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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.
During the Trailblaze missions, March gets irritated by Stelle's attitude as she cracks jokes (based on the optional player's choices). The two of them often make the joke that, depending on the player's preferred responses, Stelle will occasionally copy March says.
After arriving at Jarilo-VI, the three Astral Express members were taken to the Underworld, where they fought Bronya Rand before Sampo Koski intervened to save them. Stelle and March are looking for Dan Heng in the Underworld to try and find him. With the Moles, a group of friends who call themselves "an adventure squad" in the Underworld, they played hide-and-seek with them.
Dan Heng was present when Welt told him in the Trailblaze Missions, "Oblation Obtained, Order Ordained," that the two hadn't exactly been acting well during the Luofu mission and that it would have been helpful to have Dan Heng with them.
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"
- “You're not Stelle. You're nothing like her.”
- — March 7th, "Total Recall"
- “Stelle would never try and force me to give up something so important to me.”
- — March 7th, "Total Recall"
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 amount of official art which further boosted the popularity amongst fans. It's currently the 3rd most written femslash pairing under the Honkai: Star Rail tag on AO3, with 400+ works. It is March's most popular pairing and Stelle's most popular pairing alongside Stellefly. Starch is often shipped alongside DanCae, and mostly rivaled by Stellefly, KafStel, DanStelle and DanMarch.
While the ship has a hetero equivalent named "CaeMarch", Starch is generally favored by fans due to the popularity of both Stelle as the Trailblazer's common gender choice, and the Yuri or GL genre.
Stellefly and Starch shippers have often seen some conflict, especially with the new works such as official art for Stellefly shippers. Stellefly shippers say that March 7th is annoying and snarky, and that the ship has little canon content, while Starch shippers say that Firefly has poor character that has only been weakened by the growing fanservice for said ship and that Stelle and Firefly’s interactions are shallow and blatantly set-up.
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 a popular alternative.
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
- March 7th/Trailblazer tag on AO3
- March 7th/Stelle tag on AO3
FAN ART
TUMBLR
- Starch tag on Tumblr
- StelleMarch tag on Tumblr
Gallery[]
- Main article: Starch/Gallery
