#woevember

[jacobsnicket]

very very busy but i threw together a quick sugar bowl themed design for @asouefanworkevent woevember day 2!!

[snckt]

violet had a real knack for inventing and building strange devices, so her brain was often filled with images of pulleys, levers, and gears, and she never wanted to be distracted by something as trivial as her hair.

@asouefanworkevent day one of woevember : violet's inventions, alternatively titled,   what's that thing edison said?

[heartrender6]

@asouefanworkevent woevember day 4: the Bominating Beast, as represented by a frame from The Maltese Falcon (1941)

original frame

[asouefanworkevent]

another fall is upon us! another woevember is coming!!

what is it?

woevember is an asoue fanwork event week, that will take place from november 10th through november 16th, 2024. every day of the week is dedicated to a different part of a series of unfortunate events or all the wrong questions for you to create something about! this year's theme is objects!

what do i do?

the prompts will be revealed now, so everyone has time to make something. between now and the week of november 10th, you’ll create fanworks about the prompts, and then post it on the corresponding day during november 10th - 16th! there will be the occasional countdown post between then and now too, so we all know how many days are left until posting begins.

don’t forget to tag this tumblr (asouefanworkevent) in the post so i can find it and reblog it, and tag the post with #woevember !

what do you mean by fanwork?

everything! fanfic and fanart are of course allowed, but woevember has always been meant to be an event that is as big or as little effort as you want! fanwork also means edits, gifs, analysis posts, headcanons!! your cosplay!! your photography!! your photosets!! your web weaving!! your moodboards!! your super short fics!! your sketchiest drawings!! your most ramble-y half-fic idea posts!! your wip scenes!! you merely saying ‘lemony snicket, though. am i right?????’ (and you are. you’re so right.) your loving macaroni art!! your embroidery!! your sculpture!! whatever you are moved to make from the prompts! i want people to be encouraged to and be able to create even something small that didn’t exist before for the snicketverse, and share it with other people!

are there any rules?

to keep the event open and comfortable for everyone, no explicit content. also, as always, sibling romance and age gaps will not be tolerated.

do i have to make something for every day?

only if you want to! feel free to just make something for one day if you want :) the point of having a different theme for each day is so some part of canon that you like comes up eventually, and you can at least make something for one of the days. or you get struck by an idea you might not have considered before! i want to get people thinking about all the intriguing things in asoue and atwq and the exciting, different ways we can interpret and create from the same idea.

what are the prompts?

the description under each prompt is just some ideas to get your brain going – feel free to take them in another direction too! whatever you want to come up with!!

november 10th - violet's inventions

the grappling hook! the toaster in the clock! the rock retrieval device! the bobblehead train stopper! even just lockpicking, and violet's ribbon, too! what else do you think violet has made, pre-canon or during canon? what does she make now? post-canon, does she have a job that relates to inventing? does she still invent in her spare time?

november 11th - the sugar bowl

the mysterious sugar bowl! lives have been lost in the quest to find it and it's important to both the snickets and the baudelaires, so says esme. where is it now? what was its importance? what was inside it? where was it during canon, before canon? who has had it before? did anyone have it before esme? what does it look like? how does it keep its contents safe? when was it first used? did it make it to the hotel denouement? is anyone still searching for it? what if it wasn't stolen?

november 12th - disguises

both the firestarters and the firefighters have used disguises --the same disguises, supplied by vfd. what other kinds of disguises have each side used, and for what ends? was a disguise ever seen through at the wrong time, or the right time? was a disguise ever NOT seen through when it should have been? even the disguises beatrice wore when she acted on stage, or the cow disguise worn by jacques snicket, or the denouement triplets pretending to be each other, what does it mean to wear a disguise and what do you do when you wear one? do the baudelaires, or the quagmires, ever wear disguises again? do frank and ernest ever pretend to be each other post-canon?

november 13th - the bombinating beast

our beloved statue the size of a milk bottle, valued upwards of a great deal of money! where do you think it is now? what did lemony do with it when he left stain'd-by-the-sea? who used it before canon? do the baudelaires ever encounter it? does it make its way back to stain'd-by-the-sea? and where is the bombinating beast itself now?

november 14th - books

lemony's a series of unfortunate events books do, after all, exist in asoue canon itself! what does vfd think of the books? who's read them? or books like the unauthorized autobiography, and the beatrice letters, and lemony's childrens books, what place might they have in canon? for all the wrong questions, who's read them? they were filed at vfd headquarters, after all. how many members of vfd know what lemony did during his apprenticeship? or books like caviar: salty jewel of the tasty sea, or stain'd myths, or lemony's pamphlets on the accordion, or even the classic children's lit books, like the ramona series by beverly cleary, and their place inside canon and especially vfd? or even beatrice and bertrand's a series of unfortunate events, the journal they contribute to on the island. who else has written in that journal?

november 15th - the duchess of winnipeg's ring

the ring that went from the duchess, to lemony, to beatrice, to back to lemony, to kit, to bertrand, to beatrice, to the box she kept it in, to widdershins as he searched the ruins of the baudelaire mansion, to ishmael when it washed up on the island, to violet, and to the second beatrice, who traded it to a shepherd for a yak ride. what other adventures has it been on? does the duchess ever get it back again? why did beatrice keep it in a box -- a box that kit's grandfather made the code for? what has the rest of the duchess' family done with it? what does it mean to them?

november 16th - free space!

do you have another object in mind? the spyglass, one of klaus's books, or sunny's meals, or the harpoon gun, or ellington's record player, or cleo's chemistry equipment, or something like the medusoid mycelium? the laudanum? all the things esme says are in or out? the baudelaire fortune? the quagmire sapphires? the fabled tito puente records? the ruins of the baudelaire mansion and what else might be there? all those objects mrs. bass had her students measure? jake hix's meals? cleo's car, or the bellerophon taxi? the vfd taxi? gustav's films, or the sebald code? violet's bread knife? kit's book raft? commonplace books? do you want to combine any of these objects with one of the previous days and create something with two objects for one of the previous days? so many options!! or do you care not for objects! use the free space to write about the item or character or relationship or thought or whatever of your choosing! feel free to pick a theme from a previous woevember event for the free space, if you'd like!

if you have any questions about anything, feel free to drop me an ask or a message!

happy creating, and i hope to see lots of you november 10th-16th!! ✨

[littlestsnicket]

disguises

sunny baudelaire is always wearing a disguise.

brightly colored dresses mid way down her thigh. (shorts concealed underneath so she is always ready to run.)

lipgloss and a smudge of soft brown eyeliner like someone told her she was too young to wear makeup and is pushing boundaries like a normal preteen girl. (the rusting whisk she keeps in her pocket.)

a crooked, unassuming smile. (a practiced threat against the willfully ignorant.)

braces over crooked teeth. (grief and a pocket knife she keeps in her other pocket.)

a perfectly ordinary 12 year old girl. (something else. she doesn’t know what.)

@asouefanworkevent

[pocketneophyte]

Woevember Sugarbowl prompt! Thank you @asouefanworkevent for running this again !!

Ref under cut!

[moldygreenblue]

Movie!Violet Baudelaire's Mailbox

(Day one for for Woevember, created by @asouefanworkevent)

Violet Baudelaire, the eldest, was one of the finest fourteen-year-old inventors in the world. Anyone who knew Violet well could tell she was inventing something when her long hair was tied up in a ribbon. In a world of abandoned items and discarded materials, Violet knew there was always something. Something she could fashion into nearly any device for nearly every occasion.

Out of all the inventions Violet Baudelaire invented -books, movie, Netflix series- the Mailbox is my favorite.

[snicketstrange]

The Great Unknown Theory (4.1)

I truly believe that Daniel Handler's original intention in TGG was that the submarine that Captain W fears is not actually shaped like a question mark. When Captain W explained what it could be, he compared it to a shadow. If we think about it more literally, when a shadow is projected against a wall, what we see is a two-dimensional projection of something three-dimensional. Sonar basically shows this two-dimensional projection on its display. Proof of this is the submarine Carmelita itself. On sonar, the two-dimensional projection is in the shape of an eye. It is true that many believe that this "eye" is the symbol for VFD, but this is not the case. This is just a coincidence.

The "eye" shape is due to the projection of the submarine's tentacles that make the two-dimensional projection look like an oval surrounded by eyelashes, and this resembles the shape of an eye.

Look:

Chapter 4 TGG:

"What was that third shape?” Violet asked. The captain shook his head again. “Something very bad,” he said. “Even worse than Olaf, probably. I told you Baudelaires that there is evil you cannot even imagine.” “We don’t have to imagine it,” Klaus said. “We saw it there on the screen.” "That screen is nothing,” the captain said. “It’s just a piece of equipment, aye? There was a philosopher who said that all of life is just shadows. He said that people were just sitting in a cave, watching shadows on the cave wall. Aye—shadows of something much bigger and grander than themselves. Well, that sonar detector is like our cave wall, showing us the shape of things much more powerful and terrifying.”

•••

The second submarine was in the shape of a giant octopus, with an enormous metal dome for a head and two wide portholes for eyes. A real octopus, of course, has eight legs, but this submarine had many more. What had appeared to be eyelashes on the sonar screen were really small metal tubes, protruding from the body of the octopus and circling in the water, making thousands of bubbles that hurried toward the surface as if they were frightened of the underwater craft.

Chapter 5

Think of the crafts we saw on the sonar screen! Think of Count Olaf’s enormous submarine, and the even more enormous one that chased it away! Aye! There’s always something more enormous and more terrifying on our tails!

So, it is clear how the sonar display works. The display shows a two-dimensional projection, and Captain W, when comparing it to the shadow of a wall, was talking about this. So, the submarine that appears on the sonar as a question mark does not have the three-dimensional shape of a question mark, and that is what the captain meant. The real shape is much more frightening. The sea serpent BB, when seen on a sonar, may or may not appear in this shape, depending on its relative position. In any case, the Baudelaires had partial visual contact with the creature: they saw the silhouette of a sea serpent. So, what was near the submarine near the end of TGG was the serpent. Captain W himself also had visual contact with the serpent at the end of TE. Kit herself also saw and described it as having the shape of a question mark. So, these visual contacts were certainly with the sea serpent BB and not with the submarine. Which is surprisingly good news. The hostile entity is the submarine, not the serpent.

After all, the sea serpent maintained visual contact with the Q submarine, but did not attack it. (Probably the fact that the children remained quiet did not scare the sea monster).

Who was chasing the submarine Carmelita at the beginning of the TGG story? It is not possible to know for sure, but both Olaf and Captain W believed it was the submarine and not the monster. Both showed fear of someone worse than Olaf and more powerful than Olaf.Of course, in my headcanon this person would be Eligtin Feint. But, that's just my fan heart speaking louder.

[library-child]

Gimcrack

Written for day 4 of #woevember, The Bombinating Beast, created by @asouefanworkevent

The Bombinating Beast statue had always been there, among all the fragmentary plots that had led Moxie to where she was now.

After Lemony Snicket had left, Moxie remained alone in the newsroom, still smiling. The woman's faint voice came from below, then the front door was shut. At first, Moxie was tempted to run down the stairs and catch her father before he could go back to bed. He had opened the door himself. He must have talked to the woman the whole time. He might still be wide awake and on his feet when she reached the ground floor.

"Father, what's the news?" she'd ask. "Who was the woman? What did she say? Did she ask you about the old Bombinating Beast statue? There might be a mystery to it, don't you think?"

And he would beam at her, the old excitement returning to his eyes:

"What is it you know that I don't?"

"What is it you know that I don't, Father? You were going to the market, weren't you? I'm coming along. Let's catch up."

Moxie imagined this as she listened into the utter silence, her smile slowly fading. It was best to take notes as long as the event was fresh in her memory. So she opened her typewriter case, put in a new sheet of paper, and typed:

A stranger knocked on my door with an older woman who briefly pretended to be his wife. The stranger asked to see a particular item and was clearly surprised that I showed it to him."

