I Dont Quite Know How To Title This Post But Its A General Pjo Canon Question/word Vomit/thing?? But

I don’t quite know how to title this post but it’s a general Pjo canon question/word vomit/thing?? But it’s the, ‘Monsters are not doing the monster mash”

That’s an arguably weird way to explain it, but like,

In the lightning thief, we are told that monsters hunt down Demigods like people hunt down the Costco samples (stupid example I know) and episode three of the tv show really brought that back to the front of my mind when Annabeth was talking about Percy and Thalia.

If I remember correctly (I don’t have my copy of the book on my but I’ll probably reblog this post with added new information) in the lightning thief it’s said that after demigods have their ‘awakening’ (when they begin to figure out their demigods, I think is how it’s described. But like when their powers begin manifesting and stuff). Then after that they’ll be plagued by monsters trying to eat them, that’s what things like Camp Half-Blood and Camp Jupiter/New Rome are so important, they save demigod lives (Well, Camp Half-blood is a bit more secure than Camp Jupiter and probably saves more demigod lives but whatever) and we get examples of this?

Thalia, Luke, and Annabeth all get swarmed and are constantly facing, drawing, and meeting monsters during their run. Sure it’s like weirdly said that Hades sent some of them and it’s mentioned that Hades sends monsters in TLT though it’s like a little??? I get confused by it when we’re not talking about the Furies.

Percy during his quest is dogged by them and after he displays powers he is also attracting the Minotaur (not counting Mrs.Dodds because she was like sent and like?)

We know that it’s called out when the majority of the Aphrodite cabin (which I feel like should’ve been housing a much smaller group of Demigods because from what I remember over my very limited knowledge of myths she didn’t fall with mortals very often *Literally abandoned Aeneas because of the circumstances there with like arrows and mortals* and she never really had that many encounters? But I’m in no way the one that should be talking about myths lol) leaves camp because they don’t attract monsters as much or like monsters just don’t bother (which is dumb and I don’t really like what was done with the Aphrodite cabin the more and more I talk about it because they were done so dirty and just like? Is infantilized the right word?) but it’s like-

We get conflicted that “Camp is important, camp is the only place demigods will be safe from the dangers of monsters” and that, they train demigods not to be heroes or whatever, but to equip them to survive that hopefully monsters find it to be too much trouble to eat them and will not attempt to (Again; then it feels like from what we know of the Aphrodite cabin they’d be in constant danger because Rick wanted to characterize the general group as people that are shallow and vain and don’t train. Maybe I’ll just do an Aphrodite cabin post after this idk) and that demigods who aren’t trained and have had their awakening would be in constant danger and would be constantly around monsters.

But also, “yeah go home for the rest of the year even if we’ve stayed that you’ll totally be in danger constantly but hey! We never really see that-“ for kids like the big three (why was Percy allowed to go home? Would he have forced his way home, probably. Should we have heard about how miserable it probably would’ve been with low level monsters trying to constantly get at him, maybe?) or people like Annabeth (who ran away from her home where one of the canon reasons was her parents couldn’t take the constant monsters.) but we don’t get any info that there are still, constant monsters when she’s home.

Maybe I’m not remembering the books much but we are given that “Demigods are never truly safe in the world and Camp is a safe haven” while also not being really shown that? Like, Leo should’ve been having monster problems. Canonically Piper wouldn’t have to deal with it because of the weird Aphrodite cabin unfairness.

And Frank, uh. I don’t like the fact that Frank never had to deal with monsters- but we don’t know the deal with legacies and monster attraction but i don’t want to put more braincells into that for the moment- but he didn’t have his awakening. He really just didn’t have any awakening until like the middle of his quest so I give him a pass because it’s.. sort of explained? If you read between the lines enough it makes sense.

And that abruptly leads to the next thing. What was Camp Half-Bloods deal before Thalia? Because we know the barrier came with the whole Thalia thing (it was her turning to the tree that also brought the barrier, in SoM when her tree is dying the barrier is growing weaker) there is a canon CHB that was also running without a barrier and hoping for the best. Can we get more info on that? Like between the fact that Camp Jupiter also has no barrier (also made a post on that, think it’s the injuries one but I believe I have thoughts on there. Not my best work but it fits in with all the other posts) and that monster would’ve canonically been swarming?

