God, this is it. This is where I truly feel like I belong, moreso than ever. You guys; this community is my family. With this being my first convention in my whole life, I'm sure you could imagine I was pretty nervous, but I got to make plans with a group of close friends I thought of as my family.

Room 212 in the Rose Hotel was packed with us 4. -Gedarus/Junvenlok; a big silly dragon who flew in here from Portugal even amidst this pandemic.
-Sebastian; super tall leggy boi and the mate of Salem, discovering... things about himself~
-Then there's Salem; the big purple wagon himself... who's this adorable twink. And just like me, a hoe. <3
This was all of our first time attending a furry convention. Except for one other person we planned with. In Room 537,
-Dual(ismlover); my best friend and our resident convention expert who really showed us how to go around the place. We honestly really needed him.


I'll be recording my perspective of the con so I might be able to look back upon it.

---

Thursday; before the con.
So I'm sure everyone knows that people most often don't look like their sona's, yeah? I made plans to look better and whatnot before the con and I procrastinated the hell out of that. Lmao. I'm still pretty fit, just not as much as I'd like. But hey, I'm sure I'm not alone! And so, I flew off with a sense of unaccomplishment.

Landed. Heart pounding. Disoriented. HOW THE FUCK DO THESE HOTEL SHUTTLES WORK?! Turns out I gotta call them and make an appointment. Once I figured that out, it didn't take too long. But I did waste two hours to get to the hotel. Haha... ha... Checked into the hotel, dropped off my stuff, and met up with Dual. We went to the Convention Center and there was a huge line of FURRIES EVERYWHERE! Everyone was lined up to show off our vaccine cards. But it took forever to get through. Eventually, we got our badges, and sponsor goodies and headed for dinner.

Dinner: Fogo De Chão. Price: Expensive, but worth it. Experience: Coming into it blind, I had no idea what to expect. Dual told me his past experience at it before and said people just walk around and ask if you want these different selections of cooked meats. I happily accepted about eight of them; top/bottom sirloin, grilled chicken, bacon wrapped steak, ect. With my plate loaded and heavy, Dual then tells me that I could get charged extra if I leave too much meat uneaten... Oy vey...

So there I am, with a huge plate of meat, I've gotten rather full and enjoying myself. But now? I'm struggling a mental and physical battle. Everything was so delicious and savory but God damn, that's a lot of salt. After eating a good portion of it, I told the waitress I tried my best so maybe she would shine pity upon me. She then told me that in her time working there, she's never heard of charging people more for leaving food on the plate. God dammit, Dual. TwT
He made it up to me by buying me my first Crème brûlée. That was worth all the suffering.

By this time, we got word that Seb, Ged, and Salem got their badges and are heading to the hotel room. When Dual and I got there, they were just one elevator ahead of us and I got to get the drop on them and scared the hell out of Salem! Mwahahaha! I gave everyone hugs, handcrafted ornaments and other presents! Understandably, we're all wiped from the traveling, so we passed the hell out.

---

Friday; first day of MFF
I'm an early riser and don't really need the full recommended eight hours, more like five or six. There is something I always use whenever I go to a hotel; the gym. Early in the morning, I reaaaallly needed to work off all that meat I consumed. So a nice long jog and some weightlifting was the best prescription I needed. After a shower, we rallied together, ate some delicious but pricy food at the Rose Hotel, and headed to the con! Salem even got started on making a new badge for me while Seb went to get some weed at Verilife. I wanted to redo a badge that broke on me. Besides that, nothing can go wrong! ... right? Wrong.

After getting off the shuttle, Salem's Apple Pencil was missing. Christ... He had it with him during the ride over and now we can't find it. After scouring around and even getting the same shuttle driver's help to retrace their steps, we unfortunately couldn't find it. We have no idea how it disappeared. Without it, Salem can't draw anymore... I couldn't let this happen; I won't let anything ruin anyone's first convention experience! So I made it my mission to get him a new one and went straight to a nearby Target by myself. Thankfully, they had the right model. It was pricy, but with Dual's help, he was more than happy to help pay for a new one. I also grabbed some snacks before heading back and met up with everyone to get my new badge as well. Giving Salem his new pen, things should be A-Okay now! ... right? Wrong again.

