#which means special morning edition liveblog instead!

[seekingthestars]

sarah watches the untamed: liveblogging adventures, part twenty eight episode 48

(aka: time to start her day off with a little more evil meng yao)

ahhhaha episode 48 on part 28! anyway hello and welcome to the one and only ‘sarah-just-woke-up-good-morning’ edition of liveblog adventures, let’s see if i’m more or less loopy in the mornings

episode 48:

jiang cheng is so angry and hurt and frustrated and ;;;

he made wuxian cry :(

wuxian looking REAL mad when jc starts saying the stuff about the wen clan, SAME BUDDY

jc just SCREAMING “shouldn’t i hate you?!” ;nnnn;

okay this entire sequence of jc crying and wx apologizing then jc apologizing and wx telling him to let it go and wiping his tear like just shoot me in the heART OH GOD ;AAAAAAA; i just want the brothers to be happy, i’m ;;;;;;;;;;

poor huaisang still just stuck where he was thrown like a sack of potatoes lol i hope that was at least kinda a comfortable position since he had to be like that forEVER

OH WAIT HE’S AWAKE!

oh crap what’s going on with those monk guys in the back o.o

what happened to guangyao’s hand???

Huaisang’s face is my face XD

guangyao that face omg what is in the box

WAIT IT’S MINGJUE (with head reattached) O.O

ducky ;;;;;;;;

xichen getting and looking that angry and yelling at guangyao is......kinda hot..........he’s just normally so calm and composed jfiowafe

wei “look dude if I had been the one to set him up, he would’ve gotten more than one arm hurt lol” wuxian, so sassy always, it is a blessing

okay but what WAS supposed to be in the box and who the heck swapped it

that little glance between wuxian and wangji fjweiaofa cute

HUNDRED HOLES. SU SHE WAS THE ONE WHO CURSED THE UPPITY JIN? AHHHHHHHH

I love Wangji’s quick “yup, betrayers won’t be tolerated” response, he’s just like “god, shut up.”

“just for that little mistake, you could never forgive me!” UHHHHHH EXCUSE ME? IT WASN’T A “““LITTLE MISTAKE””” go away su she, for real

su she is deranged 

mad props to zzj bc meng yao just slowly coming completely unraveled and gradually dropping his usual smooth, calculating voice to yell at wuxian in that rough voice with that sharp look is mildly terrifying, he’s such a good villain

 “Jin Guangyao, how vicious you are.” is such a freaking accurate line omg i legitimately feel so bad for the actual members of my squish list, they shared the space with him for so long I’M SORRY I DIDN’T KNOW

poor huaisang looks so sick ;;;;;; wanna squish him, i’m so sorry bb ;;

oh CRAP

w h i s t l i n g

Xichen pulling the sword on Meng Yao :O

i love wangji being a badass, he’s just so good i love him

HE HAD AN AMULET hidden up his sleeve bc giant sleeves are good for hiding things

dang that was the fastest turnaround, xichen just had to say two words and meng yao crumbles 

TWO LEFT. I CAN’T BELIVE ONLY TWO LEFT. i’m ;~~~~~~~;

[missfinefeather]

Nindies Direct 8.28.18 thoughts

Okay, we had a short direct this morning, so I might as well watch through and give my thoughts! Bullet points again instead of a full liveblog as I don’t want to spend hours on this. I doubt this will be as long as the Smash Bros direct liveblog from earlier this month as this direct is much shorter and I may not have much to say about a lot of the games showcased.

Predictions... I dunno, more Undertale? I saw a thumbnail for a Shovel Knight thing, so Shovel Knight?

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHzsecqX-zU

Anyways, reactions after the break!

