Pen's Nest

Redemption, the convention, before I forget!

Got a text from my Bun to say she + Boy had arrived—we were still at home, but managed to get going not long after, and found our way to the hotel without error despite Coventry's best efforts. The car park had quite a lot of room in, which probably goes to show it is a good idea to arrive mid-afternoon. Sadly our hotel room turned out to be all kinds of noisy, including a phantom drip in the bathroom, which was not a drip in the bath… still, I suppose I didn't go to Redemption to sleep.

We were too late for the Ceilidh workshop, which the Bs attended, but had dinner fuel in the hotel with them and a couple of the friends they had lured along. Sadly, this meant I missed the 'Will we run out of novelists?' panel (my opinion? No, but we might run out of copy editors). I decided to skip the opening ceremony, not being in the mood—though I understand from Beast that it was a lot of fun, and our group's attempt to join in the Pub Quiz failed because by the time we got to the room, it was full of people and there were no chairs or tables left. Oh well.

But we found nopseud and archie_gremlin and went with them to see what the Starship Cool Wall was all about; gratifyingly, it turned out to be very entertaining, with the audience voting on which starships were cool, occasional fiat decisions by the two blokes in charge, and random interventions by Space Stig. Very clever. Perhaps next time they could do an "Is it Pants?" session on futuristic fashions.

Those of us with some energy (ie everyone except Beast) went off to join in the Ceilidh at this point. I like that sort of dancing, and it is always gratifying to see my Boy getting involved.

It turned out to be a quite physical Redemption for me, one way and another. I spent an hour on Saturday and again on Sunday at the Stage Combat Workshop, which was excellent (if somewhat unnerving). If there was anyone at the con who wanted to see Iain Coleman slapped around and strangled, you should have been there. He sold it beautifully! And Steve K did a great job of explaining what to do and how it worked. I kinda wish someone had video'd it, just so that we eager students could see whether they were coming across effectively or not. And am pleased to report that I have already found a use for some of what I learned. Katisha is going to throttle Ko Ko. "Katisha—mercy!"

I was also bustled out of a bar conversation into the Longsword Dancing workshop by my Bun and a couple of cohorts, who were short of two people in their set. I hadn't intended to go, but it turned out to be good fun as well. watervole got us all doing what seemed to me to be quite complicated things in a remarkably coherent way. And co-ordinated physical activity is a cheerful thing. Alas that I missed the belly dancing workshop (woe!), but we'd gone by then. One of these years we will stay for the entire weekend, or so I keep telling myself.

There was a strong book thread going through this convention, and I ended up at quite a few of those panels, not contributing a great deal but definitely getting some good stuff out of the discussions. If I can find my much-scribbled-on Programme Book I may even get to read some interesting new-to-me books. I was tempted by the Turkey Reading, but was probably out having supper by then. I did, though, attend the fanfic turkey reading, which brought forth many of the horrors of the internet and even spawned some evil ideas for running a session of my own next time around.

Naturally, I spent as much time as I could in the fanfic panels, though these seemed to me to be regrettably thin on the ground this time—I know, I know, I should think of something to put on the programme. And I will, next time. I already have notes. Anyway… there was one called "What's the most dodgy thing you've ever written?" and although my own offering of "Legolas/Winnie the Pooh fisting, with honey," (and you thought it would be my Lampfic, hah!) was perhaps not the very dodgiest offering mentioned, it was by far the dodgiest by anyone actually present. Hmm. I hope the infamy will fade before 2015! This was followed of course by Slash Pictionary, which was just as much fun as last time. Snowgrouse has the most excellent drawing style. Although it is remarkable how little artistic merit is needed in order to make a scenario guessable—I cannot draw this stuff at all, but people still guess right. I think my own most challenging picture was of "The Impala and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang lubing each other up". (I still don't actually know—or care—what an Impala looks like…) Plainly, Slash Pictionary belongs at Camp Sparkle.

Another session which proved to be great fun was "Writing really bad fan fiction", in which the attendees grouped up to produce Really Bad Fic about, um, Frodo and Jeremy Clarkson. How liberating it is to write bad fic On Purpose. I would like to thank my collaborators, and, as group scribe, to apologise for being unable not to punctuate correctly. I believe this 'story' is due to see the light of the internet at some point, and I will certainly link to the resultant tale. It doesn't quite achieve the glorious lunacy of the Add Five Words story, but it's not bad good.

There seemed to be less in the way of glorious cosplay going on during the Saturday for the 'Hall costumes' part of the con—though quite possibly I just didn't happen to notice it. I really appreciate the people who dress up at cons, I think they add an enormous charm to the atmosphere, even though it's not something I have any inclination (or ability) to do myself. And I managed to miss the actual fancy dress competition so I didn't see the best of the best. Never mind, no doubt I was doing something else entertaining.

I sorta contributed my mite to the aesthetics by painting my Bun: she turned up on the Saturday in a T-shirt which did rather lend itself to being extended, and I'd brought my face paints just in case, so she ended up with trees and flowers on her neck.

( Posted with her permission )
Really, everyone should go to Redemption. 'Tis an excellent convention.