#this got longer than originally planned JIKES

[stardustizuku]

Hey! I was wondering if you were willing to go more into your opinion on Tom as a boyfriend etc bc i really agreed with your romance analysis

It would be my absolute pleasure! I’m in love with analysing stuff and writing it down!

(ALSO this got…a bit….long….So i’ll just put it under the cut ;;; sorry) 

Okay, so Tom is one of my favourite characters. I’ve liked him since he first appeared in the opening and I didn’t even know his name. (Goes to show how long I’ve been in this fandom wow) 

And here’s the thing: Tom is a flawed character. Really really flawed. He’s egoistic, he think too much about himself, and is prone to anger easily. However, all of this things are good! In a character based story speaking of course. Yeah he’s bad but  his whole arc is about working not to be bad. It’s unlike any other character of Star, who are all good trying to do the good thing, or are bad guys trying to do the bad thing. 

Tom is a bad guy trying to the good thing. And that’s a pretty relatable issue. I myself know how hard it is not to explode in anger whenever someone says something mean. I have anger issues too. That’s why seeing Tom go through those emotions hit home. 

I like Tom as a character, and I would have loved to see how he developed over time!

……

However. 

The TomStar relationship on itself…It’s flawed. It’s flawed all over from a narrative perspective and character perspective.Which is both really good…And really bad… 

The tricky thing about character flawed relationship is that they can be good.  

I was, at first, really angry about the fact that TomStar was a thing. Why? I’m not a fan of the “breaking up and making up” couples. (kelly and Tad were actually my favourite deconstruction of the thing but HAHAH we all know how well that thing went) On itself, those types of relationships can lead to a really problematic outcome. Constantly splitting couples, fights that lead nowhere, and I’m not a fan of ‘second chances’.

This said, i grew to really like their relationship. Why? Precisely because it was flawed. They had their up and downs, Tom was still kind of a douche but trying, and Star still didn’t pay enough attention to her boyfriend. 

It was the kind of trouble that normal couples could have, presented in a kids show. And this was the kind of thing that I had wanted for a long time. To see two characters who really want to make this work, try and overcome their differences. 

It was a good relationship! 

Sigh. 

The problem comes from the Narrative Perspective. 

You see, when the Character Perspective is flawed it can work. Awkwardly and a bit forced, but it can work. Yes, maybe they had flaws but they can be solved with a good Narrative Perspective! 

Which, then again, SVTFOE completely fucks up. 

Narrative wise, what’s the point of Tom and Star breaking up in the first place? It doesn’t really come up again after they get together. At no point again does the argument “we broke up once” come into play. No “I want to make it work this time. I screwed up once, I don’t want to screw up twice”. 

Why? You know, seeing as this was a really key factor on Tom’s entire character in the first seasons, you’d think he’d recall it more often. 

You guessed it! The authors had no idea what they were doing with Tom’s character! 

It’s as if the character before season 3 were a completely different one from season 1. It would have made as much narrative sense to introduce a new character who Star just happened to hate. 

But that would mean a lot of work, so they just reused Tom (who Star already hated) to fill in the blank that they needed. (HEY kind of like what they did to Kelly! Funny!)

And this decision, if looked properly, bleeds into the rest of the series. 

Someone started this without knowing the clear purpose of every character. 

Jackie was introduced. They need to make Star jealous? Use her. We need to break Marco’s heart? Dispose of her! We need a new love interest for Marco? Oh shoot, we made Peekaboo unlikable and we don’t have Jackie…Let’s use Kelly! Never mind erasing the only core characteristic she had to her. 

Season 1 and 2 Tom is the same. He was presented to create a past lover for Star, someone who needs to let go. To stop chasing something that’s only hurting him. That’s the point of his arc. To have him grow up and stop hurting himself and other by looking for Star. His EX. 

��Enter season 3 and she needs a new lover? Why not use him? He’s clearly the one she needs *sarcasm*

I feel so bad for all the secondary characters in this series. They all had potential, but I guess they didn’t know what to do with that potential, because it’s all wasted. 

And *sighs* while we are at it, how about we take a look at Star? 

Look, I love the character development that Star went through. She went from a childish girl who liked pink and fun, to a girl who wanted to become the rightful ruler of Mewni. It’s an interesting change that still makes her likeable. 

However, I can’t shake the feeling that they’re…Robbing the character of some of it’s magic. The fun and relatable thing about Star when I started watching was how wacky and sweet she was. IDK I wish she had maintained more of her craziness. But maybe they could teach her to loosen up a bit in next seasons. 

