Ok, since I’m now a locked tomb blog kinda now, and I Have Thoughts, I’m gonna share them with you. What would happen if Cytherea hadn’t shown up? I don’t mean like “everyone has happy fun times and works on necromancy together!” First of all, Silas Octikiseron is there, and he always gonna be No Fun. A non-Cytherea Canaan House would still be full of petty sniping at each other. What I’m saying is, the necromancers of Canaan house are some of the most brilliant to have ever existed.
We’ve got Ianthe , Abigail , Palamedes, and Harrow, who could all make claim to being the best in their respective fields. You honestly think these four couldn’t figure out perfect lyctorhood together? Hell, in canon Palamedes figured out Something that allowed Cam to both survive and get his eyes, and they had this planned out before his suicide attack on Cytherea. Ianthe figured out imperfect lyctorhood without any help, Cytherea killed Abigail first explicitly because her spirit medium abilities and knowledge of history could figure out who Cytherea was! And then Harrow, who managed to preform the lyctoral process while being attacked by a much older lyctor! If we get into Harrow the Ninth, she’s one of two people in canon who can manage theorems in The River! You honestly wanna tell me if they put their heads together, they couldn’t figure it out?
So my idea is that the Necromantic Dream Team over here figures out perfect lyctorhood, thinks “Oh yeah, this is probably how we do it.“ Then everybody who wants to be a lyctor becomes one, cavaliers intact, and they send a call to God like, ”Ok everybody’s done”. Could you imagine? Everybody just walking on the ship with their cavaliers like it was nothing? I can’t decide if it would be funny or absolutely heartbreaking. Funny from an outsider’s perspective, but Augustine and Mercy and maybe Gideon the First would just break. Pyrrha, Cristabel, and Alfred‘s sacrifice meant nothing, and these children figured out what they couldn’t! The angst potential here!
Camilla Hect as a character is So Funny to me, cause so much of the Locked Tomb is fucked up relationship dynamics, and she’s singlemindedly Just Here to Make Sure Palamedes is OK. Like in the first book we’ve got “Gideon and Harrow have their whole fucked up little thing, Harrow is in love with a corpse, Coronabeth flirts with Gideon, “Dulcinea” is trying to radicalize Gideon, Palamedes is low key angsting like a tragic lovelorn maiden cause “Dulcinea” won’t acknowledge him. Cam’s just like “Ok, my necromancer is upset by Dulcinea, so let’s be upset with her, but other than that, I am the model cavalier and am completely here for my necromancer and him alone.“
Then, in Harrow the Ninth, she’s stuck with Judith and Corona’s whole thing, and then she meets Harrow, who has fucking lobotomized herself to preserve her not-girlfriend, and it’s still just “I performed like a weird half-lyctor Thing with my necromancer and am trying to resurrect him or whatever.”
Like, girl must be so tired with everyone’s nonsense. And now she’s planning a birthday party for Nona, who may or may not have a crush on her, and may or may not be the aforementioned chilly corpse Harrow wants to bone. (Haha, bone.) We Stan Camilla Hect, let the girl rest.
This picture has sat on my fridge for like two years, held up by magnets of the greatest characters in the world to guard them (Jade and Sterling from Chris Dane Owen’s SHINE ON ME video), so forgive its fold marks and low quality, which do not at all do justice to the art.
From top to bottom, although it is fairly obvious if you’ve read the book: Camilla, Palamedes, Dulcinea, Harrow, Gideon.
This was my first piece of fan art. It kept me going on bad days. Camilla’s side-eye in particular encouraged me to eat a lot of yoghurt. If you go and pre-order a copy of THE UNSPOKEN NAME, written by its artist, I’ll draw an erotic stick figure of hermain characters writhing in a pile of snakes. I can’t draw snakes or even frankly stick figures, so it’ll be a wild ride
I’ve slowly been working on various Locked Tomb character designs. I still don’t have set costuming or anything but I wanted to get the 6th House’s faces down (you can see my various minutely different versions of Pal lol)
“…she was easing the big dark glasses onto her face—the ones she kept specially, despite the fact that they were a little unbalanced on her nose and her ears… Nona thought Camilla privately rather liked them.”
[ID: A drawing of Camilla and Coronabeth from The Locked Tomb. Camilla is a thin, muscular person with brown skin, dark brown hair in a bob cut and bangs, and brown eyes. She wears a gray turtleneck vest over a short sleeved white shirt, a black chest sword harness, fingerless gloves, black pants, a belt, and brown lace-up boots. She holds a sword in each hand. Coronabeth stands behind Camilla to her right. Corona is a taller, thin person with pale skin, long wavy blonde hair, and purple eyes. She wears rings, a low neck white shirt, a purple jewel necklace, gold corset, rapier belt, black trousers, and black boots. Corona rests one hand on the hilt of her sheathed rapier. She tilts Camilla’s head towards her with her other hand. Camilla furrows her brows slightly. Coronabeth smiles. There is a thin gold border. Rays of light point outwards from a circle behind them. End ID]
“He doesn’t get distracted,” said Camilla, as if this had caused difficulties in the past.
[image description: digital illustrations of camilla and palamedes from the locked tomb series. camilla watches palamedes studying from a huge pile of books. he falls asleep while reading and she stands by him with a hand on his shoulder before carrying him, slung over her back, to bed.]
It didn’t take long for Gideon to finish, as in any case she hadn’t much bothered to chew. She stared with glassy eyes at Camilla the Sixth’s plate— Camilla, who had finished most of hers, rolled her eyes and pushed her leftovers to Gideon. This was an act for which she was fond of Camilla forever after.
Realized I’d never before drawn my fav Gideon & Cam friendship scene from the books.
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