#i am octavian

[aurantiumred]

its me your beloved time god please feed my octavian addiction

hey babe. love you michael!!!

.

anyway onto octavian/tav. going to be calling him tav from here on out because i fucking cant be bothered to type octavian so many times.

so tav and jason were absolutely friends. also twins. the amount of times that someone came up to tav with "great job in battle today!" or up to jason with "any new prophecies?" annoys them both until they try to do a funny and swap places for like a day (because twins and silly shenanigans and the only difference between the two is the brand (which, damn camp jupiter, we're just gonna skip over them branding children (something canonically described to be incredibly painful by multiple characters) let alone TODDLERS like Jason's age when he joins) and that tiny scar which can be easily replicated by white paint) and immediately chicken out because rule following.

tav cuts jason's hair (very long has not been cut since two) to match his hair's length (also people kept exploiting and pulling on it in battle. also dysphoria.) and it trips everyone up so hard. they're not having a good time over at camp jupiter because who the fuck is who

this ends up with jason accidentally introducing himself as tav because people accidentally call him that so much and quickly correcting himself but its too late because the new camper he was talking to already thinks he's insane because who the fuck just forgets their own name???

the brother/twin thing also breaks my heart because he loses both his best friend (read: boyfriend) and his brother on the same fucking day and never gets to see either again.

imagine how bad he would feel in toa because his brother pretty much caused this. apollo is here because he couldn't save tav and he wasn't loyal to his legion

anyway this is getting off topic i have a 2 foot by two foot large replica of the hippodrome to finish making babe ily and i might draw that later but seriously ive gotta stop writing posts on tumblr while i have school to do.

[number1greekhater]

"What do you mean the Greeks have AN EXCHANGE PROGRAM. WHAT."

[bayetea]

when nico pulled up to camp jupiter with hazel

nico: this is my sister. please accept her into the legion and take care of her

jason: oh another pluto kid. wow. hi hazel

hazel: (freaked out because jason is the whitest man she's ever seen) um. hello

octavian: what is wrong with her

nico: nothing she's Normal

reyna: (aurum and argentum start growling) why are you lying

nico: I'm not lying she's normal. tell them hazel

hazel: (accidentally summons 70 precious gems out of the ground) sorry. don't touch those please

nico: see. normal

[vasinoop]

you remember this in blood of olympus right

[caesxr]

your sickly pale boyfriend showed up to the function wearing five tunics on top of each other and then he had a panic attack and vomited all over the floor btw. do you want us to scrape him off the ground with a spatula and drop him off at your place or something

[sforzesco]

Plutarch, Antony (trans. Scott-Kilvert)

[dv-kelp-face]

*SPOILERS FOR MARK OF ATHENA*

Aaaaaah, he has no idea that he will be judo flipped soon

[poetpony6890]

Dru, Ty, Kit, Helen, Aline, Mark, Cristina, Tavvy and somehow Kieran having a very tense family situation

Ash yawning loudly before coming in the door: fuck you Kit I think you dislocated my arm with your-

Kieran: didn’t you go walk the dog?

Ash: yes

Kieran: where’s the dog?

[reuben-7991]

Octavian’s treatment is one of my least favorite things about HoO because it isn’t his character, it’s his lack of one.

We COULD’VE had an excellent character who was a look into what could truly go wrong with blind devotion like Octavian’s, drawing an excellent parallel to Luke’s blind hatred in the original series (Percy even says Octavian reminds him of Luke).

We COULD’VE had a fantastic contrast into a follower’s descent into insanity after making empty promises of power whilst under the influence of a massively elder being, thus leading to said follower’s death.

What makes me especially mad is that Octavian has no backstory. This is a problem with a lot of Roman characters, but Octavian especially. He doesn’t even have a last name. All we know is:

- He’s a legacy of Apollo.

- He used to be sane and probably very charismatic, due to Reyna stating she used to have a crush on him in TTT.

