Frilly magical outfits problem

So, I am currently trying to write a magical girl story where a group of magical girls, each from different teams and with different “mythoses” (as in, different sources and “mythology” behind the powers they use), happen to meet up as university students, and then get involved into the struggle between different magical factions, demons, and other sorts of battles in the nearby city (they’re currently living in a campus just outside the city).

Now, in this setting, there exist magical girls who, although they have magical powers and often a wand or other device that allows them to use it, they don’t have an in-built transformation sequence. If they do have “magical girl outfits”, they have to manually dress up before jumping into action. Two, perhaps three of my protagonists would fall under this category.

The problem I am facing is that I do kind of want to give these girls a “typical” Magical Girl outfit, of the “frilly” kind. However, when I thought about it, I realized that having such a costume would cause quite a number of logistics problems, especially in more pressing situation where they may not be able to “transform”, and have to operate in civvies, with the disadvantages that it may have. And the protagonists are all rather experienced magical girls, having been on “active duty” for at least a couple of years each, so I’d think at this age they would have figured out how to deal with that problem. One of these girls may be an enchanter, who could potentially enchant the girl’s civilian clothing and bypass the problem altogether.

So what I want to ask is this: would there be any advantages or reasons (other than sentimental) for these girls to keep and still use their magical outfits at such an age? Would they still want to keep hold of their more “frilly” outfits at such an age, if they can easily choose to switch outfits? Or would it be best for them to cut on the frilliness and wear outfits made up of more practical clothing? And in the latter case, what clothing can I consider giving them that is practical to wear and change into, but still feels magical girl-y?

There is a reason people don't wear them in war. No combat approriateness whatsoever.

If you want to make it girly, try utilizing color and visual design.

I'm working on a magical girl series, as well, and I forgoed (can you use use forego in past tense?) the frilly suits because they just leave a lot of skin open to attacks. Though I did strongly consider them.

In the case of your story (which sounds amazing), I would lampshade it early on. Like, they put on the frilly suits, see their selves in the mirror and just go "WTF?". They switch to civilian clothes but, in being sentimental of the frilly suits, they rip off a part of the suit, add it to their regular clothes and the magic from the frilly swatch magically alters their clothes to a more "mature" costume.

For costume design, look at typical magical girl suits and see what you can do to just make it more practical. Look at corporate casual outfits and street fashions like leather pants and blouses and jackets and hats and other accessories and see what you can add to those to make them "magical". Maybe something as simple as lace trim.

It depends on what purpose they're meant to serve.

edited 13th Jun '12 12:21:34 AM by Night

Forego, forewent, foregone

They're for pulling guns and swords out of. Clearly.

I'm intrigued and somewhat amused by the idea of frilly magical girl combat fatigues. If I knew a bit more about fashion design and body armour I would be so on the case, believe me.

Honestly though from a story perspective I'd probably just handwave it. If the setting's so mixed it seems pretty plausible that at least someone would be able to acquire self-transforming bullet-resistant insta-dress technology and give it to those not already so endowed.

@Pancake: I like both those ideas you suggested! The lace trim idea I can work with immediately. As for transferring part of a frilly outfit on to civilian clothing to obtain the more mature dress, I would say that it wouldn’t really work for girls without a transformation sequence... or at least, not without an enchanter to help out with the magical process. Incidentally, the team of protagonists does have one on their team, albeit a rather inexperienced one in putting complex enchantments on magical outfits (she does know the theory and has done some practical work on her outfit, but hasn’t really enchanted an outfit from near scratch), so I can see this idea working for her friend who’s still stuck with the frilly outfit.

@Night: (Bare with me here, I’m kind of making these worldbuilding details as I’m writing) I would say that the magical outfits are mainly used for protection + extra magical effects, and for “identity” purposes.

Obviously, when facing enemies that can throw fireballs and other sorts of nasty things at you, some form of magical protection is necessary to face them. If not that, then effects that make you invisible or extremely agile would really be useful to have. The way I see it, magical girls who can transform have enough raw magical power and control over it that they can build a outfit out of magic that can potentially offer both aspects, if one knows how to manipulate it properly. By contrast, magical girls who can’t transform don’t have the ability to magically infuse their clothing, unless they happen to be enchanters, and even then, it takes some time for them to apply the spell to the clothes due to the way their bodies and devices process the magic, so they can rarely do it on the fly.

