Escapade Con Report Celebrity Edition: I should have just asked.

I felt a little queasy when I got off the plane in San Francisco on Thursday, so instead of having lunch, I just hung out to wait for my plane to LAX. I didn't feel like digging out my book, so I people watched and tried to guess people's stories.

There was the guy with his very young daughter: obviously he has part-time custody. He was taking her on a dream vacation to make up for all the time he's not there. There were the two guys with eye-dizzying officewear shirts: clearly they work in the kind of place with cubicles. Although they're important enough to travel, they're not going far until they learn that there's a reason most corporate types wear shirts that look all about the same. There was the guy with headphones and non-dizzying stripes of varying widths and colors including pink: grad student or creative professional of some sort, probably gay.

And then there were the guys who were clearly together but drifted in one by one. Two of them looked a bit like the punk roommate from Dead Man on Campus, but they didn't seem to have British accents. Then there was the large friendly looking guy. Clearly a punk band with this one guy who gets along with everyone. Except then other guys filtered in and they didn't all look alike. If I were a different kind of person, I would have gone up to them and asked, "Are you a band? Tell me your story." Alas, I am not, and I amused myself by watching them.

Because we were on the same flight, the band was standing near us as Meagan, Melle, Taz, and I waited for my luggage to make its way out onto the carousel. (My bag was the absolute last one.) I was glad to see that some of their luggage looked like musical instrument cases (unlike the rest of it, which was backpack style stuff); it meant my instinct about them being a band rather than aimless travelers was right.

On Sunday evening, Meagan, Melle, and I, with Sorcha for a while, kicked back to watch the Oscars. After saying, "Why Beyonce?" a couple of times, we finally got to something we liked: "Accidentally In Love" by the Counting Crows, actually performed by the Counting Crows. Halfway through the song, Meagan said, "Those are the guys from the airport! No wonder they kept looking at me like they thought I should know who they were."

Escapade Con Report Panels and Discussion Edition: It's all about me.

Friday, 10 am
It didn't get enough votes to make into the regular track, so I put the Where have all the lesbians gone? panel onto the alternate track. Every person who came into the room said, "Here I am! I didn't know I was lost." Next year we'll call the femslash panel something different. Because there will be one, dammit!

I didn't have much of an agenda, so we made lists of canon, not canon, and maybe canon (Xena/Gabrielle gets its own category) pairings and chatted about the lack of femslash. And then we started a list of terms not to be used in femslash. Avoid horticultural euphemisms.

Friday, 11 am
Melle and I went to the panel on how loyalty is killing fandom. We escaped early.

Friday, 11:05 am
We moved on to the pimping room, where Charles was in purple trimmed with leopard print. This included a wide-brimmed hat with a feather and, later, anatomically correct origami made out of a dollar bill. Meagan later reported that one less than clued in fan asked her, "Why is he wearing that?"

Friday, 2:00 pm
Mmm, the sex-writing panel. The panel moderators actually had a very ambitious agenda that we didn't stick to. However, we still managed to cover, with varying degrees of detail, every topic area on their agenda. They also gave handouts, which are partially helpful and partially amusing. Horticultural euphemisms appear on one of the synonyms list.

One of the most useful things I got out of it was someone's (apologies for the shoddy attribution; if you remember who it was, comment and I'll edit) suggestion to use run-on sentences, especially near the end of the sex scene. I know I've seen this done, and it's entirely possible that I've even done it myself, but I'd never thought about it in such clear terms.

Friday, 5:00 pm
Charles and some girl ran a movieslash panel. The girl got through her agenda and we got to the point of suggesting resources. She beat me to making suggestions other than the movieslash list, and said that she has a site about slashy movies. "Oh," I said, "are you Michelle?" She is, which means that my suggestion was redundant.

Because we'd done the lesbian panel earlier in the day, I was conscious of mentioning movies with femslash as well as movies with maleslash (guyslash? boyslash?). We determined that Paul Walker is the gold standard of slashiness. His movies are always homoerotic. Therefore, Michelle Rodriguez is the Paul Walker of femslash and Tony Curtis was the Paul Walker of his time.

Friday, 9:00ish pm
I'm not really a party person, even when it's a party full of slashers, so I was quite glad to go up into the corner (the con suite was actually a nightclub, so it had all these cool levels and nooks and things) and play He-He for a bit.

Friday, 11:15 pm
I helped Mouse and Kady Mae set up the late-night write fest. We put the tables where they would be convenient for people who needed electrical outlets. Mouse was the only one of the three of us who did.

I wrote a sentence or two, and then nearly fell asleep on the table, so I went to bed instead of writing more.

