First fursuit walk!

Oh. My. Goodness.

For context, I have been in the furry fandom for over a year and a half at this point, and over time I've slowly started getting more involved with the local furry community via Telegram. Additionally, I did some research on YouTube, subscribing to people from the local community and such to try and get an insight as to what the situation is, if that makes any sense.

While going through a bit of a social rough patch in my life a couple months back, I additionally signed up to BARQ! on my phone to get a rough idea of how many furries there even are in real life in my city - I was shocked at the result. Yes, I live in a larger city, but count nearing three figures? Wowzers. Truthfully, I was a bit of an idiot for going on that platform though, as minors shouldn't be on there. It didn't take long for me to get bored of it anyways, given that I was too shy to really talk to anyone (which looking back, I'm glad of). It did give me a solid insight of who I was dealing with, i.e. fursuits to look out for.

So, a couple weeks back, I see an announcement for a fursuit walk coming up in my city, so I decide to go. I ask some question regarding whether it's ok for a minor to show up there and whether I should be at all worried about going in semi-related chats, and recieved only reassurance, so I figured it'd be fine. I have no idea how I worked up the courage to go; in fact, I think I just went before I allowed myself to ever consider not going...

It is important to note that I was going on my own. I'm not friends with anybody else that is even remotely as interested as I am in the fandom. In theory, this is dangerous. You should only meet new people, especially people you've met online but don't know IRL, if you're accompanied by a friend, at least when you're a minor and you know the people you're meeting could very well be older.

Anyways, as I'm sitting in the tram, commuting to the botanical-garden-type-thing where the walk will be (which for the record was on the opposite side of the city; it was a four-hour round trip), I start getting doubts about going at all. What didn't help was that the streets were desolate due to today being a public holiday, and that the area I was travelling in was getting sketchier by the minute. By the time I exited the tram car, I was surrounded by gray, undecorated, concrete Plattenbauten. I'm not used to the post-soviet-bloc architecture, so it really put me off. I start strolling off towards the meeting point, getting lost along the way and almost showing up late. And yes, I know I'm going off on a tangeant. It was all just very nerve-racking.

Since I couldn't find the correct entrance, I asked in the group chat, where someone was kind enough to send me a pin on the gps, which surprisingly led me to a parking lot. I did find the gate though, and I was the last person to arrive before it was closed; anyone showing up later would need to enter through the main entrance and pay an admission fee. This did let me have a brief chat with the organizer though, and he seemed to be a very friendly guy. Already, my fear that I'd be met with a shameless display of decadence vanished. Overall, meeting furries irl has definitely made my view of the fandom more positive; I've been getting very caught up in the myth that a majorities of furries are degenerate and out to get you recently, so I'm glad to have that invalidated.

Looking around, I initially thought that I was the youngest person there, but overtime I started seeing more people that at least looked like they were around my age. After standing around like an NPC for a couple minutes, I struck up a conversation with what appeared to be a pretty chill guy (who I will be referring to as "Nordic"). I told him that it was my first walk, and that I didn't really know anybody here. He praised me for my courage, admitting he wouldn't have done the same in my situation. Luckly, he did not have a suit - otherwise he would've probably spent more time interacting with other suiters. We would talk more often throughout the walk, so I'm glad to have met somebody.

I did feel a little intimidated by some of the suits though. Some were very obviously very expensive, others hand made. I didn't really talk much with suiters, especially those with fullsuits or full outfits matching their partials. There were some dino mask suits present though, they were more approachable.

Faces that I'd seen online were present, it was almost too much to take in... I also got a strange sense of deja-vu when it came to some non-suiters at the event, though I can't really place why it seems like I've seen these people before.

One thing that surprised me was that it was more of a... stand around for an hour, walk for a bit, stand around in another pretty location for an hour, walk for a bit... rather than a march. I guess I should've expected that, but it goes to show how clueless I was going in.

Funnily enough, there was an anime cosplay group happening in the same park, and both groups interacted a bit. I didn't even know there was such a community just doing meetups similarly to the local furry community; I guess you learn something new every day. I didn't interact with them though, ...I was shy throughout the whole event.

Generally everybody was friendly though. There was lots of people acting silly, though of course still somewhat civilized (luckly!). There were self-aware jokes being thrown around like "stop poodling you're ruining the magic whatever whatever lol", tho it was always meant sarcastically. I'm glad people weren't being sarcastic or policing each other about looks or otherwise. In fact, I think people wearing just a partial and then some cool clothes such as a matching hoodie and pants looked much better than a fullsuit.

One thing which was funny though was other people's reactions when they saw the fursuit walk. It was mostly women with children and grandmas in the park, so there was lots of interaction with bystanders. Their reactions were priceless.

One thing that put me off a little was the amount of photos being taken not only by the event's photographs, but also bystanders. I don't go around telling people I'm a furry, quite the opposite actually. I hide it from people, because I know of all the negative stigma surrounding the fandom. There's nothing I fear more than having people I know figuring this out. I'm fortunate enough that the event was held in an area where nobody that I know lives, but the amount of pictures could still get me busted. After all, I was more or less following around Nordic throughout the walk, who was himself following the friend that had accompanied him to the walk. This friend of his liked to be all the way at the front, so I was also lingering towards the front of the group of maybe, what, over 50 furries?

When the walk ended, I was probably one of the first people to leave; frankly, the event had overwhelmed me a bit. I'm not introverted - this is best proven by the fact I even showed up there in the first place - but I had had enough. After returning to the changing booth, I said my goodbyes to Nordic after exchanging Telegrams and left.

My head hurt a bit after the event. I don't know if it was because of the meal I skipped to be at the event, or tiredness, or just fatigue from meeting so many new people. I'm not used to social gatherings like this. It took me a while to rechange my batteries afterwards, now I'm writing this blog after midnight, rofl.

All in all? Totally worth it.
Would I do it again? I... don't know.

I think fursuits make socializing infinitely easier at these kinds of events. I really want one now. I guess I should go get myself a dino mask.

(Edit: styled blog and added a gif)