Literature / Once Upon A Con

Once Upon A Con is a three-book Young Adult series by Ashley Poston.

The series, centered around the sci-fi Show Within a Show Starfield franchise and the fandom culture that sparks up around it, showcases the lives of various fans of and actors in the Starfield universe, with Fairy Tale Motifs throughout each.

The three books are:

• Geekerella: a Cinderella Plot about Danielle "Elle" Wittimer, a fangirl whose father founded the ExcelsiCon Fan Convention for Starfield fans. She wants to win a cosplay contest to attend the cosplay ball and meet the new Carmindor lead for the upcoming movie. The only problem is she has a controlling stepmother, demanding stepsisters, and major dislike for Darien Freeman, the new lead—who is dealing with his own issues as said new lead.
• The Princess and the Fangirl (2020): A Prince and Pauper plot about an actress, Jessica Stone, and fan, Imogen Lovelace, who switch places during ExcelsiCon. Jessica wants to prove she's not leaking the script to social media, and Imogen wants to save Jessica's character Amara from being killed off in the movie.
• Bookish and the Beast (2021): a Beauty and the Beast plot that focuses on Vance Reigns, a minor character in the previous book. The Hollywood actor ends up banished by his parents to a small town to hide out from the tabloids, where he gets involved with a local girl, Rosie Thorne; when she accidentally damages a rare book they have to work together to Work Off the Debt.

There is also a set of short stories that are available for free on Ashley Poston's site, set after the events of the books and more Slice of Life stories:

• "Once At Midnight", narrated by Damien and Elle and set as an Interquel to Geekerella
• "Once a Princess", narrated by Jessica Stone and after the events of The Princess and the Fangirl.
• "Once an Ever After", narrated by Elle and set about two years after Geekerella and after Bookish and the Beast.

Tropes for the series in general include:

• Fan Convention: The books and stories involve the fan convention ExcelsiCon, which was founded in part by Elle's late father.
• Fairy Tale Motifs: Each book is a modern take on a classic fairy tale (or in the case of The Princess and the Fangirl, a well-know story treated like one) with a focus on the fans, actors, and fandom of a sci-fi show.
• This Is Reality: One point that each book makes is that fandom and acting is not all positive feels and roses. To start with, the actors may face unfair harassment and constant Internet hate. They may also get felt up, controlled by abusive managers for their money, or typecast.

Tropes for Geekerella include:

