That's okay, I didn't take it for one. Guess I wanted to make clear to people that when I use something for reference, that means it generally looks like that, not that it looks exactly like that.
For example, this was the art that initially inspired Yumemi, even if it could barely pass for a forty-year-old woman.
Speaking of Yumemi, I was a little worried about writing that scene where Koyomi punched her in the face, worried it could look a little like domestic abuse given they're exes, but people haven't seemed to mind so far. And it's no worse than the fight they had at the start of the Arc
"I did not bring you here to 'prove' RUNE's accomplishments to you, as if it affects anything what one recluse author thinks of us, for all our personal history," she stared into Koyomi's eyes for a second.
Well it is mostly consistent with the description I gave of undisguised Blue Lotus previously. Except the eyes and mouth, since that ad doesn't have the inky splotches:
Speaking of Yumemi, I was a little worried about writing that scene where Koyomi punched her in the face, worried it could look a little like domestic abuse given they're exes, but people haven't seemed to mind so far. And it's no worse than the fight they had at the start of the Arc
Well, it would be kinda silly to ding an enemies-to-lovers fic for domestic violence if the violence ended way before they got domestic. This is like that, but temporally reversed.
Well we are not keeping it a secret I'll tell you that much. That being said it seems important to do this right. RUNE is very powerful and I doubt they will take us spilling such damning secrets sitting down (unless there is a strong chance no one will believe us which is it's own problem). Eather way we could use some planning and insight. Plus Koyomi should know if we end up bringing the wrath of RUNE down on our heads.
Then the second wave came in, 'soldiers' who looked like Frankenstein'd, or rather Moreau'd, hybrids of feline and human, a whole pack of big cats upright. "Nepeta's creations, have we? Knowing her tastes, I commend her restraint in not dressing you all in butler and Chippendale costumes," Blue Lotus said.
Well it is mostly consistent with the description I gave of undisguised Blue Lotus previously. Except the eyes and mouth, since that ad doesn't have the inky splotches:
I hadn't noticed the description of its "eyes" and "mouth". That gives it a rather... Classic Who Cyberman vibe:
(I've thought entirely too much about the Cybermen, particularly the version of them from their original appearance in "The Tenth Planet", all the way back with the First Doctor. Here's a rendering of them by LapisRod (link to their ArtStation):
While their design was 100% driven more by the lack of a budget than anything, the original Cybermen still have a uniquely uncanny air. They aren't encased in metal head to toe, as many of the later Cybermen would be, and that creates a certain 'surgical horror' vibe.
The cloth shrinkwrapped over their heads evokes some kind of medical gauze, and the almost comical opening for their mouth becomes uncanny all over again when they speak, because aside from opening a little wider, their mouths don't move at all while they're talking - implying that there's no tongue or teeth or even lips behind the cloth, just a speaker mounted at the back of the throat, in among the atmospheric filtration intake sealing off the esophagus.
Even their entirely human hands seem a little eerie when they mention having devised a means of replacing "nearly all" of their "original parts". They're the last major holdout of biology in their schematics, the only point where nature's work hasn't yet been rendered obsolete. Even then, all they could possibly be preserving are the complex joints and tactile sensors; the dermis has been fortified with nanomaterials to resist vacuum, the tissues suffused with anti-cryonic compounds, the cells oxygenated by synthetic fluids being circulated via mechanical pump.
It's quite ironic, then, that these Cybermen are by far the most human, especially when compared to their successors in New Who... but I've digressed entirely too much already.
Quite astute, given the Cybermen were actually one of the Frost Fair's inspirations, being icy emotionless aliens who take away other people's emotions and add them to their horde, though a big difference is Cybermen have no interest in getting their emotions back.
Other inspirations include the Lunarians from Houseki no Kuni except the Frostfarers aren't death-seekers, a bit of the backstory to The Snow Queen, and of course Nobodies from Kingdom Hearts, though going by the fan theory that can they feel emotions but just have difficulty doing so.
Which does remind me of the issues with writing emotionless villains in that it can be hard to portray them as truly emotionless, hence why the Cybermen's and Organisation XIII's can be so inconsistently characterized.
