at me, because what does he say? In 1 Corinthians 6 9, he says, or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? And he runs through a list of different sins, and people who are doing these things, these are the sinners. These are the ones who are engaged or practicing sin. These are the ones who will not inherit the kingdom of God. But notice what he says in verse 11. He says, such were some of you, but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and in the spirit of God. So you were these things, but then after that you were washed, you were justified, you were sanctified. Sanctified means to be made holy. You have been consecrated, made sacred, made separate. That's what a believer is. A saint is no longer a sinner. Now I was once a sinner, saved obviously by grace, and now have been called a saint, called a saint by who? Not from fellow men, but called a saint by God. Notice what he says in verse 2 of 1 Corinthians 1. He says to the church of God, which is at Corinth, to those who have been sanctified in Christ Jesus, saints by calling with all who in every place, called in the name of the Lord. So you have been called a saint who those who have called upon the name of the Lord, those who have placed their faith in Christ, and so you are called a saint. And so in truth, when we refer to another believer, we should never refer to another believer as a sinner, though he might sin. No much more so should we refer to a person as a basketball player just because he takes a basketball to his local basketball court and plays a game of basketball. He's not a basketball player, though he is playing basketball at the moment or at that time. That's not who he's known by. That's not what he's known by. That's not who he's called to be. Similarly, we are known by not any more our actions, but we are known by the person who has made us saints who has sanctified us, who has consecrated us. If a person is practicing sin and that person may have verbally made a profession of faith, he may very well not be an actual saint, but because of his practice, his lifestyle of sin, well then that person is in all likelihood still a sinner. Now we can't, it's hard for us to get an accurate judgment. So ultimately it's up to that person who knows for himself whether he is or he is not, and then God also. But a person who has legitimately placed their faith in Christ is no longer called a sinner, but he's called a saint, which again, there's a reason why the Bible never calls us sinners, never calls a Christian a sinner, but calls us saints. Amen.


I describe this person as being someone who was very charismatic, incredibly charming. They were very charming. He's very charming. They could be nice, but then I would switch with a snath. He would just always say one thing and do another. He throws stuff in my face to distract me, to switch the spotlight onto myself, and then everything that he did wrong is out the window.  You don't know what you're talking about. You don't know what you're saying. I never said that they're crazy. You're crazy. I started to think, you know, maybe I am causing problems because every time I express this, he gets upset. It's always, it always seems like I'm the one causing the problem. The hardest part was having friends telling me that I was being gaslit and I didn't see it. We are continuing our exploration into manipulative mind games that are played in romantic relationships. Now, we began this series talking about love bombing. Then we went into dentistry and today it's all about gaslighting. Now, gaslighting refers to the act of undermining another person's reality by denying facts, the environment around them, or their feelings. Targets of gaslighting are manipulated into turning against their own memory, emotions, and possibly their own core identity. People use gaslighting in relationships for two primary reasons.  And number two, so they can create insecurities in others and use that as a form of control. I think it is massively important that we deconstruct manipulative mind games so that people are able to spot them, avoid them, and if you've been through one, to heal from one. Now, yes, you can listen to this video and get the recipe and try to use this on others, but I truly want to stress nobody wins when mind manipulation is used. Because yes, you can get someone to technically fall for you, but they will despise the experience of being close to you and thus you lose out on the entire point and the joy of intimacy. And that is why it is so crucial that we practice self-care and above all else that we arm ourselves with knowledge so that we can see people with bad intentions miles away. And that is the entire point of this series, to give you awareness so that you can make better informed decisions so that you can choose healthier relationships. And if you want more research on how to do that, may I suggest my audiobook, The Game of Desire, read by me. And it is a story of how I worked with six amazing women through my five phase strategy to helping them become the best versions themselves so they could attract the best people for them. If you also want to do more research than that on mind manipulation, I strongly suggest any audiobook on dark psychology. And speaking of audiobooks, this video is sponsored by my homies, my partners Audible. And Audible has the largest selection of audiobooks on the planet. They have audio fitness programs and Audible originals. Now what's really great about this partnership is I was already a subscriber of Audible for like four years at this point and I only partnered with them after my audiobook, The Game of Desire, got added to their library and then made their top 100. But what I do strongly want to emphasize is y'all, the deal I'm about to tell you was not around when I signed up for Audible. It is a goodie and I want you to take advantage of it. So I want you to go to audible.com slash shambudi or if you're in the U.S. just text shambudi to the number 500500 and then you are going to get Audible for just 6.95 for three months plus you're going to get an audiobook and two Audible originals to put this into context for you. If you were to go and order my audiobook from the publishing company directly, you would spend over $20. But with this offer from Audible, you're spending 6.95 to get my audiobook or any audiobook of your choosing and you're also going to get two Audible originals. So yes, this is definitely a deal and once again, if you want to capitalize off of that, please go to audible.com slash shambudi or text the word shambudi to the number 500500. To further break this down, I'm going to give you the blueprint to how gaslighting shows up in romantic relationships. Step one, a gaslighter will pick their poison. They are going to select the reality they want to enforce and I have noticed that a lot of gaslighters try to create an insecurity based on their own insecurity. So they will project their issues onto you.  