That One YA Dystopia About Human Pets

[@jackketchem6210]

Giving the family cat a lil smoochy on the head: good, sweet, not creepy Making out with the genetically engineered flesh Barbie: go to jail

[@teslashark]

"I swear this book is not marketed to pedos"

[@Charlotte-k4p5g]

@teslashark There is literally no reason for them to look 12! This book is 100% pedo bait!

[@Gilded_Cage_Princess]

Absolutely, but our parents can't give consent to anything. We don't want to give them human rights The concept of human pets isn't bad, but the owners should not be human either.

[@Waspinmymind]

@@Gilded_Cage_PrincessNo? There’s no way to make this trope none problematic. That’s not a bad thing. The author just has to be somewhat self aware of the subtext they’re writing. Which this one was not.

[@CoolAnagram]

I wonder if there's a stereotype of white owners letting their human pets make out with them like with dogs licking mouths lol

[@neffrey]

It's so funny that the author wrote a really deep and fleshed out character by complete accident and treats every other character like they're more interesting than her

[@Crowcaller]

That is exactly the case. Everything feels accidental here

[@zoeb3573]

I call it the Twilight effect, in which every side character is more interesting than the three main characters, and you're clearly not supposed to feel that way

[@kokocrispies]

Would you say,,,,,, we're entering the Twilight Zone

[@taleef1760]

I was gonna say gee where have we seen this before. 😂

[@TheHopperUK]

@@zoeb3573 came here to say that lmao. Every side character in Twilight is fascinating, main characters so boring

[@demonskullz]

its almost WEIRDER that this isnt a fetish thing honestly

[@Crowcaller]

Yeah it made the whole thing feel more uncanny because it feels so accidental

[@unholykill333u9]

It isn't? Have you looked around lately?

[@dee_is_tired]

@Mauricio Aguilera it's probably not, us freaks have a little more tact when navigating taboo subjects and dark fucked up fantasies

[@leonineKelter]

@@dee_is_tired yeah. Know a few extremely kinky people and maybe pet play can be kind of insane to people who aren't into it, but jfc they're so much nicer and don't write shit like this oh my goddddd The only people I've met who write shit like this are UBER repressed and have no idea they have a fetish and think this is normal, or accidentally write this shit. Some of the kinkiest people ive ever met are also the least likely to write shit like this and publish it unironically.

[@Jane-oz7pp]

​@@dee_is_tired Look, I know we like to pretend the whole community is cool and all, but let's be honest, there are plenty of us freaks who don't have any tact or filter.

[@jenndoesstuff]

"This is not a kink thing, the author is a middle aged woman from Utah!" Oh, how I laughed and laughed. That's just precious. That's like every single romance author.

[@Crowcaller]

It is, but..... Not this one, I think. Not this one, in 2013, I think.......

[@atanvardecunambiel8917]

Mormons are into some freaky shit.

[@amandahallows5444]

OMG, my thoughts exactly. That's EXACTLY the demographic of the most kinky writers, who have no idea what their writing, but want a very specific kink book so bad they write it themselves XD

[@Alice-si8uz]

Lmao, pet play is defiantly a kink!

[@emdove]

@@Alice-si8uzI think we all know that, the question is whether the author was aware, or had one and wrote the book to satisfy it 😬

[@karinmaria6455]

You know those "I was sold to One Direction (or any other popular boyband)" style fanfics that were popular on Wattpad in the early 2010s? That auction scene genuinely feels like it's taken right out of one of those fics, with the dialogue and everything. Only the author of this presumably wasn't like 13...

[@Crowcaller]

In perfected defense (yeesh) it understands.... Partially...... How creepy it is. Just not nearly enough

[@thedrawingquill2059]

God ya, there are some many fics in damn near any fandom i've seen where there is a 'but they are pets/the love interest to the character is a pet' au sub group and this book feels like that going main stream. The very obviously fully sentient person being taught they should have their own person hood by someone who believes them to be human-LIKE but never fully seems to see them as their own sentient being, that everyone else is rough or in someway uncaring with them but the love interest bonds with them and shows them love and affection that is some much almost opening their world, down to either a washing of the authors hands of some of the horror turning to a complete mishandling of what and why the setting is horrific for the sake of focusing on the love. This book hits so many story beat I have seen time and time again written out to the point of cliche but small time fanfic authors that's almost boggling to think that it's mainstream and divorce of such sources. These stories are never really meant to be dystopias, not true ones, they're love stories that simply use the dystopian setting as a way to drive the main love interests together and more often than not leave deeply disturbing implications in their wake.

[@mahogara]

I've never come across (fortunately) any of those fanfictions, despite having heard of it. Probably because I don't read much of RPFs, and even the few I've read I avoid anything with OC as one part of the pairings. But the amount of romanticising human trades and trafficking in young teenagers is alarming. I do know it's imaginary and fictional, and lord knows how depraved some of the fanfictions I've enjoyed are, but I do hope those young ones grew out of that phase. But it's more jarring seeing this cliché in a mainstream book, especially with confusing message.

[@an8strengthkobold360]

I'd honestly defend that sh*t. It's fetish stuff. It's fantasy of losing agency.

[@themyofmy]

@@an8strengthkobold360 we are aware

[@iamaunicorn1232]

"Oh this is an interesting dystopian idea. Could be very dark and say some interesting things about humanity and sentience- what? WHAT DO YOU MEAN ITS A ROMANCE NOVEL!?"

[@morley364]

9 times out of 10 in a YA dystopian novel, the romance plot detracts from the big ideas the book is claiming to address, and I will die on this hill

[@joyc.e.7511]

@@morley364 And I'll die with you, because it's true.

[@Selkiesleeps]

no bc like if you look at whump communities who write about human pet stuff youll hardly ever find actual,,romance stuff in them??

[@hoshitime7785]

Could be a "romance" novel. You know pretends to be that but the "romance" is the horror part.

[@Topdoggie7]

​@@hoshitime7785 Sadly it's not that kind of mess.

[@Bloodanna]

Oof, the part about Missy *hurts*. The fact that her dreams were so simple and soft and she is the *only* one to die... That legitimately breaks my heart. She deserved a cat and nice flowers at the very least.

[@alyssestephens7726]

I was thinking the exact same thing 😢💔

[@bubblycider]

As the “mom” of a plump lovely orange cat and the owner of windowsill succulents, Missy’s wish for pretty much the scenario I’m living made me cry a little.

[@blue_lynch]

i legit teared up

[@someoddusername5677]

Im a simple human. I see a multi-hour video about a series I know nothing about; I click.

[@djoctobeat5204]

That’s exactly why I’m here too lol

[@TRaWi]

Multi-hour videos are very interesting wen you want to know the story without spending many more hours reading the book (I'm not lazy, only life is too short for so much delicious contents to devour).

[@AnIdiotsLantern]

Hello mood kindred

[@mikachu317]

Same

[@LiSkyFox]

U made me realize this is like 2 hours long and now I’m questioning my life choices

[@h3llthing]

If they’re genetically engineered, then why wouldn’t they be genetically engineered to be sterile so as to avoid the risk of a human/“pet” hybrid 😭

[@Crowcaller]

It makes no sense. I avoided for obvious reasons pitching a logical ideal human pet... But. Everyone knows people are having sex with pets, even though they're marketed as NOT for that. Weird men are a key market. But what if a weird man knocks up the pet he's attached to? Either he has to give her back and lose her or keep her and witness her due because her body can't carry a pregnancy. Abortion obviously never addressed. Like, only rich creeps with a very specific kink WANT the pet getting pregnant yet every single one CAN. Sterilising just prevents pregnancy and reduces some hormones that you can easily replace. And what if they could carry a child to term?? What IS that kid legally? Pets are PETS so you need to hide that you basically impregnated the family dog, and the result is 50% human and probably has no human rights. Extremely weird. Probably would help prove to people pets are just humans

[@InKY09]

My guess is the company wants all those $10,000 fees for the extra service.

[@SilverEvilayeMoon]

@@Crowcaller Possibly for the same reason iPhones are built to fail after some time: So that people will have to buy new ones. The fact that they were designed with genitals at all makes it pretty clear they were always intended to be living se* dolls for the wealthy, and every time one of them inevitably gets pregnant, the owner will most likely want to replace her. AND since the pets' official purpose is as family companions and not se* toys, the owners can't exactly claim any money back for the damages that they themselves caused by misusing the product. It's win-win for the company

[@dismurrart6648]

There's a book one of my friends found about humans as meat production that actually seems to be both gruesome AND addresses all our issues here. I hate everything about cannibalism but I will say, iirc my friend said that in it, they don't sterilize the cattle but if you mate one you're killed or something like that.

[@h3llthing]

@@dismurrart6648 Tender is the Flesh? The cover is the lower half of a woman’s face and the top (illustrated) half of a cow’s

[@scoutlaceharding]

I would be much less creeped out if this was fetish erotica. I'm so nauseated by the YA romance trope of "abuse is sexy and my only identity is the guy I'm obsessed with." I can't think of a message I want sent to teen girls less.

[@Crowcaller]

Yep. Honestly if it's just upfront "this is a kink and I get off on it" I don't care. Whatever. But this weird accidental social message buffoonery is gross

[@marocat4749]

Yeah, and if it was that ther would be probably soe things done to try being sensitive somewhat or clear that its, that.

[@thisgoddamusernamestoodamnlong]

if it was a fetish thing, the pet would be having a lot more fun. that's usually how you can tell if the author did it on purpose.

[@DeathnoteBB]

For real. I can see why I never read much YA fiction as a kid, when it was ostensibly my favorite genre. A lot of it is… bad.

[@nah750]

Book 2 really is just Ella: *Makes the worst decisions imaginable* Ella: I can't believe Missy did this

[@fbi1319]

i'm just imagining the who killed hannibal meme but it's ella and missy

[@Topdoggie7]

Poor Missy.

[@TheBonkleFox]

*repeatedly shoots missy* "I can't believe missy committed suicide."

[@jaredthaler1017]

I feel like Missy died because she was the only one who sold her body. And in the world the author lives in, that makes her a flawed being.

[@Topdoggie7]

Missy selling herself to progress the plot and support the main. Author: A terrible character. She must die now.

