It feels weird waking up at home after spending four nights in the desert.
Back in June 2020 — wait, I can skip that part.
Back in October 2023, I spent a week under the Nevada sun, including one evening trip out to the middle of nowhere to hang out around a campfire with a bunch of other critters and howl at the moon together. Socially, it was an extension of our weekly VRChat hangouts; I’d already come to know most everybody’s voices and mannerisms from the way they presented themselves in that other space, and the physical experience was almost one-to-one.
Furality Umbra, in turn, was an extension of that week. Same critters, same mannerisms. Same arid environment under a different sky.
I caught myself a few times this weekend contrasting Furality with BLFC by calling the latter “a real convention,” then having to backtrack and correct myself with “a physical convention.” Because it is a real convention. I ate garbage for breakfast and made up for it at dinner. I went to panels, browsed the Dealer’s Den, and danced until my legs gave out. I met up with friends and forged new friendships out of this one weird thing we all have in common.
The experiences that we shared under the Solaran suns — meetups in the lobby, chatting with dealers and staffers, the fireworks and the eclipse, bonfires of trust, flash-floods of pain — did really happen.
We were all there.