Even though I have spoken enthusiastically about Star vs. The Forces of Evil in the past, I think we can all agree that it could have done some things better. However, if there’s one thing that I think was a missed opportunity, it was the Blood Moon Ball. Some Starco shippers saw it as the moment that decided that the two were meant for each other. Then Season Four’s “Curse of the Blood Moon” seemed to kill it for good. Only, not only did they end up together anyway, but the Blood Moon had nothing to do with it.

While I personally didn’t want Starco to happen because of some soul-binding, I see why some fans would be upset. The show doesn’t even explain how it’s a “curse” that well, making it even more of a letdown. However, a fan going by Blackwolfwrites decided to explore the potential of the blood moon in his own writing. The result is a trio of compelling stories that explore what could have been. This is what I like to call The Blood Moon Trilogy.

Minor Spoiler Warning, though

Sign of the Moon

Author: Blackwolfwrites

Type of Fanfic: AU/Shipping/Drama

First Published: Dec. 31, 2017

Status: Complete (Redux in progress)

Synopsis

Following the events of the first half of Season Three, Star Butterfly’s life is a mess. Her attempts to bring Mewman-Monster equality have stalled, her relationship with Tom is becoming strained, and she just found out that one of her worst enemies may be related to her! Through all these trials, though, she’s had her loyal best friend, Marco, by her side. Their bond, forged through countless adventures, has always been strong, in spite of feelings left unrequited and issues left unsolved.

Then, one fateful mission brings them back to the site of the Blood Moon Ball, and what they experience affirms what they already knew from the start: they’re meant for each other. Finally acknowledging their feelings for each other, the two best friends vow to be together, no matter what Mewni may think of them. They’ve overcome monsters, the Neverzone, St. Olga’s, Toffee, and more; what are some scheming nobles compared to that?

Little do the two realize, there’s a dark conspiracy in play that could decide to the future of Mewni itself…

Star vs. Fan Week, Day 3

In the Season Two episode of Star vs., “Running With Scissors“, we saw Marco spend sixteen years in another dimension hunting down Hekapoo, the forger of dimensional scissors, all to prove himself worthy of his scissors. He got them in the end, but after learning from Star that he had only been gone from Earth for eight minutes, he returned home, and the show went back to its status quo. Today’s fanwork, Like Father, Like Daughter, asks two things: what if the status quo didn’t go back to normal, and what if Star came a few seconds later? That’s how we get Seraph.

Like Father, Like Daughter

First Released: Feb 17, 2017

Author: ADdude

Type of Fanwork: AU

Status: Ongoing

In this story, rather than quickly readjusting to life on Earth, Marco has a harder time doing so something everyone notices. Just when everyone tries to get Marco to open up to them, Hekapoo shows up with a teenage girl in tow. She then drops a massive bombshell on everyone:

Marco, this is my daughter. Our daughter.

Star took longer getting to Marco, and the flirting seen between him and Hekapoo became more than flirting. A few days after he left, she gave birth to their daughter, Seraph Diaz. Due to time moving faster in Hekapoo’s dimension, little Seraph aged into a teenager very quickly. So Hekapoo brought her to live with Marco and his parents. The series follows Marco and the cast as they help Seraph adjust to life on Earth and help Marco learn how to be a parent. All this on top of the adventures he has with Star, too; things get weirder than normal.

Review

When I first heard about this story, I didn’t think I’d like it that much. I like Hekapoo and the dynamic she had with Marco in the show, but I never saw them as an item. That, and I always liked Star and Marco as a couple more.

Once I got into reading it, though, I was hooked on it. I’ve always thought that Marco’s Neverzone adventures were a missed opportunity for the show. The fact that he so easily readjusted to life on Earth was necessary for the show, but in real life, that doesn’t happen. So, Like Father, Like Daughter puts him in a situation where he can’t go back to the way he was before his scissors quest. Thankfully, having Seraph in his life turns out to be the best thing this version of Marco could need.

Speaking of Seraph, let’s talk about her and how she ends up changing everyone’s lives.

