How Shipping Ruined Star Vs the Forces of Evil

my friends it has often been said that i like ships my friends i like ships no friends i love ships it's a mostly fun not harmless activity where fans can gather around and throw gang signs at each other and get into points arguments about which fictional characters should be together and why shipping the wrong them makes them more criminals if shipping could be a contact sport it would be the hunger games but the fan arts fire so we'll all forgive it or you're a sadist like me and just like to watch the internet burn but have you ever asked yourself has shipping ever gone too far i know crazy thought look up the water fandom this shit's a falling rock with no bomb and it will last so long as we do and probably picked up by aliens after the fact but if you ask me has shipping ever ruined a show then the answer is of course yes and today i'm here to talk about it because while miraculous ladybug has always been a dumpster fire that the french create to destroy us it at least lets you know exactly what you're in for star vs the force of evil though jumped you when your back was turned and laughed at you forever daring to care about a blue-haired saint we're here to talk about how starco ruined the forces of evil and i'm making no apologies for this one so i guess some of you don't know what star versus is which is okay i was dick riding gravity falls too back then star vs is the story of a magical girl named star who after burning down her own kingdom got booed by her parents to earth because no one cares what happens to america anymore and there she teams up with a kung fu nerd she series a house with named marco this duo went on magical dimension hopping adventures all while fighting the forces of evil and discovering the true evil high school and racism all in all the show really slapped in its first season the plot hadn't really kicked in yet so we mostly had fun week tweak adventures where some of the minor story beats get set down and villains introduced but mainly you're just here for a good time delivering some buck wild comedy some super likable characters then talk about historical revisionism and start realizing she's a racist yeah this show had some serious right turns but at its core this show was always about the characters and this first season started the shipping early with marco and star being best friends right out the gate yeah best friends not that oh they're friends but they're really in love with each other and can't say it or dating other people no they're established early on to just be platonic friends marco has another girl that he likes named jackie with star playing the hype woman for him while marco helps her dodge her old ex while he may be a demon boyfriend that doesn't mean he was a bad one he did that on his own now going to this show i didn't want star and marco to end up together kim and ron were cute but a fantasy cartoons can't let boys and girls be friends there's no hope for any of us not every show with boy girl leads have to get paired up like that sometimes people are just friends and making them fall in love romantically just creates a more generic relationship than the one they already had yeah you hold hands now cool enjoy picking up ikea furniture friends just almost always feel better written fiction to me is it he removes this expectation of having to do things like the villain kidnaps your boyfriend congrats that's immediately gonna be your focus your friend gets kidnapped how well do you really like this friend because as far as we know this could just be a side quest and someone else can pick it up so when that friend does have to then show up and save their life it makes it all the more special because unlike your boo they're doing this for free and in the show star and marco bounces each other out perfectly he was a dork who could never shoot his shot she always did but never bothered to aim together they made a functioning person that the rest of the universe had to watch out for super sweet and supportive it didn't matter if they were breaking out princess concentration camps or watching tv and making nachos they were friend goals and then the blood moon ball happened a blood moon ball is a special episode to this show is not only is it gorgeous visually the song is amazing but it's also the one that made star and marco into starco and holy go back now to understand this episode we gotta talk about the other guy tom tom in the first couple of seasons is an he's hot tempered possessive and does everything in his power to get back together with star whether that's hiring someone to give her depression kidnapping marco he's the worst kind of ex claim that he's worked on himself to get you back then snap back to his old habits when any opposition comes up he has that bad boy i can fix something going on most of us just wanted him gone it's this teen hormonal volcano that kicks off the blood moon ball when he gets star to go with him to the demon ball she said she'll go but this isn't a date he said we'll see while marco decided to sneak along because there's a dynamic duo when star goes he goes even though star can handle tom they all get there the music plays tom walks away and marco in disguise dances with star giving us this yeah this sent out a million ships to see at this point i kind of just internally gave up because it's just that moment you just click in your head i was like oh they are gonna get together there's no friends or butts they just go out of their way to throw in this super romantic moment for what has always been a platonic group like i secretly hope that this was gonna be some subversion down the line but at this point i i was just going against the flow and this just became inevitable see on top of the mystery romance of the blood moon ball he also allegedly soul-botted them making them being a couple inevitable and also set up one of the most underwhelming plot threads in anime history now nothing happened by the end of this episode star was just left pretty pissed at marco over showing up even though he was right that tom was being shady and was playing the one free wife moon card but no one's happy at the end but they're still friends nothing crazy happened like star catching feelings in love with her best friend and his name is marco diaz oh no okay