#contract research organization list | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

possessedscholar · 1 month

Text

Actually, fuck it.

Metroid Prime 1 Edibility List.

With actual research and considerations*, going in the order the Metroid wiki lists them! One Caveat, if not mentioned to be toxic in any way then I am assuming non-toxicity, UNLESS a similar creature from Earth is poisonous.

Parasite: their size and large numbers would seem to imply they’d have decent meat on them, though their nature as pests may imply they could carry disease. Overall I’d put them in a similar area with rats: Edible with proper cooking and cleaning, but probably less pleasant than most edible creatures.

Auto Turret: Inedible, made of metal and wires. And unlike some Pirate contraptions I see no tortured animals used to make this one either.

Tallon IV Zoomer: The Zoomer itself is likely edible, but the species apparently carries a flesh eating bacteria that makes safely handling the species for consumption difficult. Indirectly inedible, but if raised without contracting the bacteria (or properly cleaned, IRL flesh eating bacteria can be killed with bleach) almost certainly similar to crab meat (with more legs than a crab as a bonus!)

Tallon IV Geemer: in terms of meat quantity, you’d think they’re similar to the Zoomer, but the fact that the spikes retract may imply a difference in muscle structure and/or carapace thickness that could mean less meat for consumption. As for actual edibility, implied to have a similar diet to the Zoomer (mentioned as disease carriers, and irl flesh eating bacteria is usually gotten from improper sewage handling), thus same rating as the Zoomer.

Sap Sac: Mentioned as being very sweet and delectable, and are visibly very large and fleshy, so edible… ON ONE CONDITION: Sap Sacs are explosive, but the logbook mention that only “Brave or ingenious creatures eat it” implies there are ways to consume Sap Sack flesh without being exploded. Based on the Remastered logbook image, it's likely you can eat a certain amount of the outer flesh before hitting the explosive core.

(Sap Sac Image for reference)

Bloodflower: Likely poisonous, at the very least has some manner of organ or gland that creates the projectile toxins that would need to be removed. Petals look unusually fleshy, and the three mouth-nodules could be similar to snakes, but overall edibility seems... unlikely, at best something that would require an intensive process to achieve.

Seedling: These seem to be surprisingly fleshy for plants, and no mention of toxicity or poison is made. Lower body seems similar to a slug or snail, but no slime trail is observes so likely not as similar as visuals may suggest. Combined with plant-based nature, Seedling is possibly edible and fruit or vegetable like, though it is unusually a plant one has to hunt before eating. Spines likely best if removed, but as the spines are not mentioned to be venomous, it's possible they could be a case of "safe to ingest but not desirable"

Tallon IV Scarab: Small-ish explosive bug, likely edible if you could somehow harvest and cook one without it exploding, but this seems so impossible I'm marking it down as inedible.

Beetle: Large arthropod similar to Zoomer/Geemer, but with added benefit of no mention of flesh eating bacteria. Best outcome, similar to crabs but absolutely massive. Worst outcome, tastes terrible like some insects but otherwise not toxic.

Plated Beetle: Like regular Beetle, but even more massive! Exposed abdomen is large, fleshy, and soft, which means it would likely be an excellent protein (assuming it doesn't taste terrible). Meanwhile, insides likely similar to that of non-plated cousins.

Tallon IV War Wasp: The Wasps themselves are likely edible! Bees and similar bugs on earth are actually a delicacy in some regions, especially the larvae, so War Wasps are possibly similar. Adult bees and wasps can be ground up to make a sort of flour, so there's a potential edibility point. Meanwhile, a logbook entry from Hunters indicates the Luminoth harvest War Wasp hives for the royal jelly, and it's possible that War Wasps have honey, like some terrestrial wasps (though as the vast majority of wasp species don't make honey, it is a slim chance.) Overall, War Wasps are likely incredibly edible.

Ram War Wasp: See the basic War Wasp, though notably in their boss fight, Ram War Wasps have an unusual tendency to dip their stingers into the toxic water seemingly as a means of poisoning them. Likely non-toxic themselves, but it could mean wild Ram War Wasps have contaminants in them.

Barbed War Wasps: Again, see the basic War Wasp. Seemingly a point in the favor of the Barbed War Wasp's favor is their absolutely massive abdomen, however the abdomen is likely larger to house the necessary biological mechanisms that allow for the firing and rapid regrowth of their stinger, as well as the production organs for the acidic compound contained in said stingers, which would almost certainly make Barbed War Wasps require more work to prepare for consumption. Still, likely edible if the proper preparations are taken for the abdomen.

Tallon IV War Wasp Hive: Hive itself likely inedible, but contains War Wasp larvae, royal jelly, and possibly honey (See War Wasp).

Eyon: A giant eye. In some Earth cultures, certain animals' eyes are considered a delicacy, and these are massive. Likely edible if they can be killed and have whatever produces the energy beam removed.

Plazmite: Likely similar to the Earthen Firefly, which is toxic due to all the chemicals needed for the bioluminescense. So, we can safely assume the Plazmite is equally inedible.

Shriekbat: Incredibly high internal temperature (121 Centigrade!) with no harm to self likely means even if they probably aren't poisonous, you'd have to wait forever for it to cool enough to safely eat. If we assume they are kept from cooking themselves while alive through either special organs or an incredibly efficient circulatory system, however, possible the meat of a dead Shriekbat cooks itself from leftover heat. Probably edible but impractical to work with. On the plus side, likely hot enough to kill potential parasites and microbes that try to infest them!

Tallon IV Tangle Weed: Simple plant with no mention of toxicity, likely all individual tendrils of a patch are attached to a singular bulb if their Venom Weed cousins are any indication. Probably edible, though if it is a single bulb one may need a shovel to dig it out.

Tallon IV Venom Weed: Similar to Tangle Weed, but contains a potent, seemingly corrosive venom delivered by barbs, presumably similar to how jellyfish deliver their venom. Further, the toxic water of the Chozo Ruins the Venom Weed is found in is implied to be have made the Venom Weed toxic. Likely inedible barring any changes in the future after the toxic water is gone.

Blastcap: Explicitly mentioned poisonous flesh, spores corrosive enough to eat through Samus's armor (seemingly), and also explodes. So goddamn inedible.

Reaper Vine: Appears to be a long, thick, bramble-like vine, but the ability to move itself implies some kind of muscle analogue. Main vine possibly edible but likely unpleasant, eye might be decently edible. Scythe head likely too tough to eat, sharp and hard enough to damage power armor.

Stone Toad: Large amphibian with rock hard skin and seemingly soft insides. Likely edible like some frogs are on Earth, and being a predator that eats smaller prey whole and with no mention of venoms or toxins likely needs no special preparation. Tough skin could help keep moisture in, keeping flesh nice and juicy for consumption throughout cooking. Only downside is figuring out how to kill and butcher one for consumption with rock hard skin in the way. Theoretically perfectly edible, hindered by lack of means to get through skin to prepare for consumption.

Plated Parasite: See standard Parasite entry at the top. Tougher, nigh unbreakable skin means this one is even more unappealing.

Oculus: Based on official art, somewhat turtle-like creature with a single eye on the top of their shell. Likely edible in the same ways turtles are, though legs are more like crab legs. This all said, the electricity generation means there are likely special organs that require special attention and removal to make the creature's meat edible.

Plated Puffer: Coated in metal and filled with toxic gas. Definitely inedible.

Hive Mecha: Robot, inedible. Contains Ram War Wasps however.

Incinerator Drone: Robot, inedible.

Chozo Ghost: Too intangible to eat, most likely.

Grizby: Large arthropod similar to Zoomer and Geemer, mentioned as carrion feeder, may carry bacteria. Otherwise, likely similar level and state of edibility. Tough carapace would help keep meat together while cooking, similar to cooking some shelled animals in their shell.

Burrower: Large arthropod with acidic spit. Likely too acidic to eat safely, though only the projectile spit is mentioned as acidic. At best need to remove saliva glands, maybe avoid the head all together.

Puffer: See Plated Puffer, just minus the metal coating.

Triclops: Large arthropod similar to Beetles. Likely similarly edible.

Magmoor: Large serpents that live in magma, can breathe fire. Definitely incredibly heat resistant, cooking flesh for consumption is likely difficult unless the skin is capable of surprising levels of temperature insulation, and if they can evolve to live in magma there's potential for parasites and diseases to do the same. Still, nothing suggests the meat is toxic, aside from potentially collecting minerals in their body from living in molten rock. Will put the Magmoor down as a solid "Maybe Edible in certain conditions/with certain prep work"

Puddle Spore: Lava Mollusk. Likely impossible to properly cook as even the insides are not hurt by the extreme heat of lava/magma, meat likely similarly builds up minerals from lava over time as suggested with Magmoor. Probably not edible.

----(Text Block Spacer)----

Crystallite: Large arthropod with ice shell. Ice shell unlikely to impart anything unique to Crystallite flavor wise, but likely as edible as any other large Tallon IV arthropod.

Ice Parasite: Likely similar to standard and Plated Parasites.

Ice Shriekbat: Similar to standard Shriekbat, but icy coating may help cool meat faster. Plus, high internal temperature combined with frigid environment could limit successes of diseases and parasites further than even basic Shriekbat (thermal shock.)

Pulse Bombu: Living ball of electricity, almost certainly inedible.

Scatter Bombu: See Pulse Bombu.

Ice Burrower: Similar to Burrower, but with icy outer shell.

Ice Beetle: Like standard Beetle, but with icy coating.

Flickerbat: Smallish flying hunters that eat small insects. Probably edible, though small, fast, and invisible enough that hunting some may be impractical.

Jelzap: Large aquatic apex predator. Likely edible, though if it's anything like sharks (One of Earth's aquatic apex predators), they may have high concentrations of mercury. Naturally composed of two halves connected by electrical impulses, butchering for meat likely somewhat simplified by this.

Baby Sheegoth: Young Sheegoth, still growing. Highly mobile predators, no mention of being poisonous and no venoms used in hunting implies lack of toxicity. Ice shell likely needs removal, small nubs in back that appear to be the beginning of the adult Sheegoth's crystal cluster likely also inedible. As Sheegoths move (and move fast), they likely have incredibly tough meat in their legs.

Adult Sheegoth: Baby Sheegoth but bigger and older. Crystal nubs in back have become absolutely gargantuan with age. Leg meat likely even tougher than that of Baby Sheegoth. Still likely edible though. Should find use for Sheegoth crystals, very pretty and can absorb energy as a defense mechanism.

Sentry Drone: Inedible, Machine. Unfortunate, as they're annoying enough that I wish I could eat one as a power move... Did I type that out loud?

Space Pirate, Tallon IV Deployment: Likely edible, but ethically I have Questions. Yes these guys are assholes but uh... you'd be eating a sapient creature.

Shadow Pirate: See Space Pirate. Cloaking device probably does not give invisibility when eaten.

Flying Pirate: See Space Pirate. Jetpack fuel likely toxic as well.

Aqua Sac: Like the Sap Sac, but instead of exploding this one just breaks into pieces that float away. Probably even more edible than the Sap Sac!

Tallon Crab: Formerly edible, but sadly Phazon mutation/contamination has made them no longer edible. Thanks Space Pirate High Command. >:(

Aqua Reaper: Looks like a giant squid or octopus tentacle. If they are like giant space octopus tentacles then I'd say edible, Space Calamari.

Aqua Drone: See Sentry Drone, but with added sogginess.

Aqua Pirate: See Space Pirate. Could see if special armor is salvageable and sell for credits, then just get a meal delivered by Space GrubHub.

Mega Turret: Bigger than Auto Turret, but likely just as inedible what with being made of metal and wires.

Glider: Large flying mollusk. Described as curiously magnetic, can be affected by Grapple Beam. Fleshy parts of body consist of eyes and a bunch of blue fleshy nodules going by official art. At best unpleasant to eat unless cooked in shell, at worst full of ferrous metals that could make it toxic.

Elemental Troopers: See Space Pirate, and no I'm not describing flavor profiles for each trooper.

Elite Pirate: See Space Pirate AND see Tallon Crab. It has both ethics questions and Phazon contamination! Inedible on like 50 levels! Ok maybe just two. Still.

Phazon Elite: See Elite Pirate. But also, has so much Phazon it likely gives radiation poisoning just by being within 10 inches of the thing without shielding.

----(Text Block Spacer)----

Metroid: Metroids are likely edible if they can be killed without shattering them. Outer membrane likely similar to jellyfish (which can be eaten), and rest of body also seems edible if cooked properly. Bioenergy absorption effects on edibility unknown, pirates describe the energy as not really taking a form they can scan or interact with.

Hunter Metroid: See Metroid, but larger and with tentacle that may serve as another edible part.

Fission Metroid: Inedible, result of heavy Phazon mutation/contamination.

Lumigek: Lives in the rotting remains of a Leviathan/Phazon Meteor. Likely radioactive enough to poison through proximity. Inedible.

Parasite Queen: Phazon contamination/mutation, likely inedible for that alone. Also, acidic saliva production is driven into overdrive by mutation, would require removal even if not rendered inedible by Phazon.

Flaahgra (and Tentacles): Source of poisons in Chozo Ruins waterways, likely full of the same toxins and would at best require intensive cleaning and cooking process to render even remotely consumable. Plus, likely a major Phazon mutant. Almost certainly inedible.

Thaardus: Sapient chunks of Phazon ore. Inedible and tooth shattering. Oh and radioactive also a consideration.

Omega Pirate: Arguably the second-least edible Pirate, behind only the Phazon Elite and likely tied with the Berserker Lord from 3.

Meta Ridley: As kickass as being known as the person to bring down and eat a Space Dragon would be, ethically I have Questions since Ridley is Sapient (Check the Manga that detail's canon!). Plus, likely so full of cybernetics that butchering is difficult. Yes I know the temptation to eat him in revenge for Samus's parents is there, but overall I must say edible chemically speaking, but ethically bad.

Metroid Prime: Metroid Prime is undoubtedly so full of Phazon that I'm pretty sure getting anywhere near it without the Phazon Suit should be fatal. Giant arthropod shape could imply similar meat to beetles, but in the NA GC Version it's full of assimilated technology and even without that it's probably just not feasible due to, again, massive Phazon levels. Core Essence even worse, basically the Bombu but made of Phazon energy. 100% Inedible.

#metroid #metroid prime #partially a joke based on a comic

70 notes · View notes

brave-and-gentle · 2 months

Text

Girl dad!Jean Kirstein - Happy Birthday Edition

In celebration of our man's birthday!

