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midzelink · 4 years

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all right I want to hear your post game headcanons

To start with: this was a response to the tags I made on this post about Zant, so for the sake of keeping this answer not too terribly long, I’ll focus on him. So! Post-game headcanons re: Zant. Let’s dive right in, shall we?

First and foremost, everything I’m about to write depends entirely on a post-game where Zant a) is still alive and b) isn’t totally an asshole, the possibility of which I discussed at length here (which, if you haven’t read yet, I definitely recommend reading before reading the rest of this post). In summation: Zant was used and manipulated by Ganondorf, but did the right thing in the end, severing his ties with the Demon King so that the latter could die and Hyrule would be saved...maybe for less than right reasons, but it was a good deed nonetheless.

But now let’s look at the post-game: Midna, having broken the Mirror of Twilight and returned to the Twilight Realm, seemingly for good, is now tasked with the tremendous burden of healing the wounds that Zant’s usurping has left on her realm...except Zant isn’t dead, and she catches glimpses of him in her dreams, nightmares, visions. Though his body was destroyed when Midna attacked him with her fragment of the Fused Shadow, his spirit lived on, and after some Shenanigans™ (that I won’t get into here) he’s able to regain his former self, pledging himself to serve under Midna’s reign to make up for all of the wrongs he’s wrought. She accepts, in part because she was able to catch a glimpse of his sincerity (those Shenanigans™ I mentioned), in part because of how much her own character has changed since the beginning of the game, and in part because...he’s her little cousin, and the two were incredibly close when they were young. Who woulda thunk it?

Anyways, fast forward a long-ass time, and Zant has done nothing but prove himself at every turn. Unfortunately, some real bad stuff starts to go down in the Twilight Realm (more Shenanigans™), and it reaches a point where they quickly begin to realize that unless something is done, no one will be able to live there for much longer. That’s...obviously bad, but at a loss of what to do and completely out of options, they decide to reach out to Hyrule for help... except the Mirror of Twilight is gone, and only one person has ever been able to successfully travel between the two worlds without the portal that the Mirror created...and that person is Zant.

So, Zant shows up in Hyrule a full ten years after the events of the game, in the middle of a celebration in Hyrule Castle, and everyone is like, “oh, shit, what the f**k,” because this is a man who killed countless people, including the Zora Queen and (in my headcanon) Zelda’s father, King Tyreon. Of course, nobody is happy to see him - but more Shenanigans™ happen, and to make a long story short, all of the Twili end up returning to live in Hyrule, no longer harmed by the light of day, and, yes, Midna is also there. Hurrah!

...Only, right after all of this happens - right after he helps save both the Twili and Hyruleans alike - Zant up and disappears. Because he’s super melodramatic, or something like that.

I want to write up a more detailed post about this in the future, but in short, it is my belief that time actually flows much, much faster in the Twilight Realm than it does in Hyrule; I’ve seen many headcanons about the reverse, but if you pay attention to the way Zelda talks about Zant’s attack on Hyrule Castle and its subsequent fall (as if it was something that happened ages ago), or the fact that the tapestry with the royal family’s crest in her room is so decrepit, it very much seems like the opposite is true. Basically, what happened a long-ass time ago from Zant’s perspective (i.e. all of the bad shit he did) was only ten short years ago for all of Hyrule, and he rightfully feels like he doesn’t deserve to embrace living in a kingdom he so recently wrought destruction upon. And Zelda still very much hates the dude, despite her faith in Midna’s word that he’s a different man now, so his misgivings aren’t entirely unfounded.

And yet, despite hating the dude, Zelda is like “hey, babe, you should probably go find your lost cousin or whatever the shit, before he starts killing people again maybe?” and Midna is like, “yeah that’s a pretty solid plan,” and so she sets out on an Epic Quest across Hyrule and beyond to find the dude and forcibly drag him back with her, on the conditions that he 1) live somewhere that Zelda would be able to keep an eye on him, and 2) actually try to learn about life in Hyrule. This means that he would need to live somewhere in Castle Town, with someone who would be willing to help him acclimate to his new life, and that someone would need to have some kind of relation with the Princess Queen of Hyrule...and...yeah, I know you saw that awful post...do you see where I’m going with this? : o)

Anyways, Shad is the one who ends up overhearing that there is a specific Twili in need of housing (the Resistance members are much more prominent players in my headcanon, and Zelda really appreciates everything they did to help save Hyrule!), and this man jumps at the opportunity because the dude is a scholar, and the Twili are fascinating! ...That, and no one tells him that this particular Twili was hugely responsible for all of that bad shit that happened ten years ago. Oof.

At any rate, it takes quite a while for Zant to adjust even a little bit (and I can totally imagine him eating a hard-boiled egg whole, no f**ks given), but he eventually stops calling Shad “the scholar” and “the purple one” in favor of his actual name, and the two develop this real appreciation for each other (even after Zant tells Shad about his past, which, yeah, is a real damn doozy). Their greatest shared interest is their love for books (there were never many books in the Twilight Realm; Zant admittedly loves what Hyrule has to offer), and they eventually end up opening Hyrule’s first-ever public library together! Meanwhile, Ilia and Ashei are big gay married, as well as King Ralis and his childhood friend Colin, and it looks like Zelda and Link both have something they’d like to say to one particular Twili...

