Starch

Starch is the femslash ship between Stelle and March 7th from the Honkai: Star Rail fandom.

Canon
Stelle and March are both members of the Astral Express Crew - Stelle being the crew's newest addition. March is one of the first characters Stelle meets after her second awakening (the first with Kafka and Silver Wolf being erased from her memory) coming second after Dan Heng. The two along with Dan Heng make their way to the master control zone of the Herta Space Station after the Antimatter Legion's attack on the station.

They're quick with bonding, enough so that when March is targeted by an attack unleashed by the Antimatter Legion's Doomsday Beast early on in the story Stelle jumps in the way of the blast and protects her. In-turn when Stelle faints (the Stellaron in her body losing control after she shielded the other) March rushes to catch her and expresses worry. Due to the Astral Express Crew's knowledge on Stellaron, their navigator - Himeko - offers to let Stelle stay with them as a passenger on the Express.

They talk over how Stelle reached up to the stars whilst taking in the earlier events on the Express, March having done a similar thing when she was first rescued from the eternal ice she was trapped in. Though what she had thought were stars were actually lights. Along with that the two occasionally speak of small similarities and shared experiences, such as their shared issues with amnesia and not knowing where they came from.

Depending on the player's reply choices during conversations, the two also have a running gag of Stelle copying what March says.

Quotes
"Just a suggestion though - you're safe as long as you stick with me ~!"

- March 7th, "Eye of the Storm"

"Awesome! We get to work together as a team again, Stelle!"

- March 7th, "Drifting Between the Stars"

Fanon
Starch is fairly popular within the fandom, especially with the game finally having its official release. The two have been shown together in a good chunk of official art which further boosted the popularity amongst fans. It's currently the 9th most written romantic pairing and 3rd most written femslash pairing under the Honkai: Star Rail tag on AO3, with 100+ works. It is both characters' most popular pairing thus far. Starch is often shipped alongside CaeHeng.

Starch fans have a hard time agreeing on one ship name. Before, it was known as "FemcMarch" until Stelle's name was confirmed, which lead to a lot of new potential ship names. Many fans like "Starch" because the silliness of the name matches the personalities of the characters, though "StelleMarch" is also popular.

It's often depicted as Stelle being the more quiet and stoic type, whilst March is more upbeat and energetic. It's also common to see Stelle's canonical interest in trashcans depicted alongside the ship, whilst March is exasperated by said interest.

Fandom
FAN FICTION

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