I made sure I got up at a reasonable hour on Saturday morning, because I wanted to make sure that I both had time to get ready at my own speed, and still be sure I made it to the next big Sailor Moon meetup prior to our photoshoot. This was my first time eating at the restaurant in the lobby of the Lord Baltimore, and I had it almost entirely to myself, and the staff were very nice. It was still a little more money than I would usually spend--especially on breakfast--but what the heck, I was on vacation.

I was ready well before it was time for the meetup, so I headed over to the convention center to scout the layout, and take a few photos of my own. The first person I saw was Lionel again (who took a picture of me that's almost identical to the one he took of me in Princess Mars the year before, which I find funny--though I'm a little dismayed at my lack of originality) and then PopeCerebus, who posed me for a few photos before I grabbed my camera (also red!) and snapped one of him in return. Then, from out of the corner came Jez and two friends of his--Ollie, who I knew by name and reputation, and a girl who was dressed up as human!Luna, but whose name I've forgotten because I'm pretty terrible. I *adored* her costume, though!

While I was talking to Jez and his friends, I spotted an Ail and Ann from Sailor Moon R, who you almost never see cosplayed, so I excused myself and ran over to grab photos of them for my website. They were on their way to the Sailor Moon meetup, which proved to be earlier than I had thought it was, so I was extremely lucky to run into them! I followed the two aliens of the Makaiju to the third floor terrace, sending texts to the other girls of the earlier time on the way.

There were even more Sailor Moon cosplayers on Saturday than on Friday!--which is to be expected, I suppose. Once again, the organizers of the meetup were super organized, and made a wonderful speech up front about being sure to not make negative comments about anyone's costumes, because you never know whose sibling/significant other/best friend is standing around you. Frankly I haven't run into that myself--if anything, I found myself standing next to two other Sailor Mars cosplayers, and after we were done squeeing over each other's costumes, we spent the rest of the shoot admiring so many of the other details of the other costumes--who had thought up a really ingenious modesty panel, who had made a daring fabric choice that really paid off, and how awesome it was that some Dark Kingtom generals had turned up--hey, those were *our* generals!

Me and Cassy! Who just happened to be Viz's Sailor Pluto.

Prince Jedite?

I look a little too much like Princess Bubblegum for my comfort here.

"What...is the air speed velocity of an unladen swallow?"

Blonds, chillin'.

"Wait, ain't you a bad guy?"

Sure enough, the Zoisite and Jedite everyone was going nuts over were Linwood and Chris! Chris helped me tighten the laces on the back of my dress, and we were ready to go. Soon after Maurynna and her husband arrived--Maury told me later that when she first got to the Sailor Moon photoshoot, it was so different from the last time she had been to one (it's been years since we first entered the fandom--we *used* to know everyone!) that it almost felt a little weird, but that she spotted me almost right away and immediately felt like she had found "her people" again. Her Neo Queen Serenity dress is beyond belief and beyond description--you have to see the pictures from our photoshoot to really do it justice. And her husband looked incredibly regal as Neo King Endymion. Our Nephrite showed up soon after that, and all of the Moonies clamored to take pictures of the royalty of the Golden Kingdom.

We didn't want to keep Dave waiting, and Maury's dress is incredibly complicated, so some of the girls and I jumped into to help her gather up her train and walk through the convention center to the Hilton that is attached. We did pretty well for a while, but while going up the stairs in the Hilton, I accidentally put my foot down wrongly, and I felt a tug, and then something give. I had torn off one of Maurynna's bow tails! I can't tell you how terrible I felt--she had only gotten a few photos in it! We were able to use a safety pin to put it back in place, and the dress has *so* many layers of chiffon that the overall effect was still spectacular, but I still felt awful. (I told her the story of how the same thing had happened to Usagi Seion back in Otakon 2005, only she hadn't even made it to the convention center yet. In retrospect I don't think that helped.)

You can read more about the epic Sailor Moon photoshoot Dave conducted outside of the Hilton on the Sailor Moon Princesses: Coronation, so I'm not going to repeat myself here, but I will say this: considering *how* many people we were trying to juggle at once, I think we did excellently...even if I did turn into a bit of a drill sargeant about it. I am *very* lucky to have *such* understanding and forgiving friends, and to all of the people I was meeting for the first time, I *promise* I am not such a dictator all of the time! I just wanted to make sure everyone got equal time. I don't think I succeeded, but I tried. And at any rate, the whole thing came out so beautifully that I really have no complaints.

One funny side note: the sun was apparently much stronger than we had anticipated. Most of the girls ended up with slight sunburns on their faces and shoulders. My wig covered my shoulders, but guess what part of my body was most exposed to the sun...

