1: There are probably some people who want to depict racism in their fluffy stories. But they’re not particularly common.
2: A lot of people attribute their desire to abuse fluffies to a sort of “cuteness aggression”.
Other people seem to be working through their own trauma with their fluffy stories.
There’s not an “official reason” apart from “They’re there, and I want to tell this story”
3: Fluffies did start out as an offshoot of MLP, specifically from the FiM fandom (Bronies/Pegasisters)
From the old-time members who have come and given their accounts on the early days, it would seem that the idea began with the Bronies, but because it was based at 4chan it had a lot of chan influence, such as;
4: Fluffies were becoming popular at the same point as greentext stories that mentioned “mom’s spaghetti” falling out of people’s pockets. (Chan culture)
Eventually it was explained away as a simple and cheap meal that could be marketed by Hasbio and then prepared by young children for their fluffies without much/any adult supervision
5: Smarties/Hellgremlins are an invention that allows people to feel better about abusing fluffies.
Originally “Smarty-friends” were just herd leaders that were slightly more intelligent than the average fluffy. But it evolved into a trope that allowed people to justify abuse.
Some people call it a syndrome, some people call it a result of being feral for too long, some people say it’s irreversible, some people say it’s just a state of mind. That’s all a matter of headcanon.
6: Yes, the fluffy fandom wiki is a reliable source of lore, though it is not controlled by fluffy-community in any way.
7: Headcanons are how we explain away minor differences in how people see and depict their fluffies. It allows hundreds of conflicting ideas to coexist in a single space with fewer arguments than one could expect if we tried to pin the lore down and say “Your fluffy must act like this”
8: How big do you want them to be? What’s right for your stories?
Most people depict them as being between the size of a medium cat up to the size of a medium dog
9: They can be ANY color.