#BACK WHEN STAR ADMITTED HER CRUSH ON MARCO AND NOW HERE THEY ARE ABSOLUTELY IN LOVE WITH EACH OTHER

[fandomsonmysleeve]

What a ride it’s been.

[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.

[make-some-manna]

Following Star’s sudden departure after the end of the school year, Marco and friends use his dimensional scissors to go after her. However, Star has fled Mewni, and now the team is checking various known locations and dimensions, looking for their missing friend. As they search an underground cave system, the ceiling collapses on Marco and Janna, separating them from the rest of the team…

(Editor’s Note: Another fanfic submission right after the first one! 1297 words, ~7 minutes)

***

Coughing, Marco slowly raised from the ground. “Uh,” he groaned, helping Janna get up. “You alright?”

“Thanks, I’m fine… What happened?” Janna asked, brushing the dust off her skirt and straightening her headlamp.

“The cave collapsed,” Marco inspected the blockage. “Jackie?! Pony Head?! Can anyone hear me?” No answer. “They can’t hear us. We’re cut off!” he panicked. “We’ll have to find another way through.”

“Marco, there is no other way through,” Janna said, looking around. “It’s a dead end.”

“Then we’ll just have to…” Marco began saying, reaching for his pocket. “Oh no. My dimensional scissors! I must have dropped them!” He sat down on the ground in despair. “This is just great! I’m going to starve to death here, or suffocate, and I’m never going to see Star again, and worst of all… I’m stuck here with you of all people!”

“Hey!” Janna exclaimed, sounding offended, as she sat down next to him.

“I’m sorry… But I’m going to be honest here: you are the last person I would have ever wanted to spend my final moments with, because you’re always being so mean to me…”

“I’m not being mean to you, Marco!” Janna seemed genuinely upset that Marco would say something like that. “I’m your friend!”

“People don’t bully their friends, Janna.”

“M-marco! I don’t bully you! When Lars shoves Francis face down in the toilet, that’s what’s called bullying. I would never harm you!”

“Then what do you call all these things?! Playing your little tricks, breaking into my house, stealing my personal information?!”

“I-it’s not like that!…” Janna was blushing.

“Then what is it?!”

Janna hesitated, lowering her head as if in shame. “I…” Things can’t get any worse, she decided, so she might as well finally say it like it is. “I like you, Marco. I always have. I… I didn’t know how to say this. I just… I just wanted your attention.”

Marco didn’t know how to respond. What was she talking about? It made no sense, surely!… But the more he thought about his and Janna’s relationship in retrospect, the more sense it made. All these years, she’s been chasing him like he has been chasing Jackie, but in her own, creepy way. Oh god, how could he be so oblivious? “So, all these years…” he managed eventually. “And you didn’t say anything?”

“Says the guy who couldn’t ask his crush out for almost a decade.”

“Fair point,” Marco said. “But still, all those creepy things you do…”

“I know… I’m sorry. But don’t you think that if I really wanted to do something horrible to you, I could have just put dead mice in your backpack, or used your e-mail to blackmail you, or something?”

That was true. Marco knew Janna was prone to particularly cruel pranks sometimes, but she never played those on Marco. Sure, she did creepy things, annoying things to him… But hardly anything actually really terrible or harmful. “But wait,” he said suddenly, “does this mean… You’re the one who lied in that crazy game at Star’s sleepover?”

“Well, I didn’t exactly lie… I said ‘18th century poet John Keats’, and I indeed like his poetry. But you don’t really think I have an actual crush on someone who has been dead for almost two centuries?” Janna managed a smile. “This is more like a celebrity crush, you know? I was hoping that would count. But my real crush… It’s on you, Marco.”

“John Keats”, Marco repeated. “Of course. I remember from the literature class, he wrote about unrequited love.”

Things were getting awkward, and Marco had absolutely no idea what to do. This is exactly what he was afraid of when Star told him she likes him. What was he supposed to say? Even though he was now viewing Janna in a slightly different, better light, obviously he didn’t feel the same way as she did, and even still was somewhat wary of her. But at least he understood her now. Having come up with no better ideas, he hesitantly leaned towards Janna, and gave her a hug.

She didn’t expect this, but was pleasantly surprised. “Marco,” she murmured, hugging Marco back and noticing that her eyes were turning wet. “I’m sorry for all the trouble I’ve ever caused you.”

“It’s fine”, he replied. It wasn’t really fine, but there didn’t seem to be a point in being angry at Janna anymore, especially since they were apparently doomed to spend the rest of their short lives trapped together now.

After they let go of each other, an awkward silence ensued. Marco attempted to break it with an even more awkward question. “So… Why do you like me?”

“Come on, have you seen yourself in the mirror lately?! Marco, I’m not sure you actually realize this, but you are very attractive. I mean, objectively so. You’re tall and athletic. And you have rather smooth features on your cute little face… Not everyone can successfully pass as a girl and lead a revolution, you know!”

“How do you know about St. Olga’s?!” Marco demanded, his cheeks turning red.

“Oh, please. I have all your merchandise, ‘princess’!” Janna said playfully.

