Dear Senator __,

More concerning info on the RESTRICT Act, including that it can be expanded to other countries.

Folks, what the Senate voted on was the cloture for KOSA. It's like a prelude, their way of deciding TO vote on it soon. Those many Democrat votes don't even represent whether they would vote for KOSA itself.

It still sucks, but I'm not letting anyone believe it fully passed yet and declare 'DoOm! Time to get the VPNs'. You can still fight this. Call, email, fax (that would really annoy the hell out of them) your senators and representatives.

There. Is. A. Chance.

Keep. Making. Noise!

Fight for the Future

Stop KOSA

KOSA is a censorship bill that won’t make kids safe. Instead, it'll put all internet users at risk, especially youth. If you believe in a fr

t.co

Stop KOSA! Contact Your Representatives!

The Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) represents yet another legislative threat to queer people and to the privacy rights of people online. The

act.eff.org

Tell the House: KOSA Will Censor the Internet But Won't Help Kids

The Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) would censor the internet and would make government officials the arbiters of what young people can see on

I know I'm basic but I love them too much

Tim Harley

He's 20 years

His name is Tim but his friends call him Brody

He listens to a lot of underground music but will listen to the distillers

He lives with his uncle who is a mechanic as his dad Dallas was an abusive piece of shit to him and his grandparents often joined in on the beatings before CPS got involved when he was 5 and after pulling a gun on the case worker was sentenced to five years and he now lives with his uncle

He's bisexual and has crush on Mark. Of course Mark shares same feelings as him

He has lots of tattoos of his favorite bands and horror movies

He’s actually more traditional punk like what Matthew Lillard wears during slc punk

And I can totally see Tim helping his uncle as mechanic

And his cousin Sidney who’s five but she loves his punk style and of course he protects her

Tim often takes Sidney to punk concerts and she enjoys them

And they love watching horror movies but his uncle makes Tim take her to Disney princess movies instead but they go to horror movies instead

He’s very tall like around 6’2-6’5 and that’s pretty intimidating to most ppl

And I can totally see Tim helping his uncle as mechanic

And of course while they live in a shitty neighborhood he still beats the shit out of the rich kids who wanna talk shit

Oh yes and luna loves babysitting Sidney.

His favorite bands are X-ray Spex, the distillers, Green Day and the offspring

Tim got a new Chevy that his uncle fixed up for him on his birthday and Tim now loves that car

He and Luna get along cause their the only alt people who know what it’s like to be an outcast

His uncle has a very scary Doberman who hates anyone who isn’t the family

Oh but since Tim introduced luna to his uncle his dog started to like her. Also Tim likes to play guitar

He’s in a band and they usually play at music bars where his friends play and he plays guitar and is the lead singer

Idea for character and headcanons goes to @peachyfuck18

Here is a link to the US Restrict Act (commonly known as the TikTok ban) as it is currently written.

Please read the actual bill and share even if you do not live in the United States. The precedents this piece of legislation would set would have far reaching impacts on how the internet is used for everyone in the future.

congress.gov

Text - S.686 - 118th Congress (2023-2024): RESTRICT Act

Text for S.686 - 118th Congress (2023-2024): RESTRICT Act

Horror icons + girly media

Did I slay

Edit:

For all the people in my last post about Percy Jackson saying “oh wick wiordan a white man is twying!!!!!!😫😫😫😫😭😭😭🥺🥺🥺🥺

As a Muslim girl, I feel obligated to let people know what I think about Rick Riordan’s post about Samirah. Don’t add on unless you’re a Muslim or Iraqi, because if you aren’t you don’t get to decide how Muslims should be represented.

Like many of my characters, Samirah was inspired by former students of mine. Over the course of my middle school teaching career, I worked with dozens of Muslim students and their families, representing the expanse of the Muslim world and both Shia and Sunni traditions. One of my most poignant memories about the September 11, 2001, attack of the World Trade Center was when a Muslima student burst into tears when she heard the news – not just because it was horrific, but also because she knew what it meant for her, her family, her faith. She had unwillingly become an ambassador to everyone she knew who, would have questions about how this attack happened and why the perpetrators called themselves “Muslim.” Her life had just become exponentially more difficult because of factors completely beyond her control. It was not right. It was not fair. And I wasn’t sure how to comfort or support her.

