things that always get me about project hail mary (book and movie details that leave me in tears)
grace burning up one of his arms putting rocky back in his atmosphere to save his life (book) and rocky burning himself to save grace's life (both)
the plaques on both their ships that show their people looking to the hail mary and the blip-a and hoping, and waiting (movie)
ryland erasing the 'who am i' board to make the calculations to find rocky, because he knows who he is now (movie)
grace being the first thing to give rocky hope in 46 years (book)
the way grace and rocky find a middle ground between their languages and slowly adopt eachothers grammar and ways of talking (book)
the track where grace goes to save rocky being called 'believe in the hail mary' + the track where grace finds the plaques being called 'humanity' - because its such an inherently human thing. (movie)
grace finding his way home, back to where he always wanted to be, even if he is changed and he is brave, still always remaining a teacher. succeeding because he is a teacher. never really losing who he is, not in the slightest (both)
grace never even for a second considering leaving or even celebrating when he had taumobea that could survive venus, because threeworld still needed taumobea too, no matter how anxious grace always was to work so fast (book)
grace knowing that he would die when he turned around to save rocky and still doing it anyway because he wasn't afraid of dying anymore (book)
"you just need to find someone to be brave for" (movie)
every single parallel or shot that shows how far grace has come (movie)
eva really was the only one to truly believe in grace as a person. she trusted him to find out what was going on with astrophage, she trusted him on the taskforce to talk to the astronauts, and she trusted him to save everyone. (book)
the hail mary serving almost as a time capsule, for if the mission didn't work. something to say "we were here, despite it all, and we tried." (both, but especially the movie) - rylands quilt being made up of different patches presumably made by so many different people, a reminder of earth he still carries with him, and the drawings done by kids of the world and its people. the reminders of earth aboard the hail mary
theres more but im crying too hard to continue this list rn