Fanfic / Starfall (Star vs. the Forces of Evil)

Starfall is a Star vs. the Forces of Evil fanfic by GolfAlphaMike.

The Diazes are worried about their son Marco. Shortly after graduating from high school, he started demonstrating severe delusions. He ranted and raved about his girlfriend, a transfer student who had supposedly lived with the family for four years—but no one else remembers her, and there are no pictures or letters to prove her existence. Worse, he insists that she is a magical princess from another dimension, and that they've been fighting monsters together for years. His parents contact a psychiatric care facility, and Marco is given medication for his condition.

Meanwhile on Mewni, Star's mother the queen is dying, and she needs to choose a husband quickly. She of course chooses Marco, but he's not around. Tom's mother, Empress Ishtar, demands that if Marco Diaz does not accept Star's proposal within three days, she should be automatically engaged to Tom. Star accepts, but then discovers that dimensional travel to Earth has been completely blocked off.

Technically a crossover with Gravity Falls, though the fic focuses primarily on the Star vs the Forces of Evil side.

This fanfic provides examples of:

• Alas, Poor Villain: As Empress Ishtar dies, the price she paid for the curse—a significant portion of her own soul—is returned to her, and she finally regrets what she has done. She is able to find some measure of happiness, as she is reunited with her husband in the afterlife.
• All Just a Dream: Chapter 30 reveals that Marco's return to Mewni was simply a relapse; he was put in a psychiatric care facility, and all his "adventures" were just him interacting with the doctors and nurses. The doctors decide to allow him to live in his delusion, since he seems content with the glowing stars on his ceiling. In chapter 31, it turns out that was the dream. Marco wakes up and tells Star he's not entirely sure what's real, but then Manfred interrupts them at the worst time and Marco says if he was dreaming, that wouldn't have happened.
• All Therapists Are Muggles: The psychiatrists understandably think Marco has had a psychotic break when he insists he was dating a magical princess from another dimension that no one else remembers. It doesn't take Marco long to learn how to fake taking his meds and just tell them what they want to hear. When he comes back from Mewni briefly, they think he's had a relapse, and when his parents call to explain they assume he was using hallucinogenic drugs after all, and that his parents got in his stash. Then Star shows up, briefly tries to explain, and uses magic when that doesn't work.
  The doctor sat in a destroyed office. The door had been ripped from the frame by a large neon green primate. The office lights had been smashed. Flying anglerfish provided the only illumination. Seated at the desk, the doctor completed notes in Marco's file.
  PATIENT ASYMPTOMATIC. DOES NOT PRESENT SIGNS OF ANY MENTAL DISORDER. RELEASED TO SPOUSE. NO FOLLOW UP NECESSARY.
  When the file was closed, the magically summoned beings disappeared. The office was now dark. The doctor opened a desk drawer and withdrew a bottle of scotch.
• Chekhov's Gun: The flashback of Marco telling Star about the constellations and planets becomes relevant a few times. Calling her his "North Star" turns into a Trust Password, and Star kills Empress Ishtar by throwing her through a portal to Venus.
• Curse: Empress Ishtar casts a curse on Earth that not only blocks off all dimensional travel to the dimension, but erases all memories of Star from within. Marco only remembers because his heart bond rendered him immune.
• Desperately Looking for a Purpose in Life: The mind wipe hit Janna hard. She had been learning magic from Star, but then the spell removed all memories of Star and anything related to her—including magic. Five years later, Janna has a normal job that she hates, but has never been able to find anything she's passionate about. Once her memories are restored, she gets an apprenticeship at a Mewni magic library.
• Exactly What It Says on the Tin: The city of Port is a port city. Apparently the region is known for a total lack of imagination when it comes to names; when Mimi the mimic is introduced, she simply says "my family is from Port."
• Exact Words: Empress Ishtar repeatedly exploits the precise wording of laws and oaths to try to get her way. However, Star gives as good as she gets, and the council of nobles point out that Ishtar can't have it both ways. Either they interpret all the relevant laws by the letter or they interpret all of them by their spirit.
• Fantasy Contraception: There's a rather easy spell to prevent pregnancy. Even humans can use it. The Shapeshifting Seducer taunts Star that she did not use this when she seduced Marco. Of course, she didn't have sex with Marco at all, because he figured her out and then managed to talk her over to his side.
• Foreshadowing: Kevin's sister is the queen of their kingdom, but she has no children, no one expects her to have any children, and Kevin's child will be the heir. Kevin changes the subject when Marco tries to ask why. Turns out she's a lesbian. She ends up in a relationship with Mimi the mimic.
• Fourth-Date Marriage: Played for Laughs; it's pointed out that technically speaking, Marco and Star got married only a few hours after they got engaged. After being apart for five years, Star refused to wait a single minute longer than she had to.
• I Have Your Wife: Empress Ishtar kidnaps Tom's girlfriend in order to force him to fight the challenge for real.
• I Never Told You My Name: A mysterious stranger politely says goodbye to Tom and his girlfriend, referring to them as "King Tom and Queen Marina." After he leaves, Tom admits he didn't correct him because he wanted to pretend for a little while longer that he'd be allowed to marry Marina. Then Marina realizes that there's no reason for this stranger to know her name... He was actually the Doctor, popping in to watch one of his favorite historical events. He knows how it all ends.
