#clothes meta

[poetryspoon]

If Karina + Connor Were A TV Series: Clothing

I watched a really great video by Bernadette Banner this morning (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P7aBLEio6J8) about the many considerations that go into costuming a TV series set in a pre-industrial fantasy society. It was really fascinating to hear Bernadette talk about the storytelling that goes into costuming, which made me think about how a hypothetical Karina + Connor TV series might develop the characters through costuming. Headcanons ensue:

Judith: If she finds an item she likes, she buys 17, or the same garment in different colors. A little like a cartoon character, she's got a closet full of multiples of the same item. She doesn't do a lot of mixing and matching in her wardrobe, because that's just one more thing she'd have to think about. She has like 4 outfits that she tends to wear over and over, emphasizing functionality over fashion. She wears a lot of dark colors, specifically blacks and greys. Detail-oriented viewers will be able to track *which* item of her repetitive wardrobe she's wearing. I.e. one of her 17 black tank tops is her "nicer" one, until in one episode it tears during a fight, and the next time that particular black tank top shows up, she's mended it. During more formal occasions, Judith often wears hand-me-downs from Claire.

Karina: has a diverse wardrobe, mixing and matching a lot, but the amount of effort she puts into shaping her outfits varies widely. Sometimes her outfit coordination is on point, but sometimes it's pretty clear that she's just grabbed what's closest to hand. She wears a lot of earth tones, browns and greens and greys, with lots of natural textures like knits and linens. Viewers can notice that she has items that almost "live" in different locations-- for example, a cardigan that she only wears in her office and, when she's not wearing it, can be seen draped over her office chair or couch. She tends to steal her dad's old clothing and, after she and Connor get together, Connor's shirts. She also thrifts a lot of stuff.

Claire: The closest to a 'typical' TV character, Claire has a pretty extensive wardrobe with some favorite items that she re-wears. Claire likes satin, lace, velvet, and leather, mainly in purple, black, blue, red, and silver. Claire goes thrifting with Karina, but rarely buys anything. Claire gives hand-me-downs to anyone and everyone, and her clothes will often show up in another character's wardrobe after Claire's finished wearing them.

Michael: You can track payday by when he shows up with a new outfit. He buys expensive stuff that gets damaged quickly and then he mends it haphazardly. This results in most of his stuff looking like a designer store got hit by a bulldozer. He is, however, fastidious about cut and fit. His favorite items tend to be a little-- but just a little-- well-kept than the others. He tends to go towards tactical-inspired things and fabrics like canvas and denim, things that will hold up to his high activity demands.

Connor: Hand-me-downs and thrifting for days. Tweeds, flannels, and knits are his favorites, and he takes good care of his clothes even though they're quite cheap. Anything soft and comfy is his vibe, and he is partial to a good plaid. He always rolls up his sleeves. He tends to reinforce his clothing himself, adding elbow patches and knee reinforcements to his favorite items. He'll mend something multiple times in order to avoid having to replace it. You're almost able to track his injuries through his clothes-- where they've been stained and mended. He does buy his undershirts (tank tops) in bulk, because he goes through them so fast. He hangs on to a few sentimental pieces of clothing, mainly stuff that was his dad's.

[chaichai-draws]

Personally I think that Telemachus permanently and irreversibly changed Athena for the better, more on that at twelve

[puppetmaster13u]

Prompt 318

Danny is learning how to shapeshift. It’s fun, really, and he honestly thinks it’s more than a little cool. Plus it’s not a learn or you fully die sort of thing, which is pretty cool too. He just erm, might’ve also made a mistake. A little oopsie. An uh-oh. 

Erm. So. Apparently stuff stays when you go from ghost to human form. Just erm. More… permanent? Look he panicked, okay! And it wouldn’t have been that bad if not for the fact erm… his friends might’ve done it too…? 

Okay, okay, this is fine erm. Oh hi Mom, Dad I- O-oh yeah! D-definitely! Psst, Tucker, what’s a meta…? Oh. Okay yeah- wait can they use this to avoid the GIW thing? They definitely could, right? Like they definitely can- Sam we need the corkboard!

Er. And inform their parents too… even if it’s more than a little obvious. Maybe they shouldn’t have been trying to mix and match…

[pinkd3mon]

This is what happens inside the buddy towers while they wait for Kirby, me thinks

Based on this post I made about Dedede watching TV and this amazing tag someone reblogged it with

[yokyoaaa]

Slumber party!

[ex-textura]

I fucking love romancing Emmrich as a non-Mourn Watch Rook. I love it I LOVE it!

I've done both routes and I enjoyed the meeting of minds you get in the special MW dialogue options but the JOY of watching Emmrich experience love from outside his own secluded circle is unmatched.

Of course a fellow Mourn Watcher would match his freak, of course they'd get necromancy of course they'd love wisps and the necropolis of course.

