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Post by Teleram on May 30, 2015 13:57:49 GMT -5
Bandit. You. Me. Eight o'clock. The old mill. You bring 10 of your best, I'll bring 10 of my own. No weapons, no witnesses
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Post by BSam on May 30, 2015 15:53:22 GMT -5
my money's on teleram.
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Post by bandit on May 30, 2015 16:05:44 GMT -5
you're clearly just trying to find a reason to pick on teleram- his annoyance is perfectly reasonable, and being that this is a collaborative project, updating at a time we like is kind of part of the deal. I don't care what this is. Every time I go for a while without working on my stuff, the only thing he ever mentions is some whining about how it hasn't updated when he wants it to. When I do update, there is no mention of the actual work, and he just points how out how long it took wah wah wah. Now when Hermes is kind enough to find the time for this fic, I see him doing the same thing: nothing but some snarky "about time." This case alone may be justified or not, but if it was the first time he had ever acted like this, I wouldn't be getting angry about it.
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Post by Hermes on Jun 22, 2015 11:20:25 GMT -5
Chapter 7. By Hermes.
Some time ago, some associates of mine wrote a book called The Floating Admiral. Each of them wrote one chapter, and then passed it on to the next author to continue, so that none of them, as they wrote, knew either what would happen next or the intentions of the writers who came before them. As you can imagine, the experience of reading this story was amazing, a word which here means something like being lost in a maze, and whenever you thought you knew where the story was going, you were likely to be proved wrong.
During their time on the Moth II, the Baudelaire orphans had begun to feel that they were characters in a story of this kind. Only a few hours ago, they seemed to remember, they had been taken from the Moth II to the Marpole, but now, somehow, they were back on the Moth II, and the Marpole was floating away from them. Many other questions confused them. Had the Moth II been abandoned just before they arrived, or five years earlier? Was the crate of explosives on board liable to blow up only if it was dropped, or was it ticking towards an inevitable explosion? And if, as Count Olaf said, the Moth II was a V.F.D. ship, how could Captain Stanton, who hated volunteers, have served on it?
Right now, Captain Stanton seemed to be in the grip of a rage, as Jules and some other sailors followed Charlotte and her companions into the room, carrying between them a large sea-chest. From within the chest came banging noises, as if someone were knocking against its sides, and muffled cries of ‘Let me out!’. The men put the chest down, while one of the women explained. ‘We found this is the captain’s cabin,’ she said. ‘When we saw it we though Count Olaf might be hiding in it, but when we opened it, it was the captain himself.’
‘I don’t know why he wants to be let out,’ said Jules. ‘He was lying there perfectly peacefully when we found him’. What seemed to be a shout of protest came from the chest, and Captain Stanton signalled to the men to open it. The figure who emerged was familiar to the Baudelaires from the pictures they had seen, and was still dressed in pirate costume, clutching his hat in his hands.
‘I was hiding before,’ he said angrily: ‘now you all know where I am. And the chest was just sitting there peacefully, not being carried clumsily all round the ship. It’s not the same thing at all.’
The two captains looked angrily at one another; though they were old friends, neither seemed happy to see the other right now. ‘So,’ asked Captain Stanton, ‘what are you doing here?’
‘What am I doing here?’ said Captain Alighieri incredulously, a word which here means ‘as if he could not believe that his old shipmate would ask such a stupid question’. ‘It’s my ship, isn’t it?’
‘But,’ Captain Stanton replied, ‘the ship seems to have been abandoned. Why are you here when no one else is?’
‘A captain stays with his ship. Surely you wouldn’t expect me to desert my post?’ The Baudelaires trembled a little when they heard this, remembering another captain who, it seemed, had deserted his post. ‘I had to stay on board to supervise the evacuation. Janis left with the last lifeboat, and when the lifeboats had gone I was the only person left on board. I was ready to go down with the ship, if need be, but I didn’t want to be eaten, so I decided to hide in my chest until the danger had passed.’
‘Eaten?’ said Captain Stanton in surprise. The Baudelaires trembled again, wondering what this might mean.
‘That doesn’t matter now’, said Captain Alighieri, ‘that danger seem to have gone away. But more to the point, what are you doing here?’
‘Well,’ said the other captain, ‘We heard there was to be a trial at which the evil deeds of the volunteers would be brought to light. We set out to collect evidence of their misdeeds. Then we were told that there was some important evidence hidden on this ship, including explosives which the volunteers were planning to use to destroy buildings, so we set out to track it down. I couldn’t believe it at first – have you turned volunteer?’
