On Wednesday, May 1, 2019, Flayrah contributor 2cross2affliction wrote in the article 'Sonic the Hedgehog' ... the movie ... the trailer:

Fun fact: no movie directly adapted from a video game has ever scored as "fresh" on the review aggregate site Rotten Tomatoes. [...] But, a new challenger approaches! [...] The question of whether this movie is going to be any good, perhaps unfairly, has mostly already been answered by the Internet. The answer so far has been no. No. Just no. Okay, maybe Jim Carrey? But otherwise, why? Why the human teeth? Why ten times?

Whoops. Turns out Sonic the Hedgehog somehow, against the odds, is rated Fresh by Rotten Tomatoes, with a score of 64% positive reviews from 175 professional opinions, as of this writing.

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

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Video from Thabo Meerkat, transcribed

Welcome to another edition of Digging Up Positivity! This episode is dedicated to the many volunteers that make all those amazing conventions and charities possible. But besides them, we are covering some animation news and other (maybe otter?) tidbits!

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The Ursa Majors are ready for votes and the nominees have been revealed. Voting can be found at their website and is open throughout the month of March. Two categories, however, received no nominees due to being an insufficient number of nominations and will not be put up to vote for a winner. Those two categories being Fursuits and Non-Fiction.

If you enjoy film, fiction, art, or any other of the many items that are up for selection as the best of the best for the year of 2019 be sure to vote this month. If you like non-fiction or fursuits, well, you can always be sure to nominate next year.

The nominees are:

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Dan Avidan, after years of dancing around topic of being a furry and which he would be, seems to have settled on his fursona of a cyberpunk wolf in a recently released music video. The video features animal characters with trans-humanist enhancements. The coloration has a signature bleed of 80s style animation.

The story portrays a pack of wolves seeking vengeance against a stag mogul after having their kin slaughtered at his hand. The style of animation and situation has some striking similarities to that of Caravan Palace's music video for Lone Digger.

This was brought to my attention by Majira Strawberry who asked why know one was talking about it. The answer to that in my case is object pertinence.

For those who are fans of cyberpunk and animation this is certainly worth the watch.

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.

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

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After the bumper here, the review will get into spoiler territory. I will say that if you are a Sonic fan this movie will give you a sense of pride as it is far better than it should have had any right in being. Taking the franchise’s lore and resetting it to tell its own story, but retaining the strong characterization and quip heavy personalities of Sonic and Robotnik that makes their rivalry such a strong one. It also keeps the first entry simple with the hedgehog and doctor being the only two characters from the universe being in the film. This makes the story stronger since it can develop those two far more and not have to worry about any other kind of side character fan service for now.

Hey, at least now Sonic fans can brag to Mario ones that Mario may still be the king of games, but Sonic blew the plumber’s cinematic pieces out of the water. Not that that was a high bar I suppose. Then again, having better quality games than Sonic these days isn’t one either (the author quips while using a quote from Sonic Forces for his review’s headline).

In the video game Sonic the Hedgehog, timing is everything. While at the heart of the game is a fast paced platformer, its foundation has always been learning the layout of a level and timing your actions appropriately. In a twist, the timing of this film and its release had quite a bit of impact on my view of it.

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Animal Crackers (trailer) is a 94-minute computer-animated children's movie. The brainchild of Scott Sava, it caught the early attention of furry fandom at least as far back as 2015. Concept animation showed a guy haphazardly munching on animal-shaped cookies that turned him into the animals. As time went on, Sava brought in financial backers, a co-director (Tony Bancroft, who'd worked on several Disney movies), and a co-writer (Dean Lorey). The finished product premiered at the Annecy Film Festival in 2017... and then vanished.

It turns out that Sava had made the mistake of not securing a distributor ahead of time. With very little bargaining power, it eventually got shown in China in 2018, and some other countries in 2019.

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Disney has announced that it will be producing a new Robin Hood movie.