Okay so... I'm a lightweight when it comes to any sort of substances. Alcohol? Only a few shots to get me drunk. Weed? Tried it before and it fucked me up too. I refuse to smoke anything, so edibles only for me. Salem wanted me to get high with him. Sure, why not? We weren't entirely sure how much to give me and I had no idea what the recommended dosage was for a newbie. So they gave me 25mg. Fast forward to the Dealer's Den a few hours later, I felt... strange. Losing my balance; feeling heavy, struggling to keep my eyes open, I was starting to crash and it was coming at me HARD. Stumbling over to some tables, my friends let me rest there while I just existed in this newfound hell I was in. I'm not sure how else to describe it other than I felt like one after another, each part of my body was progressively being buried under a heavy blanket. Opening my eyes and seeing things made me feel like I needed to puke. Oh no... I'm THAT friend that gets themselves fucked up. Ugh... After a while, my friends came back and ushered me back to the hotel room. With my head slumped, but determined to make it, I stood up and let them guide me towards the room, only opening my eyes briefly when I needed to for stairs and getting into the shuttle. I could still hear and understand everything perfectly, and I knew some sign language so I could communicate to Seb what I needed. I made sure to flip them the bird which they promptly apologized to me. Hah. Once back in the room, I spent about 10 hours sleeping. I do remember needing to get up in the middle of it to puke my brains out. What a great start to the convention. ^^;

Dinner: Some Denny's. Dual's food delivery got fucked up. He ordered a burger but instead got an entire Chinese meal for about 4-5 people. I guess that works? So, yeah. We shared. XD

---

Saturday
Ordinarily I'd be up early, but thanks to yesterday's... challenging endeavors, I was still reeling from a strong high. Most of it was gone but I could still feel remnants of it, but I'm not letting that stop me! Grabbing our Sponsor brunch coupons, we headed for the convention center once more. I was not expecting such a wide spread of delicious foods to be served but I sure as hell wasn't complaining. Piling my plate, the five of us grabbed a table near the stage. It was just us at the table as there were a ton of tables to choose from. So we're mostly left alone. At least until a single person decided to join us. Sitting across from us was this handsome dude who we befriended named Arlo, the maned yeen. Woof. Exchanging info, we promised to meet up again.

Up next, the Dealer's Den. I told myself I wasn't gonna buy much, but I did have my heart set on buying some merch from Braeburned. I've known about him and watched him grow in popularity since we both were in the brony community, but this'll be the first time actually meeting him. Dual got me a Kass dakimakura from him and I bought his comic Room 609. He seemed like any other person in customer service, doing their best. So it was more of a friendly business transaction which I'm totally fine with. ^^;

We browsed through the Dealer's Den (spotted Tempo Arcanine), Artist Alley, and even the Art Auction. Seb got a collar and fastened his lanyard around the middle of three different rings attached to it. I decided to tug on it, pulled him closer and called him a "Good boy." And he discovered that he reaaally liked that. Throughout the rest of the con, I kept doing that here and there. Sometimes he even just gave me his leash lanyard to pull on. Never done that before but I enjoyed that more than I ever admitted. But he doesn't need to know~ If you're reading all this. "Hi Seb! Just ignore all this, kay~?" ;3
Nothing else really caught my eye but some of the stuff I saw was hilarious. From a massive dildo longer than my torso to a silly purposely poorly drawn picture of some naked furry standing on a plane with his dick stretching two more pages ahead of him amidst the clouds, there was no shortage of interesting things to find. Speaking of, I met Crash and Ashton! One of my friends told me to tell Crash, "Ven'bard says Hi." To which Crash said, "Oh, tell him to fuck off. XD" Apparently they play D&D together. Neato. :3

We also attended this K-Pop Random Dance panel; thought it'd be interesting. Though when it was time, no one was... there. Investigating by letting ourselves in, we looked around for any clues. Someone there said that she was a co-host and didn't know where the main host was. So she and I took it upon ourselves to start this panel off. Here goes nothing. After some awkward introductions, we started to play some music we knew. Though no one else seemed to know them. It only took a few songs before we let some attendees pick out some songs themselves and it was sorta coming along after that. Though thankfully, the actual host came by about 25 minutes late. Turns out she thought it was supposed to start 30 minutes after the scheduled time. With her back, I felt like it was time for us to skedaddle after I busted a few moves.