‘No, no!’ said Captain Alighieri. ‘It’s not like that at all. I used to be a volunteer, before I knew you. Janis was one as well. This was a regular cruise ship in those days, but it was also an undercover V.F.D. ship, carrying messages to volunteers in far-off parts of the globe, smuggling volunteers into and out of the country, and so on. But after a while, we grew disillusioned with what we were doing. Just a little while before you came aboard, we decided to give up volunteering. We gave out that the ship had sunk; then we went secretly to a far-off port, recruited a new crew, and took up an new profession. We got the idea from Janis’s family. Her mother came from Finland, you see, and –‘
‘We needn’t go into that’ said Captain Stanton hastily. ‘What made you change your mind?’
‘Well, there were supposed to be two factions in V.F.D., one good and one bad.’
‘Exactly!’ said Violet. ‘What did I tell you?’
Captain Alighieri had not seemed to notice the Baudelaires before, and now he turned to them in surprise. ‘Good heavens, who are you? You remind me very much of some volunteers I knew once. Are you volunteers?’
‘Yes we are,’ said Violet proudly.
‘Their name is Baudelaire,’ Captain Stanton explained.
‘Baudelaire? Well, well. Do you realise who their parents were? Anyway, there were supposed to be these two factions, but over the years I began to realise there was nothing to choose between them.’
‘That’s not true!’ said Klaus. ‘One side starts fires, and the other puts them out.’
‘And which side do you belong to?’ asked Captain Alighieri. ‘The good side, of course’.
‘So you haven’t started any fires lately?’
Klaus and Violet blushed. ‘Hotel,’ said Sunny.
‘I thought as much,’ said the captain, and then turning to his old shipmate ‘You see? There’s no difference between the factions. Don’t believe anyone who tells you otherwise. When I first took that cargo of explosives on board, I was told it was in a noble cause; it would be used to blow up a villainous headquarters, where dangerous experiments were being done on children. But then I realised that if we blew the villains up, we were no better than them; we were fighting fire with fire. It was the killing of the count and countess at the opera that finally made me leave. It was the so-called good side that did that; they clearly don’t really care about human life.’
Violet and Klaus stared at him in horror; they could not deny there was some truth in what he was saying. And yet surely –
‘So,’ said Captain Stanton, ‘if you hate the volunteers so much, are you prepared to turn over all this evidence you have, to be used at the trial?’
‘I’d be happy to,’ replied his old friend, ‘but I don’t think it will be any use to you now.’
‘Why’s that?’
‘We were going to the same place as you. A few days ago, Janis got a dispatch telling her about the trial where the crimes of the volunteers would be revealed. I’m not sure if it was really meant for her – it was just addressed to J.S. Still, we thought all the old volunteer supplies we had on board would be useful evidence, so we set out for the Hotel Denouement. But as we were drawing near the shore, we saw a great column of smoke rising over the hotel. It’s an old volunteer signal to go away; I dare say these young villains had something to do with it. I don’t think there’ll be any trial now.’
‘Déja’, said Sunny, probably meaning that the trial had happened already.
‘Anyway’ said Captain Stanton, ‘we have these three young volunteers on board, so we can at least bring them to justice. And there’s another of them here as well – a Count Olaf, I believe. We were looking for him when we found you.
‘Count Olaf?’ the other captain replied. ‘He’s one of the worst! If he’s loose on this ship, we must catch him before he does more damage.’
‘In that case,’ said Captain Stanton ‘we must-‘
At that moment one of the sailors from the Marpole rushed into the room. ‘Captain!’ he exclaimed. ‘Captain! Come quickly! There’s a thing!’
‘A thing? What sort of thing?’
‘A – a – I can’t describe it. A buzzing thing.’
Captain Stanton looked mystified, but Captain Alighieri seemed to know what the sailor meant. ‘Come on,’ he said ‘We must do something!’
Poll question: a. Do the captains continue to oppose the Baudelaires or b. Does this emergency lead them to collaborate?
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Post by Isadora Is a Door on Jun 22, 2015 11:35:23 GMT -5
Wait, what?
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Post by Hermes on Jun 22, 2015 11:38:13 GMT -5
In what way?
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Post by BSam on Jun 22, 2015 15:14:48 GMT -5
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Post by Dante on Jun 22, 2015 16:25:11 GMT -5
The spectre of two and a half years has been laid to rest. Now, Hermes's spirit can finally move on. Gosh, wow, thank you for completing this, Hermes, and it's a marvel to see this story back; it's a good chapter, too, tying things up quite neatly and moving the story into a second phase, which is really what it needs after all this time.
This is kind of a bad time for a number of reasons, but that's not your fault, Hermes, but either way it is time to get this truly calamitous collaboration back on track. I think I will abolish the practice of reserving chapters ahead of time - from now on, the next chapter will be written by whoever believes they have the time to write it soonest, and if whoever that ends up being comes to believe they cannot complete their chapter in timely fashion, the chapter will be reallocated. Chapter Thirteen I will take myself to make things easier for everyone else and harder, as usual, for me. I'll probably also open sign-ups for anyone who wants to illustrate previous chapters, too.
