#and some green flags that complement with it to make him an interesting character

[obamousse]

When Suna was young, he and his mother moved to his aunt's house, when his family was having a rough divorce. Dad took his younger sister, his mother took him. His aunts love gossip, drama, and conflict. They are two-faced, shallow, and they make conflict then pretend nothing happens the next day. Mom hates them, but she didn't know where to go. After mom settled, they left the house. It was a short time, but it was, unfortunately, during his formative years. Although Suna loves acquiring drama, he doesn't tell it to anyone. He only acquires it for his own fun and for blackmail. None of the bullies at Inarizaki crosses him, but they all hate him because they knew he has the worst blackmail on them.

Suna doesn't stop at one piece of information either. He would only stop once he acquired critical blackmail information. He never shares it with ANYONE; he only shares harmless, funny gossip to a few people he knows would keep their mouth shut.

At family reunions, his mom has to socialize with aunties even though both dislikes them. Suna doesn't, so he sits, and observes. He observes whenever critical information or gossip slips from one of the aunties' mouth, and he made sure to remember. He sits in the corner so quiet aunties are surprised he was even there. He has the movements of mouses when he opens and closes doors - his cousins had always said he was weird.

And he made sure to know when to drop the news. He and his mom likes to create drama and chaos - along with loving to watch them. He doesn't speak nice to his aunts like many cousins, and he would slip in critical gossip in the middle of his sentence, so casually.

He is the type of person to develop ruses, tactics, tricks and ploys on the go, to be used on the go. He's tricky - you can never know what he does with your information, but if you promised him to not reveal any confidential information (that he did not acquire by eavesdropping, instead, you tell him directly), he will keep that inside of him for the rest of his life. Everyone underestimates how good he could be at keeping his words.

It is because he learnt from his chaotic aunts and mother, who gossips, who juggles information from the facts to the fancy, who forms side and berates each other, and forget all of them without an apology the next day. He had been the shorter end of the stick, had been cheated of justice and disliked by his caustic aunts because his mother's messy marriage. He learnt to hate fakeness: fake information which leads to accusations, fake people that will betray you any minute. He learns to keep his promises, to be brutally honest - because it is more honorable than to lie. He learnt to be curt, or even brutal with his words, rather than sugarcoating - and anyone who can't take it can deal with it. He learnt to keep his moral code, to not be swayed by anyone and their twisted words and tactics to rile him, to keep the boundaries of hate and love clear-cut, to remain loyal to what he thinks is right. He learnt to have integrity, to abide by fairness. Most importantly, he learnt to do everything, as his mom instructed, to not let these aunts affect him. He will turn out opposite of them.

But living in that toxic environment meant he also learnt to be petty. He also learnt to be cruel and bitter, to use the most scathing insults on purpose, or even hold confidential information against the other person if he was arguing in private. He learns to cheat at arguments and say things that riles up people, to accuse and push people to the edge to have what he wants. He learnt to blackmail, to make sure he has the upper hand and the other person has to give in. He doesn't care whether he's wrong, whether or how much that other person is hurt. That person is bound to be hurt, and as long as he gets what he wants, that is a good sacrifice to make. He learnt, from the men in the family, uncles and his strict grandparent, not to show vulnerability or emotions, not to be swayed by any tears that falls on the other person's face. He learned that if the other person loses control, gets angry and says distasteful things, he has won. He could take what the other person said and hold it against them - because it truly hurts him too, or takes their illogical points or information that slips and hold it against them. He loves it when he gave the other person a taste of their own medicine. That is simply what he is doing - the other person brought this up, and they deserved it.

It's normal. Because that's what everyone does in the household, and probably what everyone does in life. If they have your information, that's on you. If you can't deal, that's on you. He had had the shorter ends of the sticks in cases like this, but he learnt to get over it. Crying will only make you pitiable, and amongst the lies and sugarcoating and fake niceties, he hated pity the most. Pity is the worst insult, is the worst form of contempt. That's why he knows how to make people so angry when he raises his head and looks down at others, while saying: "Poor you." Cruelty is the fact of life - and he should know to gain advantage and exploit it to get what he wants. This, along with the lack of vulnerability and curtness, is a boiling cauldron waiting for disaster.

