#but oh no thats ur sleazy ex!!!

[starofhisheart]

Its nearly summer here so guess what that means! Time to put a big sun hat on izzy hands, lather him up with sunscreen and give him a kiss on the cheek for good luck as u see him off at the beach where he is abt to have an anxious day of trying not to sunburn and keep ed from swimming outside of the flags

[starco-conut]

Our Thoughts on Season 3

Hey everyone!! as you may have seen...Alan and I have been just a bit let down by some of the stuff going on. Luckily, we’re both huge ass nerds so we wrote it all out in a multi-paragraph post. With visual aids! if you’ve been feeling a little offput by the new episodes but can’t place why, we probably have your reason put into words somewhere in here. 

Reviews, replies, general additions to this post are not only permitted, but strongly encouraged!! :D

bold is nicole. italics is alan

Scent of a hoodie

I mean. one word summary;... Uncomfortable. it was rough to watch my girl obsess like that and honestly??? there was no clear message at the end... with the whole ‘the scent is in ur heart....’ do they mean to imply she’s getting over marco or that he’s always gonna be around in her mind??????????. yeh. not much to say here.

this episode was kind of strange and felt really awkward with star’s obsession with marco but had a sweet ending with star learning that its really unhealthy for her to latch onto marco like this and its time to move on. it felt like one of those iffy episodes throughout most of it but the end was decent enough

Rest in Pudding

Her little monologue to glossaryk was super cute and well done!! that whole bit was just. Good! felt like Old Times! but then there’s

This was... a gag? I dont know. when i saw it first my gut reaction was that they were setting up some angst about how star’s calling people on earth that aren’t her best friend Marco and THAT got me!! i was Ready To Be Hurt by that! but then like...nothing. Unless it comes up in a nearing episode this was just a bad joke. overall episode wasn’t bad at all though!!

i really enjoyed this episode! the pacing, mystery, and comedy all held up to the Star standard and only had a small amount of plot progression which felt appropriate for a halloween episode. my only gripe is that after the whole Battle For Mewni deal, i expected Moon to believe Star a bit more when she says Glossaryck is alive

oh yeah that too for sure

Club Snubbed

pretty much made me want to die and barf simultaneously. when it got to the scene above, where she talked about just needing a friend i thought, hey, thats cool. and accurate. maybe that dance scene clip, since its unfortunately not a flashback, is going to be presented as platonic!

nope. anyone in for a suicide pact?

To be fair, i should elaborate. Tomstar, in theory, is super cool. I definitely vibed with the fire and butterfly magic mix happening, back when I thought it was a flashback. But...Its been, what, 5, maybe 6 episodes since marco left and she’s already just...whoop? who’s marco? haha what? There’s not enough time. 

And from what I can tell, none of their old issues have been addressed. Tom still has anger issues, but because ‘its hard’ and he’s ‘trying’ suddenly star’s all over him? sleazy ppl come to their exes like ‘i’ve changed!!’ for a reason. the ex should actually. want. to see. change. Star seems content to say ‘fuckall, tom’s here, why not’

WHICH..could actually be good? If it’s presented that way? My hope is that she’s latching on to Tom because they have history, and a bond already. Marco’s gone suddenly, she’s urging for somewhere to direct her affection- lord knows the sweet girl has lots to give. and then they’ll part as friends after she realizes whatever they are now is unhealthy and ingenuine romantically. I have no backing for this and honestly it doesn’t look like that’s the way they’re going but... I’m gonna hope.

this episode definitely throws a spin on our view of tom as an “uncaring, lying, manipulative ex boyfriend” and for the first time i felt like i really saw Tom Lucitor, a boy with anger issues and an unfortunate history with his actions. i was really glad to see this character growth for him but i feel like the writers completely skipped over the real impacts that a relationship like tom and star’s had on each other. 

yes!! i didn’t say but, i kinda love tom as an independent character. his anger issues are presented as a part of his personality, he is a guy who has anger issues, not Anger Issues in a physical form. lots of cool depth on that.

realistically, star would not immediately fall back in love with tom because...why would she? we as the viewers know that Tom has changed but to Star? he has a significant history of lying to manipulate her and marco to get closer to them and star doesn’t have a real reason to believe what he’s saying is true and she shouldn’t have 100% faith in him so quickly especially when she had 0 trust in him just a few minutes prior. overall i was impressed with the development for tom but the future implications were disappointing to me

i will be talking more about my issues with Star and her trust issues later.

