#I love s2 there are so many cute and pure friendship moments

[cynthia39100]

Merlin rewatch -- S2E4: Lancelot and Guinevere

Merlin & Arthur moments

1. Arthur's sunny sunny smile

They just went through a deadly situation and Merlin was being Merlin and Arthur just let loose and grinned with such genuine fondness. So beautiful.

2. " Giant... baby rat."

Merlin was adorably nervous so Arthur held back on the description of the monster and then hurried over the gross part (“they eat human flesh”). So cute. See, Arthur cared about Merlin.

3.“ You’ve still got me.”

They were precious. Merlin just wanted to cheer Arthur up. I like the little head-tilt and the soft smile Arthur did when Merlin said " Look at the bright side." I quite like that this romance heavy episode landed on a happy friendship note. And Arthur & Merlin’s cute synchronised walking ~~

4. 'distracting guards' 1

I like that little face Arthur made after he knocked out the guards with the help of Merlin’s ‘distraction’. “ See? Easy.”  Or “ That’s wasn’t half bad.” Also, Merlin was having so much fun with it lol

5. cage fight

I love that Arthur instantly dragged Merlin behind his back when Merlin jumped in. Protective.

6. 'distracting guards' 2

I don’t know if Arthur had too much faith in Merlin or just didn’t care what Merlin may get into lol He kept making Merlin distract the guards. Merlin just stood there and admired his own masterpiece while Arthur didn't give a damn. To be fair though, those guards were Arthur’s subjects. He probably wouldn’t want to make them concussed.

[S2E4] [other episodes]

#personal ranking #I love s2 there are so many cute and pure friendship moments #merlin rewatch 2024 #bbc merlin #rewatch: lancelot and guinevere #arthur and merlin #arthur pendragon #merlin

[yellowlaboratory]

Hi!! What are your season 3 thoughts?? And most importantly, what are your Jiara related season 3 thoughts? :D

alksjdfhlaskdfj i have. so many thoughts. i've never ever written something short so uhhhhh.....stick with me, lmao.

first, non-jiara thoughts:

cleope was SO cute!!! i wanted to wait for the writing to convince me on them as a ship because I really wanted something more than "these two aren't with any one so lets put them together" for cleo and pope and I've been completely convinced. They both bring out a different side to each other and the way Pope opens his family and his home to her is just alkdjfhlksajdfhlkajsdhf it's unbearably sweet. i love her interactions with the heywards and i love how instantly she fits in. the scene when he leaves her in his room and she does a tiny dance and then falls back on his bed and says "thanks, pope"..... yeah i think i was cosigning on that ship as soon as I saw that asdklfjhaskdfl. and the scene in 3x06 where she stops him from shooting rafe and he cries in her arms.... oh my god. it single handedly saved that episode for me. AND THEIR KISS???? oh my god.

i also LOVED Cleo's friendship with JJ. When they are on a mission together, they are right there with each other. and, speaking of friendships, I loved that we got more JJ & John B, best friends since third grade content. the fact that they physically started fighting... idk, I think it just made them feel even more like brothers to me.

i also just really loved some of the (for lack of a better term) girlboss moments this season. there are SO many moments that i was loudly cheering for my girls. Cleo having the only brain cell like 180% of the time when Kiara is kidnapped. Kiara betraying rafe and stealing that boat (i was fully cheering ala kiara during the cliff jump scene like that is my GIRL) (also madison bailey the woman that you ARE the way she never even a little bit played into the r*ara of it all. any time Rafe looked or spoke to or was in the general vicinity of Kiara, she looked SO uncomfortable and I love that for me). and I really REALLY loved Sarah manipulating Topper lmao "you're such a giver" "it's just how i was raised" KLAJDHLAKSJDH

and, actually, I think the inculsion of topper in the heist was super funny and exactly the type of shit i want to see from him (if wheezie had been there to give him shit, it would have basically been any fic i've ever written with topper in it). when topper is being used purely for comedy, he's kind of a genius character - Austin North can deliver those bat shit Topper lines really well, and the rest of the characters (particularly Kiara) react SO well to him. he's so easy to make fun of!!! but then.... having Sarah go back to topper again was uhhhh not it. I think they should have kept the s2 or the s3 stopper storyline in, but not both. sarah going back to something that reminds her of a time when her life was easier while shit is absolutely hitting the fan and she has nothing else is like, very much in character, and that's what happened both times. the fact that they didn't show her growing through that in this season, but instead regressing..... idk, i'm excited to see a Sarah with more growth. also, canon comedic topper is dead to me forever after burning down the chateau so, i guess that's a loss on both fronts (i can't talk anymore about the chateau burning down but i have a lot of feelings about it).

i really hated big john. i'm so sorry, but looking back, John B should have left that man in the fucking bell tower. I think the amount of screentime he took is my biggest gripe of the season (i did a scrub of the show for just jiara scenes after my first watch and the amount of times i had to scroll by that man.... my god). and not only did he take up a shit ton of screentime, he kept John B away from the pogues - both physically and emotionally - for most of the season (the lack of goofy happy pogues moments is my second biggest gripe with the season). If you've read pltc, you know that I had a lot of thoughts about Big John and his relationship with the pogues but...... when he died (actually, this time), it was only dry eyes here lmao. I feel bad for John B, obviously, but everything (and i mean EVERYTHING) Big John did this season was so shitty for John B, I can only say that i think John B is better off without him.

i think the thing that has me the most conflicted is the 18 month time jump. narratively, it makes so much sense - and logistically, aging up the characters as the cast ages makes a lot of sense. i don't love that we'll miss alot of jiara and cleope but I'm coming around to the thought of it all by opening ao3 and waiting for those time jump fics to pour in. @ josh pate if season 4 opens with JJ slamming Kie against a wall as they're making out i'll forgive literally everything, i'm so easy to please.

i guess this is the perfect transition to the jiara of it all. the first few episodes literally bodied me. every interaction on Poguelandia bodied me - the way they were living their poguelandia/surf trip dream, the "just like we talked about", the angsty silent conversations they were having when they saw the plane. kiara getting kidnapped hit - I think the way JJ was so focused on getting her back was so perfect, the dock hug was actual literal perfection. I am a Hug Girl first and foremost and oh my GOD?

the first almost kiss floored me. i did not expect it. the transition from their dumbass little jokes to almost kissing.......... i'm gonna die. i literally fell off my couch. I think Pope being the one to break it up was inevitable, as was their conversation. idk how i feel about it, i know pope was always going to have opinions on jiara and i'm glad it wasn't super salty but.... i'm gonna need to rewatch it a few times i think.

episode 4 absolutely ended me. those conversations and the way Kiara knows JJ and the way JJ was imploding.... absolutely insane. the framing of that episode (like the actual cinematography not the writing lmao) was not my favorite, but the content was SO good. it was everything i wanted I was losing my mind. JJ telling Kiara she's a kook HURT. Kiara knowing that he's lashing out cause he's scared made me yodel. the talk in the chateau's yard about truces immediately followed by another almost almost kiss made me want to scream into a pillow. 10s all around.

I also love Heist Jiara. I loved seeing JJ at the carrera's house for the conversation about the cross, and the way he's a little bit like a caged animal around Mike is perfect!!! Him self destructing by stealing the money clip is just literally JJ 101. Jiara bike ride to Kilby Girl is now my entire personality!!!!!!!! also the fight about the money clip - that's not really about the money clip at all - followed immediately by JJ almost dying and Kiara being like "don't you ever do that again" is just aksldjfhkasjdfhlkjasdhlfkjasd i could YODEL.

the gate fight absolutely took me by suprise. the "i love you dude" was not what i was expecting AT ALL. JJ's buffering reaction and the way he's trying to downplay it was 10298/10. the hurt in kiara's face made me want to cry, and then John B fucking everything up feels... well, a little inevitable. I also love that even in their angstiest, jiara is still together, and in episode 8, they are sitting on the couch and kiara's playing the ukuele LIKE. they are best friends. they are so important to each other. nothing is ever going to change that. I also love love love the part where he's like "i'll tell you on the plane." idk it makes me feel buzzy.

episode 9 is a literal fucking feast. the feral jj, the way he KNOWS something is up when she doesn't show up, the way he drops everything and then ends up in kahoots with Barricuda Mike to get her back. "I kind of got a date" ????!?!?!?!??!!!!! then the whole thing about Marley the cat (josh I KNOW you are on the ao3 tag just drop me the username please) and Kiara immediately knowing it was him as soon as she heard "blond". the "me?". the KISS. the giggly happy in love couple that they are!!!!! i do wish the kiss had better lighting for my giffer friends but i know we're gonna get the brightest kiss in the world in s4 to make up for it (pates make it happen!!!). and i think my favorite scene of the entire season is them being so happy and giggly on the plane and the high five into a handhold alkdjsfhlkasjdfhlksadf.

episode 10 is obviously a drop off lmao. it sucks to leave the season on that note but we did get the "it's an adventure baby" and little background moments. I'm happy the pates didn't write themselves into a corner too much this season, and in a lot of ways I'm really glad that jiara is open ended because that means there's a lower chance of unnessecary bullshit being thrown our way really early on into s4. i would have liked a more definitive ep 10 moment but ultimately, espeically since we know we have s4, i'm not concerned in the slightest about it.

so, overall, i think there were parts of the season that felt slightly choppy (personally, I'm of the belief that they filmed a lot more than we saw), i think the first half was generally stronger than the second half, and I think i'm really, really fucking glad we have s4 confirmed so I don't have to stress about it even a little & we'll get to filming sooner. my sanity is hanging on by it's fingernails but it is in fact hanging on.

at the end of the day, i had the time of my life watching it and i had some really great people to share it with and I'll always be so unendingly grateful for that!!!!

#outer banks #obx #obx spoilers #obx s3 spoilers #jiara #my thoughts are all over the place (CLEARLY) #this is just my general brain rot if you have specific questions i might have half way intelligible answers #i'm sure i'll have more thoughts and I'll probably change my opinion on some things with more time #but here we are!!!

[truessences]

top 5 stranger things ships!!

Thanks for your question!

I always think so hard about this because I don't know if I have a Top 5 lol. I don't ship often, if I like the canon ship then I usually just support that and if it's a fan ship, it's generally because there was something in the movie/show... like Bamon lol.

But anyway:

Mileven- they're so cute and pure and I feel like they've done a good job at not only establishing them but having them go through some real problems that they always manage to find their way out of. Plus, I think Finn and Millie both do great jobs as Mike and El and have very nice chemistry. I can't wait to see them actually be together and not spend the entire season apart as we have in the past. They have some of my favorite scenes in the show, like their reunion in S2. They have so many great moments in S3, like in the sauna scene, how Mike catches her when she falls back into him (I loved that that wasn't scripted but they both kept going), the scene in the grocery store where he's trying to tell her he loves her, and in the cabin when she escapes from Billy's mindscape and he's right there... ugh, so pure.

Lumax- It would be a far margin between this couple and the first couple because it took me a long time to warm up to Max. But S4 really made me like Max and this couple. Not sure where we're going to going moving forward, but on subsequent rewatches, I like Lucas and Max's friendship and how while they're together, they have a different kind of friendship dynamic (especially because their personalities are so strong). I'm really rooting for them.

Jopper- I like them fine, I feel like this was set up from the jump because when I think it was Callahan said something about them hooking up in S1, it was already planted in my mind. S3 has them really being antagonistic towards each other but I like that Joyce doesn't back down from Hopper or anyone really. So sure.

Hellcheer/Eddissy- This is the only "fanship" on this list but I loved it. I really feel like Eddie and Chrissy were an extreme missed opportunity and I wish we got to see them interact more. That scene in the forest is such a masterclass at establishing and humanizing two characters who you think you have pegged from their first few scenes. The chemistry between them was palpable. Even if it didn't become romantic between them, I would have loved a strong platonic friendship too. His "Chrissy, this is for you", before his guitar solo also hit me because while I think he's crushed on her for a while, he's probably one of the few people who viewed her as a person and wanted to avenge her as a person, not just as a crush. Love them so much.

lol I don't really have a 5th one lol

#stranger things #stranger things ships #mileven #lumax #jopper #hellcheer #eddissy

[shijiujun]

[SPOILERS KIND OF] TLTR2 - Thoughts on the last 10 episodes + EVERYTHING

Ahhhhh the found family trope gets me every single damn time!!! Honestly Zhu Yilong’s TLTR is the best I’ve seen! 

Okay first things first, TLTR as a whole was EXCELLENT in terms of characters, script, twists, SETS (wow damn TLTR creeps me out episode after episode) and the whole premise seems a little far-fetched but actually melds together really well. Pacing could be slightly better (HAHAHAHA like Wu Xie was stuck in Warehouse 11 on his own like FOREVER in the first half) but they remedied that with S2, the pacing was spot on and I was literally jumping on my feet EVERY WEEK. Reunions? Check. Xiao Ge badass catwalk from the shadows every time Wu Xie is in danger? Check. TEAM BONDING WITH LIU SANG WHUMP?! CHECK. HAPPY ENDING?!!! CHECK (could have done with an alive Jia Ke Zi to be honest, but we’ll take what we can get).

And one thing TLTR does really, really well is like touching, reminiscing scenes? Even with Er Jing?!!! And of course everytime Pang Zi and everyone else thinks Wu Xie is dying, and when Wu Xie himself thinks he’s literally going to die the next moment, wow the script is amazing?!!! I cried (okay but I admit that I cry really easily) soooo many times?!

On Er Jing - The Mole

The moment when Wu Xie recalls Er Jing saving him when he was younger, and how much he trusted Er Jing, and I do feel so sad for both Er Jing and Wu Xie? Like I don’t believe each moment for Er Jing was spent like scheming and tbf he’s not that good of a schemer, ISTG his greed and glee shows up EVERY SINGLE TIME the second he steps into warehouse 11 and Pang Zi is right, “It’s so obvious it’s Er Jing please.” Wu Xie says it as well - if Er Jing truly was a scheming little bij, he would have been seen throughout the 20 years?! So Er Jing perhaps through the years, did think about Er Shu and Wu Xie as his family, I do believe that. It’s just sad af that he chose treasure that he never saw over riches with Er Shu ya know?! 

Not sure if Er Jing and his band of crazy friends are dead or alive? Seems at the last episode Wu Xie asked to send doctors down to treat them, but I guess...

On Liu Sang

In the book apparently Er Jing isn’t the mole but Liu Sang (in a different setting, not the same situation if I recall correctly), but San Shu admits that he was drunk or smth when he was writing the ending and Liu Sang and Xiao Bai ‘disappeared’ LOLOL but San Shu has been supportive always in Liu Sang’s character, so I am soooooo glad my Liu Sang BB is pure, innocent, sometimes scheming, always whump?!! AHHHHH LIU SANG!!!!!

Liu Chang as Liu Sang is fricking amazing damn I LOVE HIS LOOK? Honestly, Liu Chang is my new obsession, I love this man. I really, really do. I love his hair, I love him with glasses, anything tbh. 

And he’s so protective of Xiao Bai?!!! LIKE LEGIT GENTLEMAN?!!! The first time when he tried to save Xiao Bai from Boss Jiao’s people in the cave, and then in the last ep, when the black thingys came flying over, he shielded her with his coat?!!! Not that it would have made a difference but damn, my pure, competent bb Liu Sang.

Also Liu Sang still DOES NOT GET HIS HUG FROM XIAO GE ISTG?!!! XIAO GE HUGS EVERYONE BUT HIM. DAMN. I REST MY CASE.

On IRON TRIANGLE + 4th sister Xiao Bai

Wu Xie is amazing. ZYL is damn frickin amazing too, and Chen Minghao as Pang Zi IS GOLD. HE’S SO DRAMATIC ASS?!!! And young Huang Junjie as Xiao Ge, damn. This is the best trio I’ve ever seen. This is the best trio you need. All the brotherhood shit, all the meaningful stares between Xiao Ge and Wu Xie, COME ON!!!!

And also Pang Zi taking care of Xiao Mei?!!! And Xiao Mei calling him dad?!!! I love it. AHAHAHAHA

Xiao Bai, I don’t even know where to begin. I think it’s cute, her and Wu Xie, and when Wu Xie called her and she didn’t pick up and in the last ep when Xiao Bai left him behind to run towards Pang Zi and the rest and Wu Xie’s AFFRONTED LOOK, I think he’s fond of her somewhat too. Although to what degree, in what sense, well... I just think it’s cute (ALSO DID YOU GUYS KNOW THAT MAO XIAOTONG WHO PLAYS XIAO BAI IS THE SAME AGE AS ZHU YILONG?!!! LET THAT FARKING SINK IN. THEY ARE BOTH 32 YEARS OLD OKAY?!!)

Hei Yang Jing, Huo Dao Fu, Li Jia Le, Kan Jian, Xiao Hua

AHAHAHAHA I just wanna laugh at these few - LJL especially was so mean in Warehouse 11 but the moment S2 starts he’s just a cute, clumsy bun bun who keeps getting KO-ed, glad he’s alive tho!!! Kan Jian too, so skinny and crying all the damn time, who loves his boss so much, he’s the cutest. I see a lot of fics shipping Kan Jian and Liu Sang, and tbh, in S1 I did see it quite a bit.

Hei Yan Jing and Chu Chu is frickin alive?!! Damn Xiao Hua, I knew you would have done something. Honestly, if you have so much damn money, and you let Chu Chu go without a fight after warning her that you take HYJ’s request to keep her safe seriously?!!! DAMN THE REVEAL IN THE LAST EP. Hope they meet. Baron Chen is... gosh, I love this man. Also Baron Chen and Huang Junjie were in The Pillow Book tgt and oooooof I love it I love it.

And all of you know just how much I love YOUTIAO DOC?!!! He was such a major side character in the second half of like S2 and I am all for it. His sass, his eye rolls, the way he takes care of Wu Xie and does things for him even tho he grumbles about it?!!! Damn. I need a friend like that.

On Er Shu

Honestly Er Shu was the mastermind in the novel? If I recall, it was his plan basically to get Wu Xie to go to Thunder City to get himself cured, because Wu Xie would not have done it otherwise. In fact, everyone except Wu Xie knew it was Er Shu’s plan to get him to go and that he schemed it all?!! 

And when the reveal happened, everyone was like “yeah we knew it was him and that we’re all part of his plan but we didn’t say anything” because no one knew which roles they were playing in Er Shu’s plan?! And then yeah Liu Sang turned out to be a mole but I didn’t manage to see why, but he was kind of a morally ambivalent character? And Wu Xie in the novel at one point said that he believes in the kind of person Liu Sang is and that he’s not all that bad after the reveal, so... anyway, ER SHU WAS MEANT TO BE MORE BADASS THAN THIS?!!!

I’m so sad he was really paralysed ;-; I legit thought when he stood up in Ep 29 it was really him and I freaked out but it was HYJ CRIESSSS

--

Overall this was definitely a drama of friendship? Forged over creepy tombs that were a mix of Frankenstein, The Mummy Returns, Aliens vs Predator and Indiana Jones?!!! FRIENDSHIP!!!! At the end of it all, Wu Xie found so many new friends that are definitely going to come running the next time they have to find another tomb? 

Like I was sad Liu Sang didn’t turn up in the last scene but he’s alive thank god, and you can imagine that the next time they need help, Liu Sang will roll his eyes but turn up?!!! And LJL also maybe?! And HDF, everyone!!!!

One thing I wanna know is what the hell is going to happen to the Wu family business?!!! Wu Xie looks like he not going to deal with the power shit, argh IDK he’s back to hobo-ing with his bros which I guess is best life.

EVERYTHING WOULD HAVE BEEN GREAT IF ER JING WASN’T A MOLE ARGH I’M SO MAD. AND IF JIA KE ZI DIDN’T DIE?!!

I’D WATCH THIS WHOLE DAMN THING AGAIN. 10/10 FOR BROMANCE, FRIENDSHIP, FAMILY AND CREEPY ASS TOMBS.

#spoilers #the lost tomb reboot #reunion: the sound of the providence #重启之极海听雷 #chongqispoilers #盗墓笔记 #the lost tomb reboot 2 #chongqi #dmbj #wu xie #wang pangzi #zhang qiling #liu sang #huo daofu #kan jian #hei yanjing #zhu yilong #huang junjie #chen minghao #baron chen #liu chang #HAHAHAHAHAH

[scream-into-the-voiddd]

this looks like fun! [I can’t seem to find the og poster but i got it from @lizzaroona]

September 1st: Favourite s1 episode?

Honesty a super hard pick, and i think there are better episodes in the season but the one i go back too most often is ep 10 “The Sear of Selene” 

It just has some of the best character moments (for me) and is truly funny and interesting. And has some real insight into Donald and Dewey’s feelings about Della and her being gone. we saw glimpse of this in ‘dime chase’ and ‘woo-woo/Atlantis’ but here we actually see the pain Della left in her wake. And what it means going forward. 

Plus stokeulse is a big sweet boi and i love watching him and Donald ‘re-connecting’ speaking of witch it is also the frist time Scrooge and Donald have a form of re-connection to 

“just like old times ah lad”

look at that face.

its a strong ep and lead the way for bigger ‘emotional hits’ down the line (the last crash of the sun chaser)

September 2nd: Favourite triplet?

I don’t really have one as they are all fleshed out and well rounded, that being said I am looking forward to more of Huey this season. But i don’t have a fav.

September 3rd: Favourite member of team magic

Webby, but i don’t know if that counts as she is main cast so i see her more often then any other Team Magic characters. The girl is fun and filled with so much love and she is to be feared. and I love her faults to she is awkward and hyper-fixated on Mcduck history to the point that its scary. and is a fun loving social shut in.

She is just so multifaceted and complex that i love her with all my heart.  

September 4th: favourite three caballeros 

I am bias on this one as i love José Oliveira (the og José) and anything involving that funky little parrot makes me happy. But in DT17 I do love that there is elements of that Og Jose in his characterisation

like in s2 ep 4 

when he calls over and hugs Donald (so sweet), and that he knows how to claim Donald down so fast (by making him dance and then getting him to sing) and to my knowledge he is the only one to do this in the whole show not just once but twice, so it shows that he has a deep understanding of Donald that most just don’t, and i have always loved that about their friendship.

plus from what i can tell from that ep as well it was Jose’s idea to meet up and he planned the trip (as he payed for it) so the fact he made arraignments for Panchito, Donald and THE BOY’S (+ scrooge) shows how much Jose really loves his friends, and plays an umbrella as an trumpet.       

September 5th: favourite ep of season 2

This was a hard one as most of the eps knock it out of the park, but i’m going to have to go with, ep 16 “the Duck Knight Returns” its just such a good ep and has so many wonderful layers to it, and i was actually caught of guard with the final Jim Starling twist. like i can’t even remember the lat time a twist hit me that hard (i got side swiped) I actually had to sit in silence for a solid minute or two and then watch the whole ep again.

they wasted no detail big or small in this ep (like that Jim was already wearing an unbuttoned DW suit and had the hat in the box next to him, or the sound drake made being thrown into the bathroom just like og DW, and the meta jokes and the animation, the whole ep just went so hard) 

and it was a really fun way to ‘pass the torch’ from one actor to another, especially playing with the idea of someone just not being done with the character yet and not wanting to let go, (as a lot of audiences have that issue, with re-boots and relaunches, and especially when a version of a character has an unfinished story left, think Andrew Garfield’s spider-man for e.g.)

i could honesty talk forever about this ep but i’ll spare you all.     

September 6th: favourite hug? 

Honesty its a three way tie...

1) Scrooge and Della when she first comes home. Just they way he scoops her up like a kid and holds her tight, makes my heart full. 

2) this one with Louie, just the mother son embrace was really earned here. 

3) and this one with Jose and Donald, its rare we see Donald so happy to see anyone (who is not his family) and just how naturally he ran into his arms was so nice. And Jose dropping his umbrella right away show how he knew what was coming. Plus i am a big fan of men showing their love and friendship in sweet fun ways like this, so a win for non-toxic masculinity here.   

September 7th Gizmoduck or Darkwing duck?

this is a hard one as i do like both of these hero boy’s and i have talked about how they have conflicting views of their own success through the other (basically, Drake has is personal life together, but Fenton has his hero life together, and i think it would be a point of envy for both characters) And I love Fenton and Drake for different reasons, but at their core they are somewhat the same just two people who want to help others for no other reason then it is the right thing to do.

And i Love what the show has done for both characters but...I will have to give it Drake by a fraction of a hair (feather?).

As unlike Fenton I only needed one ep to be 100% on board with Drake and i know everything i need to know about him from that. As DW had a whole ass show for a reason and that one ep showed it. As Fenton is a wonderful character and he is a very well done character, but one of his defining traits is that he is all over the place (like in his life, work, the way he specks ect) but that can get messy from time to time as it can be hard to be ‘on board’ with someone with no clear ‘goal’ persay (they did cover most of this in “who is Gizmoduck” but some of it still lingers now that can be a tiny bit jarring at times) But like that is SUPER Neat-picky, tho. 

And Drake has that chaotic feral energy that Fenton just don’t have (Fenton has more Bi panic energy), but Drake also has tired dad energy (like how he growls at GD in moonvation and when he calls to LP before the set explodes) and i love that about him. 

Get this man his Gosalyn already so he can be the dorky dad he is destined to be.     

September 8th: Favourite duck cousin?

I’m going to have to go with Gladstone, because he is a HUGE prick, but in a way he is not fully aware of. He is generous (he literally offers the boy’s a bucket of diamonds, just because they came by)    

And I love that half hazard nature about him, he is true neutral, things just happen to him and for him and he just takes it, and that is actually really interesting, (don’t get me wrong i love Fethry, Della and Donald) but Gladstone is such a wild card in the duck/mcduck family when compared to everyone else that its a nice change of pace from the rest in a way (all of them good hearted and well meaning people) I generally have no idea what he might do when presented with an actual problem/ choice, so to see that will be fun and this crews take on Gladstone in that regard.

As i think out of all the cousins he has the most growing/changing to do.      

September 9th: favourite ship?

Ok here is the thing.

in general fandom 

I don’t really have any strong feelings about most ships one way or the other. I think a lot are nice and I enjoy seeing others enjoy themselves and all the wonderful art and time they put into it. That being said out of all my years of being in fandoms I have had a grand total of 5-10 ships i am super passionate about and that is over the span of 10+ years. 

and one of the things i love the most about ducktales is how much it focuses on family love and pure platonic friendships (for both kid and adult characters). And that makes my ace heart happy.  So basically I’m saying is I have no strong feelings about most ships in general beyond “aww” or “man i love how much the fandom loves them” and “that is some great art/ fic / creative output I’m happy for them.” 

But with that out of the way, the question at hand.

I’m going to have to go with Donald and Daisy, as from a writing sand point it was so well done and sweet and cute. And it gave a new perspective on a relationship that has been around for 70+ years, so that was impressive all on it’s own, and it is going to be a loving, interesting relationship going forward.

September 10th: Favourite season 3 episode  

I am going to assume that this is out of the 7 eps so far (duh), which again is hard cause this show is just so damn good. But I would have to say it is ep 6 “Astro B.O.Y.D”

now cue story of me as a kid in 3...2...1...

when i was a kid, I was obsessed with Astro boy, i was maybe 6 years old and i loved it. I was a relatively poor kid so in the early/mid 2000′s i would get a lot of my reading/watching materials from my local library. This included 4 VSH tapes of Astro boy episodes for the 80′s series and i would watch the 2003 anime dub on Saturday mornings TV (one ep a week if that), The library also had the first 2 vols of the og manga that i read so many times that i could probably re-sight it from memory. anyway, the reason i love astro boy so much was because it gave me a feeling i had not felt in my young life before that point, even if i did not full understand it at the time.

Its a feeling i still can’t fully put into words, but i will do my best. Astro boy goes right for the heart in every way possible, but it always twist the knife when it goes for, grief, regret and longing agony. specifically when in looks at lost love, usually platonic love (Tobio and Tenma e.g), the feeling these story’s gave me was the complexity of pain that losing love can bring, but it is most effective because it is through the lens of a child (astro/ tobi) and an innocent, loving child at that. The child is (somewhat) untouched by the tragedy (via memory loss) but is still shaped by the love that was put into them, despite the grief's overall out come (the abandonment of said child). So the feeling is a bitter-sweetness that comes from a place of innocents but also personal understanding of the self Astro was made by Tenma, but he was not what tenma made him to be (his lost son) but astro became his own person who loves and is loved by others, and is a whole person on his own outside of what he was made for (and is in a way still A son to tenma just NOT Tobi). and there is that sense of a child just wanting to be heard and understood for who they ARE and not what others what them to be, regardless of their “potential” (in other words personal choice’s and passions that the child actually wants for themselves)

I just love Astro Boy ok...and i never get a chance to talk about it, so i thought i would here, as this list was foolish enough to give me an opening.

