Digging Up Positivity February 2024

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In this episode:

• Zootopia 2 gets a release date!
• Small trains and giant cats!
• Several furry charities and the update to total raised this year!
• An exclusive interview with Nio the Dutch Angel Dragon!

Welcome to the February episode of digging up positivity. At the time this goes live, both me and this episodes’ special guest are at Nordic Fuzzcon in Malmo, Sweden, where I am helping the charity team raising funds for U-Animals. But besides this awesome charity, there is so much more! And I love to tell you more once future me has returned home.

But for now the charity updates!

Charity Updates

JMOF raises $22,202.99

During the Japan Meeting Of Furries, this wonderful gathering of Asian floofs raised a most impressive $22,202.99 for the Toyohashi Zoo and Botanical Park.

Spicy Ramen Challenge Round 2 + 3 raises $280

The amazing Bandit Raccoon and their lovely team are trucking on with their Spicy Ramen challenge! During Round 2 and 3 they have raised $280 for ALS, and the videos were very awesome to watch. While I love spicy food myself, these contesters certainly have my respects!

Radio Rabbit Hole raises $450

A regular when it comes down to charity: Radio Rabbit Hole, did a 24 hour live stream early February for the St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, raising $450 for this wonderful cause.

Gynybeats raises $2,259

Everybody deserves a loving home, a place where they can be surrounded by their loved ones. Unfortunately fellow youtuber GynyBeats, a half blind Wolf/Dragon hybrid suiter had to escape from domestic abuse. Fortunately Hund The Hound and her friends started to raise money as part of helping her to get back on her paws. So far they have raised $2,259!

Anthro Expo raises $14,000

At Anthro Expo, over 1000 attendees raised $14,000 together for PIVOT, an organisation aimed to support members from the LGBTQ community, allowing them to find kindred spirits, connecting with them, empowering them and so much more.

Get Out The Float raises $2,350.16

The Furry Fandom has a significant number that are experts on inflation. While I don’t want to blow them out of proportions, but they actually founded an entire furcon around inflatables, which certainly was not just a bunch of hot air. In fact they raised $2,350.16 for the Sunset Parks and Recreation Foundation!

Friends of Mark, aka Sy raised $55,068

People who have seen Ash Coyotes’ The Fandom may have seen him, and the older furs certainly have heard of him: Mark, also known as Sy, known for organising ConFurence, the very first furry convention, but also the Prancing Skiltaire Parties.

He truly is one of the OG’s of the fandom. But unfortunately last December he suffered from 3 micro-strokes resulting in a brain-bleed and several other most unfortunate things, including a fall at the rehabilitation center.

However, he was certainly not forgotten. Many people close to him dropped by, showered him with love, and online, a GoFundMe setup by his friends. It sits currently well above $55,000. Wishing you well, and thank you for being a part of what resulted in the fandom we have today.

[Editor's note: Mark had passed away following the recording of this video, but before the publication of this transcript]

Sera raises money for the World Central Kitchen

Sera the Space Shrimp dedicated one of their relaxed streams to help the world central kitchen. They played several games and during the stream $27,50 was raised.

2024 in charity so far: $215,003.10

With all these wonderful initiatives, big and small, the amount of charities covered by this show has now reached just over $215,000! I am hyped to see how much we can get next time!

News

We can’t stop here! This is cat country!

In Japan we have various restaurants with an unique theme, one of them is railway-cats, where you have 2 things I love! Trains and cats! Now, cats loooove to tip over moving objects, including trains, so this makes for some delightful chaos on the tracks. But for one, I do not want to be a passenger on those trains, oh no!

City of Heroes: Homecoming

Up to this very day, I still have warm memories of City of Heroes, its community was vibrant and welcoming, and the atmosphere of the entire game was amazing. But, it was a MMO— a live service, and when in 2012 its servers were shut down, the community was in tears.

And we see this with more games, when the servers vanish, so does the game! And when devoted fans setup a private server, they are facing the wrath of the original company. However, in a wonderful turn of event, the HomeComing servers, ran by dedicated fans, managed to get official permission not just to run private servers, but also to continue development! I think this is a wonderful example on how to do things. I recently logged on again and boy, the nostalgia trip was real.

And the servers are active! Within moments I had a group, and I was on my way. I should dedicate a video on this.

*ponders*

BlueSky no longer needs an invite

These days, the social media landscape has become a bit more diverse, and one of them is BlueSky, standing out with several moderator tools enabling you to create the media feed you prefer. FurryList, an account dedicated to keep track of furries on BlueSky is about to cross the 30.000 critters! While you first needed an invite code, they recently opened their doors for everyone!

Zootopia 2 gets release date!

While I have fond memories of Disney, one cannot deny that the last year was not without struggles. But, we keep on looking forward. During the Q1 2024 earnings call several announcements were made, for a looot of sequels. Take that how you will,
but one stood out: Zootopia 2, and its release date is November 26th 2025. If the mini series Zootopia+ is any indicator, it has a chance to be good!

I Wani hug that gator.

Ever had that feeling you are the only human in a school filled with dinosaurs? Well, not in that way, but Cavemanon made a very adorable visual novel to help Inco, a very awkward human fellow navigating through the perils of highschool...and dinosaurs. This furry, well, scaly, game filled with very interesting characters is available on steam for windows, osx and your trusty steamdeck.

And now for our featurette:
[Interview: Nio the Dutch Angel Dragon]

Thank You

A big thank you for staying with us till the very end of this second episode of 2024!

Now, if you want to join me with lovely art-streams, I try to stream every Monday on twitch with a mirror stream on this channel. I say almost! Because the Monday after this episode I will be driving home from Nordic Fuzzcon, and well, don’t stream and drive!

I would like to thank you all, but especially the following amazing critters for supporting my videos and streams:
- Subscribe Star

• Hanzana
• Manick
• Cosmik with a K
• Taross
• Score Chaser

- Patreon

• Tantroo McNally
• Ishnula
• Els Decker

- Youtube

• Longtooth
• Wither

- Current subscribers at Twitch

• Dutchie The Cat
• Arie
• Lightnympha
• Loosa The Dutchy
• Marcel Coppersan
• Hanzana
• RookeeIcyMeerkat
• TretronTheDragon
• Drohan Star Bear
• Swex the Mischievous Fox
• Falconeo
• Jake R G
• Ajabuyeen

The next episode will be on Saturday March 30th, see you then and of course, stay awesome and all the hugs.