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Following my tribute to Rick Riordan's first non-heterosexual character with a tribute to his first non-cisgender character: the genderfluid and transgender Alex Fierro!

Since Alex doesn't use they/them and identifies as female most of the time, I will use she/her pronouns except when discussing parts of the books where Alex is male. Oh, and in case you're confused about how Alex can be both genderfluid and transgender, aside from genderfluid being part of the trans umbrella, I believe that's how. Alex identifies as female most of the time while being heavily implied, though not explicitly stated, to be AMAB but sometimes has "very male days".

Like the Nico comic, this highlights moments from the books, in this case, the Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard series, and discusses how they were handled and how they relate to the general trans experience. Unlike the Nico comic, this isn't a poem. If you have not read the entire Magnus Chase trilogy and want to, I suggest you step away, as this contains spoilers. Now, let's talk about the comic itself:

- I absolutely had to include a tribute to Percy Jackson's Greek Gods, as it's the first Rick Riordan book I ever read. My sister happened to get a copy of it as a gift, and I borrowed it from her and absolutely fell in love with the mythology and the snarky, sarcastic humor. Later, my brother got the sequel, Percy Jackson's Greek Heroes as a birthday gift, and I ate that up too. The books were a gateway into a past special interest in Greek mythology and inspired me to read both Percy Jackson and the Olympians and Heroes of Olympus when I had no interest in them before.

Anyway, this is an actual line, albeit probably not word-for-word, from the chapter Dionysus Conquers the World With a Refreshing Beverage. As a 13-year-old who didn't understand or care much about trans people, I didn't appreciate that line much. It didn't bother me, and I certainly didn't freak out about "the woke leftist rainbow alphabet agenda ruining my media", but it didn't resonate with me either. I was there to read about Salmoneus doing a bad Zeus impression with a chicken chariot and Ares wearing GI Joe boxer shorts.

Nowadays, I find the line strangely heartwarming. It's a nice, little nod to trans readers, saying, "I see you", before Riordan went all out with Alex Fierro. It's also nice that Percy, while being snarky, sarcastic, and all around "Persassy" throughout the book, is able to bring up an experience that isn't his and that he probably doesn't fully understand and treat it with respect. He doesn't follow this up with some stupid "attack helicopter" joke. Yes, I know he's a fictional character, but still.

- Here's Mr. D., with his diet Coke and Seymour the mounted leopard head. Wait...would this be like human Dionysus having a mounted human head? Let's not think about that. Normally, he's always grumpy and hates demigods, but he's still a patron to trans people, including trans demigods, Greek or otherwise.

- Like I said, Alex is heavily implied to be AMAB, hence baby Alex being wrapped in a blue blanket. It's worth noting, Rick Riordan's Loki is also genderfluid, in line with his ability to shift between male and female forms. He's even Alex's biological mother, rather than her father. Even so, he wouldn't have known at this age whether or not Alex would grow up to be genderfluid. It's sort of implied that Alex inherited her gender fluidity from Loki, similarly to how Percy and other Greek demigods tend to have dyslexia and ADHD, but Alex's half-sister, Samirah al-Abbas, is also a child of Loki, and she's a cis girl, so obviously not all of Loki's demigod children are genderfluid. At least Loki won't judge his children for being transgender, though both Alex and Samirah dislike him for other reasons.

- Alex is a pottery enthusiast, with pottery having been in her family for generations. Her abuelo not only accepted her as genderfluid but introduced her to duality statues, statues of heads or faces split into two halves, believed to have represented two spirits in a single body. Her father, on the other hand, was not supportive at all and never even loved her to begin with.

- Bigotry comes up a lot in the Magnus Chase series. Hearthstone's parents hated him for being deaf, since elves are perfectionists, and Hearth's deafness was seen as an imperfection. Samirah deals with Islamophobia; people often tell her to "go home". Thomas "TJ" Jefferson Jr. lived as a black person during the Civil War era and grew up in slavery. And, of course, Alex deals with transphobia.

Alex talks about how her father refused to accept her identity and claimed Loki was planting ideas in her head. I love that the series addresses this. Too many parents refuse to accept that their child could legitimately be some form of LGBTQ+. If you're straight and cis, you're valid, but if you're anything else, "you're too young", "it's just a phase", "you're being influenced", "you're just trying to get attention", and whatever else.

The series also addresses LGBTQ+ youth being disowned by their families, not just through Alex but also through Magnus, who lived as a homeless teen before being brought to Valhalla, talking about how he knew many homeless transgender and nonbinary teens. "Nothing says 'tough love' like kicking your non-heteronormative kid to the curb, where they can experience abuse, drugs, high suicide rates, and constant physical danger. Thanks, Mom and Dad!"

- Speaking of high suicide rates, Alex mentions having had a friend, possibly more than a friend, named Adrian, who committed suicide. My theory is that Adrian, like Alex, was trans and was disowned for it by his family. Or, if not trans, at least LGBTQ+ in some form, given that he possibly had a romantic relationship with a genderfluid person.

That's all for now.