-It's not your impression, he really did it.

i have watched bdubs and scar and so im gonna talk abt SL again like i did before. obvs spoilers!

i keep my posts pretty meta/only about the game, its mechanics, balance etc so i have no bias on players own actions. but i do want to talk about players and the final moments for a minute here!

obvs i like bdubs a lot and hes been very good at getting to almost the finals in all the series. hope ppl realize that more. if he had more hearts like scar did im sure he could of have gotten further too. etho's ep isnt out but i saw him die in scar's and scar's ep was wild for sure. i mean damn, there was hardly a way etho could have escaped scar when he landed right on top of him, insane. obvs i dont have a view on the others i havent watched but it was interesting to see how they ganged up in this series for the end. scar winning made me happy too, hes a really good player!!

bbut onto the gameplay. i dont wanna repeat myself so im kinda using this as an overall conclusion + specific thoughts about the finale.

its been established clearly that mods assign specific tasks to people at times. and the warden/wither + bogey were not something i enjoyed. this season felt way too "directed" as it went on... and i also think the tasks ability to grant you so much good stuff (a LOT of hearts) is what kept everyone out of being red so easily! which is probably why they did the bogey zombies. which is really just poor balance that no one clearly tested (i recall grian implying before that they dont really test anything but dont quote me on that). maybe a way to have improved that would have been reds were the only ones to gain hearts, and yellow/greens could not. i knew from the start that the heart giving mechanics this season were kind of pointless or overpowered. gifting one heart? really...? that doesnt add up to much of anything in the long run imo unless you manage to get hearts from multiple people. and then on top of that you get hearts back from the secret keeper too. i would have loved if this season was simply "no regen and thats it!" like a sorta UHC deal where you only can heal with specific items (and not 30 hearts prob? bc i understand the tasks were kind of a way to possibly make them die).

on big forced tasks it only made sense with this episode, since everyone is red, so i dont mind that. but again.... they had to force this to happen which is annoying to me. also in terms of balance i really wished they bring back strict rules on enchantments because that also gets frustrating to watch. but perhaps i just like fairness in combat due to watching so much UHC, which also is a death game.

the other issues i had were with reds and red tasks. as pointed out they forced reds in the previous sessions but no one had any time to do red tasks?? and admittedly it was kind of boring bc people couldnt interact about it without failing. but they could not team up properly and i think that is what red life is all about. all the reds coming together because they *need* to face yellows and greens, and hunt people down. but instead the few reds there had to be alone to do their traps, another social issue with this series where tasks often pulled people away from others and left them with videos where they were very alone. there being no space for greens and yellows to exist and get hunted is something i think is great in previous seasons too and it just didnt happen. all that getting forced in that one session just didnt flow well to me.

really even trying to look back at episodes, i cant recall any notable interactions between people i enjoyed minus some brief pauses when they were traveling to do their tasks. there just wasnt a lot of typical socializing! and thats what i didnt like with this series. this plus the balance issues of lives just made this series feel messy, and the length of the episodes due to tasks could be kind of boring if the task was boring or even felt too stressful to force them into places where they could just die (these kinds of dangerous tasks given to greens or yellows felt unfair, as if it was trying to force them to die, and as a viewer i wouldnt want the game make my fave die!).

and as i mentioned in a different post, the lack of fixing some issues in multiple seasons is wild to me. this season faced the same issue as limlife where deaths were not in chat. the episode after, they fixed it (still with some bugs). and then it happened again last session.... and they didnt fix it! this is also annoying bc people dont react to the deaths at all which you kind of wanna see you know? actually im not even sure why they still did it this way. i imagined the clock running out made it more complicated for the system of fying to work. but why this season....? seemed like pretty forward deaths. idk the tech side, but they had 3 solid lives like all the other season, and there were never issues with the death messages happening at all.

but anyways. theres multiple parts of this i mentioned above that just made this gimmick feel so messy and unbalanced, and sometimes not super interesting to watch. it was way too complicated some times. i know theyll likely never do a repeat of the old versions but man idk if i cant find myself liking future seasons if they start stacking so much on top of what is a simple concept. it has started to feel like the three lives havent mattered at all/arent really the focus-- the anxiety of having three times. and the stakes become less and less due to some of these new gimmicks (the ability to gain lives in so many easy ways- limlife and secret life- is why imo) makes death feel less of a problem especially when we know how buddy buddy everyone is now. people need to be limited like before, and be more anxious. 3L, LL, and DL had people quickly establishing their friends bc they knew right from the get go that the series really depended on them being alive and nothing else. the only focus was to stay alive and not die. DL was where ppl kinda chilled a bit on alliances bc they knew each other more but, death was still right around the door with health being tied, it still brought a similar kind of anxiety for players.

