So, this is basically a day-and-a-half summary……..though not really a half, since (unless you paid the hefty sum of money to sign up for the all-day customization course) pretty much ticket pickup and any actual convention activities didn’t start until 5-6 p.m. on Friday night. I only wanted to really go to the “Five Faces of Darkness” panel with commentary by Flint Dille, though I actually wound up leaving after an hour because he was five minutes into the episode and stopped it so much that he’d been talking for most of an hour………………there was no way I was staying past midnight, as I wanted to get up early for the early entry to the Dealer’s Room/Artist’s Alley my premium pass provided me—therefore I left, though his commentary was fun and funny, I just couldn’t stay up that late! (Though as a guy and I in line were talking about—they altered the “early entry” to include weekend pass holders, too—which kind of defeated the purpose of a premium pass. sigh)

My goals were: autographs from James Roberts, Alex Milne and Sara Pitre-Durocher……..and find at least 1 Hot Rod/Rodimus Prime figure I didn’t have. Those were accomplished in my first HOUR of the convention! Welp, time to go home, eh??? XD

In summary—I took a lot of money with me. I’ve been saving a bit each payday since the beginning of the year and I WOULD HAVE HAD over $2000 to spend, except for my sisters’ summer financial crisis stuff……so, I was close to that amount though not quite there. I did find several Rodimus figures I didn’t have……….I got, um………five I think, plus a Cyclonus. Um, just because, really…………..I kind of really wanted a Galvatron, but there was no really great G1-style Galvatron (even amongst the numerous third-party toys). I saw one, with a price tag of $165……..and I kept thinking I’d really like to get it, but I wanted to go around the hall first and see what everyone else had. But by the time I came back, it was gone. So it wasn’t mean to be……..and Cyclonus got snagged instead. I’m kind of debating getting a couple more of the “Reformatted” series (Chinese third-party figures)……….but I can’t decide between that version of Deadlock (Drift as a Decepticon) or Nitro (a character from “Transformers: Cybertron” which was portrayed as female in the dub but was technically male—(s)he was technically that series’ version of Blurr, and the U.S. name was “Override”). Why would I want to get such a random character? Because she’s prominent in my “Star Voyager” original series………..and it just would be cool. But we’ll see what’s left tomorrow and that will make my decisions for me. Because there’s also a Takara Tomy Masterpiece Star Saber for only $170 that I’d like………….and I’ll tell you right now, this figure’s going for $500+ most places online that I’ve seen it!

I attended the James Roberts Q&A panel—and it was HUGE. One of the staff said that this panel probably had the most people in it she’d seen yet and they had to turn away people at the door, stating a fire hazard/room capacity overload. The lineup of people to ask questions………….yeah, super-long and poor James Roberts could not get through them all. When I went by the booth a few hours later—when there wasn’t as massive a line as there had been most of the day (especially when I’d been there earlier for an autograph and stuff). I asked the question I couldn’t ask at the Q&A and thanked him tremendously for creating a unique take on Transformers that has inspired a large portion of the fandom to think of them as more than just “a robot toy”. That I have been a fan since I was a child in the 80’s when it came out……..that I loved how he made Rodimus cool again……..and that when I first started reading the “reboot” in the post “Chaos”/post-war sagas (“Robots in Disguise” and “More Than Meets the Eye”), I said it would NEVER WORK to people—it had never been done, a TF series without a war, without Optimus Prime and Megatron, without Autobots VERSUS Decepticons……..and here we are nearly a decade later and the comics have become the most loved and honored of all the fandom. I commented that my pairing was Megatron/Rodimus and I knew it would never legitimately happen—and he actually said that he’d never had anyone say they had that pairing to him! I think he was being nice, it may not be THE popular pairing for either character, but it’s got a pretty good following………….he was just a super-sweet British dude, all said. chuckle

Most artists in the “Artist’s Alley”, if you could call it that the weird way it was set up, were all super-nice when you talk to them. (I’ve had a good experience at pretty nearly every convention I’ve done to and gotten stuff in an AA. Except for THAT GUY whom I’ve still never gotten my FurCon commission from in a good 7 or so years or whatever and I see at more conventions than I care to…………I gave up speaking to him, because he kept taking commissions and never responded to my contacting him, either in person or through his e-mail. And I warn people—if you want his stuff, buy at his booth, never commission him.) Though one booth was…………uh, borderline adult and this is an all-ages convention soooooooooooooo…….not sure how they got away with some of the stuff they had up. hmmmm I got a number of prints, Crizltron was there and I’ve gotten stuff from them from many conventions for many years—her stuff’s super-adorable. There was a person who made handmade plushes of pretty much every major IDW comics Transformers character………..so, I bought a Rodimus plushie from them. I really believe in supporting Artist’s Alley people. I have two AA commissions to pick up tomorrow. :D

I also went to the room with the trading card game playing and stuff—and managed to get a couple of cards from really nice people. I was able to “pay it forwards” from Friday, when the guy I was in line with and talking to gave me the one single battle card I was missing (a rare)……….because today a guy in the game room needed a rare card that I had a couple of duplicates of—and I just gave to him. :) Unfortunately now……….the remaining 10 character cards I need are all rares and super rares and NOBODY’S PARTING WITH THOSE FOR UNCOMMONS BY TRADE OR ASKING HIGH PRICE TAGS. And I should likely resolve myself to never getting them—though the one guy let me see the super rare Megatron one and another let me see the Deadlock one from amongst the ones I don’t have. After the card thing………same room………..was supposed to be a fanzine swap. The people I chatted with in line, we didn’t know what to expect of it…………but I know I was (personally) thinking it would be more like “fans wanting to trade handmade stuff with fans” and a relaxed atmosphere, but it wound up feeling like people from the AA booths and those of a similar high-quality caliber wanted to trade with each other. I felt uncomfortable sticking around long in the rule-laden and out-of-my-talent-range atmosphere………..but I am glad I talked to some people outside the room beforehand, because one is a person I know here from Weasyl! Thanks Smoketopus—it was awesome meeting you and I hope you enjoy the ‘fic excerpts I gave you. Thank you so much for your little fanzine, too—it was fun to read! :D

Now to see what lies in wait for tomorrow—and now I also know, line up WAY EARLY for the James Roberts/Flint Dille writing panel. @_@