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i've always found the socialization argument transphobes so love to wield particularly ridiculous, because, like... i'm a woman. well, i identify as fuck-all, but i was born a woman, i've got the two x chromosomes, i've got the most standard production of estrogen and have never gone on hrt, i've got the ovaries and uterus and regular periods, on the dot, every 28 days — i'm practically a walking calendar.
and i was not socialized as a woman/girl. i'm not even entirely sure what that means. i was raised in a very non-traditional, atheistic household. the topic of gender roles never even came up in my childhood, at least not until i was a teenager and realized other families really cared about gender roles. i was raised the same way as my male cousins. sure, i'm smaller than all of them, but i'm also ridiculously small even for the average woman, so, whatever. i get my periods, sure, and i knew that was something my male cousins didn't get, but i also have cis woman friends who don't get periods, or get them so irregularly that it really has no bearing on their lives. my mom was already in menopause by the time i was a teenager. i grew up around older women. they did not get periods, so obviously that couldn't be what defined their womanhood.
but beyond biology, i was just never socialized as a "girl," the way the people around me often defined it. i was not brought up with the expectation of one day getting married to a man. there was never any talk of me having children or getting pregnant, certainly not as a given — i had phases where i felt i really wanted to be a mom and phases where i really didn't, and both were met with the same level of acceptance. i wasn't socialized to cater to male relatives. i wasn't socialized to watch my language, or act "ladylike". i wasn't even taught to shave. i've never shaved my legs or arms to this day. i've had boyfriends that shaved more than me. i wasn't taught domestic labor beyond the basic "just help out and do your part where you can." i can't cook. i loved haircare and makeup and sewing and i spent my middle school years going hiking and to shooting ranges with my dad. my first love was a girl. my best friends were boys and girls both. like, even writing this i feel like i'm missing something that's so obvious to others, but i genuinely don't get which part of my upbringing was supposed to have been "female socialization".
i did feel the effects of gender roles later, when i moved and started university at 18. up until then, my environment was, admittedly, sort of insular. then i started at a more traditional institution, and i realized the way i was brought up was decidedly not the norm. people pushed me into boxes that confused me; that i felt had nothing at all to do with me. people would insist i must have been raised a certain way, and were confused when they realized i wasn't. they expected me to behave in ways that were entirely foreign to me, just based on their ideas of how people with my chromosomes and genitalia should act. it distressed me. it got to the point where i started seriously wondering whether i wasn't actually a man, because everyone's telling me being a woman means XYZ, and i'm not that, so surely i must be the other binary gender.
that turned out to not be the case for me, but i don't get why it's so hard to see the inverse of that for trans folk. i was not "socialized" as a woman, yet transphobes would still insist i am surely a woman; what, then, is the difference with trans folk who were not "socialized" as the gender and sex they identify with?
if it's not socialization, then it's gotta be hormones and genitalia. if those can be changed... well, there you go. and if it's about reproductive role — as a person who can get pregnant, i don't think i have to explain why defining identity solely upon reproduction is awful and reductive and outright dangerous.
youre monogamous? oh… it’s ethical, right? ethical monogamy? okay good for you! i mean pretty much every monogamous couple i’ve met didn’t work out but maybe you guys will beat the odds! haha. so is it a sex thing? you guys have sex with- just each other? huh. how does that work? i could never do monogamy, i’m too jealous, i’d worry my partner would leave me for someone else instead of dating us both… how do you deal with the jealousy? is it hard? like, how hard? extremely? do you think you’ll break up? i mean in the long run these things rarely work out,
Marcus and Jake are finally safe from AMTEC - although their escape nearly cost them both their lives. Now they are free to heal and discover what they might be to each other - and they learn that AMTEC’s influence leaves not a single person in their lives untouched.
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This is a sequel series to Beneath Gunmetal Skies. Start here, continued from here.
Lars drove Jake and Marcus to Todd’s place the next day. Marcus would have preferred to come by himself – he didn’t want Jake knowing that the prosthetic he’d been given so he could save him was anything less than perfect – but it would have been worse to leave Jake alone and unprotected. Lars had half-suggested they all take the bus, but there was almost a mile walk from Lars’s house to the bus stop, and then another almost-mile walk from the bus to Todd’s house. There was the issue of the bus itself as well, the idea of which had Marcus’s skin crawling.
