#James Cantor

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Ari Drennen at MMFA:

A New York Times article about the World Professional Association for Transgender Health’s 2022 standards of care draws on emails released by a psychologist who has compared homosexuality to pedophilia and reportedly worked on behalf of an extreme anti-LGBTQ group.

The Times piece, which claims that the Biden administration lobbied to remove explicit age limits from the guidelines, does not provide sufficient context on the psychologist's background or his reported work for Alliance Defending Freedom, a Project 2025 partner.

The article also uses outdated data to fearmonger about rising numbers of trans youth and again includes misinformation about transition care from elected officials with no fact-checking.

The Times report quotes email excerpts filed in a legal challenge to Alabama's ban on gender-affirming care from WPATH officials describing their interactions with Sarah Boateng, who then served as chief of staff to Adm. Rachel Levine, assistant secretary for health at the Department of Health and Human Services. Boateng argued at the time that listing specific age guidelines for transition surgeries would fuel more aggressive legislative efforts to ban them. 

The Times states that “the excerpts were filed by James Cantor,” whom the paper describes simply as “a psychologist and longstanding critic of gender treatments for minors.”

Cantor frequently presents himself as an expert on gender-affirming medicine and has reportedly been retained as an expert by the states in favor of West Virginia’s ban on sports participation and restrictions on health care in Texas, Florida, and Alabama.  In the Alabama trial at the center of the Times’ reporting, Cantor also appears to have worked on behalf of Project 2025 partner and extreme anti-LGBTQ organization the Alliance Defending Freedom – a detail excluded from the Times’ report.

[...]

Project 2025 is a comprehensive transition plan for the next GOP presidential administration. Its nearly 900-page policy book labels “the omnipresent propagation of transgender ideology and sexualization of children” as “pornography” that “should be outlawed” and states that “the people who produce and distribute it should be imprisoned.” The Alliance Defending Freedom, which also works to curtail access to abortion, is one of over 100 organizations that have endorsed the document, meant to serve as a blueprint for a second Trump administration.

Cantor has a troubling resume outside of his work alongside the Alliance Defending Freedom. He was previously removed from the state of Florida’s roster of “subject matter experts” on transition care after linking homosexuality to pedophilia and stating that sexual attraction to children is “not inherently wrong.” Cantor served as member of the advisory council for Prostagia, which has campaigned against bans on sex dolls resembling children and has hosted support groups for “minor attracted people” open to adults alongside people as young as 13. [...]

The Times also claims that “the numbers for all gender-related medical interventions for adolescents have been steadily rising as more young people seek such care.” But the data used to support this assertion ends in 2021, when many states began restricting or outlawing transition care, meaning those numbers may no longer be “rising.”  The article also includes statements from Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott characterizing transition surgeries as “disfiguring” and “genital mutilation,” respectively, with no fact-checking, a repeat of a pattern previously noted by Media Matters and GLAAD. Activists opposing female genital mutilation also say that the harmful practice should not be “hijacked for purposes to target and discriminate against vulnerable youth.” The Times story was updated after publication to remove the detail that Marci Bowers, president of WPATH, is herself a transgender woman. While the current version of the story states that Levine is also a transgender woman, it makes no note of the gender identity of Cantor, DeSantis, or Abbott.

Once again, the New York Times fails to properly note the anti-trans extremism of the subjects being covered on gender-affirming care issues, this time in a story discussing James Cantor in which NYT omitted his ties to anti-LGBTQ+ extremist group Alliance Defending Freedom.

[tuppencetrinkets]

sorted caps from daredevil.

Claire - Rosario Dawson - 4900

Samantha - Michelle Hurd - 2000

Ben - Vondie Curtis-Hall- 1200

Elektra - Elodie Yung - 6500

Leland - Bob Gunton - 1100

Fisk - Vincent D'Onofrio - 11000

Foggy - Elden Henson - 22000

Frank - Jon Bernthal - 4500

Gao - Wai Ching Ho - 1600

Karen - Deborah Ann Woll - 28000

Matt - Charlie Cox - 28000

Father Lantom - Peter McRobbie - 1500

Mitchell - Geoffrey Cantor - 600

Stick - Scott Glenn - 2000

Vanessa - Ayelet Zurer - 4400

Wesley - Toby Leonard Moore - 5700

Young Fisk - 800

Young Matt - 1300

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[ladycharles]

Umm this is a gender war deep cut but I was on Wikipedia looking at old, rejected studies about Gender and went down a rabbit hole that led me to this:

This guy was a respected figure in psychology but has no real expertise on trans issues or gender dysphoria. Now he constantly makes himself available as an "expert" witness to Republicans and right wing governments to support anti trans laws.

And it turns out he is banned on wikipedia for using sock puppets to try to push his views in gender related pages 😅

Imagine being respected for your neurological studies on pdffiles, having a teaching position at the top university in your country, featuring in the media and successful documentaries...

And being so terminally online that had to write a failed ban appeal insisting it wasn't your sockpuppet accounts, just a close friend who talks the same...

Scratch a transphobe and no one bleeds bcause they're terminally online.

[coochiequeens]

A man who got where he is, careerwise and having a family by transitioning later in life, wants to take that way from minors.

Image: WASHINGTON, DC - OCTOBER 21: (L-R) Jesse M. Ehrenfeld, MD, MPH, President of the American Medical Association; Admiral Rachel L. Levine, MD, the 17th Assistant Secretary for Health (ASH) for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services; and Charlotte Clymer, writer, transgender activist, and military veteran speak on stage during Learning With Love: The 2023 PFLAG National Convention, four days of educating, lobbying, networking, and leading with love, taking place October 19-22, 2023 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Paul Morigi/Getty Images for PFLAG National)

A head-on collision between science and politics

By JESSE SINGAL JUN 25, 2024

When the World Professional Association for Transgender Health’s Standards of Care Version 8 was released in September 2022, a very strange thing happened: WPATH removed references to minimum age requirements for various medical interventions, describing the change as a “correction” in a notice that now reads, weirdly: “This correction notice has been removed as it referred to a previous version of the article, which was published in error.” Whatever happened, exactly, it’s clear that until late in the game the document did have age minimums until, suddenly, it did not.

The SoC 8 was supposed to have been created via something called the Delphi process. As the document itself explains: “Consensus on the final recommendations was attained using the Delphi process that included all members of the guidelines committee and required that recommendation statements were approved by at least 75% of members.” Suffice it to say that making a sudden, major change so late in the game calls into question whether that process was fully adhered to.

Thanks to a rather remarkable document just unsealed as part of Boe v. Marshall, one of the many American lawsuits over youth gender medicine, we now have a potential explanation for why the age guidelines were removed: direct pressure from assistant secretary for health of the Department of Health and Human Services Admiral Rachel Levine (who is a trans woman herself) and the American Academy of Pediatrics.

The document is titled “Appendix A To Supplemental Expert Report Of James Cantor, Ph.D. In it Cantor, a Canadian sex researcher, critic of youth gender medicine, and frequent expert witness on behalf of those attempting to ban or or restrict it (including in this case), claims that “Assistant Secretary for Health Dr. Rachel Levine strongly pressured WPATH leadership to rush the development and issuance of SOC-8, in order to assist with Administration political strategy.”

He backs this claim up with the following internal communications from WPATH members involved with the creation of the SoC 8 (here and elsewhere in the document, the names of the people who wrote the words in question are redacted):

I have just spoken to Admiral Levine today, who—as always is extremelysupportive of the SOC 8, but also very eager for its release—so to ensureintegration in the US health policies of the Biden government. So, let’s crack onwith the job!!! 

I am meeting with Rachel Levine and her team next week, as the US Department of Health is very keen to bring the trans health agenda forward.

The failure of WPATH to be ready with SOC 8 is proving a barrier to optimal policy progress and she [Dr. Levine] was eager to learn when SOC 8 might be published. 

[T]his should be taken as a charge from the United States government to do what is required to complete the project immediately. 

More worryingly, Cantor charges that “Assistant Secretary Levine also attempted to and did influence the substantive content of SOC-8, based on political goals rather than science. Specifically, Assistant Secretary Levine, though [sic] a staff member, pressured WPATH to remove recommended minimum ages for medical transition treatments from SOC-8.”

Here, too, he has evidence from anonymized emails written by those involved in the SoC 8:

Sarah Boateng, who is Adm. Levine’s chief of staff [said the] biggest concern is the section below in the Adolescent Chapter that lists specific minimum ages for treatment, she is confident, based on the rhetoric she is hearing in DC, and from what we have already seen, that these specific listings of ages, under 18, will result in devastating legislation for trans care. She wonders if the specific ages can be taken out and perhaps an adjunct document could be created that is published or distributed in a way that is less visible than the SOC8, is the way to go. 

The issue of ages and treatment has been quite controversial (mainly for surgery) and it has come up again. We sent the document to Admiral Levine. . . She like [sic] the SOC-8 very much but she was very concerned that having ages (mainly for surgery) will affect access to health care for trans youth and maybe adults too. Apparently the situation in the USA is terrible and she and the Biden administration worried that having ages in the document will make matters worse. She asked us to remove them. We have the WPATH executive committee in this meeting and we explained to her that we could not just remove them at this stage. 

