#sam + neurodivergent

[shallowseeker]

Okay, Sam has a point in 12x03 The Foundry, but I’m so kicking him in the teeth for how haughty and contrary he’s being during this whole conversation.

Yes, Sam. I’m pretty sure Dean knows your mom isn’t a “thing.” Jesus H. You blockheaded brat.

Dean, true to his own emotional interiority, wants to give Mary time and space. On the other hand, Sam is logically sound in his analysis—that she’s probably burying herself in hunting to mop up her grief.

THE BOYS ARE AT THE GRAVEYARD DIGGING UP THE GRAVES OF ALL THE CHILDREN AND SALTING AND BURNING THEIR BONES.

Sam: Grim work.

Dean: Yeah.

Sam: You know, I’m worried about Mom.

Dean: Why?

Sam: You're not?

Dean: She's back. I mean, yeah, she's still working out the kinks. We're all still working out the kinks. But, I mean, can't we, for once, just not turn everything into a problem? You know, can we, for once, just have ONE good thing?

Sam: Mom's not a thing.

Dean: …okay.

Sam: Look, I'm happy, too, Dean. I am. I'm overjoyed. But...there's something about her. I mean, something's going on with her.

Dean: Yeah, she's adjusting.

Sam: No, she's struggling. I mean, she's trying to bury herself in hunting to avoid dealing.

Dean: And how do you know that?

Sam: Years of personal experience. I don’t know man. Uh...like mother, like sons.

DEAN LOOKS PISSED AT THE CONVERSATION, BUT DOESN'T SAY ANYTHING MORE.

Once more, Sam assumes that everyone else’s coping strategies should look exactly like his own, or else it’s proof they’re not coping at all. (I mean, he could be right. But the problem is that he assumes he is. He barely knows this woman!)

To his credit, Dean shows a lot of patience in this conversation. Sam may have a point, but he’s being an ass. (“Mom’s not a thing.” Really, Sam? You’re treating your brother like he’s stupid.)

Even Cas, with his, “What has she said to you / what have you said to her?” was a more nuts-and-bolts, actionable kind of helpful.

///

Here with Sam, Dean shuts down and disengages from the conversation, and it’s not solely because he’s in moderate denial about Mary’s unhappiness. Part of it is down to Sam’s conversational style.

(Sammmmmmyyyyyyy~eeeeeh I am strangling you with my bare hands…)

///

But yeah. Bless him. Sammy overthinks. Dean ruminates but doesn’t seem to get so far in his own head that he force-fits his perspective onto everyone else.

This is another area where, ironically, Dean and Cas have better emotional intuition than Sam (even if they don’t always know it).

///////////////

(Text Attributions// Supernatural scripts here via @spnscripthunt. Transcripts are located here via SPNWiki. Visit their Tumblr to donate.)

[symbiotic-slime]

eddie freaking out over his neighbour’s music will always be peak overstimulation rep to me

like this is literally how it feels

[chouthechaoticraccoon]

Why does my special interest have to be media? Why couldn't I have gotten the math autism instead of the 'I know every single fact about these specific twenty shows, books, and fandoms and can't stop thinking about it so I neglect my responsibilities to write 300k-word fanfictions and annoy people with how much I talk about it' autism?

(Specifically, Stranger Things, IT, House MD, and Supernatural have me in a chokehold, save me)

[quietwingsinthesky]

thinking about how dean’s character gets simplified in fandom, or more specifically, the very black and white lens that gets applied to him. because integral to dean, from my point of view, is that he is both a victim of abuse and a perpetrator of it. that these two things do not cancel each other out or outweigh each other to the point that only one matters. he’s both, you cannot separate him from the fact that he’s both.

but very often, people do. dean is either a victim. or he’s an abuser. it’s like it’s hard for people to hold both those facts in their heads at once. dean went through incredible amount of trauma as a child and an adult, is routinely faced with violence, has resorted to alcohol abuse to cope with it. he’s also a violent person, someone who retreats into tactics of emotional abuse and control when he feels threatened, who hurts the people around him constantly and the people who are closest to him (ie Sam, Cas, later Jack) get the brunt of that abuse. these are just facts. they’re things that happened on the screen and cannot be denied.

and it’s. idk it’s weird to me (not unexpected, because he’s hardly the only character to ever get this treatment) that dean of all people is the one portrayed in such an either/or way when one of the defining moments of the show for him is that during his stint in Hell, he was tortured and then became a torturer to escape that, to feel like he had some control again, and he relished in it. it’s baked into who he is.

