Guys I Was Scrolling Pintrest For Patroclus Stuff When I Saw A Quote From Song Of Achilles And It Almost

Guys I was scrolling pintrest for Patroclus stuff when I saw a quote from Song of Achilles and it almost made me cry- like I swear to god I’m not emotionally ready to read that-

Literally like if it wasn’t also because of how hard it is for me to get into reading 1st person books and how much I don’t want to sit there in school, burst into tears and then have my teacher walk up to me and be like,

“What’s wrong?”

“Sob T-they were so in love.. AND THEN THEY HAD TO DIE-“

Also reading the possible mischaracterization of characters that I love with all my heart and soul makes me too afraid to read it

(Please guys I beg of you all Thetis isn’t mean she loves her son to death- WAIT NO-)

But yeah. I guess that is an update, now that I have finished the Julius Caesar book. I am going to try reading TSOA.

ALSO I now that I’ve posted the bare bones draft I’ll probably just have the next update post be more of my notes for everything because my family is gonna go out and look at Christmas lights!

I’ve been drawing for around 2-3 hours straight. I was gonna draw some runaway Luke, Thalia, and Annabeth stuff- since I had been drawing a lot, then I look to my hand, and the most egregious like writer’s bump or whatever is engraved into my finger like a mouse just shoved its nose there and my finger forgot to snap back into place, I decided to draw my artist rendition of what I saw,

I would like to note that I am left-handed but that face seemed to have eluded me while drawing this.

But I did get to draw some Dakota and Gwendolyn artwork, which got me actually thinking about Gwen- I don’t think we ever knew her Godrent, I think making her a child of Fontus (idk if that conflicts with any established lore or any actual mythology I just like the concept of child of obscure god that no one usually bothers to mention being a Centurion and leaving right after the other water-related kid is brought to camp is funny)

Anyway I think I’ll take a break on drawing, and I might want to actually talk about the new trailer because I saw it and ASHFBSINFEJSKAN- I know people are worried and cautious of it, but other then all 4s Minotaur (and Mrs.Dodds but it’s Disney) I think it looks pretty rad, I’m really excited, the split second shot of Medusa also looked sick, and I’m super excited to see them all in a relatively good live action, my bar is that it’s above the 1st Peter Johnson movies- which, opinions, the 2nd is only a little better if you don’t watch the like extra 50 minutes of dragged out runtime and just end it after Luke Luke’s everywhere and says the funny things.

ALSO THE MUSICAL

NOTHING ELSE BUT ITS RUNNING THROUGH MY HEAD

I HAVE EVERY SONG MEMORIZED THIS MAY BE AN ISSUE

The Camp Jupiter thing.

That is a vague title, but ‘The various reasons that we have gotten fundamental rules about the ascendancy in Camp Jupiter due to the list of characters we were given’ this post has turned into ‘Various reasons I’m sad about canon Camp Jupiter’

I will note I just go off on like 50 tangents through this post, bear with me. And I forget what I was talking about halfway through. But hey! Long post :D also I’m reading through this and note I am not serious about this, I am cannonically a silly Kerropi and Choco cat hugging on the internet that talks about how much I like Rome and this fictional franchise- please don’t take anything I say too seriously, I can’t put up good arguments without actually trying to format my points in a argumentative essay format. This is just me typing words and thinking it’s good enough.

This takes into account that I have not read ToA yet because for some reason the hidden oracle falls under the same problem that I had with reading TLT or tTC; which is very slow first chapters that are hard to get through :[ So nothing other than what I know about ToA Camp Jupiter stuff (which is dubious) won’t be talked about; sadly including characters that are fully introduced in ToA and their issues, though I’ll probably mention them or something.

