>>88123179>it's my sense that he only did that soul-searching because Star left him.Well your sense is wrong, Nefcy gave an interview before BMB came out where she explicitly says it's not so:
>He sounds cool but he also has a vulnerability there and that’s what we really saw in Tom. Tom is the devil prince, so I imagine he has this royal father who is this anger demon. So Tom has inherited that but he also wants to get over it. He doesn’t want that to be his identity.https://ohmy.disney.com/insider/2015/07/20/creator-daron-nefcy-guides-us-through-tonights-star-studded-episode-of-star-vs-the-forces-of-evil/So it's word-of-god canon that Tom is working on his anger issues, which he inherited in his blood from his anger demon dad, for himself, because he doesn't want that to be his identity, and not to get Star back.
So
>If she had remained in a relationship with him, I suspect that he might not have felt any need to changeIs without a doubt untrue.
Also Star isn't tiptoeing around fucking anything. She doesn't show any sort of nervousness around Tom, apart from worrying over Marco's safety, who is a non-magical human. But when she's alone with Tom, she shows zero hesitation about bossing him around, telling him to sod off, moving away from him and quite angrily telling him they BROKE UP, which definitely is not the behaviour of someone who's been cowed into fearing and tiptoeing around the other person and avoiding confrontation. Star doesn't avoid confrontation with Tom, she almost provokes it with how blunt she's being. There's nothing submissive about her dynamic with Tom. No hesitation over whether her emotions or actions are valid or such.
There would be, if the relationship would have been on the slow slide to abusiveness.
So again, I can't believe Tom being abusive led to their break-up, rather that he was so angry and wound up he wasn't fun, and Star got bored of his drama. Bored, not scared.
