What's in it for You? Why do you come back to fluffies?

Hey folks
We’ve got a lot of community conversations going on (which is honestly nice to see)
and tonight I felt like bringing up another.

I’ve just spent the last two years dealing with a myriad of interesting people.

I’ve had to chase off popular creators that wanted me to censor or ban others because of words they deemed to be “obscene”.
I’ve had to repeatedly track down infiltrators who deigned to “take down” our community because of the half of the community they found to be immoral (yanno, because they wrote eeevil stories or drew eeevil pictures)
I’ve had to try to strike a balance between the old school, and the new school.
And I’ll be completely honest, all of these things led me to hate a topic that I had previously loved.

Fluffies.

That’s why we’re all here, right?
I mean, it’s right there in the name of the site.
FluffyCommunity.
It’s mentioned first for a reason. Yes?

In this last week I’ve gotten to hear from people that are typically silent, I haven’t needed to
fight nearly so much.
And I’ve been reminded of what initially drew me in to this community.

So I propose this;
I’m going to tell you what made me love fluffies
and later, I want to hear what keeps you coming back to fluffies.


In 2020 the pandemic that killed off 9/10ths of the world
coof* that allowed all of our governments to lock us all down in our homes
was just beginning.

*You don’t have to agree with me that the reaction was overblown.
You know what happened. We all lived through it.
And that’s part of the point; We All Lived Through It.
If you’re reading these words before the year 2030, You Lived Through It Too.

I had just been told that in the name of world safety my company was going as contactless as possible.
I worked in retail at that time. It wasn’t an easy place to be in.
If I need to work with the public, I can’t have masks and gloves and face shields and goggles and full-body condoms making the conversation difficult.

Depressed and forlorn I scoured reddit for anything to take my mind off of the insanity that I was only beginning to encounter.
and a single comic made me stop, and think, and actually feel something again.

At this time Fluffybooru was still online.
I dove headfirst into the years of content there.
I went from newest to oldest, looking at everything that had been created in the previous years.
I trawled though all of it twice.
(Yes I’m still looking for ways for you folks to experience the community like this, even though we’re using a software that doesn’t yet support that kind of experience)

I started thinking about fluffies a lot
Started imagining them in my own life.

And then, I started telling my own stories.
They weren’t well-refined, and they weren’t masterpieces by any stretch of the imagination
but they were My stories.
and people were reading them.
Not a lot of people, but that didn’t matter.
People were finally hearing Me, for the first time.

In September of the same year, Fluffybooru went offline.
Even though a handful of my friends had been expecting it, (because we’d seen the cracks forming in the foundation of the site) none of us was really expecting it.
I had to gather up the best people I could find to archive as much of this experience as I could.
Because it meant something to me.
Even the pieces that I hated, they meant everything to me.
They were a community I was not going to allow to die unceremoniously.

I’ve gotten a lot of hate over these years for that choice.
but I don’t regret it in the least.
Because this has allowed me to meet so many creators
So many disenfranchised people who similarly loved the topic of fluffies.
People I could help.
People I could do good things for.

So that’s why I took on this mission.

I’m very aware that our topic draws people with extreme viewpoints
They’re not who I worked for.
I worked for the people that just want to tell stories,
or create art
and have a small place where they could tell those stories
or show off their art.

I know that there are people that believe that anybody looking at this sort of thing must be a Child Molester or a Serial Killer
And I have to laugh at that
Because you might as well say that people who read Steven King novels are regularly going out and murdering everybody they see.
It’s bullshit.
It’s not happening.
Good people sometimes have to tell awful stories.
Good people might create art that is horrifying to the outsider.
This is part of how we remain Good People.
We let our horrible thoughts go on paper,
and then we carry on with our ordinary lives.


Now you know my story.
Now I want to hear yours.
What made you love fluffies?
What makes you hate them?
What kind of mindset were you in when you encountered our community?
Tell us all about it.

I somehow doubt you’re all the child rapists and serial killers people believe us to be.

39 Likes

slapsfluffy

Really this sums it up for me. I like exploring the real fucked parts of this alternate reality.

When I found this community I read through the subreddit with a sort of morbid curiosity, and found myself coming back again and again. I have no idea why I enjoy this stuff, I just… do. And there’s nothing else quite like it.

