text: Convention Fevah
  
  I have a cabinet filled with dolls of myself in my office. But I didn't MAKE any of them, so that makes it less creepy, right?
  
  In the summer of 2008, I walked onstage with the cast and creators of Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, a musical web series released on the internet just weeks before, and was greeted by the screams of more than five thousand people. We were at San Diego Comic-Con, in Ballroom 20, the second largest hall at the biggest nerd event in the world. With me were Nathan Fillion and Simon Helberg and Neil Patrick Harris, my Horrible costars, and Joss Whedon and his siblings, Zack, Jed, and Jed's wife, Maurissa, the writers. Joss Whedon was also the director. You may be familiar with him from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Firefly, and The Avengers. (Whew, that was a lot of name-dropping.) As I smiled and waved to the audience, gazing out on the huge room filled with thousands of faces, I suddenly knew what it felt to be a rock star.
  
  And my inner dik-dik didn't want any terrifying part of it.
  
  Nathan and Neil and Joss were extremely witty onstage during the panel, bantering with one another like the superstars they are, and the only thing I could do was stare down at the iPhone 3G in my lap, frozen in fear. After the initial semi-thrill of walking onstage, five thousand people staring at you comes with an intimidating amount of eyeball reflection. At a certain point, a question got thrown to me, but there was an awkward beat of silence on stage because I wasn't paying attention. I was busy staring at my lap. Nathan leaned forward to cover for me as I looked up and blurted out, "Oh! I'm sorry, what was the question? I was... Twittering under here."
  
  This was 2008. Not a lot of nontech people were on Twitter at that point. So it sounded... suggestive.
  
  Yup, people thought exactly what you'd think "twittering" was if you didn't know about social media: they thought I was masturbating under the table. And so did Nathan.
  
  "It's hot in here," I said, flustered by the roar of laughter from the crowd.
  
  "And wet," said Neil. Which made me turn as pink as my borrowed designer sweater.
  
  After that, a lot of fans joined Twitter.
  
  Once I recovered from hyperventilating in shame, we finished the panel and went to sign posters. Hundreds of fans shuffled through our line, jostling one another and the table, with security guards struggling to hold the crowd in check. When my hand started to cramp from signing and I developed a crazy tic over my right eye from smiling too hard, I wondered, How did THIS become part of my life?
  
  [ Fan by Fan ]
  
  I attended my first fan convention during college. It was the South Texas Amphibian and Lizard Show, held in the run-down ballroom of an Austin Hilton. No, I wasn't a toad collector at any point (although that wouldn't surprise you, would it?). I was there on a first date. I'd planned the whole thing myself and thought it was a creative way for two people to get to know each other. Afterward, we went to a staging of Antigone performed in ancient Greek, and for dinner I found an Ethiopian restaurant where, per cultural tradition, we ate a feast only with our fingers.
  
  Dude didn't ask me out again.
  
  But I remember walking into the lizard convention, enchanted by how many people in Austin loved lizards. And amphibians. And spiders. And a lot of other things I didn't have any temptation to bring home with me. (When I was twelve, I had a pet boa constrictor, Stella, whom I loved until I realized it needed to eat LIVE ANIMALS to survive. My mom had to feed Stella just-born "pinkie" mice while I sobbed outside in the hallway. Thank God, she died of a mouth infection before she got big enough to eat animals with actual hair. SORRY, STELLA, IT WAS ME NOT YOU!)
  
  My favorite part of the lizard event was standing near a group of guys at a meet-up in the hotel coffee shop, all with ginormous iguanas perched on their shoulders. They were discussing the best type of feed, what to do when your "friend" was molting, and breeding techniques. (I grabbed my Frappuccino and walked away at that point. Quickly.)
  
  Even though it was hella strange, I loved the vibe of the event. There were so many people meeting to celebrate something they loved. I wanted to be a part of that. Without the iguana sex tips. I had no idea that years later, fan conventions of the GEEK kind would build my career more than anything else.
  
