busybee fluffy rambles

Hey y'all, the Furality dealer’s den is open early this year, and this year it’s also free to the public. It’s a pretty incredible world and I’m glad to be a part of it!

If you visit the dealer’s den a all, please be sure to come by booth 816 at some point. During the show itself (June 5-8) there’s a chance you might find a certain critter playing piano nearby, as well.

Furality is the largest virtual furry convention, which takes place annually in VRChat. This past year (Umbra) was also the most highly-attended furry convention of any kind ever, with a whopping 21,000 attendees!

I’m just a nobody when it comes to furry stuff, especially cons, but I figured I’d share some of my observations, good and bad, especially in comparison to the other two Furality events I attended (Luma Festival and Sylva).

A random conversation tonight awakened a memory in me, namely, back in the 90s, we didn’t refer to fursonas as fursonas, but as “personal furries,” and I had it in my mind that the term “fursona” actually started out as derisive and came from an anti-furry space. Which led me on a bit of a quest.

This past weekend was Furality, which was a pretty darn good time in general. I found it pretty enjoyable and I’ll definitely be doing it again. I figure I’ll share some random undirected thoughts about it.

This entry was originally posted on Cohost, and has been migrated here in light of their shutdown.

When I was a lot younger, I was trying to figure out my identity.

Growing up in the 80s and being a teenager in the 90s was an awful time to be trans, and even though I definitely had gender feels going back early in my childhood (like, recently I remembered thinking about it when I was 7, and really into The Last Unicorn by Peter S Beagle), the environment simply wasn’t supportive back then. I got bullied for being a “sissy” and a “girl” a lot.

I was also very much into transformation-related fiction (uh, like The Last Unicorn) and along the way I decided that it would actually be easier to be an animal. This of course led directly to my later descent into furry trash.

For the last few days I’ve been spending quite a lot of time in VRChat. I’ve also been making stuff: