#do I think community is the single answer to life because I've been isolated and lonely for my entire conscious life

[neverendingford]

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[roseworth]

forgot to actually say this in the ask but the idea of jason being his favorite for a time but specifically when he's dead... yeah. spending time away from fanon jason stans really does make you love him more because that would not have made me feel anything a while ago but that's so good. and makes so much sense but is very sad.

of course bruce was unable to stop thinking about jason when he was gone! and of course that love would be entirely unrecognizable to jason when he comes back! jason was isolated even alive! and besides their differing--viewpoints, jason has changed from the child that spent so much time mourning, and is doing things that bruce would find hard to see from anyone, and they're always standing opposite each other anyway so how could bruce, never very gifted in the emotions department in the first place, ever communicate how much jason means to him with all of that? and also there's the part where jason IS going around and murdering people, it would probably be a little hard for anyone to forgive of their kid, let alone bruce.

i'm probably getting mind of incoherent but i just. it is so very clear that bruce and jason care about each other, and it doesn't help their relationship at all because they're stuck like this forever. i LOVE when relationships are like this, ships for example where they never get together but they're in love forever are the best kind, and i always wish more people were just obsessed with that kind of. - emotional stranding? - in other kinds of relationships. maybe i'm looking in the wrong places and that's why i'm not finding other people who like this idk

but that's what makes me so obsessed with bruce, he's not even my favorite character but basically every single one of his important relationships is stuck like this. his kids his wife (talia❤️) his dad. he has an entirely different type of crazy with every single one of those people but the main thing those relationships have in common is that they encourage a lot of growth in each other at the beginning, and then life gets in the way or they grow past each other or miscommunicate themselves out of their former closeness. sorry to ramble at you for so long but what you said about jason and bruce turned me into an animal. i've been a sleeper agent this whole time apparently. stuck trying to think about his individual relationships with his other children now, all at the same time. you did this to me

(original post) hi im so sorry i know i said i would answer this like a week ago but i Forgot. but im here now <3

first of all HARD agree with what you said about loving relationships where both of them care about each other but cant make anything work despite it. its all about the love being there but it doesnt change anything and the way two people care about each other deeply and it changes everything about the dynamic but nothing about the circumstances. its so so good. youre so right that bruce is such a good character for this dynamic because his core beliefs and motivations are so important to him as a character that if he eases up on them even a little he becomes a completely different person, and it means that every relationship he has is strained because he cant waver on the beliefs that make him who he is

anyways. i want to talk about why i believe jason was the favorite child after he died but first i want to talk about dick. to me dick is and always will be bruce's favorite son. but not in a good way

ive heard some people say that jason was the favorite son while he was robin and thats a fine headcanon but i simply do not agree! i understand where people are coming from since bruce & dick had a very strained relationship at that time, meanwhile jason was just a happy and polite kid who liked being robin and didnt have many issues until starlin. but bruce & dick have such a specific relationship that even when they werent talking, dick was still bruce's favorite. bruce held dick in such high regard in his head that jason could never meet the standard, even though bruce rarely (outwardly) compared the two of them. bruce was projecting so much onto dick (in a way that he did to cass later on, which ill get back to in a sec) that jason could never meet the version of dick that existed in bruce's head. even the real dick instead of the idealized dick that bruce had made was better than jason to bruce because bruce had completely adopted the "my son's success is my success" mindset (which isnt necessarily a bad thing! in this case i would say that this is one of bruce's parenting wins) so he was proud of dick and watched him grow into what bruce was hoping he would (a successful, independent hero) even though they werent talking

not to mention! bruce explicitly tells dick that he brought in jason to fill the hole in his life left by dick (the dick hole. hehe) i dont like the idea that jason was constantly being compared to dick because thats not entirely true because bruce rarely openly brought up dick around jason, but he definitely was doing it in his head. he wanted jason to be dick, but he wasnt the Evil Father that some people try to make him out to be. he just adopted jason to have someone in his life like dick was, and he wanted jason to be what dick was to him even though he couldnt replicate the relationship he had with dick because it was so dependent on where each of them were in their lives when they met and became Batman and Robin. and bruce confirms that in batman #416 that he adopted jason because he missed dick and needed someone else in his life