Aaaa, just monsters don’t make sense in my brain between what we’re told and shown, it really just was brought back to my brain during the whole,

“Thalia met a heroes fate”

“She also met a pinecones fate” 😐

Annabeth scene in the latest pjo episode. I meant to do this post like months ago but just fell on the back burner.

Anyway I’m finding myself relating to Annabeth more and more while watching the show and like- aaa idk.

Anyway meant to finish this post a couple days ago but I was visiting family friends so I was just chipping away at it and this is just the aftermath of it. I didn’t present any ideas of my own and just kind of blabbed about my confusion for a bit but I do that frequently. Anyway I’ll probably make that Aphrodite cabin post because I haven’t realized how much they were just like, let down? Also would like to add as a general I’ve heard the hello I’m Shelly Duvall Audio so many times that whenever someone says hello with a little pause I hear her voice-

Powers in Camp Jupiter

Wow I’ve posted a lot today lol-

Finally! Another long, ‘Camp Jupiter general Hc’ post. I’ve just been thinking a lot on powers the more I’ve been dipping my toes into learning about Rome and its culture and how I want to incorporate that into New Rome and Camp (literally I mention it once so don’t get any hopes up for like in depth Ancient Rome stuff and it just affected my thought process for how the Romans might think similarly to powers as they did other things). Also this is another post going, ‘this is a weird thing in camp that is never explained but doesn’t make sense to me so this is how I’d go about explaining it’ post, enjoy :]

But first things first; I think Camp puts a heavy importance on physical skill, that powers are somewhat frowned upon. That Camp Jupiter would put a higher importance on someone’s capabilities without the powers, and that power usage is something that generally the Camp doesn’t like acknowledging- I’ll go more in depth on what I mean but first I wanna talk about how I got to this conclusion making sense in my mind,

This did make sense in my brain because it fills the little gap where we don’t see a lot of Camp Jupiter power embracing or whatever. We get Hazel being worried over her powers because of the like cursed aspect? Which is a whole other can of worms that I don’t like the plot point on- but whatever. Hazel’s thing feels weird that she wouldn’t explain it, now I am obviously not a Hazel analyzer- but I do have a pretty solid characterization of Camp in my head and I feel that is something that they would 100% want to and need to know. Along with the apparent lack of notable power usage in Camp Jupiter- we don’t see it in the same way that we see over at Half-Blood, now this could be because Camp has like 0 important characters. But I feel like during the war games there would be more people taking advantage of powers, where it’s specifically called out when Percy is doing it because it’s odd in the setting- it stands out (yes it probably was called out for Rick to be like “Look at how cool and powerful Percy is guys!” But whatever-) but that bleeds into the first gorgon chase scene, where it’s notable that again; it’s only Percy using his powers openly, it’s the legionnaires that are looking on in bewilderment, confusion.

Of course there are the 4 main outliers I think of about this power thing; Reyna, Jason, Octavian, and Bryce Lawrence. But I’ll talk about what I think their situations are.

Anyway, I believe this seeming power-aversion in camp Jupiter (was probably not planned and Rick just kind of forgot about Demigods and how probable it would be that they’d display them more often for the general quality of life improvements they’d give-) could be caused by a couple factors,

The abundance of Legacy’s at camp and at New Rome; we aren’t sure how legacies work (because they are all over the place and we never get set power levels on them) but it would make logical sense that powers became more niche or less potent through generations (this obviously has outliers, and its own holes but I’ll justify this take in another post probably just about legacies-) and this would lead to less and less importance on powers- because why would a community see them as important when the majority of them don’t have very potent ones, or very general ones and it’s more simple to just not use them than hone either a very weak skill or a very niche skill.

The importance of Strength in New Rome and Camp Jupiter’s community; based partially on Ancient Romes importance on Masculinity (which I will not be mentioning much because I am just a silly black cat on the internet and I don’t have the knowledge about Romes masculinity thing) and just what we see from the very concept of Camp Jupiter’s go through Lupa’s training and survive or die, Camp Jupiter’s no magic barrier of protection, the military camp. Conquer or Die. It all places a very big importance on one’s personal strength- their strategic mind, physical prowess, ability to work together as a unit in the army. That the powers could possibly be seen almost as a cheat- that why would you use your powers when you have your training, are you weak? Do you not trust in what you’ve been taught? The Societal idea were given for the Romans is strength- and why use your powers if you are physically capable enough. And everyone is physically capable enough to be a Roman, to Conquer or Die.

