I've never really thought much of Starmie at all before Legends Z-A, but if you had asked me to describe Starmie in a word beforehand, I probably would have used the word elegant? Like Esserise pointed out, it has visual imagery associated with grace - geometric shapes, the gem, ocean and stars association, and so on - but for me personally, my main form of engaging with Pokemon as a series has always been the games (even as a really young kid, I could not stand the 'mons just saying their own name over and over) - and if that's the only place you're seeing Starmie, I think the association makes more sense? It's the ace of Misty, and generally you'd associate swimming with graceful movement before weird alien nonsense. The still sprites/models don't do a lot to express how Starmie moves, and for the gen 5 sprite, I would have chalked up the helicopter spin to BW sprites being hyperactive in general rather than anything intrinsic to Starmie. There's the dex entries, which are consistent about it being a strange little freak, but I don't think most players pay much attention to those or take them too seriously, myself included.
I'm getting into tangent territory now, but I'm very glad to have my perception of Starmie shattered - I find it so much more interesting knowing that it's just kind of a weird maybe-an-alien than I did before as kind of just another 'mon. It makes so many things about the 'mon click into place for me - why does it have Analytic when it's fast? Because it's studying everything on this strange world it's found itself on. Why does it have such a huge movepool, even by Psychic standards? It's another tokukatsu reference - all of the Gen 1 kaijus have that in common. It's made me appreciate the design so much more than I did before - a more 'standard' Mega would not have accomplished this at all.