Star and Marco seemed to have swapped places tbh. She’s now the worried girl who wants to do things right, and Marco is the fun loving guy who wants to have a good time. 

WHICH is entirely the opposite of what made the story charming at the beginning.

And by doing this…It puts her in an odd place in her relationship with Tom. She is now a serious girl, searching for a serious relationship. And she’s trying to do the right thing but…Honestly it also makes her kind of a bitch. Not in my eyes, of course, sweet princess deserves a break. But in the eyes of a bunch people it does. Especially with the way it’s painted. 

She’s going out with Tom but she constantly turns him down because she has more important things to do. 

This creates a really interesting conflict.

If the staff were good at it. 

It’s never talked about. They don’t seat and talk about this. Why? 

*SIGHS*

Because they want you to think that this relationship is dysfunctional because two people have different objectives. WHICH IS BULLCRAP. They want you to assume that Starco is the endgame because Marco shares natural interest with Star. And this is toxic as fuck. 

Not Starco, as I’ve mentioned before, I don’t blame ships for the nonsense that Season 3 has caused. Starco, on its early days, WAS fairly cute and I would have loved for it to be endgame.

The problem lays on the message the crew wants to send. Your true love is someone who shares  your interest, and while this CAN be true and makes things easier, it’s not always 100% true. 

You will disagree with your partner some times. You’ll have problems, you’ll feel misunderstood and worried. The best way to solve this is by talking. Not kissing your best friend who you used to love and shares your similar interests. 

Starco, at this point in time, is nowhere near healthy. Not for those consuming it and not for them in general. Endgame Starco at this point would be downright toxic. And pointless. (Assuming they follow this path and don’t fix shit)

TomStar is flawed. But they’re trying to fix this. They’re trying, in their own way, to find their pace. To understand each other. That’s a good message to send. One not many people try to send. However, narrative wise…I don’t think this will end well. 

So, if you tell me that “Fate” is more important in a relationship than “hard work” i will call BULLSHIT. 

And look, if you had asked for my opinion before the KISS ™ I would have said Starco still had a silver lining of hope. It could still be endgame if they played their cards with TomStar correctly. But…They didn’t. They fucked up. They threw away a story line without finishing it, to bring a boring one (love square) into the table. 

If you ask me, they wanted to have a piece of the Starco cake before they finished eating their TomStar veggies. Which resulted on an unpleasant dinner for everyone.  

My final point is: SVTFOE created this mess for being extremely lazy. For not thinking things through. For disposing and reusing character for a purpose that defies what they originally served for. 

If they want to fix this mess, they’re going to have to have to STOP being lazy pieces of shit and start writing a planning this love story correctly. It does not match the tone of such a complex and interesting story to have the LOVE SQUARE of a young adult novel 

TLDR: Tom is a shitty boyfriend but he tries. That makes him a good boyfriend in my standards. Shitty but good. Their relationship is flawed and that would be a good thing…If only the creator knew what they were doing. 

[multimetaverse]

HSMTMTS 2x07 Review

The Field Trip was a campy ep that recaptured some of the charm of S1. Let’s dig in!

S2 has often struggled with taking itself too seriously but finally we got some good campy fun that reminded me of why S1 was so great. North High finally come into their own as villains. The Howie reveal was very well done, poor Kourtney inadvertently being the source of the leaks. I can’t tell if Antoine’s accent is bad on purpose or not but he was funny tonight when he dragged Big Red and I loved how forward he was with Ashlyn. It’s good that the trio of new characters finally feel like they’re part of a larger plot rather than being somewhat random additions to the cast.

Lily continues to act like she’s on Glee which is exactly the right energy for the role. The stick to the stuff you know line was great as was Seb’s bop to the top retort. North High clearly won the dance off though Gina being in a skirt limited her. Lily was doing it with bad intentions but she was absolutely right that the rose song was a dig at Ricky and didn’t fit the musical and that they’d be disqualified for performing it. Miss Jenn should have already known they’d be disqualified for adding it and Ricky should have already been able to tell that the song was about him. I think it’s more and more likely that Lily is the party crasher who Ricky re-evaluates in 2x12 and she could well be the unexpected face time call he gets in 2x10.  