24 Likes

What made me love fluffies is the communities dedication to it. So much lore and stories that build from the headcanon and or expand it, to make a really interesting takes on fluffies. This is made better by the dedication of users like you @Virgil who went above and beyond to bring everyone together with a new website.

What makes me hate fluffies sometimes is that it also attracts the worst of users. Whether it be actual deplorable degenerates, rejects from other communities, and even our own Users who cry for the Booru.

When I first discovered fluffies I had the flu and I initially saw this community as disgusting, but after some time skimming through the wiki and booru I began to feel fond to the concept. So much I made my own comic and was welcomed in with open arms by many users.

15 Likes

It was like having a taste of drug, I seeked more content, more fluffy, I went from YouTube to Reddit and finally here, it’s still like a drug that I keep taking despite it making me rethink some choices I made, now I just like the place and the people in it

12 Likes

My very first introduction to fluffies was through a Buzzfeed article called “The horrifyingly violent new subgenre of My Little Pony fanart”. It mostly featured, now that I think back on it, rather tame abuse art of fluffies. The general tone of the article was “This is fucked up, why would anyone make this shit”.

And for a while, I agreed with them. These were small, talking animals being tortured and abused in unspeakable ways, often without context or reason. And this deeply upset me because I could not understand why someone would want to see this, let alone make it.

But after a month or two, I became interested in these small creatures. What would happen if someone treated them right? Gave them love and respect, like people should any other animal? While I mulled over that thought, I ran across the old Booru back in 2016. Of course, the even more violent artwork frightened me, because I was a very sheltered minor at the time and was not used to this much gore and violence onscreen.

So, I became a hugboxer. I didn’t join the site, due to all the toxic anons and infighting on there; I knew my heart couldn’t take that much fighting and it still can’t. I’m made for “love and huggies”, not fighting people on the internet. But I started by making my own fluffy AU, that asked the question; “What if humans thought they wiped out all fluffies, and fluffies were able to evolve like proper animals without human intervention?”

I made OCs, a storyline (That I STILL haven’t written past the first few paragraphs to this day, gdi I’m determined to get that story done if it’s the last thing I do) and I grew to love fluffies as a concept. I found favorite artists such as SexyGoatGod (I LOVED Grape), and a few others I can’t even remember the name of now.

After I lost interest in that specific story, I made Cherry and Switchy. Funnily (and weirdly) enough, their first artwork was of one red fluffy getting a “sorry hoofsies” spanking and enjoying it, while the other lavender one was thinking “Maybe I should go get the sorry stick”. I made their names up on the very spot. Thus, Cherry and Switchy were born!

A few years later, the Booru went down for good. I hadn’t checked it for months, so I hadn’t know what had happened. I thought someone finally got disgusted enough by the site’s art and had a hacker take it down or something. I shrugged, a bit sad about it, and moved on with my life for a few years.

But once the pandemic hit, I was desperate for something to do. A lot of things in my life were going to shit, and I needed a distraction. An escape. Something interesting, new. ANYTHING.

That’s when I found r/fluffycommunity. I didn’t join the reddit first, though. I saw the link to the new site, and instantly got excited! Now that I was less sheltered, was an adult and had seen far worse than abuse of fake fluffies by now, I felt ready. Finally, I joined the community officially back in November of 2020.

Long story short, here I am today! I went from a 16 year old who was disgusted by fluffy abuse to an adult who was fascinated by the community.

What I love about this place is its creativity. The absolute nonsensical morbidity of abuse, the heart-squeezing cuteness of hugbox. Every other box has its amazing qualities too, but my favorite thing of all is worldbuilding. There are countless ideas to use from fluffies, be it cute, violent, sad, scary, weird, or a mix of all of this.

14 Likes

For me? It’s because they are cute and small. You can do a lot with them but I tend to prefer the hugbox stuff. The foals are adorable and precious, so far and chubby. And there are so many varieties too. It’s a way to be creative as well, all the art and stories can be so inspiring to do some of your own. And so many in the community are really nice and awesome.

14 Likes

I discovered fluffies a long time ago, back when they first starting showing up on /b/. This was around 2012 or so, I think (turns out it was actually Jan 2014). So I have been around for a while. I wasn’t really an active member of the Booru, and I have no idea about any of the various drama that people mention. That seems to have all happened after I stopped visiting it.