But he spends so much energy defending it all to the rest of the team early on, because outside of Nevarra it is taboo.

They don't know if they can trust the necromancer

They side-eye his skulls

But then there's Rook. An outsider respectful of the tableaus, charmed by wisps and friendly with Manfred. They compliment his control and passion. They're impressed, rather than suspicious. He doesn't have to defend himself to Rook and how unexpected...

Rook as a person with no previous experience with Nevarra looks through the taboo and the superstition and the preconceived notions and sees Emmrich. Sees his passion. And loves every piece.

And I'm feral about it

[javsarts]

Got bored, I did some portraits of my main party

[purble-gaymer]

simple thoughts on meta knight and gender euphoria

[miramelo]

Why does Danny need a mask you might ask?

(no one asked lol) Jack made it so it could filter impurities from the environment 24/7, it's not really perfect but it helped him a lot early on, allowing him to be outside his coffin for a few minutes to an hr before his body starts shutting down

Damian might have accidentally gotten attached and doesn't want the others to find out about his friendship with the sickly meta child(they are literally the same age) especially since he doesn't think the overprotective father Danny talks about sometimes, who he suspects might be an ex convict, would allow Danny to talk to him anymore

[gaywarcriminals]

I’ve seen jokes about the absurdity of Liu Qingge and Bai Zhan, the chaotic, dirty, monster destroying, fighters peak, wearing white robes, so I’d like to present a theory:

Laundry is punishment for not being good enough to dodge.

Part of being a good fighter is bodily awareness. You need to know where you are in space/in relation to your opponent at all times. You need to keep your stance and movement well controlled to not leave any gaps in your defenses.

Having mud on your hem means you weren’t aware of yourself or of your environment

Having tears means you didn’t dodge fast enough.

Having blood stains either means you failed to evade or that you didn’t have the good sense not to stand the blood spray as you behead a monster.

Washing out all the stains and mending their robes is the punishment, the natural consequences of these failures.

If they don’t scrub diligently enough, all their peak mates will see the marks of their failure in combat every day.

[potions-of-dark-devotion]

These are just my personal headcannons about Severus’s Clothing:

1. It is his armor against the rest of the world, a physical way to represent the shutting out of others, a kind of bodily Occlumency that makes him feel safe.

2. It is impossible as an adult to do to him what the Marauders did to him as a child, I.E strip off any part of his clothing. There are so many layers and buttons I image it makes him feel physically and sexually safe as well. No eyes where he doesn’t want them. No hands where he doesn’t want them. No Wands to remove what he doesn’t want removed. (Could he possibly enchant his clothing too; to make it impossible for someone besides himself to undress him?)

3. On a lighter note, it’s Victorian chic as hell. It’s Screaming Byronic Hero from a million miles away. Like something out of a Mary Shelly or Dracula novel, just so romantic and sweeping and refined looking. Goth King we stan.

[kuroshika]

now. i know what you're thinking. i know. "kallie oh my god let this quote die". but no. because i've had yet another thought.

"achilles, lamenting the death of patroclus. whenever he’s mentioned in the iliad, patroclus seems to be defined by his empathy."

"he became achilles on the field of war. he died for him there, wearing his armor."

i think by now we've all already seen the posts or recognized that hannibal and will have swapped clothes for the battle between them and dolarhyde. if not, here's a nifty little visual (2x13 mizumono, 3x10 ...and the woman clothed in the sun)

and if you're like me, you'd think "oh that's really sweet. he's wearing hannibal's shirt. it shows their lines beginning to blur". but you know what else it shows?

"[...] he died for him there, wearing his armor."

will went into war (the fight against dolarhyde) wearing hannibal's armor, and he (presumably) died there. he died in hannibal's armor, as patroclus died in achilles'.

and even THEN.

"he did. hiding and revealing identity is a constant theme throughout the greek epics."

"as are battle-tested friendships."

where will embraces his becoming, and steps into himself - where he casts off the persona of the man he'd been displaying and reveals who he really is underneath, which is a very constant theme throughout hannibal and will's relationship ― the battle to see each other, to understand.

"achilles wished all greeks would die, so that he and patroclus could conquer troy alone. took divine intervention to bring them down."

if you know me then you know, of course, i love love love the religious symbolism that hannibal is drenched in. and i think it's a very lovely parallel to the fact that hannibal, who sees himself as above but so intertwined with religion, and views will as his god, went to his death with the very man he worshipped.

you know. divine intervention.

[ahundredbillionheavens]

Thinking about "Cas patrols the bunker like a guard" while the humans are sleeping and how the trench coat is literally a military uniform – developed for British Army officers before the First World War, and becoming popular while used in the trenches, as wikipedia says. When Cas gives Jack his coat in the hospital he's trying (in vain) to give him the symbol of his shield as protection.

