#being a teenager doesn't excuse octavian's stuff but it does explain it

[freddie-77-ao3]

Octavian started another war where he was willing and eager to firebomb a camp full of children so he could reap the glory of victory. I'd say his villainization by the fandom is very well-earned, especially since he had none of Luke's more sympathetic traits.

feel like you missed my whole point but okay.

Um. I mean if we consider Luke's sympathetic traits to be he was actually treated as a human with a backstory, sure, Octavian deserves to be villainized more but uh, I'd consider Octavian's reasons for waging war a lot more legitimate than Luke's tbh?

Like. Luke's boiled down to daddy issues. He was upset his father wasn't there, and decided to make that everyone else's problem. Sure, if it wasn't Luke, it would be someone else, but Luke's the figurehead here. Luke, who was actually treated pretty well by Hermes all things considered.

And yes, May Castellan would have been terrifying, and shouldn't have been Luke's caregiver but...

Having a difficult parental situation absolutely does not give you the right to take your pain out on others. And that's what Luke did.

And yes, Luke absolutely was manipulated. Kronos manipulated him.

Now let's consider Octavian's motivation to "firebomb a camp full of children" as you put it.

Number one: Octavian was also manipulated. Gaea did manipulate him. He thought he was listening to Apollo-- a god who, to him, was good. Should be respected.

Number two: he didn't start the war. No, really. The greeks, from his point of view, brought a warship over the city and started firing. They damaged homes, likely hurt people, all within what was MEANT to be a safe place.

Leo might have been possessed but that was never communicated to Octavian. So no, he didn't start a war.

Gaea forced Leo to start a war. Either way, the Greeks started the war in his eyes.

Also the fact you take such offense to Octavian waging war on children... did you somehow think that Luke was only waging war on the adults? Because I can tell you, most people consider a twelve year old a child, and Luke did in fact try to kill one of those. You know, Percy.

Also victims of Luke: Silena, actively groomed by Luke. Yeah she committed suicide, but she wouldn't have if Luke hadn't done that. Also, grooming is in fact also a crime.

And, you know, all the other casualties from that war. Because there were. Castor, Lee, Bianca, Zoë, Michael, Beckendorf, the other 15 campers dead from the battle of manhattan, and all the other casualties.

Also he did send Chris into the labyrinth, and didn't particularly seem to care that he was driven mad?

Not to mention the PTSD he inflicted on a bunch of kids.

So yes, you're right, Octavian did bad shit. But he also had his reasons for said bad shit. Reasons that I, personally, find a lot more compelling than Luke's.

Plenty of people have daddy issues, anon. Not many of them try to end the world.

[wrongcaitlyn]

i started rereading tyt and i had a question. it’s probably answered within the fic but my english is not really that good but what exactly happened between nico, jason and bryce in the start of the fic??? was it a cupid situation or something totally different??

ahh no worries!! yeah it's intentionally made pretty vague, i think that i gave a short-ish summary of it but if that wasn't super clear that's 100% on me lmao - basically, i think towards the end of their freshman year-ish? or like mid freshman year. not entirely sure when but some time during their freshman year, it was bryce, jason, and nico in an empty classroom (i never put a reason why, but the image i pictured was like nico accidentally forgot smth like a pencil or his phone or something in the classroom and went to get it, meanwhile bryce was holding up jason and trying to get him to talk about stuff/be friends... like clout-chasing shit. he's an asshole but anyway

jason being the people-pleaser he is just stands there and kinda listens as bryce brags abt things that he doesn't even care abt, and then nico walks in to get his pencil or whatever it is, and bryce just takes this as an opportunity to like - gain jason's approval? or something? keep in mind that bryce is just a total dick, and jason is not, but bryce does not know that about jason. but anyway, i don't think he *actually* knew that nico was trans/gay, but just made assumptions/very negative remarks in relation to that in a sort of mocking manner.

it wasn't really ment to parallel cupid, because cupid most definitely knew that nico was gay. and he's a literal god. in this case, it's just a teenage boy doing a very shitty thing because he thought it'd make him cool (not excusing that at ALL hopefully this doesn't come off in a "boys will be boys" way because that's not what i'm intending)

nico, obviously, when hearing the implication, immediately dashes, assuming that bryce has somehow figured it out, and will then be telling the entire school, but really, bryce just picked on nico because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. unfortunately, nico doesn't see jason do a complete 180 on bryce (he's no longer just tolerating him), and eventually gets him expelled too. jason doesn't necessarily *know* if what bryce said was true, but he makes the assumption that based on nico's reaction, it was true to some extent, and it leads to him deciding on sitting at nico/leo/will's table the next year (partly because he's like, ah, gay friends for piper because i am totally a straight ally, and partly because he just doesn't know anyone else at this school who isn't a complete asshole- seeing that octavian and the others were friends with bryce)

so yeah it's pretty vague in my head, and it's not necessarily "nico was outed by someone who very definitely knew about his sexuality" but rather "bryce was pulling assumptions out of his ass to try and make bullying seem cool when it really really wasn't and nico was just unfortunately the one who was there at the time"

but obviously, that's not going to make a huge difference in nico's opinion. there was no way for him to know that bryce was just guessing. and so when he's able to very vaguely and briefly explain the situation to will and leo, he just thinks that he's been outed. he's shocked when he gets to school the next week and realizes that literally no one knows, and no one cares about him, just the same as last week

thank you for the ask!!