Final Fantasy X-2 occupied a lot of my time in college, and when a group formed, I volunteered to take the last character, Nooj, not realizing the complexity of the outfit I would make. It was my first time making a bodysuit (and out of cotton, not spandex, foolishly) along with straps and a fully quilted leg. I must admit, it was quite an accomplished build for being so early in my cosplay career.

Competition info

While I made this for a large FFX-2 group, we also ended up competing with a smaller group at ACen. We parodied Dora the Explorer (as was pretty popular to do at the time), speaking multiple languages during the skit until it became completely unhinged. We even learned to speak Al Bhed for the skit.

The judges were unable to give out judge’s awards, and they really enjoyed our skit. So they tracked us down and gave us an award literally written on cardboard called the “Cheap Ass Cardboard Award” and I still treasure this piece of cardboard to this day

Competition videos

Our performance video. The angle is terrible and the audio isn’t great either, but it does exist!

The story of the Cheap Ass Cardboard Award

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