Moving on to the DT17 ep.

The Astro Boyd ep. hit all of these notes, the longing agony of lost love (Gyro and Boyd) the regret that came from Gyro for boyd’s creation.

Boyd’s innocents and loving nature coupled with his wants and identity not being fully understood (gyro thinking he is evil, Fenton wanting him to be a hero, Akita having him be a tool and Tesuka thinking he is just a mindless robot) and just wanting to be seen for what he truly is “a defiantly real boy” and he gets that conformation from Gyro at the end!

and Gyro has is own actualisation, about his own grief, after thinking his love was “misplace” for years on end in a way that made him shut down his heart almost completely. Only to find that he was right to let himself love and that love is actually what helped Boyd help himself. Gyro in essence realising that both him and Boyd are not mistakes or failures but two people who lost the one they loved (each other) and have finally found a way back to each other so they can both begin to fully heal.    

So it was a good episode *wipes tear away from eye*

September 11th : favourite villain?

I don’t really have a favourite villain as the show don’t tend to focus to heavy on them and when they do it is somewhat short lived, (like Magica in season 1 and Lunarus in season 2) and since this season has a group of villains (FOWL) and not just one main one like the last 2 seasons, I have a feeling that one of the up coming FOWL members may take the top spot later down the line.  

but if we are going off the one i find most entertaining...

I’m going to have to give it to

Magica she is played as scary, funny and damn relatable on occasion (the funzo scene), and i am never disappointed to see her. I think she is very different from comic magica in a lot of ways, but i enjoy this version for different reasons. And i think this magica has room to grow/ change (for good or for worst). So safe to say i am looking forward to the first ep in the line up.  

September 12th : favourite character?

why must you make me choose...

seriously all of the characters major or minor is shown in a way that makes them feel very real and well rounded even if they have very little screen time. for god sake the ottoman empire guys get character development (one left the show to pursue acting and they fight with scrooge in the moonvation). So this is not an easy pick to say the least.    

but I will be judging it by the one i ‘get the most out of’ so to speck....

and I have to say its a tie...

Donald Duck

I love him ok. He is very small and very angry and he will fight god(s) for his family safety. Anyway, I have always love Donald Duck shorts and everything else he shows up in he is always my fav.

I have always been able to relate to Donald as i too have a bit of a disability that makes it hard for people to understand be (in writing) and i have a ‘voice issue’ that makes me different from everyone around me. So i really understand the feeling Donald have and the anger that comes from being misunderstood in the most basic ways. Its not fun

So Donald has always been important to me in a sense,  

The thing about Ducktales 2017 that i love is that it fleshes out Donald’s already established characteristics, by giving them context (e.g. using his outbursts to protect the boys). this gives him something that me has been missing (in animation) for awhile now, and that is how functions outside of himself.

what i mean by that is that Donald is kind of unique when it comes to the Disney sensational 6, unlike the rest is/ can be

-selfish

-cowardly

-rude/ mean spirited

-a loser

these things are what make him different to the rest but in animation for a while he has been shown by himself (without his family or even Daisy) so all of the above characteristics are not “diluted” or held to any standard outside of Donald’s personal misery.

So he can be super selfish and an all around ass cause, yeah, if your life was one pain after the other no matter what you did and you were all on your own all the time, then yeah, your going to be a miserable little shit.  

But by reintroducing the boy’s and giving him a more defined role (father/ solo care giver) at least at the start of the show, it gives Donald a reason to “fight off” his less than noble parts of his personality. It also makes his action have more weight as everything he does or fails to do effects the boy’s. So that makes him more appealing overall as what he does (or doesn’t) do now matters, and all the tragedy in Donald’s life are also given weight (Della being gone for 10 yrs, and what that did to his relationship with Scrooge) so his pain is now REAL and even tho he is funny and reckless, he is now a person with flaws and failings but also victory's (getting Della back and his family being close again) and dreams (the three caballeros and his relationship with Daisy)

I do love this little Rage machine  

the other fav is

Drake Mallard

(maybe I just like single duck dads? idk, lol)

I have already talked a bit about his intro ep,

but as of right now i am more in love with the potential i see in the character. As we have not really seen to much of him like maybe 4 ep’s total. But Drake is the character i am most hyped to see more of (and the people who are around him, Gos and LP etc.)  

as i find him really interesting and he is (ironically) one of the more “normal” people in the show as a whole, He is not rich (high society rich anyway) he is not an explorer, not a scientist, he don’t have a ‘crazy’ backstory (like Gyro in Tokyok) and he doesn't have a direct connection to Scrooge himself (he never worked for him directly, and is not a family member)

so he is just a random guy, who thought “I’m going to do this crazy shit just because a handsome pilot man said i could if i wanted to”

and honestly that’s cool.    

he is fun and goofy in an engendering way, and his ego is the right amount of controlled (ish) but still over the top. the character is full of story’s that can be taken from the og show and mixed in with the new show (like his intro ep),

Drake is a just fun to think about, and how his world relates to the world of ducktales in general, as they were separate for such a long time, so seeing it come together in a new way is super existing.

I was already blown away by his last solo ep I can’t wait to see more of him (and his how he will be with his Gos, and how that adventure will unfold)  

September 13th Favorited actor/ actress 

now this is just an unfair question, this is a star strutted cast and everyone is amazing. There is a pop culture icon and a Disney legend in the cast (and the fact your not 100% sure which one’s i’m talking about proves my point)

So i am going to cheat a little here, I’m not going off the actors and actress themselves per say but rather I’m going to talk about my favourite performance in the show.

I judge this on two things

1) how much the act ‘disappears’ into the character (as in i don’t see the human person when there talking, even if its still just their normal voice)

2) I can’t see (/hear) anyone else being able to do the role

So on those two things in mind i will have to go with.

Paget Brewster

she just plays Della with this fun life to her, she can switch on a dime from crazy adventurer to comic foil to herself and then have moments of deep self refection. And she had to carry the introduction to the character all on her own, as Della was isolated, so if she didn’t sell Della to us (the audience) then the whole mystery/ build up to Della would have fallen apart. So that was not easy but she pulled it off (with great writing as well).

and she was/is amazing as Della, she is just awesome and I love listening to her and how she plays Della.

September 14th Favourite song

Oh for me it hands down has to be “not good enough” I love a good Bond ballad and Ben kills it. Plus it plays a big part in the episodes theme’s for LP,

its perfect, it fits the story, character and the parody.   

September 15th: Favourite scene from favourite episode.

well out of my top 3 episode (that i have already listed) I’m going to not talk about ‘the dark duck returns’ as there is a scene in there that i will talk about later. my favourite scene out of the other 2 episodes i have picked, i would have to go with...

The ‘Defiantly real boy’ scene from Astro BOYD

(i have already talked about my love for Astro boy and this ep in relation to that)  what i love the most about this scene is that not only did Gyro and Boyd ‘find’ each other again, but they found themselves again.

Boyd turned back into the real boy Gyro ‘made’ him to be (the boy Gyro always believed he was/could be) and that not only was that ok, but the best way for Boyd be himself. Thus his reclaiming of the word Boyd, he is still ‘the same’ but now has a clear sense of what it actually means to himself, mixing both 2BO and Boyd into one. With the love given to 2BO by Gyro and the life experience he has had as Boyd, so Boyd didn’t have to change everything about himself to be complete he just needed to understand that he was loved for being himself and to get confirmation that he is what he believes himself to be a ”Defiantly real boy” (T-T)

as for Gyro, he realised that his love, care and idealism (as he put it) was not misplaced (on Boyd), as when the little boy he loved so fully seemingly turn on him, that broke his heart and his spirit in a way that just would not fully mend. (thus his cold and rude behaviour through out the show so far...) But when Gyro fully embraces his idealism and loving side again (by embracing Boyd) he realises that he can bring his true feeling to the surface again as it was never a mistake for him to do so. thus why he embraces Fenton as an equal, by calling him Doctor and showing the respect he actually always felt for Fenton.

They found themselves through each other, and it melts my heart (T-T) 

September 16th: Favourite moonlander

Penny.

September 17th: Favourite Beagle Boy

Black arts Beagle,

I mean he is the reason we have Duckworth back so thats got to count for something.

September 18th: Favourite scene of your favourite ship

I have to say its this little moment here...

Donald spent the whole episode wanting to impress this woman (Glamor), but after spending time with Daisy decided that Daisy’s dignity was more important then his Big Break. And Daisy returns in kind like ‘yeah i shouldn’t be treated this way’ and its just really sweet. It also got Daisy noticed and most likely jumb started her career and Daisy (again) returned in kind (most likely) by having the three Caballeros perform on stage right after.

so its a small but very insight look into the new dynamic Donald and Daisy are going to/ do have in this show.

[plus this screen shot was funny to me,

i think it has meme template vibes]

September 19th: Favourite scene of  your favourite character.

oh my, where oh where to take this?

every character in this show is so good so this is just hard man....

but I will go with “The Duck Knight returns” one of my favs, and honesty i could talk about this episode all on its own (and I just might after “Lets Get Dangerous” airs)  but for me one of the scenes that really stuck out to me (that others have not really touched on) Is when they have the “meeting” with Alister, Jim, Scrooge and Dewey and then Drake comes in (and then immediately gets his shit wrecked by Jim).

As a film student, I feel this scene on a personal level.

the old(er) man who knows nothing but wants to take control.

the Pretentious “artist” that thinks “making it dark” makes it meaningful.

the person who pretends they know what there talking about but is to stuck in their ways to really change their mind.

and a child or child like understanding (its more common then you think)

(tho i would place LP in the audience position, which is the point of this scene) This scene hit me where I live, and is a really good commentary on Corporate meddling. As there are three ‘battles’ happening in this scene

1) Scrooge Vs Alistair

this acts as a money vs art argument, that is seen all to often in movies and shows, as I can guess we can all name at least one movie or show that has the “the record studio is changing your sound its not authentic...”

but Dt 2017 shows the other side to this and asks

authentic to what? like its one things when its your own creation but what if its was someone else's (like a reboot)  

is it better to be authentic to what was before (the og material), or is it best to take a new direction because its more ‘comfortable’ for you to do (fits your style / sensibility's)

thus leading to

2) LP Vs Dewey  

or a young audience vs the older audience, now Dewey and LP don’t really clash in this ep per say but, they act as a more “aggressive” views on audience backlash now they are Not Malicious but they do act as conflicting presences. Dewey (understandably) doesn’t get why it has to be dark and gritty, or what was happening at all as Alistair is going for a high concept film, but guess what, kids aren’t always great at picking high concepts up (at least not right away) and they can be easily bored by it, if its not engaging in a way that can appeal to them.  

and LP as an older audience member does know what the show/ movie is “meant to be” so seeing these high concepts added in a way that is not in the sprit of og material can be unnerving. And high concepts can miss the point or main message/style of the og material to the point that unrecognisable (*cough*Live action, Titians *cough*).

both of these points are legitimate concerns for audiences to have, as if something is so different its not unrecognisable then why not just make something original? and not draw a comparison.

and if your main audience is meant to be younger, they how are you going to engage them in way that matters to them or in a way they can understand (youth culture or ‘young truths’ i.e. things kids deal with/experience when growing up)          

speaking of which

3) Jim Vs Drake

this one is kind of the mix of the pervious two, or nostalgia vs update? (i can’t think of a better word),  

Jim is so determined to be in the spot light that he is willing to ‘throw away’ is morals (as seen at the end), his ‘artist integrity’ no longer matters as long as DW gets to come back, he just wants some sense of being back that it doesn’t actually matter how (*cough* Teen Titians Go*cough*), so he losses a big part of what made it DW to begin with and not because he don’t care about DW but because he places his value of it in one spot (himself as darkwing)  

as Drake on the other hand. understands that changes need to be made but he knows the movie is off base (he says so himself later), but he puts the value of DW in more then himself, as he has felt it be bigger then what was just on screen (Jim) and has carried that with him here. And since he is set up as an ‘enemy’ here (Jim jumps him) new is seen as an enemy as well, but he literal gets attached for just existing, so yeah not a great move by Jimbo there, and due to nostalgia (both in and out of the show due Jim starling/cummings) most may not of have pick up on it right away.

so yeah, this is an underrated scene and i wanted to talk about it a little as it sets up the rest of the episode.  

September 20th: Favourite friend group 

hmmm....

I have a feeling that this is going to change after the new wave of episodes (i like how team hero is shaping up) but for now i will have to say team science. They just have a nice balance of personalities and ability's, plus they the most team (ish) as they literally have to work together (most of them)

huey, gyro, fenton, manny and lil bulb

and all have their own style and smarts

Manny and Lil blub don’t even talk but they have big personalities and now with the addition of Boyd this little group feels well rounded.

I love them nerds

#ducktales #dt17 #ducktales 2017 #text #gladstone gander #darkwing duck #drake mallard #Donald duck #jose carioca #webby vanderquack #will edit as i go #gyro gearloose #boyd gearloose #daisy duck #magica de spell #della duck #jim starling

[flodaya]

What is your (so far) favorite season of each version of skam you've seen?

oh this might be boring and predictable, but i’m gay so dont judge me 

skam season 3, the first thing i ever watched of skam was isak and even’s first kiss, and oh wow i loved that scene, so i quickly found out what show it was from (i vaguely remembered seeing it all over tumblr in 2016) and binged all four seasons, and season 3 is just phenomenal, the symbolisms, the storytelling, the characters, it all fit so well together

skam france season 3, imane and lucas are pretty much the only two characters i really care about in skamfr, and i really love lucas as a character, and i enjoyed watching skamfr s3 a lot in the beginning, not so much the second half, but it was still far far better than season 1 and 2, and don’t get me started on season 4, imane deserves better

druck season 3, yeah so how many paragraphs am i allowed i gush about matteo’s season? i could probably fill a 500 page book. matteo alone is so so special to me, he is one of those very few characters that will stay in my heart forever, i don’t think i have ever seen a main character be as introverted and quiet as matteo, clearly depressed and canonically has anxiety attacks, what good rep to have!! i’m also so in awe of michi’s portrayal of matteo. and then we have the boy squad which is just my favorite boy squad ever, i love their dynamic, they are hilarious andnd supportive in every way, and they are all close with one other, not just jonas and matteo, they all have a special relationship with each other. david obviously is another absolute highlight, and another character that just is iconic and will go down not just in skam but in television history. and i haven’t even started to talk about matteo and david’s relationship. it’s just the pure soulmate trope but not in a cheesy way, but in a “idiot soulmates” way, i loved every second of it. there is so much more i could say, and go more into detail, i really really love this season a lot, but i think you all know that

skam españa season 2, another really special season for me, i’m actually constantly rewatching it, seriously, i don’t think i have rewatched any other skam season more times than skam españa (at least as a as a season from beginning to the end), cris and joana are wonderful characters, the girl squad is the most supportive and loving group of friends, i love the background development of viri, and also nora/alejandro, and can we talk about the iconic move of giving the isak season to one of the girls and making isak the gay guru?? just think about that, in skam isak needed a guru and a few universes away he IS the guru. i also love how they combined the jonas/isak sana/isak and chris/sana relationship into one beautiful childhood friendship between cris and amira, i love those two. and i really love that cris has a brother, give me more sibling rep in the skam universe

skam nl season 1, such a beautiful season, i wasnt the biggest fan of the second half of s2, but s1 was so so beautiful, i need to rewatch it asap, since the first season focuses a lot on the girl squad i wasnt too bothered that i didnt like kes and isa together because the girl squad was working so well together since the very first moment, it’s also just in general so aesthetically pleasing to me, and isa is my favorite skam nl character, and in my top 10 skam characters of all time 

skam austin season 1, i couldnt really decide, in both cases i’m not a fan of the love story but the girl squad is what i really love in skam austin, i guess i chose s1 because i low-key shipped megan and shay, and they had some really cute moments in s1, and rather awkward and just plain saddening moments in s2 

wtfock season 2, one word: senne! that dude really did something to me, and I’m not even into guys. every scene he was in in season 2 was such a joy to watch, and again s1 is so focused on the girl squad and I don’t really feel their dynamic as friends

#skam ranking #ask #my posts

[toonstarterz]

BECAUSE I’M NOT POPULAR, I’LL READ WATAMOTE: CHAPTER #159

Another day, another chapter of Watamote to fill that hole in your heart.

The suspension arc continues on, and in what seems to be a reflection of characters’ emotions, it’s a slower chapter that on the surface, doesn’t offer much in terms of “progression”. Thankfully, my overly analytical mind is here to pick up all the delightful subtleties of our cast, and pick apart the unexpected, but welcome direction this series has set itself up to move towards. All aboard the Tomoko Train! 

Chapter 159: Because I’m Not Popular, I’ll Still Be Suspended

Yeah, that figures. Suspension becomes a lot less stressful when you realize you’re too bored to be stressed. 

Not much else to say other than the lighting in this shot is absolutely gorgeous, ya’ll.

Sorry...I was distracted by Yoshida wearing a tie. By all accounts, it should not look as good on her as it does. Too bad we only get it for like 1 1/2 panels, but I’ll take what I can get.

♪ Wooooah, we’re halfway there! 

WOAH! Livin’ on a prayer! ♫

Just some more scenery porn courtesy of Niko. Her work has really come a long way.

I sure do love these unexpected pairings that get thrown our way from time to time. They may not be the matchups we wanted, but they’re sure as hell the ones we’ll undoubtedly love.

Tomoko at it again with the sick comebacks.

It may just be out of respect to her friend Komiyama, but I’d like to think that Itou secretly(?) would like to see Komi and Tomoko become closer. A true (friend)shipper on deck.

Ah, Itou. If nothing else, your friendship with Komiyama is the real deal if you can admit to all her lunacy.

I can’t help but love how Komiyama’s whole identity is 80% related to her glasses. No surprise since its a given fact that all meganekko girls are either super pure, or super perverted, and Komi has the distinct honor of being both.  

Good luck, Itou! Just play the Lottes theme song and you're guaranteed to bring at least one person to tears.

I wasn’t sure if Tomoko fully cleared up the whole “Tomoki is my brother” thing in the groping chapter, but the implication here is that Yoshida still doesn’t know. This is building up to what will surely be a hilarious revelation.

Guess we don’t have to worry about adding Itou into the Tomokibowl, huh? That would’ve been such a trainwreck. Makes you wonder who’s Itou’s type though...

As in, “Are you doing well?” or “Well, how are you?”. C’mon, Yuri, you gotta dial down the tsundere-ness and give your favorite idiot a little more context than that. 

Damn, Nemo was right on the money, wasn’t she? Even over LINE, she’s not afraid to play dirty.

Btw, I love how Tomoko’s expression doesn’t change at all while looking through the messages. Like her face is frozen from processing so many slaps in the face at once. 

I think this is the first Tomoko has been genuinely unnerved by Katou’s (s)mothering. Getting spoiled is a hot fantasy the first couple times, Tomoko. But once it starts bleeding into your everyday life, that’s when it starts getting a little creepy.

Let’s be honest. We all know who this is, right? 

Side note: How did she get Tomoko’s LINE number?

I wanna say it’s another Mako case where Okada sent her a message because of Nemo’s influence. Poor girl is falling down the rabbit hole.

Oooooh, Katou’s getting special treatment. In her defense, I don’t think it’s necessarily that Tomoko likes her best or anything. For one, Katou the only one whose message was fairly normal. But also, it’s easy to send a quick reply to someone you’re not as close with. Logically speaking, Tomoko would likely prefer to send more detailed responses to Yuri and Nemo because she’s closer to them. And she’ll probably ignore Ucchi entirely. 

Of course, logic has no place between girls fighting for dominance.

The first time we get to see Katou’s inner thoughts and...it’s nothing special.

I wasn’t expecting to see a monologue of deep-rooted insecurities or anything. That’s not this series’ thing. If anything, that mundaneness works to Katou’s advantage because it shows that while she may be incredibly attractive on the outside, she’s just a regular person with simple concerns on the inside. If they’re really going to take Katou’s affection on Tomoko into romantic territory, it’s a good place to start.

The Cuck Sisters have graduated into the Ghosted Sisters.

I’m sure Katou isn’t trying to arrogant about being the only one to get a reply. I mean, anyone would have a bit of an ego boost from that. 

But I’m sorry, Katou. There’s just one small thing you have to realize...

...finding out that your girl was out seeing other people is the initiation for entering the Tomoko harem.

Poor Itou. Girl was just minding her own business and now she finds herself in the middle of the moshpit. 

On that note, I absolutely love the composition of this panel. Even though the line of sight is directed at Itou, Katou’s stance draws in your full attention. Even more amazing is how having these six specific people in the frame adds to the overall intensity. We having Tomoko’s old friends, new friends, and acquaintances all together for the same discussion, and it really emphasizes just how much Tomoko’s influence has affected the whole classroom dynamic.

Small tidbit, but I appreciate that Yuri asked about Yoshida, too. Those two haven’t had many scenes alone together lately since the pachinko parlor moment, and it would sure be nice to more of their relationship outside of Tomoko. 

Ucchi’s teleportation powers always gets a good laugh out of me. I also like how the very first thing she asks is if Tomoko’s creepy, like she needs that confirmation to validate even being there. Girl needs to start coming up with better excuses.

Having Ucchi and Futaki in the same panel always feels so unreal to me. I feel like if the two of them starting talking to each other, the universe would implode upon itself. 

Ucchi:

I like the direction they took this. It would have been very easy for Komiyama to pretend she doesn’t care a la tsunderism. But nope. Komiyama only has a mild interest in how Tomoko’s doing, letting Yuu act as a proxy for them. Even if Tomoko and Komiyama don’t care much about each other, their history belies this odd level of intimacy.

Alright, alright, you got me Nico Tanigawa.

...Poor Minami. 

I think its a merit to the mangaka’s storytelling skills that we can easily infer that Mako’s talking about Yoshida. Between Mako being who she is, Yoshida being who she is, and their growing friendship gaining attention, who else could it be?

That’s...kind of sad, honestly. We’ve seen several times just how clingy Minami is to her (one-sided) friendships, but never have we seen her sound so dependent on others. It’s been hinted at before, but being a bitch is the one thing Minami’s good at, and she might actually know that. She may act stuck-up on the outside, but the fact that’s she’s so upfront about it may actually mask a bit of an inferiority complex.  

Curse you, Nico Tanigawa, for making Minami a three-dimensional character with legitimate wants and fears.

I’m glad Mako isn’t mentioning her by name. She knows Minami enough that outting her friend will lead to harm.

On Minami.

Tomoko’s triangle mouth is unironically cute. There, I said it.

Character development for Yoshida, whaaaaaat?

Let’s face it. The trio of Tomoko, Yuri, and Yoshida are all slackers in some way, shape, or form. It makes sense that Yoshida would be the last of them to put any real effort into her future. Since she isn’t the type to make personal changes just because someone told her to, the reasonable way to make Yoshida understand is through observance. As thick-headed as she is, Miss Yoshida is not about to be left in the lurch while her buddies move on without her.

Between this and my recent watching of Aggretsuko S2 (shameless plug!), it’s become apparent to me that getting a driver’s license isn’t as “mandatory” there as it is in my country. I’d imagine it has to do with the work environment there being so focused on public transit, but feel free to correct me if I’m wrong.

Tomoko actually makes a solid point there, though I get the feeling she’s imagining Yoshida driving getaway cars for the yakuza or something. 

Or, you know, her chauffeur. 

Ignoring the somewhat obvious advertisement for a vehicle that I’m sure was blacked out in the original version, this is totally setting itself up for the next arc of Watamote. As summer vacation gets closer and closer, I was wondering just how Tomoko was going to spend it. She obviously can’t stay at home the whole time like she did in the past, so I was thinking she’d end up doing things with her friends like working part-time jobs, going to a festival, or in this case, a road trip.

Bring on the Road Trip Arc!

Oh, I get it. Tomoko did the whole “min-na” thing that slice-of-life moe anime girls do when talking about their friends, right? 

Traitor.

I’m joking, of course, but only partially. It’s clear to us all that Tomoko feels like she’s betraying a part of herself for saying something so bubbly. It was a direction I had anticipated to some degree when Tomoko began making self-deprecating jokes about becoming a normie. It was always in that “haha, like that could ever happen” tone, but it was only a matter of time before Tomoko started to become the mask. It’s scary to think you might subconsciously be changing a core part of yourself, and that realization is something Tomoko will eventually have to come to terms with.

At least we get her most adorable, genuine blush ever thanks to this.

Damn, expulsion for driving a vehicle? What’s with this school and it’s beef with having your own set of wheels?

Ah, saving up for a car. The first glimpse into Tomoko’s (and everyone else’s) efforts at adulting. 

To get the obvious out of the way, no I don’t think Mako and Yoshida are naked in this panel. While Nico Tanigawa have shown that they’re not above very mild levels of fanservice, I don’t think they’d resort to something this teasing.

Probably. 

Anyways, there isn’t anything necessarily wrong with Yoshida’s decision. Taking things slow is very much in line with her character. Sure, it’s kind of inconsiderate of Yoshida to flippantly go the other way after asking for help, and Mako’s frustration is understandable. But more importantly, it highlights Mako influence on Yoshida, and the Kyoto Group in general.

When it’s just Tomoko, Yuri, and Yoshida, they have a unique bond where they don’t really try to push each other out of their comfort zones. Yoshida especially, for being so damn stubborn. But when you add Mako into the mix, a.k.a. the “Mom Friend”, suddenly the level of morale and effort within the group rises. And as the most “normal” friend, Mako’s existence helps to keep their friendship from growing stagnant.

As the Suspension Arc continues, the lack of “action” gives the cast some room for a little introspection. The gags themselves may have been on the limited side, but a lot of these set-up chapters usually are. The future is near, folks, and there are no signs of slowing down, for the characters or the series itself. Changes are over the horizon, but for now, the journey continues.

#watamote #watamote review #chapter 159 #no matter how i look at it it's you guys' fault i'm not popular! #tomoko kuroki #masaki yoshida #hikari itou #tomoki kuroki #yuri tamura #hina nemoto #asuka katou #kotomi komiyama #shiki futaki #koharu minami #mako tanaka #review

[seddm]

It's so hard to explain to haters why Starco is so adorable & pure. They just make me smile a lot & they're so fun to watch. They're the highlight of the show for many. Why do you think so many people connect to them seddm? Both as individuals & a couple. Why do YOU find them so entertaining? Ugh, their just so easy to gush about! They're so cute & funny & wholesome! Seeing them progress as individuals & kick ass together is awesome to see. S4 being more limited in this aspect alienated many +me

[SNOB MODE ON] In my experience many fans like them for “simple” ship related reasons: they’re cute together, they have designs that go well together, they shared a lot of cute moments on screen between hugging and whatnot, and many people like friends-to-lovers stories. These are probably the ones who make up the biggest chunk of Starco shippers. Those who get a bit more in depth with the show and the ship might be particularly attracted by the almost unique type of relationship Star and Marco have compared to many other fictional couples: from almost day one (but most notably starting with S2) they always had an enormous amount of commitment for each other, well beyond what one would expect to find in a normal friendship. And while this made waiting for Starco to happen even more frustrating, and lead to other relationships being a bit on the weird side (since the dorks always ended up putting each other first, while often ignoring their partners), it also always made their relationship what one could consider an ideal of bond between two people: I don’t fully agree with the decision of barely having any over reference to standard displays of romance and physical attraction until the very end, but it’s not a coincidence if the series finale barely focused on that (despite all the passion in Here to Help), shifting most of the emotional weight on a generic “Star and Marco want to be together and love being together”. This might be the most endearing aspect of Starco, and what the show succeeded in the most: portraying them as two soulmates, two individuals who would do anything to be together and who can’t imagine a life without the other, without ever going for cheesy tropes about “love at first sight” or destiny or stuff like that [SNOB MODE OFF].

As for my reasons to like Starco so much, everything I said above, and also a deep attachment to their emotional intimacy and honesty: obviously starting with Sleepover Star and Marco haven’t always been entirely honest with themselves and each other, but it has still always been a rather important part of their relationship. Moments like The Knight Shift (and many, many others) have obviously been frustrating to an extent, because it’s impossible not to go “OH COME ON JUST TALK AND REALIZE YOU ARE IN LOVE!”, but at the same time seeing how unapologetically in love these two have always been, even well before realizing that they were actually in love-love, has always been a huge attractive for me, and what made me start shipping Starco.

#seddm answers #Anonymous

[tangledinart]

All of tts ask game

Well dang XD well here it goes!

My favorite episode is Beyond the Corona walls. It just makes me so happy and full of new dream goodness

Best ship.... New Dream forever baby

Favorite Friendship, Eugene and Lance's friendship is so pure I can't stand it

Favorite Character, Eugene. I love him so much omg❤

Least Favorite.... uhhhh I really don't like Nigel.

Wishes, Lots of exploration on Eugene and Edmunds relationship, Great New Dream moments and angst too, lots of Varian... I miss him so much, and and Lance needs to sing more PLEASE I'm still obsessed with Buddy.

Everything I ever thought I knew, I still listen to it like every freaking day❤

Hmmmm... headcannon??? Uhhh is it bad I can't currently pick one?

Omg Pascal is my baby💚

Rapunzel's winter oufit is so gorgeous I'd love to wear it💕 (only in the winter though ofc cause it looks very cozy!)

Timothy Dalton as Demantatus he was so freaking amazing

Thoughts on DPE.... Its mixed ngl... I love the fanart and DPE is like my favorite thing to do fanart of, I love the possibilities, I love that Eugene has a dad next season like its gonna be so interesting to see how Eugene goes about this... but Eugene being a prince can be difficult for me at times? Ive always loved how amazing his character is and he came from nothing so I felt like we kinda lost that sorta and there are a few other things that bother me... BUT I think its worth all the possibilities and focus Eugene will get. So over all I really like it!

Moonsandra.... I don't know! We don't know enough about it for me to give an opinion, I'm gonna have to wait to S3 to see how I feel about it.

I don't think that about anyone... and I really ship Cass and Lance so not really a person who classifies or likes Cass to be lgbt like lots of people

Snuggly duckling member? Vladimir is great.

I came into the fandom a few months before S2 aired.

Sundrop☀️(though I love moondrop too)

EUGENE DEFINITELY is the most attractive (heh he's hot)

The Uumlats were so cute!

Corona is my favorite location

I have a deep feeling Eugene is gonna die again, but I'd rather Rapunzel die that would be some goog angst (and a great reason for Eugene to cry in S3 finale😉)

Ooooh best action scene??? Uhhhh I love when they are fighting the ancestor ghosts in Destines collide there were so many great moments!

Dark kingdom is great and all but definitely Corona!☀️

Unpopular opinion? I feel like most people love Lady Caine, guys I can't stand her.

My older sister told me about it and I quickly got into it cause I love the movie sm

I just watched the movie a few weeks ago... heck Id love to watch Beyond the Corona walls or Vigor the visionary right now.

How am I supposed to know what the scroll means?😂

Anything joke that comes out of Eugene's mouth is my favorite joke.

I plan to stay in the fandom after the show but I don't know.... I probably cant do fanart as often when the show ends, I really want to prepare for a career in animation cause I really want to be either a Story Board artist or Character Designer and unfortunately I can't do tangled fanart forever.... but I can stick in the fandom without doing tons of art and I love the fandom and dont want to leave... I cant guarantee that though it depends where my journey takes me💕

#tts ask game #tangled the series #Rapunzel's tangled adventure

[dreameater1988]

My Top 10 Twelfth Doctor Stories

I’ve seen other people do this, so I decided to make my own Top 10 of Twelfth Doctor stories.

10. Flatline

I have a soft spot for stories in which the Doctor gets in a bit of a situation and putting him in a shrinking TARDIS was a hilarious plan. I have to admit, I wasn’t that fond of the episode when I first watched it, but to be quite honest, I love it a bit more with every rewatch. I think this really is one of those episodes that you have to watch a couple of times to really appreciate it. I’m also glad that the Boneless were picked up again in one of the comics because who doesn’t love a recurring monster? They were creepy, they were threatening and quite difficult to defeat - which the Doctor eventually did while giving an amazing speech. I think it was the first Twelfth Doctor speech that really struck me because of how fierce and powerful it was. And a cute bonus: Doctor Oswald. All of these things definitely put Flatline in my Top 10.

9. The Zygon Invasion / The Zygon Inversion

Another thing I love about Doctor Who? Kate Stewart! So it would be a shame not to include one of her stories in my Top 10. I have always preferred two-parters over single episodes because of that little heart attack causing “to be continued” thrill and these episodes do it quite brilliantly. The Zygons as monsters aren’t exactly my favourites, but they were really well used in this case. I really enjoyed the storyline and the many jokes that were put in the episodes (Why do you have a Union Jack parachute? - Camouflage. - Camouflage? - Yes, we’re in Britain.) There really are so many things I love about this two-parter: the Doctor’s emotional speech, Jenna marvellously playing two different characters, Kate tricking the Zygons, . . . The final product is a thrilling episode and wonderful entertainment.

8. Dark Water / Death in Heaven

The finale of S8 has to be on this list for one reason alone: Missy. Michelle Gomez really, really rocked that part and I will love her forever for it. I never really liked the Simm!Master because of various reasons (mainly cause his version of the Master collided with the version in a book I’ve read and loved). Yet the Twelfth Doctor and Missy really brought that “true friendship gone horribly wrong” part across. There was also the storyline of Clara losing Danny and later losing the Doctor by letting him go which I think shaped her S9 character to a large degree that I really, really love. The Cybermen were less creepy in this episode than in others (the S2 two-parter has scarred me forever), but this story wasn’t about the Cybermen or an invasion at all, at least it’s not how I see it. This two-parter is about loss and friendship. And it contains yet another Twelfth Doctor speech that I will love until the day I die. He’s my idiot with a box and a screwdriver. 

7. Oxygen

I feel obligated to put at least one episode from S10 on my list and since this was the only one that really stirred something in me, here we go. I loved the space station setting (because I’m a sad sci-fi nerd), I loved the dystopian “oxygen on sale” bit, but you know what I loved the most? The Doctor going blind. Oh my God, how I loved the big reveal in the end when he said he still couldn’t see. The Doctor is a Time Lord surrounded by humans, he is always superior to them simply because of the fact that he’s (like he said to Clara in FtR) “less breakable”, but finally, we get to see that he is breakable after all, that he’s vulnerable, that he’s no longer the superior hero. I love that bit. Sadly, the episodes that followed didn’t really put this plot twist to use in my opinion.

6. Mummy on the Orient Express

Who wouldn’t want to go on a trip on the space Orient Express with the Twelfth Doctor? This episode was beautiful from start to finish: the setting, the costumes, the dialogues, the storyline, the tension between the Doctor and Clara. Every moment of this episode was wonderful and a pure joy to watch. It was also a big turning point in the relationship between the (new) Doctor and Clara because, for the first time, she saw him for who he really was. Now, a couple of weeks ago I bought Doctor Who - The Complete History and I read about the making of this episode and I have to admit that I probably would have loved the original script (in which the Mummy is a life-extending body suit that won’t let people die and Clara briefly gets turned into one) a little bit more because it contains more sci-fi elements than the version they ended up using. But hey, I’m not complaining. The episode is awesome.

5. Into The Dalek

“I see into your soul, Doctor. I see beauty. I see divinity. I see hated.” Just hearing these words in my head gives me goosebumps and I think that is a very good sign that this episode definitely belongs in my Top 10. A lot of things have been done with Daleks over the past 50+ years, but miniaturizing the Doctor and putting him inside one is definitely one of the more brilliant ideas. I also really love the early version of the Twelfth Doctor, I love my grumpy, old alien and he’s at his peak in this one. But he’s also still struggling to find out if he is a good man or not and I really enjoyed that conflict that we saw in Peter’s first season. Rusty the Dalek plays a big part in that conflict and their dialogue makes me shiver even after watching it about 30 times.

4. The Magician’s Apprentice / The Witch’s Familiar 

The Doctor riding a tank into a medieval castle while playing the electric guitar! Do I need to say more? Yes, I’m definitely going to say more, but, oh my God, that was probably one of my favourite moments of the entire show. I sat in front of my telly, gawking at the screen. There will never be a season opened better than this. You won’t believe how much I enjoyed watching it the first time and how much I am still enjoying it every time I watch this episode. The rest of the two-parter is anything but a let-down. I loved the Twelfth Doctor/Missy interactions in this one because up until the end of the episodes you can really see the former friendship, you can see just how long they have known each other, how much they meant to each other back then (I live for this kind of thing). Also, bringing back Davros is always a nice touch. Bringing back Skaro was amazing (and seeing the fear in Missy’s eyes when she realized where she was). The Clara/Missy duo was amazing. The Doctor pleading for Clara’s life on his knees when he thinks he’s about to lose her. Honestly, there isn’t anything that I don’t love about this two-parter. Add “The Doctor’s Meditation” to this and you’ll get 10 minutes of pure, silly fun as well.

3. Listen

This episode was the one where I decided that Twelve was my Doctor. In fact, it was the pre-intro scenes with him that showed him sitting on the TARDIS roof and talking to himself by candlelight that got me. But that’s not why I loved the episode. It was properly creepy. I love the creepy episodes the most and sadly, there has been a bit of a lack in those in recent years, but Listen was definitely one of the best. I first watched the leaked black and white version and even then it gave me chills. This episode also showed how much of an impact Clara really had on the Doctor (apart from getting him to save Gallifrey and asking the Time Lords to help him). She saw him as a young, frightened boy and she put those thoughts in his head that would accompany him for the rest of his life. It was a wonderful, little twist. I also really enjoyed the fact that we never got to know what the monster actually was. I love that some people believe it’s a kid under a bedspread and some (like me, cause I’ve paused and seen a screenshot of what looked like Voldemort) think it was an actual monster. Whatever it was, I’m glad we never got the solution handed to us. That makes it even more interesting to me.

2. Under the Lake / Before the Flood

I don’t think I’ve said it enough, but this two-parter is actually perfect. Everything about it is perfect. The Doctor and Clara are at their peak, they’re having their “glory years”. It’s very likely that there was a large time span between TMA/TWF and this two-parter because we see them in full action, we see them incredibly bonded, we see them trust each other completely. This is the first time we see how intense their relationship actually is (“If you love me in any way, you’ll come back”, “I’m changing history to save Clara.”). They are the perfect TARDIS duo in this one, but we also get a sense of foreshadowing as to what is going to happen to Clara in the future. The minor characters in this story are all perfect as well, I can’t say a single bad word about them. I normally don’t care about minor characters because I’ve learned that many of them end up dead anyway, but in this one, I can’t help but feel for them as well. As for the storyline and plot twist, it was a two-parter full of exciting moments and surprises with a lot of laughs and emotions thrown in as well. And the Fisher King was a great monster. Perfect television entertainment for a Saturday night that almost ended up being Nr 1 on my list.

1. Heaven Sent / Hell Bent

Heaven Sent is, in my opinion, Steven Moffat’s masterpiece and always will be. It felt like he was working his way up from The Eleventh Hour to culminate in the S9 finale with two episodes that actually managed to blow my mind. I am very critical when I’m watching TV and I’m not so easily impressed, but Heaven Sent actually blew my mind. Heaven Sent, an episode that is longer than usual, that features only one actor in only a handful of rooms and it’s the best damn thing I have ever seen on TV. During S10 I often complained about seeing the “plot twist” coming, but this one took me completely by surprise and broke my heart in the process. Oh, the tears I’ve shed over Heaven Sent! It’s that moment the Doctor realizes what he’s doing, what he’s been doing and for how long that always breaks me and it’s underlined by the most perfect Murray Gold score I’ve ever heard. And of course the big reveal that Gallifrey was waiting on the other end. 

I think Heaven Sent / Hell Bent are the perfect depiction of the stages of grief in the Doctor’s 4.5 billion years quest to save Clara. And oh, how he did it! It’s not a secret that Clara has been my favourite companion from the moment she appeared on screen and after watching her become more and more like the Doctor over the course of the seasons, it was such a satisfaction to see her get her own TARDIS and run away. There is something so bitter-sweet, so emotional about this series finale and at the same time, it’s so full of twists and turns and surprises. It’s devastating and uplifting at once. In one word: perfect!

#whouffaldi #peter capaldi #twelfth doctor #doctor who #my top 10

[alluratron]

Voltron seasons 3 and 4 review

I rewatched the two seasons in one go so as to see how much I’d like it as one single season as it was originally meant to be and I did actually prefer it that way. So I’ll talk about the good aka what I liked and enjoyed, then about what I was kinda “meh” towards, before talking about what I disliked.

The good:

Allura. I love seeing Allura in the thick of things, hence my love of episodes like “Collection and Extraction”, and the confrontation with Haggar and the druids in “Blackout”. I was rather disappointed in s2 by how much of Allura’s screentime was to do with opening wormholes or sitting around waiting (although I did prefer that to her supposedly being ~racist~ -.-) so to see her always involved in the action this season was very satisfying for me.

Her pink paladin armour is glorious and watching her wield her whip bayard is magnificent. So many Wonder Woman comparisons made valid and I love it.

By “Code of Honor” she’s back in a co-leadership position with Shiro, where Shiro seems more of the battle strategy leader and Allura more of the coalition diplomacy leader.

HER MAGIC LITERALLY LIFTING VOLTRON UP!!!! They were actually going to be crushed by gravitational pressure but Allura saved them all on her own and that’s amazing. She’s explicitly untrained and yet she has so much raw power. I truly believe she’s some sort of Chosen One or something.

Lance’s insecurities not just brushed under the carpet after Shiro’s sharpshooter comment in season 2. It definitely seems like he’s going to have the longest running arc. We saw him attempt to use the black lion to ~cure~ his insecurities with the whole “this is your moment” thing.

We also learn that he worries that not only is he the least useful member of the team, he doesn’t even deserve to be on the team at all. As the viewer we know this isn’t true and this is especially highlighted this season, with Lance fighting at the forefront a lot more.

Evolution of Lance and Keith’s dynamic. I think it’s super interesting how Lance stepped up when Shiro was gone, consoling Keith and supporting him when Keith felt most alone, but seemingly steps away from that role when Shiro returned.

Lance was never afraid to call Keith out and somehow is able to get through to him and that made him the perfect balance to Keith.

The relationship didn’t just skip to BFFs though, because even though Lance is good at supporting Keith, Keith sucks at it and as such there’s still problems to address for them to grow.

Evolution of Lance and Allura’s relationship. Lance didn’t flirt ONCE with her!!!! In 13 episodes!!!!! Their relationship is so much more profound now. I made a post about this, but I love the contrast between “Red Paladin” where Allura motivates and encourages Lance to believe in himself and says why the red lion has chosen him, and then in “A New Defender” Lance motivates and encourages Allura to believe in herself and her abilities and says the blue lion chose her for a reason. I love mutually supportive friendships. Also, Lance checks in to see how Allura is doing in Blue. He also genuinely compliments her for taking out a bunch of sentries.

Shiro back in the black lion. I still have my doubts as to whether this is the same Shiro from seasons 1 and 2, but either way I’m glad to see his face in the lion. The more paladin armor in the matching lion the better imo.

More emphasis on how badass Hunk is. His piloting skills have come so far since season 1. He also elbow dropped someone in the face like daaaaammmmmnnnnnn son.

More emphasis on how loyal Hunk is. He wanted to form the head with the yellow lion 😭😭😭. He loves his lion and I love him. He also is very loyal to his friends. He split off and went back for Allura when she fell behind.

More emphasis on how smart Hunk is. In season 2 there was a tendency to downplay his intelligence (and everyone else’s) to make Pidge seem smarter. This season, however, Hunk was very much involved in the nerd talk, with him and Pidge (and Matt when he joined) bouncing ideas off each other.

Speaking of, Matt. I really didn’t want that storyline dragging out any longer so I’m glad Pidge found him finally. They have a lovely dynamic and he’s so sweet and supportive of her. I know some people are saying his personality is basically the same as Lance but I don’t see that. Sure, he flirts with Allura but if you think flirting is Lance’s most defining trait then uhhhhh. Well. Also Lance doesn’t really do puns. Also also Lance isn’t a nerd.

I saw spoilers so I knew Matt wasn’t dead but they still had me thinking Matt was really dead???? Had me tryna rationalise future Matt scenes like maybe that Matt is from an alternate reality. Really well done episode. I didn’t cry but I only cry for Allura so eh.

GROUP HUG!!!!!!!!!! It was so pure and cute and Keith looked so happy. I wonder if he’s been in a group hug before. Pidge crying that they’d miss Keith when she was the first one who ever tried to leave the team shows how close they’ve grown since season 1.

I know this a kids show and they aren’t going to kill any of the main cast but damn if Keith didn’t get me. I was in SHOCK, wondering if maybe Steven Yeun didn’t want to be part of the show anymore lmao. Props to them for actually making that really convincing.

The generals turning on Lotor “for Narti”. We see that they really are friends with each other. Ezor looked very upset after Narti’s death. Zethrid looked upset too. These girls care for each other.

The “meh”:

“The Legend Begins”. I’m really glad it happened because it was about time we got some backstory. I did enjoy certain aspects of it (Alfor’s “oh dear” and Zarkon’s “i must go” are big winners to me) and I especially enjoyed red paladin Alfor confirmation (because I’m petty and I hated how people acted as if it was canon confirmed that he was yellow). 

But some aspects fell flat for me. I would’ve liked more female paladins, or for the one female paladin to not be in the same lion as the girl on our original team (bc really they could stand to mix things up once in a while). I would’ve loved Blaytz to be female and a lesbian, flirting with a female galra servant. 

The queen of Altea’s design and role was a big disappointment. It was extremely lazy to just give her all of Allura’s features just with a different dress. She also doesn’t speak a word nor have a name. What happened to her? Who knows. Maybe we’ll find out in future episodes but I’m sceptical. 

I’m not keen on how Alfor made a joke out of it when Zarkon was reinforcing class separation. It makes me wonder if that was present on all the planets, just not as enforced. I do like that Zarkon was already classist and power hungry before he died in the rift. It made it feel less like they were trying to excuse his tyranny and more like they were saying “he was a dick but quintessence exacerbated his dickiness”.

I love Honerva’s character, but I don’t like how she had a small, pointy nose before and once she turns evil she gets a hooked nose.

“The Voltron Show”. I know it’s supposed to be meta and make fun of itself/the fandom à la “Ember Island Players” but it just fell a bit flat for me. There were some really funny bits, like Coran sayin Shiro is the most popular character and telling him to put on a tight shirt, and I still don’t know whether I love or hate Pidge complaining about saying fake made-up science words.

But the “Humorous Hunk” thing was really not funny. Not because “oh boo more fat jokes, this time about farting” but because the episode was supposed to be this self-aware thing, parodying the show itself and the fandom and thus going over the top with everything. But them parodying using their fat character as comic relief doesn’t sit right when they continue to do just that outside of the parody. There’s a video called The Adorkable Misogyny of The Big Bang Theory and it talks about ironic lampshading (from around 13:04 if anyone’s interested). That’s what sits wrong with me about Humorous Hunk. They parody the fat comic relief character as a way to show that they’re aware that it’s an unsavory trope, yet continue to use it. I put this in the “meh” because I don’t actually know if they’ll continue to use it. Maybe they’ve finally heard the fans and will stop with the fat jokes. We’ll see next season.

Keith missing from 3 episodes. Don’t get me wrong I’m not upset about that at all, considering there was plenty of him in the first 8 episodes. But I was curious as to what this weeks-maybe-months-long mission would entail. I wouldn’t have minded, like, a minute long segment for Keith in those episodes showing us what exactly he’s up to. Even better would’ve been to show us him missing the team. They could’ve had a short scene of him watching the voltron show and smiling wistfully before he gets called away to the mission. Something like that would’ve had more people emotionally aligned with him.

The Bad:

“Hole in the Sky”. This whole episode a nightmare. Evil Alteans? Really? Is your writing that bad that you’re incapable of showing nuance without going down that route? Allura is apparently too clueless and idealised in her view of Alteans to understand what is going on by the time Keith yells “you’re taking away their will!” Keith has to be some sort of moral compass to her.

Allura saying “you’re no Altean” as if Alteans can’t be morally corrupt. As if she didn’t meet Haggar just last season finale. I know they wanted to make it hard for Allura by presenting her with the option of an idealised society, but they don’t have to make her stupid for that. I’ve come to the conclusion that any and all storylines involving race on vld are going to be badly handled and should thus be scrapped. I’ve had enough.

Lion ranking. The emphasis on Black as leader and Red as second in command feels like it’s devaluing the whole theme of voltron as 5 essential components by assigning greater worth to certain lions. Keith moving to Black and Lance moving to Red were portrayed as upgrades or promotions. Also, does this mean Lance is now Shiro’s second in command? Wasn’t discussed at all.

Allura in the Blue Lion. When Shiro was away, Allura should’ve been in the Black Lion. That’s the only rank that was established right from the beginning as leader and Allura is a great leader. She’s described in the show as the decision maker, and the black paladin is the decisive head of voltron. It’s clear she best fits the role. It also isn’t fair to have her taking orders from people she used to outrank. To rank her below Keith is bad enough, but with the second in command stuff as well, Allura ends up ranked below Keith and Lance. Depowering your WoC is not a good look.

When Shiro comes back though, the second in command thing seems to fly out the window and Allura is back to giving orders despite being in Blue so I guess they’re just inconsistent lmao.

The black lion refusing to let Shiro fly it for a grand total of 2 episodes. Seriously, that lasted 40 minutes. And 22 of those minutes we were learning the backstory. What was the point of that?

Lotor killing Narti. Hoooo boy I’m really mad about this one. It was completely unnecessary. The only reason it happened was for shock value. Lotor realised Haggar was watching him through Narti so he killed her. That makes no sense though, because Narti doesn’t fucking have eyes! She sees through Kova! So if anything, Haggar was seeing indirectly through Kova and Lotor could’ve killed the cat instead! Why he has to kill anyone anyway is a mystery to me. He could’ve knocked her out and left her and Kova there while he and the other generals leave with the ships. How is Haggar going to watch him through Narti if he isn’t even with Narti?

The whole scene was just really unpleasant. Killing off a disabled character never sits right. And there was so much more to her character that could’ve been explored. How did she come to meet Kova? Why did she join Lotor? And mind control! She could’ve used that on characters fighting in or with team voltron! Some quality angst material right there! But nope, she’s dead.

Possible redemption for Lotor. Soz pals, unnecessarily killing your comrade puts you in my shit books. 

I don’t actually think he’s going to be redeemed - I think he’s just going to use team voltron while they benefit him and then turn on them as soon as they don’t - but I’m mad at the writers for making me have to sit through endless posts of fandom woobifying his punk ass. “Space Zuko!” they cry. I gaze weakly towards a hypothetical camera as though I am a character on renounced TV show, The Office. “Why.” the word is barely a whisper as it leaves my mouth. I am Tired.

#vld analysis #voltron meta #voltron #vld #vlds4 #vld spoilers

[reluming]

Dear Yuletide author

Hi! I’m so happy that you’re writing for me! I’m mapped on AO3, and I’m very excited to read whatever you come up with – please don’t feel like you have to adhere to any of this letter, as long as you avoid my DNWs!

To start with, here are some of my general likes and dislikes!

I read slash, femslash, het, and gen. I love poly relationships. I love fluff, I love angst, I love porn – porn without plot and porn with plot. I love slice of life, and fics with heaps of domesticity. I love character studies.

I prefer happy endings, but bittersweet/sad ones are okay too.

Things I love in porn:

Pegging

D/s

Femdom

Bondage

Spanking/caning/corporal punishment

Dirty talk

Praise kink

Exhibitionism/public sex

Humiliation

Knifeplay

Double penetration

Choking

Crossdressing

Characters being super into giving oral sex

DNWs:

Rape/non-con (dub con is okay!)

A/B/O

Non-canon character death

Onto fandom-specific stuff!

The Bold Type

Requested characters: Any

What’s the canon about? A contemporary TV show featuring three young women who are best friends, working for a fashion magazine in New York and being there for each other through various career and relationship ups and downs. There’s one season with 10 episodes out so far, and it’s been renewed for two more seasons!

What I love about the canon: I love every character on this show! I love the fun and upbeat vibe, the awesome, flawed, beautifully strong women who are so supportive of each other. The focus on the friendship between the three main characters is the best thing! Every time they say “I love you” to each other my heart grows three sizes. 💞 I love how we see them being ambitious and going for their dreams, taking risks and fucking up and having to learn how to deal with their mistakes. I find it very comforting and inspiring at the same time, watching them being confident and amazing and human. People who don’t always get things right and who don’t always know what they’re doing. I enjoy watching them figure things out: Kat especially, who keeps changing her mind and doubting her choices and not really understanding what it is she wants.

Prompts:

Gen friendship fic with Sutton, Kat, and Jane! I could happily read about them doing something mundane and silly together (like getting froyo, or just hanging out in the apartment on a typical night). What were their first impressions of each other? How did they become friends? When did they agree to move in together and what was apartment-hunting like? What was it like the first night they moved in, did they all end up sleeping in the same bed talking till late? Did it take them some time to get used to living together, and was there a bit of friction at the beginning?

I would also be overjoyed to read anything sexual and/or romantic between Sutton, Kat, and Jane, in any combination! I’d be particularly interested in some kind of scenario where Kat is trying to figure out whether she’s really into women and she sleeps with both of her friends. At the same time. :’) Maybe during that brief time in the show when they’re all single?

Anything that explores what a wonderful woman and mentor and boss Jacqueline Carlyle is. How did she get here? Tell me about her moments of failure and heartbreak, her mistakes and regrets, her moments of triumph and breakthroughs! What does she think when she looks at Jane, especially, who she must see so much of herself in? That MOMENT at the end of S1 when Jane and Jacqueline are staring at each other while they go through their revolving doors and they’re both dressed in red and they’re mirrors of each other!! I’M SO HERE FOR MORE OF THAT CONTENT.

Sutton!! MY PURE RAY OF SUNSHINE. Five fashion moments in Sutton’s life she’ll remember forever? Memories she associates with a particular blouse, or scarf, or bracelet, or coat? (Btw, I prefer Sutton/Alex to Sutton/Richard, although I don’t mind Sutton/Richard. I really love Sutton and Alex’s dynamic and would even appreciate a friendship fic about them!)

One thing I feel like the show didn’t really give me was how JANE got here. Like, clearly writing for Scarlet was always her dream, but I just wanna know more about her motivations and her journey as a writer growing up!

I’d also be happy with a Jane/Ryan fic, they're super cute together! I would love to read about Jane exploring more kinky things with Ryan tbh? Like when Jane was SO OUTRAGED about the wax play thing I just thought maybe she should have the opportunity to try something similar with him! But I’d prefer if Jane/Ryan wasn’t the sole focus of the fic; if there was some focus on Jane & Sutton & Kat’s friendship as well, that would be fab.

Kat/Adena: I LOVE THEM SO MUCH. I would be extremely happy to read fic about them, post-series, during the series, whatever. Missing scenes, conversations and kisses and dreams. What happens in Peru? Future!fic! ANYTHING

Actually future!fic about where any of these characters are in five or ten or twenty years’ time would be very welcome!

Introspective fic about how Kat feels about her identity and how that’s evolved over the course of S1

Backstory about Adena and the countries she’s travelled to and the women she’s fallen in love with. What’s the story with Coco? Why isn’t it working out? What was it like, back when it did work?

Shouwa Genroku Rakugo Shinjuu

Requested characters: Kikuhiko, Miyokichi, Sukeroku

What’s the canon about? An anime (complete, two seasons, 25 episodes in total). Focuses on the art of rakugo, a centuries-old tradition of comic storytelling in Japan. A gangster, fresh out of prison, wants to become the apprentice of an old rakugo master after seeing the master perform in prison. From this, the story of the old rakugo master unfolds, and we learn about two boys who become rakugo apprentices when they’re little, and the friendship that grows between them.

What I love about the canon: This anime!! I was not expecting it to make me feel SO MANY FEELINGS. I love the historical setting, I love the STUNNING use of the unreliable narrator, I love the careful and slow development of Kikuhiko and Sukeroku’s friendship from childhood to adulthood; the way they’re such striking opposites at first glance, but there’s something at the core of them that’s the same. The heady mix of envy and love and bitterness that pulls Kikuhiko to Sukeroku always; the things left unsaid. How Miyokichi’s presence in their lives disrupts some things and catalyses others. The way Miyokichi’s choices have been limited because she’s a woman, and Kikuhiko and Sukeroku are both such terrible assholes in their own ways, but she can’t help being pulled into their orbit. I love the feeling of transience in this anime, of something always slipping away from your grasp, of history crumbling away beneath your fingertips; but there’s a gorgeous sense of continuity too. Beautiful things are fleeting and immortal at the same time. They are preserved – diluted, sometimes; changing and evolving. But still preserved, in some way.