You’re saying that you based Samirah off middle school students. Students who are scrutinized by others because of their religion and desperate to fit in. When I was in seventh grade, I did my best to act like everyone else and not be alienated. Middle school students are not a reliable source. Also, why would you bring up 9/11 in the first paragraph? You literally said that you associate that traumatic event with Muslims.

During the following years, I tried to be especially attuned to the needs of my Muslim students. I dealt with 9/11 the same way I deal with most things: by reading and learning more. When I taught world religions in social studies, I would talk to my Muslim students about Islam to make sure I was representing their experience correctly. They taught me quite a bit, which eventually contributed to my depiction of Samirah al-Abbas. As always, though, where I have made mistakes in my understanding, those mistakes are wholly on me.

One again, these are middle school students. They aren’t the most reliable source, especially since I’m pretty sure at that age most of them don’t know as much about Islam as adults. I used to go to my mom a lot with questions about Islam.

What did I read for research? I have read five different English interpretations of the Qur’an. (I understand the message is inseparable from the original Arabic, so it cannot be considered ‘translated’). I have read the entirety of the Sahih Bukhari and Sahih Muslim hadith collections. I’ve read three biographies of Prophet Muhammed (peace be upon him) and well over a dozen books about the history of Islam and modern Islam. I took a six-week course in Arabic. (I was not very good at it, but I found it fascinating). I fasted the month of Ramadan in solidarity with my students. I even memorized some of the surahs in Arabic because I found the poetry beautiful. (They’re a little rusty now, I’ll admit, but I can still recite al-Fātihah from memory.) I also read some anti-Islamic screeds written in the aftermath of 9/11 so I would understand what those commenters were saying about the religion, and indirectly, about my students. I get mad when people attack my students.

The fact that you can recite Surah Al-Fatihah doesn’t change the fact that you are still an outsider. You’re a white man, and you can’t claim to understand the Quran and Islam without consulting other Muslims or scholars.

When preparing to write Samirah’s background, I drew on all of this, but also read many stories on Iraqi traditions and customs in particular and the experiences of immigrant families who came to the U.S. I figured out how Samirah’s history would intertwine with the Norse world through the medieval writer Ahmad ibn Fadhlan, her distant ancestor and one of the first outsiders to describe the Vikings in writing.  I knew Samirah would be a ferocious brave fighter who always stood for what was right. She would be an excellent student who had dreams of being an aviator. She would have a complicated personal situation to wrestle with, in that she’s a practicing Muslim who finds out Valhalla is a real place. Odin and Thor and Loki are still around. How do you reconcile that with your faith? Not only that, but her mom had a romance with Loki, who is her dad. Yikes.

You - a white man - don’t have the right to try and convey a Muslim’s struggle without even getting a Muslim to read over it and give you feedback. You have no way of knowing if it’s accurate or not.

(Side note: in your Piper article, you admitted you didn’t use sensitivity readers when writing her. You even tried to justify is by saying you hadn’t even heard of the term in 2009, but the Magnus Chase books were started in 2015. Couldn’t you have used sensitivity readers then?)

Thankfully, the feedback from Muslim readers over the years to Samirah al-Abbas has been overwhelmingly positive. I have gotten so many letters and messages online from young fans, talking about how much it meant to them to see a hijabi character portrayed in a positive light in a ‘mainstream’ novel.

You’ve gotten positive feedback because we’re desperate for representation. I was 11 when I first read about Sam and I was so happy to finally see a Muslim character! And now when I reread it, I can’t believe how badly you represented us.

Some readers had questions, sure! The big mistake I will totally own, and which I have apologized for many times, was my statement that during the fasting hours of Ramadan, bathing (i.e. total immersion in water) was to be avoided. This was advice I had read on a Shia website when I myself was preparing to fast Ramadan. It is advice I followed for the entire month. Whoops! The intent behind that advice, as I understood it, was that if you totally immersed yourself during daylight hours, you might inadvertently get some water between your lips and invalidate your fast. But, as I have since learned, that was simply one teacher’s personal opinion, not a widespread practice. We have corrected this detail (which involved the deletion of one line) in future editions, but as I mentioned in my last post, you will still find it in copies since the vast majority of books are from the first printing.

Okay so I’m not a Shia Muslim so I don’t think I have enough knowledge on this subject but I would recommend reading this

Another question was about Samirah’s wearing of the hijab. To some readers, she seemed cavalier about when she would take it off and how she would wear it. It’s not my place to be prescriptive about proper hijab-wearing. As any Muslim knows, the custom and practice varies greatly from one country to another, and from one individual to another. I can, however, describe what I have seen in the U.S., and Samirah’s wearing of the hijab reflects the practice of some of my own students, so it seemed to be within the realm of reason for a third-generation Iraqi-American Muslima. Samirah would wear hijab most of the time — in public, at school, at mosque. She would probably but not always wear it in Valhalla, as she views this as her home, and the fallen warriors as her own kin. This is described in the Magnus Chase books. I also admit I just loved the idea of a Muslima whose hijab is a magic item that can camouflage her in times of need.

Once again, your students are in middle school. Stop justifying what you wrote by saying you based Sam off students who are still in middle school.

Another thing - There’s no reasoning behind who Sam shows her hair to. One day she’ll cover it up around others and the next she’ll show her hair to the same people. Yes, people do this, my cousin, for example, but you need to explain it. You can’t just stick it in there and not expand on her reasoning.

By saying that she wears her hijab most of the time, you’re portraying Sam as a hijabi, but then you say that she doesn’t wear it in Valhalla because she views it as her home, and the fallen warriors (aka her best friends, some acquaintances/co-workers, and a bunch of strangers) as her kin just because they’re fallen warriors. That’s not how it works. If you’re a hijabi, you wear your hijab around everyone except for a certain group of people. Is it really so necessary to show what her hair looks like to the audience? Why can’t you just leave her hair alone?

Also, @kazbrekkerrs​ made a good point about how the purpose of the hijab is to hide her hair, which you take away from her, but then you conveniently use it to hide her from the eyes of other’s for plot…okay. Sure. No irony there at all.

As for her betrothal to Amir Fadhlan, only recently have I gotten any questions about this. My understanding from my readings, and from what I have been told by Muslims I know, is that arranged marriages are still quite common in many Muslim countries (not just Muslim countries, of course) and that these matches are sometimes negotiated by the families when the bride-to-be and groom-to-be are quite young. Prior to writing Magnus Chase, one of the complaints I often heard or read from Muslims is how Westerners tend to judge this custom and look down on it because it does not accord with Western ideas. Of course, arranged marriages carry the potential for abuse, especially if there is an age differential or the woman is not consulted. Child marriages are a huge problem. The arrangement of betrothals years in advance of the marriage, however, is an ancient custom in many cultures, and those people I know who were married in this way have shared with me how glad they were to have done it and how they believe the practice is unfairly villainized.

Okay, first of all - Sam was betrothed when she was 12, which as completely wrong religiously. It doesn’t matter what country you come from, that’s not how it works. A marriage in Islam can not happen unless both people consent, and 12 is not a good age for that. Even if you didn’t want to be married you’d say yes because you don’t want to displease anyone and because you probably think the adults know more about this than you.

My idea with Samirah was to flip the stereotype of the terrible abusive arranged match on its head, and show how it was possible that two people who actually love each other dearly might find happiness through this traditional custom when they have families that listen to their concerns and honor their wishes, and want them to be happy. Amir and Samirah are very distant cousins, yes. This, too, is hardly unusual in many cultures. They will not actually marry until they are both adults. But they have been betrothed since childhood, and respect and love each other. If that were not the case, my sense is that Samirah would only have to say something to her grandparents, and the match would be cancelled. Again, most of the comments I have received from Muslim readers have been to thank me for presenting traditional customs in a positive rather than a negative light, not judging them by Western standards. In no way do I condone child marriage, and that (to my mind) is not anywhere implied in the Magnus Chase books.