1. Hello Kirk Scott! Never seen you before!

Hyperlight Drifter

2. Hyperspeed? Not sure if I’ll play it, but I love the art style! That terminator thing is freaky! 0.0

3. Ooh! Nice attack! Just chuck swords at them...

4. Hyperlight Drifter Special Edition? Is this a port? Well, hope fans of that are happy!

Towerfall

5. I thought Towerfall was going to be a Tower Defense. That is definitely not a Tower Defense! xD

6. Oh! from the makers of Celeste! Definitely their style!

7. Hmmm... not sure if the game is right for me... I mean, maybe, I dunno...

8. Oh, only local multiplayer. Pass. I don’t have real life friends. xD

9. Madeline is a good addition! ^^

Treasure Stack

10. Interesting looking little puzzle game, I guess!

11. Though really, I love the concept of playing tetris with a little person and a grappling hook! That’s pretty clever! ^^

Zarvot

12. ...friendship amongst cubes? I mean... it worked for Boxboy I guess.

13. Oh, so we’re on a quest to cheer up a friend? I guess that’s worth throwing myself into life or death scenarios. I’ve seen worse reasons to do so, tbh!

14. ...okay, birthday present is a bit better. God, is that friend going to be moved!

15. I somehow like the sound of “Origami Thunderdomes.” The way he said it was funny! xD He was really getting into it!

Mineko’s Night Market

16. Some sort of cat thing?

17. Got a very stylized look to it! Protagonist is very cute! ^^ Which matters to me for some reason.

18. What the hell? At first it felt like a collection of minigames and stuff, but suddenly we’re avoiding government agents! 0.0

19. Hmmm... I’m not sure what that was! In some angles, it feels like Animal Crossing, but the agents make me think there’s actually a plot here. Also, the ending reminded me of Totoro!

20. Game peaks my interest, I might need to look into it!

21. Oh, heh, they were just going to explain it anyways xD

22. So it’s a story based adventure! :O omg, now I’m really curious!

23. Lots of cats! :OOOO

24. So far off! Oh well...

Samurai Gun 2

25. And immediately lost interest xD kind of a jump from the last one!

26. Ooh! The cutscenes are incredible, though! It’s like looking at old Japanese art!

27. Oh, that was a comic book that releases with the game... Well, still a cool addition! ^^

Bullet Age

28. My god, you could have a nuclear armageddon story in anything these days.

29. Ohh! Okay, this game looks kind of impressive! Nice implementation of weapons! Different locations are nice! ^^

The World Next Door

30. Woah! Holy crap! 0.0

31. Well, this game blasted me with a whole lot of interesting! Those are some pretty awesome monster designs! And that mask is pretty cool! God, even that title is incredible! :D

32. Oh, puzzle battles, I don’t know how to feel about puzzle battles... I mean, then again, maybe I could wrap my head around it enough to not die?

Level Head

33. Ummm... wow, that’s... Okay! Is the protagonist a speaker or...

34. I could see the game being fun! Though I’d imagine it being hard as balls.

King of the Hat

35. Nice pun!

36. I like the art, and it’s a creative concept! That princess character is the best! Though, it seems like it’s exclusively local multiplayer so...

37. Hahaha, the little stories were charming! ^^

Untitled Goose Game

38. I think I saw a little bit of this before...

39. I really hope the final title is “Untitled Goose Game”

40. Ah, so it’s basically a much more down-to-earth Goat Simulator, where you’re the goal is to fuck everything up instead of that being a side thing like in goat simluator.

41. “The Goose is Loose!” ...how is that not the title?

Nindie Montage

42. Hoo boy, I’ll just comment on the ones that jump out at me.

43. A lot of action games, they tend to blur together.

44. Undertale September 18th! :O Finally a release date! Was that announced already? This feels like an odd place to announce it if it hasn’t...

45. Jackbox Party Box: Is this basically Warioware? Would be funny if a Warioware clone made it to Switch before WW can! xD

46. Dragon: Marked for Death; I’m so predictable... If it was a dude at the helm, I would have written this off as a mindless action game. But look at me, suddenly interested. Siiiiiiiggggghhhh....

47. Light Fingers: This looks trippy! 0.0;

48. Super Brothers: Sword and Sorcery EP; I still haven’t played the original one... I need to, I mean I could re-download it now if I wanted to...

Into the Breach

49. Okay, some sort of Real Time Strategy game. The Switch could use one of those.

50. Wait, this game has Time Travel? Or was the commander just being sarcastic? Maybe this game is super meta or something like Undertale.

