Bohemian Rhapsody - Review

I think in my whole life, I never met anyone who didn't love Queen. Don't get me wrong, I know a shitload of people who only know "Bohemian Rhapsody" and/or "We Are The Champions" and/or "We Will Rock You" - who simply are not massive fans who know everything about the band and to be fair, I'm far from knowing every little bit of trivia or every song by heart. But regardless of that - no matter if I ask my almost 70 years old grandma or my mum who's in her forties or my friends in their twenties or my teenage siblings - everyone loves Queen and their music. Those guys are legends. And as legends deserve, as of late October, we now have a movie about this band to follow them through their career.

The movie starts out in 1970 with young Freddie Bulsara (Rami Malek), who is a college student and baggage handler at Heathrow airport, seeing a band live and meeting them after the show. The band, at this point only guitarist Brian May (Gwilym Lee) and drummer Roger Taylor (Ben Hardy) after their original lead singer and bassist just dropped out, can quickly be convinced that Freddie should be their new voice. Add bassist John Deacon (Joseph Mazello) and Queen is born. In the same night, Freddie also meets Mary Austin (Lucy Boynton) and they start dating.

They play local gigs all over the UK, sell Rogers van to get the money necessary to record an album and almost immediately land a contract with EMI records. Freddie legally changes his name to Freddie Mercury. While his mother and sister seem to be pretty supportive, his father is having none of all of this. Freddie proposes to Mary, who he lives with at this point.

On their first very successful U.S. tour, he begins to realize he is also attracted to men.
From then on we follow the band (but mostly Freddie) through the centuries, through their different songwriting processes (for Bohemian Rhapsody as much as for Another One Bites The Dust or We Will Rock You), different hairstyles, Freddies coming-out to and break up with Mary, Freddie becoming more and more extravagant, Freddie going solo, and ultimately, the reconciliation of the band for the legendary Life Aid concert in 1985, shortly after Freddie learned that he has AIDS.
I don't want to give away too many details because this is a movie that you should see yourself. That much in advance.

I want to say: I love this movie a lot. I laughed, I cried, I did both at the same time, as did my friends who went to see it with me. It was big and bold and beautiful. I think, to us poor souls who haven't spend a single second of being alive at the same time as Freddie Mercury, this is the closest thing that we can get to seeing Queen live on stage. 

There are several aspects I liked especially, first of all, the portrayal of not one musical mastermind but four who complement each other - something people who are not die-hard Queen fans might not be too aware of. Seeing the process of songs like the ones mentioned above has its very own magic.
Another thing was the portrayal of Freddie Mercury's sexuality. Opinions diverge on the question whether he was gay or bisexual, and while this was a huge point for criticism in other reviews, I personally like that this question was not answered completely throughout the movie - simply because Freddie never truly answered the question himself. Which one it truly was is a secret he took to his early grave. However, we still get a great portrayal of a queer character who can be read as gay or bi or something without a defining label, but definitely queer. That said - even with his AIDS infection, there is no pity porn in this movie. He is not defined by his queerness alone, he is not struggling because of his queerness alone, it is made just as much a deal of as necessary when you make a movie about Freddie Mercury, not too much, not too little. It felt very healthy that way.
Coming to speak of portrayal, I am a massive fan of the cast. Just look at this: 

They look so incredibly alike! This is one A-plus cast! I am in awe! Even if they didn't make an effort to play their roles properly, this is Queen! Big applause for this cast!

Last but not least, I have read a good portion of criticism regarding the portrayal of the bands (read: not only Freddies) excessive parties including a shitload of drugs and a shitload of sex. To be honest, I think the movie hinted towards that a good bit without showing too much, and I think that makes it more accessible for everyone to watch, so that's a good thing! The way I saw this movie, it wasn't at all swept under the carpet that these guys were no saints, it just wasn't shown too explicitly, and that's ok because not everyone wants to see that kind of things. 
To be honest, I think this movie might be worth some awards, and I really hope that it becomes a legend as well, just as Queen themselves.

Love Letter to the Discord Family or Why everyone should have a solid support group

On March 6th 2018 I joined the Discord server "ThistleFly" and I think this day may have changed my life a bit.
This server is Liam Dryden's server, the internet dad whose content I have enjoyed for ages. You might think, ok, that is a fan group, and in a sense, I guess that's true. But mostly, it is just an amazing community with a lot of very wholesome people taking care of each other.

When I joined this server I was in a not so good place mentally: I had only two weeks left in a job that I had quit because even though it paid me well and apparently I was good at it, it did not make me happy, and despite my efforts I hadn't found a new job yet that would at the same time secure me a living and make me be happier. And I use the word "happier" on purpose because "actually happy" was off the table, given that happiness for me still is to be found in a field where propper jobs are very rare. So I felt a bit shitty about myself and everything.

Now there were all these new people and I didn't really know anyone yet, which usually is a situation I don't do too well in, especially when I am having a rough time. Gladly, I didn't need to - because all of them were incredibly welcoming to begin with, as if we'd known each other for years.
Off to a great start, I quickly became comfortable enough to share my worries, and without second question, people would catch me. I can't really put it much differently, because this is exactly how I felt: Caught when falling. By people who didn't even know me. I felt secure with those people ever since.

Of course a big part of this is down to Liam: The rules he set up are all designed to have a respectful, friendly basis with each other, and the people he made mods are incredibly good at enforcing those rules. However, it is very rarely that they even have to bring the rules up or even kick someone - those people are just respectful and friendly to begin with.

Now I have this great bunch who have my back, who I can talk to about everything, may it be negging about stuff I am angry or sad about, may it be my period, literally everything. I can post my art there or my blogposts or selfies and there's always someone to tell me I am good and encourage me to continue what I do. There's people reminding me to hydrate, telling me that I should be asleep right now, telling me my feelings are valid and that it's ok to feel like I feel even if how I feel may not be good or happy at that point. They are taking care of me. And I am taking care of them. We keep holding each other up and I think this is beautiful.

Honestly, I have never felt so loved and seen ever in my life before. Of course, I have friends and my family and my fiance and I would not want to weigh them up against the people in the Discord. But the big difference is that due to timezones, there's always someone up, and due to the sheer number of people there's always someone who is up for the task in that moment. And that is something I truly wouldn't want to do without again ever.
Dear Discord Family, I love you so so much. Thank you for being there.

The future isn't female, but the present is male

Last week, I read an article on the German blog Im Gegenteil titled "The future isn't female - a plea for more cooperation between the genders" that was, in my eyes, pretty ill-informed and not fully thought through. I decided to write an article myself, an alternative to what the other author wrote and made feminism out to be. This article was originally published on Im Gegenteil in German as well. 

Oh, when will we finally get rid of that old fairytale that feminists want to get rid of men. When will critics of feminism finally realize what feminists already know: That feminists, of course, don't want to get rid of men, because a) it's simply impossible and b) doesn't help at all?
Why do so many people still believe this nonsense? Probably because they lack the willingness to abstract. Because the thing feminism wants to get rid of is the patriarchy, the supremacy of men - and when we say "men", we mean masculinity as a social concept, not "each and every individual man has to cease to exist". Maybe that is because we are not a children's playtime club, no fancy trend that is in right now, but individuals with a political opinion - opinions, that is, which can differ a lot and can be expressed differently as well, of course. Because that is basically the main point of feminism: We are not a homogenous group. Because women are not a homogenous group. Men aren't either, by the way.

Now some may say: "When neither men nor women are a homogenous group, why do you fight against the supremacy of men, isn' t that a contradiction?"
Let's start at the very beginning, with the idea that "man" and "woman" are merely categories that we as humans use for ourselves. The failure of those begins when we are asking for definitions: What makes someone a man or a woman? A lot of people love to answer that with genitals or chromosomes. I'm sorry to disappoint you: Even from a biological view there are not only man and woman, two categories existing strictly like this. There's way more variety than XX and XY and there's a spectrum between vagina and penis. I know, all of us learned that differently in school but just because our curriculum is simplified that doesn't mean reality is as well.

So it's natural to just assume that gender is a social construct and that also means that so-called femininity and masculinity are only learned behaviours. And now we are at the roots: We live in a society that works within these exact categories. We humans just really love our labels. In the end, the aim is that each and every person can do what he or she or they or every other pronoun should be able to do whatever they want. Every person should be able to live however they want and however it makes them happy. Of course with the usual limits: My freedom ends where it limits the freedom of someone else. That goes in every direction - doing things that don't fit your socially assigned gender role, doing exactly those things, everything in between.