This would be a major reason for magical girls that don’t transform for keeping a hold on any piece of enchanted clothing they come across, either as family hairlooms or through contact with an enchanter, both of which would be considered a really lucky stroke on their parts. I would imagine that those who come across a modern enchanter would get an outfit that’s more practical and in line with the latest fashion. But what about those girls who may have inherited their outfit from their families, or come across a centuries old outfit by chance? Someone must have made and enchanted the outfit at some point. The question is, would they reflect the frilliness of the years they’ve lived in, or would their outfits be somewhat practical as well?

For the identity problem... well, let’s just say that in my setting the worldwide Masquerade effect is slowly getting ripped apart by the surge of magical users in the post World War years (and the increased chance of someone stumbling upon a magical event that comes from it), and where the rise of the Internet and social networking play a prominent role in how the magical girls handle both their identities. It’s a setting where, on the one hand, magical girls, especially careless ones, could be traced back to their real identities by particularly IT savvy enemies who check out their Facebook profiles, but on the other hand, there’s the potential for savvy magical girls to use their public personas to ask for help, or even rally members of Anonymous against their enemies. The Masquerade will prevent them from getting major help from the whole world, but the potential for doing stuff locally is there, and shouldn’t be dismissed so lightly.

Given these aspects, there would be the issue that “practical” clothing might not be enough to protect a girl’s identity, or not given them enough “visibility” on the Internet by not having “memetic” outfits for Anonymous to follow. So how would a magical girl strike the balance between practicality, keeping her real identity secret and maintaining a good PR image?

@Kesteven: Well, I would say that I could possibly handwave it like you said... if it weren’t for the Masquerade preventing long range contact between groups of magical girls that haven’t come in contact personally, and for the fact that dedicated magical enchanters, which can do cross-mythos enchanting, are rather rare in my setting. Magical enchanters that have access to a particular mythos’ powers do exists, and in larger numbers than dedicated cross-mythos ones, but they obviously can only help magical girls from the same mythos. And though there is an organization or two in the setting that does have long range contact with different magical girls within a country, and cross-mythos magical mamas amongst their staff, they would either have to find the magical girls in need of costumes themselves, or the latter would have to be lucky enough to stumble upon a member of the former, due to the way the Masquerade works. So I would say the issue would still be there.

I hope that helps out, and that what I’ve come up with doesn’t cause problems with what I’ve said previously.

I just really want to see this come to fruition. I love magical girl series, and this sounds like an interesting take on one.

I went through a Sailor Moon phase (it was actually a very downbeat Mary Sue deconstruction chronicling the interactions of one normal man with the main cast, along quis custodiet ipsos custodes lines; when someone with superpowers and friends with superpowers decides you are attractive enough to go to any length to bed you, you're in deep trouble) and at one point I posited that uniforms we saw are actually what they themselves see; to most people and all cameras they have some kind of pattern-disruptive camouflage and appear as swirling outlines of random color that give you a headache if you stare.

This made them obvious as all hell, but impossible to identify at a glance. You could, over time, build up a library of measurements via computer and distinguish them from each other after the fact, or you could get them to talk and recognize their voice. The SailorWatch blog made use of the former, but the main character had to resort to the latter most of the time.

edited 14th Jun '12 5:22:06 PM by Night

@Night: Hmm...that would be quite an interesting idea to use. I would have to think it through, though.

See, the thing is, I rather dislike the way the masquerades are maintained in most magical girl series, especially in the Pretty Cure ones, where the enemies themselves maintain the masquerade by setting up Dimensional Barriers for no justifiable reason, when they could do much more damage to magical girls and the humans they protect by not setting up one. I would like to try and avoid using cheap cop-outs in my story and explore the consequences of not having a convenient masquerade to help a magical girl out. At the very least, I would like for all magical forces involved to actively enforce the masquerade rather than relying on an in-built effect. In the case of your idea, I would have the magical outfits be designed with disruptive patterns by enchanters, which would obviously take time and effort to find the right enchanter to make one.

I do realize that it contradicts what I said earlier about there being a worldwide masquerade effect going on in my setting, but that's because a) I am planning on introducing some elements to a magical girl megacrossover setting which does have a rather strong Masquerade effect (or rather, did, before a magical girl outed herself as one on live TV), and b) I'm still trying to figure out how a world where the Masquerade has to be actively enforced works, especially since I want to introduce the idea that different cities have different levels and attitudes towards maintaining the Masquerade going on. For example, I plan to have the Masquerade in London be very strictly enforced, whereas in Edinburgh, the general population knows to varying degrees that there is some magic stuff going on, and some people more in the know than others do help and maybe even hinder the magical girls on some occasions. I'm thinking along the lines of "old lady sees blowfish alien in a sports car, helps out the guys in the black car chasing it, and sums it up by saying "Bloody Torchwood"" kind of thing.

Nanoha. Barrier Jackets. Look it up.