Dean's Scooby-Doo nightwear may be a man's old-timey nightshirt and it's lilac (warmth, empathy, the heart), a lighter shade of purple (royalty) and very close to lavender, the colour of old-timey gay (McCarthy's Lavender Scare) and the colour Gil Baker added to the rainbow flag in 2017 "to represent diversity in the age of Trump". The nightshirt itself is so soft it's like being wrapped in hugs, Dean says while he's a cartoon.

I

Thinking about the SPN finale ghosts again, and how it echoes through each member of TFW.

(I think about this a lot. But it was all spawned by @angelcasendgame's additions to this post about how Sam really likes books). And...my recent pajamas obsession.

I went looking for this, and sadly, it isn't a meta so much as it is a collection of unrelated motif-thoughts. :(

Cas stuff

Cas almost never wears sleepwear, but when he does it's the dark dad robe of failed familial protector. He's the specter of always-working-dad. When he's not that, he's the homeless veteran, veteran-turned minimum-wage-civilian, or veteran-as-mental-patient. (images from smiledean)

In the finale, Cas (and his parallel) were both positioned as sentries of the door. Cas is the barrier-shield to protect the house.

Cas almost never sleeps and rarely wears pajamas. Instead, he's usually depicted in full-military or working/office "gear." Cas is, symbolically, the overworked father, "always working, even drained," as the finale drains the dad.

As motif of working father, he only is shown resting when he's dying or severely weakened--"ill." He rests only when he's dying or dead. As is his "duty."

He's always trying to protect them, even when he's failing miserably at it. Ironically, other family members resent his protection as much as they appreciate its security.

The finale-dad (Lyle Crowther) dies in front of an open door, when his back is turned, just as Cas literally dies in front of the door to another world.

Cas's deepest wants (12x19 The Future) were depicted as Sam running in a field of freedom and Dean being (ahem, very close) relieved, thankful, and free of burdens. (He perceives Dean's "distress," and he knows that he "adds to it," but he does not fully understand it.)

Cas patrols the bunker like a guard, and in his downtime, he indulges in the escapist fantasy of Saturday Evening Post + TV.

In his dreamscape, he sits at the table watching TV, notably not performing any sort of duty or chore as he basks inside the hearth of home (kitchen).

He often lectures Jack from this position at the kitchen table. (And sometimes from within Jack's room as well).

Dean stuff

Dean likes to nest, and he crows happily about that when they first find the Bunker. He quickly decorates his room, finds a "homey" gray robe, finds the shower and sings its water pressure praises, and takes over the kitchen. Other people don the dead guy robe. First is Chuck, who apes the "performing Dean" and overfocuses on his porn collection. (This is how Chuck sees Dean, after all--purely in a surface-level, sexual sense.) Other wearers include Mary and Jack, both of whom Dean wraps in gray robes as he welcomes them into the kitchen to eat a hardy meal of bacon and/or burgers. (images from TheFamilyBusiness.com)

Dean (borrowing from @scoobydoodean) is the hearth of the home, the heart.

(He's even referred to as "Tin Man" in 9x03 Slumber Party.)

He's the one in the family who wears the male version of the Dead Parent, "dead guy" robe -> dressing gown, in the form of the gray MoL robe. This robe is like the gray duster of his finale counterpart, the horrified warrior-caretaker.

He also wears cute, silly pajamas as the series goes on, revealing more of his actual personality in stark contrast to the sexy Malboro Man Chuck wanted to portray him as.

In later seasons, Dean wears hot dog pants, novelty socks, Scooby Doo boxers, and the lavender Scooby-Doo outfit (Dickens-style "dad" dressing shirt + nightcap).

In 14x10, Nihilism, Dean's dreamscape depicts him retired and waiting for his family to come home. Even at his failing roadhouse (Rocky's Bar in 14x10 Nihilism), he wants to provide rest and nourishment--drink and merriment.

When trouble comes to him, he can even help out as a distinguished warrior from his stable, stationary position.

Importantly, in his dreamscape, Dean does not brave the storm outside. (Pamela does that for him.)

Dean longs to be the safe harbor, the stop on the road, a destination to return to.

He embodies the warmth of the kitchen.

Likewise, he too delivers mentorship to Jack from the kitchen.

Occasionally, he enters Jack's bedroom and is the first member of TFW to be shown siting on Jack's bed as he mentors.

Sadly, in the finale, after the shield falls, the caretaker-warrior can only flee to higher ground as the hearth is breached.

Eventually, the caretaker falls, too, and is rendered mute as the tongue is brutally ripped out. (Just as Dean "cannot speak" in 15x19's script, as Jack disappears.)

Sam stuff

Sam is typically up early, wearing running gear or soft, modern pajamas. To my knowledge, I never saw him wearing a robe, but I'm happy to be corrected.

