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holdingontodust · 2 years ago

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Toffee character analysis

Showing vs telling

You've maybe noticed that Toffee is one of my favorite characters in svfoe but if you're not following me on twitter you probably haven't seen my hot takes on how he's a sliver of excellence in a show that consistently fails itself. Recently I decided to do a little analysis comparing what we’re told about him as a whole as opposed his actual on screen actions

I love svfoe, I swear, I just enjoy tearing it to shreds from time to time

A big part of Toffee's appeal to me is how little the show actually told us about him, it leaves me plenty of room to dive in and figure him out for my own purposes. We aren't left with absolutely nothing to work with due to extended materials and AMAs dipping a little into his backstory here and there so there's a little structure to use as guidelines.

But the thing is, Svfoe has a pretty noticeable problem with telling vs showing which amounts to many of the problems that I have with the series and why I enjoy ripping it apart occasionally. This telling vs showing problem usually presents itself traditionally with things being told to the audience instead of shown ex: practically every episode has Star declaring Marco is her best friend, but very rarely was it just shown without an accompanying verbal declaration (pssst this pattern continues with their 'love' too which is why I couldn't get behind Starco, but I won't get into that here). With Toffee it's a little different, because the problem is that what we're told about him in the extended materials doesn't actually reflect what we're shown about him on screen in the series proper.

Let's start with those extended materials and AMAs; aka what we're told about Toffee.

It's not much.

Septarians as a species are described as long lived creatures who hold the grudges of their forefathers as if they are their own. I suppose this is trying say that they hold grudges and it's bad that they can't let things go but actually there's a lot of cultures in both reality and fiction that are honor based societies so this actually makes a lot of sense to me.

The Magic Book of Spells introduces a book exclusive character, a Septarian named Seth, who is described by multiple queens as hostile, an advocate for Genocide against Mewmans and Septarian supremacy. As bad as this sounds, I'm going to go out on a limb and postulate that since we know by the end of the series that the monsters were victims and Mewmans have been in the wrong for generations, that this information may be exaggerated. Since Seth never appears in the show or other materials we only have the Book of Spells to go by and...Yeah, I don’t really trust a word most of them have to say about him to be honest.

The only narrator that we can consider reliable being Eclipsa, who got her information about from Globor, another monster who has had dealings with Seth and other Septarians in the past. Also worth noting is that Eclipsa's queenship followed her mother's and whom know Solaria was attempting active genocide against all monster kind- which was at least the second one in history since Mewman arrived...so I can't really say I think Seth and the Septarians be entirely in the wrong if they were still upset about that.

Seth is mentioned a few prominent times in the book, since this analysis is about Toffee I won't go into detail but tl;dr Seth has been personally screwed over enough times by the Butterfly family that it shouldn't be surprising at all that he didn't answer Comet's invitation to her peace banquet

As a side note: Comet herself is incredibly dismissive and insulting toward Seth in her chapter and it makes it very difficult for me to sympathize with her, or feel bad about her death- sorry, Moon.

So long story short, Seth is a big deal. It not directly said that Toffee had any sort of relationship to Seth but Comet implies in her chapter that Seth's ideals were inspiring to Septarian youths which hints that Toffee killing Comet was influenced by him if not directly ordered.

Toffee is also described as being a "Magneto like character" by the series creator, someone who "isn't wrong, but going about things the wrong way", and comments that he researched the Butterfly family like no one had before and used his powers for evil. According to the same AMA, Toffee has been learning about magic for a long time and was wearing the skulls of members of the Butterfly court that he killed. We’re also told by third party bit characters that Toffee killed Queen Comet the day she was supposed to sign the peace treaty, but Toffee himself never mentions anything about it, which I find odd, as big a deal as regicide you’d think he’d gloat about it at least once.

All in all, what we're told about Toffee paints the picture of psychotic terrorist following in the footsteps of a genocidal maniac, who won't hesitate to kill innocent people and doesn’t care who he has to step on in order to achieve his goals.

This now brings us to the series and once again hoo boy, looking at nothing but Toffee's actions against the series as whole bearing in mind revelations from the later seasons really casts him in a different light.

The first onscreen victim of Toffee's machinations is Buff Frog, who is immediately suspicious of Toffee for...no real reason other than the plot needed him to. I've watched Fortune Cookies many times and still can't come up with a legitimate reason why Buff Frog is suspicious of Toffee right off the bat. It makes sense later (as much sense as can be expected from a kids cartoon, anyway) that Buff Frog would be threatened by and suspicious of Toffee when he has a spy drone take Buff Frog's place, but not in his introductory episode after knowing him for five seconds.

For his part, Toffee doesn't seem to have a problem with Buff Frog until Mewnipendence day. Granted, this is the first episode since his debut that Toffee actually appears so it's hard to judge what their relationship is like outside of these two appearances since Toffee orchestrates Buff Frog's dismissal in this episode. One thing we have to go on is Buff Frog's frankly a little paranoid sounding theory that Toffee full on replaced him with an electronic spy unit and will do the same to everyone.

Toffee catches him at it but shrugs it off and shows him no animosity until Buff Frog volunteers to get the wand for Ludo. Since the equipment was obviously sabotaged to make Buff Frog look bad in order to manipulate Ludo into getting rid of him, it was definitely a premeditated move on Toffee’s part, down to predicting that Buff Frog would volunteer. This all sounds pretty bad, but given the fact that Buff Frog was entirely wrong about Toffee's intentions I don't really see why it was necessary beyond Toffee just quietly getting rid of a small annoyance to him.

And I feel like I should to remind everyone that Ludo punishes his minions the same way his own abusive father probably punished him (re: sending them to their rooms taking away milkshake privileges ect), which has been completely ineffective until this point. Seeing as Toffee’s official position that he was, you know, hired and presumably being paid for is "evil efficiency expert" with the description that he whip the other monsters into shape. Set up aside, this technically is exactly what Toffee's job is to do and encouraging Ludo to fire Buff Frog is a perfectly reasonable course of action.

The next victim is Ludo himself and I actually hesitate to call him a victim, because getting kicked out of his own castle was Ludo's comeuppance for his own terrible leadership and abusive tendencies. Ludo being abused by his family does not excuse his abuse of others, and throughout Marco Grows a Beard, Toffee does very little besides direct and observe, stepping in once (and possibly more that was off screen) to offer water to one of the monsters while Ludo's orders and actions failed across the board putting all of them in jeopardy and ultimately botching their best chance at obtaining the wand. Once they returned to the castle, Toffee rightfully points out that the day's failure was on Ludo, not the other monsters and successfully turned his, uh, "army" on him with next to no effort because Ludo is in fact guilty on all charges.

Which brings me back to Buff Frog, considering how fast Buff Frog was to join forces with Star over Ludo a few episodes later...I'm going to go ahead and say that there was really no point in Toffee getting him fired. Buff Frog's loyalty swayed just like everyone else's and Toffee probably could have just waited for him to reach a breaking point and didn't, but ultimately I'm going to pin this on a poor writing decision than a lack of foresight by Toffee.

In Season one's finale, Toffee has Marco captured and held for ransom. And...yeah I kinda feel like this doesn't count as something too horrible since Toffee’s plan holding Marco captive and even threatening him with the crystal crushing was counting on the fact the he already knew that Star wouldn't let anything happen to Marco. It's a manipulation tactic that was the most efficient way if getting what he wanted, which was not ownership of the wand but the wand's destruction. Star has other friends and Marco's parents or even her own parents that could be used against her, but Toffee targeted one that he knows for sure she will trade the wand for.

But before moving onto his actions in season 2, there's more to analyze about Toffee's behaviors during Storm the Castle. The first thing of note is that Toffee treats Marco quite well while holding him prisoner, being quite civil and offering him food, and even releasing him so Marco could take a swing at him. However, Toffee doesn't fight back in this scene merely sidesteps (I guess) and forces Marco back into his chair without restraining him again, which suggests to me that Toffee isn't the one who put him in restraints to begin with since he's clearly not worried about Marco escaping or anything of the sort.

The fact that Toffee doesn't actually fight Marco, and has not been involved any of the battles since his debut gets more interesting when we find out he was a soldier and likely has been for much of his life.

In regards to his treatment of the other monsters, we don't see Toffee really interact with any of them besides Boo-fly whom he seemed to have a decent relationship with previously. I've seen people say that he praises Boo-fly and treats him well until they kick Ludo out and suddenly treats him like dirt once he's gotten what he wants, but I'd like to point out that Boo-fly keeps trying to pamper Toffee like he would have Ludo and Toffee makes it explicitly clear that they've already discussed that he doesn't want to be treated like Ludo so I chalk this up to a breach of personal boundaries rather than an example of Toffee’s manipulative nature.

This brings us to Star and Toffee's initial encounter. Toffee at first tries to be polite to her as he was with with Marco but was immediately blasted without even finishing his greeting. Toffee's plan seems to have actually been to try to her talk first with Marco as a mere bargaining chip, and threatening to harm Marco was his back up plan. Once again, this is hinging on the fact that he knows Star would trade the wand to him for his safety.

One last thing is that in retrospect we know Toffee's endgame is the destruction of Magic and his study of the wand means he likely knows that using the Whispering Spell was his way into the Realm of Magic. The last thing we see of Toffee in Season One is him telling the other monsters "It's been a pleasure-" before the Wand self destructs, so while I'm confident that Toffee knew he could get into the realm of Magic and was dismissing his "comrades" to carrying out the rest of his mission alone, I'm pretty sure he wasn't anticipating the wand would explode and endanger everyone.

Toffee doesn’t have an active in person presence in most of Season two, the clever viewer probably noticed right away that the bones making up Ludo’s wand and can infer that the voice speaking to Ludo through it is Toffee manipulating him once again. However, if someone were to start watching season 2 without the context of season one, the manipulation element gets lost and most of Ludo’s actions are exclusively his own, meaning that once again the things that happen to Ludo are a direct consequence of his own choices. Later when Toffee possesses him and speaks with Glossaryck, Toffee confirms that there he has a goal which he has been trying to lead Ludo toward with little success, but it’s pretty unclear what that goal ultimately is.

When Moon and the Magic High Commission arrive at the Monster Temple we see a first for the series: Toffee in active combat. Upon first viewing, with no context it’s a simple show down of Good (MHC) vs Evil (Toffee) in which we the audience are supposed to root for Moon and her team and feel a sense of helpless when they lose by a great landslide. However, once the series concludes and we know that the MHC were the final villains, suddenly the situation is swapped- Toffee is suddenly a martyr who was the first to stand up against the true villains of the series.

Even Star’s own revelation that “Toffee was right�� and decision to destroy magic herself falls short in comparison to Toffee’s original plan. Star- due to time constraints most likely but still a failing of the show’s final season- comes to her decision pretty suddenly with no consideration of the consequences of her actions beyond not being able to see Marco. Toffee’s plan was clearly years in the making, with plenty of time to weigh his options and consequences. And somehow, the way Toffee pulled off his plan to destroy magic did not result in the instantaneous death of all magical beings, their magic was simply slowly rendered useless, and they were put into stasis (not killed) by Toffee himself absorbing their magic.

Quick tangent Glossaryck himself is totally fine with his own death when Star meets him in the afterlife later and flat out says that stopping Toffee was ‘probably a mistake’ in later seasons. Glossaryck more or less confirms that he has been anticipating and even helping facilitate the end of magic for some time, and by saying that stopping Toffee was a mistake, he is admitting that it was his preference that Toffee be responsible- perhaps in attempt to spare us from Seasons 3 and 4.

Back on track- the Toffee situation becomes more muddy with the reveal that Toffee killed Moon’s mother; a devastating revelation for the show and the MoonToffee shippers, but ultimately something of a disappointment when all the build up leads to is two minute encounter, in which Moon, for some reason, decides not to kill Toffee with her Darkest Spell and instead just takes off his finger. I say for some reason because in the Magic Book of Spells and later in the series Moon claims she did it so that Eclipsa wouldn’t be freed for fear of her “evil”, but earlier in this same episode right after talking to Eclipsa, Moon herself said “She doesn’t seem that evil”. I feel like we missed a scene somewhere, but I digress.

Anyway the death of Moon’s mother is painted like it’s a sad thing, especially since she was about to sign a peace treaty with the monsters and this rebel Lizard just ruined every thing for everyone but there’s two things I can’t get over 1) again...Comet was really dismissive and insulting toward Seth so no wonder he wanted her dead 2) Archduke Batwin knew that one of his Generals, a Septarian nonetheless, took off with half his army and apparently decided that wasn’t anything to worry about.

Like, of course, I still feel really bad for Moon here, but REALLY?

Also, we only have Batwin’s word that Toffee was the one who did it, but Toffee himself never claims responsibility and doesn’t ever hold Comet’s murder over Moon so I can’t help wondering it this was even true. Pics or it didn’t happen.

Going back to Toffee and his actions in the present. Toffee doesn’t spend a lot of time actively possessing Ludo, as far as we see he only does so in order to communicate, first with Glossaryck and later Moon he doesn’t even come out to talk to River or Star. He communicates to Ludo through the wand, and I shake my head at Ludo for somehow being surprised that it’s Toffee talking to him, like buddy...How did you not know??? Once again, Ludo’s actions are mostly his own, we don’t know how much influence Toffee actually has over him during this point because we can’t hear what the wand is telling Ludo. Throwing the Spellbook into the fire was “All Ludo” so likewise, ‘levitato-ing’ River and all the peasants that defied him was likely all Ludo too, considering how little interest Toffee’s had in hurting anyone up to this point.

