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[helled]

PLAYER INFO.
NAME: Zelly
PREFERRED PRONOUNS: she/her
ARE YOU OVER 18? Absolutely
CONTACT: thwip | PM
CURRENT CHARACTERS: None

CHARACTER INFO.
NAME: Samuel 'Sam' Winchester
CANON: Supernatural
CANON POINT: S13E21
AGE: 36
GENDER: Male

HISTORY: LINK

APPEARANCE: LINK | LINK

ABILITIES:

Sam is pretty proficient in basic hand-to-hand combat (and what he doesn't know in style, he can improvise on the spot with whatever's available; he can and will fight dirty if necessary), most weapons (and again, anything he can find around him, he'll manage to make use for it Macguyver style) such as knives, guns, stakes, mallets, swords if he has to use one. He also demonstrates proficiency in intermediate computer hacking as he manages to get into police databases with little trouble. He also has the focus and ability to dig deep into research archives for information on whatever he might be hunting at the time. He can handle basic first-aid and other survival skills such as building fires and makeshift weapons from things in his surroundings, can break into just about anything (cars, homes, buildings). Basically he's a survivalist to a T, which is essential to staying alive in the hunting gig.

SUITABILITY:

Given the nature of the Supernatural canon, it's pretty safe to say that Sam Winchester has been through almost everything weird and wacky and possible in the realm of the - well, supernatural. To give just a few examples, he has lived through a few alternate universes in which he is depicted as a different version of himself, has experienced time-travel (therefore has been placed into a different 'time period' and 'universe'), was dropped into an old Scooby Doo cartoon episode, and Groundhog Day itself (a trick from an angel posing as a god, but that's another story and the experience still stands). For Sam, this would initially seem like 'just another Tuesday', but given that canon generally deals with these alternate universe situations in the span of a single episode, it will be really interesting to work through the longer-term effects of being transported into a different timeline and alternate life.

PERSONALITY.

● Your character has a chance to undo a terrible mistake, but in doing so, there could be unintended consequences for everyone they know. Is it worth the risk? Or should the dead stay dead?

Logically, Sam knows the answer to this is a firm 'what's dead should stay dead', and he knows better than to mess with the whole time-space continuum especially when the consequences could mean that everything else goes wrong. He might wind up becoming a kale-loving scummy lawyer with an affinity for turtlenecks, for example. Worse, still, he might lose the relationship he currently has with his brother. Death, in this case, might not always be the worst case scenario and he demonstrates a fair acceptance of this even if it might hurt like the Dickens. But put into action, particularly where his family is concerned, and he struggles to accept that it might be the only way. Given the kind of celestial crap he and his brother deal with on a daily basis, 9 out of 10 times there is going to be another way - and if anyone can find it, it'll be the Winchester brothers. He's the book nerd, if a book exists, an answer will too.

Over the course of canon, Sam does demonstrate that he has a slightly easier time of letting go of people he loses, mostly because it happens so often. But at the end of it all, Sam is willing to take a lot of crap because he knows he has his brother Dean with him. Somewhere in all of the madness, there's Dean - and as far as the 'what's dead should stay dead' rule goes, Dean is absolutely his exception. The Winchesters have shown time and again that they would literally sell their own souls and take a one-way trip into the pit (Hell) if it means their family gets to stay alive. Sam has a much easier time of sacrificing himself and accepting the end for him than to see his brother taken away from him.

● If your character had the option to permanently lose the ability to feel certain negative emotions like fear or grief, or permanently forget certain memories, would they take it? What if they will never know that something has been taken from them? Does loss only matter if it's known what's missing?

Given that Sam canonically loses his soul for about half of a season (Season 6) and walks the earth for a year and a half without it, he'll ultimately respond that it's complicated, but also - no, he wouldn't want to lose any of his memories or any of his negative emotions because they're what makes him him. They make him a better hunter, and they make him care about what he's doing and why he's doing it.

Being without his soul (which had been left in the cage he'd been trapped in with Lucifer) had rendered him void of any true compassion or the qualities that make Sam 'Sam'. He ran purely on logic, tactile feeling, and morality was black and white; there was always a 'yes' or a 'no' answer and nothing in between. Sam is ultimately good, but there is a fair amount of grey in his morality as well. He is usually the one who puts a moral question to the test, to see some monsters as more than a target to kill, and is more of a 'talk first, shoot next' if there's a chance that no blood needs to be spilled. This is deeply connected to his own childhood, of being one of Azazel's literal 'chosen', and viewing himself as a monster for a long, long time ... to the point that he kind of became a monster when he started drinking demon blood on the regs.

Yes, the trauma and the horrible memories are hard to deal with, but they also give him purpose and fuels his motivation to keep going. They make him care about what happens to the people that he saves, and they make him want to avoid that pain for anyone else.

