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  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Book Details

  Manifest

  About the Author

  Manifest

  ALDEN LILA REEDY

  The very last thing Chris expects when he's forced to take sewing lessons is to enjoy them. Or for sewing to lead him into the world of cosplay, and a friend with whom he begins to cosplay in earnest—and who convinces him to try dressing up as female characters.

  He certainly doesn't anticipate the realizations that cosplaying stirs—realization that could cost Chris not just his best friend, but his family as well.

  Book Details

  Manifest

  By Alden Lila Reedy

  Published by Less Than Three Press LLC

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner without written permission of the publisher, except for the purpose of reviews.

  Edited by Amanda Jean

  Cover designed by Manifest

  This book is a work of fiction and all names, characters, places, and incidents are fictional or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people, places, or events is coincidental.

  First Edition January 2015

  Copyright © 2015 by Alden Lila Reedy

  Printed in the United States of America

  Digital ISBN 9781620044797

  Manifest

  When I was sixteen, my sister Sarah caught an interest in sewing and asked for lessons. She was always jumping from hobby to hobby, but this one was practical, so my parents paid for lessons. My family was on the conservative side; I was chided for crying as a child, while Sarah caught flak for being into sports too much, and we went to church every Sunday and sometimes more often than that. However, my mother believed that men should be able to do at least simple mending, too—given the generations of tailors who had sewn—so she signed me up as well, and there was no getting out of it.

  To be honest, I thought it would be boring at first. And for the first few lessons it was, as we learned how to wind the bobbin full of thread, to thread the needle, to sew a straight and curved stitch without going through our own fingers, to change the needle between projects. The first few things we made, I threw out as soon as I had shown them to Mom.

  But just as my sister was losing her interest in it and going back to drawing birds, something about sewing grew on me.

  People used to think that women were bad at math. People used to expect the women to sew the family's clothing. This is a contradiction.

  I had always liked math—not enough that I was planning to go into statistics or anything, but I had had the fortune to be taught by a couple of really good math teachers. They explained things well, they related concepts to the real world, and they would go off on interesting little tangents that made me want to learn more. Whenever Sarah complained that she would never ever really actually have to use anything she was learning in math class, I took great glee in pulling out a pencil and paper and proving her wrong.

  Anyway. Sewing requires one to take a two-dimensional pattern and fit it to a three-dimensional person. It was necessary to correctly calculate the amount of fabric that was needed: too much meant overpaying and having fabric left over, while too little meant that there was a need to go back and buy more. Sometimes it was easier said than done—but I at least found it fun.

  And fabric was nice to work with. The ladies teaching our sewing class brought samples of different fabrics to our class one day. Cotton in an array of colors. Silk so smooth it snagged on my fingertips. Wool that was a little itchy but warm. Rayon that almost felt like the silk, cool to the touch. Fabric that was soft, or stiff, or so thin it almost floated. The first time my mom took me to a fabric store and left me alone, I didn't emerge for hours. I just wanted to touch and see all it had to offer, imagining the blankets and dresses and suits it could all be made into.

  My mom offered to buy me a sewing machine if I helped her clean out the spare room to put it in, and we spent a week sorting out photo albums, old toys, and half-finished projects. It took forever to vacuum out the dust, and we had to scrub down the walls, and the desk needed a new coat of paint, but in the end I got my sewing machine and a whole room to use it in.

  After that, I taught myself how to tailor things. When my dad bought new pants and needed them hemmed, or a zipper on my sister's dress broke, or when Mom's purse needed repairs, I was the one they went to. My parents had despaired for years at the fact that I was a T-shirt-and-jeans kind of guy, and that was still how I preferred to dress, but I found that nice buttoned shirts became more tolerable if I was the one to make them.

  And then one day I was looking up sewing tutorials on the web—I was thinking of making a coat, something warm but stylish—and after much adjusting of search terms and following related links, I stumbled upon a tutorial for a very strange-looking coat made of leather with a giant zipper up the front, like something out of a video game or comic. It looked cool, but it wasn't everyday wear. The tutorial was written pretty clearly, though, so I scrolled up to see if there were any more.

  It was a site dedicated to 'cosplay'—now what was that?

  Six hours later, I looked up from photos of people wearing amazing costumes and a million tabs full of tutorials when Mom knocked and told me to come to dinner. I hardly said anything at the meal, just ate my food as quickly as I could so I could get back.

  I wanted to do it. These people looked so cool—girls in giant hoop skirts, guys in period suits, people in armor, and people with delicately styled wigs and with props that almost looked like real weapons. I could hardly decide what character I wanted to dress up as first, and I already knew how to sew and buy fabric, so that part would be easy.

  You could wear a cosplay costume wherever you wanted, but it seemed like it was the most fun at meet-ups or conventions. I looked until I found a convention that would be happening relatively close to where I lived and begged my parents until they let me go, and alone with my friends to boot—as long as I paid for it, of course. I did a lot of yard work to pay for the hotel and convention fee, and for the costume materials. I had decided on a character who wore something like an old-fashioned suit, who otherwise looked a lot like me so I didn't have to get a wig or anything. I thought it came out pretty well; Mom took lots of pictures and cooed over how handsome I looked, while my sister teased me about having stepped out of my time machine a few centuries too late.

