Meta Master List

[solitary_summer]

With all the writing I've done recently and the fact that my 'torchwood' tag already has 107 uses, I thought it might be useful to finally do a master list of my meta. It's a bit arbitrary, because since I tag my entries in any case, this only includes posts that are a bit more substantial than this-is-what-I-liked-&-this-is-what-I-didn't-like reaction posts, and especially in the case of TW I also left out some posts that only contain thoughts that are developed further in later posts, to avoid making the list even longer than it already is. The more frequently used fandom tags are (in alphabetic order): Andromeda, Angel, Babylon 5, Battlestar Galactica, Being Human, Buffy, Doctor Who, Dollhouse, Harry Potter, Merlin, Smallville, Torchwood (S1, S2, CoE, Jack/Ianto).

I'm not a huge fan of sticky posts, so this will be linked in the sidebar.



Torchwood

General Meta:

# Death, life, and what it means to be human in Russell T Davies's Doctor Who and Torchwood: What it says on the tin. Long (~ 30.000 words) essay attempting to explore these themes as they develop over the course of both shows. I don't know if I succeeded, but I'm still rather proud of this.

# 30 Days of Torchwood meme

# Jack and the Philoctetes metaphor, further developed in this post, an attempt to look at the themes of TW and how they indirectly tell Jack's story; it's really a bit of a draft, much of which eventually ended up here and here.

# A Jack character sketch, written after S2.

# Also written after S2, some thoughts about the impact the decision to kill Owen instead of Ianto had on the Jack/Ianto arc in S2.


Jack/Ianto:

# The World Is Always Ending: Time in Torchwood's Jack/Ianto Arc: Also what it says on the tin. Looking at the time and mortality/immortality motifs in Jack and Ianto's relationship S1 through CoE. (Personally, I like this. It feels like I got something right there.)

# Post-CoE Jack/Ianto post: An attempt to explore the themes in their relationship. Written a few months after CoE and especially at the end a bit more emotional than I'm comfortable with in hindsight, but overall probably not too bad.

# (My first ever serious meta post in this fandom... /nostalgia) A look at the Jack/Ianto relationship after S1: a bit outdated obviously, but surprisingly un-jossed.


Episode Meta:

Note: All the S1 meta is from rewatching S1 after S2 aired and incorporates S2 canon; and both the S1 and S2 meta is, looking back at it now, for better or worse rather too single-mindedly focused on the Jack/Ianto ship angle.

# 1.01 Everything Changes & 1.02 Day One

# 1.03 Ghost Machine & 1.04 Cyberwoman

# 1.05 Small Worlds & 1.06 Countrycide

# 1.07 Greeks Bearing Gifts & 1.08 They Keep Killing Suzie

# Brief post about the Emily Dickinson poems used in The Keep Killing Suzie

# 1.09 Random Shoes & 1.10 Out of Time

# 1.12 Captain Jack Harkness & 1.13 End of Days

# 2.01 Kiss Kiss Bang Bang

# 2.02 Sleeper (And a follow up post, since I really had—and to a slightly lesser extent still have—issues with this episode.)

# 2.03 To the Last Man

# 2.04 Meat

# 2.05 Adam

# 2.06 Dead Man Walking

# 2.07 A Day in the Death, and storytelling in TW.

# 2.08 Something Borrowed, including a long ramble about Jack and relationships.

# 2.09 From Out of the Rain

# 2.11 Adrift, focusing on Jack, his past, Torchwood, and the relationship between Jack and Gwen in the episode.

# 2.12 Fragments: a brief reaction post, a longer post about Jack and the hundred years spent working for Torchwood, as well as Jack and Ianto's relationship, and more thoughts about the time Jack spent in Torchwood.

# A question about the Tarot reading in Fragments (scroll down).

# 2.13 Exit Wounds

# Meta post about the pre-CoE TW audioplays, focusing on the darker, morally ambiguous side of Torchwood and the implications of Jack working for them all this time, as well as a bit of Jack/Ianto meta. (Also, if you scroll down to the end of the post, my pet theory about how Jack finally turned into the Face of Boe.)