Yes, that Robin Hood.

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Rick May, best known to furries and non-furries alike as the voice of Peppy Hare in the English version of the game Star Fox 64 passed away April 13, 2020 due to COVID-19. May was born September 21, 1940 (with the full name of Richard J. May), meaning he would have turned 80 later this year. May had also recently suffered a stroke in February, making him even more vulnerable to the disease caused by the novel coronavirus.

May will forever be known as the man who originally uttered the memetic line "Do a barrel roll! (Z or R twice.)" in Star Fox 64, explaining to players how to perform what is technically an aileron roll in order to deflect enemy attacks. May also played the villain of Star Fox 64, Andross. Outside of furry video games, May is probably best known for voicing the Soldier of Team Fortress 2; furries might also recognize his voice behind the villainous Dr. M from the third Sly Cooper game. In addition to voice work for video games, May has had a long history of working both on and for the stage as both a director and actor, beginning with USO shows while stationed in Japan. His part in a Renton, Washington production of Cotton Patch Gospel featured a combination of his voice and stage work, as he used different voices to portray 21 characters in what was reportedly his favorite stage role.

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A great many people only experience science fiction by what my mother and millions of others referred to as "monster movies". From Frankenstein to Aliens and beyond, the unknown and the unexplored are often our undoing. Bleak Horizons, edited by Tarl Hoch, is a wonderful collection of 15 stories that mix SF and Horror with various levels of anthropomorphic settings and characters. And, full disclosure, one of those stories is mine. Happily, the mix includes more than just blood thirsty monsters and end of the universe scenarios.

Overall my favorite stories in this anthology are Hardwire, Pentangle, and The Ouroboros Plate. My least favorites are 4/13/2060 and Not Like Us. Below is a short review of all the pieces. I think you should snag a copy, if only to read my favorites and have a taste for this genre. However, I also really enjoyed Carmen Miranda's Ghost Is Haunting Space Station 3 so you have every right to question my taste.

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Fortnite Battle Royale (or just Fortnite) is a “battle royale” shooter that has been around since 2017, and while its getting a bit long in the tooth, it’s still hanging around and still free to play. Last year, the game finally implemented skill-based matchmaking, which means for casual and new players, it’s never been easier to get into. In many ways, it is comparable to Nintendo properties such as Super Smash Bros. or Mario Kart, taking a more traditionally “hardcore” video game genre and making it more accessible with gimmicky gameplay, goofy items, cartoony visuals and massive amounts of RNG.

Of course, the game isn’t exactly furry in and of itself, but the game makes its money selling cosmetic upgrades to player’s in game characters, and quite a few of them feature either characters in animal costumes, or, more recently, straight up anthropomorphic animals. In the time-honored tradition of clickbait listicals, here is my ranking of those skins.

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The Voyages of Cinrak the Dapper is a collection of seven short stories written by A. J. Fitzwater centred around Cinrak, a lesbian, capybara pirate. It has a couple of strong elements as well as several weak points. I struggled with my thoughts as I read it and, in the end, I would say that, overall, I found it frustrating.

I will start this review briefly talking about politics. It might seem like an unusual starting point but the introduction makes clear that the book is political and it touches on several hot button issues.

Come for handsome, huggable Cinrak in a dapper three-piece, stay for her becoming a house-ship Mother to an enormous found family, the ethical polyamory, trans boy chinchilla, genderqueer rat mentor, fairy, and whale, drag queen mer, democratic monarchy, socialist pirates, and strong unionization.

What I do like about the way politics is handled in this book, is that it is not set up as a conflict between opposing ideologies; the book presents its favoured way of seeing the world and just leaves it as that. Even the religious character (and there is a fascinating take on religion inside) is played off sympathetically. However, by taking the stances it does, the book is also going to be, though it has no regrets about it, alienating for certain readers. If you can not tolerate a heavy emphasis on, and I quote, LGBTQIA characters, then this book is definitely not for you and you may as well stop here. On the other hand, if that’s what you crave, it may be exactly what you want and you should read further.