• Abusive Parents:
  • Elle's stepmother Catherine, and this is an understatement. She's entitled, emotionally abusive, and self-centered, going so far as to plan to sell the house that belonged to Elle's family to continue to support her failing wedding business. She clearly favors Chloe over Cal and can't stand Elle at all, being condescending to her face and treating her like a burden for still being around at all. When Elle returns from the con's ball with Cal, her stepmother punishes her hard all for speaking back to her—not only does she accuse her of dragging Cal into the con with her and corrupting her, she takes away her phone, makes her quit her job at the food truck because she thinks it's filthy, clean out all her Starfield items and makes Elle start working for the country club she and her daughters are members of to work somewhere "respectable." By the time of "Once an Ever After" she and Catherine only talk occasionally over Facetime and send gifts in the mail; Elle doesn't ask after her.
  • Darien's father is his manager and very controlling. He gets fired by Darien when he finds out his father tried to break him and Elle up to "create drama" around him.
• Appropriated Appellation: A Buzzfeed article condescendingly lists Elle as "Geekerella" in her cosplay getup. She later finds it flattering and decides to adopt it. Chloe tries to claim she is when she wants to get close to Damien and be "found" again. Damien sees right through her.
• Big Damn Kiss: Darien and Elle have one when they reunite at the country club. James, Chloe's boyfriend, films the whole thing—he started on Chloe's command when she tried to pretend she was "Geekerella" from the convention—and then uploads the video, to Chloe's horror.
• Cinderella Plot: This, centered around a modern day Fan Convention. Danielle is a Geek into the fictional sci-fi show Starfield she and her late parents watched together, while the prince is the actor playing Prince Carmindor for the upcoming movie, Darien Freeman. The "ball" Elle wants to attend is the cosplay contest of a Starfield convention that her cruel stepmother (who has burned through the insurance money to support her failing wedding business and is aiming to sell the house for more money) thinks is a waste of time, and her twin stepsisters push her around; the favored of the two, Chloe, destroys Elle's costume to prevent her from being in the cosplay contest and steals her tickets so she and Cal can try and meet Darien. Elle even gets to the ball in a pumpkin—the food truck she works at called "The Magic Pumpkin"—and leaves one of her cosplay shoes behind when leaving. Which of course, Darien returns to her at the country club she's been forced to work at after quitting the food truck by her stepmother.
• Didn't Think This Through: When Darien shows up at the country club to find Elle, Chloe tries to charm him and claim that she's really Geekerella—she's already successfully claimed to be online after dying her hair to match Elle's and uploading vlogs on it. Darien moves right past her and to Elle, because he saw Elle's face and knows exactly what she looks like.
• Fantasy-Forbidding Mother: Stepmother. Catherine constantly tells Elle that her—and her father's—obsession over Starfield is a waste of time and living in a world of make-believe, and that Elle needs to let go of it because it's not real life. After she comes home from the convention ball, Catherine makes her clean out the attic of all her and her father's Starfield items as part of her punishment.
• Ivy League for Everyone: By the end, Elle is soon to start at UCLA and pursuing a film studies major.
• Kick the Dog:
  • Elle's stepmother forces Elle to empty the attic of her father's Starfield things, makes her quit working at the Magic Pumpkin and go back to the country club, and tells her bluntly she doesn't care about her and that she's living in a world of make-believe. And the reason why? Elle missed curfew and sneaked out without permission, and yelled at her about how she's treated her since her father died.
  • Chloe, after getting her in trouble, treats Elle horribly at the country club. She orders her around when she can and all but throws hot coffee on her and yells it's made wrong, knowing that Elle can't retort while working behind the counter. She then makes her follow out as her caddy golfing.
• Masquerade Ball: ExcelsiCon has a cosplay themed one every year. Subverted as Darien doesn’t realize that Elle is his Elle—not because of the mask but because he doesn’t know what Elle looks like. Played straight with the Nox King cosplay.
• Nerd Hoard: Elle has a stash of Starfield items, some of which belonged to her late parents. Her Wicked Stepmother makes her throw it all out after she comes home late from the costume contest.
• Parental Abandonment: Both of Elle's parents are dead—her father from a car crash and her mother from cancer, with her father's death more recent.
• Sudden Principled Stand:
  • Calliope is normally weak-willed and fine with going along with her twin sister Chloe's bullying attitude. However, after she realizes that she has feelings for Elle's friend Sage, she has a Jerkass Realization about her behavior—especially after Chloe gets home before her and Elle and lies about them being at the convention, throwing Cal under the bus as well. Calliope tries to defend Elle to her mother, tells off Chloe for being a bully, and eventually starts a relationship with Sage.
  • James Collins, Chloe's boyfriend who was in the past part of a prank to make Elle look bad for Chloe's vlogging channel, starts to turn against Chloe when she openly brags about Darien in front of him. When Darien comes to the country club in Sage's food truck and walks past her to Elle—and kisses her in front of her clique—James uploads the whole video that Chloe asked him to start filming to her channel to her very horror.
• Tragic Keepsake: Deconstructed. Elle has a lot of Starfield merchandise and handmade items that belonged to her father until Catherine makes her clean them out. By the end of the novel, she's realizes that staying in the house just for the memory of her parents is a bad idea and leaves when she turns eighteen at the start of her senior year of high school.

Tropes for The Princess and the Fangirl include:

