I attended MFF this year and I wanted to kind of talk about my experience and thoughts on it. These thoughts aren’t really rehearsed or organized but I wanted to kind of put them all out there.

This ended up being a ton of firsts for me. This is my first con I’ve attended in like almost 15 years (my last con experience was my first one, Anime Expo 2011) as well as my first furry con. It was my first con that I attended multiple days of. It was the first time that I travelled out of state entirely on my own, from planning and logistics to execution. And it was the first time meeting a whole bunch of people who I recognized or am on good terms with, from fellow commissioners to popular artists.

I actually kind of wanted to go last year, but I didn’t really get the idea of going to a con until like it happened and I was like “oh yeah that would be nice” but like. Not gonna be able to attend on that short of notice let alone get time off work lol

I asked around and did a little research and ultimately I ended up booking the Hampton in May. I honestly thought that booking in May was responsibly early when in actuality it was waaaay late like most places were sold out or close to selling out and I learned later like basically you need to get a reservation as soon as they announce the next year’s dates. Like I haven’t checked mainly because the holiday season and just getting back but frankly I’m sure at time of writing this the Hyatt is already sold out lmao

Similarly, in May I also got tickets to and from O’Hare. I can’t recall when I put in for PTO from work but it was similarly several months out like June or so because as you might expect, the holiday season is a popular time for people to take vacations. To, ended up flying Alaskan; from, United.

Going there I had ideas and hopes and expectations I imagine like anyone who went had. I had planned to go to Artist Alley and Dealer’s Den if nothing else just to look and see all the neat stuff on display and attend a bunch of panels. I had hoped to also perhaps meet some people I recognized either on the convention floor or at panels. A few people I knew had told me in advance they were going so I knew at least there was some slim possibility. As a precaution just in case I brought my ancient Wii and a handful of games just in case like anyone wanted to hang out.

In terms of other preparations I probably both over and under prepared. I brought more clothes than I needed which is ultimately not a bad thing in case of spills or such. I brought a little sketchpad for people I recognized if they would like to sign my little yearbook or, barring that, to give to artists I commissioned in case for whatever reason they didn’t have paper I guess. I also brought a bunch of drawing sharpies of various color and thickness for the occasion which went unused lol. Maybe if I was an artist and went to the sketchbook swap it could have come in handy but I am incapable of drawing my own characters let alone much of anything. In the opposite sense though things I really wish I brought was some sort of larger bag. I had brought my Verdia plushie along with me as an eyecatch and as recognizability since I am Mr. Tofu and very average-looking in a sense (I don’t really own any like designed shirts or anything to help me stand out). I really wish I brought a poster tube and I wish I brought a larger suitcase to check bags into. Like I made it work on the return trip but there was an exceptionally large print that I would have liked to have in a tube that I instead needed to put between two shirts and a sweatpants and hope for the best.

I elected to drive the two hours to Portland on Wednesday so that I could have a single straight shot to O’Hare and the trip there was fine aside from some thick fog and like five hours of sleep coming off of a six day stretch of work starting from the day before Thanksgiving (I’m really glad I put in for an extra day of PTO) and for being on the road at 3:30 am with a flight departing at like 7 I had barely enough time to get to my terminal before boarding like I wasn’t cutting it close or anything but it was a little worrying. The line for TSA was incredibly long and slow moving I probably was in it for like 40 minutes easily. Plane trip aside from a screaming baby several seats behind me on the right was okay although I had sat on the left windowseat atop the wing and that was a mistake because I literally was half-deaf for like a day afterwards like I could not get my ears to pop no matter what.

The remainder of Wednesday was spent sleeping at the hotel and unpacking and such. The Hampton aside from the small distance is a really great hotel I would totally pick it again if I didn’t get something closer like it’s a great pick for just like a backup hotel to hold.

It’s here some of the bittersweetness starts to come in. I had asked a friend back in May if they would be interested in coming along with and due to financial limitations they wanted to come but had to play it by ear. As such I booked a double room but ultimately with about a week to go they had to withdraw due to monetary concerns (and shortly after they did their car had some issues so I’m not going to say it worked out but I feel they made the right choice considering they were going to drive up from Knoxville to Rosemont). I had booked the room myself full knowing it was a maybe but it was saddening when they had to pull out moreso just because this is someone I’ve known for a decade who I was looking forwards to meeting and hanging out with in real life with MFF as a backdrop if that makes sense. I knew that I would still be able to enjoy MFF alone but it did sort of make things just a random shuffle around the con sort of deal instead of having someone to hang out with. So having booked a double room I did feel a little sad looking over at the unused bed where my friend would have been. Dinner there was Cilantro Taco Grill which was pretty good. Things looked good I ended up going for a burrito which was good but sorta made me wish I got a taco instead since I feel that is their specialty. A step above just Taco Bell though and was literally like a 2 minute walk from the hotel.