Seraph Diaz

Half-human, half-magical being, this little spitfire’s Seraph Celiosa Diaz. Despite being the same age as Marco and Star, she’s only a month old when the Story first starts. The reason behind her accelerated age is confusing, but here’s the bottom line. One day in the Neverzone ages her 6 months, meaning she would die within a year. So Seraph was sent to Earth for her own safety.

Appearance-wise, people have noted how she looks like a cross between Hekapoo and her grandmother, Angie Diaz. The coolest thing, though, is she inherited Hekapoo’s superhuman strength and ability to wield fire.

Seraph and the Cast

Seraph reminds me a lot of Star when she first came to Earth. She’s extremely friendly and tries making friends with everyone she meets. Each of the show’s cast warms up to her, albeit some sooner than others. There are three characters in particular, though, whose reactions to Seraph I found most interesting: Star, Jackie, and Hekapoo herself.

This fan fix starts at crucial moments in Star and Jackie’s lives. Star was starting to realize she had feelings for Marco, and Jackie was already dating him. Needless to say, the revelation that Marco has a daughter makes things awkward. Star’s initial reaction was really bad:

Star’s usual heart marks on her cheeks had changed into two spinning rainbow balls, and Star herself just remained motionless, only staring off into the space before her with what appeared to be a death grip on her wand. Her right eye appeared to be twitching, a contrast to the rest of the blank expression on her face.

Like Father, Like Daughter Chapter 2

It’s even harder for Jackie, considering how Marco cheated on her, and the two break up, though agree to remain friends. Despite befriending Seraph, later chapters reveal that, deep down, they still feel a bit resentful and jealous of how she symbolizes Marco’s relationship with Hekapoo.

As for Hekapoo, having a daughter serves as a catalyst for the magical entity to mature significantly and become a lot more responsible. She’s still mischievous and likes teasing others, but having Seraph changes her for the better. I also like the fact that some of the more recent chapters have Hekapoo coming to terms with the consequences of her actions. I.E., not telling Marco of the time difference in the Neverzone and then sleeping with him when he has a girlfriend is a bit of a dick move.

Good Story Structure

One of the best parts of this fic is how ADdude structures the story. It has arcs that can span across several chapters, like a n actual show, or a Light Novel series. The writing’s top notch, engaging, and captures the show’s cast very well. One of the first arcs is a tournament arc, and if you know what to look for, you’ll see plenty of cameos and shout outs to great fighters in pop culture. The whole story’s a blast, and I love it

Read This Story.

ADdude took a potentially obscure pairing and made into a compelling story that has a sizable fan base. I’m not a Markapoo supporter, but this story does a good job of showing what could happen. The best part is that ADdude shows no signs of stopping the story, either. From what I can guess, it comes out every month, so it comes at a decent pace. If you like Star vs., then this would be a fun story for you to read.

Click here to see my other animation stuff.

Star vs. Fan Week, Day 2

What would happen if your future kids came back from the future to make sure your parents get together and preserve their existence? It sounds like a version of “Back to the Future” or other time travel stories, but this one has a twist. In this case, the kids are from two separate futures… and have two different moms. This scenario is precisely the dilemma that Marco Diaz faces in this next fan work, Ship War AU by MoringMark.

Ship War AU

Written by: MoringMark

Type of Fanwork: AU Comic/Shipping

Status: Uncertain/Incomplete

Synopsis:

The comic starts in the middle of Season Two episode “Bon Bon the Birthday Clown.” Only in Ship War AU, Marco and Jackie’s date gets interrupted by two unexpected visitors. One’s Elizabeth Butterfly, Star and Marco’s future daughter, and the other’s Jam Diaz, Jackie and Marco’s future son. Both came back in time with different motives, but they’re each determined to ensure their existences.

The rest of Season Two unfolds as Jam and Elizabeth try to blend in and make sure Marco ends up with their respective moms. Meanwhile, Marco’s just trying to keep his relationship with Jackie intact while dealing with the fact he has two teenage kids to handle, plus Star.

