I Read Into Things

Destiel is canon.

Where on Earth is this a Dean who doesn’t care? Please, direct me to that Dean because we’re not watching the same show.

Dean is overwhelmed! He just learned not only that Cas has been lying and keeping a horrible secret from him (from all the way back in season 14) he also is still processing the fact that Death is after them and God and that Jack doesn’t have his powers anymore.

Then Cas smacks him in the face with all the things that Dean doubts about himself! That he is worthy, good, lovable and kind.

This is an opposite mirroring of the Rapture where Dean told Cas all his fears and anger about Cas. Now Cas tells Dean about all the Dean’s fears, and lets him now that he is the light and good and kind.

Dean is reeling from all that, when Castiel reaches peak alchemy level. He speaks his most inner truth.

Cas: But i think I know. I think I know now, happiness isn’t in the having, it’s in just being, it’s in just saying it.

Dean: What are you talking about, man?

Cas: I know. I know how you see yourself, Dean. You see yourself the same way our enemies see you. You’re destructive and you’re angry and you’re broken and you’re your daddy’s blunt instrument. You think that hate and anger, that’s that’s what drives you, that’s who you are. It’s not. And everyone who knows you sees it. Everything you have ever done, the good and the bad, you have done for love.

You raise your little brother for love, you fought for this whole world for love, that is who you are! You are the most caring man on Earth, you are the most selfless, loving human being I will ever know. And you know, ever since we met, ever since I pulled you out of Hell, knowing you has changed me. Because you cared, I cared. I cared about *you* I cared about Sam, I cared about Jack. But I cared about the whole world because of you. You changed me, Dean.

Dean: Why does this sound like a goodbye?

Cas: Because it is. I love you.

Dean: Don’t do this, Cas.

(The Empty comes).

Dean: Cas…

(Cas touches Dean’s shoulder). Goodbye Dean.

And then Dean is knocked out. Tell me where in all of this he has time to process?? I’ll wait!

Love thissss! 

Can I add the thought too that Cas finally reaching a moment of such awesome self-insight (and individuation) is a clean underlining for where Dean needs to get to if he’s to be happy too, but his reaction tells us he still has a little ways to go? The fact that Dean can’t say I love you back makes such sense when looking at where he’s at in his character progression, and it serves beautifully to make the moment more weighty. 

Dean needs to lose Cas in order to get pushed onto this last hop and a skip of his emotional journey, where he’ll finally be able to internalise Cas’ words and see the truth in them, stop with the self-deception, and thinking feelings are weaknesses (he feels more, and always has) and follow his heart. Finally! 

I mean, that’s my hope for him and I can’t see any indicators for why this absolutely cannot or will not happen. *fingers crossed so damn hard*

Oh my god. This shot. THIS SHOT. This is one of my favorite shots in the entire show.

Film buffs might recognize the reference to “Citizen Kane”, one of the best classic movies most people have never seen. (Seriously, go watch it. It’s one of the most captivating movies I’ve ever watched.) At the end of the movie, there’s a legendary shot of the titular Charles Foster Kane walking between two mirrors; and like in the above shot with Zachariah, we see an infinity of Kanes reflected — a long line of reflections that look like the real man, but aren’t.

It’s a metaphor for the film’s story, in which a reporter tries to unravel the mystery of Charlie Kane’s dying word (“Rosebud”) by sussing out who the “real” Charlie Kane was. Was he a publishing tycoon drunk on his own success? Was he a hero forced to give up his ideals for the American dream? Was he a failed politician whose dreams were too large for reality? Was he an awful husband who never learned how to love properly? Was he a success story? Was he a failure? A monster? A hero? Who is Charles Foster Kane?

The reporter fails at his task, by the way, because he just can’t get past all the mirror reflections of Kane back to the real man who projected them. Or maybe he fails because Kane, like all of us, is a man of infinite versions, infinite perspectives. We know at the start of the movie exactly what we know at the end: Charles Foster Kane was the richest man in the world, and also the loneliest; who did some great things and some not so great things in his life – as do we all. The reporter sums up Kane’s life thusly:

What Kripke (the writer and director of “Lucifer Rising”) does here is draw a parallel between Kane and Zachariah, one that puts Zachariah’s character in a whole new light.