Stranger Danger

My only issue with this episode is that it doesn't exist outside of its own ten minutes. I literally forgot about it til i looked up an episode list of s3 to write this post. Eclipsa is sitting there, queen of darkness, in the same castle grounds as star, and shes nor the trial is brought up in the subsequent episodes. Alan goes wild on this one so I’ll let him take it away- he’s 100% on point here.

THIS IS A LONG ONE BOYS, STRAP IN,

i agree with nicole here, there is no buildup to the immense revelation that eclipsa is free and roaming the castle gardens. battle for mewni had planted the seed that eclipsa was breaking out but there was no mention of this in any other episode. and then there’s this:

what was this all about?? did no one notice that Eclipsa, the Queen of Darkness, one of the most powerful queens and magic users in Mewni’s history, and a wanted criminal, was FREE FROM THE CRYSTAL THEY FROZE HER IN?? And in BFM, Moon even visits Eclipsa’s crystal prison to check if she’s still there but now? she didnt seem worried about it AT ALL. only when Star is peacefully talking to her does Moon and the magic high comission show up because...plot reasons.

aside from that, however, i feel like the pacing in this episode was not planned very well. from the opening scene of Star taking care of Glossaryck for well over 4 minutes, it felt like this was going to be a fun silly episode with general shenanigans (there’s nothing wrong with silly episodes, it just didn’t end up being one). but halfway through the episode, eclipsa shows up and suddenly the plot is moving at a rapid pace. and while this felt like it should have been the climax of the 11-minutes, the climax just continues? there is no falling action in this episode. it continues with star being decontaminated and at one point she is strapped to an examining table and flashes through some disturbing faces

why is she smiling? who drew this? this feels really creepy, like someone is putting their kinks into the show and its really uncomfortable to watch and think about. there is a heart touching moment with Moon and Star talking about their actions and both side have somewhat understandable reasons, though star clearly has the show’s bias so the plot progresses (which is not necessarily a bad thing). afterwards, Star meets Eclipsa in her cell and still, the climax of the episode has not fallen at all with all the arguing. and then finally when star confronts eclipsa in her tower, she says,

“Just because i didn’t want you crystalized again, doesn’t mean i trust you.”

????

She literally has no past with eclipsa other than having a pleasant conversation with her. She knows next to nothing about her actual actions or personality but immediately doesn’t trust her? but in Club Snubbed she immediately trusts tom? the guy who directly had severe negative impacts on her life?? Why?! Why are the writers so inconsistent? nothing makes sense! It’s cheap, forced romance that’s why!

and after this ridiculously long climax the episode just ENDS. there is no resolution, and it doesn’t touch on it again anywhere in the next four episodes. It’s bad show writing.

Demoncism

I picked this screenshot because it was the most disgusting!!! this is just...more of an opinion here but I really like the trope where one is out of their mind, dangerous, causing magic destruction and the other defies the risk and holds them, curing the issue with The Power Of Love. it’s corny but I love it. and yet.

here. they decided to just. chuck it in. I’ve seen shows do this trope Very Very well (oddly, one example i can think of also involves a wild demon kid and a forest in blue fire.....) but to just...throw this in there. with. like 8 seconds of buildup. n-o. no. ESPECIALLY because tom and star, where they are currently in the show, aren’t ready to be romantic, and this trope always has romantic implications.

i got extremely mixed feelings from this episode. on one hand it had a great message that you shouldn’t force change but rather to grow naturally and learn from your mistakes. on the other hand,  a lot of it is still tainted by this cliche, boring, romance. Star immediately barges in and claims that he’s only doing this for her and generally is untrusting of his actions. 

......

are you noticing a common theme here? writers purposefully twisting characters’ interactions for the sole purpose of causing drama? give me one good reason for star’s sense of trust to be flip-flopping like this over and over again. im being serious, if you even read this far, leave a reply and call me out because i CAN NOT THINK OF ONE GOOD REASON.

“Okayy, but no tickling.” Again, more creepy bdsm, moving on.

Then later when hes doing that whole floaty, blue veined, writhing scene i will actually commend the writers for making a very good analogy of how painful and unhealthy this process is for tom to quickly force himself to change. then star comes back and hugs him and says shes here for him which would have actually been a very sweet moment if they had just been friends but of course, they’re not. its just a reminder that “uwu they’re in love now”. and then there’s this:

confirmation that yes, the show is going to do that. rush star and tom’s relationship bc #teendrama. and the worst part of it is: star and tom could actually have been an acceptable, if not role model relationship if it wasn’t written so poorly, which is what the next paragraph or so is dedicated to.

