BotCon 2012 Report
Wednesday
I arrived in Dallas in the afternoon. I gathered up my suitcase and found the shuttle. I marvelled at how the airport appeared to be a level of Sonic the Hedgehog as the driver navigated his way. He drove past Medieval Times on the way to the hotel. Once at the hotel, I asked for a room either on the floor on which Ravyn and Aka were or on which Becca was. The hotel person told me that none of those rooms were clean yet, but if I waited one to two hours, they would have a room on one of those floors clean for me. I agreed to that and gave them my cellphone number.
Aka and Ravyn were busy in Toy Customising Purgatory, so I found Becca. We watched "Attack the Block", a movie about what would happen if aliens attacked in inner-city. It was hilarious, sly, and very well-done. After that, two hours were up, and I still had not had a call. So I went back down to ask the hotel people about a room again. They said they still did not have any rooms on those floors. So I asked for a room one floor below, but they did not have any there. So I asked if they had any rooms one floor above, which they did, so I took that room, went there, unloaded my belongings, and dressed up nicely.
Becca, Aka, and I took a cab to Craft, an extremely nice restaurant. Ravyn was still trapped in Toy Customising Purgatory. Becca had the craft cocktail, which had fresh local strawberries. Aka had a ginger martini, which may have contained "tito’s handmade texas vodka, fever-tree ginger beer, candied ginger". I had water. The first amuse bouche was a cold chicken liver mouse in a warm puff pastry shell with microgreens. The bread was an assortment of honey-oat-dark-wheat and white, which may have been pain au levain. I adored the honey-oat-dark-wheat; it reminded me of a more upscale version of the bread at Longhorn. As our first course, Aka had the cured hamachi & coriander, which sadly had cilantro microgreens on it and thus tasted like detergent to me. Becca had the braised escargot & duck egg, which came with brioche toast soldier for dipping in the egg yolk. The duck egg was poached, which is not Becca's favourite egg preparation, and the escargot were a bit too mushroom-like for her tastes. I had the Rabbit Strozzapreti & Lingurian Olive, which greatly pleased me. For main courses, Aka had Foie Gras Torchon & Rhubarb with ramps. No, these were not skateboarding ramps or wheelchair ramps. These are little bulk vegetables that are sort of like shallots and garlic in flavour with a bit of crispness to them. The acidity and fibre of the rhubarb helped cut the richness and smoothness of the foie gras. Becca had Quail & Pecan with roasted sunchokes. All of those things were delicious. I ordered the mushroom assortment, which included oyster, shiitake, trompette royale, and hen of the woods mushrooms. Hen of the woods mushrooms are my favourite, but they were all good. Then they brought us strawberry panna cotta as another amuse bouche, and I do love panna cotta. For dessert, Aka had the Hummingbird Cake with "Tapioca Pudding, Candied Walnut, Coconut Sorbet". The hummingbird cake was awesome. Becca had the pseudo-beignets, which had orange zest in them and came with honey and chocolate for dipping, so they reminded me of sopapillas. I had the Ice Cream & Sorbet Tasting with Earl Grey, Vanilla Malt, Manjari Chocolate, Banana Cashew Crunch, Coconut, Pineapple Sherbet, Green Apple Ginger, and Citrus Passion Fruit. Earl Grey was my favourite, and Banana Cashew Crunch was my second favourite. Then they brought us another amuse bouche of one bite chocolate lava cake brownies, peanut butter cookies, and caramel corn. Then they brought us almond millet muffins. We debated if Drift was Edward or Bella, Perceptor being whoever Drift was not, and Ratchet was Jacob, and we realised that Ravyn was going to be very displeased with us all. We brought back some Beef Short Rib & Root Vegetables for Ravyn as appeasement.
We took a cab back and then stood in line to pick up Aka's and my stuff. Becca stood in line for solidarity. I forced Becca to read the hardcover of Last Stand. I really only want Gigatron/Overlord and SG Tracks, whom I will pretend is Road Rage. SG Soundwave, SG Treadshot, and SG Ultra Magnus are all very unenthusing, to me. I like Metalhawk's character in Victory, but I really prefer his inner robot to his outer shell. SG Straxus has hilarious typos and grammatical errors. After acquiring stuff, we tracked down Ravyn, and I gave her an Ohio-made bacon candle, which vastly amused her. Becca and I went to a parts party, where she found Needlenose and Blast Off and accidentally haggled the price for the two from $55 down to $50. Then I went to bed because I was tired.
