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xmoriartea · 1 year

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After running off with the dragon skull, FINALLY we could get to the lake and see the damage Strahd's petty bullshit had done to our fragile aquatic ecosystem.

We ignored the fact we were deffo being followed in the water and went straight to the East Sanctuary where Merrick and the twins normally were. As soon as we started speaking with Merrick something was off. Even our fun ghost tagalong knew it.

So while Mina started on Forbiddance, I dispelled the charm on this fucking FEY and we start to make sense of what's going on.

He met Strahd in the lake, got charmed, and has been out of commission as far as protecting his people goes. So we caught him up on everything, Nadia too.

Once the Forbiddance pops, we started clearing out the sleeper vampires that all start freaking out, saved the other mer that they then immediately tried to feed on, and once again locked down the sanctuary.

One mer kept hiding in the water above the Forbiddance though and refused to swim to me while we checked the damage.

She says she didn't want this, didn't want to hurt anyone, the others were making her do terrible things, she just wanted to keep her friends safe. So Alkali... had an idea with how to deal with Nadia. And now she had a chance to test it before they found her and give Taron the proof he needed that they could save his twin.

So Alkali cast the Ceremony Atone. She and Arisa stayed in the high reaches of the sanctuary as the other merfolk swam and looked on below. She had her speak to the things the vampires made her do to both learn more and have her lay her crimes bare before Umberlee.

And when the ceremony completed, her whole body seizing up with Something™... she came to with Alkali holding her hand and a cold, bright feeling in her chest. She's a vampire. She's still dead. But she wasn't a pawn anymore. She could protect this Sanctuary.

We made sure the others knew she was a friend, that anyone found harming her would deal with Merrick's rebuke AND Alkali's if it made it to her - and then they cast Sending. Telling Nadia to meet Alkali and Taron, that they just wanted to talk, no games.

Nadia responded, but she wanted them alone and too far from the Sanctuary for back up. So Taron and I left... with Tanner, Mina, and Arabelle invisible behind us. I'm not fucking stupid. That girl was laying a trap, so would I.

And look. Man. I TRIED. I TRIED SO HARD. We talked in circles about how she'd traded her won freedom from the merrow to enslavement by new masters who'd fed on her, how if she did this she was losing her family, her dreams of more beyond this.

But she just kept doubling down on how this was better for them all, how Strahd was giving them power now to save the lake. And it's REALLY hard for a cleric from the bottom of the ocean to stress how never seeing the sun again might be bad.... so Phase 2.

We didn't quite 'prove Strahd wrong' about 'trying' to kill her because there wasn't going to be a 'try' we were going to do it.

She called friends, our friends showed up, we did a big fight and had to deal with the fact something was Double Weird about Nadia who was immune to the necrosis AND resisting the radiance I was inflicting her with. You know. The Clerics' Wheelhouse??

But Tanner had an insanely cursed scarab he and Kalina took from her weird artificer family attic and he managed to pin it to Nadia where it then instantly began burrowing into her chest.

The fish went belly up real quick. (which may have been distressing to Taron... but one fish at a time.)

With her back up vampires dead or turned, we just booked it back to the sanctuary where the Forbiddance stood strong, kicked open Merrick's room for privacy, and Alkali got to Raise Deading.

Once upon a time, weeks ago in Barovia, Alkali divined with Umberlee about how to save a vampire. She was told they had to die before they could be saved. So Alkali was moving with a whole lot of faith here... and it worked.

An hour of magic and casting and pleading with a Goddess far from here, Nadia's gills began to flutter again and she gasped back to life

AND UNLIKE LAST TIME I REZD A BOI. THE DARK POWERS COULD NOT INTERFERE. FUCK YOUR CELESTIAL ASSES, NOT IN THIS FORBIDDANCE SIR. NO DEALS.

She and Taron had their sibling moment and she told us more about what happened with Strahd. How he'd given her power and gifts and spoke of Brides and wanting her to meet them—

And you know Alkali got annoyed with that. Motherfucker was gonna marry Nadia to spite her.

It was a good moment, though. We did.... the fucking impossible in Barovia. But we had more to do, another Sanctuary of mer to go check on, and just.. SO MUCH. It was early afternoon and we still had a fucking DAY ahead of ourselves.

As we were leaving though, Tanner stopped Kalina and went into this whole spiel about soldiers marrying before war coming back more often than those who weren't married and SOMEHOW this awkward fuck proposed to her??? And she accepted??

Fucking 2 clerics, 1 rogue/wizard, and 1 fighter just floating in the lake dumbstruck at this proposal. And 1 me fucking dumbstruck that Ty-"I don't like roleplaying romance"-ler fucking BEAT ME to successfully romancing a NPC. Fucking bullshit I stg.

ANYWAY, we hurried on over to the second sanctuary half way across the lake and let our selves in. We were quickly met with guards unlike at the last sanctuary because the fae in charge here, Araxia, was Not Charmed by Strahd.

They told us it was a good thing we were here (seems sus) and took us to Araxia who was sitting with.... a very concussed and bandaged Merrick.

So Mina got to Forbidding because thank the gods there isn't a limit on how many you can have active, Arabelle got to Sending Merrick, and Alkali and Tanner got to Interrogating because whoever this was... wasn't Merrick. We manacled him and explained the story to Araxia. She told us Nadia had brought Merrick and some other wounded mer to the sanctuary days ago.

So as soon as Forbiddance popped into effect, we took off, leaving Kalina's Steel Defender to guard Not-Merrick. Some of these vampires put up a fight, others fled. We took out a few and Alkali put the fear of Umberlee into the rest of them.

She didn't have the time or means to Atone/Rez 5+ merfolk, so we told them to leave, stick together, feed on fish, and if any of them so much as harmed another merfolk they would be sacrificing any hope of being saved in the future.

She felt shitty about it, but they're vampires. They would be just fine in the lake until she had the time to do more for them. Back inside the keep, they returned to Araxia and Tanner finally identified Not-Merrick.

He was a Simulacrum, a false magical copy of the real thing. Hard to explain that to him, but the idea of having a secondary Merrick didn't out weigh the prospect that Strahd put this here for a reason and we couldn't trust it. So Alkali dispelled the copy the kindest end we could offer it.

With Araxia caught up, the sanctuary secured, we promised to keep in touch and took the bodies of the vampires and the one mer we couldn't save in time out into the lake with us to burry among the others. (We've had to bury so many merfolks because of the fucking merrow guys...)

Against all odds, we were able to get back to Vallaki and grabbed a meal. In doing so, we held a small little ceremony for Tanner and Kalina and married them inside a celestial Rope Trick room outside the Inn. It was silly and cute, and a nice little moment of relief following the nonsense of the lake. We then made sure all things were still as they should be, let Alkali finally take a short fucking rest, and then found our horses (shockingly) in one piece at the edge of town.

Tanner, being a very spooky biomancer, was able to give the two borrowed horses and the riding horse from Arabelle's Robe of Useful Items fucking WINGS and we all paired up and flew to Argynvaustholt. We had a dragon skull to return.

Tanner wasted no time at all in kicking down the tomb door and emptying his bag of holding with the skull on the floor. There was a flash of bright silver light as a beacon atop the hold began to shine like a fucking lighthouse throughout the mists of Barovia. A thank you from Argynvaust himself.

Back up in the study, we found a holy symbol resting where once there had been a letter from Argyvaust's spirit. While Tanner examined that, Alkali went to check on her revenant friend, but he and all the revenants of the hold had finally passed on, their job done.

It was good. We did a very good thing. We felt powerful (hell yeah passive beacon buff), we felt like Strahd had a reason to be afraid.

So obviously something else had to fucking happen.

