Hjensikk's haven.

gather up the dorks and tell them “I’ve got the solution to your problems” fully believing it is, only to find out after the dance/Severing stone thing is done that he misread something. Naturally that dance would do nothing to “sever” Star and Marco’s feelings, but it would make things click for Tom faster and with no external cause to blame, he’d figure out that Tomstar’s not working for different reasons. He’d go on his journey of self discovery earlier. From there on, have “chill” eps (2/5)to let everything sink in. Four 11 min plotbuilding segments where Eclipsa sorts out her issues, Moon builds a new Mewni inadvertently, and most importantly Star and Marco try to take their mind off “what just happened with Tom”. After that, cue in the Starco Episode, yay! After this, they just keep solving things like they did in the rest of the season, right up until Cornonation. By now things with Tom should be good, so he can join the Beach Day and make it a fun “calm before storm” (3/5)episode; even moreso than the canon version. Shit hits fan, and the dorks face it just like before. So, Mama Star would still have Marco’s fantastic moment, pouring his heart out to Star even though she already knows he loves her. And Here to Help? In that episode, they would go off to the barn to wind down their concerns; Marco’s worries about not being enough of a boyfriend, and Star’s worries about not being enough of anything. Have ‘em kiss and laugh, it will be alright. Then (4/5)have everything else run its course (yes, this includes Moon’s dumb Mina gambit), all of it leading to the conclusion that magic must be destroyed. Thus, we have the finale… And here, now we’re pretty in-line with canon aren’t we? Let the finale just happen, including their capes this time. Whew… That’s my take on this excercise, maybe it works, maybe it doesn’t, it’s irrelevant in the end. Non-sequitur: I just made a 13 min AMV of Starco, someone please send help (5/5)

That’s not too bad, I can imagine something like this. Even though - and I’m just nitpicking to play Devil’s advocate I don’t want to disrespect your ideas - The Knight Shift is not the kind of episode that’d realistically happen so close to the series premiere, each season in most shows is kind of a world on its own, and big events get paced more or less evenly (yes, it sucks, it greatly limits the narrative, but those are the rules of the game), and having it happen so early into the season with Marco moving to Earth (no way to have Star and Marco still live together in the castle AND date) while still waiting half a season to introduce some “new chapter in our lives” themes. Also, what would Star and Marco do for all those segments while they’re dating but also not Here to Help levels of seriousness and commitment either? Just surface level PDA like Tom and Star did for most of the season? What deeply emotional moments they could share without “burning up the good stuff” before the finale?

However, that situation could also be used to “make every second spent together” count, making them appreciate each other’s presence more in the episodes afterwards regardless of their relationship being platonic or not.

Before Cornonation and after the “Starco Episode”, Starco would go through this situation of “we’re together and we can enjoy ourselves for a limited while, let’s make it count”, which is, honestly, having them interact as usual, with more tenderness and a little bit of flirting here and there. That’s the wonderful thing about Starco; having it canon earlier wouldn’t have changed how they interacted too much, it would’ve just allowed them to face fiercer threats together, while strengthening their bond. And their friendly bonds.

The emotional struggles they’d have gone through would’ve been: 

Get together (after LHF ~ CotBM, a couple episodes would be necessary to let them be in the right state of mind for this)

Stick together (Marco’s plans and Star’s duties would threaten to separate them, but their bond is strong enough to overcome this and they’d be able to reach a level of compromise to stay together while they resolve the situation)

Figure their next step (after Cornonation, with Mewni issues solved, they’d have to rethink their situation; where do we want to go, and other questions of the sort while retaining some normalcy in their lives... before the maelstrom hits)

Reassert their decisions (Mama Star, Here to Help and Cleaved would serve the purpose of reassuring the dorks that, yes, they belong together and yes, they’re doing their best for each other, ultimately showing that their love is true beyond any doubt)

Since they wouldn’t be able to live together while being Starco (which, thinking about it, might have been one big reason why it didn’t happen earlier), the compromise they’d have to commit to would be to live in separate places but scissor through the gap to be together as much as possible until... Well, until everything merges.

Obviously this rewrite is very Starco-centric and it has some flaws that I’ve yet to figure out how to solve (if they can even be solved), but I’m not even going to try and fix the remaining plot issues; magic dissappearing just ‘cause, Eclipsa skirting around her issues for too long, Moon doing the stupidest thing, the show juggling several plot threads only to throw them in the air and go “screw it let’s scramble everything” at the end... 

No. Just no.

Really, the whole reason I did this was to try and figure out if it was possible to have the story unfold keeping as much fidelity as possible, while not having Tomstar last an eternity and showing a lot more Starco, but especially PREVENTING FUCKING KELLCO FROM EVER EXISTING.