Thursday
I took Becca to breakfast. I had EL CAMINO STREET TACOS with "Achiote chicken, Egg Beaters, cilantro, Cotija cheese, tomatillo salsa". Becca had CINNAMON FRENCH TOAST "Topped with butter and maple syrup, roasted fruits". She had chocolate milk. I had skim milk. We asked our server for recommendations of places to go, and she gave us good ideas. Then we obtained maps from the concierge. We gathered up Aka, because Ravyn was still in Toy Customising Purgatory. We tried to walk to the West End, which was not a great idea, because it was very hot and sunny. We found several strange ghost malls that looked perfectly maintained, not dilapidated at all, but had no stores in them. We also found some abandoned Segways. Once we stumbled upon the Dallas World Aquarium, which was really more like a small indoor zoo, we immediately entered, wanting to escape from the heat and sun. They had many birds, fish, mammals, reptiles, amphibians, invertebrates, and plants. The gift store contained an awesome squid. The penguins very much pleased Aka. The massive crabs looked ready to star in a horror movie. There were some Nemesis Clownfishes, which were not Combaticons. We had lunch at a South American restaurant inside the complex and thus were able to watch fantastic birds and a waterfall as we munched chips. I just had flan for lunch. Aka had enchiladas. Becca had tacos. We continued through the museum until it was time to go stand in more lines.
We stood in more lines. Becca picked up her stuff. I bought Classics Spinister, who came with Shattered Glass Octopunch, whom I really did not want, and I bought a bunch of autograph cards just to get Emirate Xaaron and Spinister. Spinister's bio says that he vanished for twenty years and then inexplicably showed up with a new body, which I am going to assume means he had twenty-year honeymoon with Needlenose, who rebuilt Spinister for kicks and giggles.
Jecca, Becca's roommates, was added to the party. I declared that both Jecca and Becca are from alternate universes. Aka, Becca, Jecca, and I had dinner at Parrino's Oven. I forget what Aka and Becca had to drink (I think Aka had wine?), but Jecca and I had water, a sign of things to come. The four of us split the calamari fritto: "spice dusted calamari, oven roasted roma tomato sauce, grilled lemon". Then Jecca and I split the croustade e formaggio di capra: "grilled garlic flat bread, local creamy goat cheese, dried roma tomatoes, kalamata olives, arugula salad, coarse cracked black peppercorn". Aka had the veal pasta, which she let me sample. The veal was very tender and flavourful, not overcooked. Becca had parrinos pizza: "heirloom tomatoes, basil, local made fresh mozzarella, peppery lemon oil drizzle". Then Jecca and I split a crème caramel, which made me realise that Jecca and I are also from alternate universes. Becca had some kind of sorbet. Aka had opera cake, which reminded me of the opera cake at Mozart's in Columbus, Ohio. We decided that Perceptor is an archangel.
Jecca gave me an Autobot bracelet! Jecca, Becca, and I went to a parts party, and Becca found the boat version of Banzai-Tron. Jecca may have found stuff, too? Then I went to bed because I was tired.
Friday
So I gave Jecca jam as a bribe. Throughout the convention, I gave various people jams and honey as bribes.
I wore my Dinobots shirt to breakfast, which was supposed to be foreshadowing, but no one I knew saw me in the shirt, so my foreshadowing failed. I had the MESQUITE BBQ BRISKET BENEDICT: "Bacon-cheddar biscuit, black pepper hollandaise" with some chai tea. I had way too much food. I ate maybe 25% of the food given to me. I wanted to box up the rest to give to someone else to eat, but my waiter solidly ignored me for five straight minutes, so I gave up, paid the bill, which he also ignored, and left.
I put on my Animated Swoop costume and discovered that one of the screws in the wings had mysteriously vanished during shipping. I tried to summon Aka for help, but I failed. So I went to Becca and had her just tape the broken wing in a fixed position, and she helped me tuck everything in. We went to the end of the MSTF panel, which had some colour issues such that Rodimus Prime appeared to be black. We were baffled. Then we watched the Fan Film contest. Next year, Becca needs to enter this contest. So it is written. Aka appeared and then went off to try to find some screws. The hotel was not near any hardware stores, though, so she ended up building a screw out of copper wire and duct tape. She fixed my wing! They could both open again! So of course both wings later de-threaded their cords during the course of the day.
