This is the topic index for my Writing Meta: a somewhat-meandering, often random set of essays about the process, mechanics, and guts of writing. They do not have to be read in order, and many of them reference concepts and ideas in the other ones. (I try to keep them adequately cross-referenced.) They're grouped roughly by topic category, although some of them don't quite fit.

The current "things I plan to write about" topic solicitation post is here.

If you'd like to volunteer to let me perhaps use your work as an example in a future writing meta post -- though I may say critical things about it, I promise I will do so with respect and with an eye to illustrating problems so everyone can improve -- the permission poll is here.

On the other hand, though, this movie resurrected Tony/Pepper for me. I do not know how Joss did this, but he made me believe again that Tony and Pepper could work as a couple, and, lo, there were Paltrow and RDJ having sexual chemistry again, after so sorely having lacked it in Iron Man 2. There was something entirely genius about having casual Pepper be barefoot, because the inhumanly high heels have been so integral to the image of Paltrow's Pepper (even without mentioning the shoe-fetish aspect), and, hm, I'm not sure where I'm going with this, but maybe the thing is that just as in their domestic bickering scenes Tony had stepped out of his Iron Man suit and was just Tony, so, too, had Pepper stepped out of her suit and was just Pepper, and barefoot and unsuited they were, perhaps for the first time ever in the movie series, on equal footing, two people being together just to be together. For the first time, Pepper steps entirely out of her professional shoes and isn't a caretaker herding a kid; rather, in the final scene where she and Tony are hashing out the design of the remodelled Stark Tower/Avengers base, the two of them are kids playing together. After two movies of Pepper managing Tony, that is an incredibly freeing image. [Plus good Loki thoughts and Bruce/Tony and Bruce/Steve thoughts]

Can I just say how awesome it is that they've made a freaking war movie out of a fairytale that's popularly known as the story of a bitter old lady who poisons a girl for being prettier than she is? In these trailers we see Snow White being betrayed and abandoned and strong and sliding through the mud and LEADING AN ARMY. The thing that blows me away the most -- more than the Guillermo Del Toro-esque troll creatures; more than Charlize Theron's fabulous costumes -- is the fact that Snow White is a passionate warrior.
...
You know that Kristen Stewart's character is Snow White because she looks like Snow White, but you also know she's a warrior because she looks like a warrior as well.

I feel like Avengers managed to make a little go a very long way with Steve Rogers, character-wise...Steve Rogers' characterisation had to rely on in-the-moment reactions and visual details like costuming or Chris Evans' remarkable ability to have the facial expressions of a Disney prince.

about the response of male critics to the character of Natasha.

about response of male critics to the character of Natasha.

Origin of Thanos in the movieverse

This is a personal account of my experience implementing and using the Forth programming language and the stack machine architecture.

And see, this is what makes Natasha’s reactions to Bruce and the Hulk such an absolutely brilliant character choice. Because it’s not the monster she’s scared of; it’s not the physical pain that frightens her; it’s not the idea of getting smashed that freaks her out. We KNOW it isn’t—the lady JUMPS UP ON AN ALIEN SPACECRAFT, she looks at a monster easily 50 times the size of the Hulk and offers up a calm, “I don’t see how that’s a party,” she doesn’t hesitate to go beat the Loki out of Clint, DID I MENTION ABOUT THE SQUADRON OF DUDES IN IM2, WHAT ABOUT THE MORON GIVING HER EVERYTHING AT THE BEGINNING OF THE AVENGERS, seriously I could go all day with what a badass she is. The Hulk doesn’t frighten her because he’s physically scary—the Hulk frightens her because he is the literal embodiment of her worst fear. Bruce Banner is always angry, because he’s always on the edge of being taken over by another consciousness, and that fate—that constant not knowing, that constant doubt, that repeat of waking up not knowing what you’ve done or why you did it or who you are—is what Natasha has been running from since that fateful day when she and Clint refrained from killing one another. 