He hated the aunts because they lie. Lying is the worst sin, and being fake made them the assholes they are. He doesn't lie. He isn't fake. He says what he thinks. Even though he manipulates people, he doesn't lie - it's the other person who brought it upon themselves. But he never knew that living in a toxic environment meant he would learn toxic mentalities, and therefore, turned him into the asshole that he hated so passionately?

[seddm]

STARCO OVERVIEW - Season 2 (part 2/2)

SEASON 1

SEASON 2 (part 1) (part 2)

SEASON 3 (Incoming)

SEASON 4 (Incoming)

RAID THE CAVE (2x15a)

Bonbon The Birthday Clown was a huge moment of change for Star, her first real loss, something that forced her to start facing her responsibilities: from this moment until the end of the season she’s mostly going to be on a solo-growth time roll, with Marco’s direct influence on her being minimal: he’s still going to be with her in many episodes, and he’s even going to give her some advice in episodes like The Bounce Lounge or Collateral Damage, but there aren’t going to be moments like Mr. Candle Cares or Game of Flags until next season. This doesn’t mean that the two are going to be any less close, and until Just Friends Star is going to be none the wiser about her crush, so it’s not correct to talk about a fracture between the two dorks as a consequence of Jarco happening, but it’s also undeniable that the series wanted for Star to make more solo-experiences during S2B. This is what I talked about several times before: during S1 and early S2 Marco had a huge influence on Star, and Star had a huge influence on Marco, helping each other grow and develop (in several ways, but we can sum it up, for the sake of simplicity, to “be more responsible and thinking more about things” and “get out of his comfort zone more and be more open to taking risks”). Bonbon The Birthday Clown is an episode of important change for both of them, and from here on Star is going to slowly start putting all the accrued development to good use (stopping running away from problems as much, trying to be a princess in her own way in S3), and Marco is going to VERY slowly start doing the same (moving to Mewni in S3, realizing his feelings for Star).

All this introduction was needed to reiterate once more that less Star and Marco moments from now onward, especially in the rest of S2, absolutely doesn’t equal to Starco being less important to the show, or to the characters. It just means that both main characters were finally ready to realistically start to be more active in their growth process, thus allowing the writers to explore other kind of interactions and development arcs.

Getting to the actual episode now, the segment immediately opens on a recurring theme: Marco putting Star over Jackie, leaving her hanging for his bestie’s sake. This is clearly a horrible way to put it, and we now have canon confirmation from Jackie herself that Marco was an average, standard boyfriend to her, but ti tells us something important about commitment. This is the core of why Jarco couldn’t work, why Tomstar isn’t going to work, and even the main answer to the question “Did Starco truly have to be romantic?”: we have repeatedly been shown that Star and Marco are vastly more committed to each other than to any other person in their lives, ultimately putting each other before anyone else. 

The monsters in this episode like Star on account of her ideas and different ways of being a princess, of doing things her own way. Which is exactly what Marco told her in Mr. Candle Cares. And this is going to lead to her trying to unite Mewmans and Monsters, and Marco is the one who first opened her up to the idea in Lobster Claws and Mewnipendence Day. Again, it’s not that everything good Star does is thanks to Marco (nor vice versa), but he was the catalyst who complemented her qualities and characteristics, helping her become the best version of herself - something that still clearly required a lot of self work and interactions with other people.

During this episode Marco gives Star good advice, per se: being honest about what happened with her parents, and not making the situation any worse. And yet, that’s not really what Star needs now, as Glossaryck tells her - what she needs now is to face her mistakes and try to make up for them, truly accepting her responsibilities for the first time. Was Marco wrong? Is he suddenly not a good advice giver anymore? No, it’s simply an effect of the focus on solo-growth for Star in this part of the season I mentioned earlier: in this moment Star outpaced Marco in maturity, and it’s going to take him until Sophomore Slump to catch up, so there’s some sort of “disconnection” between her current position in life and his advice. Star started (slowly) walking toward “maturity”, and Marco was left for some episodes with a different point of view.

This is more of a story structure element than a statement about Marco, it’s clear that he still deeply understands and relates to Star, but if we look at the larger picture Star’s Second Act began with Bonbon, while Marco is going to lad behind in his First Act until Sophomore Slump.