anyways back to jason. i do believe that jason was briefly the favorite while he was dead. i love this post saying that one of bruce's favorite children is jason's corpse because its so fucking real

im gonna get off topic for a second but i swear i have a point. in the play buried child by sam shepard, the mom (halie) constantly talks about her dead son ansel and talks about how he was an american hero, an athlete, and many other amazing things. hes the representation of the american dream in the play, but hes dead, showing the disillusionment of the family. but halie is constantly bringing him up and shes convinced that he was the perfect son and he would've made her proud, unlike her other sons who disappointed her. and her sons keep trying to correct her about who ansel was because she would get things wrong, like how shes convinced ansel played basketball even though he never did, but she refused to listen because he was the Golden Child in her mind and she had a perfect image of him when she looked back on his life, because he was dead and now had never disappointed her

now. you can probably see where im going with this. bruce wasnt as bad as halie but i do think that the idea is the same. since jason was dead, it was a lot easier to think about all the good things and imagine how good it could've been if jason was there. even the "he wouldnt listen" line in that screenshot ^ is the same idea! if the dead son had only listened to his parent's warning, he would still be alive and it would be fine! its a lot easier for bruce to think about jason when he's dead because jason cant disappoint him when hes dead. and he doesnt have to worry about the things that bruce doesnt like to do, such as deal with emotions, and can just create this perfect version of robin jason where he was happy and a great hero and there were never and never could be any issues! if only he had listened!

if im being honest theres a lot of canon evidence against this theory. but canon evidence is stupid and im better than that! kidding but the thing is that there was so much difference in how bruce talked about jason every time he was brought up that its hard to exactly pinpoint how anyone felt, so i am simply cherrypicking canon to create my favorite narrative <3

bruce thinks of jason as what he could've been because he only exists in good memories and a glass case when hes dead, and bruce genuinely does not want jason to come back to life. every time jason "came back" before under the red hood, bruce was upset about it. he wanted jason to stay dead because he wanted jason to be able to rest. but also? bruce would rather jason be dead than come back as a villain. he would rather jason live in his memories as the perfect son than be alive and fighting against him. in batman #618, clayface pretends to be jason and bruce is (somewhat) thankful that its not actually jason, because he would rather jason stay dead than be hush

so its safe to say jason very quickly stops being the favorite when he actually comes back to life. i could still believe that jason's corpse is one of bruce's favorites even after jason is alive because bruce still brings up jason's death and how it affected him, and he mourns what he used to have with jason before jason had his own morals and motivations

anyways. cass time <3

like you said in your original ask, a lot of people say that cass is bruce's favorite but its a lot more complicated than that because especially at first, bruce sees her as less of a daughter than an extension of himself but in a different way than dick. when bruce looks at dick, hes kind of like a batman appendage. they are different people and bruce understands that and usually nurtures that to help dick. with cass on the other hand, he sees cass almost as a carbon copy of him so he gives her what he would've wanted at her age and treats her the way that he wanted to be treated. technically hes right that she also wants to be treated like that, but as we see over and over again in batgirl 2000, just because she wants it doesnt mean its good for her. hes not nurturing her as a daughter, hes nurturing her as a smaller version of himself. and again like you said in your ask, cass is too similar to him. they dont really get into fights because of it, but i think he hates himself too much to love cass that much

and the thing is. bruce has an idea of cass in his head that isnt real. he sees her as himself and whenever he hears something that could change that image, he pretends its not real. he refuses to believe that cass killed someone because HE wouldnt kill someone, so obviously cass didnt either. she cant possibly like being outside or talking to people because HE doesnt like that, and theyre the same person so babs must be forcing her to (which.. im not talking about babs and cass right now so i wont go into it but like. yeah she is). he created what he thinks cass is and what he thinks she should be, so anything that threatens that isnt real to him. if (*IF*) cass is the favorite child, its not actually cass. its the version of cass that he wishes was real (a lot like the version of jason's corpse that he wishes was real)

i love this panel from detective comics #790 because first of all its funny to me that bruce immediately tells cass to go to babs with any emotion or problem. but also it says so much about their relationship. bruce isnt there to be cass's father, he's there to be batman to her. hes not exactly neglecting her, but he definitely is not emotionally there for her (not that hes emotionally there for anyone else. but he certainly has no interest in listening to cass's feelings)

as time goes on he starts seeing her as a daughter and she sees him as a father, but even after he starts seeing her as a child she's still not his favorite. like i talked about before, bruce & dick just have such an intricate and specific relationship that no one can ever meet the same standard. even when bruce loves cass as a daughter, he's always going to care more about dick because seeing dick go through the same trauma as him then raising him to be different than him (but the same in the ways that matter to him) means so much more to him than anything he has with his other kids

so yeah. in conclusion dick is the favorite child but sometimes the ghost of jason or the projected version of cass can beat dick depending on his mood

[orangepanic]

Hope you’re having a great Saturday 💖

For the fanfic writer ask : 🍭 💋 🕯️ 🍉 🦋💫

🍭 and 💋 I already answered here and here.

🕯️how do you think engaging with each other through tumblr, twitter, comments, kudos, creates healthy fandom experiences? How do you deal with that if you're not a social person/experience social anxiety?

First of all, it doesn't always or even mostly create healthy experiences. I've seen a lot of good people pushed out of the Avatar fandom by the way others chose to engage with them, and sometimes this is even done in the name of a "healthy" fandom experience by which they mean gatekeeping and deciding which ships, tropes, interpretations, and individuals are "good" and "allowed" and what's "problematic" or "toxic." I have zero patience for this version of a sanitized fandom experience. All ships are good ships, all headcanons are good headcanons, and beyond accurate tagging it's not ever a creator's responsibility to make your fandom experience comfortable and harm-free for you or cater to your or anyone else's tastes and preferences.

Fandom at its best, however, is just the opposite of this. Finding a collection, no matter how small, of people who are open and accepting and enthusiastic, has been one of the most rewarding experiences of my life. Ultimately, fandom at its best is really about love. Love of content, of characters, of creations, and of the people you can talk to about it. The sharing to me is enriching. I've borrowed so many headcanons from others that make my own work better. I think it's fantastic that I can give a work kudos just because I'm glad it exists. I don't even have to like it. I'm just happy someone took the time to write it and share and I wanna say "Good job!" I think it's amazing that people who don't even like the ships I write will still be friends with me because we both appreciate non-canon pairings, or like the same single character, or just appreciate that we're putting weird stuff out there in the world. I think this is especially important in the rare pair community, where it's easy to feel isolated and also easy to feel like you're "wrong" for seeing the potential in a ship most of the fandom ignores or actively hates. I can almost guarantee I wouldn't still be writing fanfic if I hadn't found a bunch of weird little friends to play with through AO3, tumblr, and various events. And I think the anonymity of the online experience is helpful to people who maybe aren't as social in real life because it's easy to turn off and on.

🍉in what ways has writing helped you process trauma and/or navigate through your own life?

I'm not really someone with trauma so I can't answer that, but I have a few fics that are absolutely about me processing other things going on in my life. I wrote Team Bosamiroh during the 2020 U.S. elections, The Mango Tree and Endgame when my grandparents died, and Iroh Alone as a way to sort through my own feelings of isolation and loss of purpose during the middle of the pandemic. I'm sure there are more. I try hard not to write self-insert fics, but sometimes it's helpful to see the emotions you feel mirrored in others.

🦋what are you most insecure about when you post a fic?

Primarily if anyone will like it, but I also know I have a tendency to drop words from sentences. I'm always mortified when I go back and find mistakes.

💫what is your favorite kind of comment/feedback?

Really, any. I adore comments of all kinds. There's always a special place in my heart for very long comments, yet at the same time some of my very favorite are just people screaming at me in all caps "ORANGE YOU NEED THERAPY WHAT ARE YOU DOOOOOOING????" I like to know I've gotten to someone.