Finally we’re here at the final show down. Toffee’s endgame is still unclear to the heroes, as well as any first time viewers, but Star sets out to stop him (beep beep, this is the future calling to once again remind us that Glossaryck says this was a mistake). I can buy that Toffee is smarter than the average monster, he may even be smarter than the average Septarian, but to suggest that Toffee anticipated every move made by every character in the series and manipulated event to go perfectly to adhere to a plan that ends with Star trapped in the realm of magic with no escape is going a little far.

From observation of his previous actions and behaviors, Toffee’s probably spent weeks trying to get Ludo to do what he wants him to, but we still don’t have verbal confirmation of what that was, and be left shaking his head at Ludo’s stupidity. Star figuring out that he’s in the wands and following him in was also likely not part of his plan, but her doing so presented him with a great opportunity; a bargaining chip for his missing finger. Now, it’s never made clear whether Toffee actually needs his finger back to return to the real world or if he just wanted it. From a story telling perspective based on the rules we have seen about Septarian regeneration, there’s really no reason that Toffee would have needed his finger, seeing as he already regenerated his arm around the wand earlier, resulting in Ludo’s wand becoming embedded in his arm, if seems like this was just a matter of his pride.

But there’s no evidence that suggests that he was actually capable of bringing Star with him when he did, since he regenerated around Ludo and had to actually spit the poor birb out. How could Star have come back in that regard? Toffee was probably bluffing and straight up lying about being able to bring Star with him- leaving her behind and getting his finger back serves nicely for revenge for having his finger blasted off to begin with. Further more, once this is all done, Toffee has the perfect opportunity to kill Moon himself, but instead walks away.

Even when Moon chases and attacks him, Toffee does nothing but deflect her attacks and refused to engage her in combat, not even when she tries to cast the death spell on him again. He does react violently to Marco punching a hole in his chest, but once again with Moon all he does is incapacitate her and walk away. As far as he is concerned, they’re done.

Then Star revives herself and the show’s best story line comes to a rather disappointing end.

So in recap: what the series actually shows us of Toffee suggests that he’s a largely non violent man who uses it as a last resort and only against those who actually pose a threat to him, never on defenseless people and even when attacked first his main tactic is to disarm or incapacitate and arguably seems to go out of his way to try to hurt as few people as possible.

The people he does actually hurt are usually- with a few exceptions- guilty of some crime and even then Toffee mostly just waits for Karma to come back and bite them in the ass while taking advantage of the opportunities presented by his tolerance for idiots.

Unlike the heroes, Toffee is consistently shown to thoroughly think things through, and attempt to talk to his enemies as his first engagement with them. To be honest, his calm and polite nature actually makes him a much better role model than the impulsive and violence prone leads who barge into situations and very often lie or cover up certain truths from their families for the sole purpose of not spoiling their own fun.

The only time Toffee was actively violent on screen was against the MHC who turned out to be villains anyway. Even during the war, Daron Nefcy claims the skulls he wears came from the Butterfly court, not soldiers or civilians, so likely corrupt government officials directly benefiting from the suffering of Monsters and lower class Mewmans. We can even argue that Comet wasn’t the saint she was originally painted as considering how she speaks of and dismisses Seth and the rightful distrust he has of her and her intentions.

Through his on screen actions, we also see that Toffee is a martyr, he might be willing to step on a few people to get where he wants to be, but not everyone is expendable to him and when it comes down to it, Toffee does the dirty work of tainting the realm of magic himself rather than sacrificing anyone else to it, most likely due to his regenerative abilities assuring that he can come back while others he can’t guarantee.

There is one scene where Toffee actually acts like the violent psychopath he’s described as; and that’s in Meteora’s Lesson, in which...He’s a moody teenager that Glossaryck deliberately provoked with the intent of 'teaching him a lesson’ by way of causing him physical harm. Yikes Glossaryck, yikes

In conclusion; Toffee is definitely one of those ‘the hero of his own story’ type of villains, and arguably a better one than the heroes we’re supposed be rooting for.

#not shippy stuff #Toffee character analysis #long post #I thought about talking about this on twitter and decided it'd be better off on tumbr #because it'd be like 50 tweets #but I probably lowballed that estimate quite a bit this is very long #I love this fucking lizard

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sagesilentfire · 2 years ago

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Dumb question but what would have been bad about morningmark being into SU? I know he did some svtfoe shipping aus that caused issues in the fandom but not much else about him

It's not a dumb question; in fact thank you for asking because I want to talk about it. The reason why Morningmark could never do Steven Universe justice is that he flattens everything he touches. He can draw really well, he's good at jokes and heartwarming moments, and he can occasionally do good quick emotional gutpunches and what-ifs. Heck, he's pretty good at already-canon main ships and established chemistry. On occasion, he got me to tolerate Starco. And I'm not criticizing him as a person either, I'm sure he's lovely. But when it comes to character emotional complexity, especially the main villains, non-main protagonists, and characters who have endless potential in canon? He just... fundamentally misunderstands a lot of them. I guess the main problem comes down to him not willing to get... morally complex. I'll go through some examples so you can understand what I mean.

Like, the Collector knows they're evil in his comics. They know they're doing bad things. The whole point of the Collector is that they don't know what they're doing is wrong. They don't go out of their way to hurt people, except maybe Belos, they do it on accident, because when you have the mind of a child and the power of a god you are going to hurt people on accident and not understand why they are upset about it. Like if you took away their powers, they'd need to learn some empathy, but all kids do and you could easily see them being a good person in the future! And it adds depth! They're not one-dimensional, but Morningmark... doesn't see it.

And then my fave, Toffee. How does he act in Morningmark's comics? He's a flat, stereotypical, boring, and above all unintelligent supervillain with barely any of the hints of depth that canon gave him. And canon didn't bother giving him much, so you know I'm saying something. Like. In the Ship War comic, when Toffee spills his tragic backstory at Moon’s request – Toffee spills his traumatic emotions at Moon’s request, someone he should have no interest in humoring because he has never cared if the Butterflys think he's justified ever – and it turns out his traumatic past that was so heavily hinted and discussed was that his army was going to fight alongside the Mewmans but they went back on their deal and killed all of them instead. And it's not that bad in a vacuum but. Like. In the show, in canon, every single monster on Mewni is and was, by the point Morningmark was writing that comic in, implied to be the victim of actual senseless, colonizing genocide, and the best backstory that you could come up with for this fascinating character with so much potential is that he was going to fight against his people all along, until Mewmans did something to him, specifically? I guess it makes blowing him up more justified than the incredibly obvious alternative, I guess. Have to make the protagonists as morally pure as possible. And then, to add insult to injury, he punches his way through Mewni, and then loses to the starco fanchild... outsmarting him. Toffee, who is defined by his careful plans, lack of physical abilities, and not fricking punching his way to the top loses to a child because she outsmarted him. Did we watch the same show? I guess you could make a case for him losing when he stopped carefully planning and started blasting, but that's really weak when there's no reason for him to stop in the first place.

And Belos. Oh my god Belos. Gone is the vicious, convining, and manipulative villain who so desperately thinks he's the good guy we all know and love. Instead he's loud, stupid, and so, so obvious. He cackles evilly. He tells Hunter he never loved him to his face. He doesn’t care about his twisted moral righteousness at all. He's even less hate-able than canon, because he is so obviously bad at what he's trying to do! He's just... pathetic! Like, the coffee shop AU comic. A real, canon-based Belos would never talk about his evil plans where Hunter could potentially hear him. Ever. Morningmark doesn't even add a creepy human child Collector for him to monologue to, he just says his evil plans to the air. (And his evil plans are not based on that fascinating cocktail of bigotry that motivates him in canon, they're just generic "i want money bc evul." not remotely interesting. I've read countless coffee shop AUs with motivations that make sense with the characters even in the more chill setting.) He's stupid. The whole point of Hollow Mind in canon is that he's totally in control until Luz and Hunter start working together. He sets Hunter up to fail because he's not too hung up about losing yet another grimwalker and cares slightly more about Luz understanding him, not because he's being dumb in public. Or the recent one where Belos turns himself into a pure human in front of the Gang. Belos is not that stupid. He plots. He plans. He knows when to hide and lick his wounds and wait to plot his return. He waited four hundred years to kill all the witches, you're telling me he couldn't wait twenty minutes to flee to safety? Belos does not need to be stupid to be evil and a bigot, you can be very smart and also evil and a bigot, and Morningmark does not understand that. You can find humor in that bigotry too without making someone stupid. Again, funny in vacuum but takes the least nuanced approach and is blatantly out of character.

And it's not just villains either. This is also a problem with main characters. He adamantly refuses to acknowledge Belos's abuse of Hunter and the effect that it has on the kid in any way but the most surface-level lip service. For instance, the tooth gap in the recent comic. It's not the sad and interesting reason of Belos, it's the haha funni Willow accidentally hit him with a crate lol. His need for validation? We can just joke that he hasn't gotten a compliment in a while, not that Belos actively fostered that in him and his need for validation is actually really sad. Haha, the abused kid is fishing for compliments, how funny. And like, Hunter doesn't not take off his gloves because he's got chronic pain or they comfort him or they're something he can hold on to or anything interesting, it's because he's ashamed of some scars! And no, not scars he got because Belos thought a mission was a failure or made Hunter think the mission was a failure, it was because... the mission actually was a failure! It went terribly and Hunter had to learn Responsibility and the dangers of overconfidence and Belos isn't even implied. Not even by Willow, who could mention how that attitude was probably something put there by someone else, and he shouldn't trust it. No, he just shouldn't be down on himself, and he should be proud of his scars because he got them saving people, and... ugh. Like, if he had failed to save someone during that mission, would the attitude that he should learn Responsibility be reasonable? Belos certainly wouldn't have abused him less if it was. Those kinds of internalized toxic mindsets need to be challenged in real life, which is why sending Hunter to therapy is such a popular theme.

I could go on. He thinks Boscha is interesting and worth anyone's time, he pulled an out of character pair-the-spares that needed a season's worth of completely new content pulled from nothing to work, and Eclipsa can be one-dimensionally out for revenge in that one AU because that doesn't go against the whole point of her character (hint: a tragic backstory does not a multi-dimensional character make) and Mina can totally make friends with a monster girl accidentally, that makes sense, Mina and Solaria are totally redeemable, and Toffee isn't. Because the writers of svtfoe thought that, so we have to get it shoved down our throats by him now too. Anyways.

Basically, when given an interesting option and a conventional, cheaply funny option, Morningmark always takes the conventional route. He flattens the villains to make them haha funnier and morez evul, but only thing he really succeeds in making them more pathetic and the conflict less interesting, because why are the protagonists ever challenged by these idiots? It's so immature. Morningmark is so afraid of making the conflict less than black-and-white and the protagonists not in the wrong that he makes these children's shows far less mature than they are. Even his recent attempts at gray morality fall flat, as they seem like things the characters would never do. Like the comic where Luz gets petrified so Amity traps the Collector in the human world falls flat because we know Amity would never do that, she knows Luz has loved ones in the human world (Reaching Out anyone???) and barring that, she's smart and the Collector is a dumb kid, we know this, we all know she could trick them into hunting down Belos with less casualties and find a solution that's better than that. It just feels shallow. All his work feels shallow. And this black-and-white morality would've been a death sentence to any attempt at Steven Universe.

Steven Universe is all about those shades of gray, about the complexities of human (and gem) morality. Where the Diamonds can be people who fundamentally want to do good by the world but have blinded themselves to how to make it happen, with truly devastating consequences. Where Bismuth has a point and Andy and Lars are good people at heart and Rose, god Rose, she did good and terrible things at the same time. Where even Steven can do horrible things because our all-loving protagonist is not immune to trauma and a fear of change. Say what you will about it being rushed, but it really did nail a sense of no true evil (except maybe Bluebird. Morningmark could totally pull off Bluebird). If Morningmark were interested in SU Steven would be totally comfortable around the Diamonds and Spinel because they're redeemed and/or have a tragic backstory so it's fine! Bismuth would be one-dimensionally evil or her conflict with Rose would be played for laughs constantly. Andy would be mean and never change, Lars would be mean up until his heart-to-heart with Steven aired, where he would suddenly be a cringey lovable dork and nothing else. Rose would be centered around Pearl's feelings for her or reduced to jokes about almost slipping up and her identity being revealed, like she didn't totally abandon the Pink label as soon as she could. Steven would be totally fine and the harm he did emotionally resolved because he's the good guy, and we always need to like the good guy. There would maybe be a joke about Steven causing property damage and that's it.

And that doesn't have to be a bad thing, if these jokes weren't the end-all of Morningmark's art. Plenty of artists do joke comics that I love but don't do A Thing about. I think it's the fact that these problems with character are a. Constant, b. Appear even when he's trying to be dramatic, and c. Don't fit his art style. (And d. Happen to characters I care about and have Only Correct Opinions on, but that's obvious) And by "don't fit his art style", let me explain. See, most of the other haha funny comics I like don't have polished, clean color art styles. They look like they're supposed to be cheap jokes. They're not pretending to be anything else. But Morningmark's comics are clean, colored, and polished. They look professional and important, not like the cheap jokes they are. Which is the problem. This is one of the rare cases where less effort would actually help get the point across, and free up more time to throw things at the wall as a bonus. His jokes are funny and unnaturally high-quality cheap jokes, but they're still cheap jokes. People, including him, should treat them like it.

or maybe i just don't trust someone who has never once made a "belos vs the modern world" joke. why isnt belos getting hit by a car. why isnt he seeing a gay couple in public and dying of a heart attack. why isnt he drinking a macdonalds sprite and catching on fire because of the spiciness. why.

