Camille

“because any future that had us in it was a future I wanted to live through.”
― Rick Riordan, The Chalice of the Gods

“Then why should I be any different? Doing the right thing isn’t about accolades or recognition.” “Then why do it at all?” he asked, wanting to hear her answer. She flushed, picking at a loose string on the robe. She was embarrassed, but powered through it. “You do it because maybe someone will see and do the same for another, and then that person will help someone else.”
― T.J. Klune, Somewhere Beyond the Sea

“To all the Nicos, Wills, Pipers, and everyone in between: this is for you. May you shine as bright as the sun and the stars.”
― Rick Riordan, The Sun and the Star

“Nico di Angelo wasn’t physically imposing like Sherman Yang. He didn’t have Reyna Ramírez-Arellano’s air of authority, or Hazel Levesque’s commanding presence when she charged into battle on horseback. But Nico wasn’t someone I would ever want as an enemy. He was deceptively quiet. He appeared anemic and frail. He kept himself on the periphery. But Will was right about how much Nico had been through. He had been born in Mussolini’s Italy. He had survived decades in the time-warp reality of the Lotus Casino. He’d emerged in modern times disoriented and culture-shocked, arrived at Camp Half-Blood, and promptly lost his sister Bianca to a dangerous quest. He had wandered the Labyrinth in self-imposed exile, being tortured and brainwashed by a malevolent ghost. He’d overcome everyone’s distrust and emerged from the Battle of Manhattan as a hero. He’d been captured by giants during the rise of Gaea. He’d wandered Tartarus alone and somehow managed to come out alive. And through it all, he’d struggled with his upbringing as a conservative Catholic Italian male from the 1930s and finally learned to accept himself as a young gay man. Anyone who could survive all that had more resilience than Stygian iron.”
― Rick Riordan, The Tower of Nero