I will try to keep a list of addendums in this comment. These can also be found on my Twitter. Petscop Addendum 1: I apparently missed an epilogue sequence at the end of the Soundtrack video. While I don’t think it changed much in my interpretation, it reinforces some stuff I mentioned: “Found Family” themes and Paul being adopted by the Leskowitzes. (related: i almost cried watching the epilogue video, it wasn't even that emotional but i'm sleep deprived and im just happy paul and belle (tiara????) are happy 🤓) Petscop Addendum 2: I think the AI characters were being made by Rainer to try to get information out of them. Petscop 17 is an AI being “made”, learning how to act, being given its history and who it is, and hoping it will actually answer where the real life Care was. Petscop Addendum 3: There are some issues with the way I covered the "Paul is trans" theory, and I feel like it came across that I dismissed that interpretation. I want to make it clear that I think it is a fully valid interpretation of the story. Also, to anyone who has a problem with the idea of a trans character in media: fuck you. This channel is not a place for transphobes. Never has been, never will be. Petscop Addendum 4: There are numerous references to a "Tarnacop Machine", which were so puzzling to me and the rest of the community that I didn't include them. I had no idea what to even make of it. It turns out that "Tarnacop" is a reference to an ARG that ran on a forum (porplemontage) that Tony used to frequent. According to a comment on this post (www.reddit.com/r/Petscop/comments/li5m4i/tarnacop_is_a_reference_to_an_old_arg_about_a/), by u/countertherapist, at some point a Q&A was held that explained the Tarnacop reference as just an inside joke. Petscop Addendum 5: I feel like I should add some clarification here about the "Paul was *forced* to present as a girl by Marvin" theory. I understand that this is a real thing that happens. My point was not to discredit this, I was trying to point out that this concept *in media* is much of the time used to discredit the trans experience, or fearmonger about parents of trans kids being "abusive" by letting them express their identity. This is an incredibly nuanced topic that I did not have the time nor knowledge to feel equipped to deal with fully. Again, I would have changed a few things about this video in retrospect, and either not including this or spending more time on it is one of them.

“but whatever is in it severely freaks paul out” paul: “what the fuck 😐”

The fact that there’s a track in the game’s soundtrack called “Bathroom tomb” also heavily implies that Rainer did commit suicide and die in the bathroom

is a kidnapped girl being kept in a school basement for several days and feeling as if she can never be loved again afterwards not an extremely obvious allusion to sexual assault??

One thing I really appreciate about Petscop is NO JUMPSCARES. I don't like jumpscares- they set of my anxiety and loud, sudden noises are a trigger for me. Petscop perfectly encapsulates how terrifying a game can be when you perfect atmosphere. A jumpscare would let me know that I'm not alone and that's not scary. Being alone in this cosmic horror altered state makes my chest feel heavy and I love it. edit: i came to rewatch the video and saw the replies to my comment! I'm glad I'm not alone in my opinions of jumpscares. to those mocking me in the replies, i have anxiety and ptsd. both diagnosed. maybe it was my use of the word 'triggered' that set you assholes off, but jumpscares (and loud sudden noises) cause me to relive the event. it's not a case of 'everyone has anxiety these days >:((((((' I was literally impacted by a terrorist attack.

I think you got so close to an actual interpritation, i think its about abusive family members gaslighting you, where reality and their story clearly doesn't match represented by the logic of the game itself making little sense. another example of the familial abuse narative is the fact "I walked into a door" is a famous excuse for cuts and bruises caused by physical abuse.

To me, the appeal of Petscop was how perfectly it played the "guy who found the haunted video game" creepypasta. Everything posted at first felt so genuine and realistic. I distinctly remember one part where Paul just stops talking for a bit while exploring a new area, and starts to apologize for the dead air. Stuff like that just made it feel so believable, like it really was just a guy who found a video game and was reacting in the moment, not reading from a script. That combined with the bone-chilling uncanniness of the gameplay made it a surreal experience. Where it kinda lost me was the more family drama/supernatural elements in the game. It's fun to hear the theories but it kinda took away from the believable nature of Paul and the scenario. All the videos where Paul doesn't even talk were some of the worst ones, imo, even if they had major story elements. It's why my personal favorite head cannon was that the story ended at Petscop 10, where Paul is disturbed by something he sees in the game, enough to censor it in his videos, and decides that it was too much and to end it there. Obviously the story would be unfinished but it would play much more into the realistic nature, where not everything has a neat explanation.