#trying not to make this A Whole Ordeal but his stuff is everywhere and I have Feelings #svtfoe #star vs the forces of evil #the owl house #toh spoilers #toffee of septarsis #steven universe #analysis #review #art review #fanart #morningmark #queue queue #svtfoe critical #kinda

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popculturebuffet · 3 years ago

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Prince of Wishful Thinking Tom Lucitor Retrospective: Divide and Conquer

In Loving Memory Of Jessica Walter

1941-2021

Hello all you happy people, and welcome back to Prince of Wishful Thinking, my look at the life and times of Tom Lucitor by going through every episode featuring my boy. And at long last we’ve come to the end of Season 3 and our interwoven look at the Meteora arc with the two part season finale, Divide and Conquer.

As for why it’s taken me several months to get back.... (points to the in memoriam up top). That’s the primary reason: This review was originally set for May, but I pushed it back to July, as I wasn’t nearly emotionally ready to cover an episode where Jessica’s character dies in a very heartbreaking and brutal manner and I suspected my audience wouldn’t be either. It then got pushed back an additional month or two because I overpacked my scheduled and thus had to pritoize things that were either paid for (via comissions which are open, and patreon ) or time sensitive, and didn’t want to try and rush a review that had this much analysis in it. IT’s things like this why i’m down to just four reviews a week: I wasn’t getting five done and i’d rather projects come out slower than not at all.

So now the time’s finally here, i’m pumped. While it was fully my choice, to better cover this very episode, adding the Meteora arc to thinks balloned the project to longer than expected and I still have decent stretch of road left. though a season filled with missed opportunites, wasted plots and ending depressingly for the boy and for pretty much everyone else but starco and Eclipsa’s family, only the latter of which actually deserves it. And if your curious why yes I will be covering the season 4 arc at some point, but given both how long this one’s taken and how much I have planned for next year there will be a break first.

For now there’s only two episodes left of the season, two of the series best episodes. So it was only fitting I brought along my wonderful friend, sometimes consultant, and mistress of all things star vs the forces of evil @jess-the-vampire to watch this with me as part of our weekly movie night, providing her usual incredibly helpful dollop of insight and snark. I’m also convinced she converted her entire body to salt because there was a lot rightfully thrown around, and a lot of praise too. But was the overall product good? Will the series promote a poly ship they have no intentions for? Will they not kill tad despite all of us wanting it? All excellent questions waiting under the cut!:

So since i’ts been a few months,

PREVIOUSLY ON STAR VS

Tom spent the season slowly becoming a better person, going from not knowing how to be nice, to trying to have his soul taken, to being an instesntive dick about Star’s politics and the plight of monsters, slowly growing into a charming, repentent young man and a true hero.

So the show naturally decided NOW, rather than when Star was single not 8 episodes ago, was the time to have Star and Marco finally resolve their romantic tension with a kiss, then both deeply regret it because Star’s with tom and Marco wants to be with tom is his best friend. Oh and just to make it so not even the shippers who want tom to die in a walrus stampeded so Starco can happen could be happy with this, said kiss was coerceed by a little goblin man who locked them in a booth so he could force two teenagers into a situation where they’d make out.

To the show’s credit, what I can give, both were shellshocked and didn’t have a chance to break it to Tom before shit hit the fan.

Yes twice in a row as after an episode with Pony and a Korean Soap Opera, Moon and Eclipsa went hunting for Meteora, who had gained a new soul sucking power.

Yeah they never explained this and never will but it makes her big and strong so fair enough. Eclispa tried talking her down but Moon’s own inherent racisim an dimpatience caused a fight and nearly ended in Meteora’s death with Eclipsa stopping moon.. and accidently wounding her in the process. Moon ended up portaling away , Meteora left and here we are: Moon’s gone, Meteroa’s only getting stronger, and Eclipsa is left devistated and alone. So SURELY Star will make it bettter for her after Eclipsa tells he everything right?

Nope instead it’s the dungeon for her. Mind you I get it, as this episode will lean into she’s in very bad place emotionally and given Star dosen’t think clearly on a GOOD day and this is a “lost her mother, had the crown dumped on her, and has a kaiju coming to rip everyone she loves asunder”, this is less of a bad day and more of a

day... so I can forgive her for not being 100% on her best all the time when her world’s crashing down around her, not helped by EVERYONE leaning on her to make decisions as Queen, with star emphasising “acting queen” as if that makes her any less responsible.

It’s both a parallel to the same pressures that turned Moon into what she is, and the cumilation of three seasons of build up. Star’s terror at her seemingly inevitible future has been part of her character since day one, her rebliious nature in at least some part coming from the fact Moon put way too much pressure on her teenage daughter. Now granted as we’ve seen with Tom putting NO pressure on your child who’s destine to inheit a country isn’t good either: by not pushing Tom to prepare at all for what he’ll be, he ended up a sheltered entitlted mess who had trouble interacting with people on more than a surface level. But Moon went too far in the other direction: constnatly badgering her daughter about proper etiquuite nad bullshit that HONESTLY dosen’t matter to how good a ruler star is and later sending her daughter into a mental breakdown with describing how restraining being queen is. To moon it’s just who she is but to star it’s a cage... a cage that nearly made her do a violence on a mermaid. Now with that incident it’s also Tom’s fault as part of his gaslighting, but the diffrence is, and it’s very hard to spot TOM IS A TEENAGER WITH SEVERE EMOTIONAL ISSUES. Tom was simply trying to nudge Star into marrying him and geninely apologized. Moon.. never seemed to realize she did ANYTHING wrong.

Star slowly accepted it on some level though, seeing she could try and change systematic racisim on mewni in a way her mother clearly would never do. Buff Frog outright said he’d comeback if she took over. The series had been building to it for this long and this is finally it.

Naturally even if she’s gotten better though.. she still dosen’t WANT the roll and all Star can think about is finding her mom. And while she is being selfish, bigger issues to worry about you have to remember again that this is a 15 year old kid being given no time to process what’s going on. It’s not helped by Moon having clearly been such a control freak she tightly managed everything.. something Star REALLY dosen’t have time for right now and on one seems to get. She lost her mom, was thrust into a role she didn’t want and now has to both find her mom, AND run the kingdom, AND save it somehow without half their usual resources, and with Marco, uch as he tries to be supportive, trying to get her to see that going after her mom simply isn’t the way to fix this. But despite all Moon’s done.. she’s still star’s mom and she can’t see past it or her own fear of becoming her mother if Moon dosen’t take the crown back so she makes mistakes.

Still she has a war room to attend... with the commison deciding to sit in as always. Star angrily asks what they think their doing here.... you know given this entire situation is directly their fault for imprisoning metora’s parents, letting the angry former husband of the queen decide what to do with her, and then clearly not having kept one iota of tabs on her since then. Not only that but since this whole situation was outed and it was clear Meteora was on a rampage they’ve done NOTHING to actually try and go out and stop her, and when confronted by star Hekapoo just says “Councling you?”

They’ve learned NOTHING from what they’ve done and Star rightfully tosses them out. And rightfully so: While they COULD be of use it’s very clear just by actions alone they’ve learned nothing. THEY caused this, all of it, and Mewni is in danger because of them, lives were ruined and they do not care. If they were contrite, if they truly cared about anything but their own power and egos, then Star would’ve been wrong for throwing them out and not giving them a second chance. But they don’t. It’s also VERY telling that only ONE of them actually bothers to help later and i’ts clear it’s more because Hekapoo likes Marco as a person more than because she actually cares who lives or dies.

This also brings me to a fun counting gag for this review: The Wasted Plots count. Things that the series either didn’t follow up on or BARELY touched and thus didn’t do so properly. So our first two up are not having the comission as the main villians of season 4: their responsible for a lot of Mewni’s bloody history, didn’t help in it’s hour of need and their desire to control the coutnry against it’s rightful ruler’s wishes could’ve been great. Mina still coudl’ve been around as the heavy for them, but it’s weird they just never got properly dealt with. I mean they die at the end but i’ts more a neat consequence of Star’s genocidal temper tantrum than any dramatic payoff

The other is that Omnitraxus.. has lost his empathy. He was the one who confessed, the one who felt sorry, the one woh truly seemd reptentant.. and it just vanishes here. From here on out he’s just a grumpy jackass who thinks the worst of eclipisa for no reason. He’s at odds with star and eclipsa from ehre on out because they coudln’t be bothered to write a complex motive because it’s not what they remotely cared about. So that’s two

Wasted Plots Count: 2

The rest of the meeting only goes slightly better: The Knights have no real working plans while one condescends to star which earns him a rightful blast across the room, and they did try sending mina.. but she comes back a husk.

So... after setting up Mina as this big brolly style threat, whose DETERMINED to stop meteora instead of following that up, giving us a cool fight scene, having mina turn out to be the real villian or at least have an enemy mine with star against her... you just.. have her sucked dry. And she’s supposed to be big bad next season after getting easily jobbed out OFFFSCREEN to this season’s big bad. And you thought everybody would be on board with that

Wasted Plots: 3

So Star’s out of time, out of options and out of patience and goes out into the hall, running into her dad. Naturally given the state she’s in she begs him to take charge but he dosen’t. He gives her a good reason to: while he’s good at parties at what not he’s just not good at ruling like Moon was, and much like everyone else he’s lost with her gone. He does give her the one thing he can though: his full support. Which in a LOT of situations would come across as a hollow gesture of an asshole foistering too much responblity on a stressed out teenager. Here though.. it’s him being honest. In a parallel of what happened with moon decades ago, he’s giving the stressed out queen the one thing she hasn’t gotten, and the one thing she’s badly needed: someone to say “I trust your judgment , you can do this, and whatever you do I will be behind you.”. And like those decades ago it makes the diffrence. While this dosen’t SOLVE Star’s meltdown, she stil goes back to her room to understandably mope in private, it’s clearly the first time anyone in the castle has been able to actually make her smile or give the poor girl hope since moon left. Before I move on credit to Jess for noticing the parallel, I missed it the first time and only got it the second time thanks to her.

I’d also like to say River.. is such a great character. Easily one of the series best, intitally introduced as what seemed to be your standard sitcom dad, if the parent star clearly got most of her personality from and liked better. Instead he proved to be a loving partner, a good father whose far smarter than he appears and a hell of a warrior. I honestly feel he desreved to actually get a reaction to the events of the finale and i’m still mad he didn’t. But.. that’s a story for another day.

For now Star is panicking, only getting relief once again because Larvbo comes in, the laundry knight guy who was the only good part of that terrible episode what where marco comes back, everyone but Eclipsa and Moon have lost hteir brain cells, and I die a little on the inside. But here he gets to be in a good episode and the simple act of picking out a bunch of outfits for star instead of pressing her for a choice and giving her plenty of options.

Star eventually has a eureka moment though: her mom disappeared into magic.. so Maybe she’s in the realm of magic. As a refresher the Realm of Magic is the source of all magic and the place where all those unicorns, and as Jess coudln’t help pointing out lizards and jellyfish, are.. .and all of whom star eventually kills directly or indrecitly, something Jess couldn't stop pointing out, and couldn’t stop making me laugh as a result.

Thing is SOMEONE needs to hold Meteora.. so Marco volunteers. This leads to one of the best fights in the entire show.. but starts with something confusing as Marco ONCE AGAIN says he has 40 years of experince. Yeah I think nows’ a good time to put on the breaks, and talk about the whole neverzone thing.

See the idea of the Neverzone was a bit dicey: having marco age 40 years and apparently remember it, meant that he was basically an adult.. and in a show where he had four diffrent possible love intrests, all the same age, that was a problem, especially since it did nothing to stop his relationship with Jackie. Now hard as it might be to belivie it was actually settled during season 2: In the remaining episodes in that season, Marco didn’t really act on his new abilities, and one of those weird live q+a’s where they used a limtited animation version of the characters to answer questions (thoguh using the voice actors) they had a perfect solution for this: It was like a distant childhood memory. This even accounted for Marco later having some memories of the NeverZone and having his skills: while they were distant, he could likely recall bits and pieces, and as for the skills the muscle memory was likely still razor sharp, and is something he could simply practice. He didn’t have to remember HOW he learned some form of neverzonan combat to remember it, just the steps to do so.

The problem is season 3 frequently implied Marco FULLY remembered everything that happened to him in this form. That meant Marco was for all intensive pruproses a 56 year old man dating high schoolers. A thing they JUST fixed and could’ve easily woven into the actual episodes.

There was a LOT of potetial that could be mined from either scenario.. but they instead kept it vauge and annoyed the hell out of everyone as there was no real answer to if they should stop shipping or not. Also this certainly counts for

Wasted Plots:4

As the idea marco was loosign these ablities or his longing to be his older self was a good idea and while the latter was touched upon in the portal episode this season, it wasn’t ever again. So it counts.

