#Bad Arguments

[snapheart1536]

Bad Arguments

Thomas Seymour

'Dashing'

Perverts are always slobbering over Seymour's 'dashing' appearance.

For it is he:

See?

Well say no more.

She must've wanted it then.

...

Pretending that comedy cult-leader get-up is desirable is your signal to take action.

Chuck that book out the winder.

Might as well, 'cause said term inevitably precedes a heaving, self-insert sex fantasy, dripping with enough lip-smacking festering juiciness to make yer milk curl.

Female writers 'identify' with Parr, hence her inevitable depiction as long-suffering scholarly maiden, nobly sacrificing every lump of her precious spiritual self for The Greater Good, and yet, for all that, BURNING WITH FORBIDDEN PASSION, PEOPLE!

Like them.

Seymour, therefore, has the the most ludicrous turd-polish of the century, where a grungy, follically-unchallenged pædophile is re-packaged as some bizarre Mills-and-Boon vision of heroic ultra-manly masculine macho manliness.

Oh! To be held in those arms!

Now. NOW. Stop it.

Stop scrolling back to his picture.

He IS sexy!

HE IS!

You're just seeing it wrong!

You look with yer patch, not yer bloody eyes.

We're conditioned to 'be nice' and go along with the lie; to accept this frightening depravity o' theirs where Seymour truly is the pinnacle of muscular manhood, and definitely, totally doesn't resemble Hamburglar channeling Rasputin.

'Cause clearly, imagining a couple of middle-aged old duffers getting down to it and bumping some monumental uglies holds great appeal for Women Of A Certain Age.

Sadly, in the midst of this lurid wish-fulfillment sits the loathsome form of that darned Elizabeth; coming over here, being inconvenient and upsetting everyone.

Ooooh. What a bitch.

Not only does The Little Bastard insult All Wummunhud as queen by swearing off men, which novellists take VERY personally, but she's also got the bare-faced cheek to ruin their sordid squelch-athon as a kid by daring to exist.

She's a witch! Burn her!

Exactly. And obviously, it can't possibly be Scummy Scrummy Seymour's fault he kept bursting into a thirteen-year-old girl's room and sexually assaulting her.

Why accusing him would put a right dampner (and the wrong sort) on all these menopausal fits of hysteria, so that's gotta go.

What, this smouldering Adonis?

This tousle-haired, golden-eyed Gift From God, meaty muscles rippling like vomit on a bouncy castle?

You're blaming HIM for any of it?!

As if! It'll be that conniving teenage trollop luring away our shimmering Son of Adam with her fiendish feminine wiles.

Oooooooooh, BITCH!!!

Like the Venerable Parr, Seymour's fangirls don't care if he cheats with a cheap bit on the side, for that only enhances his gushing manliness, where m'lord's eruptions can't be satisfied by merely one woman, such is their epic overflow.

But whilst we excuse him, we certainly don't Elizabeth, what with her Shameless Betrayal Of The Sisterhood.

Well he's gonna tek it if it's onna plate, in'ee?!

Note we're never given any actual proof Elizabeth reciprocated; we're just ordered to accept it by default.

Come on, man. She Was An Adult. It's literally impossible she could ever turn him down.

Why?

Why?! WHY?! He was DASHING!!!

Indeed. I daresay the volcanic heat pulsing from his gorgeous groin was like beholding the scented fullness of mighty Zeus in all his brutish magnificence, and singed off her eyebrows.

Yet some sick freaks these days try to say SHE was the innocent party, and fended off his matted werewolf mitts the best she could.

Oh-ho! Well that's worse! Now the filthy whore's bloody ungrateful to boot!

Kids today, eh? They don't know they're born.

Damn straight. What the Wise Ones wouldn't give for five fabulous minutes beneath that bearded bushiness.

But here's scabby Elizabeth turning up her fat snooty nose at Hirsute Heaven!

Thinks she's too good for it, eh? Well we'll see about that.

Gaslighting the public to see Seymour as 'dashing' is vital to their sloppy narrative.

Admitting he's got the unwashed serial killer style down to a tee casts wicked aspersions on Parr's spotless character (and thus, by extension, their own), for having such disgusting tastes.

