Most important things first. I bought a new pair of shoes!

And three new books, but new books in my life aren't really that rare. Hardly worth mentioning.

And a t-shirt for my sister. I wanted a new shirt, but I had my heart set on one that said, "Oxnard" and, not finding one, decided to sulk instead.

I loved the new hotel. Both the facilities and the location, within walking distance of a dozen restaurants and two dozen stores. And a biker bar that a group of us unanimously declined to visit. "Road Rash" will forever remain an unexplored mystery, as biker bars should to those of us untattoed and without any chainlink accessories.

My fabulous room in fabulous downtown Oxnard was fabulous. It had a balcony, a view of the hot tub and pool, and my key worked every time I put it in the door. I don't ask for much out of life...these simple facts made me happy.

In theory there was high-speed internet access from each room, but mine didn't work. It didn't matter much because I didn't spend much time there anyhow.

I saw most of the best people in fandom although a few people didn't make it. I'm not going to mention names because I'd forget about half of the people and maybe offend someone but there were great people there! As usual, I felt as though I'd been let in completely by accident. Like a stray cat or something.

Panels and gossip! What a lovely experience Escapade is. Panels to discuss, or even disagree about, our favorite fannish obsessions and masses of people gathered in hallways or in the bar, doing more of the same.

I spent, you'll be surprised to hear, amazingly little time discussing Spike BtVS. There were two panels, and I attended 1-1/2 of them. (Never enough time!) I listened politely. (I don't talk much in panels unless the conversation doesn't seem to be swinging along without my invaluable help.)

I attended an X-Files panel where, in some fashion I still can't quite fathom, I found I had committed myself to writing a new X-Files story. The brain boggles. Krycek is dead and Mulder turned into such a moron that not even Skinner would have him. I'll have to dig back into the first four seasons to find something worth writing about.

The best panel by far was the first one on Friday. "Sex, schmex." It was one of those, "when did storytelling disappear in favor of endless sex scenes" discussions and drew a substantial crowd.

My take, which I did share with the group, was that sex took over slash when feedback-hungry writers started getting story comments on nothing but their sex scenes. If they wrote a 200 page story and got comments on nothing but the 3-page sex scene, they soon started leaving out most of the other 197 pages worth of material. Very few fanfiction writers are writing for the sheer love of creating a story. They're writing for feedback and strokes and are willing to do what it takes to get them. Especially if it means not having to do the work the other 197 pages required.*

Several good points were made, including the reminder that when a like-minded fan first finds slash, they tend to go overboard on the "sex between guys!" part of the concept. With so many thousands of new fans finding fandom, and slash, every month now, there's a constant influx of newbies who are fixated on The Act.

Presumably if some of them stick around long enough, they'll become jaded with sex-only stories and start to hunger for more from their fanfiction. There are good writers out there writing real stories. They're just harder to find these days because there are so many stories hitting the net every day.

(*This isn't bitterness. I wrote mostly short-short sex stories and didn't get feedback, making me uniquely qualified, I think, to diss both "storyless" stories and people who like lots of feedback.

P.S. If you read something I wrote, don't sit down today and send feedback. Really. Too little, too late and anyhow I don't really care. I mean, it's cool if someone liked it, but McSwain was the only person I was trying to please most of the time, okay? Do fandom a favor and send feedback to someone writing good stuff.)

Where was I?

Oh, yeah. Panels I have liked.

There was one on the "Loyalty Kink" that looked good but there were too many people there and by the time they spent the first fifteen minutes or more identifying "loyal" pairings (as though such things weren't obvious), I got bored and left.

I'd have liked to hear a discussion about what it is about loyalty that's such a kink for some of us and the panel did look to be heading toward such a discussion but this was late on Sunday afternoon and my brain was fried.

Hmmm...there was a Firefly panel I attended out of affection for the person leading it. I tried Firefly, liked it, but just lacked the time to make a commitment to it. Anyhow, it was dense and intelligent and required the viewer to pay attention. It was doomed from the start in a country that thinks a "reality" show about a man pretending to be a millionaire so that he can marry a starlet is fascinating entertainment.

Must. Not. Get. Sidetracked.

There were other "general" panels I wanted to attend but I frequently got involved in conversations and missed them. Maybe next year.

Next year!

Pursuant (what a great word) to complaints that there aren't enough arguments any more, I'm already working on contentious panel suggestions for next year. (Anyone that responds to these suggestions here will be smacked and fined two donuts. Save it for Escapade.)

#1 – But They Aren't Gay! (Taking back the slash)

I think that one's pretty self-explanatory, isn't it? No? Hmmm.

I liked slash back when the writers felt obligated to put 'why and how' into the story before the guys tumbled into bed. I don't require that we go back to the days when gay was evil and closeted, but I'm sick of...well, as mentioned above, stories that are nothing but two gayboys finding each other and doin' the wild thing.