And yes, sure, by law we already got pretty far, but only because it already got better that doesn't mean we are already done. When I go on vacation I don't stop half-way down the road either and say "Ok, here we are, vacation time!" when I'm still in France but originally planned to go to Portugal. Sure, by law we can live our lives quite freely already. The problem is mainly the reactions of others to how we live - sure, women can have a career, but there's still always the worry that they could get pregnant the next second and go on maternity leave. Even when they can't have children. Which is not anyone's business, really. And even if they get pregnant: Why does it harm the professional life of the person giving birth so much, but not the person who impregnated them? When we always say that it takes two people to make a child (which is correct), why is only one of them taking the responsibility for it? Why isn't it more normal for both parents to equally take care of their child? We are having a structural problem here, a vicious circle that needs to be broken. And that isn't only the case here but also when the topic is the choice of profession, the gender pay gap, and many more.

The point is: Yes, theoretically, women can be and do everything they want in Germany, but it will be so much harder as soon as they want to be or do something that is viewed as masculine. The other way around as well. Ever seen the drama when a man wants to be a nurse or a kindergarten teacher?
My favourite argument is still that it is women making other women's lives miserable. And again: yes! It was never about blaming one gender. Sometimes I wish it was that easy because that would make these problems way easier to solve. The sad truth is: women are sexist. Of course they are. All of us are sexist. Simply because we live in and are socialized by a sexist society. Vicious circle, again.

So when we agree that everyone should be able to live a life in equality and well-being regardless of gender and that neither women are the only victims of the patriarchy nor men are the only ones responsible for it: Why call it feminism and not humanism? That's basically not wrong. On the German Wikipedia page about humanism you can read the following definition: "[Humanism] drafts an ideal society where the best possible personal development of every individual person should be enabled. This is linked to criticism of current circumstances which are opposing this goal from the viewpoint of humanism." So you could say in your best conscience: Feminism is always humanistic. The reason to still call it feminism is explained just as quickly: When everything that is viewed as masculine by humanity is valued more than everything that is categorized as feminine we have to bring both to an equal level. And only then we have a chance to get rid of those categories for good.
So yes, I do agree: The future isn't female. The future is diverse and great for everyone. And yes, for that to happen all of us have to work together regardless of gender. So please: Reflect on yourself, your thoughts, your behavious, talk to your friends, family and everyone you know, raise your children to be individuals and maybe, in a few generations, we can be truly humanist. Because feminism is only necessary as long as sexism exists.

Where am I?

This blogpost was originally published in German as part of the Retales series on countessleto.wordpress.de. 

"Where am I?"
This seems to be a question that customers just love to ask themselves but only after entering a shop and asking the assistants one or two questions. Or not at all. You usually get whether or not they did based on what they ask you.

During my bookseller apprenticeship, there were two types of people. Type 1 was all the people (and yes, they were quite a lot) entering and saying something like: "Hello, I'd like a book please." Internally, I'd roll my eyes at them and make a huge gesture around the room, as if to say: "IF ONLY WE HAD BOOKS!?" Of course you can't really do that. Instead, I'd ask a simple counter-question: "Would you like to specify that question a bit?" Usually, that'd do the deal.

Not with type 2 though - type 2 enters and asks for everything except for books. Sure, we can help out with some of those things, like calendars, planners, notebooks and so on. But then... all the times people asked me for stamps. Kind of related, sure, but no, you get stamps at the post office just down the road. Usually, they said that's too far away. But people also requested completely unrelated things like CD-players. And the best thing about that is: When you start explaining that you don't have what the customer was asking for - they start discussions. "That's incredibly bad service!" I mean, sure, but that doesn't make the thing appear magically out of thin air. I'll order any available book for you overnight, it would be my pleasure, really, but I can't get my hands on a CD-player just like that. That's not my job either. I'm a bookseller after all.

Now, about a year after I finished my apprenticeship, I work at a crafts shop because the job market for booksellers is shit. Maybe that would be different if people would ask us for books for once instead of CD-players. But oh well... crafts shop it is. Don't you think that kind of conversation was done now, oh no, it just changed.

"Hello, I'd like to present my gift of money in a lovely way, do you happen to have a good idea for that?" (By the way, I love it when the word 'idea', which is the name of the shop as well, gets emphasized like that and then the customer thinks they made the greatest pun ever. Didn't hear that one before. Yes, you came up with that as the first person ever. So funny.) Yes, I have one or two ideas. Look, here, frame with cords, you can hang your money on there and put some stuff around that matches the occasion or the presentees interests. "Oh, that's too elaborate for me, that would require crafting." Thanks to some colleagues I know it's perfectly fine here to answer: "Well, you are in a crafts shop here..." Doesn't help though. Crafting ideas in a crafts shop, who would come up with that crazy kind of ideas? Then the customer lays an eye on the models in the shelf for inspiration and asks if they could buy that one instead. In some cases, they can, for example, the Schultüten (school cones, google it, that's pretty specific for Germany). When you tell them the price though, they usually lose it within seconds. They absolutely love to make a counteroffer that doesn't only disrespect the hours of work one of my colleagues put into it but also is way below the mere cost of the used materials. But buying ready for use packaging for gifts of money somewhere else is bad because you want something individual and not staple goods.

And here, as well, there are customers that go completely wild and yell and curse when you don't have what they are looking for. My favourite so far was an elderly man, I still don't know what he was actually looking for because his explanation was really inadequate before he started yelling at me, cursing on about todays youth and, anyway, no surprise retail is dying when we don't have what he wants. I could only smile about that. Because at some point you learn that those kind of moments are actually reeeeally funny when you yourself actually have nothing to do with them at all.

Re: Chemnitz

August 25th/26th 2018, Chemnitz, Saxony, Germany: Daniel Hillig, a German man of Cuban heritage, antifascist, is stabbed to death - allegedly by two refugees. The next day, hordes of Nazis hunt people of colour in the city.

August 27th: The Nazis organize what they call a "funeral march" - several thousands of Nazis attacking people of colour again, giving Hitler salutes and showing their naked asses. So much for mourning. For the first time (that I am aware of) there are more people demonstrating on the right-wing side than in the counter-demonstration. While the Hitler salute is illegal in Germany, the cops do nothing against them. While there are bottles and other stuff being thrown by the Nazis, cops are pointing their water guns at the antifascists. While the Nazis do all the things that lead to left-wing people being violently punished by cops at other demonstrations (e.g. the G20 protests in Hamburg), cops turn a blind eye today. There are thousands of counter-demonstrators, even more Nazis present, and only a few hundred cops. The proportions are worse than for every football game. Some might conclude from this that it's not wanted to hold Nazis back.

There are demonstrations like this almost every day now. In Chemnitz, but also in Dresden. The Nazis are violent, harassing and physically attacking people of colour, journalists, and antifascists. Most media outlets still hold back from calling them Nazis or right-wing extremists and still call them "worried" or "mourning". However, everyone who is against Nazis is called left-wing. In my opinion, left wing wouldn't even be a bad thing, but it simply isn't true.

It'd be easy to say that all of this popped up surprisingly. It didn't. When in 2015 the first massive bunch of refugees came to Germany, racist voices started to become louder. The Alternative für Deutschland (alternative for Germany), a racist party, was formed and got more and more successful. Bit by bit it got more accepted to say racist things out loud, after all, those people were "just worried", bit by bit it got more en vogue for people not being openly racist to be aggressively centrist, claiming that Nazis and antifascists were equally bad. People are still claiming that.

One thing that helped Nazis to get this loud again was the discourse being shifted more and more to cater to them. The CDU/CSU (Christian/conservative party), one of the major parties in Germany, increasingly discusses more racist views, even the social democrats are in the center at best nowadays. Increasingly more threatening statements got excused and played down again and again. Nazis are given a huge platform in talk shows and similar outlets. The general idea seems to be to listen to Nazis and their so-called "worries" to solve the problems they see so they can't use them for their hate and violence. It's a noble and well-meant approach - it just doesn't work.

The other huge factor in the uprising of the Nazis is the silent majority that doesn't say anything when facing racist worldviews - and equates Nazis and anti-fascists who don't stay silent. It all seems incredibly bizarre. People have been comfortably waiting for it to get so bad that even us white people who are not targeted by racism can't turn a blind eye to it anymore. And some are still trying to.