TRICKSTAR (2x15b)

An episode full of foreshadowing for Star’s emotions at the end of the season and for her to mature enough to accept how things are going to go (you can’t be happy all the time, you have to face unpleasant things because turning a blind eye to them is worse, happy times are eventually going to follow sad times once again, all that jazz), but it doesn’t really involve Starco to any extent that’s not three layers of separation away.

Star launching herself to protect Marco from Praeston as soon as she sees him crying being all worried about him being sad is medicine for the soul.

And Marco saying this is almost certainly just a gag and maybe, just maybe, a sign of the relative lack of insight on maturity I mentioned in the previous segment, but it’s ironic given that the series is essentially going to end with both of them going “love is the answer” and the magic that is love being very real and saving their asses. 

BABY (2x16a)

Once more, you guessed it, a mostly solo-growth episode for Star, like most in this part of the season. Important episode bla bla Star looks finally excited about doing magic stuff out of her own initiative but gets slammed down hard because she lacks basic Glossaryck was right in saying that she has her own way to learn blabla first signs of maturity but also always doing things her own personal ways, failing while forced to do things by the book but getting new, incredible results in ways no one would have expected when free to do things her own way, usual individuality stuff.

Marco helping Star with Baby by dutifully making food is cute and certainly one more page in the long book of “Marco makes Star’s stressful life a bit more overwhelming” moments, but it doesn’t get any particular relevance in the episode.

On the other hand what’s interesting is that what pushes Star over the edge, helping her to “channel strong emotions” and create a new spell, is fear over having to leave Earth. Obviously it’s not just “leaving Marco”, Star has many reasons to like being there and the scene itself doesn’t involve her bestie in any extent. But it’s mostly about Marco. It’s obvious that it’d be reductive to consider that he’s the only Earth thing Star cares about, but narratively speaking it essentially is - in S3 Earth barely gets mentioned at all as soon as Marco moves to Mewni, he’s the symbol for what “second home on Earth” means to Star.

And if it wasn’t clear enough already, Star’s spell uses both “colors” of magic, pink and green, and it first splits the apple in two (cleaving it apart), to then make the seeds sprout, giving it new life (cleaving it together, we might say). The theme of unity, of something new and better being born from two different elements meeting, is constant throughout the show, and we now know that it’s all going to culminate in Star and Marco meeting once again in their new dimension, to be always together.

Look how worried Marco is about knowing whether Star can stay his voice is so expectant he’s so cute they’re so cute I love them so much

Remember when S1 hammered the idea that Marco was so important and “formative” to Star because he was the first person she met who truly trusted her and didn’t see her as an irresponsible mess up? Yeah it’s still there, and it’s always beautiful.

RUNNING WITH SCISSORS (2x16b)

Getting Star's scissors back is certainly part of Marco's motivation here, since he would definitely go to such extremes to avoid damaging Star, but honestly the episode is more of a solo-growth one for Marco: Star, and her importance to Marco, play a fundamental role in it obviously, but his decision to not back down and go home is more connected to his tenacity and willingness to go all the way in once he sets his mind on something, rather than specifically to get Star's scissors back itself. That's both Marco's greatest quality, and one of his main flaws when it degenerates into tunnel vision.

This is a weird episode. Marco spends more time living in the Neverzone than he did on Earth his whole life, and yet Running With Scissors doesn't change him at all. He doesn't get any tangible moment of growth or development from this, needing until Sophomore Slump to enter the next stage of his character arc (even if it's clearly important for the scissors, for Nachos, for his fighting skills...). And yet, it's an important episode: we know from the beginning of the season that Marco's greatest fear in life is lagging behind, wasting his life without finding a goal. In this episode an "alternate" version of Marco finds in adventuring a reason to be, something that fulfills him, and for 16 years he doesn't worry about anything else. But it's an incomplete life, by shedding all of his responsibilities and social connections Marco lost in maturity what he gained in freedom. And it's Star who snaps him out from this "fantasy" - a good one, but a limited and limiting one.

The scene is constructed to give Star's "Or... me?" part emphasis, and Marco deeply reacts to it.

