The Assortment of the Void

In episode 14 of Zane’s perspective of Codebreak, we see Zane after changing out of his bartender fit discover he has top surgery scars. At first this doesn’t seem too deep, Zane is clearly a trans man and he is now starting to accept the being trans part of wanting to be a man.

However, I think it’s actually a bit deeper than that because of what Ezra says about the players’ forms in the game world. “Your forms reflect a version of yourself you wish to be.”

This actually says a lot about Zane, especially when we take his earlier discussion with Ra (Episode 13) which was likely the impetus for this change.

Zane’s form in the world was a full biological male because Zane wanted to be a man. However, it was also because Zane genuinely and truly thought he’d never be able to reach a point at which he’d be able to achieve anything close to actually being that in the real world. Zane didn’t really know about top surgery and definitely didn’t know about bottom surgery before his talk with Ra.

It’s part of the reason why whenever Zane talks about leaving he talks about turning back into Luci. Zane can only exist here where he can magically become male.

Now, through his discussion with Ra, he’s realised that not only is that not true - that it’s completely possible to get the body he wants in the real world - but also started to accept that as being okay.

What do I mean by that second point?

We’ve seen from his early discussion - Episode 2 and his discomfort at the trans flag - that he clearly has some internalised transphobia, likely stemming from his Queer-phobic parents. But then his discussion with Ra opened his eyes he saw someone like him (at least trans masculine in some way) whose form is specifically not male but man. Ra wanted to look like this, top surgery scars and all, and that completely breaks Zane’s understanding of how things like this work.

He clearly knew about trans people - he specifically mentions not looking into it, which means they knew it was out there - but likely in his mind trans people were what transphobes say; never truly achieving what they wanted just a pale imitation. But, that can’t be true because Ra chose to look like this.

I think, at the start, Zane was very much the type of trans person who would say “if I could magically become male I would.” But is now starting to accept the concept of “being trans is an important part of my identity and I wouldn’t choose to be cis if I could.” Though, he definitely isn’t all the way there yet.

I think it’s also telling that Zane’s top surgery scars are so very obvious. He literally has claw marks for top surgery scars. They are big, there’s three on each side, if Zane goes shirtless you are going to see them, they are not able to be hidden or be confused for something else. Zane totally could have had the really thin really hidden scars that some trans masc people really try for. But instead they are big and bold. I think that says a lot, maybe it’s Zane coming to terms with the fact that there will always be signs of who he was. Maybe it’s the masculinity of being strong (look at how vicious the scars look), or maybe they have to be bold and obvious so that Zane can’t ignore them. So, he has to think about them, what they mean, and what that means for him. (I also understand this could just be a character design decision rather than a deeper thing - looks cool).

In conclusion, it is very important to both the understanding of where Zane was and the growth that Zane is going through that Zane develops top surgery scars and didn’t start with them.

Zane is, in a way, learning what it means to be trans and a part of that is learning to accept the inherent differences between a trans person and their cis counterpart. Zane will never be just a man, he will always be trans even in the game where he became male he was still trans because of his experience before being male and now he has two (6) big reminders of the inherent difference between being a cis man and a trans man.

Down to 3 worms!