Pyro: Doesn't upload Petscop 2 Sagan: Fine, I'll do it myself

Absolutely brilliant work!!! I can tell this is a video I'm gonna come back to watch multiple times!

to me, the “bumping into walls” or “what’s over there” motifs with care and Paul seemed more like dissociation, like how one will not feel totally “there” when coping with trauma

I thought Care was just an in game character made for Paul to remember his past, but do so slowly, make him piece it together himself. It would be too obvious and he would realise too fast, retraumatise himself maybe, if it was just straight up him. Coping with fiction is quite common. So is repression. I think it would make sense. That this game was made as some sort of therapy.

So I decided to read up on the Candace rebirthing incident you mentioned here. I found the transcript of the rebirthing session and I went light-headed by how enraged it made me. I don't have it in me to try and find the actual video recording of her death. Her death was beyond neglect, it was murder.

The description of the Care Egg Pet is a clipped string from Amber's description, all the way back in episode 1. The full text box is, "What's the safest place you can put her in? You should start thinking about that." Afterwards, Paul puts the egg in probably the safest place in the game - inside a locked locker whose combination only he and Tiara know. ... Don't ask me what all that *means*, of course. Just, that's the connection being made here.

One very small and kinda unimportant thing I noticed is that the glitchy Care in Petscop 2 is most likely her reflection or how she believes she looks due to Marvin's bs with the vase, as her form's blurry and warped and she's gained a reddish tint. Again, not really anything that relates much to the bulk of the video, but I thought it was interesting once I made the possible connection.

The car thing is so funny though. When Petscop 13 came out the subreddit wouldn't stop talking about the car door shutting sounds saying Paul was trapped in a car. It was turned into a whole car theory which some people supported while others denied saying it could have been any other door. When Petscop 22 came out and Paul said "Why would I be playing Petscop in a car" it was the funniest shit ever. It almost seemed as if Tony was lurking in the subreddit and making fun of the theory. The best part comes when Tony added subtitles to every Petscop video. In Petscop 13 the subtitles directly mentioned a car door thus fully confirming the theory that Paul was, in fact, trapped in a car this whole time. Also there is some more evidence of Rainer offing himself in the bathroom like with the name of one of the OST we've never heard before being "bathroom tomb" and the picture that relates to the bathroom in the house. Speaking of Tony's twitter account it's actually filled with absolute bangers like "Luigi's Mario" or "hot dog bung" or "The gand crayonyon"

This video series is one of the most terrifying things I've ever witnessed. Marvin kidnapping Care is very similar to an event with my father (he tried to kidnap me and take me to Singapore) and the themes of abuse and trauma are very accurate (in my own experience)

So, here's what I've always thought it was: The triangle-head characters stuck in the living room moving erratically? Those aren't AI learning how to recreate someone's actions. *_They're recordings._* Think about it. The game obviously has some kind of recording feature when it comes to the movement of the player characters. The "demo" feature defaults to the most recently recorded version of the last game played. That's how Paul was able to solve the one puzzle with the room with the locked door, pretending to move in front of the door according to his knowledge of the room in order to solve the puzzle. In fact, I think *_every_* character in the game that's not the player character is a recording. The game saves each movement and interaction from one run of the game and applies it to other areas later, like ghosts in the machine. That's why the first time we see Marvin is when he runs into a wall where a door should be and then runs away and disappears, presumably into a loading trigger that Marvin came across during that recording. The screwy part is when the recordings respond to Paul/the player character as if the person they were recorded from, which means that there must be some kind of meeting point where the recordings converge real-time, which I would guess could be blamed on the dimensional weirdness between Care and Paul. Or maybe I'm just another screwball who has no idea what he's talking about...

It makes me sad how people have sort of given up on trying to solve petscop. So thanks for this video, it gives me a bit more closure.

i love how attachment disorders and birth therapy were referenced in this game and brought to light. i barely see it covered in media and as someone who suffers from it, it really means a lot

Paul's voice is the one thing that gives you comfort in all of this. When he disappeared, it became more tense to watch.

Oh geez. As someone who went through child trauma i don’t think who I once was as a kid is the same person as me. She’s a different person a little girl and now I’m a man, I’ve forgotten nearly everything that happened to me when I was a child. And it’s jarring hearing people explain what happened to me. It’s a moment of oh fuck I know this, like Paul reacted. DAMNNNN

I think the egg message of "? You should start thinking about that" could also be a message to Paul and Belle. They're free of the game and the family. They can start thinking about who *they* want to be. Whatever comes out of the egg, they have full control over it.

its pronounced like "missed a seat" LOL (thank you for the shoutout)

Something to note is that in the soundtrack video the final shot is of the Paul character, the Belle/Tiara character, and the girl from the windmill (presumaby Lina) sitting on a bench. I’m not sure what it means but something to note is that all three of them have been seen with the surname Leskowitz.

29:22 Haha, I make MIDI re-creations on my channel, and that has happened to me a few times too. I take it as a compliment. It's like my MIDIs are so accurate to the originals, that KZfaq's automated system can't tell the difference.