Consider the conversation Dean is having with Zachariah right now – this is when the angel reveals that he and the rest of the top brass had wanted the Seals to fall, that they wanted to jumpstart Armageddon. Dean sees Zachariah as a monster, one who doesn’t care how many humans he has to sacrifice to get his paradise.

But that’s just one reflection in the infinite mirror, isn’t it? Because lots of people saw Charlie Kane as a monster too – especially once he’d begun to sacrifice his ideals for his political cause.

Charles Kane was just a man, and Zachariah is just an angel; neither of them monsters – or, at least, neither of them only monsters. Charles Kane had his positives, and Zachariah has his too. We just don’t get to see many of them, because our POV is that of the Winchesters. How do the other angels see him (besides Cas, who is rebellious)? How do the religiously faithful see him? We’ll never know, though of course, if you think about it, to his fellow angels and those hungering for Judgment Day, Zachariah must have seemed a hero – maybe even a savior.

Zachariah is the Charles Foster Kane of Heaven: the delusional political power; the tycoon who built false paradise; the fallen idealist; the monster, the hero. He is an infinity of Zachariahs trapped between two mirrors, neither of which revealing the true angel underneath.  And like Dean, we might fall into the trap of thinking we know him; we might think that if only we can figure out what “apocalypse” meant to him, then that will tell us everything we ever needed to know. But would it? Or would it only show us one more reflection?

So who exactly was Zachariah then?

Well, I suppose Zachariah was an angel who got everything he wanted and then lost it. “Apocalypse” was something he couldn’t get, or something he lost. And anyway, it doesn’t explain anything. No one word can explain an angel’s life. “Apocalypse” is just a piece in a jigsaw puzzle – a missing piece.

I’ve been side-eyeing responding to this for a couple days now, and I know this is very old meta, but since we’re due to see Zachariah on screen again in a few weeks after a very long time absent, and this is actually going around again, I’d like to offer a different interpretation for consideration.

Zachariah wasn’t the Charles Foster Kane of Heaven. He wasn’t the power directing events behind the scenes. He was a middle-management functionary, and not a particularly successful one, at that. The scene in 4.22 with the mirrors makes him appear that way, as one potential facet of interpretation, but looking at the whole picture, this revealed his reality and the duplicity behind his actions in s4.

Comparing the shot to the one from Citizen Kane, we can clearly see and easily distinguish the “real” Zachariah sitting there as he pulls back the metaphorical curtain and reveals the misdirect that was all of s4, but the Kane shot requires you to do a double-take. Which one is the man and which the reflection?

That shot immediately follows Kane’s personal meltdown after his love left him. He has just had a tantrum and torn Susan’s room apart, which only stopped when he picked up the snow globe from the first time he’d met her. The snow globe, and the memory of happiness and the idealized life he’d pinned to Susan, broke HIM, snapped him out of his frenzy. It’s the snow globe he drops and shatters on his deathbed in the opening scene of the film. But the mirror scene shows HIM fragmented apart as his entire staff watches on in horror as their boss breaks.

Aside to explain a few things about Citizen Kane here: While the characters in the film never get the full picture of the man, never understand the significance of the snow globe that drops from Kane’s hand when he dies or the meaning of “Rosebud,” we the audience do. The snow globe shatters, fragmenting the lost love of his life. Rosebud was a memento of his lost idealized childhood that he could never recapture.

Certainly the film itself as a whole doesn’t reveal every possible detail of the man’s life, but the audience has a much fuller picture of the man and his motivations and his internal struggles and regrets than any single character in the movie. Which brings me to who Zachariah actually was, because I don’t think it was as deep as the original commentary suggests. The ongoing Citizen Kane imagery around Zachariah serves to reveal the truth in a shattering fashion in 5.18.