“It’s a metal tube filled with people, any of who could have a weapon, or a camera. Fuck no. Absolutely not.”
Lars had rolled their eyes. “Throw in a complaint about drugs, and you sound like my mother.”
“I don’t give a fuck about drugs,” Marcus had said. “I give a fuck about AMTEC.”
Lars stayed after they dropped Marcus and Jake off. It wasn’t like Todd was going to be able to drive them back. The only vehicle he owned was a bicycle, which he rode whether it was snowing, raining, or ninety fucking degrees outside, apparently.
Todd greeted them at the door and led them through the nightmarishly cluttered house once more. Marcus kept his eyes on the floor in front of him so that he wouldn’t feel the stacks of records, books, and other shit pressing down on him. Jake looked around in fascination. His hand found Marcus’s and squeezed.
When they reached the door to the garage, Todd turned and glanced at Jake and Lars. “Maybe… I could do this one on one?” he said, his voice in that same low, even tone that Marcus had found so unnerving when they first met. “The garage isn’t sterile, but… I like to keep it as close as I can. You know. Surgery and stuff.”
“’Course,” Lars said easily. “Can I get Jake a drink from the kitchen?”
“You know where everything is,” Todd said, and led Marcus into the garage. The sudden shock of cleanliness and order was like a gulp of cold water on a fevered throat.
Todd guided Marcus to a chair in the corner of the garage – more an exam chair than anything else. Marcus’s eyes stayed fixed on the surgery table in the center of the room. He wet his lips as he stared at it. He could remember lying down on it, staring at the ceiling, hearing his arm cut away and feeling the pressure of the new one screwed into his skeleton. He remembered how the world faded, when he couldn’t bear any more. He remembered how he cried out for Jake when it did.
His throat tightened. Todd pulled up a rolling stool in front of him, his eyes roaming over the metal arm as if checking his work.
“How’s the arm working out for you, Marcus?” he said.
“Good,” Marcus answered quickly. “It’s… it’s good.” He swallowed. “A little, um, too good. That’s why I’m here, I guess.”
Todd’s brow furrowed. He turned that unblinking gaze on Marcus’s face. “Too good?”
“Yeah.” Marcus flexed his metal fingers into a fist. “It’s… it’s too powerful. I’m worried I’ll…” A shiver rolled over his shoulders, a manifestation of the fear he hadn’t even allowed himself to speak into existence until now. “I’m worried I’ll… hurt him, Todd. I’m worried I’ll break him.”
Todd reached out and took Marcus’s metal wrist in his hand. Marcus didn’t flinch away; the touch didn’t disgust him. It didn’t quite feel like Todd was touching him, after all. Todd extended the arm out, rotated it, inspected each joint in the metal and carbon fiber. He lifted Marcus’s short sleeve and peered at the seam between the arm and Marcus’s body. He ran a fingertip along the scar. That, Marcus felt. He leaned away.
Todd chewed his lip. “Well… I can go into the control panel, decrease the torque. I don’t want to decrease too much, because then the forces can get uneven across the piece and things can break. But a little bit I can do. Maybe—”
“How much?” Marcus said. “Todd… I can go through metal with this thing. I can… I shattered a stainless steel cell door lock. The cuffs they use for Le—” He cut himself off with a choke. “I broke a pair of stainless steel cuffs like it was nothing. It was like snapping my fingers. I didn’t even feel it.” He leaned forward, eyes fixed on Todd’s. “And I… I can’t… do that to him. Okay? With this arm, I don’t think there’s a thing in this room I couldn’t shred like tissue paper. And I can’t hurt him.”
Slowly, Todd nodded. “I get you, man. I think I calibrated the torque too high. Let me access the control panel and I’ll see what I can do, okay?”
Marcus nodded, weak with relief. Todd retrieved a screwdriver with an odd shape at the end and pressed it to Marcus’s shoulder, just below where the metal met flesh. He removed four screws and pried up a small panel, revealing a mess of wires beneath.
“Hm,” Todd murmured to himself. “Hm. Yup, I can add a dampener to the signal as well, I think. That would be… Yeah, I can do that.”
Marcus stared down at his metal hand. “And… if you can’t do it, that’s okay, but… could you… make me feel more? With the arm?”
Todd stopped what he was doing and stared at Marcus. Their proximity was making Marcus nervous.
