#sam + asceticism

[shallowrambles]

tw - eating disorders, poverty, rural areas, Sam W

I’m thinking about Sam and food today, and I’m seeing a handful of things popping up thought experimenting about how growing up on the road and/or fighting with high-Calorie needs might not have allowed for disordered eating to flourish.

It seems like a logical thought at first glance; however, poverty and lack of nutritious options growing up is not a deterrent to an eating disorder. It’s actually a risk factor.

Just because we can’t afford the fancy food or have to eat the high-calorie stuff during times of trouble, doesn’t mean it won’t manifest as a dormant aspect of later-in-life perfectionism. And speaking as someone who grew up in poverty, it’s complex but a lot about control and being as good as you can be. (Also: Good-looking ppl more easily climb the ladder. Good-looking ppl get more opportunities. “Looks-maxing” helps you blend.)

Even when you can’t adhere to fancy food, it’s about *wanting to.* It can be this whole world that tempts you with controlling *something* and fixing the things that you can, maybe even masking things that are “wrong” with you. It might lie dormant in your perfectionism and manifest on a trigger, like a family death or depressive episode.

///

Some stuff from Duke Uni to back up my life experiences: “Specifically, food insecurity most strongly affects people of color, rural people, the elderly, and children. While only a handful of studies have investigated the link between high levels of food insecurity and eating disorder pathology, recent research has discovered that adults who experience significant food deprivation on a regular basis are more likely to engage in several disordered eating behaviors.

…engaged in more objective binge eating and overeating, night-time eating, purging and other compensatory behaviors (such as exercising harder than usual and using laxatives/water pills), food restriction (such as skipping meals), restrictive diets, and dietary restraint.”

We see Sam exercising way more than Dean, too. Exercising can be healthy, but I think with Sam’s overall perfectionism and concerns with it, it’s not a stretch to see it as a hyped-up coping mechanism. (When taken by the government, Dean counts days and Sam counts push-ups.)

Anyway, poverty and bad eating in childhood or on the road is not a deterrent. It’s a risk factor.

[zmediaoutlet]

happy wincest wednesday!! if you could sort your own wincest fics by kudos which 5 (or 10) would be at the top?

happy wincest wednesday! (sorry i did not send an ask today ;-; -- thank you for keeping up the high fives anyway <3)

Um... hm. I guess this is effectively an 'author's favorites' list, although you could split some semantic hairs here and have it be which fics do you wish were most appreciated, which doesn't necessarily overlap with my own favorites. Tricky. Esp since my own taste (even for my own writing) changes so much, lol. But I can try!

oh so good, oh so fine -- this is my actual top by kudos and tbh it probably deserves to be there. plus the act of writing it was fun and it feels kind of... right, to me, that it's the top.

how badly i have let you down -- also pretty high up in fact, but I actually really like how it comes together as a destabilizing first time, especially since I don't actually like writing first time. Plus, like oh so good, it was written all in one sitting, and I just… often like the fics better when they're one quick shot from the hindbrain like that.

detente -- soulless!Sam/Dean, but it's really more about... Dean scraped down to misery entire, and a Sam who could give a shit but will take advantage if it's convenient. A lot grimier and grittier than I usually write spn, but it worked here.

freud's for suckers -- the early relationship here is just so fuckin cute. Written after I read Less, and if you've read that you could probably tell. This feels like a very Me version of a Dean POV.

eiderdown -- this is just frankly hot as fuck. A Sam who knows what he wants and will get it and isn't shy about it -- also very Z.

asceticism -- The Piss Fic, but more importantly the whole dissection of Dean's relationship to his body feels. idk, correct. Almost wish I hadn't tagged it correctly so people would read it for the part that actually matters, yanno.

the hollow summer -- sad, sad, sad. Whenever I write an AU it will nigh-inevitably be worse than canon. I put some real-life grieving in here and the writing's... honest. I really love the part where Dean beats the shit out of Sam (or tries to, at least).

buccaneer -- I know this is Dean/Crowley (and in fact Deanna/Crowley) on the face of it, but what it really is is the echo-shape of Dean(na)'s overwhelming, overarching need for Sam, felt in the absence of what's been cored out. Plus Deanna's sexy.

be subject to each other -- a rare sequel, but the established relationship here and the intimacy of finding yet another layer of ways to be known just makes me warm on the inside.

In a Cursed Hour -- this is technically gencest-that's-going-to-turn-into-fullcest, and might be a weird inclusion here, but if kudos actually reflected the level of work that goes into a story rather than whether someone's dick got wet in the approved way, this would have about 9000. So. I'm including it, lol.

Turns out I have ~160 posted spn fics, and one way or another they're all wincest (even the ones that have another pairing entirely -- that's how wincest the wincest is). So, picking ten of those. No links -- if anyone wants to read one they know how google works -- but this was actually kinda fun to think about, bud. Thanks <3

[shallowseeker]

Last lastly because my mind is torn up with thoughts of faith and future...and what it means for the core four:

Cas did not believe in a future for himself and Dean, but that is perhaps (broadly speaking) due to his complicated concept of duty, selfishness, and worthiness.

He wanted to die for Sam and Dean. Yes.

Cas has existed as a being trapped in billion-year-neverending wars and lonely stations watching (war is what angels do, what Michael does, after all). Cas was created for the purpose of bludgeoning the enemy and "being of service to the fight." He was given no love. He had no parent, no caretaker. He is so distant from Chuck, he withdraws emotionally, even from anger.

Because of this blunted development, angels are maybe not well equipped at expressing love, but they can fight for their loves ones. It's this terrible, chivalrous thing. And Cas sees this as a good use of his long, almost-inextinguishable life. The alternative is an angel's life: total war, devoid of purpose. (Or worse, as he briefly entertained post-Leviathan: a life of non-participation, "watching the bees." Being unalive. In Purgatory, it was the metaphor of non-participation presented as a drab, colorless penance: a suicide.) Angels tend to be this way. We see that "just wanting it to be over" and nihilism are key struggles for angels. Even Chuck struggles with meaning-making.

Life is long and hopless. Existing inside a broken machine.

So. The Future. Cas won't let himself conceptualize it. Enter Jack.

Jack is Cas's faith in the future.

See, Cas lives with the hypocrisy of wanting to be with his human family. He stole a human man's family life...why should he get to have a family life? He killed children, nephilim, even merely alleged nephilim...so why would he get to love and keep a nephilim? He scooped up soldiers after The Great Fall and ushered them back to Heaven...so why should he be allowed an earthly life?

Visualizing a future with Dean or reaching for the "selfish" things he shouldn't have is not just dependant on Dean's feelings. It's everything else, too. That angelic asceticism is born of shame, loathing, and guilt. But the "not belonging piece" of it is so much more than whether or not his loved ones care for him. It's the tragic, horrific mismatch of their cosmic existences, too.

When Jack is born, he's a marriage of Heaven and Earth. Because Jack chose Cas as his father and needs guidance on Earth, Cas sufdenly has a noble reason to stay. A noble reason to stay alive and guide.

Jack made them a family because he made it excusable for Cas to stay with Jack and his Winchester human family.

That's why Cas was so vulnerable to the temptation of Jack's big destiny. It legitimized Cas's continued presence.

///

[theminecraftbox]

c!Dream 🤝 Sam Winchester

Food /complicated

/dsmp /rp

I have in fact thought about this comparison At Some Length. [Actually there are lots of interesting modes of trauma that Dream and Sam W. share, and lots of really interesting comparisons and contrasts to make. And if I get too far into it we’ll be here all day. For this post I’ll focus only on food.]

This is a long boi. buckle in. 

What’s Food Mean?

Dream’s issues with food after prison (and arguably before it too) are based on a very direct response to starvation/food insecurity/weaponized hunger. Food was a tool used to torture and control Dream unambiguously and intentionally in a way that isn’t really true for Sam. Starvation is not one of Sam’s major traumas; it is one of Dream’s. 