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veliseraptor · 5 years

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INFINITY WAR/ENDGAME LOKI LIVES FIX IT FIC (TAKE TWO)

Part one is here, and was written quite a long time ago, so...now with updates of fics I’ve read since then. These fics are variously canon compliant with Infinity War, Endgame, or both; I’ve left off fics that ignore the events of Infinity War entirely for the sake of this recs list. “Ignore it entirely” is a different genre than “fix it” (though I love them both).

Anyway, intro aside, on with the recs. Under a read more because this got long.

thinking makes it so by sneck

The Avengers travel back in time to plant a small seed that grows into a major change. This is a really cool take on time travel, imo, and a really cool take on a fix-it plot.

to your own blood, and empty spaces in the throat by vellaphoria

The first chapter is just...absolute grief/mourning pain. The fixing comes in the second chapter. It’s worth the pain to get there.

The Air Between Two Stars by charlottelennox

Thor brings Loki back to life. This doesn’t solve all their problems. We all know I like a ‘post resurrection trauma’ fic, which this absolutely is. The author’s notes mention that this is a fic about ‘the little moments Thor and Loki share when they get a second chance’ more than the actual mechanics of how it happens, but sometimes that’s the most important part of a fix-it for me - what it looks like afterward.

the only soul I’ve ever saved by valkyrisms

I didn’t know I wanted “Loki falls out of space into New York and is rescued by Spider Man” as a plot, but apparently I did?

on earth, peace by 100indecisions

Everything fixed, more or less, and it’s a holiday party, and it’s still a little melancholy but in a good way. Short and sweet.

When I Fall to Rise by lc2l

This fic goes in a really interesting direction that I did not expect at all, and I don’t want to say more than that because spoilers. Thor dies on the Statesman. And then.

there are entrances to Hell in every major city by malfaisant

Takes the ‘what if Loki survived the attack on the Statesman instead of Thor’ idea, and it’s ouch and I love it. Seriously, hurts real bad. But ultimately in a good way?

Shadows of Those Who Came Before by Tandirra

I don’t read a lot of kid!Loki fics in the MCU, but this was...I think I was sold by the author, whose work I’d read before, and it was really worth it. It feels very much inspired by Journey Into Mystery, but not nearly as tragic - featuring a young Loki who has been resurrected as a child but is dealing with the shadow of his former self, taking a jaunt into space with the Guardians on a Quest.

the very best of us string ourselves up for love by halcyonidae

Loki and Hela in Valhalla. Yes, it is a fix-it.

At the End of the Day by scioscribe

Loki goes back in time and rewrites his own past. That’s...basically it as far as the premise, but it’s really well done, and Loki confronting himself and his family is...oof. Honestly, those conversations, more than the fix-it itself, are what makes this fic a recommendation for me.

A Route Obscure and Lonely by Nightwing_Hunter

This is a post-resurrection fic, which I decided to include because they feel like they’re in the spirit of the thing even if they don’t specifically include or explain what happened to do the fixing. And features insomnia and Loki being fucked up by the experience of dying, and I am always a sucker for Loki fucked up by the experience of dying in particular. I may be biased also because this one was written for me, but o well.

Walked In These Quiet Hazes by ratsats

I love a fic that’s basically “dealing with the aftermath of trauma” and this is both that and has a plot!! There’s a lot of ‘feelings and pain’ and then also ‘fixing a lot of things from canon,’ and I really approve of both. And now I want to go and reread this fic all in one go rather than chapter by chapter as I read it the first time. So much good angst. Just - *kisses fingers* - good shit.

There’s a Land That I Heard Of by TheOtherOdinson

This one is...I love it because it’s a little trippy, and definitely weird, and very different from anything else I’ve read in this genre. I love the slow build as it becomes clear what’s going on, a little at a time, and I’m always here for anything that plays with the Infinity Stones in interesting ways.

A Different Word for Bad Luck by iguessyouregonnamissthepantyraid

Similar to ‘I didn’t know I wanted strangulated!Loki ending up in New York rescued by Spider Man,’ I didn’t know I wanted strangulated!Loki ending up in New York rescued by Claire Temple (and company)’, but...yeah, guess I did.

WIPS - THE SUBSECTION

the nine in the tree by bereft_of_frogs (series)

So calling this one an Infinity War/Endgame fix-it feels a little weird because it’s very much following its own divergent path, but there’s enough commonalities that it feels like it works. And it’s just a really good series with a lot of great characterization and also hurt/comfort, and this is probably one of my favorite current serieses in progress.

