Once again, this is a costume I chose to do mainly because Louis chose his costume first--namely, his dream costume, Vash the Stampede.

While I might not have thought to do Meryl on my own--I'm not much like her, and I think I look atrocious with short hair, I did at least watch all of Trigun, and I do like Meryl a lot. She's funny, and I wish she and Vash would get together already--you're not fooling anyone, Meryl.

While this originally was planned to be a group cosplay (and I hope someday it will be), a month or so before Otakon, my original plans fell through, and I scrambled to find a new seamstress.

It was my first time hiring Athena-chan, and she did WONDERFUL work. She even offered to make all 50 guns that line Meryl's cape! But that was more then I was willing to pay for a character that wasn't my first choice, never mind I can't imagine how heavy that would be...but if Louis upgrades Vash, I *just might* take Athena up on that.

I think my favorite part of the costume is it's accuracy--not only did Athena make me the cape and the skirt, she also made the blouse underneath with the navy blue "frog clasps". I made sure to get a few pictures of that as well. That and running around with guns was pretty awesome. Louis bought two cheap costume guns from a Halloween store in Manhattan that were originally green and orange, and repainted them silver and black for me. They looked great.

That being said, since Louis and I split, I'd probably only wear this costume again if someone needed a Meryl to complete a group.