I don’t hate Tom and Star’s relationship. I don’t. i see it as a missed opportunity. Tom and Star were two people who used to be a couple in the past and broke up for reasons unknown. we can speculate that it was because of Tom’s anger issues and problems with lying, and also Star’s inability to deal with complex situations and face her problems. THIS IS AN INCREDIBLY COMMON REAL LIFE SITUATION. This was a ripe opportunity to go in-depth with Star and Tom’s issues, not just their own but also the issues between them. and it is wasted. I know that its hard to fit this into one measly episode but there’s a whole half season to develop them at a proper, realistic pace! i wouldn’t care if the entire season is dedicated to Star and Tom working to solve these issues if it meant we had this enormously important topic resolved in a healthy and wholesome manner. 

But the problem is, none of this happens. And it’s not going to. The writers completely skip over all of Tom and Star’s anger towards each other and go straight to “UWU THEYRE IN LOVE NOW”. Star is just rebounding off Marco and onto Tom and there’s going to be more unnecessary drama, and someone’s going to get hurt.

And I am disgusted.

Sophomore Slump

jarco saved this ep ? the only parts of it i could really relax and enjoy was the little jarco montage it was cute. and then. and THEN. the random dumping. I get what the writers were trying to say, y’know? ohohohoh, nudge nudge, we all know who marcos REAL best friend is...hohoho...except. they shouldnt have. said it. at least not via jackie. She was used in this disgustingly common way where she’s just there to deliver a message and help marco realize something. do y’all realize the most drastic adjective i can apply to her realizing she+marco wont work is like....”bummed”. It’s realistic to cry, to be fucking mad, to show...FEELING...i don’t care how cool and chill she is. It’s an absolute travesty to her to not let her be upset about it. 

AND THE CAPE. it was obnoxious, I hated his attitude about it, not because it was annoying but because he expected others to stop ‘acting weird’. I had hope when jackie knocked sense into him but then he...was then REWARDED for his obsession with it? He ended up getting what he wanted, a ticket back to Mewni, by being a stubborn arse about it. no.

god where do i begin. alright.

Marco was so out of character this episode. im not talking like “he isnt the safe kid anymore he takes some uncharacteristic risks”. no. I don’t know who this kid is but it is not Marco Diaz. He’s some plot device created by the writers to create drama. Why is he so obsessed with his cape? Why is he forcing his experience on mewni into every conversation? Why. Is he. The Croissant Girl. The dude spent over sixteen YEARS in other dimensions going on quests of epic scale and comes back home without a single issue readjusting. Not one word. but then he spends one week in the butterfly castle and serves essentially no purpose the entire time other than freeing Star from her chains one time. He was completely and utterly unimportant in the grand scheme of the BFM movie. and then he comes back to earth and feels this great pride as if he was some great part of the event. Why? what does he have to be proud of? there was no mention of this development in any of the earlier episodes. and i havent even mentioned the ridiculous forced breakup yet.

at some point it seems like Jackie’s words really do come through to Marco. He snaps out of his daze and seems to genuinely want to make it up to her. the scene with Marco and Jackie having a fun date at the pier was incredibly sweet and was generally a good experience. We got to see more of Jackie’s fun side that we were desperately searching for in season 1 and the first half of season 2. it was very satisfying to know that jackie was a character everyone would eventually come to love. but then

that. Why? Why has Marco not moved on at all and learned his mistakes? why does he not understand that he’s being destructive. why do the writers like creating unnecessary drama. you know what show had a very similar plot issue and resolved this properly??

That’s right! Everybody’s favorite racist, ableist, offensive, generally unfunny show: The Big Bang Theory. I don’t even remember this dude’s name but when he came back from space and was being annoying, his girlfriend talked to him and he realized that “WOW IM ANNOYING LET ME THINK ABOUT OTHER’S FEELINGS FOR ONCE.”

100%. if they had stopped with the callout via jackie, and he had actually taken off the cape, I would have been fine. lesson learned. but, obviously, they didnt do that.

 If this show (which has an incredible track record for doing crappy show writing) can get it right then why can’t Star vs the Forces of Evil? A show that is usually praised for it’s amazing talent for intelligent, easy to understand, and great moral messaging?

Because of the writers. They don’t want to teach important messages for these kids (the target audience may i remind you) to latch on to and learn from. They want to write their angsty fanfiction and throw it into canon.

Nicole-TL;DR my lasting hope is star’s affections for tom are, and are revealed as such, a way to cope with going cold-turkey on marco and things resolve without a stupid fucking love triangle also jackie and janna start  dating. aaand im just. disappointed with the show rn. something’s different and after shoving this amazing ass show in everyones face for so long just to see it kind of...well, it’s starting to peel. idk why. but im just hoping this is like...banagic incident but...several episodes long.

Alan-TL;DR