Review

I don’t know where the author, MoringMark, learned to draw, but man he’s good. Looking at Ship War AU, it almost perfectly captures the art style of the show, right down to the backgrounds. You can almost mistake it for the show itself, at times. The resemblance is more than just skin-deep though, as MoringMark nails the characters personalities, or even expands on them. Since the whole premise behind the fan comic’s a shipping war, it focuses less on the events of the show at first and more on the shipping. The events of season two eventually play a significant role, but that comes closer to the end.

In terms of the shipping dynamic, one thing the comic succeeds in doing while the show fails is demonstrating the effect that Star’s feelings for Marco have on Jackie. In the show, Jackie eventually broke up with Marco because she knew he liked Star but moved on. Here, though, we see how that could have affected Jackie in the show. We see her openly admit to feeling jealous of Star for her looks, personality, and popularity. Then just when she thinks she has Marco, his future daughter with Star shows up, and that jealousy gets a lot worse.

Speaking of the future children, it’s time for some character analysis regarding Elizabeth and Jam. This will get a little long since I want to cover both their backstories and personalities. I can’t help it.

Elizabeth Butterfly

This is Princess Elizabeth Butterfly, Star and Marco’s future daughter in Ship War AU. In her timeline, Star and Marco are happily married as the rulers of a futuristic Mewni. Glossaryck tasked her with traveling back to the events of the show to deal with a space-time anomaly, only to run into Jam, who has his own goals. Now she has to ensure her existence while keeping Star from figuring out her identity.

Appearance-wise, Elizabeth’s practically the spitting image of Star, inheriting her eyes, cheek marks, and physical appearance, while getting Marco’s hair color. As far as personality goes, Elizabeth takes mostly after her mother, albeit more subdued. She’s got a giant sweet tooth, capable of being as reckless as Star, and loves fighting bad guys and bullies. Fortunately, she got Star’s magic and wand and Marco’s skill in martial arts.

While her personality reminds a little too much of Star to call her wholly original, I like Elizabeth because she has some of the best aspects of Star and Marco. She can be snarky and sarcastic at times, but she’s every bit as selfless as her parents and quick to make friends. After some time passes, she even tries to reach out to Jam, despite their initial attempts to ensure their existence. Underneath her confident exterior, though, is someone whose worried that they won’t be able to live up to Star’s legacy. It’s learning how to stop comparing herself to her mom and the rest of the family that drives her character near the end of the series.

Jam Diaz

This is Jam Diaz, Marco and Jackie’s son from the future. His name comes from the acronym “Jackie And Marco.” Unlike Elizabeth’s happy childhood, though, Jam’s was hell on Earth. In his timeline, Star disappeared a few months after the events of Bon Bon the Birthday Clown, and then a phenomenon known as the “Stapocalpyse” saw Earth overrun by monsters. With both Jackie and Marco dead, Jam came back in time not to ensure his existence, but to stop the Stapocalpyse. Then he has to deal with Elizabeth.

Appearance-wise, he got Jackie’s eyes and the blue streak in the otherwise brown-hair he got from Marco. He also wears his late mother’s seashell necklace as a memento, and always carries a skateboard and helmet on him at all time. Ironically, his severe and stoic personality resembles the “bad boy” image that we saw Marco trying so hard to create before he met Star. Also ironically, his good looks and personality lead him to become as big a chick magnet as Marco was in the show: just look.

I like Jam because he reminds me of Future Trunks, and Future Trunks is my favorite character in DBZ. Both are time-traveling warriors trying to stop an apocalyptic future and are super awesome. Unlike Trunks, though, Jam’s slower to trust others since he’s been on his own since he was a kid. He also serves a good foil for Elizabeth. While Liz is more emotional, Jam’s stoic. More importantly, though, Jam’s goal is to stop the apocalypse that kills his parents; he’s okay with sacrificing his existence if necessary.

Original Content vs Canon

I’m still new to the whole fan works thing, so my opinion on what makes a good fan work is yet being formulated. One thing I do know that I like, though, is fan works that try to remain faithful to the source’s canon, but also tell their own story. It’s hard to explain. In the case of Ship War AU, we have a fan comic that, while telling a new story, more or less follows the plot of the show from Season Two onwards. Most of the significant events from the episodes still take place: some happen as they did in the show, and others end up having different outcomes entirely. It’s enough, though, to keep me interested in the end. Sadly, we may never know what happens, as the series was never finished.

