#octavian answers

[ask-octavian-the-augur]

Theoretically are you flammable??

Oh some one go get mom she’s gonna set this dude on fire

And ruin this perfect entertainment??

You know what I refuse to baby sit her she’s 17

@four-chaos-kids

"No, I'm fireproof."

[bassguitarinablackt-shirt]

If you were a fruit youd be a mango

the fact that this is the second time ive been told this.....

[everythingannoyingpjo]

Octavian: Final Thoughts

I don't actually think this is the last time we will discuss Octavian on this blog. However we've had a lot of good discussion about his character so I wanted to finalize my thoughts on the subject so that I have a reference I can look back on going forward.

Facts

Octavian is not 100% Evil:

Octavian is a child.

Octavian is a product of the culture he was raised in.

Octavian has reason to believe that the attack on New Rome was legitimate.

Octavian has reason to believe he is doing what the gods want.

Octavian is Definitely Guilty of:

Warmongering

Seeking power.

Being a jerk.

Octavian Might (Not) Have:

Killed Gwendolyn

Blackmailed Hazel

Prophetic Abilities

Been manipulated by Gaea

Intentionally allowed Bryce back into the military despite his questionable history.

Octavian's Narrative Function

An entrenched power for Percy, Hazel, and Frank to overcome. (But they already had the giants to overcome and didn't need a secondary antagonist.)

To make Hazel, Percy and Frank's quest more difficult. (His only opposition was in not giving them very much money and a crappy boat, but that could have happened whether Octavian was present or not.)

To make Reyna appear more sympathetic. (I feel like this could have been better handled a different way.)

To create a sense of urgency. (Again, there are other ways.)

Conclusions

Octavian Doesn't Make Sense

His actions, implied or directly stated, contradict his motives.

This could be because he's "complicated."

This could be because he's a plot device and Rick never intended him to be a "Real Character."

Octavian is Frustrating (Because)

He could have been "complicated."

Now I will never have the satisfaction of piecing his mysterious pieces together.

No one likes him.

I know how it feels to be unliked and the butt of everyone's joke. I don't like seeing people treated that way unless their truly irredeemable.

He doesn't make sense.

I can't even enjoy disliking him because he has no substance.

He serves no larger purpose.

The story would have been just as good as, or even better, without him.

Final Conclusion: Octavian is a poorly written character and an unecesarry plot device. We all cry for the villain he could have been. RIP.

[percabeth4life]

Yeah, Octavian’s anger post-MOA is really valid, because to the Romans, these people showed up with claims of peace and then bombed their city, targeting not just fighters but civilians too. I also would despise them and wouldn’t be willing to listen to what they say (also? Octavian is right to bring ear plugs to counter Piper, to the Romans she’s a girl who can take away their free will and part of the group that attacked their home. Who knows what she could say to them, what if she makes them go back and attack New Rome even more? She’s very much an active threat in the eyes of the Roman demigods). There’s no actual evidence the 7 could offer up to prove it wasn’t actually Leo in charge, it’s not like possession leaves a trace nor can they display their memories to prove it.

She literally planned to use her charmspeak against New Rome from the start (Bad for Relations) and actively used it against Octavian specifically cause she found him annoying. Like- yeah, no surprise he took steps to prevent that from happening again.

And yeah, like- as far as Octavian is concerned he was literally THERE when Leo starts bombing New Rome. Maybe he'll accept that the others didn't intend to, but them running instead of surrendering and talking out what happened doesn't look good. Especially because they proceed to break more laws.

Now, I do think Rick wrote him absolutely insane, but like- him not trusting them? Tracking them down? Trying to capture them? Valid.

[mrsoftthoughts]

I was thinking about Octavian and that make me wonder;

What would be the ethics and morals standards at camp Jupiter and New rome for two demigods Childs of the same godly parent dating??

Just, think about it, since that the gods dont have dna (a completely nonsense for me, but its the canon answer so im sticking to that for now) probably at camp half-blood the tabu of dating with your siblings is only because the camp,with cabins which divides the campers by their godly, parent set up a family dinamic between them you thinks of them as your siblings and that What make it weird i guess

But camp Jupiter doesn't do that, the cohorts are a buch of random demigods and legacies meant to be soldiers, not a family

and heading back to Octavian who is the one that lead me to that question due the fact that at the end of the day he is said to be an Apollo legacy, and only Apollo, Does that mean that Octavian family's just a bunch of Apollo descendants married between them?? Or camp Jupiter just chose to call you a legacy of only the god that's more important for you depending of your position at the legion (in the case of Octavian, as the augur, being Apollo )

Leet me know what are your thoughts about this, i need answers.