This means that Dream has to shape his behavior around food in a way that’s very head-on. It’s not just a metaphor for control over his body, it’s not just an expression of his tastes or preferences or autonomy: it’s the physical reality of being able to eat well after a long period when he could not. When he was not allowed to, by another human being. And I think Dream often likes to face these things in a way that’s very head-on, violent, even--tackling his starvation the way he’d tackle training for combat, or practicing parkour, or similar. 

For Sam, by contrast, the Food Is A Metaphor. Among other things, of course, but the relationship between food and trauma is long and twisty for him--funnily enough, I think it’s this distance which allows him to displace some of his issues onto it. Unlike Dream, Sam doesn’t love dealing with his traumas face-on at all; he tends to sublimate, deny, and compartmentalize.

Food: Self-Harm or Self-Care?

And how do these two modes intersect? Both Sam and Dream hurt themselves, or do things that will hurt themselves, because they think it will make them stronger or feel better. 

Dream's issues with food are far more explicitly self-destructive than Sam’s. Sam has problems with self-harm, and even with using his asceticism to harm himself: I would classify both the Trials and demon blood here. But though it can tip over the edge, and though his focus on his eating easily evokes Sam harming himself via overwork, often Sam’s healthy eating skews far more towards self-help than self-harm.

Dream cares for himself after prison by keeping multiple stacks of golden apples on him at all times: golden apples are self-care inasmuch as they are self-protective. They are not indulgent, but they will defend Dream against physical harm, and that’s important. 

I think Dream takes a certain amount of pride in the evidence that he survived starvation rations for a year. He can’t be getting soft now. He can’t indulge himself. Maybe he goes for a few days without food just to prove he can, just in case it happens again. But he can have excess: exorbitant excess, because that’s just being prepared. 

Sam is afraid of indulgence too--but it’s because of his fear of the lengths to which he can sink, and how he perceives his history with addiction, an ever-present specter that Dream does not share. Sam views food as one of the rituals of mindfulness both keeping him functional and keeping himself in check. Sam’s person has been undeniably out of his control in a way Dream’s hasn’t. Dream would prefer to believe that, in fact, he’s always been in control of himself and what has happened to him. He can use a choice to starve himself as evidence of his toughness rather than as evidence of what has been done to him, evidence that he is dangerous, while Sam can use the same choice as a way to prove he won’t be dangerous. 

Food as Self-Improvement

This is distinct from self-care: this is about using food to make oneself more capable. Food can be used a form of control over the mind, not just in to shore up a sense of autonomy, but as an exercise of mental and physical fortitude. To exercise a muscle is to make it stronger and healthier.

I think Dream, pre-prison, was viewing his impending diet in these terms: both as a challenge for himself, and as an indispensable part of a charade that NEEDED to succeed. Dream cannot separate himself from his plan very easily; things necessary for the execution for the plan are also things necessary to shape himself to fit. If the plan needs him to eat potatoes, then Dream needs to become the kind of person who eats potatoes. It’s a very circular kind of logic. 

Sam focuses on controlling his eating to make himself stronger in a very literal sense. His eating is healthy. It’s a part of a carefully considered regimen to himself active and fit. This is the primary purpose of his considerations with food: he’d like to be better, to feel better, and this is a small but effective way to do so. 

Sam often copes by making himself into a tool. Dream does this too. But their approaches to this are radically different at their fundamentals despite having lots of the same effects. Dream believes deeply in his goals, in his plan, and he thinks he’s right. Thus, he sacrifices himself on the altar of his own design and his own convictions. Sam, generally speaking, doesn’t think he’s right; he chooses to shape himself into a tool not for his own purposes, but for the purposes of others. When he eats right and trains his body into an instrument, he thinks that he can be a better hunter, a better brother, be faster, stronger, healthier, save more people. When Dream eats and trains, it’s for the Plan, baby--and it’s for himself, too, that driving competitive need to be the best, the most competent.

Food as Personal Expression

Sam’s childhood was one of privation. It was also one where he had very little control over pretty much anything: where he lived, what he did, what he was allowed to enjoy, and yes, what he was allowed to eat. Any interest in mindful eating was quashed both in tangible terms--no money or availability, living in poverty with an absent father and a brother completely unequipped to provide for him--and in cultural terms. The Winchesters are men eating manly things. Worrying about macronutrients and the ethics of factory farming is not only frivolous, it’s actively insulting to the Hunting Way of Life. 

When he’s finally able to make his own choices, he pushes back. In this limited sphere, he picks his own set of values and his own set of eccentricities. 

Dream’s childhood, inasmuch as we can make certain inferences about the kind of guy whose life has led him to conclude “I thought [I]’d be fine with potatoes,” was also deprived. But I don’t think there’s much cultural backlash here, he’s not using food as self-expression in the way that Sam is. There’s a strength and significance in Dream relying on food strictly as it relates to combat and necessity. Where Sam chooses a salad based on personal preference, among his many other tangled reasons, Dream’s own tastes aren’t expressed this way. 

In fact, Dream actively erases himself from his choices of food as much as possible. He’s not eating what tastes best, he’s eating what has the highest saturation. He does this with lots of other things, too: he’s an intensely private person, unwilling to show his face or reveal his motivations or hint at any kind of emotional attachment, always favoring efficiency over sentiment. Then, all his enemies will see is that he’s optimized. 

Food and Autonomy

You knew it was coming: this is the crux of the matter for Sam, and it’s an unavoidable issue for Dream, too. 

For Sam, though, it’s more continuously unavoidable: the violations are consistent, the infringements keep happening, the things he cannot control keep piling up. Every year it’s some new terrible thing he can’t defeat. So he uses asceticism to cope: he can’t control whatever Lucifer is up to, he can’t control if he’ll be tied down and bled out on the next hunt, but he can control his cholesterol and minimize his risk of heart disease. 

Dream, by contrast, is not fighting a present lack of autonomy: he is fighting a past one. Right now, Dream is free; Dream is feared; while there are many who would like to hurt or kill or control him, there are none in a position to do so. Indeed, even the prison itself could not have happened without his say-so. Even the starvation itself happened at his own insistence. 

There’s also power in the straightforward ability to make choices that were once impossible. This entails both choosing foods that taste good or that are self-protective, and avoidance of foods that cause personal discomfort or distress: potatoes for Dream, red meat for Sam (in late seasons).

Rationalization

And finally, there’s the way that both Dream and Sam have a certain level of disaffected intellectualization towards their need for food. 

It’s one of the most basic human needs, one of the core, fundamental experiences shared by all people. But both Dream and Sam have layers of rationales between themselves and this most natural of human instincts. There is disconnect between themselves and their core needs; there are crossed wires and dampeners and logic gates in between. 

They’re both the kind of person who needs to set an alarm to remind themselves to eat. The body needs fuel; the body is theirs; they must fuel the body. It’s not for simple joy or simple need that they eat. They’ve both been alienated from their bodily requirements. They both put far too much thought and far too much complexity into something that, in the beginning, was once a simple thing. 

[katsidhe]

Would you please, if it interests you, of course, write about Sam and happiness? It's easy to see Dean finding happiness in small things, such as eating a good burger, driving his car and having sex. I feel Dean is his happiest when he's hunting (especially if it's a clear, black & white hunt) alongside his brother. I'm 100% a Sam girl and still I find myself wondering about the things that make Sam happy. Questioning if he was ever even happy to begin with, growing up feeling impure, seeing himself as a freak, neither fitting in within his family nor with normal, civilian people. Later on, living through so many traumatic events that were never really addressed nor treated. I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Funnily enough, I think Sam finds happiness in small things too. In some ways, he has a bit more in common with Dean than it at first seems in this regard.