Salem sorta split off and found some friends to link up with, Ged needed to rest a bit, so that left Seb, Dual and I. There was a Dave & Busters we've been eyeing and after seeing what was available at the Arcade room for the con, we figured this would be better. We played some shooting games like the Walking Dead and Halo, but I honestly thought there would've been more variety to choose from. I was really hoping for a VR experience of sorts. I still have the game card and there's plenty of money on it. I'll just keep it for now. We got a little hungry then ordered delivery from Steak & Shake. I devoured my food in about 4 minutes. 4/5 stars. Then it was off to the rave!

Side note, also my first rave I've ever attended. We got there pretty early so of course it was rather empty, though not for long. It started to fill up quite a bit after the first thirty minutes and I had already danced my heart out. We didn't want to leave yet so I had to simmer down and do generic jumps and fist pumps, y'know, basic moves that most white people who don't know how to dance do. We left in about an hour and a half in the rave and that took care of that day. Oh, and Salem managed to find and touch someone with a huge dong in his free time. Hoe bros forever~

---

Sunday; last day of MFF

Now that I didn't feel like shit anymore, I went to the gym again. My chest is sore. uwu We opted to having more breakfast at the Rose Hotel before we headed out again. Chicken and Waffles; good ol' 'Murican food. At some point today, I wanted to meet up with Arlo again, that hot dude who we met at the Sponsor Brunch. We messaged earlier on Saturday and he mentioned that he didn't get a chance to cuddle someone. So being the super nice and generous person that I obviously am, I offered my services. uwu My bodeh is ready. Dual and Ged went to go watch the Dance Competition which I wasn't too enthusiastic about. Salem lost his badges yesterday somehow so he went back to FedEx to make new ones plus the badge he designed for me. So I took that opportunity to find that blue yeen.

At the Hyatt Regency, he brought me over to his room so he could suit up and I learned so much about fursuiting from him along the way! He's been doing it for 10+ years, so I think I know who I'm gonna consult when I need help, haha! Before he put his head on, he let me wear it. Everything sounded muffled and it was a little disorienting trying to move around with such limited vision and huge blindspots. The paws are so big and squishy too! I don't know how anyone can even hold stuff between those big beans! Now I fully understand what these guys gotta go through, but I'd still totally get a suit myself! Once Arlo fully suited, we made our way to the room I'm staying at so we could hangout and cuddle in private. It suddenly hit me that I am now an impromptu fursuit handler. My first con, I; sorta hosting a panel for the first time, went to a rave for the first time, convinced a fursuiter to come to my room, wore a fursuit head and paw for the first time, and cuddled with a fursuiter. Not bad if I do say so myself. :p So as we made our way towards the room, I made sure to help assist Arlo whenever he may need it and stopped to help take pictures with people who loved his suit. I've seen videos about this kind of stuff, I'm totally ready! We had to wait for the shuttle to pick us up so in the meantime, I wanted a proper picture of myself with him in my Likulau outfit. We picked a random Joe and got them to take a picture of us. Arlo wanted to try picking me up for one of the shots. Of all choices, he picked the bridal style. O-Oh... So he kneels down and I gave myself to him willingly. I could picture it now. Him looking at me, and me holding him around his shoulders gazing into each other's eyes... and instead we got a sequential album of him tossing me on the floor. ... This is fine. ^^; After dusting myself off, a duo skipped over with brushes in their hands, telling us that they got OCD with how disheveled Arlo's fur was when we were taking pictures. With the blue yeen's consent, they went to brushing while I watched and recorded some of it. By the end of it, he was looking pretty damn good! They even styled his mane! I tipped the pair a dollar each which one happily accepted both. Just then, the shuttle arrived, and we thanked them before making our way to my place.

Escorting Arlo into our room, we lied down on my bed I was sharing with Ged. I felt a little awkward about it but we talked about some stuff to break the ice like dancing, some cool facts about Caravan Palace, and even My Little Pony Gen 4, of course. He showed me some... rather interesting videos and gave me some history I didn't know about since I never dove into 4Chan, his 2nd home. Since he was in his suit, we had to snuggle up close so he could watch the videos with me, turning his head to see like a bird would. But in those moments of us together, we slowly got closer. Hand to paw, and even him petting my arm with his beans, it felt really nice. And then, with my heart pounding against my chest, I sat up and asked him THE question. "Can I have a hug?" He said "Yes." *Hallelujah Chorus* What? Did you think I wanted to have sex with him? Well, you're right, but he's Ace. And I respect boundaries. :p We just kept talking and snuggling the whole time, it was nice. Most people just wanna blow a load in me and take off without helping so this was a nice change of pace. Seb and Ged eventually came back and they got to meet Arlo again, but this time in his suit. They were more than excited to take more pictures with him and even get an up close look at a fursuiter without feeling like they had to rush to get out of their way. After our little photoshoot session, Arlo's ice packs were getting kinda warm so it was time to escort him back to his room. I was supposed to DM a horny furry D&D campaign I designed for my friends, but not everyone was present, and we were on a time crunch. Although I've been planning and building it for over the span of a couple months like a crazy person, I didn't mind trading all that just to spend more time talking with the blue maned yeen. Once it was time for him to have dinner with his friends, I went back to mine and we had some pre-dinner KFC before the real dinner event, the Sugar Factory.