Snake Around My Heart by gaslightgallows

The one where Loki comes back from the dead thanks to Hela and shit’s fucked. I’m really excited to see where this one goes.

the breath and the dirt and the fires are burned by neverwherever

Thor travels with the Guardians, Gamora is trying to find herself, and Loki might not be as dead as he seems. I really love where this fic has gone so far, and I’m psyched to see it continue.

burnt sage and a forest of bygones by fragileanimals

This is one of those “really embracing lore” fics, featuring also a journey to the underworld (always a good trope!). Thor roadtrips through the land of the dead with the help of a volva to get Loki out.

Memento Mori by GwendolynStacy

I love the summary of this one as basically ‘tfw you’ve completed your redemption arc but no one else knows it.’ Loki traveling back in time to try to fix everything before it gets off the ground, but nobody else actually knows what he’s doing, and it’s not like he’s going to explain himself. Heaven forfend.

Stormbreaker by ladylapispazuli

I am always a sucker for time-travel stories, and I’m especially a sucker right now for time-travel AUs diverging from the Infinity War/Endgame storyline that feature Thor or Loki traveling back in time to an earlier point. This one is one of my favorites so far. It’s Thor/Loki, if that’s a deterrent (or at least, tagged as such - it hasn’t gotten there yet and remains at the level of ‘one-sided pining of a teenage Loki after a Thor he doesn’t know is his brother’). It’s very good, has a nice traumatized Thor trying to deal with that on top of the weirdness of being around his family, his (dead in his own timeline) brother, and his past self, who he doesn’t always like very much.

Space-Time Heist by patientalien

Okay, so technically the fix-it hasn’t happened yet, but I really enjoyed the first fic and the series is incomplete, so...the setup is there, and I’m looking forward to seeing where it goes if/when it continues. The promise of fix-it is there.

Withering Away by GalaxyThreads

The one where instead of getting the Space Stone from New York in 2012, Thor insists on getting it from the Statesman in 2018. Along with Loki.

Have Tesseract, Will Travel by WinterDusk (series)

This is a series where 2012!Loki jumps universes and ends up with 2024!Thor and the Guardians, and I did not expect to love it as much as I do. (I’m very attached to 2018!Loki. I miss that one in particular.) This fic has a gloriously traumatized Thor who is a particular highlight - the dynamic of a comparatively functional Loki trying to look after a very less-than-functional Thor is a really interesting one I’m enjoying seeing explored here.

The Thanos Problem by Ranowa

This is a really excellent series with a lot of feelings in it. Like, a lot of feelings. The series is marked as incomplete, but you can easily read the first three installments on their own and get a full arc with a fix-it just fine.

#fic rec #loki's a goddamn mess #only like SEVEN MONTHS LATER jesus #anyway finally finishing one of my ten recs lists in progress #they take a long time to write okay

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pherryt · 6 years

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For the Ship + Sentence game: Destiel (or gen!TFW) “I picked the wrong week to quit drinking...”

Okay, i was actually out for a walk when i got this and then i had the most difficult time getting this going but once I did, well, 1556 words later, here ya go…

canon divergent, bunker fic, confessions, possibly spell related, Destiel with Sam rolling his eyes on the sidelines

it’s long so i used a read more

“Ipicked the wrong week to quit drinking…” Dean groaned, slumping down in his chair and cradling his head inhis hands.

“Dean? What’s wrong?” Castiel sat beside him,concern present in his voice though Dean refused to look at him.

“Pretty sure my life just imploded. I need adrink, Cas,” Dean whined.

“Don’t listen to him, Cas,” Sam said, slamminga book down on the table and Dean whimpered.

“You’re so mean,Sammy!”

“Would someone please enlighten me as to what’sgoing on?” Castiel asked. Dean blushed and looked away, clamming up. “Dean? Whatever it is, it can’t be that bad.”

Sam laughed and Dean dropped his head to the table with another groan.

“Why don’t you just tell him, Dean?”

“Screw you, Sam,” Dean grumbled.

“Oh, I see…” Castiel stood, his voice hurt. “I’ll go makemyself useful in the library then.”

Dean jumped up and grabbed Cas’s arm. “Don’t do that! Forthe love of…of…just… trust me, you do notwant to do that.”

Cas pulled his arm out of Dean’s grasp. “It’s clear you don’twant to talk about whatever’s bothering you, though your brother seems to know,so I think I’ll decide for myself what I do and do not want.”

Dean let out a strangled sound and scrambled after Cas ashe walked out of the kitchen, through the map room and straight for thelibrary. He could hear Sam laughing his ass off behind them and Dean hopedhe really did laugh his ass off. It would serve his pain in the butt brotherright.

“Cas, I’m serious – you don’t want to go in there!” Dean shouteddesperately after the disappearing angel. He tripped over the steps on his wayup and missed another swipe at Cas’s elbow.

Slippery angel.

He knew as soon as Cas saw it, for the angel had frozen inthe door of the library. Dean wanted to slink off with his tail between hislegs, if he had one, that was.

Tentatively, he forced himself forward instead and stoodbeside Cas in the doorway, keeping his head down. He didn’t need to see thelibrary, he already knew what was in there.

