#svtfoe mathmagic | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

sprinklethetangerine · 5 months

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Okay, so I wanted to continue watching svtfoe, but it was very hard to get past the "30 year old Marco" thing so I've resorted to the coping mechanism of pretending it was all a fever dream and it never happened......

Anyway, here's some stuff from episode 17 Mathmagic that I screenshotted!

She's got an ass on her head.

...okay.

Oooh, I wanna see how she's doing! I'm actually interested!

Yikes yikes yikes

L... Ludo???

Slay ig.

Not even touching this.

I'm 99% sure they just ran out of ideas here

I'm drawing this

I'm drawing this too

I screenshotted one more thing, but tumblr won't let me put more images. It's okay, tho. I didn't really have anything to say about it anyway, I just wanted to point it out. It was Tom being there in one of the universes with his head turned 180 degrees to face backward to look at Star. I thought it was interesting.

#i think my favorite has to be either ass hair or boy star #ass hair is for funny reasons boy star because i actually like him #i wanna read a punk star au now #i love her hair #and the little arm wrap thing #love the little arm wrap thing #svtfoe #star vs the forces of evil

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themoleofmarco · 11 months

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Magic as Security in SVTFOE

But magic isn’t an allegory for capitalism in Star versus the Forces of Evil. Besides the fact that a one-to-one allegory is boring (”I’ve always been looking for the quadruple entrende, what Shakespeare could do,” as Courtney Love says, and Shakespeare scholar and literary beacon, Marilynne Robinson has said as much in interviews), it just doesn’t make sense as a direct allegory. The show’s observations about financial situations were actually pretty direct: Rich pigeon’s character and his kingdom’s quick rise in Mewni society is clearly not hiding the show’s thoughts about capital power (and it’s actually one of the more nuanced takes on capitalism, without ever endorsing it). But Star and her family are part of a feudal system, not a capitalist one. The writers have something else up there sleeves, at once more relevant to their young teen audience and more all-encompassing of a kyriarchical structure than a simple take-down of capitalism.

Instead, the whole show starts to cohere when you see magic metaphorically standing in for a sense of security. It may seem like I just made my own one-to-one allegory, but the way it’s applied in the series is anything but some pat moralistic offering. In the first season, the influx of magic serves to free Marco, “the safe kid,” from his rampant anxiety. In fact, Star and her magic early on, when read as a metaphor for security, serve to distinguish security from safety. Marco’s desire to be always prepared but never in danger is radically flipped by fiery rainbows, laser puppies, and giant monster squirrels. He has to make peace with chaos and trust (that is feel secure) in his abilities to accept the unpredictable nature of his new reality, find means to respond to the chaos (rather than avoid it), and get through to the other side of his efforts and often pain. Cartoon logic of course helps with his survival but the theme of developing the emotional security to face one’s problems stands pretty sturdy.

This idea of security evolves with the show to depict the role fear and safety play in constructing gender roles and racial hierarchies--and how the gift of emotional security can allow exploration and disruption of these prejudices. It’s infinitely queering (an aspect that the show explores in many, many ways). I want to point out here how integral security and imagination are to one another. The well of magic is a source of comfort for Star, eventually for Marco, and for many other characters who get to be close to it, in the way it explodes and rejects norms to privilege an individual’s emotional landscapes, which then find unique manifestation in their spells.

How does something so beautiful eventually go wrong, then? One place to look for an answer is the council, who manage imprisonment, travel, and time-space. The first two, have a pretty clear parallel to contemporary institutions--prison systems and immigration--that purport to provide security, and in many ways, do, for the members of their nation. Time-space might be harder to parse out, except that when we consider that Father Time is a distinct entity from time-space. Time-Space is not time itself but the concept and practice of alternative realities and multiple chances, as seen in the “Mathmagic” episode. It’s a similar philosophical belief to many afterlife concepts. All of these systems privilege the Self and provide emotional security, but do so at the cost of others’ liberties. Capital, as it is now, functions along those lines, which is why I think many made the connection between magic and capital; it’s not wrong, but it’s not broad enough--we named it a square but didn’t acknowledge that a square is also a rectangle and a quadrilateral.

When magic is destroyed in the end, the rulers of Mewni gave up security. They give up security in their own safety, the safety of their people, and assurances of happiness and life, itself. Required for this act: trust and emotional security. It’s the paradox at the heart of the show that magic is required to destroy magic. Emotional security is required to let go of emotional security. On the other side is a more dangerous and strange world but where everyone is in peril together, and doing their best to address it together, too.