If they are often unfaithful, they will often accuse you of being the one to step out. Once they pick their poison, that's when you get into step two. And step two is repetitions. This person will constantly reinforce whatever again that reality is that they are trying to get you to accept. They will bring it up in joking manners. They'll bring it up in public and they'll often accuse you of it even again when it doesn't actually match up with reality. Step three, a gaslighter will collect co-signers. Now either through using confirmation bias or confirmation fabrication to enforce the reality and oftentimes they'll flat out lie about this and say things like everyone else thinks you're like this. Everyone talks about this behind your back. You're known for being this way. Step four is the good old switcheroo. The gaslighter will use whatever their enforced reality is as a scapegoat whenever they are in the wrong. So if you call them out on something, they will quickly try to switch the narrative to pinning back to that insecurity that they have created in you. And the final most toxic step is console. Step number five is when they will pretend they are the only ones who accept you and who will deal with you and work with you and after they've made you feel the lowest of the lows, they'll swoop in and say, but you know what, we'll get through this together and I'll stand by you even though you've got this really, really toxic problem because I'm the only one who can possibly love you because well, look at you.  I never said that. You're being overly sensitive. You are so paranoid. You love drama.   Now for the important part of this video. What do you do if you recognize that there might be a gaslighter in your life? One, I think it's important just to call a spade a spade. You got to sit someone down during a calm time and say, look, I've noticed this pattern that we tend to do in our relationship and this is what it's looking like. I don't want to get into that kind of toxic cycle. So how can we work together to fix it? But ultimately the other person that has to come to you and say, I am a part of this system of change and I want to be accountable for myself so that we have a better connection because if they don't, there's nothing you can do about it. If you try to propose a solution and they just escalate and get angry, I would say that is good cause to try to sever the relationships and self insight truly is a solo sport and you can't change somebody else and it's up to them to change if they want and they value what you share. And if they don't, slide them to the left or put them in a compartmentalized box where they're not going to negatively affect you the way that a gaslighter truly can if completely unleashed. And if you are listening to this and you're thinking, damn, I think I may have gaslit somebody in the past. First and foremost, self insight is the cure to gaslighting and if you recognize that, you are already well on your way to doing better in the future. I also think it's a matter of just affirming to yourself that it's okay to be imperfect. You don't have to try to have a perfect record and have said the right things or did the right things or responded the right way. It's all right to admit your flaws. It's definitely not all right to project them on to other people. It is crucial that none of us fall victim to the idea that we won't have to work on our own faults if we invest our time and energy in highlighting other peoples. And honestly, who wants to be perfect anyways? It's through recognizing our faults and working on them that we achieve our potential in becoming our best self. And if you're never in the wrong at the end of any relationship, then you didn't grow from that relationship. At best, you just got by. That's it. I hope you enjoyed this video and if you did, I want to remind you there's more ways you can gain insight just like this. For example, you can listen to my audiobook, The Game of Desire on Audible and you can use my Audible offer to get a crazy discounted price. You can get Audible for just $6.95 a month for three months and with that offer, you're also going to get one audiobook and two Audible originals. And if you want to capitalize off this deal, please go to Audible.com slash Shambudi or if you're in the US, text Shambudi to the phone number 500-500. You can find full details about the offer in the info box below and if you go down just a little bit lower, you'll find the comment section where I want to hear from you. Gaslighting, have you experienced it? Have you done it? And what have you learned about it?


So far, we found a wave function such that the destruction operator applied to it produces the wave function times an arbitrary complex constant c. And, we've seen that magnitude c squared is the expected number of photons in the mode. Now, let's calculate the expectation value of the electromagnetic field operator for our wave function. Per reference, here's the recursion formula for the bn coefficients. The wave function is the sum over n of bn times quantum state n. And here we explicitly show the time dependence, e to the minus i n plus one half omega t. For the bra version, we'll use m for the summation variable. We have the bra version of quantum state m times the complex conjugates of bm and the exponential time factor. Then, the expectation value of the destruction operator is the sum over m, the sum over n of e to the minus i n minus m omega t times bm conjugate bn times bra m a hat minus ket n. One thing to notice is that the one half terms in the complex exponential factors have canceled out. In video two, we saw that these terms correspond to the zero point energies, that when summed over all modes, give us a very inconvenient infinity. This calculation shows why we can often get away with ignoring this infinity. The zero point terms cancel and so have no effect on our final result. Back to our expectation value, the destruction operator destroys the n equals zero ket and converts the general n ket into square root n times the n minus one ket. Replacing n with n plus one, we get an expression that contains as a factor the projection of the n photon state onto the m photon state. This is zero, unless m equals n, in which case it's one. Replacing m by n and dropping the m summation, we get the sum over n e to the minus i omega t bn conjugate bn plus one square root n plus one. Substituting the formula at top left for bn plus one, we end up with sum over n e to the minus i omega t c magnitude squared bn. Since some magnitude squared bn equals one, this gives us, for the expectation value of the destruction operator, c times e to the minus i omega t. A very similar analysis shows that the expectation value of the creation operator is the conjugate of this, c conjugate times e to the i omega t. Therefore, our electromagnetic field operator has an expectation value polarized in the x direction times square root one over two omega times the quantity c e to the i kz minus omega t plus the complex conjugate. Writing the complex number c as magnitude c times e to the i theta, and using the fact that a complex expression plus its conjugate equals twice the real part of the expression, the quantity in parentheses becomes two magnitude c cosine kz minus omega t plus theta. This is identical to the classical wave we started with, provided we identify