She hesitated, her fingers still tapping over the keys. When she was little, the reporters used to talk about the fear of the blank page.

"It's daunting to create a story out of nothing," old Parker would say. "The empty sheet challenges you to push forward. It's always 'What's next? What's next?' Because, in truth, a story never ends. That's why I'm glad to be the copy editor."

Moxie felt the unease now, the white sheet glaring at her in the fading sunlight. She had been typing more than ever lately, recording everything around her. She was desperate to uphold the last remains of journalism in town. Yet she kept feeling like she was missing a vital part of the story. She could produce mountains of typed notes, adding them to the archives, old newspaper issues, and mail that cluttered the lighthouse, but it was never enough. The whole story lay hidden beneath all these words, in everything that had happened.

The statue Snicket had wanted to see now stood sideways next to her typewriter, leering at her with one hollow eye. She couldn't remember when she had last taken a look at it. She hadn't touched it six months ago when the telegram had come. She hadn't wanted to see it. Maybe she should have. Perhaps it was hiding a clue.

The eye reminded Moxie of an abyss. She'd always had the notion of an abyss lurking in people's lives or a treacherous cliff hiding in the darkness. It was one of those things everyone knew but no one spoke about. You never knew where it might lurk, and if you were not careful, you could fall or crash and be lost forever.

"Good journalism is like a lighthouse," Father used to say. "It lights up the dark so we can see where we're going. You need to look where you don't want to look. You need to hit the nail on the head."

"That's not how you sell newspapers," Mother would argue.

"That's how you change the world."

The snarling mouth of the statue seemed to mock her. "So? Do you really want to look where you don't want to look?" it asked.

Moxie glared back at it defiantly. She had been looking everywhere. She had spent days browsing through the archives, searching for clues, memories, anything that could fill the emptiness inside her. She'd get lost in old articles or letters or the notes she had taken herself since she knew how to write. Just a few days ago, she had found a story she had written when she was seven:

One night, my father and I went home by bus. A man was sleeping under a large piece of cardboard on the sidewalk at the bus stop. Some people walked by. They looked at the man, and they turned their heads away.

The Officers Mitchum came and woke him up.

"You can't sleep here," they said. 

The man said something. I couldn't hear it. His eyes were funny. He looked at the Officers, but I didn't think he saw them.

"Go home at once," the officers said. "Or we'll have to arrest you."

"I was just sleeping," the man said. "Just let me sleep."

My father stopped to take notes. Mr. Mitchum said:

"Mallahan, just let us do our job for once, will you?"

I wanted to leave.

"Moxie, why are you uncomfortable?" my father asked. "Don't turn away. Look, and tell me what you think."

She had read this aloud in class as homework to write an essay about something unusual they had witnessed. Everyone had been silent afterward. The teacher had given her a strange look.

She remembered that such a thing was rare at that time. Later, there had been many people sleeping in the streets. There had been people alone or in small groups, occupying the benches or huddling in corners, all with bottles in their hands. The Mitchums kept arresting them, but there were always more. Now, they were gone.

All those fragments formed a story she didn't fully comprehend, but it would make sense once she put it back together. If it had ever been together in the first place.

So, Moxie examined the statue from all angles, wiping the dust from its dark wooden surface. It was indeed old, so much older than the rest of the merchandise on the table. In fact, it had never been for sale. There was a recent layer of varnish on it, which made it so shiny. It must have been repainted again and again. Otherwise, it would have rotted long ago. She scratched lightly at the piece of paper glued to the small opening at the base. She wondered who had put it there and when. Probably, the paper was supposed to shield the statue's hollow inside from moisture. Or it served an entirely different purpose.

No one really knew how old the statue was or how long it had been in their family's possession. It had always been there, without anyone paying much attention to it.

There was a photograph of herself, in an old copy of The Stain'd Lighthouse , of when she had been four or five years old, playing with the statue and a doll, making the doll fight against the beast. She had worn a satin dress and shiny patent leather shoes. The caption read The Lady Mallahan .

Moxie didn't remember that moment or the photograph, but she did remember the dress. She remembered wearing it at the Ethan Frome Festival charity auction before going out into the snow and cheering the sledders on. She remembered wearing it at the Sallises' garden parties when Mother would do her hair and say:

"You are the true heir of Stain'd-by-the-Sea. The Knights may produce the ink, and all those lords and ladies may send their children to Wade Academy, but you come from the slayer of the beast, the savior, the beacon. You are second to none."

It must have been Mother who made that photograph and put it into the newspaper, back when Moxie had run up and down the stairs playing and when the clacking typewriters had woken her up and put her to sleep. Back when she sat on Father's lap as he taught her to write shorthand, always with a steaming mug of coffee in his hand and a gnawed-off pencil tucked behind his ear.

She continued searching through the boxes with the articles and photographs that had never made it into The Stain'd Lighthouse . There had been countless cover stories about the draining of the sea. Everyone complained about the salt storms, the masks, and the Clusterous Forest, but nobody ever mentioned the silence. With the swashing gone, the silence crept into every corner of the town, every street, every house, every minute. It haunted Moxie in her sleep.

The typewriters' clacking had grown fainter, and the ink had faded. Ink Inc. Is Forced to Resort to Mass Dismissals had been one of the first headlines Moxie had helped set. She hadn't really understood what that meant at the time. But she had noticed that the streets were emptier afterward. Gone were the inkworkers who had traveled to and from the machines every day. And then there were the angry crowds, sometimes even marching right past the lighthouse. Moxie watched them from the window, terrified. Never before had she heard such yelling. They were carrying banners reading Have you forgotten who has made you rich?

"Moxie, get away from the window!" Mother cried before turning to Father, who was grabbing his notepad. Standing next to him was Bourke, the head photographer. "Are you mad? You can't go out!"

"The world needs to see this!"

At that moment, a rock came crashing through the window.

By the time Moxie dared to go out alone again, the ghostly silence had settled everywhere. The shops were closing. People were moving out. Windows were smashed or nailed with wooden boards. The garbage piled up in the streets. At first, people turned their noses. Then they searched it to find something valuable. Then they searched it for something to eat or burn.