Prompts:

I want fic that explores their complicated and tangled relationship in all its glory. My dearest wish is for them to be all reunited properly in the afterlife, for them to finally sort out their feelings, and to be a happy OT3.

Or a canon AU where events went differently and they lived and raised Konatsu together and were messy but happy, somehow.

I could see Kikuhiko as gay or bi, but no matter what, I feel like his feelings for Miyokichi are fascinating and would be interesting to explore in fic either way; if it’s not that he’s sexually attracted to her, what is it?

I would love something that deals with Kikuhiko’s repression of his sexuality, a fic where he was never able to let himself acknowledge his feelings for Sukeroku while he was alive. But equally I’d love a fic where he did acknowledge those feelings and those feelings were requited and they did something about it, once or twice or many times. But please don’t sideline Miyokichi, whatever you do!

If you want to make me really sad, that’s okay too! Give me Kikuhiko mourning the two people he cared about most in his life and struggling always with their ghosts. I’d be very interested to see something that just falls on the side of horror, or is at least spooky and supernatural in some way, based on the shinigami stuff and those S2 OPs where they coloured Sukeroku’s eyes red. I loved the eerie vibe of all that, so please feel free to run with it! Weird AUs featuring undead!Sukeroku and Miyokichi would be fantastic.

I am particularly into Kikuhiko crossdressing, and I’d love to read about a Kikuhiko whose relationship with gender is complex and hard to define. That scene where he’s in drag and Miyokichi does his makeup is absolutely gorgeous and one of my favourite scenes in the show and if you could do something with that I’d be eternally grateful. I’d be really happy with nb/genderqueer/trans interpretations of Kikuhiko! And if he could talk about his gender feelings with Miyokichi that would be A+++

OR if you just want to write me a Miyokichi-centric fic exploring ANYTHING about her whatsoever I would be ecstatic, I love her to pieces and would dearly love to read some backstory, introspection, character study, anything. 

Killjoys

Requested characters: Aneela, Delle Seyah Kendry

What’s the canon about? Sci-fi TV show with three seasons (10 episodes each). Follows a trio of bounty hunters through hijinks and mysteries. 

What I love about the canon: I love how fun this show is and how despite the gritty sci-fi settings and the dark look of the show it’s pretty much the OPPOSITE of grimdark? It’s such a joyful and optimistic show and it’s bursting with humour. It doesn’t take itself seriously but it loves its characters and it loves its audience; all the character interactions are just wonderful and the arcs are all fantastic and it always manages to give me exactly what I want. It’s SO satisfying! And SO many people of colour in the foreground and the background!! That’s such a rare and beautiful thing in this genre and I’m so grateful. Plus, so many of those characters of colour are queer too!!

Prompts:

So I shipped Dutch/Delle Seyah DESPERATELY in the first two seasons, and I still do! But oh man, I love Aneela/Delle Seyah, how they’re SO PERFECTLY MATCHED and on equal footing. EVIL SPACE LESBIAN QUEENS!! I love the united front they present, I love how quickly they get into each other’s heads and hearts and develop this fierce and steadfast loyalty towards each other.

So, while I didn’t request Dutch as one of my characters, I’d love a fic that compares Delle Seyah’s feelings for Dutch and for Aneela. Like, obviously Delle Seyah was physically attracted to Dutch and since Dutch and Aneela look the same, there’s that element there from the beginning. Is that weird for Delle Seyah, considering how different Dutch and Aneela are otherwise? What differences between Dutch and Aneela are the most significant to Delle Seyah, and what similarities does she notice, beside the physical? What is it that makes Delle Seyah fall in love with Aneela, as opposed to whatever it was she felt for Dutch? Is she still attracted to Dutch at the end of S3?

It seems like neither Aneela or Delle Seyah have ever felt like this about anybody, so I’d just love any sort of fic dealing with how either/both of them process these emotions!! Is it scary for them? Exciting? How anxious does it make them? What are they most worried about?

I wouldn’t mind a fic about Aneela and Delle Seyah just being evil queens and unleashing themselves on the universe together while luxuriating in their power and having the most passionate, wild sex as they think/talk about all the evil deeds they’ve accomplished!

Honestly uhhh any sort of porn about them would be SO welcome, I’m shallow and they’re beautiful and they clearly seem like they have a lot of fun in bed!

Maybe there’s something you can play with about the green and mind-melding here? I don’t know, just an idea I’m throwing out there! :D

“Be careful” / “Be brutal” might just one of my favourite dialogue exchanges in any piece of fiction ever 💖 I just love their dynamic and I need more of it, so I’d be interested to read anything you’d like to write about them!

The Handmaiden

Requested characters: Sook-hee, Hideko

(I’m basically copy & pasting from my letter last year because I still want the same things!)

What’s the canon about? A 3-hour long movie; Korean adaptation of Sarah Waters’ Fingersmith. A conwoman falls in love with her female mark!

What I love about the canon: It’s such a beautiful gay romance with brilliant twists and the two female leads are SO endearing in their own ways; the triumph of the women over the horrible men in their lives, and in particular the triumph of Hideko over the trauma she’s experienced, is really moving and buoyant to watch. The movie is also just lush with careful detail and a dazzling experience from start to finish.

Prompts:

I’d love anything about Hideko and Sook-hee, set during or after the film.

If it’s set during the film, I’d really love something from Hideko’s POV, because I feel like her thoughts are much more opaque in the film. I’d like to read about how she feels about her life before Sook-hee appears, what her first impressions of Sook-hee are, and the journey of her falling in love with Sook-hee. (I don’t want explicit detail about the abuse that Hideko has suffered: the level of detail that the film goes into is fine, but nothing beyond that, please!)

Missing scenes from the movie would be SO welcome! I can’t get enough of their precious interactions and how they always feel so honest somehow, even if they’re both hiding behind secrets and lies at first?

After the movie: where do they go, what do they do? Something that takes place immediately afterwards, or something that takes place years in the future – even something that looks at them being old and grey together, omg, that would make my heart melt!

I could totally be into a more plotty kind of fic that shows them running more cons together! Equally, I would be SO here for simple, slice-of-life stuff.

Something that explores Hideko and Sook-hee’s relationship with kink after the movie would be WONDERFUL. How does Hideko feel about kink after the abuse she’s suffered? Does she want to be kinky with Sook-hee, but have really complicated feelings about it? The mutuality and symmetry of their sex scenes in the movie is what strikes me, how the focus is on mirroring each other, doing the same acts together. But I could see them trying out different things as they become more comfortable and settle into their relationship. Like, the ending scene with Hideko reclaiming for her own pleasure the bells that were once used to abuse her – that scene is so lovely and anything in this vein would be great!

Thanks for stopping by! Happy Yuletide, and I can’t wait to read your creation! <3

#yuletide 2017 #yuletide #dear author

[whitewolfofwinterfell]

(Part 1) I'm so happy that someone else shares the same opinions about the characters/relationship that I do! Most people seem to love Jax/and/or Tara but I honestly never liked Tara. I think she was ok in s2-3, but then she always got on my nerves. And I hated how she kinda made herself the "victim" sometimes because of how her life turned out. She knew what she got into when she got together with Jax, the club was a part of him and he gave her multiple chances to leave, but she chose to stay.

(cont.) I’m also happy that you also like Nero & Wendy, not many people do. They hate Wendy bc of what she did to Abel etc. And people usually dislike Nero because they say that he always went and told Jax the stuff Gemma told him and didn’t want Jax to know about. But the thing is that Nero believed that the truth would always come out, so he tried to tell it from the start and come clean with things, unlike Gemma who lied about everything. Also Nero/Jax is one of my favorite relationships. I also feel like Nero in a way was more loyal to Jax than he was to Gemma, despite her being the love of his life. Not loyal in the way that he’d betray Gemma, but in the way that he never gave up on Jax, no matter what awful things he did or how much Nero might disagree with his actions. He was there for him and he really loved and cared about Jax. Especially in the end, he was clearly devastated when he figured out that Jax was going to die. And their relationship was clearly mutual. If I I got to pick my favorite relationships on SOA it would be: Jax/Chibs, Jax/Nero, Jax/Wendy and Jax/Happy (Even though Happy liked to kill people, and was a little bit “psycho”… I still think he was a “good/kind person” deep down in a way and he was very loyal to Jax) I also loved Half-Sack/Cherry (one of my few ships on SOA) and I think Lyla/Jax had a cute relationship. And Nero/Gemma. With all talk about relationships… I just have to say that the scene were the club votes on Mayhem for Jax is so emotional. Because even though Jax had done things that made him “earn” the vote, you could see how non of the members wanted to vote yes, but they’d no choice, since it was what Jax wanted. I think that scene also shows that the club was more loyal to Jax and loved him more than they ever “loved” Clay, he was more feared, while Jax was respected and loved for who he was. 

Wow, it sounds like we have so much in common when it comes to SOA, amazing! Yeah, it’s really strange because I actually reblog a lot of Jax and Tara posts and I’ve even made a couple myself, but I’ve never been the biggest fan of them as a couple. Don’t get me wrong, I never hated them or was hardcore against them. I always knew they were the love of each other’s lives and Charlie and Maggie had insane chemistry, but I just wasn’t the biggest fan of Tara as a character, like you said. I completely agree about her making herself a victim. Then were moments when I felt genuinely sorry for her, but then I’d realise, like you said, that she chose that life for herself. You’re right that Jax gave her so many opportunities to walk away and he was actually completely honest with her about the club life and the things that he had to do in terms of the violence and killings etc. but she still chose to stay and raise his son and have another son with him. I always felt like that was so irresponsible on her part. Regardless of how much she wanted a family or how much she loved Jax anyone with half a brain could see that raising a child in that environment was a huge no-no. In season 2, Abel was nearly killed (and if it wasn’t for Half-Sack saving him, he might’ve been) and kidnapped, he was constantly around violence and being dumped on a babysitter, and Tara decided this was a perfect life to have another baby? It was ridiculous. I think that’s why I struggled so much to like Tara, because on the one hand she always tried to put on this persona of being strong, independent and of being above the club, but in reality she was weak. She was a slave to her love for Jax and even though, like I said in my other response, I got so much respect for her in season 6 for putting the kids first, it still took her so long to reach that point. I understand that she was in denial and she wanted to believe that she could have the man she loved and the perfect, family life too, but she should’ve known better. Despite what he might’ve told her, Jax would’ve never gave up the club. In a way Tara was always his mistress and his second choice, because the club was his wife and that nearly always came first. 

I understand that people dislike Wendy for that, but it’s a silly reason to dislike her, in my opinion. The difference between what Wendy did and what others on the show did, is that Wendy was an addict under the influence of drugs when she endangered Abel’s life. In my opinion, anyone that’s in that situation is not a person capable of logical or reasonable thought. She didn’t harm her son by choice, she didn’t even know what she was doing. If you compare that to the other characters, they hurt and murdered others all the time, in the full knowledge of what they were doing and the consequences of that. Also, whilst so many of the characters progressively regressed and got even more immoral and evil throughout the seasons, she was one of the only ones that made steady progress. The Wendy we saw at the end of season 7 was miles apart from the one we saw at the start of season 1 and that’s amazing considering what she went through. 

As for Nero, like I said, he was just a thoroughly honest and straight talking person. If Gemma told him something and he felt it was something Jax needed to know, he’d tell him and to be honest, what’s wrong with that? He never really betrayed Gemma’s trust in any huge way, from my memory. I liked Jax and Nero’s relationship too, but unfortunately, we just never got to see much of it. But there was definitely a mutual respect between them that was very genuine and I think especially when it came to Gemma, Jax felt like Nero was the only one that would understand him. There’s a reason why Nero was the one Jax told about Gemma killing Tara, it’s because who else would understand how Jax felt about that? That on the one hand he despised her and knew he had to kill her for what she’d done, but at the same time he couldn’t bear it because he loved her so much. Nero was the only one that could understand that, I think. 

I like all of the relationships you like. The only reason ones such as Jax/Nero or Jax/Happy didn’t make it onto my list is because I really just felt like we didn’t get to see enough of them and I didn’t feel as much as a strong connection as I did to other friendships/relationships on the show. I’m just like you and loooved Sack and Cherry, which is weird since we saw so little of them. But they’re that couple that are just so cute and genuine and you can’t help but root for them. Lyla and Jax…oh, my god, I LOVED them. I can’t believe I forgot about them, actually. I mean that final scene between them in season 7 (x) where he just kisses her head and tells her he loves her…it makes me melt. I love it because it’s a purely platonic relationship and there’s never any romance involved or complication there. Jax just genuinely cares for Lyla, he helps her get out from porn films and gets her directing instead which is what she always wanted and because she’s Opie’s wife, he just loves and respects her and cares for her. I think the fact that Lyla is one of the only people that he goes to before he dies to tell her he loves her, along with the kids, Wendy and the boys at the club, it’s so sweet. 

I completely agree about the mayhem vote. I already discussed that in my response to your last ask. Jax was considered to be more of an equal and a friend in the club and for that reason he had more respect and was just generally more loved. I also think that Jax worked harder to maintain real friendships with everyone individually, whereas Clay always showed blatant favouritism to Tig and Bobby in particular. 

#answered #my meta #soa meta

[alittlefangirlish]

Dear Chocolatier,

First of all, thank you so much for writing a story just for me!

To start, some of my general likes/dislikes:

What I Like kid!fic (as in, the characters have kids, not the character are kids - toddler age is perfect), crushes/beginning of relationship (the concept of the feelings coming to fruition and both parties going, “WTF is going on? Why am I acting this way around him/her?” is one of my favorite fandom tropes), smut is always good, flirting.

What I Don’t Like Incest, bestiality and molestation are my only three sexual squicks, fandom has desensitized me to everything else. Character bashing. Yes, I’m generally a slasher but that doesn’t mean I hate the female (or in the case of a femslash ship, male) characters (or, if I do, it’s for reasons unrelated to “I ship his/her love interest with his/her best (fe)male friend and s/he gets in the way of the gay sex”). On that note, I also hate when writers completely disregard canon pairings. As much as I don’t want them to, they exist. If you’re gonna break them up, let us know how it happened. Please. And now, my specifics!

Requested Fandom #1: Backstreet Boys, Brian/Nick or Howie/AJ

For either pairing: Backstage hijinks? Tour bus loving? Or maybe a high school, college, or workplace AU?

I love both of these pairings and either would be lovely for me (if you even wanted to include both pairings, that would be amazing but don't feel like you have to do that!) I'm a major sucker for AUs over straight canon, but if you prefer to write canon, please please please do not have any of them cheat on their wives. (And if there is smut, set it when all parties involved are at least 18, thanks.)

Requested Fandom #2: The Sims, Pascal/Nervous

He's always looking toward the stars for love, but the love he needs is right down here on Earth

This is a prompt for these two that has been floating around in my head for quite a long time. Pascal, being the Knowledge Sim that he is, is fascinated with the stars to the point that he hasn't had time to forge many friendships on Earth, Nervous being an exception. And Nervous, wanting to settle down and have a family, as well as Pascal being his only friend, may develop feelings for Pascal and want to be a second father to Tycho (and yes I see Tycho as the "canon" name for Pascal's baby).

Requested Fandom #3: Voltron: Legendary Defender, Hunk/Lance

Anything either set during the Garrison days, or even post S2.

(I know S2 won't release until about a week or so after assignments go out, but I will be watching it very soon after and will definitely have watched it by the time stories are revealed, so if you get a plot bunny from it, go wild!)

I love these two! They are the cutest pair and everything about them hits all of my shipping buttons, because they are good and pure and best friends and that it all I ever want in a ship. Anything you want to do is fine with me. Just please age them up to 18 if there is smut involved.

Requested Fandom #4: Mystic Messenger, 707/MC or Jaehee/MC

For 707/MC: Making their own space station

I have to admit, I hadn't fallen for Seven at first (I was a Yoosung girl!) but the more I learned about him the more he seemed to be right up my alley, so I quickly switched gears and was under Seven's spell. I think his little "Let's get married in the space station!" is cute, but obviously impractical, so instead they decide to build their own little space station here on Earth.

For Jaehee/MC: Love in the coffee shop

Oh, Jaehee, Jaehee, Jaehee. I did not expect her to be my breakout favorite in this game (again, I really wanted Yoosung!) but I ended up playing her route first and was shipping these two almost immediately. I want Jaehee to stop friendzoning MC and give her the romantic ending she deserves with her as much as she deserves with the boys (the Christmas DLC came close, but still not there!)

Requested Fandom #5: Pokémon (Games), Bianca/Hilda, Lillie/Moon, N/Hilda, or Shauna/Serena

For Bianca/Hilda: "Where have you been the last two years?"

The thing that got me about B2W2 is that all the major players from Black and White (Juniper, Bianca, Cheren, N, etc) return except for the player character. Where did she go? What did she do? And what does Bianca do when she finally returns?

For Lillie/Moon: Return to Kanto/Alola

I don't care if it's Lillie returning to Alola, or Moon making a trip to visit her in Kanto, I just want to see these two reunite and have Lillie gush to Moon about all her adventures in Kanto, and how much she missed everyone, especially Moon.

(Also, while I did use "Moon" and the canonical tag is "Lillie/Moon," I prefer the name "Selene" for the player character, but you don't have to call her that if you don't want!)

For N/Hilda: "The Pokémon wanted to see each other again, yeah."

I will admit that I wasn't one of those who was shipping N and Hilda from the get go because I saw N as a villain and my thought was how much of a jerk he was and how could anyone ship them together because he didn't deserve her, etc. etc. And then the end of the game happened and N does his 180 and it was like the heavens parted and shone a spotlight on these two and I saw it and it was good.

Now that that's out of the way, I can see these two definitely not realizing their feelings for each other, and using Reshiram and Zekrom as an excuse to reunite. (N can say that his Pokémon wanted to see hers - I played White and White 2 so N took Reshiram and Hilda took Zekrom, but if you wanna swap them and use Black/Black 2 canon go ahead.)

For Shauna/Serena: Let's go see the fireworks again!

Ah the fireworks scene. The moment of every Boutiqueshipper's (and okay, BrightTomorrowShipper's, for that matter) heart. I know that was the scene was the moment I started shipping them, and maybe they make it an annual thing, seeing the fireworks together and things progress from there. Bonus points if you include the fully evolved starter that she gives you in post game (I started with Chespin so I got Froabble the Froakie - now Greninja, but if you wanna include Chester the Chesnaught or Kinniekins the Delphox instead, feel free to!)

Requested Fandom #6: Osomatsu-san, Choromatsu & Ichimatsu or Jyushimatsu & Osomatsu

For either pairing: Typical hijinks! More along the lines of the show.

One of the things I love about this show is the crazy relationship the brothers have with each other (which is an exaggeration of the typical relationship siblings have: casual teasing with the unspoken brotherly love the six have for each other). I'd love a fic exploring that. And like my Backstreet Boys request above, if you want to include all four of these guys in the fic, go ahead!

Requested Fandom #7: Original Work, Female Boss/Female Secretary, Male Soldier/Male Soldier, or Female Alien/Female Human

For Female Boss/Female Secretary: "I always saw you as an equal and not a subordinate"

I'm not usually a fan of the "boss/subordinate" pairings, but I can definitely get behind two equals meeting in a work situation. I can definitely see the boss character treating her secretary as an equal, and that's where the feelings stem from.

For Male Soldier/Male Soldier: Wanting to reconnect after being discharged. 

When you're in a situation such as wartime, I'm sure you bond with your fellow soldiers. I can definitely see a couple of platoon mates (is that the term? Sorry, I've never served.) wanting to reconnect once they both go back to cilvilian life, and seeing where things go from there.

For Female Alien/Female Human: "How does your anatomy work?"

You could take this one to be just pure PWP, or if it ends up leading to something more than that go for it! One thing that's always got to me about stories involving aliens is that, for simplicity's sake, they have matching anatomy to humans (aside from the skintone being green/blue/gray/what have you). That just seems unrealistic to me, so something where the alien's anatomy is significantly different (to where both parties need to explain how things work) would be fantastic!

Requested Fandom #8: Futurama, Fry/Bender

"No one can love you like I do"

The thing that I've always loved about these two and their relationship is that Fry is always the exception to every rule Bender has about humans. He hates them, except Fry. He wants to kill all of them, except Fry. And it just leads me to believe that, ultimately, they would both realize that there was something special between them all along.

[seddm]

Heart Vs The Forces of Mind

Star, Marco, and Tom (and Starco) in Season 3 

Mobile Friendly PDF version here

I’m going to keep the introduction short, since the post is already going to be huge enough as it is. The third season of Star Vs The Forces Of Evil hit us with unprecedented levels of romance drama, unexpected events, and kids not knowing how to handle the full extent of their feelings. In the next several thousands words I’m going to try to put some order through what went through the minds (and hearts) of the characters, episode by episode, what motivations and feelings drove them, and what recurring themes relate to the way the show handles relationships. The point of this work is absolutely not to try and praise or condemn Star, Marco, or Tom’s as morally good or bad, as many character decisions were squarely in a grey area, but rather to take an even-handed approach to things from the perspectives of each character, to better understand them, and from the point of view of the narrative, to see where the show is leading us, beyond the temporary detours along the way. Some assumptions are going to be made, since the show is heavy on its “show don’t tell” approach and rarely spells us out everything for us, especially when it comes to the characters’ inner machinations, but I feel confident in saying that the show itself is more biased in favor of Starco than most shippers are: it’s not evident in almost any individual episode, and it’s far from being the only thing the series cares about, but it’s still the ultimate direction and goal most events seem to lead to, and the last episodes in this season confirmed it. Also I’m going to repeat the same concepts over and over and over, to drive home the point of how important or recurrent some of them are.

Huge thanks to @ngame989, who proofread and corrected this post, gave me tons of useful suggestions and prompts, and wasted several hours chatting about a dumb cartoon with me throughout the months, generating enough material, ideas and interpretations to fill three other analyses like this on.

HUGE POST BELOW THE READ MORE

The whole post is going to be heavily based on a concept introduced by Sleepover. Said episode is the one that truly kickstarted all the romance plots, and fittingly enough it also told us what would have influenced all the actions of the characters for seasons to come - in their relationships with each other as much as in their individual lives - a disagreement between Heart and Mind. Between what a character wants, and what they think they want.

STARCRUSHED

(not a S3 episode, but it effectively is the prologue to everything that happens afterward) 

The episode opens, following the events of Just Friends and Face The Music, with a Star who can’t completely ignore her feelings for Marco anymore: she can definitely feel the pull he has on her heart. But she’s still scared that admitting such a huge thing both to herself and to Marco could completely change their relationship, and potentially ruin their friendship (a legit concern, since following Song Day Marco had been avoiding her as much as she avoided him, showing that he wasn’t comfortable with the situation either). Luckily for us, the episode’s goal, among others, is to put some order in Star’s feelings: she tries to run away from her problems until the very last second, her meeting with Oskar showing with no room for doubt that she’s completely over him and that Marco has the monopoly on her interests, but Star still tries to run away from reality. She tells Marco that he’s just a friend to her (this is an important theme: we are so close to getting real Starco now, because with Booth Buddies the dorks finally began understanding, if not completely consciously yet, that their friendship and their love are inextricably connected and that they can’t be “just friends”, nor “just lovers”),

and then tries to use Mind to override Heart, by telling herself that she can still force herself to like Oskar; she was just looking for a way to keep herself too busy to think about heartbreak over the summer while still being able to enjoy it with her romantically unavailable best friend.

Obviously this doesn’t work, and one last push - the perspective of suddenly having to abandon Marco and everything she loved - finally puts both her Mind and Heart in the same place, leading to the confession.

Meanwhile Marco clearly didn’t think the same: there is no doubt that his Heart has always been largely focused on Star, even if not romantically at the time - heck, he left Jackie hanging like four times in three episodes to check on Star because he was worried about her - but his Mind was far from being ready. Not only did he clearly hope for Star not to have a crush on him - which would have just made everything more complicated, a wrench on what he thought was the perfect little life he yearned for for so long, with good friends and Jackie as his girlfriend - but he was also trying to convince himself, maybe feeling that was something expected from a couple, that Jackie was “his partner in crime”.

Obviously his actions always screamed the opposite, no one could deny that him and Jackie were never really close friends. This is referenced again in Sophomore Slump, when Marco’s Mind tries, for one last time, to convince him - and Jackie - that their relationship can still work, that he can put all of his Heart in it as well. Thankfully Jackie has the same insight an “omniscient narrator” would have, and knows that things would never work, not for long at least. 

So by the end of S2 Star’s Heart and Mind agreed on liking Marco Diaz.

Meanwhile Marco was too stunned by the sudden change to react, his Mind and Heart being in incredible disagreement and the former overriding the latter.

THE BATTLE FOR MEWNI

(Disclaimer: I’m talking about this as if it was a single episode)

The first episode, Return To Mewni, immediately opens up on a peek on the current emotional situations:

Star is “spying” on Marco, looking at what she lost, calling him cute and sniffing his hoodie, and she calls him “cute” again in Toffee: if in Starcrushed events kinda forced her Mind and Heart to agree, now it’s something she does completely willingly, and at this point Star romantically likes Marco. She knows it, and she's ok with it.

Meanwhile Marco is in a weird situation. As it’s going to be made clear by the following episodes he’s in no way thinking about Star’s confession and is not ready to consider and address it. But at the same time, while in his inconsolable sadness, he doesn’t seem to be driven by Heart alone: clearly once he gets to Mewni and sees what kind of danger Star is in, and when they later meet again and hug, he’s not thinking much and is acting out of pure feelings and emotions. Interestingly, however, his initial reason slash excuse to check on Star was to give her some cereal, and that happened at least some days after Starcrushed. Clearly there was no romance from Marco’s side at the time, but his actions seem to suggest that even some days after Star’s departure, when he probably had regained at the very least a semblance of lucidity, and before the life or death situation kicked in, both his Heart and Mind could focus only on Star.

The hug in Toffee was a first taste of a situation similar to the one in Booth Buddies, with both characters simply enjoying the moment. Obviously in this case Star’s Mind would have agreed on the attraction she felt for Marco as well, but it’d have been irrelevant anyway for those handful of seconds. Still, it was a “HEART TAKE THE WHEEL!” moment for both: pure relief, forgetting for a moment about the danger and the potential awkwardness that could have been (and still, technically, was) between the two of them.

SCENT OF A HOODIE

With the imminent danger over, Marco is back to his usual Heart VS Mind conflict: there’s no doubt that he still feels very much for Star, but he still resolves to go back to Earth and, most importantly, he never addresses Star’s confession. As Booth Buddies told us (not that it was hard to imagine), he was scared of things being different, and he did a rather unfortunate thing by completely ignoring the matter. Star never brought it up again either, probably feeling dead inside: being ignored like that must have been worse than a rejection to her, never knowing what Marco felt. Poor Star.

Why does Marco want to go back to Earth? That’s a good question. Clearly he did enjoy the kind of life Star brought him well before getting obsessed with the cape. He has family there, there’s Jackie, sure, but the problem has never really been physical, since with the scissors distances aren’t an issue (as noted by Angie in Marco Jr., an episode that tackles the same concept from the other side), but emotional.

Marco never seemed conflicted, until Sophomore Slump, about leaving, Star because he was still focused on what I referenced earlier, the perfect little life he yearned for for so long.

And Jackie was the symbol of this ‘ideal normal life’ - as absurd as it is, since Marco’s life stopped being normal when he met Star! Which is, not so coincidentally, why he moves to Mewni only after having broke up with her (and more specifically, immediately after). So Marco is not emotionally ready yet to accept that what he fixated on for most of his life is… not the right thing anymore, not what he really wants, and this stops him from taking a huge, scary decision such as changing his life all over and moving on Mewni.

[Note: this is not to say that his parents and other friends mean nothing to Marco, in universe, but from the point of narrative they clearly had little to no relevance to Marco’s development, compared to Jackie/Jarco]

This doesn’t mean he didn’t care for Star anymore, it’s just that, in this moment, Mind was exceedingly winning over Heart, and lead him to do things that, as he said in Booth Buddies, “stunk” (from Star’s perspective, at least, at the time).

This doesn’t make Marco an a-hole, though. He understandably got scared. it looked especially weird to us viewers because throughout the show he had always “championed” honesty and talking about things, but this was true as long as it was about easy decisions. When faced with something as big as his best friend liking him, as big as having to choose if he wanted to change his life all over, he saw that he wasn’t ready for it. For all of S2 Marco was a good influence on Star and her tendency to ignore problems, but when it was Marco’s turn to be faced with a huge, emotional problem, he ran away. And that’s fine, because Marco was lacking development as a character ever since Naysaya, while Star had a whole season for it. He didn’t do the right thing (note: the right thing would have been talking it through with Star, not necessarily choosing Star - liking Jackie wasn’t a mistake, the mistake was never trying to truly think about the whole situation), but grew from it.

Again: they can meet anytime they want, then why is the goodbye so painful and heavy? Because it’s an emotional one, more than a physical one. Consciously or unconsciously, Marco choose Earth over Star. Not just by leaving, but by not talking to her about her confession. Obviously this doesn’t mean they ‘stopped being friends’, nor that they’d have never seen each other ever again, probably, hadn’t Marco been back, but it was an extremely important point of (no) return for both of them.

Thankfully the show is literally built on people learning from their mistakes, and people forgiving mistakes, so the situation changed again, improved, and eventually lead to the current one. 

When Marco leaves, we are left with a dejected Star who, despite having had her heart stomped on, still crushes hard on the dork. “Best friends makes best lovers” (and, by extension, a couple can work only when there is a friendship at its base as well) is a theme throughout the season (explicitly referenced in Lava Lake Beach, even). And it’s demonstrated here: Star’s attraction toward Marco is shown through her reminiscing about ordinary moments they shared as friends, not by looking at a picture and fawning over how cute he is or by remembering things like their dance in Blood Moon Ball.

But then, lo, the GETTING OVER HIM™ process begins. By the end of the episode (even more clear in the following ones) Star clearly still remembers Marco fondly, 

but she’s ready to stop moping over him all the time, ready to work on her feelings, ready to have her head be thrown into a spiral of pure confusion and emptiness (that she’s hastily going to fill with Tom, as we’re going to see soon). Symbolically she gives the hoodie back to Marco, “letting go” of the overbearing grip he had on her Heart and Mind. Meanwhile Marco is interestingly seen, for the first time from the beginning of the episode up to Lint Catcher, not wearing his cape. Clearly this might be just because the scene required him to wear his hoodie, and it’d have been difficult to draw it with the cape already on, but it might also be a symbol: Marco, once home, was ready to focus completely on adapting again to his old life (remember: a life that stopped being a good fit for him about 40 episodes earlier), until a star hit him in the face, and on the nose.

[see a better post about this by Reddit user 650_dollars]

Marco clearly won’t realize what his reaction to Star’s smell meant for some more episodes, but from this point onward he’s always seen wearing the cape (even in his quick cameo in Rest In Pudding), a reminder of what his Heart really wanted. Aaaand we’re back, Mind and Heart disagreeing.

So by the end of the episode Star’s Mind and Heart are moderately ready to get over Marco (obviously this doesn’t have to mean that she was ready to completely forget about him), while Marco gets thrown into a spiral of confused feelings that he avoided up to this point thanks to his tunnel vision. Blinders don’t protect from smells, Marco.

REST IN PUDDING

Another episode about letting things go. Clearly not as strongly connected to shipping as Scent Of A Hoodie, but still probably relevant. Especially this one line:

As I’m going to say about three hundred times throughout the post Star is in dire need of a “companion”, someone who can help her through big and small things in life, because her life is a mess and she is a mess. Marco fit this role more or less all the time throughout the show… until feelings happened. First by spending more time with Jackie, then by going back to Earth, he was less present in Star’s life; furthermore, he’s currently absent right when she needs someone’s support the most, busy as she was trying to change her life and way to be a princess. This doesn’t mean that Star feels entitled, she’s not saying “Damn Marco, not choosing me over anything else!”, but it’s still easy to see how this line might be related to the current situation and to how much it hurt her to see Marco go away without ever talking about what she felt for him, what she confessed to him.

Also, while I’m not sure if this is meant to have any relevance to Star and Marco, or if I’m just over-reading into things… Star spends the whole episode reluctantly learning to let go of things, and then said thing is back by the end. I guess the same happens with Marco...

CLUB SNUBBED

As this episode was the introduction of Tom to S3, this section will be our true introduction to Tom in this post. Our fiery friend rose to much greater prominence this season than in the past, and there is absolutely no doubt that his character experiences massive growth by the final time we see Star looking out over Mewni as an anime outro song plays. I want to take an early moment to bring up the central theme of this growth: his insecure need for external validation, and specifically validation from (or involving) Star. This insecurity, this lack of inherent self-worth that compels him to seek out affirmation of his value from outside sources, leads him to have a worldview very focused on the self (which isn’t inherently a bad thing, and certainly not always a negative “selfishness”, as I’ll cover more in-depth at the end of Is Another Mystery). And this concept isn’t new for Tom in S3, either! Even in his first appearance in Blood Moon Ball, he brings his life coach along (who is already a source of external validation, awarding badges as tokens of growth) to try and tell Star “Hey, look at me, don’t you see how much I’ve changed?”; Mr. Candle Cares focuses less on the insecurity and more on the self-centered worldview (which, at this point, is most certainly selfish with all the negative connotations the word carries), but it comes roaring back in Friendenemies where Tom almost throws away an entire fun day and potential budding friendship for a Good Boy Badge from Brian. It’s important to note that even as early as his first appearance, Tom does grasp his faults and is sincerely looking to make strides to overcome them. But at each and every turn, these deep-seated issues make it much harder for him or outright steer him away from the path he knows he should be on, and season 3 is no exception.

And that’s what happens in Club Snubbed: by the beginning of the episode I think Tom truly is trying to move over from Star, at least romantically speaking. But he’s still relating his efforts to her, even if in an indirect way, and this is a recipe for easy relapsing and failure: “Star is completely over me and she is with Marco now, so the best way to prove that I am a good, improving person is… completely ignore her, to show her how good I am at giving her space!”. I think that’s what the meaning of this shot in the episode is; Tom wasn’t trying to club-snub Star to make her “jealous”, he was just... showing off how good he is at ignoring her. 

Which brings us to a recurring theme for the first week of the S3A bomb: characters saying what they think they want, what they think is right, but for their actions to then contradict it. Yet another declination of the good ol’ Heart VS Mind disagreement.

Tom says that he got over Star, realizing she’s not into him, and that he decided to give her space for that,

but as soon as he hears that her and Marco are not dating, he perks up and looks relieved, and then is more than ready to go back to dating her. This might easily be an aftereffect of what I said before: by indirectly relating all his efforts to Star (even the well-intentioned ones), the moment he feels like he still has a chance to get the “trophy” he associates the most with being validated as a good person, he goes back to directly relating his efforts to Star. To be fair, in Demoncism he’s going to try to improve himself for his own sake, but he’s going to throw himself at it blindly, because after having spent so long trying to improve for others that’s all he can do, and from that moment until right before the season finale, all of his actions are going to be strictly motivated by a feeling of “I have to do what a boyfriend is expected to do so that Star is going to like me”. And he’s even going to half-ass it, at times (Monster Bash and Is Another Mystery until the closing scenes), because it’s understandably hard to put all your heart in efforts in something that’s almost an imposition he put on himself out of fear of failure and further relapsing.

Star says that who she really needs is a friend (theme of companionship), but then she goes back to dating Tom.

And this is going to happen a bunch of other times in the following episodes.

Also something that is going to be more relevant with the season finale, but that gets “foreshadowed” here: while it’s still just a speculation, and we won’t know for sure until S4, I think that being a friend, not a boyfriend, as Star initially (thought she) wanted is going to be the next step in Tom’s growth as a character. It’s what is going to allow him to improve himself and to do nice things, not to get praises or to feel like he’s doing what he’s expected to, but because he genuinely wants to and because he cares about the people in his life.

Continuing with the episode, after having said that what she needed was a friend, after having pointed out that her and Marco not being a thing was not the point, Star seemingly falls head over heels for Tom in the span of a dance.

And here come the two Big Questions: Was Tom a rebound? And was Star truly over Marco?

Personally I’d say that by the end of Club Snubbed, Tom is a rebound. Following Marco’s departure Star has probably not been in the best of moods for a while. Feeling rejected, even ignored, and left alone by the one person she used to trust with just about anything right when she needs support the most, she gets thrown into a dreamy dance with someone she is physically attracted to and with whom she had history. It’s easy to suppose that this was the first moment she could take her mind off her stress and suffering in days/weeks, and everyone likes not feeling like poop all the time, so Star was automatically into that - she wanted more of that. See the following Face Analysis™:

So at this point we could say (with the tiniest bit of salt that characterized us Starco shippers for a significant portion of the season) that more or less any person who could have gave Star a moment of happiness could have replaced Tom at this point in time (always remembering that Star is canonically and evidently physically attracted to Tom though, and that obviously plays a big role in romance). BUT by the end of Demoncism her and Tom bond over emotions, over their current situation and experiences, and Star begins getting attracted to Tom The Person, not Tom The Experience. Ultimately I think Tomstar should be analyzed in its two parts, as Tom and Star getting closer again, and as a relationship. The romantic part is - no offense to anyone - rushed. There’s no doubt about it. The theme of Star rushing things is central to the first half of the season and gets explicitly addressed in The Bogbeast Of Boggabah, and it’s clear that the romantic aspect of the relationship happened so suddenly because Star's heart was still sorely craving something to help her feel better and fill the "ROMANCE" slot in her life (which was just vacated when she forcibly moved on). But Star and Tom getting closer as two people who had a troubled past together, and who understood both had changed? That wasn’t a rebound, nor a mistake, nor something that didn’t have real bases for both of them.

Also, one interesting point about something that’s going to be more relevant later with Booth Buddies: the show doesn’t force feelings. Even when things are “rushed”, such as Star and Tom hooking up again, events and episodes just bring a payoff to what was already there. Compare Blood Moon Ball and Club Snubbed:

in the first case a fancy dance wasn’t enough to magically solve the “trust issue” that was created between Star and Marco. They had to talk together for that. Because neither of them was ready for “romance” at the time, and that was not the focus of the episode.

Meanwhile in the second case the dance is enough, after months of not having seen each other and an overall stormy relationship, to initiate the events that are soon going to lead to a romantic relationship because both characters were primed for that, regardless of how misguided the decision might have been. Two seasons spent by Tom yearning for Star, and two episodes of “feeling alone” for the princess were the bases that allowed this. The individual events that trigger changes might be arbitrary, but the feelings of the characters are never forced out of nowhere; they just develop and change on top of something that already existed.

Second question, was Star over Marco? Strictly romantically speaking, in that moment, probably yes. But all the underlying factors that led to the romance in the first place (which can be summed up with “best friends make best lovers”, to reference the show, or with “Star fell for Marco because he was the ideal companion who gave her what she needed as a life partner through thick and thin”) never stopped being there, and they never stopped being for Marco. That’s why as soon as he came back, Star largely began ignoring Tom and never really involved him in anything, and that’s why Tom felt the need to compare himself to Marco and be reassured that he was doing better than him.

DEMONCISM

The episode opens up with the direct consequences of Club Snubbed: Star calls Tom, eager to meet up with him again, looking almost nervous about it. It’s a foil to the scene in Bon Bon The Birthday Clown. In both cases Star is following her Heart without knowing why or what it means; at the time she acted like that because she couldn’t put her finger on why Marco being alone with Jackie while she was at the cemetery made her feel so uneasy, and now she is in... full rebound mode. Not out of “spite” for Marco or anything; rather, after days/weeks of feeling bad, she stopped hurting when she danced with Tom, and now wants to feel like that again. At this point it’s little more than a Pavlovian reaction to happiness, but during this episode her and Tom are going to develop a real connection that’s going to give a much firmer basis to their relationship. The romance part, for both of them, is still going to be a rushed and misguided attempt to fill specific roles in their lives. But getting closer as individuals? There’s going to be a positive and sympathetic reason behind that.

"Why would Tom ever tell Pony Head something if she didn’t want Star to know?” That’s a very legit question, but I truly don’t think Tom had any intention to manipulate Star, in this case, and that he really didn’t want her to know about the demoncism. The absurdity of his decision to trust Pony is easily explained by plot needs.

As soon as she meets him Star shares the same suspicions several viewers had, but I trust Tom when he says that he’s doing that for himself. 

Or, better, I trust that’s what he believed. Let’s try to map Tom’s recent train of thoughts and decisions:

At some point after Face The Music he thinks that Star and Marco are dating, and he genuinely accepts that Star is over him. After all, there are very good chances that his infatuation with Star was always rooted in her being the ultimate source of validation he knew, way more than any of Brian’s badges could have ever been. But the only way he knows to improve himself is by relating all his efforts to Star, directly or indirectly. So he decides to prove that he’s a better person by giving Star and Marco space, “They’re going to see how considerate and accepting I am!”. Then during Club Snubbed he learns that Star and Marco are not dating, and suddenly Plan A (getting Star back and have her be his constant source of validation) seems viable again. They dance together, and she seems to have fun, so he proposes that they could hang out sometime. But Tom feels like this is the one chance he has to truly prove to himself that he has changed, that he can become a better person instead of forever being a broody teen dominated by all his inner demons, and he decides to undergo a Demoncism (roll credits). While Star herself, and potentially the possibility of a budding relationship, was certainly the spark that inspired him to do it, for the first time Tom tried to improve himself for himself. Not to be praised by Star, nor by Brian. But he doesn’t know how to do it “in a vacuum”, and blindly jumps into something he doesn’t fully understand, thinking that it’s going to be a “miracle cure”.

So Tom is not lying, he genuinely wanted it... but he was still doing it for the wrong reasons because he felt like that was his last chance, and that’s clearly not the case. He learns that the process is not going to be as efficient as he thought and feels hopeless, as if nothing is ever going to help him change. But Star comforts him, assuring him that he can still become a better person day by day, by slowly working on himself even with all his flaws and anger.

And this is genuinely great advice and what Tom actually needs in this moment! He’s put on the right track and gains renewed hope… but there’s a catch. Gaining the validation and encouragement from Star is a fantastic push in Tom’s motivation to improve, but the rekindling of their relationship steers his efforts in a direction that yields suboptimal results. It’s much like the aforementioned Pavlovian reaction Star had: he has a moment where Star’s encouragement makes him happy, so he takes all his motivation and applies it towards getting more of that (make no mistake, he still sincerely desires to improve more than he ever has, and this will only grow over time). He’s going to swerve in this direction until Is Another Mystery, thinking that the primary metric of improving himself is doing what his renewed Boyfriend role entails. But his drive is admirable and continues pushing him forward, as evidenced by the incredible growth he managed to undergo in the span of 40 minutes during the season finale - as soon as he realized that feeling loved by his friends is a much better source of motivation than being patted on the back for being an “acceptable boyfriend”.

And Star too, shows that she’s ready to give Tom what he truly needs - some trust and genuine care - even when everyone else (in this case the people in charge of the demoncism, but it’s probably a symbol for all the people in Tom’s life in general) is either scared by him, or treats him just as a “patient”.

After this episode both Star and Tom are going to screw things up until the end of the season, but that’s just because they’re dumb teens who make dumb mistakes because they’re scared to face unpleasant facts and question what they think are unchangeable truths. Star’s going to largely ignore him despite his supposed role in her life and the motivations they share, and Tom is going to dump all that hope for self-improvement into wanting Good Boyfriend Points, but below Tom got on the right track (even if it’s going to take him a dozen more episodes to actually start the car).

As for the “rebound or not?” question that I introduced the previous episode, this scene specifically tells us why Star felt like Tom was a kindred spirit in that moment: both struggled with wanting to change while being scared of doing that alone. 

If we add to this the state of mind Star was left in after Marco left, the moment they share at the end of the episode, her tendency to rush things thinking she can find easy solutions to them, her past history together, and the evidence that she is physically attracted to him, it makes sense for them to have hooked up again - and not because Star was just looking for an “after Marco” rebound.

Obviously getting things romantic again was a mistake, as we’re going to see in the following episodes, because both of them lacked the right kind of mindset and mostly just act out of what they think they wanted based on their preconceptions and fears, but the two of them getting emotionally closer? Makes completely sense. Star in Club Snubbed and Tom in Demoncism respectively had a huge “I NEED A FRIEND” sign on their heads, and Demoncism shows us why they’re each a good fit for the role.

SOPHOMORE SLUMP

Some clarifications about the meaning of the cape, before I get into the details: it’s clearly a symbol. Everyone knows it. But the symbolism gets deeper than “Marco misses Mewni and wants to be a knight”, it’s directly connected to what I said about Scent Of A Hoodie: the cape is a symbol of an emotional separation, not a physical one. I’ve seen a looot of posts complaining about how Marco could have easily used his scissors to “commute” from Earth to Mewni and have both worlds: adventures with his friend Star while still living on Earth, dating Jackie. Sadly things weren’t that simple; Marco couldn’t have done that because he’d have never been able to make up his Mind that way, and his Heart (that, by then, was already mostly on Mewni and with Star) would have never allowed him to keep both things going at the same time. Eventually a breaking point would have been reached, and Jackie would have lost - she knew it, and she wanted to avoid useless pain to both of them.

In this context the cape isn’t the only symbol, Jackie is one too: the former represented the new exciting life that Star brought with her, a life that helped Marco come out of his shell (and this has always been the core of Marco’s growth as a person, something referenced by Daron in the earliest interviews about the show, and that’s still true to this day). The latter is a symbol of the life Marco wanted from when he was a toddler, until something began to change thanks to Star. Things changed for Marco, and there was no way to go back to how they were (another recurring theme in the show, addressed by Marco himself in Booth Buddies). That’s why Jackie knew she had “no chance”: it wasn’t a Jackie Vs Star competition for Marco’s heart (lowercase, the normal romantic connotation), it was Marco’s Old Comfortably Familiar Life Vs Marco’s New Formative Life. Star wasn’t there to drag Marco out of his shell anymore, and it was time for him to take initiative and burst out of it on his own, to have a “French Summer” and find the famous red balloon (a metaphor for a goal in life) from his nightmare in Red Belt.

And that’s why comments like “Marco couldn’t even give up the cape for one single day for Jackie’s sake, he’s a terrible boyfriend!” don’t make much sense, because the cape had so much more meaning than Marco’s latest obsession, than the object of his pride (it was also that, but that’s extremely secondary right now).

Now, going in order with the episode: throughout the show Marco has been less than a stellar boyfriend to Jackie. Leaving her hanging multiple times when Star took priority (Just Friends, Starcrushed), never really getting to know her despite his speech in Sleepover (DING! Third point for “characters say what they think they want or is true, but their actions spell the opposite, because Mind and Heart disagree”), apparently barely seeing her for most of the Summer, busy on Mewni as he was (Jackie mentions that half of their three months together have essentially been long distance). That’s because Marco’s Heart has never really been with Jackie; she has always been his “goal” as far as romance goes, and he never questioned it, even when his priorities changed. But in this scene we see that Marco’s Mind is still focused on Jackie, leading him to recognize his mistakes and wanting to make up for them. He never willingly intended to ignore her, and genuinely wants to spend time together (interesting comparison with Tom and Star, since the latter seems definitely not that invested in spending time with Tom, never involving him in her life unless he’s physically already present. And even in that case, as seen in Monster Bash and Is Another Mystery, he’s still not her first choice or focus). This is consistent with Marco’s personality: determined to make up for his shortcomings, going at it headfirst before even questioning why or even if he really wants to do that. It’s both Marco’s greatest quality and fatal flaw (tunnel vision).

In Bon Bon The Birthday Clown Jackie praised Marco’s determination, his will to try and try, despite the failures. Jackie knows what Marco is like, she knows that he’d have tried for who knows how long to make their relationship work, regardless of what he might have REALLY wanted, and decided to break up with him before he could hurt both of them. Again, Marco’s greatest quality and flaw. His Mind would have kept on silencing his Heart for a looong time, and no one would have liked that. Thank you, Jackie, most emotionally mature character in the show.

Marco’s Mind takes one last crack at overriding his Heart (and, DING! Fourth time for “words of a character don’t match their actions at all”), one last attempt at convincing himself (the line was for him, not for Jackie) that this life he yearned for years was still what he wanted. A reprise of “I guess we are pretty good partners” from Starcrushed, taken to its extreme. From this moment his Mind starts going in the same direction as his Heart, but it’s not going to get quite there until Lava Lake Beach (still attributing his sadness to the breakup with Jackie, when Star was the problem). This is Marco’s Starcrushed: seasons’ worth of build up that were held back by a “dam” of conflicting emotions finally begin flowing, with the eventual realization about his feelings for Star being the goal. Because (with no disrespect meant to Jackie) it’s not like Marco began liking Star after the breakup, nor after her confession. He liked her for a long time, just like Star liked Marco for a long time (I mean, relatively long, at this point they have known eachother for less than a year in universe…), but they couldn’t see or accept it until they were mature enough to challenge what they thought was a fundamental truth in their lives: FRIEND = PLATONIC, CRUSH = LOVE.

But that supposed notion is completely wrong, as this scene indirectly implies, and many other scenes in the season imply way more directly: friendship is an indispensable component of a relationship. Purely romantic attraction is the stuff of crushes, and it leads to what happened to Jackie and Marco, or to what’s most likely going to happen to Tom and Star (although those two are closer as individuals, especially the end of the season, and are infinitely more likely to stay good friends afterwards).

I want to believe that Marco understood why Jackie broke up with him, since he’s dense but not stupid (and since she spelled it out quite clearly for him), and that in Lava Lake Beach he blamed his sadness on it with Tad just because he was trying to find any explanation to his feelings that wasn’t “I like Star”. Had he not understood, I don’t think he’d have been so ready to move to Mewni immediately, to get to that new life I talked about multiple times. We know how stubborn he is, if he hadn’t at least partially understood what happened he wouldn’t have given up so easily (this doesn’t mean he’d have stalked Jackie!).

LINT CATCHER

Star gives Marco quite the cold shoulder in this episode. It’s evident, and unprecedented. Was it because he dropped in her life again without as much as a head up? Nah, Star never paid attention to things like that, and it’d be nothing short of hypocritical for her. Is it because she feared he’d have distracted her from her new life as a better princess? Nonsense: Marco has never been a bad influence to Star, if anything he has often helped her grow as a person. It was probably because a mix of feeling like Marco abandoned her, Tom “replacing” him in her life and time that warped her views on the whole matter (note: I don’t think she passed the time ruminating on how Marco never addressed her confession, I see it more as something unconscious). Star associated her old, messed up life and weeks/months of suffering with Marco, when it was Marco’s “absence” (first emotional, then physical) that caused it in the first place.

This is directly connected to Star’s state of mind: by the beginning of the episode, both her Heart and Mind were focused on Tom. Strictly romantically speaking she was probably completely over Marco. But, as I’m going to expand on later, her ideal of love was still someone who could help her through thick and thin, a dependable companion, and that’s the role Marco filled in her life. Even during Demoncism and Lint Catcher I’m ready to assume (since, after all, it’s not something that we are told explicitly) that Star on some fundamental, subconscious level still “compared” Tom to Marco, and got closer to him because she saw in him someone who could “replace” Marco’s role. She got over Marco, but is still looking for someone like Marco.

[Note that this is not inconsistent with my previous claim that her relationship with Tom is not purely a rebound, because the reasons that lead her to believe Tom could fit such a role were genuine, just... rushed, based on an incomplete view of the situation.]

Star was living a “honeymoon phase” with Tom: nothing big clearly happened offscreen, and the episode opens on them playing board games and eating burritos. It’s safe to assume that during the span of time going from Demoncism to this episode Star felt happy and fulfilled with Tom, not constantly heartbroken. But I think it’s also safe to assume that it wouldn’t have lasted. As soon as Star’s life started getting more complicated again - trying to reunite monsters and mewmans, her sleep portalling, etc - she’d have noticed that Tom is not up to the task, if she even got him involved much in the first place, and that he can’t replace Marco (Monster Bash, Is Another Mystery, and her overall reluctance to involve him are proof enough from both sides). Also, if we want to get technical, Star would have still been called to the Realm of Magic eventually no matter how specifically the events played out, and if Marco hadn’t returned, Star would have been forever stuck, magically lobotomized, in the realm of magic. So Marco’s return understandably shook the comfortable equilibrium Star built for herself, and she understandably reacted to it as expressed above, but he just sped up something that would have still happened soon enough. The honeymoon phase with Tom was doomed not to last, just like what happened to Marco and Jackie’s relationship.

This is (quite literally) the lowest point to Star and Marco’s relationship, the most strained and out of tune they have ever been: Star venting all the pent up frustration on Marco, and Marco trying to downplay the situation as much as possible as if his choice to leave didn’t mean anything. Neither is doing it on purpose, they never wanted to hurt each other, as evidenced by how fast, by the end of the episode, they turn back on their initial behaviors.

From this moment on their relationship is going to move to a slightly different track to eventually catch up with how things were before, and get well beyond that, with Booth Buddies. We could say that between S2 and S3 Marco and Star, who had been driving down Just Friendship Lane, found a dead end; they had to backtrack for a while to eventually start taking a new road that will go way farther than the first one.

Metaphor for Star and Marco being reunited, or simple gag about Lavabo’s excessive efficiency and dedication? We’ll never know.

This scene shows us an entitled Marco, but also a Marco who is worried about not being able to spend time with Star, and a Star who is still worried about Marco’s presence somehow making her relapse, and who gets deeply hurt when he doesn’t show trust and appreciation in what she does. Nothing new here, we already knew that Marco sometimes sins in “pride”, and that Star is particularly sensitive to lack of trust (think The Banagic Incident…). Important parts of their characters, but nothing too specific as far as shipping goes .

The scene with Eclipsa, other than showing us once again why Star (partially wrongly) was conflicted about Marco’s return, also introduced another round of Heart Vs Mind in the most subtle and television-like of ways: panicked denial. She was so convinced that she actually was over Marco, but the seed of doubt has been planted. No relation to the seeds Eclipsa was throwing .

And we finally get to the theme of companionship that I already mentioned several times before. Best friends, partners in crime, two people who watch each other’s backs: that’s what Star and Marco have been since more or less day one, and this has always been true (especially for Marco toward Star) both in life-or-death situations and in everyday life, from cheering up Star when a boy wouldn’t call her to helping her deal with a shattered opossum statue. The fight against the lint monster dissipates all the friction between Star and Marco (it clearly didn’t cancel past events, though; their relationship became different the moment Star confessed her crush on Marco, and even if we didn’t get a payoff until Booth Buddies, gears were already turning under the surface) and reminded them of how things used to be.

Something clicks for Star: just seven minutes earlier both her Mind and Heart were so sure that Tom could give her all what she needed, and now she makes Marco her squire. Officially the reason is giving him a reason to stay on Mewni, and yet the “dubbing ceremony” mysteriously encapsulates everything that Star is looking for in a partner, everything that originally lead her to develop a crush on Marco (DING! Fifth time!). This is going to become increasingly clear as the season goes on, with Star needing Marco more and more, choosing him more and more over Tom, up to the kiss and all the blushing in the finale.

A companion in big and dangerous situations

And in everyday’s life

This moment marks the beginning of a lot of things: Star’s Heart starts disagreeing with her Mind once again, Star and Marco’s relationship starts growing on a new, different track (that’s eventually going to lead to smooching), Star unconsciously puts Marco once again in the “TYPE OF PERSON I LOVE” slot (leaving Tom in the “BOYFRIEND” one without enough bases to support it), and it marks the official birth of the box. I wrote a long post about this concept here, but essentially from now through the rest of the season both Star and, after Lava Lake Beach, Marco are going to classify their feelings using clearly labelled boxes, hoping to protect themselves and to keep things clear and manageable this way: Star experienced heartbreak when Marco left her, and even if just unconsciously she wants to avoid it. Making Marco her squire looked like the best way to have some control over the situation. Just some minutes earlier Star tried to put some physical distance between herself and Marco, but that was hardly the ideal solution, and definitely not something she truly wanted (because she DOES enjoy Marco’s company),

so now she’s creating a different kind of separation between the two of them. A professional Knight (princess) - Squire relationship is one that allows her to spend time with her best friend while strictly defining who he is to her, such that it won’t get tangled up in those messy other feelings again... or at least that’s what her Mind lead her to believe - it obviously won’t work out as intended. Star was (subconsciously) essentially using this to say “My Mind is telling me loud and clear that he’s my squire, so my Heart must think the same as well! No confused feelings here!” See Booth Buddies: immediately after the kiss she remarks that Marco is her squire, as if that should have, somehow, magically stopped her feelings from happening.

