Sofie’s Reviews > You Weren't Meant to Be Human > Status Update

“if crane hadn’t been such a coward, and asked for help, he could’ve avoided it all. but nobody ever told him he was allowed to”
fuck! this is. this is!!!!!! sometimes we just need to be told that we’re allowed to be alive, sometimes that’s all it takes!!!!!!!!! there’s some parts of crane’s story that i can’t relate to but overall? i am him and he is me

(cont.)
or traumatized veterans (idk what stagger’s deal was before he joined the hive but i hope we find out) and then the hive used that desperation to trap them in the same exact system under the illusion of freedom. it’s truly fucking sickening. maybe if the world treated queer and mentally ill and neurodivergent people better, we wouldn’t resign ourselves to these slow, solitary death traps

shocker, the hive doesn’t give a fuck about its people either!!!!! it wants to see the sun and i’m sure that’s what the experiment with stagger was about, and i suspect it’s a similar idea with crane and whatever he’s about to give birth to (which levi definitely got implanted in himself first). they wanted to be free from humans who threw them away for being mentally ill or autistic or trans (cont.)

i think crane is finally understanding the difference between a healthy, consensual D/s relationship and an undernegotiated one that halfway exists as an excuse for crane to take the punishment he thinks he deserves for having the desires he does and for being the kind of person he is

levi i am wishing you a torturous death in the next 100 pages

“it’s everything sophie would’ve wanted” OKAY BUT WHAT DOES CRANE WANT!!!!!!!!!!! if he doesn’t end up happy and safe and free and with a healthier idea of what it means to want to submit by actually CHOOSING that submission for oneself by the end of this i’m gonna lose it

the first tears have been spilled as my heart breaks for crane and how beaten down he is. i think there’s still a bit further down for him to go before he’s truly at rock bottom but we are steadily approaching and it hurts so bad to read. the world really made him feel so utterly useless as a human that he forced himself to believe he’s better off taking orders and nothing else

i’m very much seeing the outline of a happy-ish ending with stagger and crane escaping the hive together and i’m thrilled about it

wow. what a fucking chapter to end this first section. the way that ajw writes about the intersections of self-harm and sexual desire and disgust and transness and queerness and repression is unlike anything i’ve ever read. you can tell that these themes are very near and dear to his heart and i applaud him for being able to synthesize such messy and vulnerable emotions (cont.)

i am SO into this so far. the tone is vastly different from hell followed with us (duh) and i’m loving what it looks like when andrew joseph white writes adult instead of ya. i hope this eats me alive 🤩🤩🤩