Thursday I got to wake up to the continental breakfast and I can’t speak for other hotels but this was a very good selection. Like picking a hotel with a continental breakfast included was one of the deciding factors for me in choosing a hotel so I was not disappointed. Ultimately it’s not like the mindblowing breakfast spread to end all breakfast spreads but in terms of other hotels in the past I’ve stayed at several years ago this was up there and was very good. The Hampton again aside from the distance (like a mile from the convention center) is a great hotel. Pool and jacuzzi I thought about using but ultimately didn’t. Rec room I never saw anyone in but was cool they had it. Quiet, despite seeing several people with con badges I didn’t hear any parties or noise and thankfully also wasn’t in the flight path of any planes or if it was I heard nothing so I will continue to sing the praises of the Hampton as a budget hotel.

Circling back though Thursday was more relaxing and just getting acclimated to things. If I was more confident I’d have asked people I knew who were around if they wanted to hang out but most people I knew were staying at the Hyatt and I was like aaaah didn’t want people to take a special trip out to me either way. I took the first of my walks out to the con center and despite the kind of confusing crosswalk system and a few patches of ice everything was fine. LineCon was a little confusing like if I have anything to fault MFF for it’s not making lines clear and/or rerouting lines on the fly. You’d have thunk that maybe their budget would have included more rope banisters but I guess not. Ended up getting my badge with a decent print on the name (I saw some people got absolutely dogwater prints on their name and I felt bad about that) and head back out to the hotel again after looking at a bunch of cool cosplay and fursuits in line during. Shoutout to the ODST and the Scout Trooper.

Tried Giordano’s and uh. I cannot say I am a huge fan of Chicago-style pizza. Like yeah maybe the deep dish was better but idk for all the complaining ages ago about Domino’s pizza tasting like a saltine cracker this tasted like a saltine cracker. I know some friends ended up having to change plans to Little Caesar’s once their Big Chicken order got stolen ( ;w; ) and frankly I feel like despite the heresy I’m speaking, Little Caesar’s would have been better.

Friday! First day of the con. Walked down and there was confusion about their coat check. I came wearing two layers the first two days like a heavier overjacket and a lighter underjacket and despite what I was told the underjacket I feel was mostly unnecessary. Like yeah I would have been more comfortable at times with only the light jacket but the walk back would have been rough so despite points I think just the heavy jacket was enough. If I got the Hyatt then I could have theoretically just gotten away with the single jacket at all times but well such is life in Chicago I suppose.

I spoke a little earlier about having certain expectations going into the con. One of them was looking at all the stuff at Artist Alley and Dealer’s Den which ultimately got achieved but the other was attending a bunch of panels that seemed interesting. There was a bunch of interesting writing panels I was planning on going to but ultimately I ended up missing all of the writing ones that I planned on going for. A sort of snowball effect where I missed the first few and then decided afterwards like “well may as well miss the others”. There were a handful of unrelated panels I did end up going to and had intended on going to as well though so success in that regard!

At one of the panels I happened to be with a group of people I know! Artists I’ve commissioned, peers I know, and artists I’ve followed for years.  Vetarix,  ManMush, NonaryCubed, BlueBunBoi.  TheLazyDreamer,  KatDrawsAlot, HappyHoagie,  TheyCallHimCake.  SrGreJa,  thatweirdo, and a few more that I’m forgetting off the top of my head aaaa. Was really cool to meet them and get a lot of them to sign my little furry yearbook I was just expecting a little signature or something but everyone did a lil doodle and everyone is super talented not just with digital but traditional as well!! Mush was nice enough to sign the Beast Babes card of Clare from  KiwiPotato I pulled back in summer so I now have a signed Mushlord: the Gathering card idk lol my little dragon hoard growing. As nice as it is I did feel at points a little bit like a remora sort of just cruising under the fins of the big fish. It’s something I’ve been trying to work through this past year and it’s a struggle. I’ll talk more about it in a later journal I think.

With that said I didn’t wanna be Mister Third Wheel all day so I broke off to explore the Dealer’s Den for a while before eventually heading off to  L-a-v’s Furry Quiplash panel which was super fun and tbh I wish it went another few rounds it was great. I wish I attended more gameshow/interaction panels or just panels in general. Also there as a host was  lysergide whose art I’ve admired for a long while, like, gosh eight years? Nine? Really cool person frankly everyone there was neat. Lav invited me back to their hotel to play Mario Party which was a nice surprise. Ended the day with quite a haul honestly tons of trinkets and little arts and all sort of cool things!