  Despite most of the media attention centering around big Hollywood-driven events like San Diego Comic-Con, there are hundreds of smaller fan conventions taking place around the world every weekend, celebrating sci-fi, anime, Abraham Lincoln impersonators (yup): you name it, there's a fan convention for it. I've attended hundreds of these events as a guest, starting as an actor on the cult favorite Buffy the Vampire Slayer. When I started my web show The Guild, I continued attending. Even though people didn't know that it existed.
  
  I called up Kim right after we launched.
  
  "Hey! There's a World of Warcraft convention happening next week in Anaheim. I'm gonna make The Guild bookmarks and hand them out down there so gamers will watch the show."
  
  "Bookmarks? What about postcards?" said Kim.
  
  "They're twenty-three percent more expensive."
  
  "Bookmarks sound great!"
  
  I ordered two thousand of them and drove down to Anaheim. I didn't have a ticket to the convention—they'd sold out months in advance—so I stood in front and handed out my DIY bookmarks to everyone who went inside. The experience had to be like a college student working the sidewalk for Amnesty International: smiles greeted with hostility all the way!
  
  "Hi! Would you like a bookmark? No? Okay."
  
  "Hey, I'd love to talk to you about my... no, it's not a church thing..."
  
  "...it's a web series about gamers who play a game like WoW? No, I'm not a booth girl. Yes, I play the game. No, you can't test me..."
  
  Ninety percent of my handouts got thrown in the trash. Most people did it right in front of me. But 10 percent seemed mildly interested in the show, and in the face of so much rejection, mild interest felt like a huge win! After dark, I collected all the discarded bookmarks that didn't have gum stuck on them and drove home, vowing to canvass more events in the future. (I got rid of the extras by placing stacks of them on the doors of public toilets. Captive audience, yo!)
  
  During the first few seasons of the show, I lived the life of an old-timey traveling salesman. I'd tweet, "Be in Seattle this weekend! Come on down! Buy more, get more discount! SALE SALE SALE!" and fans would let me crash their convention booths, dragging boxes of my Guild DVDs and comics as my "wares" (along with my face for selfies).
  
  We even got ambitious for a few years and tried to run our own Guild booth at Comic-Con, sharing with my friend Jamie, a game designer. The experience did not go well. Our friendly indie fans generally got crowded out by mainstream fans lining up to get free life-size Harry Potter bags at the bigger movie studio booths.
  
  "Hey, are you Emily Blunt?!"
  
  "Definitely not. I'm here with my web show. Can I sell you a DVD?"
  
  "Not unless you're Emily Blunt."
  
  The last straw was when we decided one year to sell T-shirts and bought tons of Ikea shelving. Which I tried to assemble. By myself.
  
  "Why are there so many pieces?! And there are no words to explain the pictures? Is it a secret IQ test?"
  
  "No one knows," Jamie said.
  
  I put a whole shelving unit together backward, and when I discovered I had to undo two hours of work, I started hyperventilating.
  
  "Kim! I'm having flashbacks to DVD stuffing. No T-shirts! Never again!"
  
  Eventually, our show got more popular, and the cast and I started to get invited to conventions legitimately as guests, all expenses paid, no Ikea shelving required. I guess coordinators saw the lines of fans waiting to meet me and thought, That web series chick doesn't have a sales tax permit. Better give her an official spot before she gets arrested by the feds.
  
  By the 2010 San Diego Comic-Con, the most influential fan convention in the world, The Guild had grown in popularity enough to fill a three-thousand-seat panel room. More than some network TV shows. Not bad for a show that was shot in our garages, huh? (Yes, I've mentioned the garage thing too many times, but listen: we did all that stuff out of our garages.) At the same time I was doing my own show, I was also acting on other sci-fi friendly shows. Eureka. Supernatural. And those projects, along with Dr. Horrible and my other web projects, bumped me pretty high up the "situational recognition" ladder at fan conventions not only in the US, but around the world.
  
  It's a very strange experience to go back and forth between real life, where almost no one recognizes me except baristas, to events where 99 percent of people see me and think, I know that chick! She's pale like the underbelly of a fish in person! It's a shock to the ego.
  
  They think I'm awesome!
  
  Actually, I'm crap.
  
  Correction! Awesome again!
  
  Shut up, nobody.
  