Talk about wearing his heart on hissleeve.

Gulping, Dean said quietly, “I’m sorry, man. I didn’t wantto burden you with my shit. And I can’t seem to get rid of it. I think we – or I- tripped some sort of spell or something.”

“Dean, you thought… I’d be mad about this?” Castiel said. Somethingin his tone had Dean raising his head some and looking up and over at theangel.

“Uh… yes?” he said uncertainly.

Cas didn’t look back, just continued to stare into thelibrary. Dean could see his eyes flicking over every inch. He knew what he’dsee. It was the worst kind of sappy, Valentine’s day shit he could even thinkof.

Which was actually because he had.

Every last bit of it had come from him, from his mind. Thingshe’d maybe imagined once or twice before burying in the deep dark recesses ofhis mind, slapped in a box which he then locked and buried with the word ‘unattainable’written on the stone marking the spot.

He’d even thrown away the virtual key.

It never really stopped him from imagining a future withhim and Cas in it, if their lives had been different. It didn’t keep him fromthe daydreams of domesticity, from having wet dreams and waking up hard. It didn’tkeep him from longing for things he couldn’t have, or didn’t deserve.

For Cas.

Fuck his life. He wanteda drink so bad. After Cas walked away, confirming all of Dean’s worst fears, hedidn’t think he’d be able to make it through the rest of the day withoutgetting so black out drunk he couldn’t remember the pain of Cas’s rejection.

At least, before heknew, there was always that inkling of hope that maybe Cas wouldn’t. But Deanknew, in his heart, that there wasn’t any hope, not for someone like him.

“I’m sorry,” Deansaid again, helplessly, his eyes burning with tears he refused to shed.

And then Castielturned, the most beautific smile on his face that it stole Dean’s breath away. “Whyare you sorry, Dean? This… this is a dream come true. A dream I had not daredto allow myself.”

“W-what?” Dean blinked.What had Cas just said?

“Dean, I love you,”Castiel said earnestly, those blue eyes boring into Dean. Dean could drown in thoseeyes, he was almost certain of it. “I’ve always loved you. There is no place I’drather be than at your side.”

“But, Cas, you’realways leaving. I thought – that was a pretty clear indication that –"Dean fumbled.

“I only left becauseI felt I should. For so many reasons. Because I thought, however erroneously,that I wasn’t truly wanted outside of the things I could help with, because therewere things I needed to do, and because…” Castiel paused and turned to faceDean completely. “Because I thought I would not give in to the ill-advised temptationto kiss you, when I was certain it would just result in you hurting your handon my face once more.”

“So… Cas… what areyou saying?” Dean edged closer, licking his lips hopefully.

“I’m saying that I havewanted to kiss you, you infuriating human, almost since the moment I raised youfrom perdition, and that desire has only gotten stronger the longer I’ve known you.”

“Even when I stabbedyour ass?” Dean couldn’t resist asking.

“You did not stab mein the ass, you stabbed me in the chest,” Cas deadpanned but Dean could see thetwinkle in his eyes.

“You jackass,” Deanlaughed. Castiel’s face broke into one of his rare, gummy smiles, the one thatset Deans heart twitterpating.

“Will the two of youkiss already so I can call Rowena to fix this? The overabundance of pink, redand white is literally killing my eyes. The declarations of Dean’s love for Casis a lovely sentiment but overly… annoying since it’s morphed all the bookspines to read only that. And did you know what I found when I opened one of those books?” Sam saidfrom behind them, causing Dean to startle and step back, almost falling downthe stairs backwards if Cas hadn’t caught him like some sort of damsel in distress.

“Dammit, Sammy!”Dean yelled.

“I’m scarred forlife, Dean. Just so you know. There are some parts of you I have seen that I neverwanted to see and never want to see again. Same goes for you, Cas. I’m happyfor both of you, keep me out of your sex life.” Sam shoved a book at Dean. “So,fix this so I can get back to doing some research.”

He disappeared,leaving Dean and Cas to blink after him. Dean looked down at the book. He lookedup at the room, then down at the book. How much worse could it be?

Taking a breath,Dean opened the book and then choked.

Cas leaned over topeer into its pages with him. “Is it an instruction manual on copulation? Iassure you, my hands-on experience may be limited but I am fully aware of how to havesex, no matter the genders of the parties involved.”

Dean choked againand slammed the book shut on its… terribly suggestive images of him and Cas.

No wonder Sam waspissed. Through no fault of his own, Dean had somehow defiled Sam’s happyplace.

If someone had redecoratedthe Dean Cave in a similar fashion involving Sam, Dean was quite certain hemight throw up.

He creaked the bookopen again and stared, flipping a few pages to see the different positions it suggested. Deancleared his throat and looked at Castiel biting his lip thoughtfully.

“So uh, do you thinka kiss is good enough, or do we have to follow the ways of the Dee-sti-el Kama Sutrato make the library go back to normal?”

“Deestiel?” Cas tiltedhis head.

