Thursday

I left home around 6 in the morning after giving my wife and daughter hugs and kisses. The trip was gratefully uneventful with good weather. I picked up  Fulminar around Noon and an hour later we strolled into the Westin. It took us a little over an hour to get our room, and while waiting I chatted with  Nyomi and a bit with  CatMonkShiro and  Dan_Raccoon while they also waiting for their room. We all managed eventually at least!

After Fulminar and I settled in to our room and relaxed a bit we headed back down to snag our registration and con swag. While waiting in line for the swag I chatted with  ManuKoa and a few other furs whose names escape me now. The swag had some neat stuff, but I immediately knew I was going to be giving the con shirt to my daughter as it seemed more her style than mine.

Fulminar and I went back to the room as the initial enthusiasm of arrival gave way to exhaustion from the trip. I rested for a bit before heading back down and meeting up with  Alganbord and his friend Noah for dinner. The four of us went to Firkin's on the Harbor where I had my usual Fish n Chips. I was still feeling pretty beat so after we headed back to the hotel I decided to call it a day. I chatted with Fulminar in the room and enjoyed a Facetime call from my wife and daughter before falling asleep.

Friday

At some point in the night  WolfFriend finally arrived. But when Fulminar and I woke he was too tired to join us for breakfast. We went to the Mizzen buffet that morning and were joined by Alganbord and Noah. As usual it was a good mix of items and I enjoyed what I had. I still felt a little low-energy, but that would pass before the day was done.

After breakfast I wandered up to the game room and chatted with a handful of folks there. The fellow running it was somebody I knew from a Telegram group but I feel awful at this point I cannot remember who it was. No games were played sadly as there just wasn't enough folks around for it, but it was good talking about them and being in the convention space.

I headed to Opening Ceremonies afterward and sat in the back. I didn't know who any of the Guests of Honor were and there was only so many sea shanties and underwater puns I could laugh at, but I did enjoy it.

Once done I went up to wait in line for the Dealer's Den and ended up right next to Uncle Kage. Despite attending Anthrocon every time since it moved to Pittsburgh in 2006 I've never really talked with the cockroach in a labcoat except in passing. We discussed line management because FE clearly hasn't learned how to do it either given how confussing it was, but at least it was better than the disaster at last year's AC where the Fire Marshall forced them to open the doors early or risk getting kicked out entirely (which would have destroyed AC). He and another AC staff member whose name I didn't catch showed me their plans for line management this year and if it works should finally make it livable.

Once the Den opened I made sure to stop by  CatMonkShiro,  Anyare, and  SpiderDragon to say hi and secure some sketch slots. I also made sure to say hi to  hbruton,  SandySchreiber and  Xenotropos who would get my other sketch slots for the con. Good to see all these friends once again! I then wandered the den looking for ideas for my wife and daughter. I made sure to grab some tea and coffee from Galaxy Teas as I knew those would sell fast. I also snagged a D20 Bath Bomb from the dice folks because my daughter loved the one I bought her two years back. And then I grabbed a beanie in the shape of a red fox protogen because my daughter doodled a red fox protogen at AC last year.

Eventually I migrated back to the game room and Alganbord and I played The Game after being unable to decide on anything else. I seem to recall we played another game he brought but I cannot recall what it was. I was on the tail end of my low-energy spell at that point, but not quite out of it. Still, when the time came, I headed back to my room (taking the stairs up to floor 16 for the first time of the con because the elevator line was atrocious), and got into fursuit for my Rodents panel.

I migrated around the hotel side of the convention space for a bit after getting into suit and spent a bit of time on the balcony. Suiting with friends is so much better than going solo as I felt a little lonely with other suiters around me all chatting together, but one person did ask to get a picture with me so that was nice. I then went to my panel and while we started light, more and more rodents kept arriving which helped drive our conversation. It went as it usually does with rounds of intros followed by discussion of rodents in various media from movies to games to books; we didn't have much of a discussion on keeping rodents as pets this time, but we did have several first time attendees and at least one who was able to get over their shyness and participate in the panel.

After the fursuit photo at the end, I chatted with a few folks for a while longer before heading back up to my room. This time I was able to get on the elevator right away (being in suit has its advantages) and when I got back to the room I discovered WolfFriend was there with another friend of his. I let them chat while I got changed, but then the guest in our room mentioned a few things that drew me into the conversation as we had some furry origins in common. We decided to go eat in the hotel restaurant and while waiting for the elevator, this fellow described their web-comic at which point I realized I was reading that comic and knew her from Telegram (you can read the web-comic here: https://wolfsjourney.com/index.html ). It was a great delight to meet Erin (FA  estobhan) and we chatted through dinner (where we were joined by Alganbord and Noah again). I had the Kevin McAllister cheese pizza and at this point I felt back to normal.

