Nerding about Fashion

Spring has started to show itself in earenst in Alne, bringing with it warmer weather and winds that are blowing a few sparce clouds across the sky. With it, people have begun spending more time out doors, so there is a certain level of activity that is now returning to the city streets, accompanied by some measure of relief at the driving out of the Palace Landers.

Kita has decided to spend this warm day outside of Gwen's shop, working on some spring dress designs for the Tailor. The two have had a long-running agreement since the early days of being trapped that Kita would provide designs from time to time, offering some expansion to the clothing lines offered.

The Imp's blue and white hair is pinned back to keep it out of her eyes as the wind catches the tips of it from time to time and flutters the strands in the breeze. Her glasses have slipped down her nose, but she seems to be intently doodling various designs for dresses, occasionally looking up to observe the current dress for those living in Alne.

Gwen has caught word that Kita was around town more and had set to hunt down. Gwen is clad her normal armor today, rather than say her Nei cosplay or her old heavy blade outfit. With the latter belonging on the long running American comic mag Heavy Metal. She would come up on the imp and says. "SO working on new ideas Kita?"

There is a twitch of one pointed ear as Kita looks up, then pushes her glasses up on her nose. She looks Gwen up and down for a moment before responding, perhaps still in that analytical, design-focused mode of thought. "Going to a raid today?" She asks, perhaps a little surprised to see Gwen decked out in her tank armor in the city.

Then, she looks down at the page in front of her before coming back again to reguard the tailor. "Well, I do owe you a few from before the War distracted us all. I figured you wouldn't mind a new line of spring designs."

Gwen says "Naw it's laundry day, everything else is being cleaned or getting durablity fixed." She notes with a grin. Then her eyes home in on the page like a hungry Shark spotting food. "Do tell my friend. Also we'll need something special for Uta and Shiruba..."

"You wear your armor on laundry day?" Kita asks, looking a bit confused at the prospect. "I usually just lay around in a slip when Jurou is washing our clothes. It has benefits. One, it is comfortable, and two... it can tend to lead to wearing even less clothes if I'm lucky." Her lip quirks slightly.

Tapping a pencil onto her sketchbook, tilting it so Gwen can see. There seem to be two sets of designs, one that is leans more towards Lander sensibilities, and one with more of the flare that Adventurers tend to crave in their attire.

"So, what exactly do you have in mind for Shiruba and Uta and how much fun will I have in designing it?" Kita asks, obviously interested in the prospect.

Gwen says "Yes if I were to just wear a slip? My mother would get ideas for outfits to put me in." She makes a amused look on her face. "Sadly I have no one at the moment so don't got that coming for me. I'm still thinking, but I think something like a slime themed farmers outfit for Uta as for Shiruba...."

"Like mother like daughter." Kita muses, offering up a soft laugh. "I'm more my dad, though." She doesn't elaborate further on just what that might mean. Instead, the Imp's tail twitches at her side as she seems amused by the topic. "I'm sure you could find someone to share your bed if you wanted to. You're pretty enough. I mean, I'd sleep with you if I wasn't already attached." Kita talks about such things as if they were completely mundane.

"Anyways..." She also is quick to move on from that topic, "If we're going farmer themed for Uta, we have to do overalls. Maybe with little slime embroidery?" Kita is already getting ideas, starting to sketch out a model onto her page that looks pretty spot on to Uta's build.

Gwen gives Kita a look. "I'm nothing like my mo...." Gwen turns red at Kita admission about sleeping with her if Kita wasn't wioth someone. She quickly recover and ahems. "Yes and a good straw hat that looks like a slime maybe with a small slime pin?"

Oh, Gwen might recover quickly, but Kita /knows/. She KNOWS. Thankfully she doesn't torture her friends nearly as much as she used to. The Imp has learned that flirting with people, even teasingly, can be taken the wrong way and certainly doesn't want to hurt anyone. So, she just smirks.

"Well, we could shape the top of the hat so it's round like a slime, and give it two googly-eyes so it looks like the hat is alive?" She comments, starting to add the details to the drawing.

"So what were you thinking of for Shiruba?" She's already laying out the hat and overall design in a familiar way that she does for the rest of Gwen's products. There's a turn around view of a sketchy version of Uta with all the details on the front and back.

Gwen says "Oh yes maybe enchant it so the eyes move and blink."

Shge grins evne wider.

"Humm she's got her formal attire covered We have to avoid anything like Flannel we had a camping trip go bad on Earth." She seems to think for a bit more. "I'm open for ideas..."

"That's a possibility, though you'll likely have to find an enchanter if you don't have the ability, yourself." Kita doesn't exactly know all of what Gwen is capable of, but she jots the idea down on the sheet. "That's beyond my skills, unfortunately."

Kita lifts the pencil and taps it on her chin, catching a scarred spot next to her lip with her teeth as she thinks. "Well, Shiruba always rides in those Peko races, doesn't she? Maybe we can design her a set of riding gear?"