Not all of the characters being slashed can reasonably be portrayed as gay. In fact, darned few of them can. Regardless of the statistically small number of "bisexual" people in our population, I prefer my BSOs to be bi.

I don't require that every kiss or shag they've shared with a woman be invalidated by a statement that he was really thinking of the pool boy all the time. In fact, I loathe it I don't share the misogyny so many fans seem to feel toward female characters. I'm perfectly happy being a woman and I'm perfectly happy to see women in stories.

I like the kind of story where a guy might have been aware of even a passing attraction to his own gender in the past but I don't like the stories where every sexual encounter he's had with a woman has been unsatisfying and he never knew true sexual pleasure until he got boinked.

Also. I'm sick of seeing the guys go from 'howdy' to boinking in sixty seconds or less. These aren't gay guys meeting in the park under cover of darkness. They exist in a context of jobs, families, and mutual friends. There are going to be some stops along the sexual highway before they get to all-out boinking. (Have none of these authors ever necked with someone?)

Anyhow. That's what that panel is about. We're not gay men writing about gay men. We're not even women writing about gay men, for the most part. These characters aren't all-out gay, although they might be bi, and slash is not the same thing as gay porn.

And I'm willing to fight about it.

#2 – My Fandom Sucks!*

Well, it does, doesn't it?

Where are the days of lively, even acrimonious debate that didn't sink into the swamp of flaming and name-calling three seconds later?

Where are the lists talking about who the characters are and how they got that way and where they might go from there? Is there anyone out there still interested in discussing how to get the guys together in a way that doesn't violate canon or invalidate the show's universe?

Are there any forums for discussing fanfiction where you can have honest discussions of the good and the bad without getting an army of sockpuppets in your face or have someone calling your boss and outing you as a slash fan? Where disagreeing with someone is understood as a disagreement and not a personal attack on someone's character?

Are there any discussion lists where "me, too!" is banned, as are postings about the health of your dog or your parakeet or speculations about the actor's personal sex life? Are there any lists where there's still interesting and intelligent discussion of the show itself, the plots of the episodes, and the motivations of the characters?

Where are the lists with grown-ups on them (of any biological age) who wanted to discuss the show they were a fan of, including the good, the bad, and the simply ridiculous?

Where are the carefully crafted stories, "case files" in themselves that provoked weeks of fascinated deconstruction and debate from thoughtful readers?

I remember when I first found on-line fandom, I found all of that in Highlander.

Heck, I found most of it in The X-Files lists, in the beginning. I found less of it as I wandered in and out of Due South and Sentinel.

Is fandom nothing now but hordes of screaming adolescents (of any biological age) drooling over nekkid weenies and becoming dangerous when their favorite actor has the temerity to date a woman instead of his male costar? Are the few intelligent and thoughtful fans remaining all in hiding or have they moved on to needlework and cartography as new hobbies?

I should point out that a friend offered to try and get me on a BtVS list recently. The list, she promised me, was full of intelligent discussion by intelligent people. After consideration, I declined. I don't have anything intelligent to say about the fandom. I just drool over Spike and since I'm three seasons behind the rest of the fandom, I'm not even drooling over the same Spike they're all watching. Still, I was encouraged by the knowledge that such a list existed.

(I'd be willing to consider that the blog, far from "killing" fandom lists, is actually going to be the savior of "good" fandom since it allows those intelligent fans who want to discuss intelligent topics, rationally and at length, to find one another.)

(*Caveat: I'm not actually on any fandom lists right now, but these are the sorts of things I hear people complaining about and a lot of the these same things are what made me give up on lists in disgust in the first place.)

#3 –Jumping The Shark

Fandom jumped the shark, okay?

With the X-Files and the Mulder/Scully fanfiction, to be specific.

That's right. At the same time that online fandom was exploding into an international phenomenon, it was already sitting on the motorcycle, heading for the fatal ramp.

I've never in my life witnessed such an outpouring of sheer, mindless crap as the unfortunate (but surely existing) intelligent het fans of that show had to put up with. (Speaking of fandom misogyny, I've always been astounded by the number of "fans" of Scully's who treated the character worse than dirt in their stories.)

The slash fiction attracted some stellar authors and produced some amazing fiction, but it had its share of life-shortening putridity, too. There were contests to produce lousy stories.

Anyhow. Some good fiction has continued to appear in the years since XF reached its fanfiction peak, in that fandom and others, but the volume of odorous garbage has continued to climb until the world's largest landfill would be insufficient to hold it all if printed out.

(*Microsoft Word is a stupid program. It actually thinks, "putridity" is a real word.)

Should I think of anything else rude between now and next year that might make a good panel, I'll keep you posted.