The parts about child abuse (“spare the rod” BS) and convincing children they’re evil were horrific enough. But the part that stuck out to me was when the woman said she (as a 6 year old) excitedly showed her grandpa her school report that said “she has strong leadership skills” and the grandpa read it out loud to 500 members of the community. She thought he was doing it because he was proud, but that asshole said in front of everyone “we don’t want women like you.”

I can’t stop replaying the “we don’t want women like you” part in my head. Women and girls are expected to be submissive, obedient pets to the men in their lives. There’s just something about a grandfather saying that to his own little granddaughter that’s giving me chills all over.

In case anyone’s interested:

For some women, their abusers only take off the mask when they move in together.

For others, it's right after marriage.

For others, it's during the first pregnancy.

a ) if not Harry Potter’s phenomenal success, Percy Jackson should would not exist. Interest in children’s lit was almost non existent before HP.

b) While PJO is still an admittedly fine middle-school aged novel series, Heroes of Olympus is a shit series. Blood of Olympus has one the worst endings of all time, something literally agreed upon by the fan base when it came out. Trials of Olympus has never been widely read because of how bad it is. Pretending that he’s suddenly a great author is nonsensical.

c ) Riordan’s idea of diversity is writing shallow and stereotypical POC characters, who are nowhere as well developed as previous white ones. Leo Valdez, a 15 year old latino calls his (3000 year old) girlfriend mamacita.

d) Riordan uses Greco-Roman mythology as his basis for his series…and never once includes a main or even supporting ethnically Greek character despite setting his story in New York, which has one of the biggest Greek diasporas in the world.

The Harry Potter series is the best selling book series of all time, selling over 600 million copies. Sorcerer’s Stone is one of the best selling books of all time, for fuck’s sake. Seven books, eight movies, eight video games, hell, even a theme park. There’s a modified version of Quidditch as a real sport, and there have even been a few species of organisms named with references to her books.

Percy Jackson and the Olympians has sold 180 million copies, with the series having five books total. Movies based on the first two books were released in the early 2010s, with a third movie never actually coming. There’s a Disney TV series being planned out now, set to release next year.

But sure, tell me how Rick Riordan was better than JK Rowling all along.

Where do we all live?