He could put the screwdriver to my throat. It’s dull, but it could do some damage if he was motivated. And there are a dozen tools in here that could—
He clamped down on that thought. He was so fucking tired of thinking that way.
Todd finally opened his mouth. “I can turn up the afferent signal so that you receive more touch data for your brain to process, but… you’ll also get more… noise.”
Marcus swallowed. “What does that mean?”
“It means you’ll have more… pain. Your brain will process the random signals the arm throws your way, and four times out of every five, it’ll process that random signal as pain.”
“But… I’ll be able to feel when Jake… touches me.” Marcus drew his fingertips along his metal palm. He felt nothing. Nothing but cold metal. He might as well have been touching a gun in his hand.
Todd was looking at him, but Marcus couldn’t meet his gaze. After a long moment, Todd said, “yeah. You’ll be able to feel more. You’ll just also hurt a lot more. All the time.”
Marcus nodded once. “Sounds good.”
Todd hesitated. Then, he went to his tool bench, picked up a few things, and got to work.
He turned down the torque first. Marcus didn’t know how he knew, he could just… tell that the arm couldn’t do as much as it could a few minutes before. It felt… heavier, almost. A little sluggish.
That was good. He wanted it like that.
He felt it immediately when Todd started messing with the sensitivity. He felt the tickle in his brain as his awareness of the arm increased second by second. It felt… good, almost. Like feeling coming back into a limb after hours of numbness.
He trailed his fingertips over his hand. Still nothing.
Todd messed with the settings some more. “That okay?” he said.
“No,” Marcus said. “More.”
Todd nodded and kept poking around in Marcus’s hardware.
Marcus glanced around the room, admiring the tidiness, the cleanliness, the way every single tool seemed to have its place. The place looked like it had been spit shined. And then there was Todd, with his long, salt-and-pepper hair, his oversized t-shirt, and his demeanor. He was as strange as any person Marcus had met in the past two months. Anyone would look at Todd and know that he was…
Well. They’d look at him and know that he was not like Marcus at all.
“Hey, Todd,” he said, doing his best to keep his voice sounding casual.
“Yeah.” More tingling, more twinging.
“Do I… look AMTEC to you?”
Todd nodded. “Oh, yeah. No offence.”
Marcus’s jaw locked. “Why does everyone keep saying that?”
Todd shrugged. “I mean… are you just saying that, or are you actually seeking advice?”
Marcus blinked. He’d been seeking advice; why else would he have said it? “I want to know. I know the haircut, but I can’t exactly do anything about it right now. I’m growing it out as fast as humanly… fucking possible.”
Todd chuckled brightly. “Oh, no, the haircut isn’t that bad, honestly. It’s pretty cool. A little punk. I know three lesbians with the exact same cut. Not that you’re—” He shook his head. “But you’re… well. From my perspective? Most of the people I know have tattoos or piercings.” He tilted his head at Marcus. “But not you. Not a single one. Maybe you just don’t like them, but… I don’t know. The only institution that requires absolutely no tattoos or piercings is AMTEC. Even Lars’s job lets them have them, you know?”
Marcus’s eyes widened. He’d noticed Lars’s tattoos before – he’d been trained to memorize people’s unique markings, and that habit wasn’t gone, not after just two months – but as he ran through all the people he’d seen since he escaped, he couldn’t think of a single one who didn’t have at least one of these three things: a tattoo, a piercing, or hair that was out of regs.
Lars had tattoos up and down both arms and on their neck, piercings in both ears and their nose, and their hair was out of regs. Celeste had multiple piercings in both ears, and she never wore her hair back. Todd had long hair and a stud in his nose. And those were just the people Marcus knew. It really was everyone Marcus could remember seeing.
He’d never really wanted a tattoo or piercing. What would be the point? His body was AMTEC property, and damaging it would be punished as severely as firebombing one of their buildings would have been.
Now, though?
He didn’t feel like his body was his. Not yet. He wasn’t sure if he ever would. But he just wanted to feel like it wasn’t theirs.
He hissed out a breath as Todd prodded another component in the control panel. His awareness of his arm shot up – and the arm began to ache. He ran his fingers over his hand. He felt it.
“Todd,” he whispered. “Maybe a touch less?”