• I Want Grandkids: A very dark example with Tom's mother Ishtar. She has wanted Tom to marry Princess Star since before Star was even born, and makes it very clear that it's for no other purpose than because she wants a grandchild from Star's line. It doesn't matter that both Tom and Star are deeply in love with other people; Ishtar will do anything to make sure they are together. As it turns out, Ishtar is the second-to-last step in a centuries old breeding program to bring all thirteen lines of royal magic into one. Star is the last line. If Star has Tom's child, the girl will inherit both Ishtar's twelve lines and Star's, making her an invincible goddess.
• Loophole Abuse: By a strict definition of the rules, Marco is not allowed to challenge Tom for Star's hand because he's not a noble (people from other dimensions are exempt from most class rules, but you specifically have to be a noble to make a challenge). Brad, a noble who owed an Earthling a favor, makes the challenge and appoints Marco his champion.
• Old Man Marrying a Child: Referenced; when Brad challenges Tom for Star's hand, everyone is disgusted, since he's three times her age. He rolls his eyes and says of course he's not going to marry her, he'll break off the engagement the second he wins. It goes against the spirit of the rules, but not the strict letter of the rules.
• One-Man Army: In the first chapter, Marco fights seventeen orderlies that try to subdue him, and only gets taken down when they literally pile on top of him and keep him still long enough to jab him with a sedative. He does great in the arena, culminating in him fighting twenty-three warriors at once to prove his strength despite his refusal to kill.
• Power at a Price: Major curses such as the one Empress Ishtar cast on Earth require a sacrifice. Her husband died on the night the curse was cast. As it turns out, the price she actually paid was her heart bond to her husband. This immediately turned her into The Sociopath, which horrified her husband so much that he killed himself.
• Ret-Gone: This is how the memory spell works; it doesn't just erase everyone's memories of Star and anything related to her, it also erases any evidence of her existence. Pictures of Star and Marco suddenly become pictures of Marco alone, and a letter she wrote to him becomes just a blank piece of paper.
• Shapeshifting Seducer: A mimic named Mimi is sent to seduce Marco using Star's form and a love potion concealed in her mouth. Ishtar takes Mimi to see Star the next day, and Mimi goes into a lot of detail about all the things she did to Marco. Actually, Marco realized she wasn't Star before anything could happen, but gave her all the intimate details she needed to fake it so that Ishtar would be fooled and Mimi's sister would be released from Ishtar's dungeon. Star was warned about this ahead of time so she knew to fake being distraught, but she's still annoyed that Marco told her all that stuff. A few chapters later, we find out that Mimi is a lesbian, making the whole situation even worse for everyone.
• Shed Armor, Gain Speed: During the fight with Tom, Marco realizes that trying to fight like a knight is futile because he didn't train for that—he trained in martial arts. Once he dumps his armor, he's fast enough to dodge Tom's attacks.
• The Soulless: Empress Ishtar sacrificed her heart bond with her husband to power the curse. Except instead of merely dissolving the bond, the curse took all her love for him, including the part of her soul that she had given to him. She is left as little more than a pile of manipulation that only cares about protecting her son and continuing the bloodline.
• Stalker with a Crush: After Glossyrick tells Marco a number of stories about past challenges that ended in tragedy, he shares a funnier one: A woman challenged the woman engaged to the man she loved. Except since the man in question just saw her as a creepy stalker, he flatly refused to accept the challenge, and there was no fight at all.
• Take a Third Option: An engagement challenge can only end in death or surrender. Knocking an opponent unconscious does not count as surrender; they have to actually say they yield. If the other fighter refuses to kill them, they will themselves be executed. Marco knocks Tom unconscious, then throws a spear at his heart from a fair distance away. Ishtar, unable to let her son just die, saves him with magic. This is a clear case of outside interference, allowing Marco to win by default.
• This Is Something He's Got to Do Himself: There comes a time when every queen of Mewni tells her king about his secret duty: A monster is coming, and he must defeat it. He can't get help from the royal guards or anyone else, he can't kill it, and no one but his wife will ever thank him for it. The monster is in fact the queen herself—when queens become pregnant, their Mating Season Mayhem instincts go wild, and they periodically mutate into a butterfly monster that will go on a rampage if it's not calmed down. Of course, dealing with an amorous six-armed monster isn't quite as terrible as the queens imply.
  Marco: Should it even be called the king's duty if I'm enjoying it? Why not call it the king's privilege? Or the king's sexy surprise treat?
• Wacky Marriage Proposal: It starts with a wacky divorce proposal, since Marco was technically Brad's champion when he won the bout, meaning Brad was legally engaged to Star.
  Brad shouted, "Star! Our engagement is not working out! I think we should see other people!"
  Star stood, smiled, and shouted back, "You're right, Brad! It's over between us!"
  She then turned to look at her hero standing triumphant in the fighting area. He was smiling at her.
  Star shouted so Marco could hear her. She amplified her voice by magic so everyone in the arena could hear her.
  "MARCO! WILL YOU MARRY ME?!"
  "YES, STAR! YES!"

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