[@bestaround3323]

Considering the fucked up beliefs of the author I would 100% believe this is the reason. Blaming the victim

[@HaapainenRouske]

Yeah victim blaming is very common in mormonism. Girls are taught from very young age that men are animals that can't control themselves so it's up to the girls to prevent themselves from being sexualised or abused by dressing modestly. It's fucked up.

[@zoeb3573]

Honestly I've seen so many stories where women having sex is treated as the worst thing in the world and the MC not only wants to remain pure but has the strongest plot armor around her genitals, that I'm perfectly willing to believe it

[@katie2275]

This is literally that comic about furry oppression where the boy kisses the family dog turned into a trilogy

[@Crowcaller]

I mention Rainedog for one second because there's real parallels but I didn't want to have to explain it for people who didn't know

[@freshcupofangst]

The WHAT comic 😭⁉️

[@Shadowonwater]

@@freshcupofangst the youtuber "Whang" has a great video on it

[@freshcupofangst]

@@Shadowonwater oh? Time to fall down another cursed rabbithole~

[@skylarjohnson7779]

what a terrible day to be able to read.

[@QuietM4n]

“and they look like 12 year old girls” needs to be stated at the end of every part of the plot summary. Like at some point while listening my brain went “oh this character is played by current day Chloë Grace Moretz” when in reality she’s Chloë Grace Moretz in Kick Ass. Like why didn’t an editor tell her to make them look older.

[@Crowcaller]

Well, in a story about how creepy this is..... Them looking weirdly young is a good detail that is indeed creepy. There's nothing wrong with the decision to do that in your already unsettling book about human pets, but in this book the fact it isn't more important is the weird bit.

[@secondrateseth8360]

@@Crowcaller I think the potential to something really interesting with this was there. I used to get given the kid’s menu well into my late teens, which made navigating others’ attraction to me sometimes complicated: should I feel flattered or should I be calling the police? What are they seeing that they like? Being half desi, I’ve heard similar things from women on that side of the family, who are shorter and darker, and anecdotally from East Asian friends. Do they like me or are they into the idea of a “submissive Asian girl”? It’s grim. There are also cases like Shauna Rae’s, a woman whose growth was stunted because she had brain cancer in infancy. Her TLC show is very… reality TV, but the issue of romantic connection it raises is worth pondering. She’s an adult and she deserves it if it’s what she wants, but strangers looking at her will see a child. I don’t know if most YA could tackle this thorny issue though, and it sounds like this series was NOT equipped

[@iamcool544]

I personally thing its cause, removing all context, children are cuter than adults. You would be hard pressed to find a single adult human you could define as cute. Humans view almost all children as cute just biologically.

[@akoyash9964]

@@iamcool544 most false shit I've read online in a while

[@iamcool544]

@@akoyash9964 How

[@gregjayonnaise8314]

Honestly, I feel like this could have made an excellent horror if the story leaned more into the horrible way we treat actual pets in real life. I want to read about the human equivalent of a pug, breathing issues and all. Bring on the body horror! If I were an evil rich person in a YA Novel, I wouldn’t want a human pet that looks like a little anime girl and calls me “master”, I’d want a twelve foot tall dude that can sprint at ten miles an hour and hunt my servants for fun. All Tomorrows had the right idea.

[@Crowcaller]

Yeah, I mention it way at the end but... There's a failed comic that also has a similar idea to this called Rainedog. It's... Kinda eerily similar in some ways. That's about the idea of how I'm cartoons, pets often are fully sentient beings but still pets, and deeper implications of how that is. Rainedog wasn't good but again there's something interesting there

[@creed8712]

That last bit may be a joke but realistically that’s what the first generation of “genetically engineered slave race” would be. They’d be like the Republic Clones used for working and some sex stuff along with like female ones for similar purposes. Like you don’t get “cute anime girl pet” until at least like the 4th or 5th generation of this where they’re confident in genetic tampering enough to go really drastic

[@byrrnitdown]

I’m sure I’m not the first person to say this but when we got to the “the focus is on Babies” part, my entire reaction was “middle-aged woman writer living in Utah? …yeah, that checks out”

[@morley364]

Yeah I was getting flashbacks to Meyer's Mormonism and anti-abortion angle in Twilight. Sex is for love? The government shouldn't debate if babies are human? Missy is the evil one for participating in sex work to help Ella? Everyone of importance is white? The vibes are leaning Mormon, indeed.

[@moonknightress5059]

The fact that there wasn't even an attempt to create a market for "eternally cute and doll-like" male pets is thoroughly unrealistic. The catholic church alone would have ordered at least a container full of these poor kids

[@ripleyandweeds1288]

if human pets became a real legal thing like its presented in this book we'd be seeing nothing but genetically engineered femboys

[@salem_spectre]

the jokes write itself

[@billuraral1870]

*2010 era YA dystopia*: What if...love was illegal? Or what if...being with your partner was outlawed????? *Me, who was deep in the closet back in the day*: I feel pissed to these authors but I dunno why...

[@solsystem1342]

I'm sorry, did you mean real life?

[@aegisScale]

@@solsystem1342 They forgot to put "straight" in front of love, though I think that word was implied.

[@fatcat5817]

The Georgia Guidestones already is a real world "monument" thing. It says that only a specific number of people can live on earth. A website explains that THEY want to chose who you will breed with, or if you are not allowed to pass on your genes.

[@rx500android]

Literally same

[@thoughtfulghost]

I was big delirium fan as a teen and as an LGBT person i never thought about this and now can i just feel icky

[@leftoverlemons930]

Thinking about Penn, wouldnt he work really well as an antagonist? The book would be about a naieve girl, who’s not seen as human, she meets Penn and thinks she’s fallen in love. In reality, Penn also never sees her as human, but as something he can possess and own. He convinces her that she’s not like other pets, but she’s also not like humans as a manipulation tactic: no one but him could possibly understand her, so who could she run to? He convinces her that she should be grateful for his “love”, even if she doesn’t want it. She falls further and further into Penn’s clutches as he abuses her; not physically, but through manipulation, isolation, gaslighting, and so on. Major Turing points in the story would include her and Penn running away together, her attempting to run away from Penn, her meeting other pets and seeing the possibilities of her future, and her meeting an outsider who is absolutely horrified by the way that Elle lives her life. She and the outsider end up escaping from Penn, and that’s the end of book 1. I like dark stories.

[@Crowcaller]

Hey look at like the last section of my video where I suggest something similarish, because Penn DOES make great sense as an antagonist dismantling tropes!

[@lj9392]

I keep having to pause the video to cry over Missy. Starting from Ella's POV & changing to Missy's after Ella is killed would have been so much better. The line from your pitch "And when Ella tries to leave, Penn drowns her in the pool he once saved her from" hit me harder than any canonical line about their relationship does.

[@hoaxghost3268]

As soon as you said "The human pets are legal across most of america and the world except for Canada" I thought "Oh god is the author gonna make an underground railroad allegory" Edit: goddamit Edit edit: everything feels so much more sense whenever I remember the author lives in Salt Lake City. "Why are riots demonized? Why are the love interests sons of slave masters? Why is pregnancy such a key focus? Why is it that the white petite girls are the main victims? Why do the books feel so pro-life?" ah she's from Utah

[@dracocrusher]

This feels like "What if we took Detroit: Become Human, made it about child slaves instead of robots, and then slotted in a typical bad female YA dystopia protagonist instead of having multiple main leads with different roles in the story?" Forced storytelling stays and the weird implications are still there, but at least Detroit was way more direct with its slave allegory, for better or for worse. It still doesn't feel good, but at least Detroit is way less cowardly about its themes and ideas.

[@BasicGeometry]

@@dracocrusher lmao when they said the part about Canada, I literally said, out loud, "oh its worse Detroit Become Human!"

[@KirstenMarie_MS3]

I went, "Yay for Canada!" in my head, only to then say outloud, to rest of the lounge, "You're eff-ing kidding me." Don't know why I'm surprised, though. It's par for the course. The slavery, racism, caste, or even holocost parallels are just about everywhere and are usually poorly handled. "The Jewel" had potential, imo. But it kinda dropped the ball.

[@dracocrusher]

@@KirstenMarie_MS3 It unironically feels like they realized their story was about slavery and tried to make a quick scene about them calling the owner master so they could lampshade the issue, but then they just kind-of screwed up the lampshading so instead of having it be a "don't ask about this" thing, it just implants the idea there and it sticks around for the rest of the series. That's kind-of insane! And because the book itself makes that connection, it's impossible to not think of that idea as you're reading through the actual story because it's so weird and shocking that it feels like it HAS to come back later, right?

[@KirstenMarie_MS3]

@@dracocrusher It's kind of sad, really. I fell in love with the whole dystopia thing when my AR group was assigned "The Giver" in 4th grade. (Which had to be something like 1996 or 1997 because I moved right before the '98 fall semester of 5th grade. God, I'm old...😖) Between moving from Green Bay WI to a "town" that was about as close to the literal "middle-of-nowhere" (to this day the town of pop. 158 doesn't show up anwhere... ) and dealing with what I now know to have been undiagnosed ASD ('cause even in the 90s it was still believed that girls did not get ASD) I amassed my own library. YA is still a favorite (sometimes guilty because I know it's trope ridden) but the last decade of Dystopia has been rather... disappointing. YA in general hasn't been much better. I get the impression that a lot of themes are being "sanitized" or dumbed down. You can't assign "The Giver" anymore because dead babies... or even heavy fiction like "Number the Stars." I actually read a lot of Holocaust or Civil War/Slavery stuff, but like historical fiction using the real events. Stuff that still makes my stepmother go on rants about "You can't put that in a kids book! They'll be traumatized!" Sorry, just rambling. The point I'm trying to get to is, if you haven't heard of him, Neal Shusterman is a stand out author. His Arc of a Scythe Trilogy is a National Book Award winner and Printz Honor book. Essentially, medicine has gotten so advanced that aging, illness, and death itself are no longer things. But people still have kids who grow up and have more kids. But you quickly exceed the planet's "Carrying Capacity" (a real element in population biology.) So "Scythes" are trained and are the ones who choose when someone dies. The main character is chosen as an apprentice along with another classmate and you follow them. There's a whole lot of nuance and care given to the plot that I can't do it justice.

