"iT's vOlUnTaRy. We'Re VoLuNtEeRs"

kamil-a's snicket sideblog. spoilers everywhere. VFD WAS A MISTAKE -HAYAO MIYAZAKI

[beatricebidelaire]

👀👀👀👀

[lemingtons]

Finished When Did You See Her Last? and I'm starting to feel crazy now. I have a lot of thoughts about some of the themes surrounding romance and parenthood here, so I'm going to put them under the cut.

I'm not sure how much of this is common interpretation or Understanding Of The Text or whatever I just wanted to share my immediate commentary before I go knock myself out.

I wondered if it was going to be a one-off thing at first in ?1 when Theodora calls Lemony her husband and then her son basically in one go, and if it was only commentary on the concept of parentification. (It is unambiguously a way of immediately indicating that Theodora will not treat him appropriately.)

However. Handler draws parallels between parenthood and lovership more than once, and…

Not only is Les Gommes (the building near the abandoned aquarium) also a novel about a detective destined to become an assassin, but the plot itself is based off of the myth of Oedipus.

Keeping in mind the above point, a common characterization of film noir femme fatales is that they are looking for a man to kill their husband in hopes of personal gain, in addition to the usual "being captive or at least implying they're captive to some inescapable situation" and everything else. Ellington is, very obviously, a satire of this trope.

Keeping in mind the two above points: Armstrong Feint is Ellington's father, not her husband. Ellington is a child and this is a book about youth freedoms, and so she is oppressed on the basis of her youth first and foremost. Her father, naturally, is the man holding her captive.

Finally, it's exceedingly obvious by this point that Hangfire is Armstrong Feint. There is no reason for Hangfire to associate the tune Lemony whistles with Ellington, because they have not met. There is no reason for Hangfire to hide the record player from Lemony, unless he understands it has significance to both of them. And, of course, there is no reason for Hangfire to have the record player at all, unless it is significant to him. Even Ellington's papers, which would theoretically be much more relevant to him, are being protected by Nurse Dander.

Anyways, the writing is on the wall and I'm calling it now that Lemony is going to grievously injure/maim/manslaughter Hangfire who is also Ellington's father. If I'm right I want a free soda.

If you read to the end: Congratulations here are some Ellingtons I've drawn.

[mirtocomune]

Hi volunteers! I have some dreadful news!

You can now request me gloomy portraits of yourselves, the original characters from ASOUE/ATWQ, or even of your own OCs!

The portraits are fully customizable!

PRICE per PORTRAIT: $40 !

You can request a commission from me via Ko-Fi or at [email protected]

I can't wait to work on your ideas!

See you soon!

[lyeekha]

kit please!

Kit Snicket inspired by X

send me a character and i’ll sketch them wearing something from my #fashion tag

[jewishsnickets]

Wait its may 13th where is the GOAT. Or the cow, i should say

[lyeekha]

Kit Snicket’s back tattoo lifted from my fancomic

[kitsnicket]

Nothing on earth could prepare me for this sentence

[virginian-wolfsnake]

Jacques finds that his old training always kicks in at times like these. Staring down the barrel of a hunting rifle, not yet up from his knees on his way out of the hatch leading down into the passageway, he finds himself taking in the scene in front of him in a sort of slow-motion.

In the one class he taught at headquarters all those years ago, he told the new recruits that, whatever you do, no matter how dire your situation, you must never panic, and so he doesn’t. His long years of experience help too. This, in fact, is not the first time he’s been held at gun-point, or sword-point or dart-point, emerging from the tunnels. It somewhat comes with the territory of emerging uninvited into someone else’s home or workplace.

His would-be assailant is very young. His hands are lightly trembling, his dark brown eyes wide and staring. His breathing is rapid, shallow, fearful. You can always be wrong about a person — that’s another thing experience teaches you — but Jacques thinks he can see that the boy is more afraid than violent, and something in his posture indicates that he may not really know how to use that rifle. Thirteen, Jacques concludes, terrified. In his peripheral vision, there is an open can of peaches on the floor, and a pile of crumpled clothes or blankets by the open door of an empty cage.

“You’re not Doctor Montgomery,” the boy gasps.

There is something familiar about him, Jacques realises. It would have been years ago now, but he thinks he has seen a less-fearful version of this face before — in fact, in triple.

