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Hey guys! Posting this thread in the main forum -- we'll move it to the conventions subforum in a few days, but I wanted to makes sure no one would miss the updates.

Well, the con is over, and it was a smashing success -- both for the fandom (and stars) and for XOC. We had a huge turnout (over 30 members) and picked up some new members as well. There were a lot of XOCers I met for the first time (unwise ocean, everhope, gravitystar, Jolly Ape, Girl With a Chakram, Inky Blue, Alliaria20, sarinou, SaraXenite, dark hunter silver, KiraChi, Thanagarian, ilovexena, ZiinaCZ, Ana Tinoco, xenawp7706, and quite a few others) as well as a few I had already met at US conventions (Pandora, elsie austin, twinkletoes).

I didn't go to either of Lucy's concerts but her appearance at the con was absolutely fabulous. She was funny, confident, open, and absolutely gorgeous. Paris Jefferson was great -- she has great presence (as befits a goddess! ), though I never would have recognized her without her armor and helmet on. I didn't get to see Adrienne's appearance (didn't go to any con events on Friday), but she was very charming, personable, and accessible at the Friday night welcoming party (for gold ticket holders only, but a generous XOC'er very kindly lent me hers). And Steve Sears was great -- he told wonderful stories, in a very engaging manner. I've seen Steve at four conventions now (New Jersey, Chicago, Burbank and London), and I really think this presentation was the best.

I'll have much more to tell later, but here are a few highlights.

• Lucy was asked which one she would pick if she had to choose between acting and singing. She asked if she could choose appearing in musicals, which would combine both. A few people suggested a Broadway musical version of Xena and Lucy seemed quite open to the idea.
• There were five or six women wearing Xena costumes in the question line. (One of them, Jo Marriott, is quite incredible -- we got pictures taken with her which I'll post later.) Lucy greeted the first of them with "Hello, Xena!" and then referred to the rest as "Xena #2," "Xena #3," etc.
• One person who got to ask a question was from the Czech Republic and conveyed greetings to Lucy from all the Czech fans (there was a fairly sizable contingent of Czech fans in the audience, most of them from XOC!). Lucy gave a shout-out to the Czech fans, saying that Prague is an incredibly beautiful city and Czechs are some of the most beautiful people in the world.
• One questioner asked Lucy about filming "the bedroom scene" in Old Ares, but I think Lucy misunderstood her and thought the question referred to the temple scene with Ares in Amphipolis Under Siege. She said it was a little uncomfortable and they took forever to film it, and that while Kevin was a great actor (and singer) and a great friend, they never really "got into" those scenes in the sense of any actual sexual feelings. She said they used to joke, "No schwing!" after doing the make-out scenes. She said that they felt "completely and regrettably non-sexual" (or something like that, I definitely remember the word "regrettably" ) and that after the scene was over, she would find herself thinking, "Bugger, I should have been enjoying that."
  
• On a somewhat related theme, when Paris Jefferson was asked if there was one thing she didn't get to do on the show that she would have liked to do, she replied, without skipping a beat, "Snog Ares." ("Snog" is British slang for "make out with," for those of you who don't know.)
• Paris had never even heard of X:WP before being cast in the show; when she first heard the name "Lucy Lawless," her reaction was, "that must be a joke, or a made-up name."
• When our very own solansmum stood up to ask Paris a question, Paris asked what her name was and solansmum replied by giving her handle. When Paris figured out what the word was, she asked, "Who's Solan?" and when someone said, "Xena's son," she exclaimed with sincere shock, "She had a son?"
  
• Steve Sears just might have heard of horsetext! When he mentioned the fandom debates between Xena/Gabrielle and Xena/Ares fans, he said something like, "You can support any relationship you like. It could be Joxer/Argo -- the unwritten episode!" Then, he told a hilarious story about how evidently they wanted at one point to do an episode with a Gabrielle/Argo body switch (which was to include Renee drinking from a trough).
• In his Saturday presentation, Steve Sears removed his hat a couple of times! He also told a hilarious story about how he once walked through a convention hotel packed with fans without the hat on, and not one person recognized him.
  
• The Kevin Smith tribute (a response to requests for fans including XOCers!) was great. They showed some never-previously-seen archival footage of Kevin's appearances at the cons in 1998 and 2000, as well as footage of him singing in the conventions cabaret and some great Ares music videos, including Xedra's "Anything Ares can do, Xena can do better."

Well, that's it for now... I'm exhausted and turning in for the night. Stay tuned for much more!