#but this is where its at right now

[non-plutonian-druid]

hi taking my opportunity to ask you about your snicket five au

I don't know anything about that universe bc I never got around to reading it but I am very interested

Hello!!! i am glad i mentioned it in that one ask i got bc i got a few people asking me about it!! and i am so happy for the interest, thanks yall so much

TBH i debated how much i wanted to give away since not everything is decided and i kind of wanted to reveal it alongside art i make for it? but that's been slow going, so i shall reveal some of my cards now

first. the posts that exist: five invades elliott's shop and ben gets experimented on (cw for medical horror). Those posts, this post, and any future posts will be under my snicket five au tag

Most of the time I've been assuming people are at least aware of A Series of Unfortunate Events' whole deal, but given that you said you don't have any, I'll explain the relevant bit quickly: Lemony Snicket is the pseudonym of the author, but is also a character within the narrative, researching and telling us the story of the Baudelaire children after their parents are killed by the "villainous" section of a secret society called VFD. He's a very unreliable narrator, and is a part of the "good" side of VFD, kind of. My au is of the prequel series, All the Wrong Questions, which stars Lemony Snicket as a snarky asshole child instead of a snarky asshole adult

A collection of other relevant bits:

VFD, at this point in Lemony's childhood, is divided and the cracks are showing, but has not yet actually Schismed. That happens later.

Daniel Handler (the author) is Jewish, and I know just enough about that to know that it has a huge influence on the themes and texture of both atwq and asoue (things like "the eldritch monster is a metaphor for death, but specifically a very jewish concept of death"), but nowhere near enough to then take those themes and play with them in an interesting and informed way. I wanted to mention it because, lacking the ability to do that part of the series justice, i wanted to at least inform you all about it bc I think the au would be more interesting if i could

VFD is a cult. yes, all of it. yes, even the side that puts out fires.

I actually need to go through and do a ton of work revamping the premise and making events shake out differently, because at the moment it follows ATWQ really closely and I'm not fond of that. Things need to be different! But for the moment, the following is what I have.

Five is an actual 13 year old who has just completed his training with the Commission (a mysterious organization with mysterious purposes but which, in this case, probably doesn't involve teaching a child to murder) and is now an apprentice! He has to pick a chaperone, a word which here means "someone like a mentor except without the obligation to actually teach him anything or really to take care of him in any meaningful way". He picks the Handler, hoping she will leave him to his own devices enough that he can carry out a heist he has planned with his associate and not at all his friend, Delores (who gets to be a real person! good for her).

Unfortunately, the Handler immediately drags him out to a dying town that has the interim name DS, to leave him to his own devices enough that he could carry out a heist in that location instead. Too bad that's not where the heist is planned.

(Delores proceeds to try to do the heist on her own anyway, and spends the rest of the series arrested)

DS are the initials that i will be using to refer to the small town of the au. It is replacing a town in the series by the name of Stain'd By the Sea (you'll notice that is a parody of a naming convention in New England, because This Noir Flick Has Lovecraft In It, Baby). I haven't decided what D.S stands for because TUA has unhelpfully not given me anything to work with, but the town is a dying company town that used to manufacture umbrellas. In it, there is a now-defunct school that used to teach the children of the workers/citizens. Like some kind of.... umbrella academy.

(The school is plot relevant in ATWQ too! I'm not just having fun.)

Nowadays, DS is dying and most of the inhabitants have left to set up lives in The City, leaving their children behind to close up shop until things are more stable, which results in Just So Many undersupervised children. Meanwhile, a mysterious villain called the Monocle is doing mysterious villain things.

'Mysterious villain things', at the moment, means committing a series of seemingly unconnected crimes across DS and also reopening the school, saying that tuition is free for citizens of DS! The kids that go there don't come out.

That is our setup; now what are our beloved characters up to?

Luther in this au is an adult (barely). He was a boxer in the city but had to retire after an injury and left to DS where it was quiet. Since then he’s made friends with Allison Hargreeves, an up-and-coming actress who has returned to DS because she feels obligated to help her parents get ready to leave.. Luther lives in a refurbished observatory on the outskirts of town, and  spends many of his mornings at the local diner, Griddy’s, where he frequently sees and occasionally chats with Five. He gets first embroiled in the plot when Five asks him to come along to look intimidating while he solves a mystery. He gets worried about this little guy!

Diego and Patch are approximately 15. Patch’s dad used to be a police officer before he retired, and she and Diego are very unimpressed with the current state of the police department, which is made of two mean and unhelpful people named Hazel and Cha Cha. So they’ve taken matters into their own hands! They’ve set up a detective agency-slash-vigilante-justice and are Determined to solve crime in DS. Diego is VERY suspicious of Five. He definitely knows more than he’s letting on! Why won’t he tell us! Diego does NOT want to be his friend shut up Patch!!

Allison’s parents want to shut down the company they run, but to Allison that’s quitting! She wants to revive it. This, combined with the fact that her plan actually has a chance of succeeding, means that she is a threat to the Monocle’s plan. He needs the town to be dead and full of children that nobody cares about! The Monocle is trying to get rid of her, but with the help of Five and Luther in particular, she’s been thwarting him thus far.

Klaus and Ben are a pair of unsupervised children, but unlike most children in DS they’ve been unsupervised for a very long time. Klaus takes an assortment of odd jobs at different times, and Ben likes to read in the library (and has a giant and obvious crush on the librarian). Normally they're inseparable, but the school recently opened! and its free! Ben has always wanted to go to school. He promises he'll write Klaus every single day.