[themeridian]

im pretty sure there isnt a single redacted audio character that is neurotypical-name any in the reblogs and i can tell you at least one reason theyre neurodivergent-even side characters

[creaturefrom0uterspace]

Crime-solving Neurodivergent Characters I Enjoy!

(canon and not canon)

[chronic-lee-lizard]

Castiel is me I love him I love him I love his misunderstanding of social cues I love his autistic traits I feel seen

(I want to change my name to Castiel because his name is so cool)

[jellymish-reblogblog]

Hello tumblr, I really didn't want to do this today, but I'm going on a grumpy little walk for my health. UGH. UGGGGGH. RARGH.

[shallowseeker]

Less and more? Another way Sam and Jack are fundamentally different re: their emotional interiority

I'm not able to put this into perfect words tonight, and this runs the risk of oversimplifying Sam, but here goes...

I feel like Sam, for a great portion of his story, longs to Be More, or at least, to give the appearance of Being More.

Sam tells people he's working on his Ph.D. Sam got into Harvard. Sam tells people he was in law school when he was simply "pre-law." Sam wanted to Be Normal, not for simplicity's sake, but perhaps for the holy grail of Making It. (Whatever Making It means in America.)

Intellectualism is important to Sam. Sam's fantasies take place in libraries. Sam likes being a legacy. Sam is smart, and he wants you to see him as smart. (Dean and Cas are craftier; they're more okay with being underestimated because it allows them to cunningly get the upper hand. Crucially, they recognize this about each other's intelligence, too.)

At his core, Sam isn't a "boy-king," not really. He was styled as boy-king in order to be served up on a platter to the True King (Lucifer) to use to win a war. It was a class gambit--a fancy title to get Sam to submit his body for the profit of the war machine.

///

Jack, on the other hand, is the real deal. Jack is a "young prince." He's the "Bambi" to Cas's stern "Great Prince of the Forest."

Jack isn't borrowing powers or accidentally siphoning them off from a yellow-eyed demon. His powers are his own. Even when he uses powers "beyond himself," they derive from his own soul. This fundamental difference in his nature makes Jack something of an off-key parallel to Sam. (He, of course, does parallel Sam when he's eating angel hearts, just as he parallels Cas’s Godstiel appetite re:Purgatory souls.)

But on the whole, Jack wants to be Less. He longs for simplicity in the same way that Dean does. In the same way that Mary does. Sure, Jack wants to Be Good and Do Good, same as Sam does (they are both Doomed Children, after all). But he also wants powers and strength in the same way that Cas and Dean do; that is, primarily to protect everyone.

Jack doesn't appear to have the same status drive that Sam did as a young man.

And for that matter, neither does Mary. Like Sam, she wants a normal life in order to feel safe and secure, but she lacks the drive to impress others by Being a Success.

[boywifesammy]

there is nothing more heartbreaking than sam winchester, mr. i pray every day, being treated like a demonic freak by everything holy in his life.

this is the guy who looked at castiel for the first time and lit up with joy at the confirmation that god and angels were real. who held onto his faith in a higher power even when the world did nothing but kick him while he was down. who still tried to be good, to do the right thing despite everything in the world— even the angels that he prayed to, telling him that he was an abomination. something sick and unsightly. ruined forever because of something that he can’t even control.

sam winchester wanted so badly to find the good in the world, and it fucking destroys me that he was punished for it.

[thenaturalfriends]

Peak ADHD Storytelling: "Off Menu" spends six minutes defining the flavour of an Australian soft drink.

James: Your dream drink, Sam Campbell.

Sam: [Surprised] OH. Well, I’m gonna go with Portino.

James: Portino? I so badly wanted it to be something that I knew what it was.

Ed: But why break the habit of a lifetime?

James: What is it? What’s Portino? I don’t know.

