#i love it when mantis ships starbula

[incorrect-starbula]

Mantis: There are rules, Nebula! You can't sleep with your friends' siblings. You don't see me sleeping with your sister, do you? Nebula: I wouldn't care if you did. Mantis: Mantis: You wouldn't? :D

[lilkisara]

Beyond Good… Beyond Evil... Beyond your wildest imagination…

These are my personal thoughts regarding this pairing. I’ll be splitting this into three parts:

pre-Avengers: Infinity War

post-Avengers: Endgame, Thor: Love and Thunder, and Holiday Special

post-Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3

pre-Avengers: Infinity War QUILL What's Smurfette doing here!? NEBULA Back rubs, dishes, killing gods, whatever I need to do to get a damn ride home. Most people only see their relationship from the point before Avengers: Infinity War i. e. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2. They were reluctant allies in their fight against Ego. All Peter knew about her was that she was Gamora’s sister, Thanos’ daughter, and one of Ronan’s underlings. Back then, they haven’t been on my radar. To be quite honest, I don’t have that many pairings that pique my interest in the MCU (except one from one of the recent MCU entries). Certainly, no ship from the Guardians franchise was on my radar. I’m sure that some renegade starbula shippers have been around back then. I wasn’t one of them. Kudos to you! post-Avengers: Endgame, Thor: Love and Thunder, and Holiday Special “[...] as we come to them in Vol. 3, we realize that they are two leaders of the Guardians”. -James Gunn According to Gunn, there are “a couple of years between Endgame and Vol. 3”. Thor: Love and Thunder and the Holiday Special take place during those years. Peter and Nebula are well-established as the co-leaders of the Guardians at this point. They trust each other. The scenes that underline that - in my opinion - are at the beginning of Vol. 3 (Nebula (bridal) carrying Peter home, tucking him into his bed) and their spotlight during the hallway fight sequence towards the end of the film. I’ve always been and always shall be an ETL truther, add to that the dynamic of enemies-friends-lovers and I’m sold. And that’s the potential I’m seeing with this ship. Ever since Avengers: Endgame, they’ve been working together. They have a well-established routine as co-leaders of the Guardians as well as a synchronized dynamic during fights. They have each other’s back. We get to see Nebula’s softer side towards Peter (and Rocket) in Vol. 3. That last smile when Peters is on the ground, looks up at her and asks: “Did that look cool?” (bonus that he copied this from his sister Mantis, so my heart was already melting because of the sibling resemblance there). She just scoffs at his questions but smiles softly and helps him up. Be still my heart! Well, excuse me for seeing the possible potential between them. It’s the little things. At this point, Peter is still so caught up in his heartbreak that the mere thought of starting anything with anyone never even crossed his mind. It takes someone else pointing out the obvious for him to realize that there might be something there. post-Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 Nebula and Peter are roughly at the same stage in their lives by the end of Vol. 3. Peter returns to his grandfather. Nebula builds a community on Knowhere, the kind of home she never had. In a way, they’re both settling down. I could see them staying in contact, getting their opinion on important matters, or casual chats. Both of them are still in desperate need of healing from their past traumata and the loss that they’ve experienced. I don’t know if the powers that be that pull the strings in the MCU have any future plans for the characters or not. Do I want them to dip their toes into this relationship? Nah. Honestly, I don’t trust anything coming from the US anymore. I’m pretty jaded in that regard from past experiences (the reylo of it all). Do I want content creators to make fanworks? Hell yeah!!!! Feel free to add your thoughts. No character or pairing bashing.

PS: Congratulations! You made it to the postscript. Did you catch the reference in the tagline?