[W]e heard your [Dr. Levine’s] comments regarding the minimal age criteria for transgender healthcare adolescents; the potential negative outcome of these minimal ages as recommendations in the US [. . . ] Consequently, we have changes to the SOC 8 in this respect. Given that the recommendations for minimal ages for the various gender affirming medical and surgical intervention are consensus-based, we could not remove them from the document. Therefore, we have made changes as to how the minimal ages are presented in the documents. [Note: “your” may well refer to an aide of Levine’s rather than the Secretary herself, though it’s unclear.] 

Cantor also includes emails from SoC 8 contributors expressing surprise at the sudden change, including this one making. . . well, the same point everyone else made after news of the late-stage “correction” broke:

I don’t see how we can simply remove something that important from the document—without going through a Delphi—at this final stage of the game [. . . ] I realize that those in favor of the bans are going to go right to the age criteria and ignore the fact that we actually strengthened the strictness of the criteria to help clinicians better discern appropriate surgical candidates from those who are inappropriate [. . . ] It’s all about messaging and marketing. 

I’m actually crashing on a different but related freelance story at the moment. Check out Leor Sapir’s Twitter timeline for more details about this and another just-unsealed document. Next week, when I’ve caught my breath, I’ll write a little bit more about this as well as yet another damning claim Cantor makes, that the American Academy of Pediatrics “issued an ultimatum to WPATH: Should WPATH not delete the age minimums, AAP would not only withhold endorsement of SOC-8, but would publicly oppose the document.” 

But I wanted to at least get this short piece up, because the Levine angle is important and alarming. It demonstrates an indisputable conflict between how WPATH has portrayed the SoC 8 — as a document steeped in evidence and careful deliberation on the part of experts — and how the guidelines were actually formulated.

[thursdaymurderbub]

The New Movie magazine, April 1933

[jesuis-melodrama]

Comprehensive Retort on Shakespeare in the Original Klingon: Star Trek and the End of History by Professor Paul A. Cantor

The article criticised can be found here.

Professor Cantor is a racist, a white supremacist, religious and most likely a Christian, and possibly goes around proudly telling his dinner party guests that he's descended from this or that European king. Cantor argues for aristocracy and theocracy. He argues for the natural Order of Things. He argues that slavery and war should be an accepted alternative to life. He hates that democracy means he can't beat his wife (this article does not mention feminism in the slightest but I'm going to go out on a limb here and deduce that he's also a misogynist and categorises women below himself due to his conservative beliefs). He started watching Star Trek because he approved of what he thought Kirk would've been as a hero, the wrong representation of a noble American man, an imperialistic, domineering, colonising, and sexually abusive white man. When he realised that Kirk is not only kind, good, anti-tyranny, anti-slavery, and feminist, Professor Cantor decided to get nasty and write the most ridiculous and self-serving academic argument for slavery that I have ever read.

Professor Cantor starts off his article with a rather innocuous and almost tragic point: that the beginning of peace would mean the end of the adventures of the crew of the USS Enterprise as they would be degraded to antiques of a time previous, obsolete. What he fails to realise, and what proves his misinterpretation of Star Trek, is that he has transformed the Enterprise into a crew of soldiers, whose job is to forcibly spread human, democratic values. The Enterprise is a team of scientists and explorers first and foremost, while they have been show to enforce law and order and, on occasion, raised their phasers at signs of violence and the suggestions of a threat, their mission is to explore the galaxy. In his imperialistic mind, Cantor takes 'exploration' to mean forcibly spreading values. The Enterprise has not once, in the episodes I viewed, taken over another planet and aggressively spread their ideals.

Cantor also decided to be smug and superior and uses Shakespeare as a metaphor for the end of peace. He called Shakespeare 'high art', and argued that the end of the age of heroes (tyrants like Julius Caesar and self-crowning monarchs such as Napoléon) would be an end to 'necessary' heroic literature. This is a smokescreen for his racism, as like most white supremacists believe, only the Anglo-Saxon race is capable of crafting quality art and the adoption of Shakespeare by the Klingons is acceptable to Cantor only because the Klingons' warmongering and oppressive values correlate with his own expectations on how human society should be governed. He did not comprehend even for a second – despite explicitly referring to himself as a professor of literature in the article – that Shakespeare did not represent a point of contention but a summit of peace between the two races. Both humans' and Klingons' enjoyment of Shakespeare signify that they are equally intelligent, sentient, and aesthetically-appreciative people, able to find enjoyment in each other's creations.

Cantor is right to say that the only direction that history moves in is one that legitimises and amplifies the power of liberty. He opposes this greatly, which is why he is sub-textually wagging his finger at Captain Kirk's actions throughout his article. 

"Communism froze...progress until its failure became too much for even its defenders to bear." First of all, what was happening in the Soviet Union was not communism, it was totalitarianism masquerading as communism. What halted human progress was not the idea that production should be the property of those who produced it, but the restriction and ban of human rights and autonomy. Professor Cantor may be an English professor but he certainly had not brushed up on his history. He did not understand what he was talking about and does not bother to expand his knowledge beyond what supported his eugenics values.

Similarly, former President Bush was not a Hegelian. Perhaps he superficially supported Hegelianism in order to remain popular and appeal to the universal ideals held by the (voting) American population, but after his wonderful speech about the triumph of democracy, he immediately brought up a Cuban dictator as an enemy of such democracy and fed the idea that using this man as a convenient enemy would be beneficial for the state. A year after this article was published, he presided over 9/11 and used the act of terrorism as an excuse to invade Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, along with several other Middle Eastern countries under the guise of spreading democracy when in reality he simply wanted geographical control of the area (we're not even going to venture into the landmine of circumstantial yet strong evidence that suggested President Bush supported and allowed 9/11 to happen to validate his invasion). President Bush is a tyrant, a racist, and an imperialist. When he said he wanted democracy and freedom, he meant the people who lived on the same land as him and looked like him. Not those with brown skin an ocean away whom he can simply turn the other way and pretend they didn't exist.

There may be a well-established principle of the separation of Church and State, but there certainly isn't a well-established practice, not when God is in the American Parliament. Not when each trial starts with a mandatory swear upon the Bible. Not when God is the symbol of authority literally every single American senator pledge to. 

"Democracy claims to be intolerant and to welcome diversity, but it has always had difficulty tolerating anti-democratic principles and forces." This is the first line that made me realise something was off about Professor Cantor. I laughed when I came across this line, sure that it's a tongue-in-cheek remark, but the further I read into this article the more I realised Professor Cantor is not joking. This is genuinely an argument that he presented, that democracy is 'intolerant' to anti-democratic values. Cantor personalised democracy as if it's a solid institution with set definitions and values which could be attacked. It couldn't be further from the truth, democracy is an invisible concept whose clauses and definitions can be taken, smudged, erased, redefined by anyone who claims it. What kind of 'undemocratic values' was Professor Cantor talking about even? According to the rest of the article, he mourns the fact that democracy is intolerant of slavery.

"How do you encourage democratic values without encouraging a particular form of government, namely democracy?" Cantor accuses Captain Kirk of being an imperialist, the very selfsame thing that he is guilty of, except that he turns the spotlight on Captain Kirk because Captain Kirk's freedom-loving values intrude on his right to oppress minority populations. Is it possible that so-called democratic values are capable of standing on their own and does not need an institution of government to support them? Is it possible that liberty and justice and freedom exist beyond the confines of a form of government and exceed humanity as a whole? Is it possible that freedom and liberty are even non-human and applies to non-sentient concepts such as spirit and environment? Not according to Professor Cantor who is adamant that the very idea of spreading the right to self-determination and self-authority is tyrannical. Professor Cantor is the type of person who would happily take half-cast children away from their Indigenous parents under the idea of security. Professor Cantor is the type of person who would vote for the criminalisation of the homeless on the foundation that their uselessness as employees is personally affrontive to him and their existence could be more productive by serving as slaves.

Several times throughout the article, Professor Cantor used the excuse of multiculturalism and diversity to mask his antagonistic, supremacist ideals. He uses the alien species that Captain Kirk subdued to submission as proof that he is unaccepting of difference. He conveniently forgoes mentioning that these alien species that Captain Kirk cannot tolerate also happened to be raising slaves, mind-controlling populations, or affecting cruelty. To turn a blind eye to such atrocities is to willingly become a by-standing villain, the most mundane and common type of evil.

Here's a list of all the things democracy is intolerant of: the binary of genders, unlawful oppression of minorities, the removal of the right to vote, the eradication of choice. By arguing that democracy is intolerant of these things, Cantor has inexplicably admitted that he is for all of those possibilities. Arguing that democracy is intolerant of 'undemocratic' ideals is similar to the argument that 'love is love. So why can't a 34 years old be in a romantic relationship with a 12 years old?' It's such a juvenile, foolish, and ridiculously elementary argument that it doesn't need to be defended. We all know why such a thing isn't allow. Cantor is like a brash, private school boy, pointing out unfairness that only he sees. That only restrict his ability to rule. Captain Kirk's refusal to grant genocidal maniacs a second chance, his refusal to ignore the plight of enslaved people, counts as intolerance and interference to Professor Cantor. This is because Captain Kirk is uncomfortably reminding Professor Cantor that should he have existed as the tyrant he wishes to be in the universe of Star Trek, he would not have gotten away with it, because heroic Captain Kirk would ensure that he would never escape rightful punishment for his crimes. 

"If anyone claims a natural or divine right to rule over anyone else in the galaxy, Kirk automatically reaches for his phaser." This is problematic for Professor Cantor only, he believes in a natural or divine right to true. He believes that some people are more superior than others. He believes in eugenics and slavery. Professor Cantor has this deranged line: "Deep bias against the notion of aristocracy." He says this to imply that aristocracy is a legitimate form of rule and anyone who rebels against it is 'imposing'. Aristocracy and monarchy, at its heart, is a form of government that relies on terrorising and the oppression of the major 'peasant' population. Saying Captain Kirk has a deep bias against aristocracy is like saying a slave has 'deep bias' against being enslaved.

Giving people the right to choose what they should or should not do is an immeasurable offence against Professor Cantor's sensibilities, enough that he had brought it up multiple times in his article as among Captain Kirk's graver offences. "Through he [Captain Kirk] claims to be peace-loving, he behaves violently when peace seem to require any surrender of autonomy." Professor Cantor would happily be a resident of Omelas. Professor Cantor would tut and shake his head about the 'violence' of BLM protestors. Professor Cantor would be the idiot who asks why the French are so aggressive in their uproar against President Macron. Professor Cantor never understood what it's like to have a basic dignity taken away from him for the convenience and comfort of a 'superior' race. I do not want this man anywhere near my children.

Through his extensive review of the episode Who Mourns For Adonais?, Professor Cantor has proven that he is in favour of theocracy, autocracy, and racial supremacy. He believes that those with 'superior genetics' should be given the right to rule and what Captain Kirk should've done when encountering Apollo is bowed his head and accepted chains of enslavement. Professor Cantor has placed God above himself but himself above all other Earth citizens. I cannot emphasis this enough, according to this article, Professor Cantor genuinely seems to believe some people are genetically superior than others. "This episode teaches a basic truth about Kirk, as it does Star Trek IV. He is willing to save whales but he feels compelled to kill gods." Translation: how could Captain Kirk, a comfortable white man like me, be willing to save lower races but reject the existence of superior races? Perhaps because Captain Kirk does not share your imperialistic, supremacist values, Professor Cantor. Cantor argues that whales should not be saved. Professor Cantor argues in favour of Nazism and Nordicism.

"Kirk does not wait to face the implications of Apollo's claim: There's an order of things in the universe. Your species has denied it." On the contrary, Professor Cantor, I believe it is you who is cowardly and ignorant. I believe that Captain Kirk has throughly considered Apollo's claim for the Divine Right of Kings as it is in his accepting and compassionate character to greet new beings as his equal and receive their perspectives without judgement. Except that Apollo's opinion is that Kirk and his crew are destined to be nothing more than his worshippers, shallow footnotes in the great tome of his existence, and he should be proud and happily to be reduced to such a role. Kirk rejected Apollo's claim with great disgust and revulsion. Kirk then mourned Apollo, not because he is remorseful of his decision but because he has slain a magnificent and illustrious living being. 

War is not a cultural identity, motherf**ker.

When Captain Kirk says to Spock: "Everyone is human", he does not mean that humans are the highest being of the universe as Professor Cantor continues to misinterpret in his desperate struggle to paint Captain Kirk as a dim, aggressive villain. He means that he considers every race as his kin, his family, and will fight for them as strongly as he would for any human. He means that all races possess sentiment, sentience, and intelligence, and he will not stand for the reduction of any race to any second-class citizens. When Spock replies: "I take offence to that", Spock is attempting a joke. Spock is reaching out to meet Captain Kirk, an alien not of his species, half-way. Professor Cantor seizes onto Spock as a vessel for his supremacist ideals, like Ben Shapiro arrogantly and obnoxiously pronounces facts as "more important than your feelings".

Furthermore, as I previously argued, there is nothing uniquely human about the right to self-determination. Animals have the right to be free and unencumbered from the burden of human employment and enslavement. The only reason why pets are acceptable is due to the wide-spread and popular belief that the only pets legally permitted are those whose every need is catered to and whose body and mind are well looked after. Freedom is not an artificial made-up human institution. It is a truth of the universe and applies to cosmic bodies as well as it does land. As Indigenous people have tried and tried to tell their colonisers throughout history, lands are alive and should be treated with the honour and the respect they deserve. And despite Elon Musk's repeated attempts, space does not belong to him. Mars is free in a way he never will be of his own self-sabotaging, desperate need to be liked by the people whose rights he deny and mock. 

In the same manner where Professor Cantor paints all of Kirk's perspective in a villainising, poor light, he has claimed Spock as his voice of reason, repeatedly presenting him as the sole source of ration among the more base Enterprise members. He fails to realise that Dr McCoy's argument for the right to self-determine is the mother of Spock's argument, that the people have a right to choose a system that works for them. Professor Cantor thought that Spock is arguing for the right of people to be slaves. Spock is not f**king doing that. 

"...however contented creatures such as the Klingon may appear to be with their non-democratic way of life"??? First of all, the idea that contentment is a measure of peace is dangerous. So many Confederates have argued that enslaved black people were very happy serving under the benign patronage of their white masters. Second of all, the Klingons are explicitly democratic. Professor Cantor seems to forget that they were represented by an elected official, and that their military command posts are assigned on the virtues of experience and relevancy, not primogeniture or blue blood. The Klingons had a court, where even criminals such as Captain Kirk and Doctor McCoy suspected of the high-profile and barbaric assassination of a major political figure, were given adequate, if underwhelming, legal representation. This adds further proof that Professor Cantor is a horrible English professor despite his pride in his career as he continually fails to interpret Star Trek in any manner that does not serve his own agenda.

"What if another culture has a different attitude towards life? What if it is willing to enslave or even exterminate other beings?" What the f**k is your argument here? That we should let them, Cantor? That it should be permitted without interference? I find it very curious that those who argue in favour of slavery never imagine themselves as the slaves, only the masters. And, of course, this is because in a right and true world, people like Professional Cantor – with his DNA, skin colour, and race of origin – would never be slaves. They are genetically superior. They would always only be the masters. 

Captain Hikaru Sulu's segment is the most ominous remark in the article: "Does it mean anything that the last person we see in charge of a commissioned starship is Captain Sulu, the one Japanese character? Sulu was once subordinate to Kirk, but now he commands his own starship, a technologically more advanced one. The film seems to be making a strange suggestion: If the Klingons are Russians and the Federation is the United States, have the two fought each other for years only to leave the world in the hands of the Japanese?" It's handled by Professor Cantor in a nearly hostile, off-hand reference to the influence of Asian people. This is because Professor Cantor is furious that Captain Sulu was given command of his own ship and a crew of white crewmen to rule over. Such an occurrence would never be tolerated or aired in Professor Cantor's dream view of what Star Trek should've looked like. The Russians may be the enemies of the American people, but at least they are white. Sulu's Asian representation suggests an impossible future to Professor Cantor, one where the Caucasian race is not at the pinnacle of the human pyramid.

I am repulsed that such blatant support of white supremacy and slavery had been published in an academic journal.

[fearsmagazine]

THE HOME | Official Trailer, Poster & Images

A rebellious twentysomething is sentenced to community service at a quiet retirement home. The residents on the fourth floor are strictly off-limits, said to require “special care.” As his suspicions grow and he digs deeper, he uncovers a chilling secret that puts both the residents’ lives and his own in grave danger.

Pete Davidson in The Home, Courtesy of Roadside Attractions

HOME is written by James DeMonaco and Adam Cantor, directed by James DeMonaco and stars Pete Davidson, John Glover and Bruce Altman.

Pete Davidson in The Home Courtesy of Roadside Attractions

Filmmaker James DeMonaco is the writer, director and producer of many of the films in “The Purge” franchise, including the TV series.

"When I set out to create The Home, I aimed to capture the spine-chilling eeriness of 70’s horror, where suspense simmers and ultimately erupts into glorious chaos,” explained director James DeMonaco. “Joining me is my Staten Island brother, Pete Davidson, who unveils a darker, dramatic side as his character navigates a bizarre group of residents in an old age home. The growing tension culminates in an epic blood-soaked finale, designed to leave audiences gasping, terrified, and cheering. I can’t wait for everyone to visit The Home. Cover your eyes, folks."

Pete Davidson in The Home Courtesy of Roadside Attractions

THE HOME is coming to theaters July 25th, 2025 from Lionsgate and Roadside attractions.

[ernestdescalsartwok]

CHOIR-ST.JAMES-GARLICKHYTHE-LONDON-PAINTINGS-ART-DETAIL-CHARITY-CHURCH-INTERIOR-WATERCOLORS-ERNEST DESCALS-ARTIST-PAINTER por Ernest Descals Por Flickr: CHOIR-ST.JAMES-GARLICKHYTHE-LONDON-PAINTINGS-ART-DETAIL-CHARITY-CHURCH-INTERIOR-WATERCOLORS-ERNEST DESCALS-ARTIST-PAINTER Detail of the choir inside St. James Garlickhythe Church in the City of London. Men and women sing together, accompanied by organ music, depicting scenes from everyday life with people in action. Watercolor painting by Ernest Descals, focusing on human movement and light, creating a spiritual atmosphere. Detalle del Coro en el interior de la iglesia de ST. JAMES GARLICKHYTHE en la City de Londres, mujeres y hombres, todos juntos, cantan las piezas religiosas acompañados de la música del órgano, escenas de la vida cotidiana con personajes en acción. Pintura con acuarelas del artista pintor Ernest Descals, atención en el movimiento humano y la luz que crea una atmósfera espiritual

[edsonjnovaes]

BOB MARLEY: ONE LOVE 1.2

BOB MARLEY: ONE LOVE Trailer Brasileiro Legendado (2024) – ONE Media Brasil. 6 jul 2023 “Bob Marley: One Love”, filme que contará a história do ícone do reggae, vai mostrar momentos da vida pública e privada do cantor, como o início na música, o atentado a tiros sofrido por ele em 1976 e sua luta em defesa da paz. Paramount Pictures – 2023 Bob Marley: One Love estreia nos cinemas no dia 12 de…

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Erin Reed at Erin In The Morning:

In a landmark decision on Tuesday, a three-judge panel for the Ohio Tenth District Court of Appeals struck down the state’s ban on gender-affirming care for transgender youth. The ruling rested on two key findings: first, that gender-affirming care constitutes legitimate medical treatment, and second, that parents have the constitutional right to make healthcare decisions for their children. Notably—and with a touch of irony—the court’s decision was made possible by Ohio’s Health Care Freedom Amendment, a Republican-backed constitutional provision originally designed to undermine the Affordable Care Act. Now, the same amendment has been used to dismantle a key pillar of the state’s anti-trans legislation. “The medical evidence and clinical experience presented in this case demonstrate that, when provided in appropriate circumstances, gender-affirming care can meaningfully improve the health and well-being of transgender adolescents with gender dysphoria by lowering rates of depression and the severity of other mental health issues, as well as increasing patients’ quality of life,” reads the ruling, affirming many studies showing the importance of gender affirming care on the wellbeing of transgender youth. This finding was significant. In 2011, a state constitutional amendment was passed by Republicans in 2011 to prevent the implementation of the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare). 

[(B) No federal, state, or local law or rule shall prohibit the purchase or sale of health care or health insurance. C) No federal, state, or local law or rule shall impose a penalty or fine for the sale or purchase of health care or health insurance.]

As a result, Ohioans now have broader constitutional protections around healthcare access—protections that, in this case, worked against Republican lawmakers’ attempts to restrict gender-affirming care. In defending the ban, the state argued that gender-affirming care does not qualify as healthcare, relying on testimony from anti-trans medical “experts” and asserting that it was up to the legislature—not the courts—to determine what constitutes medical treatment. The judges rejected both arguments outright, affirming that gender-affirming care falls squarely within the legal definition of healthcare. The court thoroughly dismantled the credibility of the state’s witnesses, going so far as to eviscerate them in judicial footnotes. Of Dr. James Cantor, the ruling notes that he “is not a physician, has never practiced as a licensed clinical psychologist in the United States, is not licensed to treat patients under the age of 16, and has never provided treatments to patients under the age of 16.” Dr. Paul Hruz fared no better, with the court pointing out that “he never diagnosed or treated a patient with gender dysphoria.” The ruling also highlighted his history of anti-trans advocacy, citing his testimony in a transgender bathroom ban case, where he stated: “Conditioning children into believing that a lifetime of impersonating someone of the opposite sex, achievable only through chemical and surgical interventions, is a form of child abuse.” Even the state’s sole witness with marginal qualification, Dr. Stephen Levine, ultimately undercut its case. The court noted that while Dr. Levine has experience in the field, he testified that he does not support a categorical ban on gender-affirming care and provided no evidence that such care is substandard in Ohio. In other words, the state’s own expert failed to justify the ban. [...] The ruling will likely be appealed in coming days to the Ohio Supreme Court.

Good news out of Ohio: An appeals court has struck down its state ban on gender-affirming care (HB68) in Moe v. Yost. Republicans in the Buckeye State get burned again on a 2011 anti-Obamacare referendum..

See Also:

The Advocate: Ohio appeals court strikes down ban on gender-affirming care for trans youth

[perfettamentechic]

10 ottobre … ricordiamo …

10 ottobre … ricordiamo … #semprevivineiricordi #nomidaricordare #personaggiimportanti #perfettamentechic

2022: Michael Callan, Martin Harris Calinieff, attore statunitense. Iniziò ad esibirsi quindicenne nei night club, prima di trasferirsi a New York all’età di diciassette anni con lo pseudonimo “Mickey Calin“. Il successo arrivò a Broadway nel 1954. La sua ultima apparizione cinematografica risale al 2003, con il film Fratelli per la pelle. Callan fu sposato tre volte: con Carlyn Chapman dal 1960…

[chrriblossom]

Oi gente!!! Essa é uma "thread" contando sobre tudo (ou quase tudo) sobre o caso diddy.

⚠️AVISOS⚠️

Vai ter DUAS PARTES então fiquem ligados no meu perfil que eu já vou postar a parte dois, pq n vai caber tudo aqui.

Já peço perdão por qualquer erro de português.

Oque eu vou contar aqui são as coisas que EU SEI, com certeza pode estar faltando alguma informação, então recomendo pesquisarem caso se interessem sobre!

Se tiver alguma informação nova eu coloco aqui.

É isso, peguem uma pipoca e aproveitem!

Quem é diddy?

Diddy, P-diddy ou Puff daddy é um produtor MUITO famoso, vocês com certeza já ouviram alguma música com o nome dele ou produzida por ele. Algumas são:

Umbrella da rihanna, Crazy in love da beyonce, Tiktok da kesha que tem aquele trecho "wake up in the morning felling like P-DIDDY"

Enfim o cara é ENORME, porém na última segunda-feira (16), ele acusado de tráfico sexual, extorsão, sequestro, trabalho forçado, suborno e outros crimes.

Então agora bora entrar em mais detalhes sobre esse homem ridículo e todas as teorias e fatos em torno dele.

Cassie Ventura

Essa mulher era nada mais nada menos do que a ESPOSA do diddy, eles se conheceram ali por volta dos anos 2000 e desde então tiveram o relacionamento MAIS TÓXICO POSSÍVEL, inclusive quando ela tentou terminar com ele, ele trancou ela dentro de casa.

No começo, ela era taxada de maluca por "falta de provas" mas foi vazado um certo vídeo em um corredor de hotel onde ela a cassie estava tentando fugir do diddy, mas ele simplesmente ESPANCOU ELA e depois saiu arrastando ela para dentro do quarto.

Ela também contou que ele obrigava ela a transar com prostitutos para ele ficar lá vendo, e com ctz deve ter tido mais abusos.

Mas essa diva não iria ficar calada meus amores, ela foi uma das principais chaves para a queda do seu ex-marido. Depois que esse vídeo foi vazado, o diddy postou um pedido de desculpas, MAS oque ele não esperava é que várias pessoas ganhariam coragem e iriam expor os crimes dele!! Por isso a cassie foi importante, ela encorajou as vítimas a falarem sobre os abusos.

As festas do diddy

Diddy também era conhecido por dar festas  conhecidas como "freak offs", festas organizadas com perfomances sexuais orquestradas.

Diversos famosos como Lebron James, Travis Scott, The Wekeend, as Kardashians e etc frequentavam essas festas ou eram convidados para elas. O próprio Lebron James e Chloe Kardashian já disseram que "não há festa melhor do que as do diddy".

E o pior, o diddy gravava oque acontecia dentro dessas festas para usar como chantagem, ou seja, se alguém abrisse a boca ele ia lá e vazava os vídeos, ou pior, mandava matar a pessoa.

(Uma informação importante é que quando a polícia foi investigar a casa dele, foi encontrado mais de MIL óleos para bebê, que eram usados como lubrificante)

E falando em mortes, vou falar de algumas que supostamente ele está envolvido.

Tupac e The Notorious BIG

Os dois eram cantores de rap muito famosos nos anos 90, e adivinhem? Os dois morreram!

Eu não vou me aprofundar no caso deles, mas tem um vídeo no youtube do canal "naty e isa" que elas contam mais detalhadamente sobre.

Basicamente, os dois foram baleados por uma gangue, e inclusive o atirador já está preso. Mas é ai que entra o diddy, o atirador afirmou que ele pagou MILHÕES de dólares para a gangue matar o 2pac.

Michael Jackson

O michael eu creio que nem preciso introduzir para vcs, ele é simplesmente MICHAEL JACKSON!

Acontece que o nosso rei do pop fez um discurso muito polêmico, vou deixar aqui para vcs darem uma olhada:

Ele também vivia dizendo sobre estar sendo perseguido, de não quererem mais ele vivo e etc. Também existe uma suposta gravação da última chamada dele, vou deixar o link aqui para vcs assistirem caso se interessem.

Left eye

Lisa Nicole Lopes, mais conhecida como "Left Eye" fazia parte de um girl group chamado TLC que bombou nos anos 90.

Lá pro início dos anos 2000, ela foi fazer algum tipo de retiro espiritual que inclusive, foi TODO registrado em vídeo.

Enfim, o mais bizarro é que a left eye vivia dizendo que um espírito estava atrás dela, que queria mata-lá e etc.

Até que um dia, ela tava dirigindo o seu carro junto da sua equipe para ir em outra cidade buscar suprimentos, quando sem querer (ou não) uma criança foi atropelada, e o sobrenome desse menino era "Lopes" que por coincidência (ou nãokkkk) tinha o mesmo sobrenome dela.

Depois desse acontecimento, ela vivia dizendo que foi o espírito, que ele matou o garoto por engano e que era para ter sido ela no lugar dele.

Dito e feito, ela morreu alguns dias depois em um acidente de carro. Ela foi tentar desviar de alguma coisa ali no meio da estrada e acabou batendo.

Lembram que eu disse que era tudo registrado em vídeo? Pois bem, aqui tá o vídeo do momento que ela morreu, e fiquem tranquilos pq não aparece sangue nem nada do tipo, mas ainda sim é um vídeo perturbador.

Aaliayah

Ela era uma cantora MUITO famosa, gente vcs não tem noção, a mulher era O MOMENTO!

Antes de falar sobre a morte dela, tem uma pessoinha muito importante que também está envolvida, e o nome desse bicho é R.kelly.

Ele também é um produtor musical extremamente famoso e que era bemmm amiguinho do diddy. Oque acontece é que ele era APAIXONADO pela aaliyah, e queria se casar com ela. E não demorou muito para eles realmente se casarem. O estranho é que a aaliyah tinha entre 14/15 anos, enquanto ele tinha mais de 30. "Mas então como eles conseguiram se casar?" Simples, ele forjou os documentos dela e modificou a idade dela para 18 anos! Obviamente a família foi contra, mas não teve jeito.

Ok agora que já expliquei isso, vamos para a morte dela que envolve diversas conspirações.

A nossa diva iria gravar um clipe na ilha de barbados, e para isso ela precisava de um avião não é mesmo? Mas acabou dando algum rolo e não conseguiram um avião, e ai arrumaram um de última hora.

Até ai ok, mas acontece que a aaliyah não queria entrar naquele avião de jeito nenhum, ela era muito paranoica com segurança de voo e não estava confiante em embarcar, mas as vontades dela infelizmente não foram ouvidas e obrigaram ela a entrar no avião. Simplesmente doparam a menina, botaram ela lá dentro a força e adivinhem? O avião misteriosamente caiu!

(Existe uma teoria de que a beyonce mandou matar ela, mas não me aprofundei muito nisso)

E falando em ilha de barbados, existe uma diva pop muito conhecida que veio de lá. Isso mesmo gente, A RIHANNAAA!! Então bora lá entrar no tópico dela.

O jeito estranho que a Rihanna foi descoberta

Que nem o michael jackson, creio que não preciso apresentar a rihanna para vcs né? Enfim, acontece que a forma como a diva pop foi colocada na indústria é bizarra.

Lembrando que isso é uma teoria ok? Não tem nada confirmado.

A rihanna veio da ilha de barbados, e resumidamente o querido jay-z descobriu ela e ficou encantando com a garota, então resolveu colocar ela dentro do seu jato e levá-la para os EUA. Detalhe, ela foi nesse jato SEM OS PAIS DELA, ou seja, ficou sozinha com o jay-z e sabe se lá mais quem. Chegando nos EUA, se eu não me engano trancaram ela em uma sala e disseram "vc não vai sair daqui até assinar esse contrato" ela assinou o contrato as 3h da manhã!

Pra quem manja no inglês aqui a entrevista que ele confirma isso

Inclusive, a diva não lança músicas novas a uns 10 anos, o último álbum dela tem essa capa aqui:

Olhem bem, não é meio esquisito?

Beyonce e Jay-Z

Eu boto minha mão no fogo pra dizer que os próximos a cair são esse casal!

Primeiro o R.Kelly, agora o Diddy, o próximo com certeza é o jay-z, e junto com ele vai a Beyonce.

Inclusive, eles se conheceram quando ela era super novinha, o que é bem estranho. Existe uma gravação que a própria diz "Você (se referindo ao jay-z) me fez uma mulher de verdade".

Como eu disse antes, existe uma teoria de que ela mandou matar a aaliyah pra tirar ela da jogada, entenderam? Mas isso é teoria!

Bom, os fãs da beyonce dizem que ela é vítima e foi obrigada a não falar nada, outros dizem que ela tem dedo nisso sim, e etc. Mas enfim? Oq vcs acham?

Naomi campbell

Ela é uma modelo super conhecida, que supostamente tbm tem envolvimento nisso tudo.

Ela era bem amiga do diddy e do jeffrey epstein, ou seja, ela frequentava as festas deles!

(Se quiserem eu posso contar do caso da ilha epstein futuramente)

Justin bieber foi abusado?

Não é novidade que o justin começou sua carreira muito novinho, e como ele era considerado muito lindo, obviamente os abusos iam vir!

Ele já foi assediado diversas vezes por mulheres mais velhas e inclusive já teve nude vazado, tudo isso ainda sendo de menor.

Enfim, a questão é que em 2009 ele passou 48h na casa do diddy, sem supervisão! Existe apenas uma gravação em que ele tá conversando com o diddy, vou deixar ela aqui para vcs verem:

Bom, algumas belibers daquela época dizem que depois desse dia o justin nunca mais foi o mesmo, mas disso eu não tenho certeza!

Enfim, existe uma música dele chamada "Yummy" que significa algo como "Gostoso" ou "Delícia" em português. O mv dessa música se vc olhar bem, é super pesado.

Vou falar de uma cena específica que eu achei a pior de todas. A cena mostra um bolo com uma foto do justin criança, e em baixo escrito "yummy" ou seja "gostoso".

Também a boatos de que ele era levado nas festas do diddy e também na ilha epstein, aqui tem um vídeo que supostamente ele tá nas festas do diddy:

Kanye west

A um tempo atrás, o kanye fez um discurso que na época muitos o taxaram de louco, mas o tempo inocentou ele!

Também tem um que ele diz que sua mãe foi sacrificada. Se liguem:

Eminem

Pra quem conhece o querido sabe que ele não abaixa a cabeça pra ninguém, ele fala nomes MESMO e não ta nem ai! O bicho é afrontoso, e obviamente ele iria fazer uma música atacando o diddy.

Se liguem na letra:

Pra quem não saber "Raper" significa "abusador" em inglês, e "Sa's" é algo como "abusos" então ele faz trocadilho com a palavra "did it?" Que fica parecendo "diddy"

Vamos concordar que ele foi gigante nessa!!

E muitos se perguntam, como ele e o kanye nao estão mortos? E eu te respondo, não faço ideia!

Jennifer Lopez

Essa querida namorou o diddy por um tempo e ele foi fundamental no começo da carreira dela como cantora.

E agora com toda essa treta envolvendo o ex dela, estão dizendo que ela vai quebrar o silêncio e contar uma situação bem pesada que ela sofreu na mão desse homem.

Em 1999, ela e o diddy foram presos por conta de um tiroteio que ele estava envolvido. Mas ela se provou inocente e dps de 14h foi liberada. Porém o diddy, o seu guarda costas e outro rapper foram todos acusados do tiroteio.

Misteriosamente, o diddy e o seu guarda costas foram absolvidos enquanto o outro rapper que estava junto pegou nove anos de cadeia.

Massss, porém, contudo, todavia, entretanto, o daily mail afirma que quem levou a arma para o diddy foi a jennifer lopez, e que ela teria testemunhado ele atirando na pessoa e que optou por ficar em silêncio.

[marzipanilla]

See I was over here waiting to talk to someone who hadn't read the comic bc I was curious about that perspective lol

I mostly remember just the big plot points from the comic and not the little details of things, and like, the one thing I remember about the Invincible War 'arc' was that Rex died like. nothing interesting else about it stuck in my mind, so that so many people were so hype for it just had me going ??? did I forget something important that happened then ?? and apparently not.

I thought the ep sucked ass and I have just been desperately sitting on my hands trying to shut up about it bc most everyone around me I've seen has been super into it. It just... it felt like a weird clipshow. Somehow you managed to skip over everything interesting??? I was honestly checking the playbar to see how much time was left bc I was so irritated with what I was watching.

I didn't mind the day cards, but they definitely felt like a desperate attempt to insist time was passing when it didn't feel like any time was passing at all. What we did get felt like something that happened over the course of a few hours ??? tops??? so to be like 'DAYS have gone by omg!' was just like ??? then you need to actually make me feel that ??? and you didn't ???

Genuinely, Mark did piss me off this ep. So far it has been the meta/writing with him I found lacking, but somehow they made me mad at him this ep and it was like. I can't imagine that was their intent?? Your mom and your brother are out there!! and ? I just ?? why does the narrative want me to dislike you so much this season Mark ?? why ??

The War arc was a big Image Comics crossover event, and like, if you're reading a comic and you're a fan of that comic universe that is cool! But when you're watching a show and a bunch of ppl you've never seen or heard about before show up (and really iconic ones you might have actually heard of even if you aren't super into comics like Spawn dont bc licensing) it just becomes so fucking boring. I did not need 20 minutes of ppl I didn't know doing shit. Or Mark talking like he had ever mentioned/interacted with them before. Or being suddenly shown there are people out there magically capable of taking care of Viltrumites (TEN of you Mark's got merked ??? TEN?? and we see what, five of those deaths???) but they haven't been around its like ??? THEN WHY IS MARK SO IMPORTANT

The past few days I've also just been screaming to myself about internal inconsistency bc.... Mark color swapped his outfit and no one recognized him. And now you're telling me 20 wildly different looking motherfuckers show up, and the news can magically figure out who they are ??? in S1 Amber and William couldn't fucking tell Eve and Kate apart and neither of them where MASKS. Don't throw that Invinciboy shit at me and then suddenly have the news capable of realizing what is going on. For some of them w similar to his OG suit, sure- but ?? ALL OF THE OTHERS ?? the fucked up scared ones ?? the ones w totally different outfits ??? you've already told me everyone in this world is faceblind !! not to mention I genuinely thought blindfolded guy w guns was a Mark variant until he started talking to one. like. these people arent distinct enough.

I fucking hated the mummy showing up too. Stop with the stupid fucking mummy. Can it be good to have humor mixed w drama so one or the other hits harder, so your audience can get a breather?? yeah. but the timing and execution of it has been SO fucking off. like with Allen's whole thing + the narrator during the prison break.

Knowing Rex was going to die from the get go of the show, literally anytime they did something with him I was just like 'oh you're getting screen time bc they want me to feel sad when you die' and i just never cared. When it happened in the comic I really didn't care, but it had also been like, 10 issues since he had showed up and I was just like 'oh I guess they brought back a named char to kill to show off the stakes were real' and just turned the page and kept going. The skeleton explosion thing is neat !! they showed it a bit more in the comic, the distant explosion thing in the show was kinda meh, though we got the build up w Rex deciding to do it/say what was going on and that was nice. His death was also one of the reasons his relationship w Rae pissed me off. like. what. you didn't think you could make people sad about this unless you gave him a fucking girlfriend??? UGH. and now what's Rae gunna do ?? just be fucking sad about him forever?? if they make it so that she's pregnant I get to kill someone.

The Immortal and Kate pingponging on heroing also makes me want to smash my head into a wall. Cecil really is only aggressively on Mark's ass about doing anything ever, huh. I need a fucking random ass side comment where everyone really doesn't actually want/need Immortal around (even og GoG) they just let him bc he's so old he got grandfathered into the system and they're finally glad he's getting out of the way so actual heroes can get shit done.

The tiny glimpses of the other Mark's personality's and the VA clearly having the time of his life doing all the voices was a treat! but we needed so much more of it. It didn't really feel like anyone was interacting this ep. The goddanmn world was on fire and it didn't feel like there were any stakes or danger!

I wanted 'kill Debbie Mark' and 'I Want My Mom Mark' to actively be hunting her down, like you. Screw setting the world on fire, they have their own vendettas/goals! I think Oliver actually got beat up by at least one of the Mark variants in the comic, and we really didn't get that here- except maybe the implication that he helped kill one of them and was happy about it ??? I wanted to see him get smacked around like a goddamn pingpong ball, but apparently he was just running around being more useful than Mark.

Mark successfully avoiding the portals from Levy this time was a nice touch! but I found 'punch a stream of robots' to be so boring to watch. and just felt like in the end he didn't really make any choice/difference w Levy? Like arguably him making the conscious decision to kill someone is a ~big step but it just didn't feel like it. You already killed a version of Immortal this season. I watched you kill a shitton of MultiPauls. I know you're fucking fine w killing people. And then the techs take care of Levy! so like! once again Mark's choices barely matter.

Our Mark being stronger bc he trained w Cecil while most other Mark's aren't made me want to smash my head into a wall. like. you're telling me actively subduing a planet W OTHER CECIL'S on it, that would be throwing everything + the kitchen sink at the kid, wouldn't count as training? sure, whatevs, maybe Nolan was taking care of most of it- but the Mark's in Viltrumite uniforms??? they didn't train him up ??? fuck you. don't try and tell me our Mark is better for some arbitrary ass reason and not even give a hint why the others suck so bad.

They really skipped over every characters chance to express how they see/feel about Mark this ep, when it is the ep that should have been happening! the initial confrontation w Levy and Debbie where she yells at him not her son like!! we needed that energy but w everyone!! (not necessarily all of them thinking mark is great but just a moment of them explosively expressing what they believe to be true of the mark they know) but for a fucking ep supposedly about Mark and his reputation and how he is perceived-- we get fucking none of it?? we get a bunch of cuts to the end of fights w characters we mostly dont know????

And then Conquest shows up. I wish his and Kregg's VAs were swapped. I feel like they gave JDM to Conquest bc they wanted a recognizable name, but for some reason he just does not suit the char to me. I was not super into his delivery?? idk. Maybe I'll like it more next ep.

Mark agreeing to go hang out on a beach w Debbie instead of refusing and the beach is Beach City (am now officially thinking too much about this crossover lol)

The way I got caught up on our back and forth I almost forgot this, lol! AND OH MY GOODNESS, IMAGINE? I forget exactly what which point Debbie makes the beach offer, but I’d love when exactly in SU/SUF-timeline they’d go? There’s something so fucking funny to me about them going during the SUF-timeline and always narrowly missing the strange, Steven-shaped mental breakdowns in the back. I know those don’t occur in a single day, but it’s tickling me. How could they miss anything? I don’t know I just think it’s funny.

Though, post-SUF is interesting if Gems can see the similar “world on your shoulders”, Mark has going on! Steven can shunt the narrative in the Gems’ minds, which I think is neat, if I’m not misusing the phrase since the guy’s on the road far away. Or maybe it’s just before Steven goes and they stumble into each other. I’d kinda love Pearl and Debbie interacting, honestly, if they could talk about loving someone who hurt you, hide things from you, even when you thought you knew them so deeply, and they left you to raise a child. Pearl being in a well adjusted space, and Debbie still grieving.

Honestly, the gems could help train Mark, they’re got experience and similar-ish powers in strength, sturdiness, and they can jump/run fast enough for flying to be vaguely similar enough to lecture about, I think. Or Lapis Lazulis, haha! Peridot with her trash can lid! Garnet, I’d love to see if she told Mark anything about his future in vague, well meaning advice. Or even giving relationship advice considering Amber. Or, importantly, how to convince an entire reign to end their colonizing ways, lol. Is Mark perhaps willing to start a war, take advantage of being related to any leaders, or fake his own death to varying results?

In general, there’s something so fucking funny to me about Nolan, in the sake of comparison, being Pink Diamond coded. Like OH, did an important or well respected of the colonizing empire come to earth and learn the beauty of its people and nature, including faking/lying/omitting things about his identity and background to being in, only to feel conflicted when his responsibility still remained, and he tried to free himself from them? Yikes! We’ve been through that before! Like gimme Pink Diamond and Nolan outfit swap rn. This is tickling me so much oh my goodness.

[keyboardsmashess]

The Siren, or The Heart of the Matter

Chapter Thirty : The Note, or The Thesis Defense from Hell

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x OFC

Warnings: language, fluff, angst, canon-typical violence, smut MINORS DNI. A/N: My bbs! We're nearing the end of this story - I'd say maybe five chapters to go, give or take 😭 Until then, though, enjoy the insanity of my fully unleashed Bucky obsession now that Cleo's feelings are out there 😘

Summary: The morning after our heroes' big moment takes a very unexpected turn.

Chapter Directory

Tap. Tap. Tap.

Bucky squeezes his eyes closed against the sound, wondering for a moment if he’s got a leak somewhere in his apartment. If he does, then Stark’s really getting sloppy. He’ll have to give the guy some shit for that. These Tower apartments are supposed to be state-of-the-art everything, or at least that’s what he thinks Stark said - he wasn’t really listening when he got the grand tour.

But wait, Bucky thinks, shifting in bed. Since when do I have silk sheets? He listens to the sound again, realizing that it sounds an awful lot like the tapping of a shoe.

Before he even really registers what he’s doing, Bucky’s standing in his boxers with a gun pulled on the stranger.

“What the hell, Barnes? Also, when did you stash a handgun in my nightstand?” 

Bucky releases a lungful of air he didn’t realize he’d been holding and lowers the weapon.

“Also part two, what the shit did you guys do to my bedroom? If I have to hire cleaners, I’m billing you,” Meg says, arms crossed and tapping her foot.

Bucky sets the gun down on Meg’s nightstand, finding his pants on the ground and pulling them on self-consciously. His shirt is nowhere to be found, and he suddenly remembers Cleo putting it on after… 

After the best damn night of my life.

Speaking of. “Where’s Cleo?”

Meg rolls her eyes. “Sure, just ignore all of the very valid questions I’ve just asked you, no big deal.” She hands him a piece of notebook paper. “Your lovely lady has written you a note. Don’t worry, I’ll pretend I didn’t read it.” She winks.

Bucky accepts the paper with a small smile. “Sorry about this,” he says, gesturing to the mess of a bedroom around him.

Meg waves a hand. “It’s fine, really. I mean, I am for sure billing you for the cleaning, but it’s not like I didn’t expect something like this when I graciously removed myself from the premises for the evening.” She kicks off her shoes into a pile in the corner of the room. “I’m gonna go make some coffee and leave you to collect yourself.”

Bucky nods gratefully, unfolding the piece of paper the second Meg closes the bedroom door behind her.

James,

I can’t possibly wake you up, considering how handsome you look sleeping so peacefully (and how rarely you sleep at all), so I’m heading to my defense alone. Don’t panic when you read this - my advisor already told me I wasn’t allowed to have guests in the room, so you’re not missing anything but a boring hallway.

Bucky chuckles and shakes his head at how well she knows him, realizing his heart had already started racing at the thought of missing her big moment. 

I’ll come back to Meg’s the second I’m done and tell you all about it, promise. And then I’m pretty sure someone said something about taking me back to the Tower to celebrate? I have some new ideas for what that celebration might look like, just saying.

Bucky bites his lip as he reads, already reacting to Cleo’s words.

Speaking of that, last night was… everything. I’m shit at mushy stuff, Buck, but it was probably the best night of my life thus far. And I don’t know if you know this, but Meg and I went to a Kassie Cantor concert once and I actually got to meet her, so you’ve passed a pretty high bar. (Since I’m sure you have no idea what I’m talking about, she’s a pop singer who I’m going to force you to listen to on the way back home.)

Anyway, I don’t know why I’m writing all of this in a letter like I’m going off to war or some shit, because I’ll be back soon and could tell you all this in person, but what can I say? It’s easier to write some things than speak them out loud. To that end, I’m sorry for not being able to reciprocate the thing you said last night. I want to, and I should have, but I’m a fucking coward and emotionally stunted and just sort of a general mess, so… yeah. I should probably save the rest of this conversation for when I get back, because you deserve that.

He blows out a huff of air. When he’d told her he loved her, he knew it was something he wanted to tell her - needed to tell her - regardless of whether or not she said it back, but he can’t say he isn’t relieved to read that she apparently feels more than she let on at the time. 

Fuck, I really am bad at this, aren’t I? Whatever. You’re great, last night was great, and I can finally tell you that I think your ass is great, too. Like really super great. Okay, I’m going to go stand in front of a bunch of grumpy white men in suits and ask them to give me a degree. Bye!

xoxo, Cleo

P.S. Like spectacularly, phenomenally great.

Bucky folds the letter back up and carefully tucks it into the pocket of his jeans, resolving to save it forever. 

He stands suddenly and checks the time, an idea popping into his head. He pokes his head into the kitchen long enough to tell Meg he’s going to take a quick shower, grabs the overnight bag he’d left in her living room, and runs to the bathroom where he takes one of the fastest showers of his life.

Clean and dressed, Bucky darts into the bedroom to grab and holster his gun, then rushes toward the front door. Meg is waiting for him, a disposable travel mug of coffee in her hand and a smirk on her face.

“Cleo told me you couldn’t go into her defense, but I figured after reading that note - the note I absolutely didn’t read myself, by the way - you’d want to do something romantic like wait for her in the hallway. I already texted you the building and room number.”

Bucky grins and accepts the drink. “Meg, you’re the best.”

She waves a hand. “I know, I know. By the way, you’re going to pass a market on your way to campus, just around the corner from here. They sell flowers and Cleo’s favorite is forget-me-nots. Hey, what a fun little irony!”

He eyes her, speaking before he can think better of it. “Come visit us at the Tower sometime, there’s someone you should really meet.” And with a grateful smile, he’s out the door.

******

If Bucky’s calculations are correct, he’s arrived in the hall outside of Cleo’s defense with about ten minutes to spare. He paces the hallway for a few moments to calm himself down after the sprint to campus, then leans against the wall directly across from the door Cleo will be walking out of soon. He’s got a slightly windblown bouquet of blue forget-me-nots, a sweaty right palm, and a nervous but eager grin. He’s ready. 

When ten minutes passes with no sign of Cleo, he tells himself that it’s probably normal for these things to go a little long sometimes. After fifteen, he’s doing his best not to worry. At twenty five minutes past the stated end of the defense, Bucky decides that he’s willing to risk embarrassing Cleo and himself by opening the damn door. Taking a deep breath and preparing his excuse (they’ll buy him as a student in the wrong room, right?), Bucky hides the flowers behind his back and tries the handle.

It’s locked.

Fair enough, he thinks. They probably have security protocols in place, you know, to avoid the exact thing Bucky had been planning to use as his excuse for intruding. He knocks instead, deciding he doesn’t actually care about embarrassing Cleo at this point. When nobody comes to the door, he knocks again and presses his ear to the wood, listening closely with his serum-enhanced senses. Not only is nobody coming to the door, but he’s fairly certain nobody is in the room at all.

Fully aware he’s probably overreacting, Bucky lets out a huff of air, looks up and down the hallway to make sure nobody’s coming, and grabs the handle with his metal hand. With a little grunt, he breaks the handle and forces the door open. 

No Cleo. No committee. No one at all. 

Bucky frowns and pulls out his phone, double-checking the building and room number in the message from Meg. When he confirms he’s at what should be the right place, he paces into the room, hoping to find a note or schedule or something to clue him in to what’s going on. The room is frustratingly empty, though - empty chairs arranged behind a long conference table, an empty lectern facing them…

Bucky sighs and calls Cleo, potential interruptions be damned. Immediately, he hears a buzzing sound coming from the lectern. A sick feeling brewing in his stomach, he crosses the room and peers behind the lectern, seeing Cleo’s phone on one of the shelves lit up with the selfie she’d taken of the two of them in the home goods store. Next to it are several wrinkled notecards and a half-empty bottle of water. He ends the call, dread coiling in his gut.

Stuffing her phone in his pocket, he picks up the notecards and starts flipping through them. They’re clearly reminders she’s made for herself of the main talking points of her thesis, but when he flips to the last one, a small piece of cardstock falls out. Bucky bends down to pick it up, noting the unfamiliar scrawl in red ink.

Soldat - 

Only the dead have seen the end of war. As long as you are living, your war is not over. 

Hail HYDRA.

Bucky’s vision narrows to a singular point, blood draining from his face. He stumbles backward into the table and grabs it with his metal arm for support. He doesn’t even register the crack of the wood as he grips it too hard.

Ears ringing, he pulls out his own phone and dials the first number that comes to mind.

“Hey, Buck, how’s everything go-”

“They have her, Steve,” he chokes out, voice barely more than a whisper.

“Wait a second, what are you talking about, Buck? Who has who?” Steve asks, voice growing serious.

“HYDRA,” he bites out, the word feeling like poison on his tongue. “HYDRA has Cleo. The Philosopher must be working with them and I don’t know how, Steve, but they found her and they took her.”

He hears rustling and then rapid footsteps from the other end of the phone. “Hang on, Buck, I’m going to get Stark. We’ll find her, okay? Bucky, I promise we’ll find her.” Steve’s voice is calmer than it has any right to be, in Bucky’s opinion, but he trusts the man more than almost anyone else, so he stays on the line.

While he waits, he frantically searches the room for any clues to Cleo’s whereabouts, tossing chairs to the side and upending the table, but he comes up empty. Stark’s voice brings him back to the present moment.

“Barnes, what was she wearing today?”

Bucky gives a disgusted scoff. “Christ, Stark, what the hell is wrong with you? I don’t think now -”

“Barnes,” Tony cuts him off, voice cold and serious. “Just trust me for one second and answer the fucking question.”

Bucky wants to kick himself when he realizes that he can’t - that he didn’t wake up in time to see her off. “I don’t know,” he says, voice small. “I - I was sleeping when she left.”

Stark sighs. “It’s fine, we’ll just track it anyway and hope for the best.” Bucky makes a sound of confusion, speech nearly impossible in his sheer panic. “I retooled her suit a bit,” Stark explains. “Used nanotech to fit the entire thing in two little shell pins she can wear on her shoulders. All she has to do is tap them and the suit comes out. Plus a pretty slick helmet that comes out of her glasses. Ruins whatever she’s wearing at the moment, but you win some, you lose some.”

“Focus, Tony,” Banner shouts in the background.

“Right,” Stark says. “The pins have a tracker embedded in them, just in case, and the HUD in the helmet does, too. If she was wearing them this morning, we can figure out where she is.”

“Got it!” Banner calls out. “Er, I think I got it. This doesn’t really make any sense.”

Before Bucky can ask what they’re talking about, he hears Steve’s voice cut in, sounding weary with resignation. “It does if you know HYDRA.”

******

When I force my eyes open, I’m nearly blinded by the pounding in my head from just the dim, exposed lightbulb hanging overhead. I try to moan at the pain and move to wipe at something wet just above my eye, but I can’t do either.

No. Fuck. NO.

My hands are bound behind the back of the hard, metal chair I’m sitting in, and my legs are as well - one duct-taped to each of the front legs of the chair. And, worst of all, my mouth is taped shut. 

I flick my eyes wildly around the room, moving as much as my restraints allow, but there isn’t a lot to see. I’m in a small space, no windows, with that single exposed lightbulb dangling above my head. Curiously, it’s all metal - the walls, ceiling, floors - everything. That’s the only remarkable thing about the room, though, and it doesn’t give me much of a clue to my whereabouts.

I try to think back over the events of the last few hours, mind still fuzzy.

I woke up next to Bucky after the most incredible - nope, no time to focus on that, Blake.

I got ready for my thesis defense, passed Meg on the way to campus and apologized for the state of her bedroom. 

I got to the English building, went to room 12C, and…

Oh, that fucker.

It all comes back to me in a crushing wave - the empty room, save for Dr. Sapros. His laughter at my confused look. Anxiously chugging half a bottle of water. Him thumbing through my notecards. And the look in his eyes when he reached out with that current of red electricity and fucking knocked me unconscious.

Just as I’m squeezing my eyes shut in frustration, the metal door to the tiny room creaks open.

Speak of the devil.

Sapros is wearing his usual professorial attire, except with the new addition of that red cape I’m all too familiar with from my fights with The Philosopher. He’s abandoned the Greek tragedy mask, though - I suppose he no longer needs it now that I know his identity.

“Cleo,” he croons, voice disgustingly smug. “Finally awake, I see. Did you have a nice nap?”

All I can do is narrow my eyes at him in a glare, with my mouth taped shut and hands restrained. Nat had been pushing me to practice more, to learn how to manipulate the strings of frequencies without using my hands or voice, but I hadn’t made the time with my defense coming up. The defense that never fucking happened.

“It seems you’re finally speechless. In all my time as your advisor, I never thought I’d see the day where Cleo Blake had nothing to say. Well, I suppose there’s a first time for everything.” Sapros grins widely, and I mentally kick myself for not putting it all together sooner - that cadence in speech, that ridiculous smugness - of course The Philosopher sounded familiar to me - he’d been my teacher for three fucking years.

“I’m terribly sorry your defense couldn’t proceed as planned, but there were more important things to be dealt with - you understand, right? After all, patience is bitter, but its fruit is sweet.”

I roll my eyes, hoping he sees. That was Aristotle, you stupid dick.

“Some of my… colleagues, I suppose you could call them, are hard at work trying to determine how we might extract that little beauty,” he says, pointing to my crystal. “However, until then, you’re serving another purpose here. Of course, you’d see for yourself soon enough, but I know how you despise surprises so I’ll just let the cat out of the bag, as it were. My colleagues and I lost a very important weapon some time ago, and we believe you are just the thing to draw him back.”

Him. Sapros said ‘him,’ not ‘it.’ That means…

My eyes go wide with realization and I fight against my restraints, crying out futilely from behind the tape across my mouth.

“Oh hush now, Cleo, no need for such dramatics. Though you always were a feisty one, weren’t you? It took everything I had to convince you to drop your Atlantis research in favor of something more ‘mainstream.’ Lucky for me, you were more desperate for belonging than you were to follow in your father’s footsteps. Once I threatened to remove you from the meager little community you’d scraped together at Culver, I could have demanded anything and you’d have given it.”

I freeze, eyebrows knitting together at the mention of my father. I never once told Sapros where my passion for Atlantis came from.

He smirks at me. “Are you just realizing that I mentioned your father? Nothing if not sharp, you are. Yes, I am well aware of your father’s little pet project. And, as it turns out,” Sapros says, tapping the crystal in a gesture that has me flinching away from him, “he was far closer to the truth than we gave him credit for.”

I blink at him, mind reeling as I try to piece everything together - every past-tense word, every mention of my father’s work - hoping none of it means what I’m starting to dread it might.

“It’s tragic, really, that he’ll never know just how close he was. He’ll never know that the crystal chose precisely who he suspected it would, despite my best efforts to find it myself and keep you as far from it as possible. How ironic that I was in the middle of the Mediterranean, following your father’s final theory, while you were stumbling upon the object of my desire in a dusty, second-rate library at little old Culver.”

I make a squeak of indignation when he calls the library ‘second-rate,’ but it goes ignored.

“By the time I returned,” Sapros growls, growing angrier as he monologues, “you had already been snapped up by the gods-damned Avengers. Tell me, Cleo, is Rogers still as self-righteous as he used to be, or has he lost some steam in his old age? And how is my favorite weapon enjoying the droll mediocrity of the fight for justice?” He pauses, sneering at me, before releasing a dark chuckle and bringing his palm to his forehead dramatically. “Of course. I’m terribly sorry, how could I forget I’ve finally managed to render you speechless? And thank the gods for that - your incessant prattling is nearly as irritating as your father’s was.”

I close my eyes, squeezing them tight. Sapros must be toying with me, attempting to rattle me or wind me up. Maybe he’s trying to make me emotional to see if the crystal will react in some way. Whatever he’s doing, he can’t possibly be telling the truth - he can’t possibly mean that my father had been working with HYDRA, or that my father is now gone. 

Sapros looses another chuckle. “Of course, you must be simply exhausted after preparing for your little thesis defense. I’ll just leave you to rest for a bit. You’ll need your strength, after all, if you’re going to give me that crystal.”

I hear the click of his footsteps on the metal floor followed by the slam of the door, and only then do I allow the tears to roll freely down my cheeks.

******

“I’ve just sent the coordinates to your phone so you can meet us. But Buck, we’re an hour out at best. I know you’re closer, but I’m begging you - wait for the rest of us to get there,” Steve says, voice pleading.

“Sure,” Bucky responds flatly.

“Bucky.” Steve’s voice is stern, warning. “I’m serious - we don’t know what we’re going to find, but it’s HYDRA, so it can’t be good. Don’t do anything stupid.” Bucky hears footsteps, and when Steve speaks again, his voice is a whisper. “We haven’t figured out how to break your trigger words, Buck. You can’t just go running in there.”

“Got it,” Bucky says, voice void of emotion. “Of course.”

Steve sighs. “We’ll get there as soon as we can, okay? Just hold tight.”

“Absolutely,” Bucky says, setting the flowers next to Cleo’s note cards on the lectern. Forehead creased with anger, he hangs up his phone and memorizes the coordinates before tossing it in the trash on the way out the door. He stalks out of the building and into the parking garage, doing a quick sweep of the vehicles before his eyes land on a motorcycle.

Perfect, he thinks. It takes him all of a minute to hotwire the bike, and then he’s speeding out of the garage, headed for the nearby coast. He has a submarine to catch.

[melovibes57]

I am 100% positive tht if this were true the ace community would NEVER welcome incels with open arms.

Incels are known to be violently misogynistic, feel entitled to sex (even justify r*pe culture), hate women and anyone who is sexually active, there also have been mass murders done by incels and mass r*pes too. 🤢 according to James Cantor, a psychologist and sex researcher, “Incels are a group of people who usually lack sufficient social skills and find themselves very frustrated". and there you have it, Asexuality is not the reason incels struggle forming a relationship and there is no evidence to prove this claim. 💁🏽‍♀️

[eternal-echoes]

“Despite the surge of young people who experience traits of gender dysphoria, the most reliable studies show that more than 80 percent of such children will naturally desist and identify with their biological sex.(30) In the words of Dr. James Cantor, "every follow up study of GD (Gender Dysphoric) children, without exception, found the same thing: By puberty, the majority of GD children ceased to want to transition."”(31)

-Jason Evert, Male, Female, or Other: A Catholic Guide to Understanding Gender

—

Work cited:

30) Cf. K. Zucker, "Gender Identity Disorder in Children and Adolescents," Annual Review of Clinical Psychology 1 (2005), 467-92; K. Drummond et al., "A Follow-up Study of Girls with Gender Identity Disorder," Developmental Psychology 44 (2008), 34-45; M. Wallien and P. Cohen-Kettenis, "Psychosexual Outcome of Gender-dysphoric Children," Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry 47(2008), 1413-1423; T. Steensma et al., "Desisting and Persisting Gender Dysphoria after Childhood: A Qualitative Follow-up Study," Clinical Child Psychology and Psychiatry (2011), 499-516; D. Singh, "A Follow-up Study of Boys with Gender Identity Disorder" (PhD dissertation; University of Toronto, 2012); T. Steensma et al., "Factors Associated with Desistence and Persistence of Childhood Gender Dysphoria: A Quantitative Follow-up Study," Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry 52 (2013), 582-590; T. Steensma, "From Gender Variance to Gender Dysphoria: Psychosexual Development of Gender Atypical Children and Adolescents" (PhD dissertation; VU University-Amsterdam, 2013); J. Ristori and T. Steensma, "Gender Dysphoria in Childhood," International Review of Psychiatry 28:1 (2016), 13-20; B. Abel, "Hormone Treatment of Children and Adolescents with Gender Dysphoria: An Ethical Analysis," Hastings Center Report 44:4 (2014), S23-27; P. Eddy, Reflections on the Debate Concerning the Desistance Rate among Young People Experiencing Gender Dysphoria, Center for Faith, Sexuality & Gender, June 2021; P. McHugh, P. Hruz, and L. Mayer, "Brief of Amici Curiae in Support of Petitioner, Gloucester County School Board v. G.G." Supreme Court of the United States, No. 16-273 (January 10, 2017), 12.

31) James M. Cantor, "Transgender and Gender Diverse Children and Adolescents: Fact-Checking of AAP Policy," Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy (2019), 307-313.

—

A more recent study was published in Daily Mail (April 05, 2024):

Most gender-confused children grow out of it, landmark 15-year study concludes - as critics say it shows being trans is usually just a phase for kids

—

For more recommended resources on gender dysphoria, click here.