Where do I even start with this costume? Lady Terentia had shared Hannah-Alexander's Sailor Moon: Art Nouveau designs to gauge interest on whether anyone would want to do them. Me, I'll pretty much do whatever my girls want to do, so I was game. Avian Firefly bowed out, since she doesn't like Jupiter enough to invest quite this much in these costumes--we all knew going into it that these would end up being super elaborate. However, Alyce, who often cosplays with us as Neptune, liked Jupiter's design, and offered to make her costume along with mine. Reinii was up for being Venus, and Lady Somairot, who often cosplays with us as Uranus, agreed to make Reinii's costume, as well as be our Moon. As usual, there really wasn't much I could do to help, but that doesn't mean I was left out! Alyce and Somairot got together from time to time to sew together, and a few times Teren and Reinii joined them and helped any way they could, especially with all the little beads that had to go on by hand. And we started a group message on Facebook that everyone contributed to every week, often every day, keeping each other updated with our costume progress--from hearing about how Alyce used coupons and her mom's senior citizen discount to get silk duponi, to photos when she made her bathroom look like a crime scene dying the fabric red.

I can't stress enough how much work Alyce put into this costume for me--she couldn't find yellow beads for the top of my sleeves, so she painted white beads yellow. She handpainted circles and triangles on the cotton bodice and skirt, hand-stitched crystals on the overdress. I think she ended up dying everything twice to get it the exact right color, and and used gold vinyl on the obi with an added gold rub for a semi-metallic look.She made me that flower crown, and then dyed dancer's tights to make faux thigh highs so the fancy curls at the top would stay up. (I was mildly disappointed that she didn't dye the tights while they were on her legs--we had been making jokes about ombre legs for months.) The most I did for this costume was paint matching circles and diamonds on a pair of shoes I bought from Amazon. And then literally the night before the con, Teren realized we had forgotten that Mercury and Mars wear metal tiaras, and Somairot made both of them *that night*. I'm telling you, these girls are magical.

All in all, we spent almost a full year planning and putting these costumes together, and it brought us all a lot closer, which in the end, is really what cosplay is all about.