That’s it! One of Rick’s gold stars is that his human characters are just that: human. They have motivations and flaws, deeply personal origins and ideals that affect their actions and their outcomes. None of the villains are just plain villains, evil by birth. They have motives to back up their actions (now weither those motives make sense or not, that’s another story, but they’re still there.) There’s Luke, Medea, Lityerses (who is an entire other can of worms), Circe, Loki, Gunilla, Randolph, hell, even Kronos and Gaea. All of them have reasons for the shitty stuff they did. Octavian is a glaring exception. We know he’s power-hungry, but we don’t know why. We know he’s violent, but we don’t know why. We know he hates the Greeks, but we don’t know why. You may argue ‘oh, he’s a minor character, he doesn’t really get a reasoning’ which is just blatantly untrue on both fronts.

1: Octavian is NOT a minor character in the slightest. He has major roles in the plot throughout the books.

2: Him being a ‘minor’ villain wouldn’t have anything to do with his motivation. Chris from the OG series has stated motivation, and he’s way more minor than Octavian.

Another thing is that Octavian’s insanity is played off almost comically. He’s relatively well put together in SoN, only being super dramatic and reportedly blackmailing Hazel and probably other legionnaires, but by BoO he’s absolutely broken. He’s utterly obsessed with being a hero to the Romans, with being Pontifex Maximus, with killing Gaea and almost proving himself to Apollo (who is utterly disgusted by him), but it’s all either framed as ‘hate this guy more plsplspls’ or brushed away to the side.

I’m torn on his death scene, because it’s a good scene overall but too much of it is humorous in my opinion. Between Will calling Octavian an ‘anemic loser’ (which like. what.) and Leo describing his screams as a little girl’s, it seems almost too light for such a pivotal point in the story. Octavian has truly lost himself to madness, ranting and raving and insisting no, HE has to be the one to kill Gaea, HE has to be a hero.

His death is horrific, yet it’s framed as a silly oopsie.

What the fuck.

Overall, Octavian is a shining example of missed character potential. We could have gotten the Riordan special and made to empathize more with our villain, like what happened with Luke or Randolph from MCGA, but all we get is a crazy blond kid, character so shallow he could count as a tide pool. It infuriates me to no end how in a sea of good, properly motivated antagonists, Octavian is the outlier.

It’s a real shame.

[a-sparrows-melody]

Things I Would Change About PJO

(I might write a fanfic based on these points):

The whole Hunters-Of-Artemis thing. Like what do you mean Artemis hates all men. What about Orion and all the rest. What do you mean she hates Apollo. She loves him so much. Stop already. That whole thing was just erroneous interpretation of Greek Mythology and it felt really weird and toxic.

Annabeth and Percy's trauma bond. Annabeth is pretty toxic in a relationship, especially in the HoO books when she and Percy get together. Love their relationship as a concept but the way Rick writes it is just... not it. To show Annabeth as a "strong woman" he continuously makes her put Percy down - and not only in COTG and WOTTG. She literally judo-flips him when they met after that long traumatic period where Percy was suffering from amnesia and being killed so many times. I would love to see more of their dynamic as friends and make it a longer, healthier, equal-footed relationship.

Thalia Grace joining the Hunters and never leaving. What the hell. She only joined to escape the Great Prophecy 1. She can leave right after the Battle of Manhattan and take Percy's place in Great Prophecy 2.

Bianca being alive, only "lost" (never specified dead!). It's a pretty big plot-point for Nico and I think it would probably have a bigger impact on him to lose his only care-giver and watch her come back into his life after he's grieving greatly and he's in the process of learning how to live life without her. It would truly change up their entire systems and I would love to see Nico and Bianca coming to a point where they realize it's time to live their own lives. ALSO STOP TREATING BIANCA LIKE A PLOT-DEVICE FOR NICO. COME ON. DO BETTER.

Make Nico better. In general. The character has so much potential but is just reduced to "sunshine character's grumpy emo goth boyfriend" or "kid whose type is NOT PERCY HAHAHAHA SO FUNNY". Give him some more development.

LUKE WAS A GROOMER AND ACTIVELY ENGAGED IN HUMAN TRAFFICKING. WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU JUST FORGIVE HIM AND NOT OCTAVIAN, WHO WAS LITERALLY BULLIED AND MANIPULATED INTO DOING THE SHIT HE DID. If you want to hate Luke, hate Octavian too. If you want to forgive him, forgive Octavian too. Stop hating complex characters.

