So, starting early there were definitely some of the traits that seem common in the fandom. I liked stuffed animals as a kid, liked a lot of the media with like talking animals and the likes. Didn't really find out about furries until much later, but at the time didn't really see it as a me thing per-se, but also saw the whole "punching bag of the internet" aspect as rather unfair, influenced especially by an old xkcd comic. Fast forward to my early 20s and in some of the online spaces I frequented there would occasionally be furries, whom I'd befriend over whatever sort of topic that space was about. Spent quite a few years in this sort of "furry-adjacent" phase where I knew some, even developed an appreciation for like the artwork and suits and such, but still never considered myself one, a big part of that being that I couldn't picture any species really fitting me. I didn't vibe with like a dog or anything and other things like goats, since I like goats a lot, didn't really fit either. Fast forward again to December of 2021, in a conversation with some friends (both furry and non-furry) and the topic of what animals we'd all be comes up. One friend says he thinks I have meerkat vibes, and that kinda opened a door for me that hasn't closed since. I started looking more closely in to the broader fandom, reading some furry webcomics, even found some meerkat fursonas to get an idea of how some of those look, and just couldn't shake the feeling of how right the idea of a meerkat fursona felt to me. Even found some art that kinda looked like me. So, by July 2022, I went ahead and fully joined the fandom, and got some art made of my fursona. Since then I've joined some more furry oriented online spaces, made some great friends, and gotten a lot of drawings of myself as a meerkat! Unfortunately a lot of those friends live rather far away, so I've not really gotten as much of the in-person friendship aspect of it yet. (Though I did meet the friend that gave me the meerkat idea in the first place as a sci-fi convention in Boston, which was fun)

My fursona himself is, well, more or less, me as a meerkat! I didn't even give him a second name, he just shares my irl name of Kevin. He wears a lot of plaid shirts and cargo pants, works as an archaeologist, and has a neat sun hat that has actually made me recognized at that aforementioned convention! More or less natural meerkat coloration, so kind of tan and brown fur, with those neat dark markings around his eyes that are so neat on meerkats. The selection process was, well, as I said above kind of intertwined with me really becoming a furry and joining the fandom. Though I guess I'd been adjacent to it enough that the idea of how he looked formed more or less as soon as that idea was planted and didn't change too much. So, yeah, I guess that's my story!

I love that! Thanks for sharing! I have a friend who also shares the same name with his fursona.

I just love that the space allows us to personify ourselves in fun ways! Either something that is symbolic of who or what we want to be or something that is simply as we are. I definitely see my sonas as myself, but they are also vehicles for things I wish to embody more in myself as well through art and story telling! Meerkats are great and it's such a unique species that you don't see often. I think the meerkat definitely suits someone as yourself well especially in regards to the archaeology and the desert! Great choice!

I know how that goes to teeter on the line of being and furry and furry adjacent. For a small while I was just like, "Animals are cool!" I see a lot of people are furry adjacent just because yeah, people are pretty mean to them and no one wants to put themselves into a place where they might actually get bullied for being into something. But I'm glad that the community is so inviting and it allows for connection and I also enjoy that it can be what we make of it on a personal level even.