What are yer tryna say, man?! That Saint Parr ain't literally perfect?!

Thou jesteth!

Problem with kinning Parr is enjoying some Sasquatch Sexy Times through her fragment form would besmirch her oh-so elevated grace and dignity.

Therefore everything Wimmen are begging Cousin It to do to them they force on Elizabeth instead, panting at the prose yet all the while seething with rage and well jel.

That monkey's mine, bitch!

Yet the notion she found some groping geriatric attractive is blatantly absurd to the point of insanity, and the only reason it's the reflex interpretation is because these authors want it be to justify their own all-encompassing, eye-popping hatred, and infect the rest of us with it too.

They push this 'dashing' denial of reality as if that's evidence in itself, insisting Seymour was apparently irresistible in the extreme, where that hypnotic hairiness o' his easily outweighed being:

• Elizabeth's GUARDIAN!

• Elizabeth's STEPFATHER!

• Elizabeth's UNCLE!

• THRICE Elizabeth's age!

• Part of the faction that KILLED ELIZABETH'S MOTHER!!!

You know how it is, kids.

Sometimes elderly relatives are simply too flamin' fanciable for their own good.

Incest? Schmincest. Yer just gotta 'ave 'em.

And of course, the Real Question remains unanswered:

What is about the Thousand-Year-Old Hermit look that children find so sexy?

[kharmii]

You keep one bull around because cows are bleary-eyed dumb animals that stand around chewing grass all day with threads of drool hanging out of their jaws. Whey they are in heat, they'll let anything with a dick and balls bang them.

That gotcha moment at the end is like Asperger's gone wild. You just need men around to breed right? After all, what other kinds of shit do they do around here?

I kind of feel like I'm about to play Devil's advocate because realistically, most of the women getting abortions probably shouldn't breed anyway.

All the rest of the points are stupid. You can't compare today's society with readily available birth control to back when women were sent away to see grandma. It used to be argued that abortion should be legal but rare and only when medically necessary, such as in cases of rape or incest or when the mother's life is in danger.

Now we have the Big Abortion business where money changes hands every time a baby dies. They've admitted there's a lucrative business selling dead fetus parts. That's the real reason the fight is on to keep abortion on demand legal and plentiful.

Also, there's no danger of extremists shooting abortion doctors. It's happened, but it's more likely a harmless old lady will get beaten and thrown into prison for meerly praying in front of an abortion clinic. Hopefully Donald Trump will pardon such people soon.

YOU ONLY KEEP ONE BULL 

(Originally published in Comics For Choice)

[dathen]

JONATHAN ARCHIVIST IS NOT STUPID SQUAD I WILL ALWAYS BE WITH YOU

[hymnsofheresy]

i wish left-leaning understood that most right-wing people don't have bad intentions. most conservative apologists for fascists or even fascists themselves don't wake up with the desire to be harmful. nor do they even have the full awareness of the evil they commit. sure, there are some people who are knowingly morally bankrupt and have no shame in the matter, but this is relatively rare (more people are apathetic than malicious).

but good intentions can still hurt others. good intentions can and does lead to violence. even fascism is rooted in a desire for "purity and goodness," which sounds nice without any of the context of what fascism actually entails. this is why everyone is susceptible to believing fascist ideology. though admittedly, some are more susceptible than others due to, usually, their material conditions.

[mental-mona]

Because we can all use the reminder of what bad arguments can look like.

[embervoices]

You're also absolutely never going to persuade the people making and using the AI with this argument.

Engineers - especially Computer Engineers - have a saying:

"Necessity is the Mother of Invention; Laziness is the Father."

If labor the hard way is so incredibly virtuous, why do we have any tools? Literally, every tool that exists, exists to make the job take less labor.

Planned Laziness is an engineering virtue - take the time now to make the tool that helps you with the job more efficient, so you can spend less time later on doing the job correctly. You make the tool once and do the job repeatedly, so that early diligence allows later sloth.