• Break the Cutie: Imogen gets a taste of what Jessica is going through when her ex feels her up while mistaking her for Jessica, and when her crush Vance turns out to be a huge jerk. She ends up smashing a milkshake into Vance's face.
• Clear My Name: Jessica is accused of leaking the script for the movie's sequel and compromising her NDA. She realizes she needs to find the script to figure out who is leaking it. It turns out to be the director framing her and hoping to fire her.
• Jerkass Realization: Jessica realizes that she went too far with the ruse when Imogen's best friend realizes that she's not Imogen and accuses Jessica of being a liar. She apologizes using a megaphone.
• Nice Character, Mean Actor: Vance is seen as a darling to congoers and fangirls. He's actually a big jerk out of character. He doesn't get better until the events of Bookish and the Beast.
• Prince and Pauper: This happens when Jessica decides to switch places with Imogen to find out who stole the copy of her script and started leaking it. Hilarity Ensues.
• Sweet and Sour Grapes: After she walks a mile in Jessica's heels, Imogen decides to pack up her Save Amara campaign when she understands why Jessica would hate playing the character. When it's revealed the director was making the leaks in a bid to frame Jessica, he gets fired and Natalie replaces him. She saves Amara in the script rewrites while helping Jessica with her career.
• This Is Reality:
  • Jessica feels she's risking being typecast in fantasy and sci-fi movies for the rest of her career; several indie projects turned her down for the crime of being Amara.
  • Mentioned by Imogen's friends when they hear the full story about the script ending up in the garbage. It's unlikely that someone would have been able to find it in the trash and leak it. They're right; someone else on the crew was leaking the script to frame Jessica.
• A Tragedy of Impulsiveness: Jessica regrets throwing her Starfield script in the trash in a fit of anger. It leads to her suspecting that someone stole it and is framing her for the leaks.
• What You Are in the Dark: Imogen finds out that her ex casually feels up celebrities. He felt her up as well when she was disguised as Jessica, and he expects them to be too stunned to speak up. Imogen calls him out for this, as well as for being a terrible boyfrined. When he goes Oh, Crap! on learning he actually felt up his ex, Imogen and Ethan get him banned from ExcelsiCon for life.
• Younger Than They Look: Jessica lied about her age to get into film at the age of sixteen. She's entering her twenties and is already considered "old" for the role.

Tropes for Bookish and the Beast include:

• A Day in the Limelight: Vance was a minor character in The Princess and the Fangirl and only loosely mentioned before that. Here, we see his perspective.
• Caught in the Rain: Rosie and Vance get locked out and then weather happens.
• Expy: Garrett is one of Gaston. He acts entitled around Rosie, refusing to take "no" for an answer about her going with home to Homecoming, and gleefully outs Vance's location when he steals the evidence from her phone.
• Forgiveness: Imogen and Vance have become friends since the events of the last book as they've started bonding over their love of video games. She also helps get him to the Homecoming in time when he realizes he needs to apologize to Rosie.
• Laser-Guided Karma: Garrett is a piece of work who thinks that Rosie is "ungrateful" for not hanging out with him or agreeing to be his date. Then he steals evidence from her phone that Vance is in their town, and tells the tabloids; Vance gets his own back by throwing a punch at him at Homecoming, and Rosie follows up by decking him in the face.
• Masquerade Ball: Characters meet in their ExcelsiCon masked costumes and don’t tell each other their real names.
• Meaningful Name: Rosie is named for her rose-shaped birthmark.
• This Is Reality: This is why Rosie doesn't want to go out with Vance when they start to bond; she mentions that the fantasy of a bad boy is better than the reality. Vance is actually relieved that she's not blinded by his star power.

Tropes for Once an Ever After include:

• Betty and Veronica: Elle's the plain, geeky not famous girl and Kate's the well known, well off actress. Damien chooses Elle in the end.
• It's Not You, It's Me:
  • Damien and Elle end up breaking up after Elle feels that she's not cut out to be as visible as it requires to be his girlfriend.
  • Damien breaks up with Kate when he realizes that he still has feelings for Elle, and they get back together at the convention.
• I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: This is Elle's excuse for pushing Damien away as a friend after he comforts her post Frank's death; he missed a date with his new actress girlfriend Kate to be with her and was there all night. Elle tells him he's too nice to her and she doesn't want to get in the way of his and Kate's relationship. The truth is that she still feels things for him and decides that being friends can't be enough; it has to be all or nothing, so she chooses nothing. It doesn't work on both sides—Damien still has feelings for her, and he breaks up with Kate before he and Elle get back together at ExcelsiCon.
• Late-Arrival Spoiler: This story spoils all the major events of the books, as it's set two years after Geekerella and post Bookish and the Beast.
• Lost Pet Grievance: Frank, the Dachshund that Elle takes from her neglectful neighbor and Sage takes in in Geekerella, passes away suddenly and Sage calls to let Elle know. Elle is distraught and Damien, when he finds out, goes to comfort Elle—to her distress, as he missed a date with his new girlfriend Kate to be by her side.
• One-Shot Character: Kate—an actress Damien was in a skateboarding film with—is only spoken about as Damien's new girlfriend after he and Elle break up. She actually only appears shortly in one scene—to vent quickly at Elle and walk away after Damien broke up with her due to having feelings still for Elle.

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Look to the stars. Aim. Ignite.