Marco was curious as to how did Janna get ahold of merchandise from another dimension on Earth, but decided not not pursue this train of thought. This was Janna they were talking about, after all. She continued: “You are actually very cute, Marco. Did you know Hope wanted to ask you out last year?”

“Really?”

“Yeah. People like you. It’s just that… You’re such an nervous mess, afraid of baths and loose tiles, and get so awkward in conversations, people think you’re a bit weird. But I always liked that about you.”

“Uh, thanks…” While Marco didn’t appreciate being called weird, a part of him felt really flattered. It’s true that he had quite a lot of insecurities and issues with self-esteem, so hearing that he was considered attractive, from Janna of all people, actually felt reassuring.

After another awkward moment of silence, Janna turned to Marco again. “Marco…” she began quietly. “Can I ask you to do something?”

“What is it?”

“Well, since we’re stuck here together, alone and with no food or way out… We’re going to be the last people to see each other alive before we starve to death, so…” She paused nervously, then took a deep breath and, blushing again, said quickly: “Let’s kiss. I don’t want to die never having kissed a guy.”

Marco was taken aback by such a bold request. A part of him was protesting. But she had a point, he admitted, as it might be his last chance to share a kiss with a girl - or anyone at all, for that matter. “Oh… O-okay,” he said hesitantly. Slowly, Janna took his head in her hands and pulled him closer, until their lips met…

“Marco! Janna! Thank heavens…” Jackie began saying, suddenly emerging from a portal with Marco’s dimensional scissors, which she had picked up after he dropped them. She was delighted to see her friends alive, but all the joy was swiftly swept away from her face once she saw what exactly the two were doing.

“Jackie?!” Marco and Janna exclaimed in unison, suddenly pushing away from each other. “I-it’s not what it looks like!”

[jennylovesjordan-blog]

know.

Well, to be honest, she didn’t expect it to hurt that much. Marco had come back immediately, shouting her name in the middle of the panicking crowd running around the broken billboard, dragging Jackie’s hand with him across the entire Echo Creek. He didn’t find her at home, either, so to say that he’s having a break down is an understatement. No matter how many times Jackie tried to assure him that Star is probably okay - she is a magical princess after all - he didn’t listen and just continued on his searching frenzy. And Star? She was seriously giving her life decisions a second look. Sure, she had expected them to act like a couple since they are an item now, aren’t they? Hugs and holding hands and stuff are a natural thing to do when you’re dating, she knew, but a kiss? She—she…

…let’s just say she hadn’t expected it to stung that much. “Star? STAR!” She could hear him screaming her name, panicky concern in his voice. It made her eyes well up despite the ridiculousness of this situation; she had brought this on herself, after all. She was fine with it, with them, she kept telling herself that it was too late, it was for nothing, she could bear with it, right? If only for his happiness. She could do it for him, even if her heart felt like it might rip apart. She had had that scary moment when she couldn’t control her magic (now that she looks back at it, the beam of magic was green and not its usual flirty pink color) and honestly, it terrified her. She had lost almost everything; her spell book, Glossaryck, the history of her entire family… Even if her parents reassured her a million times that it’s fine, it’s no problem; they can fix it, she couldn’t help but feel this guilt looming over her head, the lingering sense of depression and absolute worthlessness that had been chased away by lip-sync nights with Marco over Just Friends and Too Little Too Late is coming back, making her losing her mind. And now, she can't— She can’t lose Marco too. It felt kind of pathetic, now that she thought about it. Sitting here, at the rock bottom of Echo Creek and feeling like the scum of the earth, trying not to cry her eyes out. It's—it’s terrible, how much she missed his hugs, even if they are all platonic and sweet. His loving, protective touches, even if they are as light as feathers. His smile, the bright shining sun in her darkest days. The way he would let himself loose whenever she’s around— The pure, unadulterated joy in his eyes whenever he looks at Jackie. It hurts more than she would ever admit. What would’ve been different if she hadn’t invited Jackie today? Nothing much, except for the fact that he would’ve been with her instead, would’ve held her hands and they would’ve had some fun together, no? But the fact that he did do all of those things with her made her even more confused and her descend into madness even faster. She—she didn’t know how to feel. Don’t get it wrong, she loves Jackie; the girl was as cool as a well practiced narwhal blast. But seeing her there with him, doing all the things Star herself used to do with Marco made this unexplainable feeling bubble at the bottom of her stomach. It’s not jealousy, that much she knew, but it’s not something unrelated either. Heh—she had really lost it, hadn’t she? And surprisingly enough, the ducks didn’t help her much. “It’s just—” she gestured wildly with her hands, at a complete lost for words, “I’m happy for them—I am, don’t you dare question me—but like, they could’ve done it somewhere more discreet, you know. Marco didn’t have to hold my hand the entire time he was making out with Jackie, either. Like, I know I gave it up already; no need to rub it in my face,” she sighed when the duck merely hissed at her (can ducks even hiss?) Welp, so this is how it is. Sitting under a bridge, curled up into herself and blabbing to ducks about her life problems. There goes the famous Princess Star Butterfly. God, when did she become so piteous?

He wasn’t sure how much of an imbecile could he be.