[jingerpi]

Nazi Germany lasted for ~10 years. the US' genocide of indigenous people inspired the Nazis, and we've been at it for ~500 years. 55 MILLION indigenous turtle Islanders were killed by American colonialists. Tell me again why we're arguing over whether or not these bourgeois politicians are 99% Hitler? This country is far worse than the Nazis were even remotely capable of. There are nearly 1.8 MILLION people in Slavery in the United States right now. This country is cartoon levels of evil, and beyond that! it's beyond parody! it's worse than you can possibly imagine. and that's just two examples over the 500 years they've been at this, and they only domestically! Do you have any idea what the ruling class has done in other countries? the war and famine they've intentionally induced from profits? The millions they've bombed? The only country to ever use nuclear bombs! and it was on civilians!

So yes, of course we cry out death to [US]America. Do you seriously not understand how deeply deeply evil this country is? Again:

Death to the USA

[crumb-crumblet-s-crumbington]

different POV of this comic

x

[lenaeeessshhh]

[alianoralacanta]

(Part 1/2) There may be multiple things going on here.

The rebound effect of misogyny against the female segment of Charles' fanbase (that @valyrfia discusses) is reflected misogyny. I can confirm that I have also experienced the gender difference in the way I am perceived in conversations where the misogynist is aware that this is in play. Interestingly, I've received different gender-based attacks where the misogynist has assumed I am male. (As a result, I tend to declare my gender on the internet only where it's relevant to the statement I'm trying to make at a given moment. This helps but is not a complete solution because some aggressors remember gender from previous discussions).

However, I think there is also a component whereby Charles openly and cheerfully thinks, works and lives in a different way to the manner preferred by those in power. That element means Charles attracts a certain amount of unwarranted disapproval in his own right.

Preamble: If the journalist genuinely believes they are right, and thinks they have sufficient evidence to back that belief as well as believing the alternative perspectives are less plausible than their own, that's journalism. Even if by this point, in this case, it is sufficiently implausible as to be bad journalism.

The most common example I see is where a journalist made an earlier error and is looking at subsequent information through the prism of that error. (For example: a driver who underperforms for half a season is blamed for that underperformance, before tests after the season ends reveal that the chassis had probably been cracked all that time). Always consider this possibility before considering other explanations, when asking why a journalist is holding an obviously-wrong theory aloft. However, also be aware that there are limits as to how such a theory can hold in the face of professional obligations towards truth.

why is charles always facing misogyny from journalists

Charles is a man and therefore can’t face misogyny in the same way. However, he can feel the repercussions of misogyny levied at his vocal and majority female online fanbase. It’s quite wild to see us make excellently thought out takes on twitter and tumblr, all of which make perfect sense and have a logical progression to them, only to be labelled as “hysterical Leclerc fangirls” by men who haven’t bothered to understand how Charles’s pole to win ratio is actually an incredible thing on his part and a damning indictment of the state of Ferrari for the past few years, or by mainstream journalists themselves who like to call us delusional for saying the Sainzes cause toxicity, when there is LITERAL evidence of that provided back to 2015.

I would go far enough to say that this lecfosi hate that’s become trendy amongst everyone is a reactionary pushback against women in F1 spaces because we can cite numbers and statistics in Charles’s favour all we want, and still get hit with “lol Leclerc fan girl who doesn’t know wheel”. I notice that when I make posts favouring Charles on other platforms where I don’t indicate my gender, and use certain speech patterns that men would tend to use over women (ie. Leclerc and Verstappen rather than Charles and Max), my opinion is taken to have higher value and is at the very least, respected. It sucks because misogyny sucks, and make no mistake this is misogyny. Charles feels the repercussions of it because we comprise his fanbase, and women can’t POSSIBLY support a driver because they know enough wheel to consider him generational, it must only be because he’s hot!

[archivewriter1ont]

Tech: What is going on here?

Wrecker: Hunter has a migraine and told Crosshair and Echo to stop arguing.

Tech: So why do they each have a datapad?

Wrecker: Oh, they're still arguing. They're just texting now.

Crosshair: *types aggressively*

Echo: *slams scomp on table* You take that back!

[snapheart1536]

Bad Arguments

Elizabeth I

She Never Said Nuffin!

