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FurtherConfusion 2025 Journal
9 months ago
Feeling like turning this out just so I don't forget about it.
FurtherConfusion for two thousand twenty-five is done and over, and again my overall impressions of the con are decidedly mixed. Where are all my fucking friends? :/ Used to be I'd wander the halls and just be able to pick out faces in the crowd that I'd see at the con all the time, and now that's no longer the case. I wander the hallways, I wander the dealers room, I pop in to a panel or two, and I could count the number of furs that are "friends" on both hands at the end of the weekend. That's deeply disappointing.
Friends off hand that I knew and saw:
HeiLeeJoe , 
Seriva , 
Shievina 
Cassidy , 
TrashCamell , 
Blazionite , 
Skyite , 
Onnanoko , 
Zhivago , 
Tabbicus , 
VelliWolf , 
Khandor , 
Isaac , 
JunkKnight , 
Jinx , Mario who doesn't have an FA name, Jim the Jaguartaur who doesn't use FA .
Maybe there were others and they just happened to be on staff and elsewhere when I wasn't around, but hell it sure seems like the list of friends is pretty god damn short for a con of this size.
I hate to say it, but touring the dealers room again nothing stands out. There's no artists that I've dealt with that I feel like I could confidently give my strange ideas to, and I really contemplated not going back in a second time yet I'm glad I did as the artist TrashCamell managed to find her way into the Artist Alley side of the room and that let me give out at least one of my sketchbooks for an art piece.
Can someone explain to me why the fucking fandom is so fucking obsessed with disposable trash stickers!? I don't god damn get it. People just dump this shit everywhere and then are surprised when I refuse to play the sticker game and that I'm not interested. I'm genuinely not. I couldn't give a single shit about anyones fucking stickers.
My takeaway from the con was that there was a packed schedule of events, none of which I found curious enough to even look in on except a few things.
Thursday
Picked up badge effortlessly in the registration queue.
Attended the panel demonstration of the Krita digital art program. I must say, its mighty impressive in its capabilities.
Briefly showed at the back of the room for a panel titled "The Banana Chronicles: How Appealing" and I quietly left because I honestly have no idea what that panel was about.
Attended the Opening Ceremony, which set the theme of the convention of "Animal Business" by being a poorly constructed slideshow with graphs and pie charts and then the CEO came on stage but her microphone was muted which made the audience have to yell "YOU'RE ON MUTE!" until it was corrected before everyone in attendance was promoted to Vice President in which the organizational chart of the company meant we all reported to the dog. Its furry logic, it doesn't make any sense. Actually was seated at a table with a fur who was coming to cons for her first time so I could explain this aspect of the fandom that every convention has a theme, and it ultimately means absolutely nothing unless you want it to guide your creativity.
Friday
Maybe its just me but I swear that I recall furcons opening and kicking things off earlier in the mornings with events happening at eight or nine in the morning. Shit getting going at ten or eleven just seems...off. I wake up and end up just lurking in my hotel room because there's absolutely no fucking reason to go to the con if nothings happening. Am I missing something here?
For as packed with events as the day was, nothing interested me.
Briefly popped in to the Twenty-Five Years Of Confusion panel before ducking out because it more or less was prior con staffers who had been with the con from the start detailing war stories rather than a social thing of long time con attendees.
Attended the very well presented "An Intro To Vore" panel mostly because I'm curious about it.
Had to only briefly show at the Protogen and Sergal meets because they started at the same time at opposite hotels.
The Transformation Meet happened afterwards hosted by Cassidy.
And...that was it.
Saturday
Again, the late freaking starts to the day. Nothing opens until ten in the morning.
The con fed the Sponsors and above with Sponsor Brunch.
Eat food in an effort to make it to The Compu-Taur Lab just so I could find out from the panelists why its called that, and come to find out Rogue is a 'taur shapeshifter. It was a panel about retro tech otherwise that had no relationship to 'taurs despite its name.
Then catching a single shot of the Fursuit Photo since the parade was cancelled for some reason.