i do hope people like grian can recognize these issues behind the scenes bc genuine critique for this series/season is important. like i hope they dont brush off the fact "hall monitors" were an issue-- they can ignore them openly in their videos.... but there is a reason why its a problem that started at all. the concept was way too subjective and hard to judge! so id hate for them to decide "eh, lets not listen to them, im gonna keep doing this and not consider the issue for a new season" right? and hour long episodes? thats crazy, and i dont think it was good for a lot of cc imo, because it made me way less likely to watch or even finish others' episodes. i hope that makes sense... stakes need to be raised, and i think limlife still achieved that to some degree because time was still very sensitive and risky to take. but then SL comes in bringing way too many things that keep them alive far too easily, leaving very little concern as long as they got their task in.

and last thing is from the outside pov i get concerned about this season happening only 6 months after the last one. because that would very very easily cause a burn out/inability to make more gimmicks real quick. i find this particularly odd bc this season too place through multiple holidays...! not sure if they thought this one through very well. considering how much limlife changed things in a way that was a bit more complicated, and then have SL with even more going on.... id just be worried about how much new stuff would even be made after this.

before this season started i was thinking to myself that i would be fine if this was the last one (it was speculation off some posting 3L compilations that was being me think itd be 'over' bc that was the first season). and truly i would be fine if they stopped forever for for a long time. i dont want to start disliking this series if they keep going in this direction... i will ALWAYS enjoy seeing these people play together and it will no doubt keep me watching but, i would hope that i will enjoy what they do for the next seasons and not fall down this path of convoluted, unbalanced and complicated concepts.

For real though watching yhs has lead me to the conclusion that despite Grian seemingly has such an active fight instinct....most of the time he actually doesnt respond to situations with half the fight attributed to him.

When faced with a traumatic situation Grian will absolutely bare his teeth at the nearest threat. He's absolutely vitriolic towards Sam at all times without fail and has even initiated physical violence in their confrontations once or twice. He's often on edge, often quick to angry outbursts, just overall rather hostile when faced with a dangerous/frightening/harmful situation. Which definitely indicates his main response to these scenarios is to fight. Hard.

However the more I engaged with fanon the more I faltered. A lot of fanon does portray him as very hostile in the face of trouble. Which should make sense. Canonically Grian knows when to say no, when to argue, and even sometimes when to physically fight back. Any episode with Grian present will likely have examples of him pushing back against harmful situations. And yet something always feels very Off about that being the start and end of it in a lot of fanon. Which led me down an interesting line of thinking.

I honestly suspect that Grian's volatility and will to fight back isn't nearly as strong as one would believe from observing him on surface level. In fact, his on the surface hostility feels like it's borderline a facade altogether to be honest.

I mean look at examples throughout canon of Grian in distressing situations.

Yhs halloween episode. The one where Taurtis got stabbed. And the following situation where Grian is famously forced to dress up like Taurtis. Grian would later be very upset about Sam stabbing Taurtis, however his initial response was to nervously laugh and even give Sam appeasing praise. I mean, Grian says "you weren't supposed to stab him" pretty clearly, but he anxiously laughs before and afterwards and even tells Sam he's proud of him when prompted. Obviously Grian was very upset about the whole thing later on after taking Taurtis to the hospital however in the moment he's mostly silent and when he's not he's just nervously laughing throughout, even agreeing with whatever *Sam* says when he's outright prompted by name for an opinion, then when everyone else tries to play it off casually Grian actually goes along with it almost entirely, even agreeing to let Taurtis drive him home for some reason. Then, according to his own story, he had an opportunity to talk to police at the hospital and he didn't incriminate Sam. He knew they were supicious of *him* but he still didn't incriminate the actual killer. "I told them I found him like that" Grian alleged. Honestly it sounds like he didn't tell them much of *anything* before being released and making the walk back to meet Sam. The next morning Grian was significantly more vocally upset about Taurtis being stabbed and expressed being upset with Sam however he seemed significantly more anxious than he was angry throughout the interaction. Then Grian immediately pretty readily agreed to go with Sam and Yuki to school and willingly put on the Taurtis outfit before the other's even started with the threats in the name of making things 'less awkward'. He certainly objected, however he was once again a lot more anxious than angry, nervously laughing, coming up with really weak unimportant excuses, and agreeing within ten seconds of being asked. Pretty much the rest of his time dressed as Taurtis goes very similarly. He objects to most things he's told to do and brings up Sam stabbing Taurtis multiple times despite the other's not wanting him to but is primarily nervous rather than hostile and he never actuslly puts up enough resistence for it to stick. Even when the other's were stuffing plastic down his throat and he told them he thought it may kill him Grian still did it and told the other's he *liked* it when pushed. Eventually he got out of it by running on Rowan's command and no sooner than being told to get out of there. When Sam found him again Grian immediately even reverted back to doing as he was told and cowering away from him in obvious fear up until Okami and Rowan showed up and shoved Grian behind them. Then he *still went home that night* knowing Sam would be there. When they found Taurtis it was pretty clear that Grian was hoping Taurtis would help him once he got his memory back however when instructed to stop telling Taurtis who he was Grian for the most part did aside from subtle pushing about the familiarity of certain things and then later when Taurtis got his memory back and made it pretty clear he wasn't going to help Grian? Grian conceded. He spent a good few minutes arguing about everything he'd gone through- everything they both had- and insisting it wasn't okay but when Taurtis made it pretty clear he wasn't going to do anything and they collectively agreed Grian was the real problem? Grian kinda...stopped. When Taurtis made it clear he wasn't going to be helping, Grian just kinda fell back into their normal routine with the other's, and when Sam demanded an 'apology soda' from Grian for what he'd apparently done, Grian bought it for him saying "If that's what it takes for things to go back to normal".