Stop. Stop. As a white man you have no right to try and “flip” the stereotype. You have no idea what that situation is like and more than that, you just contributed to the stereotype that all Muslims have arranged marriages.

And also - “they’ll only be married when they turn 18″. Nobody gets married that young anymore. It’s literally unheard of by now, except in places where they literally marry off toddlers. People usually get betrothed when they’re in their twenties.

“They’ve been betrothed since childhood” - exactly. They were both too young to really consent, and the fact that a white man - who, no matter how much research he’s done, remains an outsider to my religion - is trying to tell me that that’s okay is terrible.

Finally, recently someone on Twitter decided to screenshot a passage out-of-context from Ship of the Deadwhere Magnus hears Samirah use the phrase “Allahu Akbar,” and the only context he has ever heard it in before was in news reports when some Western reporter would be talking about a terrorist attack. Here is the passage in full:

Samirah: “My dad may have power over me because he’s my dad. But he’s not the biggest power. Allahu akbar.”

I knew that term, but I’d never heard Sam use it before. I’ll admit it gave me an instinctive jolt in the gut. The news media loved to talk about how terrorists would say that right before they did something horrible and blew people up. I wasn’t going to mention that to Sam. I imagined she was painfully aware.

She couldn’t walk the streets of Boston in her hijab most days without somebody screaming at her to go home, and (if she was in a bad mood) she’d scream back, “I’m from Dorchester!”

“Yeah,” I said. “That means God is great, right?”

Sam shook her head. “That’s a slightly inaccurate translation. It means God is greater.”

“Than what?”

“Everything. The whole point of saying it is to remind yourself that God is greater than whatever you are facing—your fears, your problems, your thirst, your hunger, your anger.

337-338

To me, this is Samirah educating Magnus, and through him the readers, about what this phrase actually means and the religious significance it carries. I think the expression is beautiful and profound. However, like a lot of Americans, Magnus has grown up only hearing about it in a negative context from the news. For him to think: “I had never heard that phrase, and it carried absolutely no negative connotations!” would be silly and unrealistic. This is a teachable moment between two characters, two friends who respect each other despite how different they are. Magnus learns something beautiful and true about Samirah’s religion, and hopefully so do the readers. If that strikes you as Islamophobic in its full context, or if Samirah seems like a hurtful stereotype … all I can say is I strongly disagree.

I actually don’t have a problem with this. The reasoning behind it, in my opinion, is fine, and I liked this moment in the books a lot (then again, I might be wrong, so feel free to correct me, but only if you’re also a Muslim). That last line, though…you shouldn’t have written that. You don’t get to decide if something is Islamophobic or not, Rick.

Anyways, this is messy and and probably doesn’t make sense but I’m tired and can’t be bothered to add more or elaborate on any of these points. Obviously, I don’t speak for every single Muslim, but these are my opinions. Once again, feel free to add on or correct me, but only if you’re a Muslim as well.

BLOW UP YOUR SENATORS PHONES THIS WEEK GUYS!!

WE JUST NEED ONE SENATOR TO OBJECT!

WE CAN DO THIS; WE CAN STOP KOSA!!!

REBLOG TO SPREAD AWARENESS!!!

So tonight i played borderlands 1 remaster past midnight, checked socials and... kosa has passed its senate committee vote with 86-1. Yes committee, not a full senate vote despite what i was lead to believe from the words of others. Apologies for that. So despite this news, there is still time to stop this, we just need to work hard to resist it.

The bill has not reached the finish line, it only a passed a checkpoint. We can still turn it around.

I'll see you all tomorrow..

Fight for the Future

Stop KOSA

KOSA is a censorship bill that won’t make kids safe. Instead, it'll put all internet users at risk, especially youth. If you believe in a fr

Fight for the Future

Bad Internet Bills

All of the bad internet bills. One website.