He made notes once on the triplets, when they were still a recruitment prospect. He had most of a file put together on each of them by the time they were five. That was before their parents had forbidden it — either taking a leaf from Beatrice and Bertrand’s book, or perhaps the other way around. S, their mother, had been uncomfortable about it, but more avoidant than forceful in her rejection, but F had been plenty fierce in his dismissal of the possibility of training their children. Jacques had once tried to explain that it was no longer all about grabbing by the ankles and dangerous apprenticeships, especially for children of existing recruits, a revised version of the speech he had also unsuccessfully deployed to a stone-faced Bertrand. It hadn’t worked the second time, either, and he had found himself permanently ejected from the Quagmire residence. They had all exchanged pleasantries again, but it had never been the same.

By process of elimination, he realises that this must be Q. From the family of wordsmiths, his sister the poet and his brother the aspiring journalist, his mother once the organisation’s very best translator, his father the lexicographer. And somehow from them, he had emerged with his head not in a book but towards the skyline, an intuitive navigator charting the world around him from as soon as he could hold a pencil. Their practical, resourceful, brave boy.

“I am a friend of his,” Jacques says, hoisting himself out of the passageway on aching arms onto the floor of Monty’s eerily empty reptile room. He feels more at ease now, having placed the child in his memory. Q and his siblings had been promising, moral children; the kind who wouldn’t shoot a defenceless stranger for no reason. “He would have been happy for me to be here.”

“Why didn’t you knock on his door then?”

That’s a reasonable question. Not as good, perhaps, as ‘why is there a passageway underneath his house, and how did you know it was there?’ But perhaps, knowing that a fire has recently destroyed his family home and that Q has found himself seemingly alone here, he may think he has already figured that part out for himself.

“Because I knew he wouldn’t be here.” Jacques is still crouched down. He doesn’t want to intimidate Quigley by towering over him.

The triplet frowns. “So where is he?”

Jacques sighs. That’s an unpleasant story, and it is not one particularly well-suited to their current situation. He glances up again at the wavering rifle.

“I think it’s better if we discuss that in a little while,” he says. “In the meantime, would you lower that please, Quigley? It’s not that I don’t trust you, but I am a little worried your hand might slip. The last thing we would want is a misfire.”

“How do you know my name?” Quigley asks. Despite his suspicious tone, he has lowered the barrel a fraction on instinct.

“Because I was a friend of your parents’ as well,” Jacques says, without stopping to wonder too much about whether that’s true. “My name is Jacques.”

[thesnicketfile]

Lemony Snicket's Commentary in 'The New American Haggadah'

On ‘The Four Sons’:

Some scholars believe there are four kinds of parents as well.

The Wise Parent is an utter bore. “Listen closely, because you are younger than I am,” says the Wise Parent, “and I will go on and on about Jewish history, based on some foggy memories of my own religious upbringing, as well as an article in a Jewish journal I have recently skimmed.” The Wise Parent must be faced with a small smile of dim interest.

The Wicked Parent tries to cram the story of our liberation into a set of narrow opinions about the world. “The Lord let us out of Egypt,” the Wicked Parent says, “which is why I support a bloodthirsty foreign policy and I’m tired of certain types of people causing problems.” The Wicked Parent should be told with a firm voice: “With a strong hand God rescued the Jews from bondage, but it was my own clumsy hand that spilled hot soup in your lap.”

The Simple Parent does not grasp the concept of freedom. “There will be no macaroons until you eat all of your brisket,” says the Simple Parent at a dinner honoring the liberation of oppressed peoples. “Also, stop slouching at the table.” In answer to such statements, the Wise Child will roll his eyes in the direction of the ceiling and declare: “Let my people go.”

The Parent Who Is Unable to Inquire has had too much wine and should be excused from the table.

Keep reading

[beatricebidelaire]

Growing the hair out long was a longer process than choosing a name, but nevertheless an exciting one also. It filled her with delight, watching the hair grew longer and longer every day, like growing into a new version of herself. 

There was a small problem of how the long hair would sometimes distract her when she was facing down and trying to take the coaster apart and rebuilt it.

Her father noticed that really quick.

“Do you want a ribbon?” He asked kindly. “I used to tie my hair back with one when I had longer hair. Helps with the thinking, too.”

Violet blinked in surprise (at the fact that her father used to have long hair), and wondered how she’d never thought of this solution before. “Yes! I want to try that.”

“I still keep some old ones, let’s go find one suitable for you.” He led her towards the study, and she curiously followed, trying to picture her father with long hair and how he used to tie his hair up with a ribbon.