[@morninggoblins]

The rioters being mad at the Pets for existing rather than the makers of pets REALLY reminded me of Detroit: Become Human. Which was also pretty terrible and wanted to be a dystopia without actually exploring themes

[@Mcflycoolvideos]

About time someone else stopped mindlessly praising that game!

[@TheBonkleFox]

David cage's """"games"""" really are vapid affairs that are only remembered for weird shit that goes on in them.

[@elisac447]

​@@Mcflycoolvideos uh oh i bought this in the winter sale lmao

[@berniekatzroy]

My question is why in almost any dystopia, Canada is always a safe haven. In Detroit become human which I personally think was a decent game, like why androids of all things? I get it, the question of what makes one human but goddamn, imagine a dystopia where the US actually comes down hard on pedos and ofc Canada sees them as refugees or just maps or some other other made up word to call them.

[@alina4619]

As someone who is 5 ft., the fact that Ella is called so "tiny" as to be mistaken for a 10/12 year old makes me ... Very Uncomfortable. Sure there's her child like facial features, but come on. 🤮🙄

[@Crowcaller]

Yeah, we can assume she also has a petite build and her big eyes help but it is pretty wild. 5ft is too tall for a 10 year old surely, yet 10 yr old ruby- too old to be THIS much of an ifiot- wonders if Ella is her age. It's like the author wanted pets to be small but I don't know, thought 4 feet was too far? It's creepy either way kate

[@corvidaeae]

@@Crowcaller 5 feet is very tall for a 10 year old, but not impossible. By the time a kid's 11-12, 5 feet is very reasonable. I know a 12 year old who's been taller than me for like a year now, it really emphasizes that I'm just short :'). But also there's so many very much adult women out there who are that height, that it's incredibly weird to make that a sign that she looks young.

[@ATM180]

Is Danny DeVito is 4'11. Remember that.

[@Marshmallow95506]

I'm 5ft too and I was 5ft by about 13. Anything earlier is uncommon and it's very strange to me. 5ft isn't that short. The only indictator of child like is the facial features.

[@finngswan3732]

Same. It echoes of lolis in anime and any short adult in anime is automatically a loli to anyone not paying attention. Fuck lolicons.

[@RavenRoth3]

The older I get the more protectiveness and almost tenderness I feel for the (mostly female) characters that are clearly written to be rivals or just to antagonize the pure and always good protagonists, Missy's story broke my heart and what you said afterwards just... beautifully stomped on the pieces. Amazing review as always, I'm very glad you've decided to do more videos! PS: Also, are we completely sure this isn't at least a liiiittle bit of a kink? Because the author apparently has a novel where the male lead's conscious is sent to the female lead's dog while he's in a coma??

[@Crowcaller]

Wait what. What. Huh. What. That didn't show up when I was- huh?????

[@Amsayy]

I need a minute to unpack your post script

[@destrious8133]

Hey. Take your words back. I wish to never remember them.

[@morley364]

You wrote such a lovely, sweet comment and then that postscript hit my brain like a truck

[@Katie-xd1nt]

Missy almost feels like the true protagonist? in any other story she wouldve been the central focus, this feels like a book where the annoying side kick stole the protagonists spot

[@wintercaptain]

I'll be honest, I've seen this exact premise as a common roleplay starter on the Hetalia tag on Omegle in 2012, which is about the worst combination of words that I could have created, and even then it seems like their handling of it was pretty much exactly on par with these books

[@Crowcaller]

I'm pretty sure a LOT of places had human pet roleplay but at least it was you know. Definitely a kink thing. It's worse when it's not

[@abbey5899]

@@Crowcaller What's crazy to me is I remember a ton of those RPs in the mid 00's and a lot of them were basically teenagers writing super-angst RP scenarios BASED on kink RPs they saw. It was just "oh I'm a human pet with bunny ears, and I'm sad" "I'm a human pet with cat ears and my owner hits me and I'M sad" and then nobody ever progressed the storylines. The internet is kind of beautiful.

[@ranpo_edogawa]

i can make this worse! there were hetalia art ask blogs about the human pet au. i remember looking through Finland's tag on Tumblr when i was only 13 many moons ago and seeing a whole ask blog dedicated to his life as human pet. (in reality it was just human trafficking/slave trading but with a fancy collar.)

[@talynhastime9343]

NO BABE NOT OMEGLE 😂

[@Homodemon]

I read this whole comment section and slowly, I lifted my hands, grabbed my head, and I started to yell a single vowel. Y'all have inflicted me with psychic damage the likes has never seen before.

[@faunraa]

I remember someone saying this about the book "he's pretty much banging his golden retriever" and I died laughing 😂

[@Crowcaller]

Please don't kiss the family pet :(

[@rainbowlack]

@@Crowcaller please do not the cat

[@sebastianrubin7476]

It combines bestiality with pedophilia, what could be more romantic! ... I had to write that, even though it will rightly put me on a LOT of watch lists.

[@Lulittlefield5866]

The concept is the kind of thing you would find in the dark depths of AO3, not a published YA trilogy. It’s genuinely horrifying that this exists.

[@Crowcaller]

It's just. Way weirder because it's so sincere. Like no one involved at any of the many stages in publishing wondered if this was a good idea

[@katiewhitson4940]

Funny you say that because as I'm watching this I'm working for a human pet AU of my fav show loosely based on the first book. ( But I accidentally fixed a lot of the problems crow pointed out. )

[@naturegirl1999]

@@katiewhitson4940what is your AU called?

[@katiewhitson4940]

@@naturegirl1999 " Worth Fighting For" ( Um, not sure how much information is polite, so I'll leave it at that unless you ask .)

[@Chickpea_Pancake]

I want so much information. Do you have a Tumblr? Or if you are comfortable with giving out your ao3 info?

[@Wyattporter]

Really weird that the neighbor in the first book is villainized for _freeing a slave wrong…_ real JK Rowling energy

[@AK-rx8gp]

Omg I was thinking this kinda had 'gaslighting Hermione into thinking she's wrong for being against slave labour' vibes

[@Topdoggie7]

Extreme Rowling energy.

[@samlerf]

That Harry Potter part was a commentary on a larger, somewhat vague truth: when you're young, you often think you can just make a protest and change all the world's problems. But the truth is that life is complicated and so are humans. For a child - and the Harry Potter books were, first, written for children - this all seems so obvious, especially since they are considering such huge topics for the first time. But it's youthful arrogance to think that nobody else has ever seen that this or that is a problem or that one is the first to try and solve it.

[@blackosprey2219]

​@samlerf that's a pretty valid message, though portraying it via slavery (and creatures that apparently love being slaves) is a pretty bizarre way to sell it. If anything, from what I remember, Hermione was shown to basically be in the wrong. Not in a "your ideal is good, your methods are icky" way, but "your ideal is stupid and fundamentally harmful to the house elves" way.

[@samlerf]

@@blackosprey2219 I think people need to learn that a subjective POV is exactly that. Authors aren't supposed to make their characters vessels for their own opinions. It's irrelevant whether you or I would do this or say that or whether it's the right thing, the question is: does it make sense for characters based on backstory and personality? Never forget that even some african american slaves resented their given freedom. Why? Because, in order to survive their trauma, they conditioned themselves to not see it as such, tricking themselves into thinking it's not that bad, so that they could survive the seemingly hopless and permanent situation. Or look at present day america. All the polls show how much people suffer from the super expensive healthcare, constant mass or school shootings, underfunded schools, privatization, militarized police and so on, yet so many still wave the "AMERICA, YEAH!" flag around. Why? Because they have been conditioned, for example by politicians constantly speaking of America as "the greatest country on earth". Those who grow up with something being treated normal simply need to be pushed in the right direction sometimes. And Harry grew up in a way that sabotaged his ability to emphasize with others. The books tell us that Harry never had friends because nobody wanted to become a target of Dudley's gang. The books also play with the idea of growing up and learning that even your seemingly perfect teachers and parents are flawed human beings, as materialized by Dumbeldore's flaws being revealed. Besides: the books never claimed that all house elves love being slaves, Barty Crouch's elf expressed herself in a similar manner, but Dobey wasn't happy, and we only know from the Hogwarts elfes that they resented Hermione's methods. Hagrid isn't exactly shown to be a genius, kindhearted or not, so I wouldn't treat his remarks as Rowlings. I mean, what, does the Author of Death Note believe in mass genocide and a human god because the main character does?

[@anatomy_antonym]

That one guy on Tumblr is gonna love this series

[@Crowcaller]

I DO NOT mention THE HUMAN PET GUY in the video. I thought about it but. I refuse....

[@atlaszurum]

PLS

[@MinoriGaming]

I'm so glad we all thought about that cursed individual.

[@chocolattemocha8512]

PLEASE LMAO

[@bobbitworm8184]

He was banned from Twitter recently because he wouldn’t stop talking about finding a way to make trans women lactate so they could be used to make dairy products instead of animals, so regrettably he might be coming back to tumblr soon :/

[@Ester-es6oj]

If missy has 1,000 fans, I’m one of them. If missy has 100 fans, I’m one of them. If missy has one fan, it’s me. If missy has 0 fans, I’m dead

[@Crowcaller]

If missy has 1001 fans I'm there. If missy has 101 fans I'm there. If missy has two fans, it's us. If missy has 0 fans, that's impossible, I'm immortal

[@DogBat]

Damn just like missy

[@rainydayjules]

This 100% feels like the ya dystopia era of authors thinking of every “what if society was like THIS” taken to its natural extreme and I’m very excited to learn

[@karinmaria6455]

At least it's not Save the Pearls...?

[@rainydayjules]

@@karinmaria6455 don’t REMIND ME OH NO

[@Crowcaller]

Literally yes. I have a section just on ya dystopia and dystopia in general addressing this. Most YA Dystopia is like. "What if.... (Spins wheel)...... Your groceries...... (Rolls dice)... Was determined by your dog?" You've also reminded me of something I forgot in the video and text review which is VERY IMPORTANT and will be my pinned comment now: the other wrote one other book... And it's a ya dystopia about pregnancy 😬 you'll see later in the review why that is NOTABLE if you can't guess

[@Crowcaller]

God I should read save the pearls :// it's so famously bad. But also I'm the whitest person ever and so I feel like beyond talking about the obvious racism there's less for me to say. there's probably black creators who have already covered that infamous book in depth

[@someoddusername5677]

@@karinmaria6455 Oh god. I just read a summary. How did NO ONE stop that plot in its tracks?? And seriously?? Pearls and Coals? But Pearls are the opressed ones? Im flabbergasted.