Aside to explain a few other things about Citizen Kane… Kane was based on William Randolph Hearst, famous for declaring, in 1897 after the sinking of the USS Maine in Havana Harbor, “You furnish the pictures, I’ll furnish the war.” The public doubted the reports that the Spanish would attack a US warship unprovoked, but Hearst knew the power of visual evidence. He used his newspapers to provoke the American public into outrage that escalated tensions with Spain and literally drove us into the Spanish American War. He DID have power, manipulating events behind the scenes, colluding with government officials in a mutually beneficial (Hearst sold papers and made money, the government got their war and Westward Expansion). All over a complete falsehood, because… The Spanish had nothing to do with the sinking of the Maine in the first place. The entire tragedy was manufactured for fun and profit.

Because that’s the same sort of game Zachariah had been running up to that point. He was selling a false narrative for fun and profit. But it wasn’t his narrative. He was just following orders, as much as Cas believed he was following orders, or Uriel, or Anna, or any of the rest of the angels were. They were all just playing their roles.

It was actually the mostly-unseen machinations of Michael (and probably Raphael) directing the entire drama. Which becomes very clear in 5.18 in the opening scene where Zachariah is drinking at a bar and complaining with another patron about how they were fired from their jobs.

Moments later, the earth shakes, there’s a loud noise, the glass ceiling shatters and poor Stuart is fried to a crisp when Zachariah’s “boss” shows up. He expects to be smited for failing in his duties, but is mercifully given one last chance to prove his worth. He pulls a chunk of glass out of his drink, finishes his whiskey, and goes back to work.

(the glass light fixture shattering like Kane’s snowglobe at the moment of “death,” or at the moment he expected to die)

(his broken glass of whiskey, again like the snowglobe, offering a contrast between the real “unknowable” force puppeting Zachariah and Zachariah himself)

(he’s unbothered entirely by this fragmentation, because he’s just not that “deep.” He takes his orders, is happy to have a job again, and moves on like nothing has shattered at all. Because he was nothing more than the mouthpiece for the true force behind all of this. In terms of Hearst, Zachariah is the guy down in Havana who’d reported back that there was no unrest, no reason to stick around because there was nothing to report on, and Michael was Hearst telling him no, stay, here’s how you agitate to keep the war we are fabricating on track.)

The truth of that comes by the end of the episode, when Dean confronts Zachariah with the absolute truth of his own position and importance:

Zachariah was the furnisher of images, not the Grand Storyteller. His first episode (4.17) lays out his role, and how he fulfills it. He manipulates Dean’s experience at Sandover, furnishing an entirely false narrative as “proof” that Dean would always choose hunting if given the opportunity, even in a life of relative comfort and ease.

He does the same with Chuck at the end of 4.18, the implication being that Zachariah implanted the “vision” Chuck received about the future and then threatened him to secure his compliance with the plan. Again, Zachariah’s furnishing the pictures and thinking that Chuck is going to faithfully report on them as ordered.

He lays down the cards in 4.22, because he believed that the plan was already on track and unstoppable at that point. He believed that war was inevitable, and that Sam and Dean both would just… give up and follow orders at that point, which he proved in 5.01:

He showed his hand, and played himself. And he still has no idea how badly he’s already lost. Not only do his actions backfire at every turn (even at the end of 5.01, where he expects the revelation that Dean is in fact the Michael Sword to break Dean into saying yes), his attempts to continue his propaganda machine only cause Team Free Will to dig their heels in deeper and deeper, to the point they tear up the pages and cancel the war entirely.

His vision of the future in 5.04 has much the same effect on Dean, and his efforts to trap Sam and Dean in heaven in 5.16 only further our understanding there. He’s silenced and overruled by a gardener. Not a powerful ruler or an influential politician, but the figure in Heaven who tends to the central garden from which the rest of Heaven springs.

Zachariah may have thought he was Kane, or aspired to be Kane, or at least seen as Kane, but all along he was nothing more than an expendable flunky. And looking at all the facets we have of the real Zachariah gives us the truth of his picture and his place in the pecking order of Heaven.