As we were getting ready to fly back to Vallaki, a horse drawn carriage made its way to Argynvaustholt. The rider was a vistani man who, once he had driven up to the hold, cut free his horse from the cart and rode off. Alkali being a curious and angry fish, flew her and Mina's pegasus down to see what had been dropped off. A coffin, with Alkali's name finely engraved in the wood.

A tired Barovian trick/threat as far as she was concerned.

So flying back, Tanner tossed some oil at it, and lit the motherfucker with a fire bolt.

The coffin erupted in fire and bats and as it did, bright red beams of light began to erupt across all of Barovia under the light of blood red moon. From our views on the pegasi, we could see these beams burning from Yesterhill to Barovia.

We BOOKED IT to town and became so aware of all the undead Things suddenly crawling through the forest beneath us, and more creatures already banging at the walls of the city.

If it died in Barovia... Strahd was calling it to arms.

We split up as soon as we were in the city and began to assist and prepare. The two council members to Ismark, the kiddos to the Martikovs, and the clerics to the church. We had to make sure people stayed calm and that anyone who could do something did.

The clerics then split up to either sides of the town and began to cast another Forbiddance each. This time, they were building a barrier, forcing the undead further back from the walls. The casting wiped out hundreds of them, but so many things have died in Barovia...

The next wave simply stood at the border of the Forbiddance... and waited. Something Big™ moved through the trees beyond. It was a start... but something more was coming to Vallaki.

The Newly Weds™ left the inn for the night. They stayed at their own place while the rest of us piled into the usual Tiny Hut guarded inn room. Before bed though... Alkali had one last spell slot, and she scryd on Strahd one more time.

Sitting on his fucking throne like the asshole he is, he and Rahadin, in full fucking military plate, were discussing their plans. Barovia was over run with undead. Vallaki was holding against all odds. And something, some force of Rahadin's, was marching out in the hour.

They were both confident that these plans would work, that they forever and always, decided the fate of these lands.

Alkali couldn't wait to make them choke on that pride.

Once Rahadin was dismissed, Volenta and Ludmilla came to Strahd's side and led him back to bed where Escher and Anastrasya waited and u know THAT'S the part that honestly pissed Alkali off most I'm ngl. She has her priorities. She killed the scry and was finally pulled to bed by Mina who managed to sooth the grumpy gills fish to sleep before whatever Rahadin brought to their doors arrived.

#barovian currents #curse of strahd #the tweeting stopped after a point whoopsies #can only keep up with so much bULLshIT at once

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1ddiscourseoftheday · 3 years

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Wed 7 Apr ‘21

Louis left Tulum and went to Mexico City, and we got airport pics from both ends: the gathered fans were told by his bodyguard that they should keep their distance but that yes, pictures would be allowed. Thank you Louis! We got to see him a little for the first time in so long, in videos of him walking by (and getting ready to walk by) and blurry pics of him with his guitar, and Oli and Charlie- I’m excited to someday see the footage of whatever they’re working on. But for now, finally some proper pictures of the long long hair, or at least the below the hat part, all flippy and like...LONG! It’s on his SHOULDERS! Early pics had some interesting shadows around an elbow, prompting a flurry of NeW TaTtoO?? excitement, but when more pics were posted we could see that no, his elbow remains the same, false alarm. Once that tattoo kerfuffle died down the interest refocused on his shirt, which featured- a whole damn pile of skulls!

Louis went through a long phase of wearing skull shirts a while back, and the fact that it was during a period of a lot of very pointed t-shirt messages (and that he kept doing it more than ever despite knowing what we were reading into it) seemed to reinforce the theory that he did in fact mean things by it, and seeing him say yes to fan photos while wearing this shirt for the occasion… well! WELCOME BACK public Louis, we MISSED YOU! Yesterday’s shirt was for the band Obituary- is the band name a nod at the fact that Syco, generally considered to be the main target of previous skull shirts, is now dead and gone (rest in pieces assholes:))? Is Louis drawing attention to the livestream that band did a few days ago for their album ‘The End Complete’, and if so, is that also about Syco or about… something else? Inconclusive, but if we were meant to find their song “End It Now”, that can truly only be about one thing!! Am I to believe that SBB himself, Mr “I like to draw the fans’ attention to the lyrics of things” just, whoopsy, missed that! I mean, you would think every band on earth has lyrics about “ending it“ with the number of times he’s made that mistake, damn… he just never learns. Poor Louis, gosh how embarrassing! Lol. Anyway, I’ve seen people wondering lately what will happen when all the fans that have joined us in this time of lockdown and of no real contact with Louis will react when their version of Louis has to compete with the real one- and him barely being back at all but immediately reminding people that he is not a dad FFS feels like an excellent beginning, this should be good! BUCKLE IN friends! The real Louis is sooo much more fun than the boring made up one, just get ready to enjoy the chaotic energy and trying to keep up with him….

Oh also Louis liked a Snuts tweet about being underdogs as they fight to get the release week UK #1 for their new album, and a charity says they reached out to Louis AND LOTTIE to play in their celeb footie match PLEASE, HOW CUTE WOULD THAT BE? Come on Tomlinsons, say yes!

Liam has a big interview in Glamour to promote his BAFTAS performance! If *I* were doing the piece I would have really gone hard on the Two Liams angle of the performance (in which Liam will be accompanied by a hologram of himself) but alas they are boring and only interviewed one of him- maybe the part where he says “you're on stage, you're a certain type of person, and at home you're a certain type of person” sort of counts? The “that's always something I've really struggled with” makes it not so fun though, but that’s a Liam interview for ya; worrisome and makes you want to hug him a lot. “I didn't actually realize this for a long time, but I often give a little bit too much away,“ he says, and today is no exception. We catch up on the time since last we heard from him, when he told us he was going to take some well-earned time off and try to focus on writing new music; he continues to have difficulty with downtime unfortunately. Oh Liam, I do wish it were easier for you to take a break! He says, “I stopped working and I had a full, proper month off [and that was] really hard. And it was all a bit dark for me for a little bit... not being able to go anywhere, not being able to do anything. It really, really hit home. And I just found myself sat in the same place day in, day out. And I was like, okay, I really do not know what to do with myself” and “for me, learning to relax has always been quite a hard thing to do because I feel like if I'm not moving forward, then I must be going backwards.” He goes on to say “so, in a way it's kind of a blessing in disguise, as this has all kind of taught me to relax a little bit more. And to not be so worried about that, like the world is not going to fall over if I don't do something today,” and I wish I believed him, but that’s Liam’s way, to be like oh I need to add something upbeat and end on a cheerful note! So IDK. He also talks about drinking too much, at the beginning of lockdown especially, and how he’s dealt with it by getting back to working out and dieting. There’s nothing there that he hasn’t talked about before (he’s publicly addressed both his struggles with alcohol dependency and has talked a lot about his disordered eating though he hasn’t himself named it that) but after publication Glamour edited the piece to omit the part about his drinking-- I’m guessing the augmented reality app people didn’t feel it fit their ideal image (sigh). What that leaves is him saying how nice it was to be able to eat what he wanted during lockdown but that having the boundaries and rules in place of restricting his food again has made him feel better about himself, which if you ask me is still plenty distressing. Oh Liam :( <I’ve never wanted to hug someone so bad/ Spongebob meme> On a slightly more cheerful note, he tells us he feels supported and heard by a manager that he’s close to, and by Louis, and that those relationships are good for him (the interviewer does ask about Bear, but financee Maya is not mentioned even once in this article). The piece ends with a startling response to a comment about his upcoming performance: “I'll see you wherever you want me in your house, I guess.”