[@keylimesatellite2835]

Me realizing her love interest's name, the one she considers to be her "freedom" is named Pen. She doesn't want the outside world, which is a cage, she wants the freedom of a pen.

[@awakeache3627]

Wow, something that was decently thought of in their book.

[@lemonberry_soda]

As an artist I am intensely compelled to read the first two books so I can properly draw Missy's dream home and give her the peace she deserved :(((

[@sunshinesolace3540]

Same 😭

[@SallySueSaywhatagain]

Ikr? That little excerpt about the orange cat and geraniums genuinely breaks my heart.

[@happyjellycatsquid]

We must all take to the sims to give my babygworl what she deserves 🥲

[@KawaiiSemeKiller]

The fact that.. only Missy died. It broke me. I immediately started literally sobbing. A girl who had been through the most traumatic shit, continually was abused, put herself through hell to help an ungrateful child of a girl.. a girl who just. So deserved a little cottage to herself with a Chonky cat. Is the /only / character to die. The nasty villain pedo gets to live but the brave mistreated girl dies and is barely an afterthought.. it’s tragic.. I can’t even try and think “Well.. now she’s free and maybe has her cat.” Because it’s just so unfair that it makes my heart hurt.

[@neddles33]

Oh wow, from the setup I was sure this was going to be pets for aliens or some fantasy creature. This is not the way I wanted or expected this to go at all.

[@Crowcaller]

It is not the way any of us wanted it to be :(

[@brushdogart]

Yeah, if you want that story look at The Culture novels by Iain M. Banks. Humans as beloved and well cared for pets of quirky, super-intelligent AIs. It's actually surprisingly wholesome and utopian. The interesting part is that the AIs seem to regard any AI who is not compassionate enough to care for humans as "flawed" or "antisocial". The AIs may be using human pets as a filter for sociopathy just like we look for children who torture small animals.

[@zoeb3573]

When I first read the title of the video I thought "like pets for aliens or other creatures? That could be a cool premise" then the first sentence of the video was that line she read about her pet hand in her human boyfriend's hand and I realized of course it couldn't be that simple, or what would the video be about.

[@Weirdanimalboy]

Evil Dude: I’m gonna shoot Missy and kill her Ella: Not if I bomb this place and kill her first!!!

[@Crowcaller]

literally. iterally. literally. literally.

[@harlottebronte]

I know it's not fair to psychoanalyze based on fiction but I have a hard time believing I'd be able to spend ten minutes in a room with this author without pulling my hair out (the true dystopia). I had to pause the video a few times towards the end because I'm so upset about Missy and I was kind of confused about that, but I think you hit the nail on the head as to why I'm feeling this way. Missy is the only chracter in this series who actually shows what it's like to live through abuse, and the garbage treatment she gets from the author honestly feels like a slap in the face to those who have actually experienced that in real life. I got teary eyed when you read that section talking about her dream future life because that kind of quiet peace is *EXACTLY* what I've been fantasizing about my whole life after growing up in hell, and the fact that that was taken away from her for literally no reason makes me think that the author cares about real vicitms of abuse as much as she does real victims of slavery- which is not at all. She wanted to make a quick buck off of the kinds of experiences she has never experienced and didn't bother to try and understand, and this garbage fire was the result. PS: If you didn't mention where the author was from at the beginning and asked me to guess by the end, I'd still probably say Salt Lake City. I'm not sure why 😂

[@Crowcaller]

Big Mormon Energy is why. We don't know if she actually is, but SLC does that to a person. So many authors of paranormal ya from this time were, and I wonder if anyone did a research paper on this. What is that salt doing to people....

[@morley364]

@@harlottebronte It's almost like the book feels...culturally Mormon? Even if the author isn't Mormon herself.

[@morley364]

When they read the quote where Ella calls Missy selfish for not returning to slavery to help Ella reunite with her slave-owner boyfriend, I actually yelled "ELLA GO TO HELL" from across the room where I was cutting apples.

[@Katie-xd1nt]

in any other story she would have been the protagonist

[@marocat4749]

She should have nben the protaginist :(

[@liz_merr1003]

Man, this premise could make such a disturbing horror novel. Dark themes like this, while hard to stomach, can be really good and hard hitting if they're written well.

[@Crowcaller]

Yep. Or indeed, a good dystopia. It just.... Not this series...... Not this author

[@topazstars7734]

EXACTLY

[@AK-rx8gp]

I'd recommend Tender is the Flesh if you want this as a horror novel. It's less "human pet" and more "human farm animals" but it's definitely a purposely horrifying book rather than whatever was going on in this series

[@marocat4749]

Yep. That or be upfront its a fetish erotica that it not taken serious in the first place. An you dont need to mak it that yikes, "never let me go" is a pretty good book that is great about the implications. And o good. It doent even need to give any details about the world to really adress, a nd its abiout a sex thing or pets, but dehumaniattion and brainwashing.

[@creed8712]

I mean a group of Dr Morou mutant people being used as slaves isn’t a bad idea, especially for a YA dystopia novel because you could totally trope it up and have different genetic templates be the single word nouns to sort your oc into

[@Black_pearl_adrift]

It feels like the text can only relate to racism and slavery as an ephemeral distant white anxiety type of way. Like an “oh god, what if… what if human beings OWNED each other? Wouldn’t that be horrible??” It doesn’t feel as if the author is even creating a grounded dystopia, just a “what if?” scenario. The more you learn about slavery, (tw) skin shoes, breeding, and human zoos it feels like this book could only be written by someone uninterested in the actual history of slavery rather than the deracialised concept in their head.

[@Crowcaller]

Yeah, I think I make that point a bit later, roughly. The author both knows she's written a book ultimately about slavery and racism and human trafficking but also is seemingly very afraid to acknowledge that. See the only time slavery is 100% brought up its by Elise on like page ten of book one, and it's so the (at the time portrayed as) nice reasonable John can remind her this is NOTHING like slavery. The thesis of the series is "freedom is good, you should appreciate more how you're free, unlike these pets". With total ignorance of how privileged a take that is! God again I didn't want to go deep deep dive into racism and slavery but you're so right to about like. For example, breeding is a big plot point in the series, but it's very much in that.... White Woman's Dystopia way? It's removed entirely from real history of eugenics and forced reproduction of slaves. Just like them being "display pieces" is entirely removed from the many times in history humans HAVE been used as such. As I say like, I don't think Kate here including more direct comparisons would have made the book better, she just is not the author and this isn't the book, but her absolute ignorance is very uncomfortable

[@Black_pearl_adrift]

@@Crowcaller oh yeah sorry if I’m just repeating your point 😅just commenting as I go to get my thoughts out

[@sylviethetg7598]

@@Black_pearl_adrift What on earth are skin shoes??

[@Black_pearl_adrift]

@@sylviethetg7598 shoes who’s “leather” is made from human skin. It was a rare but documented process in the antebellum south. More common would be using slave’s hair for pillow stuffing.

[@sylviethetg7598]

@@Black_pearl_adrift Damn the South sounds like something straight out of RimWorld

[@thisurldoesnotexist]

When you mentioned a reimagining of this story where Penn kills Ella it made me think that there was something there in the characterization of this heroic love interest who will save you from drowning but never teach you how to swim. Just in case the tide changes and he needs to dispose of you

[@confused_frog]

Although it's been stated multiple times, that Ella looks like a normal human basically, I can't help but imagine her looking like she belongs in the "BTS as animals, a thread" edits and honestly idek if that makes it better or worse at this point-

[@Crowcaller]

Why did you reach me about that being a thing, knowledge I will now die knowing

[@confused_frog]

@@Crowcaller listen, if I had to be cursed with that knowledge, everyone else should be inflicted too, just so we can share the pain of knowing its existence. Knowledge about ultra cursed stuff is like a superior version of chainletters tbh, because you'll be inclined to spread it even without being prompted to do so (;´༎ຶٹ༎ຶ`)

[@meltedmarshmellowpeep]

thanks for me having to look that up and see cosmic horrors 😭 wtf is that thread

[@awakeache3627]

I kept imagining humanoid rabbits for some reason

[@sebastianrubin7476]

​@@Crowcaller it's really just 'anthropomorph characters as humans' but in reverse, it's wholesome family-friendly fun compared to the literary horror you just subjected yourself to.

[@alexisc3658]

A lot of ya romance would be fixed by making it horror tbh

[@petloverspy]

Honestly! Even the “romance” could stay, at least at first, until the narrative starts to shift as Ella slowly realizes how much Pen takes advantage of her. Both the setting and the “romance” could be written in a genuinely horrifying and abusive way instead of whatever the fuck this is

[@karinmaria6455]

Kudos to you, I actually teared up a little towards the end when you talked about Missy... She really does deserve a better book

[@Crowcaller]

She does :( not only is she just actually a good character (definitely reading her quote about wanting a cat and a sunny chair made me very emotional at the time and after), she's actively attacked by the narrative (I didn't quote nonstop but Ella is horrible to her internally and out until the very end- even when she sacrifices herself, both Penn and Ella yell at her because they think she's actually betraying them). She also stings because as I kinda hint at in my closing thoughts, at her most basic form she's an abused girl who wants safety and is abused even more, hated by her friends, and despite being selfless her only reward is death. A death the villain gets to live through. But the abused girl? She doesn't get a happy ending, and it feels almost cruel to anyone who has suffered in any way like her at all! Did you know John, the worst man alive, has a paragraph in this book that humanises him? He's the villain, in jail for life at the end, he brought back SLAVERY, but as Ella notes, he's Penn's dad. So Ella tells us how Penn has said he USED to be better, that he was once a good dad... As if to imply there's a heart of gold in The Man Who Brought Back Slavery. Maybe we're to think he might be healed or something, he once flee kites with Penn! But missy has no chance for any of that. He gets to live.

[@AnkhAnanku]

@@Crowcaller I traded up too. Makes me think this author/series had some real potential. Thank you for the script-doctor: 200% on board for some male-love-interest character assassination!

