elisi: The Timeless Child (She was the universe)
So, before we start I just want to link to this brilliant and hilarious post which chronicles the sheer ridiculous amount of lore that we now have. :)


Now this essay is about 5k long and roams all over Thirteen’s era as well as Fourteen and what we have of Fifteen so far, as well as looking at the Master, the Time War, the Flux, Gallifrey and Earth. So basically: Spoilers for everything. But, we think we have created a solid understanding of what The Timeless Child means for the Doctor and the show, and how it all hangs together. And it’s pretty neat! ^_^

ETA: On AO3 here.

Look after the universe for me. I've put a lot of work into it. )
elisi: Playing poker (Girl Doctor)
The meta café is BACK!

It’s not as shiny as it used to be (this ain’t Moffat), but (insert relieved sigh) it turns out that the dullness of S11 was a deliberate choice and Chibnall CAN write interesting stuff. It’s very RTD-like, but I like the RTD era (it was what first hooked me), so here I am.

(This is basically a combination of raw meta and flaily capslock.)

Spoilers all the way down )
elisi: (Poetry)
Alternative title: Why Moffat Who is Poetry

Welcome to the meta café! Although this time it's more The Poetry Café (not that there's ever much difference). What I mean is, this post is like a follow-up to The Hollow Men and will be formatted in a similar way: I.e. first up is the poem/imagery, which will then be followed by lengthy, complex and in-depth notes. No really, this is enormous. (I will also write a more regular meta post later, with all the stuff that does not fit into this very specific reading.) Also, although this meta mostly centers on The Doctor Falls, it meanders through a lot of S10, and even further back. And as always, Promethia owns at least half of this.

But first, here is the second half of the fifth and final part of T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land, as filtered through Moffat Who:



Thunder4


PART V. WHAT THE THUNDER SAID )
elisi: (Missy)
Meta café is... open. (Can it be? This has taken me most of the day/week!) So make sure you have a nice cup of tea and some refreshments as this is about 7000 words long. (Everything is connected...) With endless thanks to Promethia, as always. ♥

Mark the Music )
elisi: Edwin and Charles (Quill)
No show has any right to be this good, this early. Those of you not watching, you’re missing out. Just look at the title of this one. And in case you’re wondering – yes, it’s 100% literal. And coming just off Extremis too… Just goes to show how you can do exquisite meta, but in very very different ways. <3

(If this show is not renewed it’ll be the biggest waste since Firefly, just sayin’.)

This post contains no spoilers beyond episode 7 and PLEASE DO NOT POST SPOILERS IN THE COMMENTS. Thank you. <3


Read more... )
elisi: (Storytellers by kathyh)
in ex·tre·mis: in extreme circumstances; especially: at the point of death


I declare the meta cafe OPEN!! )
elisi: (Clara)
Thoughts on 'The Pilot' and 'Smile', whilst also looking back to Clara.

Bite-size meta: Looking vs mirroring )
elisi: (Clara)
Cautiously opens the door to the meta café a tiny bit...

I have been saying for years now that Moffat has been re-booting the show… Here is how he did it.

Read more... )
elisi: (We are all stories by immobulus_icons)
Meta café time! Hi! And Happy Easter (again). :)

This (as many metas before it) goes down the mirror route. I'm cutting out a lot of stuff to focus on the main mirrors, so if you have any thoughts of your own, please share. I could have kept writing and had something 10 times longer, but I'm going back to work tomorrow and would like to feel like I've accomplished something... Plus, this is 4 months late.

(With many many thanks to [livejournal.com profile] promethia_tenk for being my hybrid-brain. *g*)

Read more... )
elisi: (Chess)
So, I guess most people have lurkers. And sometimes they de-lurk, and it's great. However, I think my most recent de-lurked lurker is in a category entirely of their own: They wrote me an essay.

Well - they wrote an essay, I should say. I was just fortunate enough to be the person they first showed it to. Although it is - at various points - addressed to me. I was going to edit those parts out, but I like them and they add a nice personal touch, so I've left them in. :)

ANYWAY - then they allowed me to post it here for all of you to see, so that's what I'm doing.

Their name is BasiliskRules and can be found under that name on DeviantArt and FF.Net.

Here, however, is their essay. Enjoy. And please leave feedback!

Understanding/Analysing the ultimate fate of River Song by BasiliskRules )
elisi: (Clara)
*throws open the doors to the Meta Café*

Welcome, welcome. It's been a while, but I'm finally here, and I bring you LOTS of meta. Seriously. It's 6500+ words long. Have a cuppa and a bun. Also a great deal of it overlaps - all the layers interconnect so a lot of time I end up in the same place.

As always, at least half (not sure which) belongs to [livejournal.com profile] promethia_tenk, and some of it probably also to [livejournal.com profile] owlsie.