Sam: Um, so, um, it’s like a…

Ed: Do YOU know what it is, Sam?

Sam: To me it’s a really luxury soft drink. Wimmers, Wimmers, Wimmers. Wimmers. Wi-Wimmers. Ed Gamble. Wimmers. It’s this amazing…

Ed: What are you saying?

Sam: In north Queensland where I’m from…

James: What were you saying a minute ago? What was that?

Ed: What was all that?

James: What was Widders?

Sam: Just, connecting with other people.

James: Did you say Widders?

Sam: Wimmers.

James & Ed: WIMMERS.

James: W, I…

Sam: Double M

James: Double M.

Sam: E…

James: E, R, S. Wimmers.

Ed: What’s Wimmers.

James: What’s Wimmers?

Sam: It’s a, well thats the, that’s the company that’s making these amazing drinks.

James: Ok. Wimmers makes the soft drinks.

Ed: Wimmers.

Sam: To me the top flavours, that Wimmers… I’d say Portino, I’d say, there’s one, double sasparilla? Do you have that here? But… double? 

James: Not a double, we don’t really even have sasparilla but like I know what you mean, I know those drinks.

Ed: I don’t know what sasparilla is, really.

James: No, we’ve never really been clear on it, I think we talked about it on the podcast before that we’ve never really known what sasparilla is.

Ed: I only know it from The Simpsons.

James: Yeah.

Ed: From the saloon scene in The Simpsons.

James: Yeah, yeah.

Ed: And grandpa drinks it. In The Simpsons.

James: The sasparilla.

Ed: Do you know what sasparilla is, Sam?

Sam: Yeah! [long pause]

Ed: Wha—------------what is it, how do they make it, what’s in it…

Sam: Oh, I couldn’t tell you, molasses? I dunno.

Ed: Yeah, ok, yeah.

James: What’s it taste like?

Ed: So, no.

Sam: It does taste sort of licorice-y, I think.

James: Licorice-y and sweet and yeah, ok, what’s your number three on the top three, even though we still don’t know what Portino is?

Sam: Portino is number one. Number three is one, there’s one called CRAVE and I couldn’t tell you what that is but it’s blue. It’s just called Crave.

Ed: Yeah. 

James: Crave.

Ed: It’s called Crave, but it’s your number three, yeah?

Sam: Of the yeah, of Wimmers. Yeah. I got back into Wimmers soft drinks kind of recently, I was back in Queensland for a little bit and um, yeah, I think it is the most popular soft drink, like the biggest selling.

James: Where? In Australia?

Sam: Not in Australia. Most places in Australia don’t even have it. This is like, there’s even places in Queensland that don’t have it. But if you’re in Nambour or Peregian or Noosa you will get this.

James: Ok, what are any of those places? Where are they.

Sam: This is like, north Queensland.

James: North Queensland. 

Sam: You’ve been to Queensland, surely. 

James: Yeah, but I haven’t been to those places. I think I saw that last one on a sign once, but like, I’ve not been there. Um, so, Wimmers soft drinks are the most popular soft drinks in those three places.

Sam: I reckon they might be, yeah.

Ed: Would they beat Coke as well? Be more popular than Coca Cola?

Sam: Yeah, it’s like how in Scotland, Iron Brew out-sells Coke. It’s amazing.

Ed: So what’s Portino? This is your big favourite.

Sam: This is like, I just remember the first, well, if I could like take you to Mon Repos so I… yeah… so, I…

James: Tell me about it. Ed’s just doing some admin.

Sam: Ok. So I was friends with this kid called Joseph O’Hare, well, our families are friends, he’s got a pigeon chest, juts out, his ribcage, like that, which he’s had fixed.

James: Congrats to Joseph O’Hare.

Sam: And I didn’t even know it was a thing he cared about but you know whatever, yeah.

James: Yeah.

Sam: And so we used to muck around Mon Repos. That’s where the turtles? Lay their eggs? 

James: Is this the Hare and the Turtle… the O’Hare and the Turtle story?