And then the highlight of the con, the Charity Poker Tournament. I got set as a dealer at one of the tables to run the event and even though I didn't make it far past the first break, I still had fun in it. I kept my nerves settled this time and the number of mistakes was minimal this time around, unlike Painted Desert where I was a dealer and got frazzled a lot of the times and just kept kicking myself for doing dumb shit and having to apologize for it. I stuck around the entire duration of the event to assist in it, even though it meant that I'd miss the M*cro Meet that occurred over it. Oh well.
Saturday ended with me retreating to my room again, since FurtherConfusion has basically become the furry kink capital with its "Night Market" that consumes the night and I'm not interested in it.
Sunday
Again another day that on paper is full of panels, and nothing that I desire to actually look into.
I actually just idled in my room well through the afternoon on my laptop just waiting until it was time to head out to the 'Taur Meet, and then doing the FC: Unleashed! and Closing Announcements panel.
For the 'Taur Meet, a fair number of furs showed up into the room early before the event was set to start but when the time came, Blazionite was nowhere to be found. So, I took the initiative and stepped up to the front of the room to kick off the panel and start discussions, because that's the great thing about the Meet And Greet format for a panel, no actual presentations need to be made and all that is needed is someone to anchor their name to the panel to make it be on the schedule so someones accountable for it.
The 'Taur Meet was another small group, set in an equally small room which was nice because it made the setting feel appropriate for the amount of furs that were in attendance. Once the ice was broken it sure seemed like the conversations got flowing pretty nicely between all involved. Blazionite I hope you didn't mind the assistance.
But that's about all I can say happened on Sunday.
Monday
Leave the con and go home. Maybe someday there'll be reason to stay for all five days at FC again, but right now I just don't see why this thing stays being five days long. It should be one day of setup on Thursday, three con days, and be done with it. Dragging it out with a smattering of events through Monday just to drag people along to the actual Closing Ceremonies is just boggling to me.
There were a few things about FC that were just silly.
Like requiring damned masks again, but only if you were in the dealers rooms.
Some unspecified "threat" which was revealed mere days before the con was to kick off that required the event to hire an abundance of rent-a-cop security services and set up screening checkpoints for entry into the convention center hall between the Marriott, Hilton, and the outside plaza, and also nixed the Fursuit Parade.
The screening points were fine, except I kept having to get stopped because my metal pencil case tin for my drafting pencils kept setting off the detectors. It wasn't my steel toe work boots, because whenever I'd go through the convention center without my backpack with me nothing would happen.
Honestly there'd be times where I'd have to transition between the end point hotels and would rather just go the fuck outside than traverse the convention center concourse.
Other things that FC did well this time around I'd say were the execution of the theme, and the introduction of a memorial table for furs who are sadly no longer with us.
Aside from the shenanigans that occurred at Opening Ceremony, down in the Lower Level of the convention center was a whole business center set up. Someone brought with and assembled two cubicles which had everything in there from a vintage computer showing a FurCon logo in ASCII text, a hacked printer you could send pictures to print in dot matrix, mail slots stuffed full of ties, Post-It notes with all sorts of scribbles, motivational posters, a working phone setup between the two cubicles, a mock setup of a break room with a microwave and other assorted office products, a giant reconstruction of Clippy the paperclip, even a gigantic stapler and a coffee cup for fursuiters to get trapped under.
On the wall was a poster of the world, but it had a bunch of scribbles and notes on it further fitting the theme announcing the "Further Confusion Annual Company Meeting" as a reason for the conventions existence.
On main stage, there were two banners hung over the stage to make it seem like you were attending a professional televised exposition conference from the "Animal Business Stage" and the other banner had mock meme company logos on it as if companies had paid for platinum, gold, silver and bronze tiers of sponsorships. Overall, yeah, I'd say for theme it was well realized.
The memorial table laid to the side wall in the Lower Level was a new addition, and an unfortunate one. So many friends gone and along with them their creativity.
Dogbomb.
Konaroo.
Dragoneer.
They all attended FurtherConfusion in spirit.
Non-furs just will not understand the deep bond this fandom has amongst itself.
