#starlo's escapism is absolutely unhealthy but so is ceroba's lingering obsession

[a-scaly-troublemaker]

Adventures in Bad Copium: An Outsider's Look on Starlo and Ceroba

The following post is a long opinion; you can take it or leave it. It also involves a lot of projection, because that is how I process my trauma. Disclaimer: I have not played UTY.

With that out of the way, let's begin.

Giant text walls under the cut. I apologize. It is also rambly and a bit disorganized, but I hope I get my points across.

Starlo and Ceroba's friendship is a mess, but with my headcanons, this is both of their faults. When I look at them, I see two different people going through turmoil and handling it in different ways, though I see one thing that they share...

They are both using masking techniques, trying to pretend everything is okay when it's not. Ceroba's emotional masking techniques are much less effective than Starlo's. For obvious reasons; she is feeling an overwhelming amount of pain, and Starlo is a good actor. His act as the North Star has changed his personality to an extent, for better and for worse. He grew into a person he wanted to be, a person he would love more than his younger self.

Starlo doesn't strike me as naive; he strikes me as an unshakeable optimist, to the point it can come off as naivete and have similar consequences. Starlo's optimism paints a rosy picture of the world around him, which can get him into danger and lead him to put too much faith in his abilities as an entertainer. Personal headcanon dictates that he did not ask Ceroba what she needed from him, what would make her feel better, partly because he didn't feel like he was allowed to. Ceroba wound up becoming distant, shell-shocked from her grief and how poorly she was processing it. She slipped into alcohol abuse while Starlo slipped deeper into escapism, leading them to isolate themselves from each other, though not so severely as to ruin their friendship. It created enough distance that they will need years to repair their bond.

The end of the Wild East episode feels to me like someone with ADHD/ADD who's just come crashing down from being fully emotionally spooled about something, from being too excited. But the way Starlo handles this isn't through shutting down and letting himself cry, no, because he knows that he will self-destruct if he allows himself to turn his anger inwards. He still has enough self-loathing buried deep to know that his feelings could put him in more danger if he doesn't turn them outwards, hence how he snaps at the Feisty Four and how he goes after Clover. He is desperate for someone to blame other than himself, and when Ceroba calms him down after his fight, he has cooled off just enough to avoid self-destructing and to confront his faults with the Feisty Four.

One of the hardest things to admit is when you're wrong, when you've fucked up.

Ceroba finds admitting her faults a little easier compared to Starlo, but accountability is another matter entirely, a place where both she and Starlo struggle in different flavors. Ceroba doesn't feel deserving of keeping her life, so wracked with grief and with guilt that she begs Clover to kill her in the pacifist route. She may also feel undeserving of Starlo's friendship, which may cause her to isolate herself from him more. She longs for her family, for a connection she treasured and feels like she took for granted. She is oblivious to Starlo's loyalty, but more tragically, the pain and self loathing he has been hiding from her. Starlo is Ceroba's one blind spot due to how he wears his heart on his sleeve. He masks his worries with a bright, cheerful front that is easy to maintain when he's eyeball deep in his poison of choice, unhealthy escapism via roleplaying, via acting, singing, performing.

Neither of them are coping well with their pain, and because neither of them are willing to be honest about it, it damages their bond, causing enough damage that it will easily take years for them to repair it. It is for all of this that I am iffy about Staroba. I see it best as a QPR or a ride-or-die, and a ship that can only healthily sail if it happens several years after UTY, better yet, after the barrier breaks, because both monsters need to be given room to grow and mature, as well as repair the bond they had. The emotional baggage between them, though, will absolutely make any romance between them a difficult, delicate thing that will demand more openness and honesty from them both.

But this is just my two cents.

Thanks to @profounddefendorcrusade-blog for encouraging me to write posts like this in our recent DM.