by Daisy Solace

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It’s 2013. I’m 11, living in Saudi Arabia, and anticipating House of Hades’s release with bated breath, counting down the days. It’s all I talk about, my best friend is getting sick of me. I’m insufferable, and I like it. I haven’t been into Percy Jackson for very long — just about a month by this point, but it’s found its space in my head and settled there.

As a kid who had always felt ALONEALONEALONEalonealonealone, it’s nice to read about a boy who’d changed schools so much that he has no friends, except for the one whose job it is to protect him. It’s nice to read about a boy who knows the truth: that the best people have the rottenest luck. It’s nice to read about a boy who, despite this, fights. After rows upon rows of pleasant protagonists, there’s a certain level of solace (pun intended) in Percy Jackson. He’s not easy. He’s not agreeable. He’s angry, rowdy, and, as Percy would come to say in the musical, impertinent. As a fellow impertinent child, I’m delighted.

The book is released. Women aren’t allowed to drive in Saudi Arabia, so I have to wait for my father to get home. He’s barely made it two steps in through the door before I’m begging to be driven to the bookstore. I read it as soon as we get home. At the book’s halfway point, my brain breaks. Nico di Angelo is gay. Nico di Angelo is gay. How could Nico di Angelo, son of Hades, be gay??? Nico di Angelo is not in love with Annabeth, he’s in love with Percy Jackson (get in line, so is everyone else).

In the scene where we learn of it, Nico is forcibly outed by Cupid in front of Jason, who he’s not particularly close to at this point. It’s written from Jason’s point of view. It’s 12:30 AM, and as I read this scene for the first time, my hands are shaking so violently that I can hardly hold the book up. Jason is going to hate him. Jason is going to hate him. Jason is going to hate him. “If the others found out”, Jason said, — I can’t breathe. I am going to cry. Cupid has outed Nico, and he is stuck here alone with Jason, who is going to leave him here to die — “you’d have that many more people to back you up, and to release the fury of the gods on anybody who gives you trouble.” My breath catches in my lungs, and the world has shifted. This can happen. This is a possibility. Jason is okay with it. I haven’t finished the book yet, but I flip back a few pages and reread it. Again. And again. Something is stirring within me, and I feel as though I’m being watched, as though the book knows about the lingering glances and rapid heartbeat and wistful thoughts and her. As though the book is telling me through Jason, that good is out there.

The book receives massive backlash. Parental groups call it perverted and disgusting, encouraging immoral lifestyles for our children. How could Nico di Angelo, son of Hades, be gay? In the two days between when I read the book and when I read the reviews, I’m decades wiser. He just can, I know. He just can, and Jason is okay with it. They’re baffled at how this childrens’ book, which features themes of domestic violence, death, the afterlife, abandonment, and trauma — feature something as dark and disturbing as a tiny, anemic, gay kid who uses Happy Meals to raise the dead. It’s the gay part they have a problem with, not the resurrection part, just to be clear.

I find reprieve only on Tumblr, where people are losing their minds as much as I am — in a positive way. I learn: find your people and stick with them. There’s a few Jasons in the world, but Jason is the exception, not the rule. Find your Jasons, and don’t tell anyone else. My world is smaller now that I’m starting to accept the realities of my head and my heart, but it’s ok. It’s small, but it’s okay. I’m just glad to have any Jasons in my life at all.

It’s 2023, and I’m 21, currently in Duluth, Georgia. It’s a Thursday, and my friend and I have just gotten out of the car from a long road trip. We finished our first year of graduate school last week. It’s been nearly ten years, and my world is slightly less small. I’ve accepted myself, my friends know, I’ve even dated a few people. The Sun and The Star book tour is what brought us here. Nico and his boyfriend are the main characters. I haven’t received my copy yet, but I already know it’s going to be incredible. Our hotel room overlooks the convention center, and I stare out the window at it. This isn’t happening. This isn’t happening. This isn’t happening.

“I’m going to start getting ready,” my friend says, and I’m snapped back into the present. I put on my glittery gold eyeshadow, black lipstick, Camp Half-Blood t-shirt, necklace, Nico pin, and bomber jacket.

We get to the convention center an hour early and get seats way up front, but all the way off to the side. Most rows have ten seats, but ours only has three. We take two of them, and one is empty. My hands are shaking so violently that I can hardly hold the shirt that we’ve gotten for the tour. I look around. The room is full of kids accompanied by their parents. The parents seem almost as excited as the kids are, and I don’t know whether I’m nearly crying out of relief or jealousy. A parent asks their child to pose in front of the poster. A parent points out a seat closer to the front and sends their child to sit closer so they can see better — they’ll meet up again after the event, they promise. A parent behind us comments that she’s excited to read more about Will in this book, since we don’t know much about him yet. I have to set the shirt down.

About half an hour before the show starts, the empty seat is filled by a girl around our age. We’re a bit awkward, sitting in silence. We should probably say something, right? We should say something, she’s probably more awkward than we are, considering that she’s alone.