#god he was a self-important twatwaffle 

#supreme middle manager of the lord >.> 

Both “sides” have people who seem stuck on the idea that Jack now is the same Jack we had in S13 and half of S14 and completely and totally miss that something has logistically gone haywire with his soul so he is altered.

This isn’t how Jack was all along. In 14.19 he showed an alarming lack of internal sense of right and wrong and he cooly rationalzied what happened with Mary. He purposefully turned someone into a pillar of salt, killing them. Mary was an accident but he’s not showing remorse right now and he is dangerous and out of control, and he has deliberately hurt people.

Asserting that this is Jack showing his true colors while ignoring there is an artifical alteration at work is as wrong as denying how dangerous he is and acting like he’s just a misguided lost child. There is something wrong with his soul. Canon spelled it out in block letters for you. He is dangerous. But it’s also not who Jack actually is.

I agree that it’s important to recognise that, even though I believe Jack is Jack in the sense that he’s not evil or a lost cause and what he needs the most is someone to step in and lead him back onto the righteous path, the loss of his soul (even if it’s not all of it there has clearly been an actual and very severe loss and that’s been given to us as a raising of the stakes in the narrative) has taken away his ability to connect emotionally to the situation.

The Jack who is the real Jack would never have turned a man into a pillar of salt and smiled at it, thinking it the righteous thing to do even if he’s being told by an angel to do it, you know? The Jack who is the real Jack would’ve balked at the idea of hurting anyone. So yes, absolutely, there’s a marked and important difference, and Jack’s going through this because he’s a reflection of TFW.

And TFW went through their dark arcs to have their deepest fears highlighted and brought into the light. For them to be confronted with it and begin the process of acknowledging these fears and beginning to face them.

My hope for why Jack is having to go through all of this now is because as the reflection of TFW, his confrontation of his fear of being born into the world to bring only suffering and death, means that the fears of TFW all come to a head as well, through him, because through his dark arc and how all of them are affected by it though how they all react to it and handle it, and react to each other reacting to and handling it, they all suddenly come face to face with their own fears and are forced to begin the final unconscious-brought-into-conscious confrontation of them, so that they can start the integration process. Yeah?

Anyway, that’s just my hope, but it would fit beautifully.

I also think we’re seeing a side to Jack that’s been there all along, it’s just being enhanced. Which has been the case with all of TFW’s dark arcs as well, since these fears are an integral part of their character makeup and Jack’s no different.

As an example, Jack showed the same cool logic when looking at wrong and right in 14x02, talking to Cas about Dean and if the only way of stopping Michael was killing Dean, then Dean would have to die.

I think it’s so important for Castiel’s development that even after Dean threatened to cut him out of his life that Cas kept talking.

He stood up for himself in the face of Dean’s anger and gave one of the most emotionally vulnerable speeches ever.

It feels like Cas has had more significant dialogue all around in these last several episodes than he’s had for seasons. His sense of worth has been so dependent until now on what he could do for the Winchesters and not on what he could say or what comfort he could bring. He’s had no sense that he could possibly be a source of emotional support until he met Jack.

It’s yet to be seen if what Cas could provide Jack over the past weeks will be enough to save Jack, but being there for Jack certainly changed Castiel.

So last night, he kept talking.

I was blown away by this too. I lowkey hoped that the scene might result in Cas (or Sam) calling Dean out for, you know, being unfair, but there’s really no point to that when Dean’s in that mood anyway (and it was always Sam who needed to do it and he did it a mere few scenes later so all is good) and what Cas did, speaking honestly about his feelings and, especially, his motivations, was much more important for him, which is, yeah. Wow.

I still feel that there are words and actions being held back. I don’t know if you reacted to it the way I did, but Sam holding Cas back from speaking to Dean (fair enough) reminded me of Dean holding Cas back from speaking to Sam in 14x08. There’s still this sort of divide there, to me, where I kind of wish Cas would just shake that hand off and follow that gut instinct that made him move in the first place.