The buzzing tingle-pain in his arm decreased a few notches. He could still feel the touch. “Perfect.”
Todd replaced the panel and began to twist the screws back into place. Marcus glanced around the room once more. “Um, Todd?” he said hesitantly. “While I’m here… could I get a piercing?”
He felt instantly foolish. His cheeks flushed. He regretted the question and wished he could take it back.
Instead of laughing, though, Todd said, “of course, man. Once I’m done with this, I’ll show you what I have.”
Marcus’s arm prickled uncomfortably as Todd finished replacing the panel. Todd strode over to a set of drawers and pulled the top one out. Marcus rose to join him. To his surprise, he felt a little woozy.
Is it the work on the arm? Or the thought of getting a piercing?
Either option was embarrassing. He’d been shot before, and had stayed awake through getting his arm cut off.
Once he reached the drawer, though, he forgot how he was feeling. It was filled with row after row of glittering jewelry.
Holy shit, he mouthed.
“What do you think you’d like?” Todd said.
Marcus had absolutely no idea. Most of the pieces looked like studs; he thought that would be best. The idea of having something dangling off himself made him shudder. And maybe not a jewel. Maybe… something the color of metal. His eyes moved over the rows until he found jewelry that looked like gold, pinkish gold, and silver.
And a colder, darker metal. The color of gunmetal.
“That,” he said, pointing. “I think I’d like that.”
If an AMTEC officer ever looked at him again, he wanted them to see the color of their weapons looking back at them from the holes in his face.
“You got it, man,” Todd said. “Where do you want it?”
Marcus swallowed. He wanted them everywhere. “Um… how many can I do today?”
Todd snorted. “I think earlobes are a good place to start. And… we can also do a nostril, if you want. But we’ll start with earlobes. Let me wipe down my equipment and set up, and I can get this all done in a few minutes.”
Marcus watched in fascination as the laid-back Todd prepared everything with borderline military precision. He put on gloves and wiped down the table in the center of the room. Then, he laid out a small table with the jewelry and a few needles. Once that was done, he had Marcus lay down on the table. Marcus shivered as he stared up at the ceiling. His arm tingled and ached. His ran his fingertips across his metal forearm and marveled and how he could feel it.
“If you want me to stop, just tell me,” Todd said. “Even if I’ve just done one. No hard feelings, man.
Marcus nodded. He knew he wouldn’t want to stop.
Todd sanitized Marcus’s left earlobe first. He picked up the needle. “Do you want me to count down, or do it?” he said.
“Just do—”
The needle punched through. Marcus gasped softly. With his next breath, a laugh burst from his chest.
Fuck you, AMTEC fuckers.
Todd fiddled with the needle and got the jewelry into the hole. He wiped away a bead of blood. The hole burned dully. Marcus grinned from ear to ear.
“Next one, okay?” Todd said.
Marcus nodded. Todd swiped the alcohol on his right earlobe, positioned the needle, and punctured. The pain felt like a miracle. Marcus’s foot jiggled. He couldn’t wait to see how it looked.
“Alright,” Todd said. “Nose can sometimes hurt more, sometimes hurt less.” He swiped the alcohol across Marcus’s nostril. “You ready?”
“Ready,” Marcus said through his toothy grin.
Todd positioned the needle. Marcus watched it go in. His right eye began to tear.
“You’re doing good,” Todd said. “Just have to get the stud in. You doing okay?”
“Yeah.” The pain was… fine. He welcomed the ache. He had damaged AMTEC property – punched three holes right through it. If he were an officer, he would be discharged for this.
If he were still a Lev, he’d be consigned.
He was marked for death for saving Jake and killing Aisha, of course, but… this was the first thing he’d ever done to himself that would earn consignment. Marcus gritted his teeth against the pressure as Todd worked the stud into the hole in his nose and pressed the jewelry into it. It felt so fucking good. He immediately wanted five more.
“Alright,” Todd said, retreating and stripping his gloves from his hands. Marcus slowly sat up. Todd picked up a mirror and handed it to Marcus. “Tell me what you think.”
Marcus stared blankly back at himself.
Even after two months out, he still wasn’t used to looking at himself in a mirror. Almost two decades of being deprived of that wouldn’t be done away with so easily. But – perhaps for the first time – he looked at his own face and began to recognize himself in what he saw.
