Interview with Tycho Aurora

Interview with Tycho Aurora

April 2, 2019 Off By Sir Wolf

What is your name?

Taylor Cook

What is your Scene name?

Tycho Aurora

How did you get that name?

I decided to choose my own pup name. I can be quite a deep (overthinking) philosophy thinker and chose a name with a lot of meaning to me. I enjoy astronomy, looking up at the stars and thinking of the amazing possibilities out there. So, I chose the name Tycho after the 16th century Dutch astronomer Tycho Brahe. My pup last name Aurora I chose also to my connection to astronomy and looking up and beyond at the unknown. An Aurora is a beautiful display of electromagnetic potential and is a nod to myself at my constant drive to better myself and reaching for the stars.

How old are you and where were you born?

            I am 31yrs old. Born and grew up in New Zealand on an island in the South Pacific. About 6 years ago I moved to Melbourne, Australia because my hometown of Christchurch in New Zealand’s South Island was devastated by the 2011 earthquakes

What do you do for work?

            I am a game/graphic/web designer, primarily recreation of historical and archeological sites into 3D virtual reality for schools to use to teach history in an immersive way than boring history textbooks. I liaison with several governments and many museums across the world on this.

What is your dream job?

            Luckily, I am already. It pays absolute peanuts, but it gives me the satisfaction of doing my part of help society step forward, no matter how small. I have been self-employed in this since 2011 during a trip to Beijing and the feedback from schools and students from across the world who use my work fills my heart and keeps me going.

When did you first realize you were into pup play?

            Curiosity, pure and simple. 2 ½ years ago I was introduced to pup play enough to seek it out. When I realized I was researching things more than just a simple, answering what pup play is, one thing led to another and here I am.

How were you introduced to puppy play?

            Would be shortly after I moved to Australia in 2012 I was introduced to someone who identified as a Kangaroo. This was something I least expect, asked a few questions and found the concept of animal roleplay intriguing. It wasn’t until 2015 until I had a friend who said they identified as a pup and got a chance to ask a lot of questions that I started to get really into the thick of it.

Is pup play sexual or non-sexual for you?

            It’s both, and interchangeable and independent; really depends on the situation, crowd and desires of people around me.

Describe your first time:         

My first real experience was actually when I was really down and also very drunk with a friend that was also a pup. It let me have less inhibitions and let me howl, yip and bark to my heart’s content. I haven’t looked back since.

What did you think of your first experience?

             I’m not much of a drinker, let alone to get drunk. My first experience was a surprise to say the least. I found the mental escape and translation of internal pain to external expression in puppy form to be freeing and liberating; far more than drinking have or could ever help me with. From then on, I was hooked to explore pup play further.

What do you identify most with? Alpha, beta, omega, service or guard

            I identify as an Alpha pup who also is a handler. I feel protective and an enabler of others’ potentials. One of my kinks as you could say is transformation. I get off on helping others reach their goals just as much as me achieving my goals. Whether they are physical, mental, sexual or emotional aims in life. I try my best to help. While I used to have my own pack, they flew the coop a while ago, I’m in no rush to have a pack again or collar my own pup/s.

What was your first piece of gear?

            Squeaky ball toy. Something to thrash when angry, something to cuddle when sad, something to play with when cheeky. It’s a good all-round toy for any aspiring pup.

What events have you been to?

            Dinners, moshes, private, social and public events. Sydney Mardi Gras, Melbourne Midsumma Pride. Northside Bizarre and Adelaide Fetish and Leather Weekend. I haven’t had the chance to go to any American events yet (but that also is planned to change this year 😉) I helped set up the inaugural Australian Pup and Handler Competition weekend (APHC) as well.

Have you won any awards?

            None so far. Been too busy creating and running events plus the Pupplay.info website to compete for any.

What groups or clubs do you belong to?

            There is the local leather association VicLeather and also VICPAH (Victorian Pups and Handlers) who are the largest PAH group in the country with almost 600 members.

What do you do in your free time?

            Umm, what’s this free time you speak of?

What do you do for fun?

            I have a lot of hobbies. Aquarium Fish, Mineral Collecting, Radio & Solar Astronomy, Creative Writing, Miniature Origami, Archery, Ultimate Frisbee, PC Gaming, Gardening, Bird Keeping & Archeology

What’s your favorite sport and team?