Fanfic writer asks

[needtobreathe-throughsmoke]

By James Shotwell

Love is a rebellious act. Anyone can light a fire or throw a punch, but not everyone is comfortable being vulnerable. Love requires vulnerability. More than anything else, love demands that we position ourselves to be hurt over and over again. Some would claim that such decisions are a sign of insanity, but anyone who has ever known true love will tell you that it's always worth the risk. The warmth of a loving embrace is perhaps the most comforting force on this planet. To be seen and accepted for who you are rather than what you hope others believe you to be is the most empowering experience in life.

NEEDTOBREATHE understand risk. For the better part of two decades now, the South Carolina rock band has consistently challenged themselves and their fans to be more transparent. Their songs rip open every scar and suture we use to hide our weakest moments and worst traits in hopes of bringing understanding and empathy into the world. For them, building community is everything, and the only way to forge a foundation of lasting bonds is through unwavering truth. They ask listeners to find comfort in being themselves and demand they make spaces for others to do the same. As Kurt Cobain would say, “Come as you are.”

“Into the Mystery,” the lead single off NEEDTOBREATHE's eighth studio album of the same name, finds the road-weary group recommitting themselves to their purpose. It's a love song written for anyone who needs to feel less alone. Some will undoubtedly interpret the lyrics as a cry to Christ or God or some higher power, but I don't feel such connections are necessary. A savior is anyone or anything that reaches through the fog of fear and discomfort to make you feel like you belong. It's not about some physical form that rushes into bad times and saves you as it is a feeling you get when you know you can breathe easy, even if only for a moment. As the lyrics describe:

Love is not a cage, love is not a path

Love's a steady hand waiting for the storm to pass

You loved me then when you needed me

But will you still when it's not so easy

Growing up, I always idolized my grandfather. He was a Presbyterian preacher who spent most of his life doing good deeds for the communities that welcomed him. There was no potluck, fundraiser, wedding, funeral, or graduation party he would not attend. If someone lost their spouse, he made sure they were fed and cared for as long as it took for them to process their grief. If someone needed a man of faith to oversee their wedding, he was their man. He would put the world before himself and never think twice. For him, acts of service were his purpose. He knew that making people feel like they were a part of something bigger than themselves was of the utmost importance.

I remember countless days where I watched as my grandfather welcomed a revolving door of people into his home and office for the sole purpose of offering them comfort. I never really knew what they were going through, and I got the sense that he didn't either, but it didn't matter. People were suffering. They had money problems, romantic entanglements, demanding children, and unruly relatives. Some had received news from their doctors that things were never going to get better. Others didn't even know what was wrong, but they could not shake the feeling that nothing would ever be good ever again. Maybe my grandfather couldn't always give them what they wanted, but he gave them what they needed. Sometimes, just being there is enough.

You don't need God to believe in the power of community. A shared belief in an omnipresent being certainly helps create spaces where people can gather and share, but it's not a requirement. All that you need is a willingness to be vulnerable with strangers. To find within yourself the strength to accept others as they are and to admit the things you are not. If you can shake loose from the shackles of whatever lies you tell yourself to avoid getting to the heart of what makes you tick, then you can find yourself surrounded by others who feel just as lost as you, and through that shared understanding, beautiful things can unfold.

I don't know everything the members of NEEDTOBREATHE believe, but I know they recognize the tremendous power of music. Their songs are open calls to people in need of something. They are moments in time committed to tape for the sole purpose of providing comfort in a world of endless chaos and heartache. Like a letter from someone that you haven't seen in ages, "Into The Mystery" is a reminder that we are never truly alone as long as we have songs. We are always just a few clicks or gestures on a stereo away from feeling the sonic embrace of people who, like you and I, are doing their best to make sense of something nobody in the history of humankind has been able to comprehend.

To end here without acknowledging that sometimes a song or album isn't enough would downplay the sense of longing and isolation that many of us feel. When those times arise, I recall a passage from mindfulness leader Ram Dass that I recently had tattooed onto my right arm. He believed that what often weighs us down is our obsession over everything other than what is happening right now. We are worried about what will happen next week or overthinking actions from the past. Ram Dass found that the best cure for these moments of anxiety is to reset yourself. As he wrote in his iconic work Be Here Now:

Ask yourself: Where am I?

Answer: Here.

Ask yourself: What time is it?

Answer: Now.

Say it until you can hear it.