Was it just me or did anyone else imagine the eight hotdog cart vendors lurking outside the convention center plaza just sounded like barking seagulls? Everytime they'd start catcalling "hotdoghotdoghotdawwwwg" the only thing that I could picture in my head was the seagull scene from Finding Nemo.
"Mine!""MinemineMINE!""Mine!""MineMineMINEMINEmineMineMine!"
Seriously, there's eight of them all serving the same thing, none different from the other, all begging in the same catcall manner.
Dates for next year FurtherConfusion have already been announced. No doubt, I'll probably go again despite the con being a decidedly mixed event for me this time. Next year though, I'm planning on hosting a Multifur Meet, for there seems to be some demand for such a thing and if so, then I can easily file that on the schedule.
Next furcon is going to be Golden State Fur Con.
Need to file panel requests to potentially host the poker tournament at that event, amongst anything else that I feel should be on the schedule.
--Mozdoc
FurtherConfusion for two thousand twenty-five is done and over, and again my overall impressions of the con are decidedly mixed. Where are all my fucking friends? :/ Used to be I'd wander the halls and just be able to pick out faces in the crowd that I'd see at the con all the time, and now that's no longer the case. I wander the hallways, I wander the dealers room, I pop in to a panel or two, and I could count the number of furs that are "friends" on both hands at the end of the weekend. That's deeply disappointing.
Friends off hand that I knew and saw:
HeiLeeJoe , 
Seriva , 
Shievina 
Cassidy , 
TrashCamell , 
Blazionite , 
Skyite , 
Onnanoko , 
Zhivago , 
Tabbicus , 
VelliWolf , 
Khandor , 
Isaac , 
JunkKnight , 
Jinx , Mario who doesn't have an FA name, Jim the Jaguartaur who doesn't use FA .Maybe there were others and they just happened to be on staff and elsewhere when I wasn't around, but hell it sure seems like the list of friends is pretty god damn short for a con of this size.
I hate to say it, but touring the dealers room again nothing stands out. There's no artists that I've dealt with that I feel like I could confidently give my strange ideas to, and I really contemplated not going back in a second time yet I'm glad I did as the artist TrashCamell managed to find her way into the Artist Alley side of the room and that let me give out at least one of my sketchbooks for an art piece.
Can someone explain to me why the fucking fandom is so fucking obsessed with disposable trash stickers!? I don't god damn get it. People just dump this shit everywhere and then are surprised when I refuse to play the sticker game and that I'm not interested. I'm genuinely not. I couldn't give a single shit about anyones fucking stickers.
My takeaway from the con was that there was a packed schedule of events, none of which I found curious enough to even look in on except a few things.
Thursday
Picked up badge effortlessly in the registration queue.
Attended the panel demonstration of the Krita digital art program. I must say, its mighty impressive in its capabilities.
Briefly showed at the back of the room for a panel titled "The Banana Chronicles: How Appealing" and I quietly left because I honestly have no idea what that panel was about.
Attended the Opening Ceremony, which set the theme of the convention of "Animal Business" by being a poorly constructed slideshow with graphs and pie charts and then the CEO came on stage but her microphone was muted which made the audience have to yell "YOU'RE ON MUTE!" until it was corrected before everyone in attendance was promoted to Vice President in which the organizational chart of the company meant we all reported to the dog. Its furry logic, it doesn't make any sense. Actually was seated at a table with a fur who was coming to cons for her first time so I could explain this aspect of the fandom that every convention has a theme, and it ultimately means absolutely nothing unless you want it to guide your creativity.
Friday
Maybe its just me but I swear that I recall furcons opening and kicking things off earlier in the mornings with events happening at eight or nine in the morning. Shit getting going at ten or eleven just seems...off. I wake up and end up just lurking in my hotel room because there's absolutely no fucking reason to go to the con if nothings happening. Am I missing something here?
For as packed with events as the day was, nothing interested me.
Briefly popped in to the Twenty-Five Years Of Confusion panel before ducking out because it more or less was prior con staffers who had been with the con from the start detailing war stories rather than a social thing of long time con attendees.
