Latest / The Book-Watchers / 107. ..Daddy Chill!! (You Weren't Meant to be Human)

Transcript

107. ..Daddy Chill!! (You Weren't Meant to be Human) · The Book-Watchers

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Yet it hunds.
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: Like dy chilly chill, dat chill, God day chill the
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: name of the episode date chill.
• 0:37
  Speaker 3: No, it's not day chill.
• 0:41
  Speaker 4: I mean it would kind of fit. He would fit.
• 0:47
  Speaker 3: I mean, oh, Ship, you're right in a weird, fucked up,
• 0:50
  Speaker 3: in a.
• 0:50
  Speaker 4: Weird fucked up way. I mean, we're reviewing a very
• 0:53
  Speaker 4: weird and fucked up book, so might as well just
• 0:55
  Speaker 4: like roll a bit like this and he needed the chill. Hm,
• 1:01
  Speaker 4: Daddy Chill review of Daddy Chill. Our review of You
• 1:06
  Speaker 4: Weren't Meant to Be Human by Andrew Joseph White.
• 1:09
  Speaker 3: Damn daddy Chill.
• 1:12
  Speaker 4: You know what, Like just okay, let's let make that
• 1:17
  Speaker 4: our our thumbnail, like like the introductory just like Daddy
• 1:21
  Speaker 4: Chill Chill.
• 1:27
  Speaker 3: I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna do it.
• 1:30
  Speaker 4: If we get canceled, might as well be getting canceled
• 1:33
  Speaker 4: for something that's funny.
• 1:34
  Speaker 5: I don't think we're gonna get I don't think we
• 1:36
  Speaker 5: get canceled, but liked chill.
• 1:38
  Speaker 3: Go just makes so much sense of the weird fucked
• 1:41
  Speaker 3: up human.
• 1:43
  Speaker 4: Because like when we get to the end, it's just
• 1:45
  Speaker 4: gonna be like, well, he's a daddy.
• 1:46
  Speaker 3: Now he literally is a father daddy.
• 1:51
  Speaker 4: So like dad, chill, chill.
• 1:54
  Speaker 3: Look, I'm the book watchers.
• 2:01
  Speaker 4: We're so fucked right now.
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: I don't know talking about we're gonna have a fun
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: time today.
• 2:12
  Speaker 4: Yeah Hi, I'm your other host Jacob and we're a
• 2:16
  Speaker 4: hot mess right now.
• 2:17
  Speaker 5: Oh god, do you know where it goes? You know
• 2:23
  Speaker 5: where everything's at. I'm not even gonna go over that
• 2:25
  Speaker 5: right now.
• 2:26
  Speaker 4: It's like, okay, people, So before we start, I just
• 2:30
  Speaker 4: want to preference this episode by saying that Devin and
• 2:33
  Speaker 4: I had a very long discussion about the book we're
• 2:36
  Speaker 4: about to review. Because this book is the book we're
• 2:40
  Speaker 4: about to review. Is it's a lot, it's a it's
• 2:44
  Speaker 4: a horror novel, which with strong and intense themes of
• 2:47
  Speaker 4: body horror, sexual assault, self harm, and go.
• 2:53
  Speaker 3: Through the trigger list. Go through the whole trigger list.
• 2:57
  Speaker 4: Oh ship, where's the one I sent you? Like I
• 2:59
  Speaker 4: I I need to I can't remember it off the
• 3:01
  Speaker 4: top of my head.
• 3:03
  Speaker 3: Like read that read that offer batim.
• 3:07
  Speaker 4: Like So last week when we were planning this episode,
• 3:12
  Speaker 4: I finished the book in time, and I told Devin
• 3:16
  Speaker 4: that I wasn't sure if we should even do this
• 3:18
  Speaker 4: book because the topics that we are that this book
• 3:23
  Speaker 4: has are very intense, and towards the end of it,
• 3:28
  Speaker 4: I was left feeling very disturbed, and I mean, hey,
• 3:32
  Speaker 4: it did its job. It's a horror novel. It's meant
• 3:34
  Speaker 4: to be like just like any good horror novel, it's
• 3:37
  Speaker 4: supposed to be, you know, unsettling, all right. It makes
• 3:41
  Speaker 4: you like just really question your existence and like regret
• 3:48
  Speaker 4: certain life decisions. Yeah, and this book definitely made me
• 3:54
  Speaker 4: do that. And I mean it's a hey, props, I
• 3:58
  Speaker 4: want to get props to the owner for that, because
• 4:00
  Speaker 4: it's definitely very well written and uh it it was
• 4:05
  Speaker 4: enjoyable to an extent. But towards the end of it,
• 4:08
  Speaker 4: I was just like, how are we going to talk
• 4:15
  Speaker 4: about this book? Because for starters, the main character is
• 4:18
  Speaker 4: trans and so before I get go, before I get there,
• 4:22
  Speaker 4: this is this, this is the list because we trigger warning,
• 4:27
  Speaker 4: trigger warning, trigger warning, like like Devin edit, like a
• 4:31
  Speaker 4: bunch of trigger warning like signs in front of me,
• 4:33
  Speaker 4: like but like I was talking to him, I was.
• 4:39
  Speaker 4: I was talking to Devin, like, I finished this book
• 4:41
  Speaker 4: and I'm not sure if we should because of how
• 4:43
  Speaker 4: controversial it seems. And we talked it over it's like, yeah,
• 4:46
  Speaker 4: we could still talk about it, but we're just gonna
• 4:48
  Speaker 4: like need to put up as many trigger warnings as possible.
• 4:52
  Speaker 4: And this was and he said, send me a list,
• 4:54
  Speaker 4: and this is what I sent him, verbatim. Self harm, suicide,
• 5:00
  Speaker 4: domestic abuse, body horror, graphic scenes of self mutilation, graphic
• 5:04
  Speaker 4: sexual scenes. So yes, it is smut, but not not
• 5:09
  Speaker 4: the fun kind.
• 5:10
  Speaker 3: Not the fun kind.
• 5:12
  Speaker 4: Sexual abuse, assault, ideal sexual abuse and assault, idelations and uh,
• 5:20
  Speaker 4: there was more I was supposed to think of, but
• 5:21
  Speaker 4: honestly I forgot. And it's that what I've said covers
• 5:27
  Speaker 4: a lot.
• 5:29
  Speaker 3: Of it.
• 5:30
  Speaker 4: There are there are scenes like there are graphic scenes, uh,
• 5:34
  Speaker 4: like an imagery of like of course, like death, you know,
• 5:40
  Speaker 4: violence and all that the typical stuff you've seen in
• 5:42
  Speaker 4: a in a horror novel. The there are like it
• 5:47
  Speaker 4: is technically a creature feature because there is a so
• 5:51
  Speaker 4: this is there's also like scenes of religious horror because
• 5:55
  Speaker 4: the main character, as well as this small community that
• 5:58
  Speaker 4: he is a part of, follow they they worship and
• 6:03
  Speaker 4: they serve this five of like worms and corpse flies
• 6:08
  Speaker 4: and these and these hives are sentient, so these hives
• 6:12
  Speaker 4: offer them like a place in their community and basically
• 6:16
  Speaker 4: an exchange for like transformation, like a chance of a
• 6:20
  Speaker 4: new life, things like that. So these people really devote
• 6:24
  Speaker 4: themselves to serving the hives, protecting them, keeping the secrets,
• 6:29
  Speaker 4: and enforcing their own idelations. Like they keep themselves hidden
• 6:34
  Speaker 4: from the rest of the world. They don't like like nobody.
• 6:37
  Speaker 4: They don't publish, they don't publicize that they are a
• 6:41
  Speaker 4: part of this cult. Basically what it is is a cult.
• 6:47
  Speaker 4: But so they're very secretive and it's very it can
• 6:51
  Speaker 4: be very graphic and disturbing. And yeah, so before we
• 6:55
  Speaker 4: started this episode today, Devin and I were talking about
• 6:58
  Speaker 4: it more it's just like it's just like Dan, this
• 7:02
  Speaker 4: is a lot, it's messy, and I was almost considering
• 7:08
  Speaker 4: not doing it, but I thought, I thought, fuck it.
• 7:11
  Speaker 4: It's a book. It's what we review, and at the
• 7:15
  Speaker 4: end of the day, it is a good book. Props
• 7:18
  Speaker 4: to the author. The author in question is a transautistic author,
• 7:23
  Speaker 4: Andrew Joseph White, and I say I preface that because
• 7:27
  Speaker 4: it is important to the story, because his style of
• 7:30
  Speaker 4: writing is very is very in tune with his identity.
• 7:34
  Speaker 4: So since he is trans and autistic, a lot of
• 7:37
  Speaker 4: the books he's written so far center around a trans
• 7:40
  Speaker 4: and autistic character, right, so there's a lot of representation
• 7:45
  Speaker 4: for the trans community and the autistic community as well.
• 7:48
  Speaker 4: So the book that we're going to be reviewing is
• 7:50
  Speaker 4: actually his newest book came out September ninth of this year,
• 7:53
  Speaker 4: twenty twenty five. It's called You Weren't Meant to Be Human.
• 7:58
  Speaker 4: And this book, at least the edition that I've got,
• 8:01
  Speaker 4: is like over a little over three hundred pages long.
• 8:04
  Speaker 4: It's about three hundred and twenty four pages long. This
• 8:09
  Speaker 4: is three hundred and this three hundred and twenty four
• 8:12
  Speaker 4: page book almost made me in DEVN cancel an episode
• 8:17
  Speaker 4: because we couldn't decide if it would be too controversial
• 8:21
  Speaker 4: or not. Because the thing is like when it comes
• 8:23
  Speaker 4: to talking about these kind of subjects, because these kind
• 8:27
  Speaker 4: of topics, it can be controversial, it can be messy
• 8:30
  Speaker 4: because we're dealing with not only sexual assault and abuse,
• 8:34
  Speaker 4: but we're also dealing with pregnancy and body autonomy. So
• 8:41
  Speaker 4: the main character of this book is a guy named
• 8:46
  Speaker 4: Crane Brain is also a trans man and he is autistic.
• 8:52
  Speaker 4: He joined this community and started serving the Hive because
• 8:55
  Speaker 4: the Hive offered him a chance to transform before Crane
• 9:01
  Speaker 4: joined the community, he had yet to transition. He was
• 9:04
  Speaker 4: still identifying as a woman and his name was Sophie.
• 9:08
  Speaker 4: But the thing is, before, while he was still Sophie,
• 9:11
  Speaker 4: he did not really see that there was any chance
• 9:14
  Speaker 4: for him to ever make these kind of changes. Ever
• 9:18
  Speaker 4: finally at like embrace who he is as a person,
• 9:22
  Speaker 4: like finally come out and transition is come out as
• 9:25
  Speaker 4: trends and transition and make the transition from female to male.
