Cons were the best! They were absolutely horrifying, so many people in such a compact space, but at the same time there were a bunch of nerds, fun competitions, awesome merch. And in the case of this one, even though it was weighted towards video games, there was cosplay! So many costumes, so many beautiful people in costumes, so many beautiful costumes. And a contest! Contests were great too, they catered to the competitive spirit in Shay.

Today Shay was going as a kinda outdated video game cosplay, but one she'd been meaning to try out for ages. Lightning from Final Fantasy XIII. She didn't win the contest, but placed pretty high along the competition. It was still a win!

What else was on her to do list? POW Block party were hosting a little Ultra fight siblings tournament. Yes, this was perfect! It might not result in Shay melting into a puddle of awkward fail sentences.

The amazing thing about being an esports personality/fidget.tv streamer was that you got a press badge at these things. So she skipped the line and signed up. The brackets meant very little to Shay, she'd not played too much of this particular fighting game, out side of house parties back at the team.

But from her experience of POW block party streams, they weren't experts either. She grabbed a can of energy drink and got into the waiting lounge, swaying in a corner a little, trying to work up the courage to go up and talk to one of the other content creators.

Con season was wonderful, but God, it was exhausting! Joy-Con was one of the bigger gaming-centered events in New York and The POW Block Party had their hands all over it. They were well-known in the gaming media world, which meant fan-meetups, events, panels and afterparties.

And as much as the Saturday was starting to drag, Nessa was loving the convention. She knew there was a big afterparty planned later that night, and dancing with nerds and ViewTube creators fit her idea of a good time. If anything, it was a shame Gina had plans for the day. Maybe she could persuade her to make an appearance at the party?

For now, they were in a large room with tables in rows hosting a massive collection of people duking it out in Ultra Fight Siblings. It was a very informal tournament mostly for fans to play and hang out with the cast, though there were some serious players she was sure would ascend to the top. Nessa was casually good at the game, which was enough for her to have a great time.

After lucking into a win against a guy who was awkward but well-intentioned, Nessa made her way to the lounge where players and spectators were mingling while waiting for a round winner to match up against. ”Hey! Which of you goofballs is waiting for a new challenger to kick your ass?”

Looking over the group, one pink-haired individual stood out. ”Woah! Okay, awesome cosplay chica, are you waiting for a game? Because I’m absolutely willing to play favorites.” She was a sucker for a good cosplay, even if she only did them herself one day per con as a rule. Today she was instead rocking a denim dress that came down to her thigh and was covered in video game patches. She was still in theme, but this girl deserved some attention.

Going up and talking to people was hard enough, but when they were people that you actually followed online there was this whole extra layer of awkwardness just piled on top of things. She recognised so many faces, she'd caught so many of their streams and videos over the last few years, if anything Shay felt like they'd helped her come out of her shell when it came to her personal channel.

Shay started a little when a very energetic woman walked in and addressed the room. It was Nessa, her favourite personality on POW block party. Shay tried to open her mouth to speak up, to no avail. She sort of fidgeted in the corner a little and tried not to look like someone that was absolutely out of place, obviously oblivious to the fact she was at a gaming con, dressed up as a video game character and therefore fitted in very well.

And then Nessa walked up to Shay. "I-uh- thanks-I mean Hi-" Shay's cheeks flushed in a little as she tried to regain her balance. She'd been doing so well with socialising all day, it was much easier to do when you were hiding behind a costume, but she was a fan.

"Thank you. S-Sorry, I'm a fan." She murmured.

Booker would have been impressed with the cosplay Nessa stumbled upon. The craft was always something her brother invested more time into, though Nessa was no slouch when he dragged her into his plans. She gave him grief, but it was fun getting dressed up and showy; very outside of the norm.

The cosplayer stumbled through the meeting, but Nessa displayed patience. Plenty of con-goers were like this. You bring enough introverted nerds into a space, they were going to struggle through interactions. This happened a lot to her as a creator, so when the young woman admitted to being a fan, Nessa grinned proudly.

”Well, I certainly always enjoy meeting a fan,” she assured, placing a comforting hand on her shoulder. ”So how about it? Play a round of UFS? Though I suppose the bar for entry is you giving me your name. It’s only fair, right?” After all, everyone knew her name.

Shay was pretty confident in her cosplay in general, she spent a most of her life working on costume ideas, well what time she wasn't gaming or streaming anyway. Still, it was pretty amazing being complimented by someone you'd followed for a while.