That's not the only DW reference so far though, with RUNE having similarities with UNIT but more antagonistic (and obviously magical), and the episode 'Dalek' was an influence on the just finished Lazarus arc, as different as the lone Dalek's and Blue Lotus' demeanours are
WELP, you've opened the floodgates and now I'm transcribing my description of the Cybermen of Mondas from a Discord convo, in which I described their characterizaton as 'almost avant garde, in a way':
To set out what I mean, here's the first real exchange of words involving a Cyberman in the series. The Cyberman in question has essentially barged into the main bridge of a research vessel out in space, and in a moment that's rather representative of what I mean, the Cyberman is conducting itself in a way that's more disconcerting than anything, and not at all intimidating or threatening.
Some of this is the specific voice being used for them. It's clearly artificial, but also reminiscent of how it sounds if you inexpertly cut together audio clips of someone speaking to construct a new sentence - words drag on or sharply cut off, the tone abruptly pitches up or down, all seemingly at random.
To quote the episode's script, "The Cyberman opens its mouth, but does not move its lips, as it speaks in a strange sing-song tone that puts emphasis in all the wrong places."
+++
General Cutler: "Look, I don't who you are or what you are, but we've got two men in space - and if we don't act now, they won't come back alive!"
Cyberman Krail: They willnot return.
* murmuring, general outcry, someone shouts 'Why not?!' *
Cyberman Krail: It is unimportant now.
General Cutler:But we must get them back, we-
* He tries to make for a nearby console, but is stopped by a curt gesture from the Cyberman *
Cyberman Krail: There is really no point: they could never reach Earth now.
Polly: But don't you care?!
Cyberman Krail:Care? No. Why? Should I care?[/QUOTE]
Polly: Because they're people and they're going to die!
Krail: I do not understand you. There are people dying all over your world, yet you do not care about them.
+++
Krail, clearly considering the matter settled, bulls on through Polly's attempts at a rejoinder and gets to what what was clearly his planned subject matter: recent events in the solar system and their import for humanity and the Cybermen.
He is quickly forced onto a tangent explaining why he and his crew don't look human, despite mentioning that their peoples were once "exactly the same" - and the specific explanation is also very indicative of what I'm driving at.
Krail summarizes it as, roughly, "our lifespans were decreasing, and it became necessary to develop spare parts, eventually allowing for our original bodies to be almost fully replaced."
+++
POLLY: But that means you're not like us. You're robots!
KRAIL:Our brains are just like yours, except that certain weaknesses have been removed.
BARCLAY: Weaknesses? What weaknesses?
KRAIL: You call them emotions, do you not?
POLLY: But that's terrible. You - you mean you wouldn't care about someone in pain?
KRAIL: There would be no need, we do not feel pain.
POLLY: But we do-
* Suddenly, Cutler lunges to a desk and presses a button. *
CUTLER: Ha, that'll fix you! Europe will know there's an emergency here now.
KRAIL: That was really most unfortunate. You should not have done that.
+++
What I meant about them seeming avant garde is that these Cybermen are "emotionless" primarily in the sense of being indifferent. The barrier keeping Krail from grasping why they care about their two colleagues is primarily a cultural one.
Likewise, the particulars of their voices give their lines a sense of slight intellectual curiosity, or perhaps mild confusion, rather than anything like distaste or impatience. They aren't barking orders, they're attempting to have a conversation and just kind of fording ahead as best they can while their counterparts insist on bringing up bizarre irrelevancies and trying to drag them away from the clear matter at hand.
They're to-the-point and efficient in a fairly human manner - they don't have a pressing deadline, so they're willing to follow along with these 'meaningless' tangents a bit.
Just in general, they're characterized in a way that feels appropriate for what you'd get if you took a human and then subtracted X and Y emotional elements from their thought processes, while the new series' Cybermen are more classically "robotic".
It helps that in this introductory story, "The Tenth Planet", the Cybermen are about as close as they get to being reasonable and even sympathetic.
Well, sympathetic in a sense that isn't necessarily tragic.
Their planet, Mondas, originally shared Earth's orbit, until it was eventually knocked clear of the solar system entirely in a cosmic freak accident. As you would expect, their world quickly became uninhabitable as its new trajectory took it away from the Sun, forcing the inhabitants to retreat into underground arcologies.
It's established that the Mondasians managed to get along for thousands of years after this point, with the march of history and culture continuing within and among the arcologies despite the radical change in circumstances.
Still, things eventually turned sour. Various crises, both internal and external, wore away the infrastructure which allowed them to survive, and simple wear and tear on top of that would render the arcologies increasingly less amenable to human life. The most badly deteriorated regions were abandoned, with the population contracting and condensing within the portions which had held up the best.