two magnitude c as our original amplitude b. Now, this does not mean that the quantum field is identical to the classical field, only that, on average, a measurement of the quantum field will correspond to the classical field. In fact, we've already seen that the amplitude of the quantum field must be fuzzy in some sense, because it does not contain a precise number of photons. Instead, the number of photons is described by a probability distribution with mean value magnitude c squared. This is analogous to the quantum harmonic oscillator for which the particle position is given by a fuzzy probability distribution centered on the classical particle position. So the quantum field must be represented by a fuzzy distribution centered on the classical field value. The size of these quantum fluctuations is quantified by the field's root mean square deviation, sigma a. This is the square root of the expectation value of a squared minus the square of the expectation value of a. Following through the somewhat lengthy calculations, we find the value is square root 1 over 2 omega. This is independent of the constant c, hence of the classical field amplitude, and of the expected number of photons present in the mode. So, as field amplitude increases, quantum noise becomes an ever smaller fraction of the field. And we approach the classical case where the field has a precisely defined value throughout space and time. But as field amplitude decreases, quantum noise becomes an ever larger fraction of the field. In the limit c equals 0 for which the classical field vanishes, quantum fluctuations remain. This is the vacuum state. We see that in quantum field theory, a vacuum is not quote nothing or quote empty space. Quantum fluctuations of the field are always present. If we take this seriously, then we might expect there to be observable consequences. We will return to this question in future videos. Finally, we want to introduce an alternate representation of a quantum system that will simplify our future calculations. The representation we have used so far is called the Schrödinger picture. Here the time dependence of the system is contained in the wave function. Operators are typically time independent. This is the standard representation we use throughout the quantum mechanics series, and it's the way quantum mechanics is typically taught. In this video so far, we've been working in this representation. Our field operator has spatial dependence but no time dependence. The time dependence appears in the wave function. A different representation is the Heisenberg picture. Here time dependence is contained in operators, or the wave function is time independent. In the Heisenberg picture, our wave function has no time dependence. It's identical to the Schrödinger wave function evaluated at time t equals 0. The time dependence now appears in the field operator, through the factor e to the i kz minus omega t and its complex conjugate. These different representations lead to the same physical predictions. For quantum field theory, the Heisenberg picture is more convenient. So going forward, we will generally use this representation. As an example of the convenience of the Heisenberg picture, consider the classical field description of a single electromagnetic mode. ak alpha equals unit vector ek alpha over square root 2 omega times 2 amplitude ak alpha times cosine k dot x minus omega t plus theta k alpha. Writing this in terms of complex exponentials, we get an expression with two terms. One with amplitude ak alpha and the other with amplitude ak alpha conjugate. Comparing this to the Heisenberg field operator, they appear almost identical. The only change is that the amplitudes are replaced by destruction and creation operators. Apparently, if we have a classical field expression, we can immediately transition to a quantum field representation by this simple replacement. In the classical field expression, which amplitude factor we denote as the conjugate is arbitrary? What determines the type of operator we replace them by is the time dependence. The amplitude associated with the e to the minus i omega t factor becomes the destruction operator. While the amplitude associated with the e to the plus i omega t factor becomes the creation operator.


Tom here for more systems and we're going to talk about 48 if you want to learn more about me or my company head over to Lawrence systems calm feel like the hires for a project or see hires button at the top If you want to support channel another way There are affiliate links below for products and services that we talk about and now we're going to talk about 48 Got no offer codes or affiliates for them. I don't even own a 48 device I'm going to talk about some of the security culture as I see it from outside Looking in based on a list of articles. I have in security vulnerabilities We're going to talk very specifically about the coding mistakes that 48 has been making and has been making for a number of years Regarding hard-coded keys now I was at an event of auto a few months ago, and I got to meet some of the 48 people the sales people They seem pleasant and there is always a problem in companies a real decision that has to be made We want to make things easy for the users. This is the sales and marketing team We want to make it very easy and simple to use and there's a security team going don't hard code passwords Then management sets the precedents in the culture of deciding who wins that battle and that battle has been Well, really really not going well over at 48 in my opinion so this is the latest as of Just what few days ago. This was all made public 40 40 sim hard-coded SSH key tested on version 525 526 Haven't confirmed all versions 40 net has their own CVN and they do 40 sim has a hard-coded SSH Public key for you user tone user, which is the same between all installs an attacker with this key can successfully Authenticate as the user for 40 sim supervisor now. This is a restricted user It is any points out restricted to only opt shell In this particular tone shell script, but I want you to think about something once a user has some level of access in The firewall it's a matter of keep trying that access until you can pivot see if there's a way to crash that particular program See if there's a way there's something you can exploit I don't want anything potentially Authenticating on my firewalls firewalls or would divide us between our networks and the internet So they are critical in terms of security and there appears to be some goof-ups in terms of them actually getting the email from this particular security researcher I'm a little fuzzy on why they didn't respond to the emails But he did his closure based on them not responding as opposed to going through a waiting He posted before they had the fix, but they have the fix So here is the fix for 40 sim default SSH key tunnel user and you're probably thinking this is an isolated incident But I have tons of evidence of the contrary So this is over at our second year hard-coded password raises new backdoor for e-shopping fears discovery comes a month after Competitor Juniper also had a hard-coded there and yes, we