#its not demonic

[samgirlie-gn]

No/Low-Empathy Sam - A Character Study

I don't know if I consider this a real headcanon - it's more theoretical, really. I'm personally low-empathy and wrote this to project/cope.

(1.3k words)

Sam knew from a young age that he was different, even if he didn’t understand how or why. Even as a young child he didn’t cry at sad moments in Disney movies – when Mufasa died and Dean was trying his hardest to hide his tears and save face, Sam wasn’t feeling much of anything. When a classmate cried, he didn’t feel pangs of sympathy – he just froze up, not sure what to say or do. What does one say to someone who lost a loved one? Is he supposed to care about some kid’s parents’ divorce? He once got angry and pushed another kid, and when the boy skinned his knee and cried he just felt… nothing. He felt something when a teacher came over to check on the boy: fear of being sent to the Principal’s office. Fear of consequences – reason enough to not do it again.

When his father came home in bad shape, mourning a difficult hunt and lives lost, Dean always seemed to know what to say and do. Luckily, less was expected from Sam as the younger son, but when Dean wasn’t around to help he tended to avoid their father. He didn’t know how to help carry the weight of the man’s burdens. He could never quite relate to the drive that pushed him to avenge his wife’s death – Sam felt nothing towards his mother. He never knew her, was too young to have memories of her, so why would he mourn? How could he really relate to his father’s feelings?

When Dean was hurt, Sam felt worry about him until he could confirm his brother would survive. He made sure that the injury wasn’t severe as he patched Dean up with young hands that shouldn’t be so accustomed to the task. Sam knew he loved his brother, more than he knew anything, but even Dean’s sorrow on the anniversary of their mother’s death wasn’t enough to make Sam cry. Dean saw nothing wrong; as far as he was concerned, Sam was perfect. He saw the best in him with something approximating an unconditional mother’s love.

But Sam feared himself. Feared that he wasn’t normal, that he was evil, that one day he would do something impulsive and destructive and feel no grief for it. To teachers, he was a “good kid” – a little quiet, but conscientious and well-mannered. But no matter how much praise a teacher heaped on, he couldn’t brush off the feeling that something was very wrong with him.

He’d learned a sense of right and wrong from Dad's teachings and Dean’s example; Dean, despite his macho façade, had greater feelings of empathy than Sam did. If Sam was gifted with one thing it was a fundamental desire to be good, to be the hero and not the villain. That desire kept him within the constraints of a carefully constructed morality. He flagellated himself with his own shame until his outside behavior hardly matched his inside.

As he aged, he learned. He watched the way people addressed others’ feelings, in movies and in real life. He learned how to express sympathy, how to lay on the pathos until those around him viewed him as perfectly kind and empathetic. And he felt like an imposter, a liar, a wolf in sheep’s clothing. His ability to act only made him more conscious of what was missing on a deeper level, that implicit care and empathy people seemed to have for others. If someone’s crisis was similar to something he’d experienced in the past, he could call upon his own memories: what would have made him feel better when it happened to him? But it was still an intellectual exercise more than anything else.

Jess was the first and only person he broke down and told.

“I don’t… feel things, for other people. I mean I’m capable of love, I think—no, I know I am. But when other people are upset I’m just… not. I don’t know how to deal with other people’s feelings. Sometimes I just feel… empty. I think something’s wrong with me. I can’t fix it, I can’t make myself feel what I’m supposed to feel and I don’t know what to do. Sometimes I’m scared that I’m evil, deep down. It's like something in me is missing.”

Jess was encouraging.

“Sam, you’re one of the kindest people I know. You’re so sweet to me when I’m upset, whether you ‘get it’ or not. Isn’t that what matters? How you treat people? Even if you’re a little different, you’re a good guy, Sam. I promise.”

It really didn’t make him feel any better.

When Jess died, Sam began to understand much better how that kind of loss felt for other people. Or rather, he knew how it felt for him and then could extrapolate it to victims’ families. His ability to “fake it” made him a better hunter; Dean even began to view him as the one who was better at handling grieving people, often letting him take the lead in that department. But with every bit of false care and sentiment he directed at others, Sam felt a sour taste in his mouth. He wished more than anything that any of it was real.

When he found out about the demon blood that tainted him as a child, Sam began to suspect that he’d finally found the reason why he was the way he was. There was just a bit of Demon inside of him, just a bit of unfeeling and cold calculation. He couldn’t confirm this really, but it seemed unlikely that it wasn’t related. He wondered what kind of person he would have been had Azazel not interfered. Maybe he wouldn’t have spent his entire life feeling like something was deeply wrong with him.

Sam never knew for sure why he was so good at fighting the pull towards evil, better than Ava and the other Special Children. But if he had to guess, he’d suspect that fighting his nature for his entire childhood gave him a lot of skill and practice for denying his darker impulses. That bit of coldness inside of him was fully overcome by the ever-present need to feel just a little less evil, just a little less broken. And he had Dean’s example to follow – a man who didn’t always do right, but always tried.

When Sam regained his soul and had to contend with memories of being soul-less, he was most disturbed by the similarities between himself and that self. Of course, with his soul he helped people, made choices out of an intellectual construction of morality. Being soul-less took away the love he had, for Dean and close loved ones, but when dealing with strangers things weren’t so different. He didn’t lose empathy – he just lost the desire to fake having it, unless he absolutely had to for a case. He got a little worse at pretending, as he found "better" things to put his time and energy toward.