We chatted long after dinner was finished, but eventually we got up because we knew we needed to do so. I spotted the last roomie standing at the back of the elevator line,  Cobalt_K. Cobalt had to wait until Friday to come because of a job interview that morning (which he nailed; he got the job offer after the con), so he'd been driving ever since and was quite tired. We held his place in line while he relieved himself, and then we waited with him for an hour in the elevator line chatting and catching up. Eventually we had our politics discussion just so we could destress over all the fun happening in America; this continued well after we got back to the room, but it was done amicably, respectfully, and with good humor, something I wish more political discussions could be.

We were all a bit too tired to try one of the games that Cobalt brought, but we had two more days and we would give them a try! But for now we one by one drifted off to slumber after a long day.

Saturday

I woke up feeling great and after getting a mocha from the hotel lobby coffee shop I spent some time in the game room before heading back to the Dealer's Den to check on my sketches and keep looking for nice things to buy for my wife and daughter (and maybe something else for myself if I was so inspired). I spent time chatting with different artists while there and bumped into many friends like  Kokuei,  Seadog_driftwood,  Leo.The.Ninja.Lion,  Faclan,  DaiCymru,  Pyat, and  Mad_ferret. I honestly don't remember all the details anymore but I know I enjoyed our many conversations and encounters throughout the con.

I do remember attending Seadog's panel on the mythology and folklore of Weasels. There were a lot of details in here I had not expected and so I learned a lot there. It was definitely more than I could absorb in a single sitting! I think panels alnog these lines to help us understand the history our favorite species could be a nice addition to the usual repetoire of panels.

I also had the chance in the game room to play a bunch of short two-person games with Cobalt. Each of them was restricted to eighteen cards and included some interesting cooperative puzzles and competitive challenges. I especially liked the movie game where we had to put a set of scenes in order without talking.

Dinner that evening was at the Old Spaghetti Factory and we had Fulminar, Cobalt, WolfFriend, DaiCymru, and Alganbord there. I do not recall almost any of what we discussed at this point, but the conversation was convivial and fun and I recall being so ridiculously happy and grateful to be there with such great friends. It's the kind of joy you feel when you just feel so thankful and content and filled with peace. Stuff like this is why I keep going to conventions.

After getting back to the hotel my roomies and I went back to the room and there we played a game Cobalt brought called Lands of Galzyr. It has four anthro characters exploring a land sort of European in terms of climate and aesthetic, and the really unique thing about it is that the game can be persistent. That is, there's a way to save the status of each character and the story setting in between sessions. Each turn a character interacts with certain story elements which are read from a website that can be downloaded. Depending on the choices they make they then get to roll skill checks to see how well they did, which changes how the story evolves.

I played the frilled-lizard character who looked adorable in all of his pictures. Sadly, I did absolutely atrocious. It's not that I made bad choices per se, it's that with one exception, every single roll I did failed or only barely passed. The one exception was rather notable because it led to a game achievement, with my character facing a nightmare but coming through with a critical success to remember all the good times instead. Game achievements are apparently very rare and difficult to get so there's that. Still, WolfFriend and Cobalt both did reasonably well, so I felt very put off by just how badly everything went otherwise. Cobalt tried to assure me he'd never seen anybody have such a bad experience, and I assured him I knew it was just bad luck, and we could try it again tomorrow.

It was a downer end for an otherwise good day, but it really was a good day and I look back on it very, very fondly.

Sunday

I also started Sunday off with a mocha from the hotel cafe. Elevators were easy to use this early in the morning which was also nice. WolfFriend and I walked down to St. Michael's Cathedral for Mass that morning; they really love using incense there and since we were sitting close to the front we got a lot of it! It was a beautiful Mass though and the twenty minute walk was refreshing.

When we got back I swept through the Dealer's Den to see how my sketchbook was coming. So far Anyare, Heather Bruton, Sandy, and Xeno had worked wonders within and I made sure each knew how much I loved their work and what about it I loved. I dropped it off with SpiderDragon for the last sketch of the con. I then headed back to my room to get changed out of my professional suit and into normal con clothes, reattached my tail, and headed on back down for one last round of shopping. Earlier in the week I'd bid on a few items in the charity auction, but all of them went to voice auction and that had occurred during Mass so nothing I could do about it, and it was all stuff that would have been nice to have and not things I desperately wanted anyway.