Becca, Jecca, and I stood in lines. We descended upon the Puggle table like the Thousand Nations of the Persian Empire. Becca acquired Actionmaster Thundercracker. Jecca obtained Rodimus. I gained Jeffrey and Winterfresh. I tried to tell Cally that I used to play on TF2K5, but I do not think she remembered me. We roamed the dealers' room. At some point, we went to where the Hasbro designers were giving out free sketches. Artoni, who had an awesome Vector Prime hoodie and swords, received a very baffled looking G1 Scourge. Nightbeat went to Becca, Mirage to Jecca, and Animated Strika to me. The designer was really awesome and read her bio to try to embody some of her character in the sketch. We roamed the dealers' room some more. Bought some scripts from Simon Furman.
I de-costumed. I dressed up nicely and went to the Golden Ticket Reception. I had chicken shish-ka-bobs, shrimp with Andouille skewers, and a suspicious bottle of orange juice. I talked with Rosemary, Rachel, and Brandy. Then I wandered off to go to parts parties with Aka, Ravyn, Becca, Jecca, and Antepathy. Aka and I fixed my wings again with the help of Ravyn's wire reel. Then I went to bed because I was tired.
Saturday
I had Earl Grey tea and the buffet for breakfast, which was okay. I costumed. I was human Barricade very briefly in the dealer's room and then put on Swoop later. Jecca concluded that Barricade suffers from an identity crisis and sometimes thinks he is a Dinobot, which confuses his psychiatrist, Venom. I stood in line with Becca and Jecca. We descended on the Puggle table again. I picked up Acid Storm, hatchling Bumblebee, and Wheejack for Ravyn, who was busy volunteering. Becca obtained hatchling Frenzy after a trade, IDW Swerve, and G2 Breakdown. Jecca acquired Prowl Table-Flippah and Mirage. We wandered the dealers' room. Jecca acquired comics. Becca accidentally distressed one of the IDW people. I acquired a Jazz poster for Jecca and a Megatron poster for myself, which the nice video game person signed for me.
We saw the end of the IDW panel. Someone asked if we were going to see any female Transformers other than psycho Arcee. We were told that Arcee is a fully developed character, not just a psycho, which does not answer the question but rather hints that no, we will not see any other female Transformers (except as anomalous crowd filler), just more Arcee. The thing is, some women are psychos. (Even a very few transsexual women are psychos, although the implications there in fiction are unfortunate.) Her being a gleeful murderer is not per se a bad thing. However, she's like strawberry ice cream. Some people like it. Some people don't. If there is also chocolate ice cream or vanilla ice cream, that increases the chances that there will be a flavour that someone likes. Likewise, if there are two or three female Transformers, that increases the chances that one of them will appeal to people if the others do not. One female character cannot be everything to everyone. That is why having several is good. IDW used to insist that there was no Primus in their universe and had the characters namedrop Primacron instead. Now the characters namedrop Primus. If IDW can ignore the 'no Primus' thing, why can't they just ignore the 'no women' thing, too? For example, just have Flareup show up and defuse a bomb and don't have anyone comment on her gender at all. Don't explain it in any way (much like how they have not explained why Sky Lynx is a weird dino-bird-cat with no robot mode). She's just there, she looks female, and she does stuff with explosives. Awesome.
We saw the Animated Panel, which was pretty much Sad Derrick Wyatt in Snow and sometimes, ' Sad Derrick Wyatt in Snow gives a free toy to a Sad Child In Snow'. Ravyn beat Derrick Wyatt at his own trivia with ridiculous Victory references. At the end, I went up the front to try to ask Derrick Wyatt to autograph my Swoop helmet, but he escaped before I could ask him. We saw the David Kaye & Garry Chalk panel and then the Transformers Collectors' Club Roundtable TCC Staff. They are making a TFP Slipstream, which makes me both happy and sad. I am happy to get another girl Transformer toy, but I am sad because if the Club is making her, she probably will not do much, if anything, on the show. Also, if you want to be sure to buy her, you need to buy six figures, and she is the only figure I want out of the six. I can try to buy her the other way, but then it is uncertain I will get her. Then we saw the Hasbro Transformers Brand Team panel, and they are making a TFP Flamewar out of Arcee, and they claim she is going to do something on the show. I am going to buy her so hard, maybe three of her. Then we escaped.