now have a hard-coded password in there This would allow people to log in so that's not good So it's a challenge response for routine logging in with servers, etc What let's dive further. What about other products 40 heat makes 40 recorder sets credentials to a 48 to static values Another problem they have here. It's an authentication control bass a bypass because it's a hard-coded credentials Not a default password. That's different hard-coded credentials means they could just log in But what about their other vulnerabilities? Certainly, these are just coding vulnerabilities and you're being you know hyper bad about them time. You're really pushing it here No, no these also this is just I Don't know how to describe it other than not secure So in addition it was disclosed and fixed on May of 2019 that for you as included a magic string value They had been previously created at the request of a customer to enable and implement password change process When said passwords aspiring that function had been inadvertently bundled into general 40 OS release and improper Authorization informability resulted that that value being usable on its own remotely changed password addresses LVP and users credentials Yeah, we just bundled in a password on accident We don't apparently take our customer code base and our main code base and check them Back to security culture use of hard-coded cryptographic key cipher sensitive data and backup files hard-coded key again See a common phrase here some 49 pressure to the another hard-coded encryption key This was a one that took 18 months to fix this was to close also in 2019 And took months to get this fix there's a whole breakdown of here They do have fixes for this and of course there's the security research and I'll leave links to all these so you can Do further reading if you want to dive into the details But you notice the phrase I used in hard-coded key Repetitively over four years. We're probably gonna find more of these why well, you know Once someone has discovered that a company has a practice of putting hard-coded keys in there People and security researchers are gonna keep looking and probably keep finding more and more hard-coded keys It is a problem I have with a lot of closed source firewalls You don't know if there's hard-coded key until security research take the time to poke away at it now with open source Jim really speaking a mature open source products not gonna have hard-coded keys Someone would notice them very very quickly. So if a large open source project were to go You know, we're just gonna go and put these static encryption keys and everyone can use them And by the way, we'll go ahead and put the public and private one all bundled into the source code So anyone can see it that someone would really look hard at that That doesn't make any sense now There are always code flaws that do come in because coding is hard and a larger your code base gets them more Difficult it is to secure that's the statistics and especially gets harder as you have programmers that are probably being pushed over by marketing Or maybe they just hired the lowest bidder. I don't know details. I've never been inside 48 to understand this I don't even know if they're going to address this in any way or ignore this video completely But my feeling and watching a company that has an entire long history and I only pulled up the one specifically And I know there's still more that were related to hard-coded passwords This does not set well with me in terms of me and my thoughts on any company that does this if you're hard coding passwords Not setting defaults not like hey, here's a default and change it like hard coding cryptographic keys That's bad. This may have been some security ideas people have many many years ago out of convenience But it's really arbitrary to generate new keys on new installs on new boots and then create different key pairs And yes, I know that you do have to spend a little bit more time setting these things up when you have that versus the convenience of Hey, it just used the same key. So anytime I load the software it gets there awesome. That's great, but I Don't believe 48 does that They appear to just choose the really really easy route of create a key and bundle it in our firmware The last little note I'll have is I don't own any 48 devices, but I did try logging in a 48 website I did create an account with them But I notice you can't download firmware and my understanding and someone can correct me if I'm wrong The only way to get firmware is when you have a device that is under support if I'm wrong about that Just let me know I did notice though without a device It didn't let me choose to download firmware, but lack of device means I kind of stopped there I've had a few people mention it to me and I've had people tell me two different answers So if you want to leave that as a comment below whether or not you need to have a Support contract in order to get firmware. I'm interested now, but as far as my overall thoughts on 48 every time someone asks this video is now The reply I don't know if the company's gonna make some major changes, but I kind of think they should this is definitely concerning And once again why advocate for open source and of course not not because it's open source I think it's secure open source mature product gone through code vetting that makes a product much more secure That helps a lot and it you know We are not as likely to find default cryptographic keys in them. Thanks And thank you for making it to the end of the video If you liked this video, please give it a thumbs up if you'd like to see more content from the channel Hit the subscribe button and hit the bell icon if you like YouTube to notify you when new videos come out If you'd like to hire us head over to Lawrence systems calm fill out our contact page And let us know what we can help you with and what projects you'd like us to work together on if you want to carry on the discussion head over to forums that Lawrence systems calm where we can carry on the discussion about this video other videos or Other tech topics in general even suggestions for new videos. They're accepted right there on our forums Which are free also if you like to help the channel out in other ways head over to our affiliate page We have a lot of great tech offers for you and once again, thanks for watching and see you next time


