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Post by Dante on Nov 11, 2016 7:50:48 GMT -5
I never thought I'd say it, but the travails of V.F.D. during their decades-long civil war are starting to look awfully quaint in relation to this irruption of cosmic horror.
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Post by Jacques Snicket on Nov 16, 2016 16:42:49 GMT -5
08 Mortmain Motet
Stain'd-by-the-Forest was a middling town in which the very first Lucky Smells Lumbermill was started by the Dzshugashvilis, the ancestors of the smoke-faced owner of the current iteration of Lucky Smells who had hired a friend of mine named Charles as his assistant. Stain'd-by-the-Forest was founded at the edge of the Finite Forest long before the birth of the Snicket siblings. At the center of the town was a tavern named the Horse and Crown which became something of a relic by the time the inkwells of Stain'd-by-the-Sea began to run dry. Stain'd-by-the-Sea and Stain'd-by-the-Forest were named so due to the actions of an explorer named Oliver Ilvermorny Stain. Stain attracted notoriety as a beast hunter throughout the land, as he came from a family of fur traders along what would become Rarely Ridden Road. The Stains were the first to marry into the City's burgeoning aristocratic coterie, the Dellegaardes being one of them along with the Squalors, the Wrights, and the Montgomerys.
Stain'd-by-the-Forest was host to a famed Herpetological Society academy in which the Montgomerys were trained in the family business of reptile research. It is reputed that Arno Baudelaire once visited Stain'd-by-the-Forest to visit his life long love Araminta Montgomery. The Baudelaires and the Montgomerys were always close families, so it was in retrospect only natural that Montgomery Montgomery agreed to adopt the Baudelaire orphans, a phrase which here means "using my brother's tropic style to note an example of the inter-familial bonds upon which our organisation is based".
As it so happened, it was in the Horse and Crown that I found myself, with no memory of having ever arrived here. It was after I had chased Olaf to the little hamlet none dared to name, from whence the hairless man and beardless woman with matching auras of menace originated. On the wall I saw an advertisement for a place called the Leek and Bong, perhaps the competitor which had bled the Horse and Crown dry. I suspected the Duncans, an odd family of Skylords from Mistral City across the Sargasso Sea, had something to do with that.
There were no ropes binding me to a chair. There was no one in the ancient tavern except for myself. Perhaps Olaf had taken me here and left me for dead after I fell into that strange darkness. How had Olaf known about the time traveler Faraday? How much of his future did he know? Or perhaps it was not Olaf who carried me here, but someone else? Either of the menacing duo? And where was Élise? Did she escape from Olaf's associates? Or was she still in their clutches? Where is she now? Where is my brother Lemony? On the trail of Violet, Klaus and Sunny? Mourning Beatrice? In hiding? Perhaps he was all three at once. I thought about my siblings, and our parents (of whom I have no real recollection). I thought about our early years as V.F.D. apprentices. How optimistic we were back then. How blind to V.F.D. politicking we were. We solved mysteries at the consternation of our elders and defied every order given down by the old guard. They were stagnant, afraid of ideas, disdainful towards justice, and unconcerned with the state of the world outside our organisation.
I looked around the deserted venue. Dusty mugs littered the bar and the dusty tables strewn about like gnawed peg legs. Faraday was there, but not there. A whispering silhouette, contained in another reality. I could sense it. No, not in person. No. But just like I knew when Olaf had snuck into a locked room long ago on that terrible day when my friend Gerich Sokolov was killed, I knew somehow that a time fracture had taken place. Something with his distinct temporal signature. Something happened. I heard an organ playing in the wafting air. There were no organs here in this dry pub. Where had that come from? This place had a story to tell. My eyes were fogged with the memories of the past. And the inexplicable events which had occurred from the moment the time traveler appeared. The Volunteer Fowl Detectives had circled the ruined Baudelaire mansion days before the blue time machine arrived. Perhaps one of Olaf's associates had seen the birds and was annoyed with them, thereby burning down the mansion and ridding the City of the avian noisemakers. But they did not go away. Not until Daniel Faraday arrived.
Last time I saw him, I had told him to go to our headquarters in the Mortmain Mountains, for an ancient work belonging to Élise's organisation warned of the coming of a timeless man who would tip the balance forever. Given the studies of Alighiero Mallahnson it came to no surprise that time travel would be the best way to explain the mysterious message. This was no mere prophecy. It was the product of a temporal loop. Yet where had the older Count Olaf come from?
