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On the 26th of February, furry hookup app Howlr will be shuttering its services, after delisting its service from the Apple and Google Play application libraries. This was announced by the mascot of Howlr Lab: Sushi. In this message he encourages furs to move to a new social application Barq.Social as a replacement.

This application, which was released in the middle of 2018, was based on the human hook-up app named Grindr.

Full statement from Sushi below the fold:

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When some Western furries hear about anthropomorphic content from China they may typically think of web pages that sell knock off fursuits, but F.I.S.T. is here and gives that stereotype a good solid punch in the face. This original property developed by the Eastern developer of Bilibili for the PlayStation (4 & 5) and PC pounds in the action and exploration of any player willing to fight on behalf of the furtizens being oppressed by the Legion’s mechanical beings.

Furtizens, by the way is not my word, but the game’s own neologism describing the furry citizens. It is such a simple word, and it amazes me that of all things a game would be the etymology of it and not from popularization from furry fans (visa vi: fursona). The story’s main conflict is on two rabbit characters: Ray and Cicero.

It is one of three furry games I played released in 2021, and is certainly going on my list of nominations for this year’s Ursa Major. It is a game of two main elements that have been blended together quite well. Combat is intimate and has the feel of a brawler game of old like a more polished Double Dragon, but it takes place in an open and explorable world where your weapons can double as traversal items, putting it in the Metroid space. So it’s part brawler and part metroidvania and it blends these two elements seamlessly.

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Somewhere in the back of my mind – along with every other soul-searching moment of my youth – is a single panel from this novel featuring Bayshore clutching a fish and crying out Diego's name. I claim it as a symbol of a love long lost in the hazy days of my early adulthood, when uncertainty was the only certainty.

This is the story of a naive young otter chasing a free-spirited rascal. Through lovingly penned dialog and moody colours, it exposes the raw, vulnerable quick of youthful longing; Diego's light-hearted take on all things bursting into life against the shimmering backdrop of Bayshore's persistently searching but fatefully delicate glass heart. Through these illustrations, a pair of artists in love pour their hearts into their work in a way we can never see again.

The story ventures from "what does this mean" to "what do we do now," through "I knew it all along" and finally arrives at its natural conclusion of "I'm sorry" and "I was meant for you." But even after the second part – that was never published on the web, and only available in the printed work – it leaves us wondering how things will play out.

Although the comic, penned by a duo of artists under the pseudonym of Blotch, has been out of print for years, it will forever live in the hearts and minds of a generation of furries who discovered what it is to love and live in the forgiving embrace of furry fandom's nascent youth through to its maturity, and on through its inevitable slide into the mainstream.

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I've been pretty quiet here lately - my life got turned upside down last year, and I've not had much time for fandom. That includes my interest in animated films! Still, I thought I'd throw together a selection of titles, both recent and possibly up-coming.

I suspect there are many more I've probably skipped over. (I'm avoiding the really popular ones, they've already received plenty of attention.) For example, Aardman is working on another Chicken Run and Wallace and Gromit film. And of course there are lots of TV series, like Samurai Rabbit: The Usagi Chronicles in the works.

I really wanted to put in more international films, but it's difficult to find out about those in advance. In any case, hopefully these all have some kind of talking animal critter in them, regardless of quality. If you've seen any of the released titles, post your impressions in the comments - or write us a full review!

I won't be describing the films that have already been posted about on Flayrah, or those in the Newsbytes (Turning Red, DC League of Super-Pets and The Bad Guys).

Other recent mainstream titles have been Spirit Untamed, Scooby-Doo Meets Courage the Cowardly Dog, and PAW Patrol: The Movie. Then there's sooo many more...

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Gene McGee, the mayor of Ridgeland, a northern suburb of the capital city of Jackson, withheld $110,000 from the Madison County Library System. According to the Mississippi Free Press, the executive indicated he would not release the allocated dollars until the library agreed to purge any “homosexual materials”.

The release of this news had set one particular furry into activist mode. Soatok Dhole, a non-fiction furry writer who covers issues around the fandom, social media, and technology, started a thread on his Twitter account pushing for help from the furry fandom to help bridge the gap in the library’s funding. In it he linked to the library’s fundraiser whose goal was initially a modest $2,500, but has since extended multiple times due to reaching that threshold and beyond.

