December was a quiet month. Happy New Year everyone! Several Flayrah articles have been getting an unusual number of 5-star votes lately. Even if our traffic increased, that's still an unlikely voting distribution, so there may be some kind of bot at work. Meanwhile, our contributors for this month are dronon and Rakuen Growlithe.

Rakuen Growlithe: Despite a lack of scientific justification (in fact, it's against the advice of conservationists), the EU is reducing protections for wolves.

dronon: Furry artist Richard Bartrop has passed away. (FA page.)

dronon: Trailer for the Latin American animated film Dalia and the Red Book.

dronon: There's an Okami game sequel in the works!

Rakuen Growlithe: The gene responsible for ginger coat colour in cats has recently been discovered. It is located on the X chromosome which explains why it is more likely in male (XY) cats.

After tallying up the charities collected by conventions and streams for 2024, furriers came together to raise $1,953,149.29. The breakdown for the causes can be found below:

• LGBTQ+ Welfare: $299,619.71 (15.34%)
• Animal Welfare: $1,108,623.81 (56.76%)
• General Humanitarian Welfare: $544,905.77 (27.9%)

Spreadsheet of the breakdown can be found here.

L'ogre Lion is a three-volume French hardcover comic published from 2022 to 2024. The story and art are by Bruno Bessadi, with colouring by Joo, and it was published by Drakoo. Reading it with mid-level French, I had to look up a lot of words, and I doubt that it'll get an English translation, so... spoilers ahead!

This is an action-fantasy comic with lots of anthropomorphic mammals! The story begins in a medieval European setting. A badly-scarred lion stumbles through the woods, not native to this part of the world. (People keep mistaking him for a lynx.) He's afflicted in three ways: with amnesia, with a recurring nightmare of his dead children, and with an extremely angry, vengeful spirit inside of him.

Whenever the lion dies, he suddenly transforms into an 8-foot-tall antelope who slaughters any carnivores nearby, before the pain of manifesting in the mortal realm becomes too difficult to bear. The antelope then retreats into the spiritual realm, and restores the lion to life. Needless to say, the lion is not happy.

Welcome to The Furry Game Awards 2024, presented by Gaming Furever! Every year, we'll come together as a staff and decide on our most beloved, most played, and most exceptional games from the past year of new gaming experiences. 2024 was filled to the brim with so many games featuring anthropomorphic characters and animals. It was hard to choose just one winner for all of these categories, and the separation between the nominees and ultimately the winner was miniscule. All of the games on these lists are highly recommended by our staff, and we can't wait to continue enjoying them! 

Check out the Full list of Winners on Gaming Furever!

What were some of YOUR favorite games this year? Let us know in the comments!
 
 

On December 16, 2024, an announcement for a new short film reveals an emotional tale featuring two furries who have made a lasting real-life connection starting from the world of VRChat. This new short film is called "The Reality of Hope", which follows the journey of 'PhotographOtter', and 'Hiyu'; portraying a story of two close friends in VRChat, living in separate countries, and a life-saving decision in live organ donation.

Flow is about a black cat who lives alone, and then one day, it doesn't anymore. Because one day water came, too much water, and all the land was flooded. The cat ran away from the water, but it couldn't run forever, so it went to live on a boat with a friendly capybara. Together, the cat and the capybara followed the water, which flowed towards a giant pillar in the sky. It seemed like this would be the last dry land in all the world. Along the way, the capybara and the cat met a lemur, a dog and a secretary bird. Did they become friends? Probably.

There is no dialogue in this movie. Nobody explains anything to each other, for the convenience of the audience, because all the characters are animals, and they only say cat things like "meow" and dog things like "woof woof" and capybara things. If man could talk the animals, perhaps they would only find out that these animals don't really know what's happening either. Where did the water come from? Where did all the humans go? This is a world that has passed on.

Midwest Furfest finished its festivities for 2024 with 16,800 people in attendance, and raised $136,000 for their charity the Street Dog Coalition. This shows continued healthy, yet slowing growth. It also allowed Anthrocon for the first time since 2017 to retain the lead as the largest furry convention to the end of the year and recapture their status as the largest furry convention in the world.

It was highlighted that despite MFF being such a large convention, there was relatively little to no drama about the service or situation on the ground on social media. The only critique shared heavily was a member of contracted staff being a bit heavy handed with getting ID for 18+ events. However, part of this good vibes may be due to the continuing shift of media platforms from X (formally Twitter) to Bluesky, which accelerated after the US Elections in November.

It was noted that the Rosemont, IL convention certainly is impressive in getting people through the registration line. Where Anthrocon had line waits of several hours, the winter convention didn’t have many complaints about line waits.

Well, the last month sure was something, time for a palet cleanser in this extra packed episode!

• A huge milestone for the Dutch Furry Fandom
• The Good Furry Awards!
• An interview with Val, a Dutch Furry, an excellent fursuiter, about how the fandom changed her life
• Of course a whole bunch of awesome charities from all over the world.
• Some cool animation news

The last month of 2024 is going to be exciting! So many amazing things in not just the Dutch Furry Fandom and beyoooooond!