He took out a box from a cabinet, and she saw there were some ribbons of different colors inside. The purple one appealed to her immediately, as she thought it would go rather nicely with her new name Violet.

Then she noticed there was also one ribbon with initials e.d. on it.  Curiously, she picked it up. Had she been looking at her father, perhaps she would’ve seen a flash of pained nostalgia across his eyes for a brief moment, but since she was paying attention to the ribbon, she didn’t see it.

“E.D.? Ed? For Edison?” She asked, cleverly making the connection and feeling a little proud of herself at her quick thinking.

“Well,” he replied, so naturally that she would never suspect that this was not the real story behind the ribbon, so easily that she would never have guessed that it had been a special gift from a special person. “I found that at a second hand store, don’t know if it’s meant to stand for Edison, but I did buy it impulsively because it of the connection I made in my mind.”

“Cool!” She grinned, enjoying how they both made the same connection. She looked at the ribbons again. “I’m not sure if I want the purple one or the Edison one ….”

He hesitated, just a fraction of second, too quick for her to notice as she was busily contemplating her choice of ribbons. “You could take both, if you want.”

Violet was delighted. “Thank you!”

[tsarina-anadyomene]

okay what are some excellent recent poems

[m-accost]

A. E. Stalling's vilanelle "Burned"

You cannot unburn what is burned. Although you scrape the ruined toast, You can’t go back. It’s time you learned The butter cannot be unchurned, You can’t unmail the morning post, You cannot unburn what is burned– The lovers in your youth you spurned, The bridges charred you needed most. You can’t go back. It’s time you learned Smoke’s reputation is well earned, Not just as an acrid, empty boast– You cannot unburn what is burned. You longed for home, but while you yearned, The black ships smoldered on the coast; You can’t go back. It’s time you learned That even if you had returned, You’d only be a kind of ghost, You can’t go back. It’s time you learned That what is burned is burned is burned.

[snckt]

a very happy birthday to mr daniel handler ! 🎉🤍🫡

[kamil-a]

[jewishsnickets]

maybe drearydrearydreary is like our beatrice

[jewishsnickets]

saw someone posting abt how its been 10 years since 2016 asoueblr era. n...... no.....

[jewishsnickets]

saw someone posting abt how its been 10 years since 2016 asoueblr era. n...... no.....

[whoslaurapalmer]

hey. hey. you want a bunch of fragmented pieces of a scene where babybea experiences very specific vfd trauma without even realizing that's what it is, and ernest is also there and there's some generational grappling with the ghosts of vfd. well, behold

[hold on some context needed for this is that, babybea has a radio, that she keeps on while she sleeps, that she brings with her any time she's not sleeping at home so she always has it. the implication is very much that she's trying to block out any noise that could be vfd-kidnapping related, bc while she wasn't in vfd for very long, she was still there (re: my babybea fic in particular, where she is technically kidnapped. twice.) and experienced enough that she doesn't even realize she's picked up pieces of vfd trauma, especially about noises. lemony and ernest are slowly realizing this, bc they're the only ones that are going to pick up on it bc the baudelaires don't know about the 'what was that noise?' code. one weekend babybea and the baudelaires are staying at (the post-canon hotel of the denouements + lemony, once he starts dating ernest) the bildungsroman bed and breakfast, and beatrice realizes she's forgotten the radio on a particularly windy night and starts to panic.]

[beatrice’s mouth wobbled. it was fine, though. it had to be somewhere. she’d find it. she wouldn’t have just forgotten it.

but the silence stretched out around her, almost ringing in her ears. something clattered on the window and she jumped, whirling to look, her hands clenched tight against her chest. if she didn’t say it out loud she was fine, wasn’t she? wasn’t --

she sees the shape of a tree branch outside the window, and her heart drops out of her throat. just the birch tree. that’s all it was. that’s all.