And I've even left out huge amounts, just to focus on the main players: Clara, Missy, the Doctor and Danny.

(Note: Some of my images seem to have vanished. Hope this is only temporary.)


It's All Mirrors )
elisi: Edwin and Charles (Moffat for Dummies)

"Indeed, for all that The Beast Below seems like the outlier of the Moffat era, it is worth making it central and allowing it to serve as its own beast below, so to speak - as the myth upon which everything else is built. This is the place where Moffat picks up the legacy of Doctor Who and declares his own spin on it.

What, then, does Moffat add to this lineage? What does Moffat propose to bring to Doctor Who’s alchemy? A story about the relationship between people and their stories. One that proclaims that when faced with a diseased and rotting story the solution is to simply tell a new one - a better one. One that rejects silence, that treats storytelling as a moral duty and its absence as a moral obscenity. And perhaps most crucially, one that is about a symbolic ascension. Because in the end, the way in which Amy saves Britain’s soul is by finally becoming a creature of narrative and fairy tale, and by embracing that role. How do you save the world from its own intrinsic evil? By being amazing, breaking the rules, and, when the narrative points to something awful, telling a different sort of story.

And so the moral heart of the Moffat era stands, for a moment, revealed - an understanding and principle we can take forward in reading everything else that he does. It is an observation that stems inexorably from the history of alchemy within the series and from the underlying imagery of this story. “As above, so below,” the injunction goes - a declaration that manipulating symbols and manipulating objects is, in some sense, the same thing. That a symbol and a thing are in some sense interchangeable. What is the moral heart of the Moffat era? It is simple.

The secret of material social progress is alchemy."

From: The Alchemists of the Middle Ages Made Transmutation Their Main Aim in Life (The Beast Below) by Dr Philip Sandifer

(Italics mine. Read the whole thing! Especially if you want a better grasp of what Moffat does.)
elisi: Edwin and Charles (Twelve and Clara)
Note: If you want a story where all the babiez are brutally KILLED and everything is about the Doctor’s man!pain, go watch The Runaway Bride. Imma gonna watch the episode with all the awesome wimmins in charge. (No disrespect to RTD or Donna. Love them both.)

With that out of the way - welcome to the meta cafe! :) This is long and rambly, you have been warned. And it jumps straight in.

Kill the Moon/Clara Who? )
elisi: (Clara)
Good morning! Would you believe it, but I have FINALLY finished my Clara meta. I think I began talking about it at Christmas? I hereby declare the Meta Café open once more!

So far all my Clara meta has been mostly speculative, because we didn’t know who/what she was. This is the opposite. Trying to look at what we know, and how she works. What is her function within the ‘verse?

I’ve said that everything she is (or rather, everything in this meta) is summed up in my icon. So for the purposes of this post I made a bigger version with labels, so you can see what I mean. (Below the cut.) I shall go through all the different aspects one at a time. (Which is difficult because they’re all linked. But that’s Moffat Who for you. Everything is connected. Circles, circles everywhere.) Anyway - subheadings. Hope I've made it easy enough to follow. :)

As always, half of this is [livejournal.com profile] promethia_tenk's. Thank you for... just being you! ♥

And there are SPOILERS for the whole of Eleven's era!

As prep, I'd suggest watching [livejournal.com profile] purplefringe's Never Look Away and [livejournal.com profile] niyalune's The State of Dreaming.

Clara Meta: Schrödinger’s Companion )
elisi: (We are all stories by immobulus_icons)
Welcome to the Meta Café!

However, this is not comprehensive meta, as I only scratch the surface of a few of the main themes, so there will be more later. (One about all the stuff that wouldn’t fit in here, one about Moffat’s story telling and one about Clara. Possibly more.) Hopefully the others will be more coherent, although I’ve tried my best to make it flow. Beware though, at the end I can do nothing more than just stand back and love my Doctor.

Because this is the story of The Man Who Stayed for Christmas.

Spoilers from here on )
elisi: (Amy/11 hug by kathyh)
Welcome to the Meta Café! It's good to be back. :)

Read more... )
elisi: (Kiss (Doctor/River))
First of all, you should all go read this:

Doctor Who: The Name Of The Doctor Review – 8 Ways Steven Moffat Defined The Heroine’s Journey

Because I won't be talking much about Clara, and that review does a beautiful job of explaining a lot of the ways I see her.

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elisi: (Chess)
Meta cafe time again... Dealing with Doctor Who?, themes in S7 and why Clara is a penguin. (Bet you didn’t see that last one coming! Heee!) ETA: OK, also speculation on finale. (Some of this might be more shorthand than proper indepth meta, because... well, life.)

Spoilers up to, and including, Nightmare in Silver + finale trailers. Please DO NOT post any unofficial spoilers!

Read more... )