Another factor that played into the Nazis hands perfectly was the exaggeration of the so-called refugee crisis. This term has been incredibly present in the media for the past three years, and in my opinion, it was made much more of a big deal than it ever actually was. Yes, it started out pretty chaotic - after all, there were thousands of new people suddenly in Germany that no one really knew how to deal with first. It was a new extreme situation. But you know what? I think it was handled pretty well - no one who was in Germany before had a worse life or huge problems because of it. Now some might say that there has been a lot of crimes happening from the hands of refugees. And that is true. However, there have been a lot of crimes happening from the hands of people born and raised here as well. It is a fact that there are no more refugee offenders than non-refugee offenders. It is logical that when there are more people, there's more crime. The proportion stays the same though. It is also logical that in the age of the internet, people are painfully more aware of crimes happening around them than before the internet was such a wide-spread thing. That plus the prioritization of refugee offenders over non-refugee offenders in the media leads to a bizarre distortion of the public perspective that is not very close to the truth. The thing is that no one is saying that individual refugees can't be shitty people and are generally perfect human beings. Refugees are just as little of a homogenous group as German citizens are, neither in being perfect nor in being all bad. If only Saxons would put as much energy in making that clear as they put into defending themselves of being generalized as Nazis because they are so common here... However, no one ever gets tired of assuming that this is what antifascists think.

All of this is happening an one hour drive away from where I live.
Saxony's prime minister Michael Kretschmer refuses to see an actual Nazi problem but worries more about the image of Saxony. Dear Michael Kretschmer, dear everyone who worries about all people in Saxony being seen as Nazis now: We have a bigger problem than our image right now. I will stand for having to explain that I am antifascist every time I mention that I am from Saxony if it means that our very real and very bad Nazi problem gets taken seriously.

I was at none of the demonstrations. Mostly because those were always during my working hours this week. But to be brutally honest: I don't know if I had gone if I had been available. Because I am scared. I am very very scared of Nazis, especially with my constantly decreasing trust in public authorities to manage situations like this. And even with me not going to the demonstrations, I am also scared of going home alone at night right now (which I have to when working the late shift), mostly because it's important to me right now to be visibly antifascist, so I wear my jackets with antifascist patches, but that might make me a target. I can only imagine how people of colour feel right now. I can leave that patches at home. They can't.

It's all a big mess. We got a big mess happening over here. I'd love to say that I had done everything in my power to stop that from happening, but I haven't. I am personally co-responsible to all of this happening right now. All of us could have done more. I have been silent too. Not every time, but too many times when facing racism, I have been silent. Even though a lot of people around me have constantly been annoyed by me talking a lot about racism and Nazis being a problem, even though people have called me to radical and too extreme in my attempt on anti-fascism, I have not been annoying enough, not been loud enough. I realized that when I mentioned to a colleague this week that I was worried about friends who may have gone to Chemnitz to demonstrate and who I haven't heard of again yet and she had to ask me what side my friends were on. I thought it was obvious. It wasn't.

So this is ground zero for me and everyone to do now, the very least: Making clear what side you are on. Not only not agreeing but visibly and audibly dis-agreeing with Nazis. Even if all you reply to racist remarks is "I disagree", it is something. Don't let them believe that you agree just because you didn't say otherwise. Yes, that includes friends and family and it hurts. But it has to be done.
Another thing all of us can do is to look out for each other. If you can't go to demonstrations yourself for whatever reason, at least listen out for your friends who are going, make sure they got home safely again, take care of their mental well-being afterward. Also, reach out for your friends of colour twice as much. If you can, offer people who otherwise can't go to demonstrations but would to look after their children or pets. If you can, offer your friends to help them to pay for train tickets to Chemnitz. Support people who demonstrate against Nazis.

Thirdly, criticise the media and the police when necessary. Don't stay silent on unhelpful phrasing in the news or cops turning a blind eye to Nazis. Hold them accountable for their part in this.
And last but not least, as usual, go and vote in each and every election you come across. Because if Nazis win elections, shit will hit the fan. Seriously. We can not let this happen.
To all readers from outside of Germany: Please look out for us as well. Reach out for your friends living here. Spread the word about what's happening right now. Especially since our oh so precious image might take a hit or two - don't shut up. Please make our officials aware that you are seeing what's happening here and that you don't approve of it - so that they finally start acting.

Disentchantment - Review

Yes, this is it: My first review for a tv show! So far, the reason I never did one was that most of the time, I am hella late to the party. Not this time, though - Disentchantment was released on Netflix on August 17th, and we binged it over the weekend real quick.

Disentchantment is about Princess Bean, the princess of Dreamland, a fictional medieval country located on a cliff. The whole setting is based on epic fantasy franchises like The Lord of the Rings or Game of Thrones, but in old Matt Groening fashion, it takes the piss out of it. Princess Bean is a teenager, rebellious against her strict father, prone to drinking a lot and simply willing to have a good old time with booze and sex. Also, she misses her mother who got killed when she was a child, and feels very distant from her stepmother Una, who is some kind of fish-creature. The story starts with her getting married to a prince to form an alliance. Disguised as a wedding gift, she is sent a personal demon, Lucifer, who encourages her to go after her urges, and drunk Bean ruins her wedding and runs away. In the middle of it all we also meet Elfo, the elf (duh), who left the Elf Kingdom because everything was too happy and peaceful for his taste. Basically, Elfo and Lucifer act as the shoulder angel and devil for Bean, even though Elfo isn't very good at his job as the voice of peace. Beans dad thinks Lucifer is a speaking cat, and allows Elfo to the castle because with the help of his elf blood, he hopes to be able to find immortality.

While the first one or two episodes aren't that good, the story quickly picks up pace. The initial set-up, character introduction etc. is a bit lame, but it is worth to stick through that for the more interesting stuff. While I have to say that so far, I enjoyed The Simpsons and Futurama way more than Disentchantment, there is a lot of potential, and it is an overall enjoyable tv show after all. And as long as I enjoyed a thing, why should I not say it?

#MenAreTrash - A discourse

Embroidery by Fembroidery (Instagram), please check her out and give her all the love and money!

The place is German Twitter. One of the trending hashtags is #MenAreTrash. It started with a brown feminist trying to explain that sexism is a structural problem and can't be solved by individuals only - no matter how nice and cool individual men are, men as a social group and masculinity as a social construct are a problem. We can't sustain on the few individual men that are reflecting their behaviour when they stay exceptions to a norm that stays sexist. I'd say that is a pretty simple thing to understand. Now you might say "but you haven't been called trash, you're a woman, you are not adressed by this" - true! But as a white cis woman I do get adressed when trans people call cis people trash, or when people of colour call white people trash. And I accept that. I accept that there is things going wrong between different social groups here, and that no one actually means that I am trash because of the colour of my skin or for agreeing with the gender I was assigned at birth. What they mean is: White people, cis people and, yes, men hold the privilege and the power to actually change something, and yet they don't most of the time - either they actively work against the change, or they refuse to reflect on themselves to start change from within their own behaviour, or they don't actively citicize their peers when they show problematic behaviour. And I recognize that I am by far not an exception and could do more when people tell me that cis people are trash or white people are trash for not speaking out for their fellow human beings who are not as privileged.

Now the first reaction to hashtags like #MenAreTrash are defensive ones. That is just natural - no one wants to be insulted, that's normal. The problem is that this defense very quickly turns into aggression - "I am not trash because I am a man, you deserve to be raped and killed" is a thing I have read way too often in the past few hours. Let me make one thing clear: When you're trying to proof that you are not an asshole, behaving like one and threatening others is propably not the best approach unless you really, really want to confirm the original statement. Now if that was only the reaction of very few people, that would be almost ok. Would be bearable. But it isn't. It's so so many.

Another reaction that is incredibly common is people arguing that aggressive hashtags like #MenAreTrash are a not helping the cause and only paint feminism in a bad light (and provoking reactions like the one above). That it would be the better approach to discuss peacefully and friendly. While I agree that this would be the ideal way: It doesn't really matter anymore how you talk about feminism. Ninetynine percent of the time, you won't be taken seriously anyway. You will be laughed at, belittled at best, insulted and threatened, at the worst you will actively experience physical and sexual violence or even be killed. These are all things that happen at a shockingly high rate when women speak out for equal rights, no matter how calm and friendly they are being. No matter what a fucking ray of sunshine we are being while trying to discuss this, we will get the same reactions. So why should we always take the high road? Why not yell out all the anger and frustration that sticks to our hearts all the time, each and every day, if it makes no difference anyway? To me, #MenAreTrash is an outlet for all the things we usually don't say, all the anger we bottled up over the years, everything we usually swallow in the naive hope that we could somehow be understood and be taken seriously, that we somehow could induce reconsideration and change if we just stayed calm while our counterparts give us shit. That's the thing: No one tries to police the tone of the ones we are talking to. But everyone asks us to be nice and polite while being harrassed and threatened, additionally to all the micro-aggressions we endure on a daily basis when feminism/sexism isn't even the topic. It's frustrating. And this is what is exploding right now with this hashtag. This is a telling-off.
Basically, #MenAreTrash is like when two people fight face to face and one calls the other one an asshole. Not necessarily because the other one is definitely and irreversibly an asshole, but because you are so incredibly angry about the actual reason for the fight. And when the other person just says: "Sure, you have absolutely legit criticism here with all the arguments and stuff but you called me an asshole so I won't listen to anything you just said no matter how reasonable it is!" - well, they can't be helped then.

