Fortress Of Good Fortune

Christian, Chocolate, and Mounties! All a winning combination! ;)

Day Three

Saturday, May 23, 2009


It was Bob Evans for breakfast! I ordered a giant Belgian waffle with maple syrup and turkey sausages. Both were tasty, much better than Hummingbird’s food.

The Art Auction had a very nice color sketch of Jim Kirk, and lots of other Trek goodies! It was much smaller this year, in keeping with the general trend, and most of the side tables were empty and the wire racks on which art hung only full on one side for most of the racks. Still, there was definitely quality in the show! Lots of pretty jewelry, much from khylara, and Leah Rosenthal cartoons and other clever stuff. Oh, and the obligatory pix of beautiful naked men making love. ;)

The Smallville gen panel went well. We do miss our Lionel! ;)

I went to the Vid Room and saw last year’s slash vids, or two of them, at least. The Vid Room this year was very sparsely populated due to the lack of vids! :)

I went back to the room dealer I’d visited Thursday night and got two gorgeous memory necklaces! One is rose-colored and the other green/blue, and both are two of my favorites now. I wore them the rest of the con. I always try to buy at least one piece of jewelry every con, and now I had two necklaces and six bracelets.

I came in late to the Conventions panel but it was interesting. We discussed actor cons, semi-pro cons like San Diego Comic Con, huge cons (Dragon Con and World Con), and small gatherings (Zebra Con, Eastern Media). Media West has no actors or other ‘talent’, and was a way for pre-Net fans to gather. It was one of the medium-sized cons out there. Now it’s a smaller con (around 400 this year instead of the customary 900).

Ah, next, Christian! ;)

We had five people (one left early), and L.D. came and all of us gushed and analyzed Christian’s acting skills and career. I did mention comms like bale_daily, balefans, and cbale_icons in case people were unaware of them, and some hadn’t known about these comms.

We admired Christian’s dedication to his acting, but thought he went a little too far losing so much weight for The Machinist, looking like a concentration camp survivor! We did find him to be one of the best actors out there, and working well with Russell Crowe in 3:10 To Yuma and Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight. I guessed he would do a third Batman film because he enjoyed working with Michael Caine and Christopher Nolan so much.

Those who had seen him in Terminator: Salvation said he did a good job, and we were looking forward to him playing G-man Melvin Purvis in Public Enemy, co-starring Johnny Depp as John Dillinger.

We discussed Bale Out. :)

Did I mention that we thought he was gorgeous? ;)

More courtyard sitting, and then dinner at Bob Evans. The chicken pot pie was very good: savory peas and carrots and good-sized chunks of chicken. There were fresh rolls and I had some of khylara’s coleslaw. The taste was unusual but in a good way! :)

I did go to the Holy Mother Grammatica panel when I got back, and left halfway through. The Starsky & Hutch party was starting! :)

I had a great time. Flamingo and her partner were the hosts, and we watched songvids, most of which I hadn’t seen before. The room had six or seven people in it most of the time, coming and going. We had Dove dark chocolate (luvs) and Sierra Mist and other yummies. :) It was fun to discuss the show and the actors and I stayed about two hours.

Finally, after more room crawling, I discovered the Con Suite was showing Due South. I caught the last twenty minutes of the Pilot and happily stayed for Season 1’s Free Willie and Manhunt. It was great fun to hear the newbies laugh at the clever dialogue for the first time. ;)

I ended up back in the room by 12:30 and was in bed by 1:00. I know, early for a con, but the next day promised to be very busy! :)


Day Four

Sunday, May 24, 2009


It was Bob Evans for breakfast again. We would have gone to Flap Jack across the street but we’d heard it didn’t open until 9:00. Too late for us! :) Hummingbird’s opened at the same time and the single option breakfast buffet was even more money for Sunday.

I repeated the Belgian waffle, maple syrup, and turkey sausages. I love waffles and the sausages tasted really good, so I decided to stick with the tried-and-true.

Back at the hotel, I registered for next year (30th year for MWC!) and then attended the Clex panel. How does Lex love Clark? Let us count the ways. ;) Also, how could you NOT figure they’re hot for each other when you recall the moony-eyed looks they gave each other the first three season? LOL!

Next was a panel on Decline Of The Printed Zine. The easy explanation? A zine costs money unless you ‘trib, stories on-line are free. But there were other explanations, too, garnered from conversations from people and our own educated guesses:

Feedback: for me, the Internet has shown me that my writing is appreciated. I got the occasional feedback during pre-Net days, and happily people did come up to me at Media West and tell me how much they liked my stuff, but on-line? I get feedback on a regular basis, and within minutes or days instead of months or years. I don’t feel like I’m writing in a vacuum anymore. :)

Editors: they are the gateway to zines, and like the literary world, can be a little too full of themselves. This is a generalization, BTW, because I rarely had any trouble with editors when I wrote for zines. Pro editors are more likely to have this attitude. I’m an editor, so I know both sides of the fence as writer and editor. Some pro editors can be on a power trip. As with literary agents, writers have to prove themselves worthy of being taken on as a client and published. Probably one of the few businesses that say, DON’T do this, DON’T do that, if you don’t follow the rules I’m throwing your submission in the trash, etc. Writers are the clients/customers and often have to jump through hoops for the agents/editors/publishers, who are supposed to want your business!

