Creature of Mad Enthusiasms

Once upon a time, when the world was younger and I was younger still, the only way to get fanfiction that you hadn't written yourself was to buy a zine, and the only way to buy a zine was to go to conventions.

And THE convention for zines, no matter what your fandom was, was Media*West. I'd save every penny I had - at $20 a pop, the money went fast. (That's why it was more than an ego rush to get published yourself. It was one less copy to have to buy!) And the zines went even faster - back in the very early days, when many of the zines still smelled of corflu and the accepted practice was to print all the copies up front on spec - print runs were small and zines could sell out on Thursday night before the con even opened. (Then fandom got savvier but print runs got even smaller, because things went to print on demand and it was even harder to get copies.)

boogiebabe_smap and I would take zerox boxes and try to fill them up with what we found in the dealer's room and the hall crawl and our comp copies, and no matter how many I got, I'd read all through them before the end of June and couldn't imagine how I'd wait until next Memorial Day for my fix.

I often get nostalgic about the way fandom was right before Media*West. I'm finding myself particularly nostalgic this year.

This year, when I'm not driving to Michigan for the first time in over 20 years.

This year... when I'm boxing up all the old zines and putting them in the basement. Oh, I'm not getting rid of them. Whoever executes my will is going to have to figure out what to do with all those old Real Ghostbuster and KF-TLC zines, not to mention the pile of Beauty and the Beast ones that's double my not-insignificant body weight.

But I'm doing a lot of cleaning and a lot of pruning, and the brutal truth is, I haven't read fanfiction on paper in almost a decade now. These days the question isn't "how do I find shelf space for the new zines?" it's "how do I get fanfic from the internet onto my ipod touch?"

I have never meant the words "down and safe" more literally. Getting the last part of the way was as quick and uneventful as could have been hoped for.

Now that I'm here, all the signs and billboards (and the router address) still say Holiday Inn, although a banner has been slapped on the hotel itself. The courtyard has been ripped to shreds; nothing but mounds of rock and dirt where the fountains and chairs had been, and there are people working on the roof. The only flyers posted are the weekend hours for the hotel restaurant, which is also under new management and thus not covered in movie posters. (No other flyers AT ALL. That's weirding me out.)

There's a long line at hotel registration but it's a quiet one, so no shenanigans. As I've got 3 hours before my roomies arrive and check in (and my name's not on the room), I'm going to take advantage of the pre-con lull to catch up with email & LJ.

But I thought y'all might want to know that I am here, and I am safe.

Down and safe, although neither alert nor awake. I never booted my computer yesterday, so it was a bit of a surprise to realize that everyone at the con (who cared about me at least) had already read the post about leaving early and was reacting to it. (My favorite: "You're still here?")

Despite the fact that everyone already knew I kept rehearsing my reasons, mostly to try to convince myself. Regardless, regrets caught up with me in Cleveland. What was I thinking? I look forward to this con all year! I had paid for it! I was missing things I'd been looking forward to! I gritted my teeth and reminded myself that my reasons were sound, that taking a not-quite voluntary nap while sitting with violetisblue did not count as "hanging out with my friends" anyway, that leaving early this year did not mean I'd have to leave early every year now, and that it would probably be worth it when I didn't have to spend Memorial Day in backed up traffic. (That part: true. There was next to no traffic the entire trip.)

Because I've been specifically asked to say about the trip, I drove until I should have stopped 45 minutes earlier, got off at the first exit that promised better lodgings than Uncle Inbred's Pennsyltucky Guest House and Chainsaw Emporium, crashed at the first Mildew Drop Inn off the exit, slept poorly for five hours, and tossed for another two before I gave up and hit the road again at a time of day I prefer not to personally experience. However, this *did* mean that I got home before Memorial Day has properly started for most people.

I'm in a fugue state now; too tired to sleep, too exhausted to be properly awake. Am going to unpack before I catch up with two days of email and LJ. Haven't been properly checking for a couple of weeks anyway, so if there's anything I should know, post here.

A roundup of M*W lessons learned & memories:

Supernatural and Torchwood are the hot fandoms this year, although Supernatural is the only one going the classic print zine route. Torchwood's entirely online.

Someone put a piece of dark chocolate in the stuffed Myfanwy's mouth, which made me smile every time I passed it.

Bring (or knit) a shawl.

There is significant interest in an "LJ 101" panel. There is significant interest in the morality panel, but it needs to be scheduled earlier and maybe needs a provocative question as the title.

From the Ianto panel:
Panelist (discussing where Ianto stays): And Jack's hole is too small.
Voice from audience: That's doubtful!

PS - and since I have long since reached the point where people are using my screename as a name, I'm thinking again to changing it to something more shout-across-the-room-able. Whatever that may be.

MediaWest is smaller and less bustling than usual - the economy is hitting it hard, I think, with people deciding at the nth hour that they can't afford to come. (Gas is $4.08 as of this morning. And I thought $3.15 was highway robbery last year.) However, what has come makes for a nice, relaxing but not boring con.