So the overall insight of this is: Feminism is angry. Feminism is uncomfortable. Because it sometimes has to be - at least, it got people talking. Maybe, some day, they'll also start to listen. And then, only then, we can start to work on the problem all together.

Excursion To Poetry #4 - Aug. 2018

Dear sir,

allow me to stick to my principles,
the most important one being that
I treat everyone
with basic human decency,
and thus I will not insult you
or belittle you,
even though I couldn't loathe you more.
Ironically,
this is a thing you helped me learn,
even while you had so much trouble doing so youself.

You met me as a teenager, and as a teacher,
it was your job to teach me,
not only for your class and exams but for life,
and so you did.
Just very differently than you thought you would,
I guess.

You were one of the so thinly spread male teachers I ever had, and yet,
you tought me to be a feminist.
Not because you were one yourself,
but because you were not,
and you showed me problems in our society from your perspective 
I just approach them a way
you propably never intended me to.

You taught me linguistics
that language is in constant change
that the limits of my language mean the limits of my world
and I took from it that
as long as the generic masculine
is the norm in my mother tongue
this world will be a mans world indeed.
Pardon me for writing this letter in English:
it is easier to use a language that doesn't deny my existence.

You taught me
that people become aggressive
and violent when they're about to lose something
or someone they value.
I have to thank you for that
because it prepared me for everything to come
every moment when someone really valued me.

And in the same lection
you taught me that
the best way to show
an enemy your teeth
is a smile.
So I will smile at you.
I will give you the warmest
most genuine smile
if we ever meet again.

Dear sir,
it is a shame we loathe each other so much.
The things that we could learn
together
if just we could have
a no-nonsense talk,
just once.

Ant-Man and The Wasp - Review

Aaaaah, Ant-Man and The Wasp, my shining beacon in the darkness that Infinity War left not only for me. Mostly because it meant that this wasn't the end for forgettable me completely ignoring Infinity War being promoted as a two-part film already, and it also meant that the next step was something funny and somewhat light (even within the MCU which is very humoristic at all times anyway to begin with).

Well, the thing is: Ant-Man and The Wasp is set a little before/during Infinity War and not, as my no-trailers-watching ass thought, shortly after it. I really need to get across to myself that the MCU is not linear at all. (Wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey, I have to add as someone currently re-watching Doctor Who).

The movie starts with a flashback to Hopes childhood and the day her parents left for work (apparently, at that point, young Hope doesn't know about them being super heroes) and only Hank coming back. This flashback beautifully doubles as an introduction of Janet, The Wasp, being a warm-hearted, loving mother and wife which I like a lot to begin with - because she is all of that, all this things traditionally tied to a very feminine role, and at the exact same time she is also a hero, a fighter, courageous, bad-ass, all things that within traditional gender roles and traditional gender coding in fiction get mutually excluded with the role of the emotional care-taker. I just really like that at this point we seem to be beyond the point were female super heroes had to be all serious and cold and "one of the boys" to be heroic. At the end of the flashback we see Hank suggesting to Hope that, since Scott was able to come back from the Quantum Realm, Janet may still be alive and could be retrieved from there as well, and they start building a tunnel to do so.

Cut to Scott, who after Civil War and participating in trashing the airport in Leipzig (which I, as a person born and raised and living in Leipzig have a bit of hard feelings about as well) with Captain America and his team is on house arrest. He currently has his daughter Cassie over, they manage to have a lot of fun even without being able to leave the house and Scott is just being a great dad. You guys see this? Great role model. Just maybe without the crime and jailtime before that. We also get to see that the relationship to his ex-wife Maggie and her boyfriend Paxton got a lot better, they are all having a good big old patchwork family thing going on, and this warms my cold, empty heart after Infinity War and I really needed this, so thanks Marvel, you did well! (I will stop gushing mid-plot summary now).

After Cassie leaves, Scott takes a bath and has a vision of Janet. He contacts Hank, even though he's not supposed to be in contact with him and Hope. Shortly after he gets stung by an ant, faints and wakes up in a car with Hope. Turns out, she and Hank are very angry at him for going to Germany without saying anything, but since Hank sees the vision as a sign that Janet is still alive, he wants Scotts help to relocate her. Willing to make the tunnel more stable, they try to get a part from a black market dealer called Sonny Birch, who turns out wanting to get into their business and trying to blackmail them into it. When Hope aka the new Wasp figths him and his team, Ghost turns up and steals the shrinked lab.

As you can see, summarizing the plot without telling to much is a bit of an issue because theres a lot of stuff going on with two antagonists, several storylines and just a lot happening in general, but somehow, when you see the full movie, it doesn't get confusing at all - it's just like real life, just a lot going on simultaneously. What we get is a lot of character developement happening, a lot of plot to begin with and theres still plenty of room for the typical Ant-Man humour (both old fan favourites like Luis, everyones fucking son, taking veeery wide stretches to re-tell stuff, and new running gags as well) and nicely done action sequences. It's just overall a pretty well-made movie in my opinion, just the right mix of everything that makes Marvel movies special.

I already gushed on a lot about how much I love the character introduction of Janet and the portrayal of Scott as a dad, but I also want you to know that I adore ghost - her character design reminds me of a post-apocalyptic dystopia and I am always here for that, and she has a very interesting back story.
Of course, we don't know how and if the Ant-Man series will continue after Infinity War (and that makes all of this very frustrating let me tell you!) but I really hope it does because let's be honest - Ant-Man is kind of my comfort place right now. Even with personally being really apalled by ants.

Making a wedding: A good location is a good location is a good location

Our final location, the Parkgaststätte in Leipzig. Photo by Mario Reizig

When I first read up on how to plan a wedding, step one was always: One year before the wedding, you should find a venue.
Now I am lucky enough to live in a city with dozens of suitable venues and something for every taste. So far, so good. Planning with 70 people (including me and my future husband plus people like the photographer and the DJ) didn't sound too unreasonable too. So I started extra early and googled for locations and started sending out inquiries about the conditions. My checklist for a good venue included that it had to be within a good range of public transport (because most of my guests don't have a car), ideally also within range of hotels (because most guests will be from out of town), big enough to seat 70 people and still have a dance floor, of course somewhat pretty (but I was open about what kind of pretty) and I wanted it to be possible to have my mum do a cocktail bar. As a little background info: My mum is not a huge fan of weddings and is happy when she has something to do and isn't forced to do small talk with anyone. Also she makes awesome cocktails, so it's really a win-win situation.

I had one location specifically in mind that, from photos, I liked a lot. But when they answered, I think my jaw dropped a bit: While the cocktail bar thing was not possible (so they couldn't meet our wants), they would have cost 9000 Euros. That is almost our entire budget. And I did have that problem with more than one location. So alternatives had to be found.
It was also my mum who suggested a venue in her area that seemed to be perfect: Pretty, close to public transport and a few hotels, the cocktail bar was no problem and it was well within our budget - actually, it was way below out budget, so thats a good thing.

Or would be, if it wasn't so complicated to get an appointment for visiting it first. I inquired first in late April. They said visits were possible from Monday to Friday from 10am to 2pm. If I was to plan a birthday party for myself or something like that, I could have made those hours either on one of my days I have off during the week in excharge of working Saturdays or during a day where I have a late shift, but since this is our wedding, it is important to me that my fiance and I get to do this together, make a decision together etc., especially because he will pay the lions share of this wedding and even if he wasn't, he is very good at keeping my enthusiam and impulsiveness contained. After all, he is the Ben Wyatt to my Leslie Knope (insert "Awwwww!"). The thing is, my fiance works in that time span and the next time he would have had some days off were in June. I explained that to the guy on the phone and he said he could give me an appointment for a later hour in late May.

May comes, the day comes, and a few hours before the appointment, he calls and cancels - because the room is booked in that time. Who could have known earlier? I am not exactly thrilled about this, but we move the appointment to two weeks later. Two weeks later comes, this time, he at least calls me a few days before the appointment - and cancels again because he and his boss have to go get a donations check for their organisation. This time, I am angry. Its not that the appointment has to be cancelled, it is that it has to be cancelled because of absolutely preventable things and bad planning. If they cancelled because someone got sick or something like that, that would have been perfectly fine. So I tell him that yes, we can move the appointment one more time, but if that third appointment gets cancelled again, we're out. While I mean it as just telling things the way they are, he understands it as a threat and tells me that someone else is interested in renting the room for that date as well (which I already know) and brings up the lamest argument ever that he had brought up several times before already: "I told you you could come Monday to Friday from 10 to 2, I mean, how do you handle dentists appointments with that attitude?" And then I basically held a speech on the phone to him: I am a grown up woman and can handle dentists appointments very well without my fiance, thus, all I need to line up is my calender and the dentists calender. For this, I need three schedules to work together. If I was doing this on my own, I could do 10 to 2, but I am not marrying myself - I am marrying a guy who propably would like to have this wedding to his liking as well. And the reason we can't do Monday to Friday 10 to 2 is that we are working during that time which is necessary to earn the money that is necessary to pay for renting a room, and for the first appointment I already took a day off so I could make the appointment which then was cancelled, so maybe you can understand that by now, we are pretty worn down and if the third appointment doesn't happen again, we will have had enough of waiting. So this will be next week, 5pm?