I decostumed, put on nice clothes, and went to the Cocktail Reception, which involved milling around in a crowded, loud room with not much to do. Then we went to the Hall of Fame Party and Casino Night Dinner, where I sat with Aka, Ravyn, Becca, Jecca, Stogie, Kenya, and some people I do not know. The room was laid out such that the presenter were at the long end of the room, rather than the wide end of the room, which made it hard for most of the room to see and hear them. There was a taunting piece of cheesecakes and dray salad with carrot, jicama, and assorted other vegetables, and also iced tea and water and bread. The servers took my salad away before I was done with it and replaced it with stuffed chicken containing mushrooms, herbs, rice, corn, and mozzarella. It came with vegetables. I finished that and then had my cheesecake. There was one extra piece of cheesecake, which was split by four people. No one cared about the extra salad. Wheeljack won the HoF, which makes me feel unenthused. He's a cool, likeable character, but I do not feel he is particularly historic. He seems solidly B-list to me. This is not a knock in any way. I like a lot of characters who are... Z-list. I just feel like Arcee is more historic, because she is emblematic of female Transformers, even if she was not the first, and that Rodimus was the star of the first movie and that he was the first not-Optimus Prime to do much of anything and that he had cool roles in Energon and Animated (and even a cameo in Cybertron) and that he is doing neat stuff in IDW MTMTE. Both Arcee and Rodimus have more 'history value', as far as I am concerned. I feel that BW Megatron should have been inducted earlier under the general Megatron banner. Yes, he's a different character, but so is Bayverse Megatron and so is AEC Megatron and so is Animated Megatron and so is...
I donated my casino money to Ravyn, as did some other people. She went on to win something awesome, so I feel my fake money went to a good cause. Becca, Jecca, and I engaged in a ridiculous Puggle wedding wherein Bumblebee was married off to his beautiful bride, Prowl Table-Flippah, who was wearing something blue, borrowed, and new/old (Jecca's bracelet). Rodimus was the priest and kept Prowl Table-Flippah from escaping. Mirage was Bumblebee's best man. Acid Storm, Jeffrey, and Winterfresh were groomsmen. Frenzy was the maid of honour, and Actionmaster Thundercracker, G2 Breakdown, and IDW Swerve were bride's maids. Jam and honey were served. The Stunticons were the band. Ratchet was rightfully horrified. This was completely terrible, and yet, it was not the worst thing I heard happening to Puggles at BotCon.
Then I went to bed because I was tired.
Sunday
I had FLAT EGGS: "Baked Castroville artichokes, forester mushrooms, roasted pepper, feta frittata" and green tea. I was Swoop again. I saw Bee in the City 2, which allegedly was cursed by Derrick Wyatt for not including Straxus, so the microphones kept failing. I expected Road Rage to do something bodyguard-like, but she did not. It was fun. Jecca and I obtained autographs from Abby Collins, Garry Chalk, and David Kaye. Jecca also managed to acquire photographs of a Prowl cosplayer pretending to flip a table. Needlenose's tail is expensive. It costs more than the rest of his body. [Insert joke here.]
I managed to eat lunch with Becca, Antepathy, and Ravyn while fully dressed as Swoop. I had chocolate custard with citrus whipped cream, which is of course what Dinobots eat. Becca had some sort of sandwich.
Becca and I bought comics. We went to the cosplay panel. My Swoop was named in the top three costumes, and then the BotCon staffers declared a three-way tie. I can understand that judging was probably hard, because Breakdown, Blitzwing, and Swoop were all built with somewhat different goals and intentions, I think. It had to be like trying to compare an Actionmaster (very show accurate) to an Armada toy (crazy gimmicks galore).
They took us back to the dealers' room and did a photoshoot of the three. They drew free ticket winners for next year. We wandered the dealers' room as it emptied. I escaped, decostumed, and shipped my costume off FedEx. Becca, Jecca, and Okami went to Medieval Times. Ravyn gave me black and red dragon duct tape! (At some point, she also gave me a tube of gold and a shirt.) I went with Ravyn, Aka, Eel, James, Stogie, Gary, Kenya, NatsumeRyu, and many, many people to whom I was not introduced to dinner. There were eighteen people, but we sat in three table of six upstairs in the Hoffbrau steakhouse, which was not German at all. I sat with Ravyn, Aka, Kenya, Stogie, and NatsumeRyu, I think? I apologise if I have any of the names wrong. I was a bit out of it, and it was dark. Dinner was fun! There were fried mushrooms, fried okra, fried green tomatoes, and fried catfish. Ravyn had a Firehouse beer because she is obligated to do so in her contract.
We found a G1 Broadside along the side of the road.
Then I went to bed because I was tired.
Monday
Had green tea and RICOTTA PANCAKES: "Blueberries, orange compote". Had too many. Asked a random lady for a box because my server continued to ignore me. Got my boarding pass. Checked out. Donated the excess pancakes to Becca's cause. Took cab to Sonic the Hedgehog the airport. Had to have a pat down. TSA pat down lady told me about the dubstep band Muffler, which is pretty good. Flew home.
