2023 has started off, but before we get too far in I wanted to take a look back on the short animations that I think are worth your time to look at from 2022. As there are quite a bit of items in the recommended list on the Ursa Major site, I decided to go through and watch them and curate them into 11 items I think do what they do really well and are well worth consideration for nomination.

The videos here are all short, only one of them breaks the 20 minute mark. The reviews will contain spoilers so be sure to watch the embedded feature prior to reading my thoughts on them if you would like to experience them for yourself.

Be sure to take some time and enjoy the hard work these artists put into these works. Also check out the other items in the recommended list if you have time as there are some interesting items that I thought were good, but there are too many to write about extensively.

Nominations are now open for the 5th Annual Good Furry Awards. The awards, sponsored by the Ask Papabear and Uncle Bear Publishing, recognize furries who are active in the community and are doing things to project a positive, helpful, and friendly image of the fandom to all furries and nonfurries alike.

Anyone in the fandom can nominate one or more furries (note: nominees should be currently active in the community) now through March 31, 2023, after which there will be a 2-month period for voting. The winner receives a handsome trophy, a free banner ad on Ask Papabear, and a check for $500. Past winners include Tony "Dogbomb" Barret, Soatok Dhole, Ash Coyote, and Cassidy Civet.

There will also be a Lifetime Achievement Award announced by special committee. This award debuted last year to recognize furries who have made a lifelong impact to the fandom. Last year, the co-winners were Rod O'Riley and Mark Merlino.

To learn more about the award, go to https://www.askpapabear.com/good-furry-award.html. To nominate someone, follow this link: https://www.askpapabear.com/goodfurrynominationform.html.

Let's start at the beginning.

Before Puss in Boots: The Last Wish, even. How about DreamWorks Animation's new studio bumper? It's a bit ostentatious, even a bit overly pleased with itself. Maybe goes on a little long. But, then again, what studio bumper doesn't, nowadays? But, being a celebration of DreamWorks past triumphs, it's interesting to note what franchises were chosen to be spotlighted.

Right out the gate, the Bad Guys are getting quite a vote of confidence, despite being the new guys with one movie under their belts. So I think it's safe to say we're getting a sequel. Also for furries, the Kung Fu Panda series is featured, and we already know that's got a fourth movie coming. The How To Train Your Dragon series is also represented by Toothless, despite the fact that the last movie came to a very decisive story end. It's one of the more acclaimed franchises of DreamWorks, so it has to show up, and even if there are no more movies, smaller screen spinoffs are still happening. There are also appearances by the Trolls and Boss Baby franchises, but they aren't furry, so who cares?

There are some notable absences, however. Despite featuring four movies, the Madagascar franchise is ignored. Spirit, you know, the one with the horse? That somehow managed two movies, but is apparently not an ongoing concern. And obviously, the Shrek franchise is prominently featured, but the star of the movie we're about to actually start reviewing is not. Maybe he'll show up in the bumper for movies he's not the star of?

WatchDaToast has been developing a furry-themed point-and-click adventure game for a while now, Beyond the Edge of Owlsgard, raising €36,317 from 682 backers on Kickstarter. It's just been released, and VoxelSmash has reviewed it.

You can buy the game on Steam and follow the author on Twitter.

This year's furry charity index has been released with $1,180,320.69 raised this year.

Happy New Year everyone!

Contributors for December 2022 include 2cross2affliction, dronon, earthfurst, GreenReaper, and Sonious.

Grand Island, Nebraska law enforcement report that 26 year old Aaron Zemen, who also has the alias of Tadashi Kojima and fandom name of HunterFox, was found and arrested for kidnapping a thirteen year old from the state of Utah. The juvenile was found in the car with Zemen at the a gas station.

Officers responded to a suspicious vehicle call at 3320 Langenheder Street (Git N Split). Upon arrival, officers made contact with Tadashi Kojima and a juvenile male sitting inside a white Toyota Avalon. GIEC advised officers the juvenile male was reported as an abducted child from Utah.

At this time, officers advised Tadashi to exit the vehicle. When officers advised Tadashi he was going to be placed under arrest, Tadashi tensed up and started resisting officers placing cuffs on him. Tadashi was placed under arrest for Kidnapping and Resisting Arrest.

- VITAMINR shared police report

Members of the furry community had called out Hunterfox as a suspect in accosting the 13 year old after an Amber alert was made in response to his disappearance. Fortunately, the child was found safe and can be safely returned to his family.