Although at this point I was so overencumbered with my little backpack and lack of poster tube that I ended up having to buy a mini tote from a vendor it’s really cute! Has a lil corgi drinking some boba on it and it served me well the rest of the con. The downside of being like a mile away from your hotel is that it’s not necessarily easy to head back to your hotel to drop stuff off and head back so it was either stick around for after dark stuff or call it there. I ended up deciding to just call it there frankly like walking two miles at 8pm with no food in me in Chicago winter wasn’t necessarily something I was for at the time. Dinner was Big Chicken which wasn’t life-changing or anything but was solid food. Would recommend. Afterwards it was a brief trek up the street to Lav’s hotel where we played Mario Party 4, Double Dash, and Mario Party 6. I have never been lucky in general but holy MOLY was bad luck on my side in those Mario Party games lol like “roll 1 three turns in a row” sort of bad. Double Dash was also fun although I swear I don’t remember it feeling so slippery. On that note I also had a few games on my Wii that I had brought just in case anyone ended up coming over and like. I never used to be a god at Melee or Brawl or anything but I felt like Melee in particular is SUPER floaty. I’m not going to say GameCube games don’t hold up because they absolutely do but after not having played them for like 15 years you kind of forget how things were. Gaming went until like 1am which frankly I should have called it before then but all things considered I had a great time. If any day was a highlight it was this first day. Even saw a bunny on the walk back to my hotel, Godspeed MFF bunny may you have foraged well.

Foraged well indeed since I woke up at it was 0°F on Saturday. I ate breakfast and was pleasantly surprised to see that the continental breakfast had slightly different options than the day before which I wasn’t expecting so more props to the Hampton for that. After a brief reprieve I had decided to go and try to pick up something like a poster tube from the FedEx Office store next door and to my surprise it was closed on Saturdays. Like Sundays I can understand but Saturdays I feel is abnormal? Across the street too the USPS was also closed so that left me up shit creek a little bit and after a little bit of worrying and seeing if Amazon could deliver to my hotel before I left (it couldn’t) and looking for local options I ended up having to Instacart some stuff from the Office Depot which had me arriving at the con at around 2pm. I think because of that I missed a few other writing panels I had wanted to go to so I spent time exploring the Dealer’s Den more in depth and Artist Alley where I met  ZombieRay10. Cool person with cool stuff who got recommended to me but I actually liked their stuff before I realized who they were lol.

There was a Dragon Meetup panel but I ended up leaving that one. Felt kind of bad because that was one I was looking forwards to but it was put in a room that was WAY too small also kinda lacked direction. Like 200 people crammed into a tiny room meant to mingle and like. No we can’t mingle there’s barely room to move around. Not really the panel host’s fault I guess but still kind of disappointed. So it was back to more prowling Dealer’s Den and then I was like oh the VRChat panel is in 30 minutes I should go check that out and there’s literally a line of like 700+ people in it already so I was like welp not getting into that one lol. Not that I’m some big VRChat person but I dunno seemed like a good spot to meet people or meet up with people I know. Some time in the Quiet Room waiting for the Hyper Panel. Ended up getting some con food. Expensive but good. The little barbecue stand they had so I could justify the price a little more for a rib sandwich versus like the $16 taco or $14 hotdog. Hyper Panel was fun even though like. I feel a lot of the time I’m just on the razor’s edge of hyper even if I still enjoy it lol. Some neat people and some people who recognized Verdia. Once again saw a bunch of people I recognized like Lav and Lyser. Nonary and BlueBunBoi and Cake and Kat. Was a fun hangout time giving out stickers and such. I’m kinda a shy person though so mingling is sorta not something I’m used to I feel weird walking up to people I don’t know and initiating conversation so I mostly just floated around and spectated unless someone else engaged. Wanted to try to catch up on sleep too so headed back and had some leftover pizza before bed. I’m not really a party person to the degree of like going to the raves or such and I didn’t get any invitation too so I didn’t really do much in that regard. I heard there were some fun parties though. Maybe next year lol

Sunday! Final day. It was supposed to be just flurries overnight but instead there were like 6 inches of snow and the sidewalks hadn’t been shoveled yet so trudging through the snow. Really glad I brought my work shoes instead of my sneakers like I had planned or my shoes would have been soaked lol. I did pack an extra pair of socks in my tote just in case but never ended up using them. Had a bunch of stuff in my tote for just in case that like came in handy but yeah. Didn’t fall and hurt myself although like ough I understand about walks in the snow now lol. Also there were times I felt like I was gonna slip and snap an ankle or something lol. Another reason Hyatt is good you don’t have to worry about that sort of thing I suppose. Final day was just sort of browsing Artist Alley one final time and Dealer’s Den for anything I missed while also people watching. Ended up meeting SnaxBuns who was nice and had some nice stuff I like their style a lot. Frankly there was a lot of artists there with a cool style I felt bad when I didn’t buy anything from them :x On the topic of other artists also DigiDom123 and  MichiYoshi both of which who I had been following for years and tbh the latter of which I remember reading doujinshi from like 10+ years ago and both of which probably on a subconscious level sorta built on the kink I have for bigger ladies just going nuts on smol guys. Cool to meet them both didn’t really expect to see them.