Niall posted about his Masters (golf) fantasy league and he was seen out and about! He was photographed in London driving a car the size of a house and on the street carrying one of his dozens of different reusable water bottles, with his hair floppy and down- is it a new haircut or just unstyled??- and shorts and little roundish shades. Hello Neil! There was a rumored sighting of Harry in London as well but no pics and like we know he’s there anyway so… shrug. And iHeart award nominations are up, and they’re pitting louies against harries, ouch. Will it be nasty (well when isn’t it even without this voted category, sigh), or will the louies simply steamroller everyone as per usual? Only time will tell, but if so harries can console themselves with their likely wins in the Male Artist of the Year, Best Lyrics (Adore You), and Song of the Year (WS) categories.

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amphtaminedreams · 4 years

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J.K Rowling & The Echo Chamber of TERFs: Why Nobody Wants your Transphobic “Opinion”

TW// Discussion of Sexual Assault and Transphobia

SO...

I’ve seen the term “allyship fatigue” going round a lot lately on Twitter, since the issues of police brutality, institutional racism, and now transphobia have taken central stage.

And it’s weird. To be honest, hearing other white cis people calling themselves “allies” has always sounded kinda self-congratulatory. Taking this to the level of martyrdom that the phrase “allyship fatigue” evokes makes me want to heave. It’s shit that anyone even has to be saying Black Lives STILL Matter, but it does seem to unfortunately be the case that every time there is a highly publicised murder of a black individual by police, the explosion of us white people calling ourselves allies and retweeting and reblogging statements of solidarity only lasts so long before half revert back to being complacent with and uncritical of a world seeped with casual racism. Is that what “allyship fatigue” is? The excuse for that? Not only does the term take the focus off of the marginalised group the movement is centred around but it makes supporting equal rights sound like some kind of heroic burden we’ve chosen to take on rather than addressing a debt we owe and being not even good but just plain decent human beings. WE are not the ones shouldering the weight here, and if your mental health is suffering, that is not the fault of the people asking for their rights. Log off. We have the privilege to do that. It just doesn’t need to be a spectacle.

At the same time, this public onslaught of ignorance and hatred that the coverage of the Black Lives Matter movement has triggered (that let me again emphasise, black people have had to involuntarily be on the receiving end of their whole lives) and the frustration and anger that comes from seeing these absolute trash takes from people with no research into the subject who build their argument purely on “what about”isms is do-I-even-want-to-bring-children-into-this-fucking-world levels of miserable. In terms of earth beginning to look more and more like the prequel describing the events which lead up to a dystopian novel, the chaos of the last 4 weeks or so (2020 has not only shattered the illusion of time but also danced on the shards, I know) is the tip of the iceberg. I saw a thread about what’s going on in Yemen at the moment, which I had no idea about, and immediately felt consumed by guilt that I didn’t know. With the advent of social media, there’s been this sudden evolutionary shift where we’re almost required and expected to know about, have an opinion on, and be empathetic with every humanitarian crisis at once. I think young people feel this especially, which is why I say that sometimes it’s worth talking to an older person before you brush them off as a racist or a homophobe and see if they’re open to hearing different opinions-in general, I think we’re a generation that is used to being expected to consume a huge amount of information at once. They are not. For a lot (NOT all) of the older, middle-class, white population, ignorance isn’t a conscious choice, it is the natural way of life. The parameters of empathy until very recently have only had to extend just past your closest circle of friends to encompass people you “relate to”. That doesn’t mean they aren’t capable of caring about other things, and sometimes we owe them a chance to change their perspective first, if for no reason other than to advance the cause of, well, basic human rights for all.

So where does J.K Rowling come into all this? I hear you ask. Why doesn’t she just stop rambling? You potentially wonder. Well, I’m getting to it.

J.K Rowling isn’t an unconsciously ignorant people. She is what I would call consciously ignorant. And of all weeks to flaunt this ignorance, she chose a time when people are already drowning in a cesspit of hatred. The woman whose whole book series supposedly revolves around the battle between good and evil didn’t even try to drain the swamp. She instead added a bucket of her transphobic vitriol into it.

Let me preface this by saying that I wouldn’t wipe my arse with the Sun. What they did with the statement she made regarding her previous abusive relationship, seeking out said abusive partner for an interview and putting it on the front page with the headline “I slapped J.K”, whilst expected from the bunch of cretinous bottom feeders who work there, is disgusting. That being said, the pattern of behaviour J.K Rowling has exhibited since she first became an online presence is equally disgusting, and just because the Sun have been their usual shithead selves, doesn’t mean we should forget the issue at hand, that issue being her ongoing transphobia and erasure of trans women from women’s rights.

As I’m sure is the case for many people on Tumblr, J.K Rowling has always been such a huge inspiration for me, and Harry Potter was my entire childhood. My obsession with it continued until I was at least 16 and is what got me through the very shit years of being a teenager, and that will forever be the case. I’m not here to discuss the whole separation of the art from the artist thing because whilst I ordinarily don’t think that’s really possible, at this point the “Harry Potter universe” has become much bigger than J.K herself. I was so pleased to see Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint all affirm their support for trans rights-I was raised on the films up until the 4th one which I wasn’t old enough to see at the cinema, and the DVD was at the top of my Christmas list. They were always my Harry, Hermione and Ron. It was only between the fourth and fifth films that I started to read the books to fill that gaping in-between-movies hole, but as I grew up, I read them over and over and over again. Any of the subtext that people are talking about now in light of her antisemitism and transphobia went completely over my head, though who knows, whilst I can sit here and write that I’m certain I didn’t, maybe I did pick up some unconscious biases along the way? The art/artist discussion is a complex one and I don’t know if I’ll ever read the books again at this point.

There was absolutely no subtext, however, in the “think piece” on J.K’s website addressing the response to her transphobic tweets. There wasn’t all that much to unpack in the first tirade, they were quite openly dismissive-first that womanhood is defined by whether or not one experiences menstruation (I currently don’t due to health issues but I’m betting this wouldn’t make me any less woman in her eyes), and second, regurgitating an article which furthers the fallacy that trans women simply existing erases the existence of cisgender lesbian women. Rowling’s initial response to the backlash was to blame it on a glass of red wine, I think? Which is such a weird go-to excuse for celebrities because not once have I ever got drunk and completely changed my belief system. If you’re not transphobic sober, you don’t suddenly become transphobic drunk. What you are saying is that you’re not usually publicly transphobic (which isn’t even the case with Rowling because this is hardly her first flirtation with bigotry via social media) but that whoopsies! You drank some wine and suddenly thought it was acceptable!

Now what is her excuse for the formal response she wrote to the backlash, dripping with transphobic dog whistles and straight up misinformation (UPDATE: and as of yesterday, blocking Stephen King quite literally for replying to her with the tweet “trans women are women”, in case you thought that this whole thing was a case of her intentions being misconstrued)? Drunk tweets are one thing but if she managed to write a whole fucking essay whilst pissed I imagine there’s a lot of university students out there who’d pay her good money to learn that skill.

Here is the bottom line. TRANS WOMEN ARE WOMEN. There is no discussion around that. And if you don’t understand why, at the very least, you can be respectful of the way a person chooses to identify, especially when that person is an already targeted minority.