Moxie remembered Father taking her to see people in their homes. It must have been years later, but she wasn't sure. There had been a small apartment with blind windows and grime in every corner. They were sitting around a kitchen table, Father turning on the tape recorder and talking to a woman with greasy hair and dark stains on her hands.

"Been an inkworker all my life," she said. "The stains don't go off no more."

A heap of tobacco spread on a dish rag in front of her. While talking, she picked up bits of it one by one and rolled them into cigarette papers.

"You've always been one of us, Mallahan," she laughed. "And you got a cute kid. I'd adopt her any time."

If Moxie could find the tapes, she'd know when precisely this had taken place. Father had wanted to record interviews with the fired inkworkers and present their stories in the Lighthouse . He and Mother had fought a lot. She heard them at night when they thought she was asleep.

"What good will it do? It will only spread more discontent. What we need is good news!"

But the good news was gone, along with the ink and all the journalists. One by one, the people she knew left the town. Still, when Mother announced she was going to begin a new job in the city, Moxie felt as if the world had ended.

"Don't cry, Moxie, dear," Mother said. "It's a grand newspaper read in the entire country. That's where they write the big news. That's where our future lies. Once I'm settled, I'll send for you. Aren't you curious to see the great city?"

With only Father and herself remaining at the lighthouse, the silence became worse than ever. At first, Moxie was confident they could make it. He still wrote the articles and printed the newspaper by himself, even though the ink was barely readable by now. But he hardly spoke anymore. Sometimes, she watched him working the printing press without having put any letters into the case. Blank page after page emerged from the press, but Father didn't seem to notice.

That was when Moxie dropped out of school. Father couldn't possibly run a newspaper and a home without anyone helping him, and she was twelve now, old enough to support him. She was even proud of it at first. Didn't many children run their parents' businesses by now while the parents had to build a new life?

"I've been thinking about publishing my first story," she told him. "I want to make an interview series like you once did. Stain'd-by-the-Sea: A town upheld by its children . I've already spoken to Marguerite Gracq and Jackie, the mechanic. They're interested. We could telegraph the articles to Mother so she can publish them in the city. What do you think?"

Father said nothing for a while.

"Well, what do you think?"

"I'm sorry, what did you say? I'm afraid I need to go to sleep."

Father slept a lot these days. He was always tired, maybe sick. No more meals were on the table, no washed clothes, garbage piling up in the kitchen, and unopened mail on the floor. Soon, Moxie realized nothing would be done unless she did it herself.

"It's fine, Father," she said, "I can take care of everything while you get better. And then, Mother will send for us, and we'll go to the city. You'll run a newspaper again."

He said nothing.

So Moxie did run everything the best she could. It was her lighthouse and her newspaper now. She was always careful to keep her clothes tidy and her own business cards tucked into the band of her hat.

Then, six months ago, a telegram came from an unknown address in an unknown town.

I am very interested in a certain statue I believe is your home STOP. I believe it is called the Bombinating Beast STOP. If you are willing to sell it to me -

Moxie had to stop reading because her head was spinning. It took her a while to figure out what the stranger could even mean before she remembered that there was indeed an old wooden statue of the Bombinating Beast somewhere in the newsroom with all the other stuff.

"Father!"

If this didn't rouse him, she couldn't figure out what else would. He wasn't in his bedroom. He'd been out last night, and Moxie thought he'd come home late, but he was nowhere to be found in the lighthouse.

She almost tripped over him as she ran out into the backyard. He was sleeping in the cold, damp grass, covered with some old newspapers.

"Father? Father, wake up! You have to get inside. You'll get a cold."

He raised his head a little and slowly blinked at her. He didn't really see her.

"Just let me sleep a moment, dear. Just let me sleep."

She backed away from him like an abyss that suddenly opened up in front of her and would drag her down to her death if she didn't run fast enough. She leapt into the lighthouse, slammed the door shut behind her, and screamed.

The statue was still grinning at Moxie as she remembered this. All of a sudden, she itched to smash it into pieces. She abruptly snapped her typewriter case shut and headed for the staircase. Better to continue her notes in a more comfortable place. Or to leave them for now altogether.

Perhaps she was wrong. Perhaps there was no mystery to any of this, and everything truly was nothing more than old gimcrack.

But then again, why should the strange boy have come here? Why would Mrs. Sallis tell such lies? Moxie wanted to meet the boy again. Who knew what they might uncover? She might find something that could save the town and bring her Father back again. Who, if not her? She was the Lady Mallahan.

[luluwquidprocrow]

sometimes a family is three orphans, their adopted daughter, one not-so-sad writer, and two triplets

frank, beatrice the second, the baudelaires, lemony, ernest, implied ernest/lemony

gen

3,598 words

In the grand tradition of all parents, the extended baudelaire family find themselves trying to pull a fast one. 

for @asouefanworkevent's woevember day 4, the hotel denouement! some rambling headcanon nonsense half-fic about post-canon family that i had great fun doing. my favorite thing in the whole world is post-canon babybea interacting with her absurd enormous family. i love them all so much.

okay. so bear with me here 

so i think most parents/guardians are at one point or another faced with Pulling The Ultimate Fast One on their children. this is related to Your Beloved Pet Died But We’re Telling You We Sent Them To Live On The Farm, but this version, in particular, is infinitely easier and harder. this one is The Switch. The Replacement. The Double. when the intrepid parent or guardian, under the cover of night, goes to the pet store to purchase The Exact Same Animal because the first animal had an untimely death. i will admit, this is the easiest with like, a goldfish, or something else small where you can usually get one that looks very similar. 

now, for babybea, it’s a pumpkin. 

so babybea (who is twelve at the time this story takes place), at the very end of september, carves a pumpkin, and she goes in with a VISION. she spends a couple hours on this pumpkin, carving an owl. It’s not, yknow, a realistic owl, but she adds a lot of tiny details, lots of lines for the feathers, and she carves a little mouse on the side too, and even gets the side of a tree in there, and the pumpkin carving kit the baudelaires purchased that year came with these little stick lights, to put in the owl eyes after carving, so it has orange eyes!! this is!!!! The neatest thing babybea has ever seen, and she is so thrilled with the results and very proud of this pumpkin. (for the record – violet carves a few pumpkins into a starry night with a moon, klaus carves monstera leaves, and. let’s be real. sunny bites a series of turnips into jack-o-lanterns.) (and then she stabs a couple white pumpkins into bigger jack-o-lanterns, for variety. all of them get different expressions!

sunny, arranging her carved vegetation on the baudelaire porch in order of emotion: perfect.) (no, i don’t know what order of emotion means. But sunny does.)