Well Shay had followed POW block party, not so much Nessa. Okay it was Nessa. She was really cool, super outgoing and seemed really genuine and happy. Shay envied that about her, she found it really hard to drag herself outside some days let alone maintain the social ability that some people displayed.

Being pretty to look at helped too. It always felt like Shay spent a lot of her time blushing when she was out in the wild, obviously the situation didn't help. After a moment of awkwardness she found her voice again. "I-ah-Y-Yes, that'd be nice. I did sign up."

"Sorry. Hi. I'm Shay."

Things moved quickly at conventions because time was at a premium. They could not host this competition forever, so Nessa was hoping her randomly selected contestant was actually part of the tournament. It did occur to her that she did not wait for anyone to actually volunteer before she played favorites.

And that was definitely what she did. She offered an arm to the cosplayer to lead her away from the masses and toward one of the many screens set up. They really were lucky to claim one of the larger spaces in the conference hall or this whole event would have felt quite claustrophobic. The past few years had only helped their brand grow, and it was clear when they brought fans into a small space together. It made the job somehow better, which was amazing since her job description involved video games.

Leading their way forward, the name offered hit Nessa. No way. "Wait. Shay like ShadyShay? Because if so, I need you to tell me," she said seriously. Shay was hard to pin down at events like this; until word started popping up on social media, how do you find an appearance shifter in a crowd?

Okay. Shay could do this. Socialising, what could go wrong? It wasn't like Shay was a massive fan of Nessa and the rest of her channel, and Shay had signed up for the potential to meet them and spent the whole day talking herself into not chickening out. Okay, it was absolutely terrifying. But she couldn't exactly chicken out or leave now, she was sort of locked into this now that she'd agreed to play.

Accepting the offered arm, Shay tried not to blush too hard as Nessa led her towards the screens. Shay didn't have many friends outside of the people on the team, but she'd lived with them forever, things were so different when you lived with people. They were more like a family than normal friends.

She didn't know how to do this.

Uh. Wat. Did Nessa know who Shay was? Surely not... There was no way. Sure Shay had a popular-ish channel. But they'd never caught any of the Pow bloc people in the chat?

"I-Yes-I mean" Shay gulped. "Do you know me?"

The nerd community was an ever-expanding landscape and in the grand collective, there were dozens of sub-cultures and groups. Maybe even hundreds, with plenty of overlap and groups in groups in groups. It was impossible to know everyone, no matter how well-connected you were. Nessa had professional connections across plenty of the video game content-creation scene, though "professional" was an awkward term when their jobs and collabs often meant drinking and gaming. Still, she was friendly with the Cranky Console Crabs, CueTeeCake, Extraordinary Gloves, The Extra Stage, and plenty of independent Let's Players. To a lesser degree, she knew some people in the broad ViewTube scene; that was how she met Becca (for better or worse.)

Cosplayers and full-time streamers, while she had tons of respect for them, did not overlap in her circles as often. They lived their content style, which she knew first-hand was intimidating. She did follow a few notable names in those circles, and Shady Shay was a name she absolutely recognized even if their appearance was a much harder challenge.

Nessa's smile broadened as she got them in front of a screen so they could settle into chairs. "Definitely! I love catching VODs of your streams when I can." It was easier to catch the recorded version of the stream, or even clipped highlights after a long day of planned videos. "And I absolutely follow your Speedigraph for those amazing costumes. Plus, I like when I can show some support to other queer content creators out there." With their powers, Nessa had seen Shay refer to themself as most pronouns, changing depending on their day and mood.

Shay hadn't personally met many people outside of the other pro teams. She'd been on 2 pro teams so far, and mostly mingled with other people in that sphere, which had been a very different experience from the little she'd interacted with other content creators on view tube and fidget. Teams and their corporations where very rooted in group dynamic, and a sort of.. family vibe.

Other groups and individuals operated very differently, but from what Shay had seen Pow bloc party operated very similarly, in some ways. Also Nessa was trans, and beautiful, and lovely and... Shay really liked watching her content.

Although, Shay did like watching other channels. She particularly liked Strength mod, factsaboutvideogames and nogrammer. They were very individual orientated, but Shay figured it would be easier to get along with people from pow bloc party, because they were a collective. At least, she hoped they'd get on.