• 9:28
  Speaker 4: And because of this is he had a lot of
• 9:32
  Speaker 4: like mental health issues, a lot of like uh his
• 9:37
  Speaker 4: body like body and gender dysphoria, idealation like intense idealations
• 9:44
  Speaker 4: of self harm and body mutilations. Uh. Like it got
• 9:48
  Speaker 4: to the point where like he couldn't Crane while he
• 9:51
  Speaker 4: was still uh, while he was still a woman, he
• 9:53
  Speaker 4: could not uh come to terms with his identity, uh
• 9:59
  Speaker 4: with his identity at the time, and actually had idealations
• 10:03
  Speaker 4: of like setting himself on fire just to disfigure at
• 10:07
  Speaker 4: the very least, to disfigure himself enough to where he
• 10:09
  Speaker 4: wouldn't look like Sophie and he would look more like
• 10:12
  Speaker 4: who he actually is.
• 10:13
  Speaker 6: And that is crying.
• 10:15
  Speaker 4: But the thing is is that the hive it is
• 10:17
  Speaker 4: an intelligent mass of these grotesque looking worms and corpse flies,
• 10:23
  Speaker 4: and they somehow have the ability to look into like
• 10:28
  Speaker 4: who you are as a person. They can see, they
• 10:31
  Speaker 4: see you, they see all of like your like your desires.
• 10:37
  Speaker 4: And they what they had done was they prayed on
• 10:39
  Speaker 4: Crane's desires, and they offered him a chance to change,
• 10:44
  Speaker 4: to make these changes, to transform, to never speak again.
• 10:48
  Speaker 4: And so throughout the book Crane has and throughout this
• 10:51
  Speaker 4: entire book, Crane has only ever said one word, and
• 10:54
  Speaker 4: that's almost that's near the very end. And but throughout
• 10:58
  Speaker 4: the book he does not speak. And it's not because
• 11:01
  Speaker 4: he's nonverbal, but it's it's a it's a choice. He
• 11:05
  Speaker 4: chooses not to speak because he felt that he wasn't
• 11:08
  Speaker 4: able to. Actually, he didn't ever feel like he would
• 11:11
  Speaker 4: ever be heard, like he would speak, and he would
• 11:15
  Speaker 4: struggle with trying to find the right words to say.
• 11:18
  Speaker 4: But no matter what, he never felt like even if
• 11:21
  Speaker 4: he could say something, nobody would listen. So he wanted
• 11:24
  Speaker 4: to stop speaking because it was because once it's like,
• 11:28
  Speaker 4: what silence is louder, if that makes sense, like his silence,
• 11:32
  Speaker 4: his silence is somehow more audible, like people listen to
• 11:39
  Speaker 4: him when he's just silent, when he doesn't say anything. Yeah,
• 11:43
  Speaker 4: and so. But at the start of this book, Crane
• 11:46
  Speaker 4: has already been part of this community for two years.
• 11:48
  Speaker 4: He's two years into his transition, so he's more he's
• 11:51
  Speaker 4: almost like he's pretty much completely transitioned. He's on uh,
• 11:55
  Speaker 4: he's taking hormones and so he's on assist astone. So
• 12:00
  Speaker 4: physically wise, he's presenting almost completely one male. I say almost,
• 12:07
  Speaker 4: because there are still some small tails. Like he never
• 12:10
  Speaker 4: got top surgery, so he still has to wear like
• 12:13
  Speaker 4: he still has to wear a sports bra or something
• 12:15
  Speaker 4: to like flattenous chests more. And he still has to
• 12:19
  Speaker 4: make more of an effort to present himself as a man,
• 12:22
  Speaker 4: and of course regularly take his testosterone. The high he
• 12:27
  Speaker 4: joins that he joins and becomes a part of is
• 12:30
  Speaker 4: located in a small community of McDowell County. They don't
• 12:34
  Speaker 4: actually say the name of the town he's in. They
• 12:36
  Speaker 4: just like, since this does take place in Appalachia, so
• 12:40
  Speaker 4: there's a lot, so it's Appalachian horror, it's not. They're
• 12:44
  Speaker 4: in like a very very small, like like very small community.
• 12:50
  Speaker 6: Uh.
• 12:51
  Speaker 4: There's and the cult that he's a part of There
• 12:53
  Speaker 4: are different cells that are located all throughout the Appalachian mountains,
• 12:58
  Speaker 4: so there are different So he's a part of one
• 13:01
  Speaker 4: cell and they're and they are aware of other cells
• 13:04
  Speaker 4: across the across the mountain range, right, and Uh, primarily
• 13:10
  Speaker 4: the like they're they don't like worship worship these worms
• 13:15
  Speaker 4: like the way like you would imagine like a cult
• 13:17
  Speaker 4: wood Like, they don't hold rituals or prey to the
• 13:21
  Speaker 4: worms or anything like that. They the worms basically give
• 13:25
  Speaker 4: them purpose, tells them like gives them daily tasks. Uh.
• 13:29
  Speaker 4: Primarily their goal is to keep the worms hidden and
• 13:33
  Speaker 4: you know, of course preserve the hives. Uh like secrets,
• 13:38
  Speaker 4: the secrecy make sure nothing nobody in like the public
• 13:43
  Speaker 4: becomes aware of them. Uh, it's not. The origin of
• 13:47
  Speaker 4: the of the hive is very mysterious, but it's hints
• 13:50
  Speaker 4: that they are alien of some kind, like they're an
• 13:53
  Speaker 4: alien organism of some kind. But they never actually the
• 13:57
  Speaker 4: story never actually goes deep into like the origin of
• 14:01
  Speaker 4: the hive or like what they are. Really does kind
• 14:06
  Speaker 4: of brush on it a little bit, but it's more
• 14:08
  Speaker 4: just it's more focused on Crane as a character. So
• 14:13
  Speaker 4: like any like any good horror novel. This book starts
• 14:16
  Speaker 4: off with a really rough sex scene, like Crane is
• 14:21
  Speaker 4: in a is in a sort of like is in
• 14:24
  Speaker 4: a very toxic relationship with a with another community member
• 14:29
  Speaker 4: guy named Levi. This dude is a former marine turned
• 14:33
  Speaker 4: hunter for the Hive. So his role in there in
• 14:36
  Speaker 4: their cult is to like hunt for any like people
• 14:40
  Speaker 4: that have pissed off the hive or if the hive
• 14:42
  Speaker 4: is hungry, like he goes out and gets it and
• 14:45
  Speaker 4: gets the food and my food fresh corpses, and if
• 14:50
  Speaker 4: anybody from any of the surrounding hives or even their
• 14:52
  Speaker 4: own hive tries to defect and run away, it's his
• 14:56
  Speaker 4: job to track them down and kill them or just
• 15:01
  Speaker 4: bring him back to the hive, and the Hive deals
• 15:03
  Speaker 4: with them. So when the book starts, it is start
• 15:08
  Speaker 4: with with an pretty intense and borderline uncomfortable sex scene,
• 15:14
  Speaker 4: so like, you know, they're having sex, but it seems
• 15:17
  Speaker 4: very non consensual, but the thing is is that Crane
• 15:22
  Speaker 4: likes it that way, so he preferred. So for Crane,
• 15:28
  Speaker 4: he can only really like, he only really enjoys sex
• 15:30
  Speaker 4: if it's borderline uncons unconsensual and like if Basically, Levi
• 15:37
  Speaker 4: forces himself and just takes Crane, that takes what he
• 15:42
  Speaker 4: wants from Crane. So yeah, pretty uncomfortable. But uh, they
• 15:49
  Speaker 4: they're a scene of intimacy which is happening in the
• 15:52
  Speaker 4: manager's office of their of the gas station they work at,
• 15:55
  Speaker 4: which is also the hiding place of the hive. Uh
• 15:58
  Speaker 4: it's interrupted when a woman named Jess appears on their doorstep.
• 16:03
  Speaker 4: So that's pretty much how new members of their hive
• 16:09
  Speaker 4: basically gets presented is the hive will approach them on
• 16:15
  Speaker 4: its own and make them offers like I could get
• 16:18
  Speaker 4: you out of this bad situation, change your life, give
• 16:20
  Speaker 4: you a new purpose, like really entices them into joining
• 16:23
  Speaker 4: the hives community, and then that person has to make
• 16:28
  Speaker 4: its way, has to make their way to the hive,
• 16:31
  Speaker 4: to the hive itself. So that's what just did. Brain
• 16:35
  Speaker 4: goes out, meets her and brings her in, gets her
• 16:38
  Speaker 4: cleaned up because she's this girl's pretty roughed up. Turns
• 16:41
  Speaker 4: out she was in a very bad and toxic relationship
• 16:44
  Speaker 4: as well a very abusive relationship, although in her case
• 16:48
  Speaker 4: it's completely not like completely not voluntary, And that's pretty
• 16:55
  Speaker 4: much why she joined the hive is because the hive
• 16:57
  Speaker 4: offered her a chance to get out of her her
• 17:01
  Speaker 4: abusive relationship and the chance to change life around and
• 17:04
  Speaker 4: get a new purpose. Crane Eventually, Crane later on helps
• 17:09
  Speaker 4: her with dealing with her ex boyfriend. The thing is
• 17:14
  Speaker 4: about thinking about Jess is that Jess kind of takes
• 17:17
  Speaker 4: step takes matters into her own hands after Crane gets
• 17:22
  Speaker 4: just situated with their I guess you could call her
• 17:26
  Speaker 4: their den mother. So like the there is a woman
• 17:30
  Speaker 4: named Tammy. Tammy is kind of like the head of
• 17:33
  Speaker 4: their little their local community with the hive, and so
• 17:37
  Speaker 4: she's the one that typically deals with the hive directly,
• 17:41
  Speaker 4: and she's the one that also will give like, you know, directions,
• 17:46
  Speaker 4: and like she's the one who manages the gas station
• 17:50
  Speaker 4: that the hive is hiding in, and like she's pretty
• 17:54
  Speaker 4: much like the point of reference, like the de facto leader.
• 17:57
  Speaker 4: And so Crane gets just set up with Cammy to
• 18:01
  Speaker 4: sit un sold Tammy's until Jessice is enough, like well
• 18:04
  Speaker 4: enough to get back on her feet. But the thing is,
• 18:08
  Speaker 4: the Hive entices Jess to take matters into her own
• 18:13
  Speaker 4: hands and deal with her ex boyfriend. And the way
• 18:16
  Speaker 4: she does that is by going to him and beating
• 18:19
  Speaker 4: the shit out of him with that with a hammer.
• 18:25
  Speaker 4: I think I answer is that she's very She was
• 18:27
  Speaker 4: very messy, and she ends up calling Crane to come
• 18:30
  Speaker 4: help her. When Crane shows up, her boyfriend is still alive.
• 18:36
  Speaker 4: It's just that he's just really badly like he has
• 18:38
  Speaker 4: a really bad like his head was pretty much caved in.
• 18:41
  Speaker 4: And Crane's pissed that she did this without any backup.