The doors burst open with a resounding bang! as a black clad figure strode in. "My name is Severus Snape. Come, Snicket. There is no time!"
Severus Snape, troubled and out of breath, like he'd seen something very strange, grabbed my arm and pulled me out onto the cobble street. "Ever used a Portkey?"
No, I hadn't, and what in the world was a port key? "Take this," Snape said, thrusting an old typewriter into my hands. Just as I began to form a question as to what I had to do with it and where it would take me, I felt a tugging sensation behind my navel and all became a kaleidoscope of color and sound.
Out on the cold, dark night in the middle of Stain'd-by-the-Forest, only Severus Snape remained. He strode off into the moonrise, his black cloak weaving behind him like a sail.
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Post by Dante on Nov 16, 2016 17:22:34 GMT -5
One of the things I enjoy about fanfiction is that it often feels as if they can develop a more detailed backstory, focus on expansive world-building. It was a pleasure to read more about the history of Stain'd-by-the-Sea, and its links to all sorts of familiar elements, like Rarely Ridden Road, Lucky Smells... Also, if my research is correct, it seems as if Sir is a descendant of Stalin - or perhaps of some legendary land of a similar name. A curious allusion.
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Post by Jacques Snicket on Nov 18, 2016 18:39:21 GMT -5
09 Mortmain Motet
The Cathedral of the Alleged Virgin was silent. The moonlight blazed through the stained glass windows interpolating amongst the flying buttresses. It was a cloudless night. A rose window depicting the formation of V.F.D. towered above the altar. The arches were almost Baroque in style, living wood weaving down the sides. The lesser stained panes depicted ancient volunteers such as Telchar Snicket, Hypatia of Alexandria, Maimonides Abedin, Certus Quartze, Jacynta Racine, Xin Leng, Hélène Bruges, Giacomo d'Orsini, Concertina de Medici, Pavel Stjepan Mychnovich, and Alexander of Brennenburg.
The mass of cloaked figures were like ants milling about to the vantage point of the rose window. "We convene to commemorate the dark awakening of our Master Israphel. Specter of Fire and Smoke, Despair and Destruction! Hail Israphel! King of the Void, Lord of the Netherstorm! Hail Israphel, Scourge of the Templars!"
The organ music took a dark turn as a gong was sounded. "Cloacus Vermilly. The Master chose you to reveal His greatest plans."
Vermilly, among the hooded throng, grinned beneath his Venetian mask, a phrase which here means "he was hiding his face as one would do in certain circumstances".
"Master Israphel has deigned to reveal himself to you in the dark theophany which comes upon all our members who are ready to join us fully. Our Master appeared to the first of us and tasked him with exterminating the V.F.D. by any means necessary, including infiltration and subterfuge. The volunteers are the only ones naive enough to stand in our way. Throughout the ages He has slipped through the dark spaces behind the light of V.F.D. He has made His home amongst us, His followers."
There was a raucous laugh, a sinister titter, a deep scream of alien joy. The organ music now interpolated with low chanting.
"And now our Master has come to you, Cloacus Vermilly. Feast upon the glorious darkness of the remains of the precious V.F.D. safe places. We burned down Mistral City. We razed Skyhold, the citadel of the Skylords. We destroyed the line of Adaephon and took the last descendants for our own. We burned Ophelia to the ground. We destroyed the great libraries. We burned down the Addermire Institute. We got rid of those who would oppose us. Fire is the only good thing in this world. Fire cleanses everything. Fire is truth. Everything else is a lie."
The ambience contracted and expanded all at once. A dark presence in the center, black rays sizzling with otherworldly fury settled itself on Vermilly's kneeling form.
THUS DOTH I BID THEE, MOST CAPABLE SERVANT OF THE DARK, TO BE CAPTAIN AMONGST THE CAPTAINS OF MY VANGUARD.
Vermilly shook with intoxicating rage as he fell to the floor and laughed through the exquisite pain, echoing into the music. A dark power surged through him, imbuing him with a black heart of ash and embers.
WELCOME. A dark inferno grew swiftly to engulf the interior of the Cathedral of the Alleged Virgin. Fire cleanses. Fire renews all.
