R O M E

R O M E

I just was scrolling through tumblr and saw some Octavian fanart talking about traditional augury robes and my blood pressure spiked and my heart rate accelerated, my pupils dialated and I experienced true happiness-

I’m going to take this as an excuse to go research and draw my dude in his toga

Guys I’m making bad choices but I’m making a big collage of some Camp Jupiter characters that would be in positions of power with each other + Bryce Lawrence because for some reason he is a side character that has entrapped me, this is the layout idea

*Im going to tackle Octavian and Michael first after trying to do Jason and Reyna because the very sparse anatomy needs to be worked out for posing and I need to go sob in a hole- updated note 😎

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!

Calliope Pt. 2!

Okay- okay, I have more things to say about my Oc, that I couldn’t get to because of word limit- I’ll try to format this and make it easier to read, not like the actual rambling I did in the first but okay- yeah (no one wants this)

Powers

I mentioned Calliope’s powers in relation to her story and them being thematic (idk if that’s the right word but they play a role in showing her arc) though I might change her Godly Parent to a strictly Greek God for her Character- Character (sadly I’d probably have to change her purple-on-purple) but yes, her powers

In the beginning of the story she is meant to show most of her Janus abilities; I put these down as

Being able to spot lies

Knowing the layouts of tunnels, what lies behind doors, etc. (kind of like how Hazel internally knows underground areas, but only for tunnels or archways)

And I like to think some enhanced senses from the whole two-head thing- it’s bad but it helps when she can also sit there and go ‘guys monsters :[‘ but probably not as well as satyrs, she can tell you if a monster is in a 10ft radius, and it usual isn’t spotted unless she’s already suspicious (can you tell I made this up on the spot? Well I did)

And these are the powers she shows before (In me and my friends Au where we shove our characters into the prophecy of seven- now nine. I’ll probably talk about our Nine AU when I have Sphereoz over, and go look at their page!! They post art) but it’s to show her being fully rooted in Rome, her Roman position.

And slowly over time the more and more Calliope is learning the fact that she is a Greek demigod, she learns more of her powers; and they slowly get more used and stronger while she is becoming more Greek; or something along the lines of trying to fill out being a Greek demigod, even if it feels uncomfortable and unnatural.

Unlike Jason; where his arc is him coming to terms with Greek and Roman and choosing Greek where he feels more at home (and where in Blood of Olympus is kind of feels like he rejects his Rome, saying it’s not his home anymore, ambrosia/nectar changing, probably not meant to be interpreted that way as he is still pontifex Maximus; despite feeling like he doesn’t want to Roman very much)

But Calliope’s arc would be more of finding her balance (haha smooth Janus tie-in) but her finding that she can accept her Greek aspect, and maybe not embrace it right away; but slowly learn to get more comfortable with it. She doesn’t reject New Rome or her Roman heritage just because she was told that she was a Greek demigod. She has to find her own middle and struggle of learning there was a complete side of her that she never knew existed. And it serves as a good way to keep her somewhat in her own bubble of being unable to know which side she was on; and not having the luxury of being chosen for a role that allows her to work with both aspects.

Her dubious actions

The title is the best way I can describe some of the things she does. She is meant to be someone with no real set personality and that adds to her struggle; similar to how they describe Hylla developing this chameleon personality to make her fit into a role. Calliope does that, she has her set of people she talks to; is different with a lot of them, and then her own things

Calliope is a Jealous person; maybe not by nature, but she ends up being quite envious. And she is meant to feel bad and not understand her own jealousy

She actively works to tear down Jason’s praetorship with the mutiny because she’s jealous he was chosen for the role; despite him being one of her closest friends and Calliope admiring him

Calliope turns to secretly be in contact with Gaea because Gaea fills a maternal hole Calliope doesn’t get fixed until Sally. And she ends up harming the Argo II’s mission with being caught up between helping Gaea discreetly and being manipulated by her, while trying to help her friends (maybe this is similar to Meg; I’ve only read the first couple chapters of Hidden Oracle because I took the break to read the Iliad, Odyssey, and Aeneid)

Other minor things that relate to her having these traits include her talking about people very negatively; when previously or right after talking with the person and being very friendly and positive with them and interacting with them. Trying to downplay certain peoples actions, etc

And Calliope’s thing is that she almost does it unintentionally at times; she genuinely likes being friends with people like Jason, the seven, Octavian, etc. Sorry if that doesn’t make much sense or if this is just bad characterization.

Her fatal flaw is being two-faced. It is her struggle to share true opinions and feelings over something because she thinks it will result in the person she is speaking with not liking her, or trying to get them to artificially enjoy her compainionship.

Okay! That’s all I really am thinking about to explain

I’ll hyperlink part one to here (once I figure out how to do that)

Part 1

I think I’m making a mistake,

I need to use my Rp skills for something and get better at writing while presenting my ideas so..,

@camp-jupiter-introduction

Feel free to ask me about the Camp Jupiter and New Rome things- all of this is non-canon, and the time frame is implied to be pre-camp swap but after the titan war.

(Oh Gods I’ll post the roleplay blog but not my Character Ai account- what have I come to)

Also yeah- I’ll get that Dakota and Dionysus twins post out but for now, here’s some art of Mercury (my oc) and Sam ( @spheroz oc!)

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.