The whole "paul is care" thing is likely just using care as a substitute for paul, rather than them literally being the same person. Its a way of presenting the story to paul without paul immedietly knowing

I think one of my favorite paul = care theory is paul developed DID after marvin kidnapped him. DID usually forms in early childhood due to severe trauma and identity issues, similar to how marvin attempted to "rebirth" his friend through care, hence why Paul and Care are so similar/share similar mannerisms !

i’ve never watched petscop (tho i certainly will now) but the idea of paul leaving trauma stuck with me a lot. for those of us with PTSD we can’t let go until we’ve had therapy, medication, etc etc. and it’s like yeah, paul went through some very very fucked up shit but he can’t stay in that fucking cycle anymore. he needs to go. and i admire that. also it’s 10 pm and i’m tired after work and school so this may not make sense

I can't believe Pyro actually made Petscop 2

re rainer committing s*i. there is a track on the petscop soundtrack called bathroom tomb that doesnt appear in the actual series. seems like solid support tbh

Petscop is fun mystery for the most part, but two moments really hit me. When Paul is probably assaulted by Marvin and, after just nothing happening for like minutes, he just asks the girl for help, and she can just apologize. And then the final moment of the series in Sountrack, the two of them being a family and deciding to keep investigating, but doing it together. It got to me dude

I actually love that you spent time on the themes and didn't try to just ram it all into "solving" the story. Theorising is heaps of fun but I feel like sometimes folks can get too bogged down in details that don't matter at the expense of examining the themes and messages of a work. Also as a trans subscriber it was really nice to hear you discuss that side of things in a kind way - subscribing to youtubers always has a "oh god I hope they don't secretly hate me for existing" element and it's always such a relief when you turn out to be cool about it :)

One of the scariest parts for me is the windmill disappearing. It may not be the creepiest thing, but the ominous drone and the sudden disappearance gives me a sinking feeling of dread

The only comment I really have is that there's an obvious implication of sexual assault that you didn't even name; a man kidnaps a young girl and abuses her so that he can make someone else be reborn through her. The song and everything else are sort of surrounding the fact that there is a VERY literal interpretation of "rebirth through someone". Other than that, I think the timeline theory makes the most sense, but is still not quite perfect. Doesn't explain why Paul never felt any of the mirrored effects Care did, for instance.

Interesting note: many adopted children will change their names... just a thought about care/Paul and Belle/tiara.

I love how everyone’s just making a bunch of Pyrocynical Petscop 2 jokes.

It’s been a while since I’ve seen any Petscop content, love this series though!

I don't know why, but Petscop really freaks me out. I think it's the fact that there are no jumpscares but you're still on the edge of your seat the entire time as you see Paul discover things around the game. The atmosphere is top notch, and that's what freaks me out about it.

Not sure if anyone has really theorized on this but an idea I've thought about with the Care and Paul being the same person in a different sort of way being a result of dissociative identity disorder. DID develops usually as of result of extreme childhood trauma usually from abuse as a way to protect themselves from the trauma, maybe this is what happened to Care after Marvin did what he did causing a personality split where Paul became the alter to deal with the trauma. It could explain why he only has vague memories of things of Care at best but no memories of the traumatic events she faced, but when shown the censored items associated with Care and her trauma he has a viseral reaction. And a possible explanation why the family seems to think Paul is special and must play the game to unlock it's secrets, since he is Care at least partially believing he'd know more and it fueled Marvin's idea in a twisted way that the rebirth was possible because Care was "reborn" as Paul. If that makes sense, I don't know how it would line up with all the lore and info in the game if you really went through it.

I might not understand all the deep lore to this series, but I think the csa themes in this are pretty unambiguous. All that language about kidnapping, excitement, teaching, using tools, rebirthing - all I hear is grooming and abuse. No wonder Care thought "NLM" :(

"Whatever it is it severely freaks paul out" Paul: *chill almost unbothered sounding voice* "what the fuck" Lmao