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Post by Dante on Nov 19, 2016 8:58:08 GMT -5
I'm having an increasingly hard time telling the difference between the crossovers with other works of fiction and the parts you've invented yourself. I continue to be very impressed by the ambitious scope of your series and the background detail you pack in in such areas as that particularily eclectic list of names. Still, though, as if V.F.D.'s task wasn't hard enough!
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Post by Jacques Snicket on Jan 20, 2017 2:33:08 GMT -5
Mortmain Motet 10
Twenty or so years before Reuel Daniel Faraday escaped from the husk of Alighiero Mallahnson's mansion, two men strode up to its front doors. One, thin and lanky. The other one, tough and burly. Their names were Fitzgerald Feint and Quintus Dellegaarde. Feint had been a coffee maker at the V.F.D. headquarters in the Valley of Four Drafts before doing a runner on the place. He had learnt the art from his mother Ellington (and her question-marked eyebrows) who had been a frequent customer of Stain'd-by-the-Sea's Black Cat Coffee on the corner of Caravan and Parfait (not to be confused with Crevasse and Perfume, two streets of a gaudy town named Iceberg which was situated, quite aptly, on a hoary glacier far to the north of the Mortmain Mountains).
Dellegaarde was a self-made villain if there ever was one, a phrase which here means "he set fire to the family mansion with his parents still inside when he was eight". He had terrorized his schoolmates into burning their school books so as to have V.F.D. member Professor Alabaster Karnaca, librariana emerita, fired. After he graduated (his major was in Pyromania) he burnt his preparatory academy to the ground as well.
He had garnered the attention of the hairless man and the beardless woman whose auras of menace were putrid. Dellegaarde had the same rage inside of him, secure beneath his conscious mind. He terrified Fitzgerald Feint, and he liked it that way. That would keep the young tyro in check. His irksome mother might have been an excellent spy, but that alone counted for nothing in Dellegaarde's eyes. You had to have the mettle, the steel, the nerve, and the audacity to be a villain. You had to burn your bridges and not look back. All his life, he had lived it.
Alighiero "Dante" Mallahnson had made the Daily Punctilio on several occasions, always regarding his scientific experiments. His guardian had imprisoned him within his own family mansion, and it was through figuring out how to break down the clockwork systems put in place to keep him a hostage that he gained a love for science. Dellegaarde continued to test him, offering him complete emancipation if he broke the last of the defenses. For ten years Mallahnson had thought about how to bypass the last defense, still in the graces of a guardian long after the age of legal emancipation. Dellegaarde had no real reason to kill him anyway. This was not a grudge. He did not even want the Mallahnson fortune, unlike some he could mention. This was a game. And Dellegaarde enjoyed games.
"What's so special about this Mallahnson?"
"He is crucial to our plans, Feint. That should be enough for you."
A doorbell rang. "We are here, Feint. As my apprentice, you will be behind me at all times. Do you understand?"
"Yes, Master."
"Good. This is how we will infiltrate this house."
"If you're his guardian, we shouldn't need to infiltrate your own home."
"Correction, Feint. This has never been my residence. Not legally, of course. But guardianship comes with certain perks which are not to be missed." He smirked with greed. "His entire fortune shall be mine in a matter of days, and I will be keeping him here as my hostage long after his attempts at overdue emancipation cease."
"What's he worth to you?"
"Absolutely nothing."
Feint was taken aback. "Why hold him in perpetuity?"
"To keep him out of the clutches of those who would defeat me, Fitzgerald Feint." His eye was fixed as he spoke. Fixed on Feint. Feint backed away, startled by the sudden menace emanating from his aura. Fire was at his command, and he laughed. Feint couldn't breathe. Dellegaarde had immobilised him somehow. He towered over him like an angry italic. "Did you think that I would not foresee your eventual betrayal of me on behalf of those vermicious volunteers, boy? I had you figured out from the start, spying on me for Kit Snicket. Well, that ends now, Fitzgerald Feint."
Feint clamped down on his haywire emotions, a phrase which here means "he tried to remain as calm as possible in the environs of being exposed as a double agent". But his fear consumed him, and Dellegaarde whipped out a poison dart and jabbed it into his heart. "But Kit Snicket is no longer around to make use of your services, Feint. I killed her long ago."
