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.”