Ya boy went to a furry convention
Sorry in advance for how rambly this gets. I don't really blog often but I still felt like sharing my experiences and feelings from this weekend.
I went to fur-eh this weekend and had a lot of fun. I don't really identify as a furry, but I have a few friends in that scene and cons are usually a good excuse to hang out and party. Unfortunately I didn't get to stay long because of the heatwave fucking me up. Friday I mostly just walked around with friends or explored a bit on my own. While on my own I ran into a friend (acquaintance?) that I hadn't really spoken to in a few years and caught up/exchanged updated contact info. He's cool and I hope we can actually keep in contact this time. Near the end of the night I got to see the puppet show with the friends I was there with. I think my therapist is going to hear about the things I witnessed there...
I don't entirely understand what I'm witnessing here and it scares me.
Saturday was the busiest for me. I got there around 1 PM and hung around in my friend's room enjoying the A/C until it was time to hit up the littles panel/meet. Interestingly enough, I bumped into a former co-worker at that meet. I tossed around the idea of walking up to them and saying hi or just letting myself remain anonymous in the crowd. I think I look like a completely different person now from when we used to work together and I was wearing a mask at the time (last time I went I caught covid and wanted to put a bit more effort into mitigating that risk) so they didn't recognize me. It would've been easy for us to just pass each other without them knowing, but they were cool when we worked together so I walked up and said hi and we sort of caught up with what we were up to in our professional and personal lives. I was afraid of freaking them out a little considering the context we originally knew each other in and the context of how we were meeting then, but I'd like to think I can be pretty dis-arming with my demeanor. I'm still not really sure if they were in the AB/DL/ageplay scene or just curious about it (the panel was marked as a sort of introduction to the scene as well as being a meetup and they weren't really wearing any obviously little-ish clothes) and I didn't really want to come off as nosy so I mostly avoided that topic and we just chatted a bit about stuff that people that colleagues who haven't spoken in a while normally talk about. I think my place there was fairly obvious at the time considering my attire.
Normal adult clothes, not something for babies.
Friday I was wearing some short shorts and the Tykables bear hoodie and the A/C in the hotel was working well enough that I could wear that weighted blanket of a sweater, but Saturday I wanted to try and wear something that was a bit more fitting for the littles meet. Also there was going to be way more people on Saturday and I figured the A/C would be struggling to keep up in some areas so something that warm in a heatwave would have probably actually killed me. I'd pretty quickly decided on the outfit above, but I was also kind of stuck in my own head about if it was too overtly AB/DL to wear in public.
I posted about a year and a half ago about my thoughts on obviously AB/DL clothes in public and for the most part, I think my feelings remain about the same as they did then regarding stuff like wearing just onesies or exposing diapers, but I also think my scale for what's acceptable has slid somewhat since then. Like, this outfit back then isn't something that I would feel comfortable wearing, partially because of my thoughts on exposing AB/DL to the public and partially because of my own issues with body image, but I've had friends help me more with accepting myself. It took me like an hour of talking with friends and sort of psyching myself up before I could leave my home. Encouragement from friends was a big help and I also was able to justify these specific clothes because nothing visible that I was wearing actually came from an AB/DL seller. The shortalls are from Forever 21 and I think the shirt was a thrifting find. It's also easier to justify in a setting like a furry convention because I'm far from the most interesting thing to see there, to put it lightly. In the event of something happening or if I found myself panicking about my clothes, I still brought a change with me so I could put on something more "normal" and I think that helped with my own peace of mind.
I did end up going padded both days, but I think it wouldn't have been too noticeable unless you were really looking for it, or if the room was quiet enough for the crinkling plastic to be audible. I'm sure other AB/DLs would've noticed though. There were more than a few people at the little's meet and elsewhere in the con where I could hear padding or notice a slight bulge. In the puppet show on Friday, there was someone next to me in a kigurumi where I could hear their padding any time they shifted in their seat. I could also tell that they were wet by the smell. I can't really tell if it was noticeable to others, I seem to have a very strong sense of smell compared to most people I know, but also, if you're at a con that isn't strictly AB/DL, please change as soon as you can if you wet.
Now that we're done with that tangent, the rest of the littles meet was pretty fun but otherwise un-noteworthy. I mostly just chatted with other friends that were there and asked about their con experiences and made jokes about CrowdStrike setting half the world on fire with their fuckup. I didn't really feel like getting into littlespace that day, which was okay. I was happy to wear cute stuff and see friends.
I didn't end up staying for the full two hours of the little's meet because an hour into it, a Smash Bros tournament was set to start and I wanted to enter. The tourney ended up being an even 32 people, making the bracket setup really simple. It also ended up being the stankiest place in the con. The A/C really tried its best, but that many people, competitors and observers, shoved into the small space they had, it still ended up pretty 𝓂𝑜𝒾𝓈𝓉 in there. There was a noticeable temperature and humidity gradient between the middle of the room, and the edges. For the most part I think the smell wasn't too bad, people had tried to maintain hygiene, and regular sweat doesn't bother me too bad, but there were two or three people that definitely did not shower and smelled like Satan's buttplug dripped in gasoline and it was easy to pick out who they were. If I wasn't in a match, I was sitting close to the door waiting for my name to be called out. I think next time, I'm going to bring some vicks with me to line my mask.
I don't think I'm really good at the game, but it's still one of my favourite multiplayer games and I tend to jump at opportunities to play against people in person. This was a pretty small bracket, but I'm still really happy with how I did. I'm normally knocked out of tourneys pretty early but I managed to win two sets in loser's bracket before getting knocked out. One of my opponents got pretty upset about losing and more or less left the room crying. I felt a little bad about that, but I also don't think that's on me for playing my best and trying to win in a tournament and I'm not just going to let someone win because they're getting mad.
When I got knocked out of the tournament, I went back to the main atrium to cool down a bit and chatted some more with the friend that I bumped into on Friday. He wanted to go to some of the *ahem* steamy *ahem* room parties but he's probably about as shy as I am. I think I managed to at least talk him into checking one out. If only I could just as easily follow the advice that I give out...
I ended up leaving the con at around 8 PM on Saturday because even with the A/C in the atrium, the heat was still getting to me. Sunday I was still feeling kinda meh so I didn't go and spent most of the time in my bedroom with my own single-room A/C unit on full blast. Despite my relatively short time at Fur-Eh, I still had a lot of fun and I'm really looking forward to going back next year! Depending on savings, I might get a room or see about sharing one with someone just so I have a kind of home-base there. If you actually somehow made it this far into this rambling mess, thanks for taking the time!