Fitzgerald Feint was horrified, on top of the pain he was experiencing. Kit Snicket had been dead? Then who ---? No. It couldn't be her. It was impossible. She had left him behind long ago to fend for himself, to follow in her footsteps. It was impossible. How could she have done that to him, when she had raised him to put the fires out? Was Ellington Feint with Faraday now? Gaining his love? Gaining his trust? Did the other Snickets know? Or was this another lie of Dellegaarde's intended to crush his dying spirit?
Inordinately silenced, Fitzgerald Feint slumped over.
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Post by Dante on Jan 20, 2017 4:10:53 GMT -5
"He towered over him like an angry italic." Top-level simile there; very good. Fascinating backstory for Mallahnson this chapter, too, and indeed for the other nefarious or otherwise characters around him; Dellegaarde is a well-realised brute. What wheels within wheels on the plot, though.
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Post by Jacques Snicket on May 18, 2017 14:40:55 GMT -5
Mortmain Motet 11
A caravan of carnival sellers converged on the plains where I landed with an unceremonious thud! The moon shone bright above the hills as I strained to collect myself amid the pain of my unfortunate landing. I felt sick. Severus Snape's port key had not been the most comfortable means of transportation, but in a life such as mine comforts are rare to come by. One of the carnival mongers, who had long white hair and sported ruby red robes, approached me daintily, unsure if I posed a threat to them or not. "Who migh' yeh be?" he asked. He jerked his gnarled finger in my general direction for emphasis. "Sev'rus Snape send yeh?"
Relief dimly flooded my aching, still teetering from that port key. Looking back, I never did manage to ask Snape why he thought a port key was necessary and not any other magical method of transportation, nor why he had deigned to help me in this manner. I was among allies, for the moment. "Yes, he did," I managed, panting heavily. "Firs' time trav'ling by Portkey?" The ruby robed man said. I nodded almost absentmindedly. He thrusted a bar of chocolate into my hands. I looked up questioningly. "Eat it, 'tis fer yer nausea." I took a bite of the chocolate and a warm, heady feeling surged through my veins. My exhaustion was gone. My aches dulled considerably. I smiled in thanks. He gruffly waved my thanks away, and told me to follow him.
I was led into what appeared to be a lonely tent, but when I stepped inside, I was blown away by its enormous inner space. My mouth must have been hanging open in unadulterated awe, because the head carnival seller said, "Amazing, isn't it? Ventricular Formulation Detector. It shows you the interior layout most dear to your heart. We have set it to combine various layout parts so we can all call this place home away from home. It is also our mobile headquarters. It was designed from a forgotten patent by Alighiero Mallahnson."
I reflected for a moment, my mind filled with images of that blue police box that Faraday and that other Olaf had appeared at the Baudelaire mansion ruins in. I turned to him and spoke "I'm sorry, but I haven't asked you your name.
"Creevey. Orford Creevey. I'm part of the Versatile Faction of Dementors." I had no idea what a Dementor was, but I thought it was related to insanity somehow, so I backed away a bit. "Oh, don' be 'larmed, Snicke', 'twas just a name we picked fer 'uselves. We don' like those ghas'ly creat'res," said Orford Creevey, breaking back into his character disguise. "They were sent by th'enemy." What enemy, I wondered. But I already knew the answer to that: something far more dreadful than Count Olaf or the two with the auras of menace. "She came from far away. She came back."
She? Who was she? And why did I have a sudden ominous and bad feeling about this? Creevey had a dark look about him, as if he were gazing into my very soul and finding something he didn't like in there. He eyed me with a hint of suspicion, trying to make up his mind about something. "She's your sister, Snicket."
Immediately, cold flooded my limbs. Impossible, I wanted to say. My sister, the one behind everything? No, that could not be. Something was off here, but... "Perhaps not as she is now, but there will come a time when she will become the cause of a great deal of trouble." He turned his back on me for a moment, sizing up his thoughts.
He whipped around and spoke the words that would smite me in the very heart: "You must kill her, Snicket."
I found myself terribly in need of something to lean on before I passed out from the shock of what was just said to me. This wasn't good. Not good at all.
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Post by Dante on May 18, 2017 16:23:31 GMT -5
Gosh. I thought the increasing convergence of magic and technology - the one, sufficiently advanced, being after all indistinguishable from the other - was going to be my big takeaway from this particularly HP-influenced chapter, but Kit becoming an accursed fiend of a villain in some shadowy future took me aback. I never have any idea what to expect from this story, and I find that experience of surprise to be quite enjoyable.