Okay on a probably lighter note (idk I was reading the upper passage and that sounded pretty intense-) but also the fact that powers just feel like they wouldn’t be a good thing in Camp’s military settings. Camp Jupiter puts its importance on their military and fighting prowess, their form, the discipline. It’s much harder to fight in coordination if everyone is doing anything that isn’t related to other skills. The fact that the Cohorts aren’t godly ancestor-specific adds to that. So it just doesn’t seem reasonable knowing Camps whole thing.

Okay those three all are my ideas on the surrounding factors that make powers less used and more taboo in Camp/New Rome. This could explain why camp doesn’t display their powers. While it gives more reason for the reactions to Percy other than everyone being suprised at how cool and powerful he is or something idk, it gives Hazel more reason to hide her precious riches power thing.

Now the Outliers, people in camp that comfortably and openly use and display their powers (not including Percy, maybe idk- we’ll see)

First Reyna; we know that Reyna openly used her Bellona strength, warrior spirit and bravery sharing powers that also take away pain? Idk how they explain it but we get that in BoO the knowledge that when leading the Romans into battle Reyna would use her powers. I think this can be explained away by 1st off it’s not that noticeable so might be likely that the legion doesn’t even know she did that, secondly it could be considered that they considered her ability a outlier to the notion- it directly helps them win so I guess they don’t mind, sure they’ll be upset about it but they won’t openly object to it.

Secondly Jason and his wild skill set; he’s Jupiter’s son, pretty much Lupa’s adopted kid and Camp’s prince. They’d let him do whatever, he’s Jupite’rs son! I think they’d be super hypocritical and think him and the powers make him stronger and cooler and whatever because he’s Jupiter’s son and canonically we know they put him on a pedestal and thought he pretty much could do no wrong when he was younger so I think it’s reasonable to assume legionnaires would go along with Jason pulling lightning bolts from thin air and just going, “That’s so cool Jason!!! Yeaaah you go man!” And then turning around and ostracizing someone that used like their water-bending because like- why not just use your actual skill, no need to be a show off, y’know Dave from the 3rd cohort could’ve done that just with his Pugio and a bendy straw.

Octavian; it’s his job. I think Augur’s generally get a pass because it’s their job to be all mysterious and otherworldly and do all the cool retelling prophecies and omens. And he needs the powers to do that so of course he gets a pass.

Bryce Lawerence; he’s a freak (nicely, I love him) but he gives 0 crap if people don’t like it. They can just go to the fields of punishment for all he cares. He literally murdered someone and lit a cat on fire. There is no way in Hades that this man cares about some power taboo. If he wants to do it he’ll do it and if anyone wants to say anything they can suck his spear handle.

Overall; Camp Jupiter are Hypocrites when it comes to powers (obviously, I feel like for many reasons they are hypocrites in many other fields-) and this gives better reason that Octavian and Micheal didn’t immediately drag Percy into the 1st cohort. Because like- you know they would’ve and I think that would’ve been more interesting than the 5th cohort underdog story (like, Hazel and Frank could’ve been the main pushers of that plot and I feel that would’ve been cooler-)

But if we want to stay with Percy being put in the 5th (which if anyone wants to know for my re-imagining he is totally put in the 1st because that gives us an opening to actually characterize notable characters a lot more-) this powers thing gives a reason. All the legion knows about this kid is that he’s got a mouth on him, attracts monsters like a neon billboard with a giant arrow on it, and relies on his powers constantly. And in Camp Jupiter where obedience and discipline are cherished, they don’t need to deal with any more monsters their hands are already full, and that everyone like collectively hates their powers from societal norms. It makes more sense that none of the more notable cohorts would want to tarnish their names or reputation by bringing him on board- so of course the 5th is forced to take him.

Okay that’s my rant on how the community of Romans don’t like their powers unless they can serve a purpose of aiding the army, your the child of Jupiter, or it’s your job.

I am sleepy and therefore I bid you all a good night.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

Not official for me yet but I’m not about to make sure I posted exactly on midnight!

