It always pleases me to say, particularly to furry audiences, that a hiatus was taken for less exciting and dramatic reasons than those they may have cooked up. In this case, I’m glad to return to posting an occasional media review here and there after five years of being between smartphones, plus the additional snag of quite the dry spell in terms of worthy things to write of. (Thanks for holding back on Jackbox, guys.)

Making use of snazzy resources, both analog and digital – remember your local libraries, folks – takes you a long way. It certainly brought these two disparate cat stories back to my attention.

When discussing modern adaptations of classical Greek myths, you can frequently see people complain about the changes the authors made: "That's not authentic, not traditional; that's not what really happened in the original." In fact, reinterpreting old stories, giving them a new, contemporary meaning, weaving several different tales into one - is the truest, most authentic Ancient Greek tradition. That's what Greek (and, later, Roman) writers always did.

Of course, some older texts - Homer, in the first place - were regarded higher than others, but there was no 'canon', no Old Testament; no single authority on what 'really happened'. In one of Euripides' tragedies, Helen of Troy is a callous, cynical adulteress; in another by the same poet, she's a woman of the highest moral qualities who's never even been to Troy. That's because, when writing these two plays, Euripides set very different tasks before himself.

'Icare' (2022) is a French-language feature film mixing 2D and 3D animation. It was made by Luxembourg studio The Iris Group, directed and co-written by former Pixar employee Carlo Vogele. The movie was the Luxembourg's "Best Foreign Film" submission for the 2023 Oscars. It tells the story of Icarus, son of the illustrious artist and inventor Daedalus, entwining it with another famous Cretan myth - that of Asterion ("stellar", "star-like"), more commonly known as the Minotaur.

It's a flood of reviews! Today's trailers are for:

Those are in increasing order of recommendation. The first three are for kids, the fourth is anime, and the last one isn't furry but is worth mentioning!

Adam Woolacott of Burnaby, British Columbia, known as O'hare-ah and vivalink in furry fandom, has plead guilty to five of nine charges against him related to sexual offences involving a young teenage girl, after failing to get evidence thrown out over an incorrectly-issued warrant.

Adam - who was then 35 - made contact with the child in December 2019 on a furry Facebook group, and reportedly continued to interact sexually with her through text messages after learning that she was 12. He later met her in a park and touched her breast through clothes, before inviting her to his townhouse where they had sex and he showed her a dragon sex toy.

The girl met Adam in his hotel room at VancouFur 2022, and after further sexual touching sought sex with her again, telling her he had condoms; but she just wanted to hang out. Becoming upset, she left the room and told the event organisers, who contacted police. Adam went missing for a time after the convention, causing friends to request help to find him.

The 6th Annual Good Furry Awards have completed the nomination process - you can read about the nominees. There will be four awards this year:

• The Good Egg Award for volunteer work
• The Image Award for promoting a positive image of the fandom through the media
• The Furtastic Award for general pawsomeness, and
• The Lifetime Achievement Award, selected by committee

Voting for the three popularly-selected awards is now open through the end of September.

The winners will be announced at Biggest Little Fur Con in Reno on October 15.

Good luck to all the wonderful nominees!

In this episode:

• A very squeaky expansion for Magic The Gathering
• So many furry charities!
• The new very creative and inclusive Winter Olympic mascots
• Results Pride Shirt Giveaway
• Cool animation news, and
• A lovely interview with Shrapnel Vagr, an amazing bean from Cardiff!

But first, the latest charity news from the fandom in this August edition of Digging Up Positivity!

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

And what a busy month - Thank you everyone for your contributions and updates to multiple unfolding situations!

"Fur Affinity is now online and may be accessed safely", according to a journal on the now-accessible furry art community, recounting details of the hack that preoccupied much of the fandom for the best part of two days - and urging users to leave the FBI to investigate rather than pursue vigilante justice.