Obviously, sex and gender are complex things. Based on the fact that we don’t walk around with our nether-regions out, we generally navigate our way through the world using our gender and the way we present our gender. Gender of course means many different things to many different people; some see it as a sliding scale kind of thing whereas some people can’t see themselves on the scale at all, and choose to use terms other than man or woman to express how they identify. But, whatever gender one chooses to identify as, we live in a modern world-with all the scientific advancements we’ve made and all that we now know about the brain, using what is between people’s legs to define them is an ignorant, outdated copout. You’ll find that a lot of transphobes can live in harmony with trans women who conform, who have classically feminine features, maybe facial feminisation surgery, trans women who keep quiet about how they’re seen by cis women and don’t kick up “too much of a fuss” (which is in itself still a perfectly valid, brave and understandable way to live your life after years of feeling like you don’t fit in btw). The trans women that Joanne and her friends take the most issue with is the ones who want to expand what womanhood means and stretch the boundaries of what is and isn’t acceptable, destroying the confines of simplistic model that TERFs feel comfortable operating within. The ones who fight to be recognised as no “lesser” than cis women. Calling a person a TERF is quite literally just asserting that they are someone who wants to exclude trans women from their definition of womanhood, or in other words wants to cling to the old, obsolete model. If J.K Rowling cannot let the statement “trans women are women” go unchallenged (which we’ve seen from her response to Stephen King’s tweet she cannot), then she is by definition a TERF. It’s not a slur. It’s a descriptor indicating the movement she has chosen to associate herself with. Associating the descriptor of the position you so vehemently refuse to denounce in spite of all evidence and information offered to you with the concept of a “witch hunt” when trans women are ACTUALLY brutally murdered for an innate part of their identity is insulting, at the very least.

Let’s get this straight: despite transphobes trying to conflate sex with gender and arguing that sex is the only “real” identifier of the two, our existence on this planet and our perception of this world is a gendered experience. It is our brain, where the majority of researchers agree that gender lies, which decides and dictates not only who we are and how we feel but also how we interact with everyone around us. I don’t think it’s an outlandish statement to say that when it comes to who we are as people, that flesh machine protected by our skull is the key player. PSA for transphobes everywhere: when people say penises have a mind of their own, they are NOT talking literally. The more you know.

Gender is obviously a much newer concept than sex-it is both influenced by and interacts with every element of our lives. It’s also much more complex, in that there are still many gaps in our understanding. I assume these two factors combined with the familiarity of the (usually) binary model of biological sex are a part of why TERFS fundamentally reject the importance of gender in favour of the latter. Yes, most of the time, we feel our gender corresponds with our sex, but not always, and nor is there any concrete proof that this has to be the case. Most studies tend to agree that our brains start out as blank slates, that we grow into the gender we are assigned based on our bodies. In other words, our sex only defines our gender insofar as the historical assumption that they are the same thing, which in turn exposes us to certain cultural expectations. To any TERFs that have somehow ended up here-if you haven’t already, I suggest looking into the research of Gina Rippon, a neuroscientist whom has spent a large portion of her professional career analysing the data of sex differences in the brain. Whilst she originally set out to find some kind of consistent variance between the brains of the 2 prominent sexes to back up the idea that the brains of men and women are inherently different, she found nothing of significance-individual differences, yes, but no consistent similarities in the brains of one sex that were not present in the other. Once differences in brain size were accounted for, “well-known” sex differences in key structures disappeared-in terms of proportion, these structures take up the same amount of space in the brain regardless of sex. Her findings are best summed up by her response to the question: are there any significant differences in the brain based on sex alone? Her answer is no. To suggest otherwise is “neurofoolishness”. Not only does her research help put to bed the myth that our brains are sexed along with the rest of our bodies during development (this is now believed to happen separately, meaning the sex of our bodies and brains may not correspond), but also the idea propagated by the patriarchy for centuries that basically boils down to “boys will be boys”-a myth used to condone male sexual violence against women and even against each other on the basis that it is inherent and “can't be helped”. That they are just “built differently”. Maybe at one point in human evolution, men were conditioned to fight and women were conditioned to protect, but whilst the idea remains and continues to affect our societal structures (and thus said cultural expectations), we’ve moved on. I mean we evolved from fish for fuck’s sake but you don’t see us breathing underwater.

Gender identity is based on many things and admittedly we don’t fully have the complete picture yet. The effects that socialisation and gender norms in particular, as much as we don’t want them to exist, have on our brain are huge; there’s evidence that they can leave epigenetic marks, or in other words cause structural changes in the brain which drive biological functions and features as diverse as memory, development and disease susceptibility. Socialisation alters the way our individual brains develop as we grow up, and as much as I’d love to see gender norms disappear, they’ll probably be around for a long time to come, as will their ramifications. The gap between explaining how socialisation affects the brain of cisgender individuals compared to the brains of transgender or non-binary individuals is not yet totally clear, but as with every supposed cause and effect psychology tries to uncover, there are outliers and individual differences. No, brains are not inherently male or female at birth but they are all different, and can be affected by socialisation differently. In one particularly groundbreaking study conducted by Dick Swaab of the Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience, postmortems of the brains of transgender women revealed that the structure of one of the areas in the brain most important to sexual behaviour more closely resembled the postmortem brains of cisgender women than those of cisgender men-it’s also important that these differences did not appear to be attributable to the influence of endogenous sex hormone fluctuations or hormone treatment in adulthood.

Maybe dysphoria is something that evolves organically and environmental factors don’t even come into it. Like I said, we don’t have the whole picture. What we DO know is that for some people, as soon as they become self-aware, that dysphoria is there, and the evidence for THAT, for there being common variations between the brains of cisgender individuals and transgender individuals, is overwhelming. You can be trapped in a body that does not correspond with how your brain functions, or how you wish to see yourself. Do individuals like J.K Rowling really believe it is ethical to reinforce the idea that we are defined by our sex and that our sex should decide the course of our lives, should decide how we are treated? That we should reduce people to genitals and chromosomes when our gender, the lens through which we see and interact with the world, could be completely different? Do they not see anything wrong with perpetuating the feelings of “otherness” and dysphoria in trans individuals that results from society’s refusal to see them as anything more than what body parts they have? In a collaboration between UCLA MA neuroscience student Jonathan Vanhoecke and Ivanka Savic at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden, the statistics collected pointed to what trans activists have always been trying to get at-the areas of the brain responsible for our sense of our identity showed far more neural activity in the brains of trans individuals when they were looking at depictions of their body that had been changed to match their gender identity than when this wasn’t the case; when they saw themselves with a body that corresponded with their gender identity, when they were “valid” by society’s definition, they felt more themselves. When J.K Rowling tells trans people that their “real identity” is the sex they were born with, she is denying them this right to be themselves and due to her large platform, encouraging others to do the same. YOU are doing that, J.K. And who knows why? Where does your transphobia come from? Peel back the bullshit layers of waffle about feeling silenced and threatened, which you know you are directing at the wrong group of people, and admit it’s for less noble reasons. Taking the time to unlearn the instinct embedded into your generation to see people according to the cultural status quo of biological determinism is effort, I know-but you wrote a 700+ page book. I’m sure you can manage it. Or is it an ego thing? You don’t want to admit that you may have been uneducated on gender and sex in the past, and now have to stick by your reductive position so your image as an “intellectual” isn’t compromised. I don’t know. Only you do. But your position is irresponsible and dangerous either way. You can make up bullshit reasons as to why the link between trans individuals and the incidence of suicide attempts and completions isn’t relevant or representative of the struggle that trans people face due to the hatred that people like you propagate but it is there, and you J.K Rowling, someone who has spoken in the past about the horror of depression, should know better. You should know better than to CLAIM you know better than the experienced researchers who have found the same pattern time and time again-that the likelihood of trans individuals committing suicide is significantly higher than that of cis people.

No, Rowling’s transphobia has never been as upfront as saying “I don’t believe transgender people exist” but she continues to imply that when she makes claims such as womanhood being defined by whether or not one experiences menstruation, and the completely subjective concept of whether an individual has faced sex-based violence from cisgender men. I’m sure she’d be out here taking chromosome proof cards like Oysters if it wasn’t for intersex individuals throwing her whole binary jam into a tailspin. Yep, there’s even suggestions that the binary biological model might not be so binary these days-just because two people have, say, XY chromosomes, does not mean that these chromosomes are genetically identical between individuals-the genes they carry can, and do, vary and so their actions and expressions of sex vary.

