#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.