OKAY HERE IT IS my Book of Hours TMA au, still kind of unfinished
jon (knock lantern) is the 12th librarian, of course. i'm still haven't nailed down his backstory, but BoH literally has a book of children's stories filled with terrible secrets written in a language with "addictive qualities", so there's something good there i just need to figure out specifics
the most obvious choice is to make gertrude (knock heart?) 11th librarian, but i don't think van lauren's whole deal lines up with her at all. granted, she doesn't need to be doing van lauren's thing to work as 11th, but still, considerations. another option is to make gertrude governor of the cucurbit instead? i mean it's pretty terrible even for her, but it fits into her ends-justify-the-means protecting the world from the supernatural thing, so there's something interesting there.
if gertrude is governor, either sasha (knock lantern) or gerry (...lantern forge?) was 11th librarian. not sure who's better for that. if gertrude is 11th librarian, maybe jonah (lantern, and rose?? not sure) was governor of the cucurbit? (but i don't want him to be out of the story lol) if he's alive he's jon's superior at the bureau, if he's dead it's maybe sasha? altho the beureau doesn't seem like her thing. maybe sasha was another previous librarian?
actually wait i've just had another thought. jonah is from way earlier in hush house's history instead, a baron probably, and just like in tma jon mostly finds a bunch of homoerotic letters written to him. he'd probably have tried to become immortal, maybe a lantern long? he could theoretically still be around. probably visits during numa
jon's friend in brancrug is georgie (winter heart) -- not sure what her job would be. also living in brancrug is martin (heart moon)!
jon and martin initially get off on the wrong foot, but eventually jon admits that martin is useful for clearing out rooms and they start spending more time together (jon definitely starts hiring martin even if other assistants would be more efficient sometimes). one day he invites martin up to help out but they get distracted talking about things and never actually get around to work. jon tries to pay martin his promised shilling on his way out, and martin refuses; jon says that even though he didn't end up helping jon still wasted his day, but martin says he spent the day with his friend and it wasn't wasted at all. he spends more time there after that, even without a reason. (one time, they uncover the wine cellar and get drunk together; by the time they realize martin needs to go home it's the middle of the night and a storm is raging, so jon insists martin spend the night at hush house. unfortunately there is way more than one bed, but they will eventually get together).
jon reads and rereads martin's poetry for memories.
among hush house's many visitors are a pair of edge-long, daisy (edge grail?) and basira (edge rose), who sometimes come looking for each other. occasionally their visits overlap, much to the librarians' chagrin (so much collateral damage). jon once put a chess board in front of them and managed to delay the physical fighting long enough to move the breakable things elsewhere.
hmm now that i'm thinking about it, gerry works very well in christopher illopoly's place. had a falling out with his mother, who could easily have been a librarian, then later lived at hush house under a different librarian (gertrude), that's fun.
many more characters show up in this au, some as visitors and some as historical figures jon reads about as he restores the library (many characters will be long gone by the time jon becomes librarian, but they might not be the ones youd expect. reading about historical events and people is such an important and compelling part of BoH, and i think it would be cool to learn about major characters we care about solely from books). i haven't figured out who they all are in this setting, but i've figured out principle aspects for a lot of them!
tim (forge moon)
melanie (edge grail) - maybe moves to brancrug permanently to be with georgie?
jane prentiss (scale grail) (the cross died not but passed within)
oliver banks (winter sky)
the distortion (moth knock). would probably appear in this as a human (or non-human) named helen, since michael shelley makes more sense as someone connected to gertrude and/or hush house
peter lukas (moon winter) - comes by and shit talks jonah. occassionally jonah comes to check on jon's progress, and shit talks peter
simon fairchild (sky moth?)
adelard dekker (heart winter?)
agnes montague (forge and... winter maybe?)
jude perry (forge grail?)
annabelle cane (...oh thats tricky. knock sky?)
robert smirke (sky rose)
manuela dominguez (moon forge)
mikaele solesa (...hm im really not sure?) sells jon books like oriflamme's
well this post was as much stream of consciousness as it was writing down what i'd already planned. in conclusion: jonah as a baron (or maybe the second son of a baron who didn't inherit the estate, which everyone said was probably for the best since he never married or had heirs); mary, gertrude, sasha, and jon as librarians; gerry in a similar role to christopher illopoly; georgie and martin as villagers in brancrug; daisy and basira as an edge-long dyad.
gah this is fun. i wasn't planning to actually write anything for this but now i want to.
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