When astronauts become characters

The Artemis II mission made history in more ways than one. Four astronauts—Victor Glover, the first person of color to travel near the moon; Christina Koch, the first woman to do so; Commander Reid Wiseman, who dedicated a crater to his late wife; and Jeremy Hansen, a Canadian mission specialist—spent ten days circling the moon and splashing back to Earth. But something unexpected happened on the internet in the weeks that followed: people started writing fanfiction about them.

On Wattpad, Tumblr, and FanFiction.net, stories appeared imagining the astronauts' inner lives. One piece, by an author called Blues Drafts, opens with the crew's group chat growing quiet as they settle back into ordinary routines—and Christina Koch beginning to feel lonely. "Not a ship," the author notes. "Just them being besties." Another story, titled We Were Never Just Friends, runs 42 chapters and imagines Koch reuniting with a childhood cheerleading teammate who now works at NASA. There's even crossover fanfiction that places the Artemis II crew into the Percy Jackson universe, with characters discussing the mission's significance: "First woman and first person of color to fly a lunar mission. I think it's kind of perfect."