Fanfic / Starchaser

Starchaser is a Steven Universe and Kingdom Hearts Crossover fic written by the Doomkitten, formerly of Crystal Clarity fame. When Connie Maheswaran arrives on the Destiny Islands in a quite literally explosive manner after another star mysteriously disappears from the sky, she contends with the scars—both mental and physical—left over from Earth's destruction. Thankfully, she has three new friends, the abrasive but ultimately well-meaning Riku, the lovable goofball Sora, and the bubbly, energetic Kairi to help her adjust to life on the island.

Author has rewritten and reposted the story on Archive of Our Own. [1]

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Current Version

The current version of Starchaser uses the following tropes:

• Action Girl: Connie, as in her source work, is an amazing sword fighter and isn't afraid to get into a fight. And like in the original Starchaser, she's set to send Kairi down this path as well.
• Alternate Universe: In which Earth was attacked by the Heartless and Connie ended up on Destiny Islands.
• Crossover: One between Steven Universe and Kingdom Hearts.
• Food as Bribe: The originally deleted scene in which Sora tries to bribe his way out of rowing with food is included in the main fic this time. It still doesn't work, though.
• Lighter and Softer: Word of God says it will be this compared to the original Starchaser.

Old Version

The original version of Starchaser used the following tropes:

• Action Girl: Connie by virtue of, well, being Connie, is this by default, but in “Balance is the Key” she takes it upon herself to train Kairi in the ways of badassitude. Judging by her performance in the last shown sparring match, it’s easy to infer that it worked.
• Action Survivor: Tari. He managed to make it through the destruction of the Destiny Islands, and does everything he can up to and including volunteering for something that'll get him killed to protect Connie.
• Aerith and Bob: Connie’s rather mundane name (the translation of Maheswaran notwithstanding) stands out in comparison to Kairi, Riku, Sora, etc.
• Aliens Speaking English: Justified. Traveling to a different dimension automatically grants you the ability to understand and speak with most sentient beings in that world, so that Keybearers on missions could better preserve the World Order.
• All There in the Manual: The author has created a codex that very thoroughly explains the physics and magic of the universe. To whit, the first entry explains the in-game effects on getting hit and/or hitting things, how hit points differ from physical health, the crazy aerial acrobatics people can do, and why getting hit by a giant sword doesn’t just kill someone.
• Alternate Universe: The catalyzing event for the entire story is that Connie’s home dimension got nommed by the Heartless, and she was sent via Lion-portal to the safest place in the multiverse: the Destiny Islands.
• Always Someone Better: Connie is this to Riku, as despite being hands-down the best fighter on the Keyhole Island, Connie thrashes him without Riku getting so much as a single hit in, other than his signature feet-first attack that sent Connie into a berserker rage that she nearly killed Riku in.
• And Then John Was a Zombie: Happens to pretty much everyone on the Destiny Islands, although we get to see this happen to Nitz and Arata up close and in a very tearjerking fashion.
• An Ice Person: Sora can use Blizzard after confronting his memories of his dad's death.
• Angst: Connie has this big time, due to all her traumatic experiences.
• Another Dimension: As per the second entry in the Codex, each world is a different dimension complete with its own universe. The Gummi Ship UI representation of them just shows the most magical place in the entire dimension, which is where the Keyhole is likely to be since the World Heart infuses its surroundings with powerful magic.
• Apocalypse How: Class X-4: The dimension that Steven Universe took place in was completely obliterated by the Heartless. Connie is the only known survivor.
  • Happened again to the Destiny Islands.
• As You Know: Since the author wrote the fic with the intention of it being understandable by people of only one of the included fandoms, this is kind of a meta-example for people who are familiar with some or all of the source material.
• Aura Vision: An Inversion. Connie can check her own stats—including attack, defense, hit points, and MP—by focusing on her inner magical aura.