Stuck in Hiatus

The comics end around the start of Season Three of the show, just as we get to the big fight against Toffee. Unfortunately, we never see what happens, as MoringMark seems to have moved on to other projects. It is a shame, because with SvTFOE over, I’d love to see how he’d end the comic. There’s always hope, though. In the meantime, Elizabeth and Jam have made appearances in other fanworks done by MoringMark and fans of the show, so they’ll be around.

Conclusion

If you’re one of those people who’s into Star vs. for the shipping, then this should be right up your alley. If you’re not into the shipping, then this story will at least entertain you. It captures the essence of the show in a very reliable manner, both stylistically and in terms of tone and characters. We may never know how it ends, but that hasn’t stopped me from enjoying Ship War AU. Full disclosure, this won’t be the last time we see MoringMark or his work this week. What can I say? He’s just good. You should go check out his Tumblr page, right now. Click the link here

Here’s a hint about tomorrow’s fan work choice: it involves another fan-made child character.

Click here to see my review of yesterday’s fan work, Starfall

Star vs. Fan Week, Day 4

One of the big things that I’ve learned about the fan community for Star vs. The Forces of Evil is that there’s a lot of shipping. When there’s a lot of shipping, that leads to the concept of next gen original characters, and there are kids from almost every pairing in SvTFOE. Kids from Star and Marco, Star and Tom, Marco and Jackie, even a few for Marco and Janna. Basically, if anyone thought they’d make a good pair, the fans made kids for them. So MoringMark and a bunch of other fan creators had the idea of banding them together in one place. That leads us to today’s Star vs. Fan Work, SvTFOE Metaverse.

Fan Work: SvTFOE Metaverse

Created by: MoringMark (Originally)

Type of Fan Work: Webcomic/Anthology

Status: No Idea

This doesn’t really have a synopsis to it, so I’m skipping that in favor of giving an explanation.

The whole concept’s based on the Citadel of Ricks from Rick and Morty. Which, in turn, was based on the Council of Reeds from Marvel Comics. Existing in a dimension separate from the rest of the Multiverse are bases for every next-gen fankid where they can hangout with their inter-dimensional siblings. The focus is mainly on the largest base, the Citadel of Starco, home to all the fankids of Star and Marco.

Since MoringMark originally created the idea of the Metaverse, his Starco kid, Elizabeth Butterfly, plays a major role as head of security. Unfortunately for her, she ends up getting into a lot of trouble dealing with threats and fankids from other bases. Her biggest headache seems to be dealing with the kids from the TomStar base. They keep trying to sneak in or just mess with her all the time. I think it’s a funny meta reference to the rivalry fans have over who Star should have ended up with.

As far as a plot, there really is none, and while that would normally bother me, there doesn’t need to be one. The SvTFOE Metaverse was created to give fans of the show a means to collaborate and work on. It does a pretty job of it, too. Most of the comics are funny, slice of life stories that will make a fan chuckle, and anyone can add onto it. I don’t think anyone’s posting about it lately, but it can’t hurt to at least look it up.

Also, check this out:

Click here to see my other animation stuff.

Star vs. The Forces of Evil Fanfic Week Pt. 1

Hello everyone, and welcome to my week of Star vs The Forces of Evil Fanfiction. After getting inspired by the SvTFOE event on Tumblr, I decided to do a week of talking the best fan works from the Star vs fan base. Unfortunately, I started too late last week, so I’m starting this week. We’re starting off with a crossover story of epic proportions, Starfall.

Warning: The following story does contain explicit content. All characters involved are above the age of 18. You have been warned.

Starfall

Written by: GolfAlphaMike

Type of Fanwork: Crossover with Gravity Falls

First Published: 11/4/2015

Status: Complete

Synopsis

It’s been four years since Star began living on Earth with Marco, and the two are about to graduate high school. Years of adventures have given them an unbreakable bond, as best friends, and as lovers. Just as the two prepare for their future together, though, things change for Star. Her mother doesn’t have long to live, forcing Star to assume the throne soon than anyone planned. According to the laws of her world, she must take a husband, but when she tries to summon Marco, something terrible happens. Earth’s sealed off from the Multiverse; Star and Marco are literally worlds apart.