So yeah putting Marco vaugely being a pedophile aside, the kind of sentence that makes me regret my job for a second till I remember “Oh yeah I got to write about Goofy doing an exorcism yesterday what am I complaining about, the fight itself is spectacular, showing just how far both our heroes have come in 3 seasons. For Star it not only shows off her full range of spells, both invented classics like an upgraded version of the narhwal blast, a kitten shower, and of course spider with a top hat blast, it also shows how she’s changed as a person: while her style is still all about power and strength, instead of just blindly charging in each attack is designed to try and knock Marco off his guard and hit him while his guard is down in a specific way. Meanwhile with Marco he’s gone from Daniel Larusso about halfway into his training, to a full on master the present day , full on Sensei LaRusso would have trouble with, countering every attack of stars with expert timing and with whatever weapons he can grab off her wall. The fight is quick, brutal and ends in a draw, showing the two have stayed equals but have become MASSIVELY more powerful.. and that Marco is capable of stalling meteora.

So it’s here our two heroes depart into seperate subplots. As such i’ll be doing each one separately and then dovetailing back together for the climax.

Magical Bonding Time with your Naked Mother:

So star heads into the realm of magic. She’s prepared for the amnesia thing this time with a compact reminder telling her “you are star butterfly”, and having brough plenty of backups, traversing through this majestic and storied land she’s going to blow up real good in a season.

She runs into unicorns, other creatures that will die soon.. and most troublilingly one bathed in black magic. This ends up being a clue though as it turns out the pure magic flowing throughout the place washed off Moon’s magic... and corrupted the rest of the magic even though if it can wash it off that makes no sense, but the more I think about season 4 the more I get closer to have an ulcer so let’s not dwell on this kay?

So Star finds her mom... nude.. and using her own hair as clothes...

Yeah I don’t get who approved of this either. Point is Star TRIES to job Moon’s memory, slowly fails.. and then slowly looses hers, ending part one frolicing with her naked mother, a sentence I REALLY hope I never have to say ever again, as Marco desperatley calls for help.

As part to begins the two just sorta.. wonder around magically high and braindead for a while, though it does bring up something intrestnig: the fact the realm of magic zig zags into every other kingdom and seemingly every other type of magic... despite the fact Daron says other magic types are fine....and they ONLY use this for the finale and no time before that despite being an interesting idea and something Star MIGHT be curious about. Just saying.

Wasted Plots: 5

Eventually though the Unicorn in charge just.. zaps both back to Mewni. That’s it that’s all the climax for ten minutes of screentime. This plot isn’t TERRIBLE, I just felt we probably didn’t need most of what we get of it in part 2 as it starts to drag by then compared to Marco slowly loosing badly on the other side. Speaking of which.

The Marknificent 7

So with the fate of Mewni , Marco has to assemble his best team. His avengers, his justice league, his justice society, his fantastic four, his x-men, his x-force, his x-factor, his new mutants, his maruaders, his hellions, his legionaries, his legion of superheroes, his legion of substitue heroes, his teen titans, his team titans, his titans, his justice society, his all star squadron, his agents of wakanda, his extreme justice, his young justice, his old justice, , his inferior five, his robonic stooges, his freedom fighters, his arctic freedom fighters, his downunda freedom fighters, his forty fathoms freedom fighters, his secret freedom fighters, his secret avengers, his mighty avengers, his uncanny avengers, his defenders, his champions, his squadron supreme, his strikeforce, his skrull kill krew, his spirits of vengance, his gotham knights, his birds of prey, his web warriors his justice league international, his justice league europe, his runaways, his redeemers, his young avengers, his thunderbolts, his suicide squad, his teen angels his...

Oh thank god. Point is this is his superteam assembled of the finest people.. whose numbers he has: Kelly, Jorby, Talon, Hekapoo, Ponyhead, Tom and Himself, the Marknificent seven.

Breaking this team down itself, in case it wasn’t obvious I’m a bit of a fan of super teams: the picks are MOSTLY good: Kelly is his love intrest/one of his closest friends, Jorby is her closest friend, mount and one of the series most underutilized characters. Seriously after seeing his personal life in Lava Lake Beach I want to know this guy.. and do mushrooms with him. What is he like? Why is he dating a seemingly non anthromphic goose? how do they do stuff? Okay I don’t want answers to that last one but point is I want to know this guy.

Talon is a good addition as he didn’t get much real fleshing out in his debute, but here gets to be a grizzzly goofus who insists on group photos and shades for everyone. We also needed more of him and at least got ONE more proper episode with him. Tom is an obvious choice as tom’s best friend, one of his love intrests, and damn powerful.

The only questionable additions are Ponyhead and Hekapoo.. For ponyhead.. there’s only one way to put it she’s...

She is able to put stuff on her horn now so.. progress? I dunno. But she’s SOMEHOW not the most questionable member of the team.. which given who we’re talking about, is a TRIUMPH.

It’s also because the most questionable member is a fucking war criminal who staged a cou, ruined a baby’s life and out of all her collegue’s has been the biggest dick about it. It’s Hekapoo. And look in this one episode.. it’s forgivable: Given her mental state and tendency to avoid issues for as long as possible till they blow up in her face, it’s likely Star simply hadn’t told Marco the whole truth yet, and likely didn’t know how, knowing it’d cost him a friend and not really ready to face it.

The problem is later on. This issue is NEVER adressed, as we’ll see later in this very retrospective Marco still hangs out with her casually, and it makes him come off VERY badly to be hanging out with a sociopath casually knowing the horrible things she’s done. It dosen’t impact this episode.. but it really should’ve. Marco SHOULD’VE found out what she did mid battle and that easily coudlv’e provided the perfect reason for the plan to fail. Instead of what we get which is the plan being stupid. Instead it just NEVER gets explalined and it’s subtextual that Marco hangs out with someone he finds attractive despite them being one of the worst monsters (metaphorically) in mewman history.

Wasted Plots: 6

So about that stupid plan: Marco’s plan is the doomnut, basically creating a giant donut with a pit in the center and a giant pillar of flames to trap her.

He.. he wants to trap a juggernaut the size of a buildling.. with fire. Is she.. is she frankenstien now? This plan makes no sense and Marco is smarter than this. Don’t get me wrong he’s a dumbass a LOT of the time, especially this season, but he CAN actually come up with good tactical plans. This is not one of them. Tom hypes them all up to do it though when Marco’s inspriational speech fails, and they get to work.

We then get a REALLY great scene and one of the two that truly makes this finale VITAL to covering tom’s character. As tom gets dressed in prince Zuko cosplay, because why not, and I do agree with Jess this is a damn awesome outfit. My faviorite will ALWAYS be tom in a suit, but damn if samurai zuko tom dosen’t look dope. But Tom also has a heart to heart with marco, bringing up every shitty thing he’s done to the guy: the blood moon ball, the roulette wheel of death, beating his ass at ping pont, the mackie hand tickets, naysaya, the monster arm... which Marco then has to point out wasn’t him. Which, fair to Tom, that DOES sound like something Season 1 Tom would do. The point is Tom realizes he hasn’t exactly been the best person, or best friend, to marco over the years, and wants the guy to know he’s sorry, he has his back, and wants to kiss his face... okay the last parts’ implied. Look it is telling when these two have WAY better chemistry with each other than with star. Either of them. I see why Jess has that hidden mural in her basement next to the antilion and my betamax copy of weekend at burnies. Look I need to keep that shit safe as humanly possible and that basement is a fortress.

So the trap is sprung as Marco uses the best bait they have: Princess Turdina, putting on the dress again. And while this dosen’t really impact the plot the fact they just sorta had marco dump the identity and clearly state he wasn’t a girl in any way shape or form, especially when so many trans viewers identified with him, so it’s nice ot see it back. Also

Wasted Plots: 7

The plan goes off with several hitches as Marco uses Nachos as his ride.. only for the sentient being to somehow flood, thus making it so he gets a slow start and Meteora is able to soul suck him with that power that never gets explained, was pulled straight out of the writers collective rectums, and is op as hell. Also it never getting explalined

Wasted Plots: 8

Kelly and Jorby are able to save him.. but at the cost of Jorby. Also if Nachos was in the group dosen’t tha tmake it 8? Questions for later point is they get her in the pit.. and she easily puts the fire out with tail shockwaves.

So yeah Marco and friends are fucked, down two people, and flee for their lives as we end part 1.

Part 2 opens up with them hiding.. and everyone but Marco and Tom deciding to quit and flee to the nearest pub til this blows over.

Okay so taking them down one by one: Kelly is written out of character as all hell. While she can be flighty she DOES genuinely care about Marco and is implied all this season, and confirmed next season, to have a crush on him. It makes ZERO sense, especially after meteora killed her best friend, that she’d want to just up and bounce with Marco and danger and Jorby’s blood on the one endangering him’s hands.

The other three do make sense: Talon didn’t sign up for this, the plan he did sign up for failed, so while it’s a dick move it’s in character to bounce and given how easily he folds in a second, I can’t stay mad at him. Pony.... well that’s easy.

Hekapoo, unsuprisingly though is STILL the worst wanting to flee and not only leave a child she’s friends with, and in his future life has an implied relationship with, to die to a monster SHE IS FULLY RESPONSIBLE FOR CREATING. Meteora would nto be rampaging and probably would’ve been a good queen had you, crystal himbo, ba ba baaastard, and the doucheist cloud in existance not DIRECTLY CAUSED THIS. This. is. your. fault!

Thankfully Tom turns things around, calling them out and pointing out they don’t follow marco because he has good plans, they follow him because they like him, because he’s marco: he’s too stupid, too noble to give up and he’ll keep going tillt hey win and he WILL win because he’s Marco. Somehow it works, mostly because like Tom, Kelly wants to make out iwth him, Hekapoo figures why not, Ponyhead is a sucker for speechs and Talon... is sold once Marco agrees to the photo, the last of which I consider to be the best gag in the two parter.

So it’s on to Plan B, which is an actually GODO plan: Hekapoo gets Meteora’s attention, not hard given again THIS IS ALL HER FAULT. And if I sound like a record it’s only becasue the episode NEVER brings this up, and it’s infuriating. Anyways Meteora takes the bait.. only for marco to put his bloomers over her eyes.

Meanwhile Tom has been AWESOMELY using a GIANT FLAMING AXE TO CUT DOWN TREES FOR THEIR TRAP. THey then wrap her in the trees, seemingly beating her, only for her to roll off before they can take her back to the castle. Thankfully Tom improvises and simply opens a craggy pit to hell, let’s her go in then seals it.

So the day is saved.. for a bout a minute. Meteora claws her way back up, rips off the bloomers and takes out Talon, then pony and quickly gets an escaping Hekapoo.

More actually troubling is whose next: Kelly. One of Meteora’s attacks rips off part of her hair.. revealing Tad. Because apparently douchiness runs on equilvent exchange and with Hekpaoo and pony down, someone had to fill the void.

I LIKED tad: the twist with him and Kelly being some weird symboitic being at first was hilarous, and his apparance with Marco in Lava Lake Beach was fine. But they HAD to keep bringing him back and not only were his returns not funny he’s just.. a creep. He won’t leave Kelly alone, refuses to move out, stalks her, and last time we saw him questioned her on hvaing a crush on marco which is none of his buisness. This time he fakes his own death to read her a photo, refuses to move out, and Kelly eventually gets fed up and gives him a dressing down telling him to “Go live in the woods tad, go live int he woods” Maybe some deadites will get him there... eventually. I know we have one more episode but I like to think he found the necronomicon after that and nature took it’s corse. It’s the only way I sleep at night.

So yeah everybody’s dead dave, and Tom and Marco are left hiding> So Marco does the only plan he has left.. he’s going to go out there and sacrifice himself, hopeing Meteora toys with him long enough over their history so Tom has time to warn star. Tom, being the goodest boy and the purest of heart after his character development, naturally wants NONE of that, so Marco pulls the one trump card he has left, the ONE thing he thinks will guarantee his best friend will abandon him for his own sake and for star’s sake: He tells Tom he kissed star. And the pure devastation on that poor demon’s face shows that he gets it’s true and seemingly bolts.

This one act to me.. is one of the best Marco moments in the entire series, and helps make up for a series of terrible decisions including the one that brought us to this one: his mildly predatory and terrible act of kissing star. He intitated, he went for it, and he didn’t try anything else. it was a douchey, scummy, creepy thing to do... but it was clear from seconds later he regretted it, and it was clear from the earlier scene he felt nothing but guilt. Not about getting caught, not about not being with star, he just felt bad he hurt his best friend this deeply for his own satisfaction and BADLY wanted to tell him.. but couldn’t. Their lives were abotu to be at stake. He couldn’t risk putting everyone else at risk just to ease his own concnsionse. I feel fully from this act and from the way he acts during this two parter that Marco would’ve told tom as soon as things were better. But he choose to tell him now. Not to aleivatie his concionous, not to redeem himself, not for the glory of a bit sacrifice.. but because it was the right thing to do. Tom is stronger than him, can fly and could be there quicker. Marco probably woudln’t of made the journey but Tom, Tom can and tom HAS TO if Star is to have any chance. And Tom being just as noble would not leave him. Marco had to do SOMETHING to get the love of his life to save the other love of his life even fi it meant destroying him. Him telling tom is not an easy thing, and in these circumstances? Telling tom when he might DIE knowing this horrible thing and die in pain and heartbreak? It’s something no one would wish on someone they care about.. but Marco HAD to. After way too long a season of being selfihs, of putting his needs before everyone elses, of being all about marco... he puts everyone elses above him to save those he cares about. He does the hard thing to save a life.

So Marco accepts his fate but unfortunately, Meteora’s just.. stopped carring about him. Star is the only thing standing between her and the crown and while kiling Marco is fine.. i’ts no longer her life’s purpose like it once was. So she dosen’t bother taking forever reveling in it, she just tries to kill him... and Tom gets in the way, taking the shot for him.