  As a self-conscious, I'm-sure-I-have-a-booger-in-my-nose kind of person, it was hard to get used to the scrutiny. When I first started doing speeches and panels, I'd constantly get flashbacks to the only high school event I ever attended.
  
  It was a Valentine's dance and I was sixteen. An assistant instructor at my karate school, Juan, asked me to be his date. I was nervous because I'd never been INSIDE a public school before, but I said to myself, He's a karate instructor, so if the jocks attack us, I should be safe.
  
  I asked, "What should I wear?" and he said, "It's Valentine's. The fanciest dress you have." No need to say it twice! I got the most beautiful green crushed-velvet dress, floor length, no back, jewels galore, mile-high heels; I even bought my own corsage. (I didn't know at the time those were supposed to be gifted to you by the guy. Oh well. I'm liberated.)
  
  We entered the San Antonio High School gym dressed like we were meeting the Queen of England, and as I descended the steps, I gazed around the room. Everyone turned to stare at us. More than a hundred people. Not one dress in sight. Everyone was dressed in plain jeans and T-shirts. One person was wearing pajamas.
  
  The kids pointed and whispered at us as we worked our way through the crowd. A few snickered. I had never been around this many kids my own age before. At that moment I understood exactly how Carrie must have felt at her prom.
  
  I've gotten used to public speaking in front of thousands and spending an extra hour in the mirror every morning trying to decide if I'm overdressed or not now, but sometimes when I enter a convention floor and walk through the crowds, I have a traumatic flash of Green velvet, green velvet! zip through my brain.
  
  It gets weirder when I meet celebrities whom I admire. Then my sense of identity really starts to cartwheel. I can't tell you how many times I've sat backstage feeling like an interloper who somehow made the convention invite list by accident. When someone I adore, like Gillian Anderson or William Shatner, enters the greenroom, I generally try to keep quiet and stand near the hummus, waiting for someone to say, "Oops. Someone invited the wrong 'Felicia.' Kick out that girl who's hogging all the pita chips."
  
  I met Patrick Stewart one time, and when he started directing words toward my head, I became so light-headed I almost fainted. I kept repeating, "Would you like my chair? Would you like my chair?" until a volunteer came to extract him. Another time I got up two hours early, walked to a special donut shop four miles away from my hotel, and brought dozens of donuts to the convention for the EXPRESS purpose of carrying a box over to Matt Smith (Doctor Who #11) and asking, "Do you want one?" Because I couldn't figure out how to introduce myself like a real human being. (He did NOT want a donut. And he ended up thinking I was a volunteer, not a guest. For obvious reasons.)
  
  The most mortifying incident was when I met Nichelle Nichols at a convention in Salt Lake City. She was wearing the most dazzling gold jacket I'd ever seen, sitting in a golf cart, glam as all get-out. I mean, Lieutenant Uhura, in the flesh! As I skirted around her golf cart in the hallway, I wanted to stare, willed myself not to, then compromised with a creepy side-eye look as I passed and then... she called out to me.
  
  "Hi! Felicia! I wanted to meet you!" She waved.
  
  I froze. She knew my name? No way. No WAY.
  
  "Uh, you wanted to meet ME?! But... but... but..." Mind melting... say something human being-ish. "Hi?"
  
  "Hello!"
  
  Form words, Felicia... "Uh, your jacket is so pretty!"
  
  "Thank you, dear."
  
  "Your jacket is sparkly. So pretty." Doh! I said that already. But it came out of my mouth again for some reason. Flashbacks to Patrick Stewart situation. I wanted to die.
  
  "Yes. You already said that."
  
  Crap, she noticed. "I love your work."
  
  "Thank you!"
  
  My body started moving of its own volition, shifting weight back and forth, a move taken from a Motown group, while my mind seized up. Say something smart, something more about how you love her work, except less general... "Uh... you're in a golf cart!" NOT THAT! SHE MIGHT HAVE A HIP PROBLEM! WHY BRING THAT UP?!
  
  "Yes, it's easier to get around the crowds this way."
  
  I babbled. "I still can't believe you know my... why did you want to... I'm a big fan of your work!" COMPLETE A SENTENCE, GOD!
  
  "Thank you!"
  