Sam: No, no, no, no, no, no, so this is where turtles go off to to lay their eggs and also the eggs hatch, and that was the best, cause if they went off course you got to actually pick up a baby turtle and put it into the ocean. Amazing. But yeah, we…

James: The thing is, because we got you to tell ‘The Hare and the Tortoise’ earlier, I feel like you’re Keyser Soze-ing us right now with a story you’re just piecing together from stuff we talked about earlier, so your friend Jimmy O’Hare who used to live near the turtles.. It just feels a little bit suspish. Carry on! 

Sam: Why would I… This is my life! Just my reality. But yeah we used to love, we, and you know, we just loved drinking Portino and making up our own [inaudible]

Ed: Bonito, I don’t have enough reception to find out what Portino is, would you google it and put it on the screen for us, thank you. Sorry, Sam.

James: So you and Jimmy O’Hare, Jimmy O’Hare what lived near…

Sam: Joseph O’Hare.

James: Joseph O’Hare lived near where the turtles came and laid their eggs and you and Joseph O’Hare would go and look at the turtles.

Sam: Yeah, yeah.

James: And you would drink a lot of Portino while you were doing that.

Sam: Yeah.

James: Great. What is Portino.

Sam: Well I just remember… like, we were huge into playing like um cricket, but with, not with, just with the lid of the bin, you know what I mean? That’s what we’d do. And I remember this guy coming up to us, and he, he said you–and I don’t know, we don’t even know this guy but he goes, ‘You guys could have fun in a plastic bag.’

[Long pause for audience laughter.]

Ed: [Getting information from the producer.] Um, It’s grape and berry flavour.

James: It’s grape and berry.

[Applause.]

--from the Sam Campbell live episode, released 02-March-2024

Sam has stated he has ADHD, the other two have not AFAIK, but honestly I don't know if these buddies have two dopamine molecules to rub together between the three of them.

[ricky-tiki-tah]

Anyone else notice that especially in the earlier seasons(1-3 specifically for this post), Sam is usually the one talking to the witnesses/authority figures. Doesn’t matter if Dean started the conversation/interrogation, Sam near always finishes them.

Not only that, but officers and others tend to direct their questions more to Sam than Dean. The question is why? In the early seasons like 1-3, Dean may be shorter, but Sam is still noticeably younger than his brother. Is there something about Sam that people trust him to be more mature or what?

On the opposite note, you will rarely see Sam talking to any kid, his area lying more with the teens and young adults. Dean is always talking to the kids, he values their opinions and wants them to feel safe no matter what. This is probably from raising Sam, but it’s also very him. (One example is Lucas in 1x03 Dead in the Water, another is Michael in 1x18 Something Wicked, and again with Ben in 3x02 The Kids Are All Right)

Now, I’m very much onboard with the ���both Winchester brothers are autistic” and “ADHDean”, but my question is still, why would the authorities and older suspects talk to Sam instead of Dean? Is it because Sam is so good at masking? Is it because Dean is starting to let his childish side out more now that John isn’t there? Maybe it’s because due to Dean having been selectively mute, Sam had to speak for the both of them growing up and the habit stuck? Could it be because even though both boys are good looking, Sam is more traditionally handsome while Dean is a pretty face? Is there really an answer?

[faramirsonofgondor]

Jamie’s the type of friend who actually tries to pack himself in a suitcase so he can go on trips with you. Or he just genuinely considers kidnapping his friends so they don’t leave. I’m pretty sure half of the team would be happily kidnapped too.

[justanangryduck]

Stimming stimming stimming

Dean is loud

Playing with his jewellery, listening to loud music, vocal stimms (humming, clicking his tounge, whistling etc), tapping his hands and his fingers and his knuckles on stuff all the time, rocking on his chair

Sam

Probably plays with his hair a lot, not consciously just tucking it behind his ears and ruffling it all the time and stuff like that. Definitely was one of those kids who would spin around and around in one spot for ages and make themselves dizzy to feel the inertia. PACING PACING PACING. Biting his lip and tounge and the inside of his cheek, rubbing his hands up and down his forearms or over his thighs to feel the fabric there.

Let those old men stim

[ghostsandfools]

Gemini is so neurodivergent I don't know how nobody's talking about it.