I dunno, I'm sort of a fan of the mental health angle. I grew up two stepsisters who were adopted at ages 5 and 7. (Mike was 7 when he died.) Adopted children often have several severe mental health issues. In fact, twice as many develop at least one, if not multiple, mental illnesses. Some providers have described it as "Adopted Child Syndrome" but the phrase is highly controversial. Common disorders include, are not limited to: Major Depressive Disorder, PTSD, Reactive Attachment Disorder, Oppositional Defiant Disorder, Conduct Disorder, Generalized Anxiety/Panic Disorder, Borderline Personality Disorder and so on. They are also at higher risk of developing issues with substance abuse or behavioral addictions like sex and gambling. Just a few notable points: 1.) What is the deal with calling them "The Family?" Kids that live with their biological relatives generally use second person, inclusive language (we, our, mine) when talking about their family. 2.) They struggle with feeling like they don't belong. 3.) Many come from abusive situations, including sexual assault. (My stepsisters came from a home riddled with drugs, drug users, and multiple forms of neglect and abuse. ) It's possible Marvin lost his parental rights because he abused his kids. perhaps he was so abusive Mike had to be rushed to the ICU. Doctors, nurses, CNAs, etc are all mandated reporters. Red flags like multiple healed fractures, blunt force trauma (without an obvious explanation,) deceleration injuries (especially the kind seen in Shaken Baby syndrome) all have to be reported. 4.) Marvin, furious at losing his rights schemes to take Care back. We went through a period of time where we had to do things like have our phone number unlisted, emergency orders of protection, police surveillance, etc when my stepsisters' biological mother and father were released from prison. The girls even had a name change and new birth certificates.) 5.) To a child who doesn't understand, a large group home (that has kids constantly leaving and new kids coming in) may feel a lot like a "child library. 6.) The girls and I had regular visits with our respective school guidance counselors. 7.) The calendar could represent the mother's visitation rights (as pointed out many times) but it's a CPS visitation situation, not a divorce, as she works to have her full rights restored separate from Marvin. 8.) Okay, this gets kind of personal, but I have struggled with blackouts and PNES episodes as part of my own PTSD. I have my own history of prolonged childhood sexual abuse. The worst of these episodes have end with me wandering and only coming out when I run into furniture or a door frame. That's all I have for now. But there's plenty more where that came from.

me: desperately trying to pay attention to the story and keep track of the names my brain jamming out in the background: uh oh! bye bye!

I agree with a lot of your summary but I think there's a much simpler, darker and more meaningful interpretation of the "dimensions" that plays strongly into the themes of childhood trauma, memory loss. This also kind of ties in the "Paul is trans" theory. Whatever Marvin did to Care as a child traumatized her so much that she was "never the same." After intensive therapy by herself or an outside source, she was in a sense reborn as Paul, unwilling to confront the memories to the point where he doesn't even recall anything of his life back as Care. That's why the cycle keeps repeating; it's not that the game know the future, it's that this all been done by Paul before, but his method of coping has made him unintentionally repeat the exact actions during different stages of his trauma, to the extent that the game can literally predict exactly what he's going to do. Because of his traumatic childhood, Paul (who was possibly originally Mike?) has been forced to play this screwed up fake game again and again for 17 years, being forcefully "reborn" over and over through a process that he could only emotionally cope with by blanking out the repeated cycle of trauma that his family was repeatedly forcing him through. Rainer's gift to decades-long tortured innocent cousin was to edit in a method in the game to record and replay these events in a way that makes him confront these blocked out memories and finally break the 17-year long cycle of trauma that Marvin and his family have put this adopted child through over and over again.

Petscop is a classic. Honestly I’m excited to relive this series through your vid.

I really loved that video, the "Merging Dimensions" Interpretation does sound interesting. I am wondering though, the soundtrack says "It was recorded on a TARNACOP Machine", we see a PC in Petscop called Tarnacop and I remember reading somewhere that "Tarnacop was a robotic probe" that was to "Warn people of a disaster occuring in 2022". And perhaps this disaster was the merge. After all, there is this kind of computer called a "Quantum Computer", which can be superimposed between two states or something like that, what if the Tarnacop Machine was also a Quantum Computer?

