I Think I Have Octavian Brainrot-

I think I have Octavian Brainrot-

I finally finished the toga stuff I was talking about a few hours ago!!

I did some (arguably surface level) research to just find some quick information on both the pontifex toga (the one I really think of whenever I think ‘notable Roman priest toga’) and I tried to sniff around to see if there were any notable differences in priest togas (which I didn’t really find much, on clothing aspects at least) so I was messing around and based most of it on that famous Augustus statue, and then I drew a concept for an Octavian full body (I need to work on actually drawing full body’s more often) and then I did one final sketch that was more in line to what canon art and some of the descriptions of Octavian say about him.

I really wish I had enough to analytically look at the character in his canon and draw conclusions (I say @zazzander, and their amazing analysis of Octavian that has been feeding me 5 course meals in amazing writing) but I’m in the middle of Re-imagining Camp Jupiter and that means re-working an Octavian for my head canons and the project. But I hope I can talk more about him; not in as much as a serious way to explain and try and give my opinion of his character and what we can learn about him. But more of a build-off from his character, and using what information we’re given to expand on him; but just to a less refined degree as I am in no way a good writer or analyst.

I’m also totally taking the Deaf/hard of hearing Octavian headcanon and eating it. I’ll start drawing him with some form of a removable hearing aid once I actually educate myself on hearing aids for this purpose.

Also I might make some more OC art to go along with it; I have characters like Valeri (a daughter of Nike), Romulus and Remus (twin sons of Mars), Speedy (a child of Hermes, his actual name is like Sebastian). But I’ll probably draw more of them.

Also a note on how Octavian’s shoes are tied specifically because that looks a little funky; their tied in a way I tie up a lot of my shoes (wrapped excess lace around the ankle a few times before knotting it off) I do it for most active activities where I need to make sure my shoes will be connected to my feet; I don’t know if there’s any meaning to it, but I feel like Octavian (and most other Roman legionnaires; including especially ones that play soccer because tying my laces like that on my cleats is and actual godsend) do the same type of tie.

Brief update-

I was working on the C.J characters fatal flaw (and maybe general hc?) sheet, but I kinda want to work on more of just HoO and Camp Jupiter re-imagined (or Au? I don’t know at this point) because I really want to work on the ranking system and etc, because I think shoving my (probably subpar research) on the legion system and ranks within said system through the time of the Roman legions; shoving it all into a blender and finding what works for my Camp Jupiter and telling the world about it!

Also I just really want to learn more about Rome and putting my independent learning into a project like this is a good way to show myself my own comprehension of the system- and I’ll probably start trying to work with the Cohorts too,

Because currently my interpretation is acting like just- mini Roman army where the modern Romans are so stubborn that they won’t say it’s not just the one legion- though I probably won’t (no promises) I feel at this point I might be changing Camp Jupiter/New Rome, almost too much- hence why I feel it’s fully a Re-Imagining of the Concept of Romans and Roman demigods inside of the established world of PJO; and I want to take my stab at it; so uh, aside from that very long tangent

I might just take a step back and plan more of the basic, core concept that I want for Re-Imagining of Camp Jupiter and New Rome

But uh, I’ll get back to everyone on what I do end up doing :]

I have no idea if like; people can comment? But uh, hey if anyone has any ideas or anything that they want to take the time to write down and say. I have begun this project from my own interest of something that, from what I’ve read at least and how my brains chosen to characterize it; feels like it could be improved- and I usually take ideas from the community of things they mention along with Camp Jupiter/ New Rome, to form more ideas off of it.

And just because I want to mention it as what I thought of when hearing of the Gladiator war game type

The coliseum is inside of New Rome (as shown in the Camp Jupiter Confidential: Probatios journal map) so I like to think that the legion both uses it for the war games and valuable practice and as entertainment for New Romans and a way to show ‘how cool the legion is!’ To younger New Rome residents that (already will go to Camp) but a way to have little kids excited to go serve their duty in a sort-of brainwashing way- but New Rome/ Camp Jupiter already has a bunch of Brainwashing type things

This probably is generally accepted, and not a new idea but I just wanted to share it while it was in my head :]

Camp Jupiter Reimagined

(It took me the uppermost(?) of two days to write this because of school-)

In the last post I was ranting in I mentioned a lot of a project I was doing to Re-Imagine Camp Jupiter (and maybe share my re-imagining of the whole PJO concept and the characters- does that qualify as an AU? Maybe, I don’t know. But I like the world and I like being able to branch off existing concepts and make my own interpretations).