• 18:46
  Speaker 4: So Crane takes matters into his own hands, ends up
• 18:49
  Speaker 4: finishing off her boyfriend, and they wrap the body up
• 18:53
  Speaker 4: and take it back to the gas station and Crane
• 18:57
  Speaker 4: basically forces Jess to pull to drag the body. Basically
• 19:02
  Speaker 4: load and unload the body and drag it into the
• 19:04
  Speaker 4: gas station to the hidden room that the hive is
• 19:07
  Speaker 4: located in. So the hive is literally in the gas station,
• 19:11
  Speaker 4: all right. It's in a back room that's locked at
• 19:15
  Speaker 4: it's like inside the manager's office, And anytime they want
• 19:18
  Speaker 4: to interact with the hive, or if they're bringing the
• 19:20
  Speaker 4: hive fresh like fresh meat, they have to go take
• 19:24
  Speaker 4: the body, go into the manager's office and dump it
• 19:27
  Speaker 4: into the hive's room. And it's very unsettled. The hive
• 19:31
  Speaker 4: itself is very unsettling because these aren't like earthworms. These
• 19:34
  Speaker 4: are like these strange kind of like tube worms. It's
• 19:38
  Speaker 4: later the the way that they're described later on the
• 19:41
  Speaker 4: book is something like a bobbit worm. Yeah, you know
• 19:47
  Speaker 4: those ocean worms that have those like claws. Yeah, those pillars,
• 19:53
  Speaker 4: ugly little things. Ugh. No, So the thing about Craney,
• 19:59
  Speaker 4: the thing is is I Crane does force her to
• 20:01
  Speaker 4: pull the body into the office and and give and
• 20:06
  Speaker 4: throw the body to the hive. The hive of course
• 20:08
  Speaker 4: thanks them and proceeds to start consuming the body. And
• 20:15
  Speaker 4: uh So, for the most part, for the first like
• 20:19
  Speaker 4: few chapters of the book, it's just Crane. Uh is
• 20:22
  Speaker 4: Crane navigating his life. You know, Crane has come a lot,
• 20:26
  Speaker 4: a long way in his transition, and you know, he
• 20:30
  Speaker 4: feels like in the beginning, he definitely has a lot
• 20:33
  Speaker 4: of devotion towards the worms because they gave him like
• 20:36
  Speaker 4: a purpose, They gave him the validation he needed to
• 20:40
  Speaker 4: be able to transition, and basically, you know, give give him,
• 20:47
  Speaker 4: gave him everything he wanted, a chance to change and
• 20:49
  Speaker 4: a chance to just never speak again. So Crane later
• 20:55
  Speaker 4: learns that he is pregnant. So he learns this because
• 21:02
  Speaker 4: he begins experiencing intense morning sickness and the problem the
• 21:10
  Speaker 4: unfortunately for Crane, the unfortunate thing for Crane is is
• 21:14
  Speaker 4: that he doesn't realize that he's already three months pregnant.
• 21:20
  Speaker 4: Uh literally, that is the first chapter one, That is
• 21:24
  Speaker 4: literally the first thing that is written here.
• 21:29
  Speaker 3: Damn literally chapter one. He's pregnant, yep.
• 21:32
  Speaker 4: Chapter one. Crane doesn't know this yet, but he's been
• 21:34
  Speaker 4: pregnant for almost three months already. So now, I'm not
• 21:41
  Speaker 4: very familiar with like abortion like processes of it, but
• 21:46
  Speaker 4: I do know that there is a certain like stat
• 21:48
  Speaker 4: like there's a certain time period that that you need
• 21:52
  Speaker 4: to be that you need to get the abortion. Yeah,
• 21:57
  Speaker 4: is if you get pregnant and leave it, like nine
• 22:01
  Speaker 4: weeks is the like cut off period, like any if
• 22:05
  Speaker 4: the pregnancy has gone over nine weeks, then at that point,
• 22:09
  Speaker 4: the fetus has developed to the point where like just
• 22:12
  Speaker 4: going in and like with the standard procedure of abortion,
• 22:17
  Speaker 4: like just going in like that, it may not work.
• 22:21
  Speaker 4: Like I'm not like they don't really cut like address
• 22:24
  Speaker 4: like the abortion side of this in the book very much,
• 22:28
  Speaker 4: and I myself am not very familiar with it, So
• 22:30
  Speaker 4: I not an expert, So don't don't come for me
• 22:34
  Speaker 4: if I like say something wrong. Okay, But at this point,
• 22:38
  Speaker 4: Crane is already three months pregnant, and Crane learned realizes
• 22:44
  Speaker 4: that they may be realizes that there's a slight chance
• 22:47
  Speaker 4: that they might be pregnant when they're starting to experience
• 22:51
  Speaker 4: intense nausea, they're vomiting, you know, mood swings, things like that.
• 22:55
  Speaker 4: The standard like the typical signs that they're that they're pregnant.
• 23:00
  Speaker 4: And the thing is they don't know. They're not sure
• 23:02
  Speaker 4: if they They weren't sure if they are pregnant, and
• 23:04
  Speaker 4: they didn't think they would be able to get pregnant
• 23:05
  Speaker 4: because since they are on, uh, they're on, they're taking hormones.
• 23:09
  Speaker 4: Hormones can't affect the the typical bodily functions like he
• 23:14
  Speaker 4: Once he started his regular treatments, he actually stopped experiencing
• 23:18
  Speaker 4: his mental cycles, so he wasn't He wouldn't have known
• 23:22
  Speaker 4: if he was pregnant either way, because he doesn't get
• 23:24
  Speaker 4: his period anymore exactly. So, so he realizes he might
• 23:30
  Speaker 4: be pregnant, and his UH and Tammy, the their leader
• 23:35
  Speaker 4: who's been doing this for such for a very very
• 23:37
  Speaker 4: long time recognizes the sign and give the signs and
• 23:41
  Speaker 4: gives Crane a pregnancy test and when he takes when
• 23:46
  Speaker 4: he takes the pregnancy test, it comes back positive. And
• 23:51
  Speaker 4: like any sane person, he takes three more pregnancy tests
• 23:54
  Speaker 4: tests just to be sure, and they'd all come back positive.
• 23:58
  Speaker 4: And Crane is understandably freaking out because this is not
• 24:02
  Speaker 4: something he wants. All right, He's he doesn't want for him,
• 24:06
  Speaker 4: he's he is no longer a woman. Okay, he is
• 24:09
  Speaker 4: a he is a man. He's fully transitioned to man. Okay,
• 24:14
  Speaker 4: he doesn't want for he does not want to have
• 24:16
  Speaker 4: a baby. Yeah, okay, And like there may now like
• 24:21
  Speaker 4: unfortunately for Crane, Like and this is something that has
• 24:25
  Speaker 4: happened to a lot of trans people. Is that just
• 24:28
  Speaker 4: the general overall lack of information on like, you know,
• 24:32
  Speaker 4: the transition itself and how it can affect your body.
• 24:35
  Speaker 4: A lot of trans people can end up being misinformed
• 24:38
  Speaker 4: and like be unsure like what like what's gonna happen?
• 24:43
  Speaker 4: So like does transitioning from female to male like sterilize you?
• 24:46
  Speaker 4: Does it just make it to where you won't you
• 24:48
  Speaker 4: aren't able to conceive a child anymore? Or well those
• 24:52
  Speaker 4: still were those bodily functions still happen, right, And you know,
• 24:57
  Speaker 4: it's a big issue because there's like a lot of
• 24:59
  Speaker 4: areas in the country they they are trans people that
• 25:02
  Speaker 4: don't have access to this kind of information. So it
• 25:06
  Speaker 4: can end up it can end it to a lot
• 25:07
  Speaker 4: of like either it can end it to a lot
• 25:09
  Speaker 4: of it can lead to a lot of issues. And
• 25:12
  Speaker 4: so Crane ends up turning to some friends that he
• 25:16
  Speaker 4: had made he is friends with, uh, a couple with
• 25:20
  Speaker 4: with them with a trans couple. So he had emails
• 25:24
  Speaker 4: a couple people who are trans, who are trans and
• 25:27
  Speaker 4: non binary themselves. This couple, uh, there are his best friends,
• 25:32
  Speaker 4: but they're not a part of the community, which is
• 25:35
  Speaker 4: a big no no because you're not really supposed to, uh,
• 25:38
  Speaker 4: you're not really supposed to have relationships outside of the community,
• 25:43
  Speaker 4: outside of the Hive, right, it's really just with the
• 25:46
  Speaker 4: Hive members. But so far, the only other people in
• 25:50
  Speaker 4: his community is his toxic boyfriend, UH, some new chick
• 25:54
  Speaker 4: who botched her first murder, and a den mother who really,
• 25:58
  Speaker 4: while has been more of a motherly figure to Crane,
• 26:02
  Speaker 4: is not exactly that kind of wouldn't exactly provide that
• 26:05
  Speaker 4: kind of moral support that Crane would need. And of
• 26:10
  Speaker 4: course it was only natural for Crane to make friends
• 26:12
  Speaker 4: outside of the community, especially since they, like him, are
• 26:15
  Speaker 4: transni trans non binary. So he goes to them, he
• 26:19
  Speaker 4: tells them, he tells them what's going on, that he's
• 26:23
  Speaker 4: pregnant and he needs help, and they immediately began helping
• 26:27
  Speaker 4: him plan for an abortion, and they actually know a
• 26:31
  Speaker 4: guy across state lines who can do the abortion for him,
• 26:34
  Speaker 4: like easily, without any issues, and they actually scheduled the
• 26:38
  Speaker 4: abortion and they were set to leave like the very
• 26:41
  Speaker 4: next day. Now, unfortunately for Crane is somehow the Hive
• 26:45
  Speaker 4: finds out that he's pregnant. And the thing is is
• 26:49
  Speaker 4: that the Hive in other communities there, in one of
• 26:54
  Speaker 4: the other communities, they have like some sort of like alchemy,
• 27:01
  Speaker 4: someone who's able to graft five worms into corpses. So
• 27:07
  Speaker 4: it's something that the Hive has been experimenting for a while.
• 27:10
  Speaker 4: And the Hive ends up sending one of these like puppets,
• 27:15
  Speaker 4: like these Hive puppets and this dude, So basically, this
• 27:19
  Speaker 4: dude kind of looks like something out of uh looks
• 27:22
  Speaker 4: it looks like something out of Frankenstein. Go he looks
• 27:26
  Speaker 4: like he's stitched. Yeah, this dude looks like a literal
• 27:29
  Speaker 4: walking corpse. He's practically stitched together, and underneath his skin
• 27:34
  Speaker 4: it's clear that there are worms moving around. So whenever
• 27:39
  Speaker 4: he goes this dude goes out into public, he has
• 27:42
  Speaker 4: to wear like a neck garter covering his face. He
• 27:44
  Speaker 4: has to wear a hat, basically make it to where
• 27:46
  Speaker 4: people can't easily see how decrepit he looks. I'm sorry,
• 27:54
  Speaker 4: let me get his name. Pause, pause, what's his name?