This is easily Tom’s finest hour. While he flies in telling marco “i’m calling your bluff”... it’s very clear he’s at best lying to himself: Tom knows deep down Marco wouldn’t lie to him about that, even to save his life.. and that let’s face it with the smooch buddies thing and Tom’s eyes not clouded by jealousy anymore, tom knows his boy can’t lie. But he went back anyway. Because he loves marco, because marco’s his friend.. and because like Marco trying to shoo tom away.. it was the right thing to do. No matter how bad Marco wanted to sacrifice himself.... Tom can’t let him do that. It’s not what Star would wnat and more importantly it’s not where he wants.

It’s the culmination of 3 seasons worth of character development: Tom started as an entitled creep, an asshole who DEMANDED star’s love instead of trying to earn it, and refused to see why she left him: his anger, his arrogance, his need for control. She had every reason to walk out on him and he couldn’t see it. All he could do was blame Marco because SOMEONE had to be responsible for STar breaking up with him and it couldn’t be Tom himself.

And it was marco that broke that: Marco who got tom to see that trying to dominate star and make her do what he wants.. isn’t healthy and isn’t who she is. Star is a person who does what she wants.. and that’s what he loved about her. You can’t love somebody for being free then try to cage them. So Tom... finally let her go. Sure his next interaction with marco was a scam.. but hte geninely bonded with the guy, letting go of his hatred and finally finding a friend.

And with that... Tom slowly changed: After the song he realized he was never getting star back for good.. but was still inspired by her wanting to be a better princess by trying to be a better him. Sure he stumbled: ignored her instead of apologizing to her, nearly caused a war, tried to yank his soul out instead of actually trying to change, but every step was for himself, and not to win her back... and because of that he got her back anyway, the reasons she left him in the first place melted away.

Tom still had bumps: he had to learn empathy, just HOW bad monsters had it and to accept he was one of them, only insulated from it because he was rich.. and even then not entirely. He realized deep down that he had still gotten his share of funny looks and fear just for being waht he was, and not helping the other monsters get it was horrible.. and thus got why Star spent her time on it. T

By this time Tom’s evolved from a spoiled brat to a true, purehearted hero... and it’s all come down to this. The Old Tom, he would’ve left marco to die and laughed about it. This tom...leaps in front of a psychotic demon to save a Marco who geninely hrut him, who tom would have EVERY REASON to want to abandon.. but can’t because that’s not who he is. He’s Thomas Draconius Luciotr, he’s a good person... nad no matter what his best friend’s done, Marco dosen’t die if he can help it.

Tom does have good logic too: he has a LOT of souls so he’s the natural weakness to metora’s ablitiy: she can keep absobring and abosrbing, but he cna’t be rendered a husk from it. Unforunately this has a natural side effect: every soul just makes her stronger. The two are seemingly doomed.. just as Star Awakes.

The Right Thing

Star wakes up, and River assumed she just napped. Once she’s concious though she remembers.. and has to sadly tell her dad Moons lost.. again. Now Star has almost no hope lest.. and looses the last of it as a heavily battered tom comes to the door.... carrying marco like a baloon. Marco’s been soul drained.

Oh and to make matters worse Meteora is at their doorstep. Star runs away, with tom following, leaving River to take care of it. Star, in a panic, tries summoning the citadel so she can heal marco the same way her mother healed the comission, using the basin at the temple. But she can’t get it right, so Star’s simply left looking crazy to her boyfriend and wallowing in despair. Some could insult her for this, call her out for being selfish.. but she’s a 15 year old whose mom is missing, whose kingdom is in ruins, whose best friend is basically dead, and implicilty given who marco recurited so’s all but two other people she cares about, and she has NO idea how to stop it. She’s not a queen in her own eyes.. she’s just a scared child desperately wanting her mommy.

So Tom tries to fix things, in a slightly shitty but understandable way; he opens the pit to the underworld and offers to take them both away, get her to saftey. It’s what Marco would’ve wanted and it’s all he has left. Meteora can’t find her there. He promises. he can’t really keep that promise but he can try. Star, at her lowest point, with nothing to gain and only two things left to loose prepares to go.. only to notice the eagles her father road in drifting back souless. Her dad has died.. and because she didn’t stay to help she’s responsible. As bad as she feels, ad much pain as she’s in she can’t just walk away and pretend this sin’t her fight. Sure it’s understandable why she’s been in such a terrible state and made terrible choices.. but it makes it more admriable when she realizes the consequences of her constant running away, the lives it’s cost.. adn decies no more. She trusts Marco to tom, and flies off to confront her destiny.

Tom naturally follows..balloning in, and as he makes his way through we cut to Star, in a geninely haunting scene as she goes through the castle, seeing all the dead, souless husks around her.. nad finds meteora, sitting on her throne at last. ... and holdling BOTH tom and Marco and glefully taunting Star about how she killed “both her boyfriends.

Let’s hit the breaks one more time to talk about Meteora. Meteora.. is easily the best of the shows antagonists and the only one to reach her full potetial. Toffee is still my faviorite, but we never got to see the full scope of what caused him to be this way, or got any sense of why he was like this. Mina we got a little of.. but she ultimately came off as a lunk headed racist instead of the tragic figure she could’ve been with just a little more pushing, and clearly WAS supposed to be.

Meteora on the other hand is perfectly excuted; As Henious she wasn’t bad, Jessica walter is a delight no matter what form she’s in, but slowly offered dimnishing returns as her threat dropped and dropped.

But by turning everything about her on it’s head, by revealing this cold, uncaring headmistress who abused teens, stalked one just because he had the gall to... destroy her mind rape academy and give it to the people she was abusing to run better, we instead see something diffrent: We see an innocent child who was yanked from her parents, tossed to an uncarring robot and abused into being something she wasn’t: Told what made her special, her scales and tail and cheeks, were all monsterous and to repress them, that she was somehow wrong for being born and needed to change... and thus morphed into the spitting image of the machine that made her: a cold, heartless woman who glefully drained the joy and individuality from teens, good , abd and neutral, it didn’t matter, it was sick etiher way, to supress what she was, to keep herself alive.

And then she finds out her years of doing that, her years of hard work and horrors.. were for nothing. She was never SUPPOSED to be a metephorical monster lining up children for slaugher. She was queen... and it broke her. Everything she was was gone and all that was left was rage; Rage at her abuser, who rightfully died, rage at the kingdom for throwing her away, and rage at the people who replaced her. All that was left of what could’ve been a charming, wonderful young woman, thanks to abuse, racisim and scorn.. .was pure anger, deterined to burn down everything that had mocked her and rule over the ashes. Even if there was nothing left in the process she would be queen.

it’s terrifying, heartbreaking, and amazing all at once, taking a seemingly one note villian who clearly had layers to her.. and peeling back those layers to reveal a tragic monster created purely by racisim. Purely by people thinking just because of how someone was born, they were less and didn’t deserve their birthright. And her story... as tragic as it was... could only end one way.

So we’ve come to that ending, and sadly to the ending of Jessica Walter’s time on the show, though for her final performance, this is one hell of a showstopper. Star TRIES one last time, begs Meteora to help fix it together, to work.. but what parts of metoera could’ve done that, could’ve made a better world.. their dead. All that’s left is a want for the crown.. and to kill the last person in the way of it.

And so we get the best fight in the series. Jess said it, I agreed. It’s an utter spectacle, with both sides using everything they had: meteora her strength and bullshit soul sucking powers, and star all her spells pumped up to infinity, finally using her golden mode for full combat and showing just how poweful it is again. Every blow has purpose, every spell is dazzling and every move is captivating. It’s just one long, glorious fight with EVERYTHING for both sides on the line.

Sadly.. it’s a fight Star can’t wint. Eventually exaustion gets to her and while Meteora’s not at full either.. she’s still far more powerful. Star is left iwth one last desperation manuver: PUT ALL HER MAGIC into a spirit ball type bove and shove it at meteora. It does a lot of damage.. but ultimately leaves Star exausted.. and Meteora about to win. It also apparently DOSEN’T drain sta’rs magic despite that looking exactly like what it was, and star having to navigate without it would’ve been both intresting and made the ending of next season make WAY more sense. So

Wasted Plots: 9

But the fight isn’t over.... A NEW CHALLENGER APPROACHES for what is easily the best scnee of the entire show: Eclipsa. There’s a moment of worry at first as Eclipsa takes the wand from a stricken star and in a stunning sequence transforms it back into her parasol.. and takes back her full power.

Eclipsa has been through hell: She lost her husband, her daugher, her throne and her legacy to racisim, was woken up only to be used, nearly tossed back despite being freed fairly, had to be shackled up, and then found out her tormentors had rewritten history to erase her child and left her child to her abusive ex who threw her to an even worse monster, turnign Meteora into a being of pure hate. She then had to make the hard decision wether to save he rfriend or her daughter, was unfairly scorned for it.. and now faces the impossible. Fight her daughter.. or let the daughter she’s found die.

And it took me this long to realize that. Star isn’t her grandaughter, like she thought.. blood or no blood.. Star is Eclipsa’s daughter, more so than she was ever moons. Star was the only one who ever fully embraced this poor woman, accepting she wasn’t some evil boogey man but just a woman. Sure star later has to parent her own surrogate mom a bit.. but Eclipsa returned the favor plenty: She’s been nothing but supportive of star, and while her advice sometimes lead to some bad stuff... it was neerintetional. She always trusted star to make the right call when she needed to and time and time again she proved her mentor right.

So when faced with the choice.. Eclipsa sees no chocie at all. She TRIES to talk down meteora.. but it’s clear that won’t work. But she had to try.. because what comes next... is painful to watch as it is beautiful. In just a few spells, asll said firmly and authoratively, Eclipsa easily finishes metoera, showing off just HOW powerful she is, how dangerous she is.. and just WHY no queen until star was said ot be as strong as her. We’ve been hyped up with how powerful Eclipsa could be and how dangerous it could be and in one awesome sequence.. we see there was no hype: Just fact.

We also see pain, the poor woman streaming tears down her face, as her daughter desperately calls for Mommy.. her final words as Eclipsa completes her spell.. and killls her daughter, tears streaming down her face, panting in exaustion the following exchange just pure heartbreak, and a pure example of Esme Blanco’s talent as Eclipsa

Star: “What did you do?” Eclipsa: (Utterly heartbroken but firm) What I had to

For the good of her people, mewman and monster, Meteora had to go. Her child had gone from an innocent child to pure desctruction and nothing would be left if Eclipsa hadn’t done this. By doing so she freed the souls her child had destroyed, gave the kigndom a future.. but it dosen’t make having to kill her own child, a child who never had a true chance to live, any easier. Meteora died as she lived... tragically.

Star finds Marco they hug.. and to close ourt our boy he decides to make this weird and joins them, the two accepting. This.. REALLY promotes the three as t throuple and really makes me wish they’d gone with that instead of..

Wasted Plots: 10

So Star goes to comfort Eclipsa.. and in a show of just what a good person she is despite the hell she’s been through, Eclipsa gladly offers the wand back... and Star shows her own development.. by giving it back Not because of the fears she’s had all episode of the crown.. but because time and time again the butterfly family has hurt people. And ever since the Comission destroyed the line and started over, it’s only gotten worse. An endless cycle of vengance and death with no defendants, mewman against monster, mewman opressing monster, monster fighting back, some monsters going too far, some mewmans doing worse. it just got worse and worse.. and has just resulted in what could’ve been a great queen some day long past put down like a mad dog by her greeving mother. Star truly wanted to change things.. but she can’t. And she knows deep down while she needs to find her mom, Moon won’t either. Only one person can fix this... and that’s the person who was robbed of her chance to do so. Star gives her the wand back, telling her it’s the right thing, putting her trust in Eclipsa to fix the mess both their ancestors, and the comission, and so many other horrible people, have made.

And after getting the first kind gesture she’s gotten in far too long.. Eclipsa gets another: she hears a baby cry.. and finds meteora. While her old daughter is sadly dead and gone... she’s been reincarnated. How?

Wasted Plots: 11

But i’m not going to fight it: after a lifetime of hardship... Meteora gets a chance, reborn to get the life she truly deserved all along, free from racisim and supression and Eclipsa finally gets to raise her daughter. She thanks star then Mary Poppins off into the distnace, Star unsure if she did the right thing.

It’s then Glossaryck runs in, screaming Globgor as he did all season.. before swtiching from professional asshole Jefffery Tambor to professional sex god Keith David, who uses his silky voice to reveal that’s the name of Eclipsa’s husband, and that’s where she’s headed. He then fucks off for the rest of the series, only showing up thrice more for plot stuff and a few times in the background, never explaning why he was only saying globgor for a season. He created the line of queens and stuff sure, and plays a key part in the finale and premire but that’s it.

Wasted Plots: 12

So with that we get our final scene with his awesome. Eclipsa flies to the monster temple, does a few blasts.. and finds her husband, frozen in crystal, and ending the season on:

“Hello my love... we’re home”

Final Thoughts; Divide and Conquer are an excellent set of episodes. I’ve poitned out my flaws; The doomnut is stupid, something it once again took jess pointing out ot me to have it click, Hecckapoo should’ve been called out, and some parts of the Star and Moon plot meander.. but i’ts not enough to take away from the whole. And the whole is an emotinal roller coaster ride, full of payoffs for character arcs, setups for later, some pays off way too damn many not so much, and jawdropping moment after jawdropping moment ,leaving on an excellnent cliffhanger the next season sadly fails to live up to. And we’ll get more into that some other day. For now the story of Metora has come to it’s tragic conclusion.... hopefully her other self’s life comes to a better on

Final Thoughts on the Meteora Arc:

This arc is excellent, as should be made clear. It’s easily star’s best arc, starting with Eclipsa’s proper on screen debut in battle of mewni, and tragically concluding here. It has the most depth, unmasking the comissoin as true villians and throwing a lot of the series into question, Eclipsa and Meteora are both throughly engaging characters and it evolves star intrestingly..... before next season utterly wastes that development but again story for another time. I was glad to take a detour for this arc, and while there was still plenty of tom, this arc was one for the record books..... and i’m going to miss it as we slowly descend into crap.

