• The horror of sending an email to an email that doesn't use my deadname
  
• A sonnet to the politics of a love of a razor, and the love of a mother
  
• Band names and dreams shared with ‘Father’
  
• I should finish the poem about dovetails
  
• Victor Frankenstein's notes for that semester he studied English
  
• Poets don't make money, but novelists don't either
  
• Debating polyamory
  
• Loosing, loosing, loosing.
  

I think these are all poems about being queer. In so many ways, the pain and the love and the fear.

Poem: (130/100 words)

Puberty reaches out to him with female worms
that enlarge and swell, crawl to bottoms and bleed.
grab his tongue, and pull, drooling out, squirms
on the roof of his mouth: a naughty kids deed
a Mother watches, every eye on the womb
of ensuring her sons home-soiled doom
and, a dull razor cuts the lifeline of a heart
like a torn down bush, branches on hard-
panelled bathrooms floors, of marred
life. When forced to play a method part.
the bleeding hole is only natural; or smart
boys keep plasters close as if a guard
for the nick of the skin, and sickly bombard
of what first contact with the infestation restarts.
A razor to a man is passed from Father,
A razor to a girlboy is Mothers weapon stolen.

Songwriting 0/200

Screenwriting 789/300
1: EXT. A CALL CAR PARK, LATE EVENING

ESTHER, 20, Jewish and in smart casual clothes, approaches a dented, black mini. As she reaches the vehicle, her phone buzzes loud . She stops, checks it, places it back into her pocket - can't be bothered. It rings. The chorus ‘Ghostbusters’ by Ray Park Jr blasts. Esther picks up.

ESTHER:
Kyron I am working.

KYRON (O.S)
I have a lead. On you know who.

ESTHER:
And?

KYRON (O.S)
You know I can't do this alone.

ESTHER:
I have a job.

KYRON (O.S)
At a call centre. You can get better pay and do it remotely.

ESTHER:
Not for the NHS I can't.

KYRON (O.S)
Now you're making excuses. We both know you'll do more if you come.

ESTHER:
I don't even know where you are.

KYRON (O.S)
You have contacts. Come find me.

BEEEEP. He hangs up. Esther stares at her phone for minutes before typing a message to JOE. It reads ‘Have you seen the kid recently? Or know a case he’d have picked up?' She's about to send it when a news article pops up. ‘FOSTER CHILD, ANDREW DOE FOUND DEAD IN LONDON.’

ANDREW DOE'S, 18, brown wavy hair, body is mutilated. Organs, the heart, is missing. Esther is unfazed by the image. She climbs into the car and drives away, speeding.

2: INT. COSTA COFFEE, LONDON. 6AM NEXT DAY.

Esther and KYRON, 18, brown wavy hair, in a torn up leather jacket, are by the window seat. Esther has a black coffee, Kyron has an iced latte. A collection of newspapers are scattered on the top. They detail several grisly murders, including Andrews. To the side is Kyron's leather bound, stuffed notebook. The shop is humming with customers but none are staying, all too busy with their jobs.

ESTHER:
Are you really doing this?

KYRON:
I don't know.

ESTHER:
I'm not quitting my job. Hell. I'm not staying if you're ‘not sure.’

KYRON:
You'd only say: I told you so.

ESTHER:
I'd attend your funeral as well.

(Both laugh briefly)

ESTHER:
(a lot more somber)
I'd probably arrange your funeral.

KYRON:
I've discovered I quite like living.

ESTHER:
More than you quite like Boo?

KYRON:
… I have to do this. It'd be different if he just killed me and moved on.

ESTHER:
But this is more than just you.

KYRON:
I just keep thinking, what if one of those boys survive, and they wake up to find Boo standing over them and he says ‘You just remind me of someone-’

ESTHER:
Unlikely. His fixation is on you.

KYRON:
Ghosts are unstable like this.

ESTHER:
But predictable. You're the object of his business. He won't switch that up.

KYRON:
But I'm not dead yet.

ESTHER:
No.

KYRON:
It's unusual

ESTHER:
Very. Loved one is usually the first to go. Then there's rapid deterioration. It's why we find malicious ghosts so fast.

KYRON:
I know.

ESTHER:
Boo is too organized.

KYRON:
I know.

ESTHER:
You knew him best. What do you think?

Kyron pushes his notebook towards Esther. She opens it. There are pictures of BOO, 16, alive, well-dressed, bruised and with his arm wrapped around a woman's waist. Pictures and news clippings of the recent killings, including Andrew Doe's - all of boys who look like Kyron, orphaned and from London. There's theories, cross comparisons in red ink to other ghost cases, references to other journals. The entire notebook is FILLED. At the very end is a picture of 13 year old Kyron, baby-faced, cheeks flushed and skinny, kissing a shadowed figure.

Esther goes green. She slams the notebook shut and shoves it towards Kyron, Kyron takes it and puts it away. He watches her and waits.

ESTHER:
What do you think he'll do next?

KYRON:
Wait.

ESTHER:
I don't think that counts as waiting.

KYRON:
He's waiting for me to come back to him.

ESTHER:
Will you?

KYRON:
I want too.

ESTHER:
He'd end you.

KYRON:
Not if I forgave him. Not if we got back on the road, just the two of us. No phones, nothing but us.

ESTHER:
Then why did you call me?

KYRON:
You've been trying to reap him since we met.

ESTHER:
It wasn't personal.

KYRON:
Exactly.

ESTHER:
I don't understand.

KYRON:
I need your help. To do this.

ESTHER:
You don't have to do this. I could take your information and do it for you. It'd take a week, tops.

KYRON:
He's leading me on. He'll escalate if I quit, quicker than you can catch him.

ESTHER:
You have a plan?

KYRON:
The beginnings of one. I have a hotel room as well.

Kyron stands up, latte unnfinished. He exits the shop. Esther follows after him.

Speech 1073/400
This round had an infoslide explaining utilitarianism
This house prefers a world where a small robot flies beside everyone’s head and scolds people if they violate utilitarian ethics. OO Speech

Panel, Government tells you that these robots are going to prevent more pain coming about in the world because public shaming. As Leader of Opposition, I'm going to tell you two things, one: These robots are going to be ineffective and two: that creating these robots is contradictory to the utilitarian beliefs government holds.

So, why are these robots going to be ineffective? The reason is simple, the majority of the world do not hold a Utilitarian belief. Most of the world is religious. Using the UK for an example, there are more Christians than atheists. Almost all religions, have a sense of duty that drives their sense of morality. In Christianity this is to ‘Love your neighbor and love your God.’ Loving your neighbor, is never going to look like killing someone to lessen their suffering because that goes against how Christians define love. But, euthanasia is going to be encouraged in the society that promotes utilitarian thinking. Even religions which are more focused with the consequences of actions have different end goals than Utilitarians. Buddhists want to escape cycle of samsara so they will prioritize what will help them achieve that in their values. This is going to make these drones ineffective because people will prioritize their values over peer pressure. This is literally scripture for several religions, to put your religious values first. But we've seen this with recent protests as well. Activists for trans rights, for Palestine, still march when met with police force. These people hold their values about their concern for how they're perceived by friends or the law. If pressure from tangible consequences like prison isn't enough to dissuade these people, why will a little robot do that.

Secondly, I'm going to flip Prime Minister's argument that these robots uphold Utilitarianism beliefs. The creator the theory, Bentham, created something called the Hedonic Calculus to help people decide what decisions were good, and we'll apply this too these robots. We've already discussed why certainty of their success isn't likely so lets discuss the other elements: How pure is the goodness of this act? It's impure. For one, it doesn't prevent the pain of the initial act and then, beyond that, it publicly humiliates the person who committed it. If the act was intentionally evil, that person most likely doesn't care for the public shaming, right, because in this world they'd know the risk and have decided to go through with it anyways. But people who were well meaning, now they feel bad, that's more displeasure that gov wants to avoid. And this isn't going to teach them how to use the hedonic calculus in the future either. It's just going to teach them avoidance because of the shame of being wrong. At the least, that shame is just internal, and we all feel shame when we fail, that's intuitive. And it will be worse when someones mentally ill right? Someone with depression might be led to believe their a bad person, the world would be better without them so they should isolate or die. Someone with OCD could be triggered because they cannot avoid a constant reminder of their compulsions. Also, is the duration of the effect of the bot going to be as long lasted than if the government had just invested that money elsewhere. Eventually hearing those buzzes is going to mean nothing because as we've established, it won't stop people doing behaviors deemed harmful. Eventually, you learn you can never appease the bot because humans don't have all the factors to accurate make consistent utilitarian decisions, so any positives that could have come from the shame dissipate to apathy. The result? Any duration of the possible pleasures isn't going to be long. So, what do we have? We have a lot of money going into something that won't guarantee rich and long-lasting pleasure or happiness. If governments really want to make the world better using Utilitarian principles, they are better off investing in making ethics a mandatory school subject and reforming prisoners and the mental health serves in the NHS. These would help aid the ethical education of people, lead to a better society and are more certain, more pure and have longer durations. So they outweigh the bots.

Why are my other options better than these bots? Let's go one by one: The ethical education means that we will be helping people develop a worldview outside of themselves, possibly for the first time. People don't question ethics often, we just care for ourselves and those close to us which leads to selfish and bad behavior. But thinking about the wider world is neccessary if we want to see a better world. The government can be Utilitarianism the default ethical theory if they want too. What this will do is it will mean people will understand why something is good or bad and if they understand why, they're more likely to be able to apply it in new situations. So it's more certain in making sure understanding of morals is passed down, since people can learn to acclimate it with their pre-existing values. It's purer because no one is shamed for being wrong and it's going to last longer because these people will remember the moral of those lessons, even if they don't remember all the actual content. Reforming prisoners is going to lead to less reoffenders, - this has been statistically proven if we compare reform systems like Switzerlands reoffence rates to retrubition ones like the US, they're higher in the US. less reoffenders, less crime, less bad in the world. Finally, poor mental health, especially regarding cases like personality disorders, is what causes some, not all, to cause crime. Because it's justified in their head based off their skewed worldview. If they can get help, these worldviews can be changed, they can, similarly to prisoners, be intergrated into society better. Simularly, we have research pre-existing about how to help people with reforming or with poor mental health, so we can be more certain that these changes will have positive impacts. The goodness is pure, especially regarding mental health patients, and for prisoners, contact between them and their victims - if they did commit a violent crime - can be limited to decrease a loss of this purity. Finally, these people will learn how to cope, how to act properly and hold values on why. So, it's going to be longer lasting.

Thank you, please oppose.