Living with Boys

My catalog of fanfic is not extensive, but I feel the need to gather it and put it all in one place. I'm also planning to use this as a general index of some of the better bits and pieces that I've posted over the now several years that I've had this journal (hey, I'm a librarian, this is kinda my thing!). So, without further ado:

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Apparently the boys and I connect over movies more than anything else! This actually isn't too surprising to me, since movies have been an important part of my life since I was very young and my parents used to take us to the drive-in in our PJs. We'd get to watch the cartoons and then curl up in the back of the station wagon like a small litter of puppies while Mom and Dad watched the grownup show. I must admit, though, that my two boys have very different responses to the flicks. C, my 13-year-old, loves them almost as much as I do, and will come with me to almost any movie, even "Les Miserables" (which he has sworn will be the last movie he ever cries at--ah to be so young and sure!). B is 11. He has specific tastes, and specific things he wants to do with his time, and movies are not high priority to him. So when I suggested that we take in "Captain America" on our day off, he was resistant to say the least. In fact, it took him sleeping on it and deciding that he didn't want to disappoint me (ouch!) to get him to agree to go. He was ready to take one for the team, I guess, which was not an inappropriate mind-frame in which to watch this movie.

This installment of Marvel's movie franchise is an intriguing blend of superhero action with a 70's era paranoid spy thriller. In contrast to last year's frenetic "Iron Man 3", with its climax involving hundreds of Iron Man suits zipping in and out of frame, the action sequences serve the plot rather than overwhelming it (seriously, can you even remember what the plot of "Iron Man 3" was? Something about a guy injecting superhero serum?) The movie reveals a secret corruption at the core of the spy agency SHIELD, and this secret agency's attempt to ensure peace by the creation of a satellite network that can take out any human target that offers even a potential threat. Security at the cost of freedom. Interwoven is the story of The Winter Soldier, a mysterious assassin working for the bad guys who has a connection to our Cap's past.

Besides the action and the special effects that sometimes meld the WWII past of our hero with sci fi concepts (such as the bank of ancient computers that house a villain's intelligence)--and the performances of Chris Evans, Scarlett Johansson, Anthony Mackie, and Samuel L. Jackson--one of the most exhilarating aspects of the film is watching the rank and file SHIELD agents take their stands. Like the first Captain America film, this one proposes that no one is insignificant, that every person must choose what they are willing to fight for. Our Captain may be a man out of his time, but he still embodies freedom and the American ideal that personal, responsible free will is more important than blind safety and security.