I don't want this to end, but it really does have to at some point. Thousands of furries, a fraction of which I knew beforehand, chose to come together and have a lot of fun. I sure did, meeting and greeting people that I wanted to see in person for a while. Of the ones that I really did enjoy seeing again and again, I'd say they were  Mallikeet,  Takumori, chromamancer,  Darius-Kei,  Goolashe,  2chaotic,  Cyrin,  Bloodhydra,  DragoMike  saxxonpike, and so many others that I'm probably not remembering right away. And thank you a whole bunch for providing the room,  Stormkern.

I picked up several things, namely badges from  jacfox and  suk0tto, both of which are nice for my collection, as well as the omnibus edition of Ursula Vernon's Digger. Funnily enough, the publisher of that was at MFF, and I'm contacting that to gather interest in my own writing hobbies.

However, and this is something I didn't realize at first, but this con was damn expensive even just to grab food. First time foolishness, but if I want to go again I'd at least want to make my food budget $60-$140 because the prices of food around the con are jacked up. Ideally, every night I'd be having the $8 single serving deep dish pizza and be done with it, but I do want to go out too, and that takes a toll on food prices. Breakfasts have been pricey too, the buffet is at least $21, and other options with a drink are not that much left than that. Should have made tea in the room to be honest, but still. I was usually paying $15-20 a meal. Thank god for protein bars. I feel like a $300-500 budget is more in line with the convention as a whole.

To boot, I really feel like I should take  IcyDraggyVisy with me for following furry conventions. I do want him to be there with me, but because he currently doesn't have a job, he relies on family support. At worst, I could end up having to budget for $600-1000 base for the con alone, and that's assuming there are two others that can share the price of the hotel stay with the two of us. That amount of burden on myself is plain unhealthy and restrictive, and it's something I'd rather contribute to a long-term investment (like a suit or a computer upgrade).

Frankly. I really want to go to MFF again, but to be honest I'd have to make the choice of going completely by myself (not something that I really want to do), have others contribute to our overall cost (not something I think would happen), or pay out the nose so that I can have my partner with me (that just feels wrong).

So, in place of this, we're aiming our sights towards more low-key and local conventions. Fursquared is definitely possible for me thanks to the easy access, but given that I haven't really been preparing for it, doing it on short notice for Visy is something I'm not sure will happen, most likely his presence there rests on if he can stay within my house (doubtful, haven't physically met yet). It doesn't help that, due to my current college schedule, I may have to miss a class or otherwise go to the first day real late. We'll have to see to be honest, through I'm thinking it's just going to be a me-thing.

Another convention that I'm thinking of is IndyFurCon. Not only is that closer to my partner, but it is in August of next year, well ahead and gives me plenty of time to save up. I also got word of the prices beforehand of it, and it looks like that the two of us will really only need about $500 total between both of us to fund it, perhaps even less than that. I'm not sure who else would be there that's not otherwise from the Midwest area, but it looks damn promising. Perfect first place to meet up too.

MFF did give a very positive thing to me though, and that's a staged plan to "suit" as my character, long term and short term. I'm heavily considering commissioning a custom kigu from  Lemonbrat of my dragon self so that I can be Curus in a cute and relatively affordable way. From then on, I'm thinking I'll hit up  Takumori and start work on saving up for a elaborate and somewhat "out there" Curus fursuit - one that I want to have with a moveable jaw and OLED eyes as I've been particularly enamored with them from  Chromamancer's own head.. As well, I might end up getting a rubber suit from that guy, either fully inflatable or perhaps rubbery in some other fashion. Admittenly, that's really up in the air, as part of me thinks we'd be both happier with a dedicated fursuit over a fetishy rubber thing, but only time will tell.

Even if it seems fiscally unlikely right now, I would love to go to MFF again, and I would love to bring my mate. This time around, I want to organize a room of our own, and better fiscally manage myself and others. But I won't be that unhappy if I end up having to skip next year, I'm just hoping for the next year afterward.

I'll miss the diverse bunch of people that I've just met in person, to be left again with screens between us. If we can make this happen again and again, then I'm all for it, and I hope each time afterwards is better than the last.

I'll miss all of you here, for who knows how long...

Edit: Ok, thought about it a bit more. I'm thinking that I'll throw this in to my regular rotation of conventions. Visy is OK with not coming along for now, I feel this is too much fun to completly skip.

In 2017, I'll plan on going to MFF, Fursquared, Gamehole, and Indyfurcon (with Visy). Wish you all an happy post con-time. Going to throw myself right back at college again.