● Could your character ever forgive themselves for something morally wrong that they've done? No matter how much time has passed? No matter how much penitence has been done? Is being sorry enough to be a good person?

Sam has carried the guilt of all the people he couldn't save and all the people he legitimately put in harm's way - even when he wasn't himself, even when he'd been possessed or under influence, or simply wasn't on top of his game - on his shoulders. Anyone he gave another chance to, only to see them turn around and squander it, he puts that guilt on himself as well. He takes the brunt of the responsibility of others' decisions on himself, even some of the decisions Dean makes.

Sam might appear to look like he's got his shit together and is dealing with the responsibility in a healthier way than, say, Dean - but arguably, it's more that he's just too tired to fight what he is and how much he just doesn't think he's deserving of the same level of forgiveness that others ask for. He shifts the focus off of himself and channels whatever energy he has left into doing what he can for others. In Season 13 he demonstrates that he's capable of being a great leader in times of chaos. All of the facets of himself and the lessons he'd taken from Dean and from John - logic, compassion, mercy, strength - become tools to do good things for others.

He isn't exactly at peace with any of the decisions he's made, so it's hard to say that he forgives himself for mistakes made along the way or the countless lives that were lost in the process. But he has an easier time accepting that sometimes things just work out the way they do, because it doesn't mean they stop moving forward, even when it's so goddamned hard to do. He has hope. Sam has fought being a hunter for so long, wanting a normal life, but at a certain point he accepts that this is his life. He moves forward. He does what he can. Again, it isn't exactly forgiveness, but it's some form of penitence in hopes that maybe one day what they do does become enough. Not for himself, exactly, because a part of him has come to terms with the fact that there is probably no real forgiveness for someone (something?) like him, but for the world. For his brother, whom he wants a good, normal, happy life for so damned badly. And for his family.

For Sam, words don't mean a whole lot - but they do count for something, like maybe part of it is actualizing the thing into life. Actions will ultimately speak much louder than words, but he doesn't discount that an apology put into words, if genuinely meant, can be something of a balm too.

● Your character has a secret they have been sworn to, but revealing this secret could save the lives of countless others. Is it worth breaking the promise to save others, or is betrayal never justifiable?

Secrets in general have a very complicated lifespan but they always come out and they always have the effect of hurting someone. Sam's no stranger to having secrets held against him and also keeping them, so he's experienced both sides of the coin. That said, if keeping a secret means keeping Dean (and Castiel and Jack and his mom, and generally any of his close family) safe, he'll take that secret to the grave for as long as he thinks it's the right thing to do, all while looking for another way out (because there is always another way out).

In the event of a secret being the key to saving the lives of countless people? Oh, that secret is not at all one worth keeping. The moment he learns it, he'll be using that truth to save as many people as he can, and he'll tell everyone he trusts to help him out to do it. No secret (as far as he's aware ~eyes emoji) is more valuable than saving lives. Only one exception exists to this strong moral code, however: if it somehow closely involves the lives of his family. See above.

Betrayal is another grey area that can be justifiable depending on the circumstances of the betrayal and what it aims to do, who it aims to hurt and who it aims to help in the long run. Sam has shown that he's willing to do just about anything to save his family and save the world, and he'll put himself in the frontlines to do it knowing that the ultimate goal far outweighs his own life. If he literally has to betray Dean to save him, he'll do it and wrestle with the consequences later. The greater good, or his brother saved, is always the end goal, and the definition of a 'tough decision' has gotten muddy in 36 years of his life.

● Has your character ever gotten joy out of hurting others, physically or mentally? If they have, does it scare them?

For a time, while Dean was in Hell and Sam was trying literally everything to try and break him out, he was feeding off of a demon in order to become stronger. It was a really bad time and gave Sam a few more layers of trauma, but during this time, he would torture demons for information - and with a little demon metaphorically sitting on his shoulder, enabling his addiction, he's loath to admit that there are parts of the experience he enjoyed. Sam will be the first to admit that there's a darkness inside of him that terrifies him, but torturing demons felt freeing.

While he was Souless Robo-Sam, he also tortured monsters for information alongside his grandfather and other members of his extended family. Of course, he wasn't really himself at that time either, but he didn't seem to mind the experience.

Overall, the idea of hurting others has always been a kind of means to an end, but there's a much greater part of Sam that hates hurting anyone. This can and does sometimes extend to some of the monsters that they hunt too. Between him and his brother, Sam usually opts out of the 'torture' route - but if it means saving a lot of people, he'll also do what he has to do to get the job done. (And then deal with the emotional costs of it later.)

WRITING SAMPLES.

SAMPLES: LOG | NETWORK #1 | NETWORK #2

NOTES.

QUESTIONS OR CONCERNS: none.