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Between restlessness the night prior and a severe case of dreading having to say goodbye to Celine and everyone...not to mention the still-present dreading of the flight home tomorrow...I spent a better part of today feeling sick to my stomach.
And yet I still had the time of my life. Celine and I watched the Fursuit Games for a while, and seeing people in full fursuits playing games with oversized dice was just absolutely hilarious. After that, we hit up the Dealer's Den one final time to see about scoring some last-minute swag and checking on the commissions we'd made yesterday. Apparently we'll be getting those in the mail. Oh well! XP
After that, Budgie and I went to the Fursuit Head Crafting 101 panel...only for the people giving the panel to never show up. Kind of a bummer, but nothing to lose our heads over.
[YOU WEREN'T GETTING OUT OF THIS WITHOUT AT LEAST ONE HORRIBLE JOKE]
With that being a bust, I went to the next panel over to get one last game show in, Furry Press Your Luck. My hopes of getting to play were immediately answered as I was the first one called up! The game was fun as hell to play, and going into the 2nd round I managed to take a commanding lead with 5 spins left...which I passed over to Hypr, hoping he'd hit a Whammy.
He didn't, and instead gave me a well-deserved trouncing back to 2nd place. Ah well, still fun.
The next panel we all went to was titled "How to Be A Good Social Potato." I thought this was going to be advice on how to be a furry out in public. Turns out it was basically a course in convention etiquette...which Celine rightly questioned why this was taking place at the end of the convention rather than being an immediate follow-up to, say, the opening ceremonies?
One segment they brought up was hygiene. Between that and the charity work most furry conventions do, that gave me a brilliant idea: Take the concept of the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, apply it to furcon charities, and make it the Soap Bucket Challenge! Either someone in need of a shower gets cleaned up, or they make a donation to charity. Win-Win!
Sadly, this was followed up by one of the best and worst parts of the convention, the closing ceremonies. All of the staff were brought out on stage, one last charity drive was made to try to get us up to the $10,000 mark...and we succeeded! To reward us for either our generosity or our sadism, the staff took up a hot wing challenge. I do not envy the heat they had to endure eating those things. Their suffering was glorious, and I'm glad the convention raised enough money for the military dog and LGBTQ+ charities they were supporting this year to get that to happen. It was especially touching to see people literally upend their wallets into the donation buckets.
Our whole group retired to Celine's room after that for dinner and one last bout of camaraderie. It was a wonderful, educational, and heartbreaking time all around, and I had to force myself to make my goodbyes to get ready to go.
So now, here I sit in my hotel room writing this up. At 7 AM tomorrow I begin the arduous journey back to Anchorage. It was hell getting here, it was hell having to say goodbye, and it's going to be hell going back.
And it was absolutely worth it.
And yet I still had the time of my life. Celine and I watched the Fursuit Games for a while, and seeing people in full fursuits playing games with oversized dice was just absolutely hilarious. After that, we hit up the Dealer's Den one final time to see about scoring some last-minute swag and checking on the commissions we'd made yesterday. Apparently we'll be getting those in the mail. Oh well! XP
After that, Budgie and I went to the Fursuit Head Crafting 101 panel...only for the people giving the panel to never show up. Kind of a bummer, but nothing to lose our heads over.
[YOU WEREN'T GETTING OUT OF THIS WITHOUT AT LEAST ONE HORRIBLE JOKE]
With that being a bust, I went to the next panel over to get one last game show in, Furry Press Your Luck. My hopes of getting to play were immediately answered as I was the first one called up! The game was fun as hell to play, and going into the 2nd round I managed to take a commanding lead with 5 spins left...which I passed over to Hypr, hoping he'd hit a Whammy.
He didn't, and instead gave me a well-deserved trouncing back to 2nd place. Ah well, still fun.
The next panel we all went to was titled "How to Be A Good Social Potato." I thought this was going to be advice on how to be a furry out in public. Turns out it was basically a course in convention etiquette...which Celine rightly questioned why this was taking place at the end of the convention rather than being an immediate follow-up to, say, the opening ceremonies?
One segment they brought up was hygiene. Between that and the charity work most furry conventions do, that gave me a brilliant idea: Take the concept of the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, apply it to furcon charities, and make it the Soap Bucket Challenge! Either someone in need of a shower gets cleaned up, or they make a donation to charity. Win-Win!
Sadly, this was followed up by one of the best and worst parts of the convention, the closing ceremonies. All of the staff were brought out on stage, one last charity drive was made to try to get us up to the $10,000 mark...and we succeeded! To reward us for either our generosity or our sadism, the staff took up a hot wing challenge. I do not envy the heat they had to endure eating those things. Their suffering was glorious, and I'm glad the convention raised enough money for the military dog and LGBTQ+ charities they were supporting this year to get that to happen. It was especially touching to see people literally upend their wallets into the donation buckets.
Our whole group retired to Celine's room after that for dinner and one last bout of camaraderie. It was a wonderful, educational, and heartbreaking time all around, and I had to force myself to make my goodbyes to get ready to go.
So now, here I sit in my hotel room writing this up. At 7 AM tomorrow I begin the arduous journey back to Anchorage. It was hell getting here, it was hell having to say goodbye, and it's going to be hell going back.
And it was absolutely worth it.