We control so very little of our lives that it is astounding any of us make it through any given day without total catastrophe befalling us. We are infinitesimally tiny creatures on a small blue ball suspended in infinite space that is constantly expanding. There may be life beyond our planet, but it doesn't matter because most of us don't even know our neighbors. We are painfully alone in almost every way you can measure such a thing, and yet our spirits endure immeasurable hardship because that is what humans have always done. The only moments of relief we get are when we gather and connect through whatever means are available to us. In those moments, we are fully alive in the present, and that is where I want you to exist.

We are sons and daughters

We are flesh and dust

We are pulled from the wreckage

We are not alone

We are lovers broken

We are vicarious dreams

We are tumbling in space out of control

Into the mystery

Into the mystery

If you feel alone right now, please know that I, too, will follow you into the mystery. Who knows? It may be the adventure of a lifetime.

A serious question

Someone recently asked me if I had any long-term goals for my newsletter. The question honestly left me a bit speechless. As much as I may have made a career out of writing, I have never been one to know where I was going from one moment to the next. The fact I've written nearly a dozen of these over the last year is nothing short of a miracle. I like to believe that I will continue writing for as long as I have thoughts to share, but I am genuinely surprised every time a new idea strikes.

I had to tell you that quick story so that you understood the following thought. I don't know what will become of this newsletter in six months or a year, but I want the stories and perspectives I share here to exist outside these emails. My solution is to gather together every essay I've written over the last 2 to 3 years and release them in a tangible, physical form. I want you to be able to hold my words close to your heart. I want to gather dust on your bookshelf.

With that in mind, I'm asking: Would you buy a collection of my writing? I know money is hard to come by for many of you, so I'm thinking of creating a zine or short-run paperback that will cost $10 or less. It's not about making money for me. I would probably donate the revenue to a nonprofit. As much as I want to make a career out of my creativity, part of me believes that communicating thoughts and ideas should be a pure act. If I start doing it for the money, then I've already lost my way.

So — let me know! Do you want a book of my essays in your home?

[wedontcareaboutyourbinary]

I wonder would there be more acceptance of all sorts of ways not to be cis if everything wouldn't be pushed under the T like there's some universal trans experience. I've spent a lot of time with a multitude of people who are binary, nonbinary, trans and nonbinary, just trans, just nonbinary, agender but not nonbinary or trans, all 3, have a neutral gender, have many genders, have no gender, have gender sometimes, many at the same time, etc and there has been no single common experience.

I’d honestly be inclined to say that the idea of a universal trans experience has roots in many other problems beside ‘lumped under the same letter in an acronym of questionable usefulness’. There’s significant motivation from outside trans/NB/GQ communities to present a single, easily digestible, uncomplicated narrative, and Cade has a running hypothesis that queer folks are particularly vulnerable to assuming their own experience with their queerness is definitive due to the isolation from our peers that many of us experiences. But there are simply too many factors in how we navigate the world to simplify it down to ‘this is how people under this label experience life’.

Essentially, ‘universal experience’ fallacies have more to do with a faulty understanding of how identity impacts our day to day existence than it does with the use of a particular identity word.

Where ‘universal experience’ does run into pushing everyone under one label, I’d be inclined to suspect gatekeeping of an identity - ‘have this experience, or else you’re not really this thing’ thinking. That has connections to invalidation from (in this particular case) cis people, and it gets replicated in our communities because respectability politics and assimilationism.

Whether there’s some flaw in pushing us all under the T runs into the issue of ‘is it better to expand labels to accommodate more experiences, or diversify labels to more accurately describe experiences?’, and that question isn’t one there’s an easy answer to. Different people will find different advantages in each path. And from my own experience, I have different uses for calling myself trans or NB or specifically androgyne in different situations.

Perhaps the major question there is ‘are people willing to use this particular label?’, and there are a fair few people who are not cis who do not want to call themselves trans. If we want to maintain the integrity of our commitment to allowing agency in self-determination, we have to respect that, and that means that forcing everyone to fit themselves under the T would be inappropriately forcing a label on some.

This does cause some linguistic mishaps when we want to talk about the broad group of people who aren’t cis without resorting to the othering ‘non-cis’ format, but there’s no easy answer to that either.