speed round after this things went back to the status quo marco and star are friends they adventure and save each other's lives all the time star blows up her magic wand to say marcos they're still living together and marco is still pining for the local cool kid jackie which okay now we have to talk about this and the incredibly disappointing story of all the women who end up dating marco jackie is the apple of marco's eye she's a cool skater kid he's had a crush on since he was in pampers always too shy to hang out with her the writers put jackie's existence into a shortinger's cat type of scenario is she a character with her own life or is she just a goal for marco to pursue the answer somehow both and none of these things at the same time because while it took forever to get these two to end up together they actually end up having really good chemistry her surf skater vibe being a good match for marco's nervous over analytical style and just fun to see someone who's like oh my god i have this idea of who this lady is i've been just pursuing this for so long he gets started hanging out with her and he's just like we're just having a good time she's just fun to be around then when it looked like a healthy relationship was finally starting to develop ship to ship combat engaged is jackie went from a tool to further marco's character to an instigator for stars to realize she likes the red hood mum forcing her to have an honest conversation with marco about how she feels oh hold up no i'm lying starburst decides to bury those feelings all the way down until she's old enough to drink and make a scene at the wedding because she's committed to being his friend and doesn't want to ruin it because her mental health is optional becoming the number one jargo shipper and while i'm not super big into poly ships i can get behind this like how the earth circles the moons starko's time has come around and invalidated everything else in the show isn't that when they're not seeing in unison while jackie's standing right there the blood moon is ruining other dates that star and marco get more screen time together with season three having the bold decision to move star back to muni her home dimension finally gets a chance to just hang out with jackie and see if they can make this relationship work stay amazing okay what the hell is that just like that two seasons of build up a couple fun episodes showing how they could work but nah show decide everyone hates this kicks jackie to the curb if you feel bad you should but don't worry she gets a girlfriend later because if the sami has taught us anything it's that if you can't write her to be interesting you can always just make her gay sorry jackie fans y'all got lied to it's all cool now because at least we can finally just get right to starko [Music] yeah another love triangle you've got me me so yeah remember tom sars demon x with control issues she took him back because of this [Music] also tom did a demon exorcism showing his commitment to change so they're back together if that feels abrupt to you it should it happened in two episodes like tom and star got back together the second before marco moves into muni it was at this point everyone collectively went oh no as it dawned on us that this is it this is gonna be the entire show just a series of conveniences why these two aren't together till the end like shows do this all the time but i don't think it's ever been more blade in the cartoon than here and as a fan of this show i can confidently say that this is these people will always know what the show is trying to do this is how transparent this show is the season started with star sniffing marco's jacket and refusing to washing it because she likes his smell next episode she's back together with tom next episode after that marco shows up looking to date star and he can't because tomco's a thing like it's weird because i'm not even mad or angry that like marco missed his chance or like why did star decide to get with tom it's like no we're just annoyed at all obviously we're getting punked here like i live for that slow burn but don't patronize me by making this so egregious with the out of nowhere twists just to keep them apart like tom was shitty and they do make him likeable but this was just you just can't speedrun all that character development have star flip like that in two episodes if you see that throughout the seasons yeah i can see that switch happening but to just do everything that quickly and to then have marco just conveniently show up when it's just too late you gonna annoy the audience now people were pissed off about jargo getting canceled like it did and i know a lot of people that started shipping tom in star out of spite because starco for just being this grand epic that has to happen and the sad thing was star ended up being more interesting with tom than she was with marco like this is the weirdest saving grace of this period where marco's just being this lovesick puppy slash whiny is that as problematic as star and tom are historically when they're together it just works because they feel like an actual teen couple two very flawed people who don't have their lives together with fights makeups and all that other stuff people experience when they're being idiots they care about each other they're just not fully sure how to make this work or fully make it work in a healthy communicative way and that just made it feel so much more real like you know people like this you knew people that like oh my god are they together again like i hope the best for them but jesus last time i know i end up liking that just a lot more versus the serotonin overload that was starco or the wholesomeness of jarko it's not something that i thought i would like but slowly won me over as i watched it more and more i was also very bitter as i explained about jarko so maybe i was just looking for a petty revenge then because we had a nice thing going awkward drama got shoehorned in because of course it does see this is a kissing booth this is star and marco trapped in a kissing booth this is them kissing because marco panicked and thought that's what he and the booth wanted and this little alex hirsch hobgom is what trapped them inside till they kissed because he's a monster like i hate everything about this episode like on a fundamental to