His nostril looked red and angry, and so did his earlobes – but three small gunmetal studs winked at him from the holes punched in his skin. They looked like they belonged there. And he could see the immediate difference they had made. When he walked into this house, he was an AMTEC weapon, out for two months but still a Lev down to his DNA. Now he was… something else. The haunted look in his eyes could be explained by something else now – anything else. So could the short-cropped hair, and the scar on his neck.
His neck. He ran his fingers over the scar – and caught himself when he saw Todd’s eyes go wide. Todd said nothing, just took the mirror back from Marcus.
Marcus’s posture straightened. He could kill Todd here in this garage. Explaining it to Lars might take some doing, but it would be worth eliminating the risk to Jake.
Besides. Might as well test the new capability of his arm. It throbbed, from his shoulder to his fingertips.
Todd stared at the floor when he said, “I… I’m sorry. I didn’t realize. I guess… I have a lot to apologize for. To you.”
Marcus froze.
Todd shook his head. “All I can really say is… it’s not what I was trying to make. Not that it matters, when it was used to…” He shook his head again. “Anyway. I guess you already know. I’ll take you back to the house, then, and you can show them off.”
“Yeah,” Marcus said softly, his heart thrumming in his chest. Guilt welled in his throat. “Yeah, Todd. Thank you.”
They found Jake and Lars in the kitchen. Jake sat up and grinned at him. Lars’s fists shot into the air, and they crowed as if in victory.
“Yes! Todd, that looks amazing!” They drew in close – not close enough to touch – and peered at the piercings.
Marcus lifted his chin. “Tattoo next,” he said.
Lars nodded vigorously. “Absolutely. I’ll take you to my gal, she’s fantastic. She’ll be booked out for the next few weeks for sure, but…” They shrugged. “We’ll work you in.” They glanced at Todd. “What do we owe you? For…?”
For the first time, Todd flushed. “Oh, no,” he said. “I’m not… no way. Not for…” His eyes flicked to the scar at Marcus’s neck. “Just the knowledge that you trusted me with this is enough. It’s… very, very chill.”
Jake took Marcus’s metal hand in his. Marcus gasped at how he could feel the touch now. And, he noted, whenever he was touched, the uncomfortable prickling went away entirely. He stared at their entwined fingers. “Back home?” Jake said softly.
“Yeah,” Marcus said. “Back home. You feeling okay?”
“I’m feeling good,” Jake said, tucking his head against Marcus’s shoulder.
Marcus felt alive as he followed Lars out of the house and to the car. The scar on his neck tingled. He already knew where he was going to get his first tattoo.
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gosh this was so healing 😭. and such a perfect pair with the previous chapter. jake getting to reclaim a part of his identity with his hair; marcus getting to reinvent a part of his identity with the piercings. they have different needs, but they're safe and they're finally getting to explore and make amends with their bodies 🥺 (and yes the sex was part of it too obviously the sex was super good for them hahah)
i love todd, and celeste, and lars; i love that they're showing marcus, just by being themselves, that he can choose himself, too. i love lars's excitement for marcus, oh my god!! 😭 they're so supportive!! and so cool!! i love them!! 😭
and i love the little moment where marcus asks todd why everyone says he looks AMTEC, and todd asks if he's actually seeking advice, and marcus is confused because why would he ask if he wasn't lol 😂 strong neurodivergent coding with this dude, i love it, i love him; and those little characterization moments are so satisfying.
it does concern me a bit how well things are going though... like, they're doing so good, but are they doing too good? 👀 am i being paranoid? i don't know, but i'll eat it up either way 😌
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I’ve seen a lot of really great posts about phm and it’s messaging about how it’s a teacher who saves the world, that our hope for the future lies in a belief and uplifting of science and educators. Which like hell yeah brother, I’m with you!
But I have seen basically no one talk about how it’s not just an educator who saves us, but a historian too. Stratt studied history and for all the amazing and impressive and terrifying things that woman was and did, she was at her core a historian. She loved humanity so much that knowing it as it was in her lifetime wasn’t enough, she wanted to know who we used to be and why. Part of that history background informed her actions- she knew how people respond in a crisis because she’s seen it before throughout human history- she knew that eventually alliances would break down, that collaboration only lasts so long. She knew what she was walking into when she headed up the project- both for herself and for humanity at large but it didn’t matter because she loved beyond consequences. She studied humanity at its lowest points and at its peaks. And in spite of and because of all that we have done, Stratt saw love and value and the need for a future.