Every excuse defends Seymour:

Me: Oh no! He's breaking into her room again!

Them: Listen up, stupid: Girls Could Marry At Twelve.

See? Stepdaughters are fair game now I've said that.

DON'T JUDGE HIM.

But damns Elizabeth:

Me: Poor baby. I do feel sorry for her.

Them: Um? She Was An Adult.

AH-DULT.

You know, gagging for it.

If she didn't totally want rape she would've done the honourable thing and died at birth.

Bitch.

Amazing how their oh-so precious Context always absolves him of guilt, yet brands her a whore in the exact same Perfectly Normal situation.

Funny that.

Now you forgot all about Elizabeth begging Seymour not to touch her and take this seriously like a true pearl-clutching Intelleckchul, for this line pops out when the other two don't work.

WELL! Well! I mean...well!

Well...she...she...She Nevah Sed Nuffin about it, did she?

Ah! Ah! Well that just shows, doesn't it!

Why are they so adamant Elizabeth enjoyed sexual abuse?

No matter the evidence we give, it's NEVER enough, yet we're pressured to accept the most warped readings of history as true.

All so they can vilify a thirteen-year-old girl.

Class.

Apparently Elizabeth not rushing down the pub and giving it good gossip about her uncle-step-dad feeling her up is proof positive she loved every minute; saying nowt precisely so the happy days just kept on rollin'.

Otherwise all those innumerable, ultra-powerful killjoy relatives o' hers might swoop in and put a stop to it, the bastards.

Strange. I thought staying silent was the textbook reaction to child abuse.

Nah. Turns out behaving like your typical victim proves it was never abuse at all.

Mmm-hmm.

I'm wondering now what evidence is acceptable, if even the tell-tale signs of distress aren't enough.

Why, nothing! Nothing at all!

Yeah. A girl whose mother and stepmother were murdered on false charges of sexual shenanigans naturally should've gone round bragging how she was on the receiving end of 'em for real.

As that'll turn out well.

Weird, innit? She grows up knowing society kills women for adultery, and then gets desperate to preserve her own reputation.

Come on, love. Lighten up.

What's the worse that could happen?

Nope. No downsides here.

Yet who was she supposed to tell?

DUH! Her parents, dummy!

But they're dead.

...

Well OBVIOUSLY her guardians.

But they're the ones molesting her.

...

AH! AH! How about her brother, eh? Eh?!

You want a thirteen-year-old girl to explain to a nine-year-old boy how his uncle and stepmother are interfering with her body?

AND for this to go through his other uncle, and thereby spread about the court?

...

OH! Whaddabowt Mary?! Ah, you forget that!

So she'd side with Anne Boleyn's daughter in a 'sex scandal', would she, withstanding all the resulting controversy whilst fully convinced of her innocence?

As if!

You're telling me Elizabeth had NO ONE to turn to, but should be ripped apart anyway?

For they can't sympathize on instinct; she's gotta earn it like a dog, jumping through an endless line of ever-shrinking hoops, which she doesn't even know are there.

It's up to her to fulfill their impossible demands to 'deserve' pity.

And THIS is moral righteousness?

But the worst part?

Abused children live in shame and terror, convinced they brought it on themselves and won't be believed.

Then here come the 'experts' blaming adult perversions on Elizabeth for turning twelve, interpreting everything she did in the worst light to justify their own raving hatred.

In doing so they confirm the fears every victim feels, perpetuating pædophilia by keeping the suffering silent.

[buggachat]

honestly just in general it's very exhausting to try to analyze media that is literally meant to be analyzed, only for the replies to be filled with people arguing not against your analysis, but against the premise that the media can be analyzed at all.

i don't even know what to say about it without starting to really betray my frustration, so i'll just settle with— just don't engage with analysis posts? I'm serious. if you're typing a response to a media analysis post, reread what you've written and ask yourself "is this comment/response against the very concept of analyzing the media at all?" and if the answer is yes then delete it all and go sit in the shame corner. throw your curtains away if you want to so bad and stop telling me that I'm not allowed to hum and haw at the fact mine are blue

[luxlightly]

I don't know how to break it to you all but a bad parent will parent badly with books and a good parent will parent well with an iPad.