Wandered around a bit more and met back up with Greja. Tbh he wanted to roam the floor a bit after selling stuff for two days so I was glad he was okay with hanging out and talking although I feel like in doing so he sacrificed his chance to look through art a bit I dunno. Others grouped up and for a little bit I was hanging out with Cake and Kat and Nonary and friends for a little again just sorta feeling like a third wheel although admittedly again that’s probably a lot in my head. They head out to their place so with that I wasn’t about to like invite myself along so off I went to explore a little longer. I had heard there was a sketchbook swap at the Hyatt after hours which was neat if I was an artist but I can barely draw let alone at the levels of professional artists. I believe in equivalent exchange and what I have to offer is not on par with the others. Didn’t go to that I felt like that wasn’t for me plus I wasn’t invited so.

I decided to go to the closing ceremony where I got seated in the first row right hand corner which was cool but also the audio didn’t really reach that wide so it was hard to tell what people were saying. It was mostly talking about numbers and statistics of attendees (neat!) and talking about how much money they raised for charity and doing another impromptu round of fundraising (not as neat). A couple musical performances which like okay the one with someone in a full fursuit playing violin was neat but maybe it was just where I was sitting but the full fursuit one of the person singing “I’m Still Standing” may as well have been an a capella like I could not hear them beneath their fursuit.

As the show was ending and on the walk back to the hotel the post-con depression was setting in already. Thoughts I guess of regret? Of time mismanaged? Of money spent poorly? Things had both gone as I had expected and not as I had expected or hoped I guessed. I had sorta hoped maybe I would get a random invitation to hang out. I sorta hoped maybe people would come over to my hotel in the boonies relatively speaking to play Kirby Air Ride or something. I knew the chances were slim but still I had a little hope maybe. Maybe that’s a problem I have too is I set my expectations really low most of the time and then I raise them in hopes of something happening and when it doesn’t it kinda floors me. Was thinking about the people I know knowing they’re having a good time and I wish I could join them. Wished I felt like I belonged. Felt like I was on the same level as them and not out of my league. I know a lot of that is post-con depression but I had been struggling with mental health for a while it wasn’t something really I needed. It did end up passing. Got food across the street at Moretti’s. Good lasagna but I’m a sucker for lasagna anyways. Tasted good filled me up. Did the job. Little expensive but it is what it is in Chicago I imagine. Back to the hotel to pack and DM friends thanking them for a good time and wishing them safe trips back home before bed since my plane left O’Hare at a little after 8am and I wanted to be there early just in case.

Got up on Monday at a bit past 6am, got my final breakfast (I ate a bit less because I could tell if I had a giant breakfast it would sit in my stomach like a rock throughout the flight), checked out, was at O’Hare via shuttle by like 7:20am. For it being O’Hare and some of the travel stories I heard from friends about delays to weather or con crud or layovers forever, at least in regards to Portland and its 40 minute TSA line I was from bags checked to at my gate in like 20 minutes total it was really fast which to my understanding at United is the exception not the rule. Evidently the plane was super packed so the app was offering me the night before to check my carry-on as well for free which I was like well I guess I mean it’s one thing less to carry I suppose which worked out for me but for some people I know United fucked them over with it. But all things considered it was a smooth trip back to Portland another 4 hour flight that got me there at like 11am. I have learned in the future that I should not sit window seat like I had to get up to use the restroom and felt bad for the people who I had to ask them to pause Fury Road so I could get up and pee. But aside from that I got some of that weird plane sleep where you’re not sure if you actually slept. Didn’t go deaf from the jets blowing out my ears and wished I brought a neck pillow but yeah. Drove home. Got some In ‘n’ Out which is a favorite of mine I don’t care what some people say the burgers are good and better than stuff like Five Guys by a mile >:U

All in all it was a nice time I feel. It’s definitely something that I would want to go with friends instead of alone in the future because I dunno it did feel kind of sad and “I shouldn’t be here I don’t belong” as just a solo. High point was definitely saying hi to the artists I’ve met over the past couple years and thanking them for the great work they’ve done for me in person like that was one of the main things I wanted to do and just sorta look at everyone’s stuff. Get keepsakes of friends’ stuff.

Again it’s one of those things where you go into it with expectations knowing you’ll never do everything in one go that you’d want to or have planned. Plans are made to break. All in all for a first timer I think I did okay. Next year would definitely be with friends though I feel or try to get the Hyatt which I still haven’t checked at time of writing I’m sure it’s already booked solid lol.

In any case that’s my sort of stream of consciousness play-by-play of my experience as a first time attendee of a furry con and first time attendee of MFF. I doubt anyone will read this in its entirety but posting it for posterity. If anyone has questions about stuff too feel free to ask and I’ll try to answer too!