Sombra's Systematic Fantasy

kalinekonokage said: I felt like ACen was a bit lackluster this year. And all the lines for EVERYTHING were outrageous. But I will say that the quality of cosplays this year was amazing. So many great cosplayers and the creativity astounded me.

I’ll always love seeing awesome cosplayers.  That’s usually the one thing I miss after a con’s over with.  I just miss seeing cosplays.

I dunno though…I could also see awesome costumes at smaller, cheaper cons or just in pictures online.  Acen just didn’t feel worth it to me this year.  There weren’t many panels that I found really interesting and some of the ones that I was hoping to be interested in were disorganized.  Not to mention I cannot understand for the life of me why they tried to cram everything into the one hotel.  It just led to the Hyatt feeling overcrowded and people not being able to go to some of the panels they might have wanted to go to.

I think I might try working at more cons in the future…

I find I don’t actually do a lot at conventions and I don’t walk away from the con all that sad that it’s over. I dunno…sadly most of the time I’m actually quite bored at conventions. The only thing I actually miss are seeing awesome costumes. But most of the time I just go to random panels and sit there. Which…okay, that’s what conventions are kinda for I guess. Anime cons are a lot better for this than furry cons since they pull decent guests some of the time. But I often feel like most cons are for huge parties, drinking, people who have ways to participate in masquerades/costume contests, and for more outgoing people who are just better about meeting new people, networking, etc. I don’t drink (and quite frankly don’t care to be around people who are drunk), parties aren’t my thing, I have terrible stage fright, and I suck at networking. Heck, I don’t even get to hang out with people that I haven’t seen in a long time since they’re usually busy with their own stuff. And while I talked to a few new people at Acen, I can guarantee there’s only 1 new friend I probably made and that’s really only a maybe.

The only thing I find reasonably interesting about most conventions are either their concerts, masquerades, or in the case of fur-cons dance competitions. That’s usually only 2-3 things I actually look forward to. The rest is kinda just killing time until those things happen.

I can honestly say this year is the first year I feel like I could’ve skipped Acen. Pretty much the 2 worthwhile things I got out of it were cosplaying Saturday and getting my OOO Driver. Both of which could be accomplished at later dates. And the cosplay experience wasn’t that great. The compliments (and also the lack of audible furry hate) were awesome. Wearing it sucked (possibly ‘cause I’m not used to fursuits). There was far too much standing in line, Hardcore Synergy wasn’t nearly as good as everyone says it is (music is exactly the same as Soap Bubble’s…which I don’t like), Soap Bubble still isn’t worth it (and I still don’t get why this is the big ticket deal for Acen), too many lines, too many panels put into rooms that were too small to handle them, too much waiting around, too much standing. I could’ve done without most of that. I’m contemplating not going next year, but if I do go, I’ll most likely just get an artist alley table and stay there the entire weekend. It’s the only way that going again would be worth it…

itsasecretbitches:

shehlovee:

Life is unfair. You put someone first who puts you second. You study your ass off for a final only to get a C. You give 110% to someone in a relationship who only gives 40%. You’re there for a best friend at 3:00am and the next day they don’t pick up their phone. It seems like you’re giving everyone everything and they’re just walking away with it.

this times a fucking thousand 

I really hate this underlying self-hatred the furry fandom seems to have…

And the hypocrisy…

And the secrecy…

I love this fandom to death ‘cause of how creative literally everyone is.  Everyone.  Even if they don’t think they are.  They created their own character.  And even if they didn’t do so in design, they’ve done so in back story, personality, and all the fine details that make that character their own.  That’s one of the greatest things about this fandom.  Everyone is either a character designer, illustrator, story teller, musician, crafter, etc.  Everyone has created something.

But…

There seems to be this underlying shame in the fandom.  If people are asked if they’re a part of it, they’ll answer “no”, feel like they’ll be shunned by their family, feel like their friends will leave them.  The fandom is skeptical of media even if it’s from college students wanting to do something for class or a thesis project.  The fandom wants to be accepted but never wants to be in the spotlight enough for people to learn about accept them.  The fandom wants to be accepted, but wants to stay in the shadows where it’s most comfortable…

Now I’m the worst at giving advice and my personal feelings on things often contradict my emotional response, but I seriously don’t think this should be happening.  No matter what, not everyone will accept the fandom.  There’s going to be people who believe everything they see on a prime time crime drama show that can’t even get the basics of solving a crime correct.  Are we really going to hold a grudge against a series for that?  That would be like me holding a grudge against literally every TV show that has black stereotypes because they’re not portraying who I am correctly.  But then I would just hate all of TV.

It seems to be an uncommon opinion, but I love seeing something with furries on TV.  Everyone likes to throw a hissy fit before the show airs.  And sometimes (most times) afterwards, but whenever I watch it, I don’t see what they see.  It’s never as bad as people make it out to be.  But the fandom acts like it’s the end of the world and that people are going to hate them all over again and that it will be this huge disaster and their families are going to disown them and that they’ll be fired from their jobs and…well you get the idea.  People panic.

It’s funny that I’m calmly writing about this ‘cause I’ll be going to an anime convention (woot!  ACen time!) this weekend and will be fursuiting there for the first time.  And yeah…I kinda worry about it.  But I’m sure it will not be as bad as I feel it will be in my head.  And I think this is the problem with the furry fandom.  We see so much hate for it online that we assume that everyone will instantaneously hate us if they find out we’re a part of the fandom.  But that’s not true.  In fact, most people barely know what a furry is.

So maybe we should all take some deep breaths and slow down a bit and just realize that it’s just not that bad…