Hello I am The Wandering Hippie, I seeketh the truth so thou may have it.

Well it's been a while since Star vs ended and I have to say people who are left are appreciating that it was a good show but seem to have a common consensus, that it was not a good as it could have been. Which is strange because just 5 years ago people didn't think that way about shows en masse, they just saw it for what it is and were happy they got that as opposed to garbage or just forgot about it. But the thing is, so many people are praising it's fanfictions for not only being as good as but better than the original show. A few of those people told me that about my story themselves; quite a few actually, it's kind of shocking. So I decided in this Author's note to push aside the guise of writer and instead critique and analyze to uncover why people are so pissed off about some things in the show, my opinion on whether its justified, and to find out if the show really is worse than the fanfictions, including my own. Yes I've said things in the past but there was some unreliable information involved and I let it *ahem* go to my head a little. I'm only human ok! Of course this will have many of my own opinions in it so do bear that it mine as opinions do play a good part in it, unfortunately that may alienate some of you from me but that is a sacrifice I am willing to make. So sit back and read if you dare my overall review of Star vs. The Forces of Evil.

First off the main thing is everyone praised the show until season three, there was no hatred for the first 2 seasons that was so vocal. Maybe that was because there were so few of us there in the first place but hey… details. So at first I thought the reason was because of the Love Triangle, and I will get to that. *fumes silently* But the more I looked at it the more I saw people not liking a lot of aspects about it, I myself found the comedy wasn't 'as good' in parts of season three and four, especially in the first 2/3 of season four. Why is all that? Well, I looked back at the first few seasons again and I realized… the writing had actually not changed too much. Yes that's really strange but while some things had moved around the basic writing for the show had not changed too much from the first two seasons. So, why do I find it not as good in parts of season three and larger chunks of season four. Well folks, you have to remember, this is primarily a CHILDREN'S COMEDY SHOW. The drama and deeper issues were later additions and the writing seems skewed towards comedy a good deal of the time, more often than the contrary the writing tries to get jokes across and it works less often in the latter two seasons; it still worked rather well but not AS well. Why is that, after it succeeded for so long?

Well… it's actually because the writing didn't change. Look at Adventure Time, Gravity Falls, and Avatar The Last Airbender and compare episodes from close to the beginning and close to the end. Though they have the same spirit, which Star vs does keep intact (thank the Gods as that is what makes the show as great as it is), episode writing seems… different. Like in Adventure Time they stopped focusing on making things random simply for comedy's sake and focused more on the serious background issues they had brought up. When the Ice King came up acting random you could still get laughs out him, quite a few, but he started playing more serious roles in the stories that involved his past or magic itself. If it had stuck by the original writing it would have just been joke after joke and that might have gotten annoying and old and even insulting at times. In Gravity Falls when they were uncovering the non-comedic major mysteries they didn't just pile more mysteries upon it like the show Lost did, they explored those mysteries and how they impacted the people leading to some fantastic character interactions. If they hadn't done that I am fairly certain we wouldn't have gotten the great drama between Dipper and Mabel in the finale. In Avatar The Last Airbender the first season was very episodic by its standards and focused on the Gaang doing things to help people, learn about bending, stopping the fire nation, returning balance, or just having fun. But as the series progressed the writing changed from episodic into a more and more solid overarching story that played up the balance of the world and the impacts everyone has on it for better or for worse and what they can do to achieve balance both in the physical world and within. So it doesn't need to be a major change, in fact in my examples it's so subtle I wouldn't be surprised if you missed it, but the writing does need to change as the show matures; which is what Star vs. didn't do the best at.

Now then I got the overall opinion of the show out of the way how about some details of the show that people claim made it go downhill. Well, this is going to be the part where I make everyone hate me with my opinions, but I think I need to say them. Why, because this is where I defend the show as some people absolutely despise some of these decisions when I don't see anything wrong with them. Please note if you disagree I can understand why but I think you were approaching these things with a sense of pessimisim rather than optimisim and not giving Daron the benefit of the doubt.