51. Well, I’m glad RTS fans have that ^^

I commented way more than I thought I would! xDDDD

I think the game I’m looking forward to the most is Mineko’s Night Market. Though I am also very curious about The World Next Door and Untitled Goose Game!

Well, thanks for joining me! ^^

[ceruleanvulpine]

re-rereading ASOUE

… a word which is difficult to pronounce.

i reread the books and then read ATWQ and UA and all the other associated materials, and realized that i had missed or misinterpreted a great deal of stuff, so, a re-reread is in order. and i’m posting commentary on tumblr because i can’t liveblog them at @luckydicekirby AGAIN,  

today: the bad beginning! but probably oblique spoilers for The Whole Thing in my commentary.

they were charming, and resourceful, and had pleasant facial features

these books are really bad about associating physical appearance with moral character! i am choosing to believe it’s the fault of lemony “no, there IS an objectively right preference, and it’s mine” snicket, and not mr. handler.

This particular morning it was gray and cloudy, which didn’t bother the Baudelaire youngsters one bit. When it was hot and sunny, Briny Beach was crowded with tourists and it was impossible to find a good place to lay one’s blanket. On gray and cloudy days, the Baudelaires had the beach to themselves to do what they liked.

… there is an objectively right preference for beach day weather, and it’s mine, because cloudy days are the best. good job baudelaires.

One of the things Violet, Klaus, and Sunny really liked about their parents was that they didn’t send their children away when they had company over, but allowed them to join the adults at the dinner table and participate in the conversation as long as they helped clear the table.

This presumably makes it more jarring when they haven’t met ANY of the people they get sent to live with! Oh, Baudelaire parents, you really did your best to cut yourselves off from the secret society life, huh…

The children remembered Mr. Poe because he always had a cold

A COLD IS INSUFFICIENT EXPLANATION!!

Klaus pictured all the books in the library, going up in flames. Now he’d never read all of them.

i hear this is the point at which @songs-and-types bounced off these books as a kid.. it IS very upsetting. 

the two Poe children-Edgar and Albert

small brain meme picture: it’s an edgar allan poe reference

larger brain meme picture: it’s an edgar allan poe AND an edgar albert guest reference 

“I have made arrangements,” he said finally, “for you to be raised by a distant relative of yours who lives on the other side of town. His name is Count Olaf.”

small brain meme picture: mr. poe sent them to count olaf because olaf lied

larger brain meme picture: mr. poe sent them to count olaf because of olaf’s “yessica haircut” routine, as in the netflix show

exploding brain meme picture: the snicket-baudelaire-..olaf family tree is a complicated mess anyway and he almost certainly IS distantly related to them 

And Sunny crawled around solemnly biting each of Edgar and Albert’s shoes, leaving small teeth marks in each one so she would not be forgotten.

I LOVE SUNNY…

What kind of a man, Violet wondered, would carve an image of an eye into his front door?

given book!olaf’s even worse tendency towards KNIFE VIOLENCE, the actual carving is probably more worrying than the eye…. but given everything else about VFD maybe she should be worried anyway.

His face was unshaven, and rather than two eyebrows, like most human beings have, he had just one long one.

Lemony. Please. You’re so judgmental. Think of your brother. 

Count Olaf turned to Mr. Poe with a glint in his eye like an angry dog. For a moment Violet thought he was going to strike Mr. Poe across the face.

FORESHADOWING!! Like many unpleasant people, Olaf is much more likely to be violent when he knows he can get away with it. 

They wondered how many other eyes were in Count Olaf’s house, and whether, for the rest of their lives, they would always feel as though Count Olaf were watching them even when he wasn’t nearby.

getting the extremely ominous train rolling early… oh, remind me to do the rare edition footnotes, too, because iirc there’s an extremely creepy footnote on this line. 

“None of us knows how to cook,” Klaus said.

“That’s true,” Violet said. “I knew how to repair those windows, and how to clean the chimney, because those sorts of things interest me. But I don’t know how to cook anything except toast.”