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

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I was just going to sit on this particular entry until a later time, since Maus is a novel I rather grew up with, having discovered it in college. Current events have ratcheted my schedule up to today. See the details in Sonious' article.

As such, Maus is also the latest example in a long line of important literature to see censorship such as To Kill a Mockingbird, 1984, or even The Lorax. Like any of those other examples, the motivation for this censorship grays in contrast to the social and cultural impact the work has.

The story re-imagines the memoirs of a Holocaust survivor, through the anthropomorphic template of Jewish mice suffering at the paws of SS cats. The involved plot revolves around main character Artie and his tight-knit neighborhood of survivors, as they reflect on the horrors of the past. Of course, the weight of these events is more than enough to color their relatively safe present. Much of the novel does indeed read like a Jewish Historical Society compendium, and does not skimp an iota on content of the dire situation they survived.

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Hello, and welcome to the first episode of the fifth year of Digging Up Positivity! This episode we do highly various members of our community both new ones and older guests with some updates. And there will be some news from nature and the wonderful world of animation. And if you would like to get your paws on the T-shirt I am wearing or get some other Thabo merchandise, check the end of the video! As for now, let’s get started with the charities!

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When we discuss adult themes such as a government committing mass murder of its population, authors need to be wary not to say “God Damn” or have an unclothed character if they wish to reach a high school audience. These two items were front and center for the unanimous decision of a McMinn County school board as it barred the Pultzer winning graphic novel of Maus from its district curriculum. Maus is a graphic novel utilizing animal allegory to give a historical account of the holocaust.

The TN Holler has a full article of each of the board’s words on the removal of the book from the school. Many on social media are concerned that this is part of a trend of washing away the sins of authority by those that hold it. Though, given humanity’s inability to resist taking a bite of what is deemed as forbidden knowledge, banning the book within the classroom may rile the interest of rebellious teens to learn more about this banned literature outside the classroom.

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On the 20th of December 2021, a school board meeting was held for the Midland Public Schools in Michigan. At this meeting a woman had accused schools around the nation of placing cat litter pans in their gender neutral bathrooms for their “furry” students. A video of this rumor being presented started to go viral among the furry spaces a month later, along with a response from the school board.

The reason for the month's delay to reach traction throughout the internet was that the interaction was shared by the Michigan GOP Co-Chair Meshawn Maddock, on her Facebook account. In her post she seemed to be gung-ho about bringing an end to this cat pan menace. Maddock is currently under investigation over elector schenangans within the state of Michigan during the 2020 Presidential elections.

While the parent in the shared video started with a statement about her opposition to the Test-to-Stay program enacted toward unvaccinated students, the mother found two of her allotted three minutes directed at a statement she heard a child say a few months back about furries, and subsequently, cat pans in the restroom.

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Streaming services such as Disney+, HBO Max and Netflix were important for movie fans in 2021 due to the still ongoing Covid-19 pandemic. My review of Raya and the Last Dragon began with a lengthy digression involving the pros and cons of streaming before going into whether it was worth watching (more on that in a bit!). Sing 2 was the only movie I reviewed last year that I actually watched in a theater – the non-theatrical Rock Dog 2 was the only other movie I didn't stream to review, but instead watched on a rented DVD. It feels like 2022 could go either way; I might get to watch movies in theaters more often, or I might not. But that's the future. Right now, we're talking about 2021.

This is a year-end top ten list. If you're at all unclear on what I'm counting or not counting as a "2021 movie", I used to spell it out, but in recent years, I've just linked back to the older lists. One thing to note: though obviously you're on a furry site, this is not specifically a furry list. However, I traditionally name a best furry movie in addition to a best movie, period; for 2021, it was Raya and the Last Dragon. Each title links to IMDB or a Flayrah review, with better descriptions of movies you're unfamiliar with than I can give in this format.

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The annual Ursa Major Awards have opened for nominations for the best furry content for the 2021. You may enter your nominations here. The categories up for nomination this year are listed below. Be sure to get your entries in before February 12th.