Hi guys, and welcome back to another episode of our Pokemon VGC battle series. We are here, there's the moon series, we kicked off this week with a brand new team and as we said in yesterday's episode. If you haven't checked it out already, go up here, I'll link the last two episodes in the card up there for you so you can go and check them out. But like I said in yesterday's episode, we were really struggling against that Kyogre kind of composition. So we have to look at changing things up because it's every match, it's not just how we're leading into it, it's how we're progressing through those matches and it just seemed too much. So we're going to try something different today and this is always a good thing to do, try different things, see if they work, see if they overcome the little weaknesses that you've got. The changes that we've made, we've got the Abomasno for the Gengar and the Mandibus for the Tabakoko. Now the two things that I wanted to do was keep in mind was, and the back of my mind was one thing was even though we're approaching the Kyogre matchup. I didn't want to lose our matchup against Lunala so we need to keep that in mind as well. Now the Mandibus offers us here, it offers us Tailwind, extra speed control support for the team that we were missing originally there. It's a dark typing as well that gives us a good matchup against Lunala.  We've got Snarl on there, Fileplay on there, Tailwind and Rooster. It's got the psychic seat to benefit from the psychic terrain and then we've also included Abomasno on there. It gives us the hail, also benefits curum. There isn't so much of a need now for the gravity on the Tapu Lele so we can take that off. We've got Himpah, so it's got the Himpah Fire already so we've got Himpah Fire on there to help deal with Kartana a little bit better. So we've got three Pokemon, four Pokemon really in there that can really deal with Kartana pretty well. The Mandibus, the Sogolaya, Tapu Lele and the Arcanine. The Abomasno gives us a really decent matchup against Kyogre. It's a nice switching, gets rid of the rain, prevents those boosts and things like that. So we've got little ways to get around it. We're going to have to put this into practice on. That's the thing we're going into today. We're going to practice it. We're going to try it out. Probably try it today and tomorrow and then we might change things up on Friday to see how things are going. If we're going alright, we might tweak a little bit more. But this is a really good thing about this team this week. It's a lot of fun and it's a good way to portray how we can tweak things to make them better and improve them and shine things up so they're all polished and working perfectly in the end hopefully. So that's where we want to get to by the end of this little stretch of episodes next Friday when we finish up with the team. So as always, the pace for the team is down in the description below as well as the poker pace for this updated version. So go and try this out. And without further ado, get into today's episode. As always, if you enjoy the content, make sure to leave a like, subscribe to the channel and leave your comments in the comment section down below. So here we go. Back into it today. Let's crank the music on and hopefully it's a good one. I've been enjoying it even though things have been a bit tough for the team to kind of get a grasp of things. I've still been enjoying it and the team is a lot of fun to play and it's nice playing like these quirkier teams. Sometimes on the channel, just to see it and look at different options that we've got going forward, let's go with some Elite Four today. But like I say, if you've got any questions, queries or anything, do leave them in the comment section below. I'd love to chat about the team and how we're approaching things. But at the end of the day, it's not massively serious. So don't think like, why are you not playing like a standard team? We should see more standard teams. We'll play standard teams, but at the same time, it's nice to look at the format and see what fun you can have with it as well. I think it's a good example. I think we miss sometimes how much Pokemon is a fun game and that's why we play it. But we're going to get into T3 anyway. Stop my rant because we're going up against Kyogre, Sugalale, Serena, Incineroar, Togacus and Ferothorne. Again, the blanks are coming. But okay, so we're going up against Kyogre, which is great for us going into this first game because it's the one Pokemon that we wanted to test our luck against. So we have got the Obomous Snow. It's going to be very good against that Kyogre, the Serena. The Togacus as well, it's going to be very good against. We have to watch out for those air slashes. There is elements of trick room in the team that can be set up by that Togaleo and there's elements of speed control with the Togacus as well with the Tailwind there. Now, I think Manderbus is also a very good Pokemon for us in this team. I think it will bring the Manderbus here. We need that Tailwind support as well. With the Manderbus, I'm kind of forced. This is maybe a little bit of a drawback to bring this up a little bit. It isn't so really that beneficial in this format. Because I need to get the psychic terrain activated. But it's always nice, I think, if we bring the Obomous Snow as well in the back and maybe our own Togaleo. They can deal with primarily the majority of this team. I don't think we're relying too heavily on Arcanine. It obviously would be very nice for that Ferrothorn, but we do have Super Power, we've got Hidden Power. Fire on our Tapulele as well that can deal with that. So I think all in all, we'll give this a go to start us off and get into this first one. But hopefully I'm getting my message across all right. We played a really standard-ish team last week and you saw Precious Blades doing his thing because we didn't run gravity and it was our own fault because we've got no one else to blame. But the thing is, it was a bit of a grind at times. So it's nice just to take a break away from that. Come back to the fun aspects, the things that we actually fell in love with Pokemon 4 and try some different things and have a little bit of a riot on the channel as well. Because like I was saying in Monday's episode it might be those little sparks here and everywhere that give you the inspiration to go forward and try something out yourself with some of these things. Because they do have a lot of potential and they do feel a niche. And I think MandeBos is something that's very good as well. So we lead out with MandeBos Tapulele. We see my opponent lead off with the Incineroar, the Sogaleo. There's the Intimidate Cycling there. We do threaten the Sogaleo quite heavily here and we are pretty able to just set up our tailwind. But I do worry about the potential trick room here. So I'm just going to go for that file player into the Sogaleo. We have to worry a little bit about the potential. Ooh, did we go for a knock? I feel like a knock off could come from this Incineroar into our Tapulele here, which does worry me slightly. And I want to preserve Tapulele, but we do need to preserve Sogaleo a little bit more than that. So I could just get some damage off onto stuff and I could hit and par. I could hit and par fire the Sogaleo.  