But now it’s time to fully double down on tom, and to make sure this dosen’t get put horribly behind again ill be covering another tom episode next month, as Star finds out Tom knows about the kiss , and Tom’s mother also knows and is understadnably ready to throw a white girl into the volcano.. because I assume all rich people, especially demons own volcanos. It’s Lava Lake Beach.

#star vs the forces of evil #star butterfly #tom lucitor #marco diaz #meteora butterfly #eclipsa butterfly #globgor #moon butterfly #river butterfly #mina #hekapoo #kelly #jorby #ponyhead #prince of wishful thinking #startom #tomco #startomco

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sophfandoms53 · 3 years ago

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4 seasons and a lot of cringing later, I have finished stvfoe. Season 1 and 2 were pretty good. Season 3 was messy, but they pulled it together. Season 4 OK THEY COMPLETELY FUCKED UP THE ROMANTIC SUBPLOT but the magic plot is going ok OH GOD NO. WHY. DID WE REALLY NEED CLEAVED? AT ALL???

Overall, I knew it was gonna end bad, but HOW DO YOU FUCK UP THAT BAD-

(Tom, Janna, Eclipsa, and a select few other characters will forever be great tho)

NO LITERALLY THIS IS SUCH A GOOD SUMMARY OF SVTFOE’S FOUR SEASONS

Seasons 1 and 2 were so top tier and then seasons 3 and 4 were just a mess with their only saving graces being Tom’s redemption, Eclipsa being absolutely delightful, and Janna just being Janna.

The thing that sucks about starco and how they ended up getting together is not only did they wait until the ending of the show to do that but they crashed through so many shipping hurdles just to get to a ship we all knew was endgame during season one, it’s ridiculous. You can tell there were people on the Star VS crew who were biased for one ship over another and it showed through how we had to watch 3 couples get together and break up just for the inevitable Starco to happen.

The fact they spent so much of seasons 3 and 4 on the romantic subplot over its story to appease shippers is embarrassing.

Oh and don’t even get me started on how they fucked up Moon’s character in season 4 and how anticlimactic Mina was as an endgame villain. There was so much lore and backstory about Toffee and his reptilian army, LIKE HIS FUCKING LEADER SETH????, but they chose MINA of all people to be the final seasons villain I-

I just can’t with how many bad decisions this show made.

If you want a full analysis of how badly the show went downhill that’s not only incredibly well done but extremely respectful, I recommend this video by Blue Order on YouTube:

(Tumblr is being a butt and won’t let me link it so here’s the title and it’s thumbnail lmao)

Even though it’s long, he does a really good job with explaining how the shows poor writing decisions affected the show in the long run and what other choices they could’ve made to make their show better.

I’ve lost count how many times I’ve rewatched this because it’s genuinely a rlly well made video.

#star vs the forces of evil #svtfoe

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jess-the-vampire · 3 years ago

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What's your favorite and least favorite ship for Star Butterfly? and why?

i still think star’s better ships are tom, stomco, starkie, and janstar

my favorite changes often

i think tomstar made more sense for the endgame if the show had gone for it, but janstar and starkie were interesting dynamics the show kinda threw aside.

Stomco is the only version of starco i think that actually semi works.

though yes again, least favorite is still always gonna be starco, but i’ve explained a lot about why that is at this point. I think the ship did nothing but make star a worse character as time went on and the writers would’ve been better dropping it when it stopped working.

because as is, starco has made star come off selfish, abusive, possessive, and incredibly reliant at times.

Even in tomstar’s worst moments, it feels star’s bad behavior is a result, of starco and not because of the relationship itself.

i didn’t care for starco from the beginning, and the more it regressed star’s character the less i liked it.

it didn’t progress star’s character it regressed it and all it did was show me she’s not meant to be in a relationship at all.

tbh it kinda baffles me that the ship they wanted to make canon, was the most unhealthy one they built in the series, i feel they would've been better off doing literally anything but starco.

i at least like that more people are addressing starco’s uncomfortable and toxic buildup and how much better ships like tomstar and kellco were for the characters because it was so frustrating to talk about how bad the ship was being handled before and get nothing but flack for it.

so having people finally wake up to it is refreshing.

star’s relationship with tom was not perfect, but it had more meaning and had much more potential to develop star, besides actually fitting in thematically with the plot and if they had let it do so it could’ve been pretty great,

stomco had a good dynamic and kicking tom out makes it both less interesting and more uncomfortable, it’s probably because tom had more chem with both of them then they had with each other to me.

i think either jackie and janna had fun dynamics that balanced with star well and in a better show i could see either working,

i’d say tomstar might be the one i would’ve put for endgame first because it had the biggest development and was most likely to actually be endgame, but i would’ve taken any of these options over what they did.

starco could work if things were different but i think they made every wrong move and would've been better off for giving it up and ending on almost any other ship.

#star vs the forces of evil #svtfoe #svstfoe

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pyroclastic727 · 4 years ago

Text

So You Want To Watch Star

but don’t know what episodes to watch!

That's completely understandable! Star is the type of show where the first season and a half feel like an entirely different show from the godsend that is the second half! So here's your guide on how to get to the good part.

On the fence? This show features an incredibly queer narrative told through straight people, along with showing the complexities of racism, classism, capitalism, privilege, and love, and how those tie together. It's heaven for people who love to analyze and learn from cartoons, as well as simps for healthy adorable romance. As a She Ra and Owl House fan...it's worth the watch.

My Rating Scale!

1 - You’ll probably feel better if you skip this.

2 - It’s okay. Won’t kill you to watch it, won’t kill you to skip this.

3 - You might get some seratonin. No promises tho.

4 - The Good Shit. Highly recommended.

5 - This is going to blow your fucking mind.

6 - asdjfkshdks

S1E1 - Star Comes To Earth/Party With A Pony - 3. It’s bad but unfortunately you gotta watch the pilot.

S1E2 - Matchmaker / School Spirit - 1

S1E3 - Monster Arm / The Other Exchange Student - 2.

S1E4 - Cheer Up Star / Quest Buy - 2

S1E5 - Diaz Family Vacation / Brittney’s Party - 1

S1E6 - Mewberty / Pixtopia - 2. Mewberty has an important plot point.

S1E7 - Lobster Claws / Sleep Spells - 1, 2.

S1E8 - Blood Moon Ball / Fortune Cookies - 3, 2. BMB is plot-essential.

S1E9 - Freeze Day / Royal Pain - 2, 1

S1E10 - St. Olga’s Reform School for Wayward Princesses - 3. Plot.

S1E11 - Mewnipendence Day / Banangic - 1, 2. Banangic’s ending is kinda cool if you like details.

S1E12 - Interdimensional Field Trip / Marco Grows a Beard - 2.

S1E13 - Storm the Castle - 3. Plot-essential.

S2E1 - My New Wand / Ludo in the Wild - 3.

S2E2 - Mr Candle Cares / Red Belt - 2, 1. Fan service in the first one.

S2E3 - Star On Wheels / Fetch - 3.

S2E4 - Star vs. Echo Creek / Wand To Wand - 3, 4. Introduces a main plot point.

S2E5 - Starstruck / Camping Trip - 2, 1.

S2E6 - Starsitting / On The Job - 1, 3.

S2E7 - Goblin Dogs / By The Book - 1, 2

S2E8 - Game of Flags / Girls’ Day Out - 2, 1. Watch Game of Flags for the plot point.

S2E9 - Sleepover / Gift of the Card - 4, 3.

S2E10 - Friendenemies / Is Mystery - 4.

S2E11 - Hungry Larry / Spider with a Top Hat - 1.

S2E12 - Into the Wand / Pizza Thing - 4, 1. Plot point.

S2E13 - Page Turner / Naysaya - 4.

S2E14 - Bon Bon the Birthday Clown - 5. This episode is the turning point in the whole series.

S2E15 - Raid The Cave / Trickstar - 4, 1.

S2E16 - Baby / Running With Scissors - 4, 3.

S2E17 - Mathmagic / The Bounce Lounge - 2, 1.

S2E18 - Crystal Clear / The Hard Way - 3, 4.

S2E19 - Heinous / All Bets Are Off - 3, 1.

S2E20 - Collateral Damage / Just Friends - 1, 5.

S2E21 - Face The Music - 5.

S2E22 - Starcrushed - 5.

S3E1 - Return to Mewni/Moon The Undaunted - 4. Start of a movie.

S3E2 - Book Be Gone/Marco And The King - 4, 2 but you gotta watch it.

S3E3 - Puddle Defender/King Ludo - 5.

S3E4 - Toffee - 5. End of the movie.

S3E5 - Scent of a Hoodie/Rest In Pudding - 5.

S3E6 - Club Snubbed/Stranger Danger - 5. Rip shippers

S3E7 - Demoncism/Sophomore Slump - 5.

S3E8 - Lint Catcher/Trial By Squire - 5. Plot point.

S3E9 - Princess Turdina/Starfari - 5. Introduces plot.

S3E10 - Sweet Dreams/Lava Lake Beach - 5.

S3E11 - Death Peck/Ponymoniun - 1. I skipped.

S3E12 - Night Life/Deep Dive - 6.

S3E13 - Monster Bash - 5.

S3E14 - Stump Day/Holiday Spellcial - 4, 1.

S3E15 - The Bogbeast of Boggaba/Total Eclipsa the Moon - 2, 5.

S3E16 - Butterfly Trap/Ludo, Where Art Thou? - 5.

S3E17 - Is Another Mystery/Marco Jr. - 5, 3. Marco Jr. is disturbing.

S3E18 - Skooled/Booth Buddies - 5.

S3E19 - Bam Ui Pati/Tough Love - 1, 5.

S3E20 - Divide - 5.

S3E21 - Conquer - 5.

S4E1 - Butterfly Follies - 4.

S4E2 - Escape from the Pie Folk - 4.

S4E3 - Moon Remembers/Swim Suit - 5.

S4E4 - Ransomgram/Lake House Fever - 4, 5.

S4E5 - Yada Yada Berries/Down By The River - 5, 1. Watch the last 5 minutes of Down by the River.

S4E6 - The Pony Head Show/Surviving the Spiderbites - 4.

S4E7 - Out Of Business/Kelly's World - 4, 1. Only watch Kelly's World if you don't feel like crying at the sight of Kellco.

S4E8 - Curse of the Blood Moon - 5. Bring tissues xo

S4E9 - Princess Quasar Caterpillar and the Magic Bell/Ghost of Butterfly Castle - 5.

S4E10 - Cornball/Meteora's Lesson - 3, 5.

S4E11 - The Knight Shift/Queennapped! - 5, 1.

S4E12 - Junkin' Janna/A Spell With No Name - 5, 1.

S4E13 - A Boy and his DC-700XE/The Monster and the Queen - 5.

S4E14 - Cornoration - 5. No that's not a typo.

S4E15 - Doop Doop/Britta's Tacos - 5, 4.

S4E16 - Beach Day/Gone Baby Gone - 5. Starco shippers come get your food

S4E17 - Sad Teen Hotline/Jannanigans - 5. I would recommend watching this and the subsequent episodes all at once.

S4E18 - Mama Star/Ready Aim Fire - 6, 5.

S4E19 - The Right Way/Here To Help - 6, 7. Yes I broke my own scale deal with it.

S4E20 - Pizza Party/The Tavern At The End Of The Multiverse - 6.

S4E21 - Cleaved - 6.

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seddm · 4 years ago

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What’s your favorite episode of the show? My favorite is Bon Bon the Birthday Clown

Hard to choose, really. Storm The Castle is still an amazing episode even when compared to the rest of the series, more small scale in events and developments, but soaked in “ohshit!” moments.

Bonbon The Birthday Clown might be the best episode in the series all around from a more “objective” (kinda) point of view: fantastic pacing, it has developments for multiple characters and ships, cool fight scenes, awesome soundtrack and fun gags. Toffee is another fantastic episode, I know many people didn’t like the way Toffee’s storyline ended, but it delivered both important characters moments, and the whole portion from Star’s “death” to her “resurrection” is, in my opinion, the best sequence in the series.

Cleaved has its issues as well when one considers, well, what happened, but as an episode by itself it’s a beautiful love letter to Star and Marco’s relationship, presented in a way that doesn’t strictly revolve around them being a couple either, just two people who want to be together, so it should have been palatable even to non shippers, and the soundtrack in the climax is incredible for the standards of a TV animate show.

But all things considered, I usually answer The Knight Shift when asked about my favorite episode: it’s relatively small compared to the other ones (and not relatively as well, I mean, it’s 11 minutes only), but even if I couldn’t entirely stop thinking about all the issues (i.e. Star and Marco still not being yet together) while watching it, it still provided a perfect oasis of happiness in the middle of a painful season(s), having important yet subtle-ish developments for Star and Marco, pushing forward the theme of the season and closing Marco’s “what do in life?” arc that began back at the beginning of S2. And it has fun moments, and adorable Starco, and adorable Meteora.