The scissors imagery is particularly powerful, as it has multiple layers: there's the usual symbolism for "dimensions meeting", since the scissors are what allowed for Star and Marco to meet and completely change each other lives (and with Cleaved in hindsight we know how hugely important this theme is), and the theme of union in general is important to the show (it might not be a coincidence for this segment to have been paired with Baby, which ended with a similar theme); but there's also this idea of Marco's lonely reflection gaining something once he open the blades, showing Star as well: living a life of adventures is not worth it without all his loved ones. Cleaved apart, cleaved together. Marco gives up on something, this easy life he built for himself in the Neverzone, to gain something that's vastly more important to him, being with Star once more. Obviously it's not just Star, but she's the main symbol for it (and honestly given the series finale it might has well have been just Star): Marco feels content right now, the days of being a sweaty and anxious teen with no clear goal in life are a distant memory, but can he actually be happy and fulfilled without Star? No, obviously not. So he goes back.

And once home Star essentially gives exposition on what I just said, and what Marco thought just mere scenes earlier, probably mostly in an unconscious way. Sure, he has to go through the pains and uncertainties of growing up once again, but this time they'll be together. This is a gem of a scene that often goes unnoticed, essentially Star's version of Marco's speech in Mr. Candle Cares, since in both cases one of the dorks manages to give the other dork a new perspective on their biggest fear (not having choices about her future, not knowing what he wants to do in his future), helping them during a hard time. It's clear that Star deeply understands Marco, even if she usually helps him in practical or indirect ways, rather than delivering speeches like this.

Bonus: Marco's face lights up and immediately goes from gruff buff adventurer to excited kid as soon as he sees Star, wanting to tell her all about the past years like a kid recounting his Summer vacations. Should be clear enough which of his two lives is more important to him.

THE BOUNCE LOUNGE (2x17b)

Not really an important episode, just a lot of foreshadowing for the “end” of Star’s carefree days by the end of the season. Marco’s line here is mostly for that, it’s not really an important less nor something that helps Star figure things out in the context of the episode. If we reeeeally want we could see a connection between accepting that things have to end eventually and the “at least we have good memories from the past!” at the end of the episode with Star’s behavior in Scent of a Hoodie, but it’s kind of a stretch given that Star would have never truly accepted not being Marco’s friend again so it doesn’t properly fit as a parallel.

If you needed a reminder that Star helps Marco get out of his comfort zone and make new experiences that he often ends up liking...

HEINOUS (2x19a)

Just a quick note: even if it’s been a while since Marco called Star the coolest girl he knows, it’s clear that he genuinely appreciates her personality and individuality (see Mr. Candle Cares), and this is particularity important since he’s currently donning his Turdina identity, someone who became a paragon of freedom to express yourself to princess all over the multiverse, and he’s currently essentially telling Star that she’s, to him, the archetype of what a strong princess is. If that’s not love I don’t know what it is.

COLLATERAL DAMAGE (2x20a)

Star immediately seeking Marco’s advice to understand what she did is cute, but we were robbed of a moment of understanding and emotional connection. Stupid Otis.

JUST FRIENDS (2x20b)

After Bonbon The Birthday Clown and right before Face the Music, the tradition of songs highlighting the characters’ emotional state continues. I’m not going to analyze the lyrics of the song because their message is extremely clear, and it’s not like there’s a clear subdivision of verses between Star and Marco: clearly the whole concept of being “just friends” because it was too late for feeling to be revealed relates to Marco being with Jackie and Star liking him, but other than that the song generically talks about the reality of Star and Marco’s relationship. Taunting us viewers. It’s clearly way too early to talk about “love” as in full romantic love by this point, but it’s also clear that Star and Marco’s relationship is characterized by an incredible amount of care for each other which is visible to everyone. And yet.

Hahaha see it’s fun because the episode puts a lot of emphasis on the concept of being “friends”, something that has always been super important to Star, but by the end of it she’s going to be deeply hurt by Marco seeing her just as a friend, realizing that she would have wanted something more. Haha so much fun.