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Post by Jacques Snicket on May 18, 2017 17:24:31 GMT -5
Mortmain Motet 12
A gruff voice awoke me from my fall. "Get up, Snicket. Ye fainted," said Orford Creevey, handing me another bar of chocolate which I took with a hint of delight. He jerked his head and grunted, and I remembered what he had said before I fainted: I must kill my sister before she becomes the enemy, he had warned. I nodded to him and he said, "Well, Snicket? What's yer answer?"
I thought for a long time. More than I usually take the time to think on matters equally as grave. I weighed the pros and cons within and felt around them with my acute sense of morality. I allowed arguments for and against to battle it out in my mind. There were some arguments in which I reasoned that Faraday was the root cause of her turn and in those arguments was proposed the idea of getting rid of him to keep her on our side, but then I realized that that would most likely bring about Kit's turn more than it would impede it, as I knew her well enough to know that she had fallen deeply in love with him (and he with her, no doubt) by the time I was here in this tent, mulling over such terrible things. I shuddered. I gazed at Creevey, his red robes framing him like an executioner of Hell, his quiet eyes burning with dutiful fury. I looked within myself and weighed it all again, hoping beyond hope, until I found something which gave me a steely look in my eyes, and a determined snarl upon my face.
I knew what I had to do. I would have no part in murdering my sister in cold blood, not even to fix the future. If Kit had become the enemy, she must have had a very good reason for it. I would not know by killing her before I knew what caused her to turn. "I refuse, Creevey." Orford Creevey gasped in shock. "I will not do as you ask. I will go back to my sister and the time-traveler and together we'll solve this. Without your help." I spat out the last words as I turned my back to him, walked out of the tent and onto the moonlit lea, awash in anger and a destiny-cursing wrath. I absent-mindedly grabbed the old typewriter and once more I was enveloped in a whir of color and sound...
I landed gracelessly in the snowdrifts of the Mortmain Mountains. Strange, I thought, the port key must have known where I wanted to go. A velvety white wonderland surrounded me as I looked towards the V.F.D. headquarters nestled in between snow, steam, and falling water. My shins ached during the tedious trek up to the Vernacularly Fastened Door, where I was met with a stymying situation as I had completely forgotten the codes. Being transported recklessly by an inanimate object can do that to one, I suppose. I tried various phrases. None worked. I even tried some back in our parents' day. Those were of no help either. I was at my wit's end, a phrase which here means "frustrated at being unable to warn my sister and her time-traveling beau about what I had heard". When Kit found me, I was banging on the Door, shouting every curse known to man while the Door stayed firm and my foot felt like it had been shattered one too many times. "Hello, Kit," I greeted exhaustedly and sheepishly grinned at the look on her face as she opened the Door from the other side. "How are you?"
"He wanted you to kill me?" Kit almost yelled. I nodded, still shuddering at the thought of killing her. Faraday gripped her hand tightly, a silent and solemn promise. She leaned her hand into his, resting softly and protected. Faraday eyed me with respect. I suddenly felt very uncomfortable. As if I were going to just kill my sister on anyone's say so! We were in the V.F.D. Library with mugs of Black Cat Coffee for us I had made myself. Our armchairs were shields from the terrible things I had recounted to them both. Whilst lovingly tracing tiny shapes on Kit's hand with his fingers, Faraday was deep in thought. "I will never let anything happen to you, Kit," he said firmly, to re-assuage both her and myself. I knew he meant it with every fibre of his being. There was a new light in his eyes ever since I had told him to make for headquarters. I knew, then and there, that if she went over, Faraday would follow her into Hell if it meant her happiness. I suddenly blanched. He had told Kit everything. Everything about his own timeline. He had not held back for her as he did with me. He would do anything for her. He would do anything she asked. He would send the very Heavens crashing down for her smile. I finally understood. I finally understood everything.
Kit looked at me with a stern knowing. A blazing desire for justice, her beau at her side, as if to guard her from me. I also realized why the Vernacularly Fastened Door had not been working. It had been deactivated. "Join me, Jacques, and we will right the wrongs of this world. You have always wanted to be appreciated by our superiors for your noble deeds, brother. Now, with Reu at my side, we will be free to right wrongs without the scruples of others getting in our way. They were fools, Jacques, and we both know it. Join me."