Some set dressing before I get into this; I love Camp Jupiter and the greater PJO franchise and world-building. It’s pretty well-done in my opinion, and it’s how Rome became one of my special interests (or maybe it just added to my greater Greco-Roman world interest and I just really like Rome) *But* how Camp Jupiter and New Rome is done just kind of feels a little underwhelming. It’s super cool and a great concept, and it fits. But I feel like New Rome and Camp Jupiter weren’t really thought out, just kind of happened and then we all just accepted it. Now; I’ll probably update some opinions when I read ToA (I’m currently reading the Iliad, Odyssey, and Aeneid beforehand) but characterization doesn’t feel consistent to what is told before. There are things I don’t see happening; like an example being the legion being shrunk to 5 cohorts (Roman legions had 10). While that is for plot reasons to not make Camp and the Legion huge for reasons. We are told that Romans dislike change to the point they had a *mutiny* over a *name change* for the legion. But I have to hold my disbelief that they would *get rid of 5 cohorts*! So I decided that I would just Re-Imagine Camp Jupiter (and the Campers, and down the line PJO in general). So uh; here is some of the things I’ve defined in my brain for my re-imagination of the Camp/legion,

things, all the things,

I added back the 5 removed cohorts; HOWEVER, what I chose to do that made sense in my brain was make cohorts 6-10, *outposts* or Roman settlements around the Americas. They are mainly used in my mind for scouting, expanding the glory of the New Roman Republic (not a Empire for now, maybe a future fanfic, idk). But they’re there to scout out areas, help transport demigods across borders to the main camp, etc.

Along with that I decided they all had SETTLEMENTS (little tiny towns) that had thematic naming to it (still deciding on that)

Speaking of which; the outposts aren’t really respected; at least not how like the main 5 are respected. Sure they do important things, but no one takes them *as* seriously

They also act as reinforcements (auxiliary troops?) but I’d assume it would go; main 5 cohorts, 5 outposts, and then the veterans. In how they are called upon.

Maybe there is some conflict on the leaders (the Consuls? I think, I’m writing this while still doing research and while everything is still in the primordial soup stage) of the outposts divided on helping Octavian or if he didn’t assume power correctly and therefore wasn’t the leader of the legion.

It adds a sense of more overwhelming dread to facing Camp Jupiter in the big battle (which; I will be kind of mixing up) because in my idea it’s a bigger body of groups. We get a more ominous build-up of slowly watching and having to just hear or see in visions more cohorts (which the outposts are smaller than the main cohorts; I figure that’s also important) slowly congealing together with very shaky loyalty to Octavian. Being slightly disjointed from each other and the main cohorts.

Along with that; if I do like re-imagine HoO (which; would mostly be character work in my opinion, I don’t have *too* many qualms with the plot. I’ll probably say more when I get around to that). But if I do re-imagine and like half edit-half fanfic through the books I would love to include a Camp Jupiter POV in at least from MoA onwards, but that’s random here uhhh cohorts-

I’ve sort-of re-categorized the Cohorts (might also take some inspiration from what we know of the legions that share the same number in personality, if that makes sense?)

But each Cohort gets a sort of more defined personality to each other rather than the sort of muddled greater characterization we have for the groups in canon. (I’ll probably have another post that goes more in-depth on the ‘personalities’ of the cohorts)

Main 5 cohorts

First Cohort; I decided that this was going to be a very selective group in who gets accepted into the Cohort. I decided that along with a minimum of 2 letters of recommendation, legionnaires have to show some outstanding quality to them that the first Cohort wants (this takes from the ‘elite troop’ idea with the first *legion* and I needed a way to differentiate the 1st and 2nd, while this also plays off of all the 1st cohort legionnaires being said they had *something* special about them; Octavian and his talking stuff and prophecy, and Michael Kahale for uh, football and being giant? I’ll workshop it) while this of course means the 1st cohort is on the smaller side; they make up for it in general prowess and ability. On the rarest of rare occasions (like Jason, or maybe even Percy for my re-imagining) the first cohort will try and request recruits to join their legion (there’s probably a technical term, but basically what Dakota did for Percy in SoN; I’ll have to re-read HoO) but this isn’t a very common occurrence.

