Author's Note: Star doesn't have a surname on the show, so I picked Baxter. You may notice that Baxter is Dash's surname as well – I have a headcanon that Dash and Star are siblings. Sort of. It's all explained in the oneshot. Furthermore, I think the sales assistant in "Parental Bonding" might be Dash's mother.
There isn't much to draw on from the show when writing for Star, so what I've come up with to fill the gap is weird and potentially controversial. It probably belongs in the Crossover section because it draws on elements of The Fairly OddParents. I hope you enjoy this chapter regardless! Please read and review!
Star Baxter (née Dusty Von Strangle)
It's … complicated.
I'm a smart girl. I don't want to boast or anything, but Dash thinks I could definitely get into Yale or Harvard if I tried. Yet Danny Phantom managed to surprise me. Actually, he did more than surprise me – he completely knocked me off my feet. Then again, his big reveal in Antarctica knocked everyone off their feet, so maybe I shouldn't feel so special.
Before the Disasteroid hullabaloo, I was never very interested in Danny Fenton. His parents were ghost-hunting freaks, thus rendering him uncool, thus rendering a friendship with him unacceptable in the eyes of the popular kids. (No, I don't always talk this formally. It's only because I have time to articulate my thoughts properly. Around Dash's friends, my speech is rushed and peppered with many a "like" and "so" while I struggle to keep up with the pace of the conversation.)
The only exception to my general attitude of dismissal was when I entered the Miss Teenage Happy Princess Beauty Pageant. I thought that doing his Math homework for him and giving him massages in the cafeteria would get him to notice me and pick me as the winner. It didn't work out. He chose that weird ultra-recyclo-vegetarian because she said some cheesy stuff about how it's what's on the inside that counts, despite doing nothing to show us what was inside her (apart from a few depressing haikus). I lost interest in him again after that.
Danny Phantom was a different story. This is something I have in common with Paulina, my best friend: I've got a thing for ghosts. When I saw him flying peacefully home after a victorious battle, leaving inky black vapour trails in the sky, my head would float into the clouds with him and butterflies would fill my stomach. I had a deep crush on him, but I knew I couldn't be with him. He was a ghost, and I was a fairy, and relationships between ghosts and fairies are illegal.
Yeah, I should probably clarify. My name isn't really Star Baxter. It's Dusty Von Strangle. I'm a changeling. My father is Jorgen Von Strangle, a so-called Magic Marine who basically runs Fairy World and rules over any creature that's small and has wings. He and my mother are both very influential and very well-known among fairies and ghosts alike.
Since the birth of Cosmo Cosma, the most powerful (and dangerously idiotic) magical creature ever recorded, fairies weren't allowed to procreate. However, my dad clearly wasn't very good at obeying his own orders. If anyone in Fairy World found out he'd broken Da Rules and had a child, it would have destroyed his leadership and reputation. So he and my mother snuck away to a random location on Earth, placed me with the Baxters, changed my hair and eye colour, took my wings off and tinkered with the Baxters' memories to make them think they'd had fraternal twins instead of a single son. Simple!
I learned the truth when I was ten. I put a tooth under my pillow, but instead of waking up to money, I met the Tooth Fairy herself – my mother, Pearl E. White – and she told me everything. She could do it then because fairies were allowed to have children again, and stories about secret babies were coming to light. Since that night, I've been getting to grips with my awesome magic powers, travelling to Fairy World and practising after school (with mixed results). I've been learning about the fairies' colourful history of fighting ghosts, then befriending them, then fighting them again.
Paulina doesn't know I'm the Tooth Fairy's daughter and I don't intend to tell her, for two reasons. Firstly, she's not very good at keeping my secrets – she can't resist gossiping. Secondly, she stopped believing in fairies when she was eight and went to Disneyland and saw a wrinkled old lady dressed up as Tinkerbell. She was traumatised for weeks. I'm pretty sure that nowadays, her only interest in the otherworldly is fawning over Danny Phantom.
