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My sona

Furries were very important for me since very early in my life and as a teen I began using furry characters to express myself and explore feelings that I had and didn't feel comfortable exploring any other way. I didn't, at the time, think much of it as I hadn't realized that what I was doing was explore my identity. During that same period I'd also, while suffering through sleepless nights, do things like vividly imagine myself as a wolf: running through the woods, living free, that freedom standing for multiple social and physical freedoms I didn't feel I had.

At one point when I was 14 I createad a character in class to be the mascot for the battle shonen manga I was definitely totally going to make someday. It was, of course, a furry: a sort of cat-dog alien mix that somehow also looked a bit like Gryz from Phantasy Star IV, a game I had proudly beaten the prior year while on a lower level than what was suggested by gamefaqs. That character became a vehicle of self-expression as I moved him from scrapped story to scrapped story, being the only character to survive through the apocalyptic events that were my growing taste as I read more things and realized my previous story ideas kinda sorta sucked.

Another important event during this phase was me playing the PS1 version of Dragon Quest VII. It became one of my favorite game experiences due to the uniqueness of its storytelling style and how simply well made it is despite the rough presentation. More important for this discussion, though, is the fact that one of the characters, Gabo, was a wolf-turned-human. I was so jealous of him for having experienced what it felt like to be a wolf and I could barely hide that fact from myself! I didn't feel like it was a proper thing to be feeling though, so I hid it deep within myself, but the idea of being a wolf would show up on some quickly discarded characters I'd come up with.

In college I was studying for a degree I didn't really want but ended up accepting for a while as I thought making art would be impossible. Still, art was all that occupied my mind and I kept drawing every time I could. I remember drawing that old furry character a lot in my notes, I'm not even sure if he was still part of a larger story at that time. A few years later I came up with a cartoon furry character that I wanted to tell an everyday life story with. While that didn't amount to much, a friend who was leaving college to pursue an art carreer gave me his old Wacom Bamboo and told me I should try drawing digitally... and I didn't do it for like a year, because I was embarrassedly scared of digital art being less real somehow. Eventually, however, I stopped being scared, and it was the year 2019: I read Beastars, I created Sotz and Eméti, I was drawing furries in more realistic proportions and wasn't feeling embarrased about it! Not only that, it was at this time that I actually became aware of furry artists online, and they gave me a huge boost for my self esteem by drawing gay characters I felt were much more similar to me than things I was seeing in other gay spaces.

Quarantine hit us all in different ways and I'm not here to talk about it. But at that time I started posting art online, and because of the necessity of having an icon on a social media website both Sotz and Eméti where often seen by others as being my sona. That was not the case, however! To me they were very separate from me: they were OCs, not sonas, because they were not me and I couldn't make a character I actually felt comfortable seeing as myself...

In 2022, however, I liked a tweet my friend Griff -- who at the time was just a mutual -- had made saying something like "so many furries with coyote sonas around! we're all big pack". This prompted Griff to send me a DM asking me if I had a coyote sona, and I didn't! But as we talked, I was convinced this time I was gonna finally make myself a sona, and thus Amosh was born.

I tried using Amosh as a sona for a bit but it did not work out. It was fun and I used him to explore a lot of ideas such as my piss kink that I didn't acknowledge before. But still, I started to see him as a different character from myself. The following year, however, Doldrum made a piece that he wanted to draw me in so he took Amosh's older design and changed it to sort of invent a sona for me... and I loved it so much! I think Amosh was too serious, but the way Doldrum drew me was a lot lighter and goofier. And thus that became officially my sona.

During 2023 I didn't draw it that much, but 2024 was a year my sona started to grow more and more on me. Doldrum drew him a lot, other friends also did it and I too started too doodle it all the time. This all became even more strong when friends I had sex with or just loved in general started treating me like a wolf, referring to me as one, and comparing things I do and habits I have with those of a dog. Being recognized as a wolf gave me a sense I now recognize as euphoric.

Thus, my sona became me. It became the form I inhabit. I recognized it as the wolf I always wanted to be -- or, better yet, that I always was. A drawing of it is as much a representation of myself as a picture or a self-portrait. And I love it, and I love myself more when I love me through it. I'd be glad if you found yourself loving it as well.

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