#red17

And that’s me done for a while, Tumblr-wise--I’ll be leaving for the Redemption ‘17 convention in Sheffield, UK, in a while. The weather’s terrible all throughout, so keep your fingers crossed I’ll even arrive in Sheffield in one piece! Really looking forward to seeing all you wonderful people over there-- @filmforfancy​ and @originallonemagpie​ in particular--and hoping and praying my health will allow me to enjoy the event as much as possible. It’s going to be tough on my system, but it’s basically the highlight of my life every two years, so I can’t not go--it’s the best con ever, after all.

This year, I’ll be hosting talks on writing queer het/dark het and taking part in panels about Old Hollywood slash (this year’s Ghost of Honour, Basil Rathbone shall feature heavily), a celebration of femslash finally having made it into the mainstream of fanfic out of the ghetto, panels about wizards and the moral complexity of villains and also hosting the traditional (and hysterical) Slash Pictionary and much more besides. You can find all the convention items listed here, so just look for “Snowgrouse” and you’ll find descriptions of my items, especially the “Queering Het” and “Villains as Liberators” ones--these are the queer het and dark het panels and the synopses explain what the talks are going to be all about.

Het’s a much-maligned genre, often brushed off as just heteronormative crap, but as a writer of really diverse het that’s everything but normative, I want to smash that stereotype. These talks are all about utilising and resurrecting and leading het to subversive, LGBTQ-friendly and overall more diverse directions (dark het fans often preferring not only un-patriarchal but all kinds of “Other” male leads--”un-masculine” like Jareth and Jaffar, “deformed” like the Phantom or The Beast, etc). And queer het’s the sort of thing I write with Jaffar and Torsten--writing both of them as bisexual/genderfluid/kinky, just like their lady loves. That kind of thing. I’m really looking forward to those two talks. At Redemption, these talks are always interactive with the audience as well, so it’s that I present my basic stuff first and then it’s opened up to discussion between the audience, so everyone can join in!

So! If you are at the convention (and it’s still not too late to join!), do come and say hi! I’ll be the short, curvaceous ginger with the gothy/cleavageous outfits and the walking stick (or a riding crop) who responds to calls of “Conrad Veidt” by falling over and frothing from both ends. (FFF’s the darker and taller chick who’ll fall over and froth from both ends.) I’d be really happy to meet other fans there:3

I haven’t queued up anything on my Tumblr because I don’t trust the sodding thing, so it’ll be quietish over here until I get back onto my computer on Tuesday, so see you all then.

Sunday at @redemptionconvention was a quieter day for me - I spent the morning catching up with a fandom friend who I hadn’t seen in a while, which was really nice, then went to see Thief of Bagdad. @aikainkauna, of course, has long won me over into shipping Jaffar/Princess rather than the canon ship Ahmad/Princess, but I also ship Ahmad/Abu like burning now! (Tempted to nom it for Yuletide this year.) 

Disney’s Aladdin stole this film hook, line, and sinker, down to the the framing of certain shots, character names, and pretty much the entire performance of Conrad Veidt as Jaffar. Veidt plays this glorious menace of a man who somehow at the same time as he’s terrifying you, you feel safe???? I do not pretend to understand the whys of this. 

After Thief of Bagdad, I went back to my room, but was tempted out again with a message from my husband telling me to come to the charity auction because, “there are zines!” Um, so I bought nearly all the zines. They were mostly McGyver, Sentinel, Star Trek, etc, and I really need to properly sort them out now that I’m home. That was so much fun, even if I suspect that I am terrible at auctioning, because it was really obvious what I wanted. But hey, it was for Asthma UK, so a good cause. 

Then followed a rest, and after that the Closing Ceremony, which was emotional and awkward and adorable and just lovely in all the ways that geeks can be. In the Green/Purple wars, Green won, despite a late attempt at a surge from new rival Gold (the concom). And Missy was declared the Ruler of the Universe for the next two years, and rightly so, I for one welcome our new Time Lady overlord. 

And then, the long-awaited femslash discussion, which was hilarious mainly because @aikainkauna was absolutely snockered (that’s a technical term), and we kept wandering off topic to discuss Conrad Veidt and boobs and how old people were and the Arabic perfume she was wearing and gender identity. But the parts that were on topic were really valuable and good - it was always, as ever, fun to go on about Tolkien femslash, and I talked about wanting darker, kinkier femslash, and how femslash is finally getting to the point where it’s not just confined to the obvious fandoms but can be found in most fandoms these days. 

And that was pretty much the end of Redemption for me! I was exhausted (due to not getting enough sleep the night before), so after we had a quick dinner we went back to the room, packed up as much as we could, and went to bed. 

The next day was the long drive home, over snowy mountains, to finally be reunited with @rey-the-ragdoll, who was annoyed with us for leaving for approximately 10 minutes, then forgave us and cuddled up with me when I went to bed. 

Next Redemption is in 2019, and I have plans for it. We’ve signed up to go already, and I intend to help make it happen. One of these years I’d like to run my own convention, but in the meantime I would like to start by reviving some of Redemption’s former ‘slash track’ (as it was known) as a ‘fanfiction track’ in 2019, and get more conversation going about fic. One of the best parts of Redemption is that it’s for everyone, so I can have my porny slashfic and writing discussions, my husband can have his SF and technical interests catered for, and we don’t have to go off to separate cons to do it.