Marco, after Lava Lake Beach, is going to realize that he can’t be Star’s best friend (or at least, be emotionally intimate with her as their best-friendship usually implies) without his heart bleeding (friendship and love being inextricably connected). So he goes for the next best thing: being her squire. This way he can be close to her and have fun with her, but as a “man of action” - almost a professional kind of relationship (he’s eager to adventure with her in Is Another Mystery, when actions is called for, but is reticent to stay with Star and wants to go away when the “adventure” involves being blocked in a photo booth with your crush who wants to be feely touchy while taking best friends photos).

[Note that this is just the “infancy” of said boxes, and they’re not going to be fully operational until Night Life / Deep Dive. We’re going to get into the episode by episode details later, this was just a general overview of their meaning throughout the season]

TRIAL BY SQUIRE

This is a sneaky episode, because on a first watch it looked like it wanted to establish how things were more or less back to normal, if a “work in progress”, for the dorks: Marco having been brought down a couple of pegs from compared to his cape wearing self and being super serious in his new role as a squire, with Star ready to accept and admit that she missed Marco and wants to have fun with him like they used to. There’s so much more to this, as it became clear further along in the season.

From the first scenes we get to see Marco’s dorky slash neurotic side, as from the good ol’ S1 days: always prepared, trying to do the best job possible, but a bit of a control freak (Pony wasn’t completely wrong in Stump Day...).

This is good for his growth as a character, making up for his entitlement in previous episodes, putting effort into being useful without expecting anything from it.

The bad part is that in a handful of episodes, as referenced before, Marco is going to sink too deep into the squire box, putting in it all of his self-worth and identity because as the song from Lava Lake Beach says “all his plans fell apart”. The comfortable cardboard walls of the box are going to be his only way to protect his feelings while still being able to more or less enjoy his time with Star - similar to what she did in S2, but in her case delusion and self-deceit were enough to keep the roaring feelings at bay for a long while. It’s a new exciting chapter in Marco’s life, sure, and something he honestly enjoys doing, but also something that is going to turn into an unhealthy coping method soon enough (until Booth Buddies, at least. Divide showed us a completely different picture, with a Marco who is not scared to be both a Squire and a Best Friend, but that’s for later).

Sinks into the squire box quite literally.

As for Star, we have the mother of all dissonances in this first part of S3A: she claims that the only reason she made Marco her squire was to have an excuse to have silly fun together. “I don’t really need someone to help me, I can manage just like I was managing before Marco came back! I have my new outlook on how to be a princess, and Tom!” Then, as the season progresses, we have Star begging her squire to help because her life is too complicated to be handled alone in Night Life, putting her life in her squire’s hands in Deep Dive, having her squire help with the Monster party, (initially) with finding Buff Frog, and so on. As I said before, Star was still in a “honeymoon phase”: following her resolutions to change she still hasn’t met any real obstacles, nothing that forcibly and unconsciously reminded her who is (and who she wants most as) the dependable person par excellence in her life - something that, incidentally, overlaps with her ideal of love . 

So DING, we get the sixth, biggest example of characters saying one thing, what they thought they wanted, only for their actions to completely contradict it. And in hindsight it was an obvious outcome! Just look at what Star said when she made Marco her squire, those were certainly not words implying just “silly fun”; she was giving him a huge role in her life, as the kind of person she needs in her life.

The most deceptive shot in the show. Trying to make us believe that everything was back to normal with things ready to grow, when after Lava Lake Beach nothing would have been the same for a long while; the full extent of their friendship was impossible, or littered by conflicting feelings, until Ruberiot’s fateful wedding (truly the patron of Starco, even when just tangentially involved).

Also this doesn’t mean much, but it’s the second time (first being Camping Trip) that we see Marco hastily confuting the notion that he is Star’s boyfriend. I wonder if we’re ever going to see a third time, with a positive answer for a change...

PRINCESS TURDINA

After having been kind of a jerk for the cape - a “source of pride” that he didn’t fully earn - Marco is forced to renounce, for the sake of what’s right to do, his crowning achievement: Princess Turdina, the symbol of a rebellion he guided (probably Marco’s “standalone” highest point). This is important to Marco’s development, and it all plays in favor of him reaching the emotional maturity needed for Starco to happen that he lacked by the end of S2, but the important part of the episode, as far as Star and Marco’s relationship go, is the concept of honesty. During most of the series Marco has always been the honest and rule-abiding one, while Star always had the tendency to ignore the issues and to “bend reality” a bit - especially to herself! She lied a lot to herself.Then why does it look like roles are swapped here?

Because, once again, Marco is out of his usual comfort zone, and is facing things bigger than what he was used to. And his usual values fail, initially. He’s conflicted and doesn’t know what to do. Obviously by the end of the episode, thanks to Star’s puppy eyes and to Marco being anything but not self aware, despite how “tone-deaf” he might be at times, the right choice gets made.

This is relevant to Starco because being honest and true to oneself is a fundamental step to go from their current relationship to something more.

Star ran away from the truth for all of S2, until it was almost too late, and now she’s saying things like

This doesn’t mean that both Star and Marco suddenly became completely aware of their true feelings; after all, the whole post is based on the concept of Heart and Mind disagreeing, but it’s still an important progress, and it shows. Compare Starcrushed and Scent Of A Hoodie, with the characters literally running away in the face of a confession they couldn’t handle, to Divide, where following a kiss Star and Marco don’t shy away (but blush shyly) from opening up to each other in a moment of need, staying true to what they always wanted and was always important to them.

So Princess Turdina doesn’t represent a clear-cut turning point as far as honesty goes, and the following avalanche of drama is proof enough, but it still shows the effect of the constant growth of the characters and pits them against formative decisions that are eventually all going to contribute to their interactions. After all, Starco would have happened seasons ago, if Star and Marco had been ready for the get-go.

SWEET DREAMS

While we still don’t know why Star was being called to the Realm Of Magic by the “Firstborn”, and why she started developing these new powers, it’s easy to imagine how the trigger to those dreams might have been the increased amount of stress in her life following Starfari and her resolutions to deeply change the way her kingdom - the whole land, actually - work. There’s a very marked theme of escapism in Star’s nightly adventures, from flying around freely to going to the goblin dogs dimension, doing the fun things she probably doesn’t have much time for during waking hours anymore.

This is relevant to Star’s development as a character, but also to the way her dynamics with Marco are going to change in this episode compared to what the first week of the S3A bomb’s episodes attempted to establish. Early on I mentioned that, when Marco returned to Mewni, Star was in a honeymoon phase of her life: content being with Tom and with considering Marco nothing more than a source of silly friendship fun. She set her mind to becoming a better princess, sure, but until her experience in the field she didn’t actually clash with anything that posed an actual obstacle to it. And now she’s suddenly stressed about having to change centuries of racism, and about her powers going haywire without her control.

And she asks for Marco’s help, remarking that it’s his duty as a squire.

Just one episode earlier she said that having silly fun with him was all making him a squire was about, as if she never intended to take the role seriously (= her Mind telling her “if you never let him get too involved with your life again, you won’t have issues with feelings for him again!”), and now she trusts him - and, explicitly, only him - with something that’s dangerous and scary to her. Now, obviously Star doesn’t want to involve her parents in this because what they tell her during breakfast scares her, and her comment about not letting Tom know is treated, on the spot, more as a gag (”Ok let’s not tell Tom that you spent the whole night in my room, Marco”). That’s the balanced, unbiased interpretation that I gave the scene at the time.

But then Night Life and Deep Dive came, and it became apparent that even weeks later Star kept trusting only Marco with this (and Janna, but she’s so irrelevant to the bigger picture that she didn’t risk anything by telling her). Then Conquer came, and Tom remarked that Star never told him about her new form and powers, and at this point I honestly don’t feel biased in the slightest in saying that Star doesn’t see Tom as a suitable replacement to Marco as her life companion. She doesn’t see anyone else as up to that role, either, but it’s particularly important for Tom because she initially thought he could fill that role, but as soon as Marco came back and things started changing for real, her opinion changed as well. Obviously Star has a big fault in all of this, as she simply refuses to involve Tom in her life and barely gives him a chance. But it’d be disingenuous to ignore episodes like Monster Bash or Is Another Mystery showing us that helping Star doesn’t come as naturally to Tom as it does to Marco. He does own up to his bad behavior after the monster party, but initially scoffs at Star’s priorities. He does defend and comfort her with a speech when Buff Frog is about to leave, but only after having spent an episode complaining and acting annoyed by the task after having insisted to accompany Star just because he felt he was expected to do that.

No one should question how much Tom improved this season just as no one should question how good of a friend and ally he was during the season finale when he acted as he did because he felt it was the right thing to do (and not out of expectations nor obligations). At the same time, though, no one should ignore that both the actions of the characters and the events of the season themselves show us that Tom, right now, is not able to properly be the kind of partner Star needs. He was the kind of partner she needed during her state of mind pre-Starfari, and before Marco’s return, but that couldn’t have lasted. And even if someone wasn’t convinced by this, and felt like Tom could replace Marco in the kind of “ideal of a companion” Star has, it doesn’t change Star’s actions and who she prioritizes. Because most of the season showed what Star wants: the way she ignores Tom stinks and makes her a kind of a bad girlfriend, there’s no doubt about it, but it doesn’t change what the priorities of her Heart (and Mind) are. We can disagree on something from an audience perspective, but ultimately the subjectivity of the characters in-universe is what makes the story go forward.

Over-reading into things: the episode that re-establishes that Marco is the go-to person for Star both for everyday and life-changing problems opens up with him having scoured Mewni to find someone who sold the cereal that the princess likes so much,

and closes with him being worried about Star’s well being, and resolving to do something to help her even if she didn’t want him to (as seen in Night Life). Honestly I’m reaching with this, it might be completely coincidental, but it definitely fits the narrative.

Now to conclude this part: while Star and Marco’s relationship changed a lot during this season, for the many reasons already referenced before, Trial By Squire and then Sweet Dreams still bring back their dynamics (at least on a surface level) to what they used to be, showing both the “in time of peace” and “in time of danger” complicity. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that this happens right before Lava Lake Beach: obviously seeing Star and Tom smooching and being a couple was the biggest push (just like what happened to Star in Just Friends), but I also think that what made it that effective was his relationship with Star having once again reached acceptable levels of depth. He saw everything get back to normal, and that makes it all the more alarming when all he could think and feel was “Something is off. Why do I feel like I want more?”.

LAVA LAKE BEACH

I said multiple times that the “honeymoon phase” for Tomstar ended the moment Star actually started having to clash with obstacles in her new life, but this episode is an exception, in a way, because it shows us things from Marco’s perspective. And Marco had to feel miserable in this episode, as if what he never realized he really wanted was out of his grasp, and as if he felt like a stranger in the new life he chose for himself (”♪ All my plans are falling apart ♪”). So it makes sense for this episode to be the only one, after Star and Tom hooked up, to portray their relationship in nothing but a positive way (even then we could argue that it still leads Star to be distracted and ignore Kelly’s plight, but that’s beside the point right now, and honestly I’d attribute it more to plot needs than to anything else). They’re having fun together, nothing relevant comes up, and we are even shown Star and Tom having fun in a kind of way that Marco couldn’t really provide, because he has a different personality. We see what their relationship would be in a vacuum, with the current Tom being more than a fine match to Star when she is given time to be carefree and reckless rebel princess, where nothing but mindless fun was on the plate. And while that’s obviously not possible in real life (I mean, fictional life, they’re cartoons, but real to them), and it’s absolutely not consistent with how things are going to be for the rest of the season, in that moment it all adds up to Marco being pushed over the edge. But at the same time Sweet Dreams and Lava Lake Beach show the two extremes of Star’s life in this moment of the show, and we have just seen that when more serious stuff is on the table she automatically chooses Marco (even literally saying that he’s the only one she can trust!), and she’s going to drift toward him more and more as the episodes go, even in moments of downtime such as Marco Jr. or Booth Buddies. The date on the beach is not the standard for Tom and Star’s relationship, but an idealization of what it would have been if everything always stayed the way things were at the beginning of Lint Catcher, when the two of them were eating burritos and playing battleships without a worry in the world.

A lot has been said about the hoodie scene: personally I think that it was mostly there to contribute to making Marco feel bad, rather than to convey the idea that Star was trying to change Tom into a Marco. But, just like many other moments in the season, it might still be a symbol to the audience (while also probably having some deeply subconscious implications in-universe for Star herself) about who is her ideal companion - something that we saw being applied by Star herself just one segment ago.

Similarly I wouldn’t read too much into Star not noticing that Kelly was feeling off: the whole episode is focused on Marco and his perspective of things, and having Star be completely absorbed by the fun she was having with Tom was part of it. It doesn’t tell us anything about Star; it’s not a statement about, I don’t know, Tom making her a worse person and friend. Just a context that can justify the plot of the episode taking place.

By the beginning of the episode, having spent some time with Star and having rekindled their relationship in a way that’s different from how things used to be, Marco’s Mind is getting closer and closer to agreeing with his Heart, but it’s still trying to rationalize the way he felt: just like Star tried to tell herself, in Bon Bon The Birthday Clown, that she felt weird because she was worried about not having heard Marco for a while, and then because of the loss of Glossaryck and the Book (something that was a huge blow on her morale for sure, but her stormy feelings played a role in making her feel so hopeless by the end of the episode as well), Marco is now telling himself (and Tad) that he feels miserable because Jackie broke up with him.

Now, we all know that Marco can be kinda dense, and that being honest with themselves is not these characters’ strong points overall, but as I’ve already said while talking about Sophomore Slump, I doubt that Marco would have been so quick to move to Mewni if he truly didn’t understand the reasons behind the breakup, so this is very clearly an excuse that he’s telling himself (and a partially conscious one at that). And we’re back to a theme already present in Club Snubbed: feelings never get forced, in this show. The events triggering them might be arbitrary - like Tad, out of all the characters, being the one who helps Marco see the truth - but it’s always just a small, external push, on top of a mountain of feelings and developments that were already there. Marco had an incredibly strong relationship with Star for months, he did learn to question his certainties about life when Jackie broke up with him and he decided to change life, this is not “Wow one second Marco thinks that he’s sad about Jackie and one moment later Tad makes him suddenly understand that he loves Star!”. The only thing that happened in this scene and the following ones was his Mind finally agreeing with his Heart, suddenly making him notice a valley of feelings that were already there. Marco simply went from “Star is my best friend, I’d do anything for her, and she’s an irreplaceable part of my life” to “Star is my best friend, I’d do anything for her, and she’s an irreplaceable part of my life, and I want to smooch her face”. The step from platonic to romantic love was that fast because everything had already been primed before the “trigger event” happened (something that’s going to happen again in Booth Buddies, and that’s actually the way the show decided to handle romance throughout the season, I’ll expand on this later). Finally Marco’s Mind and Heart fully agree.

Well, technically they don’t fully agree until he goes through the equivalent of Star’s Just Friends and sees Tom and Star kissing and realizes that he’d like to be in Tom’s place. 

Super subtle song that punches us in the guts with all the weight of Marco’s realization,

 All my plans are falling apart Now that I know, you all can see right through me  And I don’t wanna know the things that I know And I don’t wanna see the things that I’ve been shown But I can’t shut my eyes so I’ll walk away alone Tonight…

His plans fell apart because his life on Mewni is nothing like what he expected it to be - not only is he not a knight, but now he just realizes he can’t go back to the kind of relationship he had with Star before all the mess, and that not being able to have the kind of relationship that lies beyond that brings him worlds of pain. “Things are different”, following Star’s confession Marco: first, and then Star, are going to spend almost the whole season trying to pretend that things could go back to the way they were, and their relationship isn’t going to be able to fully heal AND evolve until they are going to understand, in that blessed photo booth, that all they can do is keep going forward and see where it’s going to lead them, because the alternatives are for the relationship to die, or to grow. There’s no middle ground, no going back.

The other lines in the song are a reference to the escapism, the “running away from the truth” that Marco can’t embrace anymore. Because he’s too deep into his feelings, and because that’s not what his personality is like. Star might have been able to ignore her feelings for a long time even when they became apparent to her, but “Obsess Over Something Until He Manages To Do It” Marco can’t afford the same luxury. Tunnel vision protected him for a while, but now that he blinders are off there’s no way to get them back on.

And this leads to his talk with Kelly, who suggests to him a better solution than moping or physically running away like Tad recommended (obviously something Marco wouldn’t have ever done regardless, he’s not the same person he was in Scent Of A Hoodie). Kelly essentially tells him not to let one bad thing ruin everything it’s associated with. In her case it means not to let the breakup with Tad ruin the Soulrise, in Marco’s case not to let the pain coming from his one-sided crush ruin... well, all his plans, his stay on Mewni. He shouldn’t let his current sentimental situation define his whole identity - just like Kelly was sick of being just “Tad’s girlfriend”. Marco can’t change what his Heart and Mind want anymore, and he can’t ignore it, but he can reframe it in a way that allows him to appreciate what he has, rather than just agonizing over what’s not possible.

Hell, the episode itself edges incredibly close to the terminology of Heart and Mind (in the dialogue and via the name of the tune that plays during Kelly and Marco’s moments, The Best Thing To Do Is Rewrite It) - quite literally an action of changing the Mind’s perspective. In past instances of heartbreak, every reaction has always involved trying to ignore, displace, or outright replace the true feelings of the Heart. For the first time, we have a reaction that doesn’t deny what the Heart is longing for whatsoever; rather, Kelly’s advice is to find some mental framework (hint: it rhymes with esquire) that allows Marco to find satisfaction in life while never having to forget or abandon what he truly, deeply wants in his Heart.

Granted, unrequited feelings hurt, and while he never stops finding satisfaction in his role as a squire (after a super brief trial period, as I’m going to reference in the following segment, in Night Life that still has Star always at the center of his Heart), he defensively digs himself deeper and deeper into that attitude of only being her squire, aka The Box (in an almost linear correlation to how much closer and closer Star’s Heart drifted toward him over the season): not outright escapism, but still a way to “settle” for what he thought was the best solution at the time, even if he was fully aware of its limitations. In Booth Buddies he’s clearly conscious of why some kind of adventures with Star are ok, while others - those that involve emotional and physical intimacy - are like knives between the shoulderblades. Knives that have “You want so much more but the situation prevents you from having it” engraved in the metal.

Oh, and this is also the episode where the show sheds for a moment any semblance of subtlety and outright tells us what Sophomore Slump already introduced, and that Booth Buddies is going to directly relate and apply to Star and Marco:

Best friends make best lovers.

DEATH PECK

Keeping things short here since I’m going to better address this theme in Monster Bash, but the fact that Tom signed the petition but is nowhere to be seen during the episode is a twofold sign of what doesn’t work in his relationship with Star. He’s aware of the issue, but doesn’t try to actively involve himself (and is going to say that he’s not interested in politics next episode), and Star knows that she could need some help but always chooses Marco - or even Pony, in this case - over him (Is Another Mystery is going to imply that’s the standard even for events that happen offscreen). Neither are putting any particular effort into the relationship, and Star especially seems to not be particularly interested when Tom is not physically present already.

Hey, it’s your friendly neighborhood Ngame taking over the narration for just a moment. See this face that Star makes at Rich Pigeon when he’s giving an inspiring speech about the future of Mewni? Store it in your memory banks for a few sections. Back to you, Seddm.

NIGHT LIFE

Getting this out of the way before it comes up in the episode: Star is not using Marco’s squirehood as an excuse to order him around. It’s just the new shape their relationship took (effectively starting with Sweet Dreams), the effect of “the boxes”. During S2, were she to have such constant, pressing, and tedious obligations as those in 3A, Star would have been saying “Marco, please, I really need my best friend to help me now, I’m overwhelmed, I can’t do this alone”, not “I really need my squire”.

But right now Star’s mind is screaming at her that not having a “protection wall” between herself and Marco is a terrible idea; the last time Marco was her dependable best friend, she started liking him, so she uses the Squire-box as a way to listen to her Heart - which tells her “Marco is the one you can trust with anything he’s your best friend and you need him in your life” - while still feeling like she’s in control of the situation. Star doesn’t call Marco her squire because she doesn’t see him as a peer anymore, but because it was the one compromise she found to manage a Heart and a Mind that were once again disagreeing about her feelings.

And Marco embraces this solution as well, because following his realization in Lava Lake Beach it’s his only way not to run away from the absurd situation he’s in: the closest person to Star physically, but they can’t cuddle and do couple stuff, and the closest person to Star emotionally, but they can’t talk about their feelings as they used to because they both got burned by what happened. I’ll point this out again, but it’s extremely telling that in Divide, after Booth Buddies’ events, for the first time in the season Marco calls Star his best friend and invites her to open up to him emotionally.

The episode tells us that Marco has been working with Hekapoo for an unspecified amount of time (days for sure, at least) closing Star’s portals and, at the same time, “distracting” the fiery lady enough not to let her realize that Star was the one opening them, since as she said in Sweet Dreams she wanted to figure her powers out on her own. At the same time the whole episode plays around with the concept of “married life”, with Star playing the part of the mother who is busy with a baby (Glossaryck) and home life, Marco as the husband who has nightly escapades, and Hekapoo as the husband’s hot fling with no strings or responsibilities attached. “But if Marco was doing all of this for Star’s sake, then was she unfair toward Marco? Was she playing the part of a nagging wife who chains down the husband’s freedom?” Haha nothing is ever that simple.

Obviously Marco was trying to help Star without her knowing, and this lead to all the lies and secrets. There’s nothing wrong about this, and he was in no easy position, wanting to help Hekapoo and her bestie at the same time. But that’s what his Heart, his friendship for Star, was telling him to do. Meanwhile his Mind, still trying to adjust to the new situation, urged him to find a way to unwind and find some solace in a Mewni experience that was nothing like what he imagined, so he “relapsed” a bit to his old Running With Scissors days. He combined business with pleasure, there’s no doubt about that, but it wasn’t a completely selfless behavior, as evidenced by him feeling guilty under Glossaryck’s inquisitive (?) eyes. 

I know that it doesn’t make much sense at first, because they’re absolutely nothing wrong in Marco trying to have some fun, a life outside Star, and no one - not even Star, despite what might have seemed from this episode - would want to deprive him of that. Imagine it like this: Star has always been the focus of Marco’s Heart, we already established that. Whenever he has acted out of “instinct”, or whenever the situation didn’t call for his Mind to actively try to override him (like in Scent Of A Hoodie), he put Star as first priority. Now, following Lava Lake Beach, his Mind as well realized how important Star is to him, but the presence of Tom created an apparently insurmountable obstacle that brought feelings he didn’t know how to deal with. Reaching rock bottom, he embraces the escapades with Hekapoo as a way to unwind (and even then he still tried to use part of that time to help Star). By the end of the episode he realizes that he can’t do both things, he can’t "love” Star and want to help her, while also trying to avoid her as much as possible. This scene here doesn’t mean “I, Marco Diaz, give up adventures for the sake of Star, sacrificing my own happiness for her”; not only would that be grossly inconsistent with the rest of the season (Marco does have adventures with Star, Star does want to have adventures with Marco, even if they’re going to be busy with serious stuff until the monster party), but it’d be absolutely horrible for the characters and the situation. What it means is that Marco is fully embracing Kelly’s advice from Lava Lake Beach (and, by extension, the Squire Box) by finding the only way he could think of to do what he really wants to do: be with Star and help her (Heart) while not feeling the need to have fun in another dimension to stop the screams inside (Mind). From this moment (up to Booth Buddies) Marco is more or less entirely going to put away his identity as Star’s best friend, replacing it with the one as squire.

Hekapoo’s line is extremely important because it not only validates Marco’s efforts from the point of view of someone who has no reason to lie to Marco, thus washing away his entitlement at the beginning of the season and “concluding” the first arc of his growth in the season, but it also overlaps the idea of “squire” and “best friend”, when it comes to Marco and Star, exactly what they’re going to do until the last episodes in the season.

And one last thing: yes, the episode does have heavy “Marcapoo” undertones - even if not necessarily romantic ones - and yes, Marco did “break her heart” by ultimately putting Star first. But I and Ngame both will personally slap whoever is going to ask “Then is Starco toxic if it ruins other relationships?!”. Sadly choices need to be made in life; nowhere did the show do anything to objectively tell us “Jackie/Tom/Hekapoo are terrible horrible people and Marco/Star did the good thing ditching them!”. What ultimately matters are the personal choices and decisions of the characters, what they want and like the most. That’s... extremely realistic! In real life it’s not like the ONLY reason all relationships end or outright never happen in the first place is because “he/she was actually an evil killer of puppies!”. That would be absurd; sometimes it’s as simple as “I like you, but I like that other person more”, and that’s essentially what this all boils down. It’s what happened with Jarco, it’s what’s going to happen with Tomstar. Now, what the show does to validate these subjective choices is giving us plenty of scenes, moments, and reasons to know why Marco would ultimately choose Star over others, and vice versa. 

Also nothing should be seen “in a vacuum”: this episode took place in the context of an extremely busy Star and a Marco who resolved to help her of his own volition. “So then if Marco stays with Star, he’s never going to have time to do anything else, to have fun with anyone else?!” No, but in that specific moment, and in other moments throughout the season, he had to put his priorities straight, and he ultimately chose what he wanted the most. The “married life” metaphor the episode uses is particularly fitting. Imagine a couple who only recently had a kid; they won’t have time for just about anything else for a long while afterwards, and some relationships or activities may fall by the wayside, but it’s usually rewarding and worthwhile to them.

DEEP DIVE

Deep Dive has been one of the most important and surprising episodes in the season, but going over it in this post is going to be rather fast, since when it comes to Star and Marco’s relationship all it does is make themes I already plentifully talked about before painfully clear. One stands tall above all others: the idea of companionship. The season began with Star feeling dejected and alone, finding some solace in Tom, then apparently giving Marco a more “marginal” role in her life following his return. Then when things get serious, Tom essentially disappears and Star keeps involving Marco more and more in her Mewni life (Death Peck, Sweet Dreams), and Deep Dive hits us with this.

If this doesn’t tell us what kind of role Star feels Marco fills in her life, and what kind of role Marco wants to have in Star’s life, nothing ever will. By this point Star has involved Marco in her life more than ever before; if possible her Heart is focused on him more than in Starcrushed (or at least in a different, more mature way), while her Mind is still adamantly telling her “Tom is your boyfriend, you like Tom”. If in Night Life Marco realized that he can’t not see Star through the lenses of romance, fully embracing the Squire role as a way to protect himself, then Deep Dive is the pinnacle of their “working relationship”: from this moment her Mind is going to slooowly move more and more toward her Heart, toward Marco. The Boxes are still going to be there, but slowly break down, reduced to their most fundamental elements only (Tom = boyfriend, Marco = squire friend). This is going to be evident in the next two episodes featuring one-on-one Star-Marco interactions, Marco Jr. and Booth Buddies, where the princess, compared to all the previous episodes in the season, is going to behave around her squire the same way she’d have done in early S2: cheerful, happy, very heavy on physical contact, commenting on how attractive he is (Marco Jr.).

“But Star looks silly while saying that Marco is her lifeline, it doesn’t look like she put much thought in it, we shouldn’t consider it such an important line!” Irrelevant: Marco still repeats it to himself in an emotional tone, so it’s important to him anyway, and the following scene still has Star essentially telling Marco “We have always had each other backs, that’s important enough to me to make me confident about the success of this extremely dangerous operation”. The episode is thick with this theme, even in the case the lifeline scene hadn’t been meant to be particularly iconic by the boarders and writers.

Trashiest moment in the season: in Running With Scissors Marco ultimately renounces a life of mindless adventures and lack of stress for Star’s sake, because he doesn’t want to lose her (yes obviously his other friends parents and all that played a role as well, but it’s when Star mentions herself that he truly changes his mind - and let’s not forget the reflection on the scissors). Now Star snaps back from a land of “magical bliss” (and, remember, Star is super stressed right now, so a land without worries had to have a particularly strong appeal to her, even without the magic brainwashing) thanks to Marco calling her. They have both rejected easy but “empty” happiness for the sake of the other.

First hug since Marco left. Obviously there hadn’t been many reasons for Star and Marco to hug in previous episodes, but I think it’s still indicative of what I said before: this episode marks a complete return, for Star, to the same kind of relationship she had with Marco in the past - albeit with the walls of the boxes still acting as a filter, blocking out the kind of emotional intimacy that once experienced again in Booth Buddies (and Divide/Conquer) is going to immediately sync her Mind more and more with her Heart. Perhaps not yet to the point of agreeing completely, but enough to make Star conscious of what she feels - just, apparently, not sure enough about what she feels yet.

