After a week of attacks from the right-wing press, there was a sense of trepidation going into Scotiacon, but the convention itself was a huge success.

The attacks began the previous Sunday through a rather benign, albeit inaccurate, article in a Scottish tabloid newspaper. Things snowballed from there, with the British press getting increasingly extreme as the week wore on. It was fascinating to watch their rising hysteria as the claims became increasingly wild, although it was also disheartening when it was our community being targeted.

Towards the end, there were genuine fears of vigilantism, such was the scale of their lies. This is a particular problem for me, who dresses in feminine clothing despite my male frame. As my trans friends pointed out, this is the trans experience, and it was terrifying. I was heartened by a few friends offering to walk with me from my hotel to the main. I didn’t need this in the end, but I was still wary of expressing myself out and about. Of course, a culture of fear and supression is exactly what these titles want. They hate difference and we must fight back against it.

Amethyst Mare’s ‘Writing Furry Erotica’ panel was one of the events frequently cited, with one newspaper describing it as focusing on “graphic fantasy stories involving animals”. Animals here means furries, and the conflation of the two was quite deliberate.

The word ‘extreme’ was frequently used too. This was accompanied by condemnation of other innocuous things including the Rubberfurs event and those interested in inflatable pool toys. It seemed to me that anything that wasn’t hetero-normative was under fire.

Emboldened by the rise of the far-right in the United States, it is clear that our community is in the firing line. I fear more attacks are likely as this goes hand-in-hand with the erasure of the LGBTQ+ community there. These people are emboldened and have no scruples. The ‘journalism’ is mis-informed and shoddy, but when have facts ever stood in the way of a good story? It’s clear any sources they cite have an agenda, if they cite any sources at all, with most of their reporting mere opinion or conjecture. ‘Concerns have been raised… by campaigners’ is one such example – what concerns, by whom, and are they valid? These are basic questions that any decent journalist should ask. It is clear tabloid journalists don’t want to ask them.

All I can hope is that the majority of people see through it as the effluent it so clearly is. The problem is that we know what furry is, but most people don’t, so myths are easy to ferment. Such content also produces clicks, which is exactly what they want, while minorities often struggle to fight back. At least the BBC did a reasonable job of objectively reporting on the con, both on the website and as part of Monday evening’s news bulletin.

Amethyst felt compelled to defend her panel on Bluesky following the reports, refuting the claims that were made. In the end, the event passed without incident and was well-attended. It was in the tiny Orkney room – a space that wasn’t really well-suited to any panels at a con with nearly 1,700 attendees – but it was good to witness its popularity, even if I did have to stand at the back for the duration. I believe the con even had to turn furs away as the attendance breached capacity. The reports had to be addressed, but they were done so with weary humour, while the general writing advice given was very useful.

Amethyst’s second panel on the Sunday focusing on general writing ended up being more of a discussion group with the audience, which worked quite well (although the air conditioner in the room was on and it was exceptionally cold). What’s interesting is how these panels differ from convention to convention, meaning there is always something new to learn. I am looking forward to helping out at some panels at cons later in the year.

I had hoped to pick up a few books from The Book Badgers in the Dealers’ Den on Monday, but the queue was so long as to be prohibitive. I was particularly after Rob MacWolf’s ‘You Look Lost, Pup’ but I am sure I can pick it up another time.

There were many highlights of the con, but one of the main ones was sitting down with Huskyteer to have a proper chat. We hadn’t really done this before and so we managed to squeeze a couple of hours in after Amethyst’s second writing panel. We had to do this over dinner with some of my other friends, but it was an enjoyable evening where we talked about a range of things, including our future writing plans.

I really enjoyed Scotiacon and I’ll be writing a full report of the event on my Dreamwidth in due course. It’s a shame that the staff had to deal with the hostility of the press before the event and it’s particularly sad that our writing community was one of the targets. Hopefully, things will calm down going forward, but it’s a salutary lesson for other cons around the world.

Despite this, it’s important to focus on the positives and the wonderful community we have. As always, I feel so energised after a con and I look forward to pursuing my current writing projects once I return to Germany at the weekend.

Finally, there’s no NFC for me next week, but if you go, check out Televassi’s panels. I’m sure they’ll be very informative.