Second Cohort; I really like my concept of the Second cohort because it just really amuses me- simply put, their the rejects from the first cohort. Snobby kids who had good letters of Recommendation and were looking to ride off the coattails of their relatives. They are the ones with recommendation letters but nothing too crazy and special about them that makes it reasonable for the 1st Cohort to want them.

Third cohort; I decided on a whim that the third cohort would be the kids that are SUPER into the fighting parts of Camp; training? They’re down, the War Games? they want to win, they will win. They aren’t too into the political side of camp, they mostly are there for protecting their home.

Fourth Cohort; the fourth cohort is the one I have been purposely putting off characterizing Specifically because of the Camp Jupiter classified book where the protag is 4th cohort and I want to read that before making my conclusions. But if anyone currently were to ask me, they’re the trouble makers :]

Fifth Cohort; I kept the characterization of the Fifth cohort being the ‘rejects’. The unwanteds, however I decided to include the fifth cohort taking in legionnaires that had to get transferred cohorts. They are the largest cohort and there is a very varying personality to the cohort but the general idea is ‘Everyone doesn’t like us but hey, at least we can hold a sword :]’

Five outpost cohorts

My fan created cohorts based on concepts I discussed earlier on in this post :]

I chose in these to keep them relatively away from any important areas that are in the books (why Cohort six isn’t close to someplace like Quebec, or why the Eight cohort isn’t on an Puerto Rico or an island super close to Puerto Rico)

On that note; let it be known that these Outpost Cohorts also do help find legionnaires (i mention it in some of the descriptions for the cohorts)

These cohorts are much, much more rough around the edges currently because I’m still in the primordial soup and research stage; these are the roughest concepts for these Cohorts. I will first then out more… hopefully.

Cohort Six; the sixth cohort i decided would currently be stationed in Canada (I decided it would be in Canada so I could have a Frank tie-in and because I needed one in the north that wasn’t in Alaska) I also currently have the outpost at Great Bear Lake; close to Port Radium and Cameron Bay; though that might change. While the cohort is there with the Settlement New Britannia (name may be subject to change)

Seventh Cohort; The Seventh Cohort, which is considered the ‘best’ out of the outpost cohorts, located at the Sierra de pénjamo mountains in Mexico; along with the ‘New Hispania’ settlement. They deal with a lot of monster outbreaks along the equator.

Eighth Cohort; located on the Inagua Islands (I chose the larger one with Lake Rosa though might be changed) unlike the Seventh; the Eighth is the outcast of the legion; being the legions big naval force that deal with the islands on the east of South America, settlement possibly called ‘New Hispania Balearica’

Words about the ninth and tenth cohort; I had a sub the day I was working on their notebook pages so I don’t have very set locations for them.

Ninth Cohort; located in, somewhere Brazil. Meant to scout the eastern side of South America not including the islands

Tenth cohort; The tenth cohort is located in somewhere, Argentina. Does what Ninth does but just for the west side of South America

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Aaaaaaah, so sorry for the drop in quality at the last two but I’ve been writing this for like 2-3 days, I’ll write more about (probably Octavian) and my Camp re-imagining

These are design concepts for my OC Calliope, I mentioned her in my first post (where she looked WILDLY different but my art style flips on a dime sometimes) but yeah! These are just some concepts for things like her face, hair (which I find hard) and basic layouts for things like moles & scarring. She is meant to be a Demigod and I have her placed at Camp Jupiter at the beginning of her story (arc? Idk)

But uh yeah! Her name is fully, Calliope Augustine Varus (yes; THAT Varus. I’ll explain that more, and this probably puts her teetering on the Mary sue status- and she is partially what I have scripted for my DR) but she’s meant to be the Granddaughter of Michael Varus, a daughter of Dionysus (yes- the Greek aspect, not Bacchus) and a legacy of Janus. Also born on June 21 (because that’s my birthday and i like it; and it’s a great plot device in her backstory- ‘it’s my tea party, I get to choose the rules’/j. Maybe I’ll say some bad excuse.)