Sam’s small pleasures often gets overlooked because Dean’s are all hedonistic and conspicuously enjoyable—food, sex, adrenaline, making and fixing things. Sam has exercise, podcasts, healthy eating, reading and organizing. The difference is that Sam’s wouldn’t really be classified as indulgences. They veer more towards the mindful, the purposefully wholesome. But I think both of those urges can be classified as a kind of low-level escapism from the general danger and unpleasantness of their lives. Dean finds enjoyment in taking thoughtless pleasures where he can find them, and Sam finds enjoyment in healthy choices where he can find them. 

Both instincts are in defiance of the idea that they could die at any minute. Dean’s “small pleasures” approach is, live fast die young but you can’t stop me having fun; Sam’s is, yes my life is miserable and  might be short but you can’t stop me acting like I have a future anyway. 

This isn��t fully straightforward. Some of Sam’s focus on health flirts with over-asceticism, issues with control over his body, and a focus on self-improvement to his own detriment. I even see him using demon blood in s4, as much as it is touted as some problem of Sam’s lack of control or as a descent into uncharacteristic hedonism, as far more about Sam being too strict with himself rather than not strict enough. Sam often copes by making himself into a tool, and it was the addiction to being powerful and effective and feeling like he was getting results that he struggled with more than the physical high.  

As for hunting; Sam has a complicated relationship to hunting, and he doesn’t get the straightforward joy from it that Dean gets, but in certain ways Sam does enjoy it. Sam gets fulfillment out of saving people, there is a certain pleasure he takes in the problem-solving and research aspects of it, and he definitely enjoys being on a team with Dean. Dean enjoys hunting for the act itself--for the pleasure in killing something that is Evil and saving someone Innocent, and for belonging to a heroic in-group, and for being with Sam. When Sam enjoys it, it’s for the ends he’s trying to accomplish, and for being with Dean. And, yeah, a certain part of this comes from feeling trapped and from conspicuously forcing himself to enjoy what he can get. That’s a big part of especially later-seasons Sam: adapting, and managing his expectations so that he can find pleasure and fulfillment in what he has. Settling, maybe, or counting his blessings. He loses the big dreams, but he never loses the small ones, to the point where in 15.20 he is still able to make a life for himself, and then I start thinking about old!Sam and the strength in that, and I’m not crying, you’re crying.  

Sam likes being around people he loves. Think of the simple happiness he gets out of helping Jack, Netflix with Cas, dinner with Jody, the dream he has about his family in 13.21, his time with his son in 15.20. Sam shows his love through spending time with people, as opposed to how Dean favors acts of service.

So yeah, Sam goes jogging in s7 and to farmer’s markets in s8 and he reads books and listens to true crime podcasts. And this small-scale approach works out actually fairly well as far as coping mechanisms go. The idea of, like, Sam going on morning runs and reading self-help books about mindfulness to treat his PTSD from literal hell is faintly ridiculous, right up until the part where it kinda works. 

[hieromonkcharbel]

In this episode of The Catholic Gentleman, Sam and John unpack the tremendously rich patrimony the desert fathers have given the world but are lost in the west. We are joined by the knowledgable and experienced director, Fr. David Abernethy (An Oratorian), to go back to the roots of this spiritual tradition that is unmatched in its ability to overcome temptations and grow in unity with Christ. Learn how to actually strengthen your will, unite your heart and mind, and how a life not working on frequent asceticism can never fully achieve the unity with God that is possible before death.

[panatmansam]

Cultural Syncretism in Buddhism or Why Hinduism Won in India

Shiva Lingam with Buddhist Iconography

Why Hinduism beat Buddhism in India.

We were talking about the different messages of the Hindu scripture the Bhagavad Gita and the Buddhist suttas.

Buddhists often revere the Bhagavad Gita not understanding that its message is so fatalistic. It is the exact opposite of the Buddhist message on purpose. Buddhists were telling people to go into seclusion.

The Gita told the people "LIVE YOUR LIFE it's all predestined anyway so indulge yourself." None of that asceticism required. This is one of the reasons that Hinduism eventually won out over Buddhism in India.

The other was that in India Buddha worship eventually merged with Shiva worship in the minds of the common people and Buddhist Stupas became Shiva Lingam and Buddhism was gradually absorbed in a process of cultural syncretism.

Much as Westerners are doing today. As you and I are doing here. We are merging our Western Humanist culture with Buddhist culture. Keeping what we can use, disposing of what we cannot.

Sam.

[ellicler]

oookayyyy my bloody valentine... mr bedlund you have a seriously twisted mind... this is the horror that wouldn’t look amiss on TMA just sayin’. (i said half a year ago that hunger is precisely what’s missing from the fear entities. the 1st world isn’t afraid of starvation anymore??)

i think that for some reason (?) famine’s explanation of dean’s contorted psyche is deliberately misleading? like it’s obvious that what he hungers for is actually self-denial?? good old-fashioned asceticism and self-harm. like, he stops eating and he stops flirting when sam ordinarily expects him to?? that’s because famine’s presence has strengthened that impulse. obvs what famine says (you’re a hole! oh how we love the consistency of that metaphor for dean. thanks sera? i think?) is also true. after hell dean has abandoned the hope of ever ever filling the void inside him.

hm. it’s hard for me to explain why i sort of enjoy it when ordinary stuff like food is oversexualised to this extent. maybe it sort of lets me explain to the imaginary allosexual viewers ‘see? this is the way your constantly talking about sex usually feels to me as an ace. i get that you like it but can you stop TALKING about it for 1 minute??’

[ellebeebee]

No Pain

Jaal visits with Forta while he recovers from the coma.  Character study sort of, since I’m trying out Forta’s POV.

1929 words, Male Ryder|Scott Ryder/Jaal, teen rating

AO3

-

No pain, no gain.

That’s the motto of every gym rat ever, the phrase so worn and abused and sucked of all its bite that it rolls off the tongue with a stink of sarcasm, an air of snide irony. It’s the truth, everyone knows it, but it has so much of the truth it seems like ‘the sky is blue’ or ‘water is wet.’ Shocker, stop the presses.

You wanna drop the irony? Get into the science of it. ATP, glycolysis, hypertrophy, anabolism. All of the stuff that Forta only passingly gets; he had left that to all his trainers. He didn’t need all the latin pre- and suffixes in the world to understand the feeling of that burning deep beneath his skin, pervading the inner depths of his flesh the day after a really good workout. You destroy the older, weaker muscle to build it anew. Burn away the hesitations, the inadequacies, and the laziness to forge yourself bigger and better.

Every session you push yourself further than the last, you hurt more than you’ve ever hurt before, and your body accepts it all, takes in the fire to build itself anew.

And you’ve gotta push yourself, like really push yourself. Up the weights or the reps a little each time. Failure. That’s what you want. You want to go so far that your body fails and your form gets ugly. You can’t know you’re burning away the old self until you work to failure.

That is, of course, if you’re healthy. If you’re fit for real training, not this physical therapy crap.

Forta wheezed, sweat dripping into his eyelashes and black eyes glaring at the physical therapist telling him to stop.

“I can keep going,” he said.

His treadmill was set to a snail crawl. This was an exaggeration, but he’s annoyed. He’s annoyed that they’re weighting his workouts with cardio, like he’s some damn treadmill bunny. He’s annoyed that even this pace was wearing him down like this.

The therapist, used to him by now, just tapped on the machine’s panel himself. The broad black ribbon silently slowed down. He’d been signed on to the Initiative to help with cryo rehabilitation, never thinking his old experience with biotiball teams would become useful like this.

“I’ve told you before, Ryder. This isn’t the weight room and I’m not your spotter. You’re not working to failure, you’re working to health.”

Forta took the offered towel with a little unnecessary snap. He furiously rubbed at his face.

“Yeah, I know,” he said.

The therapist folded his arms across his chest, datapad tucked underneath an armpit. He cocked a brow at him.

“Didn’t you do all this before? With the shoulder injury?”

