Ursa Major Awards: 2024 Voting is Open
The 2024 Ursa Major Awards are open for voting, from Friday March 21 to Saturday April 19! You can go to the voting page to request a voting key.
The Awards may be changing the way they do things - If you're interested in offering ideas or suggestions, please contact Rowdy! In other news, the Ursas are now on Blusky, and they've released a temporary statement about AI/LLM content.
The 2024 nominees are...
Motion Picture:
Live-action or animated feature-length movies.
- Flow (review)
- Robot Dreams (review)
- The Wild Robot (review)
- Sonic the Hedgehog 3
- Kung-Fu Panda 4 (review)
- Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl
Dramatic Short Work:
One-shots, advertisements or short videos.
- Bun Hunting: Overture
- Catching Up (pilot)
- Celine & Cheswick
- Dungeon Flippers pilot: The Ace of Wands
- Horny
Dramatic Series:
TV or YouTube series.
Novel:
Written works of 40,000 words or more. Serialized novels qualify only for the year that the final chapter is published.
- A Chronicle of Lies, Part 1: The Dark Sculptor by Abraham Carson
- Chain Unbroken by Rick Griffin
- Executioner's Gambit by Gre7g Luterman
- Far Flung by Utunu
- The Varcross Key by Aeron Dusk
Short Fiction:
Stories less than 40,000 words, poetry, and other short written works.
- A Different Kind of Make-Believe by Renee Carter Hall
- Sun Runner: An Imbrium Novella by Frances Pauli
- Monarch of Monsters (18+) by Vylet Pony (Zelda Trixie Lulamoon)
- The Frog Wife by Rebecca E. Treasure
- The Three-Piece Giant by Gabrielle Steele
General Literary Work:
Story collections, comic collections, graphic novels, non-fiction works, and serialized online stories.
- Lauren Ipsum Throws the Book at You by Charles Brubaker
- Awoo!: Volume 2 by AC Stuart
- Swords and Sausages: Volume 2 (18+ web host) by Jan
- Work "Fur" Hire by Steven Hirsch
- The Shapeshifter's Guide by TransformARTive
Non-Fiction Work:
- Celebrating 85 Years of Conventions: From Worldcon 1939 to Anthrocon 2024
- World in RooView: FurAffinity hacked following Dragoneer's passing
- World in RooView: FurAffinity owner Dragoneer and Hugo Nominated Vootie artist Taral Wayne pass away
- ShifterCon Opening Ceremonies
- Fur and Loathing podcast
Graphic Story:
Includes comic books, and serialized online stories.
- Tamberlane by Caytlin Vilbrandt and Ari Noble
- 21st Century Fox by Scott Kellogg
- Projection Edge by Thomas K. Dye
- Swords and Sausages by Jan
- Freefall by Mark Stanley
Comic Strip:
Newspaper-style strips, including those with ongoing arcs.
- Lauren Ipsum by Charles Brubaker
- Nine to Nine by Jan
- Carry On by Kathy Garrison
- Foxes in Love by Toivo Kaartinen
- Pixie and Brutus by Pet Foolery
Magazine:
Edited collections of creative and/or informational works by various people, professional or amateur, published in print or online in written, pictorial or audio-visual form.
Published Illustration:
General artwork, may include illustrations for books, magazines, convention program books, cover art for such, T-shirts, coffee-table portfolios.
- Adventurers & Explorers by Royz
- Round 8: Le Mans 1973 by Elly
- High Orbit (on Twitter) by Serpent_x
- Shopping Simulator by Squiddy
- Untitled by NessieMooo
Game:
Computer or console games, role-playing games, board games.
Website:
Online collections of art, stories, and other creative and/or informational works. Includes galleries, story archives, directories, blogs, and personal sites.
- Belfry WebComics Index
- e621 (18+)
- Fluffle
- Wikifur
- Furaffinity (18+)
Fursuit:
(Only one qualifying entry was given more than a single vote, therefore the category has been dropped for 2024.)
Music:
Musical works such as singles and albums.
- Bicycle by Patricia Taxxon
- Olympics in Space by David Wojciechowski
- 808 Compact by David Wojciechowski
- Monarch of Monsters (18+) by Vylet Pony
- Sad, Drunk and Needy (18+) by Whsprs
Best of luck to all the nominees!
Comments
Despite the AI statement, the two short fiction entries from Zooscape (The Frog Wife and The Three-Piece Giant) are definitely accompanied by AI images, as is most everything on Zooscape. I wonder if those just flew under the radar or if they fall under the statement's language about "an event where an author has an AI generated image attributed to their work by their publisher without their permission".
I believe that would be the case. Zooscape is published by Mary E. Lowd, who had embraced AI image generation heavily to the point of being defrocked as a guest of honor.
My guess is writers are submitting them to be published to the 'zine and Lowd is having AI images generated that are added post-publication.
I do not know whether it was disclosed to the authors about the situation around the publisher using AI images.
I wonder how CrossAffliction will feel about Flow getting a nomination? Even though it was his second favorite movie, isn't it the type that he doesn't feel would be "furry" enough?
I wouldn't have reviewed it if I didn't think it wasn't "furry enough".
They steer that boat better than I could, much less regular animals.
That is true, but 99% of the time, they act like real animals. So I wasn’t sure if you have a problem with it. But even if you did, shouldn’t be too bad considering the other five nominees should balance things out.
Perspective helps too; this is the cat's story, while, say, How To Train Your Dragon is Hiccup the human's. The cat and company act like animals, but the story treats them like humans; Toothless occasionally acts unlike an animal, but the story treats him like an animal. Or, put it another way, the animals of Flow go on a ride; Toothless gets ridden.
I think those scenes got cut. :(
"If all mankind minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind."
~John Stuart Mill~
Just admit you were too busy being the Lord of the Dance with your Irish dancing shoes to remember some HTTYD movie
Buddy, how are you supposed dunk on Rakuen when you missed his very fucking obvious joke?
As I was doing my video about the nominees this year I did note how Mary Lowd is not in the Short Stories category at all, which is probably a result of the AI rule.
It's interesting that in that she obviously can write on her own, and probably still does. But like steroids in sports, once people know you be juicing it's kind of hard to determine if you did it during any particular performance.
Also, given that two of my videos were nominated I indicated that people should vote on the World in RooView: FurAffinity owner Dragoneer and Hugo Nominated Vootie artist Taral Wayne pass away primarily, and use the remaining two votes on the other nominees.
Hey, you kind of forgot this announcement: https://x.com/UrsaMajorAwards/status/1900637042347778439
It shows that before the AI announcement, she simply did not get enough votes.
Was that in the reply to that thread? I can't access X as easily as before. Mary's not mentioned on the post linked but there is one comment/reply.
So it may have been a more organic ouster by the voters, probably because of her full throated endorsement of AI tool, so probably not due to the rule, but more the popular position in the fandom being against AI tools she embraced working against her in a popular award.
That post was about certain nominees that DID get enough votes, but were disqualified due to certain rules put in place long before, so had nothing to do with the AI announcement.
That should infer that, like you said, many voters decided to organically not give her any noms and shut her out this time.
William Shatner may ham it up, but is not actually ham.
Neither is Porky Pig :-( Why? Why does it have to be this way?!
Is this true?
It's an inference, by Anoni's own admission; it makes sense, and it does best explain the situation, but is not provably true. As an alternative theory, Lowd's biggest fans might have decided not to vote in protest of the anti-AI polices of the Ursa Majors. Or both. Or neither.
I see Sonious has two videos nominated, big congrats!
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