Her whole spiel is that she went to Camp Jupiter at a younger age (not as young as Jason for her actual character and not DR but probably younger than 12. I’d put her as maybe nine) her mother was increasingly worried about the monster issues, as she chose to move from New Rome and not in any Demigod populated community; and Calliope already began learning about her powers from a young age (It’s mentioned in tLT that the reason monsters begin hunting demigods is when they start learning of their powers; Percy did his whole fountain thing. And it’s a good reason as to why Frank got 16 years of smooth sailing) but she learned her powers from a younger age; combination of her mother and Janus things (I’ll explain her power distribution and a thematic role in her powers) and Dionysus things- because Dionysus totally finds some way to hang out with his children before they get to Camp, he had a good relationship with Castor and Pollux and he cares about them a lot. But instead of Helen (the mother; probably should’ve said that, but Helen’s her name) bringing her to Camp Half-Blood. I’d like to think on Calliope’s birthday (me and my friend decided birthday trauma because that would be a time Dionysus- or none of the gods could watch their kids) Lupa comes over and is like, ‘Helen, pookie, hand over your kid. It’ll be safer in the legion’ and Helen is there like T-T, ‘Okay’. Obviously; it’s far more like, intricate than that- but it pretty much is an okay enough bad summary. But yeah- Helen scribbles down a letter of recommendation, grabs one her mother (who was totally the Augur previously, making her Michael Varus’s lover/wifey/idk, and the Augur that told him, ‘Michael don’t do that it’s not time’ and it doubles as ‘Michael we have a small child and you have one more year until retirement don’t get yourself killed now’) and tucks them with her small child; that pearl necklace in the drawjng is also from this time period of Calliope’s life. But uhhh whatever; something, something, Lupa training. I usually only see her when thinking about her in HoO as a Modern AU (If it was taking place during 2009, her birthday would be probably moved back; and she would be a 2009 scene girlie. But she only is thought of in a world with MY head canons, MY re-imagining, and MY storyline. So she is hard to try and re-work to fit in the OG. Maybe I’ll try once and post it here and giggle with everyone on how much I’d probably butcher her.) but yeah; as a modern AU that has my re-imagining and head canons, back on track- so, she does her training, gets to the legion, fun letters of recommendation and I think she shows some special ability to get in the first cohort (again; in line with my head canons for the re-imagining of the legion. I’m plugging it a lot but it’s something I’m putting a lot of effort into) but she gets in, and naturally becomes friends with Jason’s friend group but still is kind of an outsider to that. Next important thing is Octavian joining the legion- they had seen each other around New Rome and talked with each other a couple times, they were friends; and just became better friends once he joined the legion (I put Calliope at around 17 for the majority of HoO) once he gets his Centurion position (I have to figure out how I wanna think abt the Augur stuff) but he promotes Calliope to Optio (or Optio centuriae specifically, it means she’s pretty much the second in command for Centurions- I’ll probably talk more about them in my Roles post for CJ Re-imagined). And then she doesn’t really matter until Jason’s praetorship, during the barely mentioned mutiny; of course. Because she’s meant to be a good friend to Jason, but I have her fatal flaw as being like two-faced, for a Janus related one. So I feel like she went behind her friends backs to discreetly fuel the mutiny, but just teetering the line enough that she wouldn’t be traced back to it? If that makes sense; I want it to be a reveal. Uh, yeah- she’s mostly thought of in relation to my DR. And I’ve ran out of words, byeeeee!! I’ll talk more in a

part 2!

I need to rant about my favorite characters and how I’ve characterized them, and my Camp Jupiter/ PJO Romans are-Imagining-

*Correction; I just rant about Octavian from HoO the entire time; I’ll post an Luke one and a Jason one and some other characters maybe later. Along with those Camp Jupiter things.

Guys this is written stream of consciousness (I think); so sorry :[ (I also kind of project of these characters but that’s what happens with faves)

Octavian-

My boy- my darling little guy. I love this little deranged war criminal; uncle Rick did him dirty; he was used as the butt of the jokes (like many of the Romans, I’m doing an entire Camp Jupiter re-imagining that I’ll probably post here) but he was a plot device too- but I love my guy. He’s poorly written (in my unprofessional opinion) he doesn’t have any characterization other than “I don’t like the Greeks, they aren’t cool >:[“ and I’ll be honest; I like Rome better (I am biased) but after we get a character written like Luke Castellan (I know- I know we aren’t supposed to like him, but like- cmon, hear me out) where he’s written pretty well in my opinion, with a clear tragic story and motivation. Octavian feels like a very watered down more comedic Luke; in the worst way. But I; as someone who needs as much information on something as I can and I’m not satisfied with just that, have scanned through the wiki; looked at all of his scenes and giggled in his general direction, and this is my head-canons (and probably art too let’s be honest) on the little guy

Octavian Cesaer-

My boy is 100% mixed in my heart. In my brain his father is Black and his mother is white.