I think it's very important to realize that Petscop isn't simply just a story told through a medium of video games. Petscop BEING a video game is integral to the plot, as well as the fact it is being played through for us. While that may seem quite obvious I think it's nonetheless an important distinction. The SHADOWMONSTERMAN isn't just a state of being, it's an actual glitch in the game which allows access into areas previously unavailable due to circumstance. The Shadow Monster Man directly leads to a revelation about the windmill, as well as a few other things. The original note telling us about the Shadow monster man is extremely juvenile, (presumably written by a child,) and while it also pays tribute to the usual "DO NOT PLAY THIS GAME!!" trope in ".EXE" tributes, here it seems almost as a subversion of it, the note implores us to discover more about what the Shadow Monster Man may be, how it relates to walking through a wall in a staircase, should we be afraid of it? It's clear that the child writing the original Shadow Monster Man note is meant to be related to children on a school play ground, spreading rumors of "L IS FOR REAL 2407" or how Mew can be found under the truck in Pokemon red. This child doesn't know what a glitch is (or at least not how to define it) and thus calls the visual glitch a Shadow Monster Man. However it's interesting to note that the Shadow Monster Man can only be found in the Newmaker plain, an area below the gift plain. As far as I know, the Giftplain was the original or at least planned Petscop for Micheal, as well as a few other children. The Newmaker plain is intended for Marvin and or Paul. Why would another child seemingly have access for the New Maker plain? I think Petscop is a lot deeper than can be simply explained with a dimensional rift, the note telling us about the Shadow Monster Man for example. I doubt Rainer wrote the first part, we see his hand writing in the part below it, seemingly intended for Marvin. I think it's important that we keep this in mind, I believe the Shadow Monster Man note somewhat disproves the theory of a dimensional rift, or at least weakens it. The descriptions of the videos are also quite important. About halfway through the series, they begin to state that "Videos can bring people back from the dead." In a physical sense, this is untrue. In a metaphorical sense, you can see back into time (time is another somewhat important theme in Petsocp as well) and "revive" them, even if just for a short period of time. With this in mind, there is a camera in Petscop as well. The video camera recording the windmill. This video recording then displays our first sighting of Marvin as he asks where his house is, the school, etc. I don't think there is a dimensional rift in Petscop, but I do believe there is somewhat a warped sense of time instead. The first time we EVER see Marvin is through a camera, which we are told can bring people "from the dead." I am not about to tell you that Paul is dead as we are watching his videos, that theory never made sense to me. Instead, I think we're watching Paul in a time loop of sorts. One thing I was incredibly surprised by in this video is that it completely glossed over the Soundtrack's epilogue, in which Paul and Belle have a conversation. At the end of this we see Paul go "Lets investigate together" (among other expository details, Belle states a boss is coming soon and is going to sit in the bench. Belle also says that Paul REMEMBERS being reborn, and that he was smuggled away.) I think this epilogue actually the beginning of the series, with the credits being the true ending. Quick side track from all of this. I think Paul playing "Paul's melody" when he was supposed to be rebirthed is actually proof that Care rebirthed into Paul, not vice versa. Instead of becoming the person Marvin wanted her to, Care became her own entity, yet separate from "Care." That is why Paul's or Care's family states Care's full name in order to try and convince Paul he is Care, why Care/Paul is taken out of school by the counselor. Care either literally or figuratively became Paul, So, with all of that out the way, here's my theory. I think Paul/Care wrote the Shadow Monster Man note for himself, after discovering the glitch to begin with. This is my only explanation as to why the note was there to begin with and why it was so simple when compared to the way Rainer speaks. Care/Paul was the only person who would've had access to the Newmaker plain outside of Marvin, Belle and Rainer. After this, the rest of the story happens, and once again as Paul watches Care becoming Paul (very good wording I know) Marvin leaves and Paul exits the Newmaker plain, only for the loop to reset. Yes, that was a very brief description, and since this is likely getting far too long and convoluted for you guys (and myself) I'm going to explain why a time loop makes sense in the context of Petscop. 1: It explains the descriptions and why videos can supposedly "bring people from the dead." Care is dead, but care LIVES through the Petscop videos as Paul. 2: It explain the Shadow Monster Man note, an integral part of the story because without it Paul would've had to stumble across the glitch by chance. 3: It explains the red triangle characters people believed to be AI machines. They're iterations of Paul and all the movements he's made each time he's played through the game. (I think it's important to note now that I don't believe petscop the game is affected by time, it's instead a conduit for the time anomaly.) Feel free to tear this theory to shreds, I think I lost focus half way and now I feel like a reptillian conspiracy theorist.

I feel like the final song being Paul's Melody means that Care(?) has become Paul rather than being forced into being Care. Although that sort of connects to the "Paul being forced to present female for rebirthing." Theory. I still feel like that theory has some more water than The Dimensional Rift but that really doesn't explain the "Dodging invisible obstacles" and "Walking through a door" parts. Maybe it's related to that line about Care going Blind for a bit after she left?

“Whatever it is, it severely scares Paul.” “…What the fuck”