After I hung up I was shaking a lot because I really held myself back from saying a lot of things that would have blown every chance of us ever renting that room. Also, I felt like a suburban soccer mum and I hated it. But the other option would have been to be a pushover and not say anything about this, right? So I had a cigarette, and then I searched for alternatives because I wasn't too sure about that room anymore. If I even still wanted to have our party there after all this. I inquired for a few other locations and made an appointment to visit another one the day before the final appointment for the first room. Everything was so smooth with the new alternative: A 5pm appointment was no problem, no one cancelled, we got there, they guy who showed us around got there, the quote he offered us wasn't too much higher than the other one, the only downsides were that the location was a bit further away from public transport and in another style than I originally wanted, but I could work with this. The next day, we actually got to see the room. It was less pretty than I thought it would be from the photos, it would have been a problem to fit all our guests in there, we would have to put a lot of extra work and organisation into making it fit our wishes... so we chose the alternative. So after all, the guy from the first location just postponed us opting out of renting that room by 1,5 months. He could have gotten that earlier.

After all this fuss with the first location, I am actually positively surprised how well everything went with the second one. Sure, we did have some waiting for replies because they were busy with graduation parties at the time, but apart from that the communication was perfect. So this is step 1 set for planning our big day - if everything else goes a bit more smoothly, things are going to be just fine!

Making a wedding: I'm a strong independent woman who... can't ask

So, as I mentioned since November - I am engaged.
No worries, this is not going to become a wedding blog or something, but I figured I'd really like to share my experiences along the way of planning a wedding, especially as someone who a) is a feminist and b) is a big fan of doing things differently and (hopefully) less expensive.
First of all, let me tell you: When I was a child, I was not a big fan of weddings and marriage in general. I had grown up in a family where a lot of people were divorced or didn't get married in the first place mostly because of that history of divorce. My family is pretty matriarchal due to that as well, because its the mothers (grandmothers, aunts, you name it) who usually stayed part of the family. My mum never married and always told me that she thinks that love doesn't need a wedding. And you know what? I still think she is right.

However, the older I got, the more I started dreaming of having this huge party. I like to celebrate love, and I like to break standards. So why not throw this huge party with someone you love? Sure, you could do it without the ceremony and all that fuss and without the comitment that comes with marriage. But that'd be only half the deal, right?

So generally, I'd like to get married for the experience which might be a pretty millenial approach, but here we go. The biggest problem about this is - I am also not big at long-term relationships. The half-life for my relationships is usually around 4 months. Not exactly a great basis for getting married.
Then I met my fiance. To be honest, this relationship started out like an experiment, I was by then pretty sure that I was more of a polyamorous person, he knew that he wanted monogamy - so basically the deal was "We try the monogamy thing, and see if it works for me and if not, we have a calm, mature talk about it and see what we can do about it or if we break up because it doesn't fit (which would be perfectly fine too)". So basically we did what should be the standard: Commiting to communicate. What can I say - so far, we didn't have any talk like this yet, mostly because this guy trusts me a lot and there is zero jealousy because of that. He trusts me that if I have urges I want to follow I will be honest with him, and he believes that if that happens, it just doesn't work and that would be ok too. So basically we are both very calm, not stressing out about the future too much and enjoying our time together. We are not the type for "forever" but more for "for now as long as it makes us happy" and thats great. And "for now" has lasted for 3 years already.
We had talked about our mutual wish to get married for pretty long already before there was an actual proposal, so we both knew that as long as we stayed together we'd both be in - not necessarily at any given time, but just in general.

After two and a half years, in October 2017, we moved in together for the first time and to me, it really felt like this was a huge milestone and at the same time a test to our relationship. Living with someone else is something I am not very good at either - I get easily annoyed by people when I need time on my own and past shared living situations showed that my idea of tidiness and others ideas of tidiness usually differ a lot. However, after a month, we still were absolutely chill with each other and when there were problems we managed to (boom, here it goes again) talk them out peacefully.
Now at the end of the month, something happened that made me really angry of my fiance (for the sake of the privacy of everyone involved we agreed not to disclose that any further on here - don't worry, while it was a pretty big deal to me, it wasn't something inherently toxic or even dangerous). Of course he apologized, but I still had a hard time swallowing what happened that evening.
The next day, I was in town for an appointment, and after that was done, I started to wander around a bit. I really like to do that from time to time, just walking through different shops not really buying anything, no music on my ears, just walking and thinking. And I thought about the last evening and how angry I had been... and somehow I started to randomly look at rings. Not expensive ones, actually really cheap rings. The idea to propose formed and finally I bought a set of rings for 24€ combined, asked the shop assistants for a box to put them into and to wish me luck. Because if after being so angry at him I still didn't spare even a thought to maybe ending the relationship, this was something.

So I had two rings in a box and went home, my heart beating very fast. At home, I didn't really manage to do the thing at first, but at some point, I sat on the couch and he somehow sat on a stool right in front of me which was pretty ideal, so I put the box in front of him and told him I brought something. He opened it, got all teary-eyed and started to grin like an idiot and kissed me and finally I asked "So, what do you say?" and he replied "Well, you haven't asked anything yet." It dawned on me that he was right, I hadn't. I propably blushed and went "I... I can't say it!" because it felt so weird to even think about saying those words out loud: Do you want to marry me?
So even while it was pretty awkward he did say yes, and I still like to end this story with the notion that it could all be a huge misunderstanding - because no one ever actually asked the question.
(By the way, he planned on proposing as well, wanted to do it on my birthday two weeks later.)

Avengers: Infinity War - Review

MASSIVE SPOILER WARNING! THERE WILL BE MASSIVE SPOILERS BECAUSE I GUESS EVERYTHING I COULD SAY IS A SPOILER SO I WON'T EVEN TRY!

 

Good, now that I have this out of my system, I can start to get everything about Infinity War out of my system as well - and obviously, there is a lot.
I assume that everyone reading this knows about the plot and the back story that lead to it so I will do without a summary of the story and jump right into the criticism/thoughts on different stuff. Cool? Cool.

Let's start with the first deaths: Loki and Heimdall. While a big part of me started liking the MCU because of Loki in Avengers (yes, I used to be that kind of basic teenage fangirl, don't judge me), Heimdall hit me a lot more personally. Loki already died before, so it's not something shocking or new to see - that's the problem with having characters die more than once, it makes the audience insensitive to it happening again. Even with the certainty that this time he won't come back - the Russo brothers aka Thanos made that very clear in a not so subtle way - there's still that feeling of "eh, he might come back after a while, he's too popular" that just lingers on. I don't trust Marvel on deaths anymore. Fun fact: The same thing happened to me with Doctor Who during the Moffat era and now I don't get emotional at all when a character dies in the DW universe.

However, rumors are the Russos argued that Loki will stay dead because, and I quote, "Tom Hiddleston is getting too old". Even though I completely agree that it's time for Loki to actually stay dead - are you fucking kidding me? Tom Hiddleston is 37. He is a lot younger than, say, Robert Downey junior, or Samuel L. Jackson, he is younger than Chadwick Boseman who is handled as "a fresh new face" - and besides, he did not change at all! When you compare Loki now to Loki in Thor 1, he still looks the same - if anything, just a bit worn down by all the things all of them have gone through. I don't know about you but Loki did have some very stressful years - if anything, he looks tired, and it makes perfect sense! Tom getting "old" is not even close to a good point of why Loki has to stay dead. Tom maybe not being willing anymore to play that role, letting go of him so he can turn to do other movies, Lokis character arc being pushed to the fullest, those are decent reasons. Get your shit together, please.

