Creative Commons license icon

Utah kids find clever way to skip school: protesting furries

Your rating: None Average: 4 (3 votes)

Anthrocon 2007 7chan protestors What started as a cafeteria food fling in Payson, Utah became yet another fracas over the allegations of ‘furry behavior’ in schools. This ultimately led to online rumors and frustrations about alleged attacks committed by the ‘furries’ on students. Bolstered by frustrations on social media, a handful of students and their parents performed a walk out of their school on April 17.

An older furry by the name of Stroodle was interviewed by ABC4 [EU/UK folk: try this], and said that expression is important, but sometimes studies should come first.

It’s crazy that it’s escalated to this point that these kids are being so distracting to their peers that their peers want to stage a walkout [...] So to have the next generation muddy our name and not represent us very well, it’s kind of disappointing.

Continue doing things you like, continue dressing up, continue making art. But maybe let’s keep it out of school hours?

Movie reviews: "The Tiger's Apprentice", "Heroes of the Golden Mask", "Rumble"

Your rating: None Average: 3.3 (3 votes)

The Tiger's Apprentice posterLet's review some computer-animated films! Here are trailers for:

The Tiger's Apprentice,
Heroes of the Golden Mask,
and Rumble.

Short version: The Tiger's Apprentice, action, one character has a tiger form, lots of Chinese culture, story is nothing great. Heroes of the Golden Mask, terrible. Rumble, wrestling-sponsored sports comedy, very formula loser-wins story, maybe of interest to furry macro fans.

'Foxes', 'Gnoll Tales', 'Wolf' and 'Raven' win 2023 Ursa Major Awards - plus 'Tamberlane', 'FurScience' and 'AI Cats'

Your rating: None Average: 3 (1 vote)

Ursa Major Awards Nominations and votes were cast, now the results are out!

Full category results in vote order for the 2023 Ursa Major Awards follow…

New study provides neural evidence that dogs visualise words as humans do

Your rating: None Average: 2.5 (2 votes)

Dog set up for EEG. (Photo ©Grzegorz Eliasiewicz)People have long wished to talk to animals and this desire is reflected in cultural objects such as Arthur C. Clarke's novel Dolphin Island. One well-known example of an animal "learning" human language was the horse Clever Hans, who was later shown to be responding to cues from his handler rather than actually understanding. Cases of poorly-controlled claims, like Clever Hans, and speciest notions of human uniqueness have hindered development of the field. However, the wish to communicate through language has remained and many animals have been claimed to use or understand human languages, including dogs.

Newsbytes archive for March 2024

No votes yet

Contributors this month include 2cross2affliction, dronon, and GreenReaper.

Florida fur sought by police for child abuse after walking Albuquerque teen overnight towards bus to Las Vegas Fur Con

Your rating: None Average: 4.5 (2 votes)

Albuquerque police seek 33-year-old Florida fur Conrad Coovert (@Rumor_Lucca, ShadowWolf DarkDragon) on a charge of child abuse after walking a local 14-year-old boy he'd previously talked with 6.5 miles overnight, planning to take a Greyhound bus to this weekend's Las Vegas Fur Con, then bring him back to Florida.

Coovert, who also went by the name GothFox, SnaggleWolf NightFangz and Fenrir Darkslayer, was reportedly carrying "furry costumes and sex bondage items" in his luggage, while the boy, who had blisters on his feet, said they "had walked all night and slept in a park in the cold".

According to KOB-TV, Coovert had previously been accused by investigators in 2015 of attempting to have sex with a 13-year-old boy after meeting him at a fur con, trading sexts, then visiting his Georgia home.

Update (Apr 5): Coovert was arrested in Florida

Digging Up Positivity March 2024

Your rating: None Average: 5 (1 vote)

Welcome to a packed episode of Digging Up Positivity! The convention season is gearing up and boy does it show!
In this episode:

  • Many charities in March, pushing us over the $400,000 raised this year!
  • A lovely memoriam for Mark Merlino, also known as Sy Sable.
  • Nomad Complex is able to return, backed by the fandom.
  • AnthroAir: Virtual airplanes for a real fandom!
  • And the Good Furry Award.

Also I am happy to work together with artwork-tee, and there is a new pawtastic T-shirt in the store, for more details on how to get one, stay with us till the end of the show!

Movie review: 'The Animal Kingdom' (2023)

Your rating: None Average: 4 (1 vote)

'The Animal Kingdom' poster The Animal Kingdom (trailer) is a 128-minute live-action French film released in 2023 (Le règne animal). It's the second movie directed by Thomas Cailley, and co-written with Pauline Munier.

Set in modern-day France, there's been a worrying development: some people are slowly mutating into animals, and society has not been adjusting well. The story follows a small family, Émile (Paul Kircher), a disaffected and conflicted teenager, and his father François (Romain Duris), who move to the south-west of France to be near the family's mother, Lana, who's been in government care ever since she began to change. A road accident makes her fate unclear, adding stress to an already stressful situation. With many people heavily biased against the mutations, Émile finds himself starting to change too.

Despite the fantastical premise, it's primarily a drama about the relationship between Émile and his father. I'd hesitate to call it a coming-of-age film, because Émile isn't going to become an adult - at least, not a human one.

Review: 'LAPIN'

Your rating: None Average: 2 (3 votes)

The rabbits of <i />LAPIN.LAPIN (available on Steam) is a 2D precision platformer from South Korean Studio Doodal released in the second half of 2023. In it, you play as the abandoned pet rabbit Liebe who, accompanied by four rabbits who took her in, must go on a journey to find a new home.

Plot

The basic plot: forced to leave your home in the local park due to construction work, you must journey to find a new home, following a legendary rabbit explorer's map. This immediately echoes those childhood staples The Animals of Farthing Wood (reviewed here) and Watership Down; both have bands of animals – also rabbits in the latter case – forced to leave their home and journey to find a new one. Given that the rabbits are constantly searching for "Paradise", there may also be some influence from Wolf's Rain.

'Small Saga' - a simple RPG with a grand story

Your rating: None Average: 2.7 (3 votes)

Small Saga I remember when I first saw the animation of a rat vagabond flipping out the blade of a Swiss army knife, standing before a large orange cat on a kitchen floor. And ever since that day, I looked forward to playing this game. Of course, this came out in a time when ideas and funding campaigns were plenty, and many ideas never made it past that point. So let’s just say, I lacked faith that I’d ever see more than the wonderfully stylized and animated videos.

I’ve never been more happy to be wrong. The team behind this game persevered and gave me a pleasant surprise when the game was finally announced to be released in late 2023. But now that it is out, was the game worth all the hype?

In short, if you like your RPGs with challenging combat, then you may find this one too easy. However, if you play these games for the story, characters, setting, and intrigue, then this one is one that any furry would be loath to miss. In fact, if you’re a regular to this site you probably played it already.