CALEO. OH MY GOD CALEO. LIKE ACTUALLY DIE. THAT IS SO HORRIBLE.

Piper does not need to be gay.

Jason does not need to die.

WHAT DO YOU MEAN GROVER DID NOT USE HIS EMPATHY LINK TO SEARCH FOR PERCY IN TARTARUS. SMH.

Percy should NOT have become Praetor.

Reyna should not be aro/ace or she's just horrible representation of both those things. STOP PUTTING EVERY ARO/ACE CHARACTER IN THE HUNTERS OF ARTEMIS.

Why would Nico search for Bianca and bring Hazel back? That thing makes no sense. His whole arc in TLO was to accept the loss of his sister. Instead, bring out Ethan Nakamura who is still angry and jealous and wants to bring balance to the world. He comes out on his own, BTW.

The whole "Wilderness school" plotline thing. OF COURSE monsters would come for Pipes and Leo. They're really damn powerful and really damn young. What the hell do you mean by they never knew anything till Jason? smh.

SOLANGELO. CAN'T BELIEVE I'M SAYING THIS BUT IT'S OUT THERE. Will is just a blank character to show that Nico's gay and prove he's over Percy (STOP WITH THE "NOT MY TYPE" JOKES OH MY GOD GET OVER IT ALREADY WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU). If you're doing this, at least give me a good, long slow-burn. Or don't show it at all. Nico decides to live in normal life after being shunned and confused all his life in the magical world. Now he finds a mortal boyfriend and is actually thriving. His character is so beautiful like stop ruining him and using him as a goddamn plot-device all the time. Ugh.

CHANGE NICO'S COMING OUT SCENE! LITERALLY WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT.

Jason and Piper breaking up was such a good plot point because not everyone falls in love but you need to make it heart-wrenching. Jason doesn't know what's going on. He's just dating Piper because that's what he's being told, that's what he did his whole life. MAKE IT HAPPEN IN HOO.

NO FRAZEL AND LEO LOVE TRIANGLE. ALSO JUST NO FRAZEL IN GENERAL. STOP WITH THE FRAZEL. THAT'S SO UNHEALTHY.

MAKE LEO ARO/ACE GODDAMN. He has so much potential. Like he always feels loveless? Like a failure? Feels a need to have a partner to prove his worth? DIE. MAKE HIM ARO/ACE. MAKE HIM DEAL WITH ALL THAT.

Actually valgrace is a pretty good plot point as well. valdangelo as well.

WHY AREN'T THERE ANY POLY SHIPS IN PJO? SMH. SERIOUSLY. SO MUCH POTENTIAL.

Don't kill me but... perachel is pretty good. I've written a small post about it here.

Welp this is officially too long. Anyway. I wanted to add more but this has been sitting in my drafts and collecting dust a long time so here you go.

[wanderingmind867]

Nico knew Octavian was a legacy - a descendant of Apollo many generations removed. Now, he couldn't help thinking that Octavian looked like a watered-down, unhealthy version of Will Solace - like a photo that had been copied too many times. Whatever made a child of Apollo special, Octavian didn't have it.

Jesus Fucking Christ, Rick. Stop bullying this poor kid. Next you're gonna say he looks like a product of incest or something. We're already half way there. The implication that legacies look like watered-down, worse versions of regular demigods…this feels like some sort of eugenics metaphor. That's how my brain reads it. As some kind of weird parallel to incest causing genetics to decay.

And it also screams eugenics to me. As it's implying octavian is worse because he's got gaunt skin and bloodshot eyes and all these ailments. Rick Riordan tried to make Luke (a man who used similar logic as this when he pretty much said we need to let everyone fend for themselves under the titans) a tragic villian, but Octavian is the pure evil one? Really? The pure evil one is the one who's described as anemic, gaunt, barbarous, a loser? That one? Because I don't know… In laying it on so thick, you make yourself come off as a bully. And I will never support bullies. Even when it's an author pretty much bullying his main villian.

[twobehonest]

Guys please I've been maybe rewriting how I would go about rewriting Heroes of Olympus (mainly books 2-3 because those are the ones that focus on Camp Jupiter the most) and how my take about the Imperial Trio (Octavian, Jason, Reyna) would go / work.