• 28:05
  Speaker 4: What's his what is his stagger? That's the thing. I'm sorry, people,
• 28:10
  Speaker 4: I am don't cut that out, but I am terrible
• 28:12
  Speaker 4: with names, even though I should know this ship, like
• 28:15
  Speaker 4: I remember Crane's name easily, and Levi and Tammy I
• 28:18
  Speaker 4: kind of forgot because she's not really important. But Stagger,
• 28:22
  Speaker 4: Stagger is he becomes somewhat of an emotional support for
• 28:27
  Speaker 4: like some he oddly becomes somewhat of an emotional support
• 28:30
  Speaker 4: for Crane. But getting back to it, so this walking hive,
• 28:38
  Speaker 4: corpse thing, puppet, whatever you want to call it, Uh,
• 28:43
  Speaker 4: they end up calling him Stagger because the way he
• 28:46
  Speaker 4: walks looks very like corpse like and almost like he's
• 28:50
  Speaker 4: staggering MHM, and Stagger finds Crane while he's staying over
• 28:58
  Speaker 4: at his friend's place, and Crane realizes that he needs
• 29:02
  Speaker 4: to leave before his friends find out because since they're
• 29:06
  Speaker 4: not a part of the community, they don't know about
• 29:09
  Speaker 4: the Hive, and if the High finds out that they
• 29:13
  Speaker 4: that Crane has been like interacting with people outside of
• 29:16
  Speaker 4: the community, that I've may force Crane to kill them.
• 29:20
  Speaker 4: And his friends also have a daughter, so a little girl,
• 29:24
  Speaker 4: so he doesn't want that to them to be exposed
• 29:26
  Speaker 4: to that, and he doesn't want to do anything to
• 29:30
  Speaker 4: affect their kid. So Stagger finds So Stagger finds Crane
• 29:40
  Speaker 4: and basically tells him, basically reveals that the Hive knows
• 29:43
  Speaker 4: that he's pregnant and with Levi, and so the two
• 29:47
  Speaker 4: of them drag Crane back to the gas station. Well
• 29:50
  Speaker 4: actually it was just it was actually Stagger, I'm sorry, rewind.
• 29:53
  Speaker 4: Stagger takes Crane back to the gas station, and when
• 29:55
  Speaker 4: Crane gets back to the gas station, he sees Levi
• 29:58
  Speaker 4: there and the first thing he does when he sees
• 30:01
  Speaker 4: Levi is grab the closest thing he could grab. I
• 30:04
  Speaker 4: think it was like a blast bottle or like a
• 30:06
  Speaker 4: metal pipe and and swings and like smacks Levi in
• 30:12
  Speaker 4: the face with it. Jesus, Levi is like, what the
• 30:16
  Speaker 4: fuck is your problem? And Crane. Even though Crane doesn't
• 30:19
  Speaker 4: say anything like he he later articulates that this bastard
• 30:22
  Speaker 4: got him pregnant, like like this to me, Like you
• 30:27
  Speaker 4: did this to me. I'm gonna kill you, like I'm
• 30:30
  Speaker 4: gonna kill you.
• 30:33
  Speaker 3: I'm pretty sure.
• 30:34
  Speaker 4: I'm pretty sure a lot of people who read that
• 30:36
  Speaker 4: scene were just like, yeah, get it, Like, yeah, get
• 30:41
  Speaker 4: him girl, all right, he put that thing in you.
• 30:43
  Speaker 4: Get them boy, he put that thing in you, all right.
• 30:50
  Speaker 4: It's his fault. Blame him. Levi is a piece of ship,
• 30:53
  Speaker 4: so he deserves it. Uh So Crane immediately go into
• 31:00
  Speaker 4: the gas station and locks himself in the fives room
• 31:05
  Speaker 4: and I don't tell you like the reveal that the
• 31:11
  Speaker 4: hive intentionally wanted, uh wanted Crane to carry the pregnancy.
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: To term, like it was.
• 31:19
  Speaker 4: So fucked up because it was like it starts like
• 31:25
  Speaker 4: serenading Levi. I'm sorry, it starts serenading Crane with these
• 31:30
  Speaker 4: platudes like oh, we know you better than anyone else,
• 31:33
  Speaker 4: Like we know what you want, all right, and we're
• 31:36
  Speaker 4: giving you exactly that we're finally making We're finally making
• 31:40
  Speaker 4: the outside reflect your inside. Yeah, and it's like, hold on,
• 31:46
  Speaker 4: let me find the I'm gonna find it. Like it's
• 31:54
  Speaker 4: one of those moments when okay, here it is.
• 31:58
  Speaker 6: Here it is m hm yep, tive knows do oh
• 32:13
  Speaker 6: could I pass it? All right?
• 32:33
  Speaker 4: Where is it? I literally just saw it? Hold on, okay, yeah,
• 32:43
  Speaker 4: here we are.
• 32:45
  Speaker 3: Mm hmmm.
• 32:46
  Speaker 4: So basically like when Crane, So when Crane approaches the hive,
• 32:51
  Speaker 4: the hive can understand understand him even if he doesn't
• 32:54
  Speaker 4: say a word, you know, And the way it talks
• 32:56
  Speaker 4: is very like it even though for like a hive
• 33:00
  Speaker 4: of fleshy worms and lies, it has a very velvety
• 33:08
  Speaker 4: like satiny way of talking. Like it's like the way
• 33:12
  Speaker 4: it's like ah, Like it's like why are you? Like
• 33:16
  Speaker 4: why are you upset? Like you're breathing hard? You are afraid?
• 33:22
  Speaker 4: Why are you afraid? And Crane articulates why like I'm
• 33:28
  Speaker 4: pregnant and I don't want to be right, And the
• 33:33
  Speaker 4: hive is like, ah, the little one you carry does
• 33:36
  Speaker 4: it cause you pain? Does it feel as if something
• 33:38
  Speaker 4: is wrong? Your body knows? So much about itself. If
• 33:43
  Speaker 4: something is wrong with the little one, if you can
• 33:45
  Speaker 4: feel it in your roomb, then please we wish to help.
• 33:49
  Speaker 4: Right the way, it's like trying to comfort him. At first,
• 33:53
  Speaker 4: I'm just like I'm over here like reading this, so
• 33:55
  Speaker 4: I'm like ill. But like Crane further articulates that he
• 33:59
  Speaker 4: wants to baby gone. He doesn't, but he wants. He
• 34:02
  Speaker 4: does not want to be pregnant, all right, He wants to.
• 34:05
  Speaker 4: He wants to get rid of it. And the hive
• 34:09
  Speaker 4: is like, like, oh, we see you are unhappy. We
• 34:13
  Speaker 4: imagine this might be a reaction. Gravitity must go against
• 34:17
  Speaker 4: your instincts. A female trying so hard to appeal to
• 34:21
  Speaker 4: appear male, to be treated as one. Yes, of course,
• 34:26
  Speaker 4: Like I'm like that the line right there just got
• 34:29
  Speaker 4: me like oh red flags, red flags, we woo woo,
• 34:33
  Speaker 4: we woo.
• 34:34
  Speaker 7: We know you, we understand you, we know you better
• 34:39
  Speaker 7: than you know yourself, and it's just not what you wanted,
• 34:44
  Speaker 7: red flag.
• 34:46
  Speaker 4: And like this is where Crane is like like going cold,
• 34:48
  Speaker 4: like what like this is where this whole world is
• 34:52
  Speaker 4: going up. That's like getting turned upside down. Like this
• 34:55
  Speaker 4: I sent, I sent a picture like a screenshot of this.
• 34:59
  Speaker 3: To Devin, I was.
• 35:01
  Speaker 4: Like, Evan, this is this is fun.
• 35:03
  Speaker 3: Dark, this is dark.
• 35:05
  Speaker 4: You've pleated for us, You pleaded for us to do
• 35:08
  Speaker 4: as we wished with you. Didn't you mold you in
• 35:11
  Speaker 4: our image, to give you a plate, make your choices,
• 35:15
  Speaker 4: change your body, make you into something useful, to keep
• 35:19
  Speaker 4: you from being something other than fuck meat and repulsive
• 35:22
  Speaker 4: lust and fear, to make the outside match the inside.
• 35:27
  Speaker 4: How fortunate then that we've given you what you want.
• 35:33
  Speaker 4: I put I literally put the book down. After that,
• 35:36
  Speaker 4: I was like, I can't, I can't, I can't. I
• 35:40
  Speaker 4: was like, I'm dead. Oh god, oh oh no, no,
• 35:47
  Speaker 4: sweet honey, that's not it.
• 35:50
  Speaker 3: That's not the fun.
• 35:55
  Speaker 4: So essentially, Crane from this point forward is forced to
• 35:59
  Speaker 4: care uh the pregnancy to term. Now, now, the thing
• 36:05
  Speaker 4: is that Crane does, uh try to think of different
• 36:10
  Speaker 4: ways to abort the pregnancy, either by seeing if they
• 36:15
  Speaker 4: can like smuggle in like special pills, or even like
• 36:19
  Speaker 4: going up there with the wire hanger themselves. You know,
• 36:22
  Speaker 4: excuse the excuse the that awful work. Yeah. But but
• 36:30
  Speaker 4: the thing is Crane be as first long like, despite
• 36:35
  Speaker 4: what's happening now, Crane still feels like this strong sense
• 36:38
  Speaker 4: of devotion and loyalty to the hive. So despite the
• 36:42
  Speaker 4: fact that they want to get rid of the pregnancy,
• 36:45
  Speaker 4: they want to stop the pregnancy. They are they don't
• 36:48
  Speaker 4: want to go against what the hive wants them to do,
• 36:51
  Speaker 4: even though it's it's going against everything, like their instincts,
• 36:55
  Speaker 4: like who they are as a person. You know, Crane
• 36:59
  Speaker 4: is like having a This is like an This is
• 37:01
  Speaker 4: like an extreme sense of identity crisis because I've want
• 37:05
  Speaker 4: them to do something that goes against who they are
• 37:08
  Speaker 4: as a person, all right, they want it wants them
• 37:10
  Speaker 4: to carry a pregnancy to turn but Crane is a
• 37:16
  Speaker 4: man now, and as a man, he can't. He does
• 37:19
  Speaker 4: not want to be get pregnant because that what doesn't
• 37:23
  Speaker 4: feel natural to him. Okay, it's taking away his autonomy,
• 37:27
  Speaker 4: it's taking away like his like everything basically everything that
• 37:31
  Speaker 4: he was working for is now being taken away from him.
• 37:35
  Speaker 4: And this is where, like like the for pretty much
• 37:38
  Speaker 4: the rest of the book, up until the until Crane
• 37:41
  Speaker 4: gives birth, Crane is dealing with an with extreme like
• 37:45
  Speaker 4: going through an extreme mental health crisis. He's being isolated,
• 37:50
  Speaker 4: h He's being isolated by his community. So uh Levi
• 37:55
  Speaker 4: and Tammy force him to basically stay home. They don't.
• 37:59
  Speaker 4: They only let him do dead out like dead hour
• 38:03
  Speaker 4: sits at the gas station. They don't let him go
• 38:05
  Speaker 4: out on his own, and he has to be supervised
• 38:08
  Speaker 4: twenty four to seven. And they do this because they know,
• 38:11
  Speaker 4: like based on Crane's pass they don't want Crane to
• 38:15
  Speaker 4: do something drastic and try to find a way to
• 38:19
  Speaker 4: like end the pregnancy too soon. And while while the
• 38:25
  Speaker 4: pregnancy is progressing, Crane still tries to take his foremones
• 38:30
  Speaker 4: to keep up the you know, keep up his testosterone treatments.
