Riana was unreasonably excited to finally be back to an anime con again. After three years of circumstances conspiring against her, she'd accumulated four full sets of carefully crafted character-appropriate armor she was dying to show off. There wasn't anything quite like the feeling of a year's planning and preparation finally paying off, or, in this case, almost four years.

Getting together with the rest of the Akuma no Kami Sensei fandom again, taking group photos, discussing that bombshell of a final season! She'd been forced to hold in her excitement over the finale and its revelations and impacts on the wider franchise for nearly seventeen months now. None of her work friends were into anime, and while she absolutely loved her best friend, she did tend to care more about the actors involved than the story.

But that was all the past. Today, Riana wore her custom Kaneka Ari outfit, to start the event off with a bang.

As the line moved forward, she saw another woman with a beautiful custom bow like nothing Riana had ever seen. It looked like it would fit right into Akuma no Kami Sensei, and she found herself gravitating toward the woman, curious if it was an OC.

Some people looked down on people who inserted themselves into the story, but Riana had always thought that was silly. Canon was canon, and adding your own side version wouldn't change that. That would be like looking down on Riana for cosplaying as canonically male characters. Ridiculous.

"And my friend and I will be giving a live demonstration after the final panel this evening, we're meeting at the cafe by the river," the woman was saying, smiling as she passed a paper of some kind to the guy she was talking to.

It was only then that Riana caught sight of her shirt's design, and sighed in disappointment. It was clearly a custom design, but the character depicted was too cute and chubby to belong to any of her franchises. It looked more like a western cartoon.

Still. She'd already slipped this far. She waved and smiled. "I like your bow."

"Oh? Thanks! It's magical. Want to see?"

"Of course!" The creativity of some people was unbelievable. Riana put a lot of effort into her costumes, but the kind of effects some creators managed was out of this world. Lack of costume aside, it became immediately obvious that this woman was one of those.

She raised the bow and a glowing white line immediately sprang to life, connecting the ends, then as she drew it back a purple haze obscured her hand and warped the air around it, like a heat shimmer mirage that made it hard to make out anything.

"How'd you do that?" It wasn't Riana who spoke, but the man behind her.

"Magic!"

He laughed. "Fair enough. Everyone has their trade secrets, right?"

"No, I mean actual magic. Reality-breaking spells. I'm a player in the biggest fantasy game of them all." She spread her arms. "Real Life Plus."

"Isn't that a graphic novel?"

"Oh, I don't know." The woman waved her hand, then pulled out another page from her bag. "But if you want to join us, my friend and I will be doing a live demonstration after the final panel tonight."

She handed the page to the man, then held out another for Riana, then leaned in to whisper, "If you want to get yourself some real power armor, I can help you out."

She waved and continued back down the line, chatting with everyone in sight, and Riana only then realized that she'd not gotten her name.

Ah, well. She'd have forgotten it immediately, anyway.

She looked down at the sheet, which was actually a trifold pamphlet introduction to... some kind of incredibly complicated LARP setup, it looked like. The back had the time and location of their live demonstration scribbled in sharpie.

Riana couldn't help but smile at the obvious love and care put into creating this event. She didn't have any other plans for the evening. Maybe she should go check it out.

Caleb wasn't a cosplayer. He wasn't a role-player. He wasn't even that fond of 'fandom' in general. It was all a big, ridiculous circle of people squeaking and yammering on. He wasn't here for the fans, he was here for the stars. As an up-and-coming voice actor (well, technically aspiring, but he was so close, practically a professional by now) he knew that connections were the only way he'd get anywhere in the industry, and figured since dubbing anime was such an insignificant little industry it might be easier to break in there than something more serious.

So when a random kid ran up trying to convince him to join their club, he was having none of it.

“I don’t have time for this kind of thing, I have places to be.”

"But I have a dinosaur."

He glanced at the kid's companion, who waved at him. For some reason Caleb had a hard time focusing on the shorter kid. He squinted, then shrugged. The stuffy atmosphere must be getting to him. That, or the kid's costume was just really bad. "Good for you." He nodded and started to walk away, but the kid followed.

"Look, you seem like a determined guy. You're exactly the sort of person we need. Just read this and think about it. My dad's going to do a dungeon run with anyone who's interested tonight. Just come to that and I promise I'll never bring it up again."

That was cute. As if he'd ever see the kid again after this. "I'm not here to play games." Caleb continued walking, and the kid kept following.

"Henry, NO."

The sharpness to the kid's voice was enough to make Caleb turn, to see the second kid was right behind him, leaning forward as if... about to bite his leg? Caleb sighed. This was why he didn't want to deal with kids. Immature little monsters, the lot of them. He took advantage of the momentary distraction to slip away into the nearest crowd, and to his relief the brats didn't follow this time.

He dropped the promo the kid had handed him into the appropriate trash can as he entered the building for the first VA panel, the incident already all but forgotten. He was sure the panelists would be glad to meet a fellow professional, instead of all the vapid meaningless fan interactions they must be inundated with.

His career was just about to take off. He just knew it.

"Hey. I see you have a sword."

Reese turned to see who'd spoken, smile already in place for if they wanted a photo. A cold-eyed man in a pretty solid getup stood there, but he didn't seem... impressed, or even very engaged.

Reese's smile slipped a bit. "I do, have a sword, yes. And I see you don't."

"Mine wouldn't have passed the check. They're with the ogres." He held out a folded brochure. "You should come join us."

"Ah, kaaay," Reese shook her head. For all the awesome people who came to these events, there were always their share of weirdos. She edged away and didn't take the brochure. "I should be going. Have fun."

The guy sighed. "Your planet is about to be invaded by monsters and demons, and I'm here to give you a chance to prepare before things go to hell. I swear, if you turn away now, you'll regret it the rest of your life." There was a quiet intensity to his voice, a sincerity that almost made Reese hesitate.

But... nah, he was just one of those crazies. "Bye." She walked away quickly, checking over her shoulder to be sure he wasn’t following.

He stood where she’d left him for a moment, then turned to accost someone else. For a moment she considered reporting him, but he wasn’t really hurting anything and she had better things to do than get caught up in someone else’s drama.