Dean Winchester + point blank ↳ 2.16 ‘Roadkill’  and  5.10 ‘Abandon All Hope…’

Something That Makes You Uncomfortable Isn’t Automatically Bad Writing

Anyone who’s following me will have seen the current puritan debate about making AO3 “safe” for minors. The people arguing in favour of censorship are quick to confuse their personal dislikes with “badfic”. I don’t really read underage fic, but I’m sure there is some very clever, well-written underage fic to be found on AO3, just like some of the g-rated pieces are so atrociously bad you want to bang your head against a wall until you’ve permanently managed to erase them from your memory.

The same thing goes for professional writing, of course. So if Dean and Ketch are making bedroom eyes at each other and it makes you uncomfortable because last season Ketch slept with Dean’s mother, don’t use that as an excuse to hate on Bucklemming. (There are many, many much better reasons for criticising their writing. They make it easy, don’t worry.)

No one is asking you to ship Dean/Ketch.

No one is asking you not to find the idea of them uncomfortable.

But please acknowledge that your discomfort is the point - and as on point as the show has rarely been since Dabb took over.

There is enough incest (sub)text in SPN to fill an entire book. Incest is a core feature of many of the mythologies the show loves to draw on. Likewise, incest is a standard feature of the gothic narrative, just like the beautiful female virgin whose death spurs the male hero into action. (And if anyone thinks that by bringing Mary back the show finally ditched its gothic roots, just take a moment to consider the fundamental role dead Kelly Kline has played for Jack this season - so fundamental that she and Crowley are the only two major players from last seasons double-finale who haven’t been resurrected at some point this season.)

Accordingly, blurring (sexual) boundaries between family members is a recurring theme within the Winchester family. Even without going into all the juicy subtextual details, such as Samuel’s creepy obsession with Mary or the oedipal structure of the Dean/Sam/John family unit, SPN canon gives us plenty of disturbing facts: Sam, Dean, Mary and John all had sex in the same place. Sam, Dean and John all jacked off to the same girl. Sam, Dean and their surrogate father figure Bobby all slept with the same female hunter.

So no matter if you like it or not, having Ketch show an interest in Dean after previously having a one-night-stand with Mary perfectly fits the show’s previous canon and makes sense.

If you want to rant about something, focus on one of the things about the episode that don’t make sense AT ALL: Such as the fact that Lucifer used his violation of Kelly as a means to bond with Jack and no one bothered to point out that it was a violation and that this should be one of the top reasons why Jack should never, ever trust a single word that comes out of his father’s mouth. Or that Lucifer was surrounfed by people who’d seen him at his worst and yet none of them could tell Jack why he shouldn’t listen to Lucifer beyond a generic “He’s evil”.

@hekate1308 replied: I will be honest: I cannot stand the writing when it comes to Ketch. he was an utter sociopath, and now I am expected to like him as a kind-of-ally? (Nice try Dabb, but I see you attempting to replace Crowley and this will never work). Also every single thing about Jack’s storyline makes me uncomfortable because of the way it is written - the violation of Kelly’s agency, Cas changing his mind which was never brought up, just… everything. I get what you mean, though. Ok that sounded way worse than I wanted it, I meant I do understand and agree with you, I just had a bad day, sorry.

Of course no one will ever be able to replace Crowley. And the fact that he needs replacing is something I’ll never forgive Dabb for, ever.

The writing for Ketch hasn’t been exactly brilliant, but I do think that his development as a character is much more coherent than that of pretty much everyone else on screen. He was introduced in S12 as someone whose identity was defined 100% by the organisation he was part of and who began to recognise and question that through his relationship with Mary. Initially, having even super sexist Ketch respect Mary was probably only a means to show us that Mary is not like other girls™, but it did lead to an interesting growth in Ketch’s character when he disobeyed “The Code” for the first time in Who We Are in order to protect Mary. So when we met him again in S13, he’d already begun to change a little, and the organisation that had been his all no longer existed. It makes sense that he be’d looking for a new common cause he could become part of, and that he discovered said cause in the Winchesters. Who in turn didn’t immediately welcome him into the family with open arms. In fact, it took Ketch almost an entire season to convince them to work together with him.