Was the world spinning? nope, Shay was just feeling a bit faint. They basically dropped into the chair. "Re-Wha-Fo- For real?" the disbelief was palpable. "I-" Shay took a deep exhale, visibly trying to calm them down. "Sorry. I'm... I'm not good at this. Thank you." Shay could just melt in a corner, and die now, kay thanks.

Vanessa was confident in her abilities as a gamer, but she was by no means a pro. Part of the appeal of the POW Block Party was watching them fail half the time. Realizing who she picked out as her next opponent, Nessa realized she might be bowing out of his tournament soon. She was good, but Shay was an actual pro. It would be interesting to see how she faired against that.

That was fine. Vanessa was competitive, but this was a social event and she had struck social gold. As a tenured member of the online community, Vanessa did not get starstruck often, but she was a fan and not shy about it. ”Totally for real. An awesome gamer who’s a mutant and genderqueer? Iconic.”

Now that they were settling into their seats, Vanessa turned to look at Shay. If Shay did follow her, they knew Nessa was a mind-reader, but she was likely not thinking about it. No harm in seeing if she could get a peek at Shay’s eyes. ”Do most people realize who you are at these things? Or do you tend to fly under the radar with that power of yours? Well, as under the radar as you can be looking like that in such a great costume.”

It was funny, usually when people asked questions about these sorts of events, in the stream or in person with Shay, they asked about performance anxiety, or how you dealt with competition and it's stress. People didn't get how Shay felt about it, playing games wasn't stressful. It was freeing, and exciting and fun. It was fun to test yourself against others.

The stressful part was dealing with people, people were hard, people were confusing. Unlike the rules of games, they were ever changing and mutable.

Shay didn't just look timid, she had a real genuine red flashed blush on her cheeks. She'd absolutely not expected this. It was one thing to have people in the community telling her that the channel was fun, or they liked the content. It was totally another having another, far more impressive content creator compliment them on it. On them, in general. This was new.

As Shay glanced back at Nessa, meeting her eyes, Shay was not thinking about the game ahead. Their thoughts were instead centered on how awesome it was to meet Nessa, how cool they actually were in person, how shocking it was that Nessa knew Shay's content. And the absolute dread that Shay would make a fool of herself.

And then the slow dawning that Nessa could probably hear their thoughts, Shay's eyes snapped back to the screen and they tried very hard not to hyper-ventilate. "I-ugh-y-No."

Squeezing her eyes shut for a moment Shay added. "I usually d-don't advertise who I am, attention online is very different from attention in person. I'm not good with people." Shay picked up the controller. Concentrating on the game might help.

It was always a unique world when the internet leaked into real life. While internet personas could be boisterous and obnoxious, many internet nerds were just introverts. Getting so many nerds from the internet into one place, you often had thousands of shy people acting against type to interact face-to-face. Personalities were no different; some of the most outgoing internet personalities were much more private and reserved in person.

Evidently, Shay was part of that camp. Nessa had enough social energy to make herself a face of her team, assuming someone did not piss her off. People usually knew where she would be at any given event. For Shay, they were content to fly under the radar. For someone with their own following, they were surprisingly humble.

And based on the thoughts Nessa was skimming, very easy to fluster. She tried to look away when she noticed Shay remembering what the telepath’s power was. Nessa stifled her grin. ”Good for you. Gotta take care of yourself first.” At the end of the day, they were just people and deserved to preserve their mental health.

Looking through the character options, trying to decide who she felt comfortable with. Guiseppe always felt awkward and slow to her, but she could try one of the twelve sword-wielders like any of the Flame Sigil characters, or even Zeldio the Elven Hero. After a moment of deliberation, she opted instead for the titular character of The Fable of Linkle series instead, locking in Princess Linkle and swapping through outfit colors. ”Honestly, it’s cool your power gives you that choice. Though if I had it, I feel like I’d demand everyone’s attention all the time,” she admitted, chuckling as she added, ”Like, I’m highkey envious. A power like that could have saved me so much time and money.” It was said lightly, but it was true; Shay did sort of have the dream power for a trans girl. And good for them! But yeah. Eeeeenvy.

As much as Shay might try to focus on the game, until it started there was still social going on. Distracting social activity. At least Nessa was a nice distraction, she seemed so genuine. People that were fine with Shay being who they were, were just the best people.

