I regret not realising this topic exists before making this post at the "Show us your fursonae" thread. Luckily, that post mostly just covers the design process and the thoughts behind it, rather than the deep meat of the details.
I never really had a solid fursona (or any consistent form at all, not even seeing my IRL self as me) representation of myself until 2003. By near total accident.
I was registering an online account for a certain website that still exists, and I needed an anonymous name - looking at my
Pokémon Sapphire party of the time, I had a Flygon in it, and I decided to adopt that. Mostly because I quite enjoyed how they looked, felt that represented me, and could easily see myself being one.
The wings, the "friend shaped" body, the pleasing colour scheme. It all just worked out.
I've kinda been one for over 22 years now. Are there any unique design elements to the one that represents me specifically? Not really. Not any detail that feels appropriate for this forum post anyway. It's still bizarre to think about that for the 11 years before then I was essentially formless. Particularly since I was already vaguely aware I was a furry (without having the language to express that concept at the time).
However, this leads into another thing - I couldn't find what I thought the furry fandom was. Even after I discovered what predominantly North Americans online considered the furry fandom, I genuinely thought they were all taking the piss. Everyone (from my point of view) was just humans with animal heads and tails.
That wasn't what I was looking for! To 14-17 year old me (around 2006-2009), that was just someone wanting to be a human with a weird head and tail.
I should backtrack a bit, because the additional information will inform why Flygons (and Brelooms - I was often masquerading as either a Flygon or a Breloom around the 00s online) resonated so incredibly well with me.
As a kid in the 90s, I would often witness a particular theme with "furry" art as I saw it, both in media from Australia, Japan, and the US where relevant.
Whilst the earliest "furry" show I saw that closely resonated with me was probably The Animals of Farthing Wood, that was not the only piece of media that informed and drove me.
This is faaaaaaaar from a secret, but
Shining Force had a huuuge impact on me aesthetically. And the obvious common theme with both Bleu (the Dragon) and Guntz (the Armadillo inside that suit of armour) are friend shaped. This was a game that actually helped teach me how to read too. I was enamoured with both characters. And you can understand how that would have influenced me heavily.
But, as obvious by my forum avatar, and the above image, and also the post I linked at the top of the post, I'm not just a Flygon, there's also the Flurret character too. Whilst the post there explains the initial design reasoning and thought process of the time, going into the details of the design's deep roots is something that feels pertinent for this post (explaining why I swap between the two is messy, and isn't worth explaining too much detail on), because everything I am going to bring up did have a big impact on me aesthetically, and also thematically.
To get the elephant out of the room, the design and name similarities with Furrets (left). The similarity exists, but the creature became its own thing so rapidly, away from being based on a Furret alone, that all that really remains is the name, and the ring striping. A lot of design influence actually came from Zigzagoons (right), particularly with the way I tend to draw Flurrets very scruffy like.
Those are not the true root influences that made me the way I am, however. Extremely far from it.
After
The Animals of Farthing Wood, was
The Adventures of Blinky Bill that affected by aesthetic direction in a dramatic manner. Whilst this isn't any one thing in particular, and it's hard to directly describe what specific things made my aesthetic the way I am now, it's easiest for me to say that "It's literally all of it".
An honourable mention goes to the 60s
Kimba the White Lion series, which also had a strong effect on me, and is part of why I did adopt the "Pocky Ears" (I was unaware of
Bokko from
The Wonderful Three until decades later).
There's the most distinct visual element however, the broad cheekfluffs, that I don't believe I've ever actually explained until now.
I don't believe this show actually aired outside of Australia, but
Lift Off had a huge impact on my fascination with frill-necked lizards as a kid, and played a part in making me enamoured with them. The fluffy cheeks are literally the frilled-neck!
Tails "Miles" Prower (you should all know them) also played a definite part in the design - I actually had quite a crush on Tails as a kid. This did also partly inform the cheekfluff design choice.
As explained in the fursonae topic, the character was done as a design-by-solo-committee original character for use on a now long-dead forum. But as this post elaborates, I was digging deep into what my own existence was, intentionally or not, when designing it. In the end, it's natural that it became an actual fursona, even if completely by accident.
The curious aspect of this all is that neither being a Flygon or the Flurret had any sort of an impact on my gender, or such things. Those, I was aware for most of my life, yet also tragically short of words - and trust - for until the 2010s.
To follow on from earlier in this post though - when I found the fandom in the 00s, I just outright dismissed it. I didn't think they were real furries, and every image in this post provides an explanation for why that is.
Eventually, I did find a community that shared in that "feral or semi-feral" character design aesthetic, and by this point I was also finally an adult. This also ties into me finding a community that didn't treat trans characters as a joke (I bounced off the anthro fandom too quickly at the time), or otherwise non-gender conforming characters.
Thankfully, by the 2010s, Fur Affinity finally had its own community be far far less judgemental about people that weren't just strictly human shaped anthros. This all played a significant role in me not calling myself a furry until around 2015 or so. After all, why should I have?
Why should I have named myself a part of a fandom that actively discriminated against my existence?
Things are much much better now, and much more tolerant within the fandom.
Don't worry, I don't judge anyone that's an anthro. I've matured a lot, and there's a reason there's some anthro art of Flurrets (feminine only!).
I'm sorry if this post has been very aimless. It's part-stream of thought, part explaining my aesthetic influences. As the root post of this thread asks, "what made you choose your sona's species".
And as it turns out, as both a Flygon and a Flurret, the answer is "It's complicated, let's make a complicated post about my existence".
Keettee Time 
!! I believe you already know some of my lore in short but for the sake of participating in the thread, it'll be the more depth version.) 