Pairings: Jean x afab! reader

Summary: Modern AU - You find out that you and Jean are unexpectedly going to be parents, and the baby is due on Jean's birthday.

Warnings: None, this is a continuation of super wholesome girl dad Jean

EB's Notes: I wish I could've fully fleshed this out, but alas, I'm working on two fics so a bulleted list is the best I can give rn <3 also I don't know what it's like to be pregnant or give birth so?? I did my best?? Plz enjoy and celebrate our Jean boy!

It's September when you find out that you're pregnant. One missed period isn't a big deal, but two? That plus how your stomach swirls every morning. You can't keep anything down until mid-afternoon. You silently blame the Fourth of July rager Eren threw every year. You and Jean had never been the patriotic type, but you two enjoyed the party (maybe a little too much thanks to Connie handing you drinks all night) and got a little careless after the night's festivities.

One night when Jean comes home from work, you decide to tell him. “Um, Jean?” Lacking words, you hold out the pregnancy test. Your hands shake. You had talked about having kids together, but it was always some distant future, certainly not now. He takes the stick and stares at it for what seems like forever. You wonder if you have to explain to him that it's a pregnancy test – is he really that dense? But then he looks up, hazel eyes glowing in the sunset streaking through the windows, and wraps you in his arms. “It's going to be okay, no matter what we do,” he whispers and kisses the top of your head. “I know it's not great timing and I'm not sure I'll ever really feel ready,” you begin, voice trembling, “but I think I want this. A baby. With you.” Jean leans down to press his forehead to yours. “Then I think we're going to have an adventure,” he grins.

Jean is overjoyed when you two find out that the baby is due in early April. “Do you think they'll be born on my birthday?” He asks, excitement rippling through his six-foot-two frame as he stares at the sonogram. You roll your eyes. “I didn't realize you could tolerate sharing a birthday with anyone.” Jean made a big deal about his birthday every year – mostly because he wanted to see what you would come up with for him. “Anything for our little one,” he affirms and caresses your slight bump.

Jean is the perfect partner to have a baby with – almost too perfect. It's almost irritating how much he dotes on you, but you remind yourself that he's doting on the baby too - “Baby K” or “little one,” he calls them interchangeably. He supplies you with all kinds of ginger snacks for morning sickness, researches all the baby stuff you'll need, asks a million questions at every appointment, gives you a massage every night, and takes over the majority of the household chores. Connie and Sasha tease that they never see him anymore because he's “whipped for two.”

You start to feel contractions on the evening of April 6th. Frantic, Jean calls the doctor, who says to wait until they're closer together. Neither of you fall asleep that night – you simply lie in bed, counting the minutes between contractions together. In the wee hours of April 7th, you decide it's time. Jean carries you to the car, packs the hospital bag, and hyperventilates all the way there. “For god's sake Jean, we're not even there yet!”

For all his hyperventilating in the car, Jean manages to calm down once your contractions and labor pains ramp up. It's pain unlike anything you've ever experienced – like someone is twisting all your organs together and rearranging them. All modesty is out the window. With so much sweat sliding down your body, you throw off the hospital gown and are stark naked in front of Jean and the nurses. Jean holds you hand the entire time and rubs your sweat-slicked back as you contort yourself into any position that will get the baby out as fast as possible. “C'mon baby, you're doing great! Almost there, almost there!” He encourages with confidence, but his face is as pale as the hospital bed sheets. You know Jean well enough to know that on the inside, he's border line having a panic attack.

You let out one final scream, one final push, and ear-piercing cries fill the room. “You have a baby girl!” The nurse announces and places your daughter on your chest. She's covered in all kinds of fluid and is screaming so loud your ears ache, but you don't care. You cradle her in awe that she's this little combination of you and Jean that will someday grow into her own. Jean pulls closer and wraps his arm around you and places his hand on your daughter's back. His entire hand is almost bigger than her. “She's so small,” he whispers. His earthy hazel eyes begin misting.

When Jean holds his daughter for the first time, his misty eyes give way to a rainstorm. “I can't believe we have a daughter – we made an entire human,” he blubbers and snuggles her close. “Don't forget who did most of the work,” you groan and roll over on your side to watch the two loves of your life. Jean lowers your daughter from his chest to gaze down at her. His eyes light up. “Hey babe, look, I think she's got my face!” You laugh because sure enough, she does have a longer face than most babies you've seen.

When the nurse takes your daughter to get cleaned up, Jean nibbles your ear. Heat flushes your face. “So when do you think we can -” You bat him away. “Don't even think about, Kirstein.” “C'mon babe, I'm starved!” He pleads. “NO. You don't even want to see my pussy right now, it's wrecked.” Jean crosses his arms. “I'll have you know that I saw everything, probably more than you did, and I still want your pussy. But alright alright, maybe in a month or so. Maybe we could make another one. . .” He trails off and grins. You widen your eyes. “If she's got your attitude? We stop with her,” you counter. “But,” Jean says, “if she's like you? We should have three more.” You groan and throw a pillow at him.

A few hours later, Connie, Sasha, and Marco come parading in with chocolate cupcakes. “When I asked Nicolo to make cupcakes for your birthday, I didn't realize there would be two birthdays,” Sasha laughs and hands a cupcake to Jean, who wolfs it down in one hand while cradling your daughter in the other. “More importantly,” Marco says and hands you a cupcake, “congratulations. I'm glad everything went well.” You grin and take the cupcake. “Thanks Marco.” Jean grabs another cupcake and holds it in the air. “To you,” he says your name, “for giving me the best birthday present I could've ever asked for.” Tears shimmer in his eyes again. Your heart blossoms at the sight of your best friends all here for you. “Who knew Jean boy was such a cry baby,” Connie mutters and munches on his cupcake. “Ouch!” He cries as Sasha hits him on the head. “Happy birthday Jean,” you laugh and roll your eyes because you know for the rest of your life, he's going to be insufferable about how great it is to share a birthday with his daughter. “You're never getting one like this again.”

46 notes · View notes

roo-bastmoon · 1 year

Text

Suspicious Treatment of Jimin: What am I forgetting?

I have serious medication-induced brain fog so my memory is swiss cheese these days. I am trying to map out something so I can understand what is happening with our Jimin....

So far:

Hanteo deleted hundreds of thousands in sales; company did not comment.

YouTube froze and deleted millions of streams every day; company did not comment.

Jimin's Spotify profile was not properly listed. It still has no description or link to merch.

Jimin's works are not added to the company's playlist for days and sometimes weeks while other members' works and collabs are added immediately.

Spotify froze and filtered millions of his streams; company did not comment.

His title track was deliberately split, despite qualifying to count as one unit.

His in-ear devices failed to work during a live performance.

He was allowed only 9 days of promotion.

He was denied when he requested more than 2 music videos.

His historic Hot 100 #1 was not acknowledged by the company except for one single retweet the day-of.

He had no celebrations, no formal acknowledgement by company leadership of his achievement or of the resulting huge increase in stock prices.

Billboard changed their charting rules in Week 2; company did not comment until it was time for a different album to sell.

His albums did not ship to China and have not been restocked on WeVerse for weeks (whereas other artists' albums have).

His instagram was shadow banned. His videos on TikTok are also soft-blocked from being boosted.

All other members' YouTube focused views for Take Two auto-generate a preview photo; his does not (this must be deliberately selected not to generate an image). *Apparently they have fixed this issue after enough fans called it out on Twitter.

Some have observed that since Hybe took over, Jimin has been given fewer lines in group songs and less time dancing center as well.

A recent WeVerse article about Morgan Wallen downplayed both Yoongi's tour and Jimin's album as achieving "some partial success in breaking up [Wallen's] domination of the Hot 100."

Add to this the company "omitting" his bills four times, which lead to late payments on insurance premiums, which led to his apartment being "seized," which led to a smear campaign in the press the very same day his OST With You dropped... followed by his personal address and national identity number being doxxed online... and this honestly looks suspicious as hell.

What am I forgetting?

I'm not a manti but if I don't get reasonable explanations I'm gonna become one.

How can it look like anything other that deliberate sabotage so that one member does not outshine the rest?

How is this good business sense?

Jimin is a humble, hardworking team-player with no ambitions to go solo and leave his members. Why would anyone have it out for him?

It's possible there's prejudice and bigotry at play, but deep enough to span multiple departments and cut into the company's bottom line?

And yet how can it not be deliberate? How can any company be THIS incompetent for just ONE member?

And yet if we raise hell, we look like victimizing solos. Yet look at this laundry list!! And it just keeps happening. What can be done??

Can we not organize a quiet mass-email campaign? Can someone not write up a well-researched UCC article to share in English and Korean and keep tagging Hybe? Would it not be possible to comment respectfully about this in WeVerse?

Or would acknowledging it at all make it worse for Jimin?

I don't understand all the politics at play here.

I have no real idea what is happening but part of me is quietly terrified they have it out for him during contract negotiations for some reason.

What is BTS without all our beloved seven?

I'm genuinely very deeply upset.

#jimin #park jimin #jikook

178 notes · View notes

heartless-aro · 10 months

Text

To HIV+ AlloAros:

A lot of alloaros on here have talked a lot about how they face a lot of stigma for wanting to be sexually active while lacking romantic feelings, and how people often stereotype them as uncaring, promiscuous, careless, or irresponsible. I was thinking about this, and it reminded me of some of the sentiments that I’ve heard directed towards people who are HIV+. As such, I would like to take a moment to acknowledge HIV+ alloaros.

To all those allosexual aromantics out there living with HIV, just wanted to say that you are wonderful. You don’t deserve to be stereotyped as reckless or careless or promiscuous or irresponsible, whether you contracted HIV from your first and only sexual partner, from your 30th sexual partner, from IV drug use, or by any other means. You are not wrong or bad or dirty if you have had and enjoyed sex outside of a romantic relationship, even if you are someone who contracted HIV through casual sex. You aren’t “perpetuating stereotypes” (either of alloaro people or HIV+ people) by existing as an HIV+ alloaro. Your sexual feelings are beautiful and natural, and you should never feel ashamed of yourself for having them. You add rich and meaningful perspectives and experiences to the LGBTQ+ community, and we are lucky to have you as part of this community.

I hope that ART works well for you and enables you to live a long, happy life, and enjoy a healthy and active sex life (should you so choose). If you choose to have a zucchini, foveo, FWB, spouse, romantic partner, soft romo partner, or any other sort of partner (or partners!) I hope that they are accepting of your HIV status and that they are able to take PrEP (if needed) with minimal side effects. If sexual intimacy is something that you want, I hope that you and your partner(s) have sex that makes you feel beautiful and sexy and desirable and happy.

I hope that you are able to have children if you so choose, and that your friends and family are accepting of your HIV status.

If you have any symptoms, I hope that they are manageable and that you’re able to continue enjoying the things that make you happy. If you’re struggling with medical trauma due to your HIV treatment experiences, I hope someday you’re able to feel safe seeking medical help again. If you struggle with addiction and contracted HIV due to drug use, then I hope addiction and/or mental health recovery go well for you, should you choose to seek it out.

I hope you’re having a wonderful day, and I hope you have a wonderful life.

(For anyone who has read this far, I’ve added a link below to a list of HIV/AIDS research and relief organizations. Consider donating to one of them if you can!)

#alloaro #aroallo #hiv #hiv/aids #aro #aromantic #sex positivity #addiction #cw drug mention #cw sex mention #serophobia #arophobia #alloarophobia #long post #my post

130 notes · View notes

naturallyteal · 2 months

Text

A new dream fanfic by NaturallyTeal ~ Third Day

TW: smoking (below the cut)

Summary:

A Secret Dream Diary of a Good Omens fan (anonymous, he) who contracted a severe case of the fandom-typical brain rot from watching S1 & S2 too often, reading too much fanfic on AO3, and spending altogether too much time engaging on tumblr, digesting gifs, fanart and meta.

He dreams about Good Omens every night.