Okay, these are claims, but I’ve now decided to dedicate my bus ride to this issue that I’ve realized (that probably is well known and whatever) while those are a couple things,

First and the most well-known Camp Jupiter thing is lack of characterization, or at least consistent characterization (the first cohort),

Aside from our POVs I feel that (and I think most of what I’ve seen from the community) the characters don’t have much of any Characterization, and not in a like ‘these characters don’t have complex narratives and that means they suck >:[‘ but in the fact that they don’t have.. much of anything? Comparing them to Camp Half-Blood seems the best, some of the side characters we see there like Clarisse La Rue, Charles Beckendorf, Silena Beauregard, and Thalia Grace, and more I can’t think about right now all have noticeable to somewhat noticeable arcs, and clear characterization and more than just 2D personalities. (I don’t focus on Camp Half-Blood nearly enough to give rundowns of them and I don’t have room, but note that every single CHB character mentioned has at least 1 B plot and is important to the narrative)

Now, let’s look at Camp Jupiter characters were given (that don’t end up POVs because they obviously have to be given complex personalities.. to which degree it is effective and how they chose to use those personalities is probably a different post) but we have characters that get Characterization like,

Octavian; A character set up to be some form of threat, even though repeatedly we are shown that, despite what traits were told he has, are shown a different character. Who then in the next books is played for laughs because the community didn’t like him enough and is eventually killed off without a solid reason to be killed off. He is set up to be a threat and told to be a threat, but showed to be incompetent and played for comedic value to varying sucess (don’t set up a character as a villain that is said to be hard to deal with if you then turn around and have him beat in the first 5 pages and then continue to beat him again and again without any strain from your Protags)

Michael; We know nothing about him, we are told that he is ripped and that he is meant to be Octavian’s closed ally and confidant (that is slightly exaggerated but he is meant to be close to Octavian) then we see him remorselessly wave and say goodbye as Octavian is murdered and simply walk away (Also and exaggeration, but like- he’s not doing himself any favors)

Dakota; he’s not really given a personality that is distinct, and is played for an addiction joke before being killed off (I have no idea if he is given any character in ToA, but like..)

Bryce Lawerence; given the stereotypical traits for a psychopath, given 2 minutes of screen time to be un-menacing and then to have a horrific death.

I chose some of the worse options (also options of characters I hold dear to my heart and like talking about) but there are probably a plethora of other characters that can also be used as examples. The point is, comparing them to other secondary characters that are presented in the books. They are used situationally, for laughs, to fill in a menacing problem blank or be killed off, and for one of them (*cough, cough* OCTAVIAN *cough, cough*) they fit all of the boxes I have listed. Which sucks because it generally means that when thinking about Camp Jupiter characters, there is digging and a whole lot of interpreting you have to do to squeeze character and possible traits out of them. I’ve been ranting a lot and it’s hard to get what I’m trying to say typed, but I hope when I say ‘most characters were given are nothing burgers’ people understand what I’m trying to convey; that compared to other characters in the same universe that are written by the same author; Camp Jupiters characters are given so much less amazing characterization!

Also I don’t quite know where to put this; but the books treat Camp Jupiter with this mob mentality, but not in a like actual way; but in a ‘I think of them as just a hive mind instead of people with distinct personalities’ where again, in Camp Half-Blood they all have these somewhat distinct personalities and would react differently to situations, where Camp Jupiter, one of the Praetors would say something and then we wouldn’t care because there would be no mixed reaction. There is no CJ equivelant to the Apollo and Ares cabin having a tiff over a chariot, literally it’s just ‘we agree that the 5th sucks haha’. I consider this for one key reason; we aren’t introduced to enough characters in Camp Jupiter who have distinct personalities nor are we introduced to a big variety of characters! And most of the times we get a variety of characters is in probatio’s journal, an extra short story book that people who aren’t interested in Camp Jupiter. THAT I AGAIN MENTION NAMED A DAUGHTER OF JANUS JANICE!!! it’s not a big deal, it’s fine; but it bothers ME. It shouldn’t, it’s fun, it’s a short story but still.

Okay, okay. Second reason is the Centurion/position of power issue. NOT including Probatio’s journal (which I decided not to read before this) almost every single character in Camp Jupiter we are introduced to is or ascends to a position of power. We don’t get a ‘hi I’m Jerry and I’m just a legionnaire trying to work through’ even characters that don’t need to be in other positions of power like my example, Larry.

Larry is mentioned in the Senate scene of SoN, opposing Frank rising to Centurion-hood. Great, he can be one of the 10 elected senators we are told about and then we never have to talk about him again.

But, they had to make him the Centurion of the 2nd cohort. Okay, great, that’s fine- he just was cool enough to be elected as a senator.

