Welcome to the April edition of Digging Up Positivity, this month we are interviewing two amazing beans from the virtual world, however their friendship influenced their lives much more than anyone expected!

We also feature a new furry game, some lovely animation news and of course, our charities, because my dear friend, we sure had a lot of those in April, so lets gooo!

On the menu today is: Cult Of (The) Lamb with a side of Science Dog.

Sound good? Well then, let's partake of a somewhat kosher dinner of allegory. Notice that these works have firm connections to other media. As is only right, we'll open with the appetizer.

Contributors this month include dronon, earthfurst, and Rakuen Growlithe.

Welcome to the April[sic - should have been March] edition of Digging Up Positivity, this month:

• An update on all the furry charities around the world
• How Coyote vs Acme got saved from the Shelf
• Cattbutt controllers (who writes this stuff)
• And our special guest is the amazing pie-tactic Duino Duck!

But first, lets start it with our charity update!

If you're a member of the Furry Writers' Guild, voting is open until May 3rd for the 2024 Cóyotl Awards!

The Advocate reports that the SiegedSec “furry” hacker that had leaked the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 plans has been raided by the FBI. The raid on Vio was revealed on the site formerly known as Twitter by one of the hacker’s contacts, whose relations were confirmed by journalists who originally covered the story.

The article indicates that while the Project 2025 leak was SiegedSec’s most well known hack, there were other actions they had taken that may be under investigation. This includes hacks against state websites in response to anti-trans legislation, and a hack of the Idaho National Laboratory.

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

It was a Sunday morning, and dozens of furries squished together at the back of Moynihan Train Hall (connected to Penn Station) in New York City. As more rail passengers were gathering to have a bite in the food court, the furries decided to move to an empty hallway near the west exit. Badges were handed out. On them: "NYC FurWalk".

This was the second fursuit walk around Manhattan, organized by Champion Zane and Fane Vuh'uni, two furs from New Jersey. (The irony is not lost on them.) The first, held at the start of February, had ten partial fursuiters and around twenty participants, Zane told me. The second, held last weekend, attracted around 70 furries, with just over two dozen suiters, and one who brought her full fursuit. Most of the non-suiters wore furry-designed shirts.

Nominations are now open for the Good Furry Awards! The GFAs recognize furries all over the globe who give of themselves to the furry community in the spirit of charity and friendship. Prizes will be awarded in three categories:

• The Good Egg Award for furries who do charitable and other volunteer work, such as helping out at furcons, raising money for animal charities, or doing work in their non-furry communities.
• The Image Award goes to furries who present a positive image of the fandom through the media, including YouTube videos, documentaries, vlogs, podsts, websites and other similar means of communication.
• The Furtastic Award for furries doing good works that don't easily fall into the first two categories.

All furries active in the fandom currently are eligible. Winners are voted on by their peers and receive handsome trophies and a $200 cash award.

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...

"We'll meet again, don't know where, don't know when, but I know we'll meet again some sunny day."
-Chikn Nuggit, "An episode made for Tik Tok in case the app gets banned for real"

"I missed."
-Pepé Le Pew, "For Scent-imental Reasons"

Animation, at least in America, feels a bit weird right now. Maybe a bit unhealthy, but not in a "sick and dying" kind of way, but in a "your diet is messed up" kind of way. My most recent review besides this one is Flow, a micro-budget independent movie from Latvia made with Blender, while The Day the Earth Blew Up is the latest iteration of major studio Warner Bros.'s most famous IP, featuring marketable characters older than World War II. And yet, somehow, the former review feels like an unnecessary noting of something everyone was already aware of anyway, while this review feels more like a spotlight on a small unknown that deserves a wider audience.

Yes you read that right, a real actual bill was introduced in the state of Texas, which bans "Non-Human Behavior" in Texas schools. It includes students behaving like animals such as making meowing noises, wearing tails, animal consumes and much more. Non-Human Behavior is defined within such bill.

The bill also intents to make it a form of a child abuse to encourage said behavior. This means that when a parent encourages a child to believe that it is socially acceptable to engage in such Non-Human Behavior for example, it would become a form of "abuse".

SECTION 5. Subdivision 261.001(1), Family Code, is amended to
read as follows:

(1) "Abuse" includes the following acts or omissions by a person:
(A) mental or emotional injury to a child that results in an observable and material impairment in the child's growth, development, or psychological functioning, including, in an education setting, allowing or encouraging the child to develop a dependence on or a belief that non-human behaviors are societally acceptable;

bold is emphasizing the change in text proposed by amendment

Anthro New England, or ANE, held its tenth annual convention, and its ninth in-person one, at the Westin Boston Seaport District hotel in Boston, Massachusetts in mid January. The convention was sandwiched between the Hanover Insurance Group’s National Sales Meeting (ended Thursday) and a MathWorks event (Monday onwards).

Fresh back from a convention, still dealing with the concrud, but welcome all to an amazing packed episode filled with good news from the furry fandom! Covering not just the charity numbers with a highlight of Nordic Fuzzcon, but also a lovely interview with Chester the Geroo. I mean, not only does this little critter have the voice of an angel... he sings operas— in fursuit. But first the charities!