Attended the very well presented "An Intro To Vore" panel mostly because I'm curious about it.
Had to only briefly show at the Protogen and Sergal meets because they started at the same time at opposite hotels.
The Transformation Meet happened afterwards hosted by Cassidy.
And...that was it.
Saturday
Again, the late freaking starts to the day. Nothing opens until ten in the morning.
The con fed the Sponsors and above with Sponsor Brunch.
Eat food in an effort to make it to The Compu-Taur Lab just so I could find out from the panelists why its called that, and come to find out Rogue is a 'taur shapeshifter. It was a panel about retro tech otherwise that had no relationship to 'taurs despite its name.
Then catching a single shot of the Fursuit Photo since the parade was cancelled for some reason.
And then the highlight of the con, the Charity Poker Tournament. I got set as a dealer at one of the tables to run the event and even though I didn't make it far past the first break, I still had fun in it. I kept my nerves settled this time and the number of mistakes was minimal this time around, unlike Painted Desert where I was a dealer and got frazzled a lot of the times and just kept kicking myself for doing dumb shit and having to apologize for it. I stuck around the entire duration of the event to assist in it, even though it meant that I'd miss the M*cro Meet that occurred over it. Oh well.
Saturday ended with me retreating to my room again, since FurtherConfusion has basically become the furry kink capital with its "Night Market" that consumes the night and I'm not interested in it.
Sunday
Again another day that on paper is full of panels, and nothing that I desire to actually look into.
I actually just idled in my room well through the afternoon on my laptop just waiting until it was time to head out to the 'Taur Meet, and then doing the FC: Unleashed! and Closing Announcements panel.
For the 'Taur Meet, a fair number of furs showed up into the room early before the event was set to start but when the time came, Blazionite was nowhere to be found. So, I took the initiative and stepped up to the front of the room to kick off the panel and start discussions, because that's the great thing about the Meet And Greet format for a panel, no actual presentations need to be made and all that is needed is someone to anchor their name to the panel to make it be on the schedule so someones accountable for it.
The 'Taur Meet was another small group, set in an equally small room which was nice because it made the setting feel appropriate for the amount of furs that were in attendance. Once the ice was broken it sure seemed like the conversations got flowing pretty nicely between all involved. Blazionite I hope you didn't mind the assistance.
But that's about all I can say happened on Sunday.
Monday
Leave the con and go home. Maybe someday there'll be reason to stay for all five days at FC again, but right now I just don't see why this thing stays being five days long. It should be one day of setup on Thursday, three con days, and be done with it. Dragging it out with a smattering of events through Monday just to drag people along to the actual Closing Ceremonies is just boggling to me.
There were a few things about FC that were just silly.
Like requiring damned masks again, but only if you were in the dealers rooms.
Some unspecified "threat" which was revealed mere days before the con was to kick off that required the event to hire an abundance of rent-a-cop security services and set up screening checkpoints for entry into the convention center hall between the Marriott, Hilton, and the outside plaza, and also nixed the Fursuit Parade.
The screening points were fine, except I kept having to get stopped because my metal pencil case tin for my drafting pencils kept setting off the detectors. It wasn't my steel toe work boots, because whenever I'd go through the convention center without my backpack with me nothing would happen.
Honestly there'd be times where I'd have to transition between the end point hotels and would rather just go the fuck outside than traverse the convention center concourse.
Other things that FC did well this time around I'd say were the execution of the theme, and the introduction of a memorial table for furs who are sadly no longer with us.
Aside from the shenanigans that occurred at Opening Ceremony, down in the Lower Level of the convention center was a whole business center set up. Someone brought with and assembled two cubicles which had everything in there from a vintage computer showing a FurCon logo in ASCII text, a hacked printer you could send pictures to print in dot matrix, mail slots stuffed full of ties, Post-It notes with all sorts of scribbles, motivational posters, a working phone setup between the two cubicles, a mock setup of a break room with a microwave and other assorted office products, a giant reconstruction of Clippy the paperclip, even a gigantic stapler and a coffee cup for fursuiters to get trapped under.