In a single scene we get reminders for several of the important elements in Star and Marco’s relationship:

Star helps Marco with Jackie, still acting as his “wing(wo)man” and pushing him out of his comfort zone

Star is still blissfully unaware of how much Marco dating Jackie is going to hurt her, there’s complete disconnection between what the Heart wands and what the Mind thinks it wants right now, and she’s going to delude herself until she literally sees his bestie smooching someone who is not her

Marco still thinks that Star is supercool, and he’s worried that Jackie is going to realize that he’s not at her level: when I talked about Sleep Spells I said that Star and Marco’s conversation on the roof essentially solved forever Marco’s feeling of inferiority compared to Star, but I forgot about this detail. It’s a very specific situation, but right now Marco feels “not enough”, and Star clearly comforts him 

And the next morning Star keeps being extremely “delicate” with Marco, doing her best to put him at ease. Because showing Star being particularly close and enamored with her bestie minutes before getting her heart shattered is cool!

And then, to make things EVEN funnier, later in the episode Star is about to go comfort a dejected Marco, doing what she has done many times before, but Jackie is faster and she “replaces” her. It’s obvious that Jackie never replaced Star in Marco’s life in any extent, it’s just a detail in this specific scene to better build up the mood and themes for the climax.

Haha isn’t if fun that for the whole episode Marco worries about being the third wheel between Star and Jackie, but at the end it’s actually Star who is going to feel terribly, hauntingly alone?

I don’t want to post too many screenshots, but the first part of the concert... well, it speaks for itself, with Marco sitting between the two important girls in his life, being confused when Jackie grabs his hand, and confused when Star grabs his other hand, but then getting into it.

I might be over reading too much into the boarders intentions here, but I think that Star’s expression in the first screen might fit with the idea that she has always been the one to push Marco intro trying new things, into “letting loose”, but this time Jackie “replaced” her, once again. Since this segment was boarded by the same artists who worked on The Bounce Lounge, which featured a similar “let loose and dance!” scene, it might not be too out there as an interpretation. Anyway, it’s a minor detail, the general vibe of the whole scene is heart crushingly clear.

For most of the song the shot focuses exclusively on Star and Marco goofing around, lypsynching like at the beginning of the episode: it’s their song, and that’s what they usually do. This is a friendship moment, and Marco obviously defaults to Star for it. But then the song gets into the “romantic” part, and the camera moves to Jackie and Marco: Star is just a friend, and as such she doesn’t get to take part in this special part of the night. Just like she said in Blood Moon Ball, this is a “different kind of fun”, and she’s not invited.

 And in full “you don’t know what you want until you lose it” fashion, it’s also the moment she realizes that she’d have killed to be invited to the smooching Marco kind of fun.

Second instance of Marco prioritizing Star over Jackie, he interrupts a making out session because he notices that she’s not there anymore and gets worried. It’s clear that Heart VS Mind is true for Marco as well, even if his feelings are way less definite by this point of the show. His first instincts still always put Star at the first place, but when it’s not an “emergency” moment anymore he’s not mature enough to properly recognize that she truly is the most important person to him. We’ll see this especially well in S3: during The Battle For Mewni he’s not going to hesitate in following her, risking his against Ludo and Toffee, but once the danger is over and his Mind takes control once again he goes back to Earth, without acknowledging Star’s confession, because still convinced that Jackie / Earth life were what he wanted. This scene here in Just Friends is a small taste of it.

Sadly Marco doesn’t have a clue, and Star hides her sadness, and she gets rewarded with a “you’re the best friend”. As I mentioned earlier, the episode opens up with Star and Marco being mutually happy to call each other besties, but ends with Star being crushed inside by being considered just a friend by Marco.

MORE SONG SYMBOLISM!

FACE THE MUSIC (2x21)

“How come Star doesn’t seem distraught over her crush for Marco, and why is she acting normally with him?” well, there are three layers of explanation:

The show is very compartmentalized

Star is super good at being in denial, as we’re going to see in Starcrushed when she claims that she’s over her crush fro Marco

The good ol’ usual “feelings are confused”: in Just Friends Star certainly realized what she truly wanted, but as far as her character arc goes it wasn’t the same as outright admitting her crush to herself. Which is just a form of denial more connected to the structure of the story: in the previous segment Star finally makes a connection between what she wants and why she feels like that, but it’s not the same thing as fully going, even just internally, “Ok I like Marco romantically”. It’s clearly confused if we dissect the whole matter like this, but it’s how the whole show operates when it comes to feelings, and it’s the difference between Star being ok around Marco here, and Star being a complete mess in Scent of a Hoodie.