And are we going to see a trick room? That's the thing. We do do bad damage, we put it in range and now we are able to get our own Sogaleo in onto the field. And then we do lose Tapulele, but at the same time, in hindsight, it would have been better to bring in our own Sogaleo in this spot. But at the same time, we risk getting knocked off from the Incineroar putting us in a really bad place. And then if the tail winded their trick room and went up from the Sogaleo the next turn, we're in a really awkward position. So it was just like weighing up of these things here. So I'm going to go for far play into the Sogaleo now. Or do we go, do we set? No, I'll go for the far play into the Sogaleo. We should get it. I don't know if I want to go into the Incineroar just yet with the super par because I don't think we get it. But we can definitely deny the trick room, for sure. I think I might just knock off into the Hozen Incineroar. And we've got Y God now on Sogaleo. So we're going to see the Incineroar switch out. We're going to see Kyogre come in. So this is really good for us because if this is Skaft Kyogre, we're going to be able to remove that Cho Skaft. And if the Sogaleo does go for a trick room, no, it's just going to go for a Protector. So that's fine. So we do remove the Cho Skaft. There's a far play. It's not a bad time to bring in a bomber snow, to be honest, either. Because we can far play again into the Sogaleo. But I feel like the Sogaleo probably switches out here if I'm completely honest about things. We could set the tailwind up and bring in a bomber snow, which isn't a bad option at all.  And I don't think the Sogaleo position it's in, it stays in now. We are seeing it switch out. And it's in a right in the field now. So the one thing that we want to try and do is get a speed advantage over the opposing Kyogre.  It's going to sacrifice that Psychic Seed. But it might be worth doing. Maybe. Origin Pulse coming out. It does connect with both targets. It's a little bit unfortunate. We might not be able to pull off our tech. But we do get the tailwind up, which is nice. Now we are forcing the Kyogre out now. Although we're sitting on the field now, we've got nothing to hit that opposing Incineroar with. It might be nice to preserve a bomber snow for later in the game. But at the same time, it could be a good chance. I feel like Manderbus is kind of ruling the roost now. Sorry for the pun, but it kind of is doing a very good job. It just kind of breaking down my opponent's options. We could protect the bomber snow here. I have got bulldoze on it. So that's the option I was talking about. We could bulldoze here and bring in Sugaleroar. Activate our weakness policy and start ripping through my opponent's team. I do feel like it's probably not a bad option to do. We lose our Psychic Seed, but at the same time, we want to try and get Sugaleroar in a position where we can start doing some good damage with it. I don't see a knockoff from the Incineroar coming into that slot. It's going to be into the bomber snow and the Kyogre switch out. But as long as we've got our tail wind up, yeah. And we can potentially get the weakness bulldoze. It's a bit of a weird option, but I mean Serena coming out as well. That's fine. That works perfectly for us here because with the bulldoze, we'll proc our weakness policy. We'll put ourselves in such a strong position going into this next turn where we can Blizzard pick up probably the knockout on the Serena. We can attack into the Sugaleroar, take that out with a knockoff. We've got to worry about the Kyogre coming in though as well. So I might be better off just attacking into the Serena with a Sunseal Strike and then bringing in Mandibas for our bomber snow, keeping that around for later so we can disrupt that rain again when my opponent decides to bring it in. Now I think with the weakness policy boost, as long as this opposing Sugaleroar hasn't got knockoff, which I doubt it has, so we're going to see the Serena switch out and Incineroar come back in. And as long as we've got the psychic terrain up on the field, we're not too worried about these fake outs except for Mandibas that's flying not attached to the ground. Sugaleroar going to protect here. Okay, this is fine. So I feel already like the team has options that are kind of supporting our worst matchups a lot better here. So we do some nice damage to that Incineroar. Now we're in a position to take both things down this next turn. Obviously we have to worry about the fake out coming out from the Incineroar that can hit either target now and it probably does go for that. Now I'm going to just knockoff into the Sugaleroar and I'm going to foul play into that slot as well. Oh, do we super par? Because the Incineroar could potentially just not bother. I'm going to actually super par into the Incineroar here. Yeah, and foul play. There's a fake out. Okay, that's fine. We'll get rid of the Sugaleroar. His foul play will be enough. More than enough. I'm just chipped away by this heal and I think a tailwind runs out now. Yeah, she's an ideal. The Kyogre could potentially come in. I don't mind the actual rain being up at the moment because we can wide guard and tailwind. Get away with it. The problem is if we wide guard, just the risk of a knockoff from that Incineroar and there's a Kyogre go for it. It probably goes for, yeah, I think we wide guard and tailwind here. The other option is we bring in a bonus now but we get rid of our weakness policy boosts which is maybe not ideal. I'm going to wide guard and I'm going to tailwind. This Kyogre goes for Origin Pulse. Water Spout. Ice Beam. Ice Beam. Okay, seeing straight through that my opponent. We actually take it. We do get the tailwind off. Are we going to be able to take a knockoff? Maybe we should be able to take a knockoff. Fleblets in the rain. Well, I don't mind this at all. That's fine. Now we know the Kyogre hasn't got protect so we can hit into that slot pretty freely. And I think it switches out. If I'm like completely honest, I think the Kyogre switches out. So I could just roost here and I'm going to super power into the Incineroar. It's going to be close. It's going to be close. It depends. Yeah, there's a Kyogre switching out. Okay, so we've got this one right. We've got to roost with our mana buzz. Now we should be in a good position to kind of hopefully be able to close this one out. I don't think a faint is going to be enough to take down Sougalaya from this range. So you get a roost. Roost it up! Big bird. Here we go. Getting all that nice health back. Hmm. Kyogre coming back in. Now the Kyogre has not got protect so we could just double into that slot with a Sunsteel Strike and a Foul Play. And I think that's the best way first to do this. Tailwind's still up so we'll still be out at speed. Sougalaya's still plus one so the Sunsteel Strike should be doing enough damage to put it at least in range for a Foul Play. We have removed the scarf already as we see the Serena just go for a help in hand. So this should... Oh, yeah.  