Short dreams, daily.

~~~

Third Day: Male Suites

I dreamed that I was at a masquerade ball in a labyrinthine Venetian palazzo. Everyone was cosplaying Aziraphale and Crowley. There were dancing pairs and watching bystanders, and the costumes were well made and like to perfection. Or were those the originals from production? The diverse guests were all of exactly the same perfect size, colouring, age, and build as their idols. I was looking for the original Aziraphale and Crowley, wrestling my way through the labyrinth of bodies. At last, I found Michael and David in black tie, alone in the billiard room, playing and smoking.

Neil stepped half out of a shadowy alcove and offered me a lit cigar.

[previous day] [next day]

I’m planning to post one _short_ dream daily, for 20 days. If you like, subscribe on AO3!

There’s also a “mailing list” (tagging in the replies) here on tumblr, let me know if you want on it! 😇😎

P.S. I researched if Neil smokes or ever did. Found this tumblr post: what Neil thinks about smoking. Please read!

#whatever i like best #good omens fanfiction #good omens brainrot #good omens dreams #daily #shorties #aziraphale #crowley

20 notes · View notes

noodleblade · 1 month

Note

Can I ask for 17. noticing their individual quirks from the blossoming romance prompt list with Simpatico? <3

WHAT A COINCIDENCE THAT I STARTED REWRITING LIKE 3 HOURS BEFORE I SAY THE POST ABOUT YOUR BIRTHDAY!! Anyways, Happy Belated Birthday!!! Enjoy some simpatico nonsense:)

Ao3 Link Here

Perceptor narrowed his optics down at the pile of clutter before him. Clutter was a kind, professional, polite way of describing explosive havoc of disorder and chaos that made up the dimensions of Brainstorm’s desk. Disgusting was another word that came to mind.

::How do you live like this?::

::Oh please, let’s not exaggerate. It’s not that bad.:: came Brainstorm’s groan.

It was not an exaggeration. If anything, it was an understatement.

Perceptor’s internal processors had a difficult time distinguishing just what exactly he was looking at. The only way to actually piece through what was on the desk was to deconstruct it layer by layer. A cross-section analysis.

The bottom-most layer- the foundation, if you will -were dried dribbles of fuel intermingled with a noxious dusting of sentiment and dirt. One of Perceptor’s background scanners identified a cluster of granulated particles to be aged candied energon treat crumbs. An entire rust strick made the foundation brick, its sticky residue gluing it to the hard surface of the desk. Perceptor idly pondered if its removal would cause the entire system to fall apart. And while his internal protocols desperately would like the area cleaned, organized and sanitary, he was not willing to find out if his hypothesis was correct.

Cemented to this foundational core layer was the secondary mantle layer. This, from what Perceptor could read, was a scattering of notes all in Brainstorm’s sloppy, near illegible scribble. Tattered napkin bits from Swerve’s and printed notices from Ultra Magnus acted as the canvas for dynamic invention designs, schematics and impossible (and implausible) equations with attached nonsensical theorems. Several datapads acted as structural weights. When flicked on, Perceptor wasn’t sure if he felt amusement, exasperation or a sickly, prickling bashfulness in seeing several of his academic research papers and studies riddled with extensive notes, doodles and elaborations from Brainstorm.

It didn’t take away from the utter disaster that was Brainstorm’s work space but it did soften the blow. Still, Perceptor would prefer if his research wasn’t adding to the disgusting catastrophe that made up Brainstorm’s desk. Perhaps a bookshelf or three would greatly benefit organization.

Level three- the crust -was as troublesome as the other two layers of clutter, if not more prone to disaster by their fragile and incongruous shapes. Trinkets , Brainstorm affectionately called them. Garbage , Perceptor was more keen on describing. In truth, they probably served best as paperweights, however haphazardly placed they were.

The sentimentality was not missed on Perceptor and a part of him could even find the collection charming. Endearing.

Perceptor had bared witness to the slow accumulation over the course of the Lost Light’s journey but had never really taken the time to truly examine them. Now he did, his optics scanning over the seemingly random series of objects: little samples of rock, crystal, fossil collected on pit-stop planets, a Rodi-Star for Temporal Excellence half hanging off the desk, a cluster of thumb drive stocked with films, music, and other media either gifted or stolen from Rewind- Perceptor was still not sure. Little gadgets and doodles from Nautica were in abundance and horrible tiny contractions built by Whirl intermingled with them. There was even a small toy-like bauble on the corner of his desk from Chromedome, Perceptor had been present when the Mnemosurgeon had left it there and Brainstorm never moved it, simply fiddled with it absentmindedly while mulling over his work before throwing it back to the corner of his desk.

All these items, papers and dirt and yet Perceptor still did not actually find what he was looking for.

With a heavy sign, Perceptor responded to the insisting ping in his comms.

::How do you expect me to find anything on your desk?::

Brainstorm’s response was bitingly quick. ::What are you talking about? Everything is organized!::

::It’s garbage, Brainstorm.::

::Use that brilliant mind of yours and you’ll see everything has a purpose.::

::What purpose do Ultra Magnus’s cease orders from 28 cycles ago have?:: Perceptor didn’t dare touch the fragile, lopsided stack in fear of it tumbling down and only adding to the mess.

::They are counterbalances. Don’t move them or the desk will collapse.:: Perceptor had no doubt in the truth of that statement even if its intent was a joke.

::We are cleaning this when you return to the ship.::

::It doesn’t need any cleaning! I know where everything is!:

Perceptor let out a derisive snort. He could picture perfectly the little fluttering of Brainstorm’s ailerons, his hands moving in frustration.

::The tell me where your cathetometer is.::

It was the reason for this call in the first place. For rare occasion, Perceptor had the lab to himself with Brainstorm accompanying Rodimus’s small expedition team. It’s not Perceptor’s fault his colleague forgot his equipment but he was not about to be a complete aft in not assisting. He just wasn’t going to personally dig through Brainstorm’s garbage heap of a desk alone.

::Hmm, if you don’t see it in top it’s probably in one of the drawers.::

Perceptor rounded the desk to see six drawers lining the sides of the desk with three on each side.

::Which one?::

::The left side. I keep the important stuff there.::

Perceptor raised an optic ridge and couldn’t help but ask ::And what do you keep on the right?::

::Come on Percy, let me have a little mystery, a touch in intrigue.::

::Nevermind, I don’t want to know.::

Perceptor didn’t need to be present to know Brainstorm was pouting, blast mask intact or not. Even hundreds of meters between them and Perceptor knew a pouting, sulking Brainstorm anywhere.

::You’re no fun.::

::Yes I am.:: Perceptor replied back as he started with the top drawer, pulling it open only to find it crammed to the brim with even more data pads. All of them pressed together to a block so not even a tiny piece of dust could enter. Perceptor slammed the drawer shut. ::How do you live like this?:: he found himself reiterating.

::Oh, not fun loving Perceptor still complaining about my desk. Is that fun? Cleaning and organizing?::

::You’re a scientist. How do you find anything in this?::

::Tell me how you are fun in explicit detail and I’ll tell you my organizational strategies. We can make a date of it.::

Perceptor snorted as he opened the second drawer. This was filled with several instruments and after some careful digging, he found the cathetometer . ::We can clean your desk together.::

::You must be a hit at the club, Percy. Really. Absolute stud. What moves do you have? The pencil sharpener? The label maker? The file organizer? Actually, you can’t claim that one. Minimus invented and perfected that one. ::

Perceptor could have told Brainstorm at any moment that he had found what the other mech was looking for but, he held onto the tool for a moment, softly smiling to himself as Brainstorm rambled insults to him. It shouldn’t be charming, it shouldn’t be amusing, it shouldn’t bubble up any sort of affection. And yet.

::I’ve seen you dance, Brainstorm. I wouldn’t speak so confidentially with what you’ve demonstrated.::

::Are you saying Minimus is a better dancer than me? Because you surely can be saying that you are a better dancer. I mean, I think you’ll fall apart if you stepped foot on the dance floor.::

::It hasn’t happened yet.::

::When have you been dancing at Swerve’s? Before or after you deep clean and detail your desk every day?::

::Funny.::

Without even thinking about it, Perceptor opened the third drawer. He stopped as it slid open, its few contents rocking in the sway. Recognition lit his processor in a warm, shy heat.

::I’m hilarious. So funny and smart and amazing and talented and resourceful. Speaking of resourceful…did you find the my cathetometer yet? I put googly eyes on it. For personality. Can’t miss it.::

Perceptor felt the warmth spread across his faceplates. ::I did.::

::Oh Percy, I could kiss you. Tailgate is almost back at the ship if you can give it to him. The mods to his hoverboard make him almost as fast as Rodimus. He’s pissed. Anyways I told you it would be easy to find. All my important stuff is.::

Perceptor barely heard a word of what Brainstorm said. Only sending back a short affirmative as he stared at the drawer.

::Perceptor? You alright?::

With a sharp invent, Perceptor closed the drawer shut firmly.

::Perfectly fine. I’ll be ready to pass it off to Tailgate. I’m clearing your schedule for the next cycle. We are cleaning your desk. I can’t work knowing you are working like this.::

::Percy! It’s fine. I don’t need your shitty excuse for a date-::

::It’s not a date.:: Perceptor swiftly cut off. ::This is a work hazard that is being remedied immediately.::

Brainstorm’s response was muted, delayed. ::Okay, okay. We’ll clean it up. I’m sure you’ll have a checklist and everything.::

Perceptor let a small smile come to his face even though he could hear the telltale rumbling of Tailgate’s juiced up hoverboard. ::Of course. You shouldn’t expect anything less from me. If you manage to get it done by shift’s end, I’ll buy you a drink. Maybe if you are lucky, we can dance.::

Brainstorm’s next several responses were streams of incoherent stutters that formed a very excitable agreement. Perceptor didn’t feel the need to continue the chatter as he passed over the tool to Tailgate who only gave him a slightly confused look at his smile. Perceptor didn’t care, not when he knew what lay at the bottom of Brainstorm’s important drawer.

Sentimental fool.

#simpatico #brainstorm #perceptor #mtmte #transformers #my fics #macadam #gift for elmonstro:)

17 notes · View notes

gigachad-joker · 2 years

Text

The Joker: A Comic Masterlist

Disclaimer: This list will be subject to changes (comic addition and comic removal), as well as possible changes to its labeling system as this list is continually adjusted. If you see that a certain comic is missing please message me and make sure to include the comic's official title, number, and series of origin. The timeline organization of both single issue and collected editions is based on biased research.

Single issues with several following numbers are to be read as a collected edition.

This list will also include a link to where the comics below can be read for free.

Batman Comic's 1940 to 2011

These single-issue comics follow the familiar formula of, 'hero catch's villain'. In my opinion, they really showcase Joker's goofiness and criminal intelligence.

Batman #1, Batman #4, Batman #5, Batman #7, Batman #11

Batman #16, Batman #23, Batman #37, Batman #40

Batman #44, Batman #55, Batman #73, Batman #148

Batman #163, Batman #251, Batman #286, Batman #291

Batman #294, Batman #321, Batman #450, Batman #451

Batman #496, Batman #546, Batman #563, Batman #570

Batman #596, Batman #614, Batman #625, Batman #643

Batman #650, 649, 648 (Jokers more, 'there in the background')

Batman #655, Batman #663

BATMAN R.I.P: #676, 678, 679, 680, 681, 682

Batman Detective Comics 1937 - 2011

Batman DC #124, Batman DC #128, Batman DC #149, Batman DC #168

Batman DC #180, Batman DC #193, Batman DC #332, Batman DC #341

Batman DC #338, Batman DC #365, Batman DC #475, Batman DC #476,

Batman DC #532 Batman DC #569, Batman DC #570, Batman DC #617,

Batman DC #623 Batman DC #661, Batman DC #737, Batman DC #740,

Batman DC #741, Batman DC #781 Batman DC #826,

Batman DC #870, 869, 867, 866

Batman DC #875, Batman DC #879, Batman DC #880,

Link to comic Here

Gotham Central

Issues #12-15

Link to comic Here

Batman Confidential

Issues #7-12 Link to comic Here

Batman: The Man Who Laughs

Batman The man who laughs explores the idea of what would Batman and Joker's relationship look like if it had continued from Batman #1.

Link to comic Here pgs 1-70

Joker #1-15 2021 AND The Joker: Clown Prince of Crime (1975-76) series

The Joker: Clown Prince of Crime Series is a spin-off series with other villains such as Lex Luther, The Riddler, The Creeper, and more.

Joker 2021 #1-15 is a different series following the events of Infinite Frontier #1 involving Jim Gordon getting contracted to kill the Joker. To best understand this series I would suggest reading Batman: The Killing Joke, Joker War, and Black Mirror first.

This link will give you access to both collected editions.

Batman: The Killing Joke

Originally released in 1988, Batman: The Killing Joke was adapted from the 1951 short story The Man Under The Red Hood. This comic was also adapted into an animated movie in 2016.

Link to comic Here

Batman: A Death In The Family

A Death in the Family begins when Batman relieves Jason Todd of his crime-fighting duties. Jason begins a search for his biological mother but ends up being tortured by The Joker. This leads to his presumed death.

Link to comic Here

The Three Jokers

The Three Jokers is a 'spiritual' successor to Batman: The killing Joke and Batman: A Death In The Family. Batman, Batgirl, and Red Hood (now Jason Todd) explore a lead on The Joker, who, as the title suggests may have been 3 different men this whole time.

Link to comic Here

Batman Europa

Batman is about to be taken out by a virus that has no cure and his only salvation is The Joker.

Link to comic Here

Singular Stories

Batman: Cacophony

The major plotline is that someone has taken the Joker's poison and created a new club drug called Chuckles. It's taking over the street scene.

Link to comic Here

Jokers Last Laugh

Joker finds out he has cancer and starts a riot

Link to comic Here

Batman: Joker Switch

Joker gets a joke played on HIM! TW: Body horror

Link to comic Here

Batman: Dark Detective

Joker attempts to run for president

Link to comic Here

Batman: Joker Times

Joker agrees to be psychoanalyzed on live TV

Link to comic Here

Batman: I, Joker

Link to comic Here

BATMAN NEW 52 2011 - 2015

Batman New 52 carries multiple Joker storylines. Below I have sectioned them out for your consumption:

Death Of The Family: Batman New 52: #13 - #17

Batman Zero Year starts #21 and we see Joker's first appearance in Zero Year in issue #23.1 and then again in #24. Batman Zero Year then ends and

Batman Endgame begins at #34 - 40.

From #41 - #52 onward we begin Batman: Superheavy and start to tell the story of Mister Bloom. This storyline also leads to the amnesia of Bruce Wayne and the retired Joker storyline.

Link to full comic Here

Batman Detective comics faces of death VOL 1

Batman Faces of Death: #1 pgs 1-30 (Joker gets his face cut off by Dollmaker)

Link to comic Here

Batman: Death Of The Family (Extra)

This version of Death Of The Family also contains Detective Comics 16-17, Catwoman 13-14, Batgirl 14-16, Red Hood and the Outlaws 15-16, Teen Titans 15, Nightwing 15-16, Batman and Robin 15-17, Batman 17.

Link to comic Here

Batman: Zero Year ARC 2

Arc 2 of Batman's Zero Year is titled Secret city. We delve into Bruce Wayne’s past with the Red Hood Gang and his run-ins with aspiring District Attorney Harvey Dent!

Link to comic Here

Arkham Unhinged

I have never read this and do not know what it is about but it seems to have a similar format to Legends of The Dark Knight.

Joker is in issues: #7-9, #26-31, #35-37

Link to comic Here

Legend of the dark knight (1989-2021)

These are stories that can be told anywhere in the timeline, past, present, and future.

The 2021 run: Joker is in issues 2 and 3

Link to comic Here

The 2015 run: Joker is in issues, #4-6, #7-10,

Link to comic Here

The 1989 run: Joker is in issues, #50, #65-68, #105-106, #142-145, #162-163, ##200

Link to comic Here

BATMAN: REBIRTH 2016

Batman Rebirth carries out multiple Joker storylines. Below I have sectioned them out for your consumption:

Batman Rebirth: #25

Batman Rebirth #26-32 The War of Jokes and Riddles'

Batman Rebirth #48-50 The Best Man

Batman Rebirth #66

Batman Rebirth #86-91 Their Dark Designs (this leads into the Joker war)

Batman Rebirth #93 - #101, The Joker War

Link to comic Here

Journey to the joker war is just a fun little prelude to the joker war #1023 and 1024

The Joker War (Extra scenes)

As part of the Batman: Rebirth series Joker manages to steal Bruce Wayne’s fortune. With his newfound riches, he proceeds to take over Gotham city leading to an epic, explosive, battle.

Link to comic Here

Joker war collateral damage, the aftermath of the joker war.

Doomsday Clock

Doomsday Clock is a story about what happens when Doctor Manhattan, in all his logic and power, becomes aware of the inherently illogical, nonlinear main DC continuity

Joker shows up in issues; 4-7

Link to comic Here

2019 Onward...

Batman: Last Knight On Earth

This is not part of any series and is under a black label meaning its not part of the DC continuum

Link to comic Here

Joker Killer Smile

Joker gets psychoanalyzed.

Link to comic Here

The Joker Presents: A puzzle box

The G.C.P.D have a mysterious corpse, a magical box, and a murderer's row of the city's most dangerous villains sitting in a jail cell. Now all they need to figure out is what exactly happened.

Link to comic Here

The Joker: The Man Who Stopped Laughing

The world once again holds its breath as The Joker strikes again! But how far is he willing to go this time?

Link to comic Here

Thank you, everyone. Please don't forget to reblog and share! @lankylordoflevity @katekanemybeloved @killerant @unordinaryachilles @luxamea @the-hopeless-fanboy @gothamsfinestdummy @muslyedirector @icedgarlic @gothamurbanist @creature-of-the-night-esq

222 notes · View notes

coochiequeens · 1 year

Text

Dear English doctors - Biological males can’t get pregnant and there is no such thing as a “girl penis”. Please spend less time on worrying about language that appeases narcissistic men and more time improving care for women and babies.

England’s National Health Service (NHS) has put forward a £100,000 contract to create a “gender-inclusive” maternity care training program based on research guided by a trans-identified male who has claimed that men can give birth and that “pre-operative trans women” have “girl penises.”

On December 16, the NHS quietly released an Invitation to Quote for the “Maternity Gender Inclusion Program,” with a listed closing date for pilot submissions set for January 11th, 2023.

The contracted program is set to be rolled out to midwives in maternity departments across 40 NHS Trusts in England, and would be based on the findings of the Improving Trans Experiences of Maternity Services (ITEMS) research project, which was co-authored by a trans-identified male and is alleged to have “significant” flaws in its methodology.

With Woman, a maternity care advocacy coalition, penned an open letter highlighting the “flawed” research within the ITEMS publications, and has called for a complete pause on the contract offering entirely.

Speaking with Reduxx, a spokeswoman from With Woman raised multiple concerns, especially with the entirety of the program’s focus appearing to be on “inclusive” language and not improvements in medical care for a traditionally complex cohort.

With Woman noted that even the Invitation to Quote appears fixed, with the very short contracting and funding window raising suspicion. With Woman indicated their belief that there may be organizations already lined up to take the contract as the time frames are too brief for uninvolved organizations to adequately prepare a pilot.

The ITEMS report, which is being used as a justification for the need for the program, based its findings on the responses of just 121 people. The report determined that “birthing people” were improperly cared for because they were “misgendered,” and made unsubstantiated claims that 30% of “trans parents” secretly gave birth at home with no medical intervention.

The report was co-authored by Dr. Ruth Pearce, a trans-identified male Lecturer in Community Development at Glasgow University.

Pearce played a significant role in the direction of the ITEMS research. Pearce’s work focuses on “trans pregnancy” and “Queer, Trans and Feminist music scenes.”

In an essay posted on to his website, Pearce asserts that he is more attractive and confident than biological women.

“Quite frankly, I bet a whole load of women would love to be as confident and good looking as I am. I’ve got a pretty face, great hair, fantastic legs, and I’ve recently grown some rather shapely breasts.” He is also known for having once fronted a “queer feminist rage” music group through which he sang a song about his scrotum.

In an August 2022 video titled “Reproductive Justice for Trans People With Ruth Pearce and Francis White,” Pearce explains the focus of his work on ITEMS, policy and language surrounding “trans birth” and the need to highlight transgender people having children to counter the claims that a “trans child” may not reproduce, and to create media that contradicts Abigail Shrier’s claims that child transition can lead to “irreversible damage” of fertility.

Pearce called attention in particular to a phenomenon known as Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria, which was coined by Lisa Littman and referenced by Jungian analyst and author Lisa Marchiano in a 2017 academic article titled “Outbreak: On Transgender Teens and Psychic Epidemics.”

In the article, Marchiano examines the role of social media in the sudden rise in teens claiming a gender identity, stating: “a young person’s coming out as transgender is often preceded by increased social media use and/or having one or more peers also come out as transgender.”

Pearce mocked the concept of children learning of transgender identities on social media, but later contradicted himself by discussing the issue in the presentation segment titled “We Are the Virus: Reproduction via Social Contagion.”

In the segment, Pearce asserted the need to help transgender-identifying people to not only sexually reproduce, but also to “socially reproduce” by means of altering medical language and policy to introduce the idea of transition to children and adults as a form of “reproductive justice,” thereby creating more transgender people.

In the video, Pearce acknowledged that social contagion is the method by which transgenderism proliferates, stating: “Alexis Davin noted that the very process that Lisa Marchiano and Abigail Shrier described as a social contagion is the means by which trans people engage in a form of social reproduction. We become visible to one another and introduce one another to a language that makes sense of our lives and our needs.”

Later in the seminar he continued, “I’ve been thinking a lot about social contagion because it’s the language of the anti-trans movement. But�� the exact thing they’re describing is the exact means by which we reproduce ourselves.”

During the seminar, Pearce described the work he did with Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals (BSUH) NHS Trust, arguing for the need for “Gender Inclusive Language” to create “Language as Possibility” and posters that act as apparent recruitment advertising for the political transgender movement. Pearce elaborated by saying, “in Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals, that’s a really interesting example of queer spaces of care being created through an institution rather than through more radical networks.”

Pearce’s involvement with the ITEMS research, as well as its use to justify an NHS maternity program, comes less than one year after NHS negligence was found to have been responsible for the needless deaths of over 200 babies and 9 mothers at at Shrewsbury and Telford NHS Trust. According to internal investigations, “repeated failures in the quality of care and governance” was to blame for the deaths, which spanned over 2 decades, with an additional 1,486 families and 1,592 incidents being recorded as a result of inadequate maternity care oversight.

Reduxx has previously revealed how errors and confusion arose due to the use of inaccurate medical language which led to midwifery students at Napier University in Edinburgh being taught how to care for males giving birth through penises and prostates.

According to a course workbook, students were advised: “It is important to note that while most times the birthing person will have female genitalia, you may be caring for a pregnant or birthing person who is transitioning from male to female and may still have external male genitalia.”

#England #England’s National Health Service (NHS)#Trans Identified Male talking about maternity care #Men can’t have babies #With Woman #“Maternity Gender Inclusion Program #Improving Trans Experiences of Maternity Services (ITEMS)#Dr Ruth Pearce is a man #Dr Ruth Pearce is another TIM who thinks he is better than actual women #Reproductive Justice for Trans People With Ruth Pearce and Francis White #Gender identity and social contagion #It’s bigoted for critics to mention the link between social media and gender identity #But it’s ok for trans people to call gender identity a social contagion

102 notes · View notes

rottentiger-art · 10 months

Note

Quogan with kids - Imagine how panicked/ridiculous Logan would be as Quinn’s water breaks and he has to drive her to the hospital. Or him holding her hand during labor and through the contractions.

I believe Logan would be overly attentive with Quinn's pregnancy, I think I mentioned before him buying whatever craving she has in bulks and make their friends/family rehearse what they have to do for the "big day" (yes, I am referencing Floricienta jajajja), but Quinn isn't far behind him.

I have some more headcanons for Quinn's pregnancy (I also have for them as parents, but then this post would be too long, so I'll leave that for another asks I got about the subject), remember this is settled in my Rebuilding PCA AU.

(had to divide this into sections bc there's an apparent limit for every list)

Finding out, to first Eco:

Despite having everything planned out, even when they were going to have children, the first baby came as a surprise.

I headcanon she took a test on her job. She had her suspicion about her symptoms, and had a doctor appointment in a few days, but she was too impatient to wait so she bought three pregnancy test (just to be sure) and took them on her job's bathroom.

But unexpected doesn't mean unwelcome. Quinn was very happy when she found out, definitely cried when she saw the two pink lines.

The thought of little baby, a mix of both her and Logan overwhelmed her with joy, unable to even worry if that might compromise her work at the moment.

Though she did think of it on her way home, she felt optimist. She acknowledge to herself that it will be hard and it will require more of her usual effort and focus, but she's Quinn Pensky-Reese! She's the mind of her generation, if anyone can handle an inventor's job, a school rebuilding and a pregnancy, that's her!

As soon as she got home, she went into her study and started organizing her schedule for the next months, in case the doctor confirmed it. Just to save time, time she would need later one, after all.

there was even more crying when the doctor told her that, yes, she was in fact pregnant. They settle a date for the first ecography.

Logan was the first one to know, of course. But Quinn waited until she had a doctor's confirmation before telling him, worried she'd get his hopes up only to end both disappointed.

I imagine she prepared a nice surprise dinner. He entered their home and found her waiting besides a candle lit table with his favorite dish. His first thought was wondering if he -somehow- forgot any important date, he even thinks "is it my birthday?".

But she reassured him before he even ask that she just wanted to surprise him. He notices she seems happier than usual, assuming she's about to tell him some really good news, (they know each other so well!!), tho he thinks it's probably related to the school renovation.

Her excitement took over and she couldn't wait until the end of the dinner, much to his relief because his curiosity was killing him.

She hands him a little gift box, and watches as his face changes, he goes from confusion as he opens it and takes a cute tiny PCA onesie, to realization. (note: the baby will be wearing that at some point, when Logan takes them to PCA, to show them the campus *cries*)

His eyes widens and he struggles to form words because he can't close his mouth. He's absolutely shocked.

Logan: "are you saying... we're having a baby?" and Quinn just nods excitedly, she also can't talk because she's already teary eyes.

Logan runs to hug her side, lifting her and spinning her around, so happy the protective dad mode hadn't kicked on yet lol.

He wants to tell everyone immediately, but she tells him it would be better to wait for the first eco, which would be after her first trimestre is completed, and explains to him all about those things (because you know she researched before the doctor appointment and also filled the doctor with questions lol)

He listens attentively because he wants to be aware about everything related to their little bundle of joy.

They're so annoying at the hospital for the eco, but the doctor is incredibly patient (bless them), despite them spilling question after question.

Quinn's scientific curiosity is in full swing as she bombards the ultrasound technician with a million questions about the technology and procedure.

Thankfully for the doctor, they shut up as soon as their baby shows up on the screen, as well as the first time they hear their heartbeat.

(little angsty headcanon: they were both terrified of not hearing a heartbeat, it made them anxious and afraid, they're first time parents after all, they're fucking scared *cries intensifies*)

As the doctor shows them the baby's hands and feet and nose and all that, Logan makes comments like "they're gonna have your nose!" or "oh, you're gonna be a such a heartbreaker, just like your dad"

He mostly tries to make Quinn laugh, and to ease both of their nervous.

The doctor asks if they want to know the gender of the bay, but they decide to save that for the baby shower, so they get it written down in an envelopment instead.

The technician offers to print out a few ultrasound pictures for them, where the gender of their baby could not be visible (already sensing these two would spend a lot of time looking at them and Quinn would definitely figure it out). Quinn practically squeals with delight, already envisioning how she'll document and cherish these precious snapshots. Logan grins, imagining himself showing off the pictures to anyone who will listen, beaming with pride.

As they leave the doctor's office, Quinn can't help but walk a little lighter, her hand resting protectively over her growing belly. Logan wraps an arm around her, pulling her close, his protective mode also activating on that moment

On the way home, they can't resist the urge to stop at a baby store. They fill the car with stuffed animals, and nursery decorations. They also pick out a few gender-neutral outfits, happily imagining their little one wearing them.

When they get home (after Logan settled all the heavy stuff they brought inside their home, because he's not letting her carry anything heavy ever again), they sit in the coach and spread the ultrasound pictures on the coffee table, looking at them and pointing little details they notice about their baby.

Announcement:

After indulging on this little moment, they finally call their friends and family to let them know the news. First their parents (Lyric was in the same room as Logan's parents, so she found out at the same time)

Their parent's are overjoyed, it's going to be the first grandchild in both families, with Quinn being an only child and Logan the first of Malcolm's children to be a parent (I'm still not sure Logan's older brother exist, but either way, first grandkid bc I say so), and at the end of the calls they promise to set a dinner to celebrate this news soon.

When Lyric hears the news, she raises an eyebrow and gives a nonchalant shrug, trying to maintain her composure. Deep down, however, she can't help but feel a surge of excitement and anticipation. She may not show it openly, but Lyric secretly starts researching the best auntie gifts and cool, trendy baby clothes. She's determined to be the "chillest" aunt, effortlessly blending her coolness with her newfound role.

Of their friends, the first to know were Lola and Michael, argue with the wall.

Lola squeals at the news, already declaring herself the best aunt this baby would have (Lyric would disagree if she was there, but whatever), she cracks a few jokes at Logan's expenses probably, I imagine their friendship still has that banter, like they pretend they still dislike each other. Something like, "I'm sure your baby will have enough of you to make up for the parts it gets from Logan" (english is failing me lol, but you get it), and tells them she would host the baby shower. Organizing event is still not much her thing, but she's too excited.

Michael is over the moon, and tells them he'd gladly conduct their baby shower, and tells them he already thought of baby names ideas. They tell them Lola already offered and he says he'll call her to let her help (Lola would probably let him do most of the job lol)

I just know this news would give Zoey and Chase another age/relationship crisis, but let's not focus on that for this. They're happy for their friends. They also offer to help with the baby shower, but Logan is quick to reject them lol. Though Quinn explains Michael and Lola are already on that, so they don't feel bad.

Pregnant Quinn:

Quinn becomes a walking encyclopedia during her pregnancy. She dives deep into researching every stage of fetal development and reads every book on pregnancy she can get her hands on. She's determined to understand every aspect of what's happening to her body and her growing baby.

Quinn's scientific mind goes into overdrive as she starts experimenting with various homemade remedies and concoctions to alleviate pregnancy symptoms

She creates her own natural remedies for morning sickness, swollen feet, and stuff, much to the amusement and amazement of her friends.

I like to keep a bit of the ridiculousness from the show into this, so I hc Quinn's pregnancy hormones send her emotions on a rollercoaster ride. She goes from crying over commercials to laughing uncontrollably at the slightest joke. Her friends and Logan learn to navigate this emotional whirlwind, providing comfort and support whenever she needs it.

Quinn's genius mind starts coming up with innovative inventions specifically designed for pregnancy. She designs a pillow that perfectly supports her growing belly while she sleeps, a wearable device that tracks fetal movements, and even a smart app that monitors her baby's health.

Her pregnancy cravings are a mix of the expected and the totally unexpected. One day, she craves pickles and ice cream, and the next, she insists on eating spaghetti with hot sauce and gummy worms.

As her due date approaches, Quinn becomes hyper-organized. She starts prepping freezer meals, organizing the nursery down to the tiniest detail, and even creating a hospital bag checklist for both her and Logan. She wants everything to be perfectly in place for their baby's arrival.

I like to thinks Quinn's love for science extends to documenting her pregnancy journey. She takes weekly belly pictures, meticulously tracks her weight gain, and even keeps a journal where she writes letters to her unborn baby. While she is treating it like a study, she also wants to capture every precious moment and memory for their little one to look back on.

Quinn's intelligence and curiosity lead her to attend every prenatal class their schedule allows, along with Logan ofc. She becomes the star student, asking insightful questions and even offering her own scientific explanations for certain topics. She kinda annoys the other parents on the classes, but the dirty look Logan gives the when they try to say something shuts them up.

Despite her scientific approach to pregnancy, Quinn also embraces the magical and emotional side of it all. She loves feeling her baby's kicks and hiccups, cherishes every ultrasound appointment, and eagerly awaits the moment she can hold her little one in her arms.

She loves talking to her baby, telling them about how their little body is developing and what awaits them and stuff.

She hopes their little one is a science fan like her, so she also tells them of science in general, specially while she works on her quinnventions, explaining the process to her belly.

No matter how many research she went through, the birth terrifies her, truth be told. She's a first time mother after all, how could she not. The thoughts of all the things that could go wrong filling her mind.

But she endures it, holding tight to Logan's hand. She keeps pushing and pushing until they finally hear the baby's cry.

All the pain and fear melting away the moment he baby is placed in her arms, she cries happily as she caresses their cheeks and coos at them, calming the babies' crying.

the sobbing doesn't stop even when the baby calms down and the doctors take them away to clean them and weight them, neither her or Logan taking their eyes off their child, even when he leans down to kiss her forehead, whispering sweet words at her.

Daddy-to-be Logan:

From the moment Quinn tells Logan she's pregnant, he can't contain his excitement. He starts researching everything about pregnancy and parenting, creating boards filled with nursery ideas, baby names, and parenting hacks.

He creates an elaborate color-coded pregnancy planner. It includes doctor's appointments, prenatal classes, and even a detailed birth plan. He wants everything to be perfectly planned and scheduled for the arrival of their little one.

He takes it upon himself to fulfill every single one of her cravings. He becomes her "master chef", whipping up all sorts of weird food combinations she asks for, even if it means making a peanut butter and pickle sandwich at 3 a.m.

Logan insists on attending every doctor's appointment with Quinn, taking copious notes and asking the doctor a million questions. He's determined to be the most involved and informed dad ever.

As Quinn's baby bump grows, Logan becomes the ultimate protector. He's constantly fretting over her well-being, making sure she doesn't lift heavy objects, and even wrapping her in bubble wrap (metaphorically) to ensure nothing happens to their little one.

Logan starts talking to Quinn's baby bump, telling stories, singing lullabies, and even playing his favorite songs. He's convinced the baby can hear him and wants to establish a bond before they even arrive.

But he does not neglects Quinn, he pays just as much attention to her.

When it comes to baby shopping, Logan goes all out. He insists on buying the most comfy and safe stroller, the comfiest crib, and the cutest baby clothes. He spends hours meticulously researching and comparing products, determined to provide the best for his little family.

Logan becomes a master at assembling baby furniture... after many fails. He spends countless afternoons putting together the crib until he figures out how that thing works, changing tables, and rocking chairs. He'd usually hire someone to do the job for him, but he wanted to do this himself, no matter how frustrating it became, it was worth it.

As Quinn's due date approaches, Logan becomes a nervous wreck. He's constantly checking his phone, ready to rush to the hospital at a moment's notice. He even has a fully packed hospital bag prepared for both Quinn and himself, complete with snacks, a change of clothes, and a camera to capture every moment.

When the day finally arrives, Logan is a ball of nerves and excitement. He paces the hospital waiting room, wearing a path into the floor, until finally, he gets the news that Quinn is in labor.

He practically sprints to her side, holding her hand and whispering words of encouragement throughout the whole process.

And when their little bundle of joy finally enters the world, Logan's heart swells with love and pride. He can't help but cry tears of joy, overwhelmed with emotions as he holds his baby for the first time, promising to be the best dad they could ever ask for.

It's definitely the happiest day of their life, and once home, they can hardly take their eyes off their baby, so thankful to have them there, unable to contain the infinite amount of love their feel for them.

And that's most of my quogan pregnancy headcanons, hope you liked them.

#ask box #anon #quogan #zoey 102 #zoey 101 #logan reese #quinn pensky #quinn x logan #quogan baby #rebuilding PCA au #(kinda. it's settled there)#quogan headcanons

41 notes · View notes

uwmadarchives · 6 months

Text

50 Years Ago: APA Removes "Homosexuality" From DSM Diagnoses

Written by Bailey Watson, LGBTQ+ Archive Student Processing Assistant

12/18/2023

December 15, 1973 - By a vote of 5,854 to 3,810, the American Psychiatric Association removes homosexuality from its list of mental disorders in the DSM-II Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.

Content advisory: This post discusses the history of homosexuality in Western psychiatry and may contain offensive language or topics.

Last Thursday marked 50 years since the APA (American Psychiatric Association) removed “homosexuality” from its list of mental disorders. This change was made to the DSM-II Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (the current edition as of 2023 is the DSM-5-TR). The long history of homosexuality being included with physical and mental disorders dates back to the 19th century with Western European theorists working towards an understanding of same-sex attraction, leading to the coinage of the term “homosexuality” or “homosexual.” While these early theories positioned same-sex attraction or desires as unnatural, other theorists of the same decades aimed to prove that homosexuality was not abnormal but instead a natural variance of human sexuality.

Photo Dr. Franklin Kameny from David Carter papers, Collection no. uac 183, Box 5, Folder 49.

The conversation around homosexuality as a disorder took a turn during the post-WWII period in the United States, during a phenomenon referred to as the “lavender scare.” This period, parallel to the “red scare” was a reaction to the Cold War policies and politics, resulting in the massive purge of homosexuals or suspected homosexuals from the federal government, and even further down to local governments (see here for information on UW-Madison’s history with the gay purges). Similarly, communists and suspected communists were also barred or purged from public service and government-contracted sectors.

In response to these purges, the early gay rights movement, then known as the homophile movement focused on organizing and protesting the conditions that made up the lavender scare. These conditions included the DSM’s classification of homosexuality as a diagnosable disorder. To the early homophile movement, as to some early theorists, homosexuality was perfectly natural, and therefore they could not pose a threat to national security.

One aspect of activism from this period was addressing the DSM's use of homosexuality as a diagnosable disorder. The homophile movement argued that sexuality had no bearing on mental health, and by stigmatizing the gay community, the DSM and APA were adding to the problem. Furthermore, by diagnosing people as "homosexual" the APA created a way to dismiss those voices and placed a barrier on the conversation on who was fit to participate in society freely and who was not.

Finally, in 1973 after years of protest and activism, the influence of activism, including the voice of Dr. Franklin Kameny (pictured above) and internal changes led to a new definition of mental disorder within the APA and thus removed homosexuality from diagnoses. A win for the homophile movement and a change that brought lasting and positive impacts to many people's lives, even 50 years later.

References and for further consideration:

Drescher, Jack. 2015. "Out of DSM: Depathologizing Homosexuality" Behavioral Sciences 5, no. 4: 565-575. https://doi.org/10.3390/bs5040565 (open access)

For more on Kameny and the early homophile movement, explore the David Carter papers, uac 182, located in the Madison LGBTQ+ Archive (housed at the University Archives, Steenbock Library)

#uw-madison #wisconsin #wihistory #madison wi #lgbtqia history #american psychiatric association #archives #university archives

12 notes · View notes

croservices · 2 years

Text

There are several types of CROs, including: boutique, academic, and global. Each organization has its own characteristics, capabilities, and services. Here is a CRO List in 2022.

#CRO List #Contract Research Organization

0 notes

benandstevesposts · 1 year

Text

Federal Agency Rejects Developer’s Report That Massive Grain Elevator Won’t Harm Black Heritage Sites

For the second time in six months, a federal agency reprimanded a Louisiana developer for failing to adequately assess the harm that its proposed $400 million agricultural development would cause to neighboring Black communities and historic sites.

In a forceful letter dated Dec. 23, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers rejected claims by the developer, Greenfield LLC, that its massive grain transfer facility in St. John the Baptist Parish upriver from New Orleans will have “no adverse effects.” The Corps is considering a permit application by Greenfield to build on federally protected waters and has the power to halt the project.

That new report, which the Corps received in November, did not address the agency’s demand that the developer conducts a more complete assessment of how the project could damage historic sites and harm residents of nearby towns, according to the Corps’ December letter.

“The report,” the letter reads, “just doesn’t demonstrate adequate engagement, and that must be rectified.”

A Greenfield spokesperson said our team of respected expert consultants and have done thorough evaluations to consider any and all potential impacts. The statement said Greenfield takes seriously its responsibility to provide regulatory agencies with accurate and complete information consistent with the regulatory requirements.

The Corps’ letter criticizes Greenfield and its contractors for failing to meaningfully consult with people whose lives would be impacted by the dozens of looming grain silos, new rail, truck, and shipping traffic, and pollutants from the facility. It says Greenfield and its consultants have not done enough to account for how the development project might harm communities of color, a requirement under federal environmental justice standards.

“It’s very disappointing that they would continue to double down on the report, that they are still saying there will not be any detrimental effects,” Erin Edwards, who blew the whistle on the earlier report, told ProPublica in a recent interview. Edwards co-authored the first version of the information when she worked as an architectural historian for Gulf South Research Corporation, the for-profit cultural resources, and archaeological consulting firm hired by another of Greenfield’s consultants to conduct a federally required assessment of historical sites.

Edwards resigned in late 2021 after her report was stripped of every mention of possible harm to communities or cultural properties, including her conclusion that the area surrounding the development should be listed as a historic district because of its connection to histories of slavery. In internal Gulf South emails obtained by ProPublica, a company manager wrote that it would lose its contract for the report — and could lose future work — if it didn't change the findings.

“Gulf South knew all along that the project would harm the historic plantations there, and they knew that it would hurt the area as a whole,” Edwards said. “There’s no way to look at the evidence and not see that it’s going to be detrimental.”

The Greenfield grain facility has been the target of sustained pushback from nearby communities, civil and human rights groups, and historic preservation organizations, as well as from other federal agencies, including the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, which oversees national preservation policy. The land where the development is planned sits beside the Whitney Plantation Museum, which serves as a memorial to enslaved people in Louisiana. One plot of land down the river is another unusually well preserved plantation designated as a National Historic Landmark.

To read the ProPublica Report, you can find the complete publication by clicking here and going directly to the information by visiting their site.

77 notes · View notes

religion-is-a-mental-illness · 4 months

Text

By: Jill Tucker

Published: Feb 3, 2024

A Hayward elementary school struggling to boost low test scores and dismal student attendance is spending $250,000 in federal money for an organization called Woke Kindergarten to train teachers to confront white supremacy, disrupt racism and oppression and remove those barriers to learning.

The Woke Kindergarten sessions train teachers on concepts and curriculum that’s available to use in classrooms with any of Glassbrook Elementary’s 474 students. The sessions are funded through a federal program meant to help the country’s lowest-performing schools boost student achievement.

But two years into the three-year contract with Woke Kindergarten, a for-profit company, student achievement at Glassbrook has fallen, prompting some teachers to question whether the money was well-spent given the needs of the students, who are predominantly low-income. Two-thirds of the students are English learners and more than 80% are Hispanic/Latino.

English and math scores hit new lows last spring, with less than 4% of students proficient in math and just under 12% at grade level in English — a decline of about 4 percentage points in each category.

Efforts to reach the organization were not successful, with an automated response saying the founder, who also provides the training, was recovering from surgery.

District officials defended the program this past week, saying that Woke Kindergarten did what it was hired to do. The district pointed to improvements in attendance and suspension rates, and that the school was no longer on the state watch list, only to learn from the Chronicle that the school was not only still on the list but also had dropped to a lower level.

The decision to bring in Woke Kindergarten, rather than a more traditional literacy or math improvement program, aligns with the belief by some parents and educators that the current education system isn’t working for many disadvantaged children.

The solution, these advocates say, is for educators to confront legacies of racism and bias in schools, and to talk about historic white supremacy, so that students feel safe and supported. As such anti-racism programs have spread, several more conservative state legislatures have moved to restrict or ban them.

At the same time, some education experts say struggling schools need research-based literacy and math interventions that ensure all students have the basic skills to succeed. Examples of success include San Francisco’s John Muir Elementary, which has piloted a math intervention program that has led to a more than 50% proficiency rate, up from 15% prior to adopting the coaching and student-led coursework.

Woke Kindergarten, aimed at elementary-age students, is founded on the relatively new concept of abolitionist education, which advocates for abolition, or “a kind of starting over,” said Zeus Leonardo, UC Berkeley education professor. The idea is that certain things can’t be reformed, tweaked or shifted, because they are inherently problematic or oppressive. It’s not about indoctrinating or imposing politics, “but making politics part of the framework of teaching,” Leonardo said.

But some Glassbrook teachers have questioned the decision to bring in the program, saying Woke Kindergarten is wrongly rooted in progressive politics and activism with anti-police, anti-capitalism and anti-Israel messages mixed in with the goal of making schools safe, joyful and supportive for all children.

This tension is reflective of the nation’s ongoing culture wars, where the right and the left battle to influence what happens in classrooms.

The Woke Kindergarten curriculum shared with schools includes “wonderings,” which pose questions for students, including, “If the United States defunded the Israeli military, how could this money be used to rebuild Palestine?”

In addition, the “woke word of the day,” including “strike,” “ceasefire” and “protest,” offers students a “language of the resistance … to introduce children to liberatory vocabulary in a way that they can easily digest, understand and most importantly, use in their critiques of the system.”

Teacher Tiger Craven-Neeley said he supports discussing racism in the classroom, but found the Woke Kindergarten training confusing and rigid. He said he was told a primary objective was to “disrupt whiteness” in the school — and that the sessions were “not a place to express white guilt.” He said he questioned a trainer who used the phrasing “so-called United States,” as well as lessons available on the organization’s web site offering “Lil’ Comrade Convos,” or positing a world without police, money or landlords.

Craven-Neeley, who is white and a self-described “gay moderate,” said he wasn’t trying to be difficult when he asked for clarification about disrupting whiteness. “What does that mean?” he said, adding that such questions got him at least temporarily banned from future training sessions. “I just want to know, what does that mean for a third-grade classroom?”

Another Glassbrook teacher said Woke Kindergarten offered one perspective on issues and that there was no tolerance for questions. “It slowly became very apparent if you were a dissenting voice that it’s not what they wanted to hear,” said the teacher, who requested anonymity for fear of pushback at the school.

The teacher did not find the training helpful or productive. “Our reading scores are low,” they said. “That could have gotten us a reading interventionist.”

Hayward Superintendent Jason Reimann said the decision to hire Woke Kindergarten, which was approved by the school board, was made by the school community, including parents and teachers, as part of a federal improvement plan to boost student achievement by improving attendance.

The school community, including parents, teachers and staff, identified a provider to help them do that, Reimann said. He noted a subsequent improvement in student attendance, with 44% of students considered chronically absent last year, down from 61% the year prior. A similar improvement was seen districtwide.

Glassbrook has been on the state’s Comprehensive School Improvement list since 2020, slightly improving in 2022 and then being reassigned to the lowest-performing level this school year.

Reimann said the district didn’t hire Woke Kindergarten for its politics, but rather its work in restorative practices, helping eliminate suspensions and removals from classrooms while luring more students back into seats.

“We are in favor 100% of abolishing systems of oppression where they hold our students back,” he said. “What I do believe is we should pick providers based on their work and how effective they are.”

The superintendent said Woke Kindergarten wasn’t hired to improve literacy and math scores, but that “helping students feel safe and whole is part and parcel of academic achievement.” He added, “I get that it’s more money than we would have liked to have spent.”

Woke Kindergarten was founded by former teacher Akiea “Ki” Gross, who identifies as they/them and describes themselves as “an abolitionist early educator, cultural organizer and creator currently innovating ways to resist, heal, liberate and create with their pedagogy, Woke Kindergarten.”

They established the for-profit company in 2020 in Maryland, although the Woke Kindergarten website says it is “primarily community sustained” and relies “primarily on donations.”

Education policy experts said that while the name of Gross’ organization and the words “abolitionist education” were provocative, many parents, teachers and others are feeling politically empowered after pandemic battles over masking and when to reopen schools.

“It doesn’t feel necessarily new, but more common right now is that some schools and some leaders are being intentionally provocative,” said Jon Valant, director of the Brown Center on Education Policy at the Brookings Institute, a nonpartisan policy think tank. It feels, he said, like people are “leaning into these culture battles in schools,” whether on the left or right, although he said he couldn’t speak specifically about Woke Kindergarten.

And to a degree, these battles — whether over book bans, LGBTQ issues or the war in Gaza — are expected given schools are largely under local control, meaning they reflect their communities, said Joseph Kahne, professor of education policy at UC Riverside.

“How loud particular groups have become on the left and right and how organized and commercialized these agendas have become, that seems new,” said Bruce Fuller, a UC Berkeley education professor.

Julie Marsh, a professor of education policy at the University of Southern California Rossier School of Education, cautioned that it can be “problematic when teaching strays too far into the political ideology realm. It’s just a big distraction from some of the bigger purposes of education and what we should be focusing on.”

Craven-Neeley, the Glassbrook teacher, said he had experienced the pull of the nation’s culture wars from both sides of the political spectrum. As a veteran teacher in Modesto, he sued the school district after it prevented him from talking about his husband, or talking about LGBTQ history, including gay rights icon Harvey Milk. He said he settled out of court.

Woke Kindergarten “had a lot of good things. I think race should be addressed. Children should be aware if they are being discriminated against,” he said. “But as a teacher of Hayward Unified, I shouldn’t have to get on the bandwagon of defunding police or insulting our country.”

"Woke Kindergarten"'s website is clear up front: their primary goal is to conduct a revolution. And well educated, well read, language and math-literate students are antithetical to an uprising. What revolutions want and seek is people who are illiterate, uneducated, scared and angry.

The mistake is thinking the decline in scores was a bug or accident. It's not. It's a feature.

7 notes · View notes

zvaigzdelasas · 2 years

Text

UNHEARD VOICE - Evaluating five years of pro-Western covert influence operations

Stanford University Cyber Policy Center | Graphika Internet Observatory

In July and August 2022, Twitter and Meta removed two overlapping sets of accounts for violating their platforms’ terms of service. Twitter said the accounts fell foul of its policies on “platform manipulation and spam,” while Meta said the assets on its platforms engaged in “coordinated inauthentic behavior.” After taking down the assets, both platforms provided portions of the activity to Graphika and the Stanford Internet Observatory (SIO) for further analysis.

Our joint investigation found an interconnected web of accounts on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and five other social media platforms that used deceptive tactics to promote pro-Western narratives in the Middle East and Central Asia. The platforms’ datasets appear to cover a series of covert campaigns over a period of almost five years rather than one homogeneous operation.

These campaigns consistently advanced narratives promoting the interests of the United States and its allies while opposing countries including Russia, China, and Iran. The accounts heavily criticized Russia in particular for the deaths of innocent civilians and other atrocities its soldiers committed in pursuit of the Kremlin’s “imperial ambitions” following its invasion of Ukraine in February this year. To promote this and other narratives, the accounts sometimes shared news articles from U.S. government-funded media outlets, such as Voice of America and Radio Free Europe, and links to websites sponsored by the U.S. military. A portion of the activity also promoted anti-extremism messaging.

As with previous disclosures, Twitter and Meta did not share the technical details of their investigations. Additionally, neither company has publicly attributed the activity to any entity or organization: Twitter listed the activity’s “presumptive countries of origin” as the U.S. and Great Britain, while Meta said the “country of origin” was the U.S. The findings in this report are based on our own open-source investigation and analysis of the two datasets shared by the platforms

The Twitter dataset provided to Graphika and SIO covered 299,566 tweets by 146 accounts between March 2012 and February 2022.1 These accounts divide into two behaviorally distinct activity sets. The first was linked to an overt U.S. government messaging campaign called the Trans-Regional Web Initiative, which has been extensively documented in academic studies, media reports, and federal contracting records. The second comprises a series of covert campaigns of unclear origin. These covert campaigns were also represented in the Meta dataset of 39 Facebook profiles, 16 pages, two groups, and 26 Instagram accounts active from 2017 to July 2022. [...]

[Community network map of covert Twitter asset followers. Color represents major community groupings. Distance reflects network proximity, with accounts appearing close to those they follow and that follow them.]

We believe this activity represents the most extensive case of covert pro-Western IO on social media to be reviewed and analyzed by open-source researchers to date. With few exceptions, the study of modern IO has overwhelmingly focused on activity linked to authoritarian regimes in countries such as Russia, China, and Iran, with recent growth in research on the integral role played by private entities. This report illustrates the wider range of actors engaged in active operations to influence online audiences. [...] The assets identified by Twitter and Meta created fake personas with GAN-generated faces, posed as independent media outlets, leveraged memes and short-form videos, attempted to start hashtag campaigns, and launched online petitions: all tactics observed in past operations by other actors. [...]

The assets identified by Twitter and Meta created fake personas with GAN-generated faces, posed as independent media outlets, leveraged memes and short-form videos, attempted to start hashtag campaigns, and launched online petitions: all tactics observed in past operations by other actors. [...]

Although we identified a Central Asia-focused campaign based on a review of the assets’ activity, the map lacks a Central Asia community. The community’s absence is likely due to the reportedly limited use of Twitter in Central Asian countries, including Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan, where Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Telegram are considerably more popular. Accordingly, Twitter assets in the Central Asia group generated significantly less engagement than their counterparts on Facebook and Instagram. [...]

Accounts with a significant follower footprint showed a clear association with a specific national or regional group in the map. [...]

Iran: Three of the groupings, together comprising nearly half of the map (45.4%), are centered on Iran. The largest of these groups contains twelve clusters of politically focused accounts strongly supportive of the Iranian government. Another group of roughly equal size contains nine clusters of politically focused accounts strongly opposed to the government. A third group contains seven clusters comprising mostly personal accounts with nondescript characteristics but also accounts focused on writing and other cultural topics. This third group is generally critical of the Iranian regime to the extent that the accounts discuss politics. [...]

Arabic-speaking Middle East: Two of the groupings, comprising 20.6% of the map, each contain Arabic-language communities associated with a specific country: Iraq and Saudi Arabia. The Iraq group (15.5% of the map) contains ten clusters of accounts variously focused on personal life, social activism, government, and opposition politics. The Saudi group (5.1% of the map) contains four clusters of accounts. These clusters focused mainly on personal life and entertainment media, but one also followed political and government leaders.[...]

International: This grouping (2.9% of the map) contains two clusters. The first is made up of loosely connected, mainly personal accounts from across the MENA region. Accounts in this cluster follow a number of accounts that are now suspended or no longer exist. The second cluster comprises better-connected accounts that follow a range of international media and social influencers and are associated with a range of international locations [...]

After assigning each of the covert assets a label, we were able to visualize activity and posting patterns for each group. This provided an overview of each campaign and the set as a whole. Figure 2 is based on data provided by Twitter and Meta and shows posting volumes for each group over time. Tweets are represented in light blue, Facebook page posts in dark blue, and Instagram posts in purple. The scale of the y-axis varies by group. There are three key takeaways visible in the data [...]

[Posting volume by group. Tweets are represented in light blue, Facebook page posts in dark blue, and Instagram posts in purple]

Activity in the Afghanistan group peaked during periods of strategic importance for the U.S., including the months prior to and following the signing of the Agreement for Bringing Peace to Afghanistan (U.S.–Taliban Deal) in February 2020 and the months leading up to the completed U.S. departure from Afghanistan in August 2021. • The Central Asia group was the most active campaign, with posting/tweeting volumes peaking at almost 200 a day in the months leading up to and immediately after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February this year. [...]

Three of the groups also showed clear signs of automated or highly coordinated posting activity. According to data provided by Twitter and Meta, assets in the Afghanistan and Central Asia groups typically posted at roughly 15-minute or 30-minute intervals in any given hour. Furthermore, accounts in the Afghanistan, Central Asia, and Middle East groups almost exclusively posted in the first second of any given minute. [...]

The Central Asia group consisted of 12 Twitter accounts, 10 Facebook pages, 15 Facebook profiles, and 10 Instagram accounts. We also found connected activity on Telegram, YouTube, and Russian social media platforms VKontakte (VK) and Odnoklassniki. All the accounts were created between June 2020 and March 2022. As with other groups we analyzed, the assets have been suspended on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram and largely suspended on YouTube. However, accounts in the Central Asia group remain active on Telegram, VK, and Odnoklassniki. Ten assets in the group posed as media outlets focused on Central Asia. The operation’s segment on Odnoklassniki involved using almost certainly inauthentic personas to spread content to Central Asian Odnoklassniki groups. [...]

The operation targeted Russian-speaking Central Asian audiences and focused on praising American aid to Central Asia and criticizing Russia, particularly its foreign policy. Two assets concentrated on China and the treatment of Chinese Muslim minorities, particularly the Uighurs in Xinjiang province. The assets also frequently shared content about growing cooperation between Central Asian countries. Content was almost exclusively in Russian, except for a small number of tweets written in Central Asian languages, such as Kazakh and Kyrgyz. [...]

two of the sham media outlets in the group produced two viral videos that received hundreds of thousands of views on Facebook (Figure 7 on the following page). The first video was about Kyrgyzstan’s reported ban on Russian war symbols, and the second was a non-political TV news excerpt about an Uzbek farmer growing fruits in the desert. [...]

The Central Asia-focused campaign first created assets on Instagram, Telegram, Twitter, and Odnoklassniki in 2020, before later setting up accounts on Facebook and VK in 2021. According to domain registration records, a website for the sham media outlet Intergazeta was created in March 2021.

Assets still active on Odnoklassniki and VK provide insights into how this cross- platform campaign operated. Fake personas created by the actors were typically linked to one of 10 sham media outlets, which posed as independent news entities covering events in Central Asia. These fake personas posed as individuals living in Europe and Central Asia, were listed as administrators for the sham media outlets, and posted content from the campaign to different social media groups. On Odnoklassniki, for example, the personas regularly posted to groups including Fighters of Kyrgyzstan [БОЙЦЫ КЫРГЫЗСТАНА] and Central Asia News [Новости Central Asia].

On Facebook, a page for the sham media outlet Vostochnaya Pravda claimed to focus on debunking myths and sharing “absolute facts” about Central Asia (Figure 8 on the next page). Vostochnaya Pravda and other assets in the campaign typically posted long text blocks about local news events and geopolitics alongside an illustrative picture. [...]

Facebook transparency data also showed the location for the administrators of four of the pages to be France, despite Meta saying the network originated in the U.S.

Some of the “news” pages, such as Stengazeta, used engagement-building techniques, including openly calling for interactions from their readers on what they had just read. We witnessed similar behavior from the only active Facebook profile posting original content. Attempts to grow a follower base were evident on Twitter, where the assets repeatedly tweeted at real users, including pro-Ukraine and pro-Russia accounts, such as the self-proclaimed Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Donetsk People’s Republic (@MID_DNR).

We believe the Facebook pages in the group likely acquired followers inauthentically in an attempt to look like real and organic entities, possibly by purchasing fake followers. According to CrowdTangle data, the pages quickly gained up to several thousand followers in their first few weeks. Subsequently, the pages experienced net losses in followers between June and August 2021, possibly as Facebook deleted the accounts of their fake followers (Figure 9 on the following page). The pages’ likes experienced the same phenomenon.

At least one of the group’s personas featured a doctored profile picture using a photo of Puerto Rican actor Valeria Menendez (Figure 10 on the next page). We suspect that at least two other fake users in the group used similar techniques, but we could not identify the original photos. Additionally, at least one cross-platform persona used a picture stolen from a dating website, and others often displayed pictures of Paris and its monuments, echoing the pages’ listed administrator locations. At least one asset on Odnoklassniki also had its location set to Paris.

[One persona in the Central Asia campaign used a doctored picture (left) of actor Valeria Menendez (right) as its profile picture. The asset that used this image was listed as the contact for Intergazeta’s VK page.]

The sham media outlet Intergazeta repeatedly copied news material with and without credit from reputable Western and pro-Western sources in Russian, such as Meduza.io and the BBC Russian Service. The sham outlet often made minor changes to the copied texts in a likely effort to pass them off as original content. Intergazeta also produced articles in Russian compiled from sections of different English-language sources. [...]

Intergazeta was not the only asset to translate content from English sources. Facebook pages in the group sometimes posted Russian translations of press releases from the websites of the U.S. embassies in Central Asia. These posts focused on U.S. financial and material support to Central Asian countries. The posts also copied or translated content from U.S.-funded entities, such as Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, and the independent Kazakh news outlet informburo.kz. [...]

Assets in the Central Asia group showed clear and repeated signs of coordinated behavior: they posted simultaneously, used the same images, and recycled content over time across accounts.

At times, accounts in the group appear to have made an effort to mask this coordination. For example, when sharing identical content, assets would leave periods of hours or days between posts. The same images were also shared with slightly modified captions or headlines (Figure 12). At least half of the assets interspersed their posts with content promoting the cultures and natural beauty of Central Asia, possibly in an attempt to appear authentic and obscure their politically motivated activity. [...]

the coordination was especially clear when assets in the group posted about U.S.-related news or used translated content from official American sources, such as U.S. embassies in Central Asia. In one example, the Vostochnaya Pravda Facebook page posted a word-for-word Russian translation of an English- language news bulletin from the U.S. embassy in Tajikistan (Figure 13 on the next page). The post included a link to a Radio Liberty article on the topic, an excerpt of which was then shared by multiple other assets in the group.

The assets also sourced content from media outlets linked to the U.S. military, particularly Caravanserai (central.asia-news[.]com). This outlet is one of three that previously operated as Central News Online (centralasiaonline[.]com), which named the U.S. Central Command as its sponsor and, before 2016, was part of the U.S. government’s Trans-Regional Web Initiative mentioned at the beginning of this report.

Multiple Facebook pages in the campaign shared screenshots from central.asia-news[.]com, and the Linktree of sham media outlet Stengazeta directed visitors exclusively to the website, except for one link to an Avaaz petition demanding the Kazakh government ban Russian TV channels [...]

Around half of the assets posing as media entities, such as Stengazeta and Fakt Tobe, used batches of hashtags under their posts, likely in an attempt to reach broader audiences. The hashtags often corresponded to the names of Central Asian countries in Russian and other languages, such as #казахстан [Kazakhstan in Russian], #қазақстан [Kazakhstan in Kazakh], and #qazaqstan [romanized version of қазақстан]. Assets repeatedly used hashtags related to the topics of their social media posts but also generic Russian-language hashtags such as #интересно [interesting]. Occasionally, the promoted hashtags were unrelated to the topic of the post. This was especially true for cultural content, which sometimes featured unrelated hashtags about the war in Ukraine. [...]

At least four of the sham media outlets also made apparent attempts to launch hashtag campaigns related to the war in Ukraine. For example, posts about the Russian invasion of Ukraine from Puls Vostoka featured the hashtag #ЦАзаУкраину [Central Asia for Ukraine], Stengazeta promoted #СегодняУкраинаЗавтраЦA [Today Ukraine tomorrow Central Asia], and Shestigrannik promoted #украинаЦАстобой [Ukraine, Central Asia is with you] [...]

[Posts from Facebook pages Puls Vostoka (left) and Stengazeta (right) used the hashtags #ЦАзаУкраину [Central Asia for Ukraine] and #СегодняУкраинаЗавтраЦA [Today Ukraine Tomorrow Central Asia].]

The assets pushed at least four petitions on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. One called for Kazakhstan to leave the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) and the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU). A second demanded that Kyrgyzstan curb Chinese influence in the country. The last two called on the Kazakh government to ban Russian TV channels. Three of these petitions were launched on the U.S. non-profit petition platform Avaaz, and one was posted on the Kazakh website Alash. Four separate articles from Radio Liberty’s Kazakh website, Azzatyq, shared one of the petitions. While we could not determine whether the operation created the petitions, CrowdTangle data shows that assets were often the first to share the links on Facebook

The Central Asia group focused on a range of topics: U.S. diplomatic and humanitarian efforts in the region, Russia’s alleged malign influence, Russian military interventions in the Middle East and Africa, and Chinese “imperialism” and treatment of Muslim minorities. Starting in February this year, assets that previously posted about Russian military activities in the Middle East and Africa pivoted towards the war in Ukraine, presenting the conflict as a threat to people in Central Asia.

Assets in the group heavily promoted narratives supportive of the U.S. on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, and Telegram. These posts primarily focused on U.S. support for Central Asian countries and their people, presenting Washington as a reliable economic partner that would curb the region’s dependence on Russia. Other posts argued that the U.S. was the main guarantor of Central Asia’s sovereignty against Russia, frequently citing the war in Ukraine as evidence of the Kremlin’s “imperial” ambitions. Interestingly, the assets also promoted U.S. humanitarian efforts, mentioning the United States Agency for International Development 94 times on Twitter and 384 times on Facebook in the respective datasets.

Assets in the group consistently portrayed Russia as a threat to Central Asian countries. A recurring narrative claimed that Russia is abusing Russian-Central Asian partnerships, namely the CSTO and, to a lesser extent, the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), to extract one-sided benefits (Figure 18). Posts frequently described the CSTO as a hazardous tool that Russia could use to circumvent Western sanctions and drag Central Asian countries into its war against Ukraine. The assets also said Central Asian countries must leave these organizations if they wish to retake their full sovereignty from Russia. As an alternative, the assets advocated for creating exclusively Central Asian partnerships. Accounts in the group celebrated steps taken by Central Asian governments to move away from Russia, such as Kazakh President Kassym- Jomart Tokayev’s decision to withdraw from the CIS agreement on the Interstate Monetary Committee or efforts to reinforce local languages and cultural identities.

Other posts criticized Russia’s use of propaganda to spread anti-West and pro- Russia narratives in Central Asia, depicting Russia as a nefarious actor working to undermine independent democracies [Editor's Note: haha, haha]. In January 2022, for example, the accounts covered mass protests that followed a sudden increase in fuel prices in Kazakhstan, but mainly through the lens of debunking Russian allegations of “foreign interference.” Some of the group’s media outlets also claimed that Russia sent Wagner Group mercenaries to seize Almaty airport and that Russia was using claims of foreign interference as a pretext to send Russian troops as CSTO peacekeepers to occupy Kazakhstan.

The assets also highlighted the repression and abuse of Central Asian migrants in Russia. Several posts covered the pressured, sometimes forced enrollment of Central Asian migrants into the Russian army in exchange for promises of Russian citizenship. This narrative overlapped with posts about the high casualty rate for ethnic minorities fighting for Russia in Ukraine.

Anti-Russia narratives advanced by the campaign frequently cited Russia’s “imperialist wars” in Ukraine, the Middle East, and Africa. The most recent focus of the group was on Ukraine, but assets previously posted about the activities of military contractors working for Russia’s Wagner Group in Africa and Moscow’s military intervention in Syria.

The assets posted about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine through the lens of what it would mean for people in Central Asia. These posts often warned of Russia’s imperialist ambitions toward the former Soviet states and said the invasion of Ukraine showed what the Kremlin was capable of doing to its neighboring countries. Other posts outlined the direct impact of the war on Central Asian countries, such as food shortages, and said all Central Asian nations should reconsider their relations with Russia in light of its illegal invasion [...]

More broadly, assets in the group uniformly supported Ukraine, which they said was a country trying to free itself from Russia’s influence. Shortly after the invasion began in February, accounts promoted pro-Ukrainian protests in Central Asian countries. Later posts reported on evidence of atrocities committed by Russian troops and Russia’s block on Ukrainian grain exports.

Before Russia invaded Ukraine, assets in the group frequently discussed Russian actions in Africa and the Middle East. The pages criticized Russian businessman Yevgeny Prigozhin, in particular, for his role in orchestrating state-backed covert influence operations and deploying Russian military contractors to countries including Syria, Mali, and the Central African Republic (Figure 21 on the next page). Notably, the Central Asia group mentioned “Вагнер” [Wagner] 193 times on Twitter and 312 times on Facebook.

The Central Asia group also criticized Russia’s relationship with the Taliban after the Taliban regained power in Afghanistan in 2021. For example, the Shestigrannik Facebook page repeatedly accused Russia and China of ignoring the Taliban’s ethnic cleansing of Afghan minorities and mistreatment of women (Figure 22 on the following page). Many of the group’s sham media outlets attacked Russia for disregarding the threat that the Taliban and Islamist terrorism represent to Central Asia, especially Tajikistan. According to several assets, Russia did not criticize the Taliban in the hope of gaining access to Afghanistan’s natural resources and has encouraged violence in the region by increasing the sale of weapons to Central Asia.

Before the war in Ukraine, many pages focused on Russia’s military actions in Syria. Assets denounced the Russian government’s support of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and Russian airstrikes that have killed and injured thousands of civilians in Syria since 2015 (Figure 23). Facebook and Instagram accounts also noted that Russia impeded humanitarian aid deliveries to Syrians by blocking decisions at the U.N., and promoted the work of U.S. humanitarian aid and support programs for Syrian refugees. The topic was one of the most covered across the group, as assets mentioned “Сирия” (Syria) over 600 times on Twitter and over 1,500 times on Facebook.

Lastly, the assets posted about Russian propaganda related to the war in Syria and analyzed the techniques used by Russian media to “twist narratives” around the war. At the same time, the group shared content celebrating U.S. successes in its fight against the Islamic State group and al-Qaeda in the Middle East, especially in Syria.

A small cluster of assets within the Central Asia group focused almost exclusively on China. These accounts—a fake persona and sham media outlet—mainly focused on the genocide of Uighurs and Muslim minorities in “re-education” camps in Xinjiang. Posts described alleged organ trafficking, forced labor, sexual crimes against Muslim women, and suspicious disappearances of ethnic Muslims in Xinjiang. The assets also posted about the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) poor treatment of women in the country and often framed these stories around news about domestic violence

Other assets in the group also posted about China but asserted that Chinese authoritarianism and financial imperialism threatened Central Asia and other regions of the world. The assets frequently referred to China’s cooperation with Russia, especially on military issues, and said Beijing should be held responsible for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine because the CCP had secretly supplied the Kremlin with weapons. The group rebuked China for buying stolen Ukrainian grain from Russia and predicted that Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine would precipitate a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. [...]

This section discusses the 21 Twitter accounts, two Facebook pages, five Facebook profiles, and six Instagram accounts that formed the covert campaign focused on Iranian audiences. These assets had names in Persian, and those that posted content mainly did so in Persian and about Iran. The Twitter accounts posted primarily from November 2020 through March 2022, and the Facebook pages and Instagram accounts posted primarily from May 2021 through June 2022. There were no visible posts for the Facebook profiles.

Several of the Twitter accounts were tied to the Facebook and Instagram accounts For example, they shared similar usernames. However, the Twitter accounts exhibited a wider range of activity and narratives that did not appear in the data shared by Meta, including content promoting hardliner narratives that advocated for anti-reformist and hawkish policies in Iran. We additionally found linked activity on YouTube, Balatarin, and Telegram. The accounts in this cluster frequently claimed to be Iranians and often Iranian women. Accounts listed professions such as “teacher” and “political analyst.” There were also two front media outlets that claimed to provide independent news.

Accounts in the Iran group employed many of the same IO tactics we saw from the other groups, though with a few innovations. These assets included accounts claiming to be independent media outlets, shared U.S.-funded Persian-language media, had a low-engagement cross-platform presence, and showed low-effort spammy follow-back activity.

Several suspended accounts were linked to two sham media outlets operating in Persian: Fahim News (tagline: “Accurate news and information”) and the more developed Dariche News, which claimed to be an independent media outlet. The about page of Dariche News’ website says it is “an independent website and unaffiliated with any group or organization.” It goes on to claim to have a commitment to providing “uncensored and unbiased news.”

While some Dariche News content appeared to be original to the outlet, many of their articles were explicit reposts from U.S.-funded Persian-language media, including Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s Radio Farda and VOA Farsi (Figure 25 on the following page). The Fahim News accounts similarly shared content from these outlets, along with content from Iran International, a media outlet based in the U.K. that allegedly has financial links to Saudi Arabia. Many of the fake personas in the network also shared Iran International content.

The suspended media outlet accounts showed links to other social media accounts on Telegram, YouTube, and Balatarin. The Telegram and YouTube channels had few followers. Like other parts of this group, the sham media outlets’ YouTube channels created many short-form videos. Profiles on Balatarin, a Persian link-sharing platform, frequently linked to stories from Persian-language U.S.-funded media. While these sham media outlets had few followers, we found an interesting instance of Russian state media outlet Sputnik embedding an Instagram post from Dariche News into one of their articles [...]

While the accounts in this group primarily posted political content, they exhibited some spammy characteristics likely geared towards building a large online audience. Several accounts had follow-back language in their profiles, such as the phrase “follow = follow back.” Many accounts also posted non-political filler content, including Iranian poetry and photos of Persian food, in a likely attempt to build an audience and present themselves as authentic users (Figure 29). The Iran group tried to engage with real Iranians on Twitter, often by joking with users about non-political internet memes. Accounts often replied to tweets with the face with tears of joy emoji [😂😂😂].

We observed multiple instances of accounts in the Iran group sharing content from sources linked to the U.S. military. For example, in 2020 and 2021, a Twitter account that presented itself as an Iranian individual living in “Cambridge” posted links to almashareq[.]com and diyaruna[.]com 25 and 26 times, respectively. Both websites say they are sponsored by the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) and post pro-Western articles in Persian and Arabic. This Twitter account was created on June 16, 2019, and its Twitter bio linked to a Telegram account with the same name and just three subscribers. The Twitter account was critical of the Iranian government and often used a sarcastic tone to mock Iranian state media and other parts of the state apparatus. It also tweeted about how Iranian meddling abroad only hurt Iranians at home.

Based on an analysis of shared technical infrastructure, domain registration records, and social media activity, we assess with high confidence that al- mashareq[.]com is the latest rebranding of al-shorfa[.]com, while diyaruna[.]com is the latest rebranding of mawtani[.]com and mawtani.al-shorfa[.]com. Prior to 2016, al-shorfa[.]com and mawtani[.]com were part of the U.S. government’s Trans-Regional Web Initiative mentioned at the beginning of this report.[...]

The network amplified programs to people wanted by the U.S. government to justice. For example, on Aug. 10, 2022, a Telegram channel linked to a suspended Twitter account shared an FBI wanted pamphlet for Shahram Poursafi, an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) member accused of plotting to assassinate former U.S. National Security Advisor John Bolton. Dariche News, like some other covert accounts we reviewed, shared content from the U.S. State Department’s Rewards for Justice Program seeking information about Iranians who may have interfered in U.S. elections

The Twitter accounts in this group can be divided into those that criticized the Iranian government and a smaller number of accounts that shared hardliner views. [...]

Anti-government accounts criticized Iran’s domestic and international policies and highlighted how the government’s costly international interventions undermined its ability to care for its citizens. Posts claimed the government took food from Iranians to give to Hezbollah. One Instagram post said that by supporting Hamas and Hezbollah, the late Qasem Soleimani had brought poverty and misery to Iran. Soleimani was the former head of the Quds Force, a branch of Iran’s IRGC. Some tweets highlighted embarrassing events for Iran, such as a reported power outage that caused the Iranian chess team to lose an international online tournament.

Human and civil rights were another common theme from the group. Some tweets with higher engagement levels criticized the government, particularly Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, for killing protesters in 2021. Tweets also highlighted a teacher protest in January 2022.

Across platforms, the group promoted Amnesty International content. One tweet from May 2021 highlighted an Amnesty International report about how the government executed four imprisoned Ahwazi activists in 2021 (see Figure 32) The Ahwazi are an Arab ethnic minority group in Iran. An April 2022 Instagram post shared an Amnesty International image drawing attention to the unjust imprisonment of human rights activist Behnam Mousivand. A July 2021 Instagram post highlighted, in poetic terms, the unjust imprisonment of an Iranian poet who has since died in prison.

The group also focused on women’s rights, though most prominently on Facebook and Instagram. Dozens of posts compared Iranian women’s opportunities abroad with those in Iran. Posts also noted that little has changed for women in Iran over time. Many posts highlighted domestic protests against hijab dress requirements.

Many tweets linked government corruption to domestic hardships. For example, one post said that “corruption and mafia relations in the IRGC, [...] judges and the families of the heads of Islamic Republic... [are the] main reason for Iran’s poverty and misery.” Tweets likewise blamed the government for the country’s rising cost of living, claiming that prices for food and medicine increased at the same time that hardliner Ebrahim Raisi became the country’s president in 2021. These tweets also noted that the IRGC controls the country’s domestic production of these goods.

Criticism of the IRGC was a particularly prominent theme in the group. Dariche News explicitly said its main focus was “to inform about the destructive role of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in all the affairs and issues of Iran and the region.”

Multiple assets also claimed to be “Justice for the victims of #Flight752” accounts, referring to the Ukraine International Airlines flight that the IRGC shot down in January 2020. In addition to blaming the IRGC for this incident, tweets also placed responsibility directly on Khamenei. At the time of the incident, accounts discussed how it was playing out internationally. For example, accounts shared news articles about a Canadian court ruling the incident an act of terrorism. The Twitter accounts in this group used hashtags related to this flight (e.g., #PS752 and #ps752justice) hundreds of times.

Like other groups in the broader covert set, the Iranian group criticized Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, often using it to frame local narratives. The group’s posts used Persian versions of the Russian opposition hashtags #no_to_Putin and #no_to_- war. Accounts noted that Khamenei verbally supported Putin and accused Iran of supplying drones to Russia, which Russia then used to kill civilians. In addition to claiming that Iran’s support for Russia was morally wrong, the group also pushed the narrative that Iran’s support would incur negative economic repercussions and made unflattering comparisons between Khamenei and Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky. One “has sold Iran to Russia [...] and ordered [their peoples’] murder,” an account tweeted. “The other is wearing a combat uniform alongside his people and has stopped the colonization of Ukraine by Russia with all his might.”

Accounts also criticized the Quds Force’s activities abroad and particularly its former leader Soleimani, calling him a murderer and saying that his values were inconsistent with Islam. The tweet in Figure 36 is from just after the Taliban seized control of Afghanistan in 2021. It says that Quds Force personnel were pretending to be journalists and going to Afghanistan to squash the country’s opposition.

Four Twitter accounts in the group promoted hardliner narratives that advocated for anti-reformist and hawkish policies in Iran. Some of these narratives took aim at Iranian state officials for being too moderate, but any negative content about the Iranian government was infrequent. The hardliner accounts tweeted during the same period as the anti-regime assets and used similar tactics, but their purpose is unclear. These assets did not share anti-U.S. content, as one would expect from nationalistic voices in Iran.

Most of the hardliner tweets came from just one account, a self-declared “political science expert” whose account had 3,769 followers and was created on Nov. 25, 2020. This account mostly posted on Twitter and a related Telegram channel about the progress of Shi’a Islam over time. For example, in one tweet, the account asserted that Shiites were now able to exert influence in the Middle East after previously playing a more submissive role. This tweet received 84 likes. A Facebook and Instagram account linked to this Twitter account are also suspended, though they were not included in the dataset shared by Meta.

A small group of assets in the Twitter and Meta takedown sets posted primarily about issues in Afghanistan but emphasized narratives critical of Iran, the Islamic State group, and the Taliban. [...]

Despite this group’s small number of assets, its campaign leveraged clear TTPs that we also observed in the broader set of covert accounts. All these accounts used fake personas, including one account claiming to be an Afghan man. Some of the personas attempted to present as real people by using profile pictures that were likely created using artificial intelligence techniques, such as generative adversarial networks (GAN). Like assets in the Central Asia group, the Afghanistan accounts typically included hashtag blocks at the end of their posts, often including #IRGCEXPOSED.

They also shared content from sources linked to the U.S. military, particularly afghanistan.asia-news[.]com, which names the U.S. Central Command as its sponsor. Based on an analysis of shared technical infrastructure, domain registration records, and social media activity, we assess with high confidence that afghanistan.asia-news[.]com (Salaam Times) is one-third of the latest rebranding of centralasiaonline[.]com, the other two being pakistan.asia- news[.]com (Pakistan Forward) and central.asia-news[.]com (Caravanserai). Before 2016, centralasiaonline[.]com was part of the U.S. government’s Trans- Regional Web Initiative mentioned at the beginning of this report. [...]

[Left: A fake persona in the Afghanistan group likely used artificial intelligence techniques, such as GAN, to create its profile photo. Right: We have superimposed the same profile picture over two sample GAN-generated images from outside the network. The alignment of the eyes in multiple different images strongly suggests the profile picture was created using artificial intelligence techniques] Accounts in the Afghanistan group consistently advanced narratives critical of Iran and its actions, often within a framework of issues and events relevant to Afghan audiences. Sometimes, these narratives included inflammatory claims accompanied by articles from the U.S. military-linked website afghanistan.asia- news[.]com. One example was a tweet from March 11, 2022, which claimed that relatives of deceased Afghan refugees had reported bodies being returned from Iran with missing organs. The post linked to an afghanistan.asia-news[.]com video, which was posted to YouTube and also shared in a Feb. 14, 2022 article by pakistan.asia-news[.]com. The article includes interviews with an Afghan official and Afghan nurse making the same unverified claims.

Another anti-Iranian narrative claimed in late 2021 and early 2022 that the IRGC was forcing Afghan refugees to join militias fighting in Syria and Yemen and that those who refused were being deported. Like accounts in the Middle East group, many posts focused on the actions of Iranian-backed militias in Syria, accusing fighters of committing human rights abuses and Tehran of sponsoring terrorism. Since February this year, the Afghanistan accounts began to weave in narratives related to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, comparing the actions of Russian soldiers to those of IRGC-backed militias in Syria.

Accounts in the group also posted general criticism of Iranian policies that did not directly relate to Afghanistan. For example, the YouTube account we identified posted multiple Shorts showing Iranians protesting and looting supermarkets due to food shortages. The Shorts were captioned in Pashto, English, and Urdu and commented that “There is no difference between IRGC and ISIS” and “People looting shops in Iran, but the Iranian government is still interfering in other countries.”

Multiple accounts in this group shared posts and tweets that resembled Afghan military press releases. From 2019 to 2021, these posts highlighted successful Afghan military operations against the Taliban, Islamic State group, and other extremist organizations, such as a March 2020 post applauding police in Afghanistan’s Nimroz Province for seizing opium used to finance al-Qaeda. Posts also typically praised former President Ashraf Ghani.

After Afghanistan fell to the Taliban in August 2021, accounts in the group began sharing advice for people trying to flee the country. Initially, this included warnings not to gather around Kabul airport without the necessary foreign travel documents as the scene devolved into chaotic evacuations by retreating U.S. forces. In the following weeks, posts highlighted women’s protests against Taliban authorities and criticized Afghanistan’s new government for its treatment of women and journalists.

Lastly, many posts attempted to undermine support for the Islamic State group’s affiliate in Afghanistan, claiming to reveal “the true fact” that the group is anti-Islam. A May 2022 tweet said in Pashto that the Islamic State group’s actions contradicted Islamic teachings and that the group “exists as the most dangerous terrorist group in the region and threatens all nations with weapons of ignorance.” Though often used without context, #NotMyIslam (in English) appeared frequently. [...]

The Middle East group of covert assets discussed in this section focused broadly on issues related to Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Yemen. While not as distinct as other groups in the takedown sets, we identified multiple technical, behavioral, and content links between these accounts, which exclusively posted in Arabic about the same topics and themes.[...]

Our investigation identified clear signs of coordination and inauthentic behavior. TTPs employed by the accounts included sharing identical content across platforms, coordinated posting times, using GAN-generated faces, and creating fake profile pictures. One Facebook page in the group also posed as a person living in Iraq. This page shared the same name and picture as a Twitter account that previously claimed to operate on behalf of the United States Central Command (CENTCOM)

The group chiefly promoted narratives seeking to undermine Iran’s influence in the region but also took aim at Russia and Yemen’s Houthi rebels. For example, accounts on Twitter posed as Iraqi activists in order to accuse Iran of threatening Iraq’s water security and flooding the country with crystal meth. Other assets highlighted Houthi-planted landmines killing civilians and promoted allegations that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine would lead to a global food crisis.

One of the Facebook pages in the group showed links to a Twitter account that has previously claimed to operate on behalf of CENTCOM. Created on Nov. 1, the page used the Arabic word for “discoverer” [مكتشف] as its name and presented itself as an Iraqi man posting predominantly about the misdeeds of the Iranian government and its influence in Iraq. Notably, Discoverer used a profile picture likely generated using artificial intelligence techniques, such as GANs. An Instagram account and a Facebook profile in the Middle East group used the same image as well. An account in the Twitter dataset also used the Arabic word for “discoverer” as its name and the same fake face as the three Meta assets. The Discoverer Twitter account was created in November 2016 and claimed in its bio to be “always in the service of Iraqis and Arabs.”

However, archived versions of the Discoverer Twitter account show that prior to May 2021, it used a different picture, listed its location as “Florida, USA,” and publicly identified as an “account belonging to the U.S. Central Command” that “aims to uncover issues related to regional security and stability.” At that time, the account promoted similar anti-Iran narratives related to Iraq and Syria but also posted statements presented as coming from the U.S. embassy in Baghdad.

Accounts in the Middle East group frequently used fake profile pictures to construct online personas. This is a common tactic in online IO, and we increasingly see actors leverage GAN-generated faces such as those shown in Figure 49. While at first presenting as photorealistic human faces, GAN-generated images are typically easy to identify due to their consistent central eye alignment, blurred backgrounds, and telltale glitches around the teeth, eyes, and ears.

But we also identified assets in this group using fake profile pictures that appeared to be collages of different images available online. This is a relatively novel technique, and though it is easy to spot images that have been edited in this manner, it could complicate strategies to detect inauthentic personas.

For example, an Instagram and Twitter account in the Middle East group used the same picture of a man in a suit holding a water bottle. Reverse image searches revealed that the man’s torso was identical to a photo from a 2012 fashion blog, which had then been edited to add a new face and background. We also saw accounts in the Central Asia group employ this TTP.

[Left: Original photo from a 2012 fashion blog. Right: Collaged photo used by assets in the group.]

We identified multiple instances of assets in the Middle East group sharing content and exhibiting coordinated posting patterns on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Typically, this activity involved supposedly independent accounts posting the same images or identical text content within hours, or even minutes, of each other.

For example, on Sept. 23, 2021, a Facebook profile using a likely fake persona and the Facebook page Here Is Yemen [نااليمن] posted the same video with identical captions about alleged mass executions planned by Houthi rebel leaders in Yemen. The two Facebook assets made these posts just two minutes apart.

Accounts in the Middle East group consistently shared content that supported the U.S.-recognised Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) while criticizing the actions of Iran and Iraqi militias backed by Tehran. These accounts repeatedly asserted that Iraqi militias supported by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) were loyal to Tehran over the Iraqi government and were fighting to implement Iran’s imperialist project in the Middle East. Some accounts also accused Iranian- backed militias of causing civilian casualties through rocket strikes on Baghdad’s Green Zone.

In particular, accounts in the group promoted content critical of Qais al-Khazali, the leader of the influential Shiite paramilitary organization Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq. The U.S. designated Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq as a foreign terrorist organization in January 2020 after its members were accused of killing demonstrators at anti-government protests in Iraq in 2019.

Other posts from the Middle East group accused Tehran of engineering a drought in the country by jeopardizing the water supply of cross-border rivers, smuggling weapons and fuel through Iraq to Iranian fighters in Syria, and fuelling Iraq’s crystal meth epidemic.

Although the Middle East group predominantly focused on Iran, a small cluster of accounts on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter promoted content critical of Russia, particularly its interventions in Libya and Syria. Beginning in February this year, these accounts tailored content to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and designed anti-Russian messaging to appeal to Arabic-speaking audiences in the Middle East. In addition to reports of Russian soldiers killing civilians, the accounts amplified the narrative that Russian President Vladimir Putin planned to induce a global food crisis that would hit less economically developed countries the hardest. The accounts reported on Russian bombings of Ukrainian grain silos and Turkey’s detention of a Russian-flagged ship carrying “stolen” Ukrainian grain to bolster this narrative. These anti-Russian narratives overlapped thematically with content from some accounts in the Central Asia group.

At the same time, the accounts applauded ongoing efforts by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) in Iraq and posted about positive interactions between American troops and children in Syria (Figure 57 on the following page).

A second cluster of accounts in the Middle East group focused on issues in Yemen. These accounts, also present on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, primarily shared content critical of Iranian and Houthi rebel activity in Yemen. Posts accused Houthi rebel leaders of blocking humanitarian aid deliveries, acting as proxies for Iran and Hezbollah, and closing bookstores, radio stations, and other cultural institutions in the Yemeni capital, Sana’a. Recently, the cluster amplified a narrative highlighting Houthi forces’ widespread use of landmines, which human rights groups say have caused thousands of civilian casualties since the beginning of the conflict. These posts typically included the number of civilian casualties and highlighted the alleged Iranian origins of the landmines.

#in case you needed more paranoia

113 notes · View notes