• Badass Normal: Connie is this by default, and she also trains Kairi to be one in “Balance is the Key.”
• Bash Sisters: Bismuth and Peridot appear to have formed this relationship, both of them used to laying the beatdown on Heartless in tandem with one another. Peridot uses ranged attacks and mobility, while Bismuth uses brute force.
• Beware the Nice Ones: When Riku makes the mistake of raising Connie’s ire before a sparring match, he almost gets killed when Connie loses control after a surprise hit.
• BFS: Connie gets one, courtesy of Bismuth, to replace her Keyblade whenever she doesn't feel like fighting a Heartless squad every thirty seconds.
• Birthday Episode: "Be Wherever You Are" ends with Sora, Riku, and Kairi throwing a small, personal "party" that primarily consists of silly banter and gift giving in celebration of Connie's fourteenth birthday.
• Bloodless Carnage: Justified and Downplayed. As explained in the first Codex entry, if somebody uses a magic weapon or magic itself, they automatically gain a forcefield that absorbs the vast majority of physical force and protects the heart from being stolen. However, some kinetic energy does make it through, leaving behind minor bruises and scratches. And of course this shield can be depleted, leaving the person who projected it vulnerable to their Heart being stolen or good ol’ fashioned dying.
• Boring, but Practical: How does Connie get around the pesky problem of the Keyblade attracting Heartless like a fly to honey? Bismuth just forges her a new enchanted sword along with a suit of armor to protect her if her aegis fails as well as providing its own magical reinforcement.
• Break the Cutie: Connie went through this big-time when the Earth got destroyed. The author has gone on record saying that she has PTSD, and it shows in-universe. Thankfully, There Are No Therapists is averted, as Connie goes to one on Sora’s recommendation in “It’s Over, Isn’t It?”
  • Happened all over again once the the Islands got nommed.
• The Battle Didn't Count: Subverted. As in canon, Connie loses the Dream Sword upon laying the beatdown on the Darkside, but she keeps fighting anyways, waging a Hopeless Boss Fight against the hordes of mooks that she can't damage with her bare hands to build up enough energy to attack the Darkside with Dark Fire. It works.
• Casting a Shadow / Playing with Fire: Connie can apparently use Dark Fire by tapping into some of her repressed rage at the Heartless over Earth's destruction.
  • Riku get this by drawing on his jealousy of Connie's natural ability and his lingering resentment over her convincing the others to not go with his stupid plan.
• Closed Door Rapport: In "Be Wherever You Are," Kairi has this with Connie after one of Connie's Trauma Buttons gets hit and she hides in a bathroom stall.
• Colossus Climb:
  • Like Sora can do in the games, Connie runs up the dream Darkside's arm to get at its head.
  • Connie also gives Centipeetle a good dose of this.
• Crossover: One between Steven Universe and Kingdom Hearts.
• Deadpan Snarker: Everybody has their moments, but Connie and Riku are the most egregious ones.
• Dented Iron: An odd case. While her aegis keeps Connie protected from most forms of physical harm, once it gets depleted she's just as vulnerable to getting wounded as everyone else, so when she consigns herself to die at the claws of the Heartless during the destruction of the Islands, they get quite a few nasty hits in before going for the deathblow. Thankfully, she's swept away before they can finish the job.
• Doomed by Canon: There was no way the Destiny Islands weren't going to get nommed like in the games. There'd be no plot otherwise.
• Doomed Hometown: The universe housing Connie's Earth got eaten by the Heartless, and of course this also happens to the Destiny Islands.
• Empowered Badass Normal: Connie, already an expert swordswoman, an accomplished martial artist, and a skilled tactician gains access to Dark Fire during her Dive to the Heart. Woe betide those who raise her ire.
• Extra-ore-dinary: As in canon, Peridot has this ability, but she is much, much better at using it.
• Family-Unfriendly Violence: Connie got hurt quite badly when Earth got destroyed, and witnessed firsthand a Heartless tearing someone’s heart out.
