Day Two - The TAG

So, today is Day Two of Bella's Civil War Blog Catastro-party, and today's the day I do The Tag. (For those of you jumping aboard this blog party, details are here, on Bella's blog.)

Because I'm a little rebel and I don't have sides (Yes, it's a go for TeamGetAlong), I'm doing both tags. So there.

Team Iron Man 

1.) What is your favorite Iron Man movie?
Probably the first one, because that's the first one I saw and the one with the tightest plot. But I love all three Iron Man movies. I absolutely adore watching Tony's constant character development - he keeps growing and changing and becoming more vulnerable as time goes on, and the selfish persona he dons so effortlessly gets gradually more visible as the charade it is.

2.) When did you decide you loved Iron Man?
In the first movie, after his friend Yinsen gets shot. Tony straightens up, and there is that absolutely terrible expression on his face, like someone is going to GET it.

3.) Do you tend to agree with Iron Man's thinking/logic?
Um, I oftentimes see where he is coming from, but I wouldn't say I'd entirely agree with his logic. I feel like I'd become a Pepper Potts quite quickly - I would humour him and, when possible, make the appropriate decisions for him.

4.) What is one thing about Tony that drives you insane?
His apparent inability to take a situation seriously. As time goes on, that does get a little less pronounced, but I would get angry if I told him he was making me anxious and he laughed at me.

5.) Do you think you'd like Tony in real life?
That depends. I probably wouldn't like him upon a first meeting, I don't think, but once I got to know him and became comfortable with his sarcastic attitude, I think I'd be able to give back as much as he gave, and gently snub him when needed.

6.) Do you think you'd get along with Pepper Pots? What about Rhodey?
I love Pepper. I love Rhodey. I think they are both great foils to Tony's character. I think I'd get along smashingly with them.

7.) Would you like to live in Stark Tower?
Not unless there was an area I could turn into a den/library/hobbit hole. Otherwise, it's too sterile for me. It doesn't feel like a home. It feels like an office.

8.) Would you want to try out/own any of Iron Man's robots or fancy little gadgets?
None of the big suits, that's for sure. I'd appreciate some of his gadgets, though. I would like one of his fancy-schmancy computers - I'd love to be able to manipulate simulations the way he does, and physically play with computer generated designs.

9.) What is your favorite Iron Man quote?
That bit, after he finds Yinsen dying and Yinsen tells him his family his dead and he's going to go see them now, Tony just says, "Thank you for saving me." I love that line. To me, that's when he stopped being playboy Tony and started to become Iron Man.

10.) If Tony as he is now volunteered to take you to dinner and a movie, would you accept his invitation? Not a date, just a night out cause he knows you are soooooo stressed.
Again, it depends on how well I know him. If I knew him well enough to be like, "That's enough wine for YOU, mister," and take the glass out of his hand, then maybe. But I think if I was someone he actually cared about, he would make a bit of an effort to be inoffensive. So, maybe.


Team Captain America

1.) What is your favorite Captain America movie?
The first one for sure. That's when Steve Rogers is just Steve Rogers, no-one special or unique, just a kid from Brooklyn with tons and tons of heart and spirit.

2.) When did you decide you loved Captain America?
C'mon, you should know when... After he threw himself on that grenade. 

3.) Do you tend to agree with Steve's thinking/logic?
Steve is a pretty black-and-white kind of guy. He tries to do what's right and questions what he thinks is wrong. Plus, he seems a pretty moral guy, so I think I mostly agree with how his mind works.

4.) What is one thing about Steve that drives you insane?
While I appreciate his stubbornness, I think that's the one thing that frustrates me most about him. He won't back down on things (Bucky, for example) and no matter what you say, he will focus on that issue to the point of obsession.

6.) What is something about Steve that you really admire?
His selflessness. He will do anything for his friends.

7.) Do you think you would like Steve in real life?
For sure! He's pretty much everything I like in a man - strong, protective, manly, gentle, subtly funny - plus, he's got that Brooklyn toughness about him.

8.) What do you think of Steve's motorcycle, and would you want a ride on it?
I love his motorcycle. People that ride motorcycles are freakin' hawt. If it were Cap driving, yes, I'd ride on that bike. 

9.) What was an iconic "STEVE FREAKIN' ROGERS" moment for you?
Again, you know when that was... when he threw himself on that grenade.

10.) If Steve asked you on a date, would you accept?
Yes. 

And that's a wrap! Until next time,

God Bless!

Le Cat

Civil War Blog Party

This was supposed to start May 10th, but first of all, Mother's Day. Second of all, Mother's Day withdrawal. Lastly, Mother's Day. So, my blog party participation started a day late, but whatever.