There is no white-hot ubiquitous fandom this year - Stargate SG-1/Atlantis has finally fallen from that perch, although it is hardly "over." To my amusement, what seems to be taking its place is Torchwood. Torchwood is hot, hot, hot, with lots of panels and some gorgeous artwork. (There's a Karen River Ianto in the art show that may be worth the rest of my con budget.)

Notable door decorations include the Torchwood hub (complete with stuffed pterodactyl hanging from the ceiling outside), something involving vines and fairies, a crossover between Daniel Jackson and Indiana Jones re: the crystal skull told in captioned pictures, Fandoku with actor's pictures, and my personal favorite, the one covered in black with the stark white caption "This is not the door you are looking for. Move along."

Having said several times that I wasn't sure the vid show was something I felt was still relevant to me in a world of YouTube, I went after the last Who panel and was glad I did. There were multifandom vids that I wouldn't have seen otherwise that were delightful. And this year's "song I discovered because of the vids" was a Doctor Who vid to Everlife's "Look Through My Eyes":
You'll see, Trust me
I'll be there watching over you

Just take a look through my eyes
There's a better place
somewhere out there
Just take a look through my eyes
Everything changes
You'll be amazed what you'll find
If you take a look through my eyes

There will be time on this journey
All you'll see is darkness
Out there somewhere daylight finds you
If you keep believing

It started as Rose-Nine, but on the lines "everything changes" either the Doctor or companion changed so that it encompassed Nine, Ten, Rose, Martha, and Donna. Fantastic!

Under the cut, descriptions of the four Who panels. Before the cut - a mention of just how sweet it is to introduce yourself as "I'm Nea... my first Doctor Who fanfic was published in 1981, and my first professional Who fic was published this month."

( Panel Descriptions: Big Finish, Is Anyone Interested in Classic Doctors, Theories on the Time War, Morality )

Today, panels on LJ, Ianto, and women in the Doctor Who franchise. I will also try to draft the "going to conventions without going broke" article (mtgat, look for a filtered post only you'll see) and generally take it easy, because that cough from last night? Not allergies. I've got that doom-laden feeling of wheels spinning in my chest when I breathe.

Have made it safely north of Toledo before I stopped, and thanks to the occasional Starbucks expresso doubleshot, had no idea how wiped I was until I stopped. Felt bright and lively behind the wheel!

The iPod playlist is working beautifully... well, except for the part where Maskerade skipped like a little girl on a playground, and now I have to wonder all weekend if the drive is breaking, iTunes was fussy, or the actual disks are damaged... and what I'll do if it's the latter, as I got the thing from Amazon.co.uk, so returning it is a bit impossible. Occasionally one of the remaining firing brain cells wonders about the other 10 things I uploaded from disk for the driving playlist, but the rest of the brain cells smack it around, reminding it that there are merely six days worth of alternative audiobooks already loaded. And that I have the dozen CDs brought for the Big Finish show and tell panel if the iPod or the adapter doesn't make it all the way.

The Morality in the Whoniverse panel kept wandering off topic (note to self - next year suggest a "Your theories on the Time War" panel to bleed off that whole thread) but it was well attended and people seemed to really like it. Major topics covered included "Does the Doctor have the right to enforce his morality on us?" (He has one; even though he has adopted the Earth, is he always correct, and what do we do if he isn't? With side trips into "Was Harriet right to do what she did?) Gwen's moral downfalls regarding Rhys (and if they are a parallel to Suzie's slow slide downwards), and "genocide and the Doctor: did he know what he was going to do to Gallifrey and was it the only choice? What about the Racknoross?"

The Sarah Jane panel was the only one where I lost a fair amount of people, but it wasn't as informative as the others - I basically squeed like a chipmunk on crack for an hour and encouraged everyone else to do likewise, which they did with great enthusiasm. Much love for the Sarah!

I don't know if I'll be able to catch up with everything that's being said on LJ since last night - the router at the hotel was nowhere near powerful enough to deal with the number of fans trying to get the episode. Let me put it this way - I was pulling the *mp4* dialup version and it took over 3 hours to come down! (And I was walking through the halls with my laptop open, dowsing for signal. Ended up walking into the wrong room...)

When I finally got it I was tempted to run through the halls screaming "I have it! I have it!" This put a cramp in my attempt to hold an impromptu "new Who/SJA" airing party with friends and folks from LJ I'm meeting for the first time. I stuck a note up on the room door that I'd hold an airing in the lobby in *checks clock* half an hour. We'll see who comes.

PS - It was cryptile who commented on my LJ "Doctor Who: Even our canon isn't canon." I had that made up into a button which has been VERY popular!

Here! Although the con starts officially at noon tomorrow, already shopping (yay!) Already sold a few things (YAY!!) Books and briefcases that didn't get a sniff on freecyle vanishing in minutes.

V. short post as the longer one wouldn't go up, for some reason.

Very preliminary flyers suggest that Supernatural will be the white-hot fandom, with Who, Heroes, and SG Atlantis fairly popular.

Please comment here if there's something I really ought to know. In the meantime, if you've seen 42, go to dark_aegis' LJ and read her amazing fic about it.

