My Anthro Northwest 2019 Guest of Honor Experience with

Описание: The first of my Anthro Northwest 2019 feature videos looks at what has truly become a memorable life event and a dream come true for me: Being a Guest of Honor of this convention together with my friend Kijani Lion.

The friendship between me and Seattle native Kijani began many years ago, when I had found out about the Furry fandom upon watching Kijani’s “Fursuiting For The Kids” video series upon his YouTube channel. From that moment onwards, I knew that performing an animal mascot costume as a hobby, simply to spread joy and smiles to others is what I wanted to do as well. For many years, I dreamed nothing more that, someday, one of the critters performing next to my idol and role model Kijani, would be me. For a long time, Seattle and my dream seemed to be too far away for me. But with my health improving things eventually started to fall into place. From exchanging our first messages and our first meeting back in 2016, Kijani and I teamed up on many occasions to deliver hugs and make people smile at conventions, public fursuiting and charity events by performing our Lion characters. Creating many magical memories together, I discovered that Kijani is kind of like a separated-at-birth brother to me, as we share so many common interests. This has ultimately lead to a strong friendship between us and thus, it was truly a special, very surprising honor that both of us got chosen to be the guests of honor for Anthro Northwest 2019, which was held from November 21-24 at the beautiful Hyatt Regency hotel in Downtown Seattle, WA. We were recognized and appreciated for what we do in this community, the positivity we spread through our YouTube channels, the service for the people and the fandom around us. This was highly rewarding for me and something I’d never even dreamed or thought about it would ever happen.

If you were to ask me about what it takes to get that far and be elected as a GoH, I think my lion buddy Kijani said it best: Don’t try to become a Guest of Honor, because then you’re doing it for the wrong reasons. Take a look at me: I do not even generate huge views, Likes or follower numbers on my social media, but what I do is - most importantly - showing passion at what I do, enjoy life to the fullest, put a lot of work into my hobbies and share with the world what I do.

Let’s relive this fantastic, once-in-a-lifetime convention experience that we both had by starting with the opening ceremony, taking place in the main ballroom of the Hyatt Regency as Andy, our convention mascot and Anthro Northwest Founder & CEO Gabriel Felix start the convention by introducing us to the attendees. Then, keep your tissues ready for a tears-inducing compilation of our very best memories as Kijani and I roamed around the convention space and met up with new and old friends, making everyone smile who had the chance to meet us. I’ve set this part to the tune of “Welcome” from Disney’s animated classic “Brother Bear”, whose lyrics fit so well to what being together with Kijani means to me.

For those of you needing an example as to why exactly we got to be honored for being the Guests of Honor, I have included the perhaps most emotional memory we’ve been able to create that weekend, as we’ve met Astro, a 15 years old fursuiter and special needs girl, bravely battling Type 1 Neurofibromatosis. When asked about taking part in a private meet & greet just for her, I didn’t have to think about it twice, given the fact I’m special needs myself. Fursuiting is my way to give back to those who really need our character performance magic the most and I think this short moment shows that perfectly. Closing off this video are the speeches both I and Kijani have given at the Thanksgiving Feast on Saturday of the convention in the main ballroom, in front of a packed house of a about 500 guests. I had to come out of my comfort zone quite a bit for this, speaking in front of people, not to mention in something other than my native language, but I’m glad I did and it helped my cause further to inspire people to bring out the very best in themselves.

I can’t find any words to thank Kijani for everything that he has done to me and how much it means to have this person in my life as one of my closest friends, even though we live thousands of miles away. I am certain that we’ll experience and create many, many more adventures and magical memories together in the future as we continue to do what we love. From the the bottom of my Lion heart, thank you, Kijani! This video is for you!

Special thanks to Univaded Fox for being my personal videographer for this con and to Kijani Lion and ChaosReign for providing additional photos and footage. Edited & uploaded by Kitwana Lion

Official ANW 2019 Guest of Honor artwork by Paper Wings

November 21-24, 2019 - Seattle, WA.

Lions are social animals!

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