Meanwhile, the "Honoring Dragoneer's Legacy" fund approaches $200,000 - including five-figure donations by Paw Maltz and Bad Dragon - although there is still some way to go to the $221,800 target.

Back in April 2020, I ranked the then-existing furry and furry-adjacent "skins" in popular online "battle royale" game Fortnite. Since then, the number of purchasable animal-themed skins has doubled; there are also far more anthropomorphic animal skins running around. The following is a ranking of skins that appeared since the original list, to try and keep up with the growth.

In the final hours of August 6, furry art community Fur Affinity released a brief news post announcing that its owner, Dragoneer, had passed away, after a nasty respiratory disease that he had posted about publicly on social media. During this time the purple Digimon gave a hopeful prognosis on his last Fur Affinity journal, believing he’d recover in one to two months, but also showing how serious the situation was on Bluesky with anxiety about getting appointments as the condition worsened. A July 15 post indicated he had suffered pneumonia-like symptoms since mid-June, but didn’t seek help prior; likely fearing the cost, being uninsured.

Sean “Dragoneer” Piche was a foundational individual in a new generation of furry community leaders, fostering a struggling art site called Fur Affinity to a dominant position in the fandom - as well as promoting and later taking over responsibility for a companion convention, FA: United, before COVID-19 caused the difficult decision to permanently cancel the con.

Taral Wayne (born Wayne MacDonald), a Canadian artist in both science fiction and furry fandoms, passed away last week at age 72. (October 12, 1951 - July 31, 2024.)

I had the opportunity to hang out with Taral many times from about 1994-2001 until I moved away, after which I sadly let myself become more distant. If you were a friend or colleague of Taral's, even if you're not in furry fandom, please feel free to post a comment or personal memory here!

Taral Wayne was a resident of Toronto and discovered science fiction fandom in the early 1970s. Within the next ten years he was an active participant, lending his artistic talents to zine culture. He was also a member of the proto-furry APA, Vootie.

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

Magic: The Gathering (MTG) is one of the world's most popular trading card games. First released in 1993, there are now millions of players and billions of cards in the world. One way in which MTG differs from games with standard playing cards is that there are numerous cards of differing rarity, creating an incentive to collect and trade cards. The game is also constantly evolving with new rules, concepts and expansion sets with themed decks.

Their upcoming expansion, Bloomburrow, has been getting attention in the furry fandom as it's focussed on anthropomorphic woodland creatures! The official release trailer shows a young mouse—accompanied by a slightly older mouse, an otter and a frog—trying to master magic. Their antics in the peaceful woods are cut short when they find part of it burning and a massive wolf emerging from the smoke and flames. The three older critters are quickly defeated and, when the younger mouse stands up to the wolf, a deer, presumably the forest guardian, appears and the wolf backs down.

The fighting game series Mortal Kombat is a venerable title in the world of video games, with over two decades of history and even a dedicated competitive scene (of which the furry fandom's own SonicFox is a champion player). However, what really set it apart from the slew of other arcade fighter games back in 1992 was its ultra-violent "finisher" moves, known as Fatalities. Variations soon followed, and Mortal Kombat 3 introduced Animalities, basically allowing the characters in the game to violently maul each other with their fursonas.

The most recent game, Mortal Kombat 1 (actually the 12th mainline title, but part of a continuity reboot of sorts), will be releasing a series of DLC known as "Khaos Reigns". Besides a new story line and a few new characters (none of which are particularly furry), Animalities will be returning to the series September 9 of this year, as a free update. The trailer for "Khaos Reigns" is available on YouTube, and only YouTube; it is age restricted, and therefore unembeddable, for extreme, over the top violence.

In this episode!

• An exclusive interview with the force behind Brok the investigator
• Last month's furry charities
• What makes a fursuit really stands out!
• The results of the Pride Shirt give-away and how to get one yourself

But first, the latest charity news from the fandom in this July edition of Digging Up Positivity!