There are two movies that came out this year based on The Adventures of Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi, the story of a marionette who gains life and then proceeds to, well, go on adventures. Both for all intents and purposes went straight to streaming services, but were treated on the higher "prestige" end of streaming movies, though we're still, as a culture, not sure if streaming first is on par with theatrical releases or more along the lines of straight to video trash (or are they TV movies?). Both were directed by Best Picture/Best Director Oscar winning directors. I personally found them both not actually very interesting, one being ridiculously over-hated, the other just as ridiculously over-loved.

The first was Robert Zemeckis's Pinocchio, which is less a straight adaptation of Collodi's novel than another one of those "live action Disney remakes" that everyone loves so much, this time of the 1940 version of Pinocchio. It released on Disney+ back in September, so I've been very efficient getting around to it. The second is Gillermo Del Toro's Guillermo Del Toro's Pinocchio. Normally, I hate when they do that "Director's Name's Whatever" thing to titles, it comes off as pretentious and boastful, but given the circumstances, I'm going to have to allow it this time. It released to Netflix this month.

European furry convention Eurofurence has announced that it will be changing its dates and venue for EF27:

Due to unforeseen circumstances, we need to change our venue and date in 2023. We fully understand that this means an inconvenience for those of you who have already made plans and we apologise for that. It was a choice made with the confidence that it will be best for EF in the long run, but we can assure everyone that the choice was not made lightly.

We are going to announce detailed information ASAP.

We will open a new chapter for Eurofurence so you can continue to enjoy all EF has to offer and we look forward to writing it with you.

Eurofurence 27 "Black Magic" had been scheduled for 2-6 August 2023 at Berlin's Estrel Hotel, its venue since 2014. [tip: Rakuen Growlithe]

Furry information security blogger Soatek was banned from Twitter on Thursday, December 15th after posting on his account how easy it was to circumvent post restrictions that the platform had silently implemented to block links to the Mastodon version of ElonJet. In a blog post written by the security blogger, he demonstrates the differences in response from Twitter to public sharing of site flaws before Elon Musk had taken over in October versus now.

Furry conventions are inherently tied to the places people are, and thus can give us both context about furry history and perhaps a glimpse into the future. Plus, there are quite a few misconceptions about the world that annoy me; this may help break a stereotype or two.

Since the last Guardians of the Galaxy movie, Volume 2, a lot has happened, both in the universe of the story, and behind the scenes. In universe, every member of the team except Rocket was "snapped" out of existence, which is okay for furries, since Rocket was the only actual furry member of the team, and they mostly all got better, anyway. In the real world, meanwhile, series director James Gunn was fired from this third world, but he also got better. Anyway, the third movie will finally come out next year, and a trailer has been released.

From a furry perspective, it doesn't get much better than this. Rocket's origins are being explored, the villain is the High Evolutionary whose whole thing is literally making furries, Cosmo will continue to appear after The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special on Disney+, and, oh yeah, that's Lylla the otter.

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

In the core Pokémon video game series, most main entries begin with the player making a choice between three Pokémon, one each Grass, Fire and Water type, which becomes their first Pokémon. These Pokémon, known as "starter", and also their third and final "evolutions", are given unique prominence in the minds of players, mostly for sentimental reasons, as everybody remembers their first, and partially because these Pokémon are slightly stronger than average, especially during early game. They are also rare, as the beginning of the game is usually the only time they are available, outside of trading with other players or breeding duplicates (which the game makes harder for starters by making them predominantly male, when offspring species is determined by the female in a breeding pair).

Due to this prominence, the character designs for the starters and their final evolution are heavily scrutinized. In more recent generations of Pokémon, a common complaint has been a rise in bipedalism and "human like" designs for the characters, a complaint that resurfaced with the evolution of quadripedal Grass Cat Sprigatito into bipedal Meowscarada (bipedal cats seem to especially stir strong reactions, if the earlier reaction to Incineroar is any indication). Now, partially, this is all aesthetic preferences, and it all comes down to personal choice, but there does seem to be a strong "no furries" aspect to the complaining from some quadrants. Furries definitely seem to prefer the bipedal look, with Meowscarada showing up over 550 times on e621, while Quaqaval the duck is a distant second with just over 60, which is still double third place Skeledirge the quadrupedal crocodile with not even 30 pieces as of this writing. And there is reason to doubt this is a "recent" trend among Pokémon starters, as well.