Safari HTML Reference

Loki thoughts around the themes of free will, control, and projection.

When I saw The Avengers the first time, Loki's scornful "Sentiment" as he shanks Thor, (accompanied by the tear he will deny until the last breath is wrung out of him,) is the one I remembered. It was a beautiful line, and it was a beautiful, breathtaking moment, and it was meant to shine.

However upon second watching, I noticed an even more beautiful pattern to Joss's use of that word in other places. Sentiment. It's not a two dollar word, really, is it? You don't lay even odds on getting to hear it on any given day, because it's not an everyday word, or notion -- unless you own or work in a gift shop that specializes in engraving.

But that word is used in the Avengers four times. And each time it's spoken with scorn about something the speaker is trying to disprove -- and each time, the speaker fails to disprove anything at all, and in fact that point goes on to be staggeringly proven later on. It is, if I may say so, a beautiful evidence of Joss Whedon's actual skill as a writer well beyond snappy dialogue.

Rosenberg hit key reasons why Black Widow matters:

She never becomes a victim or a lesser member of the team. Her pain and exhaustion after a CG Marvel battles triggers our empathy, and centers us. And while all this superhero battling may look fun, without superhero augmentation, it must be terrifying. Johansson offers a true career-best turn here, easily negotiating splinter-thin spaces separating old pains and a chilly professionalism that hides we’re not sure what—regret? Denial? Lingering rage over the childhood abuse that turned her into Black Widow? It’s all hinted at as the actor works Whedon’s many shades of dark grey beautifully. In short, and despite all the Wagnerian bam-boom-pow, Whedon and his star never lose sight of the fact that Natasha is profoundly vulnerable, with nothing but smarts, heart and a .45 for protection.

So here is a thing I’ve been wanting to talk about since I saw The Avengers and haven’t been able to because I was too busy writing we were emergencies: Natasha Romanov? Is terrified of the Hulk. [Great Black Widow meta that deals with her and the Hulk in the movie.]

When I saw The Avengers the first time, Loki's scornful "Sentiment" as he shanks Thor, (accompanied by the tear he will deny until the last breath is wrung out of him,) is the one I remembered. It was a beautiful line, and it was a beautiful, breathtaking moment, and it was meant to shine.

However upon second watching, I noticed an even more beautiful pattern to Joss's use of that word in other places. Sentiment. It's not a two dollar word, really, is it? You don't lay even odds on getting to hear it on any given day, because it's not an everyday word, or notion -- unless you own or work in a gift shop that specializes in engraving.

But that word is used in the Avengers four times. And each time it's spoken with scorn about something the speaker is trying to disprove -- and each time, the speaker fails to disprove anything at all, and in fact that point goes on to be staggeringly proven later on. It is, if I may say so, a beautiful evidence of Joss Whedon's actual skill as a writer well beyond snappy dialogue.

3. Back to the initial scene briefly, the shot on her feet as she picked up her heels and walked away seemed very Joss to me; he seems to find something evocative about women walking: River in Firefly walking through the Reaver ship; Buffy walking through the desert in Restless. For that matter, Natasha's use of the little girl to escort Banner, and the "they start that young?" "I did" also struck me as very Joss; I get that Black Widow's history is probably somewhat set, but the invocation of it at that moment...

4. Back to Loki and Natasha: they're the wordsmiths, the liars. Natasha is threatened by a loss of speech by torture in the opening scene (the "you'll have to write it down" bit); Loki ends up muzzled at the end. Loki threatens Natasha with torture/rape at Barton's hand and effectively calls her a whining cunt; Natasha ends up with custody of Loki's phallic symbol spear.

They both have red in their ledger.

(I do suspect that if the next Avengers movie is the Chitauri again, as seems indicated by the credits, then Loki won't be a flat out enemy but a potential ally because, IDK, the Chitauri hate him for not leading the invasion successfully. But then he'll play them somehow at the end.)