• Foil: Sora and Riku, as in the canon games, are this, but so are Kairi and Connie. Kairi is an energetic Genki Girl determined to make Connie have fun if necessary, while Connie is near-constantly miserable due to her PTSD and reluctant to socialize, but both were sent from destroyed worlds to the Destiny Islands.
• Food as Bribe: In one of the deleted scenes in the Codex, Sora tries to pull this to get out of rowing the bow seat (the front of a rowboat, where extra work is put in to support the people behind you) when he’s late. Riku and Kairi take the food, but he gets stuck in the front anyways.
• Free-Range Children: Riku, Kairi, Sora, and Connie spend most of their days in chapters two and three hanging out on the island and assaulting each other with heavy wooden swords. Justified, as it’s summer vacation and the glow protects them from most physical harm.
• Full-Contact Magic: Whenever Connie casts Dark Fire, she generally acts like she's palmfisting something, and she actually does cast it through her punches when she attacks the dream Darkside for the final time.
• Harmful to Minors: You betcha. Connie is very badly scarred by seeing Earth destroyed at the hands of the Heartless up close.
• Happily Married: Tari and Nitz are absolutely adorable together.
• Healing Potion: Apparently, soda of all things can act as one due to how carbonated beverages made on the islands (stuffing the glow into water and adding some flavoring, apparently). This makes sense, as the protective shields around magic users are powered by the same substance.
• Helmets Are Hardly Heroic: Thoroughly Averted. Connie's armor comes with a helmet.
• Good-Times Montage: "Be Wherever You Are" and "Move On" are essentially this, documenting Connie's recovery from the scars left by the destruction of Earth, and by god is it fluffy.
• Groin Attack: When she's at the end of her rope, Connie decisively ends her battle with Leon by kneeing him directly in the balls, then demolishing the rest of his aegis and knocking him out while he's incapacitated by the pure agony.
• Heroic BSoD: Connie is in one for a few days after she arrives on the Destiny Islands due to seeing the destruction of Earth, but transfers into…
  • This happens to her again when she sees the telltale sinister orb of doom hovering over the islands.
• Heroic Safe Mode: ...after she gets out of the hospital. She eventually grows out of it, but the scars are still there.
  • Seems to have happened again when Connie wakes in Traverse Town.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Lion uses all of his power to create an interdimensional warp tunnel to the Destiny Islands, the safest place in the multiverse, and dies afterwards as the magic sustaining him ends.
• Her Heart Will Go On: Connie seems to have finally gotten over Steven's death as of "Move On," as the title implies, and has accepted her new life on the islands while not forgetting about her past, as symbolized by her wearing an amulet with the Crystal Gem symbol on it.
• Heroic BSoD: Connie, as tough as she is, can't just get away from watching her home planet being destroyed in a horrific fashion without some serious mental scarring.
• Hidden Depths: It turns out that Sora’s father died and he went to grief counseling with his mother, suggesting that his constant cheer is either more zen than it looks or partially faked.
• Holy Hand Grenade: Connie teaches Kairi magic after their Dives to the Heart, and Kairi, as befitting her nature as a Princess of Light, gets the Pearl spell.
• Irony: The world ended only a few hours before Steven and Connie would’ve made up in “Kevin Party.”
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Riku, as in canon, may be abrasive, insensitive, and snarky, but he truly cares about his friends.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: Peridot and Connie talk about magic in terms of materia from a Final Fantasy expy in a universe where Cloud Strife, Sephiroth, Yuffie, and Cid exist.
• Little Miss Badass: Connie is only fourteen years old and able to take down the Heartless while the world is literally ending all around her. Kairi seems to be on track for this as well.
• Male Gaze: Connie frets about her school uniform causing this while waiting in Dr. Arata’s office. Her fears are most likely justified, considering the source material.