Let's see. It should be enough. I'm hoping it's enough. It's not. We're screwed. There we go. Okay, so we tip the Kyogre down and now we've just got the Serenas to deal with. So... Things working out all right in game one, I think. We'll go for Sunsteel Strike and just that Foul Play again. Maybe see a full fit because we just got a bomb in the back. Yeah, there we go. So, good game to my opponent and the team actually doing really well for us today to kick us off so... Things going smoother than I thought they would but very exciting, all the same and very good game to my opponent. I did enjoy that so... That's the main thing. That's the message this two weeks like I've been pushing so... But a bomb has stopped putting a lot of work. It's really good at disrupting the Kyogre and the star of the show there was really the mind of us. It's a bit weird having bulldoze on a bomber snore but the only reason I've got it in there is because of the weakness policy that we've got on Sougalé and it's nice to have like two options there where we couldn't bring the arcanine to that game because we just didn't have the room for it but we were able to have a self-proc'ing option on the team as well with the bomber snore and I don't think we miss that third slot. Like we've got protect there, we've got blizzard, we've got grass knot. So that third slot can really be anything like ice beam, icy wind and the bulldoze makes a lot of sense there for this particular build. So it came in useful and it paid off. So let's see if we can find our next opponent. We've got a musical set as always if it takes a bit too long to find the opponent I'll just cut straight to that. There we go, we've got Tofu as our next opponent. 17-92 rating and playing a team, a spicy team. It is Incinero Volcarona, Amungus, Zernius, Tabukoko and Groudon. So we've got that restricted core of Zernius and Groudon. We've got a supporting cast of Volcarona, Amungus there, both have access to rage powder. Volcarona are going to really benefit from the sun here from that Groudon has access to quiver dance as well. Lots of shenanigans that thing can do so I don't really know what to expect because it has really wide in variety. A big variety of moves it can select from. We've got Tabukoko for the terrain support Incinero as always for that intimidate and fake out support. Now what are we going to do here? Cure him, it's going to be good. It does have to be careful obviously of that Zernius in particular but it can be very, very useful. So I'm going to go Cure him and I think I'm going to go Arcanine. I think I'm going to bring Sugaleo and I think I'm going to bring Tabulili for terrain control. It helps us against Amungus. The other thing is like Mandibos here isn't bad because of the ground immunity that we do. It does offer. The only thing is it's going to struggle against Tabukoko. It's going to struggle against Zernius. It does do a really nice job against Groudon and Amungus but outside of that it's not really offering too much. So there we go. Let's see how we get into this one today guys. It should be a good match and hopefully we don't cock it up too much. I'm sure it'll be fine. Sure it'll be fine. But Tufu is a player that's always very highly ranked on the basketball ladder so it's very nice to be able to feature him on the channel and hopefully it's a good match for you guys as well at home. We are going to see Incineroar and Zernius lead out for my opponent and we are going to lead off Acurum and Arcanine. Now we do see that the Zernius is faster than Acurum so that's good information going forward into the match. One of the things I do feel like will happen here is the Geomancy fake out. So on the basis of that I want to switch in my Tapulele for my Acurum so the fake out is not applied and I want to roll with my Arcanine to get rid of those boosts and I don't think that is a bad idea in the slightest so I am just going to make that play avoid the fake out and go for that roll. The Zernius could just go for Moonblast here but I think it's in a position where it probably feels safe to go for the Geomancy especially with that fake out support so that's what I'm thinking will be the play. But no, my opponent sees straight through that just Moonblast into Tapulele which will be able to take U-turn into Arcanine and Groudon I think going to come in. Groudon. Tapu Koko That's interesting. Let's get the terrain control back so that's a nice option for my opponent. The worst thing here that can happen for us is definitely if the Groudon gets pulled in now for this Zernius but it is the Incineroar it's all better it's all better. So I think here what we'll do is Baldor's bring in Hmm Yeah Do we bring in Sogalo and Baldor's? We could pull a double switch and cure him out onto the field. It's just I'm a bit aware that we need the Intimidate really in the back for when the Groudon comes out so we can cycle it, make the use of it against that. I would expect a Volt switch from the Tapu Koko into the Tapulele slot as well as probably a double up and a fake out as well but you never know. Tapu Koko actually protecting here we're just going to see another U-turn out with the Incineroar and this time into the Cura so no fake out from the Incineroar which is interesting. I want to probably pivot in try and pivot in the Groudon but it's awkward now for the Groudon to come in especially with the the Cura mount on the field so that's the thing that you're going to need to try and get rid of but we've got a nice switching now to the Tapulele or Arcanine now I do worry a little bit about this Koko with the Electrum Z but the Groudon is not coming out right now so do I go? I feel like you'd chase down the Sogolale if you're my opponent so I'm going to bring in Lele for Cura just to weaken that Electrum Z does come out and I'm just going to Sunsteal Strike into the Xerneas because you might leave it unchecked you might think I can get away with it I can survive the Sunsteal Strike and getting any damage onto it is always going to be good but it's likely we're going to be hitting into it to protect here there's the Z move and chasing down the Sogolale but this isn't the worst thing in the world because if it's surprising though Xerneas hasn't protected so we will get a Sunsteal Strike into it and we take that pretty well and a Moon Blast as well no Geomancy which is nice so doubling in on that slot I'm in a perfect position now with Tapu Lele because the Incinero will blatantly come in for that Tapu Koko because it's got to feel threatened it's got to feel threatened from the Tapu Lele taking it down with a side strike and the Incinero I think the Xerneas definitely protects now did we make a hard read and say this that I can go side shock into the Koko or not because we could just Moon Blast and super par into it we could Moon Blast into the Xerneas I'm going to Moon Blast into the Xerneas and I'm going to bring in Arcanine I think or do I knock off into the Koko Sunsteal Strike into the Koko it's just that the Xerneas comes in and the Incinero comes in there it's going to be the Incinero and there's going to be a Protect yes should have super powered we should have doubled that slot Protect on the Xerneas 100% still in the position to get it next turn so it has to switch out and we're going to get a bit of damage on to the Incinero it's just a shame that we didn't super par there we're super powered we're really keeping the pressure on my opponent where we are able to pick up a double kill we do get the critical hit there and it actually is in a position where we can probably snipe it now with super power with that critical hit damage so I think we got Moon Blast into that slot and we got super power into the Incinero yeah the Catapel Koko is going to come back in we're going to see fake out into something well if there's no fake out there's a fake out this time round yeah we'll get the Incinero for sure now ooh ooh it