Now ngl I know if I had to follow the plot of the books we would have 0 time to actually go over any specific characteristics rather than what's really physical for most characters but shhhh

(NOTE: this is NOT the FULL post of my rewrite, this is just to get some of my thoughts out while they're still fresh. There's things subject to change :)) )

In this rewrite (and I guess AU in a sense?), Octavian is the son of Janus, and also may or may not be anemic, caused by chimerism, which is hinted at via vitiligo.

I may or may not put Octavian in the Senate, because uh, Augurs kinda do jackshit unless there's a prophecy. Also he's treated like he got no power fr but that shouldn't be the case, so I'm working out how the 3 balances of power do work.

I'm thinking that Reyna, Jason, and Octavian are trailblazers and progressed Camp Jupiter exponentially while focusing on their individual talents. Octavian, being the more politically and religiously focused one, while having the powers of Janus, (Which I've interpreted some of the power Janus-kids and legacies have are either naturally good decisions making (or being confident in their decisions) or being jackshit at decision-making in general while being able to interpret someone's intentions as well, even if they lie or not.) Reyna with warfare and such, and Jason with the more social aspects, such as responding to concerns about anything really (but once Jason is missing, this all suddenly shifts to Octavian.)

Also, apparently Janus can see in both the past and the future, I don't really know which myth Rick took from so. For my sake, let's say Octavian got born with the rarer powers of being able to see someone's past and future.

Which diverges into more things, but one of them is the eventual blackmail of Hazel, to get her to stop nagging him about Jason's appearance and give him a second. He's stressed, and dealing with the loss of Jason still while nobody is willing to get off his back. He's doing his best, he can't spawn answers out of nowhere. So, besides his best judgement, he snaps and unintentionally-intentionally blackmails her, souring the relationship between both of them indefinitely. He gets a lot more snappy, and seems to hang around people who are more quiet. Like Reyna. Who he was already friends with, and maybe Dakota (literally just a reason to have character interaction with people other than the main characters for Octavian)

[Anyways I'll speak about it more soon enough when I actually finish the entire art piece and actually articulate my thoughts about it. This was just a tiny snippet, hope you found some interest in it or something, since somehow you guys liked the Gaia using Octavian as a host AU 💀]

[pineconepie]

how are they all built? (in terms of body type)

Octavian - slim, and to someone who doesn't know he's a vampire, would assume he'd turn to dust from one hit LOL

Vincent - fit and broad-shouldered. Not necessarily muscular, but close

Indigo - slender, but also has a bit of muscle

Magnus - muscular and burly. Probably the most ripped out of everyone here ^^;

Seradiel - lean, has a bit of muscle as well

Warren - gangly bastard <3

Blair - average

Solaris - plus size

Cullen - dad bod 100%

August - also average

Castor - looks skinny, but he just likes corsets, in normal clothes he also has a dad bod LOL

Ellis - no muscle or fat at all, he's probably the most skinny

Hugo - pretty burly, has both a decent amount of muscle and body fat, but mostly muscle. for that reason he can be a little intimidating at first haha

[navree]

refusing to be undone.

Atia Balba, niece to Julius Caesar, died only a year after his assassination, and was survived by her two children, Octavia the Younger and Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus, who she had named Gaius Octavius at birth. Both her son and daughter would outlive her by several years.

[avgfandomguy]

So I started getting into Epic and that in turn has gotten me back into my Percy Jackson hyperfixation (third time's the charm) and I just came up with an excellent idea: so Octavian is the worst recent son of Apollo, right? Genocidal maniac, white man, needed that who death? And in the next series Apollo is cast unto the earth?

I think if Heroes of Olympus and Trials of Apollo get a video series, I think Octavian and mortal Apollo should be the same actor to add salt to every wound Apollo has and to add to the distrust or trust out in him by other characters. Imagine Nico's victim looking him in the eyes

(Also they should let me play Octavian? Why? I have a massive ego, I'm Italian, I look great in purple and gold and I can play an evil little freak. Also unironically he's my favorite character for some reason)

[murderspugerter-ver2]

I WILL SELL MY SOUL FOR SOME OCTAVIAN/READER FANFIC