I arrived in Dallas in the afternoon. I gathered up my suitcase and found the shuttle. I marvelled at how the airport appeared to be a level of Sonic the Hedgehog as the driver navigated his way. He drove past Medieval Times on the way to the hotel. Once at the hotel, I asked for a room either on the floor on which Ravyn and Aka were or on which Becca was. The hotel person told me that none of those rooms were clean yet, but if I waited one to two hours, they would have a room on one of those floors clean for me. I agreed to that and gave them my cellphone number.
Aka and Ravyn were busy in Toy Customising Purgatory, so I found Becca. We watched "Attack the Block", a movie about what would happen if aliens attacked in inner-city. It was hilarious, sly, and very well-done. After that, two hours were up, and I still had not had a call. So I went back down to ask the hotel people about a room again. They said they still did not have any rooms on those floors. So I asked for a room one floor below, but they did not have any there. So I asked if they had any rooms one floor above, which they did, so I took that room, went there, unloaded my belongings, and dressed up nicely.
Becca, Aka, and I took a cab to Craft, an extremely nice restaurant. Ravyn was still trapped in Toy Customising Purgatory. Becca had the craft cocktail, which had fresh local strawberries. Aka had a ginger martini, which may have contained "tito’s handmade texas vodka, fever-tree ginger beer, candied ginger". I had water. The first amuse bouche was a cold chicken liver mouse in a warm puff pastry shell with microgreens. The bread was an assortment of honey-oat-dark-wheat and white, which may have been pain au levain. I adored the honey-oat-dark-wheat; it reminded me of a more upscale version of the bread at Longhorn. As our first course, Aka had the cured hamachi & coriander, which sadly had cilantro microgreens on it and thus tasted like detergent to me. Becca had the braised escargot & duck egg, which came with brioche toast soldier for dipping in the egg yolk. The duck egg was poached, which is not Becca's favourite egg preparation, and the escargot were a bit too mushroom-like for her tastes. I had the Rabbit Strozzapreti & Lingurian Olive, which greatly pleased me. For main courses, Aka had Foie Gras Torchon & Rhubarb with ramps. No, these were not skateboarding ramps or wheelchair ramps. These are little bulk vegetables that are sort of like shallots and garlic in flavour with a bit of crispness to them. The acidity and fibre of the rhubarb helped cut the richness and smoothness of the foie gras. Becca had Quail & Pecan with roasted sunchokes. All of those things were delicious. I ordered the mushroom assortment, which included oyster, shiitake, trompette royale, and hen of the woods mushrooms. Hen of the woods mushrooms are my favourite, but they were all good. Then they brought us strawberry panna cotta as another amuse bouche, and I do love panna cotta. For dessert, Aka had the Hummingbird Cake with "Tapioca Pudding, Candied Walnut, Coconut Sorbet". The hummingbird cake was awesome. Becca had the pseudo-beignets, which had orange zest in them and came with honey and chocolate for dipping, so they reminded me of sopapillas. I had the Ice Cream & Sorbet Tasting with Earl Grey, Vanilla Malt, Manjari Chocolate, Banana Cashew Crunch, Coconut, Pineapple Sherbet, Green Apple Ginger, and Citrus Passion Fruit. Earl Grey was my favourite, and Banana Cashew Crunch was my second favourite. Then they brought us another amuse bouche of one bite chocolate lava cake brownies, peanut butter cookies, and caramel corn. Then they brought us almond millet muffins. We debated if Drift was Edward or Bella, Perceptor being whoever Drift was not, and Ratchet was Jacob, and we realised that Ravyn was going to be very displeased with us all. We brought back some Beef Short Rib & Root Vegetables for Ravyn as appeasement.
We took a cab back and then stood in line to pick up Aka's and my stuff. Becca stood in line for solidarity. I forced Becca to read the hardcover of Last Stand. I really only want Gigatron/Overlord and SG Tracks, whom I will pretend is Road Rage. SG Soundwave, SG Treadshot, and SG Ultra Magnus are all very unenthusing, to me. I like Metalhawk's character in Victory, but I really prefer his inner robot to his outer shell. SG Straxus has hilarious typos and grammatical errors. After acquiring stuff, we tracked down Ravyn, and I gave her an Ohio-made bacon candle, which vastly amused her. Becca and I went to a parts party, where she found Needlenose and Blast Off and accidentally haggled the price for the two from $55 down to $50. Then I went to bed because I was tired.