  Mention your favorite episode of hers! No, for some reason, your mind isn't working. I am your mind, and I'm not working. I'm warning you, if you say something right now, you might accidentally say "Star Wars" instead of "Star Trek" and then you'll have to commit hari-kari, right here, right now in this hallway, so just compliment her jacket again... NO! WRONG CHOICE! NO-WIN CONDITION! AAAAAAAAAAAAH!
  
  "I have to pee. Nicetomeetyoubye!"
  
  And I ran away. Like, full-tilt running down the hallway. If you haven't guessed already, it's a habit of mine. I never found out why she wanted to meet me, either. I felt so ridiculous that I sat on the toilet for fifteen minutes until I was able to rewrite the scene in my head into a more functional account of what happened so I could live with myself. (It included a conversation about her sister, who was once an actor in The Guild. Why couldn't I have remembered that during the panic attack? I'm the WORST!)
  
  I'm sure the conversation wasn't that weird from her point of view (maybe) but from mine it was mortifying. All I wanted to have said was one thing, one simple thing to have her remember me. To make an impact. To summarize why I was having a loose-bowel situation just LOOKING at her in person. Because I admired her so much.
  
  Those experiences make me appreciate every interaction I have with fans of my own work at conventions. I try to go out of my way to connect with each person as much as I possibly can despite the long lines and stifling crowds and people in cosplay with fake weapons who accidentally poke people in the eyes with rubber broadswords. Because that single moment you get with someone you admire is so important, I never want anyone to walk away feeling mortified like I generally do when meeting someone I fan over.
  
  That's why, when I take pictures with people, I'm open to almost any request.
  
  "Can I pick you up?"
  
  "Yes!"
  
  "Can I pretend to propose to you?"
  
  "As long as it's not legally binding, ha!"
  
  "Can you pretend to stab me with this light saber?"
  
  "Which organ?"
  
  "Can I put you in a headlock?"
  
  Long pause. "Uh... sure! Why not."
  
  Of course, it's hard to please everyone. Especially if you're entering/exiting a toilet stall and someone comes running up saying, "Oh my God, can I have a selfie with you here? So hilarious!" Or you see someone tweet, "Felicia Day was eating a salad while she signed autographs today. No respect for her fans." I WAS HUNGRY AND DIDN'T WANT PEOPLE TO WAIT IN LINE! (But I haven't eaten in public at a convention since, so good job, Tweeter! You showed me.)
  
  If you've never been to one of these events, you probably have a very Big Bang Theory idea about the attendants and want to know, "What's the creepiest thing a fan's ever done to you?" Aside from a few restraining orders I can't legally talk about, I can relate a few standout oddball encounters.
  
  One time a dude wanted to buy a lock of my hair for $1,000. And he wouldn't take no for an answer.
  
  "You have a lot of hair, and my friend would be so happy! He loves you."
  
  "I appreciate his appreciation, but I'm not selling you my hair."
  
  "Just an inch. It's a lot of money!"
  
  I tried to get the guy to move along in a way that he wouldn't feel ashamed about being creepy. (Which he totally was.) "I don't know him and wouldn't want anyone to be able to clone me, haha."
  
  When I mentioned "cloning," the guy got WAY too excited. "Cloning would be AWESOME. I'd only need a fingernail, how's that for a compromise? Say five hundred dollars?"
  
  At that point, I stopped worrying about his self-esteem. "Security!"
  
  Another time I had a guy in his early twenties approach me and ask me to autograph his arm. I've signed a ton of babies, breasts, and Nintendo power gloves, so I was cool with it. Until he let slip, "I'm gonna go tattoo over it."
  
  I withdrew the pen. "Um, I don't think you should do that, why would you do that? Do you really want to do that?"
  
  "I'm a big fan. And my buddy bet me five hundred dollars that I wouldn't do it. I need you to sign because I could use the five hundred dollars for community college tuition."
  
  I was conflicted. This guy wanted to disfigure his body permanently and was asking me to enable him.
  
  On the other hand, I REALLY wanted to see what it would look like.
  
  "Please?"
  