Forta shrugged. “Yeah, but that was just the shoulder. I mean, I get it, you know? I have to heal. But I’ve never felt this weak before. Shit, have you seen my numbers pre-ice nap? I’ve lost like a quarter of my mass–”

“Now you’re just being a prima donna. Fishing for compliments.”

Forta turned to him then, still giving the short and damp stubble on his head a towel-down. He gave his therapist The Smirk and The Wink.

“Then compliment me. It’s good for my mental health.”

The therapist’s face just became even more dry. “Knock it off. You’ve atrophied an exact nine point three percent. Which is incredible considering the length of your coma. Your previous level of fitness and SAM’s assistance has been a big factor in getting you up again, but even so you’ve made a mountain of progress at a very fast rate. Put some trust in this process, okay?”

Forta looked away, frowning.

The therapist watched him for a long moment. He sighed.

“Look, Ryder,” he said and clapped a hand on his shoulder. “I get it. You’re used to a high level of physical ability. But your life’s changed now. You know how to fight for the gain, right? You know the sort of mental strength it takes to push to failure, day after day. Well now your failure is lower. It’s the same thing on a different scale. You know how to do this. So do it.”

Forta snorted, shook his head. He stepped off the treadmill and waved.

“Thanks, coach,” he smiled.

The therapist rolled his eyes and watched him walk away.

“Don’t forget your appointment with Carlyle later! I know the Tempest is docking soon, but I’m sure the Pathfinder can wait.”

Forta just gave a backward wave in response.

He did understand. And he would do the work, but this just all fucking sucked. It wasn’t like the shoulder injury when he was sixteen; at least then the rest of his body had been just as responsive and looked the same. Now he felt like some lost ghost trapped in alien hardware.

He left the main physical therapy room in the Hyperion’s med bay, and had to sit down in the showers because he was too winded to wash off just yet.

Pathetic.

He sat for a long time there, making himself breath and recover. His elbows rested on his knees. He looked down at himself, the Initiative branded shorts limp on his wasted thighs. Chicken legs. Worse, vat-cloned synth meat, all flabby and strung out thin. The long period of inertness had wrecked the color of his skin, dark gold and freckled and coppery with tan gone to pastiness, his dark leg hair sticking out like dead grass in dead soil. Blegh.

The shower drained him enough to retreat to his hospital bed for a nap, waking up only when Dr. Carlyle came by and prodded and poked him with questions and scans and whatever. The exam finished, Forta watched Carlyle’s retreat from med bay with warnings about resting, his sister was coming here to visit, staying in bed, blah blah blah.

Forta tossed off his covers, shoved his feet into flip-flops and bolted (correction: geriatric shuffled) out of the Hyperion med bay.

-

He had to rest when he reached the gardened section of the Nexus docks, with all the benches. He sat down and tried not to be too obvious about the wheezing and the sweating and the shaking. He slung his legs out to try and relieve some of the muscle spasms.

“Pardon– oh. Forta Ryder.”

He looked up. It was that angara attached to the Tempest. He’d flung his legs out right when he’d been trying to pass by.

He grinned to cover the discomfort in his legs. “Hey, Jaal– you can just call me Forta, by the way. You guys enjoying shore leave?”

“I would not exactly call it ‘leave’,” he said.

He stood there, the dappled and pleasantly warm artificial light of the area flickering over the curious plums and roses of the his skin, all smooth over curving ridges and… neck flaps. Jowls? Flesh mane! Something. Forta’s vantage on the bench gave him a good view of Jaal’s form: the bulky and powerful chest, the supportive waist as a turian would say, and the elegant turn to those generous, thick legs. They were turian and quarian-shaped, those legs, but turians were all about Spartan asceticism and quarians were sort of compact and slender. Not generous and well-fed and full like this, with a butt almost as nice Forta’s own.

Or well. As it used to be. His butt dimples weren’t as cute as before, and yes, he had checked.

“Take a seat, you’re making my neck hurt,” Forta said, smiling.

Jaal obeyed. He sat at the bench across from him.

“We’re here for only a refuel and resupply,” Jaal said.

“I know,” Forta said. “One night only.”

“Your sister went to go visit you.”

“Yeah, I was hoping to catch her here. Change of scenery. Hospital visits kinda suck in a way, you know? Oh well.”

Not really ‘oh well,’ because he would rather go back and meet her, but he didn’t quite have the strength again to shuffle back onto the tram. So here he was, killing time and grinning so no one noticed how tired he felt.

“So, sailor,” Forta grinned, settling back with his arms draped over the bench’s back. “I take it you’re not breaking hearts tonight down at the Vortex?”

Jaal shifted. “No. I was actually at the Cultural Center– If you don’t mind, I’d like to ask you a question.”

“Oh, me?” he said. “Uh. Sure.”

“Your names,” Jaal said. “You and your sister. She says they are from plays. What was it– Hamlet and The Tempest. Our ship is also the Tempest. Is it common for humans to name ships and children alike?”

He laughed a little. “Oh. No. Although, a lot of people name boats and stuff after people. The Jaundiced Janice or whatever. Mom named me and Mira. Forta’s from Fortinbras, Mira’s from Miranda.”

“I’ve seen the elcor Hamlet. It was excellent, but I don’t recall a… ‘Fortinbras.’”

“Yeah, he’s cut out a lot,” Forta said. “Umm. How do I put it? It wasn’t about the big characters or anything. Mom explained it best, but basically Fortinbras and Miranda were both characters that sort of fell into good luck. They didn’t suffer a ton or whatever for their good endings. I guess that’s kind of what she hoped for us in life.”

“Hmm,” Jaal hummed.

His voice thrummed, even across the distance they sat at. It was a bit mesmerizing, really. Not exactly like the layered vibrations of a turian, but deep and rumbly. Nice.

He cleared his throat, mindful of the blue eyes studying him. “Which is funny, really, because Mom was always pretty masochistic when it came to her work. Always working late, always pushing herself. I don’t know. I mean, that’s life, right? You don’t just get all the nice parts. You have to hurt, too.”

Jaal hummed again, apparently considering his words. “I think it is a loving sentiment. To want your children to live easily. I think she gave you those names as a gift of love.”

Forta licked his lips, a little tripped up. He didn’t know what to say to that. The guy was right, and it was what he himself had always felt deep down, but… Damn. Gut punch, jeeze.

And delivered at a real convenient time too, when he was aching to suffer, to get back to form. To get back to the field, to explore, to just freaking help. Here he was, sitting on his ass when things needed to get done and his sister and everyone from the Milky Way were out there doing it for him. Not that he’d expect to do it all, but something, shit.

He cleared his throat. “Okay, my turn.”

Jaal cocked his head. “A question? Go ahead.”

“Your body,” Forta said, grinning just enough not to be rude but definitely enough to give doubt. “Are all angara shaped like you? Or do you have to work for it? What’s your workout schedule like? You seem pretty ripped.”

Jaal’s eyes shot down to himself, roving over his own torso and limbs. “A rip? Where?”

“Oh, sorry. Idiom. You look really fit.”

“Oh. I don’t think I’m abnormal. Especially in the Resistance. You have to be able to fight well, and a well-cared for body is absolutely essential.”

“So the Resistance is full of people that look like you?” Forta said.

Jaal met his gaze. Forta willed the splay of freckles across his nose to full-powered prettiness. No wink, though. Let’s not be too hasty here.

“Not exactly,” Jaal rumbled.

Forta laughed. “Good to know.”

[shallowseeker]

Cas vs NIHILISM, part 2:

(Cas and Sam)

///

CUT TO: Ground floor of the cabin. SAM sits down near CASTIEL.

CASTIEL You seem troubled. Of course, that's a primary aspect of your personality, so I sometimes ignore it.

SAM Okay. Um... right now I'm just wondering about you.

CASTIEL What about me? You're worried about the burden I lifted from you.

SAM I think I was done for. Do you see Lucifer?

CASTIEL I did at first. But that was... It was a projection of yours, I think, sort of an aftertaste. Now I more see... well, everything.

