Those of you who visit my website probably know I almost quit cosplaying in 2023 because of how hard my 2022 had been, including missing "Senshicon 2022", the magical girls weekend my northeast cosplay group, Senshi in the City, started doing after the pandemic and other life events made gathering at New York Comic Con less than ideal. And even after Lady Terentia and Pete (among others) convinced me to keep going, I wasn't sure I'd have enough PTO left to attend. So I didn't confirm my attendance at Senshicon 2023 (which is generally the first weekend in November) until the beginning of September, leaving me a bare two months to throw a costume together. In addition, since all of the girls who knew they could attend picked their characters earlier, Mars was "taken" by Elena, in her ongoing quest to cosplay every Sailor Senshi (which honestly makes her my hero, not gonna lie.) Now, I could have *also* done Sailor Mars, none of my friends are territorial. BUT...no one had claimed Chibiusa. And it turns out I love complete groups more than I love Sailor Mars. (Plus, I also kind of want to cosplay all of the Sailor Senshi someday...it's just taking me a while.) Since we were doing Dungeons and Dragons inspired versions of the characters, I wouldn't have to have a costume custom made to match a reference image, I could come up with my own idea and assemble it out of store bought clothes. So while a challenge, it was within the realm of possibility.

Now, our Mercury was being a sorcerer, Mars was being a ranger, Jupiter was being a knight, Venus was being a cleric, Pluto was being a druid, Uranus was being a swashbuckler, Neptune was being a unicorn, and Saturn was being a bard, what would it make sense for Chibimoon to be? (Our Moon was being a Time Traveling Star Trek officer which, while amusing, was a different direction than I wanted to go in.) Chibiusa's young when we first meet her, and not much of anything other than a princess. Then it clicked--that was the last fantasy trope we were missing, and probably fairly easy to throw together, too. I found an absolutely gorgeous tiara on Etsy that not only had a crescent moon on it, but was the same "V" shape as the original Senshi tiaras. And after browsing various Renaissance style dresses, I had for whatever reason decided something that invoked the Italian Renaissance silhouette, rather than something Tudor or...I don't know, Hungarian or something. My go-to for Ren Faire garb, Holy Clothing, not only didn't have anything in quite the right color I was looking for (I had missed their Barbie limited run by thaaat much), but I also wasn't sure it would arrive in time. AliExpress, of all places, had a beautiful dress in pink and white; I knew I was taking a chance ordering from them, but I also knew that I didn't have a lot of options, and honestly what I received, while not exactly like the product image, was better than what I've bought off of eBay recently. Lastly, I found an INSANELY cheap Chibiusa wig from dokidokicosplay; if I hadn't already gotten Beidou vision from them, I wouldn't have taken the chance, but it's of really good quality even without taking the price into account. Luckily I already had red contacts from when I cosplayed the Original Concept version of Sailor Mars.