When I first attended a furry meet-up, I was insistent I was there as an observer. I always imagined the furry culture one that I could identify with, and the members people that would share my interests and personality, I wanted to make sure of this before I became emotionally invested... I remember being adamant to a fellow named scythe that I wasn’t a furry, only to have him bring up my perthfurs profile with 'pygmy dragon' listed as a species. That was a bit of a mistake on my part; a cutsey name for a species that I had obviously put a little effort into thinking up. To be honest the choice was simply logical to me, less a reflection of how I felt my exterior should look, but rather an avatar that would contain my love of dragons, being the centre of attention and the colour purple. It felt necessary to at least make an effort to fursonify myself (eugh, I cant believe I just used that word) if I was going to associate with furries. Its still odd to me how hypercute my avatar turned out to be, as I really cant stand chibi or the adolescent squeeing I often hear in response to most hypercute objects. A good friend pointed out to me (jokingly) that a few of my commissions translated to him as me being a babyfur. Rather than laugh and call him a prick, it honestly made me think.

What do I think of the babyfur community? Well heck, from what ive seen they’re a bunch of adolescence fetishists whos online behaviour matches that of a child whos age corresponds to that of their avatar. However dramatic and immature the patrons of the community are, it is in no way the reflection of the ideology behind the subculture. What is that ideology? Its hard to say really. If the ideology behind babyfur is one that reflects the primal urge everyone has to be mothered, looked after and mollycoddled, or one that reflects ones urge to go back to a time where everything was done for them, interwoven with the love of animals, the love of being adored and the human desire to show physical affection for one another outside of sexual activity, I could see it as something I could totally get into. However, the multitude of that particular community don’t reinforce these ideologies, they reinforce the desire to wear diapers and whinge. I can totally see why they’re looked down upon.

Why did Sidriel turn out so chibified and cutsey? I may have subconsciously used these ideologies as external stimuli, who knows? Does the characters hypercuteness reflect my desire to be liked? Probably. While I don’t go out of my way to befriend everyone I come into contact with, there is just something about being DISliked that really gets to me, to the point where I cant really rest at all until I know why or have successfully remedied the problem. The character probably also reflects my desire to be small. For those of you who don’t know me I am 6 foot 4, weigh 75 kg and am ridiculously good looking. I also have tall man's Napoleon complex, whereby I will look upon anyone I meet who is taller than me with hatred as they stand there actively and literally belittling me, being tall is my thing you lanky fucker. But yeah, ive always had the hidden desire to be small. While being smaller in real life confers no benefit whatsoever, besides much fewer head injuries, having a small persona on the internet was a given; I play smaller characters wherever I can in games (apart from WoW of course, gnomes and go suck a bag of dicks), I guess its a human trait to want what we cant have. I'm rediculously good looking, sure, but I'm not 'adorable' in any sense of the word. Rabbits are adorable. Purple dragons are adorable.

This brings me to my point... one thing I definitely don’t have is innocence. Ignorance of the world. Something I always imagined Sidriel to have in spades. I strive to be an academic and as a result am hyperaware of the state of the world. I am so desensitized to sex that it has gotten to the point where vanilla activities make me sicker than 2 girls 1 cup. Wouldn't it be nice to go back to a point where the world outside your bedroom didn’t exist to you? I've roleplayed with Sidriel in a multitude of ways. Unfortunately, due to the communities expectations, most of them are sexual, and Sidriel's age and size remain anomalous. Roleplays have ALWAYS felt awkward to me, as they seemed to me as the ultimate escapism for those unhappy with their own lives. I know that isn’t true, but I still have those days where I finish typing a tell about rubbing some alaskan dudes belly and wondering to myself why. The simple answer is that people use role play to enact scenarios they are incapable of enacting in real life. Most of these scenarios are ones of violence and vice, in which case grand theft auto has you covered. The rest are usually sexual fantasies that cant really be done physically. This is why vore, inflation and tentacles run so rampant in the online community I think. This is probably why I find it horrendously sad when people just want to have regular boring sex using roleplay.

Moving on... I think I need to change my avatar. When sidriel was first formed the similarities were immediately drawn to spyro. This got to me more than I let on, as it didn’t even occur to me when I was drawing him. The FACT that it got to me is the odd part, as I stated, at the time I was convinced I was just observing, and the creation of an avatar was a token offering made to feel included. Because of this I never felt completely connected to my character, so why did the spyro references piss me off? Well its probably because of my fetish for being a special little flower; I have to do the things noone has ever done before, I always play games counterintuitive subconsciously in order to be some sort of trendsetter; in call of duty mw2 I used UMPs with thermal sights almost entirely to be a smart arse little dickhead when I killed someone. (not verbally of course, the gun used to kill them is enough of a middle finger), in league of legends I played ap tristana for the sole reason of doing something I doubt anyone else had thought of. I cant take people seriously who set their personal avatars as someone else's creation without any trace of personal input, so you can imagine that 'your character looks like spyro' is the lowest blow anyone could deal me. Then My Little Pony rolls around and... jesus christ. As much as I love spike, the horny little bastard, I am literally embarrased to refer to myself as sidriel anymore, the creation has been ruined through similarity.

Lastly... is anyone out there as disenfranchised with the furry community as I am? I always considered the furry fandom as a group of people with the ability to defy human social convention and live and act in a world that let others act more primally without fear of being looked down upon, but it has ultimately translated into people who use the expectation of defiance as an excuse to act like dickheads and then scream persecution when they're called out on it. I cant really win. Is it really worth trying? I love the ideology behind this community, but its like communism – it doesn’t seem to be working in practice. To anyone who actually reads this, who has kept me added for over a year... is there any hope?