Ideally, what TERFs want to do with their language of “real womanhood” is create an exclusive club that trans women are left out of when they too suffer under the same patriarchal society that those who are born female do. Yes, they might not experience ALL the issues a person born with female genitalia do, but no two women’s life experiences are the same anyway. Trans women also have their own horrible experiences with the patriarchy, and are often victims of a specific kind of gendered violence that is purported by the idea of “real womanhood”. Don’t throw trans sisters under the bus because you’re angry about your experience as a woman on this planet-direct your anger at the fucking bus. Don’t claim that “many trans people regret their decision to transition” when the statistics overwhelmingly show that this is the EXACT FUCKING OPPOSITE of the truth (according to British charity organisation Mermaids, surgical regret is proportionately very low amongst gender affirmation outpatients and research suggesting otherwise has been broadly disproven) because you’ve spoken to a selective group of trans individuals probably handpicked by the TERFS you associate with to confirm their biases, and then have the nerve to claim that trans-activists live in echo chambers on top of that. Don’t use anecdotes and one-off incidences where “trans women” (I say trans women in quotation marks because we’re pretty much talking about a completely statistically insignificant group of perverted cis men who have, according to TERFs, somehow come to the conclusion that going through transition will make their already easy-to-get-away-with hobby of assaulting women even...easier to get away with?) have committed sexual crimes to demonise and paint as predatory group who are largely at risk and in 99.9% of situations, the ones being preyed on. It’s a point so disgusting that trans activists shouldn’t even have to respond to it, but the idea that an individual would go to the pains of legally changing their gender and potentially the hell of the harassment that trans people face, the multiple year long NHS waiting lists to see specialist doctors, just so that they can gain access to women only spaces is ridiculous. It’s worth noting here just how sinister you repeatedly bringing up this phantom threat of cis men becoming trans women in order to assault women in “women only” spaces is. The implication here is that they should use the toilet corresponding to the sex they were born as, right? Because it’s all about safety? Well, statistically speaking, far more trans women are abused whilst having to use men’s toilets than when they use women’s ones and the same goes for trans men, and yet you don’t mention it once. Your suggestion also puts people born female who identify as women but maybe do not dress or present in a typically feminine way at risk of being ostracised when THEY need to use the women’s bathroom. The idea that by ceasing to uphold values like yours we are putting women at risk is quite simply, unsubstantiated; the legislation to allow individuals to use the bathroom corresponding to whichever gender they legally identify as has been around since 2010 in the UK and yet we’ve yet to see the sudden spike in the number of women being assaulted in bathrooms you imply will exist if we create looser rules around gender identity and let people use whichever toilet they feel the need to. Similarly, in a study of US school districts, Media Matters found that 17 around the country with protections for trans people, which collectively cover more than 600,000 students, had no problems with harassment in bathrooms or locker rooms after implementing their policies. If cis men want to assault women, they will. They don’t need to pretend to be trans to do so. Don’t pretend to be speaking as a concerned ally of LGBTQ+ individuals when you’re ignoring the thoughts of the majority of individuals who come under that category.

(Just Some of the Trans Women Murdered for Being Trans Over the Last Couple of Years, L-R: Serena Valzquez, Riah Milton, Bee Love Slater, Naomi Hersi, Layla Pelaez, and Dominique Fells)

Trans women are not the threat here. Bigots like you are the threat. HOW DARE you use your platform to reinforce this rhetoric that gets trans people killed when there are so many much MUCH more important things going on right now. Two black trans women had been murdered just for being black trans women in the week you wrote your essay defending those initial tweets. This is an ongoing issue. As a cis woman, my opinion should read as sacred texts to you right, Joanne? Because I’ll say with my whole chest that I feel far more threatened by bigots like you who do not care for the harmful impact of their words than I do by trans women. I do not feel threatened by trans women AT ALL. And yeah, to me, unless they tell me otherwise that they like to go out their way to affirm their trans-ness (which I completely respect-it takes a lot of courage to be proud about your past in a world that condemns you for it), they’re just WOMEN like any other. Yes their experience of “womanhood” may be different to mine but no two individuals experiences are the same anyway and our gender related suffering has the same cause. As a rich, white, cis woman, it’s wild that you are painting yourself as the victim in this debate when trans people can face life in prison and in some places a death sentence for openly identifying with a gender different to their sex in a lot of countries. Nobody is saying that you can’t talk about cis women. Nobody is saying you can’t talk about lesbian issues either, though it’s a bit of a piss-take that you like to throw that whole trans women erase lesbian existence argument out there as a kind of trump card to say “look, I can’t be a transphobe, I’m an LGBTQ+ ally!”, an argument akin to the racist’s age old “I can’t be racist, I have black friends!”. You know from the responses you get to your transphobia that majority of the LGBTQ+ community are very much adamant that trans women are “real women” and that the same goes for trans men being “real men”, so don’t claim to speak for them. You cannot simultaneously care about LGBTQ+ rights and deny trans people their right to live as who they are, however veiled your sentiments around that may be. The whole gay rights movement of the 60s and 70s exist partially BECAUSE of black trans women such as Martha P Johnson if you didn’t know, and though it’s kinda common knowledge I’m doubting that you do because very little of what you tout is backed up by any kind of research. The articles you retweet, echoing the views of lesbians who also happen to be TERFs do not count-the idea that trans people existing simultaneously erases the existence of lesbians only applies to individuals such as yourself who don’t see trans women as women in the first place. That is the problem! Most people don’t have an issue with the fact that you may have a preference for certain genitalia, but I would argue that ignoring exceptional circumstances related to trauma or some other complex issue, relationships are supposed to be with the person as a whole, not their “organic” penis or vagina and it’s kind of insulting to anyone in a same sex relationship to reduce their bond to that.

Back to my point though, of course there are issues that cis women and lesbians face that need talking about, but trans people are affected by the same patriarchal system. You don’t need to go out of your way to mention that they’re not included in whichever given specific issue when there are also cis women who may not have experienced some of the things TERFs reference. You especially don’t need to act as if trans women are the reason we need to have these discussions in the first place. As I’ve said, as MANY women have said, repeatedly-they are NOT the threat here. It is disgusting to see someone I once had so much admiration for constantly punch down at a group that is already marginalised. It’s 2020, J.K, there’s so much info out there. YOU’RE A FULLY GROWN WOMAN. There’s no justification. We get it, you had a tomboy phase. You weren’t like “other girls”. You didn’t like living under a patriarchal system. So you think you understand the mindset of people who want to transition. You think you’re not doing anything wrong by helping to slow the advancement of trans rights because well, you turned out fine? But you clearly fundamentally misunderstand what being trans is. It’s not about your likes and dislikes and having issues with the experience of being a woman (god knows we all do but I doubt anyone truly thinks for one moment that being trans would be any easier), it’s about how you think and feel at your core. It’s such a complex issue, and all the majority of trans people are asking you to do is LISTEN to them. You may be determined to live in binaries, yet the bigger picture is always more complex and fluid and it’s ever-changing, so all we can do is keep an open mind and keep wanting to know more and gather more evidence. If you’re capable of the mental gymnastics required to retcon the piece of work you wrote in the 90s to make it seem as if you were “ahead of the diversity game”, to the extent that you are now claiming Voldermort’s snake has always actually been a Korean woman and see nothing wrong with that when paired with the fact that the only Asian character you originally included was called Cho Chang, then well…I’m sure you can put your ego aside and do the groundwork to understand what trans people are trying to tell you too. You inspired a lot of children and teenagers and even adults, and got them through some very difficult times, taught that the strength of one’s character matters far more than what anyone thinks of you. You claimed you wanted to stand up for the outcasts.