But that’s not just it. Every single character that was mentioned there (not including Cato’s ghost which is wild but extremely funny in my opinion- no I will not be elaborating on why it is funny to me) was a centurion or in a position of power. Every named character was a Centurion, Praetor, or someone who ended up being a Centurion or Praetor (I don’t remember if we’re told names of Veterans, other senators, or if there is a character that was just mentioned without a secondary rank).

But, that itself is like, all fine and dandy. If this and the scene right before it didn’t throw around a bunch of rules during it. Which- with the combination of lack of named characters that were purely elected Senators, we ended up with mishaps like thinking the rule for Centurion’s that they had to serve 5 years in camp before being able to.. like be a centurion (if there is confirmation that the rule applies to Centurions somewhere else in the book please tell me) but no, the quote is just in relation to being a Senator. (I just realized but it doesn’t help that Dakota; our in the book closest source of info for Centurions also happens to be a Senator)

But Okay, so that- and then there is the obvious assumption that Centurions just also go and serve in the senate. Though- I don’t believe that is explicitly mentioned in the books- so not confirmed..? My memory is dubious though so this is a little more flimsy- BUT THE POINT-

The point is, that without any labeling or clear-cut rules that are told to us, it’s harder to know. In combination with the rules we were told being muddled up between the two roles, and it’s not helping when all the characters there mentioned in the senate end up being Centurions- it’s a mess.

I at this point, I have lost the whole point I was trying to talk about. But yeah. Camp Jupiter has a lot of problems, and suffers so much (in my opinion) from the lack of utilization. It makes me sad and upset, and now I have to go re-read Camp Jupiter’s parts in SoN to confirm… a lot of things that were wrong. And think a lot harder on things.

But yes. Camp Jupiter makes me so happy and then realizing Camp Jupiter isn’t written the best makes me very sad/upset/angry but yeah. Lets give Camp Jupiter better characterization and actual characters- yeah :D

I say this a lot in recent posts, but I am a little tired compared to when I wrote most of this and I feel like that’s obvious, but Camp Jupiter map is about.. 75-80% ish done. The first draft at least will be done by at the least, this weekend. I’ll probably either finish a Dionysus/Bacchus kids post I was working on, or start on that Michael Varus post, talk more about Larry because he’s so infrequent but is so silly. OR just talk more over Octavian or Bryce Lawerence because those two are genuinely some of my favorite characters and one (Bryce Lawerence) clearly has much less reason and content for me to like about him.

ALSO possibly Outsiders (the book by S.E Hinton) content coming up? I don’t know how much people like the Outsiders, but I like it. And if anyone wants to know; I’d probably be posting about Two-Bit, Dally, really any of the Greasers. Or Bob- the Soc that Johnny murdered. He is my 2nd favorite character. Yes that is so stupid but I love him too much for no good reason one day I just joked with a friend about Bob being my favorite and it came true-

15 DAYS AWAY FROM THE PERCY JACKSON TV SHOW WOOOO!!

Feeling great guys, it’s been raining cats and dogs out where I live and I just had to walk back in it.

I worked a little more on the map and I made the wonderful choice to just giggle and see how it would work if I used Octavian (with my height hc) as a ruler for the walls (if anyone asks, I imagine they tower over people, it’s very hard to free climb them just because of sheer height. They’re as tall to keep monsters out or at least slow them down- probably more on that when I talk about sentry/guard duty in Camp, since camp doesn’t get to be included in the safe bubble.)

But this is how it turned out,

I include this update purely because it’s so funky looking, but if anyone would want to know I used the idea that Octavian is at least 6ft here (*insert my various ‘Octavian towers over everyone else and whenever there are camp photos where everyone’s gathered up his head is either always cut off in the pic’ I say at least 6ft because I put him on the taller side of the 6-6’11 range but for the ease of the number I chose a nice round 6ft*)

But that makes the concept wall (that I think is at least like 50 ft. No I won’t be converting that to anything more useful, feet is the only measurement that makes sense in my brain) but that makes the ‘wall’ (big purple blob) in the photo around 36ft tall. Which.. I’ll be honest I have no sense of scale but that seems very small. I think the wall is at least maybe 54-ish feet. Or 9 Octavians if anyone is wondering.

