KJ

I enjoyed this episode very much for all kinds of reasons.

( Those reasons are spoilers, so they are behind the cut. )

Finale next week. It seems doable to wrap things up. I wonder what, if anything, on the movie side that this show is setting the table for.

Interesting that they seem to be alternating between giving Anthony Mackie and Sebastian Stan top billing in the closing credits.

( Everything else is spoilers )

And now, the real reason we got Disney+, and the reason I knew that I was going to get Disney+ eventually someday. I wasn't able to watch yesterday, but I made sure to watch tonight, and I plan to keep up as best I can.

( Spoilers, naturally. )

I hadn't realized that the series was only going to be six episodes. Curious to see how much story they pack into a relatively short space.

I went on a special episode of fangirlhappyhour to talk Captain America: Civil War and display my ignorance of Marvel comics characters. Give it a listen!

Captain America: Civil War was an excellent Avengers movie -- much better, certainly, than Age of Ultron. It was also a great Iron Man movie and a pretty good Winter Solider movie. It was even, as some have pointed out, a much better Batman vs. Superman movie than the one we actually got. But was it a good Captain America movie? On that question, I feel like the jury is still out.

( Cut for spoilers. )

I've been thinking for awhile that I wanted to rewatch the MCU, see where it hangs together as a single story -- and where it falls apart. With the release of Avengers: Age of Ultron looming fast upon us, I decided I'd better get started if I wanted to finish before May 1st. Bearing all that in mind, April 1st seemed as good a time to start as any. So here goes!

Rather than release order, I'm going to go in story chronology order, which means starting with Captain America: The First Avenger, then Agent Carter, then Iron Man. I suppose, if I were super strict about it, I'd have started with the prologues to Thor 2 and Thor, then skipped the beginning of TFA with Steve being found in the ice, but that's more work than I wanted to deal with. Also more than I want to deal with: watching an entire season and a half of Agents of SHIELD. I'm up for rewatching all of AoS Season One at some point, but not crammed in the space of a month along with several movies and a mini-series. I'll probably limit myself to a few episodes, maybe the post-Winter Soldier arc. I'll probably also skip Guardians of the Galaxy, because I don't own it and word is that it doesn't really tie in with AoU. (I suspect it'll become more relevant once we get to Inhumans.) But maybe I'll watch it if I have time.

Naturally, projects like this are more fun if you share them with other people, which is why I plan to write it all up as I go. Also, if anyone would like to join in (at whatever level and pace you find comfortable), feel free! I'd love to hear what other people's thoughts are on the series as a series.

Okay, now that we've set the scene, on to Captain America!

( Ramblings, musings, and a little bit of squee behind the cut. Also spoilers for everything. )

1. My Tumblr dash is over half blocked posts. Must be new DA:I content! From the things that have slipped through (gaaah people why must things slip through), it sounds like a new trailer, which I would actually be interested in watching (just not dissecting in intense detail), so I'll have to check it out when I'm on a better Internet connection.

2. Speaking of Dragon Age, I'm still in need of a beta read for my Dragon Age Big Bang story. Any takers? At this point, given that it's due in less than a week, I'd be happy just for a quick read-through to look for egregious problems. Let me know.

3. I saw Winter Soldier again last week. It definitely holds up. I need to see it again. I posted my thoughts to Tumblr. Note, the entry also contains a significant spoiler for the two post CA:TWS Agents of SHIELD episodes. (Although it's the kind of spoiler that might actually lure some people into watching.)

4. We have another guest conductor this quarter. In some ways, he's as brilliant and as difficult as the guy we had in the Fall, but he has a way of communicating that makes him much easier to work with. The repertoire (church music by Holst and Vaughan Williams) is quite challenging -- so challenging that he actually pulled one work and substituted a much simpler one. It's a little disappointing to put three weeks of work into a piece and then not perform it, but it was absolutely the right choice, because now we can concentrate on making the rest of the concert amazing rather than struggling just to put it all together.

5. DOINK! I have my assignments and know which one I want to do. Now I just have to decide how I want to approach it. And see if I can manage to avoid all the shiny Steve Rogers distractions that the movie has put into my head.

I have been waiting two years for this movie, and it did not disappoint. Some rambling spoilery thoughts behind the cut, cross-posted from Tumblr:

( Spoilers yes these are spoilers )

Also, renay fed me a plot bunny and I wrote a quick fic, entitled "You Have 76 New Messages." Major, major spoilers.

So I was talking with people on Tumblr about The Avengers the other day, as you do when you've found a new source to obsess over and a bunch of people who share that obsession, and one of the things that resulted was a long post on my thoughts on Steve Rogers, aka Captain America, aka my new not-so-secret character crush. Not entirely new, mind you -- this has been going on since his movie, last year -- but The Avengers served to made my love grow even more.

I have to admit, I side-eyed the idea of a Captain America movie at first. I didn’t know that much about the character — have never really read superhero comics, so most of what I know about the Marvelverse comes from movies, cartoons, and pop culture osmosis — but patriotism and jingoism never sit well with me, and the Captain America concept seemed laden with the potential for both. But good reviews and an interest in the Avengers franchise got me in the door, and once there, I was lost to the sweet earnestness of one Captain Steve Rogers.

( More thoughts, with spoilers for Captain America but none really for Avengers. )

In the end, for all these reasons, Steve Rogers is, against all expectations, my favorite Avenger. Instead of being too straightforward, too goody-goody, it turns out that he is just exactly the right amount of both. And I love him for it.