On a smaller scale this happened when "Don't Call Me Shurley" aired in May 2016. The whole Chuck is God thing was a highly debated fan theory that wasn't confirmed until this episode. When Robbie Thompson wrote "Fan Fiction", he was told he could lean either way on the whole Chuck is God conversation — whatever answer floated his boat was what he could write, basically. It was something some writers leaned into and some didn't over the years —Robbie always firmly into the first camp — and we all got called crazy if we also saw Chuck being God. It was almost as intense as Destiel in some spaces, and even after "Fan Fiction" there was still no definitive answer (even though it was glaringly obvious because how else could Chuck be there? A prophet has to die before another can be called, and Kevin was clearly the next Prophet!).
The fucking payoff when Metatron is zapped into that bar and we see that horribly inaccurate coffee cup? Holy fuck, that was SUCH a high. I remember screaming at my TV and IMMEDIATELY taking to Tumblr because WE WERE FUCKING RIGHT, ASSHOLES! I'd been wearing my fun little Chuck-is-God!truther badge since "Swan Song" aired, and the payoff of being right was so, so sweet. Especially considering how toxic some fans could be regarding Fan theories they didn't personally swing for, as well as anyone of the CW side of things who could be almost/as bad.
There was that extra taste of vindication there, too, because if we actually got to see the payoff of Chuck being God — even when some of the writers/PTB didn't support it — then could we actually see the same vindication for Destiel? I mean, there was even more evidence for that, which isn't up for debate if you have eyes in your head because otherwise, what fucking show are you watching??? It's straight up homophobic to say there's no basis for it because if you made Cas a woman Dean would have been fucking her back in season five at the latest and no one would be saying they weren't stupidly in love or arguing they weren't actually paralleling other romantic scenes in the show and that Destiel shippers were delusional. But I digress, that's an entirely different discussion.
I didn't have any real hope of Canon!Destiel happening on-screen (despite staunchly believing it was unspoken canon) simply because of how long they queerbaited us, and the CW snipers situation, and just the whole ixnay onyay ethay estielday attitude we got at conventions and in general from TPTB & certain writers/actors. There's a reason we say CW: Home of the Phobia, ya know? And as OP says: Gay marriage wasn't even legal for the majority of those 12 years! DADT was repealed in 2011, only 4 years prior to legalized gay marriage, and even once those legal measures were in place it was still an incredibly shaky climate for such things in media (and real life). But also just like with the Chuck/God situation, there were writers that were friendly/in support of canonized Destiel/bi!Dean and then there were those that... were not.
And then! In December 2018, "Byzantium" aired and we saw Castiel basically being given a death sentence the moment he experiences true happiness (alas, not in the manner Angel experienced it. Misha was right, if the CW weren't homophobic cowards they'd of been balls deep and that was the perfect missed opportunity for that) and that was the first time I had legitimate faith They Were Going There. And then we all got the news we were dreading: The boys announced season fifteen was going to be their last in March 2019. So from the very first episode of season fifteen, I swear I was foaming at the mouth the whole time in anticipation. Surely this would be it. They didn't have to worry about "alienating part of the audience" and losing viewers by two of their main characters queer (the weakest, most bullshitty excuse ever considering how fucking massive the Destiel fanbase was— and even for the general audience or people neutral on the matter because of how fucking queer many of us are & how many of us are staunch allies regardless of our own identity.) because this was it! They were done!
We've seen several explicitly gay relationships between two main characters be canonized at the last second (tLoK did it in 2014 for fuck's sake and SRatPoP did it just that May) and as the episodes ticked by I felt it in my bones — it was gonna happen. It had to happen. But boy, did they fucking pull one over on me. I never, in a million years, thought we'd see a Destiel love confession followed up by keeping Castiel is Super Gay Mega Hell because hello, his son got him out once, and that was before he became God! Not to mention the fact that Dean would tear apart the fabric of reality to get him back on a regular Tuesday afternoon, but after that confession? Absolutely the fuck not. Talk about OOC behavior.
But then! Then TPTB said, "But wait! We're not done! We gotta bury BOTH the gays like it's 1999."
They'll never be able to put the cat back in the bag, though. They'll never be able to silence us again, or call us crazy or delusional because we were so emphatically right the whole fucking time. Jensen Ross Ackles, Mr. I-was-so-exasperated-by-the-concept-and-popularity-of-Destiel-I-literally-broke-the-4th-wall-about-it, said he'd not come back for more if they planned to disrespect what happened in "Despair". He's had nothing but kind, supportive things to say about what they did for that scene, for Misha's performance, and I cannot express this enough — he signed off on this happening when it was brought to him. I think that more than almost anything else is the most satisfactory thing regarding the opposition we faced. We don't just have Misha in our corner, we don't just have some writers — we have Dean himself! He fucking filmed it on his cell phone, guys. It was that important to him. If I could go back to 2010-2014 and just like, throw it in the faces of all the haters here on Tumblr and at the conventions, I'd be the smuggest person on the face of the planet.
If you've made it this far, thanks. I've been here since day one and it's been a long, long road. I have Seen Some Things. For anyone that's new here, or maybe missed it back in the day, here's Robbie's quote to E! from 2014 regarding bringing back Chuck in "Fan Fiction":
"I love the theories! I love every single one of them. I think it's fantastic. People reacting to a show with that level of passion where they want to dot all the I's and cross all the T's and perhaps even write fan fiction inspired by the work itself, I find it really inspiring. And I agree with all of the theories. I always view Rob's character as a proxy for [creator] Eric [Kripke], but Chuck is my God. I agree with that theory and I love it."
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