  I hitched a ride to the con with one of my friends, along with a girl I had met on a forum who happened to live nearby, Amelia. The drive took forever, but as we rolled into town, I got giddy at starting to see other people going to the con, standing out among the townspeople in their bright costumes and dress like butterflies. As soon as we had checked into the hotel, we were off again to pick up our badges and start exploring the halls of the con. I took so many pictures and met so many people—some people even wanted a picture of me.

  By the end of the day, I was happily exhausted. All of my friends and I were staying in a single hotel room, which was two people more than we should have had in the room, but there was plenty of space for sleeping bags on the floor. And there were both girls and guys in there, which would have made my parents flip if they knew. It made me feel a little awkward and guilty, but no one else seemed bothered, so I just kept it to myself and tried to act like I didn't care either.

  While we were getting ready on the second day, I sat down to pull on my boots, checked my hair, and thought I was finished. When Amelia was done with her eyeliner, she came to sit by me and raised an eyebrow painted blue. "No makeup? Or is it just really subtle?"

  I stared at her. "I'm a guy."

  She stared right back. "Well, yeah, but actors wear it for movies and stuff. And so do male mod
els. Cameras are good at making people look washed-out and tired—you should see the photos from my first con. I looked fine in real life, but in the pictures I looked kind of weird."

  "Really?"

  "Yeah. So even if my character isn't the kind to put on eyeliner, or whatever, I started just putting on some basics and it helps. I know guys that do it, too; it's not weird or anything."

  "If you say so." Normal guys would never touch makeup, right? I still had an escape, though: "But it's not like I have any of that stuff."

  "We're almost the same skin tone—I could just put a little foundation on you, if you want? Seriously, no one will even notice. But when we take pictures later, you'll look a little healthier."

  Before I could brush her off, she leaped up, grabbed my arm, and pulled me over to the mirror next to the closet, as the bathroom was still crowded with our roommates getting ready. "Just wait a sec," and she was back in a moment with a brush and a small container.

  It felt strange on my face for the first few moments. But it was true that I could hardly see it, even right next to the mirror, and it covered up the redness. "Thanks," I said. Maybe it would be okay to let her do it again tomorrow? But I was definitely going to wash it off before we left for home.

  The second day of the con—our first full day—was even more fun. There were panels to go to, pictures to take. We split up for a while and met up again for lunch at a nearby place, which was so packed with people it took us half an hour to get our pizza, though I was assured that that was actually quite fast for this time of day. Then it was back to our whirlwind of activities.

  And the costumes! People with gravity-defying wigs, people with trailing robes, people with hand-painted cloaks. Some congoers had pieced together amazing outfits from thrift stores; some had painted their whole bodies grey or green; some had managed to pull together groups of people cosplaying the same series. I ate lunch next to a pretty girl wearing a gown that she had hand-embroidered herself. While waiting in line I talked to a young woman wearing a full formal kimono she had put on without help. In the dealer's room, I silently admired a guy shuffling slowly like the zombie he was dressed as.

  When I got home, I was already planning for next year.

  I had so many ideas, but I slowly narrowed the list of them down. I didn't want something boring. I'd already done the stylish black suit thing. A cape might be cool. Nothing that needed a lot of hair or wig styling.

  I read a lot of forum threads and blogs. There was a tutorial for almost anything one wanted to make, which only gave me more ideas for the list. Maybe I could make a sword! Or foam armor. Or feathered angel wings.

  Amelia wanted to do a group cosplay. We argued back and forth for weeks over what series to do, filling chat log after chat log. She found some friends who were enthusiastic about a magical girl series. You could be the prince! she suggested. She attached a group picture that showed about half a dozen girls in colorful outfits with a prince in black standing in the background.

  Well, maybe, I typed in reply. His costume's kind of plain compared to the girls though.

  I know :( They get the pretty colors and he gets black. The cape is pretty nice at least? Or you could be another one of the girls :D

  I started to type No way! and paused. Anywhere else, it might have been a joke, but you couldn't get five minutes into cosplay without coming across crossplay, or cosplaying as a character of the other gender. I had been more than a little shocked, mostly that people talked about it so freely. I was sure there were also people who disliked it, but all the ones who didn't care drowned them out.

  Cross-dressing was a sin, right? But Amelia seemed to like it...

  Nah, I typed instead. I'll take Mr. Cape if you want.

  I did end up cosplaying as Mr. Cape, as we called him after that, next year. In a few episodes, he wore some kind of armor with colorful trim, which looked a lot more interesting than his normal outfit, if not so much as the girls' flouncy dresses, so I picked that to make instead. I started calculating the fabric requirements six months ahead of time.

  I got a friend to help me make the prince's sword. It took the two of us a week, partially because we messed up the proportions the first time. It was made of expanding foam and cardboard, so it was fairly lightweight, and while we didn't quite get it to look like real steel, the metallic effect we managed was pretty neat. Sarah stole it from me for a while and asked for one for her birthday when I finally got her to give it back.

