STAR VS ECHO CREEK



- As @skleero would say, “This counts as a date. Sorry. I don’t make the rules.”

Other characters from Marco’s school are enjoying the texmex goodness: Hope, an unnamed character, and Blake (the guy with impressive beard growing skills) and Unnamed Girl Who Was Sitting In Star’s Seat Before Being Kicked Out From The Class To Make Space For The Princess are having a date. I’m sorry, Jackie x Blake shippers.

- Maybe Marco is not just good with nachos, he’s an all around fine gourmet (he shouldn’t go to a takeaway texmex fastfood then, I guess?)

Or they wanted to make a joke since, you know, he’s half mexican.





- The episode’s theme foreshadowed by a culinary abomination.

As silly as the whole episode is, this is the first time Star realizes, all on her own, that as much as she loves freedom she can’t literally do everything she feels like, and nothing she doesn’t feel like, if she wants to live with her friends and family.



In Star’s dream and life “Marco” wins over “Absolute Freedom”





- “Bacon Kitty Hawaian Nightmare” is the same spell seen in the first “promo” for season 2, back in February (actually just a bumper for XD’s shows)





- 17 episodes in and this is the first time someone is confused about Star’s magic’s disregard for the rules of reality?





- Probably going to make another post about it, but both in Star Vs Echo Creek and, in a lesser way, in Fetch, Star gets “punished” for her recklesness and disregard for consequences, something that never happened in season 1 (where, if anything, Marco and the bystanders were the one to suffer).

This is a good way to show that the character is growing a bit, and could explain why she’s “out of tune” with the wand in Wand to Wand.





- Are you sure, Marco? Saint Olga has literal brainwashing.





- Right priorities. A match made in heaven. Even better since Marco always wears the same clothes and Star’s sense of fashion is… personal.

Could also be seen as a way to express their freedom, though, not wanting to be told what to wear or change the outfits they feel like they belong to.





- Echo Creek is in good, capable hands. Might explain why no one tried to arrest Star after all the property damages, actually.





- There is probably no real meaning behind, but the decorations in the hair lady looks a lot like the Blood Moon and the joined symbols from St. Olga’s creepy floor. Unfortunately they are not in the shot while they talk about “love” in the next scene…







- My favorite trope ever.

So I guess that Star’s hair is canonically her… biggest asset.







- Hey it’s the hipster werewolf guy fromThe Banagic Incident





- I’m not saying that there is anything more than platonicness for now, but we are getting obscene amount of shamelessly obvious Starco every episode this season. And I’m ridiculously fine with it.

If you don’t trust me, trust show’s music author.





- Star is usually fearless, but she’s extremely vulnerable to “things menacing her freedom”. Explains why she acts even more recklessly than usual in this episode, running away without Marco, and why she was so terrified right from the get go while sneaking in St. Olga (well, in that case there is also the school being probably used to scare her as a bogeyman by her parents for years)







- Why is Star dreaming about things she doesn’t know.





- In this episode Star, during an oniric journey inside her subconcious, discovers that she could possibly become a ruthless killer, should that be the only way to protect her interests.



At least she’s kinda disturbed by that.





- Star’s inner mind is lazy, and reuses a pic from a Disney XD banner for the scrapbook.







- Star’s dream talks about “family and friend”. But it’s missing Marco what makes Star change her mind about hiding forever, turning herself in.

In this season Marco often is the driving force of the episode:



My New Wand - indirectly helps Star in dipping down

Mr. Candle Cares - helps Star accepting her royal duties resolving “Plot B”

Star on Wheels - Marco’s trust convinces Star to embrace Earth’s weird biking customs

Wand to Wand - do I really have to spell it out? They get more and more shameless every episode.









- Don’t mind the dork, he just fell asleep after having put up fliers all around the city, waiting in the police station to be there, ready to greet Star as soon as she’d have been found (one and a half day roughly passed since she ran away).





Also a police dog earned the right to have its picture hanging in the police station hall.



Give Brian a big shiny medal.





- “Perfect relationships don’t exis-”







- I guess that “we” means that the storyboarder forgot to add Raphael and Angie in the scene and then thought “Wait it’s weird for them not to be there, as worried as Marco”. I want more Diaz doting on their favorite exchange student.







- “Ahah the crazy old lady wants to use a string phone to-”

Nominated for Most Unexpected Joke 2016





- See this post, please. Maybe one day I’ll manage to persuade everyone that I’m not crazy, that they’re doing it on purpose. Teasing us with every scene.





- A soft voice, from far away, whispers “Off-handed complimentsss~”





- EXTREME SPOONING. Don’t worry about Marco’s bones, he’s used to it by now.





WAND TO WAND

NOTE: lots and lots of personal speculation in this post. They are probably going to turn out all wrong with future episodes. And I use “pink magic” and “green magic” just as easy way to identify them, I’m not saying that magic is actually color coded in the show’s universe.





- I have several questions about this scene. Like Why did the rat tavern have a bowl full of mud ready to be served?”

Why would a rat be so antagonistic with a huge bird and a huge spider, renowned eater of rodents?”

“If it took so long for Ludo to realize what he was eating then porridge on Mewni is really bad tasting?”





- But… you are not a bird, Ludo…





- Fun fact: Ludo biggest ambition in life is to melt faces. And he would have already killed at least two characters if the wand worked as intended.





- As soon as the wand gets close the an angered Ludo the shard glows briefly, reacting to his emotions.





