so i'm trying to come to terms with starship iris ending, y'know, as one does when there's a project that you auditioned for on a whim as a total amateur, eight years and a lifetime ago, that is finally coming to a close, and i am really truly trying not to get sappy about it. but.
in another universe, there is no ishani kanetkar. she was born with this show, for this show, and it's still a little unbelievable to me that there are people i've never met who know who she is. it's even wilder that there are people i HAVE met who want her, this person who has never been fully real but has always still been me, to help them tell their own stories.
i recorded the pilot episode on my wired earbuds' built-in microphone, in a bedroom in my grandparents' home in mumbai. those grandparents are gone; that house of my memory too. but every time i come back to this show, i remember sitting on the bed of the small room that once belonged to my great-aunt, trying and failing to find a scrap of quiet so that kay grisham could tell violet liu it would all be okay.
so maybe some of the things i'm feeling are for the end of a story, but i think some of them are also for the ishani who started telling it, who can't go back. some of them are for ishani kanetkar, this ephemeral self and not-self, whose own time is one day going to be over. and some of them are just for me, now, who looks forward to a future with other projects and other people but not this project, with these people, and is sad to say goodbye. i hope i can do my part to give it a truly phenomenal send-off.
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See the further irony is:
That in using 'Mall Goth Sauron' as the take on Dark Willow over 'misogynist has character randomly killed for LULZ' it also allows for greater accountability on the one hand and for Season 7 to thematically focus on repairing all this damage in the midst of facing an enemy of shadows reliant on lies to further itself. The only way to break the Druj is the absolute Truth in a very Zoroastrian sense. Characters don't get to neatly skip past accountability for their actions, and this would spiral over into further later seasons with the essential reality that in an otherwise lower-level setting this one random girl from California is a Dark Phoenix-tier reality warper and the most powerful person on the planet, or the universe.
And the questions of how that power could and should be employed on the one hand and that Willow is essentially a Doctor Strange type who beats up Gods and Eldritch Abominations for her regular line of work where her counterparts deal with the more 'street level' crises would in turn be the logical conclusion of where the show ends. She doesn't do as much physical fighting for the same reason that Stephen Strange never uses magic to go punch the Hulk in the face, her narrative role is ultimately that of Sorceress Supreme of Earth, with literally nobody in an ancient established war anticipating that this one random ginger from California was and is the new Sorceress Supreme and that if they had had such awareness the realities are that this power would and could have taken worse forms.
Unfortunately for the world, the reality too is that it is a shy computer geek who has a not at all subtle dark side and the usual teenage anxieties and insecurities given the equivalent of being able to reliably actually do things other people might dream of but can never do.
But again as long as Dawn Summers being a good thing is a narrative convention that's established memory magic is a poor choice to show the corrupting effects of reality-warping. It's a case of 'yes as established in canon all of this is true for that one season but then they decided to retcon it, so the fans are not obligated to care about it any more than the canon does about this itself.'
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i’m so fucking sick of streaming services/platforms and netflix in particular. unless it’s a show with a Star Name attached they provide little to no effort marketing it and the only way to get a chance at renewal is if somehow the show becomes a mega hit that breaks streaming numbers in an absurdly short time period with absolutely no support from the platform. they make renewal/cancellation calls after 1-2 MONTHS. it’s a miracle for a netflix original content to get past season 1 now and virtually unheard of to survive past season 2. as a result we have this graveyard collection of content that writers, directors, actors, everyone puts their heart and soul into that will never see the light of day again. despite being objectively GOOD content. at least with traditional tv networks shows that get canceled they have a chance at being picked up somewhere else as we’ve seen with brooklyn 99, manifest, supergirl. but with these fucking platforms like netflix they own total rights over the content and would rather burn their own money than sell a show.
if netflix just wants to produce movies, limited series and documentaries then go right fucking ahead. but these streaming services can’t continue getting away with taking all these shows and churning them out just to slaughter it especially when it’s content that upholds POC, LGBT and other diverse groups that get so little made for them in the first place.
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So, what Rakha really wants to do right now is go kill the people hunting Karlach, because they don't have anything else that would qualify as a direct plan other than the creche, and the "paladins" are closer. However, I happen to know that the paladins are level five and Rakha is level 2 and could be knocked over by a stiff breeze, so I think a better bet is a more full exploration of the Emerald Grove first.
I'm guessing that this is the result of a concerted effort on Wyll and Shadowheart's part, primarily - Wyll already knows the people of the grove and Shadowheart has fixated on Halsin as a useful lead. Gale doesn't seem to have any specific plan in mind and, left to their own devices, Lae'zel would already be heading for the creche and Rakha and Karlach would be after the paladins. But between them, Shadowheart and Wyll manage to convince everyone that at least TALKING to the healer in the grove would be a useful start before everyone goes off half-cocked.
Amused because I stopped in to talk to Zevlor and got a disapproval from Wyll purely for leaving the conversation without asking the question about whether the ritual could be stopped. XD Sorry, Wyll. I swear we'll get to a point where you like Rakha, somehow, but I doubt sincerely we're there yet.
