raspberryhunter

The story I posted for invisible_ficathon was based on Loney M. Setnick's extremely cheerful work, The Pony Party, which as noble volunteers and readers may know is a nonexistent work meant to hide the extremely dangerous terror of Lemony Snicket: The Unauthorized Autobiography.

The Extremely Appropriate, Inoffensive, and Altogether Cheery Pony Party (1077 words) by raspberryhunter
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: The Pony Party - Loney M. Setnick, Series of Unfortunate Events - Lemony Snicket
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Additional Tags: why would you even think to look for a coded message in a fanfic, this fic is of no interest to those who are not noble, Sebald Code, Recursion, Verse Fluctuation Declaration


rymenhild's prompt said, "I know you definitely aren't writing in this fandom because you like to send coded messages. Nobody would think to leave messages for other members of an important secret organization on an Internet fanfiction board." And if they had done so, the two messages in the fic would not have revealed anything about the fate and plans of certain orphans who had left an island some time ago, and how those might intersect with a certain secret library still present underwater next to the doomed, fiery Hotel Denouement...

[Many thanks to sprocket, who performed the Herculean task of trying to beta-read without having read source until halfway through the beta job, and who valiantly counted words to make sure the Sebald Code worked out.

In other news, every person, including me, who I got to try to work out an example of Verse Fluctation Declaration while I was writing this got the wrong message, because we all seem to want to take the new words instead of the words they replaced. I was, of course, trying to work out the example in Snicket's text, and thought he was talking about pony parties instead of violet taxis. So let me just say that the message in the fic poem excerpt is not "Ponies find with parties."

Also: the comments on this story were fabulously in-character and I had a lot of fun responding to them!]

ETA: Rot-13'd, the Sebald Code message:
Ivbyrg, Xynhf, naq Fhaal unir erghearq. Zrrg hf ng cbaq ol ohearq ubgry fvgr.

The Verse Fluctuation Declaration message:
Jr'yy ohvyq va nfurf.

Wow, thank you for writing me a fic! I am sooooo excited to get a fic about any of these canons. Please don't feel bound by any of my words -- I want to know what you think of these canons!

[Some bookkeeping before I start talking about canon. What I have here is the maximum I expect you to have read to write the prompt -- these should all be five-minute-ish fandoms. If you just read a paragraph and see something that sparks your interest, don't even feel like you need to have read the entire excerpts I quote (e.g., don't feel like you need to have read the entire excerpt of Melusine). I mean, if you want to read more, knock yourself out -- I love all these books and think they're certainly worth reading more of -- but I definitely don't expect it.)
The Horn of Joy is from A Swiftly Tilting Planet by Madeleine L'Engle (particularly Chs 4 and 11).
The Book of Gramarye is from The Dark is Rising by Susan Cooper, in the chapter of that name.
The Fairy Melusine is from Possession by A.S. Byatt (the most relevant bits are the excerpt at the very beginning of Ch 16 and the discussion in the last couple of pages of Ch 3, from which I've taken the "cosmic battles").
Coriakin's Spellbook is from Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C.S. Lewis, Ch 10.]

Now for the canons! (I always write staggeringly varying amounts; be assured I want all of these very much, just -- the ones that live in the academic world are easier for me to get wordy about.) ( Horn of Joy, Book of Gramarye, Fairy Melusine, and Coriakin's Spellbook. )

Thanks again! :)