#seddm answers #Anonymous

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butnobodycame627 · 3 years ago

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🐚 👀

Okay so this is probably gonna make some people mad at me but

This. Is gonna be a rant about SVTFOE. Please don't read this if you actually like the show, it's incredibly negative and it's probably just gonna upset you.

So I think Blue Order's video about this is better than my rant could ever be so go watch that if you want to hear like. Everything I want to say but more well put together.

Every time I think about this show I get so angry and I just. Aaagh.

This show! Used to be good! Like, the first two seasons were pretty great! And then they ruined it! I'm! So upset!

I'm not upset just because Starco's canon. That's fine. I prefer Tom and Star, but honestly, the show shouldn't have been about shipping anyway. I'm upset because the writing was horrible.

I stopped liking all of the characters except for Tom! Everyone was horrible! I hate Star so much! I hate Marco! I hate everyone in this show except Tom! What the fuck! Their personalities were inconsistent a lot of the time. But like also. A lot of the time they were mean to other characters for no fucking reason. I'm. So upset.

So um can I just say that the TomStar breakup was so fucking stupid. Like they could have broken up for so many reasons (maybe the fact that Star was being horrible to him? Just a suggestion) but they decided to go with "uh yeah our lives are going in different directions or something idk it's complicated". Huh? What? It came out of nowhere and was never properly explained.

Also like. Starco was so fucking rushed I'm so mad. Like if they want to go for that ship then at least give it some actual development? It happened way too fast, they had so much time to make that work!

ALSO WTF DO YOU MEAN THE BLOOD MOON BALL WAS FAKE? THAT MAKES NO FUCKING SENSE! What was with Marco saying "I don't WANT to be in love with Star" all fucking episode then? He clearly wasn't interested, he was being forced into it by the curse! Star didn't want it either, she was already in another relationship! One of the main things that ruins Starco for me is the fact that for most of the show they are FORCED into this relationship because of the curse, stop trying to make me think this curse wasn't real when everyone was clearly bothered by it.

Tom was like. Actually well-written. But can I just say. The line "I'm a monster, you're a Mewman, if we can make it work then there's hope for everyone"? Yeah um. They didn't make it work. So. No hope I guess.

I'm just. Pissed off about everything. What the fuck was the end of the show btw? Huh? Yeah let's kill off tons of populations because magic is evil apparently also let's shove a bunch of worlds together because that'll end well and not cause worldwide chaos.

I'm. This show. Ended so horribly. I hate it.

Why did Kelly and Marco get an off-screen breakup? I actually cared about their relationship but okay sure let's just. Ruin that off-screen for no explained reason.

Why was Mina the final villain? And she didn't even really get defeated? I don't understand??

And like? Toffee said he'd be back, didn't he? Where is he? Was he wrong?

I'm. I'm so upset, I need to like. Stop thinking about this show.

Sorry this was an absolute mess I didn't put much thought into it I just. I'm angry.

#sorry I'm just. this show had so much potential. it could have been amazing.#but they fucking ruined it.#for no reason.

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thesaltyoceanwaves · 5 years ago

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Since you seem so intelligent and always ready to give constructive criticism about Miraculous, I wonder how you ended up liking a character who is obviously badly written. I see Luka as a nice guy, but a terrible TV show character who does nothing but revolve around female protagonist, not to mention he's incredibly unrealistic and one-dimensional. I would think you would have to say some things about him, but I guess you're choosing to support his lack of characterization?

A lot of like for Luka’s character comes from the fact that he doesn’t make or try to make things harder on Marinette than they already are. And considering that the general trend of season three is to embarrass Marinette, having a character that’s patient with her, doesn’t place unreasonable expectations on her, and is considerate of her feelings is a pretty nice change of pace. So of course, I’m going to be biased towards him for that. I think plenty of others would be too, for that reason.

Now, is that unrealistic characterization for a boy that’s probably just started high school? Sure. Even guys I was friends with in high school were nowhere near that empathetic or understanding of my or other girls’ feelings. But considering that the show revolves around two middle school children having magical jewelry that transforms them into superheroes and fights an adult super-powered butterfly supervillain, I’m willing to let that one slide. Others may not be as forgiving, and that’s fine.

I do take issue with the lack of care given to Luka’s character. I certainly had different expectations for his character prior to Captain Hardrock. But considering how the show handles characterization in the first place, I don’t really trust the writers with giving him flaws or making him multidimensional anyway. No doubt that they’ll be written in to make Adrien look better by comparison, or if they don’t do that, they’ll make Marinette be completely mean/heartless to him while still pining for Adrien (sort of like TomStar vs Starco). I don’t trust these writers to organically write Luka and Marinette breaking up without making one of the two look bad or making it all about Adrien. And I don’t trust these writers to make Luka more complicated considering how they’ve written characters we’re supposed to feel bad for despite being bad (Chloe, Lila, Gabriel), and our heroes who we’re supposed to like but get away with doing some shitty stuff this season, while our protagonist is scrutinized at every turn (Alya, Nino and Adrien).

TL;DR: Luka isn’t the most complicated character, and there are certainly issues with him, but he’s a genuinely good guy that treats our protagonist well, and doesn’t put her through “Nice Guy” BS. If this show was written by other people, I wouldn’t mind seeing a more flawed version of Luka. But we don’t live in that universe, so I’m fine with Luka the way he is. Yeah, it’s bad writing, but we need some refuge in this fandom.

#ml salt #luka couffaine #salty answers #ml s3 salt #ml writing salt

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savesvtfoe5season · 4 years ago

Text

To all those talented artists who love to express themselves through drawing, this is your chance to be one of the winners in the #SaveSvtfoe fanarts competition!

We invite talented people like YOU to participate in this event! 3 winners will be chosen among which incredible gifts gonna be presented nationally and internationally. Watch how to participate and what you can win!

Invite your favorite drawing artists!

Techniques:

Digitally illustrated

Pencil and paper

Puntullism

Charcoal

Pens, markers

Crayons, etc.

Each winner will receive two prizes. SDCC's Star Plush and Sarah's WTWC Wand Pin (Glows in the Dark)

Post with: #SaveSvtfoe #DisneyChannel #DisneyTVA. Instagram, Twitter, Reddit.

Deadline:

July 19-August2

We hope to see you there!

@a-random-starco-blog @starvstheforcesofevil-unofficial @starco-shippers @marco-diaz-starco @tomlucitor @jannabananadraws

#savesvtfoe #star vs the forces of evil #svtfoe #starco #Spotify

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thdorkmagnet · 5 years ago

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Movie Night

Just a quick fluffy Starco idea I had for Valentine’s Day, taking place in my “Light of the Sun and Stars” universe. This is also kinda a prequal to this. Hope you enjoy!

“Is it ready?!” a very excited voice squeaked from inside Star's room, followed by an infectious giggle.

“Hold on, Marco, it's still booting up,” came the joyful reply, as Star Butterfly watched her mirror screen slowly turning on, a loading bar currently the one thing occupying the bright screen. She held up the small remote that was supposed to somehow connect to her mirror and allow her to surf through the Mirror webs options from a short distance away. Star had her doubts about this though, sure she had heard rumors about humans being able to do this back on Earth but that was just one of those myths, like the superstitious Bigfoot... or indoor plumbing. Still, when Ferguson had personally given her one of Pixtopia's patented new technology to test out, she hadn't said no... though that was partially because Marco had snatched it out of the chubby king's hand faster than lightening, examining the device with his typical childlike wonder. So yeah, long story short, she had accepted Ferguson's gift without a word, anything to make her boyfriend happy.

And now was the perfect time to test the device out, the best night of the entire week: date night! Or “Friendship Thursdays” as the two sometimes called it. Regardless, Star was glad they had decided to form a regular routine of spending time together, life could get so hectic sometimes with her new commission up and going but knowing she had this to look forward to every week, kept her going and Star was sure Marco felt that way, too.

This week, the two had decided to just spend a quiet evening in Star's room, marathoning a bunch of movies and just enjoying some time alone, just the two of them. And everything was already prepared, snacks were made by Marco (Star was impressed, he was getting really good at cooking), the two were in their fluffiest and most comfortable pajamas they owned (Star in her pink bunny onesie and Marco in matching blue dog onesie), and they had even made a small pile of blankets and pillows, ready for the two to sink into and lose themselves to its warm embrace. That was if Star could ever get this stupid remote to work right!

She frowned, staring at the blinking red light on the device in confusion, turning to Marco (and ignoring how absolutely adorable he looked in his pjs) as she asked, “Did Ferguson say it's on when the light is blue or red?”

Marco shrugged. “He didn't say either, actually,” the boy replied thoughtfully. “Here let me look it up,” he added, before pulling out the small slip of paper Ferguson had given them, which was apparently supposed to be their instructions but Marco was having trouble deciphering the multiple diagrams that coated the paper, cocking his head to the side as he tried to read the tiny print on the sheet. “Um, I think if it turns blue your connected.”

Both teens eyes switched to the remote that was still brightly flashing red and the girl let out a frustrated groan. “Ugh, stupid remote! Why won't you work?!” She then slammed it down on her desk, crossing her arms in frustration before saying to the boy, “Let's just try something else, okay? This things clearly just a piece of junk.”

But that was when the remote miraculously decided to light up blue and the mirror screen's image switched to that of a selection screen, waiting for their input. The two turned back to the remote in both shock and awe, the two leaning closer and closer to it until their eyes were level with the desk. “It worked,” Marco whispered.

“Huh, how about that?” Star said still in slight disbelief, before locking eyes with Marco.

The boy just shrugged again. “Guess it just needed a little force?”

“Well whatever happened, it's working now,” Star said, picking the remote up off the desk, waving it around in her hands while saying dramatically, “So let date night officially begin!”

“Yeah!” Marco screamed, before immediately running over and plopping down onto the soft pile of cushions, his body looking small amidst the depths of fluff he was currently drowning in and Star couldn't help but gush over how cute her boyfriend looked in that moment. She quickly joined him, the couple's arms touching as they leaned in close to one another, soaking in the other's presence. “Okay, so what are we watching first?” Marco asked giddily, his eyes shining as they stared over at the magic mirror.

Star stared at her bestie for a moment in silence, taking in his joy and enthusiasm before he eventually turned to her with a look of surprise on his face. “Star?” he asked, wondering why she had frozen up like that. “Is everything okay?”

Star shook her head, giving him a loving smile which made her hearts glow a little bit brighter. “Yeah, I was just thinking that you should decide what we watch,” she explained before holding the remote out for him to take.

The boy's eyes widened, staring down at the remote with hesitation and awe, acting as if she was bestowing some ancient relic or great power onto him, instead of just some device that made searching through her magic mirror possible. He looked up at her and then back to the remote and then back to her, as if making sure it was alright. “Really?” he finally breathed out, his eyes shimmering like Star's namesake.

The girl nodded, holding in her giggle. “Of course, Marco,” she said flirtingly. “I trust you.”

That caused the boy to blush beat red and grin ear to ear, as he finally accepted the small device, his eyes examining the smooth surface in wonderment. Star just watched his every movement in fascination and love, finding her Marco's every action infinitely more entertaining than any movie. Finally, though the boy snapped to his sense, as he actually trying to figure out how to work this strange, new device, squinting in intense concentration, determined not to mess up his task. Luckily, these buttons were labeled which made it easy to figure out, the boy (fairly) confidently pressing buttons on the remote, his eyes on the screen as he scrolled through their list of options.

Okay, what to watch? He thought to himself, his eyes never leaving the screen as he read the titles of the many movies there. But the sheer number of names quickly overwhelmed him and he decided to switch instead to list of movie genres to help make it easier. Let's see... dramas? No pass. Animal movies? No way, the last one of those he had watched had left him in tears for weeks after the dog died at the end. Horror? Marco shuddered. Definitely no! Action? The boy paused, before clicking on this file, curious to see if they had what he was looking for. And after less than a minute of scrolling the boy's eyes lit up with joy as he spotted a whole list of Mackie Hand movies. He had seen one of two of them before with the girls and had quickly fallen in love with these movies. They were incredible and action-packed and just everything he ever wanted out of a movie! And now there were so many to choose from. “How about one of these?” he asked his girlfriend, hoping she would approve of his pick.

Star turned her attention onto the screen, giving it a quizzical look. “'Hand to Hand', 'The Spy Who Punched Me', 'Talk to the Hand',” she read, before turning to her boyfriend with a raised brow. “What are all of these?”

“They're Mackie Hand movies,” Marco explained. But seeing her look of confusion, quickly added, “Y'know Star, the super cool Earth fighter from that one movie we watched where he punched a shark out of the water-”

“Ahhh,” Star said, nodding her head now. “Right, almost forgot about that.” She gave her boyfriend a loving smile as she said, “Well I'm up for whatever you want.”

Marco grinned goofily, before selecting the first movie on the list, placing the remote to his side before settling down closer to Star, the two cuddling close as the opening scene of the movie started up, their cheekmarks glowing bright with both anticipation and joy at just being able to spend time together.

…

A little while later, the two were snacking on popcorn as they watched Mackie Hand quickly defending himself from thirty angry thugs, the karate master making quick work of his opponents without even breaking a sweat. “Wow, he's so amazing,” Marco muttered in awe, snuggling a little bit closer to Star, his head now resting on her shoulder and her arm wrapped around his waist.