Contributors this month include 2cross2affliction, dronon, earthfurst, GreenReaper, Rakuen Growlithe, and Sonious.

Contributors this month include 2cross2affliction, dronon, earthfurst, GreenReaper, and Rakuen Growlithe.

If there's one furry series I should be completely behind, but have always been a bit down on, it's Illumination's Sing franchise. The series is set in a completely furry world, with a complete lack of humans – something I can always get behind. And yet, I can't ever quite get behind them.

I think if I had to put my finger on what's wrong, it's that the Sing movies feel like the Illumination version of Oscar bait, being behind the scenes musicals that ostensibly celebrate the performing arts, something Academy Awards voters should, in theory, love; and yet, they can't even get the easy lay up of Best Original Song, which is straightforwardly embarrassing for movies called, well, Sing. It's not that they're failed Oscar Bait, it's that they're not going for Best Picture, or even Best Animated Feature, but simply seem to be aiming to be nominated in that category. They're not aiming for the top, and they're still missing!

Or maybe I'm just being too hard on them, and displacing my own Oscar obsessions on this otherwise innocuous series of jukebox musicals with no higher goal than to be entertaining bits of fluff. The newest entry in the franchise, if it can be called that, is just that. Sing: Thriller is a short available on Netflix, and it features a simple take on a nightmare zombie apocalypse, but furry and kid-friendly; an obvious homage to Michael Jackson's Thriller. It's definitely for kids, with a rating of TV-Y, for "fear", which I think would only apply to the absolute youngest viewers.

"It's a brutal world for all of us, really, and some aspects of it are not comfortable for the sentimental or the squeamish. Somehow that's never dimmed my love for all animals. I celebrate their beauty, even the darker side of it." (Introduction, The Book of Deadly Animals)

"The predators far outnumbered the vegetarians."
(last words, The Red Hourglass: Lives of the Predators)

It's October, the "spooky" month with Halloween at the end of it; I sometimes take advantage of that to bring to light something a bit more horror themed than the usual Flayrah fare.

This year, I'd like to share the non-fiction books of Gordon Grice, which are about animals and their sometimes very tense relationship with man, because they are some of the scariest things I've ever read, and so appropriate enough under the "it's about animals and it's spooky" month to stretch the boundaries of what a furry publication can cover. Furthermore, from a personal angle, Grice spent much of his life where I'm originally from, the Oklahoma Panhandle (we share a birth town), and I occasionally like to shine a light on what would be to me local authors.

"The Red Hourglass: Lives of the Predators", Delacourte Press, 1998, 259 pages, Kindle $5.99, hardcover $19.32, paperback $17.10
"The Book of Deadly Animals", Penguin Books Ltd., 2010, xxvii + 383 pages, Kindle $4.99, paperback $24.00, illustrated, originally published as Deadly Kingdom

WARNING: READ BEFORE PLAYING

Liar's Bar contains intense and graphic depictions of violence and death, themes of suicide, and other mature content that may not be suitable for all audiences. Player discretion is adviced. If you or someone you know is struggling with thoughts of self-harm or suicide, please seek help from a qualified professional or contact a local mental health service. Your well-being is important to us, and we encourage players to prioritize their mental health while engaging with our game.

The game features mature themes, and is intended for adult audiences only. If you are under 16, please step outside.

This warning is one of the first things you see after booting up Liar's Bar. I want to stress, and I don't care what you think of "trigger warnings", this warning is not kidding. This is a messed up, repugnant game; I think I kind of love it. (It also contains depictions of tobacco use.)

Okay, real talk, this is kind of a dark streak of submissions from this contributor (thank goodness for animated movies ... with jokes about infant mortality!), this game might be the most worrisome yet. I retweeted some fan art of the game, then realized, out of context, that might not look like something entirely, well, healthy to be reposting. Because the marquis attraction of Liar's Bar is that it's basically a furry Russian roulette simulator. Just so you know what you're getting into.

Liar's Bar is published by Curve Animation, and is currently available on Steam for $6.99, where it is still an "Early Access" game.

In this episode!

• This episode can hold so much charities!Breaking last years record! But by how much?
• Animations from around the web
• An interview with Labb Rat, known for her commentary videos, about the importance of caring about mental health and escaping toxic environments.

But first, the latest charity news from the fandom in this October edition of Digging Up Positivity and boy are here a lot of them! Do keep in mind, all amounts are converted to US dollars.

We have another GIANT list of games this season for the Fall 2024 Steam Next Fest! We're looking forward to a ton of these, and have compiled as many as we could find with animals and/or anthropomorphic characters featured in them! Be sure to let us know of any others you find by commenting below!

We'll be playing some of these demos this week and next, and hopefully providing some previews and progress updates throughout development! Additionally, we have an actively updated Furry & Animal Games List over at @GamingFurever that you can follow and get updates for lots of indie titles with TONS of lovely furry characters!

If you're a developer of any of these games, feel free to hit us up on email over on our Contact Us page!

We're sure everyone will find at least a couple games that strike their fancy during this Next Fest!

Check out the full October list here!