*Finger Guns*

POV: You are one of the top scientists on Erid. The sun is dying, and your last hope is to send your people into the silent void of space in the hope that they will find a solution. There are a million things you have to do, each more important than the last as you solemnly prepare for the most dangerous mission your world has ever attempted.

And then, in the middle of this, some random fucking engineer walks up to you like

"What if Stratt didn't force Grace to go?" Then the Earth dies.

"What if Yao and Ilyukhina had survived?" Then they all would have died in space, not enough food to get to Earth or Erid

If the Taomoeba hadn't escaped then Grace would have never seen his best friend again. Returning to a world he loves but no longer recognizes.

If the stars weren't dying then Grace never would have met his best friend at all. Living content but alone.

Project Hail Mary is a hopeful story. It is a story of friendship and what it means to be brave. It's a story about saving the world.

Grace: *Retroactively freaking out about Doing A Misogyny™*

So then you watch it, and someone gets eaten alive while begging for mercy. On screen even. There is blood.

And like I don't even want to talk about how he tried killed Natsume specifically (though I do think Natsume should be holding a stronger grudge. Like what the fuck please value yourself 😭).

What I want to talk about is, in that moment, Matoba believed that he was alone in a building with a yokai. Likely a powerful one, to survive where the others had died. Likely an angry one, given that it had been attacked.

A secret third thing. I think Tanuma has been holding a torch for Natsume since the first week they met, but is emotionally aware enough to recognize that Natsume is in no way shape or form ready to have a relationship. So instead he has devoted all of his energy into being a Really Good Friend ™

And you know what? He's doing a great job.

Bonus screenshots of my conversation with @annoyingttt because she Gets It

Natsume cares about Reiko. He never met her. She's his age. She was dead before he was born. She is one of the most prominent characters in the series, second to only Natsume himself. Her choices drive the plot. We know next to nothing about her.

Nearly every yokai Natsume meets was deeply impacted by Reiko. She helped me, she hurt me, she held my name (my soul) in her hands and left it to rot. They are still waiting for her. In valleys and forests and bus stops.

But yet...

The Book of Friends is the result of one of Reiko's most painful experiences. The physical manifestation of her choice to keep people at arm's length, to push people away before they could do it to her.

And it saved Natsume.

Even after settling with the Fujiwaras, Natsume felt so adrift. At the beginning of the series, he may have actually agreed with Reiko's philosophy. "It's better to be alone than to risk getting hurt." His trauma left him disconnected from everybody. The Fujiwaras, his classmates, the yokai. Natsume had no past he could reconcile, no future he could imagine, and even his present he walked through like a dream; doing everything in his power to leave no trace.

The book forced him to make connections. More than that it forced him to reflect on his own relationships. As Natsume continues to return names, he understands Reiko and her lonliness more and more... And he realizes that she was wrong.

Through the Book of Friends, Reiko tethers Natsume to his past, grounds him in his present. Makes him reach out to others in ways she couldn't. Allows him to imagine a future so much brighter than he could have envisioned for himself, even just a few years earlier.

But while Natsume has grown, Reiko has remained stagnant. This girl who only exists in memories of decades past, this woman who died before he was born.

Anyway I love Nyanko-sensei and his little waddle/rabbit run.