This IS a Chuck parallel. It's a God parallel. There's a school of thought that the Universe despairs when it has enough consciousness to perceive itself. It goes mad trying to find meaning in its very existence. When you see everything, you despair and find no meaning.

There's a sort of cosmic horror there, that Chuck himself lives in the shadow of. That is in fact WHY Chuck dons the Chuck mask, desperately trying to be SMALL and hyperfixating on Sam and Dean. This has some...difficult implications for where we leave Jack in season 15.

Amara had Chuck right in that he wanted to be BIG, but he was also trying very desperately to be SMALL, too. He couldn't effectively be either and find peace.

Cas is seeing all of this stuff and seeing that no only does the mechanistic, rigged universe have no real meaning. It is a horror of repetition, and he has no business participating in it because he is a destroyer. When he tried to shoulder his father's burden of power, he failed snd devolved into a worse tyrant.

Furthermore, his location in the food chain is unbearably cruel. How can he bear to be happy and prosper at the expense of human lives? (See above; also, this is Cas's core issue with happiness vs angel asceticism)

///

MEG watches from across the room.

CASTIEL It's funny. I was – I was done for, too.

MEG leaves.

CASTIEL The weight of all my mistakes, all those lives and souls lost, I... I couldn't take it, either. I was… I was lost until I took on your pain. It's strange to think that that helped, but –

This is a penance that comes up often for Sam and Cas as characters, that taking on PAIN and SUFFERING will erase their mistakes. This is a deeply religious concept, and it shows up time and again in humsn psychology.

That they're not allowed to live unless they make up for all they've done. It's a dangerous sort of self-flagellation that all three of them tend to do at times.

(It's why Dean doesn't allow cas to heal him in season 12.)

/// SAM I know you never did anything but try to help. I realize that, Cas, and I'm grateful. We're all grateful. And we're gonna help you get better, okay? No matter what it takes.

CASTIEL What do you mean, "better"?

///

This is Sam's version of forgiveness. He can give it easier since the whole thing with Cas was at more of a distance; the wound was physical and not as deeply emotional in terms of Sam's world, compared to how Dean loved Cas.

To answer Cas: What he means by "better," Cas, is feeling worthy of participating in life again. This is not mental illness per se, not somuch as what it means in the realm of civilian health: it is specifically a WAR WOUND. It's MORAL INJURY.

We'll see this theme with SAM and CAS a lot in coming seasons, Cas committing suicide (effectively) by choosing Purgatory. Sam checking out of life with Amelia, rather than balancing his responsibility to Kevin. Cas not wanting to face up to what he's done to Heaven. (Hunter Heroici is THE episode that underlines this for Sam and Cas).

Happiness must be BALANCED with responsibility, and not simply represent running away and checking out as a means of avoidance.

Sam nor Cas do a good job balancing responsibility with happiness, like ever. They both tend to either check out completely OR turn into workaholics chained to hunting and angelic soldierdom, manifested in Hell trials for humanity and Angel: trials for angels: "mission above self." (Dean does this in the beginning of season 15 with the vampire kid; then promptly checks out to eat cereal and marathon Scooby-Doo).

Aside// I think Amelia could've been a good thing for Sam, except that it's his Charming Acres. Cas's checking out of life and subsequent "fighting injured" took a much darker turn towards suicide "Purgatory."

When Cas came to his senses; that is, he collected his thoughts and wove all that disparate information into a composition of MEANING, he remembered WHAT he wanted to fight for, and WHO he wanted to fight for, BUT despair was so powerful, he wanted to simply stay in Purgatory.

Shabby studies in meaning making

Some disturbing revisitations to PTSD!Cas

7x21

CASTIEL Yes. Of course. Oh. Outside today, in the garden, I followed a honeybee. I saw the route of flowers. It's all right there, the whole plan. There's nothing to add.

This means, the plan is complete. We shouldn't add anything to it. Certainly not free will.

///

CASTIEL Will you look at her? My caretaker. All of that thorny pain. So beautiful.

Not much here, except he likes Meg.

///

CASTIEL Yes. I heard a ping that pierced me, and, well, you wouldn't have heard it unless you were an angel at the time.

CASTIEL Oh. Of course. Now I understand.

CASTIEL You were the ones. Well... I guess that makes sense.

CASTIEL If someone was going to free the Word from the vault of the earth, it would end up being you two. Oh, I love you guys.

CASTIEL pulls DEAN and SAM into a hug.

Some contradictory relief here; the relief that Sam and Dean are bringing meaning to chaos.

///

CASTIEL Did you know that a cat's penis is sharply barbed along its shaft? I know for a fact the females were not consulted about that.

Sex. Cas is mentioning it A LOT. Like he's trying to distance himself from it in a clinical, "watcher" kind of way. Probably he can't understand why he wants it, what possible connection if could offer. Perhaps he's disgusted with himself. He'll revisit it often: repetition, sex and wars. Bees like flowers because they feed on their nectar and pollen, and they facilitate sex between flowers.

///

CASTIEL This is the handwriting of Metatron.

CASTIEL Uh... "Tree”? [He looks at SAM and DEAN.] "Horse"? "Fiddler crab"? I can't read it. It wasn't meant for angels.

Wryness. Also re: above and Word freed from the vault; angels aren't meant to make meaning.

///

CASTIEL Don't like conflict.

CASTIEL disappears and the stone tablet drops to the floor, breaking into three pieces.

Dismissive avoidant in full swing. No emotions, no participation, no war-making. He breaks everything he touches. NOTE: The angel tablet breaks into THREE pieces, representing Sam, Dean AND Cas.

///

DEAN walks over to stand in front of CASTIEL.

DEAN You realize you just broke God's Word?

CASTIEL looks away and DEAN sits down at the table opposite him.

WOW. And it broke into THREE pieces! Cas is ever the glue, an essential component of free will.

///

DEAN It's Sam's thing, isn't it? You taking on his, uh, cage-match scars. I'm guessing that's what broke your bank, right?

CASTIEL Well, it took... everything to get me here.

DEAN What are you talking about, man?

This is VERY mysterious. Makes you think maybe there's more to Daphne, or more to Naomi journeying to Purgatory to get Cas back. That Cas is more important than he realizes?

///

CASTIEL Dean, I know you want different answers.

DEAN No, I want you to button up your coat and help us take down Leviathans. Do you remember what you did?

CASTIEL holds up the board game “Sorry!” He shakes it once and the board and pieces appear on the table, set up ready to play. CASTIEL sets the box aside.

CASTIEL Do you want to go first?

They're venting their frustration at each other through talking about other things and being indirect. I think of the conversation about Adam & Michael from Season 15. They're both symbolically irritated with one another. Dean is seriously wounded: Bobby is dead, he almost lost Sam, and then he got Cas back and promptly lost him again right away. For a guy carrying around another guy's coat, Dean's definitely at sea. Cas is essentially saying in code: YOU APOLOGIZE TO ME FIRST.

///

DEAN picks up a “Sorry!” card.

Dean's playing! Visually, he's sorry. We know he is because of how we saw him sing along to "I'm All Out of Love" by Air Supply. We saw the conversations between Bobby and Sam. We saw the coat Dean carried around. But Dean doesn't get his meaning across. He's too hurt.

///

CASTIEL You know, we weren't sure at first which monkeys were gonna make it. No offense, but I [DEAN moves a marker on the board] was backing the Neanderthals because their poetry was... just amazing. It's in perfect tune [CASTIEL picks up a card] with the spheres. But in the end, it was you – the [CASTIEL moves a marker] homo sapiens sapiens. You guys ate the apple, invented pants.

Cas is distancing himself from humanity, putting Dean under a microscope and moving as FAR from him as possible. We're not alike, angels and humans. I'm above you, away from you. It's a callback to all of Uriel's insults, it's a callback to "You're just a man."

