It was a common enough request. Kino Mikii is a professional cosplayer, charging fans as much as $250 USD a month to see photos where she poses in costumes inspired by anime franchises like Sword Art Online and re:ZERO.

It was a conversation that quickly crossed the line. Malaysia-based cosplay model Kino Mikii was approached online by a man who claimed to be a Singaporean photographer named "Michael Alex" to pose for some photos.

But the photographer wasn't all that interested in her costumes. Instead, he quickly shifted the conversation to sex toys before offering her SG $2,000 ($1,483 USD) for a private photo session and sex, writing "I want to taste your beautiful body."

Kino Mikii shut the conversation down and posted the entire exchange on her Facebook as a warning to other cosplayers in Southeast Asia. Her post touched a nerve. Some of her followers accused Kino Mikii of making the whole thing up. Meanwhile, other women started to share their own stories about conversations with the same photographer. While it wasn't big enough to spark a #MeToo moment in the region's cosplay scene, it did start a conversation about how often female cosplayers are sexually harassed by their fans, both in the real world and online.

Here in Indonesia, some of the worst harassment comes online, explained Pinky Lu Xun, an Indonesian cosplayer who has been active in the cosplay community since 2004. She told VICE that it was fairly common to see harassing comments on her Instagram page or sexually explicit messages in her inbox. She often opens her Instagram to see comments like "this person is just begging to be raped" or DMs where guys ask how much it costs to sleep with her. And it's gotten worse in recent years, she said.

"Usually the perpetrators are people who feel safe hiding behind their online ID," she explained. "They think they're free to commit such conduct."

The problem is that a lot of people don't understand how traumatizing it is to be sexually harassed. And plenty of others in Indonesia think a woman's dress, her choice to cosplay in a "suggestive costume" is an invitation for sexually explicit remarks or pervy behaviour. But even modest clothing doesn't protect women from harassment, Pinky explained.