            Back in the day, I was a professional track cyclist and swim coach in New Zealand. I still follow the velodromes and swimming competitions. I also enjoy archery a lot and always keep track of the New Zealand squads

What is your advice for new pups?

            Its okay to not know what you want. The journey is half the fun. There is nothing you have to have except being open to new experiences. If you try something you don’t like, don’t do it again, strike it off the list and try something else. Sooner or later your pup persona will form, and it will be unique to you.

What is your advice for new Handlers?

            It’s a two-way street. Pups expect things from you just as you expect things from pups and you’ll get nowhere if you impose your rule over others. It will only ostracize you from the community. Explore things together, two heads are better than one and we can always learn something new.

In one sentence how would you describe the puppy community?

“The only rule is that there are no rules” concept that we are part of a community that has evolved to have diversity as a cornerstone. (This I feel is awesome!)

What inspired you to create pupplay.info?

I got frustrated with some of the (very few) toxic elitist member in the community having a large voice and with my past experience being a community leader and moderating in the gaming industry I decided to act than wait and create a “choose your own path” set of resources. I did this so than just let the “pup play must be this way” people, bully people that are wanting to have the independence of experiencing things how they want to.

I have found loving and supporting others just makes a better community as a whole (this applies to any kind of community) especially when people have the opportunity to step up and set a good example for others. While there will always be toxic people and bullies; they don’t have to win. All we need is people to stand up and take the first step to be better than silent.

What do you find challenging about Pupplay.info?

“The only rule is that there are no rules” concept. I will still stand by that though, we are part of a community that has evolved to have diversity as a cornerstone. While this presents a lot of challenges, the freedom to be loved and supported with self-expression is a rare opportunity that many people don’t get in general society. This is also the worst concept in the world for a website trying to provide resources and ideas to inspire people. A website can collapse into a mountain of random links sparsely connected to each other. I sit down at least monthly trying to figure out how the hundreds of topics and resources can be organized better. It’ll be an eternal struggle, but there is nothing wrong with a challenge.

            What Can People Do on Pupplay.info?

Pupplay.info has a lot of tools and resources. Here is a short list.

·         Puppy Archive: A collection of resources about our community history. From events and organizations more than a decade or two old to the oldest photograph of animal roleplay (1912 by the way)

·         Maps: Explore pups from around the world from our registered users (free) that you can keep your own details up to date which no other pup social map does. You can also find a growing map of organizations, events and pup friendly venues too.

·         Regular Articles: Anyone signed up can contribute and have an article published. Want to help expand the help for others? Go right ahead!

·         Gear Library: There is a lot of gear and a lot of custom gear, we are building a library of gear for you to see what brands are out there and where to go to get them with no bias or marketing getting in the way.

·         Ran the world’s largest public pup play research project that gathered over 1,700 pups and handlers from every major continent across the world. We also fulfilled our promise that the research results would be freely available and are in a free e-book download for anyone to access.

·         Nerdy Doggo gear is a non-profit brand of merchandise that keeps the website Advert-free and also allows the website to create more complex resources and help host events across the world including some of the above-mentioned resources.

What else would you like to share about pupplay.info?

In January, PupPlay.Info turns two years old! it’s been such, such an awesome build up from the success of our first year. None of this still would not be possible without you all! the entire community! We have created 78 pages of guides and 240 articles on a wide variety of topics in pup play (contributed by over 300 different people), and 2,300 registered users since our inception.

Donations through Nerdy Doggo was a big success this past year! While our Redbubble sales don’t make much, every dollar counts. We have raised enough money to keep PupPlay.Info advert free for 2018 and set up the foundations of the Puppy Archives; A resource of information about current and past events, figures and groups in our community for preserving and recording our community history. (Kind of like what the Leather Archives function as). We also begun work on a comprehensive book (coming out in 2018) about the diversity of the pup play community in a way that’s as non-biased as possible to help inspire people to try new things and help learn about themselves.

Your purchases from our RedBubble Store has made this possible. Without it, these projects would not have happened. We are thankful you have put faith in us and we hope to continue forward in 2018 and help support the community even more!  We have so many projects planned it will be a constant flow of resources so check back often!

How can people get ahold of you?

I try my best to be as approachable as possible. This community will collapse if we don’t work together and I try my best to help others with this. There’s no territory for people to close off to others. Pup play isn’t a business for people to treat everyone else as a competitor to undermine. So, please, don’t hesitate to ask if u need help, either I can help you in your projects or point you at the right people.

Originally published in Barking News Magazine