• Magic A Is Magic A: As per the "On Magic" codex entry, the author has created an in-depth explanation for the wide variety of combat systems in the games, except for Kingdom Hearts 3D [Dream Drop Distance], Kingdom Hearts coded, and Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories, due to their odd circumstances.
• Meanwhile Scene: The latter half of "It's Over, Isn't It? [Reprise]" consists of rapidly cutting scenes showing the developing apocalypse on the Destiny Islands from the perspectives of all the minor characters that we've come to know and love as they're brutally killed by and then turned into Heartless.
• Mercy Kill: Tari ends up having to do this to his husband, Nitz, after he gets turned into a Heartless.
• Mental World: Connie's Dive to the Heart, full of symbolism, memories of her old life, and lots of Heartless to kill.
• Mood Whiplash: A funny sitcom-esque scene where Riku and Kairi confront Connie over what they perceive as her crushing on Sora quickly goes south when Kairi makes the mistake of accidentally bringing up her feelings for Steven, and ends with Connie running off to have a breakdown in the Secret Place.
• Naked People Are Funny: Tari, one of Riku's dads, accidentally interrupts the kids' tabletop RPG session by coming downstairs dressed in nothing but his underwear. Sora, Kairi, and Connie are appropriately scandalized, but Riku, presumably desensitized to those kind of experiences, can't stop laughing his ass off, although it's primarily at the others' reactions.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: By convincing the gang to not go along with Riku's incredibly dangerous and stupid plan to discover other worlds on a raft, Connie inadvertently fuels Riku's desire to take Xehanort's advice to open the Destiny Islands keyhole.
• Normal Fish in a Tiny Pond: On Earth, Connie may have been skilled, but in terms of raw strength she couldn’t begin to compare to the Gems except when fused as Stevonnie. On the Islands, however, Connie’s training from a thousands-of-years-old warrior allows her to completely crush Riku, widely regarded as the best fighter on the Keyhole Island, and train Kairi up to a warrior of similar caliber.
• Obviously Evil: Maleficent, no duh, but seeing as they have pretty much no choice but to follow her, Riku and Sora reluctantly tag along.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Connie is normally a cheerful and energetic, if occasionally anxious, nerd. When she shows up in the first chapter, “Like a Comet,” acting like she just got back from ‘Nam, you know something is very, very wrong.
• Original Character: Some of these exist, primarily because some of the story takes place on the main island, and we see nothing of its inhabitants other than Sora, Riku, Kairi, Wakka, Tidus, and Selphie during the games. The ones shown so far are Aeln, one of Connie’s temporary guardians, Dr. Arata, Connie’s therapist, and Nitz and Tari, Riku's fathers.
• Papa Wolf: After losing his husband to the Heartless, rather than breaking down and giving up, Tari runs outside to find his kids. He's not letting more of his family get taken away from him.
  • This becomes even more evident in Traverse Town, where he insists on coming with Connie to fight the Heartless despite his almost nonexistent combat experience. Thankfully, Bismuth talks him out of it.
• Point of Divergence: The Earth is destroyed by Heartless right before Kevin’s big party, and Connie is sent to the Destiny Islands by Lion.
• Poor Communication Kills: Connie repeatedly ends up lashing out at her new friends or having breakdowns because she refuses to tell them anything about her past in fear of dredging up traumatic memories. Thankfully, that seems to have ended in chapter four, “It’s Over, Isn’t It?” where she goes to a therapist and starts talking about all the horrible things that have happened to her.
  • Connie also ends up blaming herself for Earth's destruction for not reading Steven's texts when he asked for help defending the Temple, but Dr. Arata shuts her down and points out that even if Connie had fought with the Gems, Earth would probably still be doomed and she'd be dead.
• The Power of Friendship: A downplayed example. Connie knows that the only reason that she’s recovered from her experiences as much as she has is because of Riku and Kairi’s friendship with her.
