There's No Fucking Way

I often analyze the Life Series through a lens of personal agency because I think it's a broadly applicable theme and it's also a theme that matters to me personally, so it's always stuck with me, maybe more than a lot of the fandom, how little agency Grian had in Third Life.

Scar and Grian's deal was in of itself was wildly unhealthy for Grian, I think. Obviously Scar didn't go out of his way try to make things hard for Grian, in fact, a lot of the things Grian did for him because of their deal were things Grian decided himself were his responsibility. But unconditional servitude is a very limiting and possibly even dehumanizing thing to agree to, and it clearly got to Grian. He frequently spoke about being unhappy, about wanting to leave, about how much he hated having to do what Scar says. And while some of that was for show, I also think there was a lot of very real regret over being caged, over giving away so much personal agency in a moment of guilt and obligation.

The first real choice Grian made was to stay with Scar, despite whatever resentment he'd built earlier, despite how much part of him wanted to leave.

This was punished quickly when Scar betrayed him, and possibly in the worst way possible. He tossed out a piece of paper, said whoever catches it lives. Grian couldn't catch it before Bdubs did, Grian couldn't convince his one ally not to help stab him to death, Grian couldn't fight back when it was two against one. He was helpless, in many ways in that moment. Nothing he did meant anything, nothing he did could have stopped it, Grian's first act of personal agency after so long being caged was to choose to stay with Scar, and Scar stabbed him for it while Grian tried (and failed, because nothing he did would have stopped it) to convince him not to.

Scar tried to make up for it (well, depending on whether you view scar's "you may slay me" as genuine or strategy) in a way I think is pretty meaningful all things considered. Scar kneeled, and he gave Grian the power to do what he would, let Grian choose. Which is possibly the best thing Scar could have done, when I see Grian feeling robbed of personal agency as such a big Thing in his Third Life pov.

But it didn't matter in the end. The spectators wanted a fight, and for one reason or another, Grian felt bound to their wishes. Maybe he would have wanted to kill Scar, or maybe he would have wanted to go home together and keep living, or maybe he would have wanted a fight if he could have chosen it. But Grian couldn't, he didn't have a choice. Grian was forced to kill Scar, and then he threw himself off the cliff, because there was no other option, nothing else to do.

I just feel like Grian is robbed of agency at so many turns in Third Life in a way we don't think about all that much.

Art Collection

One, Two, Three, Four, Five

The Cult of Grian is currently accepting donations. All proceeds go into buying tickets for Ariana Griande's next concert.

-Mod Bad Boy

Hey kid you want a job?

Great get online and go to a job board. Indeed, Linkedin whatever. Now you're gonna search for a role that's in your city, fits your qualifications, and doesn't seem like a bad time.

See that easy apply button? Don't hit it they just throw those in the trash. Now you're gonna want to go to the company's website and check their careers page.

Oh? That job doesn't exist anymore. Cool go back to the job board and find another one.

Great you found another job, you're on the company's career page and the job exists!! So you're going to need to make an account on the career page website. They're using Workday, the same site as the last job you applied for? Who cares? You need to make another account for THIS job's workday page.

Now you're going to upload your resume. That'll autopopulate about 15 boxes with everything on your resume, except formatted wrong and with tons of errors. So just go through and painstakingly check the dates on all of that and rewrite everything you already laid out in an aesthetically pleasing format on your resume.

Ok time for the cover letter, explain why this specific job and company are deeply important to you. You love their mission statement and wouldn't even laugh if their ceo was gunned down in the street. You'll really want to reiterate the things you just spent the last 20 minutes filling out on the resume section

(Remember to include language from the job description, people who work in HR are lower than dogs and they need patterns or they get confused.) Write about a page, but hey don't sound too desperate or robotic this is where they judge your character!

Maybe add your portfolio site at the end here, who knows if that helps no one has ever clicked mine haha.

Anywayyy time to hit apply! Congrats! You'll see that confirmation email come in and you should be getting the rejection letter in about 2 weeks. Unfortunately your resume didn't have the right buzzwords and the AI auto rejected you :(

Time to start again and try not to kill yourself!

grian they could never make me hate you (part 2)

Jimmy Solidarity will never stop amazing me.

He is an actual energy chameleon. I have never seen him not vibe with a group. He has such a unique dynamic with every single person he interacts with and it blows my socially inept mind.

Watching him play R.E.P.O. with Grian, Gem, Impulse, Scar, and Skizz is such a fun contrast to watching him play R.E.P.O. with Pearl, Karn, False, and Ren. He's so chaotic with GIGGS and so chill with Pearl's lobby.

I love every single interaction he has with Scar. They are such dorks.

I miss his Plate Up streams with Skizz and Tango so much they have such an insane dynamic.

Genuinely, one of my favorite things about MCC is just watching Jimmy be paired with new people and adapt.

Man lives on an ever changing scale from annoying gremlin to patient teacher and I am so freaking here for it.

OH MY GOSHH AAA

We've had a quality upgrade! (More of that to come now that I can focus on digital art again) Please feel free to leave comments or ask about the future of the story!

More desert duo. Honestly have no idea which sseason this is supposed to be. Grain is wearing liml badboys clothing and scar ain't shown wearing anything (3rd life??) Ionno I drew this on impulse (and skizz heh jk) but here

Here's some desert duo fanart for all your desert duo needs

Yes the characters aren't in the same artstyle as the bg what about it /silly

Anyways I love these two idiots sm yall don't even know

Heh heh *laughs in desert duo*

Look at my otp dawg I'm going to hell