“And sometimes you burn the toast,” Klaus said, and they smiled. They were both remembering a time when the two of them got up early to make a special breakfast for their parents. Violet had burned the toast, and their parents, smelling smoke, had run downstairs to see what the matter was. When they saw Violet and Klaus, looking forlornly at pieces of pitch-black toast, they laughed and laughed, and then made pancakes for the whole family.

HA HA HA WOW I WONDER WHY THEIR PARENTS WERE WORRIED ABOUT WAKING UP TO THE SMELL OF SMOKE!!!! 

i made myself very sad a while ago thinking about how b&b probably laughed so much because they were so, so relieved, and because they felt pleasantly foolish for being worried about arson instead of their lovely children trying to make them breakfast and burning some toast.. because, you know, they’re well out of it now and don’t have to constantly look over their shoulders..

;-;

“And I would like to look at books on wolves,” Klaus said. “Recently I have been fascinated by the subject of wild animals of North America.”

klaus baudelaire, in the inevitable preteen stage of being real into wolves

“I can’t tell you how much we appreciate this,” Violet said, carefully. With their kind parents dead and Count Olaf treating them so abominably, the three children were not used to kindness from adults, and weren’t sure if they were expected to do anything back. “Tomorrow, before we use your library again, Klaus and I would be more than happy to do household chores for you. Sunny isn’t really old enough to work, but I’m sure we could find some way she could help you.”

Justice Strauss smiled at the three children, but her eyes were sad. She reached out a hand and put it on Violet’s hair, and Violet felt more comforted than she had in some time. “That won’t be necessary,” Justice Strauss said. “You are always welcome in my home.” Then she turned and went into her home, and after a moment of staring after her, the Baudelaire orphans went into theirs.

THIS IS REALLY SAD!!!

Nobody paid a bit of attention to the children, except for the bald man, who stopped and stared Violet in the eye.

“You’re a pretty one,” he said, taking her face in his rough hands. “If I were you I would try not to anger Count Olaf, or he might wreck that pretty little face of yours.” Violet shuddered, and the bald man gave a high-pitched giggle and left the room.

(hissing and recoiling) 

“That money,” Klaus said, remembering what Mr. Poe said, “is not to be used until Violet is of age.”

Count Olaf’s face grew very red. For a moment he said nothing. Then, in one sudden movement, he reached down and struck Klaus across the face. Klaus fell to the floor, his face inches from the eye tattooed on Olaf’s ankle. His glasses leaped from his face and skittered into a corner. His left cheek, where Olaf had struck him, felt as if it were on fire. The theater troupe laughed, and a few of them applauded as if Count Olaf had done something very brave instead of something despicable.

1) this is still very upsetting 2) it’s also even more closely paralleled to the previous scene with mr. poe than i remembered

“We don’t really have a question,” Klaus said. “We have a complaint.” He was thinking of Mr. Poe walking toward them at Briny Beach, with his terrible message. Even though the fire was of course not Mr. Poe’s fault, Klaus was reluctant to see Mr. Poe because he was afraid of getting more bad news.

it turns out a bunch of my commentary is just going to be THESE KIDS ARE REALLY SAD!!

They did not literally escape, because they were still in his house and vulnerable to Olaf’s evil in loco parentis ways.

Lemony, this sentence is bad. 

The children looked at Count Olaf. His face was very serious, as if he were very sorry to hear that, but his eyes were shiny and bright, the way they are when someone is telling a joke.

LEMONY, YOU’RE CONSTANTLY SAYING HOW SHINY HIS EYES ARE, THIS MEANS NOTHING HERE

The word “standoffish” is a wonderful one, but it does not describe Count Olaf’s behavior toward the children. It means “reluctant to associate with others,” and it might describe somebody who, during a party, would stand in a corner and not talk to anyone.

… so, you, the narrator.

Olaf’s sharp and dirty fingernails gently scratched on Violet’s chin, and she shivered.

TV!Olaf, while sometimes scary, has yet to reach the heights of deeply alarming menace that book!Olaf does. 

