#so if you were gonna be erroneously tragic show

[mashpotatoequeen]

can you make a crossover fic with asoue? like where the baudelaires go to live with mr benedict

also constance and sunny would be besties

Okay-

I don't think I have it in me to write a fill asoue and tmbs crossover, especially cause I know for a fact that a couple of very talented people have already written some truly lovely fics for this exact cocept, but this prompt is definitely making Me Think.

Cause like. You have have this trio of kids. Maybe even six kids, if the triplets are with them, and they are tired. They are traumatised. They have been through one ordeal after another and they are so disillusioned that they're holding onto eachother with nails dug in tight. They're a script that has been written into the marrow of their bones and the Baudelaires have accepted that their lives are tragic ones. No one is gonna be there for them but themselves, their books and their smarts and their teeth.

And then they show up at Mr. Benedict's house.

And the Benedicts are an eclectic and odd bunch. There are so many of them, and between the lot of them its so easy to find people who love books and create machines and make excellent food. I can see Klaus's fingers twitching in anticipation to read a new book as soon as Reynie has finished it, and Violet making little mechanical contraptions for Kate's bucket, and Sunny sitting in the kitchen with Moocho all quite happily.

But that's gonna come later. Cause they're tired, and they're wary. And they've had guardians who were kind and clever and good before. And they died, quite horribly, and it just seems safer to not get too attached.

I think it's going to make a difference, the fact that The Mysterious Benedict Society kids are there and they clearly trust these adults. That, or the Baudelaires (and Quagmires, if they're there too), are gonna watch them with a bit of jealousy and longing fostered into their chests until they eventually realise all that love is waiting for them, too.

(I can see them making a quiet pack among themselves, these unfortunate orphans, to run away before harm befalls these grown ups and ruins the lives of more kids. They wouldn't wish this existence on anyone.)

If I'm honest, though. If I'm really honest. The first thing that comes to my mind when I think of an ASOUE and TMBS crossover is one Number Two.

Number Two, who is peculiar and never sleeps and is incredibly talented and who was never listened to growing up.

Maybe Number Two had her own adventures with VFD. Her own unfortunate childhood where she was thrown into a world of grown ups all trying to get the upper hand, where no one was really good or evil and justice was not wrought. Maybe she dreams of her own snakes, and her own fires, and a bad beginning that steamrolled into a malady of a middle and then an erroneous ending.

Like. I can just see it, in my mind. Number Two's justified rage on their behalf, the way she can look at them as a grown up who made it through a childhood of being ignored, and can empathize. She knows how ugly it can feel, to be that desperate and that clever and that lonesome when all the adults in your life who should have been there to help you just fail you abjectly. The way she would tell them never again and mean it fullheartedly.

(The way she can tell them, hey, you'll get through this, and it won't erase all the hurt and the pain but you'll get to be okay anyway, and mean it.)

It's a family who loves Truth. Who holds it as an ideal close to their chests. I think that these unfortunate orphans could use some of that.

(I want Olaf to go to jail, in this AU. I want him to come to the door cleverly disguised, and I want Number Two to smartly, with no hesitation, punch him in his smug face. I want Milligan to come in with his cuffs and his agent connections, and I want Olaf taken away. I want the Baudelaires to never have to see him again, for him to be a sad pitiful man in a cell who never gets the fame and fortune he so desperately desired to fill up that empty hole in his chest with.)

The Bauldalaires make Pasta Puttanesca, a few months in. Mr. Benedict takes them shopping for ingredients- they take a couple of detours to get books and invention supplies, but that's only to be expected. Rhonda offers some tips and tricks that she's picked up over the years with Violet while carefully chopping the onions, and Sticky excitedly chatters with Klaus about a newly published research paper from one of their favourite authors. Constance and Sunny - who are best friends, and appreciate the other's intelligence- happily discuss favourite foods and peculiarities of being young.

The whole family raves over it, delighting at the handmade pasta and complimenting the sauce. Miss Perumal, Moocho, and the Washingtons take care of the after dinner clean up. The kids are shooed upstairs, laughing and talking over one another and stumbling slightly into eachother's space in the narrow halls. None of them mind, not really.

