On the night of my leave, right after I'd bought my tickets. I sat for a brief moment wondering whether this trip is truly worth it. Whether at the expense of £114 and a total of 16 hours inside a moving coffin is geniunely worth my effort, for the sake of a small gathering of deviants. I assured myself, "Soon, soon."

8 hours later I stepped off the now immobile death-trap (the little something I refuse to call a train), zombified with sleep. Here infact began a little mini-adventure of my own which involved finding a place to stay, but that's for another journal entry. The next day, after getting a mildly-decent night's sleep, I made my way to the designated location, The Albert Memorial. I floated around for a while, casually weaving between various deviants. My attempt to give the impression that I was too "cool" to mingle, failed. And rather miserably. I thought some incidental person would converse out of admiration of my coolness, but all I seemed to come across were a large assembledge of geeks (fellow geeks at that). Ashamed that I couldn't find a single decent looking chick, I strode in with pride, and began conversation with relative ease. Among the awesome geeky few I remember was Eroha, dea1t, Sethvir and BornTryer236, all of which are truly amazing artists. Shortly after however, we split into small factions, dividing into the various fields of art we were (I dare say) professional in. This is when I encountered a truly strange, yet brilliant cluster of folk.

As we were the only faction who were awkwardly standing, we had to endure our ears bleed by some guy who apparently had something to do with deviant art (the only thing he seemed familiar with was eating all the pies) but we sheepishly listened anyway. It was then when someones voice broke the mind-numbing awkwardness. I peared behind me and there I see, and I quote "a mysterious man in sunglasses with a most unusual speaking manner", and says "I came here to see other deviants, not to listen to some guy speak." That was the first time I layed eyes on Protodevilin (not to sound like a cheesy romance film), a very shady character, but a interesting one none the less. Next to him stood JammingWithAkira, a touristy looking fellow who seemed like the very layed back type. I fearlessly strolled over only to be recieved with abrupt (and scary) demands for my sketch book from Protodevilin, which I stupidly forgot to bring along.

Our numbers increased, and along joined AsatorArise, Robbie-Rebbydoo, Caveageman, then Phii-chan, all of which are amazing artists, so amazing infact I felt fragile standing next to such skilled pencil-holders. We then sat for a while, pondering the various mysteries of life, then shortly confronted a small, jumpy chap who (somehow) persuaded us (using magic) to listen to spyed's "20 minute" presentation rather than enjoy succulent, delicious sushi. How that happened till' this day I have no idea. Although at this point, AsastorArise and Robbie-Rebbydoo had to leave, so we said our farewells, wiped the tears, and plowed on.

We sat, correction, stood (again) and listened to the "20 minute" presentaion. Which an hour later I realized was not a "20 minute" speech, but a (calculating...) 1 HOUR+ LECTURE. (Yes, bravo. Now you see why I highlighted "20 minute"). He touched upon numerous improvements, groups, portifolios, life, politics, gay marrige (particulary gay marriges). Although, personally, there were two primary highlights in the presentation that I found exceptionaly memorable. Firstly, I am one of the very few who can boast with pride and say that I witnessed the CEO of DeviantArt call a woman, "sir." Second, someone imposing their own personal fuck-ups onto the sensei himself. I listened in hilarity watching the alleged "sir" complaining of a fat inbox. The origin? 1000 watchers. (Insert extremely strong language here.)

Thankfully, I and the rest were saved shortly after by Akira and Protodevilin's ingenious hand signals. Naturally, we elected Akira to be our guide, seeing as he possesed the highest degree of familiarity with the concrete jungle. And thus the gang and I wandered up and down the streets of London, past the Iranian Embassy where we were welcomed with deafening screams and flustering banners. But with our feet pounding, we were pulled towards the nearest Starbucks, where our HP was boosted and our feet rejuvinated. We talked, and I slowly realized what an incredible group of people I came across sheerly by luck. Caveageman and his stunning, handmade chainmail perplexed me as to how the HELL he makes such intricate stuff. Protodevilin, accompanied with his mysterious aura and hilarious stories, not to mention his insane drawing ability. Akira, with his fantastic drawing skills and his amazing touristic ability. And finally Phii, gifted with her raw drawing talent and infectuous laugh made even the most bitter of people smile.

After much talk and anticipation, we arrived at Itsu, and it was then where we encountered the one word that forced us to pound at glass, cry tears of agony, and bleed chocolate (..?): "CLOSED."

We faltered on, and thanks to Akira we (eventually) arrived at another, fantastic japanese restaraunt (which I fail to remember the name of) where we sat and englufed in succulent japanese cuisine and reflected upon all things holy; video games, comics, anime, manga, stories, art, pain, love, life, people who force their individual problem of 1000 watchers onto others, ect. A very, enlightening, range of subjects. Subsequent to probably one of the most elegant payment methods known to man, we walked out lauging with rice stuck to our faces (...or maybe that was just me).

6:07AM. Arrived home to an empty flat, exhausted body, and drooping eyelids. Plumped on my chair, I smiled as I saw the majority of my torrent downloads complete. Then, laying back, breif yet treasured memories of the DevMeet flickered by. Nothing could void my mind of the ecstatic time I had. And to think that in only a handful of hours so many people could become so close, was truly astonishing.


A single thought lingered since that day.

"All of that for 114 pounds?... Bargain."