Kit's eyes promised equity. Kit's eyes promised a quiet world where people would be safe, secure and smart. Kit's eyes promised Justice Herself. Kit's eyes blazed with a fearsome fire, the same sort of fire that burnt in Faraday's eyes for her and her alone. I did not know what to do. Join my sister's crusade? Stand in her way? No. Faraday would see to my destruction if I ever openly opposed her. No. I had to put on another disguise. A disguise of the mind. A disguise of intent. I had to appear to agree with her. I had to join them, if only to put myself under cover. "Yes," I said dimly, as if hearing my own voice from the inside of a can with string on it. "I will join you."
"Good, brother," Kit regarded me with fiery approval before she cupped Faraday's devoted face and kissed him hard. He leaned into her, having finally gained his purpose, just as she had gained hers: each other.
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Post by Dante on May 19, 2017 7:12:27 GMT -5
Probably the best course of action, really, but it rather seems like Kit's already gone way over the edge. Good luck, fictional Jacques. And real Jacques, I look forward to the conclusion of this volume. That will probably be a good time to revisit the first volume as well and take stock of all that has transpired so far.
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Post by Jacques Snicket on May 19, 2017 21:36:52 GMT -5
Mortmain Motet 13
Once upon a time there was a murder on a train. Someone was framed, and Lemony Snicket helped to clear their name. But once upon a time there was also a villain who craved the seductive whispers of chaos and anarchy, and through the actions of Lemony Snicket he had been hoisted upon his own petard, a phrase which here means "pushed into the gaping maw of the monster he had sought to unleash upon the world". He walked away that night into the dark and clusterous forest of eerie ocean-less seaweed with a statue of a legend nestled in a jacket pocket.
Once upon a time a man was alone in a wood and lost his way, beset by a foul beast only to be saved by the image of his beloved. Once upon a time a man walked the road less traveled by, but in Lemony Snicket's case, it made no difference. Lost and alone, he wandered. In time, it would grow upon him like moss on a tree.
Lemony Snicket claimed that he had always been cautious and not the brave and determined young man that had saved a dying town from its death. She would hate him forever, and she had very good reason to. My brother was always a little hot-headed every now and then. This had been an exacerbation of the problem. He had saved a town, yes, but at the cost of companionship with the girl he desperately and foolishly wanted to save. The girl with the question mark eyebrows. Ellington Feint. What words passed between her and my sister Kit in that train cell, I do not know. I doubt Lemony cared anymore to know.
Beatrice was always destined to be his real north star, Feint or no Feint. If ever anything was in charge of destiny, it would be the Great Unknown, a mystery which shares certain unfathomable characteristics with the Bombinating Beast. Death and Time are inexorably linked. One cannot exist without the other. Yet Life cannot operate without Death to check it. Life and Death are complements, not opposites. It is not a straight line, but an evolving spiral. Time is the commingling of Life and Death, an interplay, a dance. Time is a sentient spring coil, shedding and slithering like a serpent, like a great river whose ends are as wide as possibility itself. Schisms are a part of life, though we are often loathe to admit it. Without strife, peace becomes meaningless. Without fire, water becomes blasé. The same would hold true for a world of fire-starters who had never faced fire-fighters. Fire is not just a physical destruction catalyst. Fire warms us, brings us light and safety. Water, although it can be life-giving and thirst-quenching, can become suffocating and stagnant, never changing into anything but those types of forms restricted by its self-contained molecular bandwidth like ice or vapor, never changing the essence of what it is, only what it appears to be. This is not to say that ice or vapor are not as real as water. Each is as real as the other, and are each as important and necessary as the other. Vapor can become fire through likewise circumstances.
All schisms are based upon misunderstandings, and all misunderstandings are based upon a failure to communicate. Fear is the king of schismatics everywhere. For just as Hangfire fed on the fear of the inhabitants of Stain'd-by-the-Sea to fuel his schemes, schismatics utilize fear to tear down what others have built to keep the world "safe, secure and smart" (even if they have not made the world so with their builds) to sow discord and to call into question the safety of the last safe places in the world. They are lawless and wild, fully in tune with the dark whispers in their soul. Those whispers promise fire and blood and unceasing vengeance. To them, humanity is a fraud and a misnomer. They don't start out as villains, but they grow to become so through their inhumane deeds. So it was that the Inhumane Society was born, and so it was that Ellington Feint would harbor in her heart of hearts a deep hatred of my brother until the day she died. But she wasn't dead. Not yet, at least.