Then they all pile into violet’s car – pumpkin included!! – and drive almost an hour out of the city to the bildungsroman bed and breakfast. (frank and ernest decided, at this point in their lives, if they were going to commit to anything, it may as well be The Bit.) (it has a local reputation as a place with solid wifi, stellar bread, and great mattresses. The owners are considered minorly eccentric, mostly for the portrait they have in the lobby, of, just one of them. 

some impassioned yelp review: okay so the stay was great big recommend PLEASE try the bread but i cannot figure out the story behind the portrait in the lobby????? it's just one one of the owners?????? but I don't understand why bc they're twins and it's just ONE of them?????? and he's wearing this frog-patterned tie in the painting and when you see them like in person. neither of them wear the tie. what's the deal here 

the locals are sure it's not an ego thing, bc the owners don't seem to be self-centered or anything like that. In fact, if asked about the painting, both of them will say, “oh, that's a painting of my brother.” 

an additional yelp comment: I think. there's THREE of them  a third yelp comment: don't be silly, they're definitely twins.) 

frank and ernest have a very elaborate series of outdoor autumn decorations, with lots of pumpkins and mini gourds and hay bales over the front steps and corn stalks on all the porch posts, and babybea wants to not only show her uncles her hard work, but also put the pumpkin on their steps where everyone can see it!! 

(her uncles also include lemony, of course – I think he did live with the baudelaires for some time after reuniting babybea with them, but has recently moved into ernest's side of the private apartment at the back of the hotel. this was mildly distressing to babybea, who likes everyone she loves under the same roof, but she can't deny that lemony is very happy. and so is ernest. and now she can see all her uncles in the same place whenever she wants!! so the baudelaires tend to spend weekends at the bed and breakfast, because they also miss lemony. and they get to know frank and ernest better, which is very important to them, as people who are important to babybea, and to lemony, and, to the baudelaire's past.) (not to like, detract from the sentiment here, but i do need everyone to know that i imagine ernest spends like, 80% of his working hours just making out with lemony.) (okay maybe not 80%. ernest does legitimately get work done, it’s his hotel too. ………but like, a lot of time.) 

AND SO. the baudelaires arrive at the bed and breakfast, and frank and ernest and lemony are very proud of their niece's pumpkin. they take a lot of pictures. (re: my previous post-canon thoughts, frank has actually acquired a phone now, and does text. it is a flip phone.) babybea places it, very gently, on the third front step, and is so pleased. sunny steals two mini gourds while looking ernest dead in the eye. ernest approves. 

But october turns out to be unseasonably warm, and babybea’s pumpkin, while lovingly carved but now lacking the support an uncarved pumpkin has to keep itself A Pumpkin, does not take kindly to the weather, and babybea actually becomes very distressed at the smallest signs of rot beginning to form in her pumpkin, when it is only the second week of october. She doesn’t TELL anybody, because there’s not really much you can do about a pumpkin doing what a pumpkin does in warm weather, but she’s very upset. (almost uncharacteristically so. usually she’d say, oh, well that’s how it happens, and rather pleasantly move on, but lately, she’s been kind of. quieter than usual.) And frank, who spends a great deal of time at the front desk, closest to the pumpkins, becomes Concerned. 

now, in general, babybea’s family is like, pretty good at being realistic with her. She is of course an optimist, but still Aware of a great deal of the ways of the world, given her family, her upbringing, lemony’s books, her own adventures, everything. You can’t really shield this twelve year old from the ways of the world, even if that way of the world is, a rotting vegetable. All things have their time, and it cannot be stopped. Including seasons, and in-season foods. 

However. She put SO MUCH WORK into that pumpkin, and as the week goes by and the pumpkin starts to shrink in on itself, turning all of babybea’s work black from the inside out, those charming little glowstick eyes CAVING IN, and the baudelaire’s weekly weekend visit grows closer and closer, frank has been imagining her devastated reaction when she sees the pumpkin, and decides, He Must Pull The Fast One. he will re-carve the pumpkin, exactly as babybea carved it, replace the pumpkin, and no one will be the wiser. They get a little more time with the pumpkin, presumably at least until halloween, and his niece gets to see her beautiful handiwork as much as she likes. Maybe, you know, there is a little magic in the world after all, to make a pumpkin look so nice. 

(also, i think frank has. A shaky relationship with babybea, from his end. She loves him, as much as she loves everyone else in her family, and babybea herself would NEVER rank her uncles in order of how well she knows or admires them, but i, lulu vandelay, putting this together, have no qualms in saying she knows lemony the best, bc she has spent the most time with him, between trying to find him and both of them trying to find the baudelaires and all of them having lived together, and she’s rather deeply attached to him – ernest is very personable, and funny, so he’s easy to get along with – and she and frank both like tiny detail work, so they have things in common, but frank always seems very awkward around her. And he is. It’s bc he’s very nervous around her. Frank doesn’t think he’s good with kids. And he is usually acutely aware that in an ideal world, he isn’t the one she’d be spending her time with, that dewey would be so much better at all of this than he is. A better parent, a better brother, a better everything. Because dewey always was, to frank. but, dewey would probably want frank to do as much as he could for her, and would believe him absolutely capable of doing it, without a doubt. So he wants to be a proper uncle to her and THIS is his opportunity, he thinks. He so desperately wants to do something kind and considerate and important for her, like family is supposed to do for each other.) 

the thing about pumpkins, though, is that, for some reason, mid-october, THEY ALL DISAPPEAR. I’m serious, you ever try and find a good pumpkin even like a little over halfway through october? It can be hard. 

frank: i need your assistance. ernest: i’ve killed my quota for the month. frank: i – ernest, please.  ernest: alright, my apologies. What do you need?  frank: a pumpkin. lemony, from the kitchen: jarrahdale or red warty?  frank: no, i mean a carving pumpkin. 