Let's also look at Grian's involvement with the law during/shortly-after the Halloween situation. When Sam and Yuki dragged him to join the Yakuza he was upset and objected anxiously but caved as soon as he got pushback. When Sam wanted to steak from the Yakuza he once again got objections from Grian who nervously insisted that it was a terrible idea but once again Sam shoved aside Grian's complaints and once again Grian just kinda fell into place despite being upset. When the police also started threatening the trio's lives to work for them, Grian objected. He questioned if they were allowed to do that and was very openly not happy about any of it, however he very quickly submitted under pressure. Both times Grian was locked in solitary confinement he loudly protested his sanity and both times he voiced how disturbing it was on a really deep level being locked up like that but both times when he was let out he just went with the other two again and let them brush it all off- even knowing full well they let him out to be *death fodder*. He just went with them relatively quietly save for maybe a token remark or two. Honestly the large majority of this bs Grian was involved with was under physical threat and he almost always bent under it. Even down to his fight with Pie over Ellen. Pie showed up and started challenging their relationship. Sam, Taurtis, and Yuki insisted they have a knife fight. Grian said *no*. Pie said yes. Sam, Taurtis, and Yuki affirmed there would be a knife fight. Grian objects more. Everyone else present discusses how the knife fight will work. Grian gets stabbed. Grian suggests they just ask Ellen who they want to date *obviously*. Ellen chooses nobody and leaves. Grian was upset but then just kinda accepts it and goes on with what the whole group was doing before.

And just to round this out with one more example. The Starwars Cosplay Incident. Apparently Sam burst into Grian's room, undressed him, shoved him into Leia Cosplay complete with fake boobs, and locked him in the basement for three days. Grian sits there for three days until Taurtis rescues him.  Grian has a moment of being rightfully very angry and finally even tries to physically attack Sam, demanding to know if Taurtis is aware of what Sam did to him and insisting that they can't expect everything to be fine now. Except it kinda...was. Taurtis stopped Grian from attacking Sam, they both brushed it off as a joke and not a big deal, and then they went to school. And Grian just *went*. He walked with the other two, he wore the outfit Sam put him in, and he just kinda moved on. Grian would later object when the clones tried to pull him out of class, snapping that he just wants to learn and get an education like a normal person and demanding to know why he's not allowed to. But he goes! And when he's released he walks right back to Sam and Taurtis, makes some bitter remarks to them, and let's them shove it all aside as if it's unimportant. Later when it's Grian, Sam, and a member of school staff alone in the closet, some innapropriate remarks are made to Grian. He very quickly says he's reporting the remarks made by school staff but Sam tells him not to be rude and it doesn't seem Grian ever does. Later on when Geode makes a comment about Grian's outfit as well Sam and Taurtis start pondering *giving* Grian to them. Grian repeatedly said *no* but with a lot more despair than defiance and we don't even know if he'd have actually followed through with fighting back if they'd tried to actually give him away because they were interrupted before the situation got to that point. Grian once again just let the other's move on as if that didn't happen and continued following them around, though! And he wore that damn outfit he was very explicitly uncomfortable with. All day.

