Old Books And Ye Olde Camp Jupiter

Old books And Ye olde Camp Jupiter

NOTE!! The actual stuff about PJO is about 5 paragraphs in; so if you want to slip my bad rambling about two very old epics, I have it headed)

I’ve been reading the Iliad (just finished it, still try to spell it with two L’s 😎) and I’m working on the first books of the Odyssey (with Telemachus doing his thing) and I’ll say; first it was an actual joy, a riot, a rollercoaster, to read the Iliad. There has been very few books where I’ve laughed as much in character dialogue interactions (that sounds so funky but I genuinely did giggle about it) and it was just so silly goofy and fun, and I have it annotated so I can start talking about certain things

And I’ve just started the Odyssey; which it certainly does feel like a sequel (that sounds mean, but it feels the same way that reading daughter of the moon goddess and then heart of the sun warrior; amazing books by the way, go pick them up)

And it’s really fun to consume some version of the original stories and Epics and comparing it to media created with it (I say that like I’ll talk about more than just PJO and the literary choices Rick made on how to interpret and use the gods and stuff. I still am getting around to reading TSOA but it scares me man)

But, I really don’t know what I’m trying to get at

Just that the books are fun and it is generally super fun and interesting to read and even though the first few books of the Odyssey are feeling a bit like a Jason or Piper chapter; I’m pushing through to read Odysseus and his journey; and so I can eventually get to the Aeneid and annoy my friends even more with fun things about Rome and giggle in my classes;

Where the Pjo starts)

Along with that! I’d want to talk more about pre-modern CHB and CJ; seeing as my history class is going through the slog that is colonial history currently and I need someway to stimulate my brain other than writing facts about Mainz Gladius while people are talking about the Salem Witch Trials (my class is feral and gross and they have a big lack of nuance and maturity to think and process the events without being absolute idiots- that sounds mean but they’re annoying and I need to vent)

But I’d like to say there are things we know basically about sides that Greeks and Romans sided on; and because I apparently allergic to discussing Greek demigods at the moment, I’m listing Rome :3

We know that in PJO Roman demigods and the Roman side tends to want to side with rising empires almost inherently; or just rising… things. *cough, cough, the Confederacy, cough, cough*. But aside from that; we can base the ideas that,

1) we can probably confirm that there was a drop in Greco-Roman demigod participation in wars out of the Americas after it (the pantheon and the majority of the demigod groups) moved; though we can probably confirm until after North America became a Economic powerhouse that if following Riordanverse canon; that the Gods moved to New York (if we want to push it, they probably were in Massachusetts in the late 1600s the earliest in America; though I’d say they hadn’t moved until America started like doing good in like what post WII? I think-?)

*A note that is for my Re-imagining, I am seriously considering not moving Pantheons from their native lands; since that leaves a kind of bad taste in my mouth and it makes the Gods and Olympus almost… too accessible for demigods; in the most likely case I’ll pull the Greek Pantheon back onto Olympus in Greece (and I will probably make a point that American demigods can and usually when they need to get to Olympus on their own, can access Olympus through the Olympic mountain range in Washington; I am in Washington, and therefore biased, along with that being the OLYMPIC mountain ranges, I mean, it’s RIGHT THERE guys; how could I not capitalize.) and I might possible move CJ over to being in Italy (though I like the Idea of having CJ just being right there in the Bay Area; before reading tLO and just hearing about them, I thought they were located in Italy, and this all depends on what I do once I start storyboarding Re-imagined) anyway, back on topic,

2) that I’d assume for the most part, as we see that New Rome likes setting Camps up 1) in the west, and 2) near rivers (and we can probably infer it would be somewhat closer to the Equator, or a warmer area). That I think the most likely place that in the Colonial Americas, Romans settled could be,

(This is all using names from Colonial times of Colonies)

A) in British Honduras (Belize); along the Belize river. As we know that Romans supported the British during the revolutionary war, it follows my criteria of being in a warmer climate, and near a river; though it isn’t exactly west, though in proportion to where the early Greek settlers would be, it certainly works, but it puts them far from the revolutionary and just USA so probably not; it’s the middle choice.

B) in New Spain (specifically the portion of California); along the Sacramento River. As Spain was a rising empire at some moment, it is along a river, warm climate, and certainly west. The fact that the Romans would have to be in American territory to still fight in the civil war; so this would be one of my more outlandish concepts.