[uncle ernest and uncle frank have to have a radio somewhere. she creeps down the hall, silently in her socks. something slides sideways in her for a moment, and in the dark she thinks of headquarters, of the lonely streets outside near the beach in the off-season, the big furniture downstairs, the lock on the front door, walking just as soundlessly through it to leave.

she puts a hand on the wall. the country headquarters had green walls, weathered with time, and the hotel has sleek, fresh walls, painted a welcoming soft blue, with cream trim and paintings. they’re not the same at all.

she darts to the door at the end of the hall, the one marked private for the passway to her uncle’s living quarters. she slips through it and through the door to the right and into uncle ernest’s living room. he loves music – he has a whole record collection he lets her look through and play whenever she wants, at whatever volume she wants – he probably has a radio.

but uncle ernest also has things. uncle frank is very sparing in his possessions, just the essentials and a few extra things – books, the puzzles and miniatures in bottles he likes to do. but uncle ernest likes to fill his rooms with everything. he has stacks of books around, dog-eared or left open, uncle lemony’s handwriting in some of them. art on the walls he’s painted himself. knickknacks of frogs and curving vases and little statues, dragonflies and ships, and his records and dozens of pillows, all the things he liked and cared for out in the open, organized but everywhere. beatrice swallows, the silence starting to beat in her ears again. if she was a radio, where would she be in all of this?

she crosses to the record player. that’s a logical starting place. she skims through the player and the sound system and the records, opens nearby drawers, but she doesn’t find a radio. maybe in the kitchen? uncle lemony might want to listen to it while he baked. that’s a second logical place. of course.

beatrice moves into the dark kitchen, feeling around on the counters, her fingers stumbling over objects that are supposed to be familiar. the metal spoon holder shaped like a chicken violet made for uncle lemony, the bowl of apples, the knife block, but no radio. she runs a hand through her hair. she needs – she can’t --

okay. she’ll just go back to the record player. she can’t bring it back to her room, but maybe if she just played one of them for a little while, that would be enough.

beatrice picks out an ella fitzgerald album and fits it into the record player. she drops the arm down on it and turns the volume down low, but enough to hear, and sits down on the floor to listen. ella fitzgerald sings so effortlessly, so smoothly, and she always makes beatrice feel at least a little better.

there’s a book nearby, with one of uncle lemony’s bookmarks sticking out of it. beatrice picks it up and lets it fall open to where he’d left off. she reads a few lines about a little girl sitting happily in a patch of coal and then puts it down because the sentences all run together in her head, where she can’t understand any of the words like she’s supposed to. she rubs her arms and focuses on ella fitzgerald’s voice.

so hush, little baby, don’t you cry one of these mornings you’re gonna rise up singing

the next thing happens so quickly she can barely think – there’s the sound of a door cracking open, and as she looks up the big light comes on, flooding the room with harsh, gold light. uncle ernest stands across the room by the hall, his hand on the light switch, looking surprised, but beatrice hardly sees him for the rush of light against her eyes, too much and too bright and that something in her tilts the other way, sliding her back to the boat, to the shipwreck, to the lightning splitting through the air and breaking her world into pieces.

“no, don’t -- ” she calls, hardly aware of what she’s going to say next but the light just needs to go away.

he turns the lights off. shadows flood back in, calm and unobtrusive, back in uncle ernest’s living room and nowhere else, and beatrice feels herself relax.

she hears uncle ernest make his way over to her, and he sits down next to her on the floor, pressing his shoulder against hers.

“I did think it would be strange if a burglar broke in just to play my records,” he says lightly.

beatrice gives herself a shake. her mind is so full of memories, she almost forgets what drove her here in the first place, what was making everything crowd into her chest.

“I -- I was looking for a radio,” she says.

“a radio?”

“I thought you might have one. I -- ” she twists her hands in the hem of her shirt. “I always bring one, but I -- I think I left it at home.”

“oh, there has to be one somewhere,” ernest says. she feels him shift as he looks around. “I think lemony had it in the kitchen last.”

so she was right about that. “I couldn’t find it,” beatrice murmurs. “I felt around for it but I couldn’t find it.” it’s imperative that she keeps saying it. she couldn’t. she just couldn’t.

“well, I’m sure we can find it. do you want to go look for it now?”

“can I ask you,” uncle ernest says, “why you bring a radio?”

“oh, I – I like to fall asleep to it,” beatrice says. “it’s – the noise is nice. sometimes it’s too quiet, or there’s a noise outside and I – or I, I like to hear the music, but I don’t have it up too loud so I can still hear anything that happens if I need to. I just don’t like it so – so quiet.”

“anything that happens?” ernest repeats, raising an eyebrow. “like what?”

“oh, you know.

[it’s her answering and not wanting to give too much away but also not REALIZING that’s what she’s doing!! bc she also just likes to answer questions!!! she doesn’t realize she’s being cagey!!! she doesn’t realize she’s talking around it!!!!]