Well, stand up for the outcasts. Now’s a better time than any. And once again: TRANS WOMEN ARE WOMEN AND TRANS MEN ARE MEN. They shouldn’t have to hear anything else.

Lauren x

[DISCLAIMER: shitty collages are mine but the background is not, let me know if you are aware of the artist so I can credit!]

#transisbeautiful #trans pride #trans lives matter #blm #black lives matter #jk rowling #trans rights #gender identity #gender studies #trans women are women #politics #socialism #safe space #all are welcome

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elizabethleslie7654 · 5 years

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The Fruits of Brazil’s Libertarian Renaissance

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In what seems like ancient history but was just four short years ago, Brazil was seen as the model for what corporate libertarian agitation could accomplish. Their fingerprints were all over the social upheaval that resulted in the removal of a corrupt leftist tyrant. The “Free Brazil Movement” was responsible for ousting a popularly-elected ruler.

The Koch Bros-funded Atlas Network boasted about the progress made by Students For Liberty (SFL) and similar organizations. Migrant-born oriental Kim Kataguiri, now a congressman in Brazil, founded the Free Brazil Movement under the auspices of Atlas and other corporate-backed outsider groups. Atlas released a statement claiming that “many members within the Free Brazil Movement have passed through Atlas Network’s premier training program, the Atlas Leadership Academy, and are now applying what they have learned on the ground where they live and work.” Reason TV even released a lauding feature on the progress that was taking place in Brazil.

The globalist Koch Bros certainly believed that they were getting their money’s worth after corrupt leftist ruler Dilma Rousseff was forced to resign following revelations that she participated in a kickback scheme while working at state-owned oil company Petrobras. Reporter Glenn Greenwald, who lives in Brazil atop his homosexual lover with some store-bought brown children, painted the change of power back in 2016 as a neoliberal coup supported by foreign interests. He was able to gather a solid amount of evidence showing this was indeed the case. It is not uncommon for oligarchical interests to use strife within a country to replace one corrupt puppet with another more amenable to their particular agenda.

When corrupt neoliberal hack Michel Temer, who served as Vice President under Rousseff in a coalition government with her political party, was given the reigns of control, the Kochs and their lackeys felt it was a job well done. After all, Temer was their perfect political puppet. Temer supported the head of Goldman Sachs in Brazil as his central bank chief. He named another corporate banking insider as his finance minister. He pushed for austerity for government programs meant to help the impoverished Brazilian people while protecting bailouts, subsidies and tax breaks for the privileged elites. The Kochs and their underlings didn’t care much that Temer was at least as corrupt as his predecessor because he would at least play ball with corporate power, unlike the more left-leaning Rousseff. This was enough to satisfy the corporate cabal, but not the masses in the street. Turns out that the revolution didn’t belong to these scheming consultants, organizers and analysts, but rather, to the people in the streets fighting for their future and their nation.

Enter Jair Bolsonaro, a man possessing the strength and resolve to be the revolutionary leader that the Kochs and their well-paid operatives tried to bottle up.

Bolsonaro, a military officer turned outspoken congressman, is a proponent of liberalism in the manner the Founding Fathers might have understood the concept. He wants to open the markets, allow capital to rush into the country, and make reductions to socialist give-away programs while enforcing Singapore-style social controls to prevent minorities, feminists, homosexuals, and other degenerates from stopping the progress undertaken through his policies. Bolsonaro has frequently expressed kind words toward the military dictatorship that ruled from the 1960s into the 1980s as well as the Chilean coup enacted by Augusto Pinochet. On Oct. 28, Bolsonaro won the Presidency of Brazil by an overwhelming margin. His victory is the direct outgrowth of a real life libertarian movement gone horribly wrong or spectacularly right depending on your perspective.

What the “Free Brazil Movement” accomplished with their agitating was to undermine the public’s support in democracy and the political establishment. Contrary to the econometricians and other soothsayers of the Koch network, this didn’t result in a market renaissance. When the people soured on their government, a love of the market wasn’t subsequently discovered. The Brazilian people, radicalized against the state by the libertarian uprising, learned to hate their government and their corrupt political class and wanted an abrupt end to their national suffering. Furthermore, they wanted revenge. They wanted heads on pikes for the indignities they were forced to ensure. They wanted Jair, and they have the perfect man for the job in power now. Bolsonaro is finishing the job that libertarians started, in a similar manner that Ron Paul and his quixotic band of loonies passed the buck off to Trump who could actually win the US Presidency.

Like the Tea Party in the US, the Brazilian revolution started with a strain of innocent, naive libertarian thought. This may be a natural process of development within these type of popular movements. Once confronted with the hard reality that the opposition will never respect liberty or freedom, activists tend to grow hardened and the movement progresses into something much different. For better or worse, this is the inevitable process as the fight worsens due to the true nature of the Left. Preaching nonaggression as the boot tightens around your neck isn’t an eventuality that appeals to free individuals, except in the most extraneous libertarian collectives where tedious minutiae reigns supreme.

The SFL gang of the United States regularly boasts about how their efforts are universal and worldwide in scope, as an attack of Ron Paul’s nativist and isolationist ideology. In their dope-poisoned minds, they are breaking down borders and opening up society. However, in actuality, they are tools for a corporate agenda that is much more likely to lead to the instillation of neoliberal chumps or far-right asskickers like Bolsonaro then it will ever lead to the turbo-charged GloboHomo orgy run on Bitcoin of their dreams. Bolsonaro’s rise was the tangential handiwork of the green-haired SFL social justice warriors. They thought they were counter-acting the rise of the alt-right and white nationalism, but, really, they were outdoing us. The alt-right, although not without its successes, has never popularly elected a military dictator of sorts who promised to punish commies, queers, corrupt politicos, thieves, drug pushers, and other societal dregs. Our efforts pale in comparison to yours. We truly have much to learn from you in promoting worldwide authoritarianism.

Peak libertarianism will be achieved in Brazil as a man who is hurling down the Bolsonaro Freeway (through what was formerly known as the rain forest) careens off road in a drunken stupor, taking out the last of some endangered species—or, better yet, an indigenous shitholer whose mud people had been there for thousands of years—in a regrettable mistake. Whoopsies! But Draconian punishments are not in order in the Land of Bolsonaro if you are light-skinned and affluent enough, of course. After paying a small fee, the offender is released from custody after receiving an apology to further enjoy the land to his heart’s content.

When Bolsonaro eclipses Pinochet’s totals, he will have the SFL to thank for his efforts. Pinochet was said to have exterminated roughly 30,000 communists, said to be a human rights abuse to some. To hard-liners such as Bolsonaro, those could be considered rookie numbers to be eclipsed during a healthy day’s work. As the doors are kicked down, the communists are dragged into the street in an extrajudicial manner, and the cops are fully unleashed Rothbard style, it will have been the fittingly named Students for Liberty whose corporate-funded activism laid the groundwork for what would have otherwise been an inconceivable cultural shift against the Left!

As the heterosexual pride parade rolls through Rio de Janiero featuring healthy, well-adjusted families celebrating decent, functioning, wholesome society, SFL activists can feel responsible in the contrast displayed in comparison to the soulless, civilization-destroying filth of the LGBT movement gyrating down the public roads promoting child abuse and dangerous lifestyle choices. The difference will make the point to ordinary Brazilians just how unnatural these degenerate reprobates truly are and why tolerance must be soundly rejected. Homos, trannies, he-shes, cross dressers, pickle slurpers, carpet munchers, donut burners, and Sodomites of all stripes will all have their ‘Stephen Fry moment’ of surreal ownage in the face of Bolsonaro’s masculine and unyielding rule (sponsored by Jair’s SFL partners, of course).