[@morley364]

#justiceformissy

[@morley364]

ALSO- Pem calling Ella #notlikeotherslaves is a big yikes. The author even KNOWS that's not romantic, but just keeps going anyway. Pem is trash and should not have been given priority over ESCAPING SLAVERY.

[@magickconchshell]

For real I do not get emotionally invested in characters easily, but why did the writer hate Missy so much? It’s almost like she’s being punished for being forced into sex work?? I don’t get it but I hate it and am overall disgusted by this series lol. I almost didn’t watch this video cause of the ick, but you did a great job discussing this really gross and depressing series.

[@westvirginiascoolestcanadian]

abuse victims often become immediately attached to people who preform bare-minimum acts of human decency, so ironically and i’m almost certain unintentionally, missy falling in love with that random dude is actually pretty accurate.

[@Crowcaller]

Yeah, and Ella/penn again is sort of understandable in the same way. Except of course ya fiction means their relationship is fate and true love and there's no other factor a girl never treated as a human might fall in love with the first person to treat her as a person

[@ohnoimscared3703]

I have nothing against Ella being naive compared to Missy that's totally make sense, but honestly, her lack of sympathy doesn't cut it really. Missy was trying to hide her jobs but didn't Ella saw her crying? Won't her first concern being like is Missy okay?? What??? I'm at the point of finishing the second book review, hopefully I don't have to violently silent-scream into my pillow with how the stort progresses

[@Crowcaller]

I assume you did in fact do that by the end

[@toadfairy]

The Missy part made me cry, in my headcanon she survives, somehow protected by the cage and gets her happy ending, while the mc dies, because she made this choice of taking the villain down with her. Edit, because I wrote her name like Missie.

[@Crowcaller]

Please, the more you invoke the human pet guy, the more likely he is to find me.... Please......... Be careful.......... EDIT: he found it. I warned you guys :/ Ps: the author has one other book. It's a YA dystopia about mandatory pregnancy. Once you reach my segment post book two on infant morality... You'll start to realise the true horror of that :)

[@orangejuice782]

okay that ps makes me think that the cybersmith really could be behind all this, and the next book will be about.... [looks at why he was banned from twitter most recently] trans women "paying back" for hrt with. breast milk.

[@Crowcaller]

@@orangejuice782 i know but also it's a woman from salt lake city which is equally unsettling

[@msp654]

Was about to comment about c********h lmao??

[@seafoamsiren]

lol clicked on this vid thinking of human pet guy good to know there are more people just as terrifying

[@Drew_Hurst]

You have a talent! I'd love to see You review some works by self-realized creators, to benefit the hearts, minds and Spirits of Your audience, at the same time as You analyze Their work. If not realized there must be some modern, positively-influential creators at least, out there, that you have come across, that you could introduce to your audience. Be blessed All the best!

[@VirgoVeg]

it really is just a crime that despite how stupid ella is, shes rewarded for it every single time. missys biggest mistake was trusting that girl to do the bare minimum

[@mori8330]

i never thought something could rival Revealing Eden for the title of The Worst Premise for a YA Romance Novel, but goddamn someone did it. I audibly said 'NO' when i heard she's supposed to look like a CHILD and my face for the rest of the video was pretty much this 😟

[@Crowcaller]

Is that an unus annus icon I see... Fyi literally a foot above my head filming this is our giant unus annus flag hanging in the window

[@mori8330]

@@Crowcaller Memento Mori!

[@Crowcaller]

@@mori8330 the clock is always ticking 💀

[@insertcheesypunhere]

i had to google "revealing eden" to double check my suspicions about which book you're talking about and...yeah. i can see where you're coming from. though, at least these books didn't compare Black people to rocks you burn?

[@Duhgel]

FELT

[@DMurphysLore]

When I started watching this, the Human Pet Guy physically manifested in my home, emerging out of a mysterious fog.

[@black-moon01]

My sister read the other series about the mandatory pregnancy and I remember she was so horrified at the way it was approached that she gave up half the second book lmao. Saving the vid for later

[@Crowcaller]

I think that's probably a different ya book about mandatory pregnancy because there's more than one :(( this one is stand alone, called Deliver Me. There's a duology called Bumped on the same idea

[@icecreamsamwich]

I remember reading the Giver in middle school and how people whose jobs are to provide babies are expected to get pregnant at _TWELVE_ in that universe. I don't think the other classmates really understood how fucked up it was...and Im not entirely sure if it was meant to be a BAD thing either?!?!?!?!

[@leannewho664]

@@Crowcaller i hate to mention it twice on your videos but Fate does it at one point too because Fate/Grand Order was a mistake. It's its THIRD dystopia chapter. And somehow NOT THE WORST. (from what i've heard. i haven't played the game but nobody talks about the forced pregnancy chapter and everyone talks about the Fucking Agartha Chapter)

[@bookfan1239]

@@icecreamsamwich God I remember thinking it would be nice to have that job. It was portrayed as so easy and chill, and your only job was to take care of yourself. I completely forgot that they would have had to get pregnant at 12… I’m not sure if it was clarified whether sex was involved… yikes

[@abs-urdity]

@@bookfan1239 the fun thing is that the later books in the series show why this was actually a horrible thing. The fourth (and final) book is from the perspective of one of the birth mothers escaping the society and thn growing and healing and trying to find her child. (haven't read it in a while, so I'm fuzzy on details)

[@kaialexander6806]

A small improvement for this book could just be Ella choosing her own name. Rejecting the name given to her by the guy who legally owned her and making a choice for herself.

[@jesscork5500]

God the quick change to the dark outfit after you said Missy died had me ROLLING

[@Crowcaller]

Thank youre you're the first person to note this and I also thought it was funny

[@lunammoon8503]

i want to see what the congressional hearings about human pet legalization were like. i want to see what twitter was like. what was trending. what were the hashtags. did people get canceled over supporting them? I am FAR more curious about whatever the fuck is going in the background of society than the story itself.

[@Alice-si8uz]

Oh those are really interesting questions! It just takes place in standard 2014 afterall hmm

[@dodojesus4529]

Going for a larger scale sci fi setting here, maybe a large outpost isolated and ruled by quasi noble elites would be a bit more "functional"

[@staydetermined6717]

Honestly… it feels like Twitter would of caused a rebellion down the line or started the gas leak for the fire

[@Stairdweller]

Ooohhhkkay I just started listening to this but as a 4'10" person I am *instantly* uncomfortable.

[@Crowcaller]

Yeah, the weird "exactly five foot tall" thing is strange because. Well, adult humans are obviously that height and lower. Like completely normally and naturally. They're petite but also taller than a 12 year old yet also mistaken for them. It's like the author thought making them too tiny was.... Wrong?, But also still triple'd down on characters telling us they look childlike

[@pugsondrugs5480]

Dude I WISH I’d been exactly five feet tall when I was 12. Took me like 8 years to crawl up that last 1/4 inch.

[@Nebulousart]

the author is a mormon, and things like this are super important to literary analyses like this because as you said in your book two section, her anti-abortion stance is so plainly visible it’s horrendous

[@alchemy3368]

I totally agree. Having an idea of who the author is can tell you how charitable to be with the content.

[@tishabloom1166]

To think, in a better book Penn’s name could’ve been indicative of his character symbolizing his view of Ella as “not like other pets,” inherently still oppressing her and representing just another form of the cage (or pen) that the system keeps her in

[@KarlAndArma4ever]

Like you (and others in the comments) have mentioned, there are all kinds of horrific implications that are glanced over at best and completely ignored at worst. For example, the statement "Pets were simply trained very well to act human" reminds me of this deleted blog written by a father of an adopted child he deemed a psychopath. I could rant on and on about it, but the core element is this - most people don't know how to recognize trauma and neglect in people raised in such conditions, so these Pets not quite knowing how to "act human" would be seen as a result of scientific design rather than trauma/neglect at the "kennels". There's more that jumped out at me, but this is one that really stuck with me throughout most of your video.

[@fantage20012]

God I hate that I know what blog you're talking about. I really hope it was all an elaborate troll.

[@KarlAndArma4ever]

@@fantage20012 I'm hoping it was a creative writing project/exercise myself.

[@creed8712]

I mean is that still not a science? Instead of genetics it’s more like psychology

[@azure-mist]

That ballad for Missy really pulled at my heartstrings. Oh, the pain that we feel for characters stuck in a horrible piece of media who we know deserve better…

[@DogBat]

She’s in a better place now

[@fateschampion6417]

I am so glad you made this video. This book has literally haunted me since I read it in 2014 as the target audience and every time I brought it up, no one had ever heard of it. I was literally starting to think I had stumbled across a niche indie book or a weird fan fiction in my youth and now I feel my near decade of anger is justified. I only ever read the first book, because even as a starry eyed teenage I knew this book was bad and I was mad at it. You articulate my feelings so well honestly couldn’t have said it better myself. I feel like the entire point of the book flew over the author’s head while writing it. This book should have been a dissection on when a being is considered a human. At what point does a “human pet” who by the books standard is not human, but looks, acts, bleeds like a human, stops being human. It should have been about how losing that humanity paved the way for legislation that allowed people to own people. It should have been about how screwed up it is to other someone from parts of themselves “you’re not like other pets” to justify your own feelings. How screwed up it is that protected classes rely on oppressors to not be entirely screwed over. At worst, it should have been the worlds shallowest allegory for slavery-Underground Railroad and all!- and yet here we are. It barely works as a prop for a piss poor romance which was even bad by YA love triangle standards. I think what’s followed me for nearly a decade now about this book is how good it could have been. It could have been thought provoking and insightful and cause people to examine our own history and see how we got here and how easy it is to lose a mile when you don’t think about that inch. This should have been a dystopian horror. It should have been about the rights of personhood and instead it was a dumb, poorly written and boring love story, and even that feels generous. But mostly it feels so cathartic to see another person talking about this book because I feel like this one does not get railed on enough compared to other dystopians of this caliber. So thank you, truly.