[bea not realizing she’s like. in a nightmare vs ernest’s dawning agonizing horror realization that the nightmare HAS happened]

there’s a crease between uncle ernest’s eyebrows, a pinch at the corners of his mouth. beatrice thinks for a moment she’s said something wrong, but uncle ernest puts his hands on her shoulders and looks her right in the eyes.

“beatrice,” he says, “you don’t have to answer if you don’t want to.”

beatrice nods.

“where were you,” uncle ernest says slowly, “before you found lemony?”

“I was – ” it’s so strange, beatrice thinks, distantly. the words won’t come out of her right. uncle ernest’s grip on her shoulders tightens for a moment. “I – was with violet and klaus and sunny.”

“after that.”

“with – ” beatrice swallows. “with the – the volunteers,” she finishes quietly.

uncle ernest’s hands tighten on her shoulders for a single second, and then he lets go. she can see the corner of his mouth almost trembling, and that’s wrong. that’s not supposed to happen. she’s got to fix it –

“it was fine,” she says quickly, “it was – it was fine, I was just, I needed help and they found me a-and – ” but nothing she’s saying is making the expression on his face go away, so pale even in the darkness, and it fills her with such fear, like when she heard uncle lemony cry the first time he thought she wasn’t listening, the kind of fear that makes her stomach drop right out of her, replaced with a gap she feels like she’s never going to fill, weightless and frantic and trembling.

“okay,” uncle ernest says. his voice sounds too loud and makes her flinch a little. “okay,” he says again, softer. he puts a hand on her cheek, the way uncle lemony and violet do sometimes, and the fragile piece in his expression goes away.

[ernest wants to hold her close – his niece, already twelve, with big eyes like dewey and hair that falls around her face with a little curl just like kit, clutching the radio in her hands the way lemony holds on to blankets during a nightmare – and promise her that no one is coming through that window. but that’s just a promise he cannot guarantee, and he can’t do that to her. but it breaks something inside him to see her like that, frightened of a ghost even ernest can’t shake. something that never should have touched her or beatrice and bertrand’s children. or ernest himself, he supposes, but – it’s easier to feel the injustice for them. they had much less of a choice.

she should feel safe here. and she doesn’t feel safe anywhere, and he doesn’t think she even realizes it, and that safety is not something he can guarantee at all. an old agony rises through him, one he has to stop and swallow down, because beatrice can’t see it. there are too many things she knows – and they are things ernest would rather she knew than didn’t – but some things, the true extent of it all, his niece cannot know.

“will you stay?” beatrice asks suddenly.

“absolutely,” ernest says.

[ernest slips back into his bedroom. lemony, amazingly, is still asleep, a fistful of blankets clutched under his chin, his face buried in ernest’s pillow. ernest stops and watches him, the rise and fall of his shoulder, the way sleep smooths the years out of his face.

he gets back into bed, nudging lemony so there’s room for both of them again. lemony makes a soft noise and curls into ernest’s shoulder as ernest rearranges the blankets. it loosens a jagged edge inside his chest, and ernest bites down hard on the inside of his mouth, because it’s two in the morning, he is not crying. there’s nothing wrong with it but he’s not doing it. he folds himself back into lemony, the two of them tucked around each other.

lemony feels safe with him. inexplicably. and ernest feels safe with lemony. not the image of lemony snicket in their youth, capable of doing anything, but the man breathing into his neck, who’s going to wake up in the morning and make him breakfast, who’s teaching violet how to drive, who never thought he’d get any of it. they can’t guarantee that safety, either, but ernest feels it deeper than anything.

beatrice felt safe, in her room, with the radio going, because ernest was there.

“here, let me show you something,” uncle ernest says. “can I turn on the lamp?”

“okay.”

the lamp turns on, soft and not nearly so harsh with the shade. it doesn’t shake through beatrice’s chest.

uncle ernest leans over and pulls open one of the drawers of the bedside table. there’s those little gold pieces still in there, and he picks one up and puts it in her hand. it has just enough weight, beatrice thinks, holding it like this, to wedge itself into someplace and stay there.

uncle ernest clears his throat. “this is a window lock,” he says softly. “you hook it between the sash and the glass, and no one can open the window from the outside. we keep them in every room, for guests who might want them.” he raises his eyes to hers, and that crease is still there, deeper now. “you can use it if it would help you feel more comfortable.”

she turns it over in her palm, unsure.

“frank uses them,” uncle ernest says.

[these window locks i swear to GOD once in fact existed, i found them on a google search when i was googling window locks for a peaks fic but then could 100% never find them again. alas. but i think about them.]