Spacecasehobbit - Space

Tried using watercolours :) not too proud but im learning slowly

Keeping this quote to my grave

Love is not something we wind up, something we set or control. Love is just like art. A force that comes into our lives without any rules, expectations or limitations.

SENSE8 | Death Doesn't Let You Say Goodbye (1.09)

Truly, I don't understand fanfics that make Oliver socially adept, or better at grasping social situations than Felix.

Oliver is the guy who didn't realize that he had a crush on Felix until he was licking the guy's dirty bathwater off the bottom of the bathtub just to get the slightest taste of Felix's cum.

Oliver is the guy who goes starry-eyed and empty-headed at the slightest hint of praise or affection from Felix, but has approximately zero ability to recognize flirting. He doesn't even confidently recognize Venetia's flirting until Elspeth tells him outright that Venetia sleeps with anyone and everyone.

Oliver is the guy who is so bad at forethought that he makes up extremely blatant on-the-spot lies about his entire family situation to Felix while daydreaming about one day becoming Mr. Felix Catton; he's also the guy who impulse murders the man he's obsessed with, only to be so overcome with distress and grief at the discovery that murder causes death that he winds up fucking Felix's fresh grave for lack of any other ideas, just to be close to Felix's body in whatever way he can for any little bit longer he can get.

Oliver is the epitome of No Thoughts, Just Actions.

Oliver is very good at taking advantage of opportunities in the moment, but he is not good at planning out long-term... anything, really!

Oliver does a bunch of stuff, and then looks back and retroactively pretends that he totally had a plan the whole time, definitely For Sure.

Meanwhile, Felix is the one who plays dumb, but is almost certainly smarter and more self-aware than he lets on.

Felix is the one who likes to have control.

Felix is the one who responds to Oliver's, "You can give it [the bike] back to me later; we're in the same college," by riding off on Oliver's bike and shouting over his shoulder that he'll, "leave it in the bike shed," thus denying Oliver the opportunity to control their next meeting and ensuring that he (Felix) is the one to decide when/if they talk again.

Felix is the one to call Oliver over to his table in the pub when he sees Oliver alone at the bar, and he's the one to ask if Oliver was at the pub with friends, while very much not extending any invitation for Oliver's potential friend(s) to join his table.

Felix is nearly always the one, on the surface, controlling their interactions.

The fact that Oliver had so much more control than Felix knew, in part by all the information Oliver had about himself that Felix didn't have access to and didn't know he was being lied to about, devastated him.

And the fact that Oliver would have happily given Felix so much more control if Felix would have granted him some level of security/certainty in the longevity of their friendship, the fact that Oliver's lies and the control he held onto were all about pleasing Felix so that Felix would keep him around, is one of the best details of their downfall.

So a few months ago there was the discourse about would you rather meet a man or a bear in the woods. I didn't want to touch it while the discourse was hot and everyone dug in hard because those are not good conditions for nuance, but I waited until today, June 1st, for a specific reason.

I'm not going to take a position in the bear vs man debate because I don't think it matters. What is really being asked here is how afraid are you of men? Specifically, unexpected men who are, perhaps, strange.

People have a lot of very real fear of men that comes from a lot of very real places. Back when I was first transitioning in 2015 and 2016, I decided to start presenting as a woman in public even though I did not pass in the slightest.

I live in a red state. I knew other trans women who had been attacked by men, raped by men. I knew I was taking a risk by putting myself out there. I was the only visibly trans person in the area of campus I frequented, and people made sure I never forgot that. Most were harmless enough and the worst I got from them was curious stares. Others were more aggressive, even the occasional threat. I had to avoid public bathrooms, of course, and always be aware of my surroundings.

I know how frightening it is to be alone at night while a pair of men are following behind you and not knowing if they are just going in the same direction or if they want to start something - made all the worse for the constant low level threat I had been living under for over a year by just being visibly trans in a place where many are openly hostile to queer people. You have to remember, this was at the height of the first wave of bathroom law discussions, a lot of people were very angry about trans women in particular. My daily life was terrifying at times. I was never the subject of direct violence, but I knew trans women who had been.

I want you to keep all that in mind.

So man or bear is really the question "how afraid of men are you?", and the question that logically follows is "What if there was a strange man at night in a deserted parking lot?" or "What if you were alone in an elevator with a man?" or "What if you met a strange man in the woman's bathroom?"

My state recently passed an anti trans bathroom bill. The rhetoric they used was about protecting women and children from "strange men", aka trans women.

Conservatives hijack fear for their bigoted agenda.

When I first started presenting as a woman the campus apartment complex was designed for young families. The buildings were in a large square with playgrounds in the center, and there were often children playing. I quickly noticed that when I took my daughter out to play, often several children would immediately stop what they were doing and run back inside. It didn't take me long to confirm that the parents were so afraid of "the strange man who wears skirts" that their children were under strict instructions to literally run away as soon as they saw me.

"How afraid are you of a strange man being near your children?"

I mentioned above that I had to avoid public bathrooms. This was not because of men. It was because of women who were so afraid of random men that they might get violent or call someone like the police to be violent for them if I ever accidentally presented myself in a way that could be interpreted as threatening, when my mere presence could be seen as a threat. If I was in the library studying and I realized that it was just me and one other woman I would get up and leave because she might decide that stranger danger was happening.

Your fear is real. Your fear might even come from lived experiences. None of that prevents the fact that your fear can be violent. Women's fear of men is one of the driving forces of transmisogyny because it is so easy to hijack. And it isn't just trans women. Other trans people experience this, and other queer people too. Racial minorities, homeless people, neurodivergent people, disabled people.

When you uncritically engage with questions like man or bear, when you uncritically validate a culture of reactive fear, you are paving the way for conservatives and bigots to push their agenda. And that is why I waited until pride month. You cannot engage and contribute to the culture of reactive fear without contributing to queerphobia of all varieties. The sensationalist culture of reactive fear is a serious queer issue, and everyone just forgot that for a week as they argued over man or bear. I'm not saying that "man" is the right answer. I am saying that uncritically engaging with such obvious click bait trading on reactive fear is a problem. Everyone fucked up.

It is not a moral failing to experience fear, but it is a moral responsibility to keep a handle on that fear and know how it might harm others.