Sam yearns for safety, but he enjoys the academic rigor of "brainiac" career living.

He is usually positioned inside the library, surrounded by books, even in Gadreel's mindscape (9x09 Holy Terror).

Sam seems to genuinely love pouring over ancient books, examining the minutiae of cases, and throwing his weight towards a cause/career.

(Prone to perfectionism, Sam can be a little obsessive when it comes to filing literature, exercising, and "clean" eating.)

To Jack, Sam usually delivers mentorship from the quiet of the library, though occasionally comes into his room to attempt to give him pep talks.

Thus, Sam is the keeper of the books, the historian, the legacy.

Witchcraft is a natural outcropping of Sam's Solomonari-like thirst for knowledge.

And yet, his ghost-in-the-finale is shown cowering under the bed, yearning for safety, and so afraid of the loss of the loved ones that have always protected him (Cas and Dean). It's as Chuck coos in 12x09 The Trap, "You think Dean n' Cas are gonna come charging through that door just in the nick of time. You still think you can win."

As the shield is destroyed and the hearth is breached, the war spreads to the bedroom, creaking open the door. This is the safest space. (The symbolic nursery.)

Notably, Sam wears distinctly modern pajamas at all times, usually a simple tee + tracksuit bottoms. NEVER old-style or retro button-ups and never a nightgown over it.

Even his hoodie in the final, speaks of a "modern teenager," free to take on the world and live freely in the garden (field) of the Earth.

Jack stuff

Jack wears the robe, because he's under Cas's protection, and a MoL robe because he's under the WInchesters' care.

Like Sam, Jack often wears the garb of modern teenager around the house. On occasion, unlike Sam, he has a (vintage-ish) set of pajamas in gray and blue, as well as a little apron he wears in the kitchen.

Jack is triparted chimera of all three of his father-figures, from their best selves (courage, heart, knowledge) to their worst shadow selves (tyrant-god/frankincense, sacred executioner "the law"/myrrh, and martyr-king/gold).

Jack is typically shown inhabiting the domains of the other three (kitchen, battlefield, inside the cars, the library), but he's often shown in his own bedroom.

Often, he is shown associated with family fun (family game night, Connect-four), just as the younger boy in blue (Brady Crowther) is depicted playing checkers with his bro in the finale.

Jack dons the MoL nightgown after coming back from the dead, and thereafter is depicted in old-style blue/gray, "little boy," button-up pajamas, representing the responsibility of the angel/God he has always been expected to grow into.

But if we take Byzantium at face value, Jack just wants to be small--to shirk the insurmountable duty and destiny he was (seemingly) born into. Not a child or a boy, "just me."

He longs for the little moments, like fishing or spending time together.

His Heaven was a simple roadtrip--being together.

Somewhat paradoxically, he ALSO wants powers and strength to be able to protect everyone.

Unlike Sam, Jack is not cloaked solely in modernity but as Son of Heaven (red blood, blue sky).

He is veritable HEIR to Heaven, and as such, he is not actually free to inhabit the garden of the Earth.

He cannot escape his Heavenly father's "robe," that of God.

[cobragardens]

CORRECTED & UPDATED! Clothes + Equivocation = Romance:

The Husbands in 1793

EDIT: I made a significant error when I wrote this. As @goodjomans kindly points out in the comments to Part 2 of this essay (massive shoutout for this, goodjomans! also I love your name!), Aziraphale is the one who dresses the executioner in clothing like Aziraphale's original ensemble, not Crowley. This changes my conclusions about the meaning we can take from this scene!

On the one hand, mea culpa, y'all. I shall get on with eating my crow. On the other hand, I had to go through this frame-by-frame to catch which of the ineffable spouses puts Jean-Claude in his new togs, and the answer only lasts three frames. Here it is:

After Aziraphale changes his clothes, but before Crowley snaps his fingers and unfreezes time, there's a shot of the executioner over Crowley's shoulder, and he is now wearing a light coat with gold embroidery on the shoulders like Aziraphale's. Aziraphale arranges the executioner's death, not Crowley. So I feel like an idiot for missing it, but not a total idiot.

Let's discuss how this information changes what we can read from this scene! I'm going to leave my original text in place and edit with bold green. I can still stand by most of this essay, but this detail changes how I read the meaning of the husbands' communication at the end of this scene.

So we're all clear on the fact that the universe of Good Omens is an inescapable nightmare dystopia in which either of the husbands' merciless authoritarian regimes could be watching or listening to them at any time, yes? And that if either are caught 'fraternizing' with the other that means discorporation, torture, memory wipe, and/or death for either or both of them, yes?

Which means Crowley and Aziraphale can never speak or do anything openly to each other about their friendship or attraction or love. Everything they say and do has to have an innocuous meaning they can point to in case anybody ever sees or hears something Team Azcrow can't explain away. Walls (and ducks) have ears, and the price of slipping up--as we see in 1827--is heavy.