The three of them take a good, long look at babybea’s pumpkin. Uncle Instincts Have Activated. They, very solemnly, bury the pumpkin in the back garden (lemony is the one who takes one for the team and removes the glowstick eyes from the depths of sad, sad pumpkin). And then embark on a mission. Please imagine the three of them packed into a mint green 1960 chevy corvette. Sunglasses optional. Who’s driving? That is up to you, my friend. Oh, google informs me it is cascade green. Imagine accordingly. (yes, no corvette has ever been made with more than two seats, but isn’t that just funnier? They really are packed in there. Lemony sits in the middle.) 

The hunt for the right pumpkin is long. Grueling! Kinda chilly! This is october!! Much comparison is made between potential pumpkins and the pictures they took of babybea’s pumpkin. Snacks are purchased. (lemony, who has recently been introduced to instagram, posts a picture of his pretzel. [ernest is out of focus in the corner, eating a chocolate ice cream cone.] [#pretzel.] 

sunbad: what is that lemonysnicket: I have purchased a pretzel sunbad: without me sunbad: you’re dead to me.) 

(it was actually not sunny who introduced lemony to instagram, although she was his first follower. It was klaus.) (klaus uses instagram mainly to never post anything ever, just to follow his favorite authors, so he wanted lemony to have an instagram, especially since he just moved out.) (klaus……..my heart………..) (oh, frank bought chex mix. he likes those gross rye bread pieces.) 

(don’t get me started on lemony with an instagram……….I think this is a hilarious but also heartwarming thought – this man who has avoided being photographed for years and years and years and YEARS (yes that much repetition was in fact necessary) is at a point in his life here he is not only comfortable of taking pictures of his life, but he is capable of doing it, he’s allowed!! It’s still probably mostly food and it’s so good!!!!!!!! and think of the amount of pictures he keeps just in his phone gallery, too!!! violet’s inventions and klaus’ library displays and sunny’s baking and babybea’s school projects and ernest’s record collection and frank’s breakfast spreads, and nature shots with lemony’s thumb in the corner, AAAAAAAAAAAA) (uh, anyway, these men are on a mission. back to the mission.) 

Eventually, they do find a comparable replacement pumpkin! Does it fit in the car? Lemony, by virtue of sitting in the middle, holds the pumpkin. 

They return to the bed and breakfast. Between the three of them, many different knives, and all of their photos, frank and ernest and lemony painstakingly recreate babybea’s pumpkin, down to the last, smallest detail. Including the little mouse and the side of the tree and the feathers and everything. (frank does do most of the work, because ernest and lemony very much see that this is important to him, but he doesn’t mind them helping, because, yknow. This is about family, and babybea is their family too.) (frank feels like he owes lemony a lot. for trying to set the record straight about their past. or as straight as one could try and set it, with what all of them did. for their niece. for making ernest happy.) (ernest deserves to be happy, with everything they put each other through. ernest thinks the same for frank, too.) 

(ugggggg if you told the three of them when they were so much younger that one day they’d stay up late recreating their niece’s perfect pumpkin masterpiece so she’s not upset about the passage of time………..) 

(who’s in charge of the bed and breakfast while all of this is happening?? 

ernest: mallory, you’re in charge. mallory, a twenty-two year old with a major in hotel management who runs the front desk when ernest and frank can’t: sounds like a plan. 

mallory has a deep respect for the denouements. meanwhile – 

mallory: so you’re lemony snicket. lemony: i am, yes. mallory: you don’t look like your photo. lemony: that’s my legal representative. he has a stamp.) 

meanwhile meanwhile – it is not necessarily about the pumpkin. 

For babybea’s part, she already firmly believes that there is some sort of magic in the world. Even at twelve. Especially at twelve!! Look, she knows it wasn’t magic that reunited her with her family, that it was her and lemony’s hard work, but she wound up with SO much more family than she expected, when she first contacted lemony. And like, that is what there’s magic in. this whole group of people who care about her and love her and want to spend time with her. Babybea thinks she has the best family in the whole entire world. (AND SHE’S RIGHT!!!!!!!!!!!!) 

But that is also babybea’s problem right now. She loves her family so much, and she loves having them, and it’s been a couple months but she is still not entirely comfortable with people she loves being so far away from her. Not now! Not when they’re all supposed to be in the same space, like they’re supposed to be!! And some kids at school have teased her, not so much about her puzzle-piece family but that she talks about her uncles so much. She’s just proud of her family and she loves them!! But middle schoolers are like, rude as fuck sometimes, okay. And they don’t even think they’re saying anything wrong, just offhand comments about how much she talks about them. They don’t even know anything about her parents, not really, but babybea starts to feel like, it’s the unspoken throughline in what they’re saying, why doesn’t she ever talk about them? Why only her uncles, her guardians? They’re her family, but – 

she feels almost guilty, that she goes through periods where she doesn’t even think of her parents at all, and periods where she can’t stop thinking about what they would look like and what they would be like, and that makes her feel like she doesn’t value the family she DOES have. So it’s not necessarily about the pumpkin starting to rot, what’s making her upset. It’s that, the pumpkin is another thing in a line of things babybea is Thinking about, things that aren’t Going the way she thought they were supposed to go. Her uncle moving out, missing somebody who was supposed to be there, her pumpkin not staying like it’s supposed to, she’s SUPPOSED to love her family but is she loving them right? Is she loving the right people right? Can you miss people you didn’t even know? And babybea has it very set in her head, the things she knows and is supposed to do – this is something she hasn’t quite worked on, but she’ll get to it eventually, she is still twelve – and they keep not happening like that. And now. Something else she worked really, really, really hard on, that isn’t going right either. 

So she spends the week a little gloomy about her pumpkin, and worrying the whole ride friday afternoon after school to the bildungsroman bed and breakfast. Violet and klaus and sunny are very aware of babybea’s mood, and try to cheer her up by asking her about what she’ll be for halloween, but babybea’s heart is not super into this conversation. (she has ideas about a big group costume where they’re all different local birds, but now she’s not even sure about that.) 

And then! She sees her pumpkin!! Glowy eyes and all!!!!! And, mysteriously, those little spots of rot she’d noticed the week before are gone, and, in fact, it looks a little sharper than it had before? And she didn’t think she’d cut the lid quite like that, but! That’s her pumpkin, exactly where it’s supposed to be!!! And it makes her feel just a little better. That’s good. That’s right. But she still can’t, entirely shake off all her previous feelings, about family. But. right now. Her pumpkin still looks very special. 

Later, babybea can’t sleep. So she sneaks out of bed and goes down to the lobby, and sits down on the floor in front of the front desk, and looks at the big painting on the wall, that ernest did of her father. 

This, of course, is where frank finds her. (because frank has never been very good at sleeping consistently, even when there’s nothing to worry about now, and he likes to walk through the hotel to make sure it’s secure.) 

(ernest would say something very clever, like, aha, with a raised eyebrow, but all frank says is – )

frank: hello, beatrice.  beatrice: oh!  beatrice: hello, uncle frank.  frank: may i sit down?  beatrice: yes, please. 

They spend a little while looking at the portrait.

beatrice: um –  beatrice: does it – 

What she wants to ask is, does it look very much like my father, which she then realizes is such a STUPID question if her father was a TRIPLET and she has a mirror image of him right in front of her, who acts like she thinks a father is supposed to act, so, but, it’s not like that doesn’t mean dewey didn’t look like dewey. Just because dewey looked like frank doesn’t mean he only looked like frank. And beatrice forgets, sometimes, that he would’ve just looked just like her uncles. But still! 

beatrice: i mean – the painting, is it – 

But she thinks it’s such a terrible thing to ask!! But frank knows EXACTLY what she means. 

(some time ago, when the hotel had just opened and ernest had just painted the portrait of dewey – 

ernest: i wanted it to look like him. And, it’s not like i, don’t know what he looks like. Looked like. I mean – that could just be me or you up there, couldn’t it. It doesn’t look like it’s him.  frank: no, it does.  frank, knowing exactly what he means and feeling like, he needs to make ernest Not look so abjectly miserable: you don’t look nearly as happy.  ernest, in tears, very amused and touched and still terribly upset: wow! 

The point being, god of course it looks like dewey. It couldn’t be anybody but dewey, even if dewey looks like other people. Dewey looks like himself, he looks like his family, he looks like beatrice, around the eyes. And family means lots of things. It means your guardians raising you, and your uncles raising you, and your father’s portrait on the wall and never knowing him at all, and loving so many people and being loved back by them, whether or not it’s Supposed to be a specific way, and sometimes it means missing somebody, sometimes it means missing different people, sometimes it means being sad for something you’re not sure if you should or could miss, sometimes it means not missing anyone at all, sometimes it means your uncle going to live with his definitely boyfriend even if they won’t say the words out loud who’s also your uncle just on the other side of your family and that doesn’t mean anyone’s going anywhere. Sometimes it means your pumpkin rotting, because things change. uh, does this make sense.) (admittedly, i put a lot of things in this.)

frank: yes, it looks very much like him.  frank: i think about him a lot.  beatrice: ......would he like my pumpkin? frank, without hesitation: absolutely. beatrice: do you like it? frank: i do.

of course babybea already knew that, but it's nice to hear. it's just. nice. it's not, like, everything? just like before. but beatrice is loved by a lot of people, and she loves them, too, and. she feels loved, right here, like she's supposed to, and that's what's Supposed to happen.

beatrice hugs him, and it's not the first time she's hugged frank, but it means more? frank hugs her back.

beatrice: thanks for fixing my pumpkin.  frank: i’m sure i don’t know what you mean, beatrice. 

beatrice hugs him again, and then goes back upstairs. frank looks a little longer at the portrait, and then goes to bed himself, and doesn't get back up until his alarm goes off.

[ven10]

Here’s a dumb thing I wrote for day 3 (Disguises) of Woevember! ( @asouefanworkevent ) It is most definitely not my finest work but…it exists. That’s all it has going for it tbh✨😌🎉👍

“There was something off about that Snicket lad. Not the little one-CitrusLee- or whatever you call him- the bigger one; that J.S fellow.”

[jacobsnicket]

fictober day 11: "well, that worked out great + @asouefanworkevent woevember day 1: violet's inventions | a series of unfortunate events | T

read on ao3

As soon as he smelled the smoke, Bertrand had jumped from his seat in the parlor. There were multiple fire extinguishers in every room, but he made sure to take an extra one with him as he followed the smell, just in case. You never knew what could happen in these cases, especially since the smell seemed to be coming from Violet’s room—

Oh, goodness, Violet. Was she alright? How large had the fire gotten? Has it already reached her?

Violet was smart, Bertrand reassured himself, and old enough to take care of herself. If she hadn’t put it out already, she probably would have gotten to safety by now.

He didn’t want to consider what would happen if he hadn’t.

The door to Violet’s room nearly flew off its hinges as Bertrand burst in, fire extinguisher aloft. “Violet? Are you in there?”

There was no fire, at least as far as he could see. The smoke was coming from the toaster sitting in front of Violet, half-deconstructed and looking very angry, or at least as angry as a toaster could be. Violet, for the matter, just looked sheepish. “Well… that worked out great.”

“What on earth were you doing?”

“I was just trying to disassemble the toaster, Father, I’m sorry—”

“Before you touch anything, you need to take the power source out first, Violet. You need to be careful with these things.”

“I know, Father, I did! I don’t understand why it’s still doing that.”