“Yeah, this is pretty good,” Star agreed, surprised by how much she was enjoying herself. I mean, sure spending time with Marco was always a plus but the movie was actually surprisingly entertaining in its own right, finding it pretty exciting as the main character beat down hordes of opponents with nothing but his bare fists. It was a bit cheesy but it kinda gave it a very unique style that made it a fun watch.

“You will never defeat me, Mackie Hand!” the one-dimensional villain of this movie said, pointing an accusing finger at the title character. “I will soon have the power crystal and will turn the whole world into a new ice age!” He then laughed evilly as cheesy, movie villains tended to do but Mackie Hand didn't even flinch before saying triumphantly, “Not today, Ice King!” The hero then jumped at his opponent, shouting at the top of his lungs, “Tiiiigggger Kick!” before smashing his foot hard into his enemies gut, the man falling back, gasping for breath and clutching his stomach.

“Ugh, you. Have. Defeated. Me.” the man said before falling unconscious, Mackie Hand now standing triumphantly over him.

“Looks like I just put your plans, on ice,” Mackie Hand said, causing Marco to burst out into laughter. Then the credits began scrolling onto the screen and the young couple shared a look, Marco asking, “So next one?”

“Go for it.”

…

“Yeah, get 'em Mackie!” Star screamed, pumping her fists into the air as she watched the action movie hero, deep in a brawl with a highly trained ninja assassin, narrowly dodging the swinging katana in the fiend's hands.

“Take him down!” Marco cheered alongside his girlfriend, equally as excited by the fight as his blond bestie. But the two gasped as they saw the villain of this movie holding Mackie Hand's love interest over the edge of the building, the woman releasing a loud scream and fighting to escape the roped bound around her. “Oh no Maria!” the two screamed as one, clutching onto each other with fear.

“Oh no Maria, my love!” Mackie Hand exclaimed.

“Give up now, Hand,” the villain sneered. “Or your love dies!”

“No, I will never surrender to the likes of you!” Mackie screamed, before leaping forward and swiftly knocking his opponent out before jumping off the building and catching the woman out of mid-air, landing gracefully landing on the ground with her in his arms.

The two teens cheered, hugging each other tight as they watched Mackie Hand making out with the love of his life. “Awww,” the two cooed as one, their cheeks squished up against one another.

…

Marco was now almost in Star's lap, the girl's arms wrapped around him, as he watched in fear as his hero stood in front of an alleyway, where a group of ninja watched him, just out of sight. All of them held a pair of ninja stars ready to be rid of their opponent before he even knew what was coming. “Don't do it, Mackie,” Marco whispered, his body shaking in fear. “It's a trap.”

Star just smiled at her boyfriend's cuteness but kept her eyes on the screen. The man slowly began walking down the alley and Marco's shaking grew worse, his eyes in capable of growing any wider.

That was when a pair of ninja jumped out of the shadows out of nowhere, flying toward Mackie Hand, swords raised in strike, and Marco screamed, jumping in surprise as he was now fully in Star's lap, his arms wrapped around her neck and his legs tucked up to his chest.

Star tried to hold back her giggle at the boy's adorable reaction but failed to, laughing to herself as she held the boy in a tight, comforting embrace, Marco's eyes never leaving the screen as he watched Mackie Hand make quick work of his opponents.

…

“Come on! Come on!” Marco screamed, leaning forward in anticipation as he watched his favorite character of all time trying and failing to fight off his opponent, nothing working at all to stop him not even his famous 'Tiger Kick' capable of breaking through his enemie's massive armor. He was in a rough spot, probably the roughest he had ever been in and Marco couldn't help but bit his lip in fear that his hero wasn't going to make it through. Star was busy eating the remains of their popcorn, her eyes shimmering with intrigue but otherwise staying pretty calm. After all, she doubted they would kill off Mackie Hand, it just didn't seem likely.

Finally in one last desperate attack, Mackie Hand charged forward with a loud yell, drawing his fist back before slamming it hard into his opponent the guy going flying backward, before the screen was consumed by a massive explosion, the karate master standing in a dramatic pose as the bright flash of flames rained down around him. Marco screamed and flew to his feet, knocking Star's popcorn over in his haste and sending it flying. But Star didn't notice nor care, laughing her head off as her bestie began cheering and jumping around the room, doing little fist pumps and imitating the action hero with his own weak little punches. “Aw, man that was so awesome! Mackie Hand is the best!”

“Hang on, Marco, there's still more,” the girl managed to choke out around fists of laughter and the boy gasped before falling back onto the pile of cushions, his eyes already shimmering with joy and his cheek marks spinning with excitement. “Play it, play it!” he screamed.

And Star did just that.

…

The sun was beginning to rise on Mewni, signaling a new day, as the sleepy Mewmans slowly began to awaken and go about their day. Jackie and Janna walked side by side through the hallway, heading toward Star's room, as the skater asked her friend , “So how do you think date night went?”

“Well considering all the screaming and cheering I could hear from my room, I would say pretty well,” the creepy teen replied.

Jackie rolled her eyes. “You could not hear if from our room. You just snuck out and listened in again, didn't you?” the skater asked accusingly.

Janna shrugged, not denying it. “Maybe,” was all she replied, before adding, “But they were pretty loud.”

“What do you think they were watching?” Jackie asked curiously.

“I don't know, let's ask them,” Janna said, the two now at their friends door. They slowly cracked it open, sticking their heads inside, taking in the scene before them. The magic mirror was still on, a scene of some muscular guy punching people playing on the screen. And sprawled out on a pile of pillows and blankets were Star and Marco, the two curled up around each other in a comfortable and protective embrace, cuddling each other with looks of pure joy on their faces.

Jackie and Janna smiled and shared a look, before closing the door, leaving the two alone to finish the rest of their date in peace.

#Star vs #Star vs AU #My Writing #Light of the Sun and Stars #Starco #Valentine's

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gumceline · 5 years ago

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another massive bubbline shipper here too say i got mad respect for this blog. as much as i stand by my ship 1000%, i also stand by the fact its totally okay too ship them with other people. i admit the bubbline fandom can be pretty toxic, but alot of us will stand by you. not only are you being super respectful even when you get hate, but you arent straight washing. also the way you looked at the negative parts of our community with understanding in last post, that was real great

oh i appreciate it! I prefer never to judge an entire fanbase by one dude because EVERY fanbase has THOSE people, no fanbase is ever perfect.

I really wished my experience with bubbline shippers had been better, it really was unfortunate to have countless hate, to have people make posts mocking me, to be put on “Lists to block”, not to mention that i legit had supportive friends who were bubbline shippers, but they pretty much turned their back on me, abandoned me, and called me a “Homophobic uncaring asshole”.

It really broke my heart dealing with the stuff i did, and i wasn’t perfect either, but i still don’t think i deserved what that was. I was a kid at the time, and was still having fun and i REALLY wanted to be a part of the fanbase because i love the series and loved the characters, but the fandom just....hated me.

Because i was a multishipper and had different opinions on the characters.

It really didn’t matter to them that i also shipped the characters with other female characters, or i said myself i don’t consider them straight. Because the fandom didn’t really care, they took one look and decided nothing i said mattered.

Being in the star fandom is widely different because the biggest ship there is Starco, a MXF (Which i personally don’t really like but that’s just me), and my favorite ship was...and still is Tom and Marco, because i love their chemistry so much and i genuinely consider them to be a much more believable relationship then the romance they wrote for star and marco.

And trust me, it’s always annoying if you don’t ship the most popular ship and like another pairing more but are succumbed to it everywhere regardless of the characters themselves.

But me not shipping star and marco didn’t make me someone who hated straight people, so i don’t think it’s collectively fair to tell anyone who may of liked marcy or bonnie with finn or maybe they ship them with a male oc of theirs....hate lesbians or were just homophobic.

it’s Like if i took finn out of his (Maybe) relationship with huntress and shipped him with....Tiffany (Who is a male character)...that wouldn’t mean i suddenly hated all straight couples and think finntress should burn.

That’s still a huge leap to jump to and extremely dangerous because you’re collectively accusing someone of something serious without really knowing much more about them then “They like this ship”.

Without any knowledge of them outside of that.

You could effectively damage their rep and make their time in the fandom a living hell out of something minor or something you just assumed, i would know.

I welcome progress, i am quite happy for the bubbline shippers who got their ship, heck...i’m STILL mad that we didn’t get poly tom x marco x star on star vs and felt VERY baited by the crew on that.

but even though i am happy for those people, i don’t think it’s validation to beat up on other shippers either, it does nothing for anyone’s case to do that. If the people are actual bigots who are actively acting terrible and throwing around nasty words and doing terrible stuff, then by all means, call them out.

But people who are just causally shipping stuff for fun? In a way it just feels like using them being a gay ship as a weapon against everyone else, because if they disagree with you and have a different opinion you can effectively boil them down to a bigot and no one might question it...especially when it’s the vast majority.

And that should not be acceptable to do, i ended up hearing from a friend of mine that this fandom actively started purging out other creators for having opinions people didn’t like, and now people are starting to regret that they shunned out so many members of the fandom based on things that were probably incredibly trivial in the long run.

And i get it, it’s an important ship, but it’s important as a rep of that ship to be respectful to others, because if not what you’ll end up doing is turn people away. I would like to be more celebratory of your success in getting the ship canon, but it makes it harder if i’m getting several messages asking when i’m deleting my “Hateful” blog because bubbline was now canon.

I’d like to get along with and support these people, but they don’t want to try and support me and have almost just decided to hate me and it sucks, and there’s not much i can do. That’s why i am thankful for those who don’t just immediately decided to judge me and want to know more about my views on the characters.

This of course does not apply to the community as a whole, not everyone is acting like this, but it is a problem and it has consequences and i hope the fandom does work on it in the future. Please do better in the future.

Now when it comes to shipping, I have my limits personally, like if the characters have canon sexualities i tend to stick to those sexualities, i for one, have a oc that’s gay. I effectively tell others if they make fanart with him for fun that’s great and i love it, but i want his sexuality respected if ships are involved.

Since the AT ones are left in the air, it means i am left to come up with my own ideas, so that’s what i do. I think everyone should be allowed in that regard to have their own interpretations, marcy could be bi, lesbian, ace,pan, ect and all of those are perfectly acceptable headcanons.

i don’t think one should be held superior over another.

I’ve never looked at Marcy or PG and said “Oh yeah, these two are so obviously straight”, they’re about as straight as a bent nail. XD The people who say this stuff clearly don’t follow me to know that they’re not treated as straight here and i think that’s just frustrating because it’s attacking for completely incorrect information.

And the main problem i think i have, like the biggest issue, is i see the F&C characters differently.

Because i know where the fandom is getting this impression people who these other pairings are homophobic is coming from, it’s because most of the fandom doesn’t really see those characters as much more then well...GB characters.

If i saw tomco, and one was turned to a girl to avoid them both being boys, i would be annoyed, i would, i wouldn’t assume the person was homophobic without other evidence but i’d be annoyed. (I mean for all i know it could be an au and i could be mistaking the situation entirely)

What makes this different for me, is because for one, these aren’t fan-characters, the fans didn’t make a genderbent world and design these characters for fun or anything. These were show characters, that were in episodes and have their own comics and all that.

The way the show approached them for me, makes me feel like they’re kinda misjudged, and people don’t have to agree with me on that fact. But i just feel like between them being fanfiction characters ice king made up, the fact their canon is different, the fact the characters do things the F&J characters don’t do, i just can’t help but feel like treating them as if they were something fans did for fun and have no difference outside of their gender is not the right approach for them.

(I mean ice queen died in one comic and has her own unique origin story which is apparently tied to cake’s, flame prince apparently speaks cat and is the most nervous and awkward cutie I've ever seen, gumball is apparently a card wars superfan and legit takes it WAY too seriously, i just can’t really look at these characters and say “Oh, these are all just Ice King, Flame Princess, and Princess Bubblegum but the opposite gender”).

I feel like the show does enough with them,and had a unique enough approach, that i feel like they should be judged as different characters. Like the redraws of regular episodes with the F&C characters are cute but they’re for fun and probably not what ice king wrote for them in his weird stories.

Like i can’t imagine ice king knew PB so well he made sure gumball had her entire backstory and motivations.

And i feel like the people who do enjoy these ships, heck, ALL FOUR of these ships, feel the same way i do. I’m sure some could def be shipping them for the wrong reasons, but i can’t help but think it’s less about their gender and more that other people recognize they’re different and have considered the different dynamics...like they would if they were shipping any other pairing.

And people don’t have to agree with any of us on that, but i don’t think the alternative should be to accuse us of something so heavily either.

These days i have newer friends who like bubbline who are chill with me, and yeah that’s cool, and i personally don’t really draw the ship myself because i’m still not too comfortable in the AT fandom or with the community right now....the situation with it never leaves me feeling safe frankly.

But we get along, they’re lovely, and the shippers who like bubbline but support the blog are also lovely people and i adore them.

At the end of the day i just want to have fun, i’m fine being in a small subsection of the fanbase and who knows, maybe i have gotten people to think about the F&C characters in a new light, i’m not sure.

But i hope maybe at some point the fandom can chill down and we can support each other without turning it into...whatever that entire situation is. Because i don’t want to be fighting with that community and would prefer to get along with them, but only time will tell.

But thanks for the support! I wish you the best ! I sometimes still have a lot to learn but i hope throughout this whole thing I've gone about it as respectful as possible.

I love the show and all the characters and the fun ships and relationships, i hope someday in the future i can be comfortable enough to get back into the fandom as much as i used to be! ^-^

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