When a character says or does something that has two distinct meanings because they need to disguise what they really mean from one party but make their meaning plain to another, lit-nerds (and lit nerds🍃) call this equivocation. Equivocation is a kind of coded communication meant to pass hostile ears and eyes in plain sight but reach its intended recipient with its true meaning. The 1793 scene is jammed with it.

A lot of that coded messaging revolves around the clothes Crowley and Aziraphale choose in this scene, so--THESIS PARAGRAPH, BITCHES--we're going going to talk about how their clothes read to the people of this time period and location, what their clothes tell us about their characters, how their clothes help them equivocate, and what they're really saying with that equivocation. And Spoiler A-fucking-lert, it is ROMANTIC AF PRETTY GD ROMANTIC. Let's get nerdy!

We start with Aziraphale's beautiful champagne-gold and powder-pink ensemble.

This outfit would tell people of this time period 3 things about Aziraphale:

That he's insanely wealthy--These clothes would be silk, hand-embroidered with thread made with actual gold. Each individual garment could cost years' or even decades' worth of working-class wages and take a team of skilled artisans dozens to hundreds of hours to make.

That he's a fop--i.e., a man who loves fine clothes and dressing up and looking fancy. By the 1790s in England, once-fashionable foppishness was giving way to the Neoclassical 'Corinthian' style, and was considered effete. (Fun note: During this time period, effete did not automatically indicate gay, and pink was considered a masculine color, so while Az. is queering it up to the audience here, his clothes would not have read as gay or overtly effeminate to the other characters around him.)

Even though he's insanely wealthy, Aziraphale wears clothes that are decades out of fashion.

According to the Victoria & Albert Museum, "As the [18th] century progressed, the male silhouette slowly changed.[...] Coat skirts gradually became less full and the front was cut in a curved line towards the back. Waistcoats became shorter. The upper leg began to show more and more[...]. Shoes became low-heeled with pointed toes and were fastened with a detachable buckle and straps or ribbon[.]

Source

That description is not what Aziraphale's wearing. Judging by his heel height and the length of his waistcoat, Aziraphale is wearing a style that's at least a decade older than this:

And this is from 1765. The great crepes caper happens in 1793, almost 30 years later.

My inference: Just as he has in the modern period, Aziraphale has settled into a style he really likes and refused to let go of it long after it's gone out of fashion.

We'll come back to this set of Aziraphale's clothes in a bit, but we need to talk about Crowley's first, because Crowley's clothes in this scene help render a line he says later about this outfit very flirtatious and darkly romantic.

First, some background: What was considered acceptable attire for wealthy people in France changed pretty much overnight during the French Revolution after the storming of the Bastille in 1789 and the fall of the French monarchy. Instead of advertising wealth, clothes now had to advertise political allegiance, and they had to do so loud and clear. And if you didn't want to be murdered by the French First Republic, that political allegiance had fucking better be to the Revolution.

People started wearing a looooooot of super patriotic shit. And I mean it was like little kids on the 4th of July; clothes were red, white, and blue in any hue and garish combination and print. The cockade, a fabric rosette in the colors of the French flag, was required by law to be worn by men, and despite that was just as popular among women. To show solidarity with the laboring classes, the fabrics the wealthy wore went from embroidered silk in light Rococo colors (what Aziraphale is wearing) to sober neutrals without decoration in wool, cotton, and linen.

Now, the script note for Crowley's clothing in this scene is this:

But clearly there were some changes made between script and filming, because Crowley does not appear standing behind Aziraphale; he appears lounging.

And he's not dressed as a French peasant.

Here's how French peasants dressed in 1790:

Peasants at this time wore styles that distinguished them from the styles of the upper classes not just in materials, colors, or patterns, but in shapes. Full trousers and cropped boxy jackets in French flag colors were the marks of the laboring-class Revolutionary, and both styles were huge changes from hundreds of years of French fashion up to that point.

And that's not what Crowley shows up wearing. Crowley is wearing the knee breeches, stockings, waistcoat, and frock coat of a wealthy man, and in fact his clothes reference a very specific type of wealthy man.

In the 1790s, if you were an aristocrat who wasn't happy about the Revolution and you were so sure of your privilege that you would risk your life showing it, you wore black in mourning for the monarchy and in protest of the violence of its deposition. If you were an aristocrat who wanted to protest and you didn't want to be immediately murdered by the French First Republic, you wore a style called half-mourning, which was black with a colored coat.

Here's a picture from a 1790 fashion magazine of an aristocrat in half-mourning:

"The text accompanying the plate describes his ensemble as 'half-mourning,' referring to the aristocrats who lamented 'the diminished powers of the monarchy and [signaled] their willingness to die for the royal cause'" [emph. added]. [Source]

Notice: the shoes, stockings, breeches, waistcoat, and cravat are all black. You with me?

Because here's Crowley in 1793:

I've turned up the brightness and exposure in this image so he's more clearly visible against the stone, but I haven't warmed it up. He's wearing a coat that's a dark blackish red. Everything else, even his cravat, even his shirt, is black. (The black shirt is anachronistic, a lovely little nod to Crowley's refusal to wear angelic white.)

This is 179fuckin'3, y'all. Marie Antoinette is executed in 1793. It's 3 full years after that fashion plate up there in his bright red jacket, and that lil dude was already risking his neck way back in 1790. As we can see from the fact that the government are apparently now grabbing random wealthy-looking Englishmen off the street to murder without trial, the time for a man demon to be sauntering around Paris dressed in all black or even nearly all black is well past.

Crowley's also wearing a whole assload of huge silver buttons, which would have been flashy and tacky and frankly pretty weird in 1793 but very definitely an eccentric Rich Person Thing to do, bc regular buttons at this time were horn or wood and covered with the garment's fabric. The only man in France who could get away with this fancy aristo shit anymore was Robespierre himself, and only "devotion to the cause[...] excused Robespierre’s showy dress since he was perceived as a bridge between the politically empowered bourgeois deputies and the ardently antimonarchical unenfranchised classes." [Source]

So when Crowley teases Aziraphale--

--both of them are perfectly well aware that Crowley's outfit would get him just as killed as Aziraphale's.

And that's why Aziraphale's expression is annoyed when he has abandon his "standards" and change his clothes. Because Aziraphale's the one who needs the favor, Crowley makes him take one for the team and wear the goofy hat.

The clothes Az. changes into here still tell people that he's rich, but they also say he's a hardcore Revolutionary. The red jacket in a current cutaway style, the cockade and sash, and the bonnet phrygien (the red garden-gnome cap) all announce this guy is a huge supporter of the Revolution. His clothes are all still aristocratic in shape and materials (and he keeps his now-unfashionably frilly lace cravat), but he's no longer flaunting obscene wealth in a city filled with angry starving people, and the gnome cap says he's in solidarity with the working classes even if he isn't one of them.

Once he restarts time, Crowley is not leaving that prison cell safely without either changing his clothes or taking Aziraphale with him, because Crowley looks like a rich asshole protesting the fall of the monarchy--which is frankly exactly the kind of thing he'd show up wearing to the Bastille during the Reign of Terror (just like he wears athleisure in Heaven). But Aziraphale's new appearance covers for them both: if the rich-looking guy with no cockade and wearing all black under his almost-black coat is in with this other guy who's obviously a Revolution fanatic, then the rich guy's probably okay, right? He just forgot his sash at home or something. Bees.

Something else happens when Az. changes, too. Look at Aziraphale's new dress from a different angle:

Half-mourning is a white shirt, but a black cravat, so this isn't half-mourning. He's wearing three different badges of the Revolution to make up for the fact that Crowley looks like a Satanic libertine (which tbf he is), but Aziraphale's new ensemble is black and dark red.

Y'all. Aziraphale changes into Crowley's colors.

Now, this is a more fashionable and higher quality version of what the executioner is wearing, so Aziraphale has very plausible deniability here; if anyone ever pulled him up on it, he could say he just copied our man Jean-Claude.

But let me show you what English fashion looks like right now:

This is a French painting of a wealthy Frenchman, but he's wearing the English 'Corinthian' style. It was painted in 1795, so this would have been the very cutting edge of fashion in England in 1793, and the fabrics and colors look right at home in Revolutionary Paris. (He's wearing the cockade on his hat, btw.)

Look at all that angelic white! The buttery almond of the buckskin breeches, the golden kidskin gloves, the rich tan of the riding boots! The blue of the greatcoat! All colors we know Aziraphale prefers!

And yet this is what Aziraphale chooses:

We know from the entire rest of the show how very particular about his clothes Aziraphale is. And yet 150 years before he (accidentally) admits in words that he's Crowley's friend, Aziraphale wears Crowley's colors to take him to lunch to say thank you for a rescue.

When we decide whether a character's speech or action is equivocation, one of the things we check is whether equivocation (and deception generally) is something that character does elsewhere in the text, which, with Aziraphale, hahahahaha, DUH. He's already using equivocation in this scene.

The lunch date itself is equivocation on Aziraphale's part. Aziraphale tries to thank Crowley for the rescue, but Crowley says,

So Aziraphale says,

No more words like "thanks" or "rescue" used, but a couple hours of good food and drink and conversation, Aziraphale hopes, will express the gratitude toward Crowley it's not safe to speak aloud. With this, Crowley and Aziraphale explicitly establish that they are equivocating for each other's safety and using coded communication--immediately before Aziraphale changes into Crowley's colors.