When you compare that to how Gabriel was suddenly supposed to be Sam and Dean’s best friend (”It’s Gabriel, we need to help him!”), or how Lucifer has been staring at our screens with teary eyes for the better part of the season, whining about how everyone hates him without even once entertaining the possibility that this might be *his* fault, I’d say that Ketch’s development this season is the only one that actually deserves to be labeled a “redemption arc”. The rest is just rubbish, plain and simple.

@awed-frog replied: This is a good point, well made. Personally, the only thing that annoys me about the Dean/Ketch subtext is that as usual, they made the F/M ship canon but when it comes to M/M it never goes beyond parallels and winks. Last season it was pretty clear that Mary was a stand-in for Dean, and the reason Dean/Ketch never happened was because TPTB didn't want to go there - it had nothing to do with the characters themselves. So that's not really their finest moment imo.

I completely get where you’re coming from. F/M scenes can happen all the time, but M/M scenes need to be “relevant to the plot” in order to show up on screen - that’s the sad state of our TV and film industry.

The Empty Hearse aired over four years ago and I’m still livid whenever I think of how the Molly/Sherlock kiss was shown at length, but the screen faded to black as soon as Sherlock and Jim leaned in to kiss. And as if that hadn’t already been bad enough, Moffat hastened to assure us that the lips of the actors never touched, as though that were even remotely relevant.

But I do think that Mary hooking up with Ketch last season served a different purpose than to “ban the gay” from our screens.

Of all the new characters they introduced in S12, Ketch elicited the most positive response in fandom. People were posting Ketch x reader fic on Tumblr, much to my bemusement. And if all you need to do to make your audience happy is to have a guy take off his shirt, you go for it, obviously. It’s a lot easier than having to think up intelligent plot lines. *g*

Then there was also the problem of Mary. They brought her back only to realise that she doesn’t fit into the concept of the show at all. So to keep her busy somehow and keep her away from Sam and Dean they made her join the British Men of Letters, and to me at least her one-night-stand with Ketch was just another part of “What on earth are we supposed to do with Mary now?”. Having exhausted all possibilities on earth, they then sent her off to the AU where she’s been practically this whole season, doing nothing apart from being a Strong Female Character™.

The show’s faced similar problems before with trying and failing to integrate Lisa and Ben, and later Charlie. But this season they haven’t just had that problem with Mary, but with several of their recurring characters, and that is largely responsible for the overall structural mess this season has developed into. I mean, we started the show with a focus on Jack, but after a couple of eps Dabb & Co. seemed to realise if they actually made him live up to his true potential, having him bring on paradise like he’d promised in his mother’s womb, they’d have no story left to tell, so he’s been window-dressing ever since. Even more bizarre is the case of Lucifer. The single reason for Sam’s rushed death sequence in Beat the Devil was to give Lucifer a chance to bond with Jack - and thereby a reason to stay on our screens. If the sole purpose of your main characters is to prop up your side characters, something’s really, really wrong with your writing.

But to get back to your original point - SPN really isn’t a progressive show, so there’s no chance of us getting to see Dean and Ketch hook up. Unfortunately. (And I’m sorry to say it, but everyone who believes that the show’s planning any kind of m/m endgame is deluded and only setting themselves up for a major disappointment.)

Something That Makes You Uncomfortable Isn’t Automatically Bad Writing

Anyone who’s following me will have seen the current puritan debate about making AO3 “safe” for minors. The people arguing in favour of censorship are quick to confuse their personal dislikes with “badfic”. I don’t really read underage fic, but I’m sure there is some very clever, well-written underage fic to be found on AO3, just like some of the g-rated pieces are so atrociously bad you want to bang your head against a wall until you’ve permanently managed to erase them from your memory.