- I wonder if Star bulding ships in bottles is just a random gag, a hidden hobby, or a way to show Star trying, for a change, to use her magic for small, accurate tasks.





- Star is happy and focused on the task = pink magic

Star gets annoyed and frustrated by chores = shard glows green

Such a small inconvenience is enough to change the wand’s output. Maybe being cleaved is making it more and more unstable and susceptible to the user’s emotions.





- The episode shows that wands are influenced by the wielder’s emotions. I don’t think this mean that Star’s fragment works only with positive thoughts, and Ludo’s one with negative: they’d probably work with both, but resulting in the corresponding kind of effects.

When Star uses “negative” magic to summon Cloudy everything goes wrong. She’s trying to do constructive magic with destructive energy?

the wand works without problem when she casts energy blast which, if anything, is stronger than usual.

So my theory (with no evidences so far, just an idea) is that Ludo’s fragment could work with positive energy as well, but:



• Either Ludo’s emotions are just evil-based

• Or Toffee’s hand, holding the fragment, influences it, keeping it stuck on the “EVIL” setting



not exactly a proof, but show’s composer Brian H. Kim says that “Star’s spells come out negative”, not “Star’s spells don’t work”

tl;dr - maybe every wand works both with positive and negative emotions, but the latter can fuel destructive spells only



- Did the same "negative energy” thing happen in My New Wand? In the final scene (the first time we see the wand being used after the cleaving) the crystal glows white, but the magic is green, and the effects are clearly unexpected.







- If Negative Magic is green and destructive and Positive Magic is pink and… not always as destructive, then is dipping down a mix of both? The Queen mention that “one has to summon eveything”: does this mean both positive and negative emotions, to balance them out and use magic in a raw form?

let’s call it “blue purplish magic”.





- Rattling the wand makes the unicorn neigh. We still don’t know what the hell is his deal, but at least he’s still alive.







- The same cloud from Marco Grows A Beard. Apparently Star didn’t kill him, she just banished him into an endless and empty dimension where magic constructs wait to be called again, briefly torn away from their eternal non-death.





- Maybe “delicate” is not the right word.





- Ludo is and is always going to be a bit of a comedic relief, but he’s still as “badass” as he was in Ludo in the Wild. His beasts are, well, beasts, and he has to remind them who’s the boss, every now and then.

With mixed results.





- This might be another sign of Star’s growth: when she realizes that there’s something wrong with the wand she immediatly ask for help





- Sure Glossaryck, we viewers completely believe you, you were actually ill. Not just trying to let Star figure things out her way.

Star, by now, shares her mother’s opinion about Glossaryck’s usefulness.





- “Why are they so shocked? There is just some garbage-”

Pee.

Cloudy is peeing around the room. On the table. Everywhere.





- Good vibes. So that’s why Cloudy is green…







- Again, the wand is glowing pink -> Star gets angr(ier) -> wand turns green. The “calming down” magic ends up having the opposite effect, getting Cloudy even more out of control.





- Maybe they don’t exactly respect him, but at least the new minions are protective…





- Kinky Hulk Ludo.





- Likely-unwanted parallelism?

Ludo needs a lot of anger to make the wand work. I guess that it’s ‘cause it’s his first time using it, and they wanted a “You wouldn’t like me when I’m angry” moment, ‘cause as I said before it looks like the cleaved wand is way too receptive to emotions, if anything.





- Seeing Marco in moderate danger gets Star even angrier, resulting in a powerful green blast.



Seeing Marco in great danger triggers worry/affection, getting Star to switch back to pink energy, casting a powerful non-destructive spell.

Seems like both with green and pink the intensity of emotions conditions the strength of magic.





- Sure Star. Float slowly back to the ground for no real reason, while Marco has a mouthful of lawn.





- “Why isn’t Marco annoyed with his friend whom indirectly almost killed him?” Because he’s an awesome bestie.

But mostly because he’s more aware than your average cartoon character and he realized that Star’s wand wasn’t working as intended.







- First time Star looks so worried and pensive about her wand (not counting when she thought she had lost it forever in Stom the Castle). Either the recent experience unsettled are a little, or she’s more aware of what being the wand wielder means. Or both! I like both.





- Even Star is shocked by the Diaz’ unlimited kindness and cheerfulness.

Or she’s pondering about how dangerous she’s for her loved ones and that’s going to be the basis for a future emotional moment. Let me dream.





- This probably means that she’s finally relying less on her magic, but I think she’s also a bit “scared” by it, or at least uneasy about using it. It’d interesting to see her limit the wand’s usage in the next few episodes.





- I don’t know if it’s a coincidence, but Star has been learning her lesson a segment too late in these last episodes.

• In Fetch she talks about running away from her problems, and avoids her mother (and her aunt)

and in Star Vs Echo Creek she realizes that she can’t run away forever: living with her loved ones means that she’s duties and responsibilities as well.

• In the same episode Star should have learned that she can’t use magic to solve everything (manual labor, in this particular case). She doesn’t.

but she does accept it in the following segment, Wand to Wand.





- DAMNIT WRITERS Star can’t be this dumb! Stop bullying her to make jokes!

AND STOP SMILING LIKE A FRIEND PROUD OF HIS BESTIE, MARCO! You’re making it hard for me to blame the writers for inconsistency!





- One of the mice is near Ludo and his beasts in the intro, maybe a rat is going to be the newest addition to his army. Or it was just to fill an empty space in the splash image.





Episode 1

Episode 2

Episode 3



