The canon: Killjoys

What: tv show

Where: included for streaming on various subscription platforms

Quick pitch: bounty hunters in space! Competence porn! highly attractive cast, found family, and snarky AI spaceships!

More: additional tags: actually the villain is capitalism, everyone is a member of the bad dad club, hanging out in the hurt comfort consuite, gritty realism but hopepunk, space politics that would make Otto von Bismarck blush, shit just got realer than Bismarck ever imagined, worldbuilding porn, attractive people of genders having all the enthusiastically consensual sex they want, I don't actually hate anyone on this show no not even the one who stabbed my fave, there's a lot of show in this show, complete story with satisfying ending, television that doesn't lose it's sense of humor, but the pilot is more srsface than the rest of the show

Edited (Liiiiiiine breeeeeaks, spelling/apple hoagies for the inbox edit spam) 2022-01-09 09:50 pm (UTC)

The canon: Murderbot Diaries
What: series of novellas + 1 novel
Where: libraries often have the books available, or your favorite ebook retailer
Quick pitch: cyborg construct just wants to watch media and avoid looking directly at people
More: Murderbot is a half-human, half-mechanical construct who has to look after pesky humans, but just wants to watch its stories, until it chooses to take care of pesky humans rather than watching its stories. Murderbot lives in a capitalist dystopia but there are portions of its universe where gay space communism rules the day for anyone who needs that capitalism vs. Federation of Planets tension. The writing is smooth and clever.

The canon: Forgotten Suns by Judith Tarr
What: standalone novel (but somewhat related to Tarr's Avaryan trilogy)
Where: published in 2015 by Book View Cafe
Quick pitch: Space opera adventure in which archeologists' daughter trying to save the dig and its planet's protected status, the powerfully psionic ancient sun king she accidentally releases from stasis with a lot of explosives, and her war-traumatized almost-ex-military aunt journey to solve the mystery of the planet and the king's missing people.
More: Well, first of all, there are two characters I really love: Rama (the ancient king) and Aunt Khalida, who are really two sides of the same coin--tragic commanding leader types with an overwrought sense of responsibility and duty and also something terrible that went wrong with all that and now they're tormented and looking for redemption or at least healing. Except that Rama is this old old archetype conquerer-leader-noble who was too powerful and ragey for his own/his people's good, and Khalida exists in a spacefaring military structure that pushed her into what she did (and that enables her prickly, self-sufficient-but-not-really, can't connect with her girlfriend personality). But they're needed and they're resilient and they have to learn to continue and to find their way in a world that's changed or changing around them.

But also there's so much good (tropey and/or classic) stuff: there's Aisha's research-y academic family (and their horses), a complicated power situation with the Spaceforce and the Military Intelligence and the Psycorps, morally gray scientists and psi masters, worldbuilding from the research world to the spaceships to the telepathic internet to outpost/rebel worlds and interesting alien species (and their relationships with humans), a sentient spaceship, stargates, an ancient mystery, parallel worlds, technology and/as magic that are indistinguishably wondrous from each other, sci-fi and fantasy at once.

And I think what makes it all work together is the fact that this novel is the beloved story behind the story: the world the author has had in her heart her whole career, full of all the things she'd loved in everything she read and watched. (She essays about finally getting to write what she wants and just have a good time here.)

Edited 2022-02-02 07:20 pm (UTC)

The canon: Starlight Brigade - TWRP ft. Dan Avidan
What: A music video!! (a five four minute fandom!)
Where: Here on youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9Q3i5w6-Ug
Quick pitch: The stars are stolen (yes, all of them) when Strive is a child. He grows up, discovers a spaceship and joins the Starlight Brigade in order to free the stars from the giant (evil??) prism that stole them. They succeed! + boppy song!
More: The animation style is cute, 90's retro and the character design of the Starlight Brigade is really interesting! The vibe of the song + video are really upbeat + uplifting. Apparently most of the characters in the Starlight Brigade are actually band members? Like, the whole band have personas I think? I do not care about that, I'm here for the self contained music video universe. The scenery is gorgeous and there's so much potential for worldbuilding!! If you have a spare 4minutes 8 seconds, please watch it!

The canon: I Was a Teenage Exocolonist
What: Video Game
Where: Steam, Nintendo Switch, Playstation 4/5
Quick pitch: Spend your adolescence on humanity's first exocolony, Vertumna, with your family, making friends, lovers, and enemies. Also, you're haunted by memories of your past lives and the looming threat of death. No biggie!
More: From the TVTropes description of the game: "The game has the Player Character spending 10 years on Vertumna exploring the planet, working in various jobs to build their stats and earn Kudos, and maintaining their friendships/relationships with their fellow colonists. Its narrative plays out like a Visual Novel, with certain choices that require a high enough stat or winning in the Deckbuilding minigame, where the MC has to arrange their memories, which are represented by cards, by color and/or number to reach the target score."

You can customize Sol's (the player character) pronouns and gender presentation throughout the game, with many possible romance options. There's roughly 30 different endings so it's very replayable, and it's set on a really gorgeous, fascinating alien planet full of life. Lots of gender & sexuality representation, and the game deals with multiple sides of ethical issues around the concept of this colony which broke away from Earth. Characters can sometimes be a little two-dimensional but that's why I'm looking for fic to fill the complicated, messy dynamics and conversations that a massive visual novel like this can't get into.

Oops! Thanks for the correction, I'll make sure to add it to the new post next week.