doing my best

I have my own take planned on the concept, but you're onto something here. It's honestly crazy how just filling in the bullshit gaps in Mabayu's costume immediately makes her more palletable and endearing to the eye without changing much else of her. Having said that, I love the belts you added for her soul gem, they add a certain zest to her flavor that works well with her generally dishevelled look, as do the laces on her legs. My overall take is that you should push your ideas even further without fear of going too far for her to be recognizable- a worry that's already very hard to turn serious so long as you don't touch her colors and hair. What I'm trying to say is that I feel like you're constraining yourself by trying to respect the boring and uninspired shape of Mabayu's fuckass dress. With the new, looser sleeves you've given her, the belts and laces, and the less convoluted shoes you've given her, the impression I get is that her outer dress should just connect to said sleeves and just be a zipper jersey jacket, with the collar becoming a proper button-up shirt and then the green underdress you put her on can just be a regular pleated skirt. Now, once again, you never have to do anything I tell you if you don't want to. However, since you went out of your way to seek my opinion I do want you to at least consider that the changes you've already made have altered the purpose of the outfit, and therefore I am judging it based on said purpose as I percieve it. Because that's the thing with Mabayu: I can go on and on about weird choices all day, but the fundamental issue is that her original dress never coheres into a complete aesthetic with purpose derived from it. It's like Ume Aoki had like a month to design her hairstyle, but only 5 minutes to do her outfit, so she grabbed this-

I'm playing around with it

"This is disgusting to me" is totally valid.

"I don't want to read this because it is disgusting to me" is totally valid.

"Censorship of some topics in fiction and art is good and I would be happy if it were to be enacted in a way I approved of"

and

"some things should be banned from ever being written or read about in fiction"

are both authoritarian viewpoints to hold and express, even if you don't have the power to enact them.

Something being nasty is not a good reason to ban fiction about it.

If we accept that "something being nasty is a good reason to bad fiction about it" then we give a foot in the door for all the people who truly, genuinely believe that queer people are nasty to ban all queer literature.

Either you’re for it or you aren’t.

The moment you agree that something should never, ever exist in fiction is the moment that anything can be banned.

Remember a while back how Tumblr banned a bunch of tags, including many popular innocuous ones that even people who are for censorship used and were upset about?

When censorship happens, stuff YOU like can and will be banned. That’s how it works.

Remember how a bunch of people had their accounts terminated here only last year for writing about their own sexual abuse?

When you ban “pedo” topics, say, any talk of child sexual abuse in any form, that means people can no longer write about their own experiences. It means people cannot educate others so they can learn how to protect themselves or get help from these situations.

Censorship is authoritarian. Full stop.

Even if “everyone” agrees something is “gross” and “shouldn’t exist,” that does not fucking matter.

Do you know who generally believes queer people are gross and shouldn’t exist??

The same people who are banning books left and right solely because they have queer characters or relationships.

The same people who attack and kill queer folk for simply exisiting.

This is not just some fandom matter or a case of being chronically online.

In 2007, Livejournal capitulated to the "pedophilia and sex crimes!" cries of (hate group) Warriors 4 Innocence, and you know what communities got shut down? Slashfic communities. Sexual assault survivor support communities. Authors who'd written non-smut m/m fic even got caught up in it. It was DEVASTATING to fandom spaces. I think pretty much everyone knew at least one person whose account was literally DELETED, or were a member of a community that was wiped off the map because they were considerate enough to include topics like "sexual assault" or "BDSM" in the profiles under the badly-named category of "interests" to indicate that posts on said blogs or communities may include discussion of things like that. Even if it was for a SUPPORT group. And it was because a group of religious bigots came to LJ and said essentially "EVERYONE thinks it's gross and that it's promoting CSA, we should ban it."

Like, strikethrough and boldthrough were a large part of what propelled AO3 out of a more unfocused conversation on one person's blog about hosting a site INTENDED for fandom content, into being an actual archive and nonprofit. And it's a large part of why you won't find AO3 banning topics that you find "gross".

I had a friend. We were 12. We had just discovered fanfiction and were obsessed. We read anything and everything we could get our hands on. One of the stories we read was a "pedo fic." It exposed us to scenarios and language that hadn't ever been touched on in Sex Ed at school or with our parents. To be frank, it "corrupted our young minds with topics we shouldn't have to deal with." It also gave my friend words to finally describe why her neighbor creeped her out so much. "He's creepy and weird" gets a 12 year old scolded and lectured on being nicer. "He's a sexual predator" gets adults asking questions and involving the cops. Her neighbor "moved away."

Censorship is pro-pedo and anti-child-safety. There is no communicating what's wrong if there are no words to describe what's happening. Bad things will happen whether you have the words to ask for help or not. Censorship takes those words away.

on the other hand...