The forerunners of the Cybermen were members of the expeditionary corps which was sent out to harvest useful materials and machinery from the abandoned arcologies. As time went on and those regions became increasingly hostile to human life, cybernetics were developed to replace limbs lost to frostbite, better insulate the vital organs against cold and radiation should their suits be compromised, and otherwise improve the survivability and quality of life for these corpsmen. Integrating many of these new inventions with the existing hardware of their exo-suits was an obvious choice.
After a certain point, the level of enhancement actually became an impediment for corpsmen who tried to reintegrate with Mondasian society after their tours. Not only did they often face stigma for their appearances, the cybernetics reached a point where it was increasingly possible for them to outlive their unmodified friends and family back home, even once they changed over to the lesser grade of components for members not on active duty.
It's implied that altering the mentality of corpsmen arose out of last-ditch forms of therapeutic care for veterans, which were themselves derived from various tricks for helping corpsmen avoid suffering body dysmorphia from their augmentations.
A kind of... barracks transhumanism.
Even as their numbers, influence, and degree of mental alteration increased, these proto-Cybermen never even considered trying to impose their enhancements on the general population. They might no longer fully understand their countrymen, but they didn't view them as lesser. Their alterations were what was necessary to perform their duties, and that was the only meaning they held.
When the day finally came where all Mondasians were 'processed', it was motivated as much by the Cyberman equivalent of compassion as anything. The last redoubts of unmodified humanity had entered a terminal phase. The life support systems were breaking down. The cold was creeping in. Even the most optimistic projections showed that by the time even minimal repairs could be effected, the vast majority of Mondasians would have already died.
So... they did what was necessary to save as many lives as they could. They had no way of really grasping why someone would choose to die rather than become like them, and there was no time to debate the matter.
Due to the lack of prior training and psychological evaluation, the mass-converted Mondasians experienced much greater degrees of psychological stress post-processing than the norm.
Cyberman Krail, being dozens of generations removed from this time, described the resultant epidemic of suicides as a drop in lifespan, and the eventual extremes the corpsmen were driven to in order to stop the epidemic as 'removing weaknesses'.
Such ideas of suicide, despair, existential horror, and the like are simply foreign to Krail, much as we would struggle to truly grasp what it was like to be an Egyptian temple scribe.
The most villainous thing they did in "The Tenth Planet" was trying to prevent the total annihilation of Mondas, even if it meant destroying Earth instead - and, much like the corpsmen of old, Krail and his men viewed offering to process the population of Earth and give them shelter on Mondas as 'simply the decent thing to do'.
Hell, they didn't even intend to use forced processing, which gives the impression that the Mondasian Cybermen grasped, however dimly, that their own value sets weren't necessarily universal, and that if the humans wished to self-terminate, that was an equally valid decision.
They come across as alien beings, rather than humans that have been debased and lobotomized into monsters.
[X] Blow this whistle the first chance she got; the people had every right to know!
What puts me over the line on this one is that the fallout of this is going to be pretty noticeable, and even if RUNE is insane enough to hamstring efforts to find Blue Lotus in the hopes of sweeping this under the rug, it beggars belief that all of the Hanazakari affiliated with RUNE would meekly fall in line - especially if any have the same thought about the Resurrection that's been voiced in-thread.
RUNE will almost certainly try to discredit and/or bury us, but I'm willing to bet that Blue Lotus will make himself known before long, which significantly strengthens our credibility in the eyes of the public. Especially if we mention what specifics we have: the moniker 'Blue Lotus', a description of the human form he wore for his escape, etc.
If we're very, very lucky, then Hachiro (and maybe even Yumemi) could bestir themselves in some fashion on our behalf.
EDIT: Also, there's more reason to do this than 'the people deserve to know' - it's not terribly likely that we could get our story onto the national news or anything (unless we can get some kind of affidavit from one of the Hanazakari at the base, backing our account), but if there are any Hanazakari still on alert for the Frost Fair, it's worth it for the chance of them seeing our warning and mobilizing.
@ArlequineLunaire - would the true appearance of Frostfarers, the fact that they incubate Heart Leeches inside their bodies, or any other details of our encounter be something that's not commonly known, and thus potentially legitimizing if we include it in our article?