So yes, Aziraphale may well copy the executioner's clothes. But consider: When a character who can't speak or act openly says or does something that has two or more possible meanings, this can be read as equivocation.

We don't get a face reaction from Crowley about Aziraphale's new 'fit, so we can't be sure how he feels about this. But this whole scene is, even on its surface, about 1) the meaning clothes transmit to a viewer ("Oh good Lord," says Aziraphale when he sees what Crowley's wearing) and 2) how to show gratitude and appreciation when you can't speak of them openly. And we know Crowley notices clothing and clothing colors, because look at what he wears, like, ever. So it's very reasonable to presume he notices Aziraphale wearing his colors, and it fits well with both the rest of Crowley's actions in this scene and with his being very hurt and angry when Aziraphale later characterizes their interactions as "fraternizing."

Right, so we've covered what's going on with the husbands' clothes, and we've looked at two examples of equivocation on Aziraphale's part, viz., lunch and his change of colors. (Here's an example of equivocation on Crowley's part as well.) Now let's look at that super interesting thing Crowley says about Aziraphale's first outfit.

Here's the line:

Crowley follows up here on earlier lines in which he teases Aziraphale for coming to Reign-of-Terror Paris for crepes: "Dressed like that?" meaning Aziraphale was guaranteed to get arrested dressed like an aristocrat. The top layer of equivocation is always an innocuous meaning: the plausible deniability meant for the hostile/unsafe listeners. That's Meaning 1.

But "Dressed like that, s/he's asking for trouble" means two other things, too. It's a veeerrrrry familiar phrase, isn't it? We've all heard that arrangement of words in that order before. It's used when people think someone (usually but not always a woman) is dressed to invite sexual attention.

How do we know we're supposed to take this modern meaning from this phrase? This is how:

We have learned in literally the previous sentence to this one that rain has not been invented yet. The only two humans in existence have just left the Garden. Balloons definitely do not exist yet, humans couldn't tell you what lead is, and yet this is a phrase Crowley uses and Aziraphale understands. This tells us, the audience, in the very first line of the very first scene with these characters, that their speech is anachronistic and modern, and that we are to understand their phrasing in its contemporary sense.

So. When Crowley says "Dressed like that, he was asking for trouble" in 1793, we should read that in the context of the scene and in the senses the phrase carries to us today.

And since Crowley is using a phrase that means the executioner is dressed to invite sexual attention, and the executioner is wearing clothes identical to Aziraphale's, then Crowley is necessarily telling Aziraphale that when Aziraphale was wearing those clothes--those frilly, effete, unfashionable-for-decades clothes that nobody else likes and the French now murder people for wearing--that was, in Crowley's view...provocatively sexy. Meaning 2.

"Dressed like that, s/he was asking for trouble" is also what people say to justify violence, especially sexual violence against women and queerphobic attacks against men perceived as gay or just 'insufficiently' 'masculine'. In fact justifying assault is likely the most common way this phrase is used today by a wide margin. Meaning 3.

Crowley's joke isn't even really a joke in this sense; it's a vicious barb. And, because it must, it sounds like it's at Aziraphale's expense: You wore the wrong clothes, you weren't careful enough to guard yourself against the men who want to do you harm, so you deserved the trouble you got. Meaning 1.

Except remember: Crowley is also dressed for trouble. And Aziraphale is aware of this. Crowley's 'fit would be almost as offensive to the Revolutionary French of 1793 as Aziraphale's Rococo pastels, and probably just as likely to get him arrested and murdered by the state if he weren't making letting Aziraphale keep him safe by wearing the cockade and the silly hat. Crowley's not saying anything about Aziraphale here that he's not also saying about himself; and as we know from Aziraphale's initial "Oh good Lord" when he turns around and sees Crowley's black and red half-mourning (with extra black and gobs of silver), Aziraphale knows it.

Then why the rapey joke, Crowley?

This is fucking why:

Crowley rocks up at the Bastille just in time to witness some grubby fucker assault his friend. Assault the person Crowley will greet 15 seconds after this as angel.

Crowley's first act after freeing Aziraphale is to send this dude to his death. Nope! Aziraphale is the one who arranges to have the executioner killed in the clothes he would have killed Aziraphale for wearing. He takes Jean-Claude's ability to speak (but not to make sounds, interestingly! Jean-Claude can still whimper, Jean-Claude can still cry!) so the executioner can't tell anyone about the 'mixup.' It's unclear which of them blocks the executioner's power of speech. The vicious joke about assault in Meaning 3 isn't at Aziraphale's expense at all. It's not You wore the wrong clothes, so you deserved the trouble you got. It's If this guy thinks you deserve trouble for wearing the wrong clothes, he can eat his own rules.

