#jay speaketh

So, I've already given a basic rundown on Sam in general, but now you get his

~Backstory~

(I'll get to his other interests and such in another post probably, this got a lot longer than I thought it would) So, Samuel essentially grew up in a household where he was very much loved and cared for, however the way said love and care went was a biiit, askew to say the least. His parents were very helicoptery, wanting to know everything going on with him at every given moment, even going so far as to pull him out of school in order to keep a closer eye on him and teach him things themselves (It is at this point that I think I might have accidentally made his parents kinda yanderey, but without the whole killing thing. Not sure but I'll add that to the warnings/tags anyway just in case). Admittedly another part of that was because Sam was often bullied for his appearance, the other kids finding him to look too weird to be normal, calling him mean names, excluding him during playtime, stealing his food, general mean little kid stuff, but it still didn't really excuse pulling Sam out of school altogether. They even went so far as to put a tracker on him so they'd always know where he is. They're also very in denial about Samuel being trans, calling it a 'phase' and insisting that he's still their 'precious little baby girl' no matter what he says or does. Luckily though, it wasn't all horrible all the time, Samuel had his uncle, Boris, and his little cousin Brody, who had the same heterochromia as him, just in opposite eyes. Boris was a wonderful uncle, he adored and accepted Sam and always did his best to tell Sam not to listen to anyone who tells him to be anything other than himself. Boris taught Sam many things both fun and practical, like how to play a guitar, lock-picking for just in case purposes of course, basic self defence and cooking, anything he could that he thought Sam might need to know in the future. He knew Sam's parents wouldn't teach him anything that would help him survive away from them, so he wanted to do everything he could for him so that if Sam were ever able to get out, he wouldn't be completely unable to help himself. Brody, meanwhile, adored Samuel, and wants to be 'just like him' someday. He's pretty much more like a little brother to Sam than anything else, and he thinks his big cousin is just the coolest ever, and often refers to him as 'Samsam'. They were practically inseparable whenever Samuel came over, also cheering and hugging each other tight when they saw the other. It always made Boris smile to see them so close. Unfortunately though, things couldn't be this happy forever, because when Samuel was 10, something happened to Boris that caused him to pass away (I'm still undecided on what that is, either illness or car accident), meaning Samuel no longer had a safe space he could go to, and Brodi had to go live with his grandparents who live outside of the US. Thus, Samuel was alone, but he wasn't out of hope. He'd had enough. So, he did the only rational thing an 10 year old could think of: he ran away from home Psychonauts anyone? No? Okay then- Admittedly, it did take him a while to do so, but he managed by the time he was 11, and had also taken out the tracker so they couldn't find him. He took a lot of measures to make sure they couldn't find him for a while at the least... This is how he ended up coming across a junkyard, intending to lay low there for a bit until he figured out how he would earn money in order to live on his own. At least, that was the idea, until he ran into a pre-mutation Repo Mantis (who I will be calling 'Manny' as 1. he is not a mantis yet and 2. I yoinked the name from @/rottmnt-risuum , go read their comic it's so good, just mind the gore if you're not into that). Luckily, however, instead of kicking Sam out, he decided to make an offer; Sam can help out in the yard in exchange for cash and a place to live until he's able to make it on his own, to which Samuel accepted. Manny may be a greedy guy, but he ain't the heartless type to leave a kid to rot.

 From that point on for the next roughly 2 years, Samuel would help around the yard, doing tasks that are reasonable for a kid his age, and if anyone were to give him any trouble for any reason, Manny would handle it and add some compensation to make up for whatever it was Sam had to deal with. He may seem like the kind of guy to not care a lot, but he has a pet kitten and kept her even after she mutated and tried to eat him for crying out loud, he has some softness under that Brooklyn accent somewhere, and sure enough he'd grown to like Samuel, becoming a sort of surrogate father/uncle figure to him. Somewhere along that line Samuel was somehow also able to procure HRT and start on that, but how it happened I will never know. It's a show with talking turtle ninjas that have magic I don't have to be logical about things ALL the time.

Soon enough, when Samuel was 12, he managed to save up enough to get himself an apartment and was even able to get into a school and find a relatively okay job that didn't know he was not 14 because he sorta kinda lied on his resume- It was worth it though, he was glad he did it. He was finally able to be independent and not need to rely on others help to get a better life, but he will always be grateful to Manny for everything, and still visits him at least a few times a week either to just hang out or do favours, like fixing something or taking care of Mrs Nubbins, in exchange for being able to scrounge around for parts that he can use for any projects he's working on either for practice or to get one step closer to his dream of being a mechanic/technician. Manny only ever pretended to keep score of how many favours Sam could cash in. As far as he was concerned, Sam could take anything he wanted, within reason at least.

Of course, this doesn't mean Samuel is completely free. He still needs to be wary of his parents, as they're out there looking for him. They almost did find him at one point, but he was able to move somewhere else before they did, but he had to change his contact details and other such things in order to keep them off his trail. It's a song and dance he'd have to go through generally once or twice a year at least, three or maybe four if he's unlucky. He doesn't have a lot with him, so it makes the process easier, but it's never any less nerve wracking or stressful, not to mention expensive. But he's been getting more and better jobs, and eventually he didn't need to lie about his age on his resume anymore, which was a huge relief off his shoulders if he were perfectly honest. He still got bullied at his new school though, again for his appearance, which was unfortunate.