“Oh uh, just… just somethingSam and I picked up on a case, once. Don’t worry about it.” Dean blushed,remembering the girls and their musical. It hadn’t actually been that bad, butit had been a little wrenching, especially seeing the fake!Dean and fake!Cas andfinding out they were a couple.

Something he thoughthe would never have.

Apparently, he’d beenwrong.

“I’m not opposed togoing further,” Castiel said evenly. Deans mind did a record scratch. He wasalmost certain he actually heard the needle scratching. “But just a kiss wouldalso be fine, if you’re amenable.”

“Yeah, yeah, of course,”Dean said breathlessly, eyes wide.

He couldn’t believe thiswas happening, that this was real. He stared at Cas until the angel rolled hiseyes, grabbed Dean gently by the shoulders and slotted their mouths together.

Dean melted into thekiss with a moan, grabbing onto Cas’s accursed (beloved) trenchcoat to keep onhis feet.

Worst week ever toquite drinking? Dean may have been wrong about that, but he was happilychanging his mind right now.

Dean’s been to Hell,Heaven and points in between and kissing Cas had all those places beat.

#destiel #canon divergent #supernatural #bunker fic #confessions #magic may have been involved

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elizabethrobertajones · 7 years

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I don't know if you have noticed, but they have some serious clothing issues in season 12. Seasons 1-11 we just had Sam and Dean. But now that there's Mary, they can't all wear plaid. Because there would be too much flannel with three Winchesters. I'm being serious. I've rewatched season 12, and there's no episode where all three Winchesters wear plaid. One of them always has to sacrifice the hunter look.

Yeah, they don’t all wear it all the time anyway - Dean’s always had a bunch of stock shirts which are so boring he can wear them all the times he’s going to get killed or whatever gets him covered in blood to the point that he can’t use it any more :P Sam has slightly more variety, I think, because he doesn’t wear as many block colours in general, wears his shirts buttoned up so Dean can get away with wearing a block colour shirt and t-shirt, and Sam’s on the wrong side of the self-imposed class divide so doesn’t wear henleys either, all adding up to him needing at least subtle stripes on his shirts a lot of the time… Sam wearing boring grey in 11x22 should have been a warning something pretty horrific was going to happen to him because that’s Dean’s choice of colour for “I’m about to have a bad day and I don’t know it yet” which he at least also mixes into his regular wardrobe to add the element of surprise :P

Buuut yeah I bet there was at least 1 time they had a moment where they did all wear plaid and looked at each other and had to work out who had to go change immediately.

Anyway since we have a whole season now, let’s look at Mary because I like looking at Mary :D

12x01:

generic hunter jacket, jeans and boots (workman boots halfway between Sam n Dean’s). Shirt doesn’t look like much of anything she likes wearing, never did find out where Dean got this from for her, because finding perfectly fitted jeans at dawn in the middle of nowhere within apparent walking distance of the bunker?? There’s a weirdo gap where he stole clothes for his mom off a clothes line or something. I think the point was it was white and a little lacy at the top, mimicking the nightgown as a shirt, upgraded for hunter Mary. Easing the transition along :P

12x02:

she’s so SMALL.

At some point Dean also found her fluffy slippers. These are modern fluffy slippers because they don’t match ones we’ve seen him wearing around the bunker which I assume are period authentic ones.

Dean wears grey and black, I guess to match Sam’s nondescript colours, while Mary cracks out her first plaid, AND with a white henley underneath

she’s still wearing white because mom, and Sam hasn’t seen her yet, but the plaid is the sign of hunting, and she’s officially dressing more like Dean right now. Dean wore red n blue and achieved balance in 11x23 and Mary is immediately the next one to wear it as the next plaid on screen since. I think it’s a sort of family integration theme since Sam n Dean often are red v blue coded.. I like this shirt because it has an XOXOXOXOX pattern embroidered on it. The mumsy version of their plaid :P

Cas is not wearing plaid.

I noticed a couple of episodes further down the line that she almost always wears her shirt untucked on the right side, and I guess I thought she was just rumpled because of the fight but she already does it in both main outfits this episode.

Sam has swapped into plaid, but Dean and Mary are dressing identically except for the colour schemes and Mary’s untucking habit.

12x03:

Mary’s wearing the ring prominently for I think the first time, and of course is wearing her shirt tucked in like that (I think this is where I first noticed it) and is the outfit she cuts her hair in, so having her in 1 pale layer quietly mimicks her show-long look for a final time before she ditches it for having a much broader and more practical wardrobe. She’s wearing this to mourn John and read the journal, and also her conversation with Cas. Looking like a default Mary, as she “should” in the saint!Mary image influences Cas to feel he has to leave because she belongs or should feel she does and he wants her to bond with her sons, but she begins breaking away immediately after this.