[@Crowcaller]

Yeah!!!!!!! YEP! YES! you nailed it. I never saw this in the wild, I think I ran into like two years ago browsing goodreads- I think after I read fever. It definitely stuck in my mind. It seemed like at a glance it had a lot of negative reviews, but mostly those kind of... Overly sarcastic Goodreads reviews that just were going "this is so dumb and pets are dumb ew" or so rather than point out the insane offensive material. Or thinking also about like.... Again as you say as I say it isn't actually a bad concept, somewhere in there. I didn't decide to cover the writing alone but it isn't even the worse thing I've read prose or pacing wise (everything else falls down so hard though). But it's critically flawed in a "how did no one notice this and let it get published" way. Like book three came out 2018 hello

[@fateschampion6417]

Honestly, not being bad enough is probably what saved this series from more critique because you’re right, it’s not the worst YA out there by far. Just writing wise, it was mostly “eh”, fairly average with some less good parts. I actually remember liking the Canada border chase scene right at the end, though I’m not sure if that would still hold up. Overall, I think it was a very formulated dystopian that came out along with a bunch of other highly formulated dystopian novels during that big serge which is honestly a shame. I feel like that genre, especially for teens, has so much potential to have really unique and thoughtful ideas that young readers can get behind, but it’s just weighed down by so much middling junk that it’s hard to find authors that are genuinely trying to make a point, even if less than perfectly, among the people who were cashing in on the “you are one thing” type of books that fill the genre.

[@thenagito]

I think they should have made Missy the love interest. Much cooler dynamics, a more interesting and meaningful tension in Book 2, som lesbian rep for the fun of it, a much stronger message by the end, AND the love interest isn't some bland two-faced son of a slave owner. I wouldn't even mind the Penn romance in the first book, it honestly would have made a much more interesting conflict in the second book as Ella realizes her feelings for Missy and Penn feels betrayed and antagonized over them. Am I analyzing this bad book way too hard? Probably.

[@AidenFeltkamp]

I’ve found that the gay/bi love interest is usually the more interesting one. This definitely would have been really interesting!

[@PocketDeerBoy]

Honestly i think it’d be ok and really really interesting for a protagonist like this, who had her entire life been considered less than human, immediately fall in love with the first other person who treats her with a shred of respect. Even if the respect is superficial, if it’s not real, and under the surface it becomes immediately clear that this guy still considers her a pet. It could lead to some really interesting metaphors about how people from abusive situations can easily end up trapped in relationships that just end up mimicking that abuse, and cope with it for a very long time because it’s simply the closest they feel they would get to feeling respected. This story generally could lend itself to interesting commentary about how young girls tend to be fetishized and preyed upon by older men - how this problem is systemic, how men tend to dehumanize the young girls they “fall in love with”(abuse). I’m only halfway through the video, but honestly I’m really interested in the premise. I’m already seeing how it can turn bad quickly (this really should’ve stayed far away from a race allegory oh my god) but the scene early in book two achieving her freedom but still craving the love of this guy who doesn’t really see her as human is interesting and could still very well fall into this metaphor for abuse. It still feels like this girl is acting somewhat rationally with the limited worldview she has, I can understand her wanting the comfort of familiarity and seeing human rights as somewhat of an abstract concept. It’s iffy, weird, and probably not where the author is going, but I still find it interesting.

[@Alice-si8uz]

Yeah its defiantly an interesting idea, I also personally like that since she's younger then missy and hasn't experienced the same kind/level of abuse that she just doesn't get just how bad things could be. Its kind of realistic as just like Missy said she's nieve and doesn't understand the reality of the situation. It's so creepy and troubling though that they look like 10-12 year old girls even though they are said to be 16... it means anyone attracted to them is either into children or since they are just humans maybe they really are younger then they are said to be. The messed up thing then is maybe they are children which I dont really want to think too hard about. Even if they are fully grown and the age they are said to be they are still the size of a child which creates issues for intimacy... Ugh

[@ginncide]

microdosing on terrible books by watching this video, great job once again

[@Crowcaller]

Be strong. Be careful. Don't overdose on bad books, it can have lasting health effects

[@ginncide]

@@Crowcaller if you or a loved one has experienced a bad book overdose, you may be entitled to financial compensation

[@XouMuse]

I'm so genuinely upset for Missy. Even for a series of books I haven't read, I KNOW she deserved better than this.

[@karinmaria6455]

Glad you decided to make more videos! Your Lightlark dissection was a blast

[@Crowcaller]

It took way longer than I wanted but I decided pretty early on there was a lot of support and since I write text reviews, it wasn't too much extra work to then record video/audio versions

[@jackalsblood8403]

As someone who was raised LDS (Mormon) I'm seeing a lot of what you brought up in the core values of the church. The concept of freedom and slavery: where everyone is and should be free (accentuating free will heavily) but only if you live within the structure that is given by the rules of society and if you're a cetera kind of person. The accentuation of martyrdom as good and right and important is another one

[@Crowcaller]

It's odd how Missy isn't actually a martyr despite... Really being a martyr in how she suffers and dies. It'd fit what you're saying a lot

[@rockhistoria2537]

@@Crowcaller she doesn't have that sweet main character/love interest privilege :/

[@ribbonquest]

For 75% of the video I misheard Pen's name as Pet. Pet the Pet Owner. It was very confusing. But with a YA protagonist named Ella who isn't a Cinderella retelling, another name sin isn't unexpected.

[@wygolvillage2637]

Aw man the more I watch of this the more I realize just how good Revolutionary Girl Utena was at handling similar themes (specifically this dynamic of ownership/engagement and how even if you're outwardly benevolent towards the person you own, the power dynamic does not go away like magic for the sake of wholesome romance). RGU is a great anime btw the whole thing is on youtube (just make sure you're fine with watching something that directly explores abuse, grooming and incest- it's not romanticized at all, but it can still be very upsetting if you're not ready for it)

[@pinkfakecheez]

Genuinely!!! It's like going from a three course meal to a turd on a plate

[@leoa9474]

Missy's fantasy about the life with the cat is... Really well written and painful, surprisingly

[@-satanicpanic-]

I think one of the saddest parts about this story is Missy's lack of agency, not even just within the story but in the narrative.

[@katsala918]

…I didn’t even consider this before, but why is Ruby cooing over Ella’s tiny size like she surprised by it? They *had* another pet. She knows what size they are. Guess the author just wanted to point out how ~special~ Ella is.

[@alexisventura7191]

Is it ever said how long ago they had the other Pet? Could be she was too young to remember or to notice

[@rosesanderson4625]

This is the weirdest version of twisting very adult tropes into a YA novel I've heard of. It's like someone heard of a fetish in a pop culture reference, completely misunderstood it, and brought every single personal opinion in for good measure. Plus it doesn't really make sense in universe. Good business is good business and the way they're running things doesn't add up at all. Professional bad guys who don't act professionally are a personal pet peeve. Also, it is beyond creepy that they look like children. I like dark romance, so there are things that I enjoy outside the bounds of traditional romance. Anything that smacks of trying to make being attracted to minors in any way acceptable is not one of those things. That description is very odd as well. The long neck and rose petal lips has me imagining something out of the Queen of Hearts court in Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland.

[@garbagegremlins4707]

Give me monster romance over this shit any day

[@Carolina57685]

Ouch. I loved Missy the moment you started describing her and by the end of the video I was holding back tears (doing a terrible job at it tbh). She clearly deserved so so much better and it's just...heartbreaking. I came here expecting to shake my head in disbelief just like with your first vid , but this author's poor choices broke my heart! Great video btw! Looking forward to more stuff from you, video or written #TeamMissy

[@morley364]

#justiceformissy When Ella called her selfish because she didn't want to return to slavery (and sex work) to help Ella reunite with her slave-owner boyfriend, I gave up any hope of the plot turning out even semi-tolerable.

[@VioletSadi]

I studied the distinctions between YA dystopian works and adult dystopian works for my phd. When I have more time I'll comment further but I really like and appreciate your research here

[@Crowcaller]

Ooo, cool. I didn't do much research, I'm quite a layman trying to sound layman- it's just my own knowledge and then the basic definition on Wikipedia. It's a subject that interests me too and it's cool to remember you can do masters and PhD on stuff like that.

[@SHEESHAW100]

Putting a comment here in case you explain the difference further

[@rokinjaguar]

Same

[@perfusion7104]

Doing as one of the other commenters if you write it ^^

[@VioletSadi]

​@@Crowcaller Sorry for the delay, things have been exhausting tbh. It is easiest to understand YA fiction as consisting of “a nexus of other genres, including not only those more structurally-defined like science fiction or mystery but also the age-based genre categories of children’s and young adult literatures” (Cadden, 2011, p. 303). If genre is a set of expectations, this nexus is where the sets of differing genres and subgenres meet, creating both a more solid understanding of how a book will be shaped and framed, and a hierarchy of which is the most defining of these sets. These additional categories “bend to the ideological and structural expectations established by the first” (Cadden, 2011, p. 303). If YA is treated solely as an age category, it becomes almost a waiting period, not ready for ‘adulthood’ but too old for ‘childhood’ and ‘innocence’. Though it contains subgenres similar to adult subgenres - such as dystopian fiction, romances, thrillers - it nonetheless maintains throughout those subgenres a set of tropes unique to itself. There is a voice in YA fiction that is worth hearing, worth valuing for its own merits, and its inconsistencies with Adult Literature of the same genre at times warrants a critical reception that is necessary as a skill for teenagers, and indeed anyone, to discover and rediscover. Dystopian literature and its generic staples, as well as those of YA fiction, shaped that moment and continues to influence YA fiction written now. There are nonetheless generic differences between YA dystopian literature and dystopian literature intended for adults, and the works in each category have as much in common with non-dystopian works written and intended for their respective age categories as they do with each other. As younger readers, Young Adults are absorbing tropes often for the first time, something that is sometimes leveraged as a criticism of YA fiction as a whole: it “isn’t subtle” (Miller, n.p. 2012). Subtlety, or “surprising” the reader, however, is not the aim, as again this is possibly the first time the young adult reader between 12-20 has picked up a work of a given genre. This combines well with the often understood idea that these books should teach something, as established, anticipated tropes act as a way to ensure “readers find what they like, which is no small consideration if the goal is to encourage lifelong reading for pleasure as well as information” (Cadden, 2011, p. 303). YA genre fiction sets up expectations, lays down Berlant’s promises and expectations of genre, and allows readers to explore what they like, facilitated by their short, easily read, but thought-provoking prose. As they read, “readers use their experiences of generic conventions to set expectations for their reading, which is particularly important for people new to tracking longer narratives, a process which may include attending to multiple plot strands, keeping track of lots of characters, and positioning themselves with respect to various types of narrators and points of view” (Cadden, 2011, p. 302-303). One of the defining traits of YA fiction is its dialogic voice, which works to open up discussion, and encourage different modes of reception. YA fiction “requires a paradigm of mutual and multilayered imbrication to understand the construction of its subjects” (Coats, 2011, p. 316). This allows for fewer plot threads to be nonetheless fleshed out, and requires a certain clarity of generic purpose to construct.