I believe we have to be somewhat worried about them discrediting us they could literally just hire other people to prove that way are unreliable and destroying our career before it even begin so we have to be careful
Then the second wave came in, 'soldiers' who looked like Frankenstein'd, or rather Moreau'd, hybrids of feline and human, a whole pack of big cats upright. "Nepeta's creations, have we? Knowing her tastes, I commend her restraint in not dressing you all in butler and Chippendale costumes," Blue Lotus said.
would the true appearance of Frostfarers, the fact that they incubate Heart Leeches inside their bodies, or any other details of our encounter be something that's not commonly known, and thus potentially legitimizing if we include it in our article?
That the Frost Fair use illusions to disguise themselves is publicly known, there used to be a lot of 'they could be anyone' PSAs back in the day, even if not that many non-Hanazakari have seen what Frostfarers actually look like. The public also wouldn't know the specifics of Leech incubation but certainly know they're one of the Frost Fair's main weapons
You are on the Internet, and you are asking that question.
In response, I note that there are 4362 hits for the search term "monsterfucking" (including about 3000 instances of it as a work tag) on AO3. (This surprised me. I was genuinely expecting more.)
There's a difference between drawing art of monsters in sexy outfits, and dressing physical monsters intended for fighting alien invaders in sexy outfits. One of those is perfectly normal and should just be ignored by people who aren't into it; the other is weird and tactically unsound.
[Koyomi's Heart has reached the Rank of Knight]
[Miyako's Emotional Strength has reached the Rank of Knight]
The thing with telling people through an article, or at least planning to, was that you had distance. Face to face however, Miyako had no idea how to break the news of just one Frostfarer being alive and at large.
She was walking through the forest with Hayato that day, having asked her boss's son "Hey, you've been into the surrounding woods to gather ikebana flowers, right? 'Cause I was wondering if you could show me how to get around them, if you've got time of course." She of course didn't bring up how she was still embarrassed over having gotten lost the night of Kazuya's thawing, but it turned out she didn't need to.
Hayato already knew, asking "Ah, so you don't get lost again?" Even if he'd naturally know due to his mother overseeing the ritual that night, Miyako was still left blushing a deep red.
"Now, they say moss always grows on the north side of the tree, but that's not quite true," Hayato said as he led Miyako deeper into the woods, "More correctly it grows more on the north side, not only, and even that can be affected by climate, inclines, and of course hemisphere."
"Wait, it-it doesn't?!" Miyako gulped, already having leapt to conclusions.
They then walked up a ledge from which they looked down to see a glistening pond in a clearing, with bulbous white flowers growing around. "Now this place makes for a good waypoint, especially since it's not every day you find maiden's tears growing around here," Hayato then softened his voice and pointed, "or a swan."
Or Arisugawa-sama, Miyako thought as she then saw Koyomi, already transformed, suddenly show up to… talk with the swan? They weren't close enough to Miyako to hear clearly, but whatever conservation they were having looked like it was going well, with the swan even flapping up onto Koyomi's outstretched arm. H-how come she never said she could talk to swans? I mean, Oogami-san was happy telling us he could talk to dogs. And wait, what does that even have to with darkness powers? Miyako's thoughts grew.
It was hardly long before their cover was blown, but not by Miyako. "Arisugawa-sama!" Hayato called and waved, "What a pleasant surprise! Lovely morning, isn't it?"
At this sudden noise, the swan squawked out at Hayato before taking off, while Koyomi detransformed and scowled at him. "It was, before we were rudely interrupted," she hissed out, arms folded.
While Hayato backed off and went into apology mode with "Ah, do forgive me, O town protector," as dramatic as Reiji if with the opposite thoughts on Hanazakari, Miyako however had some questions.
"Er, what were you doing transformed all the way out here, Arisugawa-sama?" she asked, then gulped, "oh no, it can't be that Blue- er, that that guy's around?"
"Scouting and training. And no, I'd sense him if he was around. He no longer has a bunch of RUNE filters to be cloaked behind," Koyomi said, then narrowed her eyes and asked, "Also, why did you cut yourself off? You mean you haven't told Asahi's child yet? You've at least told Asahi, haven't you?"
Miyako hesitated, then slowly said, "Eh, no, not yet. I was totally gonna, but then I thought maybe I should ask you first?"
"Tell them, that's my answer. This will involve them anyway, you can't wait for the chance to get an article published," Koyomi said before she looked at Hayato, "I'll put it to you straight. There's at least one Frostfarer still out there, broken out of RUNE captivity."