Speaking of the ritual, down we go to the grove proper - with a quick stop to talk to the teeth-ling kids.
"Whoa. Hey! Can't say I've ever seen someone like you before."
Without preamble, he shows his hands to her, empty. Then a quick flick of the wrist, and suddenly he's holding out a tarnished gold ring between his fingers.
"Go on," he says cheerfully. "Take this ring. It's lucky."
Rakha, who has very little context for anything she experiences, has never seen slight-of-hand magic done before, nor is she familiar with the concept of a con man. So she watches this little display and is immediately fascinated. Magic - but with no surge of that visible tapestry around the boy, the network of power that Gale calls the Weave.
How?
"That was a fancy trick," she says slowly.
His eyes narrow and something subtle shifts in his expression, a flash of interest. "You haven't seen anything yet, lady," he says dryly. "Go on - take the ring and watch your fortune change!"
Take the ring.
She takes it and looks at it carefully. There is no magic on the ring either, nothing that she can sense. But the boy looks up at her earnestly as he draws a coin from his pocket. "Call it! Heads or tails."
She blinks at him, puzzled by the question.
Pocket the ring.
"Hey, hold on!" the boy cries at once. "You gotta pay for that!"
She does? She withdraws the ring out of her pocket again and squints at the boy, incredibly baffled by the entire situation.
("The boy seeks to deceive you," Lae'zel says impatiently under her breath. "His magic is mundanity. The ring likely the same."
Wyll sighs. "Be kind, the both of you. He wants to show you a trick, that's all. Let him flip the coin.")
Rakha's eyes narrow. She stands there with the ring sitting on her palm and feels foolish. "It's only a joke," she says slowly after a long silence and trying to sort through the words from her companions. "Go on... flip your coin." If anything, she is curious to learn what that means.
"Real sweet sense of humor you got there, chum." The boy looks as if he's starting to regret his choice of mark, but he presses on gamely. "Anyway, you gotta call before the flip. Heads or tails."
A long pause. "Heads?" Rakha says cautiously.
The boy grins, tosses the coin in the air, catches it, and then shows her the side with the head facing up. "Heads it is!" he crows. "See? That's the kinda luck you get from just one of my lucky rings! I've got more where that came from. Real cheap, too. Interested?"
Rakha is starting to understand the situation now that she has seen it play out, and her lips twitch with irritation. [SORCERER] "If there was magic in this ring, I'd have felt it," she says bluntly. "It's nothing but junk."
The boy flinches and raises his hands defensively. "Not so loud!" he hisses. "You caught me, all right? They're not lucky rings." His eyes grow wide, his expression twisting with sudden, exaggerated pathos. "I'm just... trying to earn money for my family," he whimpers. "My father left and my mother... she's so sick. I wish I had better things to sell than... trinkets, but it's all I have!"
Rakha squints. The shift in tone is abrupt enough that she is certain it's disingenuous and that Lae'zel is right - the boy is making a fool of her. There is nothing of value here.
Wordlessly she shoves the ring back in the boy's face.
Return the ring and leave.
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OMFG THIS COMMENT. GUISE. THAT LAST SENTENCE IS SO FUCKING RAW
edit: i see a lot of people arguing over the 'eat the rich' thing and i'd like to clear up my standing currently! i know they aren't the same kind of fancy multi-million corporation that our beloved phrase talks about, and the reason i agree to a point with this comment is that watcher is evidently trying to become that. they're doing some shitty things in regards do disregarding poorer fans, and are seemingly blatantly ignoring the economic crisis by saying 'everyone can afford that!', all in direct contrast to their entire branding of being leftist and openly supporting things like eat the rich.
"You said 'eat the rich' then handed us the forks, laid on the plate, and expected us to spare you?" at least from my understanding isn't flat-out saying watcher are now the rich we eat, but are well on the track to becoming so, and are quickly developing the same ego.
BUT!! don't like people directly hating on steven like that!! they're all grown men who can make their own decisions, and pretending like shane and ryan are out little baby beans and then calling steven evil and whatnot isn't okay. they can all be held equally accountable. though i do somewhat understand being the most disappointed in shane, as he's the one who speaks on shit like eating the rich the most, and is generally more outward with his ideals, so it's perfectly reasonable to feel betrayed more deeply. but bottom line is they're all equally accountable for this decision.
some shit we can't take back. i probably got pissed and said some weird/uncool shit initially because of the intense emotions i was dealing with, which other people amplified. i do regret some of the things i've said to a point when it comes to being hateful, but i can't just un-say it all, so i'm not even going to try. i'm going to leave everything be and allow it to serve as something to look back on for what not to do in future circumstances. while this new path for watcher is, in my opinion, not the smartest and generally really shitty, they're human beings who make mistakes, and they deserve our acknowledgement of that.
in short, i don't like it but i'll stop being a bitch about it because they don't deserve that. also sorry for the wall of (probably incoherent lmao) text i got passionate <3
edit 2: guys. im screaming. the apology was amazing imo and i genuinely think they really mean it, like it doesn't seem bullshitted. i think they realized they fucked up for reals and feel bad. im so happy for them, but also for us as fans. yay :D
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