After the photoshoot, Dave asked to introduce me to "Bernie", a friend he had asked to be added to the rooms OPIB shares (except for me, I'm anti-social, but I'm involved in the planning anyway) at the last minute...only "Bernie" wasn't "Bernie", it was Gala, Dave's girlfriend! This was our first time meeting her because she lives overseas, and we all went bananas; she's one of the nicest people I've ever met! The girls had been in on the gag as soon as Dave and "Bernie" arrived, of course; I was the last person to get the punchline. What a great surprise!

However, the girls had something they wanted to catch (possibly the Sailor Moon panel? I know I skipped that deliberately, because the previous year they had focused more on the English dub, which I'm less interested in), and Linwood and Chris decided that I needed to get some lunch in me before we did anything else. I didn't want to walk too far or wait too long, so we went over to their hotel, the Marriott (Outer Power) Inner Harbor that I've stayed in so often myself and sat down in the restaurant in the lobby, that Chris and I had ate in last year. The waiter was incredibly friendly (though the red contacts I was wearing scared him a bit), but oh my goodness was service slow! Granted it was still better to wait for our food sitting down, rather than standing in a long line at say Subway, but it still took a bit of a chunk out of our day. On the plus side, it gave Linwood a chance to show the photos head had taken thus far to Chris and me.

Linwood had some other friends he had promised to meet, so after lunch was over Chris and I made our way over to Dealer's Room so we could participate in the big event Viz had planned for Sailor Moon fans this year; instead of a stamp rally, it was an almost-similar scavenger hunt with the prizes being a lanyard and small, exclusive Sailor Moon buttons. In fact, there was a third button given out at the Sailor Moon panel--had I known that was my only chance to get my hands on one, I would have gone! Ah well--c'est la vie. It wasn't quite the hilarious madness of the previous year, running wild with the girls, but Chris and I still had a good time--the Sailor Mercury cosplayer ended up giving me all the little cardboard cutout stars she had been holding in her hand (so as not to litter the Dealer's Room) and I keep them in my bookbag even now, to keep a little Otakon/Sailor Moon magic with me at all times.

However, soon afterwards, a minor disaster struck--my bookbag, which had been limping along with only one zipper for many months, finally gave up the ghost, and the other zipper failed. I was carrying a lot of extras due to the con, and the contents just spilled EVERYWHERE. Son of a-- Thankfully, beings that we were IN the Dealer's Room, I figured it wouldn't be too hard to find a replacement bag, so leaving Chris to guard my belongings, I went from booth to booth begging until I found someone who had both a plastic bag and the pity to give it to me so I could get my stuff back to my hotel room and regroup.

By this point I was sick to death of running around in my Ronald McDonald wig anyway--I don't know if it's a lesser quality wig and therefore itched more, or whether my own annoyance over how I looked in it was affecting my judgment, but regardless, I wanted it OFF. I also didn't want to go out to dinner with Doc looking like a dropout from clown college, so I went back to the room, changed my red contacts for my violet ones, let my hair down and brushed it out, and picked only the most important items (my wallet, my camera, my compact) to carry with me, and went down to meet Doc for dinner. Since Fogo was a bit of a fair way away, and Saturday's costume was not quite as comfortable as Friday's had been, Doc had called Uber for a cab to bring us over to the restaurant. I didn't know much about where we were going, but Doc told me, "Just remember: red means stop, green means go." I assured him I could remember that.

Fogo was an experience; there's no other word for it. I almost wish I had skipped lunch, even though it had been *hours* since I had eaten. It didn't matter; you would need to be completely hollow in order to eat the amount of food this place brings to you. It's literally an all-you-can-eat place where you don't even have to MOVE. And the waiters swoop around like mother birds with only one chick, they are desperate to make sure your plate is filled at all times. There was a salad bar too that in any other circumstances I would have wanted to try, but why fill up on veggies when there's like 82 different kinds of meat being wafted in front of your nose? I'm pretty sure I ended the meal with meat sweats, because that is a thing.

There was an Otakon staff dinner also being held at the same restaurant, just in a private party room, so before we left, Doc brought me in (he had popped in and out a few times, too, to be sociable) to introduce me to a few of his friends, and on his way out he made sure I met his friend Jen, who apparently is a pretty big Sailor Moon fan. I can't tell you how many Sailor Mars cosplayers haven't recognized me in her princess gown, but Jen knew who I was right away! I only wish I could have met her on my best day, rather than a little sunburned, a little sweaty, and oh yes so very filled with meat. But she was really so nice.