There are deeply queer feminist , democratic, antiracist, and globalist implications to this conclusion that got drowned out by shippers in the fandom. And many, perhaps invested in a grassroots-led and enacted revolutionary movement, were turned off by the finale and turned on the show overall because of it. (Others have complaints about rushed pacing, which is funny to me in a show whose core humor relied on manically-paced jokes and plot lol) But more narratives of revolution, especially one’s that acknowledge anticolonial struggles, like Andor, are beginning to acknowledge the solidarity across groups and classes historically required to ignite change (and svtfoe, with it’s references to the Mexican revolution among others, which I wanna address in some later essay, certainly fits in this category). The world at the end of the series will never be the same, which is a revolutionary promise without the fantasy of utopia. It’s gonna get a little weird and a little wild, and we can figure it out together.

#svtfoe #svtfoe meta #star butterfly #marco diaz #tom lucitor

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full-moon-phoenix · 4 years

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Did I ever tell you guys Mathmagic is one of my favorite episodes? I barely noticed myself before now, but it really is underrated in my opinion.

It's an episode where Star is faced with a world-ending problem that started with, *surprise surprise*, a magical mishap. And she tries to solve it with a solution she has no idea how to reach. And the solution ends up being wrong, but she saves the day anyway. Because whether the solution was right or wrong wasn't as important as the lives she saved and the fact that she tried. Even if it wasn't the right answer, she put in the effort and did her best.

And that speaks volumes to me in general, but it means so much more now that I've watched Cleaved. IRL my therapist is always reassuring me "What's important is that you did your best. And even if it wasn't your best, you still did the best with what you had." And that is the single best piece of advice I was ever given. And it's a big reason as to why I defend Star's decision to destroy magic.

#svtfoe #svtfoe finale #svtfoe cleaved #star vs the forces of evil #star vs the force of evil ending #svtfoe2 #svtfoe4 #mathmagic #svtfoe mathmagic #star butterfly #star the underestimated

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scooterpengie · 5 years

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So I redrew a scene from Mathmagic in Svtfoe but with Reylo! I tried to include lots of AUs and tropes, see how many you can spot (some are hard to tell, I’ll put them in the tags).

I just realised I’m probably the only one who gets this 😅

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tripletalia · 5 years

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Omg , what if this was a star from a timeline where meteora got to become the rightful heir without any problems with Shastacan?

If you look at it , that star has the curly hair that meteora had before she was reborn ; even the horns look like meteora . It’s most likely that in math magic this Star wasn’t a fake butterfly , or role swapped with Tom , since we saw 2 other forms of star in toms position . And since this was before the reveal of eclipsa being alive , and meteora being heinous , they needed to cover the face of this alternate star . In the frames I’ve looked at over and over again , her skin also looks less vibrant than the other stars; also if the horns were just a headband or hat , they would’ve shown it like the others . They also showed that with the tom swap star .Well played daron nefcy , well played . This was a reupload btw .

#svtfoe #star vs the forces of evil #star butterfly #screenshot #daron nefcy #lmao #disney #plot #mathmagic #thoughts???

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adorablepicsofmarco · 5 years

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#ye same #marco diaz #adorbsmarco #svtfoe #star vs the forces of evil #episode: mathmagic

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mysti309 · 5 years

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What's a background

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starcosigning · 6 years

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Little Star Butterfly wears a kitty costume

Star wears a kitty costume with cute cat face and tail from an alternate universe in Mathmagic. (MEOW!)

#star butterfly #star vs the forces of evil #svtfoe #kitten #costume #halloween #special #mathmagic #so cute #adorable #cute face #child #kid #dress #cat #tail #girl #meow

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skystreaka · 7 years

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Species swaps! Pony heads, demons, humans, and mewnans.

#marco's cutie mark is a nacho #i just wanted to draw human pony head #i started doodling this ages ago #like before mathmagic #which was great #can't wait until next season when they all get back together #i have subscribed to the human tom has freckles service #svtfoe #star vs the forces of evil #marco diaz #star butterfly #flying princess pony head #tom lucitor #much colour #species!swap #svtfoe fan art #my art #updated

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echoequinox · 7 years

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At this point I’m not even like. Super hopeful for SvtFoE to give us the rep we want, but like, even if we got a Mathmagic style “This is one version of Marco and she’s a girl and she’s dating Tom” I would be. So happy.

#you know?#just like #alt reality type stuff #like how we saw boy!Star in mathmagic #please #i literally need any tiny snippet of canon trans marco #i would give my body and soul for it #trans marco #svtfoe

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blitzey · 7 years

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