Saturday, 10:00 am
After the panel on violence, someone came up to me to tell me how good it was. Other people also said it was great. Perhaps it's just that I don't like large panels, but I thought it was nothing special. There were a couple of times when no one had anything to say. We did, however, greatly appreciate Charlotte's attempts to play devil's advocate.

Interesting concept: Where you think your limits are and where your limits actually are are not necessarily the same place.

Saturday, 3:00 pm
The beta reading panel was run by one person who betas but doesn't write and one person who writes and has a kajillion* betas go over everything she writes before she posts it. It was fairly interesting until a certain person who shall remain nameless showed up and somewhat derailed it.

*Number not to scale.

Saturday, 3:45 pm
Melle and I sat on a couch and discussed how to make new friends while keeping the old. Now that I think about it, the problem is not doing both. The problem is doing either one. Despite my resolution to do so, I haven't really made any new friends recently. And it is hard to keep your old friends as your common interests dry up.

Saturday, 4:05 pm
Melle and I ducked into the making new friends panel. We did not find it interesting and ducked out again.

Saturday 4:15ish pm
Alice and I chatted about Jennifer Crusie novels and Buffy. (These things are not strictly related.) If you have even the slightest interest in the romantic comedy genre, I highly recommend Jennifer Crusie. My favorites are Welcome to Temptation and Faking It, which should be read in that order, and I also really liked Bet Me.

Saturday, 5:00 pm
"Welcome to my panel," I said to an empty room. Shortly thereafter, Bluespirit and Melle arrived, followed not long after by Anne. Since I've been reading a whole bunch of Spike/Xander recently and I have a good memory for words, we made a list of things/authors that could be read. As much of that list as I can remember, plus some other stuff, is in a separate entry.

Saturday, 8:30 pm
He-He, organized style, in the executive boardroom (table sturdy and easily cleaned, ceiling leaking, chairs comfy) with plenty of booze and snacky food. In addition to the earlier learned Oversharing gesture, Mistress Acer taught us the more elaborate Oversharing, Roughing the Listener, Two Beer Penalty signal.

Sunday, 10:00 am
We arrived too late to actually get any breakfast, but we did get our complimentary songvid DVDs. I'm not that into songvids (although I still really want to see the Qui-Gon/Jar-Jar one from two years go), so we'll see if I find it at all interesting.

Sunday, noon
The con gave us coupons for five dollars off in the dealers room. I've been slow to purchase Buffy merchandise (previous to this, I'd only bought this year's wall calendar, and that at half-price after the year started), and Melle was being a good enabler, so I did spend some money. I got a gorgeous pic of Spike, a Xander/Willow postcard, and a picture of Spike and Angel that I kept coming back to and eventually just had to buy. Also considered: Giles and Willow on the hillside, Xander lounging in a sexy pose with bare feet, and a King Arthur poster-like pic.

Sunday, 1:00 pm
Although it didn't get enough votes to make it on the main fandom panel track, 15 (or so) people showed up for the Jay and Silent Bob panel, which was appropriately titled "The Love That Cannot Spell Its Name." Three of us were wearing the same shirt, which a couple of people didn't know was official merchandise.

Now, I don't think of myself as being heavily involved in the Jay and Silent Bob fandom, but apparently I know a heck of a lot. For example, not everyone knew that in the comic book, Jay gets a job as a fluffer, but does too good a job. I was the first one to bring up the "Guys We'd Go Gay For" segment they did for I Love the 90s, and I haven't even seen it. I also remembered all kinds of details from fic: Bob's fanon Russian mob connections, the one with the candy cane, the series with Mercy. Odd.

Sunday, 5:00 pm
I had invited several people to watch the Oscars with us. Sorcha dropped by for a while. We ate junk food and Melle read comics and the draft of "Montana." Later, we went to Denny's because Melle had never been there and everywhere else was closed, too meat heavy, or somewhere we'd been for lunch.

Overall Theme: Metallica
We got a chance to chat about the state of Metallica fandom with both Sorcha and ivy, which was really nice.

Overall Theme: Fandom of the Year
House is the hot new fandom.

Overal Theme: Costumey Goodness
Elke wins the Ruth seal of approval for best costumes. She had the young Molly Weasley Gryffindor outfit, the short-skirted Slytherin outfit, and the Mary Sue House of Sparkly Poo outfit.

Escapade Con Report Buffy Edition: Spike/Xander recs and other stuff you could read.

In the Spike/Xander panel, we made a list of authors and fics to read. Here's what I remember, plus some I think I forgot. Please note: These are not all recs. They're mainly just things we thought of. I do realize that other people may have different taste and like things I hated.

darkhavens - I like darkhavens not so much for her fic as for her memories, which contain a whole bunch of other people's fic categorized by type.

tabaqui - I particularly liked "Hero," "Little Runaway," and "Little Runaway 2."

tgray - I liked "Discoveries" for the first 24 chapters full of porn, but then I didn't like her plot as much. "Tangled Hearts," also an all-human AU, is great.

entrenous88, Entre Nous - "Shacking Up" is hilarious, as is "Expecting."

spikedluv - I especially liked "When Visions Come True."

witling - Oh, right. She's okay, but it tends to be rather depressing.

winterlive - Mmm, "Affected."

Wordsmith - Just good. The "Reconstruction," "Restoration," "Reunification" arc is about Spike and Xander after Buffy's death.

Nashmaveric's Viral Recs Meme - A whole bunch of other people's recs.

Jackson - I loved that "Sweet Revenge" had a big emotional scene in the rain, but it's not that great.

snakes_ladders - "No More Snakes And Ladders" by Tabaqui and Reremouse. It seems really slow to me. I made it through 11 or 12 parts, and I haven't gotten back to it since then. It appeared to be heading in a Spike/Xander/Wesley direction.

subtleaddiction - "Letters" by LadyCat and Rubywisp. Very good.

"Modus Vivendi" by Wiseacress. I didn't really like it that much, and I was irritated by her comment that people wanted a happier ending for them so she wrote the sequel, "Ars Moriendi."

"No Pirate on Earth" by Circe. A Pirates of the Caribbean crossover. The resolution to the emotional buildup didn't satisfy me.

ladycat777, LadyCat - Mmm, LadyCat.

reremouse - "28th Day Itch" is good. Hyena Xander who needs Spike to fuck him.

rubywisp, Rubywisp - Good stuff.

secondverse - A lot of people like her. I think she needs to learn to use a paragraph break before I can get far enough to really judge.

camisha - I kind of liked early "Survival Instincts" better than the end, back when it was Spike/Xander/Jamie and all weird and tense.

kimberly_fan - I loved "It's Just a Jump to the Left" and "Late Night Double Feature," and I'm really enjoying "Through the Looking Glass."

spikess - "Gotta Get It" is the thing I was thinking about where Spike's a poet and Xander loves his poetry but doesn't know he's the poet.

dessert_first - I totally forgot her in the panel! She's writing a porn star AU.

Lazuli - Some people really like "Repossession." I liked the concept, but thought the story wasn't that good. I made it probably 30 or so parts in.

"On the Doorstep" by Meg Graham. This appears to be unfinished, but part 15 does exist.

Xander Xtreme - A Xander-centric BDSM archive. Not all Spike/Xander.

othercat - This is in my bookmarks, but I don't remember why.

Te - "Post-Grad" and "Post-Grad II" are classic Spike/Xander fics. I find they don't hold up well after time. I have enjoyed other Te fic I loved back in the day, so this is clearly not just Te issues.

Meagan - I realized it wasn't really odd to hang out with Meagan because we actually do know her from back in the day when she wrote the Roommates series.

eliade, Anna S. - Meagan actually recced Anna S. to me last year, and she's really fabulous.

Mad Poetess - Particularly of note is the Chocolatey Goodness series.

James Walkswithwind - We particularly mentioned "Small Fry." I liked the first one, but couldn't get into the second.

"Waiting Here" by Alexandria. I've started to read it a couple of times and gotten irritated with it, but Anne and Bluespirit said it was good, so maybe I'll try again.

flaming muse - Mmmm, Conjunctions series.

shrift - "Loserville" is great.

"Twilight Time" by Shadow. I read a least part of this and didn't think it was that great, but other people love it.

Pet - Spike as a girl in one series, Xander sleeping with Oz and Devon while wanting Spike in another.

Kay - Tends toward the overdramatic, but still good.

ivyincubus - Good stuff. I tend to forget it exists, though.

Twisting the Hellmouth - A Buffy crossover archive. I have no idea what's there.

estepheia, Estepheia - I mostly remember the Spike/Xander/Anya, but I think I've read other stuff by her that was also good.

Saber Shadow Kitten - I've never particularly liked her fic, but many other people have.

MJ Gage - I have a soft spot for "Precious." I realize it's not really a good fic. And yet, I love it.

Ahestele - I really liked "Midnight at LAX."

Kayla - Not a great writer, but "Coming Out" is totally worth it for the laughs.

kyrieane - She was writing a cowboy AU that wasn't bad.

And now we come to the end of this list. I'm sure I'll think of something in five or ten minutes that I've left off of here, but for now, this is what I can think of.