This sucks
XD
Avril Lavigne-Bite Me
CORPSE-MISA MISA!
Haunted-Laura Les
Melanie Martinez-Fire Drill
Dumb-Nirvana
@s-oulpunk @its-a-goddamn-ass-race @nonbinarycaitlyn
đ¶âš when u get this u have to put 5 songs u actually listen to, publish. then, send this ask/tag 10 of your favourite followers (non-negotiable, positivity is cool)âšđ¶
Thanks for tagging me @josephfakingquinn
Kill Bill - SZA
Runner - Tennis
Surf the apocalypse - Beastmilk
Keeping tabs - Cuco
Slither -Djo
Tagging @munsonswhore86 @witchy-munson @lovejosephquinn @zestychili @sushywritez @sweet-villain @vecnuthy @ali-r3n @edsforehead @localdorkblog @ceriseheaven
If forgot to tag you I'm sorry.
KOSA is a censorship bill that wonât make kids safe. Instead, it'll put all internet users at risk, especially youth. If you believe in a free and open internet, tell your lawmakers to reject #KOSA! https://stopkosa.com/
âKOSA wont pass, it got rejected the last two times!â
It wasnât passed because people spoke out against it. People called and emailed their senators. So, CALL / EMAIL YOUR SENATORS. MAKE IT KNOWN THAT WE DO NOT WANT THIS BILL TO PASS!
âBut its unconstitutional-â Thereâve been multiple bills passed before that are unconstitutional. This will not be any different to them, they do not care.
STOP KOSA!!!
Just uh feel free to roast me if youâd like I know itâs stupid
Is it weird that Iâd love to see all the various children of Dracula from media over the years in a sitcom as actual siblings? XD
Keep in mind this man is gross so if you support SPN or still follow him kindly unfollow me and stick a metal spiked dildo up your ass
Also fun story when I called him out like two years ago on Insta for baiting to be bi for his money laundering front I got blocked by him. So yeah Misha youâre a real ally for sure àČ _àČ
Losers Club as Albums 4/7
Richie Tozier-Death of a Bachelor(2016) // PANIC At The Disco
âIf crazy equals genius then I'm a fucking arsonist I'm a rocket scientist
Bill/ Stan / Eddie / Ben / Beverly / Mike
For all the people in my last post about Percy Jackson saying âoh wick wiordan a white man is twying!!!!!!đ«đ«đ«đ«đđđđ„șđ„șđ„șđ„ș
As a Muslim girl, I feel obligated to let people know what I think about Rick Riordanâs post about Samirah. Donât add on unless youâre a Muslim or Iraqi, because if you arenât you donât 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 â 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 âMuslim.â 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 wasnât sure how to comfort or support her.
Youâre 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 arenât the most reliable source, especially since Iâm pretty sure at that age most of them donât 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 Qurâan. (I understand the message is inseparable from the original Arabic, so it cannot be considered âtranslatedâ). I have read the entirety of the Sahih Bukhari and Sahih Muslim hadith collections. Iâve 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. (Theyâre a little rusty now, Iâll admit, but I can still recite al-FÄtihah 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 doesnât change the fact that you are still an outsider. Youâre a white man, and you canât claim to understand the Quran and Islam without consulting other Muslims or scholars.
When preparing to write Samirahâs 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 Samirahâs 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. Â 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 sheâs 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 - donât have the right to try and convey a Muslimâs struggle without even getting a Muslim to read over it and give you feedback. You have no way of knowing if itâs accurate or not.
(Side note: in your Piper article, you admitted you didnât use sensitivity readers when writing her. You even tried to justify is by saying you hadnât even heard of the term in 2009, but the Magnus Chase books were started in 2015. Couldnât 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 âmainstreamâ novel.
Youâve gotten positive feedback because weâre 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 canât 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 teacherâs 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 Iâm not a Shia Muslim so I donât think I have enough knowledge on this subject but I would recommend reading this
Another question was about Samirahâs wearing of the hijab. To some readers, she seemed cavalier about when she would take it off and how she would wear it. Itâs 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 Samirahâs 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 â 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 - Thereâs no reasoning behind who Sam shows her hair to. One day sheâll cover it up around others and the next sheâll show her hair to the same people. Yes, people do this, my cousin, for example, but you need to explain it. You canât just stick it in there and not expand on her reasoning.
By saying that she wears her hijab most of the time, youâre portraying Sam as a hijabi, but then you say that she doesnât 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 theyâre fallen warriors. Thatâs not how it works. If youâre 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 canât you just leave her hair alone?
Also, @kazbrekkerrsâ 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 otherâs for plotâŠokay. 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 doesnât matter what country you come from, thatâs 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 didnât want to be married youâd say yes because you donât 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 âflipâ 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 - âtheyâll only be married when they turn 18âł. Nobody gets married that young anymore. Itâs literally unheard of by now, except in places where they literally marry off toddlers. People usually get betrothed when theyâre in their twenties.
âTheyâve been betrothed since childhoodâ - exactly. They were both too young to really consent, and the fact that a white man - who, no matter how much research heâs done, remains an outsider to my religion - is trying to tell me that thatâs 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 âAllahu Akbar,â 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: âMy dad may have power over me because heâs my dad. But heâs not the biggest power. Allahu akbar.â
I knew that term, but Iâd never heard Sam use it before. Iâll 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 wasnât going to mention that to Sam. I imagined she was painfully aware.
She couldnât 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) sheâd scream back, âIâm from Dorchester!â
âYeah,â I said. âThat means God is great, right?â
Sam shook her head. âThatâs a slightly inaccurate translation. It means God is greater.â
âThan what?â
âEverything. The whole point of saying it is to remind yourself that God is greater than whatever you are facingâyour 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: âI had never heard that phrase, and it carried absolutely no negative connotations!â 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 Samirahâs 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 donât 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 youâre also a Muslim). That last line, thoughâŠyou shouldnât have written that. You donât get to decide if something is Islamophobic or not, Rick.
Anyways, this is messy and and probably doesnât make sense but Iâm tired and canât be bothered to add more or elaborate on any of these points. Obviously, I donât speak for every single Muslim, but these are my opinions. Once again, feel free to add on or correct me, but only if youâre a Muslim as well.
Merry Christmas & Happy Holidays to those who celebrate! đ
Seriousandclean is black itâs literally stated in his bio đ
Hey maybe instead of harassing me yo d ride your bestie you leave me the fuck alone and jump off a cliff like most pro-shippers should do
Thaaaaanks!