Geek. A word that is commonly used as a stereotype. For example, geeks are typically deemed as super smart but no common sense or extremely nonathletic or having terrible social skills. The key word in all of this is stereotype. Everybody geeks out about something! History, books, comic books and super heroes, movies, science, musicals, heck you could even geek out about makeup if that’s something you’re really into! Literally everyone geeks out about something. Me? I geek out about quite a few things but I’m proud of it! Most everyone loves the Marvel superhero movies, or The Flash, or oh my gosh STAR WARS! You may even geek out without really realizing but that’s the beauty of it!
Disclaimer: Very excited discussion of The Flash, The 100, and other shows ahead.
Last weekend, I had the prime opportunity to let my inner geek out when I accompanied my sister and my dad to Dragon Con in Atlanta. My sister was given prepaid tickets for the weekend for her birthday and I found out that some of the cast from The 100 were going to be there so naturally that made me more inclined to join them! We woke up at 5:00 AM on Saturday morning and drove four hours down to Atlanta. We missed The 100 panel (but it was okay!) and got caught in downtown traffic a little bit. Even so, once we parked and got through the registration line (which was surprisingly very quick and organized!)
We made our way to the Flash/Arrow panel, mainly because my sister loves Carlos Valdes (who plays Cisco Ramon on the The Flash) and I wanted to guarantee that she got to be in the same room as him! My whole family loves all the DC comic shows so we were excited too! The panel also had Violette Beane (Jessie), Teddy Sears (Jay) and Summer Glau (who played Isabel on Arrow). The panel was great, the cast were so nice and funny, and Serena loved every minute of it!
The host of the panel said the cast was going to something called the Walk of Fame, where all the guests had booths set up and you could take pictures, get autographs (pictures and autographs typically cost something though), and have conversations with them! So once we finally figured out where it was, we found Carlos’ booth and got in line. There was an overflow line but we didn’t mind the long wait because seeing my sister so happy, bright-eyed, and excited was more than worth it! (keep in mind though we literally had not eaten since about 7:30 and it was now probably just after 2:00 so we were dragging a bit)
I wish I had the moment on video. I have never seen her happier than this moment! So each guest had a person assigned to their booth to keep the lines moving and in check. They all wore light up antennas so they were easy to spot. We will call them “line movers”. We were just talking to Carlos’ line mover about how this was Serena’s birthday present. Well when we finally got to meet him, He gave her the BIGGEST bear hug, told her happy birthday, and talked to her before taking a picture with her! He was literally the NICEST guy!!
After that, we milled around the Walk of Fame, saw some of the cast from Legends of Tomorrow at their tables, and I found Lindsey Morgan’s table! She is Raven from The 100 and one of my favorites. She was super nice and beautiful as always! Her booth was next to Sachin Sahel (Jackson) and Jarod Joseph (Miller) and I witnessed a beautiful moment of Sachin asking Jarod to video catching and putting on a Captain America shield that the girl behind me in line made!
By this time, it was getting late into the afternoon, we were starving and tired, so we just got McDonald’s and went to the hotel. We face-timed mom and then we were all so tired we were in bed and going to sleep by 9:30. Y’ALL. I’m a college student and an adult and I was in bed asleep by 10. What. Also, we only slept for about two hours before the FIRE ALARM went off and everyone evacuated. Only to find out it was a false alarm and there was no fire so yeah, that was fun.
The next morning, we woke up early-ish, went through registration again (my dad and I only got one day passes for each day). It was wayyyyyy less of a crowd than the day before by like a million. (That’s an exaggeration but it works for effect). We went to check out the vendor exhibits, which were basically three floors of people selling everything and anything to do with comics, cartoons, superheroe’s, sci-fi, fantasy, you name it and they probably had it. After shopping around, we found a Dominoes stand. You could have probably heard the angels singing. It was amazing pizza and just what we needed. We also were smart and stopped at a Walgreen’s before we got to downtown and stocked up on snacks and water!
After this, we went back to the Walk of Fame because I realllllyyy wanted to meet Bob Morley (Bellamy Blake on The 100). Be prepaerd: slight fangirling ahead. He is just basically, kinda sorta, my favorite character on the show. I got there and was like 3rd in line. I chatted with the other girls and we prepaid for some photos, but Bob took a lunch break so they said if we came back with our post-it receipt, they would let us to the front of the line. We will return to Bob shortly.
We took a picture with Falk Hentschel (Hawkman) and talked to him for a minute. He was so nice and just as amazing as he is on Legends of Tomorrow! When we went to take our picture, Casper Crump (Vandal Savage) came up behind us and photobombed! We also talked to Eddie McClintock and Allison Scagliotti from Warehouse 13 and they were both really nice too! Eddie was hilarious and gave us all hugs! We also managed to squeeze in line to see Caity Lotz (Sarah Lance) and she was so pretty and kind to us!
So I went back to Bob’s table at this time and I was super nervous. My face was already flushed. I made friends again with people in line and they were all so nice! One of the girls in front of me asked him to dress as Harry Potter for a photo and later on I heard that he said that was one of his favorite moments of the weekend! He immediately ran over to the rest of the cast and “cast a spell”!
Once it was my turn, he asked my name and where I was from. I told him that he was my favorite and how nice it was to meet him. We chatted for a few moments and then he signed my picture, took a picture with me, and he hugged me. It was the most glorious five minutes of my life. He was honestly so so nice and genuine and I made sure to tell him thank you!
After this, we tried to hit another panel but it wrapped three times around the building so we went to a Star Trek show instead. It was fun, I had done and met everyone I wanted to and more! My family was happy, I was happy, and funny enough I actually felt like I was in a dream. None of us really wanted to check back into reality! We stopped at Chili’s on the way home and I fell asleep in the car. The next day was dad’s birthday so the whole weekend served as a double celebration of birthdays! I know in years to come, we will look back on this weekend and never stop smiling about it!
I had never been to any sort of convention before (of the comic book kind). I was a bit nervous of how much I would actually enjoy because I felt out of my element. But I surprised myself by warming up to everything, talking to people I didn’t even know and also people I admired, and actually had an AMAZING time. Every single guest was so kind and genuine. Everything was pretty organized. It was all about the fans and it was great. This will definitely be one for the books!
Have you ever been to a convention? What’s your favorite superhero? Or what’s your favorite show? What do YOU geek out about? xoxo Ariana