[@hawthorne9887]

Tender Is the Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica takes a much better approach at this, although it's focused more on ppl being cattle than pets, the main character is respected in his field of work w the human cattle is gifted one and she is kinda treated like a pet at first but he starts to develop an attraction to her. amazing horror details like the fact that these "people" have been "bred" to be stupid and think like animals and have the inability to speak

[@Crowcaller]

I keep getting recommend this, and probably will read it since it intrigues me. I just hope it isn't like a blatant "this is just like cows irl you should hate farming" sort of thing

[@Alice-si8uz]

@@Crowcaller The MC is honestly one of the best villian characters I've seen, he knows how the world is is wrong and that what hes doing later in the story is illegal even in their messed up world but still plays a important role in keeping it running. He's a real piece of shit in a shitty world. Its a well written book!

[@LilithWolfheart]

Yes that book is fantastic and refuses to sugarcoat or whitewash anything about its premise

[@Chaosqueenngami]

Tender is the Flesh is proof that anthropomorphic animal worlds are probably dystopian worlds. Here are talking animals eating hotdogs and hamburgers…where are they coming from? The only shows I know that addressed this are Beaststars and the one episode of Bojack Horseman.

[@FawnieFox]

I watched this and thought “if Tender is the Flesh was trying to be cute.”

[@onyourleft5648]

Honestly the comment that you made about how it’s sexist to assume male violence made me my day a bit better. Yes I’m a feminist and a lefty but the anger based anti-male sexism in some of the communities I’ve seen often makes me on edge on whether I’m actually in a safe space, or that I’m just in a space where it’s safe for specific groups. Or essentially a small shadow of an echo of the oppression that women and nearly every ethnicity aside from Whitey McMale has faced. Also this review has been very entertaining in a morbid way that a review of YA dystopian is so enthralling and just missing the most basic self awareness, I hope you had just as much fun making it!

[@Crowcaller]

The crazy wild thing is I have a number of male friends and they're just it turns out human and people, and acting like they're not bothered or harmed by ideas like, "all men are creepy and violent" just is silly to me. I remember too clearly the weird Tumblr phase where everyone was like, a radfem who owned a male tears cup, and it just annoyed me. Men are Guys, yknow. Not to sound too crazy woke hip saintly whatever but.... I am pro men...... (Beyond like too the way a lot of anti man rhetoric hurts trans men and men of colour especially. But I've had like one person say I shouldn't say the idea of 'men are innately aggressive scary predators' is sexist and it's a pet peeve of mine. It's so reductive to pretend social systems don't harm men too!

[@MF-R]

1:45:28 Wow, when you just lay it out like that; Missy is tragic a/f. Made even more tragic as it seems the writer didn't even realize how viciously they'd treated their own character. Not to mention like the only admirable character in the entire story.

[@abbey5899]

I don't even know how to properly explain my irritation as a five foot tall woman at how being five feet tall seems to be portrayed by this book. Something weird and creepy about that I can't entirely put my finger on. Thanks for the review, I definitely don't think I could sit through this series myself and I have some deep morbid fascination. I can kinda smell some Utah Tradwife on it from here, and it makes me so wary of the absolute injustice of Missy's ending. (God the ANNOYANCE I felt being a legal lesbian adult in the united states pre-marriage equality, and being presented with craaaaaazy dystopia scenarios that boldly asked the question "what if love was illegal" without actually portraying any positive lgbt characters.) Just to play along, before you reveal it, my guess is the plot of book 3 is that Ella gets pregnant with Penn's baby. .... You know what honestly I was shocked it was at least more interesting than that.

[@lilliandoughty5783]

One of my favorite messed up YA dystopia books is the Starters duology. It is along a similar vein to this series, but old people rent the ability to possess the body of a young person. It's so unimaginably stupid and bonkers, I made all my bookish friends read it back in the day because I needed to share the madness. I do so recommend it if you want to be mildly confused and grossed out.

[@Crowcaller]

I have that on my shelf right now! My flatmate read it as a teen so last Xmas I abducted it to put house

[@morrmurr8005]

I remember reading these books when i was around 13 and really liking them. Ngl when i think about them now these books were pretty dumb. Would love to see a vid on them.

[@joelman1989]

I really want to hate KZbin as a service. There’s certainly many reasons to. But then it’s algorithm brings be gems like this channel. Which seam to be exactly what I need. This commentary. The writing style. The careful contemplation mixed with humor and the approach that feels like “hey, we’re not taking ourselves too seriously here.” The way it all flows. It’s relaxing and comforting in a weird way.

[@onlyinsomniac]

Also - have you ever read the Uglies series? I remember being obsessed with it in high school/college. It does some actually interesting work with a dystopia/corrupted utopia and is weirdly prescient about predicting the growth of social media influencers and the future of plastic surgery/body modifications. Of course, it's from the era of the obligatory love triangle... 😬 The Epic series by Conor Costick was also an interesting look at a future that's a better take on Ready Player One's premise.

[@Crowcaller]

Omg you mentioned epic. I loved epic. I have read and reread a LOT over the years. It's so fun and indeed a good and early idea of "mmo but book". I never finished the trilogy though! Also: eric cindella from epic= Extreme trans character moments. Yeah, I know uglies. Another one I liked as a teen.... Sort of. I think it is one of the best ones out there from memory, but also has a lot of failings. It definitely is more sci fi than most YA Dystopia which is a good thing. The only thing tho that super turned me off was- and it's a vague recollection - the cutters. It was a really unpleasant thing that very much glorified cutting, and at the time a LOT of kids my age were cutting. I had two friends who were, so I found how the cutters were shown as cool and truly alive as repulsive. But I don't recall it clearly.

[@pinktlrb]

Epic??? Oh my god, I loved that book series!! I've been trying to remember the name for ages--it was such a cool concept that it stuck with me for years. Thank you for reminding me!!

[@onlyinsomniac]

@@pinktlrb Heck yeah!! Glad to help you remember. It always made me wish I could experience an MMORPG with the level of immersion and details described in that book.

[@onlyinsomniac]

@@Crowcaller Before I go into a ridiculously long comment, just want to say that I wish you and your channel much success! Love a good discussion on popular (or un-popular) literature, especially YA. ... YES. I always loved how Eric chose to play a female character, basically said "fuck the meta" and made her beautiful and charismatic to actually experience the story. That struck a major chord in my little RPG-obsessed teen self who was really struggling to fit into a binary gender identity. Also - I totally forgot about the cutters being in the Uglies series . Even as a teen, that didn't sit well with me, although I think I interpreted it more as "This group is buying into the false idea that this pain will free them or make them better," but Tally saw that it wasn't the answer. They eventually all become a unique group of Specials still being controlled by the city (ah, YA naming conventions), which I kind of interpreted as reinforcing the idea that the cutters weren't doing something cool or that worked in the long-term. That being said, it's still a pretty crap way for the author to co-opt something that many teens and adults were genuinely suffering with.

[@Crowcaller]

@@onlyinsomniac my recollection of the plot of the series is VERY spotty, I think indeed cutters were in pretties and a bad thing ultimately, but it was still a very prominent thing. My memory too was that tally kept doing it, and either ways it was never really seen as... A mental health thing or connected to the real life idea? It just lingers as very off in my mind even tho I really liked the series at the time. I think now it's probably just be triggering to revisit, which is sad, because I think it definitely Was Something pretty good.

[@chassiebazz92]

The better ending should have been Ellie about to use the bomb before hesitating again, looking at Missys peaceful and tired face accepting her demise and lost future she dreamed of. Always getting close to it but always having to give up on her freedom for Ellie.. Ellie looks at the cage and realises that she has no clue on how to open it... but she will damn well find a way to. She says out loud to Missy 'don't be giving up on that cat yet before whipping out the gun once more and shooting at John. The next time we see Missy we find out that once the cops arrive, one who never likes the idea of human pets helped Missy out, and everyone involved with the killing were taken to be interrogated. The evidence of the blackmail and NDAs signed by the surrogates are reviewed and revieled and the former pets are in custody. Ellie living with her boyfriend and Missy taken in by the Cop that helped release her. She is aggressive with him first, doesn't trust him and he understands and respects her boundaries, gives her the space to be herself where she's free to start a new life. He gives her space to open up to him, at first it's the food he makes she likes, and he teaches her how to cook it. Eventually as a cop and the public is still adjusting to the changes of human pets being illegal but former pets are discriminated and still seen as being below human, he decides to teach her self defence to protect herself. This opens her up to explain the goings on in one of the black markets, where it is and what she experienced. The cop thanks her for her trust and for letting him know, he starts instantly to address the situation. Although Missy is older, this cop taught her how to trust again and how it can be earned, how to know when a person in genuine or fake, she finds hope for the world, on her first year in her new life, the cop comes home with a slip where he has legally adopted her, there's no force to be called a dad from her, bit he decides that an official family connection would allow Missy to feel she will always have a home to come back to. Ellie also comes down to visit, as planned by the cop. She apologises to Ellie explaining that visiting her was stressful as Missy and her sacrifices opened her eyes to how bad the world truly could be. She seen more of that and each time Missy words rang into her head. She apologises for her rude behaviour and hands her some money, how she got it? Maybe she was living a decent life and did it with good honest work... maybe she didn't truly have freedom and had to work like Missy for it due to the ongoing discrimination and attitude of those who still want human pets.. I don't know. That's up for interpretation. This is Missys story.. Ellie says the money is to go towards Missys dream cat and Ellie worked really hard for the amount given. The black market is closed down and the cop, remembering the mention of the guy Missy talked about, approaches him and the two talk. The guy also had no control of his life as it was his dad pulling the strings and making him keep his mouth closed or else. He instead worked behind the scenes trying to either make life more bearabl for the victims or helped them escape. He resonated with Missy and hated the pet system as he too had a life under control and didn't wish this situation for anyone else. He asks about her and if she's okay after finding out the cop was a connection. The boy is taken over to visit Missy and the two catch up and talk about their goals and dreams for their future. They get along really well and meet up consistently. Again, it's up to you whether they get along enough to become partners with similar early lifestyles and goals and outlook in life, or if they're too different in their interests and hobbies and decide to stay friends who support eachothers decisions and life and work together for it.