Anyway, mostly just wanted to nod and agree. Cas and Dean’s communication this season, apart from the reunion scene which was basically all done through body language, has been much more open than we’ve seen in years, even with Dean’s skulduggery about the damn Mal’ak box. And Cas has felt more comfortable at the bunker, clearly considering it his home and the people there his family ever since first giving Jack the speech about family in 14x01, yeah? 

He’s come so very far! So happy for him!

I agree! I think it was really important that Cas being the first to voice his regret opened the lines of communication between Sam and Dean. Cas was also the one to tell Dean about the weirdness in Arkansas in the Pleasantville episode (title is escaping me) and that while it could be argued that holding back his suspicions about Jack caused Mary’s death (did it really?) his communication now is opening doors everywhere. And last week, his whole plot was about opening lines of communication with God. It’s really neat!

Oh so true, I didn’t even think of the God communicator role he assigned himself! :P Cas has been speaking a lot of truths this season, apart from the biggest truth, which is that he’s made a deal for his happiness and so can’t ever be happy and that’s the way the cookie crumbles. 

Other than that, though, he’s been very open with Jack, and I do so agree it does feel like this has changed him, and like it’s helped him be more direct with Dean as well. I mean, we’ve gotten more scenes between them where they’ve been in earnest conversation (whatever the tense subtext has been) than we’ve gotten in a long time. *happy dance* Right? Cas asking Dean about his state of mind at the El Sabroso like be still my heart. 

Anyway, keep peeling it back, Cas. 

I do find it rather disturbing that Cas’ speech when it came to his view on Jack this episode was so very defeatist, though. Cas talking about his faith in Jack in the past tense is just disturbing to me. So quick to judge, really, Cas? But then it does seem like the possible culmination of the theme of judgement that was set up with Michael at the start of the season, and if so, then hopefully all three of these darling men of ours will be called out on it and there will be consequences for misjudging Jack. I really hope so! Eye-opening consequences making them really see the need for open communication.

Please and thank you. :)

HECK YEAH to all of this, but especially the observation that cas was very honest and emotionally present in a way that gives me hope that he’s finally realizing that running away to fix things on his own isn’t what family does. i wonder if he will purposefully tell dean/tfw about his empty deal not because it’s a plot necessity or because jack spills the beans, but rather because he realizes it’s the right thing to do. openness and honesty ftw!

Wouldn’t that be something? Could it be that he realises that “fixing it” is what Jack is trying so desperately to do to the best of his ability and witnessing this behaviour first hand in Jack and realising he’s responsible for putting it there is what finally opens Cas’ eyes to it? *one can hope*

I think it’s so important for Castiel’s development that even after Dean threatened to cut him out of his life that Cas kept talking.

He stood up for himself in the face of Dean’s anger and gave one of the most emotionally vulnerable speeches ever.

It feels like Cas has had more significant dialogue all around in these last several episodes than he’s had for seasons. His sense of worth has been so dependent until now on what he could do for the Winchesters and not on what he could say or what comfort he could bring. He’s had no sense that he could possibly be a source of emotional support until he met Jack.

It’s yet to be seen if what Cas could provide Jack over the past weeks will be enough to save Jack, but being there for Jack certainly changed Castiel.

So last night, he kept talking.

I was blown away by this too. I lowkey hoped that the scene might result in Cas (or Sam) calling Dean out for, you know, being unfair, but there’s really no point to that when Dean’s in that mood anyway (and it was always Sam who needed to do it and he did it a mere few scenes later so all is good) and what Cas did, speaking honestly about his feelings and, especially, his motivations, was much more important for him, which is, yeah. Wow.

I still feel that there are words and actions being held back. I don’t know if you reacted to it the way I did, but Sam holding Cas back from speaking to Dean (fair enough) reminded me of Dean holding Cas back from speaking to Sam in 14x08. There’s still this sort of divide there, to me, where I kind of wish Cas would just shake that hand off and follow that gut instinct that made him move in the first place.

Anyway, mostly just wanted to nod and agree. Cas and Dean’s communication this season, apart from the reunion scene which was basically all done through body language, has been much more open than we’ve seen in years, even with Dean’s skulduggery about the damn Mal’ak box. And Cas has felt more comfortable at the bunker, clearly considering it his home and the people there his family ever since first giving Jack the speech about family in 14x01, yeah? 