He knew—Marco Diaz fucking knew—that something was wrong the second Star left the seat next to him and run up to the stage. Her smile had been incredibly forced, but he didn’t call her out on it. He knew that he had made her feel uncomfortable. The awkwardness that had never been in their friendship before surfaced earlier in the concert and he noticed—God he noticed. But he didn’t do anything about it. He was screaming her name the second that billboard exploded in a cloud of green magic. He knew—he fucking knew…

He needed to find her. 

Well, it’s time to go home she guessed. It was dark and cold, and the lady who sells hair still creeps her out. Star sighed deeply and pulled out the pair of dimensional scissors, not ready to walk through the front door and face her best friend.

The scissors…

…She should probably give them back to him. They’re his, after all. And—and she couldn’t have them. She couldn’t have anything, could she? She cut open the fabric of reality and created a portal straight to her room. Dark. It was dark and lonely and— She missed Marco already. God, how was she supposed to live without him? Her plan was to go back to Mewni and just—stay there; she had caused him more than his fair share of trouble. But now, being here alone in the vast space of her own room… It—it made her feel broken. Hollow and angry at herself and worthless and self-loathing. Was—was this her punishment? For not telling him her feelings sooner? She was just trying to protect their friendship—it was too valuable a thing for her to lose. She could—she could be just friends with him, right? As long as she gets to stay by his side. Star, you idiot. You can’t stay—Marco’s suffering because of you. He constantly risks his life for you, and you still want more? What’s wrong with letting him date Jackie? At least she didn’t pull him into a deadly adventure for her own gains. What did you ever do for him besides almost getting him killed? That—that’s not true—Marco is my best friend and he loves me— Who are you trying to fool? Face it, Butterfly, you’re nothing but a burden to him. If you love him—really love him, then free him from a disaster such as yourself. And she felt inadequate. Insecurity was always Marco’s problem, not hers. She was always there to cheer him up and reassure him that he matters. So who will cheer her up? No one, that’s it. Nothing. Left with an empty soul, a cleaved wand and a heart devoid of emotions. Could she be more pathetic?

“S-Star?” he knocked gently on the door. No answer, but he knew better than that. “Star, I know you’re in there. Can-can we talk?” She was as quiet as a statue. And the door was locked. Dammit. “Look, I know I made you, um, uncomfortable. I get it. And I’m sorry, and I promise it won’t happen again,” he choked a bit on the promise and it made her heart clenched painfully, “Now can you please open the door? Just let me check on you? I saw that green magic blast and for the love of God, Star, I was worried sick,” his voice was nothing but tender loving care and she could feel herself crying, “Wait, are you crying? Are-are you okay? Are you hurt? Why did you blast the billboard? God, did Ludo come for your wand again? Star? Star, open the door!” She was sobbing now and she knew he could hear it but she didn’t care, “Star, please. I will break it down if I have to, I swear.” he paused for a little as if he’s contemplating something, “If-If you don’t want to see me I’ll ask Mom to come up and check on you? I-I sent Jackie home already so please, just—just let me in—” He sounded so desperate she wondered why he was even doing this. It’s pointless, it’s all pointless. She was selfish and dirty and she couldn’t believe she was jealous over her best friend’s happiness and she didn’t deserve him and why didn’t he just leave her alone— The lock buckled again when he tried to shake it out of place and she panicked. “D-Don’t come in!” The shaking stopped immediately at her words and she sighed in relief. “I-I’m not hurt, Marco,” her voice was an octave higher than usual but again, she didn’t care, “I’m just, um, relaxing. Yeah, relaxing! The hype at the concert got me good, you know? Just chilling a bit to cool off and then I’ll be good as new. No need to worry about me, heheh,” she forced out a laugh and it was painful. But if it gives him reassurance… She would do anything. He was deathly quiet now, and she was scared. Scared that he had left already. Scared that he had abandoned her, that she had just done something wrong and he hates her now, and how could she—how could she— “Star,” he whispered softly on the other side and she perked up slightly, “Why are you lying to me?” He sounded small and heartbroken and so vulnerable it made her wanted to kick the door open and just hug him, hug all the stupid depression out of him for his kind and bright smile to return. But she didn’t. She couldn’t. So she cried instead. “I know,” he told her softly, “that you don’t exactly like me dating Jackie. Don’t think that I’m that oblivious—even if I am I can still read you like a book. I know you, Star Butterfly. I know when you’re distressed, uncomfortable, or those moments when you would put on a strong face no matter how powerless you feel. Everyone else would be fooled but I wouldn’t. Because I know.” She really shouldn’t be crying this much. “But what I don’t know is what makes you like that. So please, Star, tell me. You know I’ll always listen, always understand—or at least try to understand. I want to help. Please, you know I’m always here for you. Like how you are always there for me.” “Can you open up to me?” Of course. But she couldn’t.

So yeah I don’t really write ficlets for individual episodes like this but Just Friends is different. I’ve been through this hell and let me tell you, having an unrequited crush on your best friend who is datin another one of your friend is just depressing, guys.

So have an almost 2k drabble finished at 1:30 am. Sorry not sorry.