Flying to "Exotic East Lansing" may be less stressful than driving, but considering all the delays getting in and out, it's not all that much faster... (And to my vast amusement, on my way to the convention, I ran into two friends who were taking the same flight as I was in order to get to a *different* con this weekend, and our talking attracted the attention of a lovely man who was waiting to take the flight to a third con...) I'm home a lot later than I expected to be, so this is going to be rather quick and dirty, with more details in later posts if there's call for it. I'm also not even going to attempt to catch up with the last 5 days of LJ, so if there's something major I need to know, please put in comments.

Quick review - had a great weekend, and am sorry to come home (although I was missing my email and LJ). Had a wonderful time hanging out with jennetj, signeh, isamom, hildy, and the new to LJ momthemerciless. Love ya all... even if you did make me watch "Shark Attack 3: Megaladon."

More details below, cut so that folks can either read about the whole thing or focus in on the Whovian info.

( General Convention Info )

( Dr. Who at MediaWest )

And now I was supposed to be in bed over a hour ago, so I shall retire...

It's amazing what food and rest will do. I tried, hard, to get through a decent day's work and wimped out right around early lunchtime. I just Could Not Concentrate!

Now, after some down time and a heapin' helpin' of TGI Friday's new PMS Cuisine (the steak w/bleu cheese and a side of broccoli, with a chocolate shake) I feel infiniately better.

It seemed like a small con, although the registration had been topped out. A shade fewer flyers, not as many people in the feeding frenzy, not as many room dealers. And the video contest was only 3 hours long. Several great ones, but my personal top favorite was the one to Veteran of 1000 Psychic Wars. It started with a shot of Arkham Asylum, then cut to the Emergency ambulance pulling up, and then went into clips from assd shows, psychoanalyzing the characters as they "displayed their behavior" and were admitted. I didn't know the middle two fandoms, but it started with Star Wars original - Luke. "Patient believes self to have developed paranormal powers after death of family. Kills on the orders of deceased mentor. Constant rebellion against authority. Diagnosis - Paranoid schizophrenia." Buffy (heavily edited with the one episode of her in the nuthouse) was "Believes self to be superhero. Believes world to be inhabited by ghosts and demons to be fought. Rebels against constructed authority figures. Upon distruction of false reality, became comatose..."

It was a good con. I bought lots of zines - heck, I bought lots of stuff, and still came home with a little money to spare. In addition to roughly 30 BatB zines and two of the world's most expensive bathrobes, I got two t-shirts custom made (10th Kingdom logo and the old BatB "Walk on the Wild Side" poster) & some CSI graphic novels. There was some good art this year, but nothing I wanted to bid on.

Our door decoration, courtesy of Smap was "If you give a fan a show... she might want to collect memorabilia about it. If she collects memorabilia, she might want to talk to other fans... (right up to "If she goes to the music vids, she might see another show.") There was one of an Aztec gold piece with the caption "Got Curse?" (Pirate fandom was hot - too hot; there was little to feed it so the art and zines sold out on Thursday.) A slash fan had set up a Massachusetts Licensing Board and offered people the ability to marry off their favorite slash pairs. One room had a Thrush Going Out Of Business sale. There was a door advertising a painfully dull cartoon called Adam and Andy. Frankly, Leonard and Larry did it first and much, much better. The person who collects theme-related cartoons all year and posts them was back; in retrospect, I wish I had written down the names of the ones I hadn't known so I could see if they had LJ feeds. (One was of a boy having a LotR dream, including a part where he tries to bribe Gollum out of The Ring by offering an Anakin Skywalker action figure mint in box. The look on Gollum's face was priceless, as was the line "Hobbitses must be out of his mindses.")

I went to a few panels and was on 5. Tish and I, although we kept dragging each other off topic, make a good compare/contrast when we discuss returning to fandoms, as we left for different reasons and we had drastically different experiences on return. But the best panel for this year (and, in comparison, several years) was my Percy Weasley - Death Eater or Double Agent? It was the best attended, and everyone had a firmly-held point of view. Some were resolutely "Deatheater!" and some unshakeably "Double Agent!" and the two teens sitting dead center of the audience didn't really care, but by George, they wanted Percy to pay for breaking his mother's heart! It was a rocking panel, and (pauses to fluff hair) I got several compliments on how I moderated it. Including one person who came up to me the next day to say again how good a moderator she thought I was!

It's a style that doesn't lend well to a well-stocked panel - I wasn't so successful using it at the Joan of Arcadia for non-Christians panel - but when I'm up there alone with a hot room, it was magic!

We never did have a consensus, though there's a fair number of people (including me) who hope that what Percy is really doing is inadvertently selling off his soul and he will redeem himself by becoming a double-agent. There was much discussion as to how far he will have to go for that redemption, including some discussion on how he might be the next character to die, possibly *in* that act of redemption. (An idea that got dubbed "The Passion of the Percy.")

Book #6 can come out any time now, thank you very much!

And now I'm off to catch up on other things, and to kick around my newest icon idea - "What Would Joan Do?"