Say, I've been reading some comics and some fic, and what's the deal with how sometimes Natasha is called Natalia?

Natalie was Natasha's cover name when she was Pepper's assistant in Iron Man 2.

My assumption is that Tony was so blitzed during trips to the Middle East that he never learned what any of the food was actually called.

That was my assumption, too. I mean, I didn't know what it was, but I'm not a cosmopolitan billionaire.

Which would be character growth during the movie...which I actually believe he had.

Cap (to Tony): "That's why you'll never makes the sacrifice play."

And who makes the sacrifice play at the end? Yeah. I believe he had it too.

Yeah, I loved that. And, really, lots of the movie was about the characters, in the end, being willing to sacrifice, for the good of the team, for saving the world. A statement about what it takes to be a superhero (whether or not you're supposed to be a superhero), I guess, that there is a cost.

"Everybody wants to change the world, but no one wants to die." - MCR

I loved how when the grumpy stick was working on them, Cap kept challenging Tony to put on his suit so they could fight--for a while, that was his only line. And then the ship got hit, and exact same line, except this time he's helping him off the floor and they were going to the fight.

I do like how there weren't authority issues. They readily deferred to Cap, and my only issue there was he was willing for most any play to be a sacrifice play. They need the QB alive and kicking, man. Nick can't call the plays from way over there.

I loved the moment where the cop (with Enver) was all "Why should I listen to you?" and then...the combat version of a meet cute (fight cute)? And he relayed his orders verbatim,

Cap having been from New York sounded very apparent here too, the way he called plays, and took the whole real to us city (which Batman will never be able to achieve) as known terrain for the fights. That impressed me. But I lurves Steve...

Oh, the cop moment was so awesome. The SO turned to me and said, you knew that was coming, but it was still perfect and great.

I like the way the leadership plays out. But yes, I don't want a self-sacrificial leader! I want a leader who knows how to bring his people all home safe!

So what do we think about the Nick Fury cards manipulation? I kinda didn't understand narratively why that went down the way it did. Was Cap'n really being problematically unresponsive to the fannishness? Did they have to have the totem of the physical thing just to galvanize them? It's just that his death should already have been impactful, so I don't really understand Fury's motivation in falsifying to up the game.

I might be making more of the moment than I should.

About Natasha-Natalya, it can be regional. My MiL is named Natalia, and H's uncle was Wolodimir. They're both from what used to be part of Ukraine, is now Poland. In Russia proper they would be named Natasha and Vladimir.

OK, I tried to pay attention to Loki's motivation this time (mostly I was just all enthralled again, though I did catch the scene with the motorcycle mirror reflection and realized I didn't notice it the first time because I was just watching the action and that it was seen in reflection was entirely transparent to me) and it seems to me that his motivation was just that he'd made a deal with The Other (or whoever that is talking in the very beginning) to deliver the Tesseract and he'd get the Earth to, I suppose, rule. And I don't think he'd put much thought into what ruling the Earth would mean, just that ruling Asgard was out so maybe ruling Earth would be an acceptable substitute.

Huh. I thought that Natalya was a diminutive of Natasha.