But working on that… instead of layout. I have it roughly figured out but I don’t want to draw it yet, maybe I will in a little but not right now.

Okay uhhhh. I started TSOA and it’s such a nice cool-down read, it’s really light and easy to blow through and after spending my days with they Odyssey and Iliad it’s a nice change of pace. I’ve been working on some of my PJO oc’s so I’ll probably throw them in sprinkled throughout here and there. Also I’ve decided to try and play around with a newer art style. And I might get out some more Centurion stuff, or the security of Camp Jupiter (That, that is what I will be working on) because it’s great.

Okay I gotta get ready to go to one of my friends choir concerts and I don’t want to arrive looking like I just fell out of my window and fell asleep in the rain.

Okay! I’ll be honest, I haven’t taken the actual story itself into account for most of my uh just general thought process lol- more the basic traits were told lol-

But yeah, the Centurion system is actually something that we aren’t told like anything about which is kinda weird lol- and sadly Franks thing is a weird situation we can’t pull anything off of, sadly.

I don’t know what I’m trying to get at at the moment lol, I haven’t been awake for a long time today-

But it is an interesting concept to think about, and it does open up a lot of questions that can be asked that sadly weren’t expanded on in canon, and I think it shows somewhat on the distinction between what we’re told about Octavian, and what is presented for Octavian (if that made sense?)

But yeah, I uh, don’t really have any thoughts to like expand on your points, but the Octavian blackmailing I feel at least (I will note I have not read SoN in months and when I did read it I read it in one day so all of the info is like squished in my head) but the whole Octavian blackmail thing is shown blatantly, though it wasn’t really mentioned in the rest of the series(?) or like it wasn’t really expanded upon? Like we got one scene of Octavian blackmailing Hazel and then like from what I remember that was it.

But yeah, I haven’t really made any formative thoughts this entire time lol but yeah, Octavian really had somewhat conflicting between being described or implied to be a good orator and in text never being shown to be that great at it,

Again I haven’t read the books in a while lol- and I don’t know what I’m trying to get at anymore but like- yeah? There’s probably some actual thoughts here but I don’t know how to like format it outside the brain thoughts l

Okay but if Octavian couldn't see the future then how the hell did he gaslight gatekeep girlboss his way into being not only the camp augur but senior centurion of the best cohort because yes he's got money but money doesn't tell the future!!

*note from the future: I’ve realized this could’ve been a joke post or sarcasm, if that is the case- I have been tomfooled. But hey, there’s some reasons that Octavian could get to be the Augur and Senior Centurion!)

Okay, okay! I’d like to present a possible answer. If I’m remembering correctly; Octavian can see the future (like in SoN with the whole ‘the Greek has arrived’ and the whole smoke and special affects) Apollo also notes that Octavian was contacting him when we talk with Apollo in BoO; So in some case he has prophetic powers that could land him in the Augur position, and secondly,

We are drawn attention to in SoN the fact that Octavian is stated to be a good Orator. Now, Oratory skills are nothing to brush off- a bunch of people have come into places of power throughout history due to being good Orators! So could it be safe to say he managed to through being a skilled Orator, making sure he had majority of his cohorts favor, and adding the fact that he was the Augur on top.

Okay that last paragraph was written weirdly, I just woke up. But yeah; his See the future stuff wasn’t stopped until Python took control of the Delphic cave and Apollo got blasted from the sky.

And this answer (i think at least) works okay because it gives him genuinely good reasons to get into the positions of power that he has. Rather than just getting through from money.

But, Augur: could reasonably see the future if looking at the objective fact parts of canon (in my opinion at least from what I remember, and it wasn’t all of one of the POV’s going ‘Welll, can Octavian actually do that?’)

And rising to being the senior Centurion: he could’ve rose through his Orating, careful strategic planning, and generally trying to show himself to look like the best option.

That’s my idea at least, it’s from what I remember from the books- and maybe it does give a okay explanation.

Okay but if Octavian couldn't see the future then how the hell did he gaslight gatekeep girlboss his way into being not only the camp augur but senior centurion of the best cohort because yes he's got money but money doesn't tell the future!!