[@grindergears]

Runs my little fly hands together as I have a new two hours to listen to Thank you crow caller!

[@grindergears]

I watched the whole damn thing mega kudos to you crow caller I would have tapped out pretty much at the opening And This is the reason why dystopian ya died off they didn't have the balls to talk about actual racism and social issues like queer rights This is a series about slavery that is to afraid to talk about slavery yikes Also Missy really should have been the one to survive

[@chameleonfoot]

I love that you start with “not as bad as lightlark tho”. I hope in future videos you continue a running list of every video on which one is the best of the worst.

[@Crowcaller]

There was just something so offensively bad about lightlark, helped by how mainstream it was, that it'll be hard to beat. Most things just will be

[@the_last_ballad]

@@Crowcaller Maybe you could do it as "better than _ , worse than -" and have the stinger be "not as bad as Lightlark though"

[@peacekey1008]

Small thing I have noticed with this type of dystopian books, is that one, they always seem to be centered up north as they’re close to Canada, and two (though I don’t think in this trilogy it was ever mentioned that Mexico was also a haven) No one ever considers going to Mexico. It’s a small thing sure but for some odd reason it always gives me pause. Loved this video btw!

[@naolucillerandom5280]

Someone should make a go to Mexico dystopia. It will probably not be as fancy and sci-fi, and you will be insulted at some point, but you are still welcomed. Unless the dystopia made Mexico sink underwater. Then* you can't go there.

[@Katie-xd1nt]

honestly? its because it has "icky brown people"

[@vylbird8014]

Even in the dystopian future, no-one wants to go to Mexico.

[@muwuriel8231]

They don’t consider Mexico because it’s convenient to have your English-speaking protagonists go to another primarily English-speaking country where the culture isn’t much different from where they came from. Then the author won’t have to actually *gasp* do research.

[@AidenFeltkamp]

I always assumed this was because the authors are usually white and Canada is viewed as a white country while Mexico is not. Aka I always assumed it was racism

[@Bobzora]

Middle Aged Utah Woman really did Something here didn't she...some concepts really aren't meant to be this kind of YA romance affair for sure, lol. also something something human pet guy

[@Crowcaller]

Something something cyber something something Smith etc etc horror, yes

[@hotcocoandart]

I just need to read the title to know The Cybersmith (aka The Human Pet Guy) would love this.

[@Crowcaller]

I'm not strong enough But also he'd... Hate this book Not enough genetic engineering

[@ecksdee8129]

I don’t even read YA/use tiktok/etc etc but I loved your Lightlark review and I’m super excited that you’re continuing to make videos! Listening to you thoroughly dissect and synthesize a whole book’s worth of information while doing my little tasks soothes my ADHD-C raccoon brain.

[@Crowcaller]

I kinda think of my reviews as.... Not for people who actually read these books? I mean if you have, it's probably extra nice to feel validated, but I'm the only book fanatic in my friend group really so I write my reviews from the viewpoint of "let me tell you, an outsider, about what I'm reading". It's why I also do a full spoiler summary- I often will look at a book and know I'll never read it, but am curious about the twists inside, as are friends who'll definitely never read this bad YA I cover

[@petloverspy]

@@Crowcaller I’m very glad you do a full spoiler summary, bc I indeed have no intention to ever read these books but it is interesting to hear them unpacked and bring up the issues they (poorly) cover!

[@creativeone298]

I’m so pumped to see you’re making more videos! Can’t wait to get into the absolute trainwreck that the title makes this series seem like

[@Crowcaller]

It's..... A deep wreck, scout from TF2. Good luck

[@yeetymcneety]

I feel like this series comes so close to IT'S OWN POINT and then misses it, which baffles me

[@Rospandan]

no need to stress about releases, these recaps and analyses were great to listen to : ) thank you!

[@Crowcaller]

Thank you!! I'm taking a breather for a day or two, just had two wisdom teeth pulled, but I will be thinking. Since going on ADD meds I love and can read so much more so it's on my mind. But we'll see what's actually good for this channel. I'll probably run a poll to help me decide for subscribers

[@pinkbunnypeepsyall8251]

I can't help but think about the fact that a Utah mormon-adjacent author killed off the only sex worker... maybe she couldn't see the complexities of Missy beyond that

[@Crowcaller]

I don't think it's that. Missy isn't the only person who has been to the black markets and thus been forced into SW- book two has a number of them, all sympathetic, though none reoccur in book three (because of course not). None of it is portrayed as a moral thing, beyond just how it sucks these sad desperate girls have no other choice but SW after being sold by owners or running away. Missy's death is definitely not a punishment. It's just..... Listless, which makes it worse. I mean, John gets to live!

[@MF-R]

This book has made me make a face like I ate sour farts like 10 times in the first chapter.

[@Crowcaller]

Yeah hey it launches you in there :(( don't read the book but also... I can't stop you.they are very short

[@KristofskiKabuki]

If the pets all bread in a lab and are designed for families, why did they make it so it’s even possible for them to get pregnant with a human? Wouldn’t it make sense to make them all sterile?

[@Crowcaller]

YEAH!

[@liviwaslost]

And why are they only female?

[@JuMiKu]

​@@liviwaslostBecause males are "uncontrollable". 😬 Probably the author not even being sexist against men but women and claiming that women are easily-controlled. Honestly, you'd either create them sexless or castrate them all.

[@okayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy]

Me: the Perfected trilogy is bad and it probably shouldn't have been written. Also me: JUSTICE FOR MISSY!!! 😭😭😭

[@Crowcaller]

A very very very very valid response on both fronts

[@dracocrusher]

Thinking about it, I feel like my biggest problem with Ella based on this is that she really doesn't have a point of view despite just being innocent and sympathetic. The story plays at the idea of her having agency with her finally getting a perspective in feeling trapped by the anti-slavery group, but she just exists as an object to feel pity over, and even that seems like more than you're meant to feel most of the time. Because Ella doesn't understand anything about the world she can't really have opinions about anything, and I never got the impression that her experiences really make her pick up or reject many worldviews either. She only gets challenged by Missy, and even then she doesn't change in any meaningful or interesting ways, she just doubles down on her normal life because it's all she knows. This character is beyond passive, it feels like she just exists to be the perspective for the audience, she feels like a completely empty shell. This doesn't feel like a real character, you could replace her with an actual dog and it wouldn't really change the plot much. All she exists to be is vapid and innocent, but never someone who gets challenged for what she represents... EXCEPT for Missy, in scenes that fail to give Ella character traits and only serve to set up another character. It really does strike a nerve for me as someone who has been writing their own fanfics and stories that they gave their hero this little to work with. Great video, really loved the analysis, and I'm sorry if I'm getting the wrong idea from this alone. But just holy crap, this is just everything I hate about bad female protagonists wrapped into one character! If nothing else, as much as I might second-guess my own work, at least I know I'm way better than making a character this weakly characterized as the center to the story.

[@annabunovsky5628]

This feels like a really weird concept stew of Atwood’s Handmaids, Pearls from Steven Universe, Hellhounds from Helluva Boss, and the parts in Hunger Games after the reaping & before the games where tributes are dolled up & paraded around for the capital to gawk at. There’s something compelling here, but it’s all way too uncomfortable to mesh with YA romance.

[@Crowcaller]

Even in your list of very scattered media it's.... Scattered. Honestly I don't think it's that complex- you can boil down those media to just ideas of servitude and cultural ideas of womanhood, and yeah, that's it. (Mind I do not know what helluva boss entails). This book is very definitely just about the role of girls in society set in a poorly made cash-in dystopia for tween girls. There's something to be said about human pets and there's something to be said about capitalism and exploitation and dehumanisation of girls and objectification..... But this book just ain't it, you know?

[@annabunovsky5628]

Scattered is definitely the word for it. In HB it’s more about commentating on foster care and shady/broken adoption systems by likening them to puppy mills, which this definitely reminded me of. On the whole though this feels mostly like someone said “what if Handmaid’s Tale but PG-13” which… no.

[@OpheliaTerat]

I'm 5'0" and that height really isn't that short, so it felt weird to me how they went on about Ella being little. It kinda creeped me out. Also I feel like the author definitely has a pet play kink. I know it was 2013 and she's a middle age woman from Salt Lake City, but this reads exactly like a pet play fanfic. I mean, 50 Shades was very popular in the bible belt with middle aged women, so obviously there are a lot of middle aged trad women into non-vanilla things. It's also possible to have a kink but not know that it's kink. She also has a short story called "One More Artificial Organ" that had some strange things in it, like her dad having an article in PlayBoy about a unicorn adult toy he made. Thought that was pretty wild lol

[@Crowcaller]

I know there is a not 0 chance but I refuse to live in a world where she wrote this at all inspired by kink. It's just not written in that way, it's so much more bumbling accident while trying to show some moral lesson on freedom And yes! Weird fact indeed, her father invented the artificial heart! He has his own Wikipedia article and everything

[@linabiryukov9851]

i would say it’s more similar to a hybrid fic! except without the animal traits like cat ears. hybrid fic is where there are a lot of would-be dystopian scenarios related to owning a human person, and pet play… is *play*, it’s pretend. and outside of pretend the characters generally consider each other human. or maybe i’ve just been lucky with my fic reading lol

[@mizuno13]

How dare you make me cry over a character? Oh my god, during your video, I really started to like and feel for Missy and being told that she just died in the end when everyone else lived? And your ballad really honed in on her character so the tears just started to fall. I didn't expect that coming just to listen to another video essay about a bad book, but thank you for exceeding my expectation :)

[@fon420]

missy would’ve been a better protagonist than ella, tbh. she had actual drive, goals, character building, etc. she could have a whole arc beating away her nihilism from her traumatic past, being able to build a life for herself - LMAO I WAS WRITING THIS COMMENT AND THEN I HEARD YOU SAY “make missy the main character!”