Fox! Peace MFF 2015 Writeup

Fox! ϡpeace Midwest Furfest 2015 Writeup

It is currently nearly 3 am on the Monday after MFF has ended, and I am going to pour my thoughts into this as I write my thoughts into this MFF as I wait for my exodus back to Hawaii.  I have been to many, MANY conventions before, but this was the first furry convention I have been able to attend.  It was super unexpected to meet people I knew online from many different communities throughout the years, and those people definitely didn't expect to ever run into me at one of these things, since I have never attended one before.

Leading up to the furry con, I saw the disaster that happened at Rainfurrest, and I was quite scared something horrible was going to happen at this convention as well, but the worst drama that happened (as far as I know), was the confederate flag fursuit.  Now I know what the flag represents, but I gave the dude the benefit of a doubt, because I figured he could have had it made before it became widely viewed as purely a symbol of hate.  I learned from other people attending that the dude was actually just trying to start shit, and was basically craving for attention, which the internet was giving him.  No one harassed him as far as I saw at the con, but he was kicked out of the fursuit parade due to the fact he was trying to walk in it and have someone fly the confederate flag behind him (he got kicked out by the supervisor of the entire event).  Considering this is an extremely minor disturbance besides the obvious bouts of furry drama happening throughout the con, this is definitely a huge improvement over the events that happened last year at this event.

Another thing that happened to me right before the furry convention is that I got a cold.  I usually never get sick, so this caught me completely off-guard, but to be honest, it made sense since I haven't been sleeping much at all these past few weeks.  My punishment ended up being an everlasting horrible cough that made me get even less sleep than I usually do, due to the cough making me completely unable to sleep until my body actually passes out.  The cough didn't really affect me besides making my friends really worried about me, I don't think my cough is contagious because I think my cold already past, but the cough was one of the long-lasting ones.

Now that I wrote about the bad things, I can write purely about the good things!  The convention itself was pretty fun!  I met up with a lot of my friends early on, and pretty much always had something to do no matter what time it was.  It kind of surprised me how much people drank at these conventions, because I already put furries on a pedestal when it came to alcohol consumption.  There were straight up people binging on alcohol for entire days of the convention, and it kind of blew my mind haha.  I usually never drink, but I did drink socially with some friends a handful of times during the convention, mainly because it was a very special occasion to me, and really wanted to play drinking games with them rather than sit out.

The merchant areas were super awesome for me, because I do not use FurAffinity, so I was able to hire some people for commissions (which should be worked on over the next few months).  I actually went over my spending budget, because I really wanted to get artwork done, but all of the artists I picked looked to do some high quality work (thus being on the pricey side)!  I picked up a cool wolf tail to replace my other tail that I broke an EVO or two ago, and it was way cheaper than the tails they usually sell at Hawaii's anime convention, and amazingly enough it had a better quality build as well!

I packed a ton of local snacks to give away at the convention, and I don't regret my decision because a lot of people really enjoyed them!  The amount of friends I met up with is seriously unbelievable, it gave me a blast to the past from SGDQ2014 where I went with an extremely large group with my speedrunning friends and basically just hung out the entire time.  It's seriously cool to be able to sit down with people I've been friends with over the internet for years and just talk about things and catch up!  I know this sounds like it's something that you can just do over mumble or discord or skype or something, but unless you've actually attended a large event like this, it's actually pretty impossible to put into words the amount of camaraderie that was felt throughout this event.

There were an unbelievable amount of suiters (I think over 1200 participated in the parade, out of around 5600 attendees?), I was never the biggest fan of fursuits, but until you actually see how much fun these people have in them, it might actually persuade you to change your views like it did mine.  The suits range in cost from hundreds to thousands of dollars, and you can really tell the amount of love that is put into these suits.  The fursuits really allowed people that are normally incredibly shy to break out of their shell and just act like how they want to act, which is awesome to see.