Ipads don't make the "ipad kid". What upsets you is a child who is being given something distracting and potentially obnoxious to those around them so that the parent doesn't have to deal with engaging with their child. And it's not new.

I grew up before the invention of the ipad and the complaints were the same. It was "tv kids" and "Gameboy kids". And it was book kids too, though people rarely complained about those kids because it didn't make noise and bother them personally so they no longer cared. Because the "it's for the good of the child!" argument dried up real fast as soon as it was something that didn't affect them.

A good parent who is engaging with their child's interests can do so with an iPad or television. A bad parent can say "take this and leave me alone" with a book or a toy. The problem is that some kids were raised by objects. By whatever kept them busy and entertained and away from their parents. Sure, there are parents who need to realize that's what they're doing and would benefit from changing their parenting style by limiting electronics use, but "if you give your kid an electronic toy, it means you're a bad parent" is not the same thing and largely misses the actual source of the problem.

Your arbitrary standards of what "good children" doing "good child activities" is as restricting.

[purrassicjet]

The parents polycule should kill Bobby Dawn on behalf of Sandra Lynn

[alchemistc]

There's been something about the woobification of Buck that's been sitting on the tip of my tongue for weeks now, and I think I've finally figured it out.

This is, of course, mostly in reference to the moral outrage about a decade-ish (give or take) age gap between two adult men and the infantalization of one said grown man, so all the puritanism isn't really coming from a place of good faith anyway, but here's the thing that's been bugging me that I couldn't quite put a finger on until now.

Buck has people he goes to for certain things. He has, what are in his mind, experts in the field for most of the things he can't think through on his own, that he goes to for a sounding board.

He went to Hen to talk through the sperm donor dilemma for a few reasons that made sense to him. 1) She's a mom. She has very much had to deal with the reality of 'giving up' children she considered her own. Buck is aware that he would be giving up something that could mean something to him, and he wants to talk to someone who has some insight into that. 2) She's dealt with IVF. She knows the risks, she knows the trials and tribulations, she knows about this thing that he is thinking about agreeing to be a part of so she's going to have a fuller grasp on the enormity of everything this process entails.

And they drink about it. Hen gives him what she can and cautions him where she thinks she should and they continue to talk about it and regardless of what SHE thinks, he makes his mind up in part because he got to talk to his Expert.

Bobby is often his go to when he feels like he's losing his grip on things. He's seen Bobby staring down the bottom of the bottle. He's seen the work he's done to pull himself back into the world, and he's seen the way he fights for his family, his people. Buck leans on him in times of questioning himself because he knows Bobby has pulled himself off the ledge with bleeding hands and a bleeding heart.

He reaches out to Maddie about interpersonal shit constantly. We see it all the way back in S2 when he's starting to question what the hell he's still doing in Abby's apartment, and that never really changes. She's the one with advice for him when he's angry with his parents, upset with the firefam, worried about his friends, or just generally concerned with the way he's perceived by people or how he perceives the world. He goes to her when he's embarrassed, ashamed, because he knows she won't judge him for it. She'll call him out, for sure, but she's not going to look at him differently when she knows he's done something he considers bad behavior.

When he goes to her during the Tommy arc, he's there for one reason he'll admit, and another she has to ferret out. 1) He lied to his best friend and he doesn't know why. 2) Oh yeah he went on a date with a dude that's not strange WHY IS THAT STRANGE I'VE ALWAYS BEEN AN ALLY PLEASE DON'T PULL BACK THE CURTAIN - and Maddie is there with two things: 1) It's not weird but it IS new and something you clearly haven't worked through all the way which is why 2) you'll tell Eddie when you're ready

