Vampire apostrophe

You know sewing, the thing that has been done my majority women for most of time and especially the modern era.

It’s all math and it’s not even easy math. Negative and positive ease, pleating, seam allowances. You can never just calculate one thing. It’s the base idea and then it’s many additions on top of that all while trying to mentally remember the various steps and how that will affect what you cut and once you cut there is no going back.

put Harrowhark Nonagesimus and/or Gideon Nav. Someone defined by their lack of Safe adults with the safest adult this world has ever seen.

John Gaius could definitely come from a world where their sun died. Using the system of Thanergy to make up for their new deficit of Thalergy as their Sun is drained. In a world where Hail Mary doesn’t work of course the billionaires decide to go where the petrova line isn’t. Also… chronomancy is rare in TLT but it does exist. Let Alecto escape the tomb just enough that she sends somebody back to prevent it all.

Would a teenager from a world of death magic be really helpful in this situation… prolly not but Grace and Rocky appreciate having somebody else there.

I can also see their initial meeting being strange enough that Grace assumes that this is some weird ‘alternate life formed on a planet similar enough to earth that they have their own human-esque beings.’ Especially if it’s harrow because Harrow could definitely uncanny valley a normal dude from San Francisco enough that he assumes that she’s an almost-human.

Let’s talk about how the ninth might use their hair.

Harrow keeps her hair shorn and I believe had parents do as well. I will say that as the religious leaders of the congregation they might follow a slightly stricter version of the rules. (It’s implied that wearing face paint 24/7 is more of a harrow thing and people don’t really wear it when they’re at home)

either way, the ninth tries to live as resourceful efficiently as possible and people are constantly creating hair.

If everyone shaves their head semi regularly then the hair would probably be short enough that it’s be used for stuff starting fires. If they had enough of it they could try to use it for stuffing objects like pillows, (rare but does happen)

my other idea based on the fact that the ninth is morbid, and their clothes seem pretty complicated, harrow specifically has a lot of jewelry and buttons and lace… maybe they use their hair for decoration. In the Victorian era people used to make jewelry out of their hair. It would be resource efficient, morbid, connect you to the dead, and pretty.

Also think of this… knuckle bone prayer beads made from an ancestors bones with their hair as the cord.

Because necromancers are an ideal. Adept/soldier seems to be a popular pairing. They are the height of power in society and because their culture romanticizes death the summoners and wielders of it are of course further romanticized.

There is however, the fact that necromancy is a deeply unhealthy. Adepts are incredibly skinny and weak. Even if you aren’t actively dying like the seventh it’s still akin to living with chronic illness à la Victorian era. I think it really signifies something when Gideon mentions mags where necromancers are drawn with uncharacteristic cleavage.

Fertility has always been a sign of physical attractiveness in society and a society like the nine planets where fertility is notoriously complicated would probably have feelings about it. This clashes against necromancy with there being these two opposing things that society wants.

the land that shall receive thee dying

in the same will I die

and there will I be buried

the lord do so and so to me and add more also

if aught but death part me and thee

well my first thought was that are the cavalier vows in this world but great care is taken to show that Gideon does not know the cavalier vows, only learning ‘one flesh one end’ after mentioning it and having someone immediately realize she’s not a cav because of it.

So I have theories.

A) Harrow knows the Cav-necro vows and therefore Gideon absorbs them

B) Gideon is more of a hallucination then we are lead to believe and this is Harrow’s brain hallucinating that is Gideon saying this

Yes Nona has a bit different setting/pacing/tone and those are all important but just because you liked it doesn’t make it better. Harrow the Ninth was meant to be more difficult to understand its the story of a schizophrenic teenage girl stuck with the creators of her empire and forced to play the systems weirdest game of House. Gideon is about a girl who grew up intensely isolated getting put smack dab into an intense political/academic/dangerous situation.

Gideon who is desperate for actual recognition not as a title but as a person. To be Griddle instead of My Lady. Gideon who feels a duty of care towards her cavalier that is inextricably linked to her ownership of Harrow Nova.

Then I realize that modern day Ortus would 100% run away and become a high fantasy author…. But what if he tried to take harrow with him.

Little baby Harrowhark being woken up in the middle of the night by her cousin promising adventure. She doesn’t want to go on an adventure but then he promised cool new books and she certainly wanted that. So she went into the woods on their way to the nearest bus stop not knowing they weren’t planning to go back.

She’s doesn’t look like a ninth cav. Has small piercings and bracelets and belts and robes with embedded bones instead of heavy panniers. She talks in a way that is extremely intelligent, is married to tradition, and clearly has pretty great necromantic understanding. Gideon Deveti on the other hand is large and carries many bones. Shes funny and irreverent and no one can quite gauge how intelligent she is. (Very, she’s just also mostly instinctual in her necromancy, 18 year old, and surrounded by pretty girls for the first time in her life)

Do they maybe see Harrow as some kind of counterweight to Gideon? Here to harp the irreverent Reverend daughter about tradition and remind her of theorems and diplomacy. Gideon seems to want to be friends with everyone so it’s weird she has such a prickly cav but would be in character if she chose someone she liked as a person to escort her.

Then someone tries to duel Harrow and Gideon (who otherwise is quite protective of the younger girl) goes,

Even if it was the nineties and he could convinced pull off the pincemeal collection of thrift store designer as 80s eccentricity to people who had been raised with ‘quiet luxury’ there’s still very little to convince me they bought it.

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