With a new season around the corner, and with a fandom still full of doubts and confusion left from the previous one, @ngame989 and I decided to make some sort of FAQ post, compiling both specific answers (an extremely synthetic one, and a longer one in the post accessible by clicking on the questions themselves) to the most common doubts we have been seeing around the most over these months, and a list of links to posts we made in the past about more general (but still hot) topics.

Is Tom a monster? Would his union with Star send a message about tolerance to Mewni? Was his speech in Is Another Mystery an absolute truth about the state of things on Mewni?

No. Tom is not considered a “monster” as far as Mewni’s society goes, and a future union with Star wouldn’t send any message about equality, since past Butterfly queens married demons or non-Mewmans in the past: social standing, richness and power are what separate discriminated monsters and monsters seen as peers..

The speech in Is Another Mystery was well meaning, but stemmed from Tom’s limited and sheltered personal experience, and Buff Frog himself pointed out that things aren’t that simple.

Did Marco and Jackie break up over a cape? Why did Marco call Jackie “his best friend”?

The cape was a symbol for Marco finally getting aware for the first time of the shift in priorities and goals that he had been experiencing since he met Star, and Jackie broke up with him because she could see how this would have come crashing down on both of them sooner than later, leading Marco to realize that he was forcing himself to live a kind of life he didn’t want anymore.



Marco called Jackie “best friend” in a last half-hearted attempt at lying to himself because facing the truth would have forced him to truly step outside his comfort zone and take a potentially life changing decision, something that he ultimately ended up doing thanks to Jackie’s push in the right direction.

Why did Marco have to leave Earth to be a squire on Mewni? Couldn’t he use the scissors to do both things?

Moving to Mewni wasn’t just about satisfying an itch for adventure to Marco, but a way for his character to acknowledge that what he wanted from life changed over the course of the previous seasons, and to find his place in life stepping out the comfort zone / shell he had build himself over the years. Marco didn’t turn down Earth forever (as evidenced by Marco Jr.), but he still needed a drastic change in his life to grow as a person. Keeping both things going on at the same time, Earth and Mewni, would have eventually failed, hurting him and Jackie even more, as she outright points out in the episode.





Is Marco 30/31? And does that make his relationships “problematic”?

Marco clearly retained memories and experiences from his time in Hekapoo dimension, but regardless of what one can think about these implication in the show’s universe he clearly hasn’t changed at all and still behaves and is written like his usual teen self, and one of the points of Running With Scissors was that he didn’t grow up at all, if not physically.





Did Star forget Marco’s birthday in Lava Lake Beach?

The episode ends barely a minute into the new day, so Marco’s birthday had barely began. We can’t know for sure whether Star did wish him a happy birthday or not but she still had 23 hours and 59 more minutes to do it.





Is Star’s relationship with Tom a rebound one? Did she truly move on from Marco during S3?



Star initially reconnected with Tom as a way to silence the pain Marco left her with, but over Demoncism they bonded over genuine elements - even if going for the romance angle and not just for being friends proved to be the wrong decision.

Star moved on from her crush on Marco, but never really stopped being attracted to the kind of role he had in her life, a trusted companion, and gravitated back to him because he encapsulates all she looks for in a partner.





Was the situation in Booth Buddies forced or did Ben Photino force Star and Marco to kiss? Did Marco force a kiss on Star?



No, the episode just needed some background plot to keep things fun and interesting, and they chose the “magic booth”, but all the feelings that emerged inside were there long before, and weren’t forced in any way (also Star was adamant on getting the picture she wanted from Marco even before Photino’s interference).

Body language during the kiss tells us that it was evidently reciprocal, even if Marco might have been the one to initiate it.





Did the Blood Moon force Star and Marco’s feelings?



No, the way their feelings for each other developed has clearly been organic (and slow). Even if the Blood Moon bond had to be related to fate or something like that it wouldn’t change that every step forward Star and Marco took came from their own experiences and efforts, and not from some magical imposition.





Did Marco give up on fun and adventures with Hekapoo for Star in Night Life? Did Star’s demands limit Marco’s freedom?



No, at the end of the episode Marco doesn’t give up on having fun to help a nagging boss, he just manages to find, through immersing himself in the role of “squire”, a (temporarily) solution to the need for escapism generate by his feelings for Star, while at the same time being able to be close to her and part of her life, the thing that brings him the most fulfillment.





Why did Star act so cold toward Marco when he came back on Mewni?



She was hurt by the way Marco ignored her confession and rushed away from her life, and had a negative (and completely understandable) reaction when he decided to come back as if nothing had ever happened, needing the duration of the episode to find her own way to adapt to the new situation, similarly to what happened to Marco some episodes later.





Overall breakdown of Starco





Overall breakdown of Marco





Other ships, other characters, show’s handling of characters commentary

Season 4 predictions and themes





Fandom commentary