Heart

He reads the name on the top of the page, one of his students who tend to take better to more theoretical subjects rather than practical application ones, which would have made this Physics pop quiz extremely bad luck on her part, or maybe it was bad luck for Mr.Grace, having to read through whatever might lay on the other side of this front page. The teacher could only wonder of the despair on his student's face, being presented with the question paper before she could even sit down.

The next 15-20 minutes go by and admittedly, Grace doesn't wince at the answers nearly as much as he thought he would, hey, that's progress! He couldn't help but break out into a satisfied smile at the result of all those after class doubts and extra worksheets asked for.

Raking his eyes down the last page, he's not surprised to find a chibi likeness of himself sketched hurriedly in blue ball point ink. This student tends to have doodles scattered around her work, whether it be stars, or planets or him, or one of her classmates; they tend to stay on topic of the class so he lets her continue(not like he would have reprimanded her otherwise).

This time his chibi is smiling wide with one hand in a thumbs up and the other in this sport coat pocket, his glasses were drawn on the top of his head(unlike her usual depiction of them hanging under his chin) and there was a speech bubble next to his head saying "wow! Great job! That's an A+!"

Also adore the fact the whole Ryland Grace is our protagonist, it is solely because of the fact the the events in phm are told from his pov and not cuz he's some "Main character material" in the traditional sense

Adore the complexities of his character and everyone else's

And the fact that all of them (from the movie atleast) (I haven't read the book) do/ go through shit that would be protag material do you understand?

If PHM was told through Stratt's pov of sending someone she finally emotionaly connected with to his death and geoing under trial and escape life imprisonment only to find out your friend lived and having that relif crash into you when you're alone in your office with nobody else who will even remotely understand what you're feeling, cuz you sent the one guy who would have to space.

If PHM was told through Rocky's pov of going through the confusion of the sudden unprecedented death of your crew and being stranded in space yearning to be back home with your mate, the joy of finding other sentient life, someone who can tell you why your friends died, someone who has way more senses than you do, risking your life to save his, saving your star and finally setting course back home just to realise that your saviour will end up being your death, being saved and still having to answer to all your friends' mates and childer about how they died

If PHM was told through Yao or Ilyukhina's povs, undergoing astro training, taking part in building the Hail Mary, convincing yourself that it's all for the survival of, your friends, your neighbours, everyone you've ever made eye contact with, the entire planet. It's fine that you'll die shortly after doing your purpose and it's selfish to want to live in the face of all of these people and their lives and you want to do this, how can you not. Prepping for the launch day, being hailed as a hero and going under the coma, only to realise something doesn't feel right just before you lose consciousness. Having spent all those sleepless nights coming to terms with your own death, all for nothing.

Like, imagine a planet where it's population thinks they're living normal lives on a normal planet but it's actually a simulation and they've been living on a space station for generations, thinking it's a planet cuz the first people to ever live on that station wanted it too feel more like home and they just forgot about it being a simulation generation after generation.

Or maybe the 1%( in whatever category they might be, monetary or superior bloodline or wtv) make the rest of the people think it's a normal planet so they can control them through the simulation.