Klaus hasn't heard from Ben in months. At first he was angry, but now he's getting worried

Viktor's parents run an instrument store. Well. Used to. Now they have left to set up their life in the city, leaving behind what they think is their dutiful daughter to close the store. Viktor's real passion is writing, and he's never seen without his typewriter. I'm not decided on how many people Viktor is out to. Everybody? Only Five because this is a new person to introduce himself to with his chosen name? To Be Determined.

Lila is searching for her father. She will do anything to find him. The Monocle kidnapped him, she’s certain of it. He was a professor of quantum mechanics at a university outside the city and he’s been gone for almost a year. She’s tracked him to DS, and she’s certain he has to be here somewhere. Has Five seen or heard anything about him? His name is Reginald Hargreeves and she misses him so much.

Elliott is a nervous 20-something who runs a nearly-closed television store in town. The character he’s a replacement for is actually a librarian, but I like the aesthetic of the television store, so someone else is the librarian. He has conspiracy-theoried his way into figuring out that the Commission exists, but is wrong in some key way. Five breaks into his house and forcibly adopts him and now the store is Five’s hideout, and Elliott is kind of his adult supervision and kind of thinks Five is an alien. Elliott makes good coffee, is very mousy but likes Five a lot,

Since the librarian man is now a television salesman, we need a new librarian. I nominate Jill! Shes a college student working at the library as part of her internship, except she doesnt have any supervisors on location so shes just… running the place. Five is trying to recruit her for the Commission.

Griddy’s was once run by a woman named Agnes, who has since retired. Now it’s being run by a woman named Grace, who is her… sister? Daughter? Sister in law or niece? Five can't figure it out; everyone seems to have a different idea of who she is. She’s very pretty, and at first seems perfectly normal, but at some point, something about her seems… off. Is she okay? If Five didn’t know any better, he’d say it's like she’s malfunctioning.

While Five is running around solving mysteries and meeting all these people, the Monocle is enacting his evil plan. He’s trying to grow a tentacled eldritch monster called the Horror, and he’s been using kids as dirt to grow little tentacle monster sprouts in. He’s based his operations in DS because it’s a dying little town that no one cares about, full of kids left on their own while their parents move out. He reopens the old school, and promises to educate any of the kids in the town for free (and also inject them with baby horror growing particles). Despite his many experiments, all of his attempts to grow the horror so far have eventually failed and the Horror died before it was big enough to use for world domination or whatever (or even before it was big enough to kill one measly human). But Ben…. Ben has been promising...

[creekfiend]

I saw this on FB today and I wanna try and express something about it. Like, you know the curbcutter effect? Where when curbcuts are put in it benefits everyone (bicyclists, people with baby strollers etc) and not just disabled people?

There is also whatever the opposite of the curbcutter effect is. And this is that.

This isn't just anti-adhd/autism propaganda... this is anti-child propaganda.

Kids have developmentally appropriate ways that they need to move their bodies and express themselves and sitting perfectly still staring straight ahead is not natural or good for ANY CHILD.

Don't get me wrong, I was punished unduly as a kid for being neurodivergent (and other types of kid will ALSO be punished unduly for it... Black kids come to mind) and thus UNABLE to perform this -- but even the kids who ARE able to perform this type of behavior are not SERVED WELL by it. They don't benefit from it.

This is bad for everyone.

The idea that bc some kids may be capable of complying with unfair expectations, those expectations don't hurt them... is a dangerous idea. Compliance isn't thriving. Expectation of compliance isn't fair treatment.

[catmanbowser]

his biggest fan is in fact his own little brother

[dragonroilz]

IM GONNA LOAD ALL OVER THE PLACE

[cherrirui-official]

"You know... You didn't have to take that with you."

"But I promised him I'd take him out to see the ocean one day."

[gammija]

he would not say that, podcast/book edition:

[cogentranting]

The thing that almost never gets brought up in "banned books" conversations but that I think is essential to address, is the distinction between "students shouldn't be allowed to read this" and "students shouldn't be required to read this".

There is a wide gulf between removing a book from a curriculum list and removing a book from a library but I almost never hear that acknowledged.

[kristalijah]

HE'S CHECKING OUT GARY!!!! I REPEAT, HE'S CHECKING OUT GARY!!!!

[theonewhowails]

rotating this fucked up cat in my head like a rotisserie chicken

[rustystars]

shawngus is so good the most dynamic ever. local weirdo who's only weird because he's angry at his father is in love with mr. normal upstanding citizen whose side gig is being the most neurotic man ever & their top love language is committing to the bit. if you put them in a situation where they can either follow the law or wear silly little costumes they will choose door #2 every single time & manage to destroy several other doors in the process

[clockworkclownart]

Day 6 - Immortal AU - #DannyMay2024

so i was thinking, "who else becomes an immortal space themed monarch?" ~ if your immediate thought was "sailor moon", you are so right, i realy admire that about you 💚

[shakemelikeasnowglobe]

I came to the conclusion that formula one is mostly about star crossed lovers who are also scar crossed lovers seeking mutual destruction because they would only allow themselves a gentle touch of another man if it's in the safety of a shared podium.

[ohplasticheart]

Tell me when the party ends Will you still love who I am?

[nevarroes]

[drawnfamiliarfaces]

;3

[seagull-scribbles]

The Lesbians doing each-others make-up meme but its these two idiots!

This also inspired a one shot, which you can read on AO3 [here] by @veritas-dolos 💖