///

DEAN Cas, where can we find this, uh, Metatron? Is he still alive?

CASTIEL I'm sorry. I – I think you have to go back to start.

DEAN moves a marker.

DEAN This is important.

CASTIEL motions for DEAN to pick up another card. DEAN does and moves another marker.

DEAN I think Metatron could stop a lot of bad. You understand that?

CASTIEL picks up another card.

CASTIEL We live in a "sorry" universe. It's engineered to create conflict. I mean, why should I prosper from... your misfortune? [CASTIEL puts down a marker and moves DEAN’s marker back to the start.] But these are the rules. I didn't make them.

Cas is giving into nihilism. Nothing matters. The universe just sucks and is neverending conflict. Angels are angels and humans are humans. Human suffer and angels hoard their souls as winter-food in Heaven, perhaps. They are fundamentally incompatible. I didn't make the rules, Dean. The universe is harsh and unforgiving.

///

DEAN You made some of them. When you tried to become God, when you cut that hole into that wall.

CASTIEL Dean... it's your move.

///

Cas ignores his role in any of it. Cas has completely withdrawn from life. From this entire game.

///

DEAN pounds a fist on the table and swipes the board to the floor.

DEAN Forget the damn game! Forget the game, Cas.

Dean hates the game, obviously. Chuck's stupid, stupid game. He wants to tear up the rulebook, still--bot follow the honeybee into the garden and consider it complete and unworthy of rewriting. Dean still wants to rewrite the rules OF the game.

///

CASTIEL I'm sorry, Dean.

DEAN No. You're playing "Sorry!"

And he is. Cas is shunting all the responsibility to the nihilism and coldness of the universe, seeing himself as a cog prospering from the misfortune of others. He denigrates humanity as nothing more than sets of monkeys that angels were "backing or not backing," like a GAME. That chasm between angel and human seems is wide and uncrossable.

Dean hates the inescapable game.

///

CASTIEL is picking up the game pieces. He stops and looks up.

DEAN What?

Cas resolves to KEEP PLAYING THE GAME, just as he does later in Golden Times.

15x06 >>> MELLY: Thing is, taking yourself out of the game doesn't really change the game CASTIEL: Yeah. If I stay, nothing changes. It's time for me to get back in the game.

[mittensmorgul]

I read your post about 2x12 and I was reminded about 11x17. Michelle Tilghman, whose husband was killed after he became a werewolf, was told by Dean that things were going to be okay again, but Michelle said: "There's no normal after that." Sam and Mary think the supernatural itself is what ruins a life, but they're wrong. Which reminds me of this quote: "The problem isn't the problem. The problem is your attitude with the problem." Sam is taking the supernatural too personally, I think.

Heck, yes. Jack Sparrow to the rescue. :P

(the 2.12 post for reference)

And I think you’re referring to this bit here at the end?

(I mean I love Sam to death but he’s in this terrible headspace right now where he firmly believes that knowledge of and contact with the Supernatural is the “crap” that ruins lives. That knowing the truth of what’s really out there is what makes it impossible to have a normal life and be happy… much like Mary’s thinking in s12. This magical thinking that if you can eliminate ALL the supernatural from the world you can just go back to suburbia and pretend none of it ever existed in the first place, and hasn’t completely shaped who they all are as people…)

And further to that, I think that’s also the BMoL’s problem. How many years has it been since we’ve seen this many monster cases? I mean, even earlier in the season Dean was getting BORED trying to find cases to work. Once Ketch (later with the help of Mary) began hunting down and killing ALL the monsters-- even the ones who were just trying to live peacefully-- I think two things happened.

And it was definitely not a problem at all at first. But it was their attitude to the perceived problem (that monsters should even have the audacity to exist on the same planet as them), that caused the REAL problem.

This is the same two-part equation that we saw unfolding in s6 (and to a degree in early s11 with the Darkness panic):

Someone starts killing large portions of the monster population

first the monsters panic and go into hiding... they split up from their usual stable home groups and head out alone into the world (which is probably why Dean had been bored earlier in the season... because the monsters were being extra-cautious not to draw attention)

some of them do no handle that isolation well (like the werewolf in 12.16, and also the vampire in 3.07 who turned Gordon)

some of them start banding together and fighting back (like we saw with Eve in s6)

The “monster problem” in the U.S. has always largely remained in balance with the human population enough that a small handful of hunters has been enough to cull the rogues who were drawing attention to themselves. There wasn’t really any sort of precipitous rise in monster activity until the demons (and then the angels) started making trouble back during the apocalypse.

I mean, s4 was the first time the supernatural began making itself known en masse through all the “breaking the seals” weirdness, and in s5 through the Horsemen being released, but none of that was directly CAUSED by Sam and Dean. They were trying to stop it.

As far as Sam’s attitude about that now, he’s always had a really complicated relationship with the supernatural. He was the one with the visions, the one who felt like a freak, who wondered if he wasn’t evil, or a monster, himself. And he was raised in the life (albeit sheltered from the truth longer than Dean was). He was raised by a hunter who believed that the only good monster was a dead monster. How much did that screw him up? Knowing his father thought he was a monster himself? Like... wow.

No wonder his go-to plan was to run like hell from hunting.

I’m reminded of an old meta on Sam’s healthy eating, how it was the one part of his life he could really control and that eating “pure” things like organic food and salads and stuff was a way to minimize the “impure” part of himself that had been tainted by demon blood. And even the s8 trials were used as this metaphor for “purity,” especially in 8.21. It’s a weird sort of asceticism, and yeah it’s magical thinking at its finest, but this has always been a huge struggle for Sam.

The carrot the BMoL dangled in front of him-- the promise that they could truly end the supernatural interference in the world once and for all-- would be a huge temptation to him, just because of this painful drive to achieve some sort of “purity,” or redemption for himself from the “tainted” part of himself.

And in that respect, this is a big part of what Dean was fighting against during the first half of s10 with the Mark of Cain (before the derailed the story and made it about the Darkness instead, but I won’t start talking about this lest it because a WTF S10?! rant, and nobody wants that :P). This notion of finding balance, reconciling the “good” parts of oneself with the “dark” parts. (hello, 10.11, nice to see you again)

But in trying so desperately to solve this problem-that-wasn’t-really-a-problem, the BMoL have inadvertently done exactly what they’ve always accused the Winchesters of doing. I mean, straight from Toni Bevell’s mouth at the very end of 11.23:

Toni: We've been watching you, Sam. What you've done, the damage you've caused -- archangels, Leviathans, the Darkness, and now, well -- the old men have decided enough's enough. I mean, let's face it, Sam. You're just a jumped-up hunter playing with things you don't understand and doing more harm than good. Now, where's Dean?The BMoL have caused the exact scenario that they’d intended to prevent. They’ve brought this all on themselves.

As to the werewolves in 11.17, yeah, I think their intent was to turn both Michelle and her husband, but they’d only bitten him. He hadn’t asked for it (hey, consent!) but once he felt the change and fed, he was so thrilled by being a werewolf that he wanted his wife to change with him, even against her explicit wishes.

But now Michelle knows the truth about what’s out there (or at least about werewolves...). She saw her husband become a monster. There is no coming back from that (whether it be the loss of her loved one or just the innocence about the supernatural in general being lost forever). Thing is, in Michelle’s case, knowing the truth is what saved her life. Her husband had dismissed her insistence from the start that these were monsters that were holding them captive.

Michelle: W-What were they?Dean: Werewolves.Michelle: Told you they were monsters.Corbin: That's right, baby. You called it.Michelle: I thought werewolves needed night time, a full moon? We've been here for days. These guys, they can change any time.Dean: Yeah, that’s ‘cause they were probably purebloods. And they can change any time. Any time they want.

No lies, no deception; Dean tells her the unvarnished truth. Corbin had doubted and dismissed it, and he ended up dead for it. Michelle believed and was WILLING to believe, and she lived.