She copied (technically stole) as much knowledge and art and music and human ingenuity as she could and gave it a home in the stars. And yes her basically stealing the internet and all copyrighted material is played off for a bit of comedic relief and shown as a bit of kindness for the crew of the Mary, but I see it as so much more than that. Stratt wanted to save as many lives on Earth as she could, but she also wanted to save humanity- our collective history, accomplishments, all of our triumphs and losses. She preserved as much as she could on that tiny little blip of aluminum and wires, so that in case this whole thing failed- in case she failed or the crew failed or the science of it all failed- a part of who we are would remain in the stars, waiting for someone as curious as we are to learn from it.
A lot of people don’t always see the value in history, or if they do it’s on a very surface level of well we need to know where we were to know where we are now but it’s so much more. History at its heart is about hope for a future. We study history to better understand humanity so we can plan for and create what comes next. History is a love for ourselves that transcends time and consequences and Stratt knew that. She felt that. It was her core belief. Humanity was saved by a science teacher, but it was also saved by a historian. Hell yeah.
“My view on addiction is very much about that too. In general, the people I know who are street addicts have been removed from their families or social circles because all too often they’ve suffered a trauma. When you think about the kinds of traumas that the people I know suffered, they’re unimaginable things like having been raped by an uncle, beaten by their own parents, or witnessed killings at a young age. All these things immediately make you very different from everyone else. It makes it very hard to interact socially with other people, and in some senses they’ve been ejected by those experiences that they didn’t ask for, or do anything to deserve. Sociologists have a term they call “civil society” which is essentially what I call “the in-club”: those who we accept in society based on the way they behave. More specifically, these days belonging to civil society means having an ‘approved’ education, knowing how to dress, and knowing how to talk. The vast majority of addicts are people who have not been admitted, or who have been ejected from civil society. Their experiences set them up to behave very differently because they’re traumatized, so they get ejected from their communities. […]Yes, so of course they don’t feel like they belong. One thing that people don’t like to admit is how the act of using a drug is a very social process. People’s first experience using a drug is very often because someone else showed them how to do it, or told them what it was like to do it. When a person goes into a crack house or a heroin den, not only do they get to use drugs to provide a moment of relief from that severe trauma, but they also meet people who’ve had equally traumatic experiences they can relate to. It’s like, “Wow, you too.” Finally they have someone they can relate to who doesn’t look at them like they’re disturbed, or dirty, or uncomfortable. It’s a very accepting community that provides them with a sense of belonging - which we all need. So that makes it much harder to address the issue of what to do when looking at drugs and crime. They’ve finally found inclusion and relief though using drugs. Because again, drugs do two things: one is they numb the memory of that pain, and the other is they provide a person with a social network. It may not be the social network that you or I may approve of, but on the streets they have family, often for the first time. There’s a very universal human desire to be included, to be social. And a lot of street addicts are people who haven’t been included by the broader society. They’re outcasts because civil society is too uncomfortable sitting with what’s happened to them, and how they’re acting because of it.”
““Between the fear that something would happen and the hope that still it wouldn’t, there is much more space than one thinks. On that narrow, hard, bare and dark space a lot of us spend their lives.””
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i'm in PIECES over marcus still being so worried about hurting jake with the prosthetic arm 😭♥️ i know his feelings about that are probably gonna be explored deeper (👀👀), but i was wondering if you had any thoughts at this point over how marcus and sam dealt/are dealing with their injuries? how would you say they differ or don't differ in that regard (obviously slightly different situations because sam kept the arm, but they still lost functionality)? totally understandable if that's a spoilery question though hahah 😅😅
Eeeeee yes yes yes I'm so excited to talk about this
I think they're so different because Sam lost functionality and sensation, but Marcus gained functionality but still lost sensation. So in a way, he became an even better killing machine while still feeling nothing. Which I'm sure means nothing.
