This is really nice! Starlight was one of the first shows I really got into, as well as my first big fandom, and while my passion for the wider franchise isn't what it used to be, this fanwork really reminded me of why I fell in love with the anime in the first place. Beyond the theatricality and symbolism, one of Starlight's strengths was just how brilliantly it captured the rhythm of relationships between people, that unique, special little pace they develop, and all the habits and quirks they come to share, learning over a million etudes of me and you to perform us. And with time, with repetition, with their mastery of a script they trace onto each other with quills of time and memory, they create also the potential for improvisation, an infinite chain of exhilarating little discoveries about their partners induced precisely by how they've changed each other, inspired by the chemistry of actors riffing off each other to create moments beyond the sums of their parts, heartbeats harmonizing into intimate eternities. Watching Starlight, I really could believe that two people could fascinate each other forever, pull epics and sagas from the flutter of an eye, the tails of a dream, and Karen and Hikari especially express this like no one else. Their enchanting story of a shared love for stories maturing and blooming into a love for each other as storytellers, as surprisers and superstars, for their story, was indescribably captivating back when I first saw it, feeling my heart swell like it never had before, and reading this fanwork, I'm fortunate enough to have felt a phantom of that same captivation, which is the highest praise I can give.
last edited at Jul 9, 2022 8:29AM