that's the way they all became a lucky bunch

sir and charles <-> nero

sir is the never seen principal of prufrock prep, and charles is the vice principal. charles as much as he hates it and wishes he could do something to change them, enforces the cruel, ridiculous school rules that been in place for decades (sir tried to shorten lunch time to fifteen minutes, and tried to give the children gum for lunch, but those higher rank than him put their foot down ASAP). charles reports to sir daily, keeping him up to date with everything, especially with the baudelaires.

sir only appears at the near when the baudelaires are given their exam, his face hidden from his cigar smokes. despite them passing, sir thought them so troublesome he expels them anyway. charles can do nothing about it, but he did got sir to pay sunny her wages of being a secretary (threatening to call 'those higher rank').

nero is the owner of lucky smell lumber mill due, but he would rather spend his work day playing the violin, trying to join orchestras by sending their letters, and play his violin to the workers at the end of the work day. at least he pays the workers money and give them a proper lunch break, even if the pay is well below the minimum wage and what they eat at lunch is cracker, cheese, and water.

due to a lack of co-owner, phil not only gets his leg injured, but he gets kidnapped by a hypnotized klaus and tied to a log and has to get rescued. somehow, phil is still an optimist after all of this. nero probably would have kept the baudelaires at the mill if it wasn't for them disrupting his concert the previous night with the accidental death of paltryville's optometrist taking away attention.

olivia caliban <-> georigna orwell

dr. olivia caliban is the optometrist/hypnotist of paltryville. not much is known of her past, other than she is the youngest of her siblings, and that she left her previous practice in the hinterlands. while giving people what they want -as a hypnotist- what olivia wants is to be a regular optometrist. the baudelaire's arrival has her reluctantly teams up with olaf, hiring him as 'shirley' her receptionist. olivia eventually switches sides and fight olaf, only to die by the sawblade.

georgina orwell as 'madame julia', runs caligari carnival in the hinterlands. when the baudelaires confront madame julia as a fraud, georgina takes off her disguise. she reveals she hates living in the hinterlands and giving people what they want as julia. seeing the baudelaires as an escape, she tells them what she knows about vfd, and how they can leave. after being eaten by lions, olaf reveals georgina ratted them out to get half of their fortune.

larry <-> hector

larry is the custodian/repair man, replacing the previous one who left the village one day and never came back. larry cooks polish food, for he is of polish descent. larry defends the baudelaires when accused of murdering olaf (jacques snicket), though larry didn't have kind things to say about jacques snicket himself^. escapes the village with the quagmire in an abandon self-sustaining hot air mobile balloon, and no one on board knows how to work it (larry didn't built it).

hector is the waiter and cook of the anxious clown, but he would rather be cooking mexican food. a talkative person once you get past his skittish behavior, he knows a lot about lake lachrymose and the surrounding area. revealing himself as ike's brother and thus another second cousin to mrs. baudelaire, the baudelaires are getting annoyed that their mom have second cousins they don't know about who they can't be raise by despite being capable of it.

geraldine julienne <-> arthur poe

geraldine julienne was once a fact checker at the daily punctilio. but after losing her job she now works as a banker at mulctuary money management. always in a grey dress suit, she has a bad habit of chewing gum loudly. ms julienne means well, but her tendencies to get stark struck makes her easily manipulated. for instance, she brushes over olaf's abuse due to him being an actor, and believes esme is force to work with olaf, tee onward.

arthur poe was once an actor, but feeling unfulfilled by the career, he began working the financial times at the daily punctilio. eventually, he became their dramatic critic, after the previous dramatic critic got fired. his review of the marvelous marriage, which was him reviewing olaf's plan to steal the baudelaire fortune, has eleanora making her younger brother the star reporter, making him report of the baudelaires from thh onward. has a cough (no, he isn't sick).

*i did thought about swapping olaf with esme, and justice strauss with jerome squalor; that's more-or-less canon with olaf and esme swapping appearances but keeping motivations (kit/esme were 100% a thing in the past here). but because canon!geraldine is a big fan of canon!esme, this trait gets carry over. geraldine would quickly excuse esme's behavior, blaming the baudelaires for the eventual abuse/neglect done to them (i feel esme would keep up appearances until a certain point). and i know esme will pull one over, claiming to have change after a phonecall. and i feel esme would get the fortune before violet becomes of age by getting geraldine to do her a few favors, and she wouldn't realize she mess up until learning the baudelaires are dead.

^in this au, monty worked alongside gregor as a partner; while monty is a herpetologist, he does know his poisons. widdershins was in an implied relationship with monty, and monty took in an orphan fernald and fiona. monty due to gregor's influences, began scaring widdershins. widdershins after talking with kit and a few others to try bring sense to monty, agreed to burn down anwhistle aquatic, declaring it their 'breakup'. monty allowed fernald to be falsely accused of setting the fire (he wasn't presence, which makes the choice stranger) by jacques snicket, widdershins went awol and traveled the oceans, only letting a few others know (josephine, ike, hector, gustav, sally), until the queeqeug showed signs of no longer working, and decided to settle down as a naval/maritime historian in monty's old home, which is now abandoned.