I mean, the truth will set you free, right? Even if it’s a terrible, painful truth. And sometimes the "solution” is worse than the problem...

[zmediaoutlet]

I'm a big fan of your spn work and there is SO much of it, so I was wondering: what are a few of your personal favorites fics you've written (and why are they your faves!) to give me a place to start?

Wow, that's an interesting question! I don't know quite how to respond -- I mean, you could go to my works page and sort by kudos, I guess, and you'd see what other people think, haha. And sometimes my favorite fics of mine are just the most recent ones, because they reflect how I'm currently thinking about the canon/characters -- but sometimes my favorite fics are the ones that I think are a little different. So I guess it just... depends on what you're after. I'll pick five of the spn-verse ones that aren't J2, I guess, just to be going on with -- and this is with the understanding that I don't really believe in 'favorites', haha --

to dream of the next - wincest. This is the one where Sam's been pining for so long that he doesn't really have the strength to pretend he isn't, anymore. It was fun to write Sam's stripped-down weariness here, but it's also interesting to see Dean through Sam's semi-oblivious eyes -- where Sam's so certain that they can't move to that next stage that he can't see Dean seeing him, so to speak. Plus I think some of the writing is pretty. I like the middle section best, I think.

won't let you let me down so easily - Sam/Brady, Sam/various. This is the one where a possessed Brady makes Sam get gangbanged by a bunch of unscrupulous frat boys. Definitely inspired by a fratx video, lol, but -- despite the fact that it's 'just porn' and it was definitely written for a donator who likes to see Sam raped and so it didn't really matter too much if the premise for why was rich -- I really ended up enjoying writing Brady's headspace. He's a weird character and it was fun to make this work for *him*, even as Sam dwindled away into object. If you're not into the rapey bit then the first half might at least be interesting to you, for Brady's POV.

asceticism - wincest. If you click and see 'watersports' and rear back, I would urge you not to -- unless it's a like Oh No Gross squick, lol. I really think some of the internal thought processes I wrote for Dean here are about the best I've done. Charity fics/specific prompts are interesting to write because the restrictions given by the prompt create a fertile space for creativity. A lot of people have said that they enjoyed it despite the piss, lol -- that's because it's not about the piss, at all, it's about the mindset that makes the piss possible. I feel very tender for Dean here.

someday we'll go all the way (let's play two series) - Dean/Deacon, gencest. This is the second of my Dean/Deacon stories -- the first one makes an entirely-possible-inside-canon space for Dean/Deacon to have happened; this second one posits an AU where Dean stays at Deacon's house for most of the Stanford era, and when Jessica dies then Sam has to come out to Arkansas to find him. I really like the feel of this story. The Sam POV section is probably my favorite but I appreciate seeing Dean and Deacon's POVs as well -- in part because it does still feel possible, and still fits in the rest of the show's world. Plus it's always nice to give Dean someone who loves him. He doesn't have enough of those.

Elegy, wincest, Dean/John. One of my 'full house of wincest' stories -- that is, a canon-feeling Dean and Sam relationship that nevertheless includes Dean/John somewhere in the background. My general fhow tag is kind of a guide to how I think about the D/J relationship in canon -- I guess I'll tag it on this post if you feel like clicking through on my blog -- but it's really most interesting to me for how it affects Sam and Dean in their present. This fic is all about that. Dean's prickly terror-shame-defiance is really accurate, I think, to early s2 -- Sam's slightly misguided sympathy/pity is accurate to his own early s2 vibes, haha -- but I like particularly how this fic uses the D/J moment to aaalmost violently reframe 'nice' wincest, the Sam/Dean that we've all bought into, into something bad and unhealthy. I mean, I don't like 'family horror show' blogging very much, but hell. It doesn't take much to skew the relationship we see into something very awful.

...anyway. Those are a few that I guess I'd point to if you want to get a vibe of me-as-a-writer. I didn't include any of the mildly popular ones, haha. But if you ever have an opinion on any of it, o anonymous friend, I'd love to hear your thoughts either here or in a comment! Looks like I've got 164 'just' spn fics so I guess there's a lot to choose from, but some of those less-read ones have a little something going for them. I hope! :)

[shallowseeker]

So thinking about power… because I just read 13x20… it’s so interesting to me that Gabriel would rather hide than use his archangel powers (in general). Even the smile on his face dies shortly after he gets his revenge.

At core, Gabriel would rather be saved than engage the conflict(s). He’s a lover, not a fighter. His revenge is driven by extreme feelings of hurt and betrayal. It’s interesting to me that The Norse gods allude to multiple apocalypses, which makes it seem like the deities are always in a power struggle. Especially Gabe’s family…

Castiel on the other hand is much more likely to engage a conflict and try to fix things. And trying to fix it is as much a character strength as it is a flaw. Because of this, he seems much more likely to take on power and wield it than Gabriel. Meanwhile, Gabriel dives into pleasure and plasters on a fake smile.

To deal with disappointment, Castiel’s base is to disengage, “I have no family” and punish his peers “you need a firm hand.” The babysitter porn scene at first makes it seem like Cas harbors some shame that he’s “being bad” and working against his human family, because this is the ruse Cas puts up most of the time. But much like what happens with Crowley, Cas blindsides us with the truth: that he’s okay seizing power and doling out punishment because there’s love behind his motivations/spanking. He’ll feint and lie in wait if he has to…

Cas is at his core a bit like Chuck in this regard. Not personality-wise, but definitely problem-solving-wise… As Godstiel, he acts a lot like an Old Testament god, doing some good, some bad.

But love and the right reasons aren’t enough! Otherwise Cas wouldn’t be so shattered and obsessed with asceticism and penance. It helps him resolve his need for power and control. Chuck does this too with his carefree attitude and his songs. It’s resolving some of the tension. It’s being likeable through self-hating.

That crazy!Cas says he destroyed everything and would do it again was Cas being honest. He’d do it again. His “don’t like conflict” is driven more by his knowledge of how he knows he will inevitably deal with conflict even when he’s trying to be a “good guy” and do the right thing…not conflict in general. He may be conflict averse with emotions but not war in general. Hell, Jack is his second chance at gaining power, but this time he’s not wrapped it in brutality. This time, he’s wrapped it in joy, idealism, and love…

And unlike his angelic peers, Cas has more to lose because he has a human family. It’s so…complicated. He’s not really motivated by paradise. He’s motivated by his family being happy. That he kills Dumah immediately without even engaging, just for threatening Ma and Pa Winchester… Has Cas really changed in the end?

Lucifer at least seems like he wants to travel the universe with Jack and not be alone… I’m not sure power and paradise were even his main drivers. Perhaps with Dagon but by the time AU! Michael happened, he wanted to take Jack and flee—his need to not be alone and side helping of needing narcissistic supply are driving him more here. (Which is why he’s so hurt by Jack’s rejection and delights in trying to kill Sam.)

As for deities locked in neverending war…. Cas is not the singularly rebellious angel—that’s codswallop the narrative is trying to sell you. Uriel totally would’ve eaten souls. Bartholomew too. Lucifer? Yup. In a very ancient way of looking at it, this is a feature of lesser deities to consume and rise to power. They’re in a war with god. They’ve always been in a war with god and half of them don’t even know it because they want love. While mortals have lifespans that effectively prevent inter-familial wars of succession…Gods don’t. How tragic.