Thursday
I took Becca to breakfast. I had EL CAMINO STREET TACOS with "Achiote chicken, Egg Beaters, cilantro, Cotija cheese, tomatillo salsa". Becca had CINNAMON FRENCH TOAST "Topped with butter and maple syrup, roasted fruits". She had chocolate milk. I had skim milk. We asked our server for recommendations of places to go, and she gave us good ideas. Then we obtained maps from the concierge. We gathered up Aka, because Ravyn was still in Toy Customising Purgatory. We tried to walk to the West End, which was not a great idea, because it was very hot and sunny. We found several strange ghost malls that looked perfectly maintained, not dilapidated at all, but had no stores in them. We also found some abandoned Segways. Once we stumbled upon the Dallas World Aquarium, which was really more like a small indoor zoo, we immediately entered, wanting to escape from the heat and sun. They had many birds, fish, mammals, reptiles, amphibians, invertebrates, and plants. The gift store contained an awesome squid. The penguins very much pleased Aka. The massive crabs looked ready to star in a horror movie. There were some Nemesis Clownfishes, which were not Combaticons. We had lunch at a South American restaurant inside the complex and thus were able to watch fantastic birds and a waterfall as we munched chips. I just had flan for lunch. Aka had enchiladas. Becca had tacos. We continued through the museum until it was time to go stand in more lines.
We stood in more lines. Becca picked up her stuff. I bought Classics Spinister, who came with Shattered Glass Octopunch, whom I really did not want, and I bought a bunch of autograph cards just to get Emirate Xaaron and Spinister. Spinister's bio says that he vanished for twenty years and then inexplicably showed up with a new body, which I am going to assume means he had twenty-year honeymoon with Needlenose, who rebuilt Spinister for kicks and giggles.
Jecca, Becca's roommates, was added to the party. I declared that both Jecca and Becca are from alternate universes. Aka, Becca, Jecca, and I had dinner at Parrino's Oven. I forget what Aka and Becca had to drink (I think Aka had wine?), but Jecca and I had water, a sign of things to come. The four of us split the calamari fritto: "spice dusted calamari, oven roasted roma tomato sauce, grilled lemon". Then Jecca and I split the croustade e formaggio di capra: "grilled garlic flat bread, local creamy goat cheese, dried roma tomatoes, kalamata olives, arugula salad, coarse cracked black peppercorn". Aka had the veal pasta, which she let me sample. The veal was very tender and flavourful, not overcooked. Becca had parrinos pizza: "heirloom tomatoes, basil, local made fresh mozzarella, peppery lemon oil drizzle". Then Jecca and I split a crème caramel, which made me realise that Jecca and I are also from alternate universes. Becca had some kind of sorbet. Aka had opera cake, which reminded me of the opera cake at Mozart's in Columbus, Ohio. We decided that Perceptor is an archangel.
Jecca gave me an Autobot bracelet! Jecca, Becca, and I went to a parts party, and Becca found the boat version of Banzai-Tron. Jecca may have found stuff, too? Then I went to bed because I was tired.
Friday
So I gave Jecca jam as a bribe. Throughout the convention, I gave various people jams and honey as bribes.
I wore my Dinobots shirt to breakfast, which was supposed to be foreshadowing, but no one I knew saw me in the shirt, so my foreshadowing failed. I had the MESQUITE BBQ BRISKET BENEDICT: "Bacon-cheddar biscuit, black pepper hollandaise" with some chai tea. I had way too much food. I ate maybe 25% of the food given to me. I wanted to box up the rest to give to someone else to eat, but my waiter solidly ignored me for five straight minutes, so I gave up, paid the bill, which he also ignored, and left.
I put on my Animated Swoop costume and discovered that one of the screws in the wings had mysteriously vanished during shipping. I tried to summon Aka for help, but I failed. So I went to Becca and had her just tape the broken wing in a fixed position, and she helped me tuck everything in. We went to the end of the MSTF panel, which had some colour issues such that Rodimus Prime appeared to be black. We were baffled. Then we watched the Fan Film contest. Next year, Becca needs to enter this contest. So it is written. Aka appeared and then went off to try to find some screws. The hotel was not near any hardware stores, though, so she ended up building a screw out of copper wire and duct tape. She fixed my wing! They could both open again! So of course both wings later de-threaded their cords during the course of the day.