• 38:33
  Speaker 4: But the thing is, as the pregnancy continues to carry
• 38:35
  Speaker 4: a full term, he's not able to continue. He's not
• 38:38
  Speaker 4: able to keep up with his testosterone supplements and also
• 38:42
  Speaker 4: his his supply is running low, so he's pretty much
• 38:46
  Speaker 4: running low and he can't keep up with it. So eventually,
• 38:50
  Speaker 4: like towards the end of his pregnancy, Crane starts noticing
• 38:54
  Speaker 4: that they're beginning to de transition. So the more masculine
• 38:59
  Speaker 4: features that developed from the tr from his transition, they're
• 39:02
  Speaker 4: starting to disappear. His breasts are beginning to develop because
• 39:06
  Speaker 4: they are developed more because they are of course you know, pregnancy, Uh,
• 39:13
  Speaker 4: pregnancy tits start Devin, cut that out, I said, pregnancy tits.
• 39:20
  Speaker 4: I'm like, oh, wait, no, that's so bad. That sounds
• 39:22
  Speaker 4: so wrong. Cut that out Cut that out.
• 39:25
  Speaker 3: Cut that out cut that out it no, ma'am.
• 39:28
  Speaker 4: So the thing is is that because Crane okay, so,
• 39:31
  Speaker 4: but because Craine is now going through full pregnancy, his
• 39:36
  Speaker 4: body is changing his like, ah, you know, he's experiencing
• 39:40
  Speaker 4: like the typical pains that come from like the you know,
• 39:44
  Speaker 4: developing baby. And throughout the entire period, Praine is going
• 39:49
  Speaker 4: through such like he's going through it. Man, He's going
• 39:53
  Speaker 4: through it. His body's detransitioning. He's looking more and more
• 39:57
  Speaker 4: like a woman again, and it is. It's very upsetting
• 40:02
  Speaker 4: for him. And the thing is that Crane has a pass,
• 40:07
  Speaker 4: has a past of self harm and bodily mutilation idelation.
• 40:14
  Speaker 4: So before he had transitioned into Crane, his dead name
• 40:18
  Speaker 4: was Sophie. That's who he was before he transitioned. And Sophie.
• 40:24
  Speaker 4: Because they couldn't, like I said before, couldn't like cope
• 40:29
  Speaker 4: with what they look like, what their outer appearance look like.
• 40:32
  Speaker 4: They often idealize burning themselves, like setting themselves on fire,
• 40:38
  Speaker 4: so that way they could disfigure themselves to the point
• 40:40
  Speaker 4: where they won't look like Sophie anymore, Like they won't
• 40:42
  Speaker 4: look like a woman anymore. And it was only after
• 40:47
  Speaker 4: they transitioned is when like those idelations of self harm
• 40:52
  Speaker 4: and self mutilation started to abate. Now they still they
• 40:57
  Speaker 4: would still have like occasional moments where they thought of
• 41:01
  Speaker 4: doing that, because even though they've transitioned and they look
• 41:04
  Speaker 4: more masculine presenting now, there are still times where they
• 41:08
  Speaker 4: still see that part of Sophie in them, where Crane
• 41:11
  Speaker 4: still sees part of Sophie there, and they wanted to
• 41:15
  Speaker 4: like do something to change it. Now, the thing that
• 41:17
  Speaker 4: the steps that Crane did, which I think are more
• 41:20
  Speaker 4: or less healthy, was Crane like got tattoos, got piercings,
• 41:25
  Speaker 4: basically did took steps to make themselves look as different
• 41:29
  Speaker 4: as possible, so they to where they look more like
• 41:32
  Speaker 4: Crane and not like Sophie. But yeah, but without their testosterone,
• 41:38
  Speaker 4: they're not able to keep it up anymore. And this
• 41:43
  Speaker 4: was a very graphic scene and it's just like like, oh,
• 41:48
  Speaker 4: I was like, oh honey, so Crane at one point
• 41:54
  Speaker 4: in a like just.
• 41:58
  Speaker 6: I don't want to.
• 41:58
  Speaker 4: Sound like a like a Midwestern life, but like in
• 42:01
  Speaker 4: a fit of hysteria or something right, just completely like
• 42:05
  Speaker 4: crash out. Crane ended up putting a pot of water
• 42:10
  Speaker 4: on the stove and set it to boil. They got
• 42:13
  Speaker 4: the biggest pot they could find, and once it was
• 42:17
  Speaker 4: boiling just hot enough, they dunked their face into the
• 42:21
  Speaker 4: boiling water. Oh no, mm hm, oh dear, And they
• 42:29
  Speaker 4: held themselves under long enough that part of their face
• 42:31
  Speaker 4: ended up becoming disfigured and burned. And Levi and Stagger
• 42:38
  Speaker 4: who are Stagger? Who is with? Who sticks with? Crane?
• 42:42
  Speaker 4: Almost twenty four to seven at this point was there
• 42:46
  Speaker 4: and managed to pull Crane out of the water keep
• 42:49
  Speaker 4: themselves from hurting themselves any further. But at that point
• 42:52
  Speaker 4: Crane had gotten what he wanted. He disfigured himself enough
• 42:56
  Speaker 4: to where he like, no matter what, even with or
• 42:58
  Speaker 4: without his testosterone, he will never look like Sophie again.
• 43:04
  Speaker 4: And like, on one hand, it's like, okay, I mean,
• 43:11
  Speaker 4: you're taking control of your life. But on the other hand, girl,
• 43:14
  Speaker 4: I mean, my guy, don't cut that part up, please fucked?
• 43:20
  Speaker 4: Oh god, my guy. I want to get canceled for
• 43:24
  Speaker 4: accidentally misgendering somebody like, Oh God, But so Crane got
• 43:32
  Speaker 4: what he wanted. He got what he wanted, so he
• 43:36
  Speaker 4: will never look like Sophie again, even if he like
• 43:40
  Speaker 4: where even if like he fully de transitions, he disfigured
• 43:46
  Speaker 4: himself enough to where he will never again look like Sophie. Yeah,
• 43:51
  Speaker 4: and like the rest of the like six months that
• 43:56
  Speaker 4: he's pregnant, there's some like he he goes, he's put
• 44:00
  Speaker 4: through the ringer all right, before he disfigures himself. There
• 44:06
  Speaker 4: was another girl from a neighboring hive community that turns
• 44:10
  Speaker 4: up and it turns out that she too is pregnant.
• 44:13
  Speaker 4: Now this is unusual because the thing about the hive
• 44:16
  Speaker 4: is that they don't allow their members to get pregnant.
• 44:19
  Speaker 4: At least historically, they would not allow themselves to get
• 44:26
  Speaker 4: They would not allow their members to get pregnant. And
• 44:29
  Speaker 4: in fact, part of Tammy's job was to help any
• 44:36
  Speaker 4: any female members that get pregnant to get rid of
• 44:40
  Speaker 4: the pregnancy, to get to have an abortion, like she
• 44:43
  Speaker 4: would either give him like home remedies or organize like
• 44:47
  Speaker 4: a proper abortion with a clinic. And the thing is, though,
• 44:52
  Speaker 4: before Crane got pregnant, the hive suddenly told Tammy to stop,
• 44:58
  Speaker 4: to stop seeing the community with birth control and to
• 45:06
  Speaker 4: allow pregnant and to allow pregnancies to go through. And
• 45:10
  Speaker 4: Crane was one of the first people and sorry, hang
• 45:17
  Speaker 4: on pause.
• 45:19
  Speaker 6: Out of sex to me.
• 45:25
  Speaker 4: Anyway, So when Crane so going back to it, when Crane,
• 45:31
  Speaker 4: when Crane learns that there's another girl that's pregnant, of
• 45:35
  Speaker 4: course he feels like doctor betrayed, like why can't the
• 45:39
  Speaker 4: hive just be happy with her? Like why does Crane
• 45:42
  Speaker 4: need to be pregnant? But either way, they helped the
• 45:47
  Speaker 4: girl get situated, but unfortunately the girl ends up miscarrying.
• 45:53
  Speaker 4: And the thing is Crane has begins has developed this
• 45:57
  Speaker 4: odd like not so much fascination with the with they're
• 46:03
  Speaker 4: uh with the fetus that uh that they're carrying or
• 46:08
  Speaker 4: but more of like they began to imagine that the
• 46:11
  Speaker 4: fetus is actually just a mass of worms, like a
• 46:14
  Speaker 4: grub that like a bug that's growing inside them, like
• 46:17
  Speaker 4: somehow the hive had impregnated them with a with a
• 46:20
  Speaker 4: worm or some sort of larvae. But when when uh,
• 46:27
  Speaker 4: the other girl ends up miscarrying, he sees the miscarried
• 46:31
  Speaker 4: fetus and really and at that point it was more
• 46:34
  Speaker 4: or less developed, so it wasn't like a jelly bean.
• 46:38
  Speaker 4: So she sees it, So Crane sees it. I'm sorry.
• 46:41
  Speaker 4: He sees it and realizes like, huh, it's just a baby. Yeah,
• 46:50
  Speaker 4: And it's confusing to him. It's confusing to him because
• 46:53
  Speaker 4: he he he's to him, the baby's evil, like, it's
• 46:57
  Speaker 4: not like he thinks, it's like some sort of like
• 47:00
  Speaker 4: in human mass growing inside of him, a parasite. But
• 47:04
  Speaker 4: like seeing Hannah, seeing the miscarried fetus that Hannah ends
• 47:09
  Speaker 4: up giving birth to the girl, the other girl gives
• 47:13
  Speaker 4: birth to, it's confusing for him because he's just he's
• 47:17
  Speaker 4: not sure what to believe. Because the thing is though,
• 47:19
  Speaker 4: like he's still in a bad position. He's being forced
• 47:22
  Speaker 4: to carry a child that he does not want, and
• 47:26
  Speaker 4: you know, his freedom, his autonomy is being completely taken
• 47:30
  Speaker 4: away from him. He's being he's being forced to isolate
• 47:34
  Speaker 4: into isolation. He's not allowed to do anything on his own.