He’s come so very far! So happy for him!

I agree! I think it was really important that Cas being the first to voice his regret opened the lines of communication between Sam and Dean. Cas was also the one to tell Dean about the weirdness in Arkansas in the Pleasantville episode (title is escaping me) and that while it could be argued that holding back his suspicions about Jack caused Mary’s death (did it really?) his communication now is opening doors everywhere. And last week, his whole plot was about opening lines of communication with God. It’s really neat!

Oh so true, I didn’t even think of the God communicator role he assigned himself! :P Cas has been speaking a lot of truths this season, apart from the biggest truth, which is that he’s made a deal for his happiness and so can’t ever be happy and that’s the way the cookie crumbles. 

Other than that, though, he’s been very open with Jack, and I do so agree it does feel like this has changed him, and like it’s helped him be more direct with Dean as well. I mean, we’ve gotten more scenes between them where they’ve been in earnest conversation (whatever the tense subtext has been) than we’ve gotten in a long time. *happy dance* Right? Cas asking Dean about his state of mind at the El Sabroso like be still my heart. 

Anyway, keep peeling it back, Cas. 

I do find it rather disturbing that Cas’ speech when it came to his view on Jack this episode was so very defeatist, though. Cas talking about his faith in Jack in the past tense is just disturbing to me. So quick to judge, really, Cas? But then it does seem like the possible culmination of the theme of judgement that was set up with Michael at the start of the season, and if so, then hopefully all three of these darling men of ours will be called out on it and there will be consequences for misjudging Jack. I really hope so! Eye-opening consequences making them really see the need for open communication.

Please and thank you. :)

Young Dean eating cake. Considering all the bi!dean cake/pie meta is this relevant? Help me clever people, you’re my only hope. @amwritingmeta @tinkdw @destielette

Hey foxy lovely!

This is a fun prompt - I thank you!!

Here is my off-the-cuff impression of Dean, food, pie and cake and yes, I’ll be restating previous meta, but so be it! I’ve not talked about this on this blog so I’m excited to get to do it now! Yayyy! *claps hands*

Firstly: Yes, Young Dean eating cake is absolutely relevant, because of - as you point out - what food and pie and cake represents to Dean Winchester.

Trash Food: the life of the hunter = saving people, hunting things Pie: home and stability (the longing for his mother and his longing for love) Cake: at first being reluctant, but open, to trying new things

Now, I nabbed this off superwiki  –>

There have been occasions when Dean has been tempted by cake:

So, let’s talk about this progression of Dean and cake. 

At 14: he’s brought cake and tastes it, but he doesn’t much care for it

At 28: he absentmindedly chows down on birthday cake that he got for himself while ogling a woman (having just escaped the ogling of two women himself)

At 32: he refuses to eat the piece of cake Sam has brought him to substitute pie, but a mere few episodes later he makes an actual request for a cake-like snack

At 35: he eyes the cake at the police station the same way he eyes his male crushes (same freaking lopsided little grin) and then he quickly pulls a finger through the thick frosting, stealing a taste

It’s interesting that every time cake is brought to him he rejects it or doesn’t much care for it, while if he can request it or get it for himself he’s increasingly into it over the years. 

I kind of love the contrast here between how Dean’s performing persona is something that has been forced upon him by how he was raised, how John instilling in him from so early on that he has to protect Sammy made it imperative that Dean dress himself in the same exact visage as his ex-marine father. 

Whereas all those layers underneath, those layers that make up who he truly is, are safeguarded by a deep need for individuality, which is why he won’t have cake thrust upon him: he wants it to be and needs it to be his own choice to eat that cake.

This simple scene is amazing.

But in this small moment we see Dean Winchester, at 35 years old, finally, albeit surreptitiously, being unable to resist indulging in his craving not only in front of Sam, but in front of someone representative of his father.

Big. Step. Forward. Toward. S11.