Before I begin, let me post the Blog Party rules:

• You must link back to Bella! No exceptions!
• You must tell Bella when you post so she can read your Civil War Wonders!!! (She even Pretty Pleases the request, so maybe give her a head's up.)

• You should follow her! (She Pretty Pleases this with ice cream on top, so yeah, give her a follow.)
• You shouldn't be mean to people who are on the opposite team! No being mean! There's nothing wrong with a little friendly banter and what not, but No. Being. Mean!!!!! Meanness is not allowed!
• You must absolutely must choose a side! (even if, in your humble opinion, there IS no side, just two stupid men who refuse to compromise a teensy bit in favour of maintaining friendship.) You don't have to feel guilty about this. This isn't about who you like better, (though that can obviously come into the equation.) This is just about who you would most likely join because you agree with them.
• You have to have fun! Have lots of fun!

(For participants, the list of what to do each day is available on this post of Bella's. Okay? Okay.)

Day One is PICK A SIDE (even if you don't feel that there is a side - just two stupid men unwilling to compromise a little in the name of friendship).

Here's my problem. Iron Man and Captain America are my TWO FAVOURITE AVENGERS. The stupid thing about Civil War, it pitted my TWO FAVOURITE AVENGERS against each other.

WHAT?! NO!

I admit to being more of an Iron Man fan. His was the first actual Avenger movie I saw, and I fell in love with his character arc. The first Iron Man movie was probably the best, but in every single one of his movies, as well as the Avenger movies, he always has this character arc that I ADORE. So I loved him, and was prepared for Civil War, being Cap's movie, to be skewed in favour of Cap and I was bracing myself against an onslaught of Iron Man hate.

That was not the case. I was surprised at how even the "sides" were. 

Thank you, Marvel, for giving us a perfectly balanced, incredibly clear look at two sides that are equally wrong and equally right.

Even still, I probably ended up agreeing more with Tony.

I totally get both sides. For Steve, he has this Brooklyn tough guy attitude that absolutely will not lie down and let the bad guys beat on the small guys. He has to step in and DO SOMETHING, even if that something may be a little outside the boundaries of the law. He has to DO SOMETHING, and I love that about him. In this case, his DO SOMETHING attitude ended with Wanda, the Scarlet Witch, saving his life, but accidentally killing dozens of people in the process. So to have the governments all siding against the Avengers and demanding they be kept in check - I didn't really blame the governments, but I didn't like the idea.

"While a great many people see you as a hero, there are some who prefer the word vigilante. You've operated with unlimited power and no supervision. That's something the world can no longer tolerate." - General Thaddeus Ross

 I don't blame Steve for not wanting to sign the Accords.

"Our job is to save as many people as we can.
Sometimes that doesn't mean everybody."

However, and I say this with total and complete understanding, if it weren't for Bucky, I don't think the Civil War would have happened. Whenever Steve hears the name "Bucky," he loses all perspective, and I get that. I do. For him, it's only been something like five years since he thought Bucky died, and only about two years that he's known Bucky is alive, but still lost in the persona of the Winter Soldier, and that grief and loss is still sharp. He wants to save Bucky so badly, and he will do anything it takes to do so, even if it means splitting the Avengers apart.

"You know I wouldn't do this if I had any other choice. But he's my friend." - Steve Rogers

In my opinion, Steve was willing to risk everything to save Bucky, and I love that, but if you look at the repercussions, this could cause some serious international incidents. I mean, he goes into a foreign country, dressed as the obviously American superhero, to protect a suspected terrorist responsible for the death of Wakanda's king. That's some serious crap.

"He said 'Bucky' and suddenly I was that 16-year-old boy from Brooklyn again." - Steve Rogers

So, at first I kind of agreed with Steve. I wouldn't want to sign the Accords. I wouldn't want the government telling who I can or cannot save. 

"What if this Panel sends us somewhere we don't think we should go? What if there's somewhere we need to go and they don't let us?" - Steve Rogers

BUT...

Let's take a look at Tony's side.

First off, we see him struggling with guilt over the death of his parents, that he didn't properly say goodbye to them before they were gone forever. Right after that, he is confronted by a woman who blames him for the death of her son, when the Avengers were trying to stop Ultron in Sokovia and pretty much decimated that city. Directly after that, all the active Avengers are called into a meeting with the Secretary of State, who shows them a film chronicling all the casualties of the wars they've fought, which hits everyone pretty hard. The Secretary then proceeds to lay down the law - either the Avengers agree to sign the Accords, which will put them under the supervision of a governmental panel, or they retire. Tony suspects that if they don't sign now, they will be forced into an Accord that will give them zero ability to assist people. (Plus, he's also got the guilt of the Sokovian boy weighing on him, and I think that played into his distrust of himself - the fact that he feels there needs to be someone the Avengers are accountable to.)

