BINARY STARS n. A star system consisting of two stars orbiting a common center. To the naked eye, these systems seem to be a single point of light, but become visible through other means.
Binary Stars is a Webcomic written and illustrated by Caragh McErlean, also known as Ephermeres.Anastasia's life has always been safe and secure. But at night, her dreams show her a different life - one with war and conflict and tragedy. She tries her best to ignore it, but her universe is shaken when she's kidnapped by the man in her dreams and told she used to be someone else entirely. Now, she must race across galaxies to discover who she was and who she's meant to be.
You can read it online on its Webtoons site
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Tropes in Binary Stars:
- Amnesiac Lover: Anastasia very specifically has trouble remembering her former lover, to the point that even in her dreams his name is pixelated out.
- Artificial Limbs: Joana is missing her left arm and has a very clearly robotic prosthetic in its place.
- Bounty Hunter: Ian’s group became this after the destruction of their colony.
- Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": The crew of the Falconer are trying to get Anastasia to someone only known as The Broker, who apparently is opposed to Vidalia Blackford in some way.
- Evil Matriarch: Vidalia Blackford is Anastasia's mother, and also the head of an interstellar corporation. She is established as quite evil early in the story.
- Extreme Omnivore: Oliver regularly chows down on the food of his alien crewmate, which generally does not agree with his human physiology. He thinks he can handle it because he only got a mild tummyache once from an Ivvoran smoothie, but doesn't remember getting his stomach pumped due to the toxins knocking him out.
- Half-Human Hybrid Kass is only half alien, according to the 1 year anniversary Q&A episode.
- Faster-Than-Light Travel: The Falconer is explicitly mentioned to have a warp drive.
- Headache of Doom: Anastasia gets these when she has flashbacks.
- Homoerotic Subtext: While it isn't explicit so far, the amount of times Kass decides to go check on Joana makes her a pretty clear Implied Love Interest.
- Identity Amnesia: Anastasia starts off with amnesia, having forgotten her entire identity before a certain incident and believing herself to be part of the Blackford family.
- Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: Each episode is named after various astronomical concepts.
- Lima Syndrome: Despite technically being kidnapped for ransom, Anastasia very quickly ends up with free roam of the ship. Lamp Shaded by Oliver.
Oliver: Are you even allowed to be running around the ship? Didn’t we kidnap you or something?
Anastasia:… Snitches get stitches?
- Mystical White Hair: Both Anastasia and Vidalia Blackford have white hair. So far it's unknown if there's anything particularly magical about either of them, but the former is the protagonist and the other is shaping up to be a Big Bad.
- Parental Neglect: Anastasia spent most of her time as Visalia’s daughter sitting alone at home, hardly seeing her mother until going to the Vidalion Space Station.
- Psychic Powers: Kass' species has the ability to influence people's minds with her antennae.
- Shout-Out: Anastasia finds a copy of The Odyssey.
- Shower Scene: Anastasia has a chat with Joana while she’s showering, though conveniently places limbs and a Modesty Towel keep it PG 13.
- Thrown Out the Airlock: What Vidalia Blackford does when she’s displeased with an employee’s incompetence.
- White Hair, Black Heart: Vidalia Blackford has white hair like her daughter, but she is definitely black hearted.
- Wake Up Fighting: When Anastasia wakes Ian up, he starts to strangle her until he realizes who she is.