First time Marco blushes during a hug us well (and second time he blushes throughout the whole show in a non humorous context following his kiss with Jackie in Bon Bon The Birthday Clown): while this has obviously been surpassed in importance by recent episodes, at the time it proved us that Marco didn’t reject his feelings for Star, despite everything. He uses his role as a Squire as a form of protection (and he’s going to embrace it even more after this episode), but both his Heart and Mind still agree, he does like Star romantically. He knows it, and he never once tries to fight it.

Janna’s line is just a magical spin on a super classic gag, and nothing that comes out of her mouth should be taken too seriously, but it still gives a romantic connotation to a (relatively common type of) moment of Starco friendship, consistent with the core concept of friendship and love being indivisible in the dorks’ current relationship. Just like with the hoodie in Lava Lake Beach, I don’t think it should be given any significant weight as a standalone moment, but in the context of the incessant march of allusions to this concept it absolutely shouldn’t be written off entirely.

MONSTER BASH

The episode doesn’t tell us much about Star and Marco’s relationship, being more focused (other than on plot, obviously) on Tom. It mostly shows us once again - notably, this time with Tom being present - that Star greatly values the help Marco is in her life (companionship), that he helps her around both in small matters,

and high risk/stakes situations. Nothing new, but always nice to see it.

As for Tom, there’s much more to be said. Last time we saw Tom and Star together (and essentially the first time ever since they hooked up, excluding the quick cameos in Lint Catcher and Starfari) was in Lava Lake Beach, an episode that symbolized what would work in their relationship in a vacuum with a focus on Marco’s perspective on it. But said vacuum of easy life began to fade starting with Starfari (and is completely gone now) and we are seeing the effects: Monster Bash shows the bad sides of their relationship, and both Star’s and Tom’s flaws.

Star barely noticed that Tom was there, helping set up, and she clearly didn’t involve him as directly as she did Marco, and apparently outright didn’t see him for quite a while (weeks? Marco mentions that Star has been preparing this party for months).

And we also get to see something that’s going to be relevant again in Is Another Mystery, and that ties directly to Tom’s misguided attempts at self improvement: he thinks of himself strictly as “Star’s boyfriend”, and she acts according to it. In this episode he’s mostly concerned about kissing, dancing and cuddling, and later in Is Another Mystery he’s going to be like “A boyfriend should spend time with her girlfriend, right?”, thus begging Marco to go on the adventure with Star... without then being actually concerned about the adventure itself. "HELP STAR” was never his focus, but rather he just felt that his role required him to “SPEND TIME WITH STAR”. This is a crucial point of his character, because Divide and Conquer showed us that Tom is not selfish nor unable to do things for other people’s sake; he acts like that in his relationship with Star because his priorities and focus are all skewed by a need for validation. As of this point in canon, he’s invested in the relationship, not the person.

And this is even made worse by Star, who isn’t that invested in either of them. She clearly doesn’t look forward to cuddling and kissing as much as Tom does, not taking his attempts at flirting seriously, and she doesn’t involve him in her life at all. She originally saw him as someone who could hold her hand in the scary new life she saw in front of herself at the beginning of the season, but as soon as Marco was back and said life actually hit, she... lost interest in Tom, because what he was left with was just a BOYFRIEND label with little to none of the emotional weight that should be attached to it.

As I said Tom never got a chance to prove himself as a worthy companion, but at the same time this episode (along with Is Another Mystery) gives us glimpses of why it probably wouldn’t have worked anyway, even if Marco hadn’t returned from Earth, even if Star had involved Tom more. This scene kinda pits Marco and Tom against one another, showing that the first cares for what Star is doing, while the latter (who should be far more personally interested into it) has apparently kinda regressed from his good resolutions from Demoncism: if he felt inspired by Star trying to be a better princess, shouldn’t he be inspired by her attempts at improving Mewni as well? Especially since he signed the proposition as well... but then wasn’t involved by Star (like, she didn’t ask him to come to the Pigeon Kingdom in Death Peck). Long story short, the first five minutes of the episode show us Tom and Star at their worst (when it comes to how they behave with each other), and why their relationship can’t work: neither of them are proactive. Both aren't concerned enough to put forth genuine efforts to reach out to the other unless they're physically looking at each other already. Everything was good as long as all they expected from each other was “be there, have fun” like during their date on the beach, but the moment things got a bit more serious the lack of solid basis to their relationship became glaring - similarly to Jackie and Marco, even if in that case the faults were a bit more one-sided.

We also get a preview of what Divide and Conquer are going to show in its full glory: the contrast between a Tom who is solely focused on “I am a boyfriend I do boyfriend things”, thus not caring about anything that lies outside his jurisdiction,

and a Tom who doesn’t think like a boyfriend, but just like a decent human (demon) being and a friend, and does his best to help. Focusing on his role as a boyfriend is poison to Tom’s growth, and I’m quite confident in assuming that’s going to be a point next season, that becoming just a friend is going to be great for him.

This moment of clarity also allows him to make up for his behavior during the first part of the episode. It’s shown that he has some more work to do, because it’s clear that he still doesn’t fully understand where he was at fault or what he should have done to avoid upsetting Star (you are at fault too Star though, you ignored him for who knows how long...): he outright says it at first,

and by the end of the episode he understands that he shouldn’t have underestimated the importance and value of what Star was trying to do, but his efforts are still “unpolished”, especially compared to the “comforting moment scenes” we are used to see between Star and Marco. He tells Star that it’s not her fault, but he has nothing to back it up, he can only... awkwardly pat her on the back.

This is where the difference with Is Another Mystery lies: in both episodes Tom acts in kind of a jerky way and as someone who is not very appreciative of Star’s efforts, but in the second case Tom’s speech does manage to come through to Star, actually comforting her by telling her something she didn’t already know and by helping her see things in a different way, as opposed to just going “there there, not your fault”. Tom is improving, just like all the characters; it’s just that he started from a waaay lower level and isn’t a main character, so his improvements are both faster and more apparent compared to those of Marco and Star.

To conclude the part about this episode I just want to make it clear that I don’t have anything against Tom, and that I’m constantly comparing him to Marco just because the show itself does it! And there’s nothing inherently bad in that, because the show knows how to differentiate what’s subjective and objective to the characters themselves and how to convey ideas and concepts that aren’t just black and white. There’s no contradiction in saying that S3 helped Tom grow a lot, becoming a way better person who was a genuinely amazing friend during the season finale, while showing at the same time that he’s not fit to be Star’s “partner in life”/companion and that Star is not fit to be his girlfriend. It’s what I said in Night Life talking about Marco and Hekapoo: if the series wants to convey the idea that Star and Marco are the best match for each other it doesn’t mean that other characters are bad, or even that other relationships are objectively bad, just that those others aren’t what Star and Marco ultimately want AND need (Mind AND Heart). Jackie was a perfect character and potentially a perfect girlfriend, and Marco’s Mind knew that and valued their relationship. But his Heart wasn’t into it, and this prevented it from really working out. This inner conflict is the source of all romance drama starting from S2 onward, and when Star and Marco’s Heart and Mind fully agree we know who becomes the object of their affections.

Also “jealous” Marco bothered by Tom’s flirting. It doesn’t mean anything, just an added bonus.

STUMP DAY

Not much to say about this episode; it’s a classic “holiday special” that can fit loosely in a span of episodes and doesn’t particularly influence canon or tell us much new. It’s almost like a display of the state of the characters as of midseason, at their worst (since, after all, the episode plays out a lot like a classic “family argues at Christmas dinner, the magic of the holiday fixes everything and they remember why they love each other):

Marco is a control freak and his feelings for Star are hard to deal with, and he calls Tom out in an incredibly forward manner which is definitely indicative of Marco’s own inner turmoil. I’d like to point out that the only other instance of “jealousy” throughout the season is the squinting in Monster Bash just above, so his remark to Tom in this episode is several tiers above anything “more canon Marco” ever did - considering it a standard, for either Marco or Tom, would be a disservice to the characters in my opinion.

Tom is worried about looking like a good boyfriend more than being one (especially since he doesn’t know how to be one). He’s ready to throw Marco under the bus as soon as he sees that he’s now on the losing side of the argument (regardless of what he may or may not have told Marco that morning, he was on board with the party until it became clear that Star didn’t want it).

He even wants Marco to say that he is a good boyfriend, as if such a thing held any real valued: need for validation.

Star rushes things headfirst, destroying half the room before ever explaining what was going on, and shows lack of investment in Tom, not even caring about what he might or might have not done for her (even though in this specific case she was also more worried about the Stump than anything else, and might have said it just to make them stop fighting. Still, it’d be just another instance in a long list throughout the season).

Pony is self centered, Janna is mischievous and enjoys seeing others suffer - at this point I’m going to assume that her “Kellco” line was nothing but ship teasing, and that even if Kelly was to feel something more than simple friendship for Marco it’d never be relevant, just like Janna’s supposed crush/gratuitous teasing on Marco in S2.

Tad was Tad and Kelly... was the only good person in the room.

Anyway, an almost entirely unimportant episode that still reminded us that Marco likes Star and has a hard time dealing with it, and that Tom is more worried about the validation coming from his relationship than about Star.

And we got this line that (unintentionally?) encompasses all the reasons that prevented Starco from being canon already by this point. Terrible timing. Always.

THE BOGBEAST OF BOGGABAH

Most direct episode to date, tells us in bold glowing letters both that Star rushes into things

and that this leads to decisions that don’t match with what she really needs (Heart and Mind disagreeing). Once again, getting closer to Tom wasn’t a rushed decision on Star’s side, nor a bad one. Getting involved with him romantically once again was, because it stemmed from a need to fill the void left by Marco in her life, but without her ever stopping wanting a marco (lowercase M, as in the idea of Marco rather than the person) in her life.

IS ANOTHER MYSTERY

The episode opens up with Star reminding us that she currently can’t open up emotionally to Marco as she’d have done once because The Squire Box is still there to filter her relationship with Marco (by now when it comes to silly stuff or practical issues things are about the same they were in S2, it’s when it comes to emotions that there are still barriers up, from both sides, for different reasons). Furthermore, she doesn’t even begin to consider that she might talk about these things to Tom or that he might be the one to help and comfort her and provide some of the help (be it practical or not) that she desperately needs.

Conversely it’s not like Tom is exactly eager to become the recipient of Star’s uneasiness. He doesn’t like seeing Star like that, no doubt about it, because he does care about her as a person. When it comes to the relationship itself, however... this scene makes clear what was already hinted at in Monster Bash: he just does what he thinks a boyfriend is expected to do.

Please note that this doesn’t mean he has no genuine concern for Star. Even though his annoyed behavior throughout the episode might suggest the contrary (at least in this specific case), seeing how ready he was to do unpleasant, dangerous things during the finale makes me believe that the issue is with the perspective and motives and not with his personality itself. Simply put, Tom is not selfish, he’s self-centered. Everything he does until the season finale (where, as a matter of fact, he seems a way better person than he has ever been) is filtered through a lens of his insecurity. This hampers his overall attitude most of the time (first part of Monster Bash, Stump Day), and even when that improves it still makes being a genuinely supportive person unnatural to him (his less than stellar attempt at comforting Star in Monster Bash, him still worrying about having performed better than Marco at the end of this episode). His current relationship with Star had some real bases at first in Demoncism but they were soon undermined by their Heart and Minds disagreeing after a first, brief moment of “resonance”:

Tom’s Mind tried to tell him that he loves Star and that he should show that by doing what his naive, hormonal teenagey brain associates with “relationship”, but what his Heart really craves are friends who make him feel good with himself with no strings attached, and whom he wants to help for no other reason than because he cares for them.

Star’s Mind tried to tell her that Tom could have fit into the marco-shaped hole in her heart (with lowercase M again because as of Demoncism Star was probably over Marco as a person, romantically speaking, but still held who and what Marco was to her as her ideal of love, and this never changed), but her Heart could tell the difference as soon as Marco was back.

This scene tells us two things. First, Marco has been sinking deeper and deeper into his role as a Squire, identifying himself as a man of action who enjoys helping Star as long as the roles are clear and defined and the “adventure of the day” doesn’t require emotional intimacy to happen (and that’s why he’s so eager to go here, but is going to be so reticent during Booth Buddies). Second, Star and Marco likely had offscreen adventures, and Star always defaulted to Marco, never involving Tom, probably barely telling him about what she was doing. She was ready to ditch her boyfriend with whom she was about to have a deeply emotional talk at a moment’s notice. Obviously she was worried about Buff Frog, but it's still... telling. 

By this point Star is at her deepest into her boxes and labels: the moment duty calls she immediately goes “Welp, BOYFRIEND MOMENT is over, since I actually have to do something important it’s SQUIRE MOMENT!” Kinda ironic, and sad, given how in Trial By Squire she essentially said that Marco’s role would have been source of silly fun and nothing more, and look how things turned out there. Her seemingly annoyed reaction at Marco telling her that he wouldn’t have been able to go certainly has to be attributed in great part to the urgency of the situation, but it might also tell us that she is annoyed by things not going the way she’s used to, that Marco is not the one going with her. And yet she’s ok with Tom accompanying her, and appreciates his help (when he’s not being an ass). This tells us that Star is never actively avoiding Tom, nor that she doesn’t trust him; it’s just that she always goes for Marco whenever anything that’s not holding hands and smooching comes up. Her Mind is on autopilot and keeps chanting “Marco is your squire Tom is your boyfriend” (she quite literally tells this to herself after the kiss in Booth Buddies), but the Heart does what it wants, and Tom’s role as a boyfriend ends up being painfully limited and as deep as a puddle.

Similarly to his interactions with Star and Marco at the beginning of Monster Bash, Tom is definitely not at his best during the first half of the episode. In case anyone doubted the last three hundred times I said it, it becomes clear that he offered to help Star not because he actually cared about Buff Frog - or about how much Star cares about Buff Frog - but because he felt like as a boyfriend he was expected to do that. “Ok I did my job now, can you give me my Good Boyfriend Points already so we can go do couple stuff?”

And, in case you doubted the last two hundred times I said it, we also get a clear indication about how Tom compares himself to Marco, worried about not being better than him. Because he’s not blind and he can see that Star spends way more time with him, and that she involves him much more in her life (it’s a dog biting its own tail situation: Star doesn’t involve Tom in her life, but Tom doesn’t have the drive to truly involve himself in what’s important to Star). Also it wouldn’t be weird at all if things like the Blood Moon dance and Song Day constantly kept gnawing at the back of his mind, a suspicion that there might be something between Star and Marco (whether already in progress or lying in wait). As usual Tom is not a bad person, and most of his mistakes come from deep-seated issues and “bad habits” that he picked up through the years which keep steering him in questionable directions, like putting all of his current self-worth in the success of the relationship (just the relationship, it comes before the person he’s supposed to be in said relationship with herself!).

But then comes Tom’s time to shine: the moment he stops worrying about “I wonder if I’m getting enough Good Boyfriend Points for a kissing session today”, he enters a preview of the Very Good Boi™ state we’re going to see during the finale. He actually tries to help Star and “defend” her and her efforts - something very similar to how he’s going to praise Marco’s leadership skills in Conquer.

Sure, his speech still betrays his self-centered worldviews - it’s all based on his own identity of being a monster, even if he clearly barely suffers any kind of discrimination, and he still tries to relate it to his relationship with Star. But it’s a huge step in the right direction and shows what Tom can achieve when he does something because he feels like that’s the right thing to do, not because he feels like he’s expected to do that (last time it happened, in Demoncism, it brought Star and him close enough again to get back together!).

Special focus on this scene: Star’s expression is almost the exact same one she had during Death Peck (Ngame told you not to forget!), and in both cases a character (Rich Pigeon in that case, Tom here) was talking about the future for Monster and Mewmans, and Mewni, and was showing interest and support in what she wants to do. Obviously Tom is not Rich (with a capital R - he is definitely quite rich, as he points out during his speech); it’s clear that in this episode Star’s sparkly eyes mean something more than a generic “Aw, so inspiring, so cool!”. In this moment she’s truly appreciating what Tom did for her and feels closer to him. But I’m going to go out on a limb here (since this is something we can’t be completely sure until S4 hits, although Conquer elevates my confidence to I Can’t Believe It’s Not Certainty®) and say that this is not a “Star falls even more in love with Tom moment”, because there was never love between the two of them. Tom sees his relationship with Star as a source of smooching and validation, Star sees her relationship with Tom as a source of smooching and (unconsciously) a way to delude herself into thinking the important people in her life have clearly defined roles. This doesn’t stop either of them from honestly enjoying the other’s presence, from helping each other, from truly appreciating what the other does. But that’s friendship, not love.

No one with a pair of eyes can deny that Star was impressed by Tom’s speech and appreciated it, 

but at the same time no one with eyes should be able to deny that their relationship isn’t exactly a functional one; if anything, Booth Buddies and beyond are going to show that not only has nothing changed for Tomstar (thus debunking the interpretations that the ending of Is Another Mystery was turning over a new leaf for their romantic relationship), but that Star’s Mind started drifting more and more toward where her Heart already is. And that’s going to keep happening during the season finale, while Tom is going to keep being more and more useful for Star. What a crazy concept, Star and Tom getting closer as people without their relationship getting any stronger romantically. It’s almost like these kids barely know what they need and want, and that they would have been better off as friends just like Star initially said in Club Snubbed. Because Boyfriend Tom is more concerned about dancing and smooching than Star’s crowning moment as a princess, and Girlfriend Star forgets that Tom is even in the room, but then Friend Tom risks his life to help Marco, Star and her kingdom and is understanding of something like a kiss, and Friend Star is super happy about being able to hug it out with the two most important people in her life.

I honestly don’t feel bad or biased when I say that romance was never what they needed from each other..

MARCO JR.

At face value the episode shows us some of Marco’s flaws that we were already familiar with: tunnel vision, obsessing excessively over one thing at a time, and a tendency to brag about things that are rather minor. This might seem a regression for the character at first glance, and more relevant to his relationship with his parents than to his with Star or Mewni, but it’s actually an “update” on the current state of Marco’s Box. In Is Another Mystery, the first episode where Marco had lines that effectively told us something new about the character since Deep Dive (since in Monster Bash he was mostly there to help Star, and I’m not counting Stump Day), we got to see how eager he is to do squirely things: adventures with Star, try new weapons. In this episode we are indirectly shown even more how obsessed he seems to have grown with his role as a squire, to the point of overlapping it with his own identity. As already said several times, embracing the label Star slapped on him was the only way Marco could find to reconcile his desire to be at Star’s side and help her with the pain his one-sided crush brought him, and that’s brought to its extreme in this episode - and the whole system is finally going to blow in the following episode, Booth Buddies.

Not only are we told that Marco barely had contact with Earth during his stay on Mewni, but it also seems like he’s worried that he might not visit often in the future either.

“But it’s so easy to move around with the scissors, Angie even points it out herself at the end of the episode!” it’s the same situation as the one seen at the beginning of the season: the real separation is emotional, not physical. Marco’s expectations of fun and grandeur for Mewni, and his heart, were shattered soon after his departure: first he tried to partially put them together by having some fun adventures in Night Life, then he understood that he couldn’t force his Mind to drift away from what his Heart wanted anymore and made being Star’s squire his new identity as a self-imposed way to keep his role in her life clear and simple. Marco’s determination allowed him to make such an improbable situation work without having him go (too) mad with grief or run away like Star would have done, but the other side to this coin was, once again, crippling tunnel vision. He can’t even imagine himself being something other than a Squire right now, not even a brother, not even a son visiting his parents: anything else could have shattered the thin walls of the box that was keeping him sane. Clearly by the end of the episode, thanks to some Family Love™ (and a good dose of nightmare fuel) he learns a lesson. By realizing and accepting that there can be more than one thing at a time in his life he shows how much he changed compared to the beginning of the season - one of the main sources of grief has been his incapability, in Scent Of A Hoodie, to consider the nuance that Earth might have held some things that were important to him without necessarily being all he truly wanted, that the kind of life Star let him know was what he needed the most. Marco’s entire tenure in S3 has had his Mind telling him it was all-or-nothing, even when the two sides flipped partway into 3A.

It’s only at this point that the commuting from Earth to Mewni so many fans talked about when Sophomore Slump aired could have been an actual possibility. 

As for Star, as already mentioned earlier, following Deep Dive she fully got into the kind of relationship she had with Marco before S3 as far as the Heart goes (Mind-wise, no. Most definitely not yet). She gets involved in his life, is very feely-touchy, is happy to spend some time with him, and calls him beautiful without questioning it or without considering it weird. Note that the last time Star complimented someone’s appearance was in Demoncism (she says that Tom looks nice in his suit and shirt), and in that case both her Heart and Mind were drifting toward Tom, readying themselves for a relationship and to change what she once thought about the person. It might not be a coincidence that this episode is right before Booth Buddies (excluding Skooled!, but Star and Marco are not in it). Everything is primed to “explode”: Marco sank deeper than ever into the Box but saw what’s outside it (family, Star calling him beautiful) while Star once again enjoys spending time with Marco during casual and relaxed moments, as well as (unconsciously, mostly) considering him The Standard Choice as a companion and partner in anything that’s not strictly boyfriend-only stuff (e.g. hand-holding in Booth Buddies’ opening minutes).

Also she was able to answer to 200 detailed questions about Marco, showing how well she knows her, when just one segment before she didn’t know that Tom was a half monster, or that he had a tail.

Also interesting to note that Marco doesn’t fully hug Star back, nor did he in Stump Day or Deep Dive: while it’s hardly the only time in the show and might be due to stylistic choice/poses fitting the shot, the number of instances suggest that it might be done on purpose. A general reluctance that’s going to be a buildup to him trying to run away from any display of intimacy from Star in Booth Buddies, which itself builds up to the to extreme contrast in Divide, in which he’s going to literally be the one moving into Star’s open arms to hug her.

BOOTH BUDDIES

Since this episode marks a point of no return for the series and for the characters, effectively having Marco make up for what his lack of maturity lead him to do almost one season ago, I’d like to make a quick point about his growth as a character throughout the episodes (some of which I already referenced earlier). This is especially important since his developments haven’t been as central or as linear as Star’s in S2, leading a looot of fans to feel like he hasn’t grown at all. Luckily that’s far from being the truth.

As of the end of last season, Marco is living a pretty normal, safe Earth life and thinks that he has everything he wants. A girlfriend to go on dates with and Star to spend basically all his time with - what more could he ask for? Then the confession and the Battle For Mewni happen; he initially thinks the only rational decision is going back to the aforementioned pretty little life (the one that, after all, he essentially yearned for ever since kindergarten), but he soon realizes that was not what he wanted anymore - that deep down, beyond his Jackie-shaped blinders, Star changed what he looked for from life. But when he arrives on Mewni, he's immediately torn down in EVERY single way. First he’s laughed at by the knights, then River's gift turns out to be a farce, then Star herself shunts him to the sub-basement. And throughout the season he builds himself anew, slowly earning legitimacy as a squire (Night Life plus information given in 3B) and making things right with Star (by helping her with all of her princess duties originally, then apologizing for his ignoring the confession and opening up about his own feelings in Booth Buddies, and even confessing the kiss to Tom). Marco has always been someone who could give excellent suggestions to others (Star and Tom, mostly), but then struggled to apply them to his own life because little to nothing forced him to question his own feelings and actions. Exhibit A: Sleepover. During his speech, he talked about wanting to get to know Jackie, but then barely did that (which was painfully obvious as their relationship went on). He spoke out what he honestly thought he wanted, but when it came time to act, his Heart was not into it because that wasn’t what he truly wanted to begin with. Now, during S3, he went from someone who just coasted by on Earth to someone taking ownership of his own life and his own feelings, trying to be there for his best friend when she needed him most. His biggest hangup was his Mind and Heart odds, for a large part of S2, and him never being confronted with it. He got confronted, he stunk at dealing with it, and then most of season was his journey coming to terms with it. And given that basically every instance of unreliability he's had was a result of his Mind and Heart conflicting, him actually pulling the two together should be one of the biggest things to celebrate about his character progression yet! He hasn't regressed from it ever since, and he's probably never going to - because what Marco lacks in introspection he makes up for in determination.

One common criticism I want to address right now, before we start truly witnessing the beginnings of Star and Marco’s feelings aligning (and before I start gushing over why that’s such a good thing for the characters): “But Star and Marco hurt each other a lot over their feelings and did a lot of wrong things!” That ignores the core of the matter (which itself is a generalization of the last paragraph): virtually all the major, long-lasting problems within the teenage relationships so far are exclusively because of Heart and Mind disagreeing. This doesn’t mean that everything they’ve done to hurt each other or other people gets handwaved away morally, nor does it mean every other character should just step aside to let Star and Marco be together. What it does mean, however, is that none of the characters will be ready to make consistently good decisions about what is best for themselves or others until they have this fundamental self-understanding, this synchronization of Heart and Mind. In Starco’s case what they should agree in, for both of them, is that they like each other (let’s not use the Big L word already, even if after Conquer I think we might be able to start throwing it around). Not being able to admit and accept it is what caused almost all of these issues and rifts between each other, first for Star in S2, then for Marco, and then for Star again (even if with a completely different scope and context). Meanwhile in both Jarco’s and Tomstar’s cases, the issue came from the Mind and Heart disagreement leading the protagonists to get into relationship that didn’t match what they needed at first, then later not even what they wanted. Too long didn’t read version: it isn’t being in love with each other that brings the worst out of Star and Marco, it’s the inability to accept that they are in love. It’s not Starco that brings never-ending feelings drama, it’s the lack of Starco.

And this doesn’t mean that Starco would be completely perfect or issue-free when it happened; no relationship ever is, but those issues take fundamentally different forms when the Heart and Mind aren’t waging war underneath. This would mean there would no longer be any long-term romantic angst arcs anymore, at least not involving main characters, but it’s not as though those are any sort of fundamental cornerstones of the show that it can’t live without. Seasons 1 and 2A went almost entirely free of them, after all, and I know I speak for many people on all sides of shipping debates when I say the show could definitely do without more of this type of drama (even if the ways we’d like to see it resolved once and for all may differ immensely). So what might take its place? Well, there’s obviously all kinds of other sources of drama not related to teenage relationships, but that’s a bit of a cop-out response, so let’s look at relationships themselves. A key trait of healthy committed relationships is that the underlying devotion is unquestionable, that both parties truly have the best interests of each other, or of themselves as a pair, as a foundation of their lives. Starco has had this platonically since almost the very beginning, but this still doesn’t mean it’s bland, perfect, or free of any problems. If you want evidence of this, look no further than the classic Starco moments in S1 and early S2. Cheer Up Star, Sleep Spells, Blood Moon Ball, Storm the Castle, Star on Wheels, Gift of the Card… the list goes on and on and on, and I’m leaving tons out here, but a shared trait of all of these episodes is that Star and/or Marco screw something up in a way that causes strife, with moments of growth after. And since the foundation is so firm, that growth builds up into a veritable fortress, whereas in situations or relationships without that foundation, attempting to pile new things on can simply contribute to the inevitable collapse, even if those new things are positive (Jackie and Marco broke up during one of the strongest moments in the relationship, after all!). In the case of Starco, a dedicated growth arc of their relationship blossoming (with all the hurdles along the way) would be a change of pace from the prior seasons while still providing character/relationship-centric arcs which are rather important to the show - they just don’t have to be unrequited feelings angst. 

Getting to the episode, one of the first scenes reminds us both that Star does enjoy being with Tom-

-and that she seems to lack object permanence when it comes to him, essentially ignoring his existence whenever he’s not physically present and the object of her attention. Obviously I’m exaggerating here, as the scene itself has little to no importance to the episode - Star and Marco were required to be alone inside the booth, Tom was required to be there to make everything even awkward by having him there at the end of the episode, and even in the best of relationships someone might not like what their partner likes. Still, it should be seen along with several other moments throughout the season, and in an episode that has such a strong focus on friendship it’s hard not to make comparisons between Tomstar and Starco and see that the former lacks this fundamental basis (which, among other elements, already doomed Jarco.

Star wants to take pictures specifically with Marco and reminisces about all the memories that the photo booth holds; this episode confirms that “friendship” and “love” are one and the same by now to for dorks, so having Star be so focused on her friendship with Marco holds a huge meaning. It tells us what I’ve been saying ever since Deep Dive: by now her Heart is completely focused on Marco, and her Mind consciously knows how important he is to her as well. The only thing that’s stopping her are The Boxes. They’re a completely new way of ignoring an issue compared to her S2 self: Star’s relationship with Marco slowly grew to be once again as strong (maybe stronger, on account of how much more involved in her life he is now) than it ever was, but with any strictly romantic feelings displaced to Tom. We could say that right now Star feels for Marco the same way she felt at the beginning of S3, post confession and pre-Scent Of A Hoodie, while displacing anything even slightly reminiscent of romantic affection on Tom - and only that. “Marco is my best friend, and my squire, and he helps me with everything, and I like spending time with him, and he’s cute and handsome, he’s an amazing friend. And Tom is my boyfriend”. Needless to say that by the end of the episode this is going to change, because things are so ready to explode, both for Star and Marco, that a small push is going to be enough to take them over the edge.