# CoE meta post: Posted about a month after CoE aired, when I was struggling both with the story and fandom's reaction to it, so it's a bit of an emotional mess really, and comes across as what now probably sounds oddly defensive. The focus is on the narrative structure as well as the ethical dilemmas of the story, and while I've changed my minds about some aspects of the story since then, although not in any big ways, most of it still stands.

# The pre-S4 radio plays: Acceptance of death, mortality, loss, grief and the dangers of loneliness.

# TW: MD, episodes 4.02-4.04: Jack's arc, CoE continuity, Jack and Rex, mortality and immortality.

# TW: MD 4.05 The Categories of Life

# TW: MD 4.06 The Middle Men

# TW: MD 4.07 Immortal Sins: wherein I speculate a lot and am completely wrong about absolutely everything. The follow-up post isn't much better.

# A brief analysis of TW: MD and the elements that didn't work.

# Speculative snippet about TW: MD 4.08 End of the Road and CoE.


Doctor Who and all kinds of miscellaneous RTD related stuff

# Written after MD's The Blood Line; some thoughts about mortality and the religious themes in RTD's writing from The Second Coming to MD.

# Written partly as a reaction to MD's Immortal Sins; a rather rambling post about my personal religious history and the religious themes in DW and TW.

# Written after 6.02 Day of the Moon; the treatment and depiction of violence in the episode compared to RTD's DW.

# The Grand

# RTD vs. SM, with a very interesting discussion in the comments.

# The Writer's Tale and the DW specials.

# An aimlessly rambling post about TW and DW, the Doctor, Jack and humanity, philosophy and mythology.

# Yet another aimlessly rambling post, this time about the ambiguity on RTD's writing, salvation and damnation, Stephen King and Clive Barker.

# Casanova, Doctor Who and Torchwood.

# A brief note on Jack in CoE and Ten in TEoT.

# Jack in Last of the Time Lords.



Merlin

# 1.09 Excalibur; wait, what, I'm writing meta about Merlin now? Uther, Gaius and Arthur.

# 1.10 The Moment of Truth; subtext galore, secrets, magic, friendship, the vision of a better future, and a couple of theories that got thoroughly jossed since then.

# 1.11 The Labyrinth of Gedref: unicorns, phallic symbols, gender roles... I wish I were kidding. Ah, S1. You're sorely missed.

# 1.12 To Kill the King; Uther and Morgana's tragedy.

# 2.02 The Once and Future Queen

# 2.03 The Nightmare Begins & 2.04 Lancelot and Guinevere

# 2.07 The Witchfinder

# 2.08 The Sins of the Father

# 2.09 The Lady of the Lake; the price of secrecy and constant self-denial.

# 3.01: The Tears of Uther Pendragon

# 3.02, 3.03 & 3.04

# 3.05 The Crystal Cave; Merlin, Arthur and power.

# 3.08 The Eye of the Phoenix & 3.09 Love in the Time of Dragons



BtVS/AtS

# Rewatching BtVS, as well as a bit of meta about Wesley in BtVS and AtS.

# A brief post about the AtS finale.

# Thoughts about the AtS finale, Wesley and Fred in S5, and happy relationships in TV shows.

# AtS S4, with a brief note about Wesley and Angel.

# Some thoughts about BtVS S5.



Smallville

# An attempt to make sense of Lex's arc in S4.

# A S3 review, focusing on Lex's arc.



Babylon 5

# Rewatching S5.

# Thoughts about Sheridan on Za'ha'dum.

# Sheridan and Delenn's relationship, and what I love about it.

# Babylon 5 and Lord of the Rings.



Andromeda

# Oh, show. So flawed, so much wasted potential. The closest I ever came to actually writing fanfiction. Most of what I wrote back then faintly (or not so faintly) embarrasses me now, but this holds up surprisingly well. Written after Shadows Cast by a Final Salute; a lengthy examination of Dylan and Tyr's relationship over the first three seasons.



General Meta:

# TV, fiction, art, philosophy, escapism and reality.

# Relationships on TV, and what interests me about them. A sort of follow up from the post below.

# Slash, heteronormativity, and why I ship what I ship.