This being said, once again we see Marco appreciating Star’s individuality and uniqueness, which deeply relates to her wanting Song Day to be special, crafted around her personality.

Was this hug alone enogh to turn Ruberiot into a Starco shipper and convince him that he needed to add a part about Star’s romantic life to his song, or did Star go on and on saying stuff about Marco while they were working on it later in the episode, offscreen? We can’t know and it’s not that important, but I choose to believe that a single hug was enough to make this genius of an artist understand just how much love there’s between these two. No bias here. No bias at all.

Also please note the penguins on the screen foreshadowing the end of Starcrushed - one goes away and the other one is left sad, alone.

Look at Marco, trying to move out of the way to make it clear that he’s not Royal Family, as if he’s not going to be part of it one day! They won’t be royal anymore by then though, admittedly.

Star spills the beans about her own failures during the season, feeling like it was the right thing to do. She starts owning up to her own mistakes, facing her problems instead of running away. But then the part about her crush on Marco comes up, and by the end of the episode she literally runs away: obviously as far as stakes go Star’s development arc in this part of the show culminates in accepting that she has to go to Mewni to defend it, and defeating Toffee is the ultimate test of maturity that allows her to enter the second part of her story. But accepting her feelings for Marco, confessing her crush, is symbolically the last step in her journey toward learning to face her problems and not running away from unpleasant facts. It’s the key to everything, not because there is ONLY Marco and Starco, obviously, but because he’s the single most important thing to Star, and by far what influenced her the most over the first half of the series. So by Face the Music Star is almost there, she has almost reached this first important checkpoint, but she can’t quite get to it until she embraces her crush for Marco. 

Because he’s important.

Because Starco is important. 

"Star Butterfly is in love with her best friend”. Now, obviously this is a song so lyrics are limited by what goes well with the rhythm, but the idea of best friends making the best lovers is incredibly important to the show, so while it’s extremely possible that it wasn’t specifically on purpose in this case I always like the association of “best friend” and “love”. We’ll have plenty of time to talk about it during S3.

STARCRUSHED (2x22)

While the episode is mostly solo Marco and solo Star moments, with little actual Starco interactions being formative or leading to development, I’m still going to go over more or less all of it, since most scenes can be directly reconnected to Star’s crush on Marco, which is directly connected to Star’s S2 arc, to the point that the climaxes of the two “storylines” end up overlapping in Star’s confession to Marco.

The idea of wanting things to go back “to normal”, to how they were once, is going to characterize the whole Starco romance arc: these two idiots, until Here to Help, are always going to think, to some extent, “oh no, having a crush on your best friend is weird and it can change things and maybe they’d get worse and maybe he/she doesn’t feel the same!”, and wish to go back to feeling nothing but platonic feelings of friendship for the other. It happens here, it’s going to be a theme in Booth Buddies (and for most of S3 with the idea of Marco trying to reframe his whole approach to being Star’s friend), it’s going to happen in Curse of the Blood Moon. Obviously things can’t go back to how they were because, as Marco said in Here to Help, they have always been like that. Not as in love at first sight obviously, took months and months for “romance” to start consciously becoming an element in the equation of their relationship, but as in a special kind of connection that was doomed since the first moment to evolve into something more. Essentially Star and Marco were always only able to either go forward in their relationship, or stagnate (with all the tensions and sudden heat-of-the-moment kissing that resulted from it): regressing was never an option, nor something that either of them ACTUALLY wanted (usual Heart VS Mind: worrying about feeling being “in the way”, while still wanting to forever be at her side in her pocket).

At the beginning of the episode Star shows marked improvements compared to her old self, and actually tries to force herself to face the problem, while Jackie pushes Marco to do the same - by leaving them some time, but it’s still quite a little bit too early: Star’s seeing the goal, but she still need some last pushes, and so nothing comes out of it, they’re both too embarrassed to talk.

Star sees a picture of a fun day with Marco then (ignore the “photo from the future” plot for now, it clearly wasn’t planned at the time, or at the very least not relevant to the messages and themes in this episode), and she’s reminded of how important her friendship with Marco is, and gets frustrated at the idea of losing it over some awkwardness, and calls her friends for help.

(idea of things “going back to normal” once again) said friend are actually a bad influence on Star though, dragging her to a party, reinforcing her tendency to avoid problems and confrontations proposing her an alternative distraction.

