doesn't that blind spot bother you? that giant stain all over the glass, obstructing your gaze. not that the world changed much since... but it's still something. worth looking at, worth smiling about, maybe even worth going out to investigate. let's make a deal. you get those clean and shiny, and i'll paint what opens to your eyes.
Someone please tell me why I spent so much time , and put in so much effort , into finding an Octavian fc only to fucking suddenly remember I have icons already. Of him. From the COMICS.
Like Meg, his biological family was killed by Nero and he was taken in by the god emperor
Only he was blood related to the emperor. Distantly, very distantly, but it was relation enough and would grow up considered his son, and being a descendant of Apollo with the gift of future sight made Nero very interested in securing the young boy to his side.
The two-sidedness of Nero would cause Octavian to learn fast what strings to pull, how to pull them, and when to pull them. He learned as a defense against Nero, to play the abuser. He would grow into a manipulative bastard focused solely on himself in order to survive, as going with the flow would get you drowned.
Got to New Rome at age 11 and was more than thankful about it. With his father pulling strings behind the scenes, he had reached political positions in New Rome at a strikingly young age, but he succeeded at his positions.
When his powers went haywire, he essentially lost it. While he wasn’t a heroic, pure, knight in shining armor figure before, his paranoia fueled delusions caught up to him. While he was once an alright guy who just knew how and when to play his cards to turn a situation favorable for himself, who definitely had flaws galore, he became obsessed with his powers, as Nero always held high emphasis on it and how that gift would be so powerful to use, became obsessed with the idea of everyone turning against him- being roman through and through and related to emperors, it was a fear almost written into his DNA. Every ounce of fear he held consumed him when he could no longer see what the future held in store.
He survives the onager thing. Yeah that was dumb. Nobody can find his corpse so they assume he died, and he did for a short time, but Nero had made a deal with Mania and Libitina to bring him back once - and only once. No more after the deal had ended, but one resurrection was all he needed.
when you bump your hip against the table corner, it hurts bad. when you press your stubborn fingertips to that bruise the size of a cherry, it hurts even worse. post factum, there's less thought of the incident; it's all about the day the pain fades away to a nil. each layer of gauze is another square crossed off the calendar. would you like some help with those bandages?
My vision must have been better than the average mortal’s, because I saw the glowing sign first - a light shining above Meg’s head.
When I recognized the symbol, my heart turned to lead. I hated what I saw, but I thought I should point it out. “Look.”
The others seemed confused. Then the glow became brighter: a holographic golden sickle with a few sheaves of wheat, rotating just above Meg McCaffrey.
A boy in the crowd gasped. “She’s a communist!”
It’s been two years since The Hidden Oracle was released and this scene is still unreasonably funny to me. I just bought the third The Burning Maze so now I’m catching up on the rest of the series to refresh my memory on what happened so far :’D
I absolutely love this series. It’s equal parts heart wrenching and hilarious, and reminds me why I love the PJO universe so much. (HoO did not really do it for me. Sorry, folks) I think I’m gonna do more of these scene redraws (?) as I go through the books~
jacobvanloon
tangentwithtanner
pixelskylines
andulkaphoto
