Cosplay gets treated here as more than costume play: fans build elaborate homemade outfits of their favorite characters and wear them at conventions and photo shoots, and this episode of the PBS web series Off Book asks what the practice actually does for the people inside the costumes. Clinical psychologist Robin Rosenberg discusses the effect of stepping into another identity, journalist and cosplayer Jill Pantozzi speaks from inside the community she covers, and professor Frenchy Lunning places the movement in a longer history of fandom and performance. Convention footage and photography show the costumes themselves, from meticulous character reproductions to more inventive reworkings, while the interviews argue that dressing up can let people experiment with gender, confidence, and self-presentation they don't get elsewhere. The episode runs short, but it treats cosplay as a real subject of study rather than a novelty, using the three interviewees to move the conversation from spectacle to psychology.