"The Darkness," Uta spells out, audible, just barely loud enough to no longer qualify as a whisper. "All that training. And now, I can feel it. My perception, shifting. My sight, attuning. The Darkness has invaded my senses, and now, it is time ot reach into the Realm of the Dark, feel the magical energies, let -them- guide m- oh, wait."

Uta, who has just walked out from Gwen's shop (where she's probably being a guest while in Alne) lifts the sleeping mask that was covering her eyes. Black, just like the pyjama she's wearing. Black pants. Black shirt. Black cap with an equally black pom-pom, with two "googly eyes" (or whatever comes closest in this world), and two sets of longer 'strings' that function as stick figure arms and feet, making it look like a bouncing animated soot ball as she walks.

"...Hi Gwen, Kita. What are you two up to?"

Gwen thinks for a moment. "Oh your right I can rope Haru into it I bet." She grins even more.

"Oh Riding gear we could pattern it after a motorcyle rider suit I bet so leather.... for one and huh Darkness? She's off doing God knows what with Kazuma and the rest of her party."

Gwen prays she does not have to clean up a mess those ... four have made any time soon. Not that she hates that group of misfits though. Wait not that darkness.

"unn Uta why are you going Chuni?"

At the mention of darkness, a small mote of the stuff seems to peek up over Kita's shoulder, eyeing Uta with a cock-eyed expression. It is almost like what her pom-pom is supposed to be, but actually as a real, living thing. Or, well, as living as a relic can be. It floats above Kita's shoulder, then sweeps back behind her as if it had a mind of its own.

"Interesting attire you have there, Uta." Kita comments, chuckling to herself. As the usual individual who dresses in black and wields dark magic, she certainly can understand the aesthetic.

"Designing outfits for you and Shiruba." Kita answers plainly, her storm-blue eyes looking back to Gwen. "We'd probably have to find some pretty high quality hides to make the leather, but it's possible. So a motorcycle jacket, maybe with some embroidered patches? Maybe one to represent her Peko..." Kita already has some ideas as she starts sketching a figure of Shiruba and a possible outfit to go with it.

"I'm learning from Haru, and he's learning from me," Uta replies to Gwen without skipping a beat. "The blind leading the blind. The perfect setup for a Dark training, don't you agree?", she offers with a smile, before returning to furrowing her brow. "...who's Kazuma?"

Abrupt change of subject and direction, as she pivots on one foot, and spots the mote. "...Oh, hello there, little fellow!", she says with a smile. A pause. A frown. "What does it eat? Little colorful candies? Hm. I have none of those on me. Maybe..." She extends one hand, and with the vocalization of a little musical passage, something that could equally be described as 'quiet ominous chanting' and 'creepy lullaby', a few specks of Darkness bubble up from her hand, and stay afloat just above it. "You want a nibble? You eat the stuff?", Uta offers, extending what, she hopes (since she has no idea) will be viable food for the creature.

"...Leather?", Uta asks confused. "Oh. For Shiruba. And her Peko. Makes... sense, I guess. Pekos are ETO's motorbikes. Hm." Head-scratch. "I need to start wearing a helmet when I ride Not Stolen." Another big smile, a flick of her hand at Gwen. "That's very nice of you Gwen, but there's no need to go through the hassle. I already have an outfit."

Sudden snap of Uta's finger! "That reminds me!" she exclaims, before turning to Kita again and hurrying to add, "-The part about the attire, not the part about Kazuma. I still have no idea of who that one is." She inhales, wiggles her finger, as she bites the tip of her tongue, as if in an attempt to squeeze out whatever's stuck on its tip, repeating, "...Kazuma Kazuma Kazuma..." to herself, in a misguided attempt to jog her memory.

"-Goth!", is what she finally exclaims, her finger shooting forward to point at Kita. "I was supposed to go through a goth phase! Someone said so. Perhaps Gwen. Perhaps Haru. Perhaps Kazuma. I don't remember, and to be honest, I don't even have any idea of who the last one is."

Her frown returns, as she tries to make sense of what she's just said, a laudable effort that, alas, has to be aborted due to its compounding duration becoming incompatible with a fluid conversation. "...how does one goth? What are the philosophical foundations of the Zen of Goth? Its guiding principles? Like, you know, the Three Treasures of Taoism? The four Noble Truths of Buddhism?"

Gwen looks over at Uta for a moment and she thinks for a moment as an idea fills her mind.

"Yeah wolf themed. I got a few good wolf jokes we could do for that. Heck I could go USA fighter nose art..." Oh god she's got ideas and is showing she is Morri's daughter.

"Another person in my guild. He's got a repuation for being... wait you want to go Goth?!"

In moments when Uta begins to ramble, Kita does as she always does, which is tune out a lot in the middle and focus on the 'big questions'. So, she waits for the Spriggan to get to the point, and doodling designs on a drawing that looks like a sketchy version of Shiruba.

