“You’re more DL.”

“That’s not very little.”

“You aren’t really an AB.”

These are the things I keep hearing directed toward me and my little side. I hate it, but I get it too. I don’t blame anyone for saying these things. No one means to be hurtful when they say this stuff. I joke along about it, but I can’t stop it from getting under my skin.

The thing is, I think it gets to me because it’s so true. I really don’t give off a little vibe the majority of the time. I think people perceive me as reserved, standoffish, and mature – which, in and of itself, isn’t necessarily a bad thing. But I think it does create a perception issue where others don’t really see me with that little side I know I have.

It hasn’t always been like this either. I mean, I’ve always been told I act very maturely, but my ageplay side was once more a part of me than it is today. The desire is still as strong as it always has been, but for the first time in my life, I feel like I’m often in danger of losing my little side. And I don’t want that to happen.

Maybe “losing my little side” isn’t the best way to describe it. I don’t know if that side of me will truly ever just be gone, but I think it could get sort of stuck inside of my brain somewhere, trapped under layers and layers of hang-ups, sadness, and other general bullshit. This inner child I have is pure happiness, and truth be told, I don’t think I’m all that happy anymore in my stressful everyday life.

This is where furry starts to enter the picture.

Well, backing up a bit, I’ve slowly gained more and more exposure to the furry community over the past 3 or so years of living in the Seattle area. When I got here, I was a skinny, excited, bright-eyed, kinky AB/DL with very little knowledge of the furry fandom. I knew of babyfurs through various AB/DL sites over the years, but I didn’t know any furries personally. But very quickly, that started to change as I became involved with the Seattle gay/kink scene.

Once I met my current boyfriend about a year later, I really started to strike up friendships with a lot more furs, as that was his primary social group. As we dated, his close friends also became my close friends, and I jokingly started to refer to myself as being “furry-adjacent” on Twitter.

But it wasn’t until exactly a year ago that I started to look more closely at the furry fandom, largely due to the urging of friends. They encouraged me to explore it more, so in my spare time, privately, I set up an FA account and started to really search for artwork that I enjoyed, which not surprisingly, was pretty much all babyfur art.

It was also a year ago where the idea for “Puddles” really came about. I was at a party with my boyfriend and a bunch of friends, and at one point, one of my very good friends noticed a puddle on the floor, right in the middle of the few of us that were talking at the moment. When he said something about it, I jokingly said that it wasn’t me that caused it (they all knew about my diaper wearing habits). That’s when they said that should be my furry name – Puddles.

And with a bit of reinforcement from these same friends, the name Puddles kind of stuck. They kept calling me it, with a wink and mischievous grin, and even made a point to obviously cross out my name on their Christmas present to me, and replace it with Puddles.

That resonated with me, so shortly afterward I made a Twitter profile for Puddles as a sort of Afterdark/ageplay/babyfur account for myself. I wasn’t sure if I would really use it much, but I was enjoying it as a sort of inside joke among my friends.

But now, a year later, I get it. I understand what furry is to me. I understand who Puddles is.

Puddles isn’t a fix to my hang-ups about my ageplay side. Puddles isn’t a quick shortcut to happiness. But what Puddles is, is a better representation of a part of me that doesn’t actually manifest itself physically much of the time. Puddles is the desires that I genuinely have, but don’t know how to reconcile yet, so he exists through fantasies, art, and stories.

Puddles is the submissive, happy, silly, horny little diaper-wearing creature that’s inside of me somewhere. Puddles is everything that genuinely makes me happy, much of which I keep to myself most of the time.

Puddles is the part of me that deep down, really wants to cuddle, but my grown up side is too shy to let that happen. Puddles is the part of me that doesn’t worry about if others think I’m annoying every time I talk or make a joke. Puddles is the part of me that doesn’t care if my diaper is showing or is too thick and noticeable. Puddles is the part of me that genuinely wants to be flirty and sexually adventurous, but gets shut down by the much louder voice in my head that says “but you’re not attractive, and you’re REALLY lousy in bed.” Puddles doesn’t care about all the weight gain in recent years and doesn’t get disgusted every time he looks in a mirror.

I don’t know what age puddles is, but I know he doesn’t really act his age in a lot of ways. He really shouldn’t still be in diapers at his age, but if he’s not, it won’t be long before Puddles earns his name once again. The grownups around him always have to keep reminding him of this too.

Puddles has outgrown a lot of baby stuff, though he does still have an oral fixation, which is why he usually still has a pacifier close by. But when it comes time to enjoy himself, he likes things that he knows older boys like – horror movies, metal, superheroes, Nintendo, etc. He’d much rather hang with the big kids, even if he’s just not quite old enough. And he always wants to be on any Daddy/grownup’s good side, all the time.

So with all that said, I’m finding a new importance for my furry/cub side every day. When I don’t get a lot of time away from work, and need to spend that little bit of free time going to the gym, worrying about eating right, stressing over bills, etc, daydreaming about Puddles allows me to get through my day. When I’m working long hours at home and I’m feeling my absolute loneliest and unsexy, I can look at some babyfur art that hits my buttons and lets me imagine myself in the experience. It’s certainly not a replacement for having those sorts of experiences in real life, but they provoke my imagination in an adult life that increasingly doesn’t allow for that.

And until I find a way to genuinely bring out my little/cub side in everyday life once again, I’ll keep exploring what kind of cub Puddles is, whether that be through stories or artwork.

As Blondie once said,

“Dreaming
Dreaming is free.”