Shay nodded tentatively. "Live games weren't that b-bad in the past, because I had a group of other people playing with me, also drawing attention. It's worse when you're the one absorbing most of it. I like cosplay because people focus on the costume, not me as a person." She admitted. Physically she wasn't shy, hell. She'd even done some very skimpy comic inspired outfits. And Dante, topless Dante was fun.

Shay had been distracted completely by her own thoughts and caught up when she heard the announcer call out Linkle. She grinned. Unusual, but cool pick. Linkle was kind of cute. Okay, very cute. Shay made a mental note to plan out a Linkle costume when she got home.

Now with the game in the forefront Shay's unconscious sort of took over the conversation, eliminating some of the fluster. "I get that a lot on stream. I think I get it? Like, if I got stuck in a body, as either gender forever I'd go insane." She admitted, as she scrolled to Floofloon and locked in. Gatchamon were cute and fun, but Shay would be lying if Floofloon's cuteness didn't initially draw her to the character.

That, and landing rest was the most satisfying thing. Grinning, thinking about the characters and the match up Shay turned to face Vanessa directly again and absentmindedly finished her thought out loud. "And for what it's worth I've always thought you were beautiful, regardless of settings." Shay was of course, being very genuine. Before realising that she was speaking normally, clearing her throat and turning to the game.

Nessa was used to interacting with fans, but Shay was something more akin to a peer. Their experiences were different, but they had enough in common to relate to the benefits and struggles of their industries. Obviously Nessa had coworkers to empathize with, but it was good to get out of her own bubble, and The POW Block Party could very much feel like a bubble at times.

”Interesting. So you like when the focus isn’t on you, but the things you do or the things you’re wearing.” It was an interesting way to handle the public eye, especially for such a private person. ”Also totally justifies the sexy cosplays. Which… is really awkward that I just brought up,” she added, awkwardly catching herself. Think before speaking, Nessa.

It was hard to imagine living a life where Nessa’s gender was never pinned down. Gender was such a bit part of her life, and she always felt so connected to her right gender. It was funny to her how it was so easy to understand that her sex and her gender were mismatched earlier in life, but even she still struggled to get her head around nonbinary genders sometimes. ”It’s just a good reminder sometimes that we really don’t fully understand other people’s stuff all the time. Good reason to empathize and accept first and go from there.” After dealing with bigotry, Nessa never planned to be anything less than accepting to others.

The game zoned in with the basic map layout reskinned with a pleasant animal town setting. As soon as the game started, the princess on screen lobbed a fireball, but it went wide when Shay threw out a compliment. ”D’aww, did you have a ViewTube crush on me?” she teased, her character running in closer to melee attack. ”No shame in that; there are some cuties in our industry. Like there’s this one shapeshifter, and they’re just so hot like all the time.”

Shay micro shrugged. It was kind of hard to put into words actually, Shay just wasn't a very socially strong person. "Kind of? I don't mind people looking at me, I don't even mind getting like, well-er. I mean. Getting checked out is okay." Shay appreciated aesthetic just as much as the next person, maybe more in some cases. It wasn't really part of their issues.

Shay actually smiled a little more. "It's good to know you appreciate them. I try to go for sexy, it's much easier when you can just cheat." She admitted. Her customisation was just the coolest, she never ever got tired of it. Except when those pesky tattoo desires crept up. Then there was a little bit of frustration that crept through.

Shay nodded. "I think about it a lot actually." Gender was complicated. "'Cause of my power I've basically always been like this, and my parents have been cool with it." Which definitely helped, Shay had picked up on a few horror stories particularly from trans friends. It wasn't really like Shay's parents had time to form ideas about Shay though, the shape shifts were happening before Shay was even born.

Shay shielded the fireball and was immediately about to feign and approach and start floofloon's annoying jump pressure before Nessa asked a question. The big question. Okay, they were all big questions. Situations like this were always scary, when you brought crushes in to the mix they got so much worse. Obviously Shay's crushes typically went beyond just the physical, as had Shay's with Nessa. Nessa was pretty, true. But it was her outgoing personality at a time when Shay was struggling to find a voice outside of their team houses that really captivated Shay.

Shay very quickly lost a stock. Floofloon's movement became predictable and sluggish and they got failed an air recovery. 2 left, they could do this. If they could stop thinking awkward thoughts. Sure. "I-uh-ye-hm-" Shay's sounds were coming out a little more incoherent. They needed to pull themselves together.