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While the pandemic has been chipping away at the furry convention scene, other furs have stepped forward to try and give those in the community events to look forward to over the now dormant weekends. This had started with a group of Furnal Equinox members creating a digital replacement for their late March convention called Keep Calm and Carry Con - Furnal Isolation. More have started to spring up this spring.

They can have internet dealers dens, streaming dance competitions, and other staples that conventions are known for. Accessible from the safety of your own home.

Below is a comprehensive list of conventions. Last updated May 2nd, 2020 12:18 ET.

Please feel free to place any not listed here in the comments below and we will look into adding it if it appears legitimate.

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Video from Thabo Meerkat, transcribed

Hey there, and welcome to the April 2020 edition of Digging Up Positivity from a rapidly changing world. But even in these weird times, there are still a lot of positive things to be found!

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

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As governments restrict gatherings of people, furry conventions are being postponed or canceled. Here's a quick run down of events in April, May, and June and their status as of May 5 17:28 EDT (UTC-4) in response to the COVID-19 pandemic - updates to come.

A new section has been added for past events impacted for historical purposes.

Links go to statements if available, or to their Twitter feed or site. See also: Furry Fandom and the Internet forced back to roots by viral outbreak

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I miss you, Mom.

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Linda McMahon is running for the US Senate in Connecticut. For twenty (20) years, she ran World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) with her husband, Vince McMahon. A few years ago, a documentary film examined the WWE's celebration of violence against women. Her campaign doesn't want Connecticut voters to see that film. Watch these excerpts from the film to see why. Continue reading →

Barack Obama promised to change the way things work in Washington, and after four years, nothing has changed: Corporate money controls President Obama and Congress. We need real change: vote for Rocky Anderson. Continue reading →

Glenn Greenwald predicts over the next four years that "it's all going to get much worse", with President Obama shifting politically more to the right while the Democratic base continues to support him. Continue reading →

Cornel West and Tavis Smiley criticize President Barack Obama for being to the right of even President Richard Nixon. Continue reading →

Thinking of using TurboTax to file your tax returns? Think again. The Minnesota Department of Revenue advises against using Intuit software to file tax returns! It found unacceptable errors in Intuit tax software, including TurboTax, ProSeries, Lacerte, and Intuit online. Continue reading →

Have you ever noticed that the Internal Revenue Service's regulations often are illogical? Does anyone at the IRS think through its regulations? Continue reading →

Is your standard charge for a speech $300,000?  According to an article appearing on the website of the Las Vegas Review-Journal, and a May 31, 2013 email, Clinton’s standard contract usually includes: Round-trip transportation on a chartered private jet “e.g., a Gulfstream … Continue reading →

William Brighenti, who founded the Berlin Property Owners Association, argued that the town can’t afford a new police headquarters, and police should look to clear space in their current building. He thinks one way to accomplish this is to get rid of tactical gear. Continue reading →

A year ago this month the U.S. Department of Justice announced that the banking giant JPMorgan Chase would avoid criminal charges by agreeing to pay $13 billion to settle claims that it had routinely overstated the quality of mortgages it … Continue reading →

Accountants CPA Hartford Connecticut LLC:  This is a rush transcript for April 26, 2015. It may contain errors. GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS, HOST: And the author of “Clinton Clash,” Peter Schweizer, joins us now. Thank you for joining us this morning, Peter. … Continue reading →

On April 30, 2015 Ed Schultz, host of The Ed Show, interviews Senator Bernie Sanders on his announcement that he will run for President of the United States in the Democratic Primary. Continue reading →

CNN Brianna Keilar interviews Senator Bernie Sanders on State of the Union May 17 2015. Senator Bernie Sanders says the American people want and deserve a serious debate on the serious issues facing our country today instead of merely the same old, endless 30 second, ad hominem, attack ads. Continue reading →