The mote, on the other hand, seems to peek at Uta, and then zoom out, gathering the bits of darkness as it goes, spinning around the Spriggan twice, and then zooms back to perch on Kita's shoulder. The Imp barely seems to notice the antics.

"Goth?" Kita hones in on this particular part of the conversation. "Well, most of my teenage years I was more goth-punk bit I suppose I have a decent idea of what you might be going for."

Her pencil pauses, "I can definitely design you an outfit that would fit the aesthetic. You've got the dark hair already, and if we did some eye liner your eyes would really pop in a way that could be unsettling in a good way." She suggests. "You want a black dress, tight fitting in the bodice, and looser in the legs and train. Fishnets, fingerless gloves..." She rattles off a few things.

"But, a lot of it is also in the attitude. Serious, macabre, edgy..." Kita lifts one eyebrow which still has a scar from a piecing long gone. "Not sure you have that in you."

"A person in your guild that asks people if they want to go goth? Uh," says Uta. "Well, tell him I am, if that's the kind of thing he's interested in. I'm going goth, and figuring out what it means, exactly. In that order." Uta does not mention that she's in the same guild as Gwen. It is unclear whether she doesn't consider it polite to bring it up, or she is unaware of the connection at the moment. This being Uta, it could go either way.

"My eyes would -what-?!" Uta sputters at Kita, pulling back. "...oh. OH. You mean metaphorically." She takes one hand to her forehead. "Sorry, I've been treating patients who foolishly ran the dungeon where Karaghan the Eye-Exploding Abomination is the final boss, and- let's just say that the status effects are less than pleasant." Shudder.

A tug to rid her pyjama shirt from wrinkles and her mood from lingering concerns, and she's ready to slowly accumulate new mild concerns as, accounting for some delay, her brain catches up with Kita's enumerations. "...There's an aesthetic to it?", she asks with genuine surprise.

The idea-jogging effect of scratching one's head, once again, proves overrated, the results visibly below the expectations most people tend to associate with to this action, "I... I suppose that's what the whole point of the training is? Gaining the attitude? Makes you more attuned with Dark? Maybe I should start with that, and focus on it. I mean, what's the point of the aesthetic if you cannot nail the fundamentals? Accidents without substance. Which, now that I think about it, could be an Aristotelian philosopher's way of saying 'even if you're sober, you can still crash your car-' wait, no. I'm rambling again."

Clear throat. "Serious. Macabre. Edgy. I got this." Big inhale, and-

-and somehow, she makes- an actually pretty decent poker face, one has to say.

Gwen pauses for a moment opens a menu and changes her outfit soon the heavy metal cover armor appears on her body.

"Got to get into the spirit of it of it right? Though I don't have much in the way of skulls and spikes."

She pauses "NO NO! He has a rep as a creep!"

Gwen is almost panicing at this point.

https://i.imgur.com/xtKewr9.jpg

The mote of darkness peeks up and seems to give Uta an appraising look, but then ducks back down again, giving off a puff of black smoke. "I'll sketch up an outfit design and some makeup options. Though you might have to talk to one of the accessory forgers for the right jewelry to go with it."

With that, Kita flips a page and begins on a new one, starting with another sketchy 3-view of Uta, and then start to sketch out what looks to be a very gothic lolita style dress, complete with lace across the shoulders, fingerless gloves, and lace choker across the throat. There is also a close up of Uta's face with accentuated makeup around the eyes and lips and far more severe set to her eyebrows.

It doesn't look at all like Uta, but it definitely is Uta. That's what a good designer can do for you. "This will take me a bit to finish up, but I'm sure Gwen can get it started for you."

"Oh, hey, it's me!", Uta exclaims, as she seems to take notice of the sketchbook for the first time. "And that is-" She squints. "...the Girl from the Menu?! Hm. It's her, but at the same time, it's not -her-. There's something... -darker- to her." Pause. "...a Dire Girl from the Menu?"

Uta does perk up at the little mote's antics, and is about to react to them when Gwen, well, takes up her full attention. "Uh... that is..." Uta goes completely silent as she looks for what to say next. "...an outfit," she offers, with a final nod. Head shake, grimace. "No, no. Serious. Macabre. Edgy! You got this, Uta!"

Ahem. Big inale. Poker face.

Weight resting on one foot, she crosses her arms and casts a distracted sideways galance in Gwen's direction. "Let's all have a minute of silence for the poor little pangolin that was slain to make that outfit." A slight shrug as she glances at the knuckles of one hand with nonchalance. "At least it looks like you can make at least nine more outfits out of the same small hide."

Uta beams and looks expectantly between the two, as if for asking, 'so, how was that? Huh? Huh? Serious, macabre, and edgy enough?'

Gwen laughs for a moment at the comment on her outfit.

"It was a drop I fear Uta still you make a good point." she looks her friend over for a moment and she says. "...girl from the menu?"

She just stares for a moment. "I think that's some progress but some more practice may be needed though if you fail I may just have to get your you own suit of this as well..."