Only then did Miyako realise there was another reason she hadn't told Hayato all of people. She remembered his weird wonderings about what emotionlessness would be like, and now there was someone who could show him all too well.
Hayato indeed had no idea how to react at first, but then managed, "Mother tells me you saved hers and Father's lives countless times, so if it is only one Frostfarer, I'm sure you'll have no trouble. And there's plenty of Hanazakari Japan- and worldwide against a single Frostfarer, so…" he then paused, "looks like nobody will fear having their emotions taken."
"There being plenty of Hanazakari is the problem," Koyomi said, "depending on who they work for. RUNE wants him back for their little experiments and won't take kindly to anyone who lays a hand on their little guinea pig. Ugh, and all the corporations who'd pay anything to get their hands on a Frostfarer, let alone what organised crime and 'new religious movements'," you could hear the quote marks, "would do with him."
"There are Hanazakari working for all of those?" Hayato gasped, Corporations I knew, but crime? W-well, if they're anything like you, surely they won't stand by while a Frostfarer wreaks havoc."
"You'd think so," Koyomi sighed, "but remember RUNE kept him alive, and they're the biggest Hanazakari force there is. As for businesses of whatever legality, hah, they won't harm a single snowflake on him if it risks losing profit.
Though yeah, we should still warn more Hanazakari about him. Problem is, we're not exactly easy to get hold of even when you're already one," she then said.
"Ooh, I know, what about entering a tournament?" Miyako had to suggest. "I mean yeah, there's not that many of them now, but you can still find a few Hanazakari that way."
"Haha, no. Besides, I have a better idea," Koyomi said instead, before a wistful look crossed her face. "I usually take a train every so often to Sekigahara, there's… things I remember there. I'm not the only Hanazakari who does, with how many of us fought there, so that's two birds if we're lucky."
"Ooh, can I come?!" Miyako was quick to raise her hand, but then the weight of Koyomi's words dawned on her and she said more solemnly, "If that's alright with you, of course. I've said I'm a lifelong Hanazakari fan, so I really should get around to visiting Sekigahara myself."
Koyomi had to think that over, but then shrugged and said, "Sure, my train pass can cover it. It's just, are you really okay with going out and about again after what Blue Lotus did to you?"
"Oh that? Yeah I'm fine, completely fine," Miyako said, nodding for more emphasis, even as her smile didn't look too stable. "Also, can I invite Reiji-kun too?"
"…What for?" Koyomi asked.
"Well, I was going back and forth between inviting him or Kazuya-kun last time," Miyako said, which gave her chills thinking what Blue Lotus could've done to Reiji, "and thought that him visiting the site of their biggest battle could help soften him towards Hanazakari, he seemed to be coming around a little after you let us stage your book."
Miyako then eagerly eyed Hayato, as it'd amuse her to see him getting flustered that Reiji had been chosen over him. But instead, a still calm Hayato said, "Yes, that sounds quite sensible. His complaint was how little the Hanazakari had done, right? Sekigahara could show him otherwise." Miyako then blushed at her attempt at stoking jealousy in a boy going nowhere, then winced as he said, "And I'll have plenty more chances to talk with Arisugawa-sama."
That earned Hayato a cold look from Koyomi, before she said to Miyako, "As for Yuuki Reiji, I couldn't really care less that one boy has a low opinion of us, uninformed as his opinion is," but then relented, "But if it'd mean that much to you, fine, Yuuki can come if he wants."
"Thank you, thank you," Miyako beamed.
"On the condition you tell him about Blue lotus, since I take it you haven't done so," Koyomi added, clenched hands on hips. Miyako sighed and nodded.
"I suppose we should say what we're doing out here. Miyako wanted to not get lost in these woods again, so I thought to show her around," Hayato then said, "Oh, would you like to come with us, Arisugawa-sama?"
"No, I know this forest fine," was all Koyomi said as she then trailed off.
"Huh, Mother says she wasn't always like that," Hayato muttered as he watched her go, "Well, she did say she was kind of a little."
"Sekigahara?" a puzzled Reiji asked. "I mean I wouldn't mind going, it's an important place in our country's history and therefore fiction. I have got my duties to the theatre of course, but one day away shouldn't hurt. It's just… for that Witch's sake?"