actually survives that's because we're so weak that puts us in a bit of an awkward place but I mean we've got the Arcanine to bring in we've got Curem to bring in as well it's just guessing which slot that we need to get right we can't really bulldoze our own Sougaleo anymore which makes it a little bit difficult and where we're going to see the knockoff we're going to see U-turn for sure and probably a bolt switch for the Koko you'll probably chase down the Lele and bring in Arcanine on the Sougaleo we'll probably lose our berry on the Arcanine but at this point it's about sacrificing making the most out of a bad situation isn't it but we've got to preserve our Lele because it's the way that we beat the majority of this team there's a Thunderbolt, there's no switch there so we're just probably going to see U-turn now and the Zenius come back in it's pretty clever for my opponent but I mean we don't lose our berry on our Arcanine which is good but we might have to sack something I mean we can protect Curem for sure on this turn and just bulldoze I don't know we've got bulldoze either but I think we can take it's just about taking the Thunderbolt with Arcanine because the problem here is if we don't take the Thunderbolt from Tabakoko Arcanine goes down and Geomancy gets set up we're in a world of trouble a world, we need the Thunderbolt to proc our berry and the Zenius not to Geomancy it's got a bolt switch that procs our berry that's pretty good for us but I'm going to say the Geomancy comes out here but it's still not over it's still not over we've still got the Arcanine Incineroar as long as you don't see Geo I mean that's great okay that's absolutely amazing for us now we can double into that Zenius slot well I think what we can do yeah we double into it we have to double into it with an Earth Power a Fleeblitz it's just a good Earth Power Incineroar but it can only fake out one thing and I think you do go for the fake out here nah Tabakoko coming in I mean it's still not bad it's not ideal as a fake out though so we're not going to see yeah that's fine and we should get some good damage onto the Koko now which is always useful as long as we're like around 92 or above we'll be yeah Arcanine is going to be in a position to take now we're in a position to actually get the Incineroar now yeah we actually are so we can get rid of the Incineroar um and I don't think we need the Sogaleo anymore I think we would hmm yeah the Sogaleo doesn't really we don't need do we need what do we want grow out oh that's difficult what do we make our minds up with do we just go for another Flair Blitz into the Koko I'm just going to do that it's just a Thunderbolt should take this like now with the Recall on Arcanine we'll lose that and it gives us the opportunities to bring in Tabilele which gives us this perfect setup now if that Zonius comes in or the Groudon comes in because if the Groudon comes in we've got the Z move if the Zonius comes in we've got the Sci-Shock we get the burn there so we are picking up a little bit of RNG to help us out on the way Arcanine going down this works out perfectly for us so we were better not making that switch there the electric train now disappearing from the field like I say we'll be able to get in Tabilele we can even lock into Dazzling Gleam here because Zonius is so low health yeah it's a Groudon this is fine and we're safe now locking into Sci-Shock as well that's the other thing we've kind of got my opponent pinned like their best hope is to protect Groudon in hope we have a blind a blind Blizzard miss but we'll go for the Sub-Zero Slamma into the Groudon we'll go for that Sci-Shock into the Core-Core I mean do we actually go for the Sci-Shock there might be better Groudon protecting it's pretty obvious that's their best hope really now we should have maybe been a bit smarter with it where we actually don't Z-Move here bank on them protecting and then we've got the Z-Move the next turn where we can take the Zonius like forcing them not to protect because they bring in the Zonius the next turn and they just protect the Zonius hoping that we miss the blind Blizzard on them but I'm kind of hopeful that this will put them the Blizzard will be enough to take it down I don't think it's going to be don't think it's going to be now the other thing we could do here is the Zonius has to protect it has to protect where we bring in Sogaleo hit a Blizzard Sogaleo goes down to the precipice Blitz and then we get Lele back in it could all go Pete Tong though if the Zonius doesn't protect but you think in this situation it has to protect has to so we're going to make that play based on that and hope the Zonius protects if it doesn't then we lose the game we've made a decision we're going to back it up so no protect there we go well played to my opponent because they win now unless precipice Blitz misses my opponent making a nice play there and it's made for a nice game for the episode as well so we can't be too downbeat about it and we got it wrong and you like it happens sometimes doesn't it so I don't think we did too much else wrong in the game getting it down to this point is pretty well against such a good player as well you've got to kind of just accept that I think we could still win this it's just whether or not the guard on's got the Z move no it hasn't got the Z move it's a whether or not we can dodge precipice Blitz and if they don't go Fire Punch which is the small option here so we'll dazzle and the next dazzle should get the ground on so if he goes P Blitz and it misses nah obviously all smart players got for this ever option and there's no chance of winning but very good game to my opponent hopefully you guys have enjoyed it leave your comments in the comment section below would love to hear your thoughts but I think the changes that we made to the team have been good so we're going to keep them and go on to tomorrow's episode and see how we can get on going forward I'm going to end it there guys just to remind you though before we end the episode we are running a flinched competition this month to celebrate the launch of flinchedclothing.com so we are doing a big giveaway the giveaway is open till the 1st of March so it closes on the 1st of March if you want to enter all you need to do is head over to www.flinchclothing.com and you can scroll down the home page find our subscription to our mailing list join the flinch squad just plug in your details there send it over and if your entry is in before the 1st of March your incident to the giveaway and we'll announce the winner for all of these goodies you can see on your screen right now on the 2nd of March so that is the 3 t-shirts the cap and the water canister which is going to be very exciting but that is that guys make sure you do enter if not just go over and check out some of the articles that we've got over there check out the clothing, the merch and all that stuff and let me know what you think and it would be really nice to hear some at the same time for myself hopefully you've enjoyed today's episode guys thank you for tuning in and we'll be back with another one tomorrow so until then take care of yourselves and bye bye