Aaand Sam’s still the only one wearing any sort of pattern, and Mary is dressed like Dean (but belt, no untucked shirt) and Dean is wearing grey so he doesn’t step on anyone’s toes…

Mary also keeps wearing the red maroon of family, in a one off, no one else ever wears anything remotely like it, sleeveless jacket, which she wears exclusively in the car or in the dark so no screen shots

I think this is a lovely sweater, tucked into the left side, a tank top underneath it, which is like in 12x14 where she’ll be wearing a blank tank top similar but without the fashion layer on top, and her ring very obviously displayed. Going from white because mom to black because mourning, both her entire family, and in these conversations, the old way of hunting. She’s moved I guess from shock and non-stop action to the next step of grief.

At the motel Sam wears green and purple plaid, and Dean wears a denim shirt.

Look what you are doing to your sons, Mary.

12x06:

Mary is introduced boots first (the cowboy boots seen in her room in 12x02?)

This outfit is truly unflattering and practical - she’s swimming in the coat, but she’s also wearing a belt again like 12x03, which was the other way to distinguish how she wears her shirts, and on the family unity theme not only wearing red n blue plaid again, but has it half buttoned half unbuttoned, bridging the gap between how Dean and Sam wear theirs. She exists in a lot of spaces between - half-tucked, or half-buttoned.

Dean once again wears plain grey, and Sam wears grey plaid.

12x09:

White because Lawrence, plain blue shirt in closeness to Dean’s outfits, and wearing *dark* grey-green because she’s in mourning still. She’s not wearing plaid or family colours because she’s on her rejecting her living family tour in exchange for moping about the dead.

Swaps to red to yell at Cas for not wearing plaid. She’s angry, and she’ll later still be wearing this for getting Alicia’s call and going off on the path of distracting herself with hunting, a la Mark!Dean with random vampires, when Dean got really into wearing a red shirt of a similar hue. You couldn’t see the ring in Lawrence but it’s on top of her clothes again here. Maybe she just couldn’t bear to expose it while sitting in the same place she had her first date with John? Winchester repression and all.

Cas is not wearing plaid, and this is the epitome of ‘hey we’re gonna wear boring grey shirts to lose in 12x08 and boring grey jumpsuits all of 12x09’ for the Winchesters to keep them out of it, but Mary has the same under layers as at Mulroney’s but instead of dark grey-green she’s wearing her tan jacket, the Cas colour scheme because they’re bonding, and hilariously (or not >.>) the colour Sam is wearing in 12x21 in the letter scene… Dean has a plaid in these colours too which he wore in 12x13 to see Gavin reunited with his lost love, and first wore in 10x14 at the very end, so I’ve got it lodged in my brain as the Colette/pining set of colours on others.

I guess in Mary’s case here it’s not about dead lovers, but an upgrade to focusing on a now problem instead of a past problem, and also of course is part of the huge Cas n Mary web of parallels, of which this episode visually doubles down on with the Cas missing Dean paralleling Mary in 12x03 missing John sitting at the table in the dark in the Bunker thing. Actually missing Sam n Dean, she sits at the kitchen table, the private family space, to avoid any cross-contamination of visual images, and links to the bacon scene in 12x03 where she and Cas both refused to engage with Dean’s happy family breakfast…

In the first scene Mary’s wearing this we get introduced by ANOTHER pan up from her boots (her… 3rd? maybe? already) this time again showing she’s wearing Dean-like boots, and her more killing-things friendly belt choice, and dark red plaid (so dark you can’t see it well >.>) and dark pink shirt, all of which screams Mark of Cain and Dean parallels.

Cas is still not wearing plaid.

this is the most generic Winchester plaid she has so far rather than one that yells mark of cain or the family balance and integration themes - everything from “what you needed most” to Dean n Sam getting to a better understanding re: all 12x22 did for them as well) but fits in the TFW plaid from earlier, with tan and blue (Dean is wearing his original tan plaid in that scene in 5x13 although not the first time he wears it - it goes back to Nightshifter and for some reason my brain always tells me he didn’t have the plaid until 8x01 at which point I briefly clip out of reality every time he first appears in it in season 2 :P) Anyway 5x13 is aaaall about Mary and their family destiny/curses (I say curses because it’s about the apocalypse but Michael throws in the Cain and Abel thing for free)

Since Sam n Dean didn’t get a chance this episode (and were purposefully wearing non-memorable clothes in 12x08 so nothing important got lost) she’s covered the whole plaid thing for them. She’s making the choice to work with the BMoL here and wearing Sam-like plaid in a Dean-like way - note the sleeves too - but ultimately this arc does fall on Sam.

Anyway she is acting as the representative head of the family here making the decision for them.

12x12:

ANON YOU ARE WRONG. All 4 Winchesters are wearing plaid, because my brain just clipped out of reality while I had it paused like this:

and my brother who is coincidentally here on the other side of my monitor and I forgot was in the room because he’s listening to podcasts, stretched, and his plaid-covered elbow appeared behind Cas and I thought it was his.

(I’m very tired, it’s been a loooong day)

Anyway Sam’s wearing blue and white, Mary is wearing blue and black, Dean is wearing Burger Date Plaid which is more important for the diner scene than the rest of the episode, and Cas is at least going to have the decency to nearly die on the plaid sofa the same-ish pattern as Dean’s shirt next episode.