there is actually some good evidence for the trans theory (i am trans btw) 1. the object in the 'care with mikes eyebrows' room. we know from the caskets scene that this object is a red vase showing cares distorted reflection. (look closeley at the censored object- you can see a small part of the vase poking out.) paul recognizes this, but the only people in the series who would have seen this in real life are care, marvin, and possibly rainer. 2. color symbolism. paul is represented with red and care as yellow. the egg care becomes is red and yellow. there is an object in the window outside red tools room- when the windmill is active it moves- it is a red piece and yellow piece and they constantly seperate and recombine 3. the series makes a deliberate point to show that rainer commits a form of deadnaming against tiara. 'i am tiara not bell' vs 'im calling you belle because thats who you are'. rainer even makes her speaking sound effect a bell 4. if you translate the message paul lingers on but never sends in petscop 23, though it is not complete it seems to say 'dad'. we know marvin is cares dad 5. we see the guardian being called to the 'girl' wall repeatedly while in the school, which causes the guardian to assume an annoyed face that we learn in episode 18 is one of its previous designs. when the player finally enters the counselors office on the other side of the girl wall, they note that the player didnt respond to her calling and asks to confirm the players name- the name text is in red, pauls color 6. almost everything about the birthday scene ' why are you hiding your face... oh. .... that face, those eyes, thats still you' 7. care becomes and egg. egg is common slang among trans people, referring to one before realizing they are trans 8. paul defeats marvin by playing in red notes (his own color) rather than the pink notes marvin wants him to play (pink either being linas color, or a color representing the dead as it is found in gravestone text) 9. in the epilogue, tiara states 'boss is there, waiting for her son'. if you translate the inputs, every time boss is said, what is actually being typed is 'lina' under this reading, petscop is a story about rainer committing figurative graverobbing (and possibly literal graverobbing as well) he refuses to accept that peoples identities change, seeing them as entirely separate people. this is why rainer uses the A B NLM system, seeing people as separate entities after they experience life changing effects. the same is why he sees the dog hit by the car as forever changed. the graverobbing is symbolic for Rainer constantly trying to either bring back or mourn these previous iterations of people . if you follow the idea that the pets are symbolic for the characters (which is reinforced by color symbolism and gift plane areas corresponding to newmaker plane areas, then wavey, the cloud pet, would be rainer' waveys text reads 'according to him, he is never the same person for more than a few seconds' rainer represents the ideological excuses for transphobia - the idea that identity is unchanging and if it does change then that isnt the same person from before the change marvin, who is implied to have been in cahoots with rainer at some point (how else would rainer have known about the vase casket?) represents the reactionary elements of transphobia- he wants care back as he sees her as a replacement for his lost childhood friend (as rainer tells us in episode 17, marvin spent weeks waiting for lina to come back, so i doubt that he killed her or anything) rainer at some point died, either literally or in his weird standards of changing identities/personalities being the same as death. 'check your bathroom now', pillar of dirt in randice/wavey room corresponding to the house bathroom, 'bathroom tomb' track showing the pillar of dirt, rainer telling tiara that hes 'gone' in the messages he left behind for her) leaving marvin behind to continue the cycle of pain rainer created. by putting care b in the machine instead of care nlm and playing his own song, paul escapes the cycle of a b nlm that the game had been stuck in, and then puts the egg in the locker where marvin can never get it, same as tiara seeming did with her egg so that rainer would have to stop trying to rebirth her. the 'you should start thinking about that' text the egg gives is the same text as what the pet ambers description says 'whats the safest place you can put her? you should start thinking about that.' - a hint on how to protect the egg from marvin. amber seemingly wears the hat the counselor has in the image outside her room.

Petscop is a great example of a series that doesn't give you any real answers but does give the impression that there actually is a story.

Something to note is “good grief and alas” is where the daisy head maisie allusions come on bc that’s a line from that book.

I came up with an interesting game concept after watching the petscop videos. You play through a game. Early access for years, suddenly released, and seems to have been abandoned forever ago, and just released to solidify that it was abandoned. Except it wasn’t. The game was a passion project, and the dev (kinda crazy ngl) kept working on stuff, and scrapping it, trying more stuff, etc. This scrapped material would somehow make its way into the main game upon release. If you played through the game normally, it’d seem like a 15-20 minute long, mostly boring game. But if you dug deeper, like finding a “bug” to glitch yourself into a secret room, you can start finding this “scrapped” material and play through an extremely unsettling game.

I have this awful feeling that there might actually be an Answer to Petscop. Something about that last video with the long list of names and the birthday card has this air of someone handing you the final piece to a puzzle, like if we'd put all the pieces together there would be this precise hole that requires that one piece to fill it... but we didn't, so it's just kind of confusing. I like to imagine with these things that there is an actual under-the-bonnet answer, even if it's impossible to obtain, because so much of the series is quite precise and carefully constructed. So I appreciate you saying that this probably isn't all metaphor, and that it probably is a somewhat grounded story about a weird thing that happened, rather than a very weird story about something mundane. Theory-wise... I couldn't really manage anything. I liked the idea proposed by someone - possibly Game Theory, possibly not - that the game was intended as some kind of modelling program, to get a sense of how Marvin would think so that some secret about his actions could be gleaned from that. But it probably doesn't stand up to scrutiny.

Being “a part of” the Petscop fanbase and theory community as the series came out was just an amazing experience. I’ll never forget Christmas of 2017-after a 6 month hiatus, we didn’t just get a new 30-minute part to break down… we got YO THE HOUSE PAUL FOUND THE HOUSE IT’S THE HOUSE YOOOOOOOOO It was just one of those great things, and I’ll always have a love for the series because of it

So THIS is the dimensional merge chris chan was talking about

I too am a victim of generational and childhood trauma and working on closing my own loop. That's why I relate more with petscop than I ever will with something like the Walten Files.