Fundamentally, Sam developed a Complex – he believed more than anything that if he ever forgave himself, if he ever felt positive feelings towards himself, he might lose the shame that drove him to be good. Without his constant self-flagellation he might become not so different from his soul-less self. And that was something he could never, ever risk. This was his burden, a weight he could never put down. Eventually, in a twisted sort of way he accepted it. This was him whether he liked it or not. All he could do was pretend to be something else, and maybe Jess was right – by doing that he was showing some backwards, convoluted version of Goodness.

[beaulesbian]

Emmrich & Lucanis banter about/with Spite because it's a very fun angle of conversation between them

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[wolfythewitch]

Started malevolent, on episode 2

- we started not with a bang but with a whimper

- Arthur does not sound like a word anymore

- that demon in his brain needs to take a chill pill

- I need him tranquilized his shouting is scaring ME

[bluegiragi]

stuck between a rock and a hard place...

(this piece was not so subtly inspired by the fic Where Moonlight Meets the Sea by MildLimerence! Leave a kudos and a nice comment if you enjoyed her writing!!)

[goryhorroor]

horror sub-genres: cannibal

[deep-space-lines]

IT'S FINALLY FUCKING DONE. I'M FINALLY FREE

UNTIL FRAUD COMES OUT

Tumblr shrinks it down pretty bad so please. please. I am begging you. look at the full sized image and zoom in. This art piece made my friends worried for my mental health I need someone to witness the amount of detail and effort I put into this

also the original sketch under the cut bc I think comparing them is really funny

[beeturtlle]

hi i got very into kny recently

[tempo-takoyaki]

"Are you satisfied yet?"

[disgracefulthings]

Sha Hualing: I think your husband is cheating on you

Luo Binghe: Keep speaking ill about my Shizun and I'll rip your tongue out!

Sha Hualing: Just listen for a second! I heard Mobei-Jun's weird husband serenading Lord Shen with a romantic song!

Luo Binghe: ...what song?

Earlier

Shang Qinghua, very off key: We're no strangers to love~ You know the rules and so do I!

Back to the present

Luo Binghe: Oh, that is apparently a normal human custom. Singing that song unexpectedly to another is akin to a minor act of war. Shizun will probably retaliate by standing motionless by Shang-shishu with his arms spread out

Sha Hualing: Human culture is so weird

[tenmastrousers]

meet downhill longboarder wwx

[anbaisai]

Couldn't unsee Aira's hair as literally pink Azul hair so I had to make this once episode 10 of Dandadan dropped

[allastoredeer]

Someone on Twitter said they're scared of deer because deer will just stare at you for a long time before bounding away and, well, this was the first thing that came time mind.

RIP Angel Dust. He's never going to get a midnight snack ever again.

[starry-bi-sky]

on a completely separate note; shizun luo binghe with a disciple shen yuan who fell into the abyss??? *thinks about LBH canonically stealing SQQ's corpse for 5 years* he'd hallucinate i think. like, like visual and audial hallucinations.

Keeps thinking he's seeing SQQ in the corner of his eyes, or wandering between the trees, amongst a group of disciples. Thinks he hears him calling for him, but its just the wind or another disciple.

Gets Xiu Ya reforged but patently fucking refuses to make a sword mound. Because his disciple Is Not Dead :))) There was No Body. He's Not Dead. And If You keep Insisting That He Is, He's Gonna Skewer You :). He's holding onto Xiu Ya so he can return his most favored disciple's sword when he returns. It's on his hip right next to Zheng Yang where it's supposed to be.

Also this motherfucker?? does not sleep btw. He has the image of SQQ, wide eyed and hysterical and standing at the mouth of the abyss burned into his fucking eyelids. Can't use the dreamscape to escape it either because he keeps trying to save him and either he does and it's an incredibly cruel trick to wake up to, or he doesn't and he gets his heart broken in several different pieces again.

There is no convincing this man that Shen Qingqiu is dead. Absolutely nothing at all. He is buried so deep in denial that moles would be jealous of how deep he is. He keeps making tea for two in the bamboo house only to remember that it's just him. SQQ's fans are hiding everywhere, little reminders of his presence. He goes to wake up SQQ on the mornings he sleeps in-- only to find the room empty.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Never underestimate the healing power of a good meal!

(For @nibbelraz!)

[mooncalf87]

Charlie: hey, Al, Rosie is at the door!

Al: oh no

Rosie: DARLINGGGGGGG ITS YOUR YEARLY SLANG EDUCATION DAYYYYYYY

Alastor: HIDE ME QUICK

[shellem15]

Can I just say, I really appreciate how Critical Role plays the Devil trope straight. There's been this phenomena in a lot of modern media (I'm not going to mention specifics but I'm sure a few examples pop up in people's minds) where Hell and the Devil aren't scary or malevolent forces. Hell is portrayed as being basically the same as our world just "edgier", and the Devil is a pretty decent guy actually. Heaven are secretly the real bad guys!

But Critical Role doesn't do that. In Exandria, Asmodeus *feels* like the Devil. He's malevolent and manipulative and terrifyingly powerful and he hates you, personally. We never see that type of portrayal anymore! And it's amazing! And he still manages to be sympathetic and tragic without losing his edge!

And the "Good Gods" are portrayed as flawed without being secretly evil or something! Like, actual nuance? In my Heaven/Hell dichotomy? What!?

It's just such a breath of fresh air after so many "The Devil was right, actually" stories. So props to Matt and Brennan and the cast.