I'd love to fight ghosts alongside Danny. I'd love to show off what I can do with a magic wand. I'd love to help him ensure that justice is done and then celebrate with a romantic picnic in the park. But I don't think I'm allowed to tell a half-ghost about the existence of fairies. Ghosts can know, sure, but half-ghosts throw up a legal grey area. Even if I could talk about it, I think Danny would just laugh at me. Believing in ghosts is already a stretch for the rational capacities. Believing in fairies is downright illogical.
It's funny. Whenever I think of Danny Phantom, I think of negatives. I can't do this. I can't tell him that. Maybe I only like him because he's out of my reach, cut off by metaphorical yellow tape that reads DO NOT CROSS. If he was just Danny Fenton, a regular teenage boy with embarrassing parents, I probably wouldn't give him the time of day. In fact, I didn't give him the time of day for years. It was only after he saved the world that I started stealing glances at him from across the cafeteria, looking away when he looked at me so I could pretend I hadn't just been admiring him.
But it probably won't go further than that. Since the fall of Pariah Dark, fairies and ghosts have been bitter enemies. One can't start a family with the other – unless they're ready for a long haul in Abracatraz. Fairy dust and ectoplasm don't mix, they say.
No, I can't deal with the stress of a forbidden relationship. I've got enough going on in my life even without Jorgen barking at me during magic lessons.
I've always craved security. Everything needs to be in its place and I panic when it's not. I'm not a bossy person. I just want to be in control of my own life. I like making timetables and establishing routines. I like categorising everything: my collection of books, my favourite cartoons, the Casper High students. I like it when social ladders have their rungs clearly labelled so you know exactly where you stand and exactly how you can rise and fall. Unfortunately, reality refuses to co-operate. Timetables change without warning. Too many objects fit more than one category. And the smallest of things can suddenly push you off the social ladder and send you crashing to the ground.
Believe it or not, I used to be more popular than Paulina, back when she'd just arrived and couldn't speak a lot of English. Being associated with Dash was enough to elevate me above the losers. That all changed after Dale called me Thick Arms in sixth grade and the nickname stuck for a good six months. It didn't help when Pearl – it still doesn't feel right to say "Mom" – warned me of the dangers of sugar for fairies: the more fat you carry, the less energy you have for casting effective spells. With a morbidly obese "father", a "mother" who works as a perky and youthful sales assistant in a clothes store and a "brother" obsessed with bodybuilding and football, it didn't take much to convince me to keep a very careful eye on my figure.
But Valerie noticed when I started skipping lunch, and she threatened to tell Dash if I didn't chow down once more. So I had to eat what was put in front of me, no matter how unhealthy. Luckily, I've now worked out a little trick. I eat my meal as usual, right down to the very last morsel, pretending I'm enjoying it – and then I make myself sick when no-one's watching. I keep my weight down, Valerie keeps her mouth shut, I stay in the cool gang's good graces, I please Jorgen with my mastery of magic, and people are none the wiser.
Well, most people are.
Yesterday Danny caught me throwing my lunch in the trash can. He sat me down, held my hand and asked if I might have bulimia. I told him I didn't. Nevertheless, he wanted me to talk to my "parents" and see a doctor. I nodded and thanked him for caring, hoping he wouldn't notice the way my heart skipped a beat when he stroked my hair and said it looked thinner than usual. He's at his cutest when he's concerned for other people.
I haven't acted on his advice, though. The Baxters wouldn't understand. They'd put me in hospital and make me blather on about my feelings, and I can't do that with trusted friends, let alone total strangers. Besides, I've still got inches of blubber on me, so there's a long way to go before I'm skinny enough for there to be a problem.
To summarise my ramblings, I do love Danny Phantom, so much it hurts. It hurts because I can't be with him. Jorgen and Pearl wouldn't allow it, and neither would my messy life.