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Sorry it took so long to get started. I had my college graduation ceremony, then I had to drive home, then I had to attend my sister's high school graduation ceremony (At least she got to have one; I graduated during the pandemic). Fortunately, I finally got a day where I could focus on drawing. I'll try to catch up in the next few days.

This comic is a few pages long. I'll upload a page of this every other day along with the rest of this series.

Anyway, I couldn't do this series without talking about Percy Jackson, or rather, Nico di Angelo. Remember, I did say I would talk about modern mythology adaptations along with canon myths. This comic contains spoilers, so if you haven't read all the mainline Percy Jackson books and want to, I suggest you leave and come back once you've read them.

Nico is undoubtedly an important character to many LGBTQ+ Percy Jackson fans. Not only is he the franchise's first canonically LGBTQ+ character (though certainly not the only one), but he's a gay character in a book series not specifically about the LGBTQ+ experience who isn't a one-dimensional "token gay" that adds nothing to the story aside from "diversity points". I'm not saying his representation is perfect (a straight author's gotta mess up somewhere), but even so, he's paved the way for more Riordanverse LGBTQ+ representation, and some have said he helped them figure out or feel more comfortable with their sexuality.

What I'm doing here is taking moments from various Percy Jackson books that relate to Nico's sexuality and showing how they relate to the general queer experience, from initial self-loathing to self-acceptance to finding a partner.

Now for some words about this page itself:

- One of my favorite things about Trials of Apollo was seeing Apollo in his mortal body pour his thoughts and feelings into songs when he couldn't express himself otherwise. That's something I highly relate to. I have trouble talking to people, and I prefer to express myself through writing, music, and art. It's what inspired me to have him narrate this comic in poem/song form.

Speaking of which, the whole "Or perhaps you wonder how I feel about him having a boyfriend..." bit is a reference to the first book, The Hidden Oracle, in which he says roughly the same thing after we find out Nico and Will are now a couple. Guess that was Rick Riordan's way of getting back at the people who freaked out when Nico admitted to having a crush on Percy. Looks like that's one advantage of being a demigod. Your god parent may not give you much attention, but at least they won't disown you for being gay (or, in Will's case, bisexual).

- Now that I think about it, I'm surprised a devout Christian woman like Maria di Angelo was willing to have sex with a man she wasn't married to twice. Then again, Athena doesn't have physical contact with any of her mortal loves, and we learn from Apollo that it's possible for gods to have children with same-sex partners, so maybe she and Hades somehow had children together without having sex. At least I hope that's what happened. The other option isn't so pleasant.

Wait...a god has a child with a virgin woman named Maria...does this mean Nico is Jesus?

- We learn in The Sun and the Star that Nico was initially afraid to admit he's gay because when he was eight, a kid in his class stopped hanging out with him after he said Ares looked pretty on a Mythomagic card. I'm surprised his conservative Catholic upbringing or the time period he was born in didn't factor into it, but I guess at that age, that's what would've resonated with him the most.

I actually like the backstory we got more than Nico being bullied for being gay or told by an adult that it's wrong. It's more nuanced. Henry Whittaker probably just didn't know gay people were a thing (this was the late 30s to early 40s, after all) and didn't know what to think of Nico. Still, his reaction affected Nico in a way he couldn't even imagine.

This story actually resonates with me in my own way. For me, it doesn't really relate to my sexuality; as an aseuxal person, the worst I've gotten are ignorant comments and insensitive questions. Rather, well, as an autistic person, I used to be more open about my special interests, but then people would snap at me for talking about them nonstop (when I was in 4th or 5th grade, some kid refused to sit next to me on the bus because I talked about Pokémon too much), and now I'm afraid to talk about them, aside from expressing them through art, like I'm doing here (Percy Jackson and Rick Riordan's other books are my current special interest).

Now that I think about it, it also resonates with me in a LGBTQ+-related way. I've been questioning if I'm nonbinary lately, meanwhile most of my family members don't accept that as a valid gender identity. They think it's a fad, or it's stupid, or whatever. I just know if I tell my parents, my grandma, or even my brother about it, they'll think I'm being "influenced by the woke mob", or whatever.

I think I've said enough. I'll see you all around and hopefully upload more in the next few days.