10/10 great game, can't wait to see it evolve into Life is Strange: Petscolors

I think it’s very interesting that it specifically the second notion of Stravinsky’s septet, because the whole piece is meant to show the change that in his music (first half is old style third is new and second is the change) I’m 100% sure that it’s the song Marvin plays during rebirthing.

20:54 "Check your bathroom" Good advice, there could be a duende in there 👽

47:45 "WTF is the Dimensional Merge?" It's when all of the OCs in the world come into the real world and Chris Chan can reunite with Sonichu, duh!

God this brings back memories…I remember when we were all trying to count “bye-byes” on the discord, and writing out all of the keysmash video titles. I was literally there when we found out that video synced to the sign, it was fucking wild. Omg.

i really do think its simpler than that. dissociative disorders are common in people who have experienced trauma. dissociative identity disorder specifically is usually caused by heavy trauma as a child. like being locked in a school basement for months being physically, emotionally, and probably sexually abused and told repeatedly youre someone else by your very sick father. I suggest that either Paul is an alter of Care, or Care is an alter of Paul.

an interpretation i had from the "is there still a room?" line is that playing the game imprints the psyche/behavioural pattern/soul/whatever of the family member into the memory card, and they wouldn't realize they are the digital imprint until they tried to stop playing or put the controller down, because even though they'd lack a body and a surrounding room at that point, they'd still have a vague feeling of sitting in front of a game left from when they were still a person playing the game

The fabled Petscop 2…

I'm so thrilled about this upload and I'm only a little over halfway through. I remember when petscop was on its first legs and I would desperately try to find theory videos on them that would clear things up but to no avail. Eventually, I stopped keeping up with the channel's uploads but I really wish I did. Super grateful for this video :) Another banger vid Sagan!

I think Paul’s narration in the first episode isn’t EXPLICITLY toward Belle specifically. The birth of petscop as a series started from a Reddit post by Paul claiming to have said game. I believe he might’ve been referring to the people watching at firsy

32:04 closest thing petscop gets to a jumpscare i think, one of my favorite moments

just a small theory here, but what if the "here i come" when paul tells marvin where he is, is a mirror for care getting kidnapped? now that marvin knows where paul/care is, he goes to them, and kidnaps them, explaining the help message and the whole school sequence, just food for thought

The explanation for Petscop is so bizarre. If Paul is from the other timeline, one where there were no deaths or attempts at rebirthing going on, why is his family from that timeline making him play the game? How does he have access to the game in the first place if Rainer and everything else is in the other world? Are the timelines merged into one somehow? The more I think about it, the more it seems that there weren't supposed to be any merging timelines there, and it's all convoluted metaphors for some down-to-earth real life stuff.

Nightmare Masterclass: makes one reference to how horrible the class divide is and it's impact on the foster care system has been undoubtedly horrendous. Sagan: "he focuses a lot on the societal connections"

I prefer the more grounded theory that Paul and Belle were both left with childhood trauma after Marvin attempted to rebirth both of them. This led to them having psychosis as children, hallucinations, and eventually repressed/misremembered childhood memories as adults and PTSD (which is why Paul recognised the conversation. He was having a PTSD enduced episode on his birthday the previous year and thought the conversation he was recalling was one in the present day). They're estranged from their families because of this trauma. Paul remained in his hometown though, while Belle decided to leave. This would explain why Belle isn't particularly excited to come home when Paul addresses her directly in the early episodes. I do buy into the idea that Marvin made Paul present as a girl called Carrie (or Care) as a child. He had hoped for a daughter because he desperately wanted to rebirth his friend, so pushed this on Paul. Shortly after the first Petscop video went viral, the family took notice and doxxed Paul to get his location. And that's when the channel got taken over by the family.

Yes, I would like a scoop of pet, thanks for asking.

Petscop will forever be burned to my mind it is just iconic to me now. I love petscop to bits and my man tony made a literal masterpiece. I love stories that use the sense of ambiguity to get you hooked. I love not understanding things and slowly pieceing what's happening with the information given to me. The thing is the story of petscop is a double pack. You have the intended by the creator story or concept of what is happening and it also has that interperate it the way you want to story because the story doesn't give you info and never confirms anything. AND I LOVE THAT. IT IS THE MOST UNIQUE WAY OF STORYTELLING I HAVE EVER SEEN. Petscop is an experience and it will forever stay as my favorite web seires.

i have a love hate relationship with petscop. I don't mind stories being left open ended, but in this case it really frustrates me. no matter how much i read or watch about this series i still feel like i don't get it, which is why i personally like the theory that paul is transgender. it's much more simple and still has holes but the other theories are just too detailed and riddled with loose ends for me to be satisfied with. I gotta say it was a missed opportunity imo. I get a feeling the creator was so attached to the mystery aspect that they never gave us straightforward answers and instead kept it vague.