The party doesn’t convince Star, who is about to go back home: clearly her relationship with Marco is not the kind of problem she wants to ignore, and she can’t bring herself to just run away from it... until she notices Oskar.

Oskar is kind of a litmus test for Star’s growth: she had been drooling over him for two seasons, but she’s largely uninterested now. Even when he essentially tries to hit on her, and make plans to “hang out” over the Summer, Star looks uneasy at worst about the situation, and unconvinced at best. What changed? Star’s infatuation with Oskar was a symbol of her old self: Greason, the bad boy with a record who abides to no rules, lives in his car, and rejects all responsibilities and problems. The perfect man for Star “I love Freedom and Individuality More than Anything” Butterfly, right? But then Star grew and we got a number of episodes teaching her the importance of facing problems and accepting your responsibilities and that rules can be important at times and aren’t necessarily antithetic to fun, and this new Star isn’t actually interested in him anymore.

Star tries to latch to this, and to Oskar, in a last attempt at denial, at “replacing Marco”, as Oskar himself implies.

Meanwhile something similar happens with Marco (even if it’s way less clear in his case, and it’s going to take until Sophomore Slump to get any real payoff, while it’s immediate by the end of the episode in Star’s case): Jackie encourages him to stop worrying about Star and enjoy a Summer of nothing (please note: Jackie absolutely not a bad influence on Marco - just a couple of scenes ago she tried to give him and Star some time to talk things out, this is an isolated case to set a parallel between the dorks).

Also in the following scene we get Marco’s version of “I’d make a great Mango”: he deludes himself into thinking that Jackie is his partner in crime, trying to find a “replacement” to Star in this moment of deep emotional stress and tension. Obviously it’s something unconscious, it’s the first, smaller version of “You’re my best friend!” from Sophomore Slump: Marco’s Mind trying to convince his Heart that Jackie is who he truly wants, and the symbol for the kind of life he wants - a calm, easy life on Earth. But this is premature, I’ll talk about this during S3: in this specific episode what matters is that Jackie is not Marco’s partner in crime to any extent, and that Rafael’s words remind Marco of what should have been the basis of Star and Marco’s relationship from beginning to end but hasn’t been for long stretches of time when romance was involved.

Right now both Star and Marco are convinced that they have to talk things out, but as we’re about to see in a moment they aren’t quite ready to go all the way in with it. Third instance of Marco leaving Jackie hanging for something connected to Star (after Raid the Cave and Just Friends), too many not to be something they wanted viewers to notice, and it’s perfectly in line with the important theme of commitment.

Star takes Marco by the hand to gently lead him to a quieter place to talk, instead of dragging him by the wrist as the usually (not always, this is not the first time she grabs his hand, but it’s clearly a different context), and Marco stares at their hands, almost in disbelief. We get the same kind of scene in Here to Help. Hand holding is apparently symbolic for romance in this series (Marco mentions being ashamed of never having held a girls’ hand in Naysaya, in Demoncism and Kelly’s World the episode closes on the new couples holding hands, in Curse of the Blood Moon Star and Marco holding hands is a symbol for them falling in love, Mama Star and Here to Help we get the came focusing on Star holding Marco’s hand and they’re scenes eventually leading to Starco becoming fully canon).

Short digression about things that are going to be explored better in future seasons: isn’t it fun? Both this episode and Booth Buddies put a lot of emphasis on “things being different”, but then in Here to Help, when Marco can finally be entirely honest with himself and with Star, he says that things have essentially been the same since the beginning, just with an ever increasing intensity: feelings needed time to grow, absolutely, but there has never been a single, clear moment that suddenly made things different. See, this is why Marco’s “You don’t just fall in love at first sight” line is extremely important, because it confirms that Marco and Star’s relationship has been a linear journey from the beginning. It’s not that one day they suddenly stopped being just friends and became more, borders are confused, the feelings have always been there but needed time to grow and change and gain new connotations. Obviously the “Mind” part of their awareness about said feelings has clearly identifiable changes in specific episodes, it’s obviously needed for the structure of a TV show and for the characters arcs, but “in universe” it’s not that things started being different from a specific point in time, it’s just that the feelings became intense enough to scare Star and Marco into wanting for things to go backward. Cowards.