And Eddie is sort of his go-to to bounce ideas off of. Eddie is his Buck expert. Eddie is the guy who can sort through all the bullshit and who sees Buck for exactly who he is, every time, regardless of what Buck himself is thinking. Eddie is his best friend, and he knows the good the bad and the ugly better than anyone else. He is also, quite frankly, the one Buck seeks out to help him contextualize all of his romantic feelings for people. Eddie's the guy he talks to when he's interested in someone, when he's falling for someone, he's the guy through which Buck filters his love interests into the firefam. I do the same shit with my best friend. It's instinct to want the person you consider the expert on you to meet the person you are interested in, it's instinct to want them to like each other, to get along. Buck knows Eddie loves him (in whatever way you see that love, Buck knows Eddie loves him) and he wants this person who loves him to be at least an active listener as he talks himself through the minefield of relationships. I do also think that up until the events of season seven, Buck considers Eddie sort of an expert on that traditional love-marriage-kids-white-picket-fence relationship Buck thinks he's striving for - in a very naive way, because obviously the wasn't what Eddie and Shannon had and Buck knows that, but he's probably fed some of Eddie's rose colored reminiscences back into that notion.

When he comes out to Eddie he's got two worries. 1) I lied to you and I figured out why but I'm still a little worried you think it's weird and 2) I screwed it up with someone I really like and I don't know where to go from here.

And Eddie (Buck expert) reassures him that just because it's new and unexpected doesn't make it strange, that it doesn't change anything in their friendship. And then he gets right to the heart of it - if you like him you should reach out and tell him that. He doesn't know you like we do but if you give him the chance to, he'll love you as much as we do. If he doesn't give it the same shot you want to he's the idiot.

With all that context in mind, Buck isn't seeking out Tommy's attention because he wants an authority figure, or someone to take care of him, someone to guide him through sex or love or relationship dynamics or any of the other random shit I've seen ppl infantalizing Buck about.

What he's looking for, and what he ultimately tells Tommy he'd like to pursue, is a partnership. Someone to walk (or more likely for Buck, speedrun) through experiences together. The Athena to his Bobby, the Chim to his Maddie, the Karen to his Hen.

So every time I see someone infantalizing Buck for seeking out a relationship with an older man for X or Y reason, I'm just like - no. He has Bobby, Hen, Maddie, Eddie, Chim etc for that. He doesn't want or need Tommy for that. He is a grown ass man who has built these strong relationships with his peers and his mentors and he is so fucking aware of that because he reaches for their help any time he feels the urge for a helping hand.

So yeah, Tommy's older. Yes, Tommy has more experience with his sexuality than Buck. And that - that's really it. Buck's been in the same career for more than half a decade. He's lived on his own since he was no older than 19/20. He's had serious relationships, he has a rich and fulfilling life. There is no power imbalance in the relationship between Buck and Tommy.

And while the age gap may be a bit of a draw for Buck, it's not WHY he's attracted to Tommy. We know because he's told Maddie. He's cool. He's interesting. He's confident. He has a cleft.

Buck isn't going into this waiting for someone older and more experienced to take the fucking reins. He felt like he clicked with Tommy, like there was an immediate connection, and yes, Tommy had to kiss him about it for Buck to actually figure out what it was he was experiencing, but from that point on it was all on Buck (and the people he leans on for advice) to help him sort through.

Tommy didn't do shit other than pump the brakes and try to give Buck the space he thought he needed to decide what he was ready for. Buck (again, with the help of his experts - Maddie for the emotional piece of it, Eddie for the Buck of it all) did the work on his own. Tommy didn't swoop in and overbearingly hold his hand through a sexual awakening. He kissed him, asked him out, realized he wasn't ready, stepped back and then checked in multiple times when Buck came back at it going 120 miles an hour.

And then he did everything he could to prove to Buck he wanted the same thing - a partner, someone to talk to, and lean on, and flirt with and rely on to show up whenever they could feasibly manage it (and sometimes when it's a little unfeasible too).

The narrative even acknowledges that Buck had no reason to go to Bobby in this scenario, when he often would, and lays out exactly why.

Within the canon of this particular arc, we're meant to see this as Buck realizing he has the experience necessary to think these things through on his own. This is Buck finally taking control of something that's always felt like it fell into his lap a bit. This is Buck doing more than treading water until his legs give out.

And minimizing that growth bc you personally don't like the LI he's pursuing is gross at best. At worst it's something much more insidious.