I just walked past a fox in a hotel's corridor.

To be clear, this isn't some quick-fiction Tolkien-esque fantasy, where there are elves and beastkin around every corner. And neither is this a tale of some run-down motel that can't keep out the city's scavengers - it's actually a fairly fancy and well-to-do place.

No, I'm just talking about a fox in a hotel corridor - or, to be more specific, someone dressed in a detailed, full-bodied fox costume.

Well anyway. I didn't really pay much attention to them. I'll be honest, it just wasn't really all that shocking. After all, in that same corridor, I'd walked past a wolf, a zebra, and two cute bird-dragons called 'avali', and the only one I really looked at for any amount of time was a fluffy lizard-like creature, who had a glowing LED-screen snout giving an RGB grin to its friends. My mind was simultaneously elsewhere - after all, I'd just come from a bar where a guy in ears, a crop top, and a mini-skirt was spinning some chill beats to a sea of chattering rainbow-clad partiers. And I was also thinking ahead to a panel in an hour, where people who enjoyed the idea of eating each other would meet to chat (I would not end up going to it, since it overfilled its room).

Honestly, to me, the most surprising thing in the corridor was someone wearing a suave black beret which really matched their jacket. I made sure to tell them. I got a beaming smile in response.

This is what it's like at a furry convention.

I don't know what you think of when I say that term. I don't know if you're a furry veteran, and this all sounds familiar and nostalgia-inducing. I don't know if you're a young furry or new to the fandom, and it sounds inconceivable that I'd walk past a fursuiter and barely be able to recall the species. You may even not be in the fandom at all, and perhaps so separated from the culture that you're still waiting for me to explain that whole enjoying-eating-each-other thing.

You might have heard stories of raucous sex-parties. Maybe that old CSI episode with a pile of writhing horny furries flickers through your mind. Maybe such sordid nights are repulsive to you. Maybe you can't stop wondering. Maybe you sit in your room at night, picturing the fantasy of being tied up in a hotel room in some foreign country. Maybe you've heard of the drama, of pizzas and latex and projectors on hotel buildings and-

...Let me tell you what it feels like, this furry con, at a nice lakeside hotel just outside a city in the middle of England. Let me tell you of the pride flags that colour the walls and booths and flow as capes. Let me tell you how noisy it is in the bars, Vengaboys playing over the speakers, where every table has a gaggle of friends talking about who-knows-what, or fiddling around card games, or browsing Bluesky with their fursuit head laying on the table and their hair matted against their neck. Let me tell you of the muffled laughter through the walls of the next panel room where artists are drawing fursuiters using Mario Paint (SNES, 1992). Let me tell you of getting a ping on your phone, because the official convention announcement channel just sent four thousand attendees a joke about badgers.

Let me tell you about sitting down at a table you've squeezed into near the bar, between a friend who's a robot and a friend who's two people, and plonking down a pitcher of furry-themed cocktail in front of a killer trans woman that you met at a gameshow about porn, and immediately getting a full-bodied hug from their girlfriend that you've never met before in your life.

Let me tell you about how different - how loving - how accepting - how eclectic and wild and colourful it is, that a fox in a hotel corridor is something you barely notice.

Welcome to a furry convention.

I hope to see you there <3