I attended charades with my friends (both PG and 18+), and it was a blast to see these people act out.  The most mindblowing performance, bar-none, was the FLOOR WARS DANCE BATTLES routine they had, which was basically 1v1 fursuit dance battles, and 2v2 out-of-suit crew dance battles.  I saw most of the rounds they did, but wasn't able to catch Sunday's dances, which I'll definitely check out on youtube the moment they are out.  It's kind of weird, but I tend to forget that people are full of talent, and just because when I think of furries, it immediately pops art and fursuits into my head.  The mixes that the furry DJs had were pretty sick, and the actual dance routines as the tournament led on got more and more amazing.  Looking at a fursuit, you'd think these people would not be able to pull off some of the moves they pull off while being confined in a suit, but they manage to pull off the most unreal movements.  I've seen some of these fursuit dance offs on youtube before, but it felt extremely different actually being in the audience.  I would relate it to watching fighting games on stream, and actually watching the tournaments at the venue, because things get mad hype.

Out of all the things that I did this convention, the best thing that won out of everything was being able to hang out with my old internet friends, and make a ridiculous amount of new ones.  It's kind of funny, because I never get starstruck competing in tournament games, but it's hard for me to mask my excitement hanging out with Stigmata and Kenket, who are both in my top 10 favorite furry artists.  Stigmata I knew from a forum that we both visit, and we're both similar in many, many ways.  Kenket is a mutual friend of many of my other friends, so we ended up running into each other a lot.  I tried to support them both as best as I could by buying whatever merchandise they had out.  It's super cool being able to watch both of them create things live, as they both have different processes to sketching out things fast.  Although I didn't talk much this convention (partially due to my cough), it was really great just being able to sit around in the various lounges and hotel rooms and just chill with so many different people from around the world.

I'd have to say this competed completely evenly with SGDQ2014 for my favorite convention I have ever attended.

I am not sure the next time I will be able to attend a convention, as I am making some pretty huge life-changing choices at the end of the year (i.e. quitting my current job), but hopefully I will be able to start making these regularly after I get things settled down.  I will try to be more active with the furry side of things by eventually making an FurAffinity account by the end of the year, and making more friends so the next time I attend a convention, I can actually recognize people haha!  My dad also found out from one of his friends that there was a "furry" convention going on in Chicago, and I'll probably have to deal with that can of worms when I meet him by explaining entirely what furries are and what the convention I went to was all about. :X

Shoutouts to:
Arcadius (TROUBLE IN BIRD FORM HAHA)
Aurora (Cracker's roommate, and an adorable friend)
Blott (squirrelboy, even though you're a filthy spy, i hope we get to interact more online~)
Calem (the silliest of dotters)
Cassius (I hope I spelled your name right, but it was cool to meet you!)
Crackers (kept me company for many of the days and ended up turning into the best spy you could ever ask for)
Fattycoon (thank you for supporting my streams and going out of the way to meet up with me :3)
FenderMcBender (we always seem to get along, but it might just be in my head)
Gorath (we didn't really talk or know each other, but playing that spy game with you was hilarious)
Kenket (SAVIOR OF ALL DOTTERS)
Kronos (short encounter, but very memorable -- also hope I spelled it correctly)
MaskedJackal -- PERTINAX (WE FINALLY MET, WE DESTROYED FATE AND TOOK CONTROL OF IT OF OUR OWN WILL)
Shadydog -- BGM (you were so much fun to hang out with, i'm going to pick up SMITE just to play games w/ you)
Stigmata (my INFJ twin <333, the most fun philosopher i have met in recent memory)
TangoTango (you win most handsome rabbit MFF2k15, also a hilarious dude with a cute accent :3)
Telegram (for being the MVP way to communicate with everyone worldwide with smartphones)
Wachi!!! (THE MOST ADORABLE CORGI PUPPER I HAVE EVER MET -- NEW BUD)
Whiskey Dingo -- BENING (IT WAS SO COOL TO FINALLY MEET YOU IN PERSON)
WhiteKnight -- Kieran (we only managed to catch brief moments with each other, but it was cool to finally meet up with you in person after knowing you for so many years in TF2)
Whithy (the RPT)
The entire MFF staff and all attendees

I met so many cool people, that I haven't even included 10% of them in this list, but it's nearly 4 am now, and I just listed people off the top of my head!  Even if I didn't include you, just be sure that I still love and appreciate you for being a part of my MFF experience!!

I don't have a writing program installed on this computer, so I wrote this entirely in notepad, so please excuse any typos for my sake please, I've had maybe 2 hours of sleep the past three days LOL.  I OMMITTED A LOT OF STORIES FROM THIS ENTRY, BUT LET'S JUST END WITH AN INSIDE JOKE AND RIDE THAT BUS OUT OF HERE.