"... and that was Ham Solo!" said the announcer as a boar dressed as Han Solo left the stage. "The judges will now consult before deciding the winner of this costume contest!"

College-aged nerd Joy Ismini bounced from excitement. She was going to win! She was definitely going to win! No one else had as accurate a costume as her Princess Leia outfit or had been brilliant enough to build a fully functional droid to use as a prop! The coveted first place trophy and and respect and envy of nerds everywhere would be hers! She would have oodles of friends! And better than friends: sycophants! Maybe even some groupies!

"Oh, am I too late to enter?" A leopard climbed up the steps to the stage.

The announcer frowned. "The deadline to enter was-" But he stopped because the Leopard was wearing a perfect Slave Leia outfit and each step she climbed made her large breasts BOUNCE.

The announcer said, "Um." Then he went to consult with the judges. The judges and the announcer huddled, occasionally peeking up at the leopard. The announcer went back on stage. "As a rare exception, we are allowing one more entrant!"

Joy gasped. A breach in the sacred rules of the cosplay contest rules. Was all madness and chaos??

"Aw, thanks, handsome!" The leopard stood herself next to the big speech bubble that said "May the 4th Be With You" and posed for photos in a way that heavily emphasized her chest. She winked at the audience.

The judges consulted again. The announcer went over to consult with them. The announcer came back to the stage. "Our late mystery Slave Leia entrant has won perfect marks! First prize, a laserdisc of her Star War of choice, and a thermos full of midichlorians are hers to take home!"

Joy glared at the stage. A winner? Her? She didn't even do her hair right! She didn't register in time! She was just bouncing her boobs and everyone was falling for it!

The leopard smiled and beamed and waved as she left the stage with her ill-gotten gains.

Five feet three of pure awkward nerd umbrage, Joy Ismini confronted her at the bottom of the stairs. "Your victory is tainted by your inability to understand proper cosplay contest rules!" the squirrel hissed.

The leopard's friendliness shifted into smugness as she looked down at the shorter squirrel. "The thing is, I don't care, little girl!"

"Little girl?!" Joy gasped again. "We can't be more than a few years apart in age! Or did you mean height? I'm a perfectly average height!"

"Here's the thing, squalling child, I want something? I take it. I wanted that thermos of midichlorians and I wanted to make some nerds cry bitter tears so I chose the sexiest, most judge-pleasing outfit possible AND entered late so the recency bias would be in my favor. So I'm walking away with allll the prizes and nobody even remembers you were on stage at all."

Joy gasped yet again. "I'll never forgive you, hot cosplay girl! Fake nerd girl!"

"I don't care~" said the leopard as she disappeared into the crowd.

--

In the present day, Dr Science held the picture of the mysterious Slave Leia cosplayer that stole her cosplay contest win. She gazed down at it, brow knit in moderate dislike. "To this day, I have never forgiven that mysterious cosplayer. And I never will."

Zel looked at the picture. "That's Professor Kingsley."

Dr Science laughed. "Don't be silly. My cosplay nemesis wouldn't coincidentally be someone we're both familiar with in the present day! The odds of that are incredible!"

"Okay," said Zel, doubtfully. He had a pretty good memory for boobs and also the woman looked exactly the same. Even being however many years younger. "Speaking of cosplay nemesis, does Dr Nemesis cosplay?"

Dr Science shrugged. She hung the picture of the leopard up next to her own cosplay picture. "She told me she wanted to cosplay as the Death Star but that until she could get the materials to build one, she was trying to build a fully functioning AT-AT."

"Okay," said Zel. "I don't think you should let her build a killsat. Because... we live on this planet."

"You can't stand in the way of a woman's dreams," scolded Dr Science. "Or else you'll be as bad as that mysterious leopard cosplayer."

"The scale between those two things is so vast," disagreed the bat.

---

Last year's May the Fourth picture had Dr Science mentioning losing a cosplay contest to a leopard or possibly cheetah using cheap sex appeal. That was just a fun in-joke. I didn't actually plan on getting this new picture. I was actually planning to freeze Mei in carbonite. But when I was rereading the Dr Science - Space Princess post, I did remember and thought it would be a good follow-up to have jerk Younger Katie ruining Younger Joy's dreams of nerd acclaim.

It's been hinted a few times that Science isn't her real last name and that Ismini is her real name in various alternate universes. I guess I'm just confirming it now and that she changed her name sometime in college.

Nemesis and Careful ARE real last names, though.

Dr Science probably doesn't recognize Katie as that cosplayer from so long ago because she's too fixated on that flashy red labcoat that present day Katie wears at her professor job. Dr Science is very brilliant in many ways and a goof in several others.

Better Space Princess is a matter of opinion but in the opinion of those judges, Katie's version was the better one in the contest.

---

Katie Kingsley is owned by me
Art by  TemporaryWizard