Which is kinda all to say that when it comes to fighting back Grian is a lot more bark than bite.

Grian throws out a lot of bitter remarks, makes his objections very apparent in most things, and even has more than one vitriolic rant to his abuser(s) throughout the series. But that layer of his responses to things is so fragile that it tends to fall away within minutes- if that, sometimes *seconds*.

Of course ive seen other people take note of this and argue that it means Grian actually *wants* to do these thingd he's objecting to but I think that's silly. If it were just things like group crime or violent acts then id possibly see it but Grian puts up the same kind of response to having plastic shoved down his throat and to being locked in the basement for days which there's no way in hell he was any kind of okay with. The more likely scenario here isn't that he secretly wanted to do any of these things and made his resistence weak so he could pretend he tried while still doing it.

The likely scenario here is that his fight response is much more for show than one would think. Because Grian's strongest most influential response to things really never seems to be to fight. Aggression is really hardly Grian's overall stance on handling a distressing situation.

Much more frequently you see the most influence coming from completely other instinctive responses.

Looking for outside help in adults, friends, and classmates like when Okami and Rowan protected him during his time dressed as Taurtis or when Grian tried desperately to get Taurtis to be on his side and help him after Sam seriously hurt him both when Taurtis first got his memory back after Halloween and when Taurtis found Grian in the basement during the Starwars Cosplay Incident, hell, even during his fight with Pie it can be argued that Grian calling for them to just ask Ellen was an appeal to outside help as he hoped Ellen would agree to end the fight and save him from the situation as a result.

Running away- or trying to at least- from the threat. Most notably seen back during the halloween incident when he quite literally ran out the back of the gym and hid from Sam+Yuki then hiding behind Okami and Rowan when they showed up in an attempt to flee from Sam which is how he got away from the other's at all during that situation. Grian's consistent need to exclaim every so often how much he wants to go back to Europe is a subtler example of this, though, of Grian's urge to get away.

Honestly though being quiet and moving as he's directed seems to be the most common winning response. You see little sparks of reaction from him but most of the time Grian is just quiet, nervously laughing, following Taurtis and Sam around in what they ask of him, and even outright appeasement strategies to maintain a calm environment. This is So common from Grian. This is what usually wins out. His quiet nervous laughter and agreeing with Sam when Taurtis is first stabbed. The fact that he didn't tell the police what Sam did when alone with them during questioning and then immediately walked to meet up with Sam and went to school with Sam+Yuki with literally no objections. The fact that he didn't say no like *at all* to putting on the Taurtis outfit in the name of not making things awkward and complied within seconds of first being asked. How he proceeded to do what he was asked all day and didn't make any move to get away until Rowan outright instructed him to run. The fact that he went back! The fact that he went along with it when they joined the Yakuza and when they stole from the Yakuza and when they joined up with the cops and when they *forced him into a knife fight*. How Grian eventually just lost his spark of defiance after Taurtis first got his memories back and made it clear he wasn't helping Grian, with Grian agreeing to buy Sam a fucking *apology soda* if it meant things would go back to normal after hearing everyone else agree that *he* was the problem in all he'd been put through. The way he just goes back to following Sam and Taurtis after they got him locked in solitary confinement on blatant lies because they *wanted* to. The way he walks around school with the other two while wearing cosplay that made him feel gross and uncomfortable that Sam had literally physically forced onto him and just went along with what he was told in the end.

Grian always puts up a fight but not a good one. He makes side comments, he makes objections, he even has more than one emotional rant about the hell he's put through, however this never wins out in the end and this presenting fight is very frequently just barely holding down much stronger freeze and fawn instincts that usually win out pretty damn quick.