TL;DR: You could be right, but the matter is complicated and several different factors play into it.

- Cade

[pions]

This turned into more of a "tips I've learned that I'm sharing" list, because a lot of what makes me happy about myself is constantly learning new things and applying them to my life. So here are some positive things about me with commentary. Requested by @probablypartalien

I've been stressing over who to tag because I don't want to make anyone feel weird, but if you're a follower of mine and you want to do this when please do, and tag me in it. :)

Anyway, here's the content --------------

1. I'm super happy about how much my communication skills have grown in the last few years. I was a pretty stunted kid as far as "talking normally to others" went, and I had a lot of anxiety about saying weird things that would get me teased, so I often wouldn't know what to say at all. I'm still pretty awkward but I don't seem as anxious about it anymore so I think it helps. one-on-one's have been a lot better ever since building my arsenal of "script" phrases too. I can make appointments, and order food without having to worry so much because i better know what to expect now. So that's cool

2. I saw an disordered eating post today and that reminds me that I'm way better about my eating habits than I used to be. For almost all of my childhood I was surrounded by adults who did name brand diets, and encouraged weird eating to trick the body into losing weight. At no point was there a balanced diet and exercise plan, and when I wanted to lose weight as a kid my mom told me to stop eating carbs. (I was 13! And I did and got super small but it's also caused me many body battles and fluctuations and dizzy spells and overall it's bad kids don't diet like that)

But anyway, ever since becoming an adult I've had a lot of success with not starving myself, and applying other good tips for keeping my body machine running smoothly. There's still a lot to unpack, but it's definitely better :) many thanks to that nutritionist I saw a few times lol. I'll share a few of the takeaways

- only put on your plate what you're going to eat

- put enough on your plate, don't go back for seconds. feel free to add a cookie or snack or anything you want to eat that makes you happy, just make sure to only take what you can eat

- Your diet shouldn't feel restricting or make you feel like you're missing out! It's all about moderation of food intake

- Don't eat in front of distractions. Find a table and make it an event of its own. That way you'll better focus on the way your body feels when you get full. You don't have to eat once you're full, but it takes about 10 minutes before you can even tell that you are

- your body will adjust itself based on food intake, and it knows how to best regulate itself so don't worry if your food plan doesn't make you look like someone else on the same plan, because your body is always doing what's best for itself, and trust that if your diet is healthy that your body is doing its best too, even if your not seeing "results"

3.) learning to throw away my pedestal for the raw intelligence mentality was one of the best things I've ever done. Probably most of us here can relate to being one of the smart kids, and I specifically was one of those kids singled out at an early age and placed in a 'gifted program' (and jeez did that do nothing for me but isolate me socially, and set an impossibly high standard was what was clearly my "God-Given genius") I've seen the same pattern from every single gifted kid I know. They have a hard time working for things because if they're not already good at it then they must've been faking this 'gift' the whole time

Honestly I'm here for saying FUCK intelligence/genius/IQ culture altogether. The thing that keeps me going is knowing that just because you're bad at something, and ESPECIALLY if you're slow to pick things up, doesn't have any say on your worth as an academic. The human brain is so so powerful, and it's better and faster when it's trained to know how to do the thing! Even problem solving is a SKILL! All skills take practice, even if it's quick mental math, even if it's pattern recognition, even if it's reading-comprehension. We need to stop writing ourselves off as 'less than' just because someone is already better at it, or they picked up on it easier. We're all on different paths and levels and it's okay to know just to do you on your own time. You're capable, and I know I am.

Definitely happy that I've taken that one to heart. It helps all the time

4) Speaking of cultivating skills, I have a few I'm pretty damn proud of.

One: I'm really really good at problem solving. I spend so much of my waking time thinking about problems, and I'm told by a lot of my friends that I come up with efficient and creative solutions, and I really value that.

