binturong blog

Furality was really good :D

I went to Furality Somna the other weekend, and had a pretty great time. (That's a large virtual furry convention held in VRChat, more details at this link.)

According to my emails, I've been using VRChat since 2020, but I only started going to Furality in 2022. I remember hearing about Luma, a magical forest setting full of shiny things, which made me sit up and think: Oh! That is pretty much where Nall comes from. Seemed like fun. So I first went to Aqua, and I've been going every year.

At Furality

Furality is held as a series of themed VRChat worlds, and each world has multiple instances. The largest instances hold up to 120 furs, though most typically cap at between 15 and 60. There's a Lobby for casual meetups, live events are streamed between the Events instances, and meetups are in dedicated Meetup instances. There's a Dealer's Den world, where creators set up virtual stalls with examples of their work; there's a nightclub world (Club F.Y.N.N), with recorded music sets, and later on there's a world for virtual fireworks.

I like it. There's a web portal to tie everything together, and so it's easy to see where friends are. It doesn't feel like a con with over 26000 attendees, but then because of instances I'm only ever seeing a few dozen furs at once. Plus, the worlds are sublime. So pretty, so immersive.

At Furality, meetups are held around the clock, while live events this year were scheduled between 1500 and 0700 UTC. There's been times I can either go to a thing or I can sleep, and sleep often wins. :3 On the other hand, I do tend to be in VR late at night or early in the morning, so it can work out.

There's some things I do regularly at Furality: hang out with friends, try to climb up to the highest point of the worlds, wander around the dealers' den trying on public avatars. This time I also saw the art show, made it to some events and meets, and I dressed my longboi avatar for the theme too; I don't generally get around to that.

My scarf has become structural somehow. I remove it and my avatar stops working.
"Cursed scarf that you're trapped in, controlling your body? That's very you."

Also feels like I'm more chatty than usual in VR. I wondered about this on fedi; is it less mental load, more relaxing, than going to a convention in person? Maybe it's that I'm a creature and it's easier to socialise while being a creature? Whatever it is, it seems to work.

Somna

Furality Somna had the cosy theme of being a soft, imaginary dream world. Mmm. Floating chessboards, towers of books, dancing among the clouds. I'm eepy a lot, so an eepy con felt great. Zzz. Good times.

Plus, there were cute singing critters! Last year Umbra had robot foxes, this year Somna had the Bichis, and both times I was able to find avatars of each to wear. It's hard to resist being a good creature, so I didn't. 🎵~

Also, during Somna's extra day (added because VRChat went down for a night), I noticed a Somna Critter Meet on the schedule which I don't remember being there before; either way, that was a great idea. Bichis everywhere. Too chaotic for me to stay long, but very silly. Well done. :D

I saw the Community Showcase at Furality for the first time this year, which was a mix of submitted videos: comedy, horror, surreal, music video, and so on. Between that, exploring Somna's worlds, time in VR during the year: furry VR is full of creativity, and it's so great to be around. Does make me wonder if I might find time and motivation to do something creative in VR? Because of course what I need is more possible projects. Sob. We'll see.

Next year

But yes, Somna was lovely! I'm looking forward to their plans for 2026, and also to see if I come up with any creative ideas to do. I did find myself feeling gently motion sick for a few days after Furality this year, so perhaps next time should have a few more breaks and a bit more hydration as well. <3

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