9PM. That was our reservation time. Scrambling on trying to arrange a means for all of us to get there because the shuttle was taking forever, we opted for an Uber. It was windy as fuck, and no one wanted to walk there. Weaklings! We also got Arlo to replace Salem's spot because he has a pretty bad eating disorder. My condolences, my dear friend. I've been here before, so I fully knew what to expect. The prices were pretty extravagant but so are the proportions and not to mention the designs of the food and drinks! I believe all cocktails were designed by celebrities and they tasted these drinks as well. Probably why there's such a high price tag. Did I mention I'm a lightweight drinking alcohol? Yeah. I bought myself one Caramel Macchiato martini and I would've stopped there because I know my limits. But nooooo. Dual wanted to be the bad enabler and we agreed to split a large bowl together called the Tropical Fruit Punch. But holy shit, it tasted so fucking good! You could barely tell that there's alcohol in there! And that right there is super dangerous. It was so good, that Arlo wanted another. I, on the other hand, was already pretty damn drunk. My speech slurred a bit, and everyone was MAKING FUN OF ME! Bitches. Jk, love you all. I made sure to use a candy necklace to launch pieces of candy at them by creating tension on the string and biting the candies in half. Seb then confiscated it like a meanie. They also got to see what happens when someone buys the $100 giant sundae of ice cream, candy, and sparklers. That was certainly a treat. It made me really happy that everyone had a great time here.

After the Sugar Factory, we all wanted to head to the last rave of the con. Arlo went to go suit up for it and the rest of us needed to get our badges we left it in our rooms so we can enter the rave. Along the way, we met Bento! The big purple... I'm not entirely sure what he is! But he's awesome! After taking a picture with him, we escorted him to the rave because he was all alone at the moment. It would've all gone perfect, and we would've had an amazing time... if the shuttle service didn't royally fuck us over. We did not see our shuttle for over and hour and a half. And this whole time, Arlo and Ged have been waiting for us. There was a lot of confusion and miscommunication between the staff and us that we just ended up going back to the Hyatt without our badges. We tried asking and explaining the situation but understandably, we couldn't go in much to everyone's disappointment. We just hung out together and talked instead. Though Arlo still did want to dance; he decided to leave for the rave 30 minutes before it closes. Feeling pretty beat, Seb, Ged, and Dual decided to shuttle back home once they figured out their communication problems. I forgot I needed to give Arlo a present, but he obviously couldn't hold it while in his suit. So, we headed back to his room and hugged goodbye there... then we walked together back down.
Me: "So... why did we say goodbye if we're just gonna walk together again?
Arlo: "Who says we can't do it more than once?"
... Fair enough. I escorted him back to the rave entrance and gave him one last big hug. That was that. I managed to come back before the shuttle picked everyone up and we all headed back with the dread of Post-Con Depression looming over us all.

---

Monday, the day after MFF
Everyone began packing up. As usual, I got up the earliest. But Salem and Seb had to leave before me. We hugged each other tight but I held back because I didn't want to destroy either of their spines. Ged and I waited for Dual to wake up before we headed out to the airport. We wanted to get some breakfast together while we could. Unfortunately, my Terminal was in a separate building, so I had to say my goodbyes to them. Thus... the end of my first con to MFF...

---

Wait, did you actually read all that? You're crazy, why would you do that? :p
But man... what a ride this was. I'm never going to forget this. Although now I feel empty and sad without the company of my friends nearby, I'll use this feeling as fuel to excite me for the next con I attend. Hopefully this time, everything will go smoothly! ... right? ^^;

Furries I saw but didn't want to bother for a picture:
BetaEtaDelota (during registration), NosHyena (Sunday rave), Stormi Folf (Saturday Dealer's Den), Braeburned (Dealer's Den)