1. Marco going to Mewni: Marco didn't belong in his home world at the time without Star there to… ground him ironically enough so he actually kind of needed to go to Mewni. I get everyone thinks he left because Jackie broke up with him and he wanted to fall back on Star but he didn't realize his crush until Lava Lake Beach so… how would that work? Regardless, he doesn't let it ruin his friendship and honestly we got a good reversal of 'Star comes to earth' in the episode of 'Lint Catcher' with Marco outright stating he was being immature and would have gone home if Star hadn't welcomed him afterwards. How did no one notice this by the way, am I just that good? I mean Star outright copies Marco's line 'That was amazing, we were amazing, you were amazing' after their fight.

2. Background characters fading into the background: One thing everyone praises me for is pushing the side characters into important roles, most notably Alfonzo and Ferguson who the show seems to have just forgotten a good deal of the time despite being Marco's best friends. I'll admit this is the one aspect I have the most trouble defending and I don't like what she did here but there are a few points to bring up. First off, they are called side characters because they exist TO THE SIDE. The show's focus is not on them but on the main characters. Second, do you know how MANY side characters there are, I'm actually regretting in my story including so many of them even though I made some major cuts so far; in fact that is the primary reason why I thinned out the tadpole numbers. (My inner writer wants to give EVERY SINGLE ONE a personality. Do you know how hard it is to do that?! I wanted to get rid of ALL of them save for Katrina!) A third, specifically for Ferguson and Alfonzo, Daron didn't want them in the show in the first place; it was actually a part of a compromise with Disney just wanting to give Marco male friends. She didn't include them in much because she didn't plan for there to be much with them.

3. Star giving the wand to Eclipsa: People rant on Star for giving the wand away as irresponsible and childish and hate the moment dearly as Star doing something clearly wrong. So is it? Well, the show doesn't explicitly say whether or not it is but simply states that it was Star's decision and, here is the thing, I believe that decision was IN CHARACTER FOR HER. Star believes that the wand and crown was stolen from Eclipsa so she was trying to make things right. Does it backfire; well in some ways obviously I mean I wouldn't have given it back to Eclipsa. But that wasn't my decision to make it was Star's and the show makes it clear that people agree and disagree with her over it. Her own mother claims that it doesn't matter what her own view is, it was Star's decision as queen and she made it; the overbearing and controlling Queen Moon said that to her daughter come on people. Plus she doesn't just leave to goof off or anything childish she's trying to find her mom and when she finds her she immediately starts helping Eclipsa out; far from the 'irresponsible' argument many people have posted.

4. Curse of the Blood Moon: THANK GODS THEY LIFTED THAT CURSE! I want Marco and Star to be together because they want to be together, not because of some stupid curse. Most of the love triangle nonsense was just that, nonsense; but this is the ONE thing they did right about the romance in the first 2/3 of season four.

5. Destroying magic: Look people, I get your upset about the destruction of magic and some have even posted alternatives to this ending but again this is in character with Star. She realizes that magic can and will continue to be exploited FAR into the foreseeable future unless if it is dealt with. Also that annihilation spell Eclipsa cast was on the loose, the cuts of those Solarian swords, and some corrupted unicorn was taking control of the realm of magic so those needed to be dealt with as well. This was the best bad option she believed she HAD. Also for those of you saying 'What about other magical entities' well Ponyhead was still able to float and the laser puppies simply couldn't shoot lasers so… I think it's left up to you. Granted they could have spent an episode or two dedicated to Glossarick explaining why magic should be destroyed but all things considered they did a good job explaining it with the time they had. Also Glossarick was kind of pushing for it in one of his super rare serious and non-sarcastic moments so that also speaks for itself.

6. The Last spell and the cleaving: I love this ending. *le audience gasp* Why? Because it's so open ended. This is literately a case of 'write your fanfiction here.' And Daron is hoping to expand the universe more so this makes sense. Also for those of you saying this is a bad ending… it's not necessarily depicted as a good ending itself; in fact it's kind of apocalyptic if you really look at hard. The only good thing about it is that Marco and Star are together while the rest of the world is in chaos… again open ended. Who knows what the ending could bring, perhaps magic itself finds a way to return, after all 'Matter and energy can neither be created nor destroyed, simply have its form be changed.' Although this ending does have the 'if you want explanations petition Disney for another season' which is kind of manipulative but Daron herself wanted a fifth season to further the story so… payback? Hey this between Daron and Disney I'm not getting involved.

