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!
forever thinking about abigail and magnus walking back to the facility ladder after they completed the challenge, smiling and holding hands still dressed in their anniversary dinner party clothes and magnus spinning the key around his finger like “this was so easy, abby! we should have done this much earlier” before sliding it into the key ring and abigail beaming at him “it really wasn’t that bad, wasn’t it?” and they kiss and laugh before cytherea comes
I sorta hate when people chalk up Magnus and Abigail’s relationship and marriage to a ‘heterosexual’ thing that’s to be laughably tolerated since it’s sweet. Multiple times Muir tells us that Cavalier and Necromancer marriage is taboo on account of the Nine Planets being both obsessed with planet purity and necromancy purity, but also being obsessed with imperialistic rules and rituals that reinforce control.
Anyway. Abagail and Magnus forbidden romance is an act of defiance in a totalitarian state. Love them.
look, gideon and abigail are baking donuts and nothing bad happens also [id: Some sketches. Sketch of Abigail and her husband Magnus, she is a woman with light skin and dark brown hair in glasses, she pinches his cheek. He is a darker man with curly short hair, in yellow shirt. They both are dressed in brown fancy clothes. Doodles of Gideon and Abigail baking donuts, Abigail giving box of them to her with a speech bubble that contains Harrow’s face. Sketch of Abigail with glowing eyes and cyan lighting coming out of her hands . end id]
This isn’t how it happens aka the battle in the River
[ID: A drawing of characters from The Locked Tomb trilogy. Harrowhark stands at the bottom, raising one hand to form skeletons in the background. Her face is painted like a skull and a black dripping band is painted over her eyes. Ortus is to her right, clutching a hand to his chest valiantly. Abigail is above Harrow, in the center, frowning with her hands outstretched at her sides. Dulcie is behind her to the left, sitting in a wheelchair. Magnus is to Abigail’s right. Matthias Nonius is at the top center, solemnly holding his rapier pointing upwards. He is flanked by Protesilaus and Marta, who are both in ready stances with their own rapiers. The Sleeper looms over all of them in the background. Black bands radiate from Matthias. End ID]
I’m super hyped that I’ve managed to lock down what I want my Magnus design to look like because this means I can do TERRIBLE TEENS AND MAGNUS things. Life is good.
Drawing Fifth House immediately after rereading the book was a bad idea because the whole time drawing this was just me screaming “IT WAS THEIR ANNIVERSARY” and wailing, whoops : /