Last Kleos doodle of the year!!!

Guys the Larry post will be… when I actually do sit down and write it but like aaaaah that’s for later me.

Anyway I just spent my morning drawing my silly little character,

Her arm is weird as hell but at 6:50 I didn’t want to re-do my draft and try to shove her hands to be visible in the pose because I like the look of her sitting there in a much more calmed rigid but relaxed pose (I usually draw her with her hands up in a surrender so I think having one of her hands behind her back in a very calm posing was a nice change of pace) but this is still Mercury (my oc I haven’t posted about in a while) and my oc fun fact that accompanied this post is that she is a bleach blonde and her hair is fried.

Anyway, Larry will be coming up but I was proud of my silly art and I was happy to finally draw someone with some form of background behind her. Do I know where she is? Of course not I just wanted to draw pillars because I had an excuse to make them a arch/doorway and I thought that was a nice little reference to Janus legacy stuff (forgot to draw her tattoo because she added onto it but I am not about to change the drawing again because I Finnicked with the colors of the lineart for WAY too long)

Maybe I’ll do bigger pictures like these for other characters- unlike my writing posts I make no promises.

Games played in Camp Jupiter

Covering smaller games that the kids have taken time to play, and the bigger official games, this post was going to be also a Camp Half-Blood one but really like… I just don’t talk about CHB lol.

When I mention something about actual Ancient Rome, take any and all my words with pinches of salt, I try to research a lot but for silly posts like this I cannot 100% confirm that my information is historically accurate. I am not historian:]

Camp Jupiter

Camp Jupiter takes their games seriously. Literally doesn’t matter the game, everyone get super riled up for the war games. Or you’d see the most competitive game of Yahtzee. Staring with the canon war games first, the ones mentioned are listed below,

Death ball; described as similar to paint ball, except wild- using things like various dangerous poisons, acids, and fireballs (however that may be) and is the most deadly. Canonically (as we get the only deathball match in Camp Jupiter classified) is played by launching the balls from mini manuballista, or smaller variants of a type of ancient Roman crossbow. We only get one paragraph explaining it then move on, I think that’s the nature of CJC and I honestly don’t care for it that much. Despite my confusion on how this game canonically is described, I’d like to say my own Hc I got when I first heard ‘Deathball’ in SoN. In my head it’s water balloon fight, dodgeball-esque. With all of the deadly things in these balls that break on contact. It probably is the newest war game after some Praetors in more modern times instated it. The game is very loose, you’re with your contubernium (A Contubernium is the smallest unit in the Roman military, close to modern squads and though they likely didn’t serve much purpose other than to boost morale and like group stuff in the legion I like thinking of them serving a slightly bigger purpose in my Camp Jupiter- more on that in the future) and the goal is probably to make it to a certain marker or something without loosing members or whatever. Because reminder, the war games are just practices of war skills that the legionnaires need to know and serve a purpose to train them and aren’t just silly little games. And as for a cherry on top Ancient Romans possibly played Dogeball akin games- (P.S Frank also mentions this one too but I just didn’t mention that)

Siege is the name of the game we see in SoN and I really don’t have many thoughts on Siege, think that maybe it’s a bit more organized and the cohorts have a lot more stratagem (my autocorrect just used stratagem and I’m not changing it) involved in it. War games are probably a like twice a month thing and are announced probably the week before(? Like the first week of the month the war game for next Friday is announced and then after that the next is announced for the last day of the month, idk tho) and cohorts are given more time to plan.

Gladiator battles; Frank mentions this once and then we move on with no further explanation. I’d think this (and chariot racing among other things) are played in New Rome, and it’s a bracket tournament style (sort of like how Wrestling meets work except also trying to narrow it down until all the matches funnel into one victor? Like those bracket things in like basketball or in the movies- idk) and should only have one victor like I said. Killing isn’t the name of the game in this iteration (they still need their legionnaires-) though injuries are very common and a few have died to it, but surprisingly has a pretty low death rate; probably because they have both camp medics and actual doctors from New Rome on site.