It took 7 eps but we finally got an ep where Gina wasn’t upset over Ricky and thank god for that; the constant angst was sucking the life out of her plot. Of course, the reason she wasn’t going through it is because she was spending her time with EJ. I think this ep should put to rest any notion of Portwell just being platonic. Some people are still clinging to Matt’s interview where he refers to EJ and Gina as friends but he was clearly being misleading, even if nothing else happens it’s clear that Gina is not just a friend to EJ. I’ve seen people try and claim that Gina and EJ are like siblings with each other or that they’re practically related because Gina is roommates with EJ’s cousin as if there’s some sort of Westermarck effect by proxy but family members don’t pretend to be dating. 

The morning show was a lot of fun and the fake dating was cute. In contrast to the last time they fake dated back in 1x05 we can see how much happier and more comfortable they are with each other now. Notably they had EJ circle back to it well after it happened which led to Gina’s line about everything going back to normal which is a tell that everything has not gone back to normal for them. We can see EJ’s inherent goofiness shining through with the Risotto inside joke they now have. Much like Joshaya on GMW there are valid reasons to not go ahead with the ship, although Portwell doesn’t have the creepiness or borderline illegality of Joshaya, but the chemistry between the characters is real and can’t be ignored. 

Rini hurtles towards a breakup which could come as soon as next ep. Hard to tell if Ricky was in denial or just too stupid to understand the songs meaning. I'd prefer the former since a 17 year old would have to lack basic comprehension skills to not understand that the lyrics were a thinly veiled attack on him.

Nini trying to claim it was just a song at the end was disingenuous, she didn’t want Ricky to hear it for a reason. Her deciding to use her given name Nina for her music account is obviously meant to symbolize her independence from Ricky since he first gave her that nickname back in the first grade. However, it makes Ricky seem like some malign influence on her basically her entire life when it’s not like he forced her to go by Nini or prevented her from going back to Nina during the 10 odd years of their friendship/relationship together.

Miss Jenn and Zachie were fun but such a risk on his part to steal the mask, that’s trespassing and theft and a sure disqualification not to mention the very real risk of being criminally charged. The door is now closed on Jike and Jachie and the path for Jazarra is open.

Rouge Grand was funny but I hope this Redlyn angst isn’t dragged out too long. 

Mob song wasn’t good, the skrillex beat drop was not needed. Around You was good though. I just noticed that Tim abandoned, or was forced to by covid, his plan to have 3 songs per ep instead of 2 which is for the best I think. 

Looking Ahead:

Looks like next week will be a big one for Portwell and EJ in general. We get Gaston, career day with EJ’s dad, and then EJ hanging with Gina and helping her knit which is very domestic. I’d bet if you showed that clip of them knitting to someone who had never seen the show  they’d assume the character were dating. So it looks like Mr. Caswell has bought EJ’s way into Duke which is no longer EJ’s dream, if it ever was.

As I said last week, there’s a clear path forward for Portwell to get together in the season finale and next ep will probably take a big step towards making it happen. We have the chemistry, we’ve gotten moments between them, and we know EJ’s feelings, we just need Gina to recognize her budding feelings for EJ. I think Gina running into Jack at the airport in 2x09 will help her clear her head on what she wants and a part of that will be whether she still wants to try and be with Ricky or does she want to take a chance with EJ.

Obviously S3 will almost certainly leave Portwell in the dust in order to do Rina for a bit which will piss off a lot of fans but Tim’s screwed himself over here; there’s really no way that this series ends without a large chunk of the audience being bitterly disappointed over who’s endgame. Love triangles are a done to death trope but they typically involve some minor characters who can written off once the triangle is over, not main characters who have to be in every ep no matter what. 

More Redlyn angst next week as well as the wildcats being benched for a week due to trespassing at North High. 

A lot of people think that the show is having Nini get into songwriting because of Olivia’s success but the scripts would have been written before she released Driver’s License and shot to stardom. She’s also still contracted for two more seasons though she’d clearly leave before that if Disney would let her. 

The Rini treehouse scene could well be the breakup, gotta go my own way would fit well if that’s the case. This is another area where Tim needs to tread carefully. He can’t have Rini hate each other or avoid each other for the remaining 20 odd eps of the series but also can’t fully close the door on them since he’ll almost certainly have Rini be endgame as they graduate from East High at the end of S4. 

At this point it seems pretty unrealistic that East High would win the Menkies but this is a tv show so who knows. There’s one big song left that would work for some of the couples they, Something There, which could work for Portwell, Howell, or Rina so we’ll see if we get it.

2x07 marks the last of the clips we saw in the original S2 trailer so we’re largely flying blind now.

Until next week wildcats.