[ask-tim-stoker]

ow uh anyways

give me a name

or ill take yours

your name shall hanceforth be Octavian.

[cuppa-noodle]

am I reading too much into it or is Tav and Rachel's nails the aroace and pan flags?

🌟

Yes, they are!

I put the black rings on the wrong finger.

I headcanon Tav as Aroace & Rachel as Asexual panromantic.

[navree]

How do you think Augustus felt about Livia?

It's a bit hard to parse out how the man felt about anyone, just because he controlled his image so tightly that nobody ever publicly saw anything he didn't want them to see, save for some very rare exceptions (ex: Augustus is recorded as having become publicly emotional three times in his entire public life, and two out of those three were very likely deliberate performances meant to engender a specific response, though one of them was definitely just spontaneous emotion). And with the added caveat that trying to ascribe feelings to historical figures can be very tough because those involve private thoughts that we are just not historically privy to, especially during the Antiquity where we're just missing so many records, I think it's fair to say that there was some kind of love there.

There's a lot of misconceptions around their relationship because Augustus and Livia just have very negative public reputations (Augustus just due to the popularity of Antony and Cleopatra as a couple, which means that most stories of this time are about them, slotting him into the role of antagonist or even outright villain in contrast to them as protagonists; Livia due to the popularity of stories like I, Claudius, which painted her as a scheming manipulator and burgeoned outward from there) that sees them both as people who didn't care about anyone, let alone possibly each other, and were in this relationship purely for opportunism and power. That's not to say that they didn't care about the power or opportunities the match would have afforded both of them, they clearly did; I've never bought into the legend that Octavian fell in love with Livia at first sight because nothing I've read about the guy, Mr. "hasten slowly" himself, shows someone who made snap judgments without thought. Octavian had prestige from his relationship to Caesar, and his family was influential in their Roman suburb, but he didn't have the patrician family roots that Livia did, and marrying her would have given him additional prestige to really solidify power. For Livia's part, her family was on the downward spiral after having repeatedly been on the wrong side in recent wars (her father fought for Brutus and Cassius, her first husband routinely was opposed to Augustus not just at Philippi but also during Fulvia's War and my beloved Siege of Perusia as well as siding with Sextus Pompey when he opposed Octavian), and allying herself instead with someone who was shoring up massive amounts of power and influence in his own right would have been hugely beneficial for her and her children. There was absolutely a calculus that went into this relationship and in figuring out what both parties could bring to the table to make the marriage viable against some not great optics, like Livia already being pregnant by her first husband and Octavian getting ready to break his alliance to Sextus by divorcing Scribonia (literally on the day she gave birth to Julia, my man you couldn't have waited a day?).

But I don't think that means that there wasn't any feeling there. For one, again, there were some bad optics involved as well as changes in alliances, and Livia definitely needed Octavian more than he needed her; he could have absolutely found some other patrician woman to boost up his pedigree by association rather than one from a family that had constantly opposed him. I wouldn't be shocked if there had been some emotion behind choosing Livia specifically, that when they met (sources say she was personally introduced to him before they decided to get married, so they had at least one chance for rapport) they formed a connection of some kind and an appreciation for each other. We also know that Octavian, as he grew in power and especially once things steadied in Rome and he got his name changed to Augustus, still relied on her as a source of advice and listened to her as a counselor, in spite of her gender and the extreme patriarchal nature of Rome. Augustus, when it comes to Livia's role as an advisor to him, actually had Livia occupying a space very similar to the one he had originally occupied for Julius Caesar: not just being an advisor and a trusted someone at their side, but also someone you could ask to intercede for you with The Great Man either on your behalf or on the behalf of someone you cared about. That Augustus allowed this at all shows a care for her, because he was big on the rigid societal structures and propriety of Ancient Rome, what with all his family laws and his strong stance on morality. But I do think the strongest indicator of love between them, since I do believe there was a love between them, is in the fact that they stayed married.