C) in North Carolina (or just Carolina depending on the time) along the Cape Fear river. This puts them along a river, warm climate, not west but it would be in the direct opposite (as I’d put Greek demigods hiding out amongst the northern colonies or the middle colonies even) and it puts them both in a heavily loyalist (or a colony that supported being part of the British empire) colony; where it would be fitting for them to fight on the side of the Brits, AND a colony that would be in the Confederacy; meaning that they would be in prime position for both wars; I am quite proud of this, and if I needed to put a direct town as example for an area for Romans; I’d say Fayetteville, I’d put the legions settlement across from Fayetteville- in that strip of land between the main Cape Fear river and the river breaking off called south river I think. I am very proud of this one

But yeah! This post originally was going to be about the Iliad and the Odyssey; but I got side-tracked so there are some of my Colonial New Rome ideas, uh, I hope people see the sort of effort I put in for figuring out geological locations for ideas of Camp Jupiter; I might make a post of just a timeline for where Camp has been located through the years- it’s a fun little thought experiment, id also say pre- really big colonialism of the Americas, that the Romans temporarily were first with Spain (I didn’t chose Portugal despite the fact that during that time they had the whole seafaring empire thing, but the Greeks would totally be supporting them) then the Romans go with the British Empire, briefly go down to the confederacy, then stick with America.

Bryce Lawerence

Okay! Okay, I’m actually writing this. I spent my time walking to school about how much HoO doesn’t really use this character that I think would be great, but let’s start,

(P.S VARUS WILL GET HIS OWN POST)

Bryce Lawerence

If anyone needs the reminder; Bryce Lawerence is a character from BoO that tracks Nico, Reyna, and Coach Hedge down. He’s the one that like Nico turns into a ghost and drags to the underworld.

Bryce is canonically a legacy of Orcus with very potent powers- or like, he is very explicitly shown to be able to use many (not something that we see with many other Romans in HoO that aren’t the POVs)

We are told that he comes from a very high up family from New Rome (the only reason Reyna says he wasn’t executed was because his parents like paid off the senate or jury or whatever-)

And Bryce is shown to be sadistic, we are told that he tortured cats, caused chaos in the forum and supposedly killed his Centurion- despite the… dubious representation on possible mental disorders/ illnesses that could be placed on him. Rick wanted to imply that he was ‘psycho killer’ despite the stereotypes used to portray him as such.

Anyway Bryce is one of my favorite characters to emerge from HoO, which is a shame because literally like 3 other people care about him and everyone else only talks about him when in relation to Nico. But I personally think that -like many of the other members of Camp Jupiter/Romans- there was a big ball just dropped on how potentially interesting he may be! And I have concepts/headcanons/ whatever that I want to share on him :]

But Bryce Lawerence, i have to concepts for him. Personally I like the concept that (in my Re-imagining) he is the legionnaire that caused Gwen’s almost death. Though everyone decides to assume it was Octavian because apparently the POVs just want to hate him- I think it would be more interesting if it’s Bryce. Maybe before this give one of the POVs some interaction with him, or a passing thought/comment that ‘you don’t wanna hang around him Percy’ or whatever. Because that could lead to good setup to make Bryce a re-occurring problem/threat or at least give the readers a ‘OH THAT GUY!’ moment when he shows up in BoO. If we align it with how Id want a Camp Jupiter POV; like actually in CJ, love Hazel, Frank, Reyna, and not really Jason but kinda Jason but an actual character in Camp Jupiter that could give a show into what’s going on there, whether that be camera behavior OR to have actual Character; expand and help the overall characterization of CJ and it’s legionnaires, while possibly making Bryce more of a threat (Idk if that whole thing made sense)

Quick sort of related to the whole ‘when does Bryce murder his centurion’ If I remember it correctly; the book (BoO) seems to imply that it was Reyna having to deal with the trial all by herself because Jason was gone- I don’t know if I’m Misremembering but that places the fact that Bryce has (in the canon timeline) around like what, eight months to murder his centurion, get tried, and exiled before SoN? Unless we assume that he was still there while Percy was at CJ and he simply wasn’t mentioned- if so that would feel a little like a missed opportunity, and puts a remarkably short time to when he’d have to get exiled between MoA and HoH, when Reyna implies that he’s been gone for a looong time.

Which of course leads to the second concept and the probably more Canon idea. Bryce killed his centurion sometime during the second Titanomachy (Second Titan war? I don’t know what terminology we’re using at this point in time) but; this is a good way to both make it believable that the Jury, senate, whatever, would let him off with an Exile for the murder of a officer or whatever. BUT it also maps onto the implication Reyna has that its been a long time since she’s seen Bryce. Along with that what I was talking about at the beginning of this bullet point; I think they say that his Centurion was murdered during the war games but I’m not 100% on that info- but he could’ve easily had planned this to murder them during the Siege on Mt.Tam, or whatever battles there was on the Roman side. It means they’d have to rely on much more circumstantial evidence (that we’re told was already the heap of their information for the canon trial) and it could easily be taken in tandem with his family influencing his sentencing to be a exiling(?) and I think the idea makes more sense- and if we place the trial happening during TLH, it still has Reyna as the only Praetor to like do the thing.