Another thing that starts right here is why I think that with Infinity War the MCU has outdone itself: The overall story is a story of failure. All those superheroes are doing their best to fight and stop Thanos, and a lot of times they did everything right, and they still fail. This makes Infinity War as frustrating as it is great because of this. It's something we all have to remember all the time, no matter how good we are doing and even if we do everything right there is potential to fail. Sure, in our personal lives failure rarely means the death of half the universe, but still - important to keep in mind. What's even more frustrating is all the times when you think they did it and then they didn't: Sure, it was clear that Loki wouldn't kill Thanos because then the movie would have been over within minutes (even though that could have been an interesting plot twist - originally assigned bad guy for the movie gets killed within minutes, unsuspected new bad guy never mentioned in a trailer or anything takes over. Or even one of the guys who are supposed to be the good guys. I'll be back in a bit, just writing a genius script to sell to Hollywood for a shitload of money.). I was a bit tricked as well of the illusion Thanos made up on Knowhere where Gamora killed him, but that would have been too soon as well. I would have loved the retrieval of the soul stone to be the last obstacle on Thanos' way, though, because I wished Gamora would have been right: Thanos' love for her is not exactly real love so she would have still died there, but it wouldn't have given him the stone. It would have been for nothing. He maybe would have brought her back from death by using the time stone then, but ultimately, his quest for all the stones would have ended there. That would have been a good end. However, I understand why it couldn't be that and that for the love to count it doesn't have to be real love in everyones perception - it was enough that Thanos, despite his really shitty behaviour given that, loved Gamora to his own understanding. But, I don't know, I would have liked this as an alternative ending as well. Just a thought on how the story could have proceeded.
That it worked was a very frustrating point as well though, mostly because Gamora pointed out how it couldn't work and we all believed it. Then there were Iron Man, Spider-Man, Dr. Strange, Starlord, Drax and Manthis who did an incredible job on Titan until Starlord fucked it up - they were so close to actually stopping Thanos, damnit! Peter, you fucking idiot! (Quill, not Parker, obvs.) That was the point where it got really frustrating, especially since Peter could have done better, they didn't do everything right and still failed, he just fucked. Up.

I think it was obvious that Shuri wouldn't quite make it removing the mind stone from Vision, however, when Wanda destroyed it, I was so, so sure it was over - and then Thanos used the time stone on her just to kill Vision again (which was ouch). Which personally, I didn't think of but when it happened it seemed so obvious as well. Of course, since he now has the power to play with time, he's going to use it for exactly that.

And then there's Thor. While I was really, really hoping for him to finally stop this nightmare, I am so glad that he didn't. I feel like "Thor coming in last second to save the day (when no one expects him anymore)" was a 'plot twist' a bit overdone in the past and I am so so glad that this wasn't the solution to the problem this time again even though that meant that now Thanos has all the stones and does his thing.

To be honest, I completely forgot there was going to be an Infinity War II so when people started dissolving and the credits started rolling without that being fixed I was a bit... dead inside because I thought for a second that with this the MCU was finished and over and done. Then I remembered that a) at least Ant-Man and the Wasp was on its way and b) there was way too many arcs not finished yet for it to end right here. And then I remembered there was a part 2 coming. Oh sweet relieve! Thank god!

Speaking of characters dissolving: I am still impressed by how little I felt sad. Peter Parker dissolving actually made me tear up a bit because him reacting so much to it and being so scared really hurt (and he's my son and I love him!), but for everyone else, I just took over their lethargy and hopelessness. After that, I just felt really dead and empty inside, but not really sad. For me, that's pretty unusual - I tend to have a lot of feelings both for movies and in general. I cry a lot during movies. Not even just when it's sad, I tend to even sob like a baby when something is just really beautiful. I am very emotional. So I guess, feeling only empty is... something? I'm not sure what but something.
So actually I wanted to write this review a week ago already. I watched it on English first as I tend to do, but then I couldn't quite gather my thoughts on it into something that even closely resembles a coherent text (I know that this one isn't that coherent either). Thus, I had to rewatch it - in German this time. And unlike for all the other movies I reviewed on here so far, I have to make a remark on the translation: Why on earth would you translate "Wakanda forever" to "Wakanda über alles" (=Wakanda above everything else)? Not only does it change the overall tone of the phrase from "Wakanda forever - we just want this country and culture to last" to "Wakanda above everything else - we are much better than you" which plays into alt-rights hands dragging the idea of a sovereign advanced African country - how can you do this in Germany where we had "Deutschland über alles" (=Germany above everything else) in the national anthem during the NS era and thus it also has a very foul additional taste to it? Especially when it comes from black people? Who said this was an okay translation? Who waved that through? Now I completely understand that sometimes due to lip movement things can't be translated directly without it looking weird when the character says it in the synchronization. But not in this case, no, "Wakanda für immer" would have worked perfectly fine - instead, they chose a translation with that connotation and a syllable more to even fuck up the lip movement thing along with it. Please stop putting nazi sentences into black peoples mouths.
I just really needed to address this now that I noticed it, and along with it, I noticed I didn't watch Black Panther in German yet - I think I won't at all now if I can help it because I think I may cringe every time I hear this translation.

Now for a more positive ending, I want to tell you about the overall stuff I liked about Infinity War:
Thanos' (Josh Brolins) expressions are gold. That man was cast very well and I am glad that with this story we got to enjoy the full range of what he can do with his face.
Young Gamora was A+ casting as well - Ariana Greenblatt does look a lot like a child version of Zoe Saldana. Under the green makeup, that is. But it works so well!

I love how they mashed up all the different musical styles the separate movies (Avengers, Guardians of the Galaxy, Black Panther) have. It helped to make it not too much about one person or one group.
I love the Hulk side plot where the Hulk has ego issues due to Thanos beating him up without even using the infinity stones - I love seeing Bruce on its own still getting shit done without being green. It's what Mark Ruffalo and Bruce Banner as a character deserve.

And last but not least, I love the ethical problems coming up all throughout the movie: Thanos' reason to want to wipe out half of the population of the universe does make sense and is somewhat understandable (but yes, I am still wondering as well if he couldn't just have doubled resources) and both Peter Quill promising to kill Gamora and Wanda promising to kill Vision by destroying the stone was basically the trolley problem (killing one person you love to save multiple others, classic utilitarism), so Chidi Anagonye (The Good Place, anyone?) would have had a big philosophy boner over this one - and really bad stomach cramps.

I'm really looking forward to Infinity War II. I have no idea how all of this could be fixed and I am thrilled to see how it gets done. I am curious if the Hulk issue will be resolved and how. I am curious about who will come back and if people come back in the first place. I am kinda hoping for Tonys and Peppers wedding to be the finishing point for the original Avengers and the MCU being pursued with the newer characters like Spidey, Black Panther, Ant-Man etc., the ones we haven't seen as much from yet. I think it's been a while since I was that hyped about the MCU.

"Nicotine" by Nell Zink - Review

First of all, I want to say that "Nicotine" was not an easy read. It took me about 10 weeks to finish it. To be completely honest with you, I still don't know what exactly to think of it, because it was very strange. It was not exactly good in a classic sense, not the kind of book you just want to celebrate, but that doesn't mean it was bad either. Not at all! But I'm getting ahead of myself, let's try to give you a summary of what it is about first.

Penny Bakers life has never been normal or ordinary: Her father, a cult leader of sorts, married her mother, who's younger than his oldest son, after originally adopting her (yes, that does have a very Woody Allen vibe to it, you are not the only one thinking that). Penny used to rebell against her family by being the more conventional one until her father dies and with him the rental contract for the flat she lives in. Since she is unemployed this makes her face the problem of eventually becoming homeless as well. When she visits her grandparents house that is supposed to be a ruin and finds it alive and well and occupied by a jolly group of passionate smokers (who gave it the name "Nicotine") and falls in love with Rob, a self-proclaimed asexual bike repairman, she decides to not tell him and the others that this house belongs to her family and instead dives into the squatters culture and anarchist life style. All would be well if it wasn't for Pennys oldest brother Matt, who inherited the house from his father and wants to claim it - and also falls in love with Jazz, another occupant of the Nicotine, leading to a very unhealthy obsession with her.

I think its safe to say that "Nicotine" is a very unconventional book. To be honest it wasn't easy to narrow down the plot to the summary above because it has a lot going on given that it only has 336 pages. As someone who has experienced squatters and anarchist circles, I did recognize a few things as very familiar, other things seemed very odd or even wrong to me, but who am I to judge if that isn't exactly how people are like in the United States? If there aren't mostly occupied houses where all people occupying it are activists for the same cause (for example "smokers rights", or climate activists etc.)?

A thing I kinda liked was the uninhibited portrayal of sexuality and especially female sexuality, desire and pleasure (since that is still very thinly spread). However, it often gave me a somewhat voyeuristic feeling, the feeling of the reader being intrusive. It made me uncomfortable, and I guess that is the point. Not porn or overly romaticising, but absolute intimacy including things that only work in said intimacy between everyone involved, which makes the portrayal of sex in this book feel very natural, real and true.