Livia and Augustus were married for 51 years, from 39 BC until he died in AD 14. And it is honestly wild that, in all that time, they never got divorced. Divorce in Ancient Roman times was exceptionally easy. Literally all was required was that one of the parties move out of the house and that's it, you're considered divorced legally and religiously in all ways that mattered. That's why, when you read about these people, you see how often they're just getting divorced right and left at the slightest provocation, Augustus included, divorcing Claudia and Scribonia with relative ease. But not Livia, even though the marriage wasn't doing the one thing most political marriages really need to be doing: bringing in children. Livia and Augustus never had any children, and only ever one pregnancy, which ended in a stillbirth. Given that Augustus specifically really needed an acceptable heir, as he was trying to build a hereditary autocracy that relied on power being passed down from father to son, rather than the semi-democracy Rome had at the time, this is a big deal. We know that Augustus struggled with heirs, mostly because everyone he ever wanted as an heir kept dying before him (which has to suck, just on a personal level, given that a lot of these were family members that he'd been close to and viewed as his own children, sorry man), and he probably would have very much liked to have a natural son to prepare to succeed him, rather than bouncing around. And given how quickly it became apparent that his marriage to Livia was not going to give him any children at all, let alone any sons, he could have easily divorced her with just a few words and found someone else, especially after he cemented his power following Actium and patrician prestige was no longer as important as his own personal presence. But he didn't do that. For a man who always thought ahead and always made decisions based on how they would advance the goals he felt he needed to have, irregardless of personal feeling (the existence of the Second Triumvirate is basically proof that Augustus, very quickly in his political career, developed a habit of shunting his own personal feelings to the side for the sake of doing what needed to be done), choosing to stay in a marriage that wasn't really offering him anything beyond the companionship of a woman he loved is very weird. It speaks to the amount and the depth of feeling there, that he decided to remove political calculation and opportunism from his thought process and decide to stay in a marriage that wasn't necessarily advantageous, because he wanted to, because he cared about and loved the person he was married to.

All in all, I think he cared about her, probably did love her, and even if there was some opportunism in the match, it seems to have been a marriage between two people who enjoyed being together and liked each other.

[phoenix--flying]

Not the Jason/Al anon but! The arranged marriage au of yours gave me an idea

The surviving members of the Ta are sent to Camp Jupiter to be kept in check like how the Romans are keeping Mt. Tam in check

Except it backfires because now heard about the Greeks and how they got prizes after the war while they didn't, Romans revolt too

LMAOOO the gods don't think this through and now they're trying to keep the camps apart AND avoid getting overthrown

[askoctavianhoo]

Did you sleep with Michael Kahale and would you do it again?

"I- uh- that's all private information!!"

[sforzesco]

your art is so cool!! I’ve never seen anyone who makes the kind of historical art you do and I love your research, I’m so glad I found your blog :)

thank you!! 💕

I do want to say, tho, that there's a lot of other people (whether it be prose, art, or other adaptive media. shout out to france for all the fun stuff they do with rome) out there who are ALSO making stuff in the same genre as what I'm doing, it's just that most of them tend to be on twitter, but there's a whole library of comics set in the classical world that are also responsible for any kind of confidence I might have in doing my own shenanigans

[ask-octavian-the-augur]

Are you dating centorian Kahale?

Archie, 4th Cohort

"Yes 👍🏽"

[bassguitarinablackt-shirt]

salve amice

i just wanna say that your headcanon of bi4bi queerplatonic percabeth HAS MY HEART

also random who do you think my godly parent would be :>

thank you thank you !!! its one of my favorite hcs djskhdksjsjsj its soooooooo <3

also okay take this with a grain of salt but i feel like youd be an apollo kid?

[tildeathiwillwrite]

👥 (What are they to you) and ❤️ (What are you to them) for Octavian and Draven?

(in reference to this ask game)

This reflects their dynamic post-The Hunter, the Myth and the Cure, around the same time as The Legend of Orian Goldeneye

👥 - What are they to you?

Octavian: He's an insufferable, foolhardy, infuriating bastard of a partner. But he's also the only person I trust to have my back in a fight. And he's good with his weapons, despite the many issues we've had in tracking down ammunition. Draven: Celestials above he's the best damn partner I ever could've gotten. Does he get on my nerves? Yes. But has he risked his own life to save my sorry ass? ...also yes. I keep trying to make it even and he keeps one-upping me. It's ridiculous.

❤️ - What are you to them?