The same thing goes for professional writing, of course. So if Dean and Ketch are making bedroom eyes at each other and it makes you uncomfortable because last season Ketch slept with Dean’s mother, don’t use that as an excuse to hate on Bucklemming. (There are many, many much better reasons for criticising their writing. They make it easy, don’t worry.)

No one is asking you to ship Dean/Ketch.

No one is asking you not to find the idea of them uncomfortable.

But please acknowledge that your discomfort is the point - and as on point as the show has rarely been since Dabb took over.

There is enough incest (sub)text in SPN to fill an entire book. Incest is a core feature of many of the mythologies the show loves to draw on. Likewise, incest is a standard feature of the gothic narrative, just like the beautiful female virgin whose death spurs the male hero into action. (And if anyone thinks that by bringing Mary back the show finally ditched its gothic roots, just take a moment to consider the fundamental role dead Kelly Kline has played for Jack this season - so fundamental that she and Crowley are the only two major players from last seasons double-finale who haven’t been resurrected at some point this season.)

Accordingly, blurring (sexual) boundaries between family members is a recurring theme within the Winchester family. Even without going into all the juicy subtextual details, such as Samuel’s creepy obsession with Mary or the oedipal structure of the Dean/Sam/John family unit, SPN canon gives us plenty of disturbing facts: Sam, Dean, Mary and John all had sex in the same place. Sam, Dean and John all jacked off to the same girl. Sam, Dean and their surrogate father figure Bobby all slept with the same female hunter.

So no matter if you like it or not, having Ketch show an interest in Dean after previously having a one-night-stand with Mary perfectly fits the show’s previous canon and makes sense.

If you want to rant about something, focus on one of the things about the episode that don’t make sense AT ALL: Such as the fact that Lucifer used his violation of Kelly as a means to bond with Jack and no one bothered to point out that it was a violation and that this should be one of the top reasons why Jack should never, ever trust a single word that comes out of his father’s mouth. Or that Lucifer was surrounfed by people who’d seen him at his worst and yet none of them could tell Jack why he shouldn’t listen to Lucifer beyond a generic “He’s evil”.

@hekate1308 replied: I will be honest: I cannot stand the writing when it comes to Ketch. he was an utter sociopath, and now I am expected to like him as a kind-of-ally? (Nice try Dabb, but I see you attempting to replace Crowley and this will never work). Also every single thing about Jack's storyline makes me uncomfortable because of the way it is written - the violation of Kelly's agency, Cas changing his mind which was never brought up, just... everything. I get what you mean, though. Ok that sounded way worse than I wanted it, I meant I do understand and agree with you, I just had a bad day, sorry.

Of course no one will ever be able to replace Crowley. And the fact that he needs replacing is something I’ll never forgive Dabb for, ever.

The writing for Ketch hasn’t been exactly brilliant, but I do think that his development as a character is much more coherent than that of pretty much everyone else on screen. He was introduced in S12 as someone whose identity was defined 100% by the organisation he was part of and who began to recognise and question that through his relationship with Mary. Initially, having even super sexist Ketch respect Mary was probably only a means to show us that Mary is not like other girls™, but it did lead to an interesting growth in Ketch’s character when he disobeyed “The Code” for the first time in Who We Are in order to protect Mary. So when we met him again in S13, he’d already begun to change a little, and the organisation that had been his all no longer existed. It makes sense that he be’d looking for a new common cause he could become part of, and that he discovered said cause in the Winchesters. Who in turn didn’t immediately welcome him into the family with open arms. In fact, it took Ketch almost an entire season to convince them to work together with him.

When you compare that to how Gabriel was suddenly supposed to be Sam and Dean’s best friend (”It’s Gabriel, we need to help him!”), or how Lucifer has been staring at our screens with teary eyes for the better part of the season, whining about how everyone hates him without even once entertaining the possibility that this might be *his* fault, I’d say that Ketch’s development this season is the only one that actually deserves to be labeled a “redemption arc”. The rest is just rubbish, plain and simple.