On the other hand, we have the portrayal of sexual orientations which rubbed me the wrong way (no pun intended). As I said, Rob is asexual, but this gets questioned a lot by those wanting to sleep with him and is a huge topic throughout the book, including the narrative of people not able to have a relationship with him without sex. This is not discussed with him or realized after thinking stuff through, it is just a given and unlike Robs asexuality, it is never questioned by anyone.

SPOILER AHEAD

...of course it turns out that Rob isn't actually asexual but just insecure because he has a small dick and after realizing that no one gives a shit about dick sizes when they're in love everyone fucks happily ever after. My guys, I am mad. So much for acceptance in the portrayal of ace folks. Great. Just great.

SPOILER END

I already mentioned that another thing that rubbed me the wrong way was Pennys family in their entirety. Not because they show toxic, unhealthy family constellations (it does get a lot weirder than what I already told you) but because it is never questioned or put into perspective. It is portrayed as normal and ok and not to be viewed with concern. No one, not a single character stops to think "wait, should I really just accept this and not wonder if theres some serious manipulation playing into that old dude marrying his adopted daughter..?" That just never happens and to me does seem unrealistic and an unhealthy portrayal, especially since we're mostly dealing with leftist SJW characters here.
Overall, I think it's pretty obvious that I still don't quite know what to really think of "Nicotine". It did have it's moments and wasn't a bad read but it has a lot of problematic aspects, so I guess I wouldn't recommend to buy it, but if you can borrow it and feel up for something very weird and kinda uncomfortable, do your thing.

Black Panther - Review

Originally, I was very reluctant to write a review about Black Panther. I was feeling like I could be pushing into a space that was not for me and that it wasn't my place to judge wether or not Black Panther was represantative for black people - because, after all, I am white and I can't talk for a group of people I am not part of. On the other hand, wouldn't voicing my opinion and thoughts about BP (spoiler: I loved it a lot) be amplifying it and using my privilege to help elevating it?
Since I didn't feel like I could make that decision myself, I asked tumblr blog writingwithcolor. Usually, they give all sorts of tips on how to write POC characters in fiction (if you're a writer of some sort, definitely check them out!), but I felt like they were the right ones to ask this anyway,  even if it was about non-fiction. (You can read their full answer here.)
The point that reasonated most with me was: Racists don't hesitate to write bad, racist reviews about it, so why should I hesitate to write praise? All support is good support as long as I don't speak for black people, but for myself and my own mind. And what can I say, that does make perfect sense. So here we go.
Black Panther is set after Civil War where T'Chaka, the King of Wakanda, a fictional country in Africa, was killed and his son T'Challa (Chadwick Boseman) takes his place. He returns to Wakanda to be crowned king and officially become the Black panther. On the outside Wakanda pretends to be a third world country, but actually they are a very well developed nation with a high level of technology way ahead of the outside world based on their rich vibranium resources. The reason they managed to develope so well and stay that way is mostly their secrecy and keeping everyone else out, because that way, they never got colonialized and exploited by the Europeans like the rest of Africa. But obviously keeping the borders closed and keeping to themselves also means not really helping people on the outside either. While the military does do missions to, for example, save Nigerian women from being trafficked, some feel like this is to little given what they could do with all the technical developement they have. The big question here is: Keep Wakanda a secret to protect it, or risk the safety to help others?
One character who advocates for the later is Nakia (Lupita N'yongo), T'Challas ex, a so-called War Dog, an undercover spy to complete missions in other countries - she has seen a lot of the misery the outside world has to deal with and feels the need to help these people more than they do now. However, this is not really a radical view and thus she is not radical.
Other than Eric Killmonger, T'Challas lost cousin who returns to Wakanda, claims the throne, wins it rightfully in a traditional battle and becomes king. His idea is to distribute the (a lot more advanced) weapons Wakanda has to all the black people in the world to conquer their oppressors. In order to prevent that, T'Challa has to reclaim the throne - and also needs to find an answer to the question wethere they should stay hidden or help the world and a good way to do it.
I already hinted at me loving the movie and that there will be a lot of praise.
First of all: Boom, black representation! Of course it's not my place to judge wether or not black people feel represented by Black Panther. But it the place of black people to say wether or not they feel represented, people like Michelle Obama for example, all the non-famous black voices I read on Twitter, Facebook and Tumblr, and, of course, all the black people involved in the making of Black Panther, the actors, the director, everyone. On a very theoretical standpoint though, it is a game changer: We see black people being the heroes instead of thugs and criminals, we see black people being rich instead of poor, we see black people being highly intelligent instead of uneducated - we see so many stereotypes being not used for once, all while none of them is any less human, because not one character is in any way overglorified. They are human, they make mistakes, they may have problematic views that need to be deconstructed and questioned, and that is a great thing about there being so many black characters: all of them get to be different and we see a wide spectrum of diverse roles they play, contributing to the radical notion that black people are exactly that: People that are all individuals with strenghts and weaknesses just like every white character we have ever seen in movies, just that they are black. Now that doesn't sound like such a huge deal, and you are right, it actually isn't. And at the same time is, because while it should definitely be, this is far from being the standard. I think I, personally, have never seen a movie where black people just got to be people like everyone else.
Also, all of that happened while completely embracing blackness - the amount of different African influences we see in Wakanda is astounding. There are lip plates, head dresses, masks, neck rings and a lot more influences from different African cultures - I highly recommend the Twitter thread from Waris (@diasporicblues) who explains all the influences, you can learn a lot from that. Black Panther is refreshingly unapologizing of their blackness. Another thing I loved about it is that when the Wakandans speak English, they have a very distinctive accent and they still get to be taken seriously. Because they are serious. Another thing that should be the standard but isn't.
Then there is the way Black Panther plays with stereotypes and racism. Characters make jokes about stereotypes and shit with white people, T'Challas sister Shuri calling one "colonizer" is legendary, and to be fair: Yes. Yes it does sting a bit being the butt of a joke and reduced to side kicks and minor roles. But be honest with yourself, isn't that just fair? Isn't that what the predominately white movie industry does to people of colour all the time? And also: Doesn't it show that when we feel a bit caught that we still have to work on our own internalized racism?
Last but definitely not least: Holy shmokes the women! Sure, it doesn't pass the Bechdel test completely: While there are four named female roles (part one: check), who talk to each other (part two: check), they do mostly talk about men. But honestly, since the Black Panther, the main character, and also the villain(s) are male, that's a given. However, we have plenty of strong, amazing women on screen, they are diverse in character, have different strenghts, weaknesses, opinions and feelings and that is a lot more than what can be said about most films. I already talked about Nakia (Lupita N'yongo) in detail, there's Shuri (Letitia Wright) who is an amazing scientist and has the best humour (very meme-y), we have Okoye (Danai Gurira) who may be the fiercest warrior I have always seen (and who I instantly fell in love with, hands down. I am very bi, thanks), we have a very gracious Queen Mother Ramonda (Angela Basset) and so many other women who don't have names and lines but are still fierce and strong and amazing. If you can't manage to praise Black Panther as a anti-racist/ally for POC - at least recognize how feminist it is.
Other than all the social/political things that are to praise about Black Panther, it was a very entertaining story, it was just visually beautiful, it had really nice music and while I read that a lot of people didn't like the special effects: I, as someone who has no fricking clue of special effects, don't see what their problem is (which means, there was nothing feeling off or ripping me out of the experience).
So, overall: If you haven't seen Black Panther yet, go see it. And if you have already seen it... go see it again.

Why I won't delete my Facebook

The last few days have been rough. Really rough. I had a lot of discussions with alt-righters and alt-right apologists, about if the left are just as bad and dangerous as the alt right and so on. The last few days have been frustrating and demanding and have cost me an awful lot of enegery. My blood pressure is propably way beyond a healthy level right now and there have been moments where I really wanted to break down in tears due to all the frustration. All of those discussions were held on Facebook, in various comment sections. There was the one in the comment section of a statement a local goth club made after being called out for firing DJs and bar staff for being openly antifascist (as in, against nazis, not more not less), quote: "We're against all kinds of extremism." as if being against literal nazis is that much of a radical idea. There was the one in the comment section of a newspaper article about the commemoration of the bombing of Dresden in World War II which the alt right used to talk about everything but the bombing of Dresden in World War II (namely, they talked about refugees and Angela Merkel, both have nothing to do with World War II), got blocked with a sit-in by the left counter demonstrators who they then beat up also using pepper spray while the police turned a blind eye and even encouraged their violence. And there are all the different smaller discussions I keep having. Throughout the past days, my fiance suggested that I should consider deleting my Facebook because clearly, it is something that hurts, exhausts and stresses me. He does have a point there, if I deleted my Facebook (or at least stopped going to those comment sections or even just stopped participating in them), I would be way less stressed and not constantly angry, upset, in a horrible mood. Here is why I will stay on Facebook, keep going to those comment sections and keep discussing:

1. Discussing with the alt-right shows them that not everyone is on their side.

Sometimes it is as simple as that: Those comment sections basically belong to the alt right and their supporters nowadays. I know what to expect when I go there and that I will be disgusted by their ignorance, inhumanity and hate. They feel like when there's no one interfering with their comments, they're right, especially since they are so many that the opposite happens, they keep agreeing each other. Discussing with them shows them that not everyone is agreeing.

