Newsbytes archive for February 2026
Contributors this month include 2cross2affliction, dronon, EberraWolf, and Rakuen Growlithe.
Rakuen Growlithe: Loyal Brazilian dog inspires a new law which allows pets to be buried with their families.
dronon: There's another Marsupilami movie.
EberraWolf: In an online-only interview with Stephen Colbert, Texas state representative James Talarico is asked about furries. "When I ran for public office, I never thought I'd be talking about furries in this job," Talarico said.
2cross2affliction: The full set of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle themed cards for Magic the Gathering have been revealed. (Submitter's personal favorites include Turncoat Kunoichi, Squirrelanoids and Ice Cream Kitty.)
2cross2affliction: Zootopia 2 (a.k.a. Zootropolis 2) has won the British Academey Film Award (a.k.a. BAFTA) for Best Animated Feature. (The first Zootopia/Zootropolis famously lost this award to Kubo and the Two Strings).
EberraWolf: As a result of a months-long harassment campaign against him, YouTuber BetaEtaDelota will no longer be a Guest of Honor at the North Carolina furry convention Bewhiskered, with both worried about his safety.
EberraWolf: AP News: "Viral phenomenon in Argentina has young people identifying themselves as animals".
2cross2affliction: Pokémon Winds and Waves will be the 10th generation of mainline Pokémon games. Starters include a Grass bird, a Fire dog and a Water lizard.
Comments
I don't know, I wanna talk about Pokemon starters, and my article sucked last generation (it just didn't gel), so I don't want to bump that, but I got the last newsbyte on Pokemon starters so I guess this is appropriate.
The "I don't like the new Starters, they may be bipedal" discourse has already started, and it's a little bit more mask off this time, thanks to the Nintendo Pokemon account posting a fingernail polish (💅) emoji next to it, which I'm assuming is supposed to mean it will have claws and there isn't really a claws emoji (searching for one gets a lobster), but everyone's assuming that means it's going to be the feminine, preening type, so we're getting a lot of homophobia/misoginy there. Setting aside the grossness of it, I mean, the dog is literally a Pomeranian, so like, yeah, if there's going to be a feminine, fashion-oriented, into grooming Pokemon starter evolution this generation, it'll probably be the one based on the toy dog breed. It'll be funny when the gecko turns out to be packing Freddy Krueger claws it uses to climb walls while the Pomeranian goes all out with the "Pom/pom-pom" pun and turns into a cheerleader (that's my predictions). Meanwhile, Browt the bird exists.
A sidebar is that, setting aside the more distasteful aspects, for a lot of the complainers, it really is just a nostalgia thing, they're just unfortunately too dumb to realize it. People are tying themselves into logical pretzels to try and explain why Blaziken in the third generation does not fit into the "anthropomorphicly feminine" archetype when I'm sorry, I was there. She was (and, yes, she was mostly female in the fan-art) the Meowscarada of her day.
Finally, I did notice the generation most complainers decide to start (despite Blaziken basically being right there since 3) complaining about is gen 6, which does actually mark the beginning of something new for starter Pokemon; Greninja got added to the fighting roster of Super Smash Bros.. If the new Pokemon are being designed bipedally for a reason (and not just because, I don't know, bipedal cartoon animals are fun to design), it's more likely that they're Smash bait than "furry".
Smash, Pass, or SuperSmash I guess.
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