I ended up buying an adorable t-shirt and a bunch of stickers for my daughter. She would end up putting the shirt on two seconds after I gave it to her after getting home, but she hasn't finished using up all the stickers yet (as I did buy a lot). I honestly cannot recall if I snagged anything else.

At closing ceremonies I ended up next to Leo and Faclan I believe. We enjoyed the show they put on. Furnal Equinox added a few hundred more after last year for a roughly 10% growth, which after growing by 50% last year was not too much of a surprise. We'll be coming back to the Westin again next year (hopefully they'll have the elevators fixed - I went up the stairs to the 16th floor four times that weekend because the elevator lines were just so awful). And the theme of the con will be Monsters in Toronto, so I'm expecting a lot of Kaiju style stuff. I was disappointed that they didn't have any buttons ready with the theme of the con like they had in past years, but I didn't let it get me down.

I did spend a good bit of time hanging with SpiderDragon at her table while she finished my sketch. She didn't have our Roomies sketch done at the con, but I am sure she's going to nail it when she finishes it off. I enjoy seeing how she interacts with all her customers and am grateful we got a little bit of time to chat too. I will definitely be throwing more business her way.

After getting back to my room (my fourth time up the stairs) I doffed the furry stuff and headed down to the lobby for the annual post-con trip to Mandarin organized by Shiro. We had a group of roughly 25 furs so we had to be careful to make sure everybody handled the walk and we didn't get separated by traffic. Once we reached the subway station I was delighted to learn I could pay my fare just by tapping my card. Kokuei, Cobalt and I chatted most of the way there and it was good to catch up on each other's lives.

Once we arrived I was sitting with Shiro, DaiCymru, WolfFriend, and Cobalt and we razzed each other a bit about how many plates we had, what we grabbed, in between just loving the food and stuffing ourselves silly. A few of us grabbed the jello and got silly with wiggling it on our forks; I so want to get a picture of that. Cons are so bad for me in terms of food because my eating schedule gets thrown out of whack and I eat way more than I should at big meals, but oh, I know I'll do it again anyway because it's so much fun being out with my friends. Dear friends with whom I've shared many an adventure and with whom I look forward to doing so again.

After the subway ride back there were a lot of hugs and well-wishes and promises of looking forward to seeing them again next year. It always hurts a little, but after doing this so many times it doesn't hurt much anymore. God willing, there will be another convention!

When we got back to our room, Cobalt, WolfFriend and I gave Lands of Galzyr a second try and this time I had a much more enjoyable experience. While I did not blow every roll away, I succeeded often enough that it made the game a lot of fun, so the occasional failure didn't feel like such a big blow. I can definitely recommend this game. It might even be the sort I could play with my family as it doesn't require a ton of complex rules like a lot of clever board games these days.

So we all went to sleep after a very satisfying day.

Monday

I got up reasonably early and snagged one more mocha from the hotel cafe before making sure the hotel checkout process was in good order. I was then able to snag a luggage cart and bring it back to our room. Fulminar and I got our luggage loaded, and then, with Cobalt who was awake, went down to the Mizzen for one last breakfast together. I loaded up on the bacon amongst other things as we chatted about what we were going to be doing after we got back. Cobalt was especially excited for his new job, and Fulminar was understandably concerned about his mother who had fallen and injured herself a couple of weeks before the con and was still in the hospital recuperating. I was facing an immediate return to work and a lot of craziness on my plate (hence why my con report is two weeks late).

After breakfast we headed back to the room, made sure WolfFriend was awake and knew what he needed to do to leave the hotel, and said our goodbyes. Fulminar and I loaded up my car and off we went! It took a little bit longer to get to his place due to an accident on the Gardiner Express, but otherwise there were no issues. He played "Try Everything" on his tablet, a tradition since we'd seen Zootopia together at Furnal Equinox 2016. But soon we were at his place and after unloading his luggage, we hugged one last time, bid farewell, and I was on the road again.

My drive home was gratefully uneventful if long. My car did well on the highway, but it was definitely very happy to be done. My daughter rushed out to greet me and help me bring all of my things in and once we had I shared with them all the fun things I brought back. I held both wife and daughter in my arms so happy to be home and be with them again. It was a great trip and I will be back again next year, and I will be grateful to be home again afterward.

Thank you all who work at Furnal Equinox for keeping the con great and making it a place I want to go back to. And thank you to all my friends for being there too; it would not be a great con without you. And to those who have been there in the past but couldn't make this year, you were missed!

I'll get sketches and my Rodents fursuit pic posted as soon as I can. I have a few things in my queue I still need to get to. But at least this con report is done!

Dominus vobiscum