OKAY, strap in, this one's gonna be long, and it's gonna be ranty, and I'm going to do it anyways.

Gemini is probably my favorite character... EVER. They are so perfect, I love them so much, I will die on this hill. They are the one constant for me. In this crazy, overly controversial fandom, in this crazy, overly controversial world, we all have one thing we can count on: Gemini. AND THEY GET SO LITTLE SCREENTIME! But that's not why I'm here.

So, almost everyone in TSBS has signs of some sort of mental illness or neurodivergency. This is not new. But I really wanna get into it with Gemini because I feel like nobody cares enough about them!

So, I'm going to split this up into parts. One for Pollux, one for Castor, and one for Gemini. Just to make it easier. LET'S GO!

Pollux:

So, Pollux. The first signs start to show with her when she was first introduced. She's hyper, she's unfocused, she's friendly, she's all over the place. These are very stereotypical, very basic signs of ADHD. HOWEVER, I actually DON'T think she has ADHD. I think she's just hyper sometimes. ADHD is much more that just being a little off the walls, it's a genuine disability that makes it difficult to focus or remember things, and I feel like if you dig deeper, that's not what's going on with her.

I do think that she's neurodivergent, however, in some capacity. Probably autism. I think her and Castor both have autism actually, but I'll get in to him later.

First of all, hyperactivity can also be a sign of autism. And while, when she first comes to Earth it seems as though she can't focus on any specific thing, I think that's because she's focused on Earth as a whole, explaining her interest in anything on Earth. I think learning about and exploring Earth might be one of her special interests, or maybe just exploring planets in general.

Now, the next point might just be due to technical issues, but maybe not. Pollux and Castor both have pretty blank faces, and don't have very many emotes. It may have just been a problem with their 3d modelling, so not the strongest point, but neurodivergent people and people on the spectrum often have difficulty with facial expressions, something I've also struggled with.

Pollux definitely has less neurodivergent coding than Castor does, but I think it's still there.

Castor:

Castor. I don't even know where to start with him.

When Castor was first introduced, he was very unexpressive and monotone, already a symptom of neurodivergency.

He also struggles socially, more so than Pollux. While Pollux was over-bearing, she had no trouble making friends once the chance arose. Castor, on the other hand, was perceived by most of the main cast as "creepy" or "rude", which hits closer to home than I want to admit.

But, over time, it becomes clearer and clearer that he only wants what's best. He doesn't intend to be terse, or rude, or weird, he's just never interacted with anyone that wasn't a star before.

Pollux seemed to adjust well to the environment on Earth once she learned more about the people there, but it seems Castor struggled a lot more with adapting in a new environment.

Castor is also a very private person. He has hobbies and emotions and thoughts, but he keeps them all to himself. Of course, after a while of spending time with Lunar, he starts to speak his mind more, which eventually led up to the last episode we saw him in where he yelled at Lunar for killing Eclipse. Still, I find it interesting that it took an extreme situation like that for him to finally speak his mind.

Gemini:

Gemini <3

Pollux and Castor work extraordinarily well together. They are THE siblings of all time, I love them.

I'm going to delve into headcanons for a minute here, but I feel like the other astrals don't like them very much. We never hear Gemini really talk about the other astrals, aside from basic details.

I feel like, after living with people for your entire life, your SIBLINGS, and those being the ONLY people you interacted with, you'd have some fond memories of them.

But they don't. And even now, there's tension between Gemini and the rest of the astrals. They clearly stand out. The other astrals seem to not take them seriously, and don't exactly listen to them. I feel like, from that recent scene from Taurus, maybe the other astrals, at least some of them, actively DISLIKE Gemini.

This may be why they're so unused to socially interacting on Earth. They probably spent very little time with their siblings, especially considering Nebula's existence. Maybe their siblings didn't visit them at all. That thought makes me sad.

Feeling outcasted is commonplace for neurodivergent people, as well as being perceived wrong.

Closing thoughts: Okay, I might be projecting here. I'm not sure. As someone who is neurodivergent, I identify with Gemini harder than any other fictional character. They're so special. I don't know if I'm picking up on subtext that isn't there, but if you have any thoughts, please share. I wanna know what you guys think.