The Baleful Bureau is a fanfic by Flameal15k
. It's a crossover between A Series of Unfortunate Events and Control.
Once again, Mr. Poe sends the Baudelaires to live with another guardian and...wait, she's the aunt? For real? And she works for a government group known as the Federal Bureau of Control? Oh dear...
Can be read here on Spacebattles Dot Com, here on Sufficient Velocity, and here on FanFiction.Net.
This fanfic provides examples of:
- Academy of Adventure: Jesse enrolls the Baudelaires in the Trench Memorial International School, due to Jesse being the successor of the school's namesake. An in-universe recording by Dr. Darling at the end of "Arrival at the Academy of Oddities" reveals that it is an Altered Location that takes the form of whatever society identifies as a school, and is explicitly compared to the Oldest House. The few things that the Bureau does know about it is that it can have its "anchor point" moved (which they did by moving it to New York City), it doesn't have the issues the Oldest House has with technology (since schools are now associated with technology due to the modern change in consciousness), it appears to be intelligent and wants to have people taught within it (to the point that after the Bureau gains control of it, they start getting recommendations for teaching staff), and the students that come out of it are a cut above the rest. Among its students include Coraline and Wybie, Shiore Phantomhive, and Hibiki Kuze.
- Atomic F-Bomb: Jacquelin Sciezka lets out an astounded WHAT THE HELL?! when she learns that not only is Jesse an orphan, but the incident that orphaned her killed every adult in Ordinary, Maine.
- The Call Knows Where You Live: Variation - Jesse wants to keep the Baudelaires out of the affairs of the FBC, as she feels it would be too much for the children and, more minorities, because it would violate Bureau policy. The Board, of all beings, however, believes that the Baudelaires' interest in VFD will inevitably drag them into their affairs, and eventually sends them a letter with directions for them to report to the Oldest House in the guise of wanting to assist them.
- The Cameo: During the Baudelaires' first visit to the Trench Memorial Internation School, Jesse spends the latter half of the day fighting several robots from Atomic Heart, including Left and Right.
- Commonality Connection: Part of the reason Jesse strives so hard to be a good guardian toward the Baudelaires is because she is also an orphan, having lost her parents due to the Ordinary AWE.
- Contrasting Sequel Main Character: Jesse is this to every prior guardian the Baudelaires have had. Unlike her predecessors, Jesse has no involvement with VFD, and thus is totally in the dark regarding the conspiracy the Baudelaires are ensnared within. While she does keep secrets from them, Jesse straight up admits she is keeping those secrets and has the legitimate justification that many of them are government related and this should not be given out to family. Additionally, after circumstances result in the Baudelaires getting a hint at what the Federal Bureau of Control actually does, Jesse comes clean with them about everything. Lastly, while most of the Baudelaires' allies are usually portrayed as too incompetent or cowardly to aid them, Jesse is neither, with her actual issue being that she is the hero of a New Weird story who has her threats to deal with that the Baudelaires simply cannot do anything to meaningfully oppose.
- Crossover: Besides the main two, other franchises also show up in varying capacities, especially in the Academy of Adventure. To sit:
- The Baudelaires' fellow students include Coraline and Wyvie, Shiore Phantomhive, and Hibike Kuze.
- One of the staff for said academy is Shaun Hastings.
- One of the Paranatural entities detained within the Bureau is the Curator. He meets the Baudelaires while they are adventuring the Oldest House.
- Demographic-Dissonant Crossover: Downplayed - A Series of Unfortunate Events can get pretty dark, but Control and by extension the Remedy Connected Universe can dip into intense survival horror and Cosmic Horror that outright destroys the minds of innocent people. However, both lean on the Horror spectrum (the former being a Horror Comedy aimed at kids while the latter is a New Weird with Survival Horror elements), so the dissoance isn't too large.
- Didn't Think This Through: As revealed in her segment in the prologue, Jesse apparently accepted custody of the Baudelaires out of reflex when Mr. Poe called her. Only after the call ends does she realize what just happened, and laments that her line of work makes her woefully unsuited to being a parental figure.
- Dramatic Irony: During their adventures in the Oldest House, the Baudelaires find a paper mentioning a family composed of a spy, an assassin, a telepath, and a seer. The end of the chapter has them actually meet the telepath and the seer, Anya and Bond Forger, but they never figure this out on account from exhaustion due to their misadventures in the Oldest House.
- Extra-Long Episode: "Welcome to the Oldest House" is an exaggerated example - at over 8000 words, it is almost four times the size of a normal chapter for any of the author's works (and, according to Spacebattles Dot Com, qualifies the chapter as a novella-in-progress).
- Foregone Conclusion: In a Breaking the Fourth Wall moment, the Curator confirms that the Baudelaires will survive their adventure in the Oldest House, as they have a far bigger role to play.