• 47:38
  Speaker 4: In fact, at one point in fact, when this happened,
• 47:44
  Speaker 4: when this all happens, he's given a warning that if
• 47:47
  Speaker 4: he like fucks up, if he like leaves the house
• 47:50
  Speaker 4: without supervision or without permission, basically he's going to be
• 47:55
  Speaker 4: thoroughly punished, and eventually it does happen. So the thing
• 48:02
  Speaker 4: is is that when Crane is put in is forced
• 48:05
  Speaker 4: into his isolation, Levi takes away Crane's phone and actually
• 48:09
  Speaker 4: goes through with it and actually goes through it, and
• 48:12
  Speaker 4: in Crane's phone he finds the text conversations with his
• 48:16
  Speaker 4: friends outside of the community, Bertie and Archie, and Levi,
• 48:22
  Speaker 4: this sadistic fuck comes up with this really fucked up
• 48:27
  Speaker 4: plan to either kill them, to like lure them into
• 48:31
  Speaker 4: like into an area where they where he can kill them,
• 48:34
  Speaker 4: or get or basically, so basically what he does is
• 48:37
  Speaker 4: that he tells he tells Crane that he knows about
• 48:41
  Speaker 4: his friends outside of the community and unless Crane basically
• 48:46
  Speaker 4: permanently like break cuts ties with them because basically when
• 48:51
  Speaker 4: Stagger came and took him back to the hive, unfortunately
• 48:56
  Speaker 4: was forced to ghost his friends. So this entire time,
• 48:58
  Speaker 4: they're not sure, like his friends don't don't know what's
• 49:00
  Speaker 4: going on, they're not sure if he's okay, and they're
• 49:03
  Speaker 4: not sure if he's even alive, but they keep messaging
• 49:06
  Speaker 4: him from time to time, and Levi has actually actually
• 49:10
  Speaker 4: began messaging them back, pretending to be Crane, and he
• 49:15
  Speaker 4: eventually like convinced like like, he convinces that he convinces
• 49:20
  Speaker 4: Crane's friends to meet him at a like at a
• 49:27
  Speaker 4: lumber mill where uh and basically he tells him that
• 49:32
  Speaker 4: he's trying, that Crane is trying to get away from
• 49:34
  Speaker 4: his boyfriend and they should come and help him, right,
• 49:38
  Speaker 4: So they agree and they were going to meet him
• 49:40
  Speaker 4: at that set location. And that's when Levi tells him
• 49:43
  Speaker 4: what he's going to do, and he tells he gives
• 49:45
  Speaker 4: Levi the ultimatum, either you get rid of him completely,
• 49:51
  Speaker 4: do whatever it takes to cut ties with them, or
• 49:54
  Speaker 4: I'm going to kill them both and Crane and Crane
• 49:58
  Speaker 4: of course not wanting to allow, not wanting his friends
• 50:02
  Speaker 4: to be murdered by his toxic boyfriend when they show
• 50:06
  Speaker 4: When he and Levi show up at the at the
• 50:09
  Speaker 4: meeting point, Levi hides and leaves Crane there to meet
• 50:14
  Speaker 4: meet up with Birdie and Archie. When they show up,
• 50:16
  Speaker 4: Crane basically pushes them away. He doesn't still nonverbal, but
• 50:22
  Speaker 4: he pushes them away and articulates that they need to leave,
• 50:25
  Speaker 4: that he's not going with them. And when they still
• 50:28
  Speaker 4: try to like convince him to go. Crane ends up
• 50:32
  Speaker 4: punching Archie in the face, and that's enough of a
• 50:37
  Speaker 4: that itself is enough of a message like go away.
• 50:42
  Speaker 4: So trigger warning, like like, I'm glad to put those
• 50:47
  Speaker 4: trigger warnings because domestic abuse is part of it. And
• 50:51
  Speaker 4: so it's a very it was a very hard scene
• 50:56
  Speaker 4: to read. Yeah, So and this is like after this point,
• 51:02
  Speaker 4: that's where Cranes like mental health really just goes full
• 51:07
  Speaker 4: downward sile, full downward spiral. Yeah, alright, hang.
• 51:14
  Speaker 3: On you what y'all talking about.
• 51:27
  Speaker 4: He's just asking what's going on? Like, what's up?
• 51:40
  Speaker 3: What'sm I said, Hey.
• 51:50
  Speaker 8: Yeah, that's on what you said? Yeah, no, switch back
• 51:54
  Speaker 8: to there you go, okay, but yeah, uh, getting next
• 52:01
  Speaker 8: to it.
• 52:01
  Speaker 4: So it was not long after this that Crane ends
• 52:05
  Speaker 4: up dunking their face into boiling water to disfigure themselves.
• 52:09
  Speaker 4: Crane later learns that the other that woman that showed
• 52:13
  Speaker 4: up at the beginning of the book, Jess, is also pregnant,
• 52:15
  Speaker 4: and unsurprisingly, Levi was the one who got her pregnant.
• 52:20
  Speaker 4: So it turns out the Hive. They later learned that
• 52:22
  Speaker 4: the Hive told Levi to basically told Levi to do
• 52:25
  Speaker 4: this to get as many people pregnant as possible.
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: Jesus, yeah, Visus aged Christ. I'm just telling you, we're
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: on the podcast right now.
• 52:47
  Speaker 3: You willing to pity pop?
• 52:53
  Speaker 4: There we go? Okay, uh yep. So he learns that.
• 52:57
  Speaker 4: So Crane learns that Jess is. And the thing is
• 53:01
  Speaker 4: that Jess tries to abort the pregnancy on her own.
• 53:11
  Speaker 4: She learns that there's a way to do it and
• 53:14
  Speaker 4: actually ends up taking in like a ends up picking
• 53:19
  Speaker 4: a I forgot exactly what she used. It wasn't like
• 53:23
  Speaker 4: a like a wire hanger, but I think she actually
• 53:26
  Speaker 4: used like some sort of knife to try to cut
• 53:29
  Speaker 4: away the fetus. But she ends up watching it, and
• 53:36
  Speaker 4: Jess shows up on Jess shows up on Crane's doorstep bleeding,
• 53:44
  Speaker 4: and Craine is forced to get her to Tammy's place
• 53:48
  Speaker 4: and they and Tammy has to like perform like basically
• 53:53
  Speaker 4: field medicine on her to stitch her back up and
• 53:57
  Speaker 4: stop the bleeding. After that, prayin like it was around
• 54:01
  Speaker 4: this time, like when Jess like had done this to herself.
• 54:04
  Speaker 4: That's when Levi. That's when Levi ends up like like
• 54:13
  Speaker 4: you know, punishing Crane with the with that stage like
• 54:17
  Speaker 4: break up with the friends or like break up with
• 54:19
  Speaker 4: your friends or I'll kill them kind of feel and
• 54:22
  Speaker 4: after and after Crane does do what he's asked, like,
• 54:26
  Speaker 4: Levi ends up like having like ends up having sex
• 54:29
  Speaker 4: with Crane and the same same old fashion because by
• 54:33
  Speaker 4: this point throughout the pregnancy, like Levi like hasn't really
• 54:36
  Speaker 4: laid a hand like laid a hand on Crane, and like,
• 54:40
  Speaker 4: ironically this is driving Crane insane because you know, there
• 54:44
  Speaker 4: they may be pregnant, but hey, they still got needs right.
• 54:47
  Speaker 4: And the thing is, though, it's like it's such a
• 54:50
  Speaker 4: it's so fucked up because like he ends up having
• 54:52
  Speaker 4: sex with him, and they end up having sex, and
• 54:56
  Speaker 4: Levi is, like I said, there would be consequences if
• 54:59
  Speaker 4: you fuck up. So one of the threats that that
• 55:04
  Speaker 4: leve I had given Crane is that if he the
• 55:05
  Speaker 4: first time he sucks up, he's gonna break a He's
• 55:07
  Speaker 4: gonna break a bone, and he ends up breaking Crane's
• 55:13
  Speaker 4: to two front fingers in the middle of sex too.
• 55:22
  Speaker 4: That's yeah, if this book is smutty, but it's not.
• 55:29
  Speaker 4: It's not the fun kind.
• 55:30
  Speaker 1: Mm hmmm mmmmm mm hmmmm mmmmm.
• 55:34
  Speaker 3: Mmmmm, I'll tell someone I'm not get and someone break
• 55:41
  Speaker 3: my fingers. I don't think so.
• 55:44
  Speaker 4: No, that is not hot.
• 55:45
  Speaker 5: That's that's that's not the opposite bondage.
• 55:50
  Speaker 4: There's bondage, and yes there's there is like rough play,
• 55:55
  Speaker 4: but no break a bone.
• 55:57
  Speaker 8: I'm gonna I'm gonna shoot you.
• 56:00
  Speaker 3: No get out, No.
• 56:04
  Speaker 4: No, no dick is good enough for someone to break
• 56:07
  Speaker 4: my phones over?
• 56:08
  Speaker 3: Yeah, ain't no dick good enough. Ain't no way, no, no, ma'am,
• 56:12
  Speaker 3: no man, no ma'am.
• 56:16
  Speaker 4: So months of just like this mental spiral goes by
• 56:21
  Speaker 4: for Crane, and there comes a point where like Braine
• 56:23
  Speaker 4: is even thinking of like like at some point, like
• 56:27
  Speaker 4: they feel so isolated and so like dehumanized that they
• 56:31
  Speaker 4: they start looking at Stagger, the literal walking corpse filled
• 56:35
  Speaker 4: with worms, and they're like, h I could tap that. Yeah.
• 56:40
  Speaker 4: At some point, yeah, at some point they start like
• 56:44
  Speaker 4: fantasizing about the about the literal walking corpse. And the
• 56:51
  Speaker 4: thing is, the funny thing is that the literal walking
• 56:54
  Speaker 4: corpse is the only is the only person that still
• 56:56
  Speaker 4: treats Craine like a person instead of like a living incubator.
• 57:02
  Speaker 3: Oh that's weird because like even though.
• 57:05
  Speaker 4: He's like like basically a zombie. Stagger is still like
• 57:09
  Speaker 4: like somewhat intelligent. Like Stagger actually used to be like
• 57:13
  Speaker 4: another person in the community, but they like I guess
• 57:16
  Speaker 4: they tried to defect and instead of killing them, the
• 57:18
  Speaker 4: hive turn them into a puppet, into a worm puppet,
• 57:22
  Speaker 4: and so like it's still able to think for itself.
• 57:27
  Speaker 4: Tagger is still able to think for himself even though
• 57:29
  Speaker 4: he's like filled with worms, And like the two of
• 57:35
  Speaker 4: them actually spend time together, like staggers there like keep
• 57:38
  Speaker 4: some company. They actually start learning asl together because Tagger
• 57:43
  Speaker 4: is not really able to talk and like Crane doesn't
• 57:46
  Speaker 4: really want to talk verbally, but like like relents enough
• 57:50
  Speaker 4: to where like they start learning like basic ASL together,
• 57:54
  Speaker 4: and it's like Stagger becomes Crane's protector because that's what
• 57:59
  Speaker 4: the High wanted Stagger to do, is to protect Crane
• 58:01
  Speaker 4: at all, at all costs, make sure that the pregnancy
• 58:04
  Speaker 4: is going you know, that everything's going well with the pregnancy.
• 58:08
  Speaker 4: And eventually, like Stagger is going to be the person
• 58:13
  Speaker 4: that like steps up for Crane because the time comes
• 58:17
  Speaker 4: when Crane actually is ready to give birth, and so
• 58:22
  Speaker 4: Crane the day comes Crane is giving like leading up
• 58:26
  Speaker 4: to the actual birth, like he actually gives ends up
• 58:28
  Speaker 4: giving birth like about two three weeks early. Yeah, and
• 58:34
  Speaker 4: like he wakes the morning of the of the actual birth,
• 58:37
  Speaker 4: like he wakes up and uh, his water had already broke,
• 58:43
  Speaker 4: because it's like he wakes up and he notices that
• 58:45
  Speaker 4: his his NightWare is soiled with blood and like other fluids,
• 58:50
  Speaker 4: but he ignores it because he thinks, like, a's probably
• 58:53
  Speaker 4: just some other something else because he's been experiencing those
• 58:58
  Speaker 4: those false contractions. There's a proper name for him. I
• 59:02
  Speaker 4: think they're called like something Hicks, m some like something
• 59:09
  Speaker 4: Hicks where it's like, you know, you start experiencing contractions,
• 59:12
  Speaker 4: but they're not actual like labor contractions. But he starts
• 59:18
  Speaker 4: experiencing more contractions, and then later on he's water like
• 59:22
  Speaker 4: actually breaks and he ends up like like gushing fluids
• 59:28
  Speaker 4: all over the place, and Levi and Stagger pack him
• 59:33
  Speaker 4: up and take him back to the hive because the
• 59:35
  Speaker 4: hive wants him to give birth right there in the room.