The Vermont senator and presidential candidate talks to Chris Hayes about his differences with Hillary Clinton and the prospects for his presidential candidacy. Continue reading →

Even though Corporate America has anointed Hillary Clinton as its next President, Senator Bernie Sanders' populist message is already in a week's time raising individual contributions totaling millions of dollars from hundreds of thousands of people! Continue reading →

SANDERS: ... there is more coverage about the political gossip of a campaign, about raising money, about polling, about somebody saying something dumb, or some kid works for a campaign sends out something stupid on Facebook, right? We can expect that to be a major story. But what your job is, what the media's job is, is to say, look, these are the major issues facing the country. We're a democracy. People have different points of view. Let's argue it. Continue reading →

Bernie Sanders does not have to win the Iowa primary; however, if the gets 35%, 40%, or 45% of the vote, that would set him up nicely for the New Hampshire primary, next door to his state of Vermont. Continue reading →

Chuck Todd tells Andrea Mitchell that Hillary Clinton will win the African-American and Hispanic vote in spite of the intellectual appeal of Bernie Sanders to liberal white voters Continue reading →

The Vermont Senator and Presidential candidate talks Hillary Clinton, the 2016 race, and an essay he wrote in the 70's about sex. Continue reading →

Berlin needs an independent candidate on its Town Council to counter and prevent the dominance of a major political party from unilaterally imposing its agenda and will on the citizens of Berlin. Our Town Council has been voting along strict party lines on key issues even though members pledged to reach across the aisle. It has dismissed or circumvented the results of referendums, reducing them to mere dog-and-pony shows. Berlin has more unaffiliated voters than those of the two major parties. Let's petition, nominate, and place on the ballot an independent candidate to represent these citizens and prevent the control of our Town by the dominant party on the Town Council. If interested, please contact us: berlinctpropertyownersassn@gmail.com. Continue reading →

December 6, 2015, 10:50 AM|Senator Bernie Sanders, I-Vermont, believes there must be an international coalition led by Arab nations in the fight against ISIS. Continue reading →

JONES: You talked about the person we always talk about, Donald Trump. Let's talk about the person we never talk about, we just heard from. Bernie Sanders has incredible momentum. He's had almost a media blackout. We -- I mean, he's almost never the subject of the main conversation. But out in the country, you see a lot of Bernie Sanders support. He got more contributions, individual donors, than anybody in American history. That by itself lets you know something's going on. I think he's going to win Iowa. He may win New Hampshire. Continue reading →

Bernie Sanders would have already won this nominating contest if we had received an accurate accounting of the vote. It is deeply troubling the Senator would be sending out surrogates to talk about his allegiance to the Democratic party and Clinton in general in the face of the Party instituting theft against its own constituents. It is no mystery HOW to win. Count the votes and contest fraud. A tough Sane Progressive call out. Continue reading →

The evidence is adding up that this election is a SHAM! Exit polls do not add up on the Democratic side and regularly predict better results for Bernie than the voting machines are telling us! The mainstream media won't even come close to touching this, and in fact they're even attacking Lee Camp for bringing it up. Don't miss this segment of Redacted Tonight! Continue reading →

Green Party's Jill Stein says that what we Fear from Donald Trump is what we have already seen from Hillary Clinton. Continue reading →

Leaders of political revolutions never quit before the official battle begins, and say that they will vote for and support their enemies. When the moment arrived of walking all that endless talk of Bernie Sanders about fighting his political revolution, he caved out of self interest Continue reading →

Chris Hedges speaks the truth about American politics while Robert Reich shows that he is still an establishment Democrat after all, like Bernie Sanders. Continue reading →

we know how politics works in the United States. Whoever—whatever political party gets into government is going to merge with the bureaucracy pretty damn fast. It will be in a position where it has some levers in its hