#OFSTED sucks

[vroomlesbianvroom]

If the Wizarding World had Ofsted, Hogwarts would have been closed down in at least Harry’s first year.

Also, either Dumbledore was in fact manipulative and the mastermind behind almost everything wrong in Harry Potter or he’s senile as fuck. Either way he never should have been Headmaster.

Every single year this man is mentally deranged at that school, he should have been fired in first year at least. (I go into more detail if you click read more).

Philosopher’s Stone

He has Hagrid introduce Harry to the wizarding world - normally it’s a Head of House - Hagrid then very suspiciously collects the Stone (he must have known Hagrid was not the man to be subtle here)

He makes a big spectacle of not going to the third floor corridor - he could have just said it’s closed this year and put some wards up to stop children but in fact all he did was lock the door and then teach them how to unlock it

Students must not go into the Forbidden forest at any time unless it’s a punishment in which we’ll send you with just Hagrid and then you’ll split into groups anyway. What a smart idea

How did no one notice that Voldemort was on the back of Quirrells head? You’re telling the best wizard in the world couldn’t work it out

Three first years managed to get past that little questy maze but it was supposed to stop one of the strongest wizards in the world

Speaking of the maze, it’s all things that they’re good at or have learnt - Devils Snare, chess, the troll they’ve already caught, flying, and a little riddle - Voldemort definitely couldn’t get passed those everyone knows the Dark Lord is shit at chess

When Harry has just killed a man, Dumbledores like it was love. No that is a traumatised child.

Chamber of Secrets

Not a single teacher (or any of her four brothers) noticed that Ginny was possessed for almost an entire year

Some creature is going around and petrifying students and the teachers only plan is to set a curfew and cancel quidditch

Hermione Granger, a twelve year old, manages to work out the creature but Dumbledore can’t - the man had 50 years to work it out

Lockhart is obviously a hack and somehow gets the job anyway

Ron and Harry then manage to work out where the chamber is located but no one else can - they’re not exactly the most observant of children

Harry also talks to a diary that talks back - can someone teach these children that that’s not normal, please stop?

Prisoner of Azkaban

This is possibly the book where Dumbledore’s the best behaved

He does allow a thirteen year old to use a time turner to attend extra lessons - yeah, just let her possibly rip apart time and her own existence that’ll be fine

He also must know that Sirius is innocent and does nothing to help him

They also continue doing quidditch even with the soul sucking creatures floating above them

You need a parental consent form to go to Hogsmede but not to fly on a broom and be around deadly soul sucking creatures that makes complete sense

With the ministry they put dementors in a school full of children but they don’t continue looking after the year ends

Goblet of Fire

This has to be Dumbledore’s worst year

Harry gets signed up to the deadly tournament without his consent and they don’t even really try to get him out - I refuse to believe that a minor could sign a legally binding contract without any form of consent - I also refuse to believe that someone else can get you in a legally binding contract

If they could, why didn’t they just do that with Voldemort

Dumbledore doesn’t notice that his old friend is acting a little bit strange and is in fact a death eater in disguise

You’re telling me Harry can’t go to Hogsmede without the Dursley’s permission but can enter a deadly contest Willy nilly

He allows minors to be fight dragons, be tied to the bottom of a lake and be teleported to Voldemort without even trying - no one checked the cup before putting in the maze

Moody is allowed to teach the unforgivables to children and practise one on them

Order of the Phoenix

This year he’s not awful just a prick

Voldemorts back and Harry’s having creepy nightmares/visions and Dumbledore just keeps running away - just talk to the boy

How did no one in that school notice that Umbridge was using a blood quill on students - how shit are these teachers

Please just explain to Harry’s what going on - this is what we’ve been building up to this whole time

Half Blood Prince

This is when he fully stops caring about any student other than Harry

He knows the whole time that Dracos been forced to take the dark mark and has to kill him and he doesn’t even try and help the boy

He knows he’s dying and gives Harry very little information about the Horcruxs and also uses him to find out information about how many there were

He knows Harry’s a horcrux the entire time and just doesn’t mention it coz he needs Harry to die when the times right

Dumbledore is either mental and needs a hug-me jacket or he’s evil and needs to stay away from children. He could have prevented so much pain and suffering. He could have stopped Tom Riddle from becoming Voldemort in the first place.

He grooms Harry to fight Voldemort and die when the times right and doesn’t even seem to care. Right when Harry needs him, he’s no where to be found.

This is only what we know from Harry’s perspective I imagine it’s a lot worse from everyone else’s.

#harry potter #anti dumbledore #dumbledore slander #anti jkr #fuck jkr

[mollieblue]

Hey #labour, you should hire me to talk at you about how to actually fix Britain:

Terfs are the enemy, Trans folx are the people.

Small businesses need support on the ground level in order to foster amazing communities.

Invest in education to the point teachers are as paid well as their private peers or dare I say as well as an MP. I would say that if an MP describes their role as being vital, integral and essential to running the country, who receives a handsome tax paid salary with expenses paid with the public purse, why is it that other public sector roles are paid relatively below minimum wage? This applies to all public sector workers; civil servants, NHS staff, and teachers of all stripes. They are just as vital, integral, and essential to running the country, if not more so, than the openly profiteering geezers in Westminster.

Why is it that the rule makers are more important than those ensuring that the rules work? Those holding up society and holding it together are so sorely underpaid in this country that they are giving their lives to you at pittance so you can be okay. The NHS is a wonderful thing, and it breaks my heart that we don't fully fund it. The same goes for education, social services, community organisations, and libraries. These currently literally keep people existing at the bare minimum, but when fully funded and staffed, they transform lives for the better.

Equal pay for Equal work 》 Equal pay for Equal Importance. Ignore the 'we can't pay them the hundreds of thousands that MPs get' elephant in the room. I want you instead to imagine a world in which all public sector workers are paid the exact same amount regardless of hierarchy or public aspect they interact with. I'm no expert, but I reckon £86,584, the basic annual salary for a UK MP in 2023, would be an absolute god send to a junior doctor on roughly £38k. My partner practically works at minimum wage for 50 hours when you account for the marking, the planning, the organisation of your entire schedule to an impromptu meeting with angry parents and worrying about ofsted. It has worn them down, mostly because we can't have a social life, spending money on the theatre, in shops, on things that make us happy and human. We can't save, and we can't afford nice things. That fucking sucks. It wears a person out and throws them out of the system that's holding up the world.

Everyone I know is feeling like the above, regardless if they're private or public, freelance or salaried. One solution to help is basic universal income. Give everyone over 16 £500 & everyone over 18 £1000 each month for a year and see how awesome it would be in a year's time. I already know how much good that would do to me and everyone I know.

So pay everyone £12,000 a year and then pay all public sector workers the base salary of £86,000 rising in step with inflation. If the private sector can, in theory, pay whatever wages it wants, having a guarantee that your basics are paid will eliminate sooooo much stress. Rich folx can donate theirs, college kids can do interesting work at college because £500 buys a lot of art supplies and travel to museums, exhibitions, and events. Youth would have means to explore the nation before university or set up in an apprenticeship. Our elderly can use it to afford end of life care provisions or enrich their retirement or hell, just keep the lights on. Working folx would undoubtedly benefit the most and would probably like their jobs much more if they know things are covered.

To foot the bill, impose a commons tax on all privately owned land that fairly compensates the commons, ie, the UK public, back.

Make the North part of your game plan, rather than a foot note.

On a serious note; nationalise the railway system and expand the network. It is hell going east to west here, up to 3 hours to go 50 miles west and just 3 to get to London from Selby in North Yorkshire. How is this acceptable?

Invest in working class politicians to bring the reality of Britain back into government. Without our views or experiences on the table, why are we surprised when the Tories fuck us over again? If you want true, enthusiastic support from the British people, do not talk at us as if we're irresponsible children and actually engage with the very liberal and progressive discussions we have daily. Especially people under 40 - the older generation that pulled us out of the EU will be gone soon - you need to court and actually help out.

#fix britain #uk politics #labour #personal rant

[obeytherouxls]

@blankticket liked for a starter

Now, typically, this situation would be a nonissue: Foot caught in a rope, dangling upside down from a tree branch. A cruel trap designed by the cruelest of ruffians, no doubt. However, with a grand gesture, a beam of light, and a triumphant ‘oh ho!’ Rouxls would simply remove himself from such a predicament. Alas, these are not typical situations he’s been finding himself in these days. Also, it would seem his ability to teleport has its limitations.

Every time he squirms the rope gets tighter around his ankle.

“Hello…?” The Duke begins, softly, for he is hopeful that someone is nearby and his dignity will be spared. Tragically, he is quite a way away from civilization, having had the brilliant idea to waltz deep into Yela Alora Swamp all by his lonesome for 'very important reasons' “Hello…!” He turns up the volume just a smidge more. Dizziness starts to set in. Blood is pooling into his skull. His poor, beautiful head feels like it’s going to burst.

“Uuuugh. Whhhhy why WHY God DAMNIT!?!” He whines to himself. Then, filling his lungs up with as much air as possible, he goes on to shriek. “SOMEONEST PLEASE HELPETH!?!?”

All swamp critters, both mystical and unspectacular, scatter. “Oh yeahth thank all ofst thoust PESTS for not assisting!"…All swamp critters, save for one, massive, bear-like behemoth that lazily strolls out of a nearby bush to sniff him. Although the beast seems unenthusiastic, that doesn’t stop Rouxls from starting to sob. Hideously.

This, friends and enemies, is where he meets his end. Alone in a swamp about to be either eaten or if nothing else sucked up the nostril of a big, smelly beast.

#blankticket #🧩Vash01 #If only there was a dashing blonde hero in a red coat that could save this idiot from being sniffed to death in a swamp!

[raekerrangatang]

School Satire

The silver haired Head, Ros Wren, glared in the direction of the dissenters and cleared her throat. Ros Wren had been head at Samson Little for almost 10 years (celebrations were being planned for her tin anniversary). In her early days she’d coloured her hair a spectrum of colours from plum to auburn to honey blonde, perhaps in an attempt to seem more human. For the last few years though, she’d clearly decided to embrace her not-so-stainless steel superego and ditched the dye.

“OK crew,” Ros began. She always referred to her workforce in this way; she was their Captain and the school was her ship. No one knew where this seafaring analogy originated.

#school novel #education #teaching #satire #writing #literary fiction #reading #OFSTED sucks #left wing fiction #farce fiction

[aropartypoison]

my school is technically one of the Better™ ones in the city but its such a shithole tbh cuz they dont rly give a fuck about the students there just constantly sucking ofsteds dick

#lightning dot text #like theres so many things that are just blatantly cuz they want to keep up their reputation #there was a thing that happened that i wont go into detail on but they just didn't fucking address it cuz they didn't want the school to- #- be associated with violence or something #last year they wouldn't let us wear our pe kits on pe days even though like every other school in the city did #apparently cuz they weren't smart enough but they fucking are and they cost so much only to not wear them all year #anyways

[matildainmotion]

A Fairy Tale School, and A Chance to Change the Story

Once upon a time there was a very special school. It was the flagship Steiner school, the longest-running one in the UK, on the edge of a great forest. Let me tell you about it.

The grounds are stunning – great old oaks, rolling lawns, deer, a stream, an iron spring. The facilities are amazing – a big gym, a proper theatre, a huge vegetable garden, a carpentry workshop, even a forge where you can make a real sword which they showed us on the school tour, the jewellery, the axes and blades that students had made in the fire, like something straight out of a story. I could see my son, the proud owner of three lightsabres, being happy there. My husband and I are theatre-makers and writers: story is the stuff of our work, and here was an educational system with stories at its heart - fairy tales, fables, saints’ tales, Norse and Greek myths, shaping the curriculum.

So we went for it. Like many others we made momentous changes in order to bring our son, now aged 7, to this school, and in time my daughter too, now aged 2. My mother sold the family home after 55 years so that she could buy a small house in Forest Row where she and I and the children could live. My husband had to stay in London because of work – we’d see him at weekends and in the holidays. It would be hard but it was worth it, for the school. I have heard many similar tales – of people coming from much further afield than London, from Japan, from America so their children can come here.

To make such major changes people are following big dreams, high ideals, deeply held convictions. What are mine? I do not necessarily want ‘the best for my children’ – I think ‘best-ness’ is overrated. Coming from a family of highly powered Oxford academics I tried to be the best and get the best for many years and it left me in a mess. I want rather to give my children a good chance of coming out of school in one piece, whole, connected to themselves, to a community, not ready for the big wide world – that old narrative of adventure and conquest – but rather already in it, present in the world and ready to care for it and each other as well as they can in these uncertain times. Wholeness, community and connection, an ability to be vulnerable and to act from a place of integrity - those were the things I was after when we upped and moved ourselves here at the end of last summer, ready for the start of the new school year.

Very soon after our arrival on the edge of Ashdown Forest, full of hope, I was struck by the amount of cynicism I encountered. I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised – where you find dreams that big, you are going to find disappointment on a similar scale. In the woods where Winnie the Pooh lives, there also dwells Eyeore: “Your son’s going to Michael Hall? Oh well, good luck with that – I hope he fares better than me, but I doubt he will,” – heavy sigh, returns to thistles and damp, lonely corner. The pessimism, juxtaposed with the optimistic dreams that also surround the school, have reminded me not only of Eyeore’s gloom but even a level up - the desperate, intractable situations found in many fairytales and myths: the most beautiful king’s daughter that has fallen terribly sick and cannot be cured; the monster that haunts the lands that were once full of wonder; the evil empire that is trying to take over the universe and kill off the amazing Jedi.

Meanwhile, sometimes all is well in the woods, the kingdom, the universe. Peace reigns. I have heard hopeful stories too. I was amazed and encouraged by how many parents are old scholars. I am much more used to the narrative of “I am never letting my child go through what I had to endure” than the story of “I had such a great time at school, I want the same for my little one.” My son was and is having a good time in class one. He is an intense lad, with big emotions and grand ideas, and so far the school have been very quick to respond to his needs and challenges. His teacher is wonderful and there is a gradually growing sense of community amongst the parents of the class. For all of this I am deeply grateful.

As far as I can tell, from the anecdotes I have gathered in the short time I have been here, the school is brilliant until it isn’t - until something goes wrong, until the monster/ sickness/ evil fairy turns up. I realize this is tautological – the problems begin when the problems begin – but problems will always show up, so the true problem is not the monster but how we respond to it. All too often our knee jerk response is to blame another, and with this ‘us’ and ‘them’-ness kicks in, the good guys and the baddies, the innocents and the guilty. First off, inside this story we are in, there is the parent body versus the school – ‘us’ being the parents and ‘them’ being the school - how the school does not listen and never changes. I have encountered the story the other way round too- the school versus the parents – the parents who are always complaining, ready to attack, but rarely listen, or turn up in low numbers when the school has tried to lay on an event in response to a parent request. I have also heard about internal ‘us’ and ‘them’ dynamics: the teachers versus the management and an iteration of the same story and Eyeore-like complaint, “They never listen. No one understands.”

I tried to learn more about the structure of the school and found it incredibly difficult. Even those who have apparently been here for many years could not easily explain to me how it actually operates. I gathered there were different elements- a council, trustees, an Education Management Team, teachers, office staff – but how these positions fitted together and ran everything remained mysterious, a kind of tangled thicket of roles growing around the mansion and keeping princes and parents from being able to break in and have any impact. I had come in quest of wholeness, connection, community, integrity and I was finding people who felt disempowered, fractured and stuck.

           In the absence of any head teacher, a hallmark of traditional Steiner schools, from the way people talked ‘The School’ had become in itself a kind of mythical authority figure, hard to reach and impossible to change. I like a challenge and I am not very good at cynicism (though I do a good line in imagining terrible happenings and did, in fact, identify with Eyeore as a child) so I joined the Parents Working Group (PWG) to see if I could make a positive contribution to the school. I had spent the first term feeling like a failure as a Steiner parent because I cannot sew to save my life, had to buy instead of make my son’s crayon roll and could be of very little help in crafting anything for the Advent Fair, so I figured I had better find another way to play my part in the school community.

           When I told people about the PWG and its aim to initiate and hold space for constructive dialogue with the school and support positive change, I was hit by a fresh wave of cynicism: “Ah, be careful the school will take all it can get from you, suck you dry and spit you out!”; “Well, good luck with that. You might make a small dent in its side but that’ll be it!” So there we have it – the school as the monster, the dragon that can devour you and that has such massive scaly flanks it can barely be dented, despite the beautiful swords that its pupils forge on its grounds. Or the school as an institution wrapped in creepers and thickets, under a heavy curse that cannot be lifted.

           Enter stage right a strange knight in heavy armour with clipboards for shields and a knife of regulation, an outsider, called Sir Ofsted - hero or villain? He rode from the city to the woods, slashed through the thickets, confronted the dragon, gave Sleeping Beauty an “Inadequate” kiss – blessing or further curse? - and lo and behold we all woke up. And, as in the original story, everyone woke up: the kings, the courtiers, the cooks and the gardeners, the parents, the teachers and the management. After 100 years of Steiner education we all have an amazing chance to wake up and decide what happens now, shape how the story unfolds from here. Let me pause at this cliff hanger to introduce a new strand of narrative.

           15 years ago my husband, Phelim McDermott, was feeling fed up. He works in theatre. He runs a company called Improbable, which makes big shows and tiny ones, with improvisation at their core. He had dedicated his whole life to theatre, he felt passionate about it, and he spent much of his time complaining about it. He was often angry about how it was carried out, about how people did not listen to each other and things did not change (notice the parallels to our other story). He was doubly fed up – frustrated by the ways things were done and frustrated by hearing himself moan about it but unable to do anything effective. He came across a book: Open Space Technology, A User’s Guide by Harrison Owen. It described a way for groups to self-organise around issues of shared concern, a way that was radically non-hierarchical, refreshingly playful, able to cut to the heart of complex situations really fast and allow truths to emerge and change to begin. He thought he would give it a go. It sounded like a good improvisation exercise. He followed the instructions in the book and wrote an invitation (step 1). He called it ‘Devoted and Disgruntled’ because that’s what he was feeling. It’s a good title and if I could I would steal it to use here at Michael Hall for all the many deeply devoted and disgruntled people whom I have met here. To his amazement and delight people responded to his invitation – about 200 people turned up (step 2). And it was incredible. Now, instead of the constant moaning, people were getting to work, fuelled by their passion and devotion, connecting, taking action, agreeing on change (step 3). 15 years later Devoted and Disgruntled has transformed the landscape of the performing arts in the UK. We have run literally hundreds of Open Space events under this banner, in every corner of the country and even overseas. We have an entire website dedicated to this great, unfolding conversation. Check it out: www.devotedanddisgruntled.com. Some people worry that it is ‘just’ a conversation, a talking shop – but almost all change starts with a conversation and an enormous number of actions have come out of our Open Spaces: shows made, companies formed, new initiatives, collaborations, even marriages (my own included) have emerged out of our events. It is an amazing practice, a brilliant tool – not a sword, but a circle, an open space.

           Having witnessed first hand the impact of opening space on the UK theatre scene, how it harnesses the devotion and helps to shift the disgruntlement, I want to bring it here, to our school, now in this moment more than ever. I think it holds the power of a forge – the hot, glowing place that can make hard things soft and malleable again, where change and transformation is possible. And yet it is beautifully simple. You send out an invite. (I have done this– it was in the last Friday Flier (You can read it here: http://www.michaelhall.co.uk/friday-flier) People who want to be there come along. We sit in a circle and a facilitator explains how it works – anyone who wants to call a session can do so, by writing the title on a piece of paper and putting it up on the wall. Together we co-create an agenda. Then we get to work and we follow the magical and yet entirely pragmatic ‘law of two feet’: you don’t stay where you don’t want to be, you follow yourself and go where your time and energy will be best used, and only you know where that is. This is the radical non-hierarchy of it – the fixed roles can fall away and a new fluidity is possible. Not ‘us’ and ‘them’ but me and you, listening to each other and having a conversation on an issue about which we both care deeply and on which we both want to act.

           There are many things that I am sure need to change within the school, but fundamentally, for me, the underlying shift that needs to happen is a cultural one. I think we need to start to model the sense of agency and possibility that I am sure we all hope the education is giving to our children. We need to wake up inside the story and notice how we are part of shaping it – we are not passive victims of a terrible curse from a wicked fairy or an evil dragon, or at least as well as playing the part of the victim, there are times when we also step into the role of the dragon, steam coming out of our ears, and curses falling out of our mouths. Notice these. And this fire, these strong words, whomever they come from – teacher, parent, manager - are not bad. They are potent, they are passionate and they are integral to our ability to bring about change.

When my son was in Kindergarten, at another Steiner school in London, he came home one day, in his first term, with a complaint. It was Michaelmas and they had been told a story about a dragon, “But the dragon didn’t do much! It wasn’t scary enough. They tamed it too quickly.” So there we have it. In opening space I don’t want to tame all the dragons. I want them to come. All of them. I want the dragons, I want the kings and the queens, the princes and princesses, I want the peasants, the wicked stepmothers, the caring fathers, the confounded leaders, wise teachers, the witches, the wolves. If you identify with any of these roles, please come. If I have left your role off the list please come and put it on there – make sure it is part of the story. Because right now we have an incredible opportunity to shape what happens next – this is in fact always true, but thanks to the dubious Sir Ofsted we just all managed to notice it.

I am not looking for a happy-ever-after ending. Or even an ‘outstanding-ever-after.’ I want what I wanted when I and my family decided to move here: I want connected-ever-after. Actually even ‘ever-after’ sounds like rather a high demand from which we might all come crashing down with a sense of failure. I will settle for connected-a-good-deal-of-the-time, whole as much as possible, in community through the rough and the smooth. What do you want? How do you wish your story and the school’s story to unfold from here? I am inviting you to come and tell me, and others. Because telling is the beginning of making. Making is the start of happening. The details of the dates and the times are here- http://www.michaelhall.co.uk/pwg- I look forward to seeing you there and to hearing your tales and those of others – the more diverse the better - and to us creating a new one together.

[neth-dugan]

Nine Worlds - Friday

Thursday found [here]

After having had only a couple hours sleep, we got up and got ready for the day. Some of us took longer than others, and no that wasn’t me. @laalratty @knittedace and I went to get breakfast outside of costume and then went back to our rooms to get properly dressed. I also had a nap on the bed as the first session doesn’t start until 10am, which helped I think. But I did spend the rest of the day very tired.

EDUCATION AT HOGWARTS

The first panel I went to at the convention proper, and @unwoundbobbin was on it which was a bonus. 

It was a fun talk in which everyone agreed that education at Hogwarts is severely lacking, completely skips some very important subjects and really needs to look at quality of teaching.

As much as we are meant to root for Hogwarts and its independence, it’s an industry checking itself and what happens when people we don’t like are in charge? Someone said that it’s a great thing to show teachers who are fed up with having a curriculum and ofsted inspections. I agree. There was also a lot of talk that as much as muggle studies needs to be better and mandatory, there needs to be an introductory course for muggle raised students so they know what they’re getting into, the world they’re dumped in and so on. And, as a panelist pointed out, to better know all the shibboleths. She also mused that this may be exactly the reason they don’t do that and honestly, probably true.

ACE REPRESENTATION

So, I did a panel on a similar theme several years back and I was curious how this one would go. It took a different tone but times have moved. A lot of the panelists are relatively new to the community but then there was Nat Titman who is one of the founding persons of the asexual community. 

I didn’t learn a lot, but it was nice to be in a room with a ton of aces talking about ace things. Aros talking about aro things. People still hating on Moffat for the crap he has spewed. Being inclusive aof aros and demis. Which I know for a fact meant a lot to some, as I was talking to a demi person at that meeting later that day who brought it up. I got to espouse my theory on how Yuuri Katsuki is so so very demi even if language, culture and censorship means it’ll never be explicitly canon. 

BSL FOR GEEKS

This was amazing! I know how to say thank you and ‘g’ and that is it. So this was pretty great. Aside from being able to tell you my name at the end, I was delighted to learn the sign for Star Trek is literally the Vulcan salute. I also learnt how to say ‘Space, the final frontier’ though I probably do it with a massive accent. I learnt that this is the new sign coming up for trans:

...and tumblr provides a demonstration of this. Not video from the con.

Which is related to the sign for soul.  Also I learned the sign that’s becoming popular for queer which is a ‘q’ in the motion of a rainbow and it’s awesome.

There were lots of character names and phrases and there’s no way I’m going to remain most of it. And I had a weird hand thing going on that this made worse. So by the end of it, my hand hurt a fair bit. But it was fantastic. It was presented by a a group of interpreters and deaf people who bounced off of each other really well. One person even forgot how to spell their own name. But given a person who shall remain nameless forgot what their name even was at a different session? This isn’t the worst I heard of. 

I really loved it, and this was one of my favourite sessions at the entire convention. I wanted to go to the after dark one for adults only, in which there’d be swearing, but alas I had to take care of my hand and so decided it was a no go.

EVERYBODY HATES MORAL PHILOSOPHERS: THE ETHICS OF THE GOOD PLACE

I’m a big fan of this show. I came across it on Netflix and then got my Mom into it and it is brilliant. It’s smart and funny and thinky all at once. This session was more of a lecture than a panel or workshop which fit, because the person giving it is a philosophy professor. Not a moral philosopher, but a philosopher.

It turns out that it isn’t so much that everyone hates moral philosophers, it’s just really hard to be one. But whilst we were waiting for the session to start I spotted a person in front of me dressed up as Janet. I asked to confirm and was told, perfectly in character that interesting fact, they were Janet. And proceeded to give me a cactus sticky note with a Janet phrase on it. I sent a photo and a test to my Mom who loved it.

 ...I do have a picture, but didn’t ask permission to post on the internet so here is a close approximation minus cactus. 

The lecture itself was pretty interesting. Turns out the writers are using real philosophy and real books and theories and the like when making the show. I can see how Chidi would get so anxious if he follows Kant. Even the text books given to Eleanor are ones the speaker has themselves and sees as foundational texts. So yay! She went through a few schools of philosophy that pop up in the show and it was fun.

Someone pointed out that it seemed that each of the human four seemed to be missing one of the classical virtues. The speaker agreed. There was lots of debate about fair or just the system in this show is, and also how much about it we can objectively know given Michael’s aim in the first season. I pointed out that the entire thing seemed to be unfair to those with disadvantages or some mental health conditions. The last episode of the latest season, without getting into spoilers too much, entirely takes advantage of things about two characters that they’ve no way of doing away with and/or find near impossible to control. It sucks. There seemed to be agreement on this. Privilege, it seems, exists in the systems of The Good Place as we currently know them.

ASSIMILATION AND IDENTITY IN STAR TREK

This was a session hosted by Jaime who some may know and is pretty awesome. I don’t always agree with them on everything but I do appreciate them. And I didn’t agree with a good amount of what was said here. Not that I think it’s wrong, just that some of it is a matter of perspective and assigning aims and motivations to characters that aren’t, to me, clear in canon. I tend to think Worf handed his son off to his parents because he never asked for a kid, didn’t know he had one, works a dangerous job, has no experience parenting and lives on a ship that goes through a major crisis on a fairly regular basis. But people can disagree.

There are some things about Trek that.... aren’t the best. The whole area around the Ferengi is a tricky area and a bit of a mess. I love them, I love the actors, I love some of their episodes, but there are anti-semitic tropes in there made all the more there by the fact that most of the Ferengi actors are of Jewish decent. It’s problematic. It’s meant to be a critic of capitalism and modern culture. Of US. I’ve heard various Trek folk basically state that of all the species in Star Trek, the Ferengi represent modern day humans. But. They fell back on some problematic crap and there’s no way of escaping that.

There was one point when I was a bit worried it was going to get a bit anti-atheist but it didn’t thank goodness. And that’s a whole other thing.

There’s a clip that’s pretty famous amongst DS9 fans, that you fan find here, that exemplifies some of what this panel was about. Not all of it, but some. It was running through my head for sure. After the session ended a group of us had a chat after. It brought up a lot of things to talk about, new ways of looking at things and agree or not that’s usually a good thing.

...Moogie!

‘OH, BRILLIANT.’ ANTICIPATING THE THIRTEENTH DOCTOR

This one had @knittedace on the panel! She’d been talking about doing it last year and here we were . She in her hand knitted Dalek dress, me in the audience feeling a bit woozy and tired. 

Mostly, it did exactly what the tin said. People being excited for Thirteen, recalling days when they’d written fic on the idea but never thought it possible, what people wanted to see or not see and the like. Mostly, it was a feel good panel with happy people glad for a new start that would bring in new and old fans alike.

Someone on the panel pointed out that for some kids, they’ll have never known a time when The Doctor couldn’t be a woman. For whom their Doctor is a woman. And that is amazing. And she gets to keep her accent too, and there is hope we will see some of the North this season. Not just more London, or Cardiff as London.

For myself, I’ve always figured some Time Lords could change genders and sexes. Some couldn’t. And doing so was some kind of Time Lord intersex thing. But I was never really rooting for a woman Doctor.... yet when they announced it was going to happen? I was excited and relieved in a way I hadn’t imagined I would be.

Bring it on.

INTERVAL

At this point I found myself in the bar with some ginger ale talking to some people I’ve never med before. One was a demi person who had been at the Ace Rep talk and was very relieved to see demis included. I explained about the history of the flag and how they’re explicitly on it. Outside of some gatekeepers, the ace community I know has always embraced those other identities under the ace umbrella. 

Me, them and a friend of theirs made our way downstairs after a good chin wag to get good seats for the next panel. We figured we’d probably need them and coincidentally we were all going to the same one. 

FROM A/B/O TO DUBIOUS CONSENTACLES

I’m still not sure what dubious consentacles are to be honest. My mind goes to dubcon hentai but I’m probably wrong. This panel was after 10pm, the last of the day and very much adult only. I was in my TNG uniform and there was a Trek fan vid screening in the room across the hall so a volunteer checked I was where I wanted to be whilst we were waiting for it to start. Which was sweet, people do get lost down there.  Also, @unwoundbobbin was there which was a hoot.

The entire thing was a hoot to be honest. Not that formal, and mostly people sharing things they’d seen online, talk about the value of tagging, and wonder at the way fandom just comes together and decides on what dubious biology looks like. I shared the story of the early early days of Star Trek fandom how writers would come up with new weird and wonderful ways of depicting Spock’s genitals. I just think it’s something everyone should know. Fandom has been like this for a long time. 

I wont go into detail of the things discussed. But it’s amazing how trends change over time, how even over multiple fandoms some of these tropes become so accepted nobody has to explain anything. We just know how it works and dive right into a kind of shared ‘verse thing.

There were some things mentioned that I hadn’t heard of and are very much not talking about on this post. But interesting.

Honestly, this was another of my favourite panels this convention. It was so much fun. So much. Some people were a bit tipsy I think.

I did warn the two mods that I was pretty tired so if my eyes looked funny or closed, I wasn’t asleep, I was just squinting. I got so enthused by the cracky fun of it all though that I needn't have worried. I also found it amusing just how many ace spectrum folk there were there. 

After this I went back to my room. I got changed, went to bed hoping for a better night sleep than the one before. So very very tired. I’d had a great day but I was tired and I needed sleep urgently. Especially as the tired thing was not helping the dizzy thing. Thankfully I did get some sleep, not as good as home but I god some. 

[SATURDAY IS HERE]

#nine worlds #nineworlds #doctor who #star trek #the good place #harry potter

[atomicx]

"do you go to a private school" slt fucking wishes it was one tbh. they're constantly sucking ofsteds dick its not even funny at this point

[republicstandard]

Gay Pied Pipers of “Polymorphous Perversity” Penetrate Schools

What do gay and transgender activists penetrating Britain’s schools have in common with the Jesuits?

Jesuits were said to take the attitude, “Give me the child for his first seven years, and I’ll give you the man.” Jesuit co-founder St Francis Xavier tweaked the axiom to: “Give me the child until he is seven and I care not who has him thereafter.”

Atheist missionary and pulpit thumper Richard Dawkins plumbs the potential of the Jesuitical proposition and points to “the useful gullibility of the child mind,” in The God Delusion. The Jesuit boast “is no less accurate (or sinister) for being hackneyed,” he agrees.

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Gay activists have discovered the same truth. By fusing this Ignatian truism with the Freudian dogma of “polymorphous perversity,” the Pied Pipers of Stonewall are wreaking revenge on heterosexual conformity and leading our children into the Weser-like waters of sexual and moral morass, where they will drown like the mass of mesmerized rats, as in the dark legend of the Rat-Catcher of Hameln.

The bullying barrage of militant gay and transgender ideological activism would embarrass Soviet propaganda commissars for strategy and residents of Sodom and Gomorrah for shamelessness. Gayducation is now a non-negotiable item of the curriculum in British schools and who in Stonewall gives a fig if half of British children are leaving primary school unable to read and write properly?

The sexualization of our children is now a national pandemic, spreading like swine flu. Drop in at one of the Kama Sutra sessions offered by a local primary school in London and listen to 5-year-old children shouting “penis” and “vagina” like communist slogans and waving around Play-Doh models of lumpy genitalia they’ve made. Talk to Muslim academic Dr. Kate Godfrey-Faussett, a psychologist and Dialectical Behavior Therapist, who receives complaints from parents all over Britain about the pornification of the school curricula.

The pansexual proselytizers want our kids to be sexualized from Kindergarten. Lynnette Smith of Big Talk Education wants lessons to start “in nursery.” Five-year-olds at a London primary school are being taught about pornography, a BBC documentary reveals. Mick Manning and Brita Granström’s textbook How did I Begin? graphically explains procreation to 5+ years kids: “As they cuddled, your dad’s penis moved gently inside your mum’s vagina and the sperms flowed out.”

The eroticizers of education want to quarantine parents from the poison injected into their children. A 2010 Ofsted report found that schools rarely consult parents about sex education, even though the guidance encourages them to do so. Now that Ofsted has stepped up its inquisition against conservative schools, its recent report on sex education doesn’t mention consulting parents at all.

The golden coupling between sex and marriage is never mentioned. Only two commandments of safe sex and consent guide the discourse. “Making love is like skipping. You can’t do it all day long,” says the illustrated text Where did I come from? by Peter Mayle for 7+ years children. The Living and Growing DVD for 5-13-year-olds shows a group of little boys a public toilet where there’s a condom machine. “They have even got different flavors,” says a child in the film. Sex is as amoral and recreational as sit-ups and as multi-flavored as ice cream.

The goal is to brainwash kids into an anti-traditional family and promiscuously pansexual worldview. Seven-year-old children learn that anal intercourse is “sexual intercourse where a man puts his penis into another person’s anus” and oral sex is “using the mouth and tongue to lick, kiss or suck a partner’s genitals.” Subjects for discussion include homosexuality, bisexuality, abortion, rape, incest, sex abuse, sexually transmitted diseases, HIV and Aids.

Heather, who runs her own workshops in schools in East London, helps teens to discover sadomasochism. “Maybe you read a really hot bit of erotica while looking up Dominance and Submission. Maybe you saw some awesome strap-on porn or just found some cool looking sex toys you’d like to use,” she writes on her website, urging the child to share the discovery with their partner.

Apart from pushing its gay agenda pretending it is “creating an inclusive school environment,” Stonewall brainwashes toddlers with transgenderism: “Babies are given a gender when they are born. Trans is a word that describes people who feel the gender they were given as a baby doesn’t match the gender they feel themselves to be,” its literature advocates, thus reframing gender dysphoria as a chic identity badge.

Drag queens are brought into taxpayer-funded nursery schools to read nursery rhymes and sing songs so 2-year-olds can learn about gay and transgender issues. The Drag Queen Story Times website says it aims “to capture the imagination and fun of the gender fluidity of childhood while giving children a glamorous, positive unabashedly queer role model.” Transgender lifestyles and same-sex relationships should be “promoted” to children as young as two to reduce hate crime, says the National Union of Teachers (NUT).

Except for very few Catholic, Jewish and Muslim schools, faith schools are falling like ninepins before Aphrodite’s chariot, with the Church of England going out its way to garland the new cult of gayducation. Anglican bishop Stephen Cottrell tells the House of Lords that the “Church of England works closely with Stonewall,” while Catholic bishop Philip Egan attacks Stonewall for burying Britain’s “Christian patrimony” and proposing “Orwellian changes to our language” and “draconian restrictions on religious expression.”

Egan is right. Gayducation is unrelentingly absolutist. According to Shraga Stern, thousands of Charedi Jews will leave Britain unless ministers back down from forcing faith schools to teach children about gay and transgender relationships after the Education Department forcibly introduced “homosexuality, same-sex relationships and gender reassignment” lessons in classrooms. On Thursday, the head of Ofsted Amanda Spielman said that all children must learn about same-sex couples regardless of their religious background.

Confused parents are asking two questions. First, how did we begin sexualizing our children—not just providing them biological instruction about human reproduction, but eroticizing them into accepting deviant sexualities? Why is this junk touted as scientific?

Remember Sigmund Freud, father of psychoanalysis? He designed the scaffolding for sexualization children. Children are “polymorphously perverse” he said. Before a child is educated in the conventions of civilized society, it will turn to bodily parts for sexual gratification and will not obey adult rules that determine perverse behavior. But traditional education will suppress the polymorphous possibilities for sexual gratification in the child, said Freud.

Sexologist Alfred Kinsey took this further claiming that even the tiniest of infants have the “capacity” for orgasm. Hence, sexual satisfaction is a childhood goal to be pursued. Kinsey’s theory of early childhood sexual development became the standard for sex education in schools. A scandal broke when Kinsey and his associates were accused of masturbating thousands of little children for scientific data to confirm Kinsey’s theory. Kinsey also claimed that 10-47% of Americans are gay. His two “findings” paved the way for gayducation.

Second, parents are asking why Pied Pipers of polymorphous perversity are not tolerant of real diversity. Why the bigotry and totalitarianism? Why are gay and transgender evangelists desperate and determined to convert innocent and impressionable minds to their cult of Eros (even though they hate “conversion therapy”)?

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The gay liberation movement began with a libertarian argument. Leave us to do our thing. Western society then gave LGBTI+ folk freedom to do their thing. That wasn’t enough. The plea for tolerance became a demand for equality (and same-sex marriage). Equality implies that people are equal before the law. It doesn’t go far enough and sanctify certain practices as morally good. To achieve this goal, you’ve got to aggressively and subversively push for normalization—starting with the most malleable minds.

Children are powerless and offer the least resistance. Once you’ve have brainwashed them—you’ve got them for life. This is the goal of the sex education industry—as it milks the government (and taxpayer) for millions of pounds. “I have come to indoctrinate your children into my LGBTQ agenda (and I’m not a bit sorry),” says children’s author and activist S. Bear Bergman.

There will be pockets of resistance opposing your project for normalization and moral canonization. You’ve got to eliminate them by orchestrating a coup d’état and establishing totalitarian control. Even the tiniest resistance poses a threat. Why? Because the struggle between light and darkness is unequal (as the soaring prologue to the gospel of John poetically and philosophically portrays).

For darkness to triumph, it must be complete and total. “The light of a single candle, somewhere in the universe, defeats it; there is now light where formerly there was none,” writes Michael Walsh. “Either there is Light or there is not; there can be no synthesis.” The tiniest flicker of candlelight is sufficient to expose and unsettle the hegemony of darkness.

From September 2020, the state wants to make Relationship and Sex Education (RSE) and teaching LGBT+ concepts compulsory in all primary and secondary schools. StopRSE is resisting the darkness of polymorphous perversity. Parents of all faiths and none are lighting candles to help save our children. The debate on the new RSE will take place on Monday 25 February at 4.30 pm. You can sign the petition to Parliament demanding you choose what your child learns.

Parents of Hamelin! Your taxes are paying for the Pied Pipers of polymorphous perversity to lure your children into Des Teufels Lustschloss (The Devil’s Pleasure Palace). It’s time you sang to the state-funded Piped Pipers: “We don’t need no gayducation. Hey! Stonewall, leave our kids alone.”

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