Chariot Racing; the other one that Frank mentions. Also in New Rome, worked roughly the same as in Rome. I don’t have many thoughts other than this shifts Camp a bit and (like from my skimming of some articles-) higher ranking legionnaires and higher ranking families like to have their own horse teams, certain legionnaires take interest in charioteering too. Two members from each cohort are possibly selected for the chariot racing (Two races occur every time, for the fun of it) and compete as usual.

Legionnaires when finally retiring from the legions often do like pursuing careers that correlate to was ancient Roman sports were like. There are leagues purely for different teams within New Rome, seeing as sports are very important (Also if including my silly little outposts hc, they also have their own teams and the leagues have their own stuff and it’s like sports-)

Now, I’m actually good with the list of canon war games and don’t have much more to add onto it, and therefore I wanna get into the smaller games that legionnaires on their own free time like playing,

Swimming; Legion-wide activity that legionnaires like taking part in, whether that is swimming in the little tiber, or in recreational parts of the bathhouse/bathhouses. Legionnaires from not New Rome like to introduce water games.

Boxing and wrestling are givens though they lean more ancient, no dying but the rules are a bit looser. Boxing gloves aren’t used and Camp opts for the traditional method of wrapping your hands with cloth or even just going bare knuckle if both parties agree to it. It’s recreational and not taken too seriously, though disputes sometimes are solved in any method of these smaller games (think duel esque but not actually dying)

Running events; stuff like foot races are really common in camp for freetime. Also doubles as crucial camp training for stamina and strength, plus tag has begun to be integrated too.

Soccer; American football hasn’t caught on too much but Soccer is shared between bother parties. Modern soccer and then New Rome’s soccer type, along with other ball games like rugby, and kickball.

Mythomagic; practically universal. Most New Rome kids grew up on it and will teach new legionnaires that don’t know. There’s a shop in New Rome that specializes in games.

Any type of Ancient Roman board games; there’s a lot and I don’t want to list all of them but this category. Most legionnaires grew up on them and play them with each other. Though it gets competitive.

Yahtzee; have I ever played Yahtzee? No. Do I know how to play Yahtzee? Also no. But it has dice in it and I feel like several Demigods made homemade Yahtzee and started playing.

Varying modern board games; some have caught on but all are mostly homemade except for a few that are from New Rome or families that live outside of New Rome sending them to active legionnaires. Things like monopoly are popular

Mafia; New Rome kids have run with it and it really is a good skill builder for their mind skills or whatever. (I put it in because I like Mafia and I don’t hear people talk about it.)

Note on a future update of the Camp Jupiter map, I have given up on drawing it- drawing it makes it 10x more confusing for me, I’ll just describe things and buildings and I’m honestly better at that. If anyone wants to tackle drawing it from any future descriptions I’d give them go ahead but for now I’ll stick to just describing it all with my delight rather than stressing myself over a map lol.

Also the gaming scene needs to come out with a rpg(?) game set in Ancient Rome with deep character customization, interesting story, and focuses more on the story than combat mechanics because I want that (think Pokémon or Hogwarts legacy esque) also a Pjo game that is similar to the games I mentioned, please I’d froth at the throat over it.

Anyway like I said this was supposed to include CHB games but like- I don’t know but I just.. don’t talk about CHB. I’m more motivated about Camp Jupiter and like talking about it more.

Also wanted to include my favorite board game (Ticket to Ride) in this but I sadly do not think it’s very popular in Camp Jupiter. Also I spitefully didn’t name Chess, but chess is probably played.

This!!

I feel like (Rick probably just forgot or didn’t bother-) but it very much could’ve been in New Rome? Separate from camp Military/religious things-

That there probably is a temple for Vesta separate to temple hill (which again- I wanna talk about in a separate post because the concept is just-) in New Rome because the Vestal Vrigins were important,

They took care of the hearth of the city from my quick skimming, they would be chosen before puberty so it’s not super far-fetched to assume they wouldn’t serve in the legion (They also had a bunch of other stuff too, and the Vestal’s had special privileges and it wouldn’t be wild to assume that these would translate to modern day with the priestesses not having to serve in the legion due to their important status) so I think to give the benefit of the doubt (genuinely forgot the saying so uh-) Rick probably just didn’t mention them because we didn’t see much of New Rome and its functions and whatever.

Why doesn't Camp Jupiter have a Temple for Vesta? And like Vestal Virgins? Wasn't it like super important in Rome-