• 59:43
  Speaker 4: So Crane is Crane is going through the labor pains,
• 59:48
  Speaker 4: and the thing is is that Jess is also there.
• 59:51
  Speaker 4: She actually recovered from her botched abortion, uh enough to
• 59:55
  Speaker 4: be there to assist with the with the labor. Think
• 59:57
  Speaker 4: about Jess is that Jess and Crane have a bit
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 4: of developed like a bit of a like sort of
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 4: like contentious relationship, Like Crane doesn't like Jess, Jess doesn't
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 4: really like Crane. But at the same time, they kind
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 4: of they understand each other because they're both in the
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 4: similar situation. They're both being forced to carry a pregnancy
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 4: that they don't want. And thing is Jess. It doesn't
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 4: say it outright, but I believe Jess actually did lose
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 4: the like ended up succeeding in in aborting the child,
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 4: but it was still botched because she almost like led
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 4: out because of it. But while like while they're waiting
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 4: for like the like the full like labor to go
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 4: into effect because the contractions are still like several minutes apart,
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 4: Crane steps outside, steps outside for like a smoke braid
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 4: of break of all things, right, like, yeah, I'm about
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 4: to get births. Need I need a cigarette? Right, need
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 4: a cigarette? And Jess goes outside with her Lee, Stagger
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 4: and Tammy are still inside the gas station, and uh
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 4: they realized like Crane had uh put on Crane had
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 4: put on Levi's jacket, and he realizes that Levi left
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 4: his keys in the jacket. And the thing is, Crane
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 4: realizes that he's not going to be able to get
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 4: away because they will hunt him down just to make
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 4: sure they get that baby. And but Jess actually has
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 4: a chance because Jess is already showing like there is
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 4: already been showing that they're not happy being a part
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 4: of this and they want to there. They've been subtly
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 4: hinting that they've been wanting a way out, and they've
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 4: been trying to find a way out. So since Levi
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 4: and Stagger and Levi's Levi, Stagger and Tammy, they're all
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 4: like preoccupied on the inside and they're not they're not
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 4: noticing what Crane and Jess are doing on the outside.
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 4: Crane grabs Jess, pulls her to Levi's truck, gives her
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 4: the keys, and basically says, go like, they're not they're
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 4: gonna be too busy. They're gonna be too busy with
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 4: me while I'm giving birth. But that would be the
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 4: perfect opportunity for you to get the fuck out. Yeah,
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 4: while she's the The thing is, while Crane is while
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 4: he's trying to convince Jess to like leave another a
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 4: car ends up pulling up, and as it turns out,
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 4: the cars belongs to Crane's parents. The thing is is
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 4: that Crane, when he joined the community, he cut contact
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 4: with his parents. And his parents weren't bad people, but
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 4: they he never came out to them, and he never
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 4: told them that he was trans uh, and he of
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 4: course never told them that he's pregnant too, So they
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 4: showed up. He doesn't know why they showed up, but
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 4: they see him and recognize him, and they're like, like,
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 4: what's happened to you? You're pregnant? What's going on? And
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 4: like they can tell like but just based on like
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 4: Crane's like, oh, like just overall appearance that he's in
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 4: a bad situation. And they offer him, like, we can
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 4: get you out here, just get in the car, let's go.
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 4: But Crane tells him no, and Uh tells him like
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 4: basically manages to articulate that they need to get out
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 4: of there, right, and he'll try, but he manages to
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 4: convey that he's gonna find them, like he'll contact them,
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 4: but he has to. He has to take care of
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 4: things on his own. So he convinces them to leave.
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 4: Jess finally is convinced to leave, so they leave. So
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 4: she leaves and Crane goes back into the gas station
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 4: and the contractions get closer, and eventually Crane gives birth
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 4: to a healthy baby girl. Exc so brain has a
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 4: bit of a coming to Jesus moment, because throughout the
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 4: entire pregnancy, Prayin created this image in his mind that
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 4: this baby is nothing more than a mass of worms
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 4: or some ugly, grotesque rub that the hive implanted in them.
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 4: But he ends up giving birth and it's an act.
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 4: It's a baby girl, it's a normal baby girl. And
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 4: he's looking at her and you know, like he has
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 4: that like he has that you know, it's eye opening
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 4: for him because it's he's realizing that this baby is
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 4: not really touched by the hive. It's just a baby.
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 4: And unfortunately he has a moment where he well, fortunately, yes,
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 4: he realizes that this baby is going to be used
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 4: by the hive and is probably gonna end up being
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 4: used as like for the same purpose that they used
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 4: Crane for, and he doesn't he realizes he doesn't want
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 4: that for his daughter.
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 3: We don't have to go into detail what exactly happens.
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 3: You could just say it it doesn't involve that baby.
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 4: Unfortunately, No, the so ladies and gentlemen and trigger warning,
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 4: I must say, trigger warning, Crane ends up killing his baby.
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 4: He kills his baby. I'm not going to go into
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 4: the details because personally, I think they're too graphic, especially
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 4: considering it's concern. It's it's involving a newborn infant. Yeah,
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 4: I'm not going to go into detail, but it is
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 4: brutal and it was shocking to say the least. Like
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 4: when I told Devin about it, first of all, I
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 4: was like, like, first of all, I preference the what
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 4: I told him by saying, I don't think we should
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 4: do this book. And he's like, why.
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 3: Mean why I found Oh yep map? Yeah, sure, yep,
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 3: you sure did.
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 4: Yes, And I'm not going to go into detail beyond that.
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 4: If you want to see the the full flushy like
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 4: gory details, you can read a book and read it here.
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 4: I'll tell you the chapter right now, Like like I'll
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 4: tell you the chapter right now, like do you chapter
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 4: thirty four? Damn? You want the do you want the
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 4: details of what happened to this baby? You can read
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 4: it in chapter thirty four. I will not be going
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 4: into the gory details, like I'm only telling you what
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 4: I told Devin when I'm like because I just like
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 4: we we we message each other almost every day on Messenger.
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 4: I literally, without without preferencing it, I just said, he
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 4: ate the.
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 6: Baby, and well it was funny.
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 4: It was funny because like because Devon's response was just
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 4: like I beg your I beg your pardon?
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 3: What he who did?
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 4: What?
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 3: Who ate the baby?
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 4: What?
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 3: Baby?
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 4: The baby?
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 3: The baby?
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 4: The baby. This scene, this scene was so shocking that hell,
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 4: even for the other characters in the books, like it
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 4: sent everyone reeling, like the hive reeled.
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 6: Uh.
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 4: Scammy, who has helped with get with, helped mothers give birth,
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 4: has given birth, and even helped abort pregnancies, was immediately
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 4: on her knees, just like, you know, purging everything that
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 4: she has eaten since she was four. Levi was just
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 4: standing there in shock. Stagger was that the fucking corpse
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 4: was literally in shock too by what happened.
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 3: So guess everyone was shook, blabveror gusted.
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 4: Like oh my, oh lord, Like I get.
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 5: Killing the baby, okay, the reasoning, okay, but eating it
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 5: one plus one does not equal fit. How did we
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 5: get here? How do we get here?
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 4: This is giving the I understand he wanted to take
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 4: the He took his child's life because he did not
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 4: want this child to become the Hives, to belong to
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 4: the hive. And he knew that if even if he
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 4: were somehow escaped with the baby, they're gonna hunt him down. Yeah,
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 4: so then like in military terms, he went full asset
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 4: denial needed but but eating the child.
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 5: Yeah, again, without getting too much into it, because I can't.
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 5: I'm not going to talk about the book, a book
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 5: that I did want to talk about, but somebody forced
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 5: me not to ever talk about that book on this podcast.
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 3: Uh this that scene is almost.
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 5: As intense and weird and growth grotesque as the There's
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 5: a book called Woom. I'm not going to go into it,
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 5: but it's almost like, ugh, that as that, and I'm
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 5: not allowed talking about that book.
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 4: The reason was because there was intense there's intense scenes
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 4: of tales that I wasn't comfortable with that being on
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 4: the podcast. We may revisit it, but like.
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 5: Oh no, no, no, no, that's that's the earth things.
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 5: That's a different one. That's a different one womb is
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 5: the one with uh huh, it's a it's a very
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 5: inappropriate one. It's a shock horror, extreme horror for on purpose.
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 4: Yeah we're not talking.
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 5: I'm never gonna talk about, but you gave me the
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 5: same vibe as that, and I'm like, oh my god.
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 4: Yeah. Uh So, while everyone was reeling in shock, Crane
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 4: ends up making his move and starts killing everyone. Yeah,
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 4: so like well, Crane tries to really tries to escape,
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 4: but the kill. The person who ends up doing most
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 4: of the killing is Levi, because Levi like recovers fast
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 4: enough to grab his shotgun and tries to kill Crane,
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 4: but he ends up like Crane ends up like jumping
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 4: out of the way in time, and the shot goes
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 4: wild and ends up blowing Tammy in half. And Stagger
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 4: attacks Crane. Uh and I'm sorry. Dagger attacks Levi to
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 4: try to like protect Crane, and like he had, Stagger
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 4: ends up like beating the ship out of Levi and
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 4: actually ends up cracking his skull open. But Levi was
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 4: still like still had enough of his wits to like
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 4: get the shotgun around and like blow Stagger's head off.
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 4: So damn Cammy dead, like eviscerated. Damn all right, literally
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 4: blown in half. Stagger head Yeah what head it's on
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 4: the ceiling now.
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 3: Oh Jesus Christ.
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 4: And Levi Yeah, and then Levi like Stagger had managed
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 4: to do enough damage to him that like he like
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 4: starting to lose like coherency. He drops his shotgun. It's
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 4: like stat like m hmm, like you could like you
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 4: could see like his head is now like misshapen because
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 4: of how like Stagger like uh like cracked it open.
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 4: And Crane ends up finishing off, finishing him off, blows
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 4: his head off, and the hive is freaking out behind
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 4: him the entire time and basically starts turning into like
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 4: a blubbering little bit just like oh come on, like
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 4: he wouldn't like we made you what you are, like
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 4: we gave you everything, like come on. It doesn't go
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 4: into detail what Crane does to them, but he basically
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 4: says that he dismantles the hive. Oh so he so
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 4: he ends up killing every fly in the hive, every
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 4: like pulls out every worm and just kills them all.
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 4: He ends up killing them all. He gets dressed and
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 4: he still has the corpse of the baby with him,
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 4: so he ends up like wrapping the baby up, and
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 4: it almost seems like he's in a he's like a haze,
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 4: like he's completely like out of it.
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 3: Now he's an autopilot.
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, he has he has the babies corpse with him.