On the wall was a poster of the world, but it had a bunch of scribbles and notes on it further fitting the theme announcing the "Further Confusion Annual Company Meeting" as a reason for the conventions existence.
On main stage, there were two banners hung over the stage to make it seem like you were attending a professional televised exposition conference from the "Animal Business Stage" and the other banner had mock meme company logos on it as if companies had paid for platinum, gold, silver and bronze tiers of sponsorships. Overall, yeah, I'd say for theme it was well realized.
The memorial table laid to the side wall in the Lower Level was a new addition, and an unfortunate one. So many friends gone and along with them their creativity.
Dogbomb.
Konaroo.
Dragoneer.
They all attended FurtherConfusion in spirit.
Non-furs just will not understand the deep bond this fandom has amongst itself.
Was it just me or did anyone else imagine the eight hotdog cart vendors lurking outside the convention center plaza just sounded like barking seagulls? Everytime they'd start catcalling "hotdoghotdoghotdawwwwg" the only thing that I could picture in my head was the seagull scene from Finding Nemo.
"Mine!""MinemineMINE!""Mine!""MineMineMINEMINEmineMineMine!"
Seriously, there's eight of them all serving the same thing, none different from the other, all begging in the same catcall manner.
Dates for next year FurtherConfusion have already been announced. No doubt, I'll probably go again despite the con being a decidedly mixed event for me this time. Next year though, I'm planning on hosting a Multifur Meet, for there seems to be some demand for such a thing and if so, then I can easily file that on the schedule.
Next furcon is going to be Golden State Fur Con.
Need to file panel requests to potentially host the poker tournament at that event, amongst anything else that I feel should be on the schedule.
--Mozdoc
In the grand scheme of things, furry cons are fundamentally a niche and weird part of human culture. Even though it will always be weird, it's still growing just a little bit every year. Back in the old days, cons were for the hardcore OG furries that weren't afraid to meet others in person who shared interests in anthropomorphic animals. It used to be a tight knit community. Everyone knew everyone, like living in a small town. But over the last decade or so, being a furry has been more accessible than ever before, thus allowing more people to show up to cons to meet the people they befriend online. Which is why the cons are trying to cater to every type of furry; from the most normie to the most kinky. When things get popular, you have to broaden your scope to accommodate everyone's needs. Which means some people are gonna be disappointed. It always happens.
Furry conventions, in your eyes, are not what they used to be. But that's okay. Nothing stays the same. Fur cons are gonna evolve, grow, expand to include a lot more things for a lot more people. And when fur cons get big, it's easy to feel smaller in the crowds and more alone. It feels like everyone else is having a better time than you, roaming around with their cliques in fursuit having the time of their lives. However, there are a considerable amount of people who don't have any friends at these cons whom, like me, wander around the floor without anything to do besides watch everyone else have fun. Which is depressing. I just know they are hoping to get lucky and find someone who will notice them and make a friend, but sadly, that doesn't happen often. That's not to say fur cons are not fun in general. They can be... IF you already have a group of friends. Those fursuiters deserve to be happy and have fun with their pals.
As for FC25 as a whole, I think it was a good con. I'm aware that some people have beef with other people, particularly staff and executives, but that shouldn't ruin the experience for everyone else. It's none of my business. I tend to ignore all the drama and just do my own thing. I enjoyed the majority of my time meeting a few Discord friends in person, including you Mozdoc, and just going with the flow. I didn't hate a single thing about the con, EXCEPT for the final hours of Sunday night when I discovered someone stole my E-scooter battery. I had a feeling something like that could happen because I parked it literally in the open on a public bike rack on the side walk just yards away from the convention courtyard. As much as I knew it wasn't safe, I did it anyways. However, I didn't have much choice since there was nowhere else to lock it up. Security wouldn't have let me bring it inside. I haven't had any problems up until that point. Well... I won't happen until it doesn't. I'm still upset about it. Sorry for the unrelated rant.
It was nice seeing you again, Moz. I hope to see you again. We really need a Multifur Meetup at next year's con.