Space is too dangerous and wonderful to face alone.
greetings, friends
I hope you’re ready for some ruminations about found families, because that is where I’m AT. Longtime subscribers will know this is far from the first time my brain has gotten stuck on this particular hamster wheel. In my very first newletter, I believe I yelled about my love of Stargate Atlantis, that beautiful island of misfits. Rest assured this is who I am still: emotional about found families in space.
I like found family narratives in general, but something about setting them in space really adds an element of perfection. Space is completely and entirely inhospitable to life, yet we keep striving for it (my all-time favourite comic, Planetes, explores this very subject. Today’s subject line comes from it.). Humans keep looking up, venturing out, and in the best science fiction narratives we are not the only ones.
Last week, I finished my replay of Mass Effect 2. Mass Effect is about a human soldier gathering up a multispecies crew and forming them into a family in order to save the galaxy, and Mass Effect 2 takes that a step further: Shepard still has their family (if not present on the ship, then at the very least in easy contact), and adds to it by literally adopting a bunch of damaged folks and helping them through their trauma. That’s not an exaggeration, it is literally the plot of the game. You recruit your misfits, and by and by you are given the opportunity to help them by going on a mission which deals with some existing trauma from their past. Doing so gains you their loyalty, which increases their chances of surviving the game’s final mission. In Mass Effect 3, you’ve got your core group together again, but you check in with each of your misfits as you go, and they are all happy and thriving. It’s one of the most rewarding narratives I’ve ever encountered in any media.
I’m leaving the country this week, so I decided I’d wait on diving right into Mass Effect 3. I still had found space families on the brain so I thought I’d dip my toe into Star Trek Discovery, which a number of friends love. Well, I didn’t so much dip my toe as I did dunk my entire body in, and within 4 days had watched all 27 episodes. Star Trek Discovery is good. The first season is tonally very different from where it’s at now (and where I hope it will remain), but does a good job at establishing who the core cast are, and most importantly who Michael Burnham, protagonist and resident Big Damn Hero, is.
But the second season, ohhhh the second season is where it’s at. It’s got found family coming out of its ears. There’s lovely, loving time spent on relationships between secondary characters, who have personalities and depth. There’s laughter, and humor. There are incredibly relatable sibling moments between Michael and Spock, her adopted brother. There’s Captain Christopher Pike, proud father to the Discovery’s entire complement of crew.
Again, you might think this an exaggeration, but it is literally the plot of the show. As an added treat, there’s a romance that gives me flashbacks to Abbie Mills and Ichabod Crane of Sleepy Hollow, a dynamic I’ve sorely missed. Star Trek Discovery is giving me precisely what I most want from science fiction: people making connections; finding one another in spite of the unforgiving vacuum of space. I can’t recommend it highly enough.
Dog Thing
Mixed Media
A Good Book: Ran and the Gray World by Aki Irie. I picked up the first volume of this back in February, and while I liked it a lot–look at that ART!–I was worried that the plot might be a little one note. Ran is a little girl, and she’s magic, and when she puts on a specific pair of shoes, she transforms into a grown-up. Hijinks ensue, but there’s only so much you can do with that. Well, the second volume assuaged my fears by digging deep into the other characters and the rest of the world and honestly I haven’t been so excited about a comic in a long time. The magic is so cool, the characters are great, and the art remains incredible!
A Good Album: Sink by Sudan Archives. You ever go down a rabbit hole of related artists until you hit gold? That’s how I stumbled across Sudan Archives (I started at Ibeyi, for the record), and I love their work. It’s got a simultaneously chill and upbeat sound that’s all I want to hear right now.
A Good Fic: Bluebird by waldorph. Hooked on Discovery but rapidly running through fics (I’m picky!) I turned to twitter for other Star Trek fic recs, and was gifted with this jewel. This is a Kirk/Spock fic that takes place in the Kelvinverse timeline (the new movies, in other words), and I love how it takes its time and gives the reader time with each of the Enterprise characters. I’ve already reread it twice.
Lastly
did you see the newwwwwwws