- Honesty Is the Best Policy: Jesse acknowledges that the Baudelaires are resourceful and inquisitive children, so she explicitly warns them that some of the things she handles are classified and can't be shared with them.
- Internal Reveal: "The Truth" has the Baudelaires and Jesse come clean to each other about the secret parts of their lives, giving the siblings the true nature of the Bureau and Jesse a better understanding of the vents surrounding VFD.
- Irony:
- One of the Running Gags for A Series of Unfortunate Events was that the Baudelaires were constantly sent to live with guardians who weren't closely related to them (at least early on), with the series indicating that this was because Olaf tricked Mr. Poe into thinking that closest relative was meant in terms of distance instead of blood ties. Here, the physically most distant of all the Baudelaires' guardians is also the closest to them in family ties.
- Jesse assumes that most of the Bureau, especially Underhill, would consider it unprofessional of her to try and help the Baudelaires solve their own personal mysteries. Underhill ends up encouraging her to do just that when it's discovered the Baudelaire family may have been connected to a paranatural entity.
- Olaf usually manages to get by with a Paper-Thin Disguise because Adults Are Useless. Here, the Academy easily sees through whatever disguise he was using, but hires him anyway because it was amusing.
- Lemony Narrator: The Trope Namer himself is still at it. One scene even has him apologize for not providing his classic style for the intro of the previous chapter.
- Medium Awareness: As in his home series, the Curator is aware that he's in a story. His first scene has him directly talk to the audience.
- Missed Him by That Much: Both Olaf's troupe and VFD pull up in front of the Oldest House just minutes after the Baudelaires enter the building. Additionally, Jacques and Olivia arrive just after Olaf and his troupe leave.
- Mythology Gag:
- The chapter where the Baudelaires finally visit the Oldest House and proceed to go through absolute hell there is titled "Welcome to the Oldest House" - the same as the first mission in Control.
- Olaf is able to worm his way into Trench Academy as a teaching assistant for choir - a nod to the Netflix series, where Olaf is a very good singer courtesy of his actor, Neil Patrick Harris.
- Normal Fish in a Tiny Pond:
- The Arc Villain of "Welcome to the Oldest" house, the Foundation Dweller, is implied to be maybe an Elite Mook when against the forces of the FBC. Against the Baudelaires, though, who don't even qualify for Badass Normal in their home setting and must rely upon smarts to overcome their foes, it's an unbeatable Animalistic Abomination that they only barely escape. Them beating it comes down entirely to the Oldest House manipulating things so that they have the tools needed to repel it, and the Dweller actually manages to figure out the main part of their plan and almost turn things around before the children finally best it.
- In investigative terms, VFD on both sides of the schism is this when compared to the FBC - while the Volunteer Fire Department is a conspiracy that has been running things for some time in the Baudelaire's home city and knows just about everything of note there, they're woefully underequipped compared to the Bureau, which has operations worldwide and works with similar organizations to manage truly supernatural events on a daily basis.
- Our Gargoyles Rock: Welcome to the Oldest House reveals that the Oldest House has several gargoyles and grotesques stored inside it. They appear to be alive, but few other details are provided about them, though apparently, they originate from the Bureau's British counterpart, the Council of 98.
- Outside-Context Problem: VFD and Olaf are both caught completely flat-footed when Jesse becomes Violet, Klaus, and Sunny's guardian, as she lives in a different state than where the series occurs and isn't affiliated with the VFD schism in any way. Due to the Mutual Masquerade, VFD downplays this - they know about VFD, but only have a cursory understanding of the organization, and are completely in the dark regarding some of the more recent events of the Baudelaires' saga.
- Outside-Genre Foe: Any paranatural entity is this to the Series of Unfortunate Events side of the cast, as they are New Weird entities that are, at times, Not Even Human interacting with a relatively grounded conspiracy setting. Just encountering the Foundation Dweller has the Baudelaires wondering how something like that can even exist.
- Related in the Adaptation: In this story, Jesse Faden turns out to be the Baudelaires' paternal aunt.
- True Sight: The Baudelaires manage to collectively bind an object of power in the form of a spyglass while in the oldest house, granting them the OBSERVE power, allowing them to see that which is hidden.
- Wham Episode: The Path to Coalescence - during a meeting with various FBC heads, Jesse mentions several major Altered World Events, entities, and other paranatural phenomena that the Bureau and its counterparts are investigating, revealing that the story is in a Shared Universe with four of the author's other stories - Prehistoric Park: Returned from Extinction, Primeval Paradox, Code Grid, and Shifters of Flesh and Metal.
- Where the Hell Is Springfield?: Downplayed compared to canon, as the area where the Baudelaires' adventures take place in is stated to be "somewhere in New England", while the books, movie, and show didn't give a clear location for where the series happened.