Two: You bet your ass I'm the best researcher around. I know so so many things specific to my interests. If you ever want to know or need help with computer programming, astronomy, or physics I'm pretty much your guy. I love to know things deeply so that I can re-explain them in a simple way. It's one of my favorite things to do, chewing up impossibly large topics

Three: this is a good one: I'm way better at asking questions now. Might sound weird, but I used to be really bad at asking questions because I had a hard time understanding why they didn't immediately have my answer. I considering myself a dummy level of meticulous, so if I'm asking a question you best bet that I've crafted it to sound like it makes the most sense in my head, but what would you know? Other people aren't me, and so I would repeat the same wording over and over and they would drive me crazy with the wrong responses. A good step is to let the person answering the question know what you already have in mind. It keeps them from repeating concepts your already have, and instead of them guessing whats wrong, they can start nit-picking or confirming your thoughts. It was so hard for me to understand that others are not in my head when I'm asking these things, but keep in mind that they're often on another planet and it requires some grounding before you can make progress. Saves so much time and frustration if the questioning process is dynamic

5. I'm the autistic nb your parents warned you about, and I think that's pretty sexy of me. I shan't explain

[semirahrose]

In the past few days I've read posts claiming that Sam is a psychopath who turns his empathy on and off so easily that it's disturbing, that Sam never cries (lol what?), that Dean is more emotionally mature than Sam, that Sam is egotistical and only cares/thinks about himself, and that Sam demonstrates more toxic masculinity than any other character on the show... I've been in hell basically and I was hoping you could cheer me up by disputing these "claims" with cold hard canon facts.

I’m so sorry you’ve experienced that, Anon!  I fear… you ventured into a truly dark corner of fandom. I have a fair few items on my blacklist to keep me away from that sort of “meta”, because honestly… it’s emotionally exhausting and endlessly frustrating running into such patent drivel.

I don’t know what these people were using to support their claims, so I can’t really refute them. Heck, I don’t know if they brought up solid points or were just angry and baseless. For many of the things you mentioned, I don’t even know where to start, because I can’t imagine what could have given anyone such an impression, but I’ll try to share some thoughts.

Sam is a psychopath without empathy? If anything, Sam’s empathy is always on. It’s always at max, and what these people might be seeing as “turning on and off” is likely Sam trying to redirect his attention elsewhere or deal with/compartmentalize his feelings. It could also just be a gross misinterpretation of introverted emotional expression. But also, let’s be real: the Winchester boys are soldiers. They’re fighting to keep people safe. They have to make choices that we can’t even fathom. A lot of times, these choices are not clear-cut and smelling of roses. Either way, someone will die. People will hurt. And these two, without the benefit of a hierarchy or large support group or court of law–in the heat of the moment–have to make decisions. People who find Sam “cold” or—God forbid, psychopathic? What the ever-living heck?—may simply not understand the magnitude of the decisions these boys must make.

Sam never cries? WHAT EVEN. What the hell even. First of all, crying is not the be-all-end-all of emotional expression. Some people cry regularly. Some people don’t cry for years at a time. And you know what? The former don’t feel things more strongly than the latter. People express grief and sadness and frustration differently. Some people feel numb. Some people get angry. Some people feel miserable but can’t cry. Some people drown it in drink. Some people blame themselves. Some people simply haven’t been taught that it’s okay to give vent to negative emotions, or grew up in an environment where expressing them was weakness and subject to mockery (*raises hand*) And… for the people who said that, may I kindly direct them to my crying Sam tag, because I have like seven pages of misty-eyed canon Sam for them to feast their eyes on. (Um. Geez. I swear there’s an explanation for the fact that I–that I have a tag for that. Uh.) ANYWAY. *clears throat* What even. 

Sam is not as emotionally mature as Dean? I can’t even dignify that one with an answer. Well. Actually. I believe Sam is, in many ways, more emotionally mature than Dean. Where Dean resorts to blame-shifting, violence, anger, and denial when it comes to things he doesn’t like, Sam acknowledges his mistakes and is aware of his unhealthy coping mechanisms (…while still  using them). THAT SAID, I don’t think I can state that Sam is more mature in general, because, well… Dean vents. He gets angry, he finds ways to release it, and he generally finds ways to settle into a sort of balance and keep going. On the other hand, Sam represses to the extent that it drives him to his breaking point. See Mystery Spot. See s4, where he was literally suicidal after Dean’s death. See any number of other times. At any point, I think Sam is a hairsbreadth away from breaking, and while there are a ton of things I love and respect about Sam, a lot of them are rooted in some really unhealthy habits. So… in many ways, Sam deals with things more maturely, understanding all angles. But he also truly just needs decades of hugs and therapy because wow.