I'm not going to go over all the good aspects of the show as I believe you can pick them out and most of the not good stuff was just mildly annoying… for me at least. Save for two aspects, I'm never forgiving Janna for making Marco hate nachos; that is the one thing that will make me hate her in canon forever not only because it was so mean spirited even for her but unnecessary in terms of jokes or story. But aside from that let's look at the one thing that fans want to destroy the show over *shudders* time to look at 'The Love Triangles'.

Another reviewer and fan of mine by the name of RJ writing ink, I think I mentioned him in the past (also he has posted a three part character review of my story and you lot should really check it out; just type the name into google and it's one of the first picks) told me why Daron really kept Star and Marco from happening until the end. The climax was accurate but Daron wanted to show that, despite time and people coming between you two you are just destined for each other, much like how Daron and her husband met. And I have to say… *so sorry RJ writing ink* I think she did a sloppy job of it. Why? Well the episodes 'Beach House madness' and 'Kelly's World' tried pushing for them to be with another and trick us SO DAMN HARD like the ending we got was going to be a surprise. But it wasn't, it was inevitable the whole time and it feels manipulative in those parts specifically. You could have gotten rid of those two episodes and just put in two episodes explaining why magic had to be destroyed for crying out loud! And what's more we had already done the love triangle in two previous seasons, Jackie and Marco which was done EXTREMELY WELL (the best love triangle I have ever seen), and Star and Tom which makes sense and is palatable even if it did leave a bitter taste in my mouth for parts of it. It almost felt like they didn't want to be together throughout season four and they had to be shown that they were meant for each other. In fact a fan by the name of The Opininator left comments in chapter 94 of my story outlining how it could have been done better. Just go to reviews and in the top right hand corner select chapter 94 it's actually some pretty good ideas.

But I have to ask… why do I hate this so much and why does everyone else hate this so much as well? I mean such it was irritating and towards the end manipulative but the rest of the show shines pretty strong. So why does everyone hate the show over that? Well… it's because it came out in later half of the 20 fucking 10's. The fact Daron is playing the Love Triangle so straight like this is outright INSULTING! This has been a main stay for decades before the show came out and people have getting more and more sick of it as time has passed. It's like why people hate the movie Avatar, it's just so clichéd in their eyes it hurts. I get what Daron wanted to play up but the moment she pushed for Love Triangles she was already going down a doomed path to having people hate her. Why do people love my work, because I'm giving them what they want: A COUPLE BEING A COUPLE. This is the main reason why I'm finding people love the fanfictions more than the original; there are other reasons but this is a solid ¾ of those reasons alone. This is everyone saying ENOUGH IS ENOUGH. We are tired of these clichés and want to see something different from what we have gotten in the past. This is also the reason why so many people don't like Sword Art Online so much, while it gave a lot of good thing it also gave them clichés they were getting sick of. Hopefully, by doing this, we've sent a message to the producers and creators that this is not what we want anymore.

Now do I blame Daron for this… surprisingly not so much. Creators actually have to sell their rights to the company in order for the TV show to be made so while Daron created it Disney had the final say in it, the same Disney that gave the mess that was the sequel Star Wars trilogy for money grabs. All things considered since this was a CHILDREN'S COMEDY I'm surprised it was as good as it was and it's kind of a shame that so many people hate it for what it did wrong when it did so much right.

Your opinions on mine, opinions on stuff I didn't cover, respectful disagreements? Well post a comment or a Personal message to me but be warned, I lived through the days of everyone going out of their way to bash on MoonxToffee shippers and writers specifically to hurt us. Send hate mail at your own risk. *sharpens war sickle with defensive if malicious intent*

On a side note, after the next two episodes of mine 'Squid Lo Mein' and 'Princess Bash' I'm going to stop this story so I can finally work on one shots and other story ideas for a little while. I got a bit 'hyper focused' so to speak. My apologies but I feel like I need to do this. Fair thee well.