I suppose when 3 Winchesters get together all wearing plaid, Bad Shit Happens, so if all FOUR of them wore plaid at once, reality might fracture, and considering season 13 looks like reality is going to be having some serious fracturing issues anyway… Yeah. Bad idea.

Even Wally is wearing plaid…

Much luck it gave him.

Anyway Mary’s generally having some more dark arc stuff, with a blank henley and the evil version of sam’s plaid, and a nondescript pale green jacket over the top. The ONLY reason Mary has this many plain nondescript jackets of varying hues is for symbolism. In this case green is kinda toxic and since she and Sam have negative versions of each other’s plaid and connect over the yellow eyes thing, I think it’s more about her guilt.

This all transforms at the end to the 3rd version on a simple outfit, of the one from 12x09 but this time with pale blue to make her even more Cas-like, but these colours could honestly just be associated with bad decisions, given the context here… I mean, not like Cas isn’t a freakin beacon of them :P

She also blends nicely into the diner, with its blue and beige tones. Compared to Ketch in his fancy suit. She also isn’t wearing plaid for this, going under the table with this as it were.

12x13:

Sam, Dean and Mary aren’t all in the same scene but Dean is wearing dark grey/puple and Sam a dary grey/blue with thin red lines - Mary’s wearing the opposite again, white with thick red outlined in blue.

She’s also untucked on the same side again.

Sam and Dean swap into the generic red plaid for Sam and the TFW/Cas plaid I mentioned for Dean - beige, white and blue, which he wears the rest of the episode while dealing with the MacLeod family drama.

This is their most plaid intensive episode, then as all of them get a costume change and all opt for more plaid. They’re working on family loyalty stuff so it’s quite important.

Mary’s next one is for the very monotone scene with Ketch, where she’s wearing grey and brown, and her shirt isn’t tucked interestingly or anything.

I think that’s about as much as you need to say about this episode :P

12x14:

Ooops I forgot 12x13 fed into this episode. In my defence it’s a bad idea to split a 2 episode cliffhanger by cliffhangering like 3-4 minutes before the end of the episode, even though the next episode is going to start immediately where you left off with what of all of the things happening in your cluttered episode is the main plot thread… Ah well.

Mary shows up in a cream henley, under a strawberries and cream plaid - although pink is a baaad sign on this show, I guess she may have been aiming for cute and mumsy again, but not wearing the cute XOXOXOX family integration theme plaid from 12x02 when it looked she might have a hope of doing that before draaaama hit.

Sam is wearing all black (keeping out of the way in the fight and thematically) and Dean is wearing a non-pink and much more tightly patterned shirt (he’s drawing those family lines closer together) in the same broad colour category as Mary’s, but does sort of link them - they have a fight that gets thiiis close to dealing with Dean had to be the mom all their lives not Mary, because Berens and all, but they don’t get close enough and it has to wait until 12x22 after this, but it aligns them in a different way to how Sam and Mary have been having night and day versions of each other’s plaids, just as her blue n red plaid is so similar to Dean colours, but not the ways Sam wears it.

We then cut to her wearing her black tactical gear, and in an alarming move for a Winchester, later just a tank top. Incidentally they should all do this more often, Mary right through to Cas. She however is not bearing all, because her texts just aren’t laying out the whole problem and I don’t think she can see it, because she brings sam to meet her, and gives him the pitch as soon as he gets out the car.

The main day of the action, Dean wears a red shirt, Sam wears blue, white and beige plaid (They own a LOT of these colour-combinations)

Mary is wearing red and black plaid I think the same as 12x09’s main action, which aligns her with Dean (for the Ketch seduction parallel?) and sets her at odds with Sam so they’re not too conspicuously wearing night and day versions of each others’ clothes. They ARE both wearing hunter plaid (as Dean says, to do the job you put on a flannel…) while dealing with the hunter specific arc of the season, while Dean is wearing a plain red shirt, which he uses to face inner demons. Mary’s colour aligns her with Dean, the pattern with Sam, and he wears a red plaid shirt more often than Dean these days. For Sam and Mary it’s an episode where they’re doing their thing together. Especially as it deals with repercussions not root causes - their lives branched, and Mary’s giving Sam the speech about a world without monsters like he can reclaim what life he lost, but he is on the path to lead the hunters and all his MoL stuff, so the TFW/bad decisions colours are appropriate? Mary’s on a dark arc which the actions make clear but the red plaid is always a nice reminder of when it’s channelling Dean… Sam wears his with impunity.