BIG family; my man’s is the 8th out of 9 children (Julia; THAT Julia is also his younger sister. I saw that head canon somewhere and snatched it)

He has a really good and close friendship with Michael Kahale; they are genuinely good friends, and Octavian enjoys his presence

(In my Camp Jupiter AU, re-imagining? Idk- but in the thing, I’m re-searching actual Roman legion structure and rankings, etc. because from characterization of the Romans they would not be up to change anything about the legion) but Octavian’s working to try and rise up to the most important role (Praetors aren’t the most important position in my brain for the re-imagined) and only supported Jason’s name change idea begrudgingly is because that would make him Primus Pilus; and he wanted the promotion. (This headcanon may change once I continue to fiddle with how I want to interpret C.J)

Cannot keep his hair legion-regulation, Octavian has a rough love-hate relationship with the hair. He *really* does not appreciate it at times. It’s overgrown and pushed to the left.

I like to think of my Octavian (Octavian 2: electric bogaloo) as being somewhere on the Autism spectrum. It’s another head-cannon I adopted somewhere and have just clung onto. It tickles the right part of my brain.

Knows everything about Rome; like actually. And Troy; he really liked the Aenead(?) when he was younger, if anyone asked his favorite Trojan was Hector (it was totally Andromache, he felt really bad for her. And sobbed during Hector’s farewell. Yes I am somewhat projecting).

His family pressured him a lot into his roles, he does genuinely like his Augur role.

This man lives and breathes the legion. Genuinely loves his home and wants to protect it; just ends up coming off as kind of paranoid.

He didn’t get much attention as a kid (with his 8 other siblings) so he tries really hard for his voice to be heard and over-explains and tries to be very clear when he’s wanting to get his message across. Most people interpret him (as said MANY times in the books) as kind of desperate to be listened to and a little whiny

Really takes his rules seriously and doesn’t like when people don’t follow him. There has been a many ‘but that’s not fair >:[‘ with my little guy.

Octavian is a REGULAR at the build-a-bear in Berkeley. He mostly uses them for Auguries when he needs something fresher. But he does sometimes keep them (he impulsive buys anytime they have a bird one, he also literally stayed up refreshing the website when he saw the, “Wolf Pup build-a-bear online exclusive” and was one of like the first people to buy it.

https://www.buildabear.com/wolf-pup/029368.html (the plush in question if anyone wants a visual)

He bleaches his hair. That’s it :] I’m un-equipped to try and talk about a hairstyle I think he has because I am not the person to talk about black hairstyles without making a fool of myself. Though he does really like Hair rings, he thinks their a cool way to have some nice casual looking added bling to his usual outfits

This man wears majority of Hand-me-downs. Those shirts SWAMP him because his older brothers just had to be good archers

On that note about Archery- Octavian sucks at archery but is pretty good with other long-ranged weapons. Any spear/javelin/pole arm and he’s got it (based off of him being able to spear Gwen, from what I think was a ways away) and I’d like to think if the situation is dire he can throw his dagger pretty well.

He’s currently got the strongest prophetic powers in his family; and his family (I think this is mentioned somewhere- I dunno it’s late) goes back to being related to Augustus Caesar (the guy)

Isn’t a good artist. He doesn’t like not being good at anything artistic when he has things he really does want to paint or draw that don’t come out how he wants them to.

Octavian has problems with anger, totally. Stabbing stuffed animals isn’t really a good method to let out anger

People don’t give him enough credit for his part on the raid of mount Tam; sure Jason did the whole ‘topple Kronos’s black throne’ (which is a genuine achievement that Jason deserves and I love him-) but he also led the first cohort to battle against majority of the monsters; the first cohort were the first ones to storm of course-

I love him he’s so silly and goofy <3 uhhhhh. He’s also a people pleaser

He has a disappointed-mother-resting face.

Does the thing with the nose bridge pinching way too much.

He tugs on his hair when frustrated or annoyed or anything.

That’s all for now :3, I just wanted to get some of that out there. If anyone does pay attention to this account my next posts are probably going to be either Octavian art, more Calliope design things, or more likely stuff on my Re-imaging of Camp Jupiter/New Rome as someone with Ancient Rome as a special interest I really want to make my version of Camp Jupiter

Wrapping my head around the fact the medical cabin is able to re-attach limbs while I’m re-reading Paolo Montes’s wiki page for things- and also just because I love Paolo, he’s fun, and I’m glad to read him when I finally do read ToA