On Earth, all memory or trace of Star’s been erased, with only Marco able to remember her. While everyone he knows thinks he’s crazy, the boy knows that none of it was a lie. Thus, Marco Diaz sets off on a quest that will take him from a familiar town in Oregon and beyond to reunite with Star. Little do either know that there are dark forces at work and a centuries-old conspiracy that covets Star’s magical bloodline, and will stop at nothing to keep the two apart.

Review

I will be blunt: I think Starfall’s one of the best pieces of fan literature that I’ve ever read. I daresay it, but it’s good enough to publish into a book. It’s an epic romance novel that spans years of the characters lives as they live, grow, and fight. I can tell that GolfAlphaMike put his heart and soul into this work because it shows from the first chapter. It grabs hold of you and refuses to let go until the very end. The fact that GolfAlphaMike started writing Starfall in 2015, with only the first season to go on, makes it even more impressive.

Star and Marco’s Relationship

Considering that the author only had one season to go off of, it’s impressive that he was able to correctly guess that Star and Marco end up together in the end. He also wasn’t that far off when it comes to their character development, either. Star becomes more responsible than when we first met her, but she’s still the same fun-loving girl. Marco’s learned to be more of a risk-taker, but is cautious enough to avoid being reckless. Above all, the bond between them is the main focus of the story. No matter how big it may get, it always comes back to them.

The Crossover

Like I said in the description, Starfall’s a story that combines Star vs. The Forces of Evil with Gravity Falls. Since the latter show had ended by the time this was written, it had more to work with. The cast of Gravity Falls comes in at the right moments, but they never steal the spotlight from Star and Marco. They play a big role in helping Marco get to Mewni, and their personalities are the same as when we left them in 2016. The main difference is that eight years have passed since Weirdmageddon, so Dipper and Mabel are adults now. Otherwise, they’re the same.

The Characters

Being a fanfiction, Starfall has a mixture of both canon and original characters. Most of the casts from both shows plays a secondary role, helping Star and Marco on their journeys, but that’s about it. The only other canon character who plays a big role is Tom, who, ironically, mellowed out as much as he did in the show. The difference here is that its because he fell in love with another girl, an original character named Marina. So he no longer sees Star as anything more than a friend, yet he’s being forced to marry her by somone else.

That someone is Tom’s mother, who in this story is called Empress Ishtar, not Wrathmelior. Unlike Tom’s mother in the show, who genuinely cares about her son and his happiness, Ishtar barely does. In Starfall, she uses any means to keep Star and Marco apart, from blackmail and political red tape to outright attempting to murder Marco. She’s a good antagonist, and her motivations are very dark. Think Cersei Lannister; only she’s smart.

Original Concepts

Since Starfall’s written in the gap between the first and second seasons, a lot of elements from the show don’t exist in this. There’s no Eclipsa and Globgor, no Magic High Commission, among other things. GolfAlphaMike more than makes up for it, though, by coming up with some great original concepts. I don’t want to spoil them, but if you’re a fan of the show, you’ll recognize them. Golf’s acknowledged that they directly contradict the show, yet the concepts are interesting enough that I give them a pass.

Very Good Read

So this fanfic doesn’t follow the show that well, but to be fair, it was written when the show had only one season under its belt. The fact that the writer’s ability to create a great story from that one season is an impressive feat. Making it enjoyable enough that you can’t stop reading it, though, is a sign that this is worth your time. It does contain explicit moments of “adult things,” but all the characters involved have reached adulthood by that point.

I know fanworks aren’t for everyone; I’m still not that into that, honestly. I made an exception for Star because I’ve seen how passionate the fanbase can be about the show, and it hasn’t let me down. Its works like Starfall that give me hope that the fandom will keep the show alive for years to come. If you like SvTFOE and don’t want to say goodbye, then this is for you.

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Click here to read the story for yourself