Becca, Jecca, and I stood in lines. We descended upon the Puggle table like the Thousand Nations of the Persian Empire. Becca acquired Actionmaster Thundercracker. Jecca obtained Rodimus. I gained Jeffrey and Winterfresh. I tried to tell Cally that I used to play on TF2K5, but I do not think she remembered me. We roamed the dealers' room. At some point, we went to where the Hasbro designers were giving out free sketches. Artoni, who had an awesome Vector Prime hoodie and swords, received a very baffled looking G1 Scourge. Nightbeat went to Becca, Mirage to Jecca, and Animated Strika to me. The designer was really awesome and read her bio to try to embody some of her character in the sketch. We roamed the dealers' room some more. Bought some scripts from Simon Furman.
I de-costumed. I dressed up nicely and went to the Golden Ticket Reception. I had chicken shish-ka-bobs, shrimp with Andouille skewers, and a suspicious bottle of orange juice. I talked with Rosemary, Rachel, and Brandy. Then I wandered off to go to parts parties with Aka, Ravyn, Becca, Jecca, and Antepathy. Aka and I fixed my wings again with the help of Ravyn's wire reel. Then I went to bed because I was tired.
Saturday
I had Earl Grey tea and the buffet for breakfast, which was okay. I costumed. I was human Barricade very briefly in the dealer's room and then put on Swoop later. Jecca concluded that Barricade suffers from an identity crisis and sometimes thinks he is a Dinobot, which confuses his psychiatrist, Venom. I stood in line with Becca and Jecca. We descended on the Puggle table again. I picked up Acid Storm, hatchling Bumblebee, and Wheejack for Ravyn, who was busy volunteering. Becca obtained hatchling Frenzy after a trade, IDW Swerve, and G2 Breakdown. Jecca acquired Prowl Table-Flippah and Mirage. We wandered the dealers' room. Jecca acquired comics. Becca accidentally distressed one of the IDW people. I acquired a Jazz poster for Jecca and a Megatron poster for myself, which the nice video game person signed for me.
We saw the end of the IDW panel. Someone asked if we were going to see any female Transformers other than psycho Arcee. We were told that Arcee is a fully developed character, not just a psycho, which does not answer the question but rather hints that no, we will not see any other female Transformers (except as anomalous crowd filler), just more Arcee. The thing is, some women are psychos. (Even a very few transsexual women are psychos, although the implications there in fiction are unfortunate.) Her being a gleeful murderer is not per se a bad thing. However, she's like strawberry ice cream. Some people like it. Some people don't. If there is also chocolate ice cream or vanilla ice cream, that increases the chances that there will be a flavour that someone likes. Likewise, if there are two or three female Transformers, that increases the chances that one of them will appeal to people if the others do not. One female character cannot be everything to everyone. That is why having several is good. IDW used to insist that there was no Primus in their universe and had the characters namedrop Primacron instead. Now the characters namedrop Primus. If IDW can ignore the 'no Primus' thing, why can't they just ignore the 'no women' thing, too? For example, just have Flareup show up and defuse a bomb and don't have anyone comment on her gender at all. Don't explain it in any way (much like how they have not explained why Sky Lynx is a weird dino-bird-cat with no robot mode). She's just there, she looks female, and she does stuff with explosives. Awesome.
We saw the Animated Panel, which was pretty much Sad Derrick Wyatt in Snow and sometimes, ' Sad Derrick Wyatt in Snow gives a free toy to a Sad Child In Snow'. Ravyn beat Derrick Wyatt at his own trivia with ridiculous Victory references. At the end, I went up the front to try to ask Derrick Wyatt to autograph my Swoop helmet, but he escaped before I could ask him. We saw the David Kaye & Garry Chalk panel and then the Transformers Collectors' Club Roundtable TCC Staff. They are making a TFP Slipstream, which makes me both happy and sad. I am happy to get another girl Transformer toy, but I am sad because if the Club is making her, she probably will not do much, if anything, on the show. Also, if you want to be sure to buy her, you need to buy six figures, and she is the only figure I want out of the six. I can try to buy her the other way, but then it is uncertain I will get her. Then we saw the Hasbro Transformers Brand Team panel, and they are making a TFP Flamewar out of Arcee, and they claim she is going to do something on the show. I am going to buy her so hard, maybe three of her. Then we escaped.