2. Discussing with the alt-right shows minorities that someone is on their side.

No, I don't think all the energy I put in discussions like that make a change in alt-right peoples minds. It's very unlikely I can make them question their own stances. However, people who are targeted by the alt-right might feel better if racist/homophobic/transphobic/sexist/etc. comments are interfered with. People who are targeted by them and people who think alike will not feel alone not thinking like the alt-right. Which leads us right to the next point.

3. Discussing with the alt-right might influence the opinions of people who have not "chosen a side" yet.

Especially young people may not have an opinion on many political topics yet and they may learn stuff and get to know different viewpoints from reading discussions like this. If they only get to see the racist rethoric, they might just take it as a given, no one is disagreeing so it must be right. By having discussions on social media, we help undecided peope get more than one viewpoint and different approaches to toppics to build their own opinions from.

4. Discussing with the alt-right... simply because someone has to. 

Someone has to fight, for all the reasons above and more. Now you might wonder why I specifically have to, since it obviously hurts me. The answer to that is as sad as it is simple: Who if not me? In both discussions I wrote about in the beginning of this post, I was the only one discussing against the alt-right. Sure, people liked my comments which signals approval, and that does help me a bit to not feel alone and unheard, but it would have helped a lot more to know that if I lost all energy to discuss, someone else would take over. Or someone giving arguments I don't think of in the moment or can't give because I don't know things they know. Or simply someone supporting me in this fight. This is supposed to be a team effort, and I felt very alone in the past few days discussing with several people simultaneously all on my own.Which is innitially a reason why I feel like I have to keep going.

So I won't delete my Facebook, I will keep going to comment sections and interfere with their filterbubble. I really hope that this post might motivate some of you reading this to actively participate in discussions more. When we give up because of demotivation, exhaustion or whatever, they have won. If we are many, we can take turns so others can take breaks. Stay active, peeps.

Question your authorities

Let me start with explaining the viewpoint I am writing this from to you. I am privileged. I am white, I am European, I am able-bodied, and I am female (which does comes in handy when you are in a case other than sexualized violence against you). Also, I have never comitted a crime. Still, I have a personal problem with the police. I reported crimes three times in my life, and every time I felt belittled and not taken seriously. Now I can deal with that in the case where someone took the money I forgot in the ATM (which is, in my opinion, not even necessarily a crime, just not the nicest thing to do especially when the one who actually owns it is poor). I can not deal with that in the case where a random guy punched me in the face in the middle of the street because I was just walking past. No, officer, you can't see anything, but you couldn't see internal bleeding either and that would still be really bad, right? So I have been the victim, the reporting person most of the time when I dealt with police and was truly disappointed. Then there was that one time last year when I went to a protest. Going to a protest is something that takes a lot of willpower for me. I am hella scared of protests because I have been knowing people all my life who went and came back with injuries. We are talking anti-nazi protests - some where caused by the nazis, some where caused by the left who though it was really clever to throw stuff from a distance where they would only hit their own people, and some injuries were from the cops. I guess we all remember the protests against the G20 summit in Hamburg in Summer 2017 where shit went loose. Cars burning, people throwing bottles, none of this is okay. However, what is even less okay is police violently attacking peaceful protesters. You know, the ones who didn't throw bottles or set cars on fire. The majority. That shit happened, and while people who threw bottles and hurt no one with them get 3 years in jail, there are apparently no consequences for the cops. That is the main reason I have to gather all my strenght, hype myself up with angry music and gather a group of friends around me to even go to protests. Now when I went to the protest, I went peacefully. I am too scared to be violent. I could never physically attack a person simply because I am afraid of them hitting me back. Fear makes me a pretty peaceful person. So I went there, walked, showed my face, shouted my opinion, all within the law. I was exercising my right to protest. I was exercising my duty to protest against nazis. We all were. Suddenly, someone yelled "Run!" and when I turned around I saw a group of heavily armoured cops running towards us and they did not look like they'd stop. So I turned back around and ran away, didn't get far because I am clumsy, instead I tripped and fell down... and did not get up again on my own. Just accepted my fate and that I would propably die here trampled to death by the police for literally doing nothing wrong. Instead, my friends picked me up and I did not die, only got a few bruises and abrasions.
So overall, I have never been the perpetrator, never actually got in trouble with the police, and I still do not feel like I could trust them at all. Serve and protect is a lie to me. And I am lucky. I am privileged.
Now yesterday I saw the video of 18-years-old Bethany Nava getting pulled off the train by a police officer and eventually getting arrested. It all started with her having her feet up on the seat in the train. Not really that big of a deal. Now of course that got people discussing wether or not the cop overreacted. A lot of people believe that she should just have put her feet down and everything would have been alright. Here starts the thing: In the video, we can't see wether or not she didn't do that, naturally because people do not start filming when there is merely a conversation. Nava herself says she put her feet down immediately and in her story, it doesn't really sound like even getting her off the train was reasonable. However, even if I was to play devils advocate and not believe her story and assume that she did in fact not do what the cop asked her to do, arresting her including getting her handcuffed is too much in my opinion and getting her off the train would have been perfectly enough as a consequence. That Selena Lechuga, who came to Navas aid, was arrested too, is completely off the table in means of being ok. That's the last thing I will discuss.
The thing is, I am kind of okay with people discussing wether or not it was reasonable to arrest them. What I am not okay with is that the argument used most is something along the line of "he's a cop, he has every right to arrest her, it's the law". I hate that so many people just let cops do whatever they want because they have a badge. I hate that so many people just accept laws as they are. I hate that neither cops nor laws are questioned very often.
Cops are people. After all, they are humans like all of us, only that they wear uniforms, badges, batons, tasers and guns. Since they are humans, they can make mistakes. They are not infallible. It's important to keep that in mind. More importantly though, since they are human, they are not incapable of abusing their authority and position of power. And since they do have that authority and position of power, and because they carry weapons, they should be held up to higher standards than civilists, because their mistakes, their wrongs can end a lot worse more often than the ones civilists make. And when a cop makes a mistake, that is even more important, they should be held accountable for them. That's the biggest problem here.
Now after sharing that video, I had a (very peaceful, factual) discussion with a facebook friend of mine about it. They believe that, since Nava filed a claim against that cop, there will be justice according to what the law is regarding this case - if he did something wrong, he will be held accountable, if not, he won't. The thing is, laws are made and executed by people too. People, humans, who are, again, not incapable of doing wrong. Of misjudging a situation. Or, even worse, are not incapable of abusing their authority and position of power to make and execute laws as they please. Laws are not infallible too.
There are two things I want to use specifically to emphasize my point:
1. Homosexuality was forbidden by law in Germany until 1994. That's the year I was born. That is not at all long ago. That is not ancient history. Someone made that law because they thought homosexuality was bad. No one changed that law until 1994 because they didn't think it was important. People could have been persecuted for homosexuality in Germany until 1994. They were not, because while it was still the law no one executed it. Because they questioned it and found it was stupid. However, it wasn't important enough until 23 years ago to scrap it - and if there were homophobic cops and judges, people still could have been persecuted for being gay. Would people still say it would be ok because it was the law and therefore it must be right?
2. In the age of smart phones (including cameras), it is very easy to film incidences. This is what happened here, and there is alot of proof in that video that may help to tell wether or not this officer was in the right or wrong and, if the later, get him held accountable. But we all remember Eric Garner. You know, Eric Garner, who got killed by cops? Who was arrested for the mere speculation that he might illegaly sell cigarettes? Who actually was the good guy in this situation because he stepped in and ended a fight? Who was killed because the cops arresting him for nothing used an illegal chokehold? That incident was on camera too. Someone died, someone else filmed it, we have all the proof we need and the law is on Eric Garners side. The cop who killed him walked free. Instead, you know who got persecuted? The guy who filmed it. The guy who delivered the proof that didn't do shit. When cops aren't held accountable for killing someone with an illegal chokehold, why should one trust that they will be held accountable for doing less?
We have no reason to blindly trust police officers. We have no reason to blindly trust laws. Instead, we have a duty to always question them to prevent what stands at the end of the row - a police state, a dictatorship even. Sounds dramatic, but this is what we are risking if we keep doing this. Question your authorities, kids. Who if not us?