The night was still relatively young, so Doc asked me if there was anything at Otakon I hadn't seen yet that I really wanted to. I had actually looked through the program for once, and had seen that there was an Otakon museum, but I wasn't sure of the hours--but never mind, Rank Hath Its Privileges, so Doc took me by the shortest route possible, which meant we got to travel through a lot of the back corridors of the convention center, meeting so many of Doc's friends and fellow staff members along the way...including a quick but memorable stop at the rave, where the DJ brought Doc and I on stage to see the crowd! Once we were outside of the museum, my friends Gio, Mike, and Justin texted me, so I sent them my coordinates, and after introductions, invited them to join us, while Doc showed us around. Having someone with such incredible knowledge of the con's workings give us a guided tour of Otakon's history had us all spellbound.

We decided to end the night by going down to the Hilton's lounge for a quick nightcap, where we were joined by Jez and some more of his friends, including Tikki who I remembered from the early days of the COSP mailing list. We ended up having one of the most enjoyable discussions I can remember--for every "young whippersnapper" you may hear me, or any of the other crotchety fogies complain about in the cosplay scene, please remember that there are plenty of old timers who have turned their passion for a hobby into a rewarding career path, in one way or the other, as well as plenty of new faces who are eager to follow in their footsteps. This hobby does attract its fair share of bad apples, its true, but they are the vocal minority. There are so many good people in the fandom, and I feel incredibly privileged that 99.9% of my friends are made up of the best ones.

Ann and Ail

One of the most heartbreaking scenes from the first season of Sailor Moon.

This is one of the few things the original anime had over Crystal.

Nephrite and Naru.

Baltimore Lauren as Queen Serenity.

Tiara and earrings by Starnigh Creations.

Annalee and Scarlet Rhapsody as Princess Saturn and Princess Pluto.

Surrogate daughter and mother.

I meet the coolest people through this hobby.

I was SO TIRED by this point!

It was so nice to meet someone who recognized who I was supposed to be!

Girls can be Iron Man, why not?

This was SUCH a cute idea--but obviously made for people more my height than Doc's!

Chris laces me into my dress--aren't I lady-like?

He did a great job!

Putting together our largest photoshoot yet.

I had printed out a whole folder of reference images before the proverbial stuff hit the hypothetical fan.

A few other photographers sneaked a few quick shots.

It was our first time meeting this Princess Venus; for being thrown into such a wild and crazy group, she was such a good sport and she was just beautiful.

Really, everyone involved with this shoot was absolutely lovely.

Since we had such a large group, we tried to break it up into groups: first all girls, then all guys, then the full group.

The Ngmaster and two of his most-photographed groups (on the left is Antipode Geek Bellydance)

This group shoot really meant so much to all of us.

To begin with, the Neo Queen Serenity and the Princess Jupiter are the original founders of Outer Power, Inner Beauty. They've been cosplaying together a long time.

The Neo King Endymion is Neo Queen Serenity's real-life husband.

Whereas our photographer, Dave, is her "con husband" (a little in-joke, but it shows how long they've known each other!)

Lady Terentia, who's the Princess Mercury, and I, were recruited in 2006.

The Princess Saturn--wearing the dress our Princess Jupiter usually wears--is one of Princess Mercury's best friends.

I forget who brought our Princess Neptune and Princess Uranus into the group originally, but they've been our Michiru and Haruka many times now, and the Kunzite is one of *their* best friends.

Princess Pluto filled in as Mars for me one of the years I wasn't able to make it, but seriously looks good as *any* of the senshi--she's cosplayed Saturn and Moon besides Pluto and Mars.

Our Jadeite is our Ferio, of course, and our Zoisite was another long-time cosplay friend of mine, both of who got their costumes from Setsuna Kou, who made so many of my own. And while I believed I mentioned this in my ANEXT '15 report, Avi and I invited Dokudel to be our Helios while we were hanging out with her there.

Maury found us our Princess Chibiusa that spring through Cosplay.com that spring, and after some finagling with her plans we got Baltimore Lauren, who'd been Setsuna and Makoto for us at various times in the past, as our Queen Serenity. Another friend of Maury's had decided to cosplay Luna's human version, so we begged her to join us as well!

Maury found Princess Venus on Cosplay.com three days before the con after the girl who had originally volunteered was unable to make it, and thankfully already had her costume, but our Nephrite agreed to join our group literally two days before, and busted out a costume in that amount of time. I'll say it again: absolutely *everyone* who made up this group really and truly took my breath away. Such a feeling of camaraderie.

Giovanni and me

The view from across the table.

COSP group photo?

This may be the best photo ever taken.

This one's pretty good too.

Dave gently nudging us into position.

Discussing the details.

I may be a teensy bit bossy during a shoot.

It's a lot less glamorous when you see what goes on behind the scenes, huh?

And wigs never seem to stay in place.

But we all kind of help each other.

We be gangstas, yo.

The girls' faces crack me up.