I like giving Bryce traits like being overprotective, awkward, he attaches to people quickly, a hot-head, etc, etc. I just like giving him character traits that help give him depth- or something of the sort, in what I’m imagining it would add more of a sense of worry and dread when Bruce is friendly and seems genuinely okay, a little weird and awkward, but okay. And then a colder calculating, sadistic side. He always is sadistic I’m not saying this is like a ‘oh he snaps’ type of moment, but more of a- there are occasions when the facade slips, or times when he just does. I add poor impulse control onto lists of things that I characterize him with- either that’s out of the blue buying a new sword, or full force slamming someone into the wall.

I also consider the Lawerence family to be currently on their third generation of Demigods- or legacies? God-related. And Bryce has a younger sister. It’s not very relevant because I haven’t expanded on the concept a lot but he has a little sister that’s like 6 and they have a surprisingly good relationship.

Okay I currently feel like a sickly Victorian child on my last legs- so I’m going to wrap this post up quick, let’s hope I work of the Varus one.

as many of you know, gaza has now gone dark.

targeted israeli strikes have wiped out the telecommunications infrastructure. phone lines and internet services are gone. gazans cannot call their loved ones to check if they are still alive. they cannot call for ambulances for aid. if they survive the increased bombardment tonight and the following nights, they will bleed out alone with no aid.

now i will tell you what will happen in the next few days/weeks, and i pray it to be untrue. unfortunately the apartheid state, also known as israel, has been quite obvious and transparent with their plans.

the stated goal of many politicians over the years from israel, including netanyahu, has been to have the entire strip of land of gaza as israel, with no separate region for palestinians. i am not going to provide links, google is free and i am fucking tired.

what they had done before tonight, in the last two weeks, was destroy over 50% of buildings in gaza city as well as neighbouring areas, so gazans have nowhere to return to. gazans have been forced south, and israel will use this opportunity to have troops in north gaza (currently referred to as the ground invasion) advancing south while bombing "h*mas sites" in the south. israel will do this knowing there are plenty more civilians there that will die, causing terror and panic and having palestinians want to flee to anywhere, anywhere that is safe.

israel is doing this in the hopes that this panic and terror will convince egypt to open the border (well, the border israel isn't currently bombing) so that palestinians can escape to the sinai desert in egypt.

once survivors leave, the area that is currently the gaza strip will 1) be reduced in size if a lot of palestinians stay, should they not be bombed out of existence, or 2) be entirely absorbed into israel if very few palestinians stay, which is the ultimate aim of israel. those remaining palestinians will be moved to the west bank, or the remainder of gaza will be converted to west bank conditions where they'd go through the same problems palestinians in the west bank go through (reduced access to water, checkpoints to go from any place to any place within their own land, getting dispossessed, or randomly killed by racist extremist settlers).

now, egypt has been adamant not to displace the palestinians. in online discourse, people have been dehumanising palestinians by talking about past disruptions in other refugee areas and saying that is why egypt does not want to take them. while there may be slight truth to this from egypt's perspective, the major reason egypt is refusing is that no palestinian refugee abroad has even been given the right to return to their own land. and this will be the fate of gazans if they are made to leave in a mass exodus to egypt/other neighbouring countries such as jordan, which these leaflets from army-backed israeli are threatening palestinians with (photo from salfit in the occupied west bank):

therefore, what i likely see happening is the above bombardment (in increased numbers now that gaza has gone dark) -> mass panic in gaza, more so now that gazans are cornered in the south -> a reluctant egypt, but with the US will promise a large amount of "aid" money to egypt to facilitate the mass exodus of palestinians, the borders will open.

palestinians will be forced out. israelis are already planning on hoovering up the prime real estate there, for amusements park no less!

this is nabka 2.0. this is genocide.

btw, as we speak: israel's leading newspaper is already making claims that h*mas's main operation base is under shifa hospital. the hospital currently housing 50,000 displaced palestinians. the idf is claiming h*mas is using the hospital as a human shield, which is their new favourite phrase to justify killing civilians. so you already know what to expect in the news.

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

thoroughly enamored by this ancient roman mosaic of a rabbit driving a chariot pulled by geese. truly the impulse to spend money on something silly is millennia old

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

——————

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