  "For the record, I discouraged you!" I took his Sharpie and drew artistically on his right shoulder. All those hours I put into signing my signature over and over as a kid paid off. Nice swoops. Not too girly. Dare I say... tattoo worthy.
  
  He left, supposedly for the tattoo shop, and I thought, Cool! I just got pranked in a very flattering way!
  
  An hour later, the guy comes running back to my booth, sleeve rolled up over his shoulder. "I did it!"
  
  Right there on his arm, raised and red, was a tattoo of my signature. Permanently inscribed. On a stranger's body. It felt like I'd secondhand branded him. Also, it occurred to me too late that I should be worried about checks being forged with his body part. Oh, well.
  
  "Congrats! Go get that money from your friend! Here's a free DVD!"
  
  And that should have been the end of it. Most people outside motorcycle relationships can't tell a story like that. But the best part happened the following week, when I got a tweet that was sad and sweet and horrible at the same time.
  
  Hey, tattoo doing well, here's a pic to prove it's me. Sad thing, buddy refused to pay up. :(
  
  Attached was a still red-angry picture of my signature. That was permanent. And in no way contributed to the guy's college education.
  
  I laughed. Yes, I'm a terrible person.
  
  Aside from outlier incidents like that (yes, I have more tattoo stories), all of my fans are interesting and enjoyable to meet. I've had fascinating conversations with writers, archaeologists, NASA/JPL engineers—all people I would never have known how to approach in real life, but I get to connect with now because of my work.
  
  I think fan conventions are the epitome of what is fantastic about the internet. And probably why they've become so much more popular in the last several years. You're never weird when you're surrounded by people who are weird like you, right?
  
  Conventions are a real-life slice of our digital lives. I feel at home when I walk onto a show floor and see all the booths carrying every Doctor Who/Star Wars mashup T-shirt invented. Where else can I buy a special set of dice that color coordinates with my character's hair or play a new video game next to a stranger who can appreciate the new armor designs as much as I do? That feeling I constantly get in everyday life of, Oh boy, how do I connect with this stranger? Why don't they have a résumé attached to their forehead to help me out here with this dialogue thing? is temporarily banished.
  
  And, professionally, it means so much to meet people face-to-face and be reminded that the things I create can affect people's lives in small ways, too.
  
  I have a picture framed on my office wall. A beautiful pastel print, blue and moody, of a female nude walking into a forest. It was given to me at a signing for my Guild comic book by a hip girl and a guy in their early twenties.
  
  "We brought you something, Felicia. We're big fans." They lifted up a framed picture as they approached my table.
  
  "This is beautiful! Thank you!" I took it from them, but I was puzzled. It wasn't the normal kind of fan art I usually received. (Not to be self-centered, but most of the stuff I'm given has my face on it.)
  
  The girl indicated for me to turn the picture over. "Do you remember?"
  
  Mounted on the back of the frame was a picture of a tweet I'd sent out two years before.
  
  It referenced a blog article about a young woman, twenty-two, diagnosed with breast cancer, and her boyfriend, who was a game artist. He coordinated a huge gaming art auction to help pay off her medical bills. The cause spoke to me, and I tweeted it out. And that was it. I soon forgot about it. Two years later, the young woman hadn't.
  
  "I'm her, I'm beautifulgrim. And your tweet helped the auction raise enough money to pay most of my medical bills." She pulled the guy she was with closer to her.
  
  "This is my husband, he made the painting. We wanted you to have it, as thanks."
  
  "Oh my God, that's you? Are you okay now?" She looked so young. I couldn't believe she'd been diagnosed with breast cancer. It was awful. I was frozen just thinking of what she'd been through.
  
  "I had a mastectomy and have been cancer-free for a year. Did you read what I wrote on the back?"
  
  I looked down at the painting and read, "Your tweet helped me restore my hope when I was feeling lost."
  
  And then I lost it.
  
  I ran around the table and hugged her. I didn't know what else to do.
  
  "I'm so glad you're better. Thank you." Encounters like that are unforgettable.
  
  I've attended over a hundred conventions since 2007 and have had so many people share amazing stories with me. Big and small. Like a woman who was inspired to self-publish a novel because of my work, or a family who decided to paint video game characters on their kid's bedroom wall, despite never having picked up a paintbrush before. Or the dozens and dozens of web series that people have made because of what Kim and I did with The Guild.
  