Where all the walls he’s built up begin to show their cracks thanks to Amara and the theme of Love that takes focus throughout that whole season. The entire plot progression of S11 forces Dean to admit to himself that what he feels for Cas - however much he’s doubted it, questioned it, refused to acknowledge it, pushed it down, fought to ignore it - is the real thing: he’s in love with that dick angel, and he’s pining for him, and there’s no way around it.

And so, with as small a scene as the one above, set in some random police station where Dean indulges in a piece of cake, it still is a gorgeous character reveal of how he’s progressed from his 14 year old self to his 35 year old self. I don’t think it’s by accident this progression is actually shown to us in the same season and only a few episodes apart.

Everything connects.

I love this show!!

Hi, uh, so I read my entire Dean vs Cake tag yesterday. Apologies for walking right into this post while it’s all crystal clear in my mind :P

It’s more complicated than that in 10x12 - he’s chowing down on that (pink, flowery) cake enthusiastically, until Tina voices her opinion it might be poisoned. Dean freezes, as if only just thinking, oh shit, maybe she’s right, and he puts the cake down as if it is poisoned.

Later he recounts this to Sam, and tells him flat out the cake was horrible, too dry, like it was the Worst Thing That Ever Happened To Him, and he had never liked it in the first place.

The thinking is, this is a metaphor for Dean learning not to like things for himself, that the idea of the cake being poisoned is cultural toxic opinions and very much a metaphor for and ACTUAL 14 year old Dean (using a proxy of a temporarily 14 year old Dean) learning that, for a wild example, liking guys is a Bad And Terrible Thing, and despite his initial interest, when society tells him it’s bad he not just stops doing it but presents a facade to deny he ever liked it and cut off all connection to it (and in 9x10 he equates his being toxic with hurting people and hurting Sam especially and that’s sort of a different thing entirely except that I think Dean’s sense of the word “poison” has sooo much mileage for making him feel bad about himself that using it in this context about the cake to me also feels like it connects much deeper into his psyche). 

It’s essentially the first big break we got in the performing Dean meta that the show was intending to seriously break down the facade, and started us off by presenting a little parable of Dean Likes The Thing, Dean Learns Not To Like The Thing Because It Is Bad, Dean Says He Hates The Thing Forever. All while in an adolescent face so we could connect to this happening to him for real on more serious subjects in his actual formative years. I think until that point while you could talk about performing!Dean it was very much in incidental cracks and breaks or things which were much more ambiguous about the writing.

The writer knowingly asked fans what were the ~most Dean things~ while writing it and incorporated rock music, hook ups, and pie into the episode as Taylor Swift, not hooking up with Tina even at the bar while adults (instead having a sweet conversation and not even getting plastered, and Tina walks out with exchanged fond looks but nothing more), and Dean enjoying cake. It was a knowing attempt to game everything we know and assume about Dean and present it in a different form. 12x11 is a similar episode gaming the knowledge we have about Dean and turning it on its head, and I read the episodes as having very similar intentions. As well as earlier examples like 12x11 playing off of 4x06, which did similar. All of these episodes compromise the core Dean in some way for the sake of exposition on his character. 

At the end of 10x12 (in a scene they had to wait to get permission for the music, went back to film, and Jensen tried to protest but it was too important to the story so they HAD to do it in the end because no of course it’s not like Dean and OOC, that’s the entire point Jensen) we see the demonstration via Shake It Off that Dean has changed and his complaint about enjoying a TS song on the bus under the mask of being a teenager earlier in the episode was either more The Lady Doth Protest Too Much, or else Dean thinking that was a rational explanation for why he enjoyed the song when Dean Winchester Does Not Like Pop Music. At the end of the episode as an adult he in sound mind decides not to do what Sam expects, and turn the music way up and drive off with the car practically dancing to the music :P

This was the next most important thing - that Dean embraced liking something un-Dean like in front of Sam with no pretences or comment. It betrays that he had liked TS already in the episode and his pretence about it was all BS, while the cake itself was still veiled in teenage shame.