The pain was the worst part for Sam, and the way it would strike at the worst possible time. As for Marcus... well. I have the Chronic Pain bthb prompt planned for him for a reason >:)
eee thank you for answering!! i'm, uh, so excited for that bthb chapter, i hope he suffers lots 😌😌
i hope it's fine i go on a bit of a tangent here! permanent injuries are one of my favorite whump tropes to discuss, and sam is one of my all-time favorite characters ever, so i have lots of thoughts about this, some less coherent than others haha.
i've always loved that it was sam specifically you chose to do that arc with. i felt that it was a really good direction for their character, as weird as that might be to say. i loved their character in HB4.
for one, it's an interesting arc for a character whose whole thing is being "weak" and a "liability" (as gavin and colleen dubbed them), to then actually lose function in a dominant limb, making the arm they used to navigate the world literally a liability. the fact they got shot in the literal chapter where they say they're expendable?? what a nightmare! 😇 and then their world doesn't end anyway. they're not expendable to the family, even injured, but god, what a horrific way to have them realize that.
sam is so empathetic, and they're obviously the sort of heart of the family, but i've personally always felt that they were also the "eyes" of the family, particularly with isaac, obviously. they absorb everything around them. they absorb isaac's pain. they're not a caretaker character, but they notice. in book 1 when isaac goes to turn himself in to gavin, sam is the one who wakes up and overhears the phonecall. when isaac opens up about his nightmares and torture under gavin to tori, sam overhears while pretending to be asleep. in book 2, sam's the one who calls isaac out in their "you're so committed to hating yourself" speech. they witness, they pay attention.
and then when their wound gets infected in HB4 and finn takes them to the bathroom (if i remember correctly) and they think about how they weren't aware there even was a second bathroom in the house. it's such a small detail, but it's so poignant. HB4 sam is... i wouldn't say isolated exactly, but forced by their pain to focus inward. they physically can't afford to notice. they can't afford to monitor isaac and gavin. they don't even notice edrissa's whole thing with gavin (and i'm pretty sure they were at the house when edrissa tried to kill gavin the first time?). the pain forces them into solitude, into their room, into themself. and when has sam ever spent so much time alone, since being rescued from gavin? even at colleen's, though i think it was implied they got tortured alone too, the scenes we actually saw of their torture were i think always with isaac. not even that was private. but the pain is the one thing they have to carry by themself. it's like they say in i think book 4 or 5? they say to finn something like ""you can do anything," except fix my arm," and it's awful but it's the truth.
and ironically enough, i think that was...not the worst thing for a person like sam? in an odd way? the pain physically forced them to consider it and turned their attention away, briefly, from the others. by HB6, they've had ample time to sit alone with it, which, again, bad, but i also think it was necessary for something drastic to happen to teach sam that 1) they were not a liability, and they didn't need to get physically stronger for that to be true, 2) there were things the others couldn't save them from and things they couldn't save the others (particularly isaac and edrissa) from. pain demands your attention. it demands energy. and it does mean you can't always give as much of yourself to others as you'd like. sam remains the kindest, sweetest kid on the block, but i think it's oddly right for them to have their saintly patience cut short every once in a while.
alright that was a LOT i'm so so sorry i just have...so many thoughts about this enby 😅
anyway, i'm sure marcus's own arc with this will be similarly befitting his character 👀 i love the idea that he became an even better killing machine while feeling nothing. i love how he obviously doesn't actually like that, because he's constantly so careful around jake with his arm — although there's the aspect where he definitely also enjoys getting to protect those he loves. but he would like to be able to feel, and control his touch, and get to be gentle. which i'm sure is just about the arm and nothing else. aghh so good!!
(also, can i just say i love that his chosen name is marcus? i don't know if anyone's mentioned this before, but the fact marcus accidentally named himself after mars, the god of war? the literal universal symbol for masculinity (like, literally, ♂)? INSANE. wasn't there a discussion about the, uh, trans metaphors with his character? 👀👀 Yeah. )
anyway, sorry again for the LENGTHY tangent!! i'm very excited for this 😅
Cold take but all languages are beautiful actually. Every single one. Every single human language on earth is a collection of stories interwoven into the very fabric of the words that are spoken.
“Oh but this language sounds scary-“ have you heard a child speak it while pointing at a butterfly?
“Oh but this language sounds silly-“ have you heard someone’s grandma recite a recipe with such practiced ease it comes off as poetry?
“Oh but this language is really weird-“ and yours isn’t? Everyone’s language is weird, dumbass, it came free with your fucking humanity.
Every tongue that is spoken is a work of art. Every language a unique window into the world.
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