my bone level like it stands with core season 2 of ship happening not because it makes sense but because dory wanted more drama and no one asked for this because you can have marco and star doing dumb like this you would have marco kiss star in a way that would make sense and not be them being literally held hostage by the plot instead they have a literal goblin lock them in a booth refuse to let them out until they take a good picture which in this case was just him wanting to see them kiss and i'm starting to think that the goblin is just a pervert it was ridiculous and pretty much threw their dynamic into the shredder he's after this we're just left with marco being in an awkward eye up phase star is trying to hide what happened from tom and then the story peaked in season three where after failing to take on the big bad marco tries to make tom hate him by dropping this juicy reveal what yeah so you don't owe me anything now go wow no hesitation which is supposed to hurt because they're apparently friends at this point but tom doesn't believe him high in your bluff no i i really did kiss star oh so of course season three ends with tom and star breaking up deciding that this just wasn't for them her heart's with someone else but they'll remain friends and maybe keep in touch no they're still together marco's still here and we're in season four now so fun story one of my very first youtube videos was me delving into everything that went wrong with season four watch if you want i hate it because it is so old and very much early me but if you want my more in-depth thoughts on just the season 4 as a whole and how it ending kind of sucked go check it out here because right now i'm just focusing on how the shipping affected the show which was negatively because the plot basically takes a back seat to the shipping as we're stuck with filler episodes and more filler episodes in episodes that seem like they're progressing the characters only to get undone in the worst way possible because up until this point the shipping was still pretty fun stuff like the kissing booth was awful the rest of the story kept it fun without it feeling like a miraculous dumpster fire because this show had an actual plot giving the characters something else to focus on besides their hormones star was trying to end racism by throwing a mixed race party an evil queen turned out to just be kinky and this guy with the evil old lady turning out to be the long-lost heir to the throne a lot happened and it kept the story progressing and our attention on to other things so that no one element could grow too big and consume the show so guess what happened in season four congratulations you played yourself tomco is on pretty rocky ground post my girlfriend kissed her best friend and spends more time with him instead of me with even family time not doing the trick as they are slowly realizing that this isn't going to work rather than just having agreed to this and quitting it while they're ahead or doing something insane like having star break out with tom to date marco these people might not like that tomco kept dysfunctionally chugging along till tom finally got the balls to be the one to break up because he realized he was putting in all the effort and made even more painfully obvious when star chose to go move back in with marco on earth rather than go on a little dimension hopping road trip with him which yeah i do see why he would cut that off too they only realize this at the finale at least they're doing fun things to marco right right right now i want you all to know that the story i'm about to tell you might make you think that i'm live that i'm somehow making this up but i swear to you that this is the honest truth this is kelly this cute little muppet has big hair and a big heart she spent most of the series dating a guy named tad who was just part of her hair stay with me it's a cartoon so tad and kelly break up because living rent free and being voiced by stoner beast boy is not a winning combination i've been watching you all night you have feelings for your best friend dude they broke up sometime in season three and because everyone hates the horse kelly became star's only normal friend that she would hang out with becoming the fourth wheel that got dragged around along with marco to keep him from feeling lonely then during a beach episode kelly and marco have a moment because they're both dealing with a breakup and not the fact that they're the only person available at the time this leads to some shipping fuel later when kelly is teased for wanting that mole then season 4 reads its ugly head tomco is throwing itself off a cliff and they can't have marco look sad all season so kelly so they keep flooring with each other with both of them realizing that this is going to be a pg rebound buddies what's that well you kinda help each other forget your old feelings so you can move on also you can kiss when the mood is weirdly romantic yeah friends with benefits now they could do something interesting with this as star could realize again that she's losing her shot with marco or marco could actually develop some feelings for kelly and question his relationship with star doesn't matter though they already broke up no not tom and star marco and kelly they broke up no not in the same episode or the one after that they broke up between episodes these closures for winners and if you ship calco you're not one of them like seriously no jokes aside 100 serious they spent the beginning half of this season saying okay marco might be moving on he might go date kelly they did this whole blood moon ball thing that i'll get into later then they decide that rake them up between episodes between episodes like that gap that we don't freaking see am i missing something here what is this horse i don't think i've ever seen this level of disrespect to a ship in my life like if you like shipping them as a couple i guess this should want to say you this is basically charcoal again or with if they just skip that episode had marco show up saying that he broke up with her this was just so crazy like watching weed to week when it happens even just talking about just makes you like it feels like a fever dream it just doesn't feel real that they would have all this build up to it to have them actually be together then not even show