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 4: He gets, he leaves, and that's pretty much where the
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 4: book ends.
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 5: What a way to end at Yeah, kill everybody, everybody die.
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 4: Yep. This book made me like this book actually almost
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 4: started an argument between the two of us, like between
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 4: us because we were talking about it, and like we
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 4: did talk about like there's some clear like political uh
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 4: like themes and references here, like the Hive is definitely
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 4: like the Conservative Party, and you know about their very
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 4: anti abortion, and so it seems like they seem to
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 4: lean more into like controlling a woman's body and life,
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 4: like every aspect of their life, taking away their autonomy,
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 4: taking away their rights, and you know, it's it. It
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 4: was a very touchy object, I will say that. And
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 4: we almost didn't review this book because, like I was,
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 4: I was excited to read this book and I liked it,
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 4: and at the same time I didn't like it. But
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 4: because like it's a good book, I'm not saying it's
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 4: not a good book, but it is.
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 5: A It's one of those good books that you read
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 5: it once and you never want to read it again.
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 5: And that's perfectly okay, never want to read it again.
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 4: I like, I'm sorry, Andrew White. It was a good
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 4: book and I definitely enjoyed it, but I'm not reading
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 4: this book again. It's going right here, right in my
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 4: horror section and it's not going to leave it again.
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 4: So I will say I definitely wanted to read, like
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 4: review this book for the month of October because you know,
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 4: it's perfect.
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it was.
• 1:14:52
  Speaker 4: It was just that right amount of like horrifying and
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 4: traumatic experience that I expect this month, you know, the
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 4: Spirit of Halloween, like Spirit of the Spooky Season definitely
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 4: was the right book for this time of the year.
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 4: But I'm it's definitely true. It's definitely uh altered my
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 4: perception of reality.
• 1:15:19
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, It's one of those books that's gonna
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 3: stick with you.
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 1: Mm hmm.
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 3: It's like, oh gosh, oh god.
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 4: Like I had to pause reading another book because I
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 4: was still reading book six of the Dungeon Crawler series,
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 4: and I.
• 1:15:35
  Speaker 3: Was when I finished.
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 4: Eventually, yeah, eventually, I just bought book seven, so it's
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 4: coming in. It's coming in today.
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 3: I can start book four now.
• 1:15:48
  Speaker 5: Because I finished the next ones.
• 1:15:51
  Speaker 4: Yes. Book three was The Iron Tangle right the Subway. Yes,
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 4: and then okay, so book four is gonna be fun.
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 3: Oh I can't wait.
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 8: Yeah, and.
• 1:16:03
  Speaker 4: But yeah, I was in the middle of reading book six,
• 1:16:05
  Speaker 4: The Eye of the Bedroom Fride, and I pause that
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 4: so that way I can like get so I can
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 4: like get this done for the podcast. And I finished it,
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 4: and then I went back and finished book six. But
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 4: while I was reading the Rest of the bedlom Bride,
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 4: I was just there, like, this book is safe. I mean,
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 4: people are dying in this book too, but people are safe.
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 4: Babies aren't being eaten. Yeah, you know, they held the
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 4: aliens had had the decency to transport every baby that
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 4: survived the collapse to a safe place. That way they
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 4: don't accidentally wander into the dungeon. Like every child there.
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 4: There's literally a nursery where they sent all the kids,
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 4: Like any kid that wasn't inside that survived the initial
• 1:16:58
  Speaker 4: like collapse. They were like, if they're still on the surface,
• 1:17:03
  Speaker 4: if they accidentally wandered into the dungeon, then they would
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 4: have just immediately been transported to like a nursery where
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 4: they're being taken care of, and I'm just like, see
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 4: at least they see. Yeah, Like no, no dead babies here, Nope, Nope,
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 4: maybe eating here. No. Yeah. It was a it's a
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 4: book with a lot of hot takes. I had several
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 4: hot takes on it, but like it's definitely like something
• 1:17:35
  Speaker 4: that you you just got to read it.
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 3: It's a heavy book.
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 4: It's a heavy book. You gotta you just gotta read
• 1:17:41
  Speaker 4: it to experience it and then just just walk away,
• 1:17:45
  Speaker 4: walk away.
• 1:17:47
  Speaker 3: Someone needs a hug. You you need a hug. You're
• 1:17:51
  Speaker 3: gonna go get the hug.
• 1:17:54
  Speaker 6: Yeah, you're like, wait, they read this book, may look.
• 1:17:59
  Speaker 4: Like babe, Like I'm gonna go. My boyfriend just got
• 1:18:02
  Speaker 4: back into town. I'm just be like, babe, babe, he
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 4: ate the baby, he.
• 1:18:09
  Speaker 3: Ate the baby.
• 1:18:12
  Speaker 2: Daddy chill like chill.
• 1:18:18
  Speaker 4: Now you guys understand why we started the episode Daddy chill,
• 1:18:24
  Speaker 4: daddy chill. Oh my god.
• 1:18:28
  Speaker 9: Anyway, So that was our review of You Weren't Meant
• 1:18:33
  Speaker 9: to Be Human by Andrew Joseph White. If you like
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 9: trans horror, body horror, just horror in general.
• 1:18:43
  Speaker 4: This is your book.
• 1:18:46
  Speaker 5: Next week we're gonna be talking about a a third
• 1:18:51
  Speaker 5: book in a series, the Sworn Soldiers series, and we're
• 1:18:55
  Speaker 5: gonna be talking about or I'm gonna be talking about
• 1:18:58
  Speaker 5: what Stalks the Deep.
• 1:19:00
  Speaker 3: It's the third one in the series.
• 1:19:01
  Speaker 5: We've already talked about the first two and on the pod,
• 1:19:05
  Speaker 5: and I saw this one that they were gonna make
• 1:19:07
  Speaker 5: a third and I'm like, oh, hell yeah, that's what
• 1:19:09
  Speaker 5: I've been doing for the last week because I've been
• 1:19:12
  Speaker 5: reading nothing but Dungeon Crawler Carl and then the last
• 1:19:17
  Speaker 5: episode of this month, I've been reading that too, So
• 1:19:21
  Speaker 5: it's it's not gonna be as heavy as this one.
• 1:19:25
  Speaker 5: It's gonna be short and not want to say lighthearted.
• 1:19:30
  Speaker 5: It's more of a mystery. It's a mystery. Of course
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 5: we're some so we're the first two and a little
• 1:19:36
  Speaker 5: surprisingly gay, oh gay.
• 1:19:43
  Speaker 4: It's not honestly when you were talking when you were
• 1:19:45
  Speaker 4: telling me about it, it honestly sounds cute, like there's
• 1:19:48
  Speaker 4: supposed to be aliens in it and like some sort
• 1:19:51
  Speaker 4: of alien creatures in it. And I'm like, well, these
• 1:19:53
  Speaker 4: aliens sound cute, like nothing like that, Oh they're cute,
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 4: like oh like all they sound cute.
• 1:20:00
  Speaker 3: I haven't cut all this part out because that's that's
• 1:20:01
  Speaker 3: a spoiler.
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 5: But no, Yeah, basically, they have this alien shape shifter
• 1:20:08
  Speaker 5: singy that almost comes from like a crystal like substance.
• 1:20:14
  Speaker 5: It's very it's very it gives annihilation. It gets very
• 1:20:19
  Speaker 5: that and if thing can't get humans quite right, and
• 1:20:22
  Speaker 5: all it wants to do is just chill. It's like,
• 1:20:25
  Speaker 5: I don't I'm not doing nothing. I just want chilling.
• 1:20:27
  Speaker 5: Here it come whole again and just chill. And then
• 1:20:31
  Speaker 5: there's another one that comes in that the skies as
• 1:20:34
  Speaker 5: one of the characters and it becomes a vicious monster
• 1:20:37
  Speaker 5: and they have to kill that one, that fragment of
• 1:20:39
  Speaker 5: the thing, and it's you're just like damn. And of
• 1:20:44
  Speaker 5: course Alex, the main character, he loses his I don't
• 1:20:49
  Speaker 5: think he loses actually, I don't think he loses his leg.
• 1:20:53
  Speaker 5: And the cool thing is they leave it open for
• 1:20:55
  Speaker 5: another one because they're like, we're gonna leave America and
• 1:20:59
  Speaker 5: they're like, no, you know what we're gonna go. We're
• 1:21:01
  Speaker 5: gonna go visit other parts of America. But that's another
• 1:21:04
  Speaker 5: story for another day. And I'm like, don't, don't tease
• 1:21:08
  Speaker 5: me with a third with a fourth one d J. Fisher,
• 1:21:11
  Speaker 5: don't don't tease me like that. T Fisher, Like girl,
• 1:21:16
  Speaker 5: I wanted.
• 1:21:16
  Speaker 4: To have annihilation, and like, speaking of annihilation, I still
• 1:21:20
  Speaker 4: gotta read the rest of the series because I only
• 1:21:21
  Speaker 4: got the first book right up here.
• 1:21:23
  Speaker 3: Same I have them on audiobook. Let me do that too.
• 1:21:27
  Speaker 3: First one was all right, weird.
• 1:21:35
  Speaker 6: Mhm.
• 1:21:36
  Speaker 5: I try to listen to the second one could get
• 1:21:38
  Speaker 5: into it and I was like, this is weird. I'm
• 1:21:42
  Speaker 5: gonna try again someday.
• 1:21:43
  Speaker 4: But first one, I think, was just like just enough
• 1:21:47
  Speaker 4: for me. So like I feel like I'll be okay
• 1:21:49
  Speaker 4: without reading the rest of it because it's just like
• 1:21:51
  Speaker 4: it was kind of hard to follow. But like for me,
• 1:21:53
  Speaker 4: it was a little bit hard to follow and like
• 1:21:55
  Speaker 4: really get the story. But yeah, anyway, that was You
• 1:22:04
  Speaker 4: Weren't Meant to Be Human by Andrew Joseph White.
• 1:22:07
  Speaker 3: Mm hmm.
• 1:22:08
  Speaker 4: It's in stores now. It just came out last month.
• 1:22:10
  Speaker 4: It just came out in September. Uh, So you can
• 1:22:12
  Speaker 4: find it in your local bookstore or you or if
• 1:22:15
  Speaker 4: you you know, of course, you can find it on audible.
• 1:22:17
  Speaker 4: You can find it on pretty much any platform. I'd say,
• 1:22:21
  Speaker 4: definitely give it a read, but be warned.
• 1:22:27
  Speaker 5: Yeah yeah, But catch on next week as we continue
• 1:22:31
  Speaker 5: on our journey through the world of horror. And this
• 1:22:35
  Speaker 5: one's gonna be more of a mystery, cooky spooky, not
• 1:22:39
  Speaker 5: body horror. Well that's body horrors. Last week is the
• 1:22:44
  Speaker 5: last week of book Watchers. That's gonna be a fun
• 1:22:48
  Speaker 5: little journey.
• 1:22:51
  Speaker 6: Mm hmm.
• 1:22:53
  Speaker 5: Until then, Bye bye, Oh my God, by the omen
• 1:23:01
  Speaker 5: gun
• 1:23:04
  Speaker 6: Mhm