Stuck
is the fourth story in Stranded. Star and Sam end up sent away and stuck together.
Tropes:
- Abhorrent Admirer: Just like in the previous story, Colette is still interested in Danny and wants to steal him from Star. Her antics include flirting with him, picking him as her tour guide on her first day of school and basically trying to cling to him, despite being told on more than one occasion that Danny is dating her stepsister and he doesn't like her.
- Arbitrary Skepticism: Star tells Sam not to dismiss the ghost stories of Lake Eerie, since Specter Island has a monster living on it.
- Affectionate Nickname:
- Star has taken to calling Danny "Danny-Boo", as she insisted on a pet name. Sam despises it.
- Colette has taken to calling Danny "Mon Amour", French for "my love". He rolls his eyes over it.
- Beyond the Impossible: Sam and Star try to fix the old HAM radio by using parts of Star's cell phone to restart it and get in contact with Tucker and Danny. It works!
- Blackmail: Colette, although not knowing the details, threatens to tell Stella about Star's disappearance unless Danny breaks up with Star for her.
- Cassandra Truth: Colette tries to get Star in trouble by saying that she had both Danny Phantom and Tucker Foley in her room last night. No one believes her.
- Chick Magnet: Danny is dating Star, while Sam and Colette both have the hots for him.
- Clingy Jealous Girl: Sam, obviously. Star shows some shades of this as well.
- "Could Have Avoided This!" Plot: Had Sam realized it was Wulf they encountered, she and Star would have gotten free of the cuffs and headed home sooner.
- Cue the Rain: Chapter 11 ends with Sam telling Star things couldn't get worse. It starts raining soon after.Star: You had to say it, didn't you...?
- Even Evil Has Standards:
- While she is a spoiled, snobby rich girl, and did express some interest in Dash for his looks, Colette quickly becomes annoyed by him, finding him to be boorish and much preferring Danny.
- Ember quickly finds it annoying and pathetic that Sam and Star are fighting over Danny instead of her.
- Everyone Has Standards:
- As jealous and disdainful as they are towards each other, Star doesn't hesitate to save Sam from being poisoned by a black widow. Also, Sam doesn't hesitate to return the favor later when she saves Star from a snake.
- Stella seemed to favor her stepdaughter, Colette, over her biological daughter, Star, since she spoils and enables Colette's bad behavior and usually takes her side over Star's. However, it appears that Stella was genuinely in the dark on how Colette treated Star due her foolish trust in her stepdaughter. When Colette is caught trying to get Star in trouble, Stella does not hesitate in punishing her.
- Fire-Forged Friendship: Downplayed as while they are still rather tense and distrusting towards each other, Sam and Star start working together after being sent away and stuck at the abandoned Camp Skull and Crossbones. Afterwards, while the two girls still aren't friends, they develop a certain respect for each other, with Sam finally welcoming Star into Team Phantom.
- Friendly Enemy: Kitty has no real beef with Danny and seems to appreciate his advice on Johnny. She only attacks him because she promised Ember.
- Friend Versus Lover: Sam, the best friend with a desire to be more, and Star, the current girlfriend, do not like each other all because they both like Danny. After their ordeal together at Lake Eerie, they reach a truce for Danny's sake.
- Hopeless Suitor:
- Dash tries to hit on Colette and invites her to Nasty Burger, who is clearly more interested in Danny and has no interest in eating in places not 4 stars.
- Meanwhile, Colette is still pursuing Danny, who is dating Star and also finds her to be a nuisance.
- Interspecies Romance: Between Danny (a half-ghost) and Star (a human).
- Jerkass Realization: Both girls.
- Star realizes that, although she and Danny have grown very close, she never properly apologized to his friends, only tolerating them at best. As such, she apologizes to Sam for her past behavior.
- Sam realizes that Star's life is not as ideal as she has thought, as Star is dealing with divorced parents, a father who tries but doesn't spend enough time with her, a mother who ran off with a sleazy Frenchman, and a cruel stepsister who is rude to her for no good reason. She starts to show more empathy as a result.
- Karma Houdini Warranty: After spending years acting innocent in Stella's presence to avoid punishment, Colette is finally caught lying and is punished.
- Lampshade Hanging: This chapter actually calls into question why Sam and Tucker do not wear disguises when they assist Danny in fighting ghosts, thereby preventing people from recognizing them. Star has the idea to wear a disguise and suggests it, only Sam is initially against it (until the end).
- Like Parent, Like Spouse: Where the previous installment Lost called attention to Danny's similarities to Star's father Johnathan, this one calls attention to Star's similarities to Danny's mother Maddie. Star wears an orange version of Maddie's jumpsuit when on patrol, wields her Fenton lightsaber when fighting ghosts, and has similar romantic banter with Danny during fights that Maddie has with Jack. Danny even reacts to all this in a very similar way to his father.
- Never My Fault: Both Sam and Star blame each other for getting lost in the woods and stuck together, ignoring their own actions in getting caught.
- Official Couple: Star and Danny are now an item.
- The Rival: Sam and Star have become this, both fighting each other over Danny.
- Rivals Team Up: The premise of “Stuck” has Sam and Star being forced to rely on each other when they get handcuffed together and lost in the woods.
- Stalker with a Crush: Colette towards Danny.
- Shout-Out:
- Sam mockingly calls Star Kim Possible when the latter states her cheerleading is actually useful for combat.
- The girls acknowledge their situation is eerily similar to the Friday the 13th movies.
- The scene where Colette is exposed to her family as a liar is inspired by the Krypto the Superdog scene where Bailey is exposed to his family as one.
Flower Princess 11 herself admitted it when a reader commented on that.
- Smitten Teenage Girl: Star is very much affectionate towards Danny now that they're dating.
- "Take That!" Kiss: Ember plants a kiss on Danny's lips to mock him for not being able to find Star.
- Underestimating Badassery: When Star joins Team Phantom during a patrol, Sam expects her to freak out and run away. Star instead uses her cheerleading moves and a weapon to defeat ghosts.
- Ungrateful Bitch: Subverted. When Star kills a spider that was on Sam, Sam is at first angry because she's an animal lover and thought the spider was harmless. However, when she learns that it was a black widow, which is venomous and could have killed her, Sam is horrified and realizes that Star saved her, and is not ungrateful. This act was the start of Star and Sam learning to work together and mending fences.
- Versus Title: Chapter 8 is titled "Sam vs Star".
- Violently Protective Girlfriend: Star is very defensive with Danny, to the point where didn't like the implications of Ember having two nicknames for him.
