Page 6 of Cosplay & Consequences

“Oh, the MaxFlick studio producers passed it along. They know exactly who you are.”

I sighed. Her words were a veiled hint about my connection to the books. Great. Yet another reason to detest MaxFlick. I rolled my eyes in exasperation, which was also spectacular. Totally wasted on me. “Yeah. I bet they do,” I deadpanned.

“What do you say, sweetie? Why don’t you give Daniel a chance? At the very least you’ll have an exclusive interview with a leading cast member.”

My muscles tensed. First, they took away my guest. Now they were forcing a confrontation with a guy I didn’t even know other than a quick google search.

On the other hand, if she was calling me for the interview, chances were he wasn’t going to be a cast member for long. If talk shows and Entertainment This Evening had passed on an interview, it was a pretty far drop to an independent influencer to take up the charge. Did I feel a slight pang of guilt for someone I hadn’t met? Yes. Because that’s how ridiculous I was.

“Sounds great,” I said. I gave her the time and the location I had obtained for the live show. “And just so you know, I’m not going to pull any punches.”

“I’d be disappointed if you did,” the old lady practically purred.

I hung up and tossed the phone back on the bed. The whole conversation irritated me. I did not like being manipulated, especially after all the crap the network pulled during the first season. I was going to have to call it an early night because now I had to do more research on the Marlin-Daniel guy.

Shrugging it off, I got back to work, carefully peeling the stray glue from the brocade. Despite the odds, I managed to attach the trim without ruining my cosplay, burning myself, or accidentally setting the hotel room on fire. A few minutes later I was in my outfit. I finished the look by placing my carefully styled wig of long black braided tresses over my wig cap. This was followed by Fiona’s trademark ram’s horn headdress.

I posed in front of the mirror admiring my work. I’d been doing cosplay for years, and Fiona was always my favorite. This year’s outfit was based on The Chaos Trail. My best cosplay work to date. The panel skirt was cut a little too high for my taste, but the tights and high boots under it kept it from being too risqué. However, I’m sure there were other cosplayers wearing the same outfit today who had no such qualms. I did one last check to make sure none of my red hair was peeking out through the wig before heading to the floor of the con.

Mission Verde wasn’t the biggest fan convention, but it was one of the oldest and a favorite for fantasy fans. A week-long festival for nerds, crossing together all the elements of a Renaissance fair with the fan events you’d expect from a traditional comic convention. There was always some bleeding over from other genres, as there were always a few sci-fi outfits with laser swords that showed up. Or in some cases, steampunk or fantasy versions of superheroes and sci-fi characters. They didn’t exactly fit the theme, but most people at the MVFC were mostly accepting of others. You were always going to have gatekeepers when it came to various fantasy properties, but MVFC was usually considered a more accepting place for fans. No one raised an eyebrow if a character was gender-swapped, or if you were a different heritage of the actor or character.

When I walked into the convention, the first thing that hit my senses were the sounds. Everyone was in a good mood and cheerful. I loved hearing the general laughter and excitement around me. The real fun of it all was that this year they had hired a band to play current rock tunes on medieval instruments. You haven’t lived unless you’ve heard Sabrina Plumber’s Cappuccino played on a lute, lyre, and a shawm.

The food court was a mix of themed drinks and foods with the ever-present smell of deep-fried turkey legs in the air. Mead and old-style ale were on tap, with mulled wine and grog readily available for the twenty-one-and-above crowd. There was an entire section for tabletop role playing games. Most of the players were huddled around the tables, dressed as their characters, and rolling dice.

I spotted my good friend, Brayonna Risengard, running a special one-shot for some lucky players. She was in her element and had gone to the extreme with her outfit. She dressed for the occasion as a full fey queen, complete with a blue gown, and a crown made of vines with silver threads. To complete the look she had done an intricate bit of facial art with blue glitter around her eyes that stood out against her dark skin. I hung back a bit until she saw me, giving me a wink and nod of approval for my outfit.

But today wasn’t all about walking around and having a good time. The convention was also a work event for me. I had two collaborative posts scheduled with new indie romantasy authors that I needed to film. I wanted to at least get two posts done today showing off my outfit and highlighting some of the events going on for the first day of the con. Brayonna and I were supposed to hook up later to do a collaboration video on the con events we would be attending, highlighting Bray’s BIPOC in TTRPG panel. I also needed to track down one of the authors to help promote the “Women Authors in Fantasy” panel that I would be moderating towards the end of the convention.

Most of my time this week would be spent in Author’s Row, where indie and traditional book authors showed off their newest or debut books. There were a couple of clients I’ve edited who were here, and I needed to check in on them as well. This was undoubtedly where I would be spending most of my money this week. My to-be-read list was over a mile long, but after the SDCC next week, I had a solid month of low effort events. This meant I could dedicate myself to solid book reading and posting reviews, which just felt heavenly.

During my first run-through around the con, I was surprised by a group of fans of my stream. We had a long rant session about the “Marlin Sinbad” casting. Then we launched into another rant on MaxFlick, completely disregarding the wine tasting scene from the first book. It was one thing to vent about these topics on a stream, but having a real conversation about it with passionate fans was definitely a nice change of pace.

By then I had finished most of my social media obligations and stopped for a quick bite for lunch. What I really wanted was a giant turkey leg, but I had pushed my luck with the glue gun this morning. The turkey legs were always good here, but I wanted to wear this cosplay at least one more time this week. So I stayed on the cautious side and away from the potential grease stains.

Brayonna finally caught up with me early in the evening. Her fey queen outfit was still on, giving her a royal air about her as she fell in step with me in Author's Row.

“Hey babe, I don’t know how you can manage to be in heels all day and still look that good,” she said, giving me a quick slap on my rear as she usually did to greet me.

“My feet would like to kill me for looking this good right now.” I gave her a quick kiss on the cheek in greeting, trying to avoid getting blue glitter all over me.

“Have you seen him?” she whispered conspiratorially. When I gave her a quizzical expression, she appeared shocked. “You haven’t?”

“I have no idea who you’re talking about.”

She scanned everyone around us. “There is a man–Nope, a god–cosplaying Tyrst’an. I swear to you it’s like he stepped out of Nana Richard’s books.”

I gave her a light slap on the shoulder. “Hush. You know I don’t like to throw that around.”

“Bitch, please. If I had that connection to her books, I’d be singing it from the rooftops.”

I shook my head, not wanting to go over it with Bray again. “Maybe he should get the role of Tyrst’an instead of that Sinbad guy.”

Brayonna rolled her eyes at me. “Yeah, I caught your stream yesterday. Have you ever seen Daniel Finnegan in action? You’re selling him short.”

“You’re telling me that Marlin Sinbad deserves to be Tyrst’an?” I scoffed. “Unlikely.”

“Uhh, I am. Listen, remember when I did that Debutantes and Dragons campaign with the ladies from multiple soap operas? Gina Walters was one of them, and Daniel popped in for one of the tapings to show his support. I talked to him for almost an hour explaining the game to him. He’s a real class act. Knows shit about TTRPG’s, but Gina and the ladies adored him. He was super cool to the crew. Sent flowers to all my players and me the next day. If I wasn’t married to my little dough boy, I would have thrown myself at him.”