#askplay

let's start with soulless!Sam and branch out from there. I have a serious issue with the fanon idea that empathy and the human soul are the same thing. if we carry this thought out to real life, we're saying (outright and explicitly) that people without empathy, which is often associated with autism and personality disorders, are less than human. as mentioned above, this is ableist (and often thinly veiled eugenics-flavored) bullshit

rather than losing empathy itself, I think Sam without his soul stops seeing the utility in mimicking empathy. he's efficient and direct, ruthlessly practical, and impatient with the time that he perceives as being wasted on non-productive emotions

but Sam is always like that! couple examples:

phantom traveler: Dean has a panic attack. where another character might tell Dean to breathe deeply or remember how safe planes are compared to cars, Sam doesn't try to alleviate his distress. he tells Dean to knock it off because that overwhelm of emotion is actively putting Dean and everyone on the plane in danger

nightshifter: hostage has a heart attack. Sam does not check to see if he's dying, he impatiently makes the arrangements to hand his care off to emts so he and Dean can get back to what Sam perceives as the more pressing issue: hunting the shifter. for Sam, this is a logic problem: the heart attack threatens one person, the shifter threatens them all

nightshifter again: when Ron is shot, Dean has a completely natural high-emotion reaction (hyperventilating, putting his back into a corner to protect himself, guilt over the part he played in getting Ron killed). Sam gets this look of frustration because they repeatedly told Ron not to stand in the light. it's not that he doesn't feel bad, it's that this is a natural consequence and they have to keep going despite Ron's death because if they stop the shifter gets away

later seasons examples submitted by a subject matter expert

when we see Sam being kind, we're seeing an active choice (which actually seems to be pretty widely accepted in the fandom, just not for the reason I think that lol)

part of the fabric of the show is Dean and Sam being juxtaposed against each other. and again and again we see a Dean whose first instinct is high-emotion, is over-identifying. is empathetic. Dean feels the pain of victims and immediately superimposes it onto his sources of pain. he frequently reacts in the moment based on his emotional response. this is a neutral thing

example with a positive outcome: Lucas from dead in the water. Dean sees himself in Lucas, which allows him to reach the kid and figure out what tf is going on

a common example of a mixed or negative outcome: how often monsters are able to manipulate Dean by playing on his emotions

and again and again we see a Sam whose first instinct is practical. Sam moves through the world with a lot of intentionality. he sees and comprehends the same pain that Dean sees and comprehends. and then he makes choices based on it. often the choice is to be kind and compassionate! but not always. this is a neutral thing

see examples above where Sam's lack of empathy saves the day

on the other hand, we also see instances where Sam's values conflict with the compassion that Dean demonstrates. for example, Dean has a huge guilt reaction in faith when they realize that someone died in his place. Sam doesn't. he did what needed to be done to save Dean, which was the entire point

we clearly see the shift from Sam operating from his first instinct to adopting Dean's belief system in wendigo. early in the episode we see Dean over-identify with Hayley ("her brother is missing" as if the fact that it's her brother stops the entire earth from spinning) and Sam respond with "finding Dad's not enough? now we gotta babysit too?"

it's after Sam asks Dean how he and John keep hunting when it's such a thankless fight and Dean says that the people they save are the point that Sam adopts "saving people" as his personal motivation too. it is not his natural instinct, but it doesn't mean it's not an instinct he has

other low-empathy characteristics we see in Sam. (a note: if you look these up, you'll see a lot of really disgusting language equating low empathy with violence, abuse, and criminality. these are character traits not moral ones)

using charm and wit to navigate situations: please see every single time Sam acts like a lost lil boy and falls into Jared's Texas accent when dealing with law enforcement

impulsivity, recklessness: literally having Dean pull over on the side of the road in scarecrow and walking to a grayhound station because he decides in that moment that he needs to find John

lack of understanding others' emotions/actions based on emotion: croatoan is a perfect example of Sam looking completely baffled as Dean gives away the keys to the car and locks them both in a room knowing they are about to die. "it's over for me, it doesn't have to be for you" makes sense to Sam, but not necessarily to Dean

moral relativity/"ends justify the means": "the knife kills the victim. with what I do, they almost always survive" vs Dean's conviction that working with a demon is always wrong regardless of motivation or outcome

lower empathy is also associated with higher rates of addiction and suicidality, both of which are very much part of Sam's story, so do with that what you will

it starts with teenaged Dean talking wistfully about the girl he ate out last night to Sam and how good she tasted. and Sam's young (maybe 14 or 15) and naive enough about sex that he only kinda knows that people put their mouths on each other down there. and Dean clocks it because of course he does

he's well-fucked and probably a little loose with weed and/or alcohol and he damn well knows he's crossing a line that normal big brothers don't even approach, but this is him and Sam and who's gonna teach Sam if he doesn't? he doesn't examine this part, but he also just wants to talk about it to Sam specifically and see if he can make Sam squirm, see if he'll get hard from this

they're sitting across from each other with Dean kinda sprawled and he knows Sam'll see when he starts to chub up. Sam folds deeper and deeper in on himself as Dean talks, face and neck burning hot, skin buzzy, getting vaguely dizzy

Dean asks if Sam's ever seen a girl naked up close and Sam hasn't so Dean tells him how instead of a dick they have this pretty slit and you can smell it as soon as they open their legs and you know they're into it if they're so wet you can already see it leaving little sticky spots on their inner thighs. Sam asks what it smells like and Dean just says "sex" with a dopey dreamy glazed look

Dean tells him that he can lick and kiss her mound but to really make her crazy you gotta spread her open and touch inside the folds. tells Sam it's never failed yet when he's curled his tongue into the opening of her pussy and then licked up the slit to the underside of her clit to suck on it

and Sam really is squirming and Dean thinks he's being subtle when he squeezes his dick just a little. writes it off as thinking about grinding down into the mattress with a facefull of girl

Dean tells Sam about how, if she's wet enough, she'll be all soft and slick inside when you slip your fingers in. his hands curl unconsciously to demonstrate the correct shape, twitch to show how you should fuck them in and out of her

Sam's breathing funny and he knows it, but he's just trying to figure out how he should be reacting to Dean talking like this. he's certain this is Not The Correct Response

Dean tells him that if you can get her off once she'll be all shuddery inside, squeeze your dick so tight you have to fuck through it and that it's best, most intense, like that. Sam wonders if the same thing happens to boys and the thought terrifies him because he tries so hard not to let Those Thoughts fully form

at some point, Dean stops pretending he's not turned on. he scooches down a bit so he can spread his legs that much more and strokes himself distractedly, rubs his chest where his nipples are showing through his shirt. tells Sam what it feels like to dig his chin in when a girl comes and get her cum all over his face, the kind of sounds she makes

Sam doesn't touch himself until later, when he's alone and can helplessly mouth at his pillow trying to mimic what Dean told him while simultaneously wondering if Dean would eat him out like a girl and what it would be like if he did