10:49 - "Good grief and alas" is also a line from Daisy-Head Mayzie

The tapers webnovel by Tony is very illuminating, not canon apparently but it really does fill in some of the gaps

The windmill could be a reference to don Quixote, the windmill being Marvin’s adversary or in this case his goal of reviving Lina. He went there (to his goal) but failed. So Lina and the windmill (the goal) disappeared. He became a shadow monster man (someone who is evil torturing kids) in pursuit of the goal. But nobody ever saw her (Lina) because she never emerged from any of the children who he attempted to rebirth. Further evidence that the windmill isn’t a place but an event is that Paul only gets an answer when he asked WHEN was the windmill not WHERE.

Great work! I think one of the points of Petscop 18 (if not the main point) was to canonically retcon Guardian as the name of the active player sprite from Newmaker. Given how the creator is on the record about regretting evoking her for the series, this makes sense.

FINALLY! The Petscope 2 we’ve been waiting all those years for Edit (I know this is a bit cringe but): This is the most likes I've ever gotten. Thanks?

You uploaded this while pyro was streaming. Clearly this confirms the existence of petscop 2

the way your channel is involving to have its own unique style is super cool! thanks for providing great content for me to get through the workday.

I'm glad to see that someone talked about Petscop and the later half of the story. I remember watching the latter half of the story basically as soon as the episodes came out and the finale. I also remember the Reddit being really split when the finale happened. One half, myself included, were convinced that it couldn't be the end of the story. There was so many unanswered questions with the story that, even now - with your explanation, I haven't learned any information that wasn't evident or couldn't be guessed at the time of the finale (although the dimensional merge theory is one I haven't heard before). Hell, the catalyst to the whole story, the Windmill Incident, isn't explained. This isn't to say that a creator has to answer every question in a story. However, the story needs to have some semblance of coherence to it. Unfortunately, Petscop's ending has kinda soured me to the concept. It posed some interesting questions and was a suspenseful horror series that really built atmosphere well, but stumbled to the finish line without having gone through half of the checkpoints in the race it was in. A somewhat clunky metaphor, but eh. I wish Petscop had ended differently.

always a joy to see good quality content from you sagan

Love this theory. It's one of the most comprehensive. However one thing, what if Paul was also trans in a way that's totally unrelated to the timelines merge as a treat

not youtube saying this is yume nikki !

Greatly appreciate this as it you tell the whole story. My experiences of Petscop were videos from Game Theory and Night Mind so it’s cool there’s a video like this

Hey have you heard of nightmare masterclass? They’ve made a HUGE series on petscop Edit: Turns out he mentioned it at 56:40

While a lot of the analysis itself seems solid, I feel the "Dimensional Murge," is weak and a reach. The story itself could be repressed memories, gaslighting, and a family trying to keep someone from remembering the horrors that actually happened. The death of the Maker, Paul being kidnapped and feeling like nobody can love him, by his father. After years of going through psychological hell, people can repress large sequences of time. So the game is the Makers way of telling the truth to Paul, of showing him what was lost. The other people in the game, Marvin and Tiara/Belle are playing the game. Simply put, the game is their way of accessing Paul and trying to change what he sees. Marvin wants his friend back, and Tiara wants Paul to know the truth about what happened to both of them. Marvin gets information from Paul about real life from the Makers inclusion of their elements. Paul tells Marvin where to find him, and in the final episode, we see Paul choosing to be himself both in real life and in the game (by playing his theme)

This fella needs more recognition. Really love the work you do man, please keep it up

Admittedly I always thought Paul/Care was suffering from some sort of identity disassociation disorder.

How am i somehow more confused than how i was to begin with

Thank you for doing a cover on this topic. Not many people really knew what pettscop really was and just seeing your theory and how you explain the series is great

The first puzzle did not involve glitching at all. There's just a hallway in the back that you can't see due to the angle. It's done in hundreds of games.

I love args that put so much effort in to visualize the story.

I'd like to respond to that comment regarding how it would be more clear if Paul was transgender, when most of Petscop is covered in allusion anyway so its not entirely out of the question.

This is so cool!! Keep up the good work Sagan

Did you compose the "uh oh, bye bye" song in the back? I like it quite a bit and was hoping to listen to it by itself.

I'm saving this one for tomorrow. Thank you for being so consistent. God tier channel.

Oh shit dude I was searching for some petscop content last night and resigned myself to just watching old videos. Cheers for the hour long!