  "Are you going to be the dashing prince rescuing the beautiful princess?" she asked as I started to pin the pattern to my fabric, spread out in the living room.

  "I'm pretty sure I'm the one who gets rescued, actually." I dropped a pin and resisted the impulse to curse as I searched for it. Sarah spotted it first and handed it over.

  "Well, that works too. Hey, when you're done, can I take some pictures?"

  "Oh, that's right, you just got into photography."

  "Yep! Composition and lighting, and stuff. But taking pictures of flowers is getting boring and nobody else will model for me. Please?"

  "If you still want to by then. Fair warning, I expect payment in the form of chocolate chip cookies."

  "Deal!"

  I finished the cape first just to twirl around in it in my room, enjoying the way it swished and billowed as it caught the air. Everything else came along with only a few hiccups, like when I accidentally sewed the sleeves inside out. Or when I had to completely redo the gloves when the fingers came out too narrow. Or when I got fabric paint across the kitchen table while detailing the armor and forgot to clean it up.

  When it was all done, I tried it on and looked at myself in the mirror. "Looks awesome!" said Sarah, clapping her hands. "Let me get my camera!"

  I thought to myself that I didn't quite look like much of a prince. Couldn't put my finger on why, so I turned from my reflection and waited for Sarah to return. She ended up taking photos for hours, asking me to pose in this or that way, experimenting with the lighting and fiddling with her camera, until Mom called us in to dinner.

  My costume was done, and in plenty of time for the con. Amelia finished hers the Wednesday night the week of—and we were leaving Thursday morning. "So tired," she moaned as we got into the car.

  "I told you the ruffles would take longer than you thought," I scolded. She stuck out her tongue and settled against the door to go to sleep.

  Thursday evening we left the hotel together, just the two of us, and went to the closest drugstore.

  See, following her advice, I had looked up some cosplay makeup tutorials in my spare time. There were some for guys, too, which made me feel a little better about the idea. But of course I didn't have anything like that. And I wasn't about to go to our local drugstore and buy some for myself. I couldn't even work up the nerve to buy anything online; what if my mom or dad saw the name of the store?

  I wanted Amelia to go and buy it all for me, but she rolled her eyes when I suggested it. "Come on, let's go together," and there wasn't any stopping her after that.

  I let her get whatever she wanted, trying to stand around and look like I was just waiting for her to finish. When we checked out, I handed her the money without looking the cashier in the eye. "Was that really so bad?" she asked as we left and started looking for a place to get dinner.

  "Yes."

  "Pfft. Wimp."

  I still felt guilty when I applied everything in the morning. But it did make me look more like an anime character, my skin smoother and eyes bigger. Suddenly I understood why girls—well, some girls—did this kind of thing every day.

  The con this year turned out to be even more fun than last year. Our group cosplay was a hit; we got stalled for minutes at a time in the lobby, alternately smiling and glaring and changing poses as waves of people stopped to take our photo. Amelia's friends turned out to be nice, and some of them had some serious sewing skills. "Did you make it yourself?" I asked the girl in yellow, Jess.

  "Yep!"


  "It looks really well done. Wasn't the chiffon hard to work with, though?"

  "Kind of. I hated doing the hems on this thing. But it was the perfect shade of yellow and it moves like it's supposed to, so it was worth it. I got it for free, too! My aunt was clearing out her stash and let me have it."

  "Lucky!"

  "The only thing I didn't make is the staff. Hannah over there," she nodded toward the girl in red, "made it for me."

  "Do you know if she's done swords before?"

  "Yeah, I think so. I like yours, though, did you make it?"

  "With some help." I held it out and Jess took it. She ran her fingers lightly down the blade, then turned it over and tilted it to get a good look at the handle, where my friend and I had attempted to imitate actual wrapping techniques with moderate success.

  "Not bad. I like how you did all the little details."

  We paid for some professional photographs, since we had put all that work into our costumes. It was a little difficult to arrange all six of us for each shot, but in the end I thought the pictures came out well. All the girls looked very pretty. As for me—well, I guess I looked okay. I emailed the photos to Sarah; she squealed over some aspects of the angles and composition and teased me about having all those girls around with no chaperone. Don't worry, I won't tell mom&dad ;)

  I split up from my friends for a while and hit up a workshop on making props, where I learned a few things and also got slightly dizzy on paint fumes before the staff propped a window open. For a long while after that, I relaxed by the indoor fountain on a perch where I could see most of the lobby, just watching everyone go by. Girls in kimono and dresses stuffed with petticoats, guys dressed like samurai—and sometimes girls dressed like schoolboys and guys in fancy ball gowns. It was that kind of place.

  And maybe it was sinful, but it wasn't my place to judge these people or tell them what to do. Anyway, there were far worse sins to be done, right? Some of them were good, too; I only realized the guy in the neat steampunk outfit with the jetpack was actually a girl when she laughed and her voice was so high.