Drug abusers will have instant relief for their maladies provided to them by safety squads. The sensation of hot lead piercing into their flesh will replace thrill of the heroin spike. This may not have been what the SFL acolytes had in mind when they embarked upon their dude-weed-bro activism, but they really should have known better. The libertarian dogma is too focused in the weeds while being completely unable to address pressing racial and cultural issues. Terrible consequences tend to occur when individuals pursue supercilious ideals not tethered to reality. However, it is worth noting that these consequences will not be bad for everyone, such as the enforcers of the new Brazilian regime.

A seriously good time is in order for these folks.

The SFL activists chanted “Menos Marx, Mais Mises” as they demanded liberty but didn’t quite think it through. President-elect Bolsonaro can be pictured holding up books written by Mises and fellow libertarian hero Frederic Bastiat. His son, Eduardo, is a student with the Mises Institute. Bolsonaro’s followers could have conceivably discovered Mises only to learn that his actual works are far different than how he is advertised by his libertarian followers. Mises was far from a closeted, bowtie-adorned cuck, and he espoused theories or race realism that would be at home on the pages of American Renaissance. Mises also promoted fascism as an ideology “full of the best intentions” that “won merit” despite its faults and “will live on eternally in history.”

“It is perfectly legitimate to assume that the races are different in their cognitive abilities and in their willpower and accordingly are unequally suited for the task of setting up societies, and that the better races are characterized in particular by their special ability to strengthen social bonds,” Mises wrote in “The Market Economy.”

Perhaps there is a cosmic lesson to be learned from this common trend of libertarian activist efforts being co-opted and expanded upon by right-wing authoritarians. Perhaps only after humanity is tamed once more will it be ready for freedom. Perhaps only after leftism is cut down to size can the seeds of liberty possibly take root. Even the Founding Fathers had to perpetrate a regime of incendiary violence against the British for the US to take shape. Lost freedom is only regained through sacrifice, through blood, through force. If electing a strongmen like Bolsonaro is all we have to give to restore what we have lost, we should consider ourselves blessed.

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news-mashable-yahoopartner-blog · 6 years

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Elon Musk was once tech's angel. Now he's an overplayed meme.

It’s Viral Market Crash week on Mashable. Join us as we take stock of the viral economy and investigate how the internet morphed from a fun free-for-all to a bleak hellscape we just can’t quit.

In the space of a few short months, Elon Musk has gone from being the internet's tech darling to one of the most parodied personalities online.

Up until this spring, Musk was more or less well liked. Sure, his employees were reportedly working mandatory overtime, but his anti-union stances were overlooked because hey, he launched a car into space! His company's egregious record of under-reporting workplace injuries was glossed over because he started dating Grimes after shooting his shot with an adorably nerdy pun. Elon Musk was the manic pixie dream boy of tech: He was deeply problematic, but it was easy to ignore because he was just so quirky.

SEE ALSO: People think Guy Fieri is a better philanthropist than Elon Musk

I mean, he sold flamethrowers. Flamethrowers! Who even remembers that Tesla employees were apparently forced to work around the body of an employee who passed out when there are videos of a grown man giggling about his new flamethrower?

Don’t do this. Also, I want to be clear that a flamethrower is a super terrible idea. Definitely don’t buy one. Unless you like fun.

A post shared by Elon Musk (@elonmusk) on Jan 27, 2018 at 5:29pm PST

But then in late May, Musk's reputation took a sudden nosedive when he started using Twitter like Donald Trump. Musk criticized how the media covers Tesla crashes. He was understandably upset that a recent crash that resulted in a broken ankle was reported on extensively while thousands of fatal crashes from standard cars aren't.

Then he ramped up his complaining and blamed "big media" for lying, and claimed that nobody believes news outlets anyway. He also said that journalists are "under constant pressure to get max clicks" or risk getting fired for not pulling in enough of that sweet advertising revenue, even insinuating that fossil fuel and oil companies were paying off reporters to write negative reviews of Tesla's cars.

As if that wasn't enough, Musk followed up by announcing his plans to create a Yelp-type review site for journalists that would allow the public to "rate the core truth of any article," which honestly sounds like an Orwellian hell.

Musk's anti-news rant came just weeks after Reveal published a damning report about Tesla putting manufacturing above its employees' safety. Grimes tried to defend her new boyfriend, insisting that Tesla being anti-union was "fake news." When journalist Jessica Huseman called out Musk for his tweets, pointing out that Reveal is a nonprofit that doesn't compete for clicks, he threw a temper tantrum that turned into a months-long Twitter meltdown.

No, they’re just some rich kids in Berkeley who took their political science prof too seriously

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 23, 2018

Like an angsty preteen who just feels misunderstood by society, Musk lashed out at everyone who criticized him.

Then in June, Alex Arbuckle changed his Twitter display name to "Italian Elon Musk" and started blessing our feeds with parodies of Musk's tweets.

Ayy!! I make a da rockets!!

— alex (@alexqarbuckle) June 16, 2018

Arbuckle isn't the first to spoof Elon Musk. The account Bored Elon Musk has been actively shitposting on Twitter for years.

Digital counter in conference rooms that displays running sum of TIME ELAPSED x HOURLY RATE of all people in a meeting.

— Bored Elon Musk (@BoredElonMusk) April 16, 2015

Alarm that also starts a timer for how long you're allowed to f*** around on your phone after waking up.

— Bored Elon Musk (@BoredElonMusk) April 5, 2017

Arbuckle's version of Elon Musk was unique, though. While Bored Elon Musk made fun of Musk's ideas, like tweeting randomly specific but ingenious innovations, Arbuckle's Musk made fun of Musk himself.

I love a my employee Sal, he spinna da dough like a no one else!! I had a to fire him because a he ask for a raise!! I say Sal, donna you have enough dough already? Prego!!

— alex (@alexqarbuckle) June 17, 2018

It got a lot of attention, and he even lost his Twitter verification for the bit.

[when I get my verified checkmark removed by Twitter for doing a bit where Elon Musk is Italian] ayyyy whoopsy daisy

— alex (@alexqarbuckle) June 17, 2018

Italian Elon Musk's run was short, though — Arbuckle changed his name and profile photo after just five glorious days.

"I ended the Italian Elon Musk bit after realizing I'd been de-verified by Twitter, because in my estimation that was the funniest possible way for the bit to end," Arbuckle wrote Mashable in an email.

While Twitter users mourned the loss of one of the greatest bits of 2018, the real Elon Musk's social media meltdown continued.

When 12 boys and their soccer coach got stranded in a flooded cave in Thailand, Musk jumped to the rescue. Sort of. He had a child-size submarine constructed so divers could pop a kid in, squeeze the metal tube through the cave's narrow passages, and safely deliver each child to dry land. Except, according to a BBC report, the head of the rescue mission called the baby sub just "not practical." While Musk was live-tweeting the mini submarine's development, human divers were actually rescuing the children one by one.

Despite being a 47-year-old adult, Musk couldn't take the criticism. In another Twitter rant he responded to the BBC's report with screenshots of emails with the co-leader of the Thai rescue team. He followed up by claiming that his sub "could do the entire journey & demonstrate at any time." He topped it off by implying that "billionaire" is a slur, and when called out on that, bragged about the number of jobs he created.

Ironically, the “billionaire” label, when used by media, is almost always meant to devalue & denigrate the subject. I wasn’t called that until my companies got to a certain size, but reality is that I still do the same science & engineering as before. Just the scale has changed.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 10, 2018

No, it means I created jobs for 50,000 people directly and, through parts suppliers & supporting professions, ~250,000 people indirectly, thus supporting half a million families. What have you done?