"Oh, that's Charles Spencer, by the way. He's a great kid. Computer engineering degree. 3.6 GPA... He decided to spend his summer building sustainable housing for the poor. Guess where? Sokovia. He wanted to make a difference, I suppose. I mean, we won't know because we DROPPED a building on him while we were KICKING ASS... There's no decision-making process here." - Tony Stark

"We need to be put in check.
Whatever form that takes, I'm game."

Through the whole movie, I kept swaying back and forth between Steve's point of view, and Tony's. They were both acting in the way their consciences dictated, so neither of them was at fault. However, there did come a point where it seemed that Tony was more focused on keeping the Avengers safe, keeping them together despite the Accords, keeping the team alive while appeasing the governmental powers, and Steve was entirely focused on saving Bucky and no-one but Bucky.

That's when I sided with Tony.

He wanted to save his team. He didn't want any of them to be forced to "retire." He wanted to protect everyone, and if that meant bowing to the will of the Accords, he was going to (and this is a man who doesn't bow to anyone). I think if it had just been a matter of the Accords, the trust and friendship between both sides would never have been questioned. It was the way everything escalated, building off one set of incidents, which led to another, and to another, until finally it was no longer just a difference of opinion and conscience, but complete disregard for the law and a duty to uphold the law, even at the cost of friendships.

"If we can't accept limitations, we're no better than the bad guys." - Tony Stark

I liked how Steve did his best to solve the Bucky problem on his own, only assembling his team when the only other choice was to admit defeat and sacrifice his best friend. But I hated that he turned on Tony to do so.

Tony - "I'm trying to keep you from tearing the Avengers apart."
Steve - "You did that when you signed."

I liked how Tony did his best to protect Steve from the repercussions of the law, and how he tried to protect the entire Avengers crew, even at the cost of coming off as arrogant and self-serving. But I hated that he lost Steve's friendship to do so.

 
So I guess I'm Team Iron Man, because everything Tony did was to try and assure a better outcome for his team. He kept Wanda housebound, not only to protect the world from her, but also to protect her from people who would see her as a threat.

"She's confined in a compound currently - She's not a US Citizen and they don't grant visas to Weapons of Mass Destruction." - Tony Stark

He tried to keep Steve safe, to talk the Secretary of State into overlooking Steve's few misdeeds which occurred after the signing of the Accords. He even tried to assure a better future for Bucky, despite all Bucky's crimes done as the Winter Soldier. (Yes, I know he was brainwashed and he wasn't himself, nonetheless, as Bucky himself said, "But I did them.")

"We need you, Cap. Until nothing further happens that can't be undone, please... sign. We can make the last 24 hours legit. Barnes gets transferred to an American psych center instead of a Wakanda prison." - Tony Stark

When it was discovered that Bucky had been framed for the Wakandan King's death, it was Tony who admitted he had been wrong in believing Bucky was the terrorist, and tried to make peace with Steve. And it probably would have all been smoothed over then, if it hadn't been for a certain video (played by the movie's antagonist intent on destroying the Avengers from the inside out), which shows Tony's parents getting killed by the Winter Soldier, thus destroying all attempts at peace.

(I'll be honest - I totally understood Tony's reaction.
Watching Bucky kill his parents - that had to hurt.)

I REALLY REALLY REALLY wanted this movie to end with friendships restored, and while it didn't exactly end the way I wanted it to, at least it left it open enough to show there was some healing going on, and that eventually friendships would be resurrected and mended. (At least, they'd better be, Marvel!) I still wouldn't say there was a Team Captain America or Team Iron Man. Both Tony and Steve had totally valid points as to why they would or wouldn't sign. But all in all, I think Tony's actions were more what I would follow. I don't know if I'd be willing to step outside the law to save someone who has been an assassin for years, no matter how much Captain America believed in him. I think I'd rather side with Tony and try to protect my team at all costs - even if it meant giving up some freedom of action.

And that's a wrap! I'll do my best to do Day 2 tomorrow, but depending on how busy I am, that may or may not happen. Until next time...

God bless!

Cat

Blink and You'll Miss It

Happy New Year!

Oh wait, that was five months ago.

Oh well. So, how is everybody doing? Good? Great? Less than stellar? Freakin' Fantastic?

Me, I'm doing well. Spring is coming (bouncebouncebounce) and I adore spring! I want to plant flowers and go for rambling walks through the forest (I'm in Tahoe, so I can do that) and I want to go swimming and have picnics in the mountains and just immerse myself in the weather.

(Yes, I am a fairy, why do you ask? Or a unicorn. It really depends on the day. And the magic.)

