New Rome, Maybe? Working On A Map, Sobbing In The Back Rooms-

New Rome, maybe? Working on a map, Sobbing in the back rooms-

Summary; I lie about talking about anything of substance, and am thinking about starting a companion in character blog, I’m caving on my plushie obsession, I lie about what I’m gonna post about because it’s gonna be Dakota or the Dionysus twins

I’m tired and slightly unhinged while writing this, but so far I’ve made a total of 5 maps roughly, of various designs of Camp Jupiter. I still have to actually uh, make a proper map; but then I’d have to decide what actually everything was looking like, buildings, how training actually works in CJ and where that takes place; etc, etc. anyway I’m not here to sob over that (yet- especially after I’m doing the whole ‘but what if it was more alike to the og legion??’ Shtick)

But for now I’m gonna talk a little about my concepts for and what we know about New Rome, layout, buildings, and other things based on a mix of various canon maps, actual historical records of Roman city structure, general assumption, and descriptions of New Rome (mostly that would be from SoN and MoA i think- I’ll have to go re-read the New Rome parts respectively before I begin layout work-)

HOWEVER,

I’m going to start a notebook specifically for the documentation and my thought process of the whole New Rome/Camp Jupiter/PJO-verse?? Re-imagining. And I’ll probably begin reporting back on my findings and post on the actual jumbled ideas for this because instead of working on that fun little thing where I re-imagine how the seven plot works (because that means I’d inject a extra book in there and I’d actually sob if I’d have to re-read HoO because I only finished it in August of this year and the rate at which I got through books was disproportionate, please I finished SoN in one day then it took me 2 months to finish MoA-)

But yes, New Rome New Rome- there are very certain things I’d want to settle out. Or for right now at least, before I through my self back into designing a city-

Both the Chariot racing, and Gladiator battles for war games take place in New Rome, as the respective areas for each are hosted in New Rome. I’d imagine that New Rome have their celebrity athletes inside of the modern Rome society of people that play classical Roman sports/games. I have been working with the assumption that both Camp and New Rome have some form of a ‘Forum’ area- in the most basic idea of a Forum area for Camp; I’m looking into making a good balance of how I want Camp to be made so I might change any of that- we’d just have to see.

Okay, okay, but the important things!

I might make a different blog in rp for my character Mercury (or I posted her as Calliope, but I guess she’ll never escape being named after Gods- though Mercedes or Sicily are still name options and I’m getting off topic-) just for the actual official; formatted ideas for New Rome and Camp Jupiter. I’d probably present it as ‘oh this blog is for New Legionnaires/ young citizens in New Rome waiting to join the Legion’ and would present my thoughts more coherently.

Basically here is where the goopy thinking parts of making the ideas would be; whereas over there would be where you would get the actual information (I might also finish the notion page I was working on but that one genuinely hurt my soul to repeatedly work in and on)

But I dunno; I got the idea from a separate blog that I just followed (I’ll link it after I post it so I get this right, @new-rome-historians-association the actual inspiration for the companion blog )and it seems like a fun idea, but I don’t know if people would be interested as it is purely fannon.

Anyway; I’ll get either that CJ fatal flaw PT. 2 post up finally, a Luke Castellan thing, maybe the Gods, or Octavian

ALSO IM GETTING THE WOLF PUP BUILD-A-BEAR, I CAVED; HIS NAME IS AUGUSTUS BUT WE CALL HIM GUS- ILL SHOW PICS WHEN HE ARRIVES!!

Okay, byeee :3

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

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

I’m sobbing

We’ve finally finished the lightning thief in my English class, now we’re watching the first movie to compare with it; wherein I also get to see the Peter Johnson movie for the first time, we were given like papers to compare with the book and movie while we watched the movie; I was seated over in the back in the class, and I was working very hard to write down my thoughts… which turned into a very biased hypercritical (I think?) note taking session on things I didn’t like about the movies. I apologize for not putting a transcript down for the pictures below, but it was a long period of just yelling into my paper and silently apologizing to my braincells that had to be subjected to the movie, I mention in the photos what I consider bad writing (and several times I think I scribble out show don’t tell) and to note that I’m not a like writing genius that knows movies, but they kind of just… word vomit things at the viewer in like a 5 minute speed round that is like fact after fact and I was sitting there still thinking about the Mrs. Dodds scene, and they make the gods very involved? If that’s the right sentiment, if you get what I mean,

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 😎

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