I had just ended a serious relationship with an emotionally unstable woman, and I was feeling pretty hurt. One day, I saw a thread full of deranged pictures and weird-ass greentext stories, detailing a world of misery, torture, and sometimes joy. I discovered the Booru, eventually, but mostly I just found the Pastebin’s of the big names, and read their entire catalog. I kinda wallowed in this world until I started moving on with my life. I drifted away after typing up a story and sharing it (this would later become my series Greg’s Farm) and it got completely shit on by a lot of people. Mostly, I just didn’t need it anymore.

When I first discovered them, the idea of a whiny, selfish little creature with all the impulse control of a spoiled child really appealed to me as a “acceptable target” for the suffering they endured. I liked thinking about the realities of living with fluffies, of breeding them especially, and of the various ways in which their world would differ from ours. That kind of worldbuilding has always appealed to me. That the whole exercise was so offensive to the incredibly prevalent and obnoxious MLP community of the time was just the icing on the cake.

These days, with the greater variety in content, I find fluffies to be a creative outlet for exploring my feelings, some of which don’t really belong in polite society. I use my characters to explore aspects of myself, of different periods in my life. I have found so much satisfaction in sharing the stories I have written, and honestly the volume of that work astounds even me.

I am happy to have moved from a long-time lurker, to an active and contributing member of this weird-ass community.

6 Likes

Pretty much the same as you. I was at the end of my term in the Air Force sitting in a dank hotel room on TDY shitposting on /co/ after work, depressed as hell due to two years of COVID that caused a six month deployment to turn into a nine month one, getting my base transfer denied and being stuck dealing with absolute bullshit from the children in my unit. There some mad lads had started posting fluffy content which has been banned for god knows how long, It was something I haven’t encountered in years. Curiosity got the better of me and next thing I know I’m down the rabbit hole starting weirdly enough with

(The actual news article itself). After a little more searching I found the Wolfram Sparks Imgur archive and that was that I was hooked in morbid fascination. Just watching this pathetic hamster creatures get the worst possible ends was cathartic for me after all the bullshit I had to endure for the last few years. Next thing I know I’m here ostensibly to lurk and enjoy the weirdo freaks and their fucked up hobby and to watch the infighting between them and before I knew it I was one of them. I’m glad I didn’t let any knee jerk prejudices keep me from this place, I’ve unironically enjoyed this place more than I have 4chan in the last year or so I’ve been commenting

Summary

The fact that there isn’t constant whining about blacks, gays, women, transexuals ect ect ect really helps that shit gets old FAST

This place is full of some really talented people who will hopefully go far with their work

5 Likes

I came to fluffies, like so many newfags, from The Click on YouTube. I checked out the reddit but I hate reddit so I was googling fluffy art and found the Community site. As it happens I was laid up in bed and have been alot for the last two years or so. I don’t do social media or fandoms really, most of my time online was spent watching videos and trading racial slurs on 4chan so I had lots of time to devour fluffy content.

What keeps me coming back? I guess it’s the utter ridiculous of the subject. It’s just so stupid yet compelling, funny but some stories can hit you right in the guts. (Ever read Rosemary?) Coupled with a whole lot of free time. Hell it made me try my hand at writing and drawing for the first time in over twenty years because I wanted to be a part of this thing. This sweaty, pulsating, hive cannon, raging against it’s self. It’s the most beautiful thing on the internet and i’m happy to be here.

7 Likes

Man, the community was thrilled when that dumb-ass article came out. Well, the not-lame people in the community.

2 Likes

all that matters is that people with actual authority aren’t abusing or bullying content creators.

the fandom needs content. desperately.

and not everyone wants to be personally involved with the community, via DMs or Discord or anything related to the real work. respect that.

my interest in fluffies is the complex “subtext” of what a fluffy is. a man-made sapient organic toy and everything that entails. the fluffy, in the booru sense, is a reflection of humanity. the unreasonable expectations, the abuse, the expectations.

what keeps me from creating content for the community (which I have been following for over a decade) is the authority ascribed to trolls who, even when ignored, generate far too much fanfare.

mute and move on.

7 Likes

Initially, I found my way here (well, not here-here, previous FC here) from TheClick’s Youtube videos.

For the better part of a week and a half, I was fascinated with the whole “people do horrible things to cute creatures”, much in a way like Happy Tree Friends. But I hate HTF’s gratuitous bloodbaths, if only because they serve no real purpose. One episode they all die, the next they are up again. whoop-de-freaking-doo.