  At an event last year, I met a man in his late thirties, a big guy, who carried a poster roll and seemed nervous to approach. I shook hands with him over the signing table, trying to make him feel comfortable.
  
  "Hi! My name's Felicia! How are you?!"
  
  "Uh, okay. I'm just here to give you something." While talking, he started fumbling to open the poster tube. He was shaking. It wasn't smooth.
  
  "Oh wow, I love presents! Not that I'm greedy, I'm polite when I take things from people. If they're free. Or not. I'll stop talking." Felicia Day, folks! Awkward, especially during public appearances!
  
  He pulled out a poster from his tube and unrolled a print of me as Codex, but done in a cool computer-art way, with a graphic style that was somewhere between pointillism and impressionism.
  
  "This is gorgeous!" And it was. "Did you make this? Are you an artist?"
  
  "Aw, no. I just drive a forklift at Costco. I'm not creative. I don't know how to do anything..."
  
  "Wait, you aren't creative? But you made this." I held up the print.
  
  "It was just in the computer."
  
  "But it didn't exist before you turned the computer on and made it, right?"
  
  "I guess."
  
  "Then you created it." I was starting to get upset but kept myself in check. "Don't talk to yourself like that. You HAVE created things. You see the world in a unique way, and you expressed it right here in this poster."
  
  "Well, I dunno. It's not good or anything."
  
  "Well, I think it's good. But if you think that, you can get better. By doing more things, right?"
  
  The guy nodded, uncomfortable. But I kept going. For some reason, it was important for him to understand what I was saying. (And I enjoy lecturing people.)
  
  "Never put yourself down about things that you create. That mean voice inside you that says, 'You're not good enough' is not your friend, okay? I used to hear that voice all the time. If I hadn't started ignoring it, I wouldn't be here right now. Okay?"
  
  "Okay." He started to shuffle backward. Probably scared. "Thanks for what you do, it's inspiring."
  
  "Thank you for the poster!" I waved, then stood up. "Excuse me."
  
  I walked behind the curtain of my booth and started bawling.
  
  I wept for this guy, who was so vulnerable in front of me, and who, for some reason, felt the need to put himself down when he presented something he'd made from scratch. I don't let people get away with putting themselves down anymore. There are enough negative forces in this world—don't let the pessimistic voice that lives inside you get away with that stuff, too. That voice is NOT a good roommate.
  
  A lot of people mock fandom and fan fiction, like it's lazy to base your own creativity and passion on someone else's work. But some of us need a stepping-stone to start. What's wrong with finding joy in making something, regardless of the inspiration? If you feel the impulse, go ahead and write that Battlestar Galactica/Archie mashup fiction! Someone online will enjoy it. (Especially if Archie gets ripped apart by Cylons.)
  
  Over the years, I've received some of the most badass fan art you've ever seen. I have tons of dolls and paintings and sculptures of my characters in various projects that people have given me, made out of felt and plaster and pipe cleaners and poster board. I keep every single piece and put it in a storage unit that I pay WAY too much for every month for that sole purpose. This is partly because when fans give me things, it obviously means a lot to them and I don't want to have that go unrecognized. And partly because I once found a biography of Janice Dickinson in a Goodwill inscribed to an unnamed famous supermodel that said, "Love you forever!" I can't imagine how mortified Janice would be at finding her book given away, so I live in fear of that happening with a fan of mine. Personal guilt issues, I guess. (Side note: I also have props and clothing from all my projects I've acted in, just in case I'm homeless one day and need to eBay for food.)
  
  In my home office, I have a cabinet dedicated to some of my favorite things people have given me over the years. It's not weird to have forty dolls of yourself staring at you, right? Please reassure me about this.
  
  I like being able to see the pieces of art while I work. It reminds me of what's important about what I do.
  
  Whether it was by someone volunteering to be an extra in our show, or part of the crew, or someone buying a DVD at a convention, or a superfan who tattooed our characters' faces on her calf, my career has been built fan by fan. I wouldn't trade that relationship, or collection of dolls of myself, for all the money and fame in the world.