12x17:

Another episode where Mary and Sam n Dean are separated for the most part so can get away with them all having at least worn plaid in the same episode, though 12x12 remains the only one they all wore it TOGETHER (see above: look what happens >.>)

I’m still bothered by the way Buckleming often write Sam and Dean as a total matching unit and I never managed to put my finger on it until this episode when they give Mick the “so yeah Lucifer’s baby is a thing” speech because it combines multiple other scenes they’ve written in the past to finally just make SamandDean a stock exposition unit. I probably have another post to write about this and how they helped contribute to an overall weird feeling with both sides of the fandom stanning for 1 brother and some who love both feeling their fave/s was totally sidelined this season - done right Sam n Dean as passive viewers to the story is a great device (11x14!!) and this season did it a lot as a way to lighten the load on dudes who managed to have 3 babies between the two of them this year in the space of a couple of months, but also to broaden the story to give Cas and Mary development and to follow some other threads beyond what the Winchesters see and know just because the show has grown so far out of its original bounds… But anyway this wardrobe moment the morning after makes Sam and Dean literally dress identically to talk to Mick, and the show knows the theme, it just wasn’t well-done here, and I love the use over all in the season but this episode made me really side-eye the execution.

The wardrobe in the Mary stuff was good though. She wears her XOXOXOXOX plaid with the red n blue blah blah family integration theme - Dean’s wearing his About A Boy plaid up there, incidentally, which is red and BLACK lines - Mary’s one was her uniform for saving Sam at the start of the season and she’s at a cusp of things here. She’s in a comfortable pattern working with Ketch, but I think lets her guard down to sleep with him, and though she puts up emotional walls immediately and there’s all the stuff with her ring and mourning and wanting to have both hunting and family (a GOOD side of the red n blue theme in other places) she’s really putting herself on the path that leads to her mini demon!Dean arc in 12x21/22 as the inevitable result of this Mark of Cain arc stuff since midseason.

12x20:

Grey jumpsuits, for her and Ketch, which now I’m looking at the costumes for season 12, should have been an even more obvious clue after 12x09, although honestly the fake out introduction to Mary in this episode with the shifter in captivity with her face > the end of the episode with Mary captured, was pretty telling without throwing in the obvious prison uniform imagery that this jumpsuit transforms completely depending on context; Mary in the chair or Mary out the chair.

Sam n Dean off on their side of things has Sam in the 12x12 light blue shirt, Dean in his off-brand demon!Dean shirt which isn’t a demon!Dean shirt at all, but one of coping and better decisions and trying a better way. But looks a whole lot like the old ways on the surface :P

Mary, meanwhile, is wearing grey plaid again. The prison jumpsuits thing is making me wonder belatedly if wearing grey this season has been about imprisonment, metaphorically or not - Sam wore it in 12x01 etc, and Kelly had a grey coat she wore a lot.

this one is darker, and with her black coat, her henley buttoned almost all the way up. Mary is defensive and secretive and beginning to be very suspicious about what she got herself into, investigating or interrogating in all her scenes except for the one where she kicks Ketch in the nuts aka the best thing Mary did for like all of 2 more episodes before she was like “I wanna punch the Devil in the face” because after killing Ketch she needed new goals :P

12x21:

Bearing in mind how MANY times she changes her clothes, including swapping out jackets and all, once she’s under the BMoL’s control, she has a freshly laundered set of exactly what she was wearing in 12x20 and no changes. It’s out of her control to decide now.

She starts dressed jacket and all, then is down to the plaid in the next scene and finally stripped down to the henley and a single layer as the BMoL metaphorically strip her inside too.

Then, new DARK jacket, I think a looser shirt, but the SAME grey plaid at the end. Untucked, on the wrong side.

Incidentally if you want bad things happening when all the Winchesters are in one room in plaid, Sam’s in a generic Sam shirt, Dean in his red and black checked plaid which is aaaalmost exactly like both Sam and Mary’s version of it, but not like the About a Boy one or other variations he has on the theme.

12x22

Hey guess who is now wearing grey plaid with RED AND BLUE in it under the black jacket? Aka Mary is imprisoned (we’re going with this, pls ignore how I’ve decided like 50% of the themes AS I analysed it :P) but has family back in her plaid - a sign she can be brought back, and a reason to hope at this point, and by the end of the episode, what she’s wearing for FAMILY REINTEGRATION :D

Hey look they all wear plaid :D

This may or may not open a rift in reality.

12x23:

Mary is back in white but in a wearing comfy plaid way, and it’s got blue and red in it. She’s mom again, but now updated and upgraded to being a hunter in the GOOD way not the way in 12x01 where she wore a white lace shirt just to hastily make her practical for one day of action, but she’s comfortably being Mom Winchester in the new understanding of what their family is.

Sam and Dean are in red and blue-ish colour coding although Dean’s actually in grey and you know what fuck them wearing grey. Take that shirt off right now.

nothing happens to Dean but he does kind of get shattered at the end of the episode and we don’t know what would happen to him next, so like I said maybe just avoid on principle.

Anyway the whole family looks all comfy and soft, at least until Dean and Mary put practical jackets over theirs, and Sam stacks the orange jacket over the brown-red plaid.

Cas continues to not wear plaid and pays the ultimate price. Get with the picture, buddy.

#Asks #the sam shoe saga #this is needlessly long #my stuff #season 12 #Mary F Winchester

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