Sam is an egotistical bastard? I would advise people who think Sam only cares about himself to watch Swan Song, then The Man Who Knew Too Much, and then Sacrifice, and then Nightmare, and then… the whole freaking show, actually. How Sam regularly puts the safety of others above his own welfare. How, even while grieving Jessica, in the beginning of the very first season, he threw himself bodily between two strangers and a Wendigo. How he was broken to pieces by his visions of death but unable to save the victims. How, later, Ruby’s perfectly calculated way to make him start drinking demon blood again was to imply that he might, by inaction, cause the deaths of innocents if he didn’t suck it up, drink the blood, and save the world. And Ruby knew Sam, played him masterfully. If anyone in the world knew how to get to Sam, she did. And she did so not by appealing to a desire for personal gain, but by implying that Sam’s desire to stop drinking blood might be selfish. And if that’s not enough, I’d like them to take a look at Soulless!Sam, who could have done anything but chose to continue hunting. Soulless!Sam, the single most stable and consistent soulless person in the entire show, whose admitted motivation for remaining soulless despite knowing he was “wrong” was that things didn’t hurt as much. Seriously. Come at me. Anyone who thinks Sam is egotistical has not seen the show or is picking events out of context and trying to apply some isolated events to the entire show.

Sam displays more toxic masculinity than any other character? What the…what even? What the heck? I would love to see the support for this argument, I really would. While both brothers display some unhealthy habits undoubtedly adopted thanks to their impossibly tough life and their upbringing… claiming that Sam is the poster child for toxic masculinity is just laughable. I could talk about why, but first let’s just look at a quick definition: 

Toxic masculinity is a narrow and repressive description of manhood, designating manhood as defined by violence, sex, status and aggression. [… S]upposedly “feminine” traits – which can range from emotional vulnerability to simply not being hypersexual – are the means by which your status as “man” can be taken away. Sex, in particular, is an important part of “being a man”. […] The need to “get” sex is all-encompassing because the more of it you have, the higher “status” you have as a man.You’ll notice how often sex and sexlessness comes up as an insult when a man wants to insult another man. (x)

Let’s just take a moment and ask ourselves. For which of our leads are sexual conquests important? Which character looked at cheerleaders and leered that he could tell which ones were legal? Which one finds peace in violence and resorts to violent ways of expressing himself before any other? Which one calls the other “bitch” and uses feminine terms as a way to demean someone? Which one pushes the other to have sex or act aggressive/sexual? Which one regularly calls women opponents “bitch” without any real evidence or reason? Spoiler: it’s not Sam.

And here’s the thing: toxic masculinity isn’t something where we can point out someone who displays the traits of it and call that person awful. It’s not quite as simple as that. Toxic masculinity isn’t a person. It’s an unhealthy, pervasive set of expectations. Heck, yeah, it’s terrifying and harmful to women and anyone who doesn’t conform or accept it. But it’s not the people we need to fight, but the overwhelming pressure and the media portrayals and the way it’s freaking exalted as the “right” way to “be a man.” On some level, there is an element of choice in adopting these beliefs and a certain amount of personal responsibility to… I dunno, not be an asshole, but in a lot of ways, it’s like showing commercials about grapes and making movies about grapes and rewriting history to feature grapes and then expecting no one to eat grapes. The hunting community in Supernatural, I’m afraid, is full of said grape-glorification. There’s no excuse for what some of them do, but they have ample reasoning for acting that way. (And if we’re talking levels of grape-hood on SPN, then I’m gonna have to say that Dean displays the highest levels of grapeliness, objectively.)

Haha, I hope this helped, Anon! I hope you’re able to blacklist the types of people who are saying those things. Personally, I’ve found it’s just unpleasant and ultimately fruitless (pun not intended) to engage cruel and baseless claims like that. I hope you’re able to make your Tumblr experience a more enjoyable one. Sending hugs and hopes that this made even a bit of sense.