Tomorrow I'm going to reread the entire story, look into getting a summary posted (one has been written, and I'll be asking the writer for permission to post it), and putting together a formal write-up of how things are going to work from now on. I won't be doing this until tomorrow as right now it's pretty late for me. But look forward to some of my trademark boring rules posts coming soon. And if anyone is both interested in writing the next chapter and thinks they can do a good job, feel free to PM me and ask; I want things to start moving quickly again rather than asking people to just start waiting again.
And by the way, my answer to the poll question must of course be option b, though I fear the course of the Baudelaires' collaboration is unlikely to run smooth.
Edit: In my haste, I quite forgot to mention something else relevant: Not only have I read The Floating Admiral, it was actually that novel which inspired me to found The Collaborative Calamity. Would that I had never laid eyes upon that book!
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Post by Tryina Denouement on Jun 23, 2015 0:38:30 GMT -5
Yay! The chapter finally appeared! Thank you, Hermes!
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Post by Charlie on Jun 23, 2015 6:19:49 GMT -5
How marvellous, definitely worth the wait! I love all the refreshers for those of us (ie me) with non-photographic memories. You rock my socks Hermes, and you're an awesome writer too!
Definitely option b for sure, I hate angsty annoying conflicty things.
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Post by Dante on Jun 23, 2015 6:54:41 GMT -5
Relaunch progress: I've reread the story, and secured and updated a continuity summary of the entire story and am just awaiting the original writer's permission to publish it. The good news is that the story so far is surprisingly coherent and shouldn't be too difficult to add to, though anyone wishing to write a new chapter should probably reread the whole thing rather than just relying on the continuity summary (although that will help with quick references). I'm also jotting down a few points of note which need to be revisited, as there are some important ideas mentioned in the very early material which haven't been revisited yet, although they've become more relevant recently. Once I'm able to use the continuity summary, I'll formally reopen chapter submissions and also open up illustration submissions as well. The plan will be that the person who thinks they can write the next chapter will be asked to reread the story and be sent a copy of the continuity summary and points of note for reference while writing. Obviously, submitting illustrations will be a lot more straightforward.
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Post by gliquey on Jun 23, 2015 9:48:28 GMT -5
Wow. It's great to hear this is still carrying on - I wasn't here when it begun, but I read it all a few months ago. Hermes' chapter is a great addition. As for the poll, I fear this is an unpopular choice but I'm going with (a). Things are no fun when everyone's happily working together.
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Post by Teleram on Jun 24, 2015 16:43:35 GMT -5
Well that was one hell of a chapter! Amazing work, Hermes!
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Post by Dante on Jun 25, 2015 4:56:43 GMT -5
It's worth bearing in mind that I will be away next week, so if you're in a hurry to volunteer, you should do it before Saturday. Giving people time to catch up is probably no bad thing, though. When I get back, I may ask for an Announcement for this, but to do so when I'm going to be away soon would be misleading. But the short story is, we're open for business again. After a hiatus of several years which was absolutely, definitely for the purpose of bringing in new blood, the collaborative calamity The Collaborative Calamity is now relaunching! The plan, as ever, is for 667ers to come together to produce a work of Lemony Snicket fanfiction as a group; each chapter is written by one or more people different from the writer of the previous chapter, building on the work of the other writers before them, and each chapter ends with a question for the public affecting how the story should proceed. As time goes by, hopefully we can gather an illustration for each chapter, too. It's turned into a very long project, but it'll be all the more impressive when it's completed! At the time of writing, the story is just over half-complete, though the progress of the story and the chapters so far are linked at the top of this post. We will now be looking for writers to continue the story. Collaboration between two or even more people is allowed; the only condition is that whoever takes up the story next should genuinely believe that they can complete their chapter soon - ideally within a week, no more than a month. If you want to write the next chapter, you should PM Dante or post in the thread to say as much. Given how much time has passed, rereading the whole story would be a good idea, but volunteers will also be provided with a continuity summary of the story so far with points of note marked out, for ease of reference. As for illustrations, anyone can volunteer so long as they claim a specific chapter! Chapters which have already been illustrated will be noted at the top. You might be better off just submitting your illustration straight to the thread, but it's up to you. Let the collaboration continue! Er, hopefully less calamitously, though... And just for fun, some of the relaunch ideas I considered and rejected over the years: Jumping ahead in time a year to while the Baudelaires are on the island (scrapped as the story is remarkably coherent and does not need to be made arbitrarily more complex; also would have been funnier if it had actually been only one year, rather than three); writing the rest of the story myself (scrapped as I really don't have time).
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Post by Hermes on Jun 25, 2015 5:54:06 GMT -5
Wow, thanks Teleram! You're not worried by the absence of Mr Poe?
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