They have they're whole lives ahead of them, after all. It's going to be okay.

[littlehollyleaf]

you know the WEIRDEST THING about the spn finale for me?

it is NOT the fact that

everything about it straight up (lol, punny) reads as TRAGEDY from my POV

how it is in every respect THE TRAGIC ENDING to the story

in the way literally all of our protagonists get exactly the opposite of what they want or what the narrative built up as best for them

I mean yes - that sucks imo, cos, as I've talked about before, I feel the narrative shifted from Tragedy a long time ago so a Tragic ending simply doesn't fit

but no the WEIRDEST THING

is that while it's very much a TRAGIC ENDING to my understanding

it's being marketed AS A HAPPY ONE?

like, bittersweet yes, but still, so many things are pushing this reading of an ultimately satisfying conclusion in which the in-universe experiences of our heroes are... good/right/hopeful??

both within the episode itself (eg. Dean's various speeches saying 'what is happening is good and right' and the montage of Sam's life and all the supposed paradise in Heaven) and with the various PR comments about the ending continuing to come out talking about how good or fitting or satisfying the end was

so I just...

???

if they wanted a Tragic ending then... fine

I would have disagreed and been overall disappointed but...

damn if my little Tragic loving heart doesn't beat just a ~little bit faster at the thought of the momentary cathartic ~thrill a full on Tragedy would give

if they had just FULL ON EMBRACED THE TRAGEDY, dear god I'd likely have bawled my eyes out

like, idk, showing Dean really struggling over Cas' loss and the culmination of all their battles, showing him happy like in the show with Sam but falling apart alone so we see his apparent recovery is just a show and he's really spiraling back into suicidal - have Eileen explicitly gone as well and maybe all the AU!hunters too? - show Sam dealing by throwing him and Dean manically into hunting in order to cope with his own trauma and try and keep Dean distracted - have some unanswered messages from Jody, Donna and Garth sounding worried - then when Dean dies make it THE FUCKING AWFUL UNFAIR TRAGIC EVENT IT IS with Dean's speech painfully defeatist - zoom in on that job application after so it's super clear all hope of a future that maybe just maybe Dean was slowly starting to claw back to thinking he could have was stolen - have Sam leaving the Bunker mixed in with him giving devastated 'goodbye don't try and contact me I'm done' messages to the hunting network to emphasise how he's once again trying to run away from and cut out that part of his life - then you could basically have the montage of his life as is just give it a less colourful hue, emphasise how unhappy Sam is, how he's going through the motions, living half a life in denial of both the supernatural world and the side of him that belongs in it - and when he dies... heck, skip the scenes in Heaven completely, leave it ambiguous where Dean and Sam have gone... have a small scene with Sam and his son where Sam mutters something about 'hoping' he'll see his brother soon, but we never know... like, maybe they're in Hell... maybe they are trapped as spirits going slowly insane...

just - if they wanted the Tragic ending they could have

MADE IT ~SO TRAGIC OMG

...but instead we have this weird hybrid monstrosity which is trying to be BOTH Tragic AND Happy and as a result manages to be satisfying as NEITHER

and THAT...

that vexes me

I see a lot of (very legit) criticism about how unfair/unfitting/insulting/etc the ending is for giving the characters and story such tragic outcomes

but I've read so many now that I'm honestly just -

I WISH the finale was THE LEGIT TRAGEDY the criticism complains about

because at least ~I might find some satisfaction in that

the problem is that IT'S NOT

I mean it is, but it's not

because the show (and subsequent PR) doesn't TELL IT like a Tragedy

so the more crit I read pointing out how painfully (~poignantly?) tragic the finale was because of x, y or z the more I want to SCREAM not simply because - yes, said tragedy goes against so much of the prior narrative

but because, GOD, each in depth description of the ways the ending is Tragic is really starting to... ~excite me ('Tragedy is my biggest kink' is a tag of mine for a ~reason)

and I cry inside because that's NOT HOW IT COMES ACROSS IN THE SHOW

so now I'm simultaneously frustrated with the finale for being Tragic AND for NOT BEING TRAGIC ENOUGH

ffs sake fml