This is a pet peeve of mine from over the years, and applies mainly to the pro world, who consider themselves Keeper of the Literary Flame. It’s an elitist attitude that has discouraged many a budding writer, I’d guess.

As for zine eds, I always had good experiences with editors who were polite and really interested in helping me make my story better. I only pulled my story twice in all the many years of submissions, and it was amicable, but we just didn’t see eye-to-eye.

Editing is hard work and often unappreciated. :)

Editors believe they are helping writers improve. Fannish editors decry the drek out there on-line, and believe me, there’s plenty of it. However, it’s a numbers game: there are far more stories on-line than in zines, so the drek count goes up. You have excellent stories out there, and many writers use betas, the on-line form of editor.

Some of the pro-zine people think that editing is rare on-line, and that’s not true. Also, what’s wrong with instant feedback? I know it’s helped me improve my stories. It’s like sitcoms that get instant feedback with studio audiences as opposed to dramas who have to wait weeks to find out feedback.

On-line posting means you have more control over your story, and that’s a strong appeal to fans new to fandom, and to those of us who are veterans.

I like both ways, but rarely submit to zines now because my fandoms are pretty much on-line now.

The Internet has changed everything, including zines. Zines take up space, but they are wonderful to hold and appreciate as works of art, including art inside! ;) Zines cost quite a bit of money, and stories are free on-line. Zines take months to publish, and anyone with posting access can post their stories on-line within minutes of the final edit.

Zines’ heyday are over, but they won’t completely disappear, anymore than books will. They will still be the items held in your hands, though most will migrate to e-books and e-zines.

The Heroes panel was quite good. We discussed the past season and our hopes for the new season. We weren’t sure of the finale. And the multiple characters and storylines can be confusing, but at least this season was an improvement over the second season.

I’m happy to say the DC and Marvel Comics panel was a success! We had about 8 or 9 people and discussed the past year’s storylines. I recommended New Krypton and we loved the books about Bruce’s funeral. The Battle for the Cowl was discussed, and then we laughed about ‘kiddie’ titles like Tiny Titans. The Marvel universe is still without Cap and is full of Skrulls! :) Good to see crimsonquills and Deb attended, too. She and I bonded over comics a few years ago and we usually have our own little running commentary at these panels. :)

And what did I find when I went back to the room? Why, a Certificate of Recognition awarding Best Slash door to our Pink Flamingo! Whoo hoo! :) khylara and I had won Honorable Mention one year with a Ray Vecchio Appreciation Society door, but this was a First Place winner! Extremely cool! :)

The future of fandom panel was very interesting. One of the panelists mentioned that at some other cons, attendance had gone way up when anime panels and gaming was added. Younger fen are interested in those subjects and in actor cons. Celebrity mania is at its peak, helped by the Internet, and they expect the glitz and glamour. A con like Media West is boring to younger fen: no autograph sessions, photo ops, or actors/writers/creators.

Media West was founded in the heyday of zines, and in pre-Net days. It was a way for fans to get together and talk face-to-face. Now, younger fen talk on-line and don’t feel the need to get together in person as much. That was the consensus, anyway.

Media West may be on the way out. A pity, but all things change.

I did notice that some people thought that there were no fannish gathering places on LJ, for instance. They thought that everything was fragmented. My opinion? We’ve always had fandom splintering off into our own interests. Even at the con, you attend some panels and not others. And there are places on-line that encompasses all of fandom (metafandom), but it’s difficult to have a place where everyone can go. There’s just too many divergent interests.

Using DC fandom as an example, we do have gathering places like superhero_muses and dcu_fandomguide, and there are general communities, or large comms (batfic, worlds_finest and smaller ones that help gather different parts of a subset of fandom (wonderwomanlove)). And then we break off into pairings and themes and there are many, but a comm. like superhero_muses and dcu_fandomguide brings together many resources in one place.

I think that people unfamiliar with LiveJournal don’t quite understand what goes on here in fandom.

The last panel I attended was the Commercials panel, which was loads of fun. We talked about current and past commercials, laughing a lot and having a good time. :)

khylara and I couldn’t hook up for dinner, so I walked down to Wendy’s and bought a grilled chicken sandwich and fries. I went to the Art Auction and had a good time, because the auctioneers are funny and the crowd always likes to live it up on the last night. ;) I saw Vicki for the first time this weekend, so that was a plus, too.

I did see more Due South: Pizzas And Promises and Chinatown, two of the best Season 1 episodes.

Next: Day 5 and then Wrap-up thoughts.



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