“Let me take a look,” he said, gently taking the toaster out of her hands. The metal was still hot, but Bertrand was used to it. “You really need to be more careful, Violet. What if you had set off one of the smoke alarms? We’d all end up sopping wet.”

He really needed to go in and remove those, they were useless. Half the time they knew there was a fire long before the alarms noticed, not to mention the dangers they posed to books. An old friend had told him about that once.

Bertrand did not want to think about him at the moment. He needed to focus on this damn toaster. “What were you trying to get from the toaster, anyway? We might have it in a place that’s easier to reach and won’t set the house on fire.”

“I thought I might repurpose the heating coils for the incubator I’m building for Mrs. Gershwin’s chickens.”

“Oh, goodness. Well, at least let me help you get them out then.”

[snckt]

i should have asked the question, “how could someone who was missing be in two places at once?” instead i asked the wrong question.

@asouefanworkevent day three of woevember : disguises, alternatively titled,   a pair of raspberry berets.

[heartrender6]

@asouefanworkevent extremely late (whoops) but woevember day 7: free space!! kellars compass pointing to the northeast corner

[asouefanworkevent]

another fall is upon us! another woevember is coming!!

what is it?

woevember is an asoue fanwork event week, that will take place from november 12th through november 18th, 2023. last year there was a different group of characters each day, and this year, each day of the week is dedicated to a different location for a series of unfortunate events or all the wrong questions.

what do i do?

the prompts will be revealed now, so everyone has time to make something. between now and the week of november 12th, you’ll create fanworks about the prompts, and then post it on the corresponding day during november 12th - 18th!

don’t forget to tag this tumblr (asouefanworkevent) in the post so i can find it and reblog it, and tag the post with #woevember !

what do you mean by fanwork?

everything! fanfic and fanart are of course allowed, but woevember has always been meant to be an event that is as big or as little effort as you want! fanwork also means edits, gifs, analysis posts, headcanons!! your cosplay!! your photography!! your photosets!! your web weaving!! your super short fics!! your sketchiest drawings!! your most ramble-y half-fic idea posts!! your wip scenes!! you merely saying 'lemony snicket, though. am i right?????' (and you are. you're so right.) whatever you are moved to make from the prompts! i want people to be encouraged to and be able to create even something small that didn’t exist before for the snicketverse, and share it with other people!

are there any rules?

to keep the event open and comfortable for everyone, no explicit content. also, as always, sibling romance and age gaps will not be tolerated.

do i have to make something for every day?

only if you want to! feel free to just make something for one day if you want :) the point of having a different theme for each day is so some part of canon that you like comes up eventually, and you can at least make something for one of the days. or you get struck by an idea you might not have considered before! i want to get people thinking about all the intriguing people and places in asoue and atwq and the exciting different ways we can interpret and create from the same idea.

what are the prompts?

the description under each prompt is just some ideas to get your brain going -- feel free to take them in another direction too!

november 12th - olaf's mansion

to celebrate the 24th anniversary of the bad beginning! what becomes of the house post-canon? was it olaf's family home? what sort of nefarious, or, perhaps, completely innocent shenanigans have occurred here, pre-canon? does this house also have a secret passage somewhere?

november 13th - the baudelaire mansion

did beatrice and bertrand build the mansion? what sweet pre-canon moments have we missed with the baudelaire children and their parents? what visitors came there? do people still think the mansion remains are haunted post-canon? what sort of new home do the baudelaires make for themselves when they return to the city?

november 14th - the clusterous forest

the wild and lawless place. what was it before the water was removed? what sort of beach or shore was there? where did the water go? does it ever come back? what does lemony, or anyone else, find in there? does another train ever come through after the thistle of the valley? do the stain'd-by-the-sea crew ever go in to investigate it? what sort of rumors might be created about a place like the clusterous forest?

november 15th - the hotel denouement

the last safe place! is it vfd-owned, or denouement-owned? what happens down in the archives? are the archives ever found? what sort of firefighter or firestarter meetings have taken place here? what relationship might they have with the preludio hotel? what were the denouements up to at the hotel? what hotel, or what sort of home in general, might frank and ernest create for themselves post-canon, with dewey's absence?

november 16th - the masked ball

the duchess of winnipeg's masked balls have so much potential! what happened at that last one, where lemony tried to contact beatrice? when was that? what happened at past balls? what is the duchess's relationship with the parties? (whether the duchess is jacquelyn or r or jacquelyn is r's daughter is up to you, dear reader!) what costumes do they all pick! or is there even a different masked ball you might have in mind?

november 17th - the reptile room

to also celebrate the 24th anniversary of the reptile room! what becomes of this house post-canon? how did monty come to own the reptile room, where does his herpetology career fit into vfd? why was the quagmire mansion connected to it? how did jacques get there and find quigley? what other moments with the baudelaire children in the reptile room might we have missed -- or pre-canon moments with the baudelaire parents? do not forget about our beloved, the incredibly deadly viper!

november 18th - free space!

there's tons of other locations, too! prufrock prep, heimlich hospital, 667 dark avenue, paltryville, caligari carnival, the city, the punctilio, veblen hall, the orion observatory, the opera, the sewers, the hemlock tearoom and stationery shop, the museum of items, the museum of bad breakfast, the snicket mansion, the quagmire mansion, the island, the mortmain mountains, lucky smells lumbermill, wade academy, killdeer fields, anwhistle aquatics, the queequeg? or do you care not for locations! use the free space to write about the character or relationship or thought of your choosing!

if you have any questions about anything, feel free to drop me an ask or a message!

happy creating, and i hope to see lots of you november 12th-18th!! ✨

[littlestsnicket]

books

violet’s the one that finds them first—a battered copy of the bad beginning at a library discard sale. it’s been annotated in a dozen hands, a priceless artifact. they track down the remaining twelve books in similarly distressed states. klaus and then sunny pour over them until they have to rebind the fragile volumes.

violet doesn’t think she needs to know, not more than what klaus tells her at least, late at night when none of them can sleep, trying desperately to find beatrice. but there is something klaus is not telling her, something—she thinks—that might be best learned herself.

@asouefanworkevent