Realish Life

Baby Brother has a new game called Tomadochi Life. My understanding is that it's like The Sims except more PG.

Here's how it works: Baby Brother creates Miis on his Nintendo 3DS and imports them into the game. Throughout the game, because Baby Brother is their creator, the Miis constantly ask him for advice and permission on whether to make friends, whom to date, how to propose, etc. They also ask him to give them food, clothes, and medicine; to watch them make funny faces or do impressions; and to send them into outer space. And I'm only scratching the surface: the game is pretty complex.

Baby Brother's Miis cover a wide range. He's created Miis of family members, Star Wars characters, Star vs. the Forces of Evil characters, Wreck-It Ralph characters, Series of Unfortunate Events Characters, and Professor Layton characters. Plus a third or so of the Miis are from Miraculous.

Miraculous is a show about a group of French teenagers who are all either superheroes or supervillains or both. Haha, you think I'm exaggerating, but haha, I'm not. The main supervillain has the power to turn ordinary citizens into supervillains, so every character on the show has been a villain at least once. The show mostly features Marinette, who is secretly the superhero Ladybug, and Adrien, who is secretly the superhero Cat Noir. These secrets are so secret that even though they are friends at school, they don't know the other is a superhero. Also, Adrien's father Gabriel is actually the main supervillain Hawkmoth, and Gabriel is so busy being a supervillain that he doesn't realize his mortal enemy is living in his same house until the end of the first season. Also, Marinette has a crush on Adrien, but he's not wholly interested because his little Cat Noir heart is taken with Ladybug who he doesn't know is Marinette's superhero alter ego. But Ladybug thinks Cat Noir is obnoxious in part because she keeps comparing him to the paragon of perfection who is Adrien who she doesn't know is Cat Noir's secret identity. Predictably, the show is a bucketful of drama but that's why it's interesting, and Baby Brother enjoys it. So he created quite a few Miis of the characters' citizen and superhero identities.

One of Baby Brother's Miis is me, Awkward Mormon Girl. Within a few days, I was one of the most popular Miis in the game. I had a bunch of friends, the highest charm ranking of all the female Miis, and a best friend—Adrien! What's more, my Mii and the Adrien Mii were ranked as the most compatible potential romantic pairing in the game! It seemed like only a matter of time before the Miis moved from being best friends and into the romantic territory.

That was kind of exciting, actually. It was fun to see my Mii being so successful, and hey! Adrien Agreste is a fictional character, but he's really nice and smart and such. The Awkward Mormon Girl Mii was doing pretty good for herself!

Then Adrien asked Baby Brother if he could confess his love to...Chloe. FYI, Chloe is a mean, mean bullying girl from Miraculous. That's right, folks. Even though Adrien had a best friend with whom he was 90-something% compatible, he was enamored with a self-absorbed girl whom he didn't know nearly as well.

That stung more than it should have. It hit a little too close to real life. Like, wow, not even a Mii of me can be romantically successful?!

However. This tale does have somewhat of a happy ending, because even though Adrien and Chloe started dating and got married and now have a kid together, in an ironic twist, Mii me started dating Cat Noir. They just got married, too.

Here are some other romantic entanglements of Baby Brother's Miis:

-Little Anakin Skywalker confessed his love to Ginger Cousin and got shot down. Then someone set him up with Vanellope von Schweetz, and now they're married.

-Little Sister is married to Master Fu (Marinette's mentor).

-Little Brother is dating Padme Amidala.

-Baby Sister has confessed her love to two or three different Miis and been shot down every time. Baby Brother even had to talk her out of confessing her love to Cat Noir while he was in a relationship!

-Hawkmoth confessed his love to Rena Rouge (another superhero) and got shot down.

To be clear, when the Miis get shot down, they get really. Really. Sad. Little Anakin was laying on the floor crying after Ginger Cousin rejected him. Hawkmoth was a little more composed, but he still had a personal rain cloud hovering over him.

Actually, I was confused about Rena Rouge's rejection of Hawkmoth because I was pretty sure that earlier she'd asked whether Baby Brother thought she and Hawkmoth would go well together.

AWKWARD MORMON GIRL: I thought Rena Rouge was into Hawkmoth?

BABY BROTHER: She is. She's just being stupid.

That also hit close.

AWKWARD MORMON GIRL: I see you've learned how real life works.