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Historical debates

AAE presents new Further Confusion logo by Helvetica

Your rating: None Average: 3.8 (4 votes)

Helvetica's FurCon Logo Results have been announced in Anthropomorphic Arts and Education's trademark logo competition.

Helvetica Bold (Foofers), creator of the winning design (later modified), will receive a patron-level membership for Further Confusion 2014 and promotional items.

Runners-up Latte Koffeefox, GreenReaper, bcokami, Floe, and I.M. Weasel get a sponsor registration and will be featured in the con-book.

All 33 entries were anonymized and identified as numbers through the board's selection process.

Grubbs Grizzly founds 'educational resource and think tank'

Your rating: None Average: 5 (5 votes)

American Furry Association logoFurry advice columnist Grubbs Grizzly has incorporated the American Furry Association, which he hopes will become a leading non-profit in support of the furry community.

According to Grubbs, the organization's mission is:

[…] to serve as an educational resource and think tank for the furry community, with the goal of promoting furry arts and furry businesses, fostering better communication among furries in the United States, and dispelling misinformation about the furry fandom both within and outside its membership.

Grubbs says the AFA is not restricted to policy, but may provide services such as a membership directory, unique-named fursona registration and business yellow pages, awards, convention and business organization services (including grants and job boards), lists of fandom resources/news, member discounts, group insurance, and media relations.

'A Fox Tail' - what?

Your rating: None Average: 3.3 (9 votes)

A Fox Tail, by Eric DealHas anyone ever heard of A Fox Tail, or of Eric Deal? According to CreateSpace, this has been out since March 2011. It makes Deal sound like a veteran and well-known Furry author.

Polar, a handsome arctic wolf, crosses paths with Vulpie just as the fox boy is about to unleash his life's greatest work, the computer Virus/AI, Vulpie.net. In a world of carnivores and herbivores, carnivores have the upper paws and everyone knows foxes control the media. Wolves are figureheads and make much of the success, but there has always been a sly fox somewhere in the fate of all great things. Polar and Vulpie display that, as Polar unknowingly meets a fox that will become famous, infamous, loved, and feared more than the dark goddess Aila herself.

Can Polar hold to his convictions? Is Vulpie a blessing or a curse? These questions are asked every day in the world of Sufias and the universe of Halvia. Wolf-fox romances have been frowned upon for centuries, yet with a love as strong as theirs what could possibly stand between them? Sometimes souls are destined to be together, and nothing can tear them apart.

Review: 'Fell' by David Clement-Davies

Your rating: None Average: 3.8 (5 votes)

FellFell is the sequel to David Clement-Davies earlier book, The Sight. The Sight was an excellent book following a wolf family, living in Middle Ages Transylvania, as they struggled through a prophecy and learned to deal with a legendary power and the crazed aspirations of an ex-pack-member.

Fell claims to deal with the mixed destinies of a wolf, Fell, and a human child, Alina. In reality, Fell is relegated to a minor character in his own story, only getting about a fifth of the chapters, and the aspects that might have interested fans of The Sight have been vastly minimised.

Flayrah contains reviews of Clement-Davies' previous books The Sight and Fire Bringer (which is similar to The Sight but deals with a herd of deer living in Britain slightly after the events of that book). Another review of Fell, feeling pretty much the same way, is written by Darfix.

Video: Furries – an inside look

Your rating: None Average: 5 (24 votes)

Videographer Curt Pehrson gives an overview of the fandom with help from niteskunk, based largely on interviews from seven furs at Midwest FurFest 2010. [poizencat/fursuitlounge]

Read on for some highlighted quotes.

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Current and upcoming animated films (2023-2024)

Your rating: None Average: 4.6 (14 votes)

It's been 18 months since the previous list of current and upcoming animated films, so why not do an update? Last time, I thought I did a pretty good search, and then Mink found more.

What's become clear is that thanks to Covid, film distribution is a mess. Some animated films are endlessly delayed, some get shown early at film festivals before getting a limited release up to a year later in their home country, and some just... show up, and it's anyone's guess which streaming services will carry them, or for how long.

For many of the films below, I can't find streaming versions yet - this might be because I'm in Canada. If you find out they're available in your area, let us know in the comments. (Justwatch has been a great help.)

I'll provide ratings from IMDB and Rotten Tomatoes with [I=] and [RT=], if available. This list relied largely on Wikipedia. It's an okay source for older films, but isn't especially reliable for upcoming titles. So this is definitely an incomplete list. For babysitting films, Sturgeon's Law usually applies (90% of everything is crud). But perhaps there will be a few unexpected surprises - time will tell! So first, let's talk trends.

New Zealand article about furry that cost tax payers an estimated 0.000000006% of their GDP raises ire of Taxpayer Union

Your rating: None Average: 3.8 (16 votes)

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.

Streaming review: 'My Little Pony: A New Generation'

Your rating: None Average: 3.2 (15 votes)

'My Little Pony: A New Generation' movie poster And so it begins. Again.

The long running My Little Pony is introducing its latest toyline "generation" with what was supposed to be a theatrical movie. Due to the whole "ongoing pandemic" thing, that was mostly canceled (it was released theatrically in a few regions) and the whole thing moved to the streaming service Netflix, where any further spin-offs will also be held. My Little Pony: A New Generation is directed by Robert Cullen and José Luis Ucha with co-director Mark Fattibene, and has been available on Netflix since September 24 in most regions.

Not to beat around the bush, but the last time My Little Pony launched, it was kind of a thing. I'm sure the vast majority of Flayrah's readership is well aware of the "brony" subculture, but if you somehow missed it, or would just like a refresher, this Ursa Major-nominated video by YouTuber Jenny Nicholson is recommended – though you could always troll through Flayrah's "My Little Pony" tag. The upshot: there are higher expectations attached to this series relaunch than usual.

Party Animals: How American politicians got their fursonas

Your rating: None Average: 3.4 (18 votes)

politicalfursonas.jpg

Early next month, Americans will vote for various political offices, including President of the United States, the U.S.'s head of state. This is usually considered a pretty big deal in America, and even the world in general, as America still manages to wield a lot of political, economic and even cultural power on the world stage, despite itself. Some of the idiosyncrasies of the American political system may be a bit opaque to non-Americans (no, we don't really understand what the Electoral College is supposed to accomplish anymore, either). One aspect that seems to be uniquely American is the strong identification of American political parties with certain animals.