elfs | Friday: Conifur

Omaha, Kouryou-chan and I all wandered down to Conifur, the local annual furry convention, paid our registration fees, and wandered in. As usual, programming at a Furry Con was light, lighter than usual, although this time there were a few decent writing panels. I attended a few with Kagemushi-san and another writer whose name I can't recall, and I have to admit that I felt like I was slumming. Many of the people there are pure furry smut writers who wouldn't know a theme if it bit them. I suppose that's just as true for the writers of alt.sex.stories, et. al., but still there's something desperate about furry fiction that's never quite satisfying. I suppose that's true of my stuff. If you use furries as analogies for other things-- racism, infertility, alienation-- it seems to work. But if you try and overdo the animal stuff it comes across as, well, disjointed somehow.

Anyway, the art room was okay. There were two or three artists who were doing interesting things, like Turbine Divinity, whose stuff I really enjoyed. I also picked up a CD of Ken Sample stuff, mostly unfinished works from his sketchbook, because I like his style and want to see how he does it. FallenPegasus showed up later and we went out to dinner, about ten of us.

There were two people walking through wearing Cats costumes. Gods, those were gorgeous. The girl had a gorgeous ass, but the guy... *sigh*. I really should rein myself in more. Well, maybe not. They were both beautiful under all those clothes, and those costumes were precious beyond words.

Furry Fandom remains a strange attractor for, well, the strange and sometimes attractive. There were a number of transsexuals, and the usual overload of overweight goths with bad teeth. There were also a ton of fursuits there, mostly the sports-mascot flavor, which delighted Kouryou-chan.

Eventually, Heather Alexander came around and played and sold her CD and Kouryou-chan really enjoyed that. Heather was embarassed to learn that Kouryou-chan is yet another "when I'm asked to bring my favorite song to school, it'll be Cambreadth March!" kid. By then, it was late and time for bed.