"The Wanker is for immediate loading and unloading only."

[bubosquared]

Finally, my con report! I didn't keep a daily journal this year, so I'm liable to get times and days wrong, especially because I got maybe alf the sleep I should've, this year. Be warned.

As usual, I started out for the con on too little sleep. I woke up on Wednesday at 9 am and stayed up through the night that evening, because I had to leave at 4 am and was afraid to oversleep and miss my flight. Also, I figured if I was tired, I could more easily sleep on the plane between London and LA. I figured wrong.

Did not sleep. At all. I think I napped for less than an hour on three occasions, but I kept getting woken up by people with food, damn them, and I couldn't get comfortable enough to really sleep anyway, despite my usual tendency to fall asleep on planes, trains, automobiles, and basically anything that moves. So by the time I touched down at LAX, I'd been awake for 40 hours.

My plane was an hour early, which was a good thing as I spent over an hour in line at Immigration. This would not have aggravated me quite as much had there been a smoking area before that. Seriously, people, I bet you could cut airport aggression in half by just giving us a chance to get a fix before we have to stand in line for a small eternity behind people who cannot control their goddamned spawn. I kept waiting for this one kid to fall flat on his face as he was climbing all over the rails, but alas.

Anyway, met up with Taz and Meaghan, and then went to change money, get some food, and have a fag while we waited for Ruth to arrive. Which she eventually did, and there was much hugging and squeeing, and even more waiting for her bags as we commented on a group of blokes who'd been on her flight and who, we all agreed, looked like they were in a band. This observation was confirmed when their baggage turned out to include instruments.

And then we got our car, a horrid thing with seats so low my knees practically ended up in my nose. I mean, really people, I'm not that tall! It took us a few hours to get out of LA, thanks to rush hour traffic, but then we managed to make decent time, and stopped for food at a place called Habit, which had an excellent veggie burger, and where Susan caused much hilarity by mistaking a (very straight) guy for Minotaur. Out loud. Poor guy, he was so confused.

We finally arrived at the hotel around half past nine, checked in, dropped off the bags, and then I went swimming with a bunch of other slashers. One of whom was naked. I love cons. Also met sorchar in the pool, which was cool. (I Got Hugged By A Wet Slasher And All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt!) I finally went to bed around midnight, at which point I'd been awake for 48 hours. Way to start a con on immense sleep deprivation, self.

Friday started with breakfast, and then Ruth's panel on "Where have all the lesbians gone?" Every single person who came to the panel entered with "Here I am! I didn't know I was lost!" Really good panel, lots of discussion about why we do and don't write femslash, some discussions of specific pairings, and a brief tangent into space: Above and Beyond by myself and LadyJax, who apparently wrote that one really hot femslash S:AaB story I now have to go out and find again.

I don't remember exactly what we did after that, but I think we went and hung out in the consuite for a while, because this year's consuite rocked. It's a a former nightclub, so there were lots of nooks and crannies and booths to hang out in, and I pretty much spent the entire con there when I wasn't at a panel or doing stuff elsewhere. There was a small Old School Metallica Reunion with me, Ruth, Sorcha, Meaghan and ivy, in which we gossiped and bitched and reminisced. (I go to cons for the people and the gossip; the panels are icing on the cake, basically.)

I think this was also when a bunch of us played HP Uno, which was amusing because the other people were all laid back about it while Ruth and I were viciously competitive. I kept muttering and plotting everyone's violent deaths. Somewhere in there, there must've been lunch, but I don't remember what or where. Hrm. Also went to B&N for our annual Let's Tell Melle Which Books To Read event. Because I apparently left my free will in my other trousers when I packed.

Then at 5 pm, there was the "Slash in Movies" panel, in which Ruth pimped Section 8 stuff for amatia, I pimped ... a movie I cannot now remember for ruby_fruit, and of course I had to mention The Defiant Ones. I also got a bunch of recs for movies I've not seen yet, but I can't find the little list I made, right now. Dammit.

Hung around at the party (did we have dinner?) and played some He/He, during which I got rather drunk, which somewhat prohibited my participation in the late night write-fest at 11, so I returned to the consuite, hung out with people, and ended up talking through the night with Zoe Rayne's daughter. (Who is NOT MY GROUPIE no matter what Ruth may try and tell you. Dammit.) The whole concept of a mother-daughter team at Escapade is really cool, and it amuses me that just last year, people in our panel were being all uncomfortable about underagers reading slash, and now there was a 16-yo actually attending. Bwah!

Had breakfast, then went to Ruth's "Hit me baby one more time" panel. After the femslash panel, this was the one I liked best. Lots of talk about BDSM, rape/non-con, general violence, guys getting horny because of violence and then needing an outlet, etc. One woman tried to play Devil's Advocate and having a hard time with it, poor thing. Then sandrine's latest TFatF story got mentioned and I used that to define exactly what my own biggest kink is: Stockholm Syndrome stories, in which there's is (semi)non-con and then the victim falls in love with the aggressor, and mmmmm. Yes, I do realise this is fucked-up and everything, but somehow, in fiction, I find this almost romantic, and very sexy. I have issues.

Again, not sure what we did after this, but probably just a bunch of hanging out until it was time for the X-Men panel I went to, which was interesting, about the parallels between mutants and queers, and how that affects the slash, etc. Very interesting, though I at one point wanted to bring up that some of us don't need the queer community that's apparently been diminished by the fact that it's now supposedly okay to come out. (Despite how I worded that, I don't doubt that a) a lot of the "it's okay to be gay" from society is indeed just lip service, and b) this lip service has had a bad effect on the queer community that used to serve as a support base for queer people in the process of coming out.)

Ducked out semi-early from the X-Men panel because I was starting to shake with low blood sugar, and when I came back upstairs with some grapes and candy, there was this chocolate fondue fountain. Which everyone flocked to, and I passed because well, I'm picky about my chocolate.

Ruth and I sat around talking about the panel we were going to go to next, which was "How to make new friends but keep the old," and when we finally dipped into the actual panel, it turned out to be not nearly as interesting as our discussion, so we dipped out again. We're like that.

More hanging out, more dinner that I can't remember, and I then He/He, during which I got drunkish, my Eminem-muse got revived, I got yelled at by Jen for putting Jesus et al in the game, and at one point I got slashed with ... Cybill Sheperd. The fuck? Amusing, though. Had a blast, as usual at He/He, then finally got some precious sleep.

Sunday we kinda slept in, thus missing the breakfast, so we went to a doughnut place, as Ruth was determined to cure me of my deviant, Krispy Kreme loving ways. It didn't quite work. We also went to the mall, where I bought two buttons at Hot Topic ("I <3 Captain Jack Sparrow" and "I <3 Carbs"), and then we returned for the panel on "Jay & Silent Bob: The Love That Cannot Spell Its Name". It was good. There was much squeeing and just random conversation, and I was much amused because both Zoe and her daughter were there, knitting. Both cute and amusing! Whee!

Then we went to the Mission, which was interesting, if a little weird because nipping out from a slash con to visit a Catholic Mission is a wee bit dissonant. Especially since I was still wearing my con badge and Ruth was wearing her Gay and Silent Bob t-shirt. Returned to the hotel for some hanging out, and then our wee Oscar party. There was snark, I yelled at Beyoncé for the way she murdered the French in that one song and then guh-ed at Antonio Banderas and Santana. I also read some comics, gave in and asked for Emma/Bobby recs (see also: free will, left in other trousers), and read Ruth's WiP Montana, which is v. good. Mmmm. SPike/Xander.

Went to Denny's for dinner, because I'd never been there and everything else was closed, or not veggie-friendly, and then it was bedtime, because we had to be up fairly early to drive to the airport.

We managed to not get stuck in traffic too much, and then Ruth and I dropped Meaghan off at her terminal, then I hung out with Ruth until she had to go and check in, and I went to waste face hours before my own flight. All in all, the trip home was uneventful, except for the fucking screaming children on the plane, who disturbed my nap. Managed to not beat the parents to death with their own spawn, though. The Edinburgh-London flight was delayed 30 minutes, but I didn't care, because I was nearly home, so whatever.

Aaand that's it for my actual report. Questions, comments, proposals?

Oh, and of course no Escapade report is complete without quotes. Just a handful this year:

Meaghan, in the car and out of context: Can you see where my fingers are?

Michelle, re: Legolas and Gimli: The first thing they do when they get to Gondor is redecorate!

Soshanna, re: Cooper/McQueen (S:AaB): It takes a novel to get a blowjob.

Mouse: I had a thought process thing about that.

Meaghan, re: the concept of "Bob and Silent Jay": "I dunno, Silent Jay ... I keep thinking "angry mime".

Sorcha, re: weird but stacked chick in the audience at the Oscars: It's like she's smuggling a midget on each side of her chest!

Comments

[bubosquared.livejournal.com]

Actually, according to someone in the Dealer's Room, it's going to come out in proper DVD format in ... March? May? One of those M-months. I think I'll probably wait until then. And pray there'll be extras on the DVDs.

[wibbble]

A quick Google search turns up a rumour talking about a 2006 release. Also ones talking about a 2005 release, and a 2004 release.

Fox haven't announced anything, and said in July last year that they had no plans to release anything.

You might not want to wait - and if/when it comes out of DVD you can always buy it then!