• The Power of Hate: Conversely, Connie uses this to access her Dark Fire spell. Worryingly, she finds out how to use this all on her own, hinting that she might have a problem with her inner darkness, similar to Terra and Riku.
• Shaped Like Itself: Connie’s explanation to Dr. Arata of what exactly the Gems are has shades of this.
• Ship Tease: Bits here and there, primarily between Riku and Connie, and Kairi and Connie, although it may be more Belligerent Sexual Tension between the former pairing.
• Shout-Out: Apparently Connie’s a BioWare fan. “Sorry, but I’m not telling you my deepest, darkest, most personal secret. That has to wait until after my loyalty mission.”
• Snark-to-Snark Combat: Connie and Riku engage in this quite frequently in "Be Wherever You Are."
• Staking the Loved One: Tari ends up having to do this to his husband, Nitz, after Nitz gets turned into a Heartless.
• The Stars Are Going Out: As this is a Kingdom Hearts fic, this is a given, but it has a lot more emotional impact than normal considering that we, the audience, gets to see exactly what actually happens when a star goes out not once, but twice, and after the author went through all the trouble of creating an emotional bond with the Islands too.
• Sword Lines: Justified in-universe, as they're manifestations of the magical power behind enchanted swords that are necessary to pierce the protections of every wizard or magic weapon users.
• There Are No Therapists: Staunchly averted. When Connie has a massive breakdown after Kairi accidentally hits her trauma button, Sora recommends a therapist. The entirety of chapter four, “It’s Over, Isn’t It?” is Connie’s first session with Dr. Arata and a more thorough explanation of what exactly happened to Earth.
• Time Skip: The author makes extensive use of this trope in order to get through Connie's year and a half on the Destiny Islands.
• Took a Level in Badass:
  • Connie gives Kairi sword training, which gives her visible tone and and skill in the blade. Kairi shows off her new level in a sparring match with Connie about halfway through the chapter.
  • Peridot has definitely taken a few levels as well, seeing as she has fine enough control over her metallokinesis in Traverse Town to both use it for transport and to slice Heartless into itty bitty pieces.
• Trauma Button: Connie has several, which are all connected to her memories of Earth and her feelings of failure and inadequacy.
• Trauma Conga Line: Let's count all the things that Connie goes through during the the destruction of the Destiny Islands. First, she sees the glowing orb of doom that signifies that a world is about to go down the drain, and goes into a Heroic BSoD as the Heartless show up and begin swarming all over the kids' islet. Then, two of her best friends disappear into the darkness before her eyes, followed by seeing her crush getting her Heart stolen. Connie blames herself for not being able to stop it, and just lets the Heartless tear her to pieces afterwards. The only reason why Connie's still alive is that she was sucked into the vortex just before the Heartless could kill her.
• Troubled Fetal Position: Connie does this in the Secret Place after Kairi makes the mistake of accidentally bringing up her feelings for Steven, sending Connie into a complete mental breakdown.
• Unstoppable Rage: Connie goes into this briefly after seeing Riku and Sora disappear into the darkness, unlocking Dark Fira and tearing through a horde of shadows. Unfortunately, it doesn't last, since when she sees Kairi bite it too, Connie just gives up.
• Waking Up Elsewhere:
  • After Earth gets destroyed, Connie wakes up in a hospital room in the Destiny Islands, horribly traumatized and physically scarred.
  • Happens again after the Islands get nommed too, where Tari wakes up in an alley in Traverse Town and Connie wakes up in the upper floor of Bismuth and Peridot's shop.
• Wide-Eyed Idealist: Kairi and Sora fit into this box almost perfectly, just like in canon. But while Kairi's endless optimism may help Connie out on a bad day, Sora's uncanny resemblance to Steven has a… less positive effect on her.
• Wham Line: "Because after that… the world ended." It was implied very heavily that Earth somehow got destroyed before Connie arrived on the Islands, but still, reading it like that feels like a gutpunch.