In 10x13 the first thing we see Dean doing is eating a croissookie, a hybrid food, a best of both worlds pie&cake monstrosity, a hybrid *word* which will be important in season 11 - it’s a harbinger of that theme. Later we see a dating app with a sexy photo of a woman in a bikini holding a pie in about the most … well a whole bunch of us had to go out and google the opposite word to “phallic” which I think we agreed was “yonic” …. way possible. (point down, over her lower stomach, dripping cherries and a nice pile of cream on top >.>). At this point it was abundantly clear that pie had left the building for the other meaning they went back to in season 12, of Dean’s comfort/soul food to do with mother and home. (5x15 kills me with this theme of pies and mothers.) Pie and Cake was officially bisexual subtext.

In 10x15 Dean sees cake and he wants it BAD, and it’s freely offered, and Sam says no, and stops him, physically, from accepting a slice. (It mirrors 3x08 and him knocking Dean’s hand away from taking the peanut brittle from Mr Pagan God, which was maybe more sensible :P) There was a lot of discussion of Sam policing Dean’s behaviour, but at least on my side of the discussion & people I was agreeing with, it swung around to being more of a metaphor for Sam unknowingly doing this (he was trying to keep up FBI appearances - in 9x13 you can see his discomfort and annoyance about Dean chowing down on the powder doughnut, EVEN THOUGH Donna (also of “salty and sweet” connections from 11x07, mirroring something else bi that Dean said that episode) is eating hers JUST as messily and therefore it’s socially acceptable behaviour, as Donna is the authority figure who sets the tone of their behaviour. Dean socially chameleons his way into this fine. In 11x15 he is being offered cake by the authorities again, so why not. 

(The guy’s partner made it - ambiguous references to gender.) 

Sam drags them off to “Sammy’s” where they get socially acceptable burgers.

Anyway the point is there was a long discussion about Dean self-policing FOR Sam and the TS moment being one of the only times he doesn’t do it. (Similar to him saying he won’t apologise for loving Dory in 12x11, but nothing was altered about him any more in 10x12.) All of it seemed to offer a fairly sensible food-based metaphor for Dean’s behaviour, with cake standing in as the forbidden and withheld desires, and for one reason or another Dean is held back from getting the cake.

That’s the bare bones background to the later pie and cake stuff. :P 

Fast forward to 12x05 and :

- Sam calls Dean out on his sublimation and Dean acknowledges that he does this - Dean doesn’t WANT pie, meanwhile he’s upset because Mary and Cas are gone. - Mary represents pie through the family/home theme and Cas cake as Dean’s male focused romantic attention - Dean has apparently enjoyed a big slice of actual chocolate cake IN FRONT OF SAM and neither one said anything about it, it just HAPPENED and no one made a big deal of it - Dean then says he now “deserves” pie after doing his job well

(Dean’s later stuff with Mary is all about him learning that he deserves more from her and therefore deserves love and happiness and this helps him move forwards in general but in big part to accept himself and the fact that he likes cake/men/Cas in particular).

In a season focused entirely on Dean letting go of his facade, a ton of Dean/Cas romantic upping the ante, where Mary represents pie through family and Cas cake because well Cas is now Dean’s focus for his bisexual male-focused attention as he’s not just kinda fancying but full on in love with the guy.

Where Dean outright acknowledged his sublimation to then start not doing so after 12x22.

*Nothing to see here*

I love you both. I do so love you both. YESSSSSS ^^^^^^^^

Okay, so I will add this: I see Cas as food and pie and cake all rolled into one delicious meet-every-desire-Dean-Winchester-has-ever-harboured. Cas is Dean’s longing personified and he represent love, home, family and the freedom to choose for himself how to live his life - hunting or hanging it up or a healthy mix of both. Cas is stability and sunsets and the future. He’s hope and faith and happiness. And that’s what Dean is to Cas as well. It’s so beautiful! They’re so good for each other - I cannot wait to see them actually communicate and begin to open up to one another. 

(yeah I completely expect S13 to melt the world) (and steep it in its own image) (world domination by 2018) (#spn family)