True Tales of Cruddy Con Contrivances

What's up podcast enthusiasts, I'm Tim Ripp, and welcome to another The Rippoff Presents: Supplementary Text Newsletter Email. I've been having these recurring nightmares about attending cons, so I put out some questions on that topic to the community last week. Here's the highlights.

What's the weirdest cosplay you've ever seen?

"I was at The Rock-A-Fandom Explosion in Malibu in I think 1998, and I got asked to sign the novelization of one of the episodes I wrote of Space Convent Hijinks. This was unusual, but not that weird, but it was a woman about my age, and she was wearing a very high-effort cosplay of the character in the show that my first wife played before we got married. Gave me a bit of a jump for a second. Wasn't her, though, I checked."
--Seanald, Retired Screenwriter

"My boyfriend and I had broken up like a week before we were supposed to attend Senpai Locker Shrine in Kansas City in 2014. We went separately and he entered a cosplay contest with a costume that was just, like, an outfit I wear sometimes, and he went on stage and said he was cosplaying me, and did a really mean impression of me. The crowd had no idea what he was doing but I knew. I knew that I really did sound like that."
--Reina, Bank Lobby Interior Decorator

What was your worst Artist Alley experience?

"I had a really bad breakup in 2014, and I acted like a real fool about it, which is on me. The next year, I had relocated to Florida, and I was making a real go of it as a caricature artist. I was tabling at Maximum Uguu in Tampa, and somehow my ex-girlfriend got the table across from me. She was selling this really half-assed crayon scrawl of me saying 'I'm fundamentally inadequate as a human being' in a little speech bubble, but with insane production values. Prints of various sizes on really nice glossy card stock, keychain charms, wall scrolls, phone cases, you name it. She sold out every few hours and would have to send her secretary to get more made."
--Jimothy, Paid Wedding Guest Wardrobe Designer

"In the leadup to Coalition of Moeblobs in Providence in 2013, I held my nose and drew a print of the weird-faced British freak from Sherlock kissing his insufferable partner. To pander, you know? Sell some prints of a sure thing instead of gambling on there being enough passing fans of Abhorrent Steve's Self-Loathing Spiral, which is the fandom I'm actually passionate about drawing main cast members of smooching. Those prints sold so well it changed the entire course of my life. I still hate that freak and his godawful show, but it's too late now. I'm too far down this road."
--Millicent, Wife of Benedict Cumberbatch

What's the biggest con organizing disaster you've borne witness to?

"I was working guest relations at Rocket to the Anime Moon in Martha's Vineyard in 2012. A bunch of cops or something show up with this fucked up looking old guy in chains, and they show paperwork from the Department of Corrections saying he's an invited guest, and I'm like, what is going on? Anyway it turns out there's another Charles Manson, who did not write the Elfcrown Cycle novels, and did some really bad stuff. Credit where it's due, though, he still did the Elfcrown Retrospective Q&A really well. Good public speaker, very charismatic."
--Sara, Reverse Arsonist

"Friday morning at Fusillade of Fanwank in Ocean City in 2017, I watched a guy at the badge check table get so frustrated at QR code scan errors he got up and just set himself on fire. Those of us still in line could only stare in slackjawed horror as we watched him die. As the weekend progressed, we would all come to envy him."
--Peter, HVAC Installation Understudy

What was your worst hotel experience during a con?

"My fantasy football league cofounder's wife and I slept together during a Disney cruise in 2009, and she brought it up in 2016 while they were having an argument at home. He got in his car and drove for ten hours to Cedar Rapids, where I was attending Unmitigated Sensory Assault. He systematically knocked on the door of every room in the hotel asking for me, until finally collapsing exhausted on the top floor, with only four rooms left. The hotel staff who found him called the bomb squad because he was wearing an Evangelion plugsuit made of IEDs. Part of me still wonders what could've happened if I hadn't coincidentally booked the last numbered room in the hotel."
--Arthur, Vending Machine Counterfeiter

"At Manga Be Upon Ye in Provo in 2022, Lisa accidentally booked a room with a single bed, instead of two beds, for our group. Me and Ronnie played rock paper scissors to decide who would sleep in the bathtub and who would have to just chug coffee in the hotel bar and not sleep at all. At the bar I ended up hitting it off with this very emotionally intelligent twink in Mr. Rogers cosplay, and I got to sleep in his room after we had vigorous guest relations, so I was thinking, who's laughing now, Ronnie? But later I found out that apparently paper does not beat scissors, so it was her that was laughing now after all."
--Stacy, Racehorse Psychiatrist