• Best Anthropomorphic Motion Picture
• Best Anthropomorphic Dramatic Short Work
• Best Anthropomorphic Dramatic Series
• Best Anthropomorphic Novel
• Best Anthropomorphic Short Fiction
• Best Anthropomorphic Other Literary Work
• Best Anthropomorphic Non-Fiction Work
• Best Anthropomorphic Graphic Story
• Best Anthropomorphic Comic Strip
• Best Anthropomorphic Magazine
• Best Anthropomorphic Published Illustration
• Best Anthropomorphic Game
• Best Anthropomorphic Website
• Best Anthropomorphic Costume (Fursuit)

A large list of recommended items from each of these categories can be found here if you are looking for examples of work within each category. You may select content that is not listed on this recommended list as long as it was published or created in 2021. You may also only nominate work for categories you are familiar with and leave the rest without entries.

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On January 11, 2022 Dylan Reeve published an article for The Spinoff entitled Who Runs the Internet? Furries. Within the piece he talks to individuals within the Information Technology industry within New Zealand about their hobby of being a furry on the internet in their spare time.

Articles about furry fandom have been increasingly less hostile toward the group since the more darker periods of CSI, MTV, and Vanity Fair in the earlier 2000s. Because of this, this particular article would have come and gone without too much notice, but then someone used its content to spin a rhetorical argument to promote their organization's cause.

In response to the piece, a political organization called the New Zealand Taxpayer’s Union made a loud objection to what they classified as pro-furry propaganda on the government dime. There were many oddities about their response. For one, the Union’s response called for ‘debate’ within the article, but never specified what about the article could have lent itself to confrontation. They seem to insinuate that the furry in the article was part of some far left cabal without evidence, which is why they may have seen need to confront the individual interviewed. There was
also insinuations such that the journalist in question should have collected information on the private New Zealand citizen to forward onto the authorities. Something I’m sure would not be a waste of governmental resources.

However, in this article we will focus on the thing they, as a Taxpayer Union, should probably be most concerned about— fiscal waste. After doing calculations with all available numbers, and even some provided by this supposed government watchdog organization, I found that the amount that the New Zealand government spent on the single article in question is 136.48 ($US). This is 6 billionths of a percent of New Zealand’s total Gross Domestic Product (0.000000006%).

More details about this calculation after the fold.

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With temperatures down, and entertainment options becoming more and more—homegrown, let's say—it's a good time to catch up on that new-to-you material that aligns with your interests. Here are two of those lesser-known but deserving properties, marketed toward youth. For those of you who were sold on The Secret of NIMH, Redwall, and everything in between, at first view.

Mistmantle Chronicles

The Mistmantle Chronicles by M.I. McAllister has jacket flaps that compare it to The Wind In The Willows and Watership Down, although as you can see from the first installment's cover, there's much more of a Redwall yen in this series. As they say, though, DON'T judge a book by its cover, as the experiences of brave squirrel Urchin on the titular island carry their own identity. This flies in the face of origins that speak to many favorite role-playing games, as he evolves from his discovery on an empty beach to his eventual destiny in foiling a royal coup.

Camaraderie and species characteristics also run heavy in this, as in Redwall, however there is a noticeable amount of personification of reactive emotion and atmosphere as well, where dread and evil are given concrete outlines. Given my frequent mention of the property in the paragraph, you can gather the audience to which Mistmantle speaks. Dig on into this if you're part of that audience, since Miramax has purchased movie rights [albeit in 2004], and some sort of photo-play is probably not far off.

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It is well known to many Flayrah readers that there is at least one of our contributors that has a habit surrounding a game by the name of Fortnite. They usually write reviews for movies and not games, so this is no big deal. That third person battle royale shooter was a spin off of its inspiration PUBG: Battlegrounds. Given its more stylized graphics and quirky building mechanics, Fortnite became a powerhouse and caught on in the consumer markets much to the chagrin of those who like the more realistic and rough stylings of PUBG.

But if it’s anything that the battle royale genre teaches you, it is that just because you’re the first to hit the ground, doesn’t mean you’ll be the last one standing.

Regardless, if there is one thing for sure most of this site’s target audience can agree on is that neither of those games is really “furry”. Sure there are skins in Fortnite that let you dress up and you can write an article listing them out for the fur-curious gamers playing it, if you really want to. But it is very certain that the characters fighting it out in the battle in these games are very much homosapiens. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

Luckily for furs in 2021, a new battle royale game was released officially that may appeal more toward the anthro enthusiast. Super Animal Royale is a game of genetically modified animal folks fighting it out in a dilapidated Disney-esque amusement park called Super Animal World to try and be the best of up to 64 contestants thrown into this battle of the death by being the last animal standing.