I decostumed, put on nice clothes, and went to the Cocktail Reception, which involved milling around in a crowded, loud room with not much to do. Then we went to the Hall of Fame Party and Casino Night Dinner, where I sat with Aka, Ravyn, Becca, Jecca, Stogie, Kenya, and some people I do not know. The room was laid out such that the presenter were at the long end of the room, rather than the wide end of the room, which made it hard for most of the room to see and hear them. There was a taunting piece of cheesecakes and dray salad with carrot, jicama, and assorted other vegetables, and also iced tea and water and bread. The servers took my salad away before I was done with it and replaced it with stuffed chicken containing mushrooms, herbs, rice, corn, and mozzarella. It came with vegetables. I finished that and then had my cheesecake. There was one extra piece of cheesecake, which was split by four people. No one cared about the extra salad. Wheeljack won the HoF, which makes me feel unenthused. He's a cool, likeable character, but I do not feel he is particularly historic. He seems solidly B-list to me. This is not a knock in any way. I like a lot of characters who are... Z-list. I just feel like Arcee is more historic, because she is emblematic of female Transformers, even if she was not the first, and that Rodimus was the star of the first movie and that he was the first not-Optimus Prime to do much of anything and that he had cool roles in Energon and Animated (and even a cameo in Cybertron) and that he is doing neat stuff in IDW MTMTE. Both Arcee and Rodimus have more 'history value', as far as I am concerned. I feel that BW Megatron should have been inducted earlier under the general Megatron banner. Yes, he's a different character, but so is Bayverse Megatron and so is AEC Megatron and so is Animated Megatron and so is...
I donated my casino money to Ravyn, as did some other people. She went on to win something awesome, so I feel my fake money went to a good cause. Becca, Jecca, and I engaged in a ridiculous Puggle wedding wherein Bumblebee was married off to his beautiful bride, Prowl Table-Flippah, who was wearing something blue, borrowed, and new/old (Jecca's bracelet). Rodimus was the priest and kept Prowl Table-Flippah from escaping. Mirage was Bumblebee's best man. Acid Storm, Jeffrey, and Winterfresh were groomsmen. Frenzy was the maid of honour, and Actionmaster Thundercracker, G2 Breakdown, and IDW Swerve were bride's maids. Jam and honey were served. The Stunticons were the band. Ratchet was rightfully horrified. This was completely terrible, and yet, it was not the worst thing I heard happening to Puggles at BotCon.
Then I went to bed because I was tired.
Sunday
I had FLAT EGGS: "Baked Castroville artichokes, forester mushrooms, roasted pepper, feta frittata" and green tea. I was Swoop again. I saw Bee in the City 2, which allegedly was cursed by Derrick Wyatt for not including Straxus, so the microphones kept failing. I expected Road Rage to do something bodyguard-like, but she did not. It was fun. Jecca and I obtained autographs from Abby Collins, Garry Chalk, and David Kaye. Jecca also managed to acquire photographs of a Prowl cosplayer pretending to flip a table. Needlenose's tail is expensive. It costs more than the rest of his body. [Insert joke here.]
I managed to eat lunch with Becca, Antepathy, and Ravyn while fully dressed as Swoop. I had chocolate custard with citrus whipped cream, which is of course what Dinobots eat. Becca had some sort of sandwich.
Becca and I bought comics. We went to the cosplay panel. My Swoop was named in the top three costumes, and then the BotCon staffers declared a three-way tie. I can understand that judging was probably hard, because Breakdown, Blitzwing, and Swoop were all built with somewhat different goals and intentions, I think. It had to be like trying to compare an Actionmaster (very show accurate) to an Armada toy (crazy gimmicks galore).
They took us back to the dealers' room and did a photoshoot of the three. They drew free ticket winners for next year. We wandered the dealers' room as it emptied. I escaped, decostumed, and shipped my costume off FedEx. Becca, Jecca, and Okami went to Medieval Times. Ravyn gave me black and red dragon duct tape! (At some point, she also gave me a tube of gold and a shirt.) I went with Ravyn, Aka, Eel, James, Stogie, Gary, Kenya, NatsumeRyu, and many, many people to whom I was not introduced to dinner. There were eighteen people, but we sat in three table of six upstairs in the Hoffbrau steakhouse, which was not German at all. I sat with Ravyn, Aka, Kenya, Stogie, and NatsumeRyu, I think? I apologise if I have any of the names wrong. I was a bit out of it, and it was dark. Dinner was fun! There were fried mushrooms, fried okra, fried green tomatoes, and fried catfish. Ravyn had a Firehouse beer because she is obligated to do so in her contract.
We found a G1 Broadside along the side of the road.
Then I went to bed because I was tired.
Monday
Had green tea and RICOTTA PANCAKES: "Blueberries, orange compote". Had too many. Asked a random lady for a box because my server continued to ignore me. Got my boarding pass. Checked out. Donated the excess pancakes to Becca's cause. Took cab to Sonic the Hedgehog the airport. Had to have a pat down. TSA pat down lady told me about the dubstep band Muffler, which is pretty good. Flew home.