And that's the other piece of evidence that, along with Crowley's ensemble, shows us the audience and Aziraphale which meanings Crowley intends with his equivocation. Meaning 1 is cancelled out by Crowley's clothes. That leaves Meanings 2 and 3.

Crowley and Aziraphale share clothes as a common interest. They don't have the same style, but they're both aware of current fashions, and Heaven and Hell aren't. You can't tell me Hastur or Uriel would recognize the significance of Crowley saying "Dressed like that, he's asking for trouble" about someone else while wearing black stockings and cravat and waistcoat himself. And that means Anything the husbands communicate to each other through clothing choices goes undetected by their masters.

SO. With all this in mind, let's go through the 1793 scene again and look at what their clothes help them say without words.

Concluded in Part 2!

[froggybogwitch]

Well then. Buckle up, folks, I went down a design rabbit hole. Somewhat inspired by the eternal question of "How do illyrian's wear shirts?" Which, honestly, has a much easier answer that what I came up with. Like a couple extra buttons would have done the trick, but where's the fun in that? I decided to add some flair on it, and by that, i mean a good chunk of a cultural fashion system. Everybody say thank you to Cassian for modelling.

So, starting off with the base layers and underwear, we've got a loincloth and a contraption that I've been calling the under harness, which was my answer to their funky double shoulders. Most other things I could think of ran into the problem that wind is a little thieving bastard and bc of the shape of their wings, form fitting garments like flying leathers can't easily pass under them, so they needed additional attachment points, hence the harness. Basically every single upper body garment I've created connects to this harness, keeping everything completely secure during flight. The only other thing to really note here are the two piercings around the wing's main knuckle. This shouldn't actually impede flying, according to the damage that real bats can fly with. These are both achor points for light weight armor, and also decoration. In the next image, we got the basic fabric base layer. Not much to say about the pants, they're pants. The shirt is more interesting. So it comes in two pieces, the front and back are entirely seperate pieces of fabric, both suspended from the under harness. The edges of the front piece are stiffened with steel boning or hardened leather, to help the garment keep it's form fitted shape. The back piece is a long strip of red fabric which I imagined to hold some sort of meaning as a highly stylized "bloodline." They could have been highly embroided with sigils, or family trees or something. Cassian's is blank for obvious reasons.

Next up, flying leathers and armor. I don't honestly have much to say about these, they're pretty well described in the books and the only thing i had to add was the armor around the knuckle claw. It seems crazy to me that these people wouldn't have figured out how to use their wings as deadly weapons so, a bit of hardened leather, some metal spikes if ur feeing extra spicy, and there, two extra striking weapons.

And now my favorite part, warmer clothes. I think this is where we'd really get to see illyrian fibercraft shine. Ombre dying, tassles, lace netting, embroidery, all of that. This is where they get to peacock about and be all bright and colourful. The cloak is made up of five long sections of fabric, two fall down the chest, two behind the shoulders but in front of the wings, and on wide one down the back. It can be worn loose or with the front most pieces of fabring tied underneath the wings for extra security during flight.

The mantle is the last bit I've developped, and it's just as decorated and fancy as the cloak, and sometimes even more so. It's a short cloak like garment that's worn over the shoulder and has open sleeves for both arms and wings. It's often fur linned and could be quilted for exra warmth. It could be worn with or without a cloak but usually they're worn together.

anyway, I have so many thoughts about the illyrian culture, bc what Sarah gave us ... doesn't really make much sense, and also makes me feel extremely icky. I'd much rather close my eyes and imagine a world where they aren't treated as a one dimentional culture that has done nothing but make it's members lives miserable.

[quinn-pop]

woah semi future au magolor and sailor designs???

(slightly more in the future but still the same timeline???)

uh yeah. Magolor finally forms a bond with the lor and becomes its captain for realsies this time

he spends his time exploring and studying magic/dark matter/gem apples and if their power can be safely harnessed

he also just goes on side quests a lot. he may be reformed but he will still do a lot for a quick buck lol

he’s mastered his dimensional magic as well, which is why his cape looks like that :>

on the other hand, sailor is the new captain of the halberd and leader of the meta-knights. most of their job is taking down monsters but there is the occasional rogue wizard to stop from destroying the world or unleashing dark matter (huh, sounds familiar…)

they are usually very busy with work but make an effort to visit dreamland frequently in order to stay close to everyone. she’s always been a little distant from the rest of her family but i think she opens up a bit more after she, Bandee, and Kirby all start taking leadership positions. gives them something to bond over

by this point meta has retired from fighting completely but he’ll still give sailor advice when they need it. she appreciates having someone around who knows just how tiring a job it can be, and he’s very proud of her

oh, and one more thing

yea i let them get married. what are you gonna do about it? /silly

they don’t get to see each other much because of their jobs but they’re a thing