So, every year I try to let Lou pick one pair of costumes that we're going to do together, and since he had finally found a good Vash jacket on eBay that he really liked, he chose this year's Otakon to debut his dream costume, Vash the Stampede. Naturally, I had to do the closest Vash has to a love interest (though I did briefly consider doing Rem, she's too normal looking to really be considered cosplay, unless you have a huge group), and so did Meryl "Derringer" Strife.

To start off the morning, we just toured the center again, looking for our friends (I particularly wanted to run into Avian Firefly, because she's a HUGE Vash fangirl, and I knew she'd want to fangirl all over Lou) and for other cosplayers, and from there, we finally made our way over to the dealer's room.

I felt bad having to miss out on the Sailor Moon photoshoot on Saturday, but it was SO nice to get back to a "one costume per day" schedule again!

At some point on Saturday, I also ran into a girl dressed as Anthy in her rosebride dress. Since my friend Kayla, who was originally going to be my Anthy, couldn't make it to the shoot on Sunday, I introduced myself to her and invited her to the shoot the following day. I'm so glad I did!

We also noticed there were about the same percentage of cosplayers in "non anime/manga" costumes. Some people grumble about this, some people find it perfectly acceptable. My thought process on this has always been as follows: if its a good costume, people are going to like it. If it's from something they like (like Monty Python, or 80s cartoons) people are going to like it. And they people who don't like it, aren't going to like it no matter how good it is or where it's from. My policy is, if I like a costume, for whatever reason, I'll photograph it. Seems fair to me.

The dealer's room was very similarly laid out to how it was in 2004, so I'm not really going to provide a detailed review of it here. I'll just say it was very big, and had a lot of stuff, and leave it at that. :) I don't remember what all Louis bought, but I wasn't there really to shop...

...I was there to meet Fred Gallagher, co-creator, writer, and artist behind the webcomic, MegaTokyo. I'm a faithful reader, and have been for about two years now, and I was really looking forward to meeting him. I bought a poster, because I wasn't sure if he was allowed/had time to do little sketches, or if he was only signing MegaTokyo goods (and, of course, I forgot my trades at home like a dumbass.) It turns out he DID have time for little sketches, so I got one in my Otakon program, which I've since scanned and put on my art website. Sarah/Seraphim was there too, working the booth, but I didn't actually get to talk to her.

PS, if you're wondering, Fred really is a lot like Piro. He's really nice, kind of soft spoken, and a little bit down on his artwork, which drives me CRAZY because he's SO GOOD. It was a pretty long line to get to meet him, which wasn't so bad, because we got to see a lot of good cosplayers while we were waiting, including, of course, a ton of MegaTokyo characters. One Pirogeth had even made her GIANT gun, and just looked amazing. I also got some good pics of Lou, that work well on their own, or could be icon or CG fodder, depending.

Although I did realize I wanted a plush Mokona. We spent the rest of the day trying to hunt one down for me, because Lou has a tradition (hm, we have a lot of those already) of getting me a giftie, preferably a plushie, at every Otakon we go to. We were successful in literally the last five minutes that the dealer's room was open.

After we were done with that, we met up with Usagi Seion and her boyfriend Rich, and decided to continue another Otakon tradition, meeting up with one of Lou's best friends, Chris. We got a hold of Chris after not too long, and went out for some Chinese food (really, I'm a cheap date.) The five of us had a pretty good time, even if I had to practically beat Usagi over the head to get her to actually EAT.

I really don't remember what all else we ended up doing. I know we eventually found Avian and her group, who did the beautiful White Rose dresses Naoko Takeuchi drew in the fifth Sailor Moon artbook, and they all looked amazing. I know Usagi, Rich, Callie, Lou and I all went out for a fancy dinner on Saturday night (another continuing Otakon tradition), and I know that Lou and I tired out kind of early (those costumes were HOT! and even comfortable shoes start to hurt after nine plus hours) and ended up back at the hotel in time to watch Saturday Night Live and conk out.

Oh! I know one funny thing that happened--although it wasn't so funny at the time. At one point when we went to lunch, I looked through my bag to find something, and I found a strange cell phone. Do you realize how nerve wracking that is? Though, to be fair, probably not as nerve wracking as being the person who realizes you've lost your cell phone. Normally I would never invade someone's privacy like this, but I really wanted to return the phone, so I searched through the contact list, and found, of course, DJ Ranma S as an entry in there. Does anyone NOT know him? :)

So I called Ranma from the strange phone and asked him which contact name came up, and he said it was Brian, so at least that made sense, as we had been hanging out with Brian (who made an incredibly sexy Kaolinite) before lunch. As it turns out, Brian HAD been going crazy looking for his phone, so being able to return it to him made us all feel good all around. Fun con times.

I'd also like to say that even though he wasn't in costume, people ended up taking pictures of Rich. Double ewe tee eff. We pretty much decided, then and there, that he had to cosplay with Lou next year. (Slowly, I am going to convert the world.)