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Historical debates

FA turns six; promises new layout, fixes in May

Your rating: None Average: 3.7 (3 votes)

Fur Affinity turned six this weekend, offering a preview of a new site template to go live May 21, plus a commission system with integrated ratings.

Site owner Dragoneer has promised that underlying security issues will be fixed too:

Things have been slack in the coding department, and we know that. It's time for a change, and we're long overdue. We're going to fix that. [...] The vulnerabilities will be fixed between now and then, and some of them require complete system re-writes

However, offers to help with these vulnerabilities have been rebuffed for now. It is also not the first time that a new layout has been promised.

2009 Ursa Major Award winners

Your rating: None Average: 4.3 (15 votes)

The winners of the 2009 Ursa Major Awards, announced this weekend at FA: United 2010:

Blotch's 'Out of Position'

Read on for the full list of nominees . . .

There are 18 furry conventions this year. How many are you going to?

1-2
44% (276 votes)
3-4
11% (68 votes)
5-6
1% (8 votes)
More than 6
0% (3 votes)
All of them
3% (17 votes)
None of them
40% (252 votes)
Votes: 624

Another of "those" articles about Furry fandom

Your rating: None Average: 5 (5 votes)

Here is another newspaper profile on Furry fandom for the general public, in the new "Los Angeles Alternative Press". At least this one is reasonably objective. It also includes a URL link to the website for ConFurence 2003, next week -- dunno whether this will hurt or help the ConFurence...

Video Game Review: 'Liar's Bar'

Your rating: None Average: 4.4 (25 votes)

liarsbar.jpg

WARNING: READ BEFORE PLAYING

Liar's Bar contains intense and graphic depictions of violence and death, themes of suicide, and other mature content that may not be suitable for all audiences. Player discretion is adviced. If you or someone you know is struggling with thoughts of self-harm or suicide, please seek help from a qualified professional or contact a local mental health service. Your well-being is important to us, and we encourage players to prioritize their mental health while engaging with our game.

The game features mature themes, and is intended for adult audiences only. If you are under 16, please step outside.

This warning is one of the first things you see after booting up Liar's Bar. I want to stress, and I don't care what you think of "trigger warnings", this warning is not kidding. This is a messed up, repugnant game; I think I kind of love it. (It also contains depictions of tobacco use.)

Okay, real talk, this is kind of a dark streak of submissions from this contributor (thank goodness for animated movies ... with jokes about infant mortality!), this game might be the most worrisome yet. I retweeted some fan art of the game, then realized, out of context, that might not look like something entirely, well, healthy to be reposting. Because the marquis attraction of Liar's Bar is that it's basically a furry Russian roulette simulator. Just so you know what you're getting into.

Liar's Bar is published by Curve Animation, and is currently available on Steam for $6.99, where it is still an "Early Access" game.

Utah kids find clever way to skip school: protesting furries

Your rating: None Average: 4 (4 votes)

Anthrocon 2007 7chan protestors What started as a cafeteria food fling in Payson, Utah became yet another fracas over the allegations of ‘furry behavior’ in schools. This ultimately led to online rumors and frustrations about alleged attacks committed by the ‘furries’ on students. Bolstered by frustrations on social media, a handful of students and their parents performed a walk out of their school on April 17.

An older furry by the name of Stroodle was interviewed by ABC4 [EU/UK folk: try this], and said that expression is important, but sometimes studies should come first.

It’s crazy that it’s escalated to this point that these kids are being so distracting to their peers that their peers want to stage a walkout [...] So to have the next generation muddy our name and not represent us very well, it’s kind of disappointing.

Continue doing things you like, continue dressing up, continue making art. But maybe let’s keep it out of school hours?

Review: 'Sing 2'

Your rating: None Average: 2.7 (14 votes)

sing2.jpgSing 2 opens with the cast and crew of Moon’s Theater putting on a pop-musical stage adaptation of Alice in Wonderland. Alice is played by the elephant Meena (voiced by Tori Kelly), the Mad Hatter is played by the gorilla Johnny (voiced by Taron Egerton), and the Cheshire Cat is played by a pig named Rosita (voiced by Reese Witherspoon), which seems like a bit of miscasting to me. This performance is particularly important, because in the audience is a talent scout, a saluki dog named Suki (voiced by Chelsea Peretti) who could get them an audition to perform at even bigger venues.

Anyway, she leaves about halfway through the first act.

The theater’s owner and director, the koala Mr. Moon (voiced by Matthew McConaughey), tries to stop her, asking her what she thought of the show. She replies that it’s fine, really good local children’s theater production, but just not what they’re looking for. When Moon implores her to tell him, really honestly, what she thinks, Suki sighs and asks him if he really wants to know.

Because the honest truth, she says, is they’re just not good enough.

Furry Fandom and the Internet forced back to roots by viral outbreak

Your rating: None Average: 4.2 (21 votes)

The Internet was seen as a major catalyst for the furry fandom finding one another during the times before we held conventions. During that earlier period in the 1990s, conventions and meets were rare, and finding one another was done mostly through the chat rooms and message boards of the past. There was no bandwidth for video or sharing major animation projects, therefore most of our intimate conversations were textual.

For many younger furries, it was a time that was lost in the annals of a distant history. Instead they found themselves joining in amongst a wave of growing conventions being held in various places around the world on any given weekend. Ones where those in custom fursuits march out in the streets openly rather than feeling a stifling isolation of being cooped up in hotel spaces, with a handful of home made creations, being wary of a hostile media looking for a freak show.

Coming out of 2019, it seemed that the time where furry was just an Internet thing was fully behind it. However a series of unfortunate events were in line for 2020, a year that has led humanity to be forced into their rooms by an irate Mother Nature as an easily spread virus has forced governments around the globe to take drastic measures to slow its spread and put strict limits on social gatherings. A situation which has forced both the furry fandom, and the internet that brought it together, back to their roots.

Do furries need to organize?

Your rating: None Average: 4 (12 votes)

Squash the Boss - Unite Your Workplace; International Workers of the World A furry fan drew an inflated skunk embroidered with the emblem for the Industrial Workers of the World union squishing a hamster in a top hat with the caption of “squash the boss”. Such a piece is not anything too unusual. The oddity that caught the eye of the Daily Dot was that the union itself posted the piece to their Facebook page.

Soon thereafter, the IWW's Twitter account joined in. Though, for some reason, they quietly back out later, as the original Tweet referenced in the Daily Dot article appears to be deleted. (Its text remains in the article despite this – a feature of the standard embedding code for other sites. Tweeters, be wary of this.)

But has furry reached a point where we need to squash the boss and organize? Or are unions barking up the wrong tree? The answer, like the fandom, may be complex.

Video: 'My Little Pony: The Movie' is 'My Little Pony' with actual ponies

Your rating: None Average: 3 (7 votes)

Previously on Flayrah's My Little Pony movie trailer coverage, we noted a distinct lack of actual ponies in the pony movie advertised. But not this time. They're bringing pony back.

Meh, needs more Applejack.