them date and just have it be oh they broke up hahaha so funny i don't understand it it is so crazy to me that a show that has so much shipping involved that is so focused on getting people together that it decides now we're not going to even bother showing you the breakup or giving you a reason they're just gone and it's at this point you kind of have to realize kelly like jackie was being used as a prop to holds marco back from star giving him an excuse to not be moby because that's all marco's love interests are placeholders starco was inevitable and as soon as they served their purpose they got rin out of the story star vs isn't the only show to do this a lot of shows do this kind of but the turnaround time is what kills me it removes the chance to let certain characters bow out of the show gracely or let the people actually enjoy these couples a chance to understand why they wouldn't work out but there's a difference between a show making a couple grow dysfunctional and ending between episodes it's a slap to the face to anyone who supported these ships even casual viewers were looking around wondering what the hell just happened and it makes all the episodes that were about them worthless in hindsight so of course starco does end up happening but the journey there left you wondering if it was even worth it tom and star's relationship kept getting dragged on we started being a worse and worst girlfriend while marco and kelly was holy i am still reeling from that finale where tom breaks up with star tom then immediately goes to marco and tells him to go hit that and he'll be fine with it and then it just happens four seasons of build-up three casualties but it kind of just doesn't land for anyone but the hardest of hardcore starco shippers something is seriously wrong if you can't even enjoy your own ship becoming canon star vs i think is a good show overall but the solid three seasons of quality content with the fourth being meh with the jump the shark finale looking at the show as a whole i think shipping is one of the central reasons why it just lost traction in that final stretch as it all comes back to that end game star and marco they were meant to be together and the show made the mistake of treating that as a fact rather than building up any potential competition just throwing away any character once they were done being in diversion to let other things in the show happen which is exactly how the show treated its non-starco characters jackie has a goal to draw a slice of like comedy on marco her relationship with him is what became the impetus for star being isolated and getting jumped by kappa mikey kelly was only here so that we could pretend marco was over star and tom only came back to keep star tied down for another two seasons this shipping minimized and thruway characters when they weren't needed created problems for the show later on as it had so little material to cover when it wasn't trying to do straw man racism or making the evil queen look better we were back focusing on relationship woes that already felt tired is the drama and people that made it interesting were already cut out of the story and those that were left were just repeating steel material you could say that the show's problem was that it made endgame too obvious i think you can still have a fun time even when you know how things are gonna end but here's the thing when the show feels like the plot is what's keeping the ship alive and not the characters it's truly lost its way leaving us with very little to enjoy which brings us back to the blood moon see this lunar eclipse that soul bought in stargo made their relationship inevitable and constantly hung over both of their lives whenever they seemed getting too close to another person the whole blood moon soul bonding thing actually got resolved but only in the dumbest way possible he decides to play the angle like oh what if marco isn't in love with star it's just the blood moon only revealed that's a massive red herring as once it's removed he's immediately back to oh i was lying i'm really in love with star plot was so concerned with justifying why they aren't together it made it easier to not want them to be if they had marco get rejected or actually show them as a couple on this show it could have been something new to deal with and we could have had fun with that your stuff like the blood moon is great for shipping and theories but it built itself up only to fall right back into the hole it came from leaving us back at square one like my own personal theory for the blood moon that was going to be the manifestation of the lead boy girl couple getting together that it was using its magic to ruin their other relationships or threaten anyone who got in starco's way that they would have to break the connection not because marco was feeling lovesick but because he became an active threat to tom and kelly and it was this insistence that no this must happen that it needs to happen and it could have been the subversion that this show desperately needed while still leaving the opportunity that they could get together without this blood moon hanging over the relationship because they actually loved each other but nah it was just heartache nothing interesting just a long drawn out story with no payoff and only the barest of material to justify the episode shipping is fun and the show that this turned the fandom into was an absolute blast the shipping focus though just put a cloud over these two characters so that whenever they were hanging together there was just this awkwardness that there wasn't in the first season star is dating time yet we only see her hang out with marco who we know is still into her it just adds this extra complication to a dynamic that it just wasn't needed season one felt like they were partners in crime while season four they felt like they were doing crime starvers of the force of evil handicapped itself by making sarco wait till the end of the show to get together and forcing out any characters it couldn't use it was a good show but sad to say the shipping made it worse the phantom reaction was funny as though so at least i had that

Channel: Sarcastic Chorus

Views: 3,401,482

Keywords: starvs, starco, tomstar

Id: c4NI8o1FPPI

Length: 23min 21sec (1401 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 01 2021