Grimlock ♥ Ultra Magnus

And touches upon Song of Ice and Fire.

More to the point: he clarifies his part, that he won't be writing scripts for the foreseeable future, and as a side, he posts a picture of the author, Nnedi Okofaror. 

Nnedi, by the way, is beautiful according to one poster.   And I just want to say, she's stunning inside and out: generous with her time, appreciative of all her fans, and to top it off, we got to chat about Transformers a bit while she signed my books. 

Confident, outspoken about issues important to her (victims telling their own stories and hearing it from their voice came back a couple times, and is obviously something she cares deeply about), intelligent, funny, kind.   I could go on and on.   I know I always say it, but Readercon gets the best authors on their panels and as their guests of honor.   I was talking to Neil Clarke when I bought some of his back issues and he agreed when I said how much I love everyone there: there's just something special about this con. 

And because I can't pretend it's perfect: I am aware it's had its problems, and I'm unhappy with how they originally dealt with one specific issue.   I am happy with how it was dealt with eventually, and that ever since they've been very, very careful about being safe.  I have not had, or seen, problems myself, but I hate when people use this as 'well, it didn't happen then, right?'   I believe the victims, I hate what happened, I hate the first result, and I respect their choice to stay away.   (I probably wouldn't be comfortable coming back either.  I have the luxury of being comfortable because I wasn't there when it happened.)

I hope Readercon keeps that specialness for me, and for enough people, that we can continue to make it better.   Readercon, by the way, has been trying to get more diverse stories in.   They had at least one all woman and LGBTQ press - Steve Berman, who I love runs the latter, Lethe Press.   I know about Broad Universe because I fell in love with LJ Cohen's AI series after buying a book or two at her signing.   

They've had at least two black guests of honor - Halo Hopkinson and Nnedi Okorafor, both women, too - and two women guest of honor this year.   They've had more panels about race, sexuality, and Otherness, including some specifically on disabilities - I went to one where there was a writer who was both blind and deaf, and she had an hour long block to talk about how she wrote and how her disabilities played into that, although I had a conflict that hour so didn't go.  (They try, as far as I can see, to have women on panels that deal with gender issues, LGBTQ authors on panels that deal with sexuality, and writers of different races on panels that deal with race.)

I have more to say about Nnedi herself, but that deserves a post of it's own.  I'll just say this: I own this book signed.   Aw, yeah.