With the exception of the dubbing vows in Lint Catcher, this is the first time in the season that Star talks about being best friends with Marco. It tells us how much she wanted this, how ready things were, and how much it must hurt Marco. Because Squire Marco can stay at Star’s side without constantly thinking about how much he loves her. Bestie Marco can’t.

This also explains why Marco is so eager to leave, so “annoyed” by this adventure that shoves everything he has been trying to ignore for months into his face.

Marco always liked their adventures, and he does still like them - look how eager he was to look for Buff Frog just one episode earlier - as long as they they don’t involve feelings. As long as they don’t require Marco to remember just how special Star is to him. Star thinks that nothing has changed, or at least she's deluded herself into that: her Mind essentially completely regressed the progresses she made in S2, but her Heart has only grown so much closer to Marco since then. And, it shouldn’t be underestimated, she has matured a lot. She might still be easily blind to the truth, but once it gets revealed to her she’s more ready to accept it now, doesn’t run away as much as she used to anymore (and that’s why their relationship remains changed after this episode, the effects carrying over to the season finale).

But NOPE, things have changed, things are different. They are different for Marco, but they are different for Star as well: Star’s concept of love has been molded around Marco (who replaced Oskar, who himself was just a silly crush with absolutely no basis that wasn’t physical or hormonal), she more or less realized it in Starcrushed, and - even if she honestly moved on, romantically speaking, for a couple of episodes - she could never erase the meaning Marco holds in her life. Things couldn’t go back to the way they were; no matter if she had another boyfriend, no matter if she truly didn’t even romantically like Marco anymore for a time.

There’s a parallel between Star in Starcrushed, saying that pretending her feelings weren’t there didn’t make them go away, and Marco, saying that pretending that things aren’t different is getting harder and harder. But the mindset was vastly different: Star was actively trying to ignore everything because she didn’t want to deal with it, Marco fully accepted it and was just trying to work with the kind of situation he found himself in.

The moment Star understands that Marco likes her.

By not addressing Star’s confession, Marco threw a wrench in their relationship, and even if things got way, way better again, that specific gear was still stuck until this moment. By acknowledging his faults, the situation could finally evolve, and their relationship along with it. Marco says that he acted “like a Marco”, showing that he’s aware of what his flaws are/were. Star confirms that it hurt her, a lot, but at the same time that she is not angry and understands that the situation was far from being easy for both of them (after all, it’s not as though her confession was the most well-timed thing either). This is a genuine bona-fide heart-melting moment of emotional intimacy, two kids talking their hearts out like they haven’t done ever since Blood Moon Ball.

And Star is in complete sync with Marco (even if they’re not saying the same things, this time): she already went through this and understands how hard it must have been for Marco, and as such she tries to make him comfortable.

Why do I keep saying that this episode confirmed that FRIENDSHIP and LOVE are one thing only as far as Starco is considered? Because of this scene. No one ever told them that they had to kiss to get out the booth, all they knew is that they had to take the right photo. And they had been trying to take BEST FRIEND photos all this time. And that’s what Marco set his mind to, in that moment. And as soon as he gets out from his box for a moment and focuses on how Star is his very best friend, he kisses her. And when Star gets out from her box for a moment and realizes that things between her and Marco are different and have always been different (no matter how much she tries to displace her feelings), she kisses him.

The moment both of them accepted all the weight of their relationship, their Minds and Hearts fully agreed on each other - even if for a fleeting moment - and they kiss.

Who kissed who? Marco is probably the one who initiated the kiss; he turned toward Star first, and he’s the one who has a better idea of where his feelings lie. But it was reciprocal, completely reciprocal. Star leans in more than Marco does, she closes her eyes, she doesn’t try to shy away, and she even looks for more physical contact by moving her arms on Marco’s ones. For a couple of seconds Marco didn’t try to box away what he felt anymore, and Star forgot to repeat to herself that Tom is the object of her romantic feelings, even if Marco is the object of almost literally any other kind of feelings.

An interesting detail: while it’s fully possible that the photo strip printed by the booth is different because props and animations are handled by different teams, there’s also the possibility that the pictures show us what happened during the flashes (when the screen turns white) preventing us from seeing the moments themselves, with the frames we see in the booth itself being between the photos. If this was intentional, it would mean that Star’s arms weren’t on Marco originally and that she moved them only a moment later as she got more into the kiss. I have no way of knowing for sure what is the case, but there are no doubts that it was reciprocal even without this extra evidence. It doesn’t really matter if it’s just a mistake and nothing more, but it would still be sign of a certain level of passion.

Immediately after the kiss Star and Marco try to dive inside their boxes again: Star says that Marco is her squire, as if that should have magically stopped them from kissing, and Marco remarks that he takes the job very seriously, as if re-reaffirming his identity could have stopped the feelings from overflowing and tearing down all the protective walls he built himself over the months. Star doesn’t even immediately say that she has a boyfriend (that comes second), and she puts “boyfriend” and “Tom” in two separate lines. If this is not indicative of the nature of The Boxes I talked about so much, of how they both used clear labels to manage unwanted feelings, nothing can ever be.

Luckily their behavior in Divide is going to show us that said boxes have been irreparably damaged, and even if I’m sure it’s still going to take a bit of time and a non-zero number of pushes in S4 for Starco to happen, there’s no going back now. Their Hearts already knew that things were different, and knew their Minds had to come to terms with it as well; there might still be some conflict left caused by the situation (Tom, dating a princess, huge step from friends to couple), but they are not disagreeing actively anymore, the Mind is not actively trying to filter, sidestep, or silence the Heart anymore.

Brief digression that’s connected to the episode, but to the whole show as well: both us viewers and the characters were lead to believe that the booth was magical. Marco even attributes his actions to this belief, saying he was just trying to get themselves out.

Ben could even look like a stand-in for rabid shippers, “You were so cute while standing next to each other, I knew you had to kiss!”. Does this mean that Starco was forced? BEGONE, THO(UGH)T. I already mentioned this before: the show is extremely good at not forcing anything when feelings and relationships are involved. Blood Moon Ball? The romantic fancy magic dance did NOTHING; Star and Marco had to talk things out to settle the incomprehensive rifts that arose during the episode. Face The Music? Context makes it likely that Star never explicitly told Ruberiot about her feelings, but some combination of the hug he saw and whatever she told him about Marco gave him a clue. When the entire point of the song is Star coming clean with a ton of things she’s been trying to run from, it’s completely fitting for those feelings to be included in the mix. Club Snubbed? It’s perhaps the most “arbitrary” relationship moment in the season, since Tom came into Star’s life out of the blue, and yet even in that case everything that happened was based on events we already knew and on state of minds for both characters we were already familiar with.

Booth Buddies is no exception: Star wasn’t gonna let Marco go away well before Ben actually sealed the door, as she could feel something was off and wanted to get to the bottom of the matter. The characters were already more than primed for this to happen; there was already a mountain of feelings ready to explode because several episodes before this had slowly tugged each aspect of the situation to the brink of its breaking point. At that point, the specifics of the triggering situation aren’t that important. This is a TV show for kids with magical elements, and the trigger events obviously have to be a bit over the top, weird, unusual. The same events that took place in this episode could have easily happened on Star’s couch, had she suddenly decided that she wanted to watch Fiesta De La Noche with Marco, their friendship blanket being the “closed space” that blocked them together.

Event that triggers a change ≠ All the buildup that allows the event to actually have effects

Also, as a further evidence to back this up, the situation felt as weird to the characters as it felt to us throughout the season; Star could feel that something was wrong and different in their relationship, even if we got supposedly normal episodes such as Trial By Squire, Deep Dive and Marco Jr.

Honesty has been an important theme to the show since S2  - from Star telling the truth about Glossaryck to her parents (and then to the whole kingdom), to Moon having to be honest with the Magic High Commission, to Marco having to tell the truth as Princess Turdina, to the truth about Meteora... this time we can only hope that the characters are going to be honest not only with each other, but with themselves. That’s the key to having Mind and Heart agree, the key to them getting over the dissonance that has plagued them for dozens of episodes now, the key to having their own heads screwed on straight enough to stop getting into situations where they unwittingly hurt themselves and the ones they care about. Simply put, it’s the key to Starco and all the good that comes with it.

Tom’s lines are shamefully unsubtle in how much they seem to mirror what was happening to Star in that moment, while her thousand-yard stare tells us that the night had quite the effect on her.

To conclude this episode: does Star know that Marco likes her now? Yes. Her reactions throughout the episode make it clear enough, even if she might still not know to what extent, or might be trying not to think too hard about it.

Does Marco knows that Star likes him as well, if with what little remains of the Boxes is still filtering her feelings (we still went from Plexiglass wall to wire fence with big holes)? Harder to tell. I’d go with “no”: during the kiss they both had their eyes closed, and he’s likely the one who initiated it, so he wouldn’t be able to think of Star reciprocating as a conclusive enough evidence (her immediately talking about his role as a squire and Tom being her boyfriend after the kiss might have further contributed). His panicked reaction, trying to “shift the blame” of his action to what he thought about the booth, would also be consistent with it - and a very understandable panicked reaction. Note that in Conquer he tells Tom “I kissed Star”: regardless of his immediate reaction he then never pretends to be blameless, and owns up to his actions.

DIVIDE / CONQUER

Star has a hard time handling everything alone, and feels like she needs help, someone who can think for themselves and with who she can share some of the overbearing load of her life. I wonder who that might be.

And no, it’s not Lavabo.

I spent most of the post pointing out how Star always defaults to Marco when she needs a hand with something, so it might seem weird that he has to remind her that she can use him this time. But given the context it’s understandable - as Star’s on-edge reactions are. After all, they needed a reason to give us such a fanservice-like scene as Marco fighting Star’s spells. Furthermore, considering how the extreme relief she feels when she thinks he’s safe near the beginning of Conquer, and her similarly charged reaction to finding out he’s “gone”, it’s quite possible she’s reluctant to send him into the fray now because she’s fully cognizant of how important he is to her, of how much she values his mere presence by her side, and doesn’t want to risk that. It’s also nice to see the kind of devotion and serious commitment to his role Marco has, ready to risk his life to help Star - and to prove himself. Remember that Marco has always had kind of a “cocky” streak going, in this case a more positive side-effect of a low self-esteem and a strong desire to take on whatever task he currently put his mind onto to its fullest.

The abs scene is probably mostly a gag, but it also is indicative of how much more Star is letting her Heart take the wheel: indelicate toward Tom being her boyfriend, probably, but so was kissing Marco, and so too will to her almost exclusive focus on Marco for most of Conquer be. There’s plenty of other factors for the last one - most notably Marco being “dead” for most of it - but it still shows where Star’s interests are when she’s too busy to listen to the (now fainter) voice in her Mind repeating “Tom = boyfriend”

This scene here might be the strongest indication of romantic feelings throughout the whole show, even more than any kiss: not only are blushes super rare (in serious contexts), making them important and meaningful, but Star turning around to hide her cheeks confirms to us that she’s aware of what she is feeling and of what it means. I don’t mean to imply that Star’s Mind has kicked Tom to the curb or is calmly and consciously thinking “Boy howdy, I sure do fully romantically love Marco and feel no romantic attraction towards Tom anymore!” In a less heated moment, in S4, it’s going to take her some thinking and some sort of push(es) to put once and for all an end to her internal disagreement, but this moment still tells us that Star, right now, knows that she likes Marco.

Also, why is she blushing? Because right now Marco is being everything that Star looks for from a partner, the “ideal” image of a companion that she created during the months spent with him. He’s being considerate, worried about her wellbeing and safety, proactive and dependable. And the fact that he was just done looking cool and is now glistening with sweat and determination probably helped.

This line is huge. Marco talks about “best friends” for the first time in the season, after having spent a dozen episodes trying to repress the concept of “I’m Star’s bestie” as much as possible, replacing it with his role as a squire. This tells us that Booth Buddies had huge consequences for both of them: this time, when they were faced with the evidence that things are different, they didn’t try to uselessly pretend they could go back to what they were. Marco still knows that he can’t be with Star right now, that she and Tom are still a thing (and his confession to Tom later confirms he respects that Tom is her boyfriend), and as I said before I don’t think he’s even all that aware that Star still reciprocates his feelings. But this doesn’t stop him anymore, this doesn’t hurt him as much as it used to because now there are no more emotional barriers between him and Star. The situation is not perfect yet, and there are still things they have to work out, but now he truly feels like their relationship is not as one-sided anymore.

For those familiar with Pokémon, imagine this: Star and Marco’s relationship has been consistently leveling up for the whole show, and could have evolved a while ago, but following Scent Of A Hoodie they kept pressing “B” every time. Their relationship was much stronger than a pre-evolution had any right to be during that time, but was still held back compared to its potential. They made a resolution in Booth Buddies to not press “B” again, but they haven’t quite gotten enough EXP to level up again after that. Once they do, once they have that final push over the edge, it will finally evolve - and as a consequence of their actions, the evolved form will start out at a much higher level, and will be much stronger, than other freshly-evolved ones .

It’s also the first time in the season Marco comforts Star; he asks her to open up emotionally, something that happened often during S1 and S2, and that stopped when he decided that being her Squire meant setting for himself boundaries he shouldn’t overstep. I think it’s fair to make a comparison with Tom in Is Another Mystery here: Marco is more than eager to listen to what concerns Star has, and he asks her not to hide it before she says anything - compared to how Tom felt like he was expected to listen to his girlfriend’s griefs only after she complained about not having anyone to talk with about it. I’m not making this comparison out of spite, I just want to point out the differences between the characters: they are certainly explainable by several elements and by different contexts, I’m not holding it against Tom, but it still speaks volumes about what (who) Star wants and needs, and who she expected Tom to be, essentially. Marco ruined other boys for Star.

This is hardly the first time Star and Marco hugged when other people were present, why did they blush this time? Because Friendship and Love are completely woven together now. Obviously this doesn’t mean that they’re going to blush every time, that they can’t share platonic moments anymore, but there is always going to be a base of romantic feelings - dare I say, of love - accompanying them. They managed to get their relationship to “stagnate” for the longest time, but following Booth Buddies and the realizations it brought, there were only two roads left for it: to die, or to grow and evolve. It’s clear what they chose (THANK GOD).

While it might have not been addressed simply for the sake of the episode’s flow, it seems like Star never involved Tom in all of this, again, and Marco is the one who got him involved. Sadly nothing new.

Tom is extremely sincere here while apologizing to Marco’s for what he did in the past, and doesn’t feel like he needs to be in “competition” with him anymore. Being brutally honest for a moment here: Marco appreciates his presence more than Star ever did! Not that Star doesn’t like spending time with Tom, we have seen that, but when has she ever said she was glad Tom was there? Sure Star is not present in this specific moment, but even during Conquer he’s not once going to worry about Star focusing all of her attention on Marco. It seems like he has genuinely grown from his experience in Is Another Mystery, from having seen how it feels to do something because you care about the thing or the person, and not because you feel obligated to do it because of a label.

And this is even more true in Conquer: Tom characterizes himself not as Star’s boyfriend, but as Marco’s friend. And from that moment he’s the chillest, most altruistic self he has ever been. He risks his life, sure, but that doesn’t mean much because life and death situations are almost always handled in a selfless way in cartoons - even Pony Head was ready to risk her life. What really matters is the way he behaves in the second half of the episode, when he meets up with Star and doesn’t care if she doesn’t pay attention to him - he keeps trying to help her and Marco.

He doesn’t want to protect Star because “that’s- that’s something boyfriends do, right?”, but because he promised his friend Marco he would have done it, and because he cares about Star.

I truly think (while always being humble enough to say that we can’t know for sure what the future of the show holds) that this is what Tom’s growth is going to be all about from now on: becoming just a friend. Back in Club Snubbed I said that Tom does grasp his faults and main flaws, and is sincerely looking to make strides to overcome them, but that his deep-seated issues kept steering him toward the only thing he was familiar with and that made him feel a little better as a person (i.e. his relationship with Star). With Is Another Mystery and Divide/Conquer he finally seemed to be able to do things for the sake of people - both himself and others, and not for the sake of “symbols” like Brian and his badges or his relationship with Star and its “good boyfriend points”. Yes, he actually kinda did that in Demoncism as well, but at that time he jumped into it without really knowing why he was doing it and still looked at things from the wrong perspective. Back in Conquer again, he even takes Marco’s side and fully accepts that he’s the one in the spotlight now, the one making the plans, and that right now the best thing he can do is be one of his “pawns”; this is a big improvement compared to Is Another Mystery when he was compelled to think he had to be the protagonist, even if he didn’t really feel like it and evidently didn’t really know what he had to do to help Star (also it continues the streak of the second part of the season of Marco’s personality traits being portrayed as positive qualities rather than flaws). 

In case the panic and regret that followed the kiss in Booth Buddies weren’t enough to prove that it was seen as a bad action by the characters, something they shouldn’t have done regardless of how useful it was to their relationship and how much they might have wanted it in that instant, we have this scene with Marco confessing to Tom that he kissed Star. Note that he says “I kissed Star”, not “We kissed”: right now Marco is overwhelmed by guilt, and he doesn’t think about how reciprocal or not it might have been, he just feels like he has to tell Tom (who just called him his “best friend”) what a monster he has been behind his back. And Tom, the same guy who once threatened to kill him because he merely thought he was dating Star when they weren’t even together (Mr. Candle Cares), now accepts the fact and endangers his life for Marco’s sake, for his “commander” who he trusts with planning something to make things better.

A lot has been said about Star’s utter desperation at Marco becoming a balloon. Obviously that’s to be expected - who wouldn’t be shocked by seeing their best friend be mostly-dead? But we can still make some assumptions, based on the way Star behaved, that tell us where her Heart is beyond the absolutely non-standard context of the moment. As soon as she hears that Marco is back Star goes from sad and dejected from not having been able to get her mom back,

to smiling and being anxious to meet with him. Obviously she was happy to know that he was still alive - or so she thought - but I think it’s also because in that moment Star felt more alone than ever, having realized that her mom wouldn’t have been back to help with Meteora, and that Marco was the last person she had she could fully trust, her “lifeline”. Tom was there too, he was helping her and her kingdom too, but he didn’t have the same effect on her.

This explains why Star ignores Meteora destroying her kingdom behind her back to focus solely on Marco: without him she feels lost, not only because she’s worried about her friend, but because she lost the last major symbol of her hope that allowed her to think that they might make it through this after all.

And this is why she immediately decides to drop everything and “abandon her kingdom” to go heal Marco at the Sanctuary. A strong parallel with Moon at the beginning of the season: the Queen decided to abandon her kingdom for the sake of her daughter, but Star disapproved of her decision and went to take on Toffee head-on,  showing a strong sense of duty when it came to defending her family and people. Now it’s Star’s turn to see what/who she cares about the most be endangered. And she, too, puts it before the sake of everything else (temporarily, though: we see the difference between Moon and Star here, when she decides to still go back and face Meteora). Star being shocked and distraught by Marco’s fate doesn’t tell us much, it’s a rather expected reaction. But the way she drops everything for his sake, retracing her mother’s actions at the beginning of the season? That’s what tells us that right now Marco is the most important person in the world to Star.

Marco > Kingdom (until she realizes what kind of duties she has, obviously). Kinda expected, most cartoons and TV shows have characters putting the lives of their loved ones before that of a lot of other people, but it’s still meaningful.

Once again, it’s not like Star doesn’t appreciate Tom or doesn’t like spending time with him or can’t find comfort in him as well. But the sheer amount of moments that showed Star putting Marco over Tom whenever she wasn’t solely focused on boyfriend stuff can’t be ignored, and has to be intentional. 

As I anticipated earlier, we get confirmation that Star never told Tom about her new powers. If taken individually both this scene and her “Don’t tell Tom” one in Sweet Dreams can be seen mostly as gags, but when considered together, along with all the other similar instances, they paint a clear picture of a Star who is not proactive in involving Tom in her life, who doesn’t feel like that’s a priority or something that could truly make the difference and be necessary to her. I have no doubts that Star would have still been distraught had Tom been the festive party balloon instead of Marco, but with Marco still at her side she probably wouldn’t have felt as hopeless, she wouldn’t have dropped everything immediately. This is where the bulk of the difference between Marco and Tom is: only the former is seen by Star, consciously or not, as a completely fundamental part of her life.

Since this is a relationship analysis, we’ll jump ahead to after the epic anime fight and the defeat of Meteora. The moment people start turning back, Star immediately scans the room to look for Marco, and runs toward him: nothing weird, as far as the reactions of the character go, but consider that we just got the climax of the episode with Eclipsa ultra-murdering her own daughter. The show still decides to break the tension by showing us that Star is utterly focused on Marco, and only on Marco, even when the immediate dangers seems to be over, even when things are getting better, even when she saw Tom get brutally knocked out minutes earlier and knows he’s still out cold in the corner. Compare it to Toffee; in that case we got people being happy for Star’s “resurrection”, but the scene was much shorter, the focus got moved away from Toffee for just two shots and a handful of seconds, while in this case the focus is completely on Star and Marco (and then Tom).

I love the “I got you” line here, as I think it’s a very Star-like way to express how important Marco is in her life and how much happiness it brings her when he truly feeling his presence, that she “has him”. The pose is also kind of reminiscent of the hug in Demoncism, and while the context and amount of buildup was completely different it might still tell us where Star’s Heart is in this moment - since in the aforementioned case it was about three minutes away from making her hook up with Tom. Meanwhile the Mind is too busy being happy to worry about boxes, labels, and Tom. This hug is similar to the one in Toffee, but while in that case the relief was a “silent” one, because both Star and Marco hadn’t really questioned the nature of their relationship yet (Star kinda did, by accepting her feelings, but she was still rather passive on it following the moment in Starcrushed), this one speaks volumes about what’s important to them. Something something you don’t know how much you care about someone until you lose them. And in this case the loss wasn’t Star leaving or Marco “dying”, but the walls that separated them from most of the season.

It’s also the first time we get tears of happiness in a serious context since the hug in Gift Of The Card (and even in that case the scene, while serious to the characters, was comically charged to us viewers, with Marco talking about them becoming charred skeletons and all that). I don’t know if it’s intentional, but the shot shares resemblances with the one from Starcrushed: in that case Star was crying because she was about to lose Marco (and Earth and her friends and all that, sure), in this case she’s happy because she “got” Marco once again.

While we are going to have to wait for S4 to be completely sure, Tom’s line here seems to be incredibly important. He’s clearly aware that he’s being a “third wheel” in this immediate, intimate moment between them, and (given the context of all of his recent developments) may very well understand on a deeper level what’s going on, what’s best not only for Star and Marco but for himself as well. (Who knows how long Star and Marco would have kept staring at each other if he stayed unconscious against the wall?). 

Jackie in Sophomore Slump broke up with Marco not only for his sake, but also because she understood that she would have been hurt in the process as well and that she deserved someone who truly considered her his best friend. Similarly, I think that what we saw in these two episodes has been a Tom who - hard to tell how consciously - experienced a kind of bond with others that he barely ever scratched in the past (mostly in Friendenemies), and he liked it enough not to make him worry about Star not paying attention to him, about Marco having kissed her. All three characters fully prioritize the bonds they have over the labels that were affixed to them (with the result resembling Starco as a deep, emotionally intimate relationship bordering on romantic, with Tom as a fantastic friend to the pair), and all three seem more emotionally fulfilled because of it than they’ve ever been.

I see it like this: while it’s clear that Tom likes kissing and smooching and intimacy and all that, the main drive behind his relationship with Star is the usual, misguided need for validation I talked about so much. “Being with Star and the relationship work is proof that I’m improving as a person, a sign of my success”. At the end of Is Another Mystery, in a misguided and still partial way, and much more during the season finale, Tom experienced fulfillment and satisfaction through other means. Marco appreciated his friendship and help,

 he had the chance to save the day - even if it didn’t work,

and Star found comfort in him and and was happy to see him be alive and well and to hug him, even if he technically interrupted her moment with Marco

All of this without ever bringing up his role as a boyfriend. Star didn’t do it either, the episode didn’t do it (if we exclude Meteora mocking her). I don’t think that Tom will necessarily immediately say “Yeah Star go to Marco we cool” in S4, and I wouldn’t like it either, and it’s also possible that it’s going to take him some time, after the inevitable breakup, to be fine with Star and Marco kissing and going hand in hand, but this scene here, in the context of everything that happened during the episodes, makes me think that he has a deeper understanding of what has to happen and of how things would be better for everyone, regardless of what he feels like at a surface level. This doesn’t mean sacrificing his own happiness for Marco and Star, it means that he saw for himself that he was happier and more fulfilled when he was Star and Marco’s friend during a life and death situation than he was while being Star’s boyfriend during a party.

(Well, I asked earlier how long they would have kept staring at each other if he didn’t show up. And the fact that they didn’t stop even when he did gives us a pretty clear answer.)

CONCLUSIONS

Where does this leave us moving forward into Season 4? In a good place for Star, Marco, and Tom as characters, as friends, and most importantly as people who care about each other. It’s impossible to predict what is exactly going to happen next season, and even more so when, since plot and episodes not focused on the main cast are often used to pace the development of relationships and romance, but we can be sure that something is going to happen sooner rather than later. After all, it’s worth remembering that Starcrushed and Battle for Mewni pushed them past the “points of no return” (arguably LESS intensely than Booth Buddies or Divide/Conquer did), and all the major, required aftershocks happened within 4 episodes! As for the “what”, Star and Tom have both been put in a situation that absolutely requires them to have a meaningful talk about their relationship; while they might initially try to avoid it I can’t imagine an episode where they interact (in a more than ten seconds long cameo way, at least) without big changes taking place. And right now a breakup is the only real option left, because anything else, any flavor of “getting over their mistakes and learning from them” would characterize their relationship as something that it’s not, and that we have been shown it’s never going to be. The core issue in Tomstar as a committed romantic relationship is not the lack of effort itself, but the lack of fundamental bases that can justify some kind of real effort and investment.

It’s trickier to imagine what might be in store for Star and Marco, since the nature of their relationship and personalities (along with TV shows usually wanting to keep pacing the biggest changes throughout the season) could very easily make for a delayed official hookup. But, at the same time, as of the season finale they both stopped trying to limit the way they enjoy their relationship and emotional intimacy. Unless things relapse a bit once the immediate danger is over and their lives get a little bit less stressful, I can easily imagine their relationship be a mix of platonic and romantic well before a hookup, with their dynamics evolving until they’re both ready to make it official and completely conscious. It’s also quite easily possible that these semi-conscious realizations they’ve been having about how much they value each other and their relationship fully erupt on the surface rather quickly, leading to a committed romantic relationship that they can begin tackling as a team.

Regardless, the show has proven to me over and over again that it consistently drives along arcs in preparation for payoff, and that it neither delivers it before the characters are ready nor arbitrarily holds it back for artificial suspense. Whatever happens is incredibly likely to be fitting for the characters’ developments at the time

And to truly conclude, a consideration for all those fans who might have felt alienated by this latest chapter in the show’s history (that includes me!), or disappointed by the apparent lack of real, committed changes to the status quo of the relationship during the finale. This season certainly had more “drama” than we have been used to in the past, and this lead several events that could have happened earlier, had things been slightly different, to be significantly delayed. But at the same time it allowed for all the situations to evolve and get close to the peak of their potential payoff before the actual change even happened: Marco chose Mewni as the place he might want to spend the rest of his life in, Star experienced the full extent of how indispensable Marco is to her and what kind of importance he has in her life, Tom experienced on his skin the difference in fulfillment and positivity about himself that being a boyfriend and being a friend bring him, Star and Marco experienced the pain separation brings them and the alienation/dissatisfaction not being able to experience their relationship to its fullest bring them. All of this before Starco happened, before Tomstar ended. Both the situation and the characters are already incredibly primed up for the changes that are surely going to take place next season, and the moment the relationships change they’re all going to have a three mile headstart compared to what could have been had things been sped up. Compared to what Starco might have been had it happened as soon as the situation barely allowed for it, instead of waiting for both dorks to WANT and NEED it.

#star vs the forces of evil #svtfoe #starco #tomstar #star butterfly #marco diaz #seddm ramblings