Dean’s right in not wanting Lucifer talk to Jack. Lucifer’s good at mind games and messing with people. Just last episode, he managed to rile up Rowena so much that it eventually led to him getting free. Not to mention that the entire AU!world mess following Jack’s birth wouldn’t have even happened in the first place if Lucifer hadn’t managed to trick Sam into going the Cage to talk to him, and then convince Cas to say yes and release him.

Sam and Cas, who know very well who Lucifer is and what he’s capable of, were tricked by him. Because Lucifer knows how to get under people’s skin. He played into Sam’s hubris by making him believe he’s receiving visions from God, and he fooled Cas by giving him a chance to feel like he’s doing something important. In this episode, right in front of Sam, he showed his perceptiveness and ability to understand how to get people to do what he wants when he convinced Jack to leave by appealing to his protectiveness of the group.

So when Mary smiles in amusement because “Jack isn’t going to the dark side” as if Dean was fussing over nothing, and when she seems so sure that “He’ll see Lucifer’s true nature”, there’s no wonder Dean doesn’t seem comforted at all.

Because Lucifer doesn’t convince people to go to the dark side. He convinces them that they’re doing the right thing, the only right thing. And by the time that turns out not to be true, it’s too late.

#yes#this#they were all talking abt lucifer#as if he was the black sheep of the family#who was slightly embarassing#not the one who corrupted humans#made demons#killed tortured#and we see that what dean was fearing#happened exactly like he’d predicted#with jack falling for it#and then being sad at the end#in other words listen to dean#will ppl ever learn?

Reblogging for @veneredirimmel‘s additional comment

I found it kind of amazing that in an episode where Lucifer was surrounded by people who’d seen the worst of him, Lucifer calmly managed to spin his woeful tale of how he was abandoned by his father with no one being able to give Jack one good reason not to listen to him beyond “He’s evil, don’t trust him.” It’s no wonder Tumblr is full of Lucifer fans who think he’s just *misunderstood* and whine about how they just want their sweet, precious son to be happy...

Mary’s reaction shows how little she understands about parenting and the complicated ties that exist between children and their parents. (Or well, human relationships in general, if we’re honest.) Dean knows only too well that no matter how critically you may view your father’s actions, stepping away is easier said than done.

ALL THE TIME

@anactorya:  #'he was one of my favourites i wish they'd killed him'#isn't something i say often#and yet

Lol, sure. The fact that Lucifer sucks so bad and is never, ever going away is totally the Duo’s fault.

I do hope Dabb sends them a gift basket every other week to thank them for generously accepting the blame for everything fans don’t like about the show.

@awed-frog replied:  @frozen-delight - Not sure I caught your point, but mine was that I plain hate the way they write? Imo Lucifer is a fantastic character, but they destroyed him. And whatever, I'm not a Dabb fan but Buckleming can't write for shit, so this was more a pro-Yockey post than anything else.

@awed-frog - I’m pro-Yockey too, but I wouldn’t call myself anti-Buckleming. Don’t get me wrong, I have a lot of issues with their complete tone-deafness when it comes to matters of gender or consent and the careless way they regularly dig enough holes into the show’s previous canon one could drive the racist truck through it. The gratuitous violence against women in their latest ep still makes me sick when I think about it. But fandom has a tendency to blame them not just for the colossal ways in which they mess up again and again, but also for things that aren’t actually their fault, making them a most convenient scapegoat for the rest of the cast and crew to hide behind when they mess up.

Personally, I don’t see how they single-handedly destroyed Lucifer? He was a great character when he was first introduced back in S5, but Kripke reduced him to a cartoon villain in the season finale because he wanted to have his fairytale ending; building up on that Gamble turned him into an annoying clown in S7, and ever since he was brought back in S11 he’s been absolutely unbearable, having about as much depth left as a dried-out coconut... Which is why Yockey couldn’t seem to figure out what to do with him beyond a few cheap dick jokes either. 

Lol, sure. The fact that Lucifer sucks so bad and is never, ever going away is totally the Duo’s fault.

I do hope Dabb sends them a gift basket every other week to thank them for generously accepting the blame for everything fans don’t like about the show.

Dean looking hot while being casually threatening