Anyway, Marco is obviously worried about the possibility of Star having a crush on him, Star can’t muster the courage to confess AND she’s possibly even truly slipping back into denial, thinking “Eh, I have Oskar now for the Summer, I’ll be happy with that and I won’t have to focus on Marco and things won’t be weird anymore between two of us, right?”, and they both put emphasis on being friends. Just friends, nothing more.

It’s easy to understand what worries Star and Marco, influencing their actions when it comes to romance until the end: fear of change, fear that their feelings might be in the way of friendship. And in the meantime the show spends seasons telling us viewers “look, the best romance is born from friendship, and Star and Marco’s love is just a side of their friendship! They should embrace it and it would be beautiful!” but nope, takes them until the end.

After this talk, Star is deep in denial: she’s latching to this idea of “Summer” as a panacea there to solve all her problems. She thinks that she actually fixed things with Marco, and she’s evidently trying to delude herself into thinking that hanging out with Oskar could actually serve as a bandaid for her unaccepted, unexpressed, unreciprocated feelings (and she’s barely buying it herself, apparently).

The idea of being able to make choices is extremely important and it goes all the way back to Marco’s speech to her in Mr. Candle Cares, but it’s applied in the worst of ways here.

But then she gets told that she has to go back to Mewni, possibly for a long time, possibly even dying in a dangerous fight with Toffee, it’s impossible to know exactly what Star thought in that moment beyond “I might never see Marco again”, and the Summer illusion comes crashing down. And she’s forcefully reminded of what (who) is actually important to her, and voilà, the last step is Star’s S2 Arc, “stop running away from problems” is complete. By accepting her crush on Marco and owning up to it, no matter how painful it is, she also accepts her duties as princess of Mewni and the burden of her family’s history.

This is what I meant when I said, at the beginning of this episode, that the two storylines of the season end up overlapping in the confession: Star starts becoming an actual princess and actually and actively being involved with the history of Mewni (leading to her arc in S3) when she stops running away from the greatest problem she had at the time, her crush on her best friend.

Pretending that a problem is not there doesn’t make it go away, and it’s clearly relevant to feelings as well and it’s true for Star here as it’s going to be true for Marco in Lava Lake Beach as it’s going to be true for both of them for the rest of the show, to some extent, sometimes more consciously, sometimes less. From this point onward feeling are never going to truly go away for Star, even through S3 and Tomstar: the disconnection between Heart and Mind, how conscious the dorks are about their feelings, how painful they get, how distracted by other things they are, how strong the “romance” part is over the platonic one, all these elements are going to fluctuate over the show; but the intensity of their feelings is going to steadily and linearly grow, as Marco ultimately evidences in Here to Help. They never go away.

Being upfront and honest with your friend is important, and it’s a recurring theme in the show (foreshadowed in All Belts Are Off in recent times, clearly central to the episode in Booth Buddies), and yet for the rest of the show it’s going to be so hard and so rare for the teens to be completely and entirely honest with each other and, most of all, with themselves. And the moment one of them finally is - Marco in Mama Star, everything clicks in place and they can finally, easily solve months worth of tensions (and years worth of suffering for us viewers).

Hard to tell if Star is crying here just out of sadness for having to go away, or if Marco’s inability to answer anything to her confession, tell her anything at all, played a role. We still know from S3 that Marco’s silence hurt her, a lot, but that probably includes all the time spent together on Mewni after Toffee’s defeat as well, so it’s not that relevant right now.

But Marco’s inability to answer by itself, now that’s relevant. An expected reaction obviously - he was in front of Jackie to booth, but still one that, in the context of fictional narrative, clearly evidences how unready for this kind of thing Marco was - as I mentioned he started lagging behind Star in terms of character development and maturity after Naysaya, and won’t catch up until Lint Catcher.

To conclude the post and the season, a heart warming shot full of “magic disappears from Marco’s life” imagery. Obviously Star isn’t gone forever, magic isn’t gone from Marco’s life, and everything she meant to him is still there, but after most of a season focused on Star’s perspective we get this last scene focusing on Marco’s one, with the feeling of emptiness brought by the departure of the one person who completely changed his life for better (when I say “bringing magic in it” I mean it in a broader sense, not strictly THE Magic).

Fun stuff.