Octavian: I genuinely can't tell if he considers me the source of or the solution to his problems. Granted, I don't know very much about what his life looked like before I met him, but I doubt it involved... everything I dragged him into when we started working together. Well, he volunteered to accompany me on this mission. That says something about his opinion of me. Draven: Hunter with a gun who won't shut up. Probably. Hard to tell sometimes. But I think he's grateful that he's not alone on foreign planets, that he has someone to count on. Depths, I'm grateful too. If I'm being honest, neither of us had much of anything left on Valaria, so I consider going with him a good choice. I do miss it, and I'm sure he knows and misses it too.

[percabeth4life]

as your opinion on FATAL flaws is wildly known, can you give us your thoughts of the Fatal Flaws of the Characters we see die in pjo??

Well, the first note I'll make is another requirement of a fatal flaw literary wise is that it's a tragedy. I'll use a lose definition of tragedy for this to include a another dead characters for your benefit.

Characters

Bianca:

A longing for independence could be argued her fatal flaw. She wanted freedom, she wanted to not have to take care of her brother because she was tired and just wanted to live her own life... But in doing so she angered her brother, making him feel betrayed. This led to her trying to do something to make it up to him, which directly led to her death.

Alternatively, taking responsibility could be seen as her fatal flaw. It was her trying to escape responsibility that led to her joining the hunt, which promptly led to her joining a deadly quest and trying to make up for hurting her brother... Then taking responsibility for her actions which put them in danger and dying for it.

Zoë:

Loyalty. This could be viewed as a trauma flaw NGL, it's a flaw resulting from her betraying her family which ruined her. She made a new life thanks to Artemis and was loyal to the death (literally) as a result.

Silena:

Love. She loved Beckendorf and betrayed everyone to ensure he was safe. She loved him so she betrayed the Titans when he died. She loved Clarisse and the camp so she faked being Clarisse to save the day. All her worst and best actions come from love.

Octavian:

Nationalistic loyalty. He did everything and anything for New Rome, he betrayed friends, he called upon criminals for support, he added monsters to his forces, he went to war, he blackmailed and threatened and charmed his way to doing whatever he thought was best for New Rome. And he died for it too, died trying to save the country, even if the people that made it up died in the process (a true example of the destructive nature of loyalty).

Jason:

I don't think Jason's death quite fits, but I did just have a conversation on his possible flaw so... A longing for home but an unwillingness to make a home, or wanderer. He wants a home, he seeks knowledge of his home. It drove his actions in TLH, it shaped his character in MOA, it had nonsense importance in HOH, and it was a deciding factor in BOO. He died for it too, looking to Piper as she fled to make sure they escaped (Piper, who was his rock when he had nothing else, who was a home to him).

[pain-is-too-tired]

HEY

YOU

RAMBLE AT ME ABOUT YOUR OCS AND/OR PJO

pl;ease :3

I actually do have few pjo ocs, though don't do much with them hdfd

Ames Gallagher - a child of Philotes. A Very upbeat and caring silly. They're Genderqueer and go by any Pronouns.

Levi Calingasan - young son of Apollo. Lost his twin sister in BoM. Cis-male,He/They. Pretty calm and mainly a healer, though he isn't terrible with a bow. Has truth abilities.

Philophrosyne(Phil/Rosy) Kovač - child of Hephaestus, Genderqueer any Pronouns. A cool head blacksmith. Her mom had caught the attention of both Hephaestus and Aglaea and was very caring to the couple. Some metal control and lava control abilities.

Gvantsa Caras - son of Apollo. To anyone who read some my previous hcs on Michael, this is the guy who was supposed to take charge after Lee but joined Kronos' army instead. He's a couple years older then Michael and is pretty self centered. He got lot of his father's bad traits and up it really. He has lot of music related abilities, able to pull at certain emotions with his music.

Chrysostomos(Chryso) Krites - son of Momos, just loves to mess with people. He likes to test limits and see how they respond to having their worse feelings and guilt shot at them. A Kronos soldier. He can read insecurities.

Verena(Rena) Cordelia - Daughter of Aphrodite. Aroace. Has ability to make and control seafoam as well as ability to somewhat change appearance.

Calum Warlock - Son of Horcus, former Kronos soldier. Extremely serious about promises.

Also. Some art I have of a few of them.

First two: Calum

Third fourth and fifth: Levi ft Calum and Rena in fifth

Sixth: Levi and Calum size chart

Seventh: Chryso and Will in BoM

Eighth:Ames

Ninth:Ames and Levi

Tenth: Phil