“It’s nice to see all these kids out here,” I say. She looks up from her phone at me. “I mean, my parents would never have brought me out to an event like this when I was a kid. It’s nice that parents are being supportive. Though I guess it’ll be interesting to see how many people walk out when they realize what it’s about.” I laugh awkwardly. I think I’m joking, but I’m not entirely sure.

She smiles at me, but it’s tense. “My parents would never have brought me out here either,” she says. “They don’t even know I’m here now. But that’s the good part about being 23. I can drive myself here.”

We talk, but my world is still small, covered tightly in barbed wire. This is a book event for a book about Nico and his boyfriend, I remind myself. I can dare to be vulnerable. “You know,” I say to the girl and my friend, “Nico is the whole reason I realized I was queer in the first place.”

There’s a moment of silence, and it’s as though Cupid is spitting at me again. Tell them, Nico di Angelo. The girl beams, smile wide and relaxed. She laughs. “Really? That’s so funny, because the whole Percy Jackson series is the whole reason I met my girlfriend.” We become friends fast.

Uncle Rick isn’t the only one who wrote this book. It was co-written by Mark Oshiro, another very queer person who grew up as a Percy Jackson nerd and former(ish) emo. They both walk up on stage. Mark slumps down across the comfy chairs on stage, swinging their legs over the arm of the chair. “These really are the least homophobic chairs,” they say, and the whole room laughs.

I look around. Nobody is leaving. The presentations begin. “His boyfriend” is said. Nobody is leaving. “Will is bisexual.” is said. Nobody is leaving. Mark makes a joke about their gender. Nobody is leaving. Mark comments on wanting a himbo gay monster in the book. Nobody is leaving. My glances are flitting constantly between the door and the stage, and nobody is leaving, and I can’t fathom it. Parents are utterly casual about the whole affair, and the whole time, my head is screaming at me that the world has been turned upside down, because how could Jason ever say that it’s okay?

The event ends after an hour. We all cheer. The girl next to me offers to take us to dinner, and we agree. As we’re leaving, my eyes drift across the room, noticing details I hadn’t before. Pride pins and rainbow skulls, a parent with the words ALLY DAD emblazoned across his t-shirt. Kids gush about Nico and his boyfriend, and parents listen, with the joy of being in a space where they know their child is safe to talk about the parts of their lives that they themselves may not have been able to share with anyone when they were young.

I haven’t cried yet, but it’s only because I’m in public. I get home the next day. My mother asks me why I’m so in my head. I don’t tell her that I’m stuck reliving the event again and again as my brain struggles to slot into place the new reality of the world. “I just don’t understand why you’re so emotional over a book,” she says.

“It’s okay,” I say, and this time it’s honest, “I don’t need you to understand.”

I check the reviews, it sits at 4.3 stars, and the only complaints stem from the writing style. I search for homophobic comments, and I only find one. The commenter is torn to shreds in the reply.

I lock myself in my room later that night, to sob and sob, until I have no tears left, and it’s because it’s just so nice to know that the world is different now. It’s not perfect, certainly not, with the current laws being passed. But it’s a negative side effect of something beautiful — queerness is talked about now. It’s seen. It’s known. There are some people who haven’t learnt what I learnt at age 11, that it’s okay, but most people understand. Most people are kind. Most people bring their children to queer events to hear a queer author talk. Most people wear pride pins or ALLY DAD shirts. Most people read what Jason said and they are not surprised. They don’t think, “Thank gods. Thank gods.” They think “I’m glad Jason wasn’t a jerk to Nico.”

I think about it often, with the ten-year anniversary of the book approaching at the time of writing this essay, and it never fails to make me smile. If you’re younger than I am, reading this, you’re probably thinking that the homophobia I experienced was limited to Saudi Arabia, but I promise you it’s not, and I’m beyond relieved to know that it’s difficult for kids nowadays to imagine a time not so far ago where queer representation in popular media was limited to gay jokes and Nico di Angelo, where the majority of the world was not full of Jasons, where wearing a pride pin in public was a surefire way to get hurt. It’s easy to get caught up in the worst of the world, and in an imperfect world, terrible things are easy to find. It’s important to call these out, don’t get me wrong, but it’s worth remembering that the world today is a lot more aware and open to queer people than it used to be.

Almost everyone with Netflix watches Heartstopper. Nobody bats an eye at queer characters. Celebrities and pop stars are openly queer. Male singers kiss on stage, and the world doesn’t stop to berate them.

I hope it means good things. I hope it means that people growing up now have a much bigger world than I do, and that they don’t feel the need to wrap it up in barbed wire. I hope it means that they can sit in a room full of queer people, and experience queer joy together. I hope it means that they read the scene with Nico and Cupid and Jason and their hands don’t shake, because it’s never occurred to them that Jason would say anything other than what he did. The world is better now than it was ten years ago, though it may not feel like it at face value, and I can only dream that in another ten years, things will be even better.

© Daisy Solace

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Daisy is a queer, Muslim woman who loves all things sunny, glittery, and unabashedly cringe. She’s had poetry published in several literary magazines, as well as two short stories and an essay. She also has a chapbook published through Bottlecap Press.

You can find her on Twitter @daisy_solace.

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