#also: dont come @me trying to defend an incestuous ship as /beautiful/ and /not about queer rep/ because i just ate.

[found--family]

incest ≠ Good Queer Rep.

look. i don't ship w*ncest - it makes my soul cringe and my stomach turn in a bad way as it tries to escape up my esophagus - but before Castiel entered the scene in season 4, Supernatural was three seasons laser-focused on two brothers, two guys who grew up on the road with an abusive father, raised on traumatic experiences and sharing close quarters, in constant danger and near-constant emotional distress, it was bi-coded!perpetually-single!Dean and Sam who recently lost his girlfriend in a traumatic way, no other main characters and an emphasis on how important they are to each other because they literally don't have anyone else.. look, on a surface level /i get it/. if they were NOT brothers i too would ship them: interesting characters and an interesting plot? yes, of course i want the queer version. every show is made better by having queer characters, and why—? because we're normal people who deserve equal treatment within the narrative. 

the fact that incest isn't taboo when it comes to queer ships seems crazy, but it's really not because WE ARE SO STARVED FOR POSITIVE AND DIVERSE QUEER REP ON TELEVISION. i mean i don't want another teen dramedy focused on high school students and the problems of coming out/being out in this modern inclusive age (they're important societal and cultural stories but WE DESERVE MORE). i want to see badass male monster hunters saving the day, saving the world, and in amongst it all there's a kiss between two leading men, a moment of intimacy between two leading men (explicit and otherwise). incest is ick-worthy but people gravitate to the crumbs they're given and construct a feast from those crumbs because it's all they have. 

it's a damn shame Castiel wasn't in the show from s1, or that there wasn't another main or side male character for folks to ship with Dean. but thems were the times. it wasn't going to happen, not with a show like Supernatural whose narrative focus was NOT on being queer when queer main characters were limited to shows like Queer As Folk and The L Word and soap operas. but still, the audience of this gritty drama with its monsters and magic and demons and identity issues and fighting the good fight against all odds WANTED a queer romance, they WANTED queer characters front and centre. so, an intense brotherly bond gets twisted into something romantic and sexual—and again i don't ship them and i actively avoid bibro content because for me it's not just taboo it's SQUICK—that being said.. 

..i can't help but be more disgusted rn with the way TPTB denied us a healthy queer romance in a Dean/Cas endgame and yet played up some seriously unnerving slash vibes with two brothers during the series finale. aside from the disrespectful #BuryYourGays way they treated Cas AND Dean, there's the disgustingly negative queer rep of giving male/male incest vibes more screentime and end-narrative clout than a 12 season long male/male love story which gets shunned in some insanely misdirected attempt to celebrate the show's legacy (which they thought was season 1 episode 1?? when it was actually 15 seasons of complex meta storytelling!!) and avoid making Destiel - one of the most popular queer ships in television history - canon. 

each member of Team Free Will deserved better endings than they got but while TPTB were so desperate to avoid alienating their conservative viewership (ie. avoiding endgame Destiel) they managed to bring the biggest incestuous queer ship on television front-and-centre as their "fond farewell" to the show, and i just—

that ending was the kind of thing you'd expect in a parody - i rage i laugh i cry i vent - it's insane. though it does go with the theme of 2020. 

tl;dr 

TPTB could've given us The Best Ending for Positive Queer Rep with a Dean/Cas romantic endgame following a full rich season of lead-up on top of 11 previous seasons of brilliantly layered storytelling, but instead they intentionally botched it and cemented their reputation as fools on the wrong side of television history. i will take solace in 15 seasons (-1 episode) of narrative (+ countless fanfics) but it's not enough. Supernatural may have started airing in an era of No Queer Representation (outside of certain targeted dramas) but it ended in an era of celebrating and encouraging Explicit Queer Representation across all genres so TPTB has no rock to hide under, no justifiable excuse. they could've elevated SPN's legacy to something even more beautiful and inspirational - ie. actually stayed true to their 'Dare To Defy' campaign - but instead they bungled SPN's legacy by trying to run back the clock and tripping over themselves in the process. 

networks need to diversify and strengthen their representation of Queer Characters and Queer Romance, and the fact that people ship non-canonical incestuous queer romances should be a Call of Desperation heard in board rooms throughout the industry. if nothing else the Supernatural finale has shown every other network what NOT to do - and that goes for making queer ships canon as well as creating more diversified queer content from the start.