“Around the time of your weasel lady,” Klaus said, flipping through the enormous book he had been reading, “a group of actors put on a production of Shakespeare’s Macbeth, and none of them wore any clothing.”

Violet blushed. “You mean they were all naked, onstage?”

“Only briefly,” Klaus said, smiling. “The police came and shut down the production. I don’t think that’s very helpful, either. It was just pretty interesting to read about.”

i want 2 protect them

Then, just as he heard the man’s footsteps heading back his way, Klaus spied one book, and quickly grabbed it. He untucked his shirt and put the book inside, hastily retucking it just as the hook-handed man reentered the library, escorting Violet and carrying Sunny, who was trying without success to bite the man’s hooks.

hiding books up your shirt: lemony snicket approved ™ 

“The word ‘nuptial,’ ” Klaus said, “means ‘relating to marriage.’ ” “I know what the word means,” Count Olaf growled.

… count olaf not knowing what the word means in the show is fine, but the reversal of the running joke with klaus might be funnier. 

Violet stared at him. She had an odd feeling in her stomach, as if she were the one being thrown from a great height. The really frightening thing about Olaf, she realized, was that he was very smart after all. He wasn’t merely an unsavory drunken brute, but an unsavory, clever drunken brute.

ACCURATE. 

“Remember that, orphans,” he said. “You may have read more books than I have, but it didn’t help you gain the upper hand in this situation.”

SOMEbody’s bitter about VFD.

The enormous creature merely looked at Violet with its blank white eyes and shook its head, then dismissed her with a silent gesture.

The treatment of the ambiguously gendered henchperson in the books is… really bad…. at least their show portrayal is better!

Clang! The grappling hook hit the tower, and fell down again, hitting Violet hard in the shoulder. One of the arms tore her nightgown and cut through her skin. Biting down on her hand to keep from crying out in pain, Violet felt the place in her shoulder where she had been struck, and it was wet with blood. Her arm throbbed in pain.

At this point in the proceedings, if I were Violet, I would have given up, but just as she was about to turn around and go inside the house, she pictured how scared Sunny must be, and, ignoring the pain in her shoulder, Violet used her right hand to throw the hook again.

First appearance of “Lemony unfavorably comparing his own courage to the Baudelaires’”!

The tower room held objects that were very dear and precious to Count Olaf, and they were terrible things. There were scraps of paper on which he had written his evil ideas in an illegible scrawl, lying in messy piles on top of the copy of Nuptial Law he had taken away from Klaus. There were a few chairs and a handful of candles which were giving off flickering shadows. Littered all over the floor were empty wine bottles and dirty dishes. But most of all were the drawings and paintings and carvings of eyes, big and small, all over the room. There were eyes painted on the ceilings, and scratched into the grimy wooden floors. There were eyes scrawled along the windowsill, and one big eye painted on the knob of the door that led to the stairs. It was a terrible place.

Uhhhhh I forgot Olaf had a ROOM OF CRAZY

this is a lot.

“If we had any kerosene,” Violet said, around noon, “I could make Molotov cocktails with these bottles.”

“We could break these bottles in half,” Violet said, “and use them as knives, but I’m afraid that Count Olaf’s troupe would overpower us.”

it’s not UNJUSTIFIED, but given the amount of hand-wringing about whether they’re being villainous themselves in later books, the kids go from zero to sixty REALLY fast

“I wish we could break a leg,” Klaus whispered to Violet, and Mr. Poe left.

“You will, soon enough,” Count Olaf said, pushing the two children toward the stage.

And here I thought Olaf’s sotto voce threatening remarks were only in the show. 

For instance, one country in Europe has a law that requires all its bakers to sell bread at the exact same price. A certain island has a law that forbids anyone from removing its fruit. And a town not too far from where you live has a law that bars me from coming within five miles of its borders.

Hey…… Lemony???

LEMONY SNICKET was born in a small town where the inhabitants were suspicious and prone to riot. He now lives in the city. During his spare time he gathers Evidence and is considered something of an expert by leading authorities. These are his first books for Harper Collins.

So he’s living in the city and he’s not a fugitive or anything! Huh.