A riddle wrapped inside an enigma wrapped inside a taco.

OOC

Name: Dha
Age: 36
Contact: derecho @ plurk, derecho. @ discord (the . is essential)
Invite Link: Here!

IC

Character Name: Sam Winchester
Canon: Supernatural
Canon Point: 06x11 (before his soul gets shoved in him)
Character Age: 28
History: Here!

Division: Research and Archives - Sam does research all the time, especially regarding the history of various monster occurrences. He will spend hours in a local library or talking to locals in order to gather more information. He then logs it and uses that information for future use.

Edict: The Sorroweld - Sam has spent his entire life battling the various evils of the world. Even when he tried to take a break from hunting (for multiple reasons), the battle always came back to him. There will always be people to save and monsters to hunt.

Powers:
- (Due to being soulless) Increased Focus
- (Due to being soulless) Increased Stamina
- (Due to being soulless) Increased pain tolerance
- Master hunter
- Expert pool hustler
- Expert lock picker (requires a lockpick or a credit card)
- Excellent marksman
- Excellent swordsman/knife wielder
- Excellent hand-to-hand
- Fluent in Latin and Enochian, conversational Spanish
- High physical conditioning

As the Ascendants deemed your character worthy of being on this exploration voyage, what qualities did they observe in your character that they found appropriate for the mission?

Considered a "walking encyclopedia of weirdness" by his brother, Sam is incredibly intelligent. He is a natural-born researcher that thrives in the hunter life because he does so. More often than not, he's the one using the laptop to look up what new monster they're hunting and will stay up late doing so. For example, when Dean thought that they were searching for one of Heaven's weapons (Gabriel's Horn of TruthTM), Sam was the one who figured out they were chasing a goddess named Veritas instead. He knows not only the information already in his head, but how to find information or when to doubt that they may be misinformed.

Additionally, Sam is excellent at thinking on the spot. When things aren't going as planned on a case, Sam has demonstrated an ability to improvise and do so correctly. It's not uncommon for Plan A to go wrong and for Sam to quickly pick up a Plan B. For example, when he and Dean are unable to find a demon that crashes airplanes in the airport, he quickly pivots to telling Dean (who is afraid of planes) that they are getting on the airplane instead of waiting. Another example is during combat. More than once Sam has had his gun or knife ripped out of his hands by a supernatural power and he turns to the next best thing like a pipe, broken glass, and the like.

What is your character's best quality, what is their worst, and how do these two qualities affect each other?

As mentioned, Sam's best quality is his intelligence. He's nearing genius level when it comes to the weird world and is an absolute asset to the Theorem. His worst quality is his lack of empathy, due to being soulless. Without empathy or other emotions, Sam is extremely focused on his hunting. He can work around the clock at a non-stop pace and not feel negatives from it. When it comes to making tough choices, Sam will take the one that most aligns with his case. For example, when the possibility arrives to keep his soul out forever, Sam goes for it without hesitation. He attacks his father figure Bobby Singer and nearly kills him in the process. Does Sam care about any consequences stemming from this action? No. Does Sam care that Bobby's death would upset Dean? No, he doesn't. He outright tells Dean in one episode that he doesn't care about Dean's love interest or Dean himself.

Without empathy, Sam lies like he's pathological. Ever since Dean realized that Sam was alive, Sam lies to him about 85-90% of the time. A major lie that he tells all season is why he stood back and let Dean be turned into a vampire. In the Veritas episode, when Dean tries to get the truth out of him, Sam lies and says that he froze, that he would never let Dean get hurt like that. When Veritas asks him a question later, Sam is able to easily lie to her, despite the fact that her abilities should force a truth out of him.

Overall, Sam's lack of empathy makes him a terrible team player. He doesn't care about teamwork or helping anyone outside of his immediate focus. So, Sam might have all this intelligence and all this information, but if he can't play along with others, then it makes the intelligence essentially worthless.

Your character's Edict appears in front of them, and agrees to grant them one wish: what does your character wish for?

Sam would, first of all, not be disturbed by the sight of the Edict. He's seen crazy creatures in his life and he's not likely to experience any kind of horror at seeing a great eldritch being. Then, he would wish to never get his soul back. Without a soul, Sam does not feel any emotions or feel many physical sensations. He doesn't feel anger, sadness, compassion and the like. He does not consider the feelings of others either. He may try every now and then, but mostly when attempting to pose as someone with a soul. Sam outright tells Dean that he's a much better hunter because he can't feel fear and never has to slow down for things like sleep or food. To him, all of this lack of emotion is a huge bonus.

Additionally, he lacks the ability to feel some physical sensations like hunger and fatigue. More than once, we see him get food to look the part, but often he will push it around the plate or otherwise pretend to need to eat. Sam doesn't need to, so he often will just go along with Dean's practices in an attempt to look normal. Regarding fatigue, Sam never needs to sleep. In more than one episode, Sam is depicted as never having pulled back the sheets of his hotel bed or doing research while Dean sleeps.

The Theorem has broken down, and is drifting toward a black hole. There is very little hope of outside rescue. What does your character do?

Sam would first attempt to find a way to keep them from drifting into a black hole, whether that be through reading everything in sight on black holes and spaceships in order to try and get them out of the situation. He would not be great at teamwork in terms of coming together with other people to find a solution, but he would try in order to get them out of their current predicament. He would likely serve, as mentioned above, as a walking encyclopedia after absorbing as much information as possible. Delving said information out, though would come a lot slower.

If they were truly doomed, Sam would admit to lacking a soul, since it is currently a secret from his brother,. Despite attempting to hide from his brother at every turn, seeing another death and a possible return to the cage, Sam would want to square up with his brother. He'd admit, too, to attacking their father figure Bobby and other lies he has told while on the mission. He knows that it's likely to trigger an argument, if not a fight, but Sam doesn't feel particularly strongly about his brother's response. This confession would be strictly to cleanse his own palette rather than to help anyone else.



Writing Samples: TDM with threads with Castiel, Dean, and Jiaoqiu