Dami

Got to watch Project Hail Mary over Zoom with some folks over the weekend, and I had a good time! I'd wanted to watch this movie for a while; i was originally going to wait to read the book first but the hold times for it at the library made me reconsider, lol.

One of the things I was realizing more about myself than anything while watching is: it was obvious to me based on the tone of this movie and also the glimpses of fanart and fan discussion I'd seen that that basically no matter what happened our protagonist was going to be just fine. Thus, whenever a big dramatic scene happened on one hand it was relieving to know that everything was going to be fine, but on the other hand said moment often dragged on for so long that I was kinda like "guys everything's gonna be fine why are we being so dramatic about this". Which made the last wrench in the works the movie threw near the end kind of frustrating, tbh. It makes sense in hindsight to do something like that, like it makes for a good and interesting story and i really like the ending that results from it, but in the moment I was just so mad because we've already gone through enough I think!

(I got up to go to the bathroom during some of that scene and I looked at the clock and it had been like two and a half hours and I was like what do you mean it's been two and a half hours, huh??? I think this is the longest movie I've watched in recent memory, mostly because the last movies I watched were the Sonic movies and the Mario movie and those are not long movies, lmao)

But yeah I think the other part of it was that the music felt like it was doing a lot of lifting wrt the emotions each scene had, to the point it felt almost overpowering? I dunno. The little opera(?) song that played in the last 3rd or so of the movie felt a little silly, anyway. Maybe I'm just not used to things like this. I don't watch many movies.

The flashbacks, while interspersed in a cool and non-intrusive way, were upsetting and I did not like most of them, as in, they made me really sad because this guy is getting yanked around!!! But maybe that was the point? And then of course there's that last flashback... I think I'd seen someone on Tumblr talk about how an aromantic reading of this film is horrendously depressing and that's all I was thinking about when that last major flashback happens like. Oh my God. It was sad in like a bone deep soul sucking way, rather than a normal "sad moment in a movie" way. I think it's what stuck to me the most after finishing the movie, which makes it a bit hard to appreciate the rest of it, ha.

Also I really liked the visuals, especially that one scene where they're collecting the astrophage samples, except for that one bit in the climax where they do all the flashing lights that I had to look away from. not for fear of headaches or seizures or anything but I just did not understand what the hell was going on so I decided to look at my video game I was playing on the side instead of whatever that was and figured if that scene was important then the movie would probably belatedly explain what had been going on there or I'd be able to figure out what happened via context clues.

But anyway tl;dr I see why everyone is obsessed with this movie it's a very good movie. I'm excited to remove the tag from my blacklists now~

Just one That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime fic :) I've really been liking the new season so far. Rewatched the dub from the beginning while I did some chores last weekend, and I think I really miss all the slime-specific body language and mannerisms that got mostly phased out once Rimuru got his human-shaped body.

Innate Instincts by Sunny_Salamander
That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime
General Audiences | Gen
Rimuru Tempest & Everyone
Spoilers
8,896 words | 3 of ? chapters
A collection of one shots where Rimuru's slime instincts get the better of him.

The Tomodachi Life birthday event is cute as hell, actually.

I opened up TomoLife 3DS as well, to see what the festivities were there; it's basically the same thing, which is cool. You don't get a commemorative photo, though. Nor do they sing the actual words to the Happy Birthday song, and also it's way more claustrophobic when they circle around you to sing in the first place. Although arguably the dialogue after they sing is better. And also omg the text to speech voices were so bad back then lmaoooo

> The "I think [X] has a crush on me" romance pondering, if you encourage them, one-sidedly raises their Friendship Level with [X] by one stage. Which isn't necessarily bad, I think. Just interesting. I wanna say there's a way to do the reverse (you say [X] doesn't have a crush and the friendship level goes down), but I don't remember what pondering/response its linked to...I definitely saw it happen with my own eyes, though.

> It's less accurate to say that this game lets you be aromantic, and more accurate to say that this game lets you be nonpartnering. I had to switch my aro S/I to be straight so she'd marry her guy, heh. And I can't switch her back or it'll annul the marriage on the spot 🥲

> On the plus side, since Miis can't get crushes outside both the target and targeter's preference sets, all my other aro nonpartnering Miis are safe and sound, haha

> Oh, and Miis don't matchmake for each other anymore. So there's that.

Also I was looking at the questions I'd asked in the last TomoLife meta-ish post I'd done and I actually have answers to those, haha

Does a married couple still move out together after their honeymoon?

Married couples move into the same apartment complex through the existing roommates system, and are thenceforth linked, i.e. when they want to move to a new house, they move as a pair and you can't separate them to live in different houses.

Would getting married and moving in platonically be just about equal boosts to [happiness]?

If I'm remembering right, getting married, confessing successfully, and having a baby are about 1 full level each. Moving in is like...3/4 of a level, I think? So it's still kinda lopsided, haha. But to be fair, Miis can move in with each other multiple times with different people, more frequently than anything that happens on the romance track. So in the end I think it actually balances out.
Interestingly enough, a confession rejection fills most of the Sadness bar, and a discouraged confession (you tell a Mii they can't confess and they listen) and a failed fight reconciliation are both about half.

And there's still the Most Important Question of all — do the credits still only roll once a child is born on the island???

They don't!!!! The credits have nothing to do with the babies! It's quite nice. It's a shame the baby-raising is all a montage, though. Lends less weight to the "But we hope you'll keep an eye out for our child too" that the new parents still say to you, 'cause in the 3DS version you actually watched them slowly grow up over time and even helped the parents out and played with the kid and stuff.

(Also it occurred to me you can't have a nonbinary baby. Well - you can, but you have to assign them a gender at birth and then change that gender in the Edit Mii menu when you add them to your island properly. So I guess you could have a trans child if you wanted? The baby montage itself is remarkably gender neutral, at least.)

The Invisible Man and His Soon-to-Be Wife

A Journey Through Another World: Raising Kids While Adventuring

If It's For My Daughter, I'd Even Defeat a Demon Lord

My New Boss is Goofy

Suppose a Kid from the Last Dungeon Boonies Moved to a Starter Town?

My comment_bingo Round 9 bingo card! Excited to do this little event again~ I wanna see how many fics from my Top Fics of the Year rec lists fit into these boxes so I can finally get around to commenting on them, lmao. hoping for another blackout!

My choirmate sent me this super awesome oatmeal raisin cookie recipe that I was gonna try baking tonight but unfortunately my oven threw up an error code and freaked out while I was making lunch earlier 😞 So someone else should make it and then remind me of how good it is while I wait for an electrician 🥺

So that burst of haiku inspiration I'd had back in March only lasted 2 weeks, lmao. It was nonetheless fun, though! Here are the rest of the haikus I'd written for that second week.