Fluffies however, tickled something that made me honestly doubt myself, but I reasoned that it’s indeed like enjoying Steven King’s or splatter movies. Sometimes, you just do. I figured that surely, someone out there who only posts images or stories about cute animals with a childlike mentality and behaviour might actually be too much into it and may want to find another way to get his stress off, but it’s also none of my fucking business if they are, nor am I qualified enough to have more than this opinion on the matter.

And then, after a couple weeks of scouring the site reading any story, ranging from hugbox to abuse, I realized something.

Fluffies are a great, fucking awesome thing literature-wise.

They aren’t the usual talking animal, who does so because magic or whatever, usually being an exception to the norm. They are an entirely new species, with flaws and quirks that make them unique, so different from humans and yet so alike. Created by man to fulfill a purpose, freed
into a world like ours, where they are bound to face, learn and develop different personalities, from kind-hearted people to those who might use them as a surrogate for humans to torture. There is so much that can be done with them, I find it amazing.

This is why I cannot hate fluffies. Well, with some exceptions (Looking at you, Crimson and Maroon).

And that is the point where I also realized, just how boring and uninspired most abuse pieces FEEL.

Because they made me go “whoop-de-freaking-doo, fluffies SCREE and die, without a reason story-wise. How intriguing.”

And pure Hugbox often does the same. Though in that case, I can (usually) get the same “d’aww” feeling I get from looking at cute animal pictures, so there’s that.

But, that is not to say I cannot enjoy me a good abuse story, with character development and also some feels sprinkled in (looking at you, @Karn and @BFM101). Because it makes me want to hate the abuser and it keeps making me come back to find out more. Will the fluffies survive? Be rescued and escape? Will the abuser actually get his comeuppance? Find out next installment!

This is also the reason I so vocally despise certain tropes, like the biotoy one.

So I started writing some stories myself. I have to admit, they were met with more praise than I thought I had any right to receive.

And now? Well, I’d hate to leave this beautiful, horrible place where fluffies are hugged or ground into paste alike.

8 Likes

Been here since the booru. Love watching these little shit get their entitled asses handed to them.

1 Like

Hard to really say.

Honestly I find them an interesting way to explore trauma through the lens of a creature that just is not smart enough to ever understand what is happening or why it’s happening.

Plus something cathartic about the pointless suffering angle as well - just look at the horror movie industry. A big draw is always going to be seeing how some smuck gets to die in a nasty/funny/ugly way.

In a way it’s part of how we, as humans, explore/cope with some of the horrible things that can and do happen in life - tell stories about even worse things happening to fictional people.

Or animals.

or soap, as you will.

4 Likes

Just as an aside question: Do you want to put your dick into underage children?

Because there are people that believe 1 = 2 and that means we’re all rapists.

2 Likes

I literally opened the thread and went “wtf, no” out loud. Well, the italian equivalent of that.

Rape is one of the things that makes my IRL blood boil, in the pure RAEG way.

And I honestly doubt there are real life abusers or rapists on here.

Well, you can never know for sure, but boy do I hope it’s that way.

3 Likes

Well that sure is strange because people on specific websites are trying to say we’re all child rapists since we have an interest in fluffy abuse.

3 Likes

I wouldn’t know, I have a reddit account opened only for the purpose of reading some funny crap/to keep in touch with the community when the server went down earlier this year.

Also idjits will always exist.

One can have their reasonable doubts and all that, but someone full-blown accusing everyone who enjoys something like this of being rapists is likely somone whose words carry no value.

2 Likes

I mean really you don’t actually want to put your dick into a kid at all?

how can that be?
I mean, we’re awful horrible no good very bad fluffy folks
SURELY that means we desire small children to shove our cocks into, right?
I mean, I saw that on a drama site, only half an hour ago.

2 Likes

Not going to get into a long explanation, just gonna sum it up; I have PTSD and I find putting myself in abused fluffies shoes comforting (reassuring? making my past seem trivial). It also has helped me to avoid self harm.

Add to that the fact that I’ve always loved body horror and dark comedy (and you’ve got some funny and twisted indivuals on here), and I’d say that this has made a relatively healthy outlet for stress.

And of course, as always great to see a small but tight knit community like this. I’d say the worst thing about this community is the sense of loss people get when a member leaves. And that’s a pretty good benchmark for a good community.

8 Likes