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 10, 2018

Musk's response to lead diver Vern Unsworth calling his child submarine "just a PR stunt" that had "absolutely no chance of working" was icing on the cake. Unsworth is an avid caver who has extensive knowledge of the cave system the boys were stranded in. In a series of unhinged tweets — his magnum opus of Twitter rants — Musk called Unsworth "pedo guy" and claimed he "never saw this British expat guy who lives in Thailand (sus)."

That's probably the Muskiest tweet Musk has ever tweeted. Arbuckle, now formerly known as Italian Elon Musk, said it best: "No conceivable parody could be funnier than calling a rescue hero a pedophile because he made fun of your waterproof space trash boy casket."

To the people in my mentions telling me to bring back Italian Elon Musk: No. No conceivable parody could be funnier than calling a rescue hero a pedophile because he made fun of your waterproof space trash boy casket

— alex (@alexqarbuckle) July 15, 2018

He has a point — despite the multiple parody accounts that have popped up in the absence of our beloved Italian Elon Musk, none of them can sound as ridiculous as actual Elon Musk tweets.

A week later, Twitter announced that it would start locking accounts whose display names said "Elon Musk." The company said that it was to prevent cryptocurrency scams, since lookalikes would comment under Musk's tweets promising that if Twitter users sent him Ethereum, he would send even more back.

Twitter users joked that Elon Musk paid off the site so parody accounts would stop making fun of him.

Elon Musk is such a petty bastard that he got an Italian spoof account of his banned from Twitter. How naive of him to think that will stop the internet from mocking him Rise French Élon Musque and take your Italian brother's place! pic.twitter.com/aNbmt5fRtG

— Culture Shots (@hjvinke) July 28, 2018

"targeting cryptocurrency scammers" is code for "elon forked out $2,000,000 to make sure Italian Elon Musk never resurfaces" https://t.co/9cOBzhXKYv

— thomas violence (@thomas_violence) July 26, 2018

Arbuckle has a different take:

"Twitter locking accounts that change their name to Elon Musk is some extremely hilarious shit for a website that not only enables but actually verifies violent white supremacist organizations," he told Mashable, ending his email with a dig at Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey. "Terrific priorities, Jack."

French Elón Musque, who has since changed their name to @locallefties, was one of the first copycats who got popular in the weeks after Arbuckle said he wouldn't resurrect Italian Elon. They got around Twitter's new locking policy by changing up Musk's name. Through Twitter DM, they said, "i thought it might piss off elon musk which would be cool."

i send ze baguette into space... i dont pay ze taxés... honhonhon...

— YOUR LOCAL LEFTIES (@locallefties) July 27, 2018

ze homeless man on ze street ask me “please monsieur musk spare some change my family is dying” i tell him “have you heard of ze hyperloop”

— YOUR LOCAL LEFTIES (@locallefties) July 28, 2018

ze tesla cars catch fire so zat you may easily toast your croissants

— YOUR LOCAL LEFTIES (@locallefties) July 28, 2018

With French Elón Musque leading the way, Swëdish Eløn Müsk, German Elon von Müsk, and South African Elon Musk rose from the ashes of Italian Elon Musk.

Ï sjënd dë mætbals ïnto späcë, Ï døn’t pjay de täxes, bork bork

— Swëdish Eløn Müsk (@MuskSwedish) July 28, 2018

I am very socialist ja. I seek greatest good for all. Zats vy I ground ze factory verkers of Tesla Motorwagen into dust to reach ze production numbers for ze Model tree for my bonus.

— German Elon von Müsk (@DvonMusk) July 28, 2018

I sent a car into space!! I don't pay taxes!! Hahaha!!

— South African Elon Musk (@saelonmusk) July 28, 2018

Someone even came up with whatever the hell this version of Elon Musk is.

Ị̘ ͚͎͈ba̠̺̜̤̬n̯̪̝̩̮̼i̟̘s̬̲̣͖̞ͅh̼̤e͙͇̠̯͉͍d̘̼ ̫̺̦a̤ ͔̦̗̟̘͎c̩͖a͔͎r̲͕͙̮̗ ̩̠̝̟̝̫ͅt͖͓̖̩o̗ ͔̳et̝e̯r̟na͎̱͉͔̮̫̰l͉̖͉̥̞̬̭ ̜̻͍dam̫͓̮̭̝n̠a͈͉t̻i͚̯̤͓̱̪ͅo͉̟ͅn̳̻̫̖ ͉̟̜I ̻̤̗̻̼̘̞d͇̹̟o̭̳̣͚̦̪̻n̠͈̦t͇͇̘̳ ͙ͅp̦̘͚͖̝̣a̹̳̞͙̼̭̮y͔ ̣t̤̹̪̳̭͚a̺͔͈̪xẹ̤͇̯̳̘̭s̹͖̪̘ͅ H̺͔͇͖̳̩̭a̞̥h̘̬̺̜͓̱̣a̗̤ha̝̞̖ḥa̻͕̗͈

— Elonmorsque of the Nine Hells (@elonmorsque) July 30, 2018

While Twitter users argued over whether or not the Elon Musk parodies were actually good, everyone could agree that the fake accounts were still more bearable than seeing actual Elon Musk tweets.

french elon musk is considerably worse than italian elon musk but they're both infinitely better than original flavour elon musk

— robocop 2 (@newmoneytrash) July 28, 2018

what made italian elon musk funny is, it combined a classic trope (italian accent) with the spontaneity of its execution. what made french elon musk briefly funny was that it was homage. what made south african elon musk funny was format deconstruction. nothing else will be funny

— victim of reply guys every day on this horrid site (@D0GGEAUX) July 28, 2018

The Musk parodies, funny or not, played off national stereotypes. People worried that the accounts would take it too far and start being actively racist for the sake of making fun of Elon Musk.

Stop making national stereotype Elon Musk accounts. You will never recapture the lightning in a bottle that was Italian Elon Musk and it's only a matter of time before someone slips out of ironic chauvinism and ends up doing something actually racist

— The Bionic Woman (@fireh9lly) July 28, 2018

Two accounts, @ElonMuskButGay and @ElonMuskButStr8, ended up tweeting cringey, offensive Musk parodies. At that point, accounts weren't even trying to be funny — the creators were just tweeting for the sake of hopping on the bandwagon.

when the tides of war between the unfunny goobers riding the coattails of the italian elon musk account have finally subsided, these will be the only survivors left to tell the tale pic.twitter.com/nKhknSwQ3i

— Lilly, Host of the Florida Nightm🌟re (@GunstarHeroine) July 29, 2018

@locallefties dropped the French Elón Musque bit because "the joke got old and wasn’t fun anymore." They've been using their account, which now has over 52,000 followers, to promote work by LGBTQ artists and spread awareness of progressive causes.

"We want to actually use our popularity to foster change rather than make harmless fun of some tech billionaire lol," they tweeted on Thursday.

Arbuckle says he was on a remote island vacation with his family when the parodies started popping up. "I turned my phone on to see what was going on in the world and quickly turned it off and went diving for mussels. I did laugh at South African Elon Musk, though," he wrote.

While parody Elon Musk accounts have died down in the past week, the real Elon Musk is still tweeting ridiculousness. On Wednesday, he put out a call for video game developers because he wants to add "super fun games" to Tesla's center touch screen. It would be something like Pokémon Go, but "more of an adults in cars anime vibe."

Sounds dangerous but OK.

If you’re into video game development, consider applying to Tesla. We want to make super fun games that integrate the center touch screen, phone & car irl.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 1, 2018

Something like that, but more of an adults in cars anime vibe

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 1, 2018

At this point, it's nearly impossible to parody Elon Musk because he keeps churning out wild tweets that will probably one-up any fake Musk account. But we can remember that for one glorious week in July, Twitter was overrun by Elon Musks.

Editor's Note: Alex Arbuckle is a verified former employee of Mashable.

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