Good evening, everyone! Just today I returned from Anthrocon (initial journal seen here), and goodness gracious I truly had the time of my life there. Much like MFF last winter it was an experience that ended too soon and I wish could have gone on longer. Additionally, being approached by a lot of people who recognized my name and badge still felt extremely surreal, but at the same time it made me very happy to meet those who genuinely appreciated my work, and it was a very warming experience.

I won't be able to fit everything I did in this journal, but I'll list most of the big highlights!

Wednesday: This was when I arrived at the hotel and unpacked with the friends I came along with. The Sheraton Hotel was actually a pretty cool place to stay in, very clean too! We went to a Korean BBQ place to celebrate all of us finally meeting together for the first time and it was a very cozy place. We also got interrupted by a very silly bird fursuiter from outside pressing themselves against the window. It was just hilarious and helped brighten up my first day in town.

Thursday: After the opening ceremonies there wasn't a whole lot I wanted to do, but unlike at MFF '24, I felt a lot more confident in just... checking out whatever seemed interesting. Other than that it was more or less an adjustment day for me to learn the layout of the convention center and get my bearings as I walked around. I gotta say this convention center has a pretty choice view, and had a lot of relaxing spots to just unwind whenever I felt overwhelmed. Also the registration went by super fast, not only was the line constantly moving, but they even opened up registration early, which was a super cool gesture!

Friday: This is when it REALLY kicked off. I spent the morning checking out a gameshow that followed a lot of classic TV show formats; it was pretty fun to peek in on! Around noon the legendary Dealer's Den and Artist Alley opened up, and my goodness was this showroom massive! I honestly didn't know where to start, but at the end of the day I ended up taking home a cute little borb plush from a favorite bird artist of mine! I also once again met the always delightful MaboCorescant in the Artist Alley, and it was great catching up with them after our first encounter at MFF '24. Later that evening I scoped out a dance workshop on the 4th floor, but was unable to get into it fully due to being so sore from walking around. After that I went over to the fabled Pokémon meet up and donned my best Pokémon Snap mentality of photographing all the mons I could find! After so much going on I eventually went back to my hotel for the night.

Saturday: Birds... bird BIRD BIRD BIRD- A-hem, yeah this was definitely the best night of my trip. It started immediately with a bird and avian meetup which constantly made me smile. I genuinely loved every single bird suiter that showed up there and if I had all the time in the world I would have thanked each of them personally for making my morning that much happier. A little later in the day I stopped by the "inflatable aquarium" and had some nice casual conversation while watching a bunch of giant pooltoys get blown up. It was... surprisingly zen? I also humored attending a Sonic the Hedgehog panel, but it actually ended up being a lot of fun as we did a lot of trivia. Later that evening I checked out a mix of Jackbox, a Whose Line improv show, and biggest of all: The Floor Wars. Like god damn, I didn't know how much I missed watching a dance-off until I came here.

And then came the late night Fat Fur meetup... and good lord was it just as crowded as when I attended it at MFF '24. But it was a lot of fun. I even got to come in early and help a couple friends set up a ball suit, which was the hit of the night. But most crazily of all, Sean Chiplock (VA for Revali) made a surprise appearance after the meet up, and we got some hilarious pictures with him. I honestly didn't expect things to go the way they did that evening, but it was genuinely amazing.

Sunday: The final day... not a whole lot happened this day as things were wrapping up, but I did watch a nice orchestra in the morning, then checked out a funny Undertale/Deltarune meetup afterwords. I also won another precious borb in the art show auction, so that was nice too! The last thing I ended up doing was going to an unofficial fat fur follow-up meet, and this is pretty much where I said my goodbyes before having to make the painful choice of returning to the hotel to pack up and hit the road.

Once again, much like MFF, it truly and deeply saddened me when the entire event came to an end. I did indeed also suffer from post-con depression after I checked out of the hotel, however unlike last winter I was at least able to take it in better stride... after healthily getting a lot of contained emotion out from saying good bye to the friends I had met. I am truly appreciative of having been able to experience such a thing when things were especially feeling low again.

Thank you to my great friends Klussnave, End, and Non for coming together like this and sharing an amazing experience, thank you to the suiters I saw who made me smile constantly, thank you to everyone who came up to me and gave me kind words and companionship, and thank you to AC in general for giving me some of the best moments in my entire adult life.

Anthrocon is likely only going to be a one-off for me due to the excessive travel plans I had to make to get here, but I promised myself that I would get the most out of it that I could, and I feel as though I succeeded in that regard.

In any case I think I've rambled on enough. See you at MFF '25 perhaps...~?

Until next time.