"Hey, that 'Witch' helped you reopen your theatre when she let you stage her book, y'know?" Miyako had to snort at him. She then thought of something else to say, something she would've been too hesitant to just tell Reiji before, "And you do know it's not a good look to single out the only Jewish woman in town, right?" Well, I don't know every woman in town, but still.
"Wait, Arisugawa's Jewish?" Reiji had to take a step back, "My apologies, I had no idea."
Miyako twitched when she realised she'd gone and told Reiji without Koyomi's permission. But since she'd already let it slip, she thought she might as well clarify, "Her grandmother fled Poland back in WW2, and since there's this thing in Jewish law where it's your mother who has to be Jewish, that makes Arisugawa-sama one too." Were Koyomi there she would've said that law differed depending on the denomination, but that's just what Miyako knew.
"Well, I'm of Korean descent, so I'm no 'true Japanese' either," Reiji tensed up when he said those words, but then sighed, "And I know there's Japanese Koreans who've made it big in arts and entertainment, but that doesn't stop me worrying if people find out about my heritage, that'll be it for my career."
Or if some news agency doesn't like that I'm trans, Miyako thought. A deep blush came over her given she'd just done what Reiji feared, revealed someone else's heritage, so she tried to move on with, "Anyway, train leaves tomorrow morning. You up?"
"Alright. Touche. I am defeated. Yep, I can make it," Reiji said.
When the mountain train ride west came, it still wasn't the smoothest. Not that the train was bumpy or anything, it stayed quite level despite the terrain, more that it was the 'atmosphere'.
"Seriously, Arisugawa? Are you not aware we are headed to one of Japan's most important sites, couldn't you at least dress to show respect?" Reiji said to Koyomi on the train, all while respectably dressed in cardboard samurai armour only holding together through sticky tape. But he was then quick to add, "Ah, I say this of course because you're a Hanazakari, absolutely nothing to do with anything else."
"…Right. Also, you do know you sound like my mother?" Koyomi said back at him. Why didn't I just tell Miyako no?
Speaking of Miyako, she'd been busying herself with a stack of manga she'd prepared for the trip. She still twitched when she heard the inevitable arguing between Reiji and Koyomi, but kept telling herself it'd all be better once they actually reached Sekigahara.
It took a few hours but reach Sekigahara they did. Miyako saw that the town was still in frozen ruins from its second great battle, nearby Mt. Ibuki was all but a glacier now, and to think the town wouldn't have looked that different from any other in Japan if not for that.
As they headed over to the battlefield, it seemed Koyomi had picked a good time and day to visit, since any crowds were few for such a historic landmark. Though maybe it was still too soon after the last battle.
Article:
But because the crowds were few, that meant anyone else around stood out even more. They saw:
[ ] A woman dressed like an astronaut out of retro sci-fi than any respectable space program, looking like she was tracking something. (I Am the Resurrection arc)
[ ] A woman who despite her mask the three all partly recognised, if for very different reasons. (Fountain of Youth arc)
QM's Note: If you're wondering why the Arc hasn't been named yet, it's because I'm letting my players vote on the Arc! Of course, just because the other Arc isn't picked, that doesn't mean its characters and events couldn't still show up later on
[X] A woman who despite her mask the three all partly recognised, if for very different reasons. (Fountain of Youth arc)
Sounds kinda interesting. If they all recognize her, she's probably a public figure. In entertainment, since that's Reiji's thing, and I think the corporate hanazakari were described as "idols." We've seen what the government has to offer, let's see the megacorp variant.
How's that for wildly extrapolating from minimal information?
[X] A woman dressed like an astronaut out of retro sci-fi than any respectable space program, looking like she was tracking something. (I Am the Resurrection arc)
Spaaace
H-how come she never said she could talk to swans? I mean, Oogami-san was happy telling us he could talk to dogs. And wait, what does that even have to with darkness powers? Miyako's thoughts grew.
Yeah, that's not the kind of thing you say about people who haven't changed.
"Seriously, Arisugawa? Are you not aware we are headed to one of Japan's most important sites, couldn't you at least dress to show respect?" Reiji said to Koyomi on the train, all while respectably dressed in cardboard samurai armour only holding together through sticky tape.
If this was a manga, the mangaka would either have tons of fun coming up with new costumes for Reiji to wear in random scenes or get tired of the gimmick by volume 3.
[X] A woman dressed like an astronaut out of retro sci-fi than any respectable space program, looking like she was tracking something. (I Am the Resurrection arc)
StarSingerBlue makes a very compelling argument.