Some good things happened this month(s). I went to Barnes and Noble middle of March and spent hours there browsing, which I haven't done in ages. I found the last few seasons of a couple TV shows for a real cheap price and BOUGHT them. I got Ally Carter's book, SEE HOW THEY RUN. (Ally Carter, FYI, is fab. She writes so well and I adore her!) I got coffee and a croissant from the B&N coffee shop, because it was freaking B&N and I was going to ENJOY MYSELF! So there. (Yes, the coffee and croissant were delicious. I have no regrets.)

Then, about a week ago, I received Josh Groban's STAGES LIVE from two adorable sisters when they went to Barnes and Noble (without me, I might add. I had to work, which was RUDE! but the STAGES DVD was a nice consolation prize) and we had an enjoyable evening where we watched Il Volo's WE ARE LOVE concert, followed by Josh Groban's STAGES concert. (Guilty confession: I could watch videos of people singing all day. Unfortunately, I don't get paid to do that. Sigh.) Both Il Volo (consisting of the three adorable Italians, Piero, Gianluca, and Ignazio) and Josh Groban (consisting of himself) are TONS of fun to watch. They are funny, awesome singers, and they give a great show. (Next up, movie/musical binge night, featuring Il Volo in LIVE FROM POMPEII and Josh Groban in AWAKE LIVE.)

Also, I checked out books from the library and they didn't all suck! That was such a surprise for me. Usually I check out so many books, and I go skimskimskim, and then I return all those books to the library, feeling melancholy and sad that there wasn't a single book I liked. This time, out of the six or seven I checked out, I actually liked three or four of them! Surprising, yes? (Funny how most of my good things have to do with books, bookstores and libraries. Shhh, no one mention how many books I have in that closet... or under that bed... or in that house... or on those bookshelves.)

OH! Another good thing that happened - I discovered the remake TV series of Hawaii Five-0, which I LOVE! (and it got renewed for a season 7, which I'm SO EXCITED ABOUT!!!! So, my good stuff doesn't revolve ENTIRELY around books, I guess. I like TV shows, too.) It was a good time for me to find H50, 'cause all my other shows were burning and crashing and dying. So I decided, I don't care if Hawaii Five-0 sounds like a silly show, it's recommended for me on Netflix and I shall watch it. And I did. And I was like, Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaang Daniel! (And Steve. Oh m' gosh, Steve! You are a sweet, sad puppy and I love you.) So, I was hooked and watched the five seasons streaming on Netflix in 3-1/2 weeks or less. I swear it was at least three weeks. Treskie seems to believe it was two. I don't think I watched them THAT quickly.

Then I did have some crappy things happen. Like, I didn't make it to confession last Sunday, which means it will be four weeks before I can actually go. To quote Captain Haddock, "You don't know what that means." You feel soured with life. You feel mean and small. Kind of like Gollum. Sort of thin. Stretched. Like butter scraped over too much bread.

Then, I have gotten a couple more agent rejections. I know it's just business, but still. You feel unhappy getting those rejections. Kind of small. Sad-like. (I believe in you, Dragon! One day, your story will be told, and not just to my sisters and my writing group. I promise!)

Last, and most depressing of all, the fourth book in a series I have adored since book one, and which I have been waiting to be released since I finished book three in April last year, ended up making two of the best main characters gay. Since one was a Catholic (and honestly, freakin' HAWT), I was pretty upset that happened, and I'm thankful I didn't end up reading book four. (My sister Treskie did that for me, and when she told me, I went into a grieving state which I'm still not quite over.) I think the thing about this book that makes me so depressed is that, from the beginning, there is this quintet consisting of four boys and one girl, and they are nothing BUT friends. There is a slight romance between the girl and one of the boys, which later transforms into a deeper romance between the same girl and a DIFFERENT boy, but the the boys themselves are like a foursome of brothers. There was nothing romantic in there at all. So to see the author (whom I have loved and adored for the past five years, and now feel utterly betrayed by) obeying the trend of the world and writing two of the boys as gay (when they are both honestly too manly and moral to do that) infuriated me. I was like, "What's wrong with just being friends? What's wrong with just being BROS?! Don't people like bros anymore!?" (Note to self: Write story about BROS. Emphasize the BRO-ness. Steve and Danny bro-style.)

So, that upset me. Depressed me. Made me cry. Utter lamentations. Rewrite the book in my head. Turn to Diana Wynne-Jones for comfort. (I can always count on her to make me feel better!)

Anyhoozle, that's what's been going on for me. Tonight, as it is May the Fourth, Treskie, Panda and I are going to watch The Force Awakens. Pandy has not seen it (Shhhhhhh, don't tell her about the really shocking thing that happens!) and as it was the one Star Wars movie I liked perhaps as much as A New Hope, I'm excited to rewatch it.

May the Fourth be With You!!

Cheers!

Le Cat