I think Chuck wants everyone to think he’s the only god, that the rest of them are merely creations or derivatives. Because that’s gonna prop up his monotheism. But souls are wild cards. They’re complicated, even for Chuck. I would wager they exist beyond Chuck or whatever god is in power. Demons seem to be trying their darnedest to arrest souls from Chuck, while Heaven just stockpiles them like a terrifying resource. For angels and potentially other deities, we know that touching them powers them up (if they don’t explode the person), they can consume them like food (risk of self-explosion upon gorging ofc), and they inject them w grace to procreate with them. It’s definitely a source of eldritch horror if you think about it…

[alienbuddhism]

The Noble Eight-fold Path

Magga, The Path, The Way, The Eightfold Noble Path (fold we do them all, not in order):

                  ~ Right Understanding, Right Vision, View

                   ~ Right Thoughts, Resolve        

                   ~ Right Speech                            

                   ~ Right Action  

                   ~ Right Livelihood                

                   ~ Right Effort

                  ~ Right Mindfulness

                  ~ Right Concentration, Meditation

The Noble Eight-fold Path consists of eight parts but in a sense all eight parts needs to be practiced simultaneously. It is conventional to divide the path into three groups.

The first part is Pañña (prajña ) Wisdom and contains two limbs.

Samma dithi right view. Right view may be a synonym for the Four Noble Truths and Dependent Origination. . It might also be interpreted as the acceptance of the truth that life in samsara is fundamentally unsatisfactory.

Samma sankappa right resolve. Again to understand the meaning it is helpful to consider its everyday context. At the start of any ceremony one makes a resolution to carry out the ceremony. So the basic conditions are to develop the right view and a resolution to undertake the path.

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This then prepares for the second part of the path. Sila means ‘morality’ in the sense of actions that are performed in concordance with harmonious conduct. It is an immensely important virtue in the Buddhist tradition to act with Sila morality and decorum as it is viewed as a prerequisite for a successful life. It is above all acting with care and thought. It is more than just a ‘right and wrong’ type of morality and it rather the thoughtful carrying out of action. There are three limbs of Sila

-right speech; samma kammanta (samyakkarma)

-right action; and samma ajiva

-right livelihood.

Right speech. This is a form of the fourth of the five precepts. In the five precepts it is wrong speech which is renounced but here it is right speech which is adopted. It involves not just the absence of lying but also the practice of speech which is beneficial to others rather than causing distress. There is also a close relationship between speech and thought and so in a sense this also refers to right thinking.Right action. This can also be related to the precepts and covers the renunciation of: the taking of life, taking that which is not freely given and sexual misconduct. It is then the positive side of these aspects which is stressed here: acting for the benefit of living beings, generosity and appropriate sexuality. Right livelihood. This does not relate directly to the five precepts. There are certain occupations which are not regarded as conducive to Buddhist practice: executioner, slaughter-person, hunter, etc. That is those occupations which involve the taking of life and violence. One explanation of this is that such occupations generate negative karma, another explanation may be that the images left in the mind by such occupations appear as disturbances in the mind during meditation.

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The third part is Samadhi Concentration contains three limbs: right effort; samma sati right mindfulness; and samma samadhi right concentration.

The practice of firmness, resolution and stability in practice. The first limb is Right Effort. This consists of neither excessive diligence not complete slackness. It has been described as making an effort without effort. It is not the effort in extreme asceticism, which is a form of wrong effort.

The second limb is Right Mindfulness. Within the context of a meditation retreat this would need little explanation. It is the development of continuous awareness of what is occurring. The Pali term sati was translated by Rhys Davids as ‘mindfulness’ and this translation has become immensely

successful in English. In Sanskrit the term has a range of meanings which are related to memory and recollection. There is then a sense in which sati is the practice of the recollection of things. The Burmese traditions include a practice in which you recall and note events as they occur ‘pain in foot’, etc.A development of full awareness of what is occurring in the four foundations of mindfulness, the breath, body, feelings, and mind.

The third limb is Right samadhi. This is the practice of meditative absorption or concentration in itself.

(It is sometimes said that the limbs of the path need to be developed consecutively. As for each limb to be attained the practice of the preceding limbs also needs to be established. Thus by the time the limb of Right sam¹dhi is attained it would imply the simultaneous attainment of all eight limbs.)

The Noble Eight-fold Path is mainly known as a path for the individual with regard to the cultivation of a way to allow for the cessation of suffering. It should not here be regarded as simply a step by step path as all of its elements need to be cultivated simultaneously in order for it to be fully developed. However there is a logical development in its progression from right view, to right concentration which could be seen as mirroring that from the development of an individual towards liberation from suffering. This would seem to fit better with the practices of forest monks and nuns.

[katsidhe]

If you wouldn't mind me asking, what are 7+ random headcanons you have about Sam? (Like he always lets his batteries drain to 0%, can't stand the scent of something, etc.)

Hmm good one! Not sure how imaginative these headcanons are, because I like canon analysis so much, but I’ve done my best. Some are happy, some are sad, some just are.

Sam is a Linux user. His browser is Tor. He religiously uses VPNs. After the near misses in season 7, he became fairly savvy about protecting their electronic secrecy. He’s not exactly a big time coder, but he’s fluent enough to have several programs that scrape major search engines and various news databases for particular key terms, etc. Charlie helped him out with several of these.

Sam hates wireless headphones. He can never find ones that stick in his ears properly without falling out, and he hates the inconvenience of keeping them charged. He is also bitter that the iPod shuffle was discontinued—he loved the convenience of the tiny clip thing when he was out running and was very sad when it got smashed. (Winchester phone/electronic device lifetime is... short).

Sam follows multiple obscure hobbyist forums online. He’s made accounts in several, but has only very rarely posted. (He’s also got a Wikipedia account he’s never posted with.) Some of these forum topics are explicitly work-related, like folklore and spellcraft; others, like lock picking and true crime, are borderline. Some aren’t at all, like woodworking and historical restoration.

Sam drinks so much coffee that he’s barely sure what way he prefers it anymore. It’s so much of a staple that he doesn’t mind if it’s black, latte, flavored, whatever. He doesn’t like too much sugar, though, as it gives him a headache. And he truly cannot stand the taste of artificial sweeteners.

Sam has to work pretty diligently not to mix up his memories, given how messed up his personal timeline is. He’s grateful that he’s kept decent case records that he can reference when he’s really unsure, but those are purely factual and contain none of his subjective impressions, so it’s hard for him to remember exactly how he felt. For childhood stuff, he’ll look through John’s journal to try to see if an event he remembers actually happened, or, more rarely, ask Dean. Sometimes, on impulse, he even has the insane wish that he could ask Lucifer if he’s remembering something real or imaginary. Usually he tries to focus on the here and now; that’s what’s important.

Sam would like gardening, if he ever found the time and space. He grows a couple herbs commonly used fresh for spellwork, in pots outside the bunker.

Sam committed suicide at least once early in season five. He told himself it was out of pragmatism. Sam believed Lucifer when he said he’d bring him back, but he figured it would have been foolish not to try at all.

Sam actually enjoys relatively infrequent casual sex tbh. The physicality of it grounds him. The main reason he doesn’t do it more often is his paranoia about potential emotional intimacy, and because he doesn’t particularly want Dean to tease or nag him.

Sam is not vegetarian, but he hates the smell of cooking meat enough that he commonly avoids it (especially the more rank varieties). It’s a health thing too, but honestly the smell is a more urgent factor.

Sam has a regimented exercise plan that he keeps to religiously—prefers cardio to weights, especially running in the morning. He sometimes bugs Dean to join him, but Dean really does not enjoy running for its own sake. Sam’s exercise habits have flirted with self-harm and over-asceticism, but they are usually a relatively healthy grounding tool.

[panatmansam]

Sam I love the taste of coffee, teas, even just black, it's good stuff to me. I've been wanting to get away from all caffeine though because I heard caffeine is botanically classified as a neurotoxin? I wonder if that's just me wanting to go too far into the "health extreme" or if it would really help with my body's feelings over all? What are your thoughts on that? I know you are a coffee lover too. I'll give it a go for a month or two and tell you how I feel, Love to you and your family

I gave up coffee and tea for my year of asceticism and aside from some slight headaches for the first week felt no different. I rate a thing by its effects. Caffeine in moderate amounts is beneficial to focus and awareness. However, it is mildly addictive. I will be interested to hear how your experience relates to mine. Love, Sam.