Which!!! In a situation like Grian's it actually makes significantly more sense to have strong freeze and fawn responses than to have a strong fight response! I mean, think about it. A fight response is primarily useful in scenarios in which it's possible to take strong action to remove the threat. You're attacked by a dog so you throw stuff at it till it backs away. You're picked on by an upperclassman so you punch em' in the nose expecting fully that they'll leave you be after. Someone attacks you while you're walking home so you try and stab them with your key. Fighting is an incredibly good response for random/one time attacks. If you're ever kidnapped you wanna scream and punch and kick and make a scene so they can't take you to a secondary location. You fight. Fighting is optimal for unexpected stranger conflicts. That's not the situation Grian's in though. Grian suffers from serious long term physical, emotional, and financial abuse. He's in a country he doesn't have residency or family in, he doesn't have a readily available source of income, he doesn't have his own mode of transportation, it seems that most of the time he doesnt have a clear way home, he's often dealing with long term friends of his and seemingly his biggest source of support prior to this situation, even back in Europe he doesn't have much support system to run to given his parents canonically left him, he's frequently under threat of physical danger, etc. This is not the kind of situation in which an intense primary fight response helps. This is the type of situation in which an intense primary fight response either gets you seriously hurt or wandering the streets with no way to provide for yourself. It would likely be similar if he presented an intense primary flight response to be honest. In long term abuse situations where there's no rational way of escaping safely or no rational place to escape to? Often the primary responses that promote survival are fawn and freeze. Appeasing the aggressor or sinking into the background. Those are your ways to stay alive when you can't expect to 'win' or escape. It absolutely makes more sense for Grian to have primary fawn and freeze responses than a primary fight response.

But then why does he present so much hostility? What's with all the bitter remarks and the attempts to voice objections and the occasional overt insults/screaming? How does a fawn/freeze response present as fight when first pressed at?? Well fun fact, I have experience with that kind of presentation because I *was* that kind of presentation. Oh boy did I try to push strong fight responses towards my abusive father with token resistences and petty remarks even though most of the time I crumpled under the slightest pressure and spent my time ignoring the problem or dissociating or trying very hard to avoid future conflicts. You put up a token front of fight even if that's never going to be your primary response for the sake of your own mental health, really. To assure the world- and *you*- knows that you don't *want* this situation. So you can say you tried. Out of some misguided hope that your attempted bravado won't be seen through and that maybe this time they'll just stop pushing instead of calling the bluff. Which. Makes sense with Grian as well. I mean looking at the times he really truly goes off before reverting back to a more appeasing stance, most notably his rants from when Taurtis first got his memory back as well as from when he got out of the basement during the Starwars Cosplay Incident. Most of those rants were taken up by Grian loudly and passionately reiterating what he'd been through, insisting he was the victim, and calling Sam an awful person before the defiance fades out and he becomes more willing to just go about their day. It's one attempted push hoping the other parties present will vie in his favour and a reassertion that he's not okay with this and that *he* is being hurt which gives way within minutes to a much duller attitude. That's just a painfully familiar format. Adding on Grian's token objections/passive aggressive remarks to many situations that distress him and how quickly those objections give way as dismissed by others. That kind of behaviour feels strongly like an attempt to preserve your own mental wellbeing as much as possible with the knowledge that you tried to some extent and with just generally hearing out loud that you are the victim even if from yourself. Grian's behaviour just really feels like a facade of defiance to cover up general helplessness which makes a Lot of sense for the scenario. Probably more than just plain defiance would.

things i hope for in the future Season 2 of 3rd Life

- more people. not just different people but more, up to maybe 20. i get that it would be harder to consistently coordinate 20 people for a 3 hour recording session every week but consider: even if you have 1-3 absences per session, that allows it to go on for longer. 3LS1 was SOOO good but its only fault was that it escalated so quickly that it ended after only 8 sessions. idk if that's what Grian envisioned but i personally would love for it to last longer. there were SEVENTEEN deaths in that last session, it would've been amazing to spread it out more.

- different interactions. the strong duos like Ren/Martyn, Grian/Scar, Scott/Jimmy have been absolutely amazing but what was so good about them was that they were mostly unexpected. Ren/Martyn NOBODY saw coming. Scott/Jimmy started out as just "we live near each other" and quickly escalated to "cottagecore husbands". Grian/Scar were thrown together in the first episode and their bond lasted all the way to the final episode, despite everyone thinking they would separate. the best part of those duos was that nobody expected them to be as good as they were, so i hope for just as amazing but different duos in S2, ones we can't even imagine atm.

- clearer rules. Grian's intro to the series said that once you get to red, your objective changes to trapping and killing other people, but in this series, greens and yellows were doing that too, not least himself, under the pretence of Scar making him do it. i want them to either introduce firmer rules that greens and yellows can't trap or kill, especially on behalf of a red, or just straight-up get rid of that rule altogether. the thing that bugged me wasn't that Grian killed while on his green life, it was that he did it after previously saying that only reds can kill. not knocking Grian, just want things to be clearer :)

- a new map and new twists. i'm just including this here bc i know Grian has already said there will be both of these things, but i just wanted to say i approve of this. the size of the map was very good, so i hope they keep that the same. and i cant think of what further twists can be introduced so i'm excited to see what Grian comes up with