Ellington Feint smiled an unfathomable smile. Her plan had worked perfectly. The real Kit Snicket had been "packed away" so she could disguise herself as her and take her place, and get the time-traveler to do her bidding. When the boy found out the truth, she would be long gone, or she might end the boy when he posed no further use for her ends. The boy's maudlin declarations of undying love made her retch inside, but she hid it well behind a sincere face, for her vengeance would be put into motion at long last. She had learned from the best, after all, and she had taught her son too. He had spied on them impeccably. She did feel sorry for leaving him, but he could not learn any other way.
She had pushed Faraday in the right direction, slowly causing him to consider the idea of changing history so that he would have thought it to be his own idea. The Snickets would rue the day they had been born. Ellington was sure of that, if not much else. She sauntered over to the secret compartment at the back of her son's Black Cat Coffee shop and discovered (to her not so faint shock) that her captive was gone. Kit Snicket had escaped!
She ran blindly through the halls of the headquarters, hoping to reach her Reu. She'd been kept imprisoned for a few weeks and she smelt of freshly roasted coffee beans for some reason. She thought as she ran, panicked and frenetic, two words which here mean "having figured out that someone else was disguised as her and using her identity to further their own nefarious plot." But as she reached the Library, the love of her life was nowhere to be found. What was more odd was that her brother Jacques had been there as well, for his coat was draped unceremoniously upon one of the armchairs, and three smoking Black Cat Coffee mugs were unattended and cold.
It was a while before she smelt the smoke, and then heard the crinkling of flames. The V.F.D. Headquarters had just been set on fire, and Ellington Feint, wearing Kit Snicket's sad and beautiful face, smiled savagely.
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Post by Dante on May 20, 2017 3:32:25 GMT -5
Alright, that is a good twist. I didn't see it coming, and yet within the fiction it all lines up. The Snickets do lead such disastrously eventful lives, and I have always thought that ATWQ should not be without great consequence.
Congratulations on (presumably) concluding this volume, Jacques! It took a while, but I respect the effort all the more for it. I shall await with interest whatever is to follow.
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Post by Jacques Snicket on May 20, 2017 14:40:10 GMT -5
To whatever bookworm is reading this,
Let it be known that I, Count Olaf, have intercepted this letter to a kind editor and read it before setting it on fire so no bratty orphans would get any ideas about the world being quiet. Soon the Baudebrats will be in my clutches, along with their fortune. They are with that fool Montgomery Montgomery as I write these words, having missed the chance to adopt them and marry the eldest for their fortune, and to get back at Beatrice and that fool Bertrand by eventually killing all three of her brats after I acquired their fortune.
I'm amazed at even myself. I, the great Count Olaf, have managed to not make any spelling mistakes at all. Onto the time traveling brat who I hear so much about. My associates tell me that he has hooked up with Kit Snicket. I shudder to think at what glasses-wearing time traveling mini-brats would mean for my plots to burn things down and acquire fortunes. And when will I ever find that sugar bowl? I find my morning coffee less evil without it, a word which here means I want that sugar bowl, Lemony Snicket.
I don't care how many orphans I have to orphan to get it. Nor how many dead people I have to make dead, Snicket. I feel inordinately fortune-hungry as I am for actorial approbation, as I am Count Olaf. Feast your eyes upon my words and my life, Snicket, and see where you measure up. Esmé has more fashion sense than you do, although her irritating obsession with in things is irritating, like my obsession with sugar bowls and stealing fortunes is to those two powdered-faced women I can't remember the names of.
I shall do something about it, Snicket, because I, unlike you, am Count Olaf, and I always set fire to my problems. Fire is so shiny like my shiny eyes, my eyes which shine with shiny shininess whenever something shiny happens. The Baudelaires will be mine. And then I'll deal with those Quagmire twins. Know who else are twins? Frank and Ernest. They're not just twins. They're idiotic twins. I am Count Olaf, and I will prevail. Heh heh. I'll get my hands on you, Baudebrats...
COUNT OLAF
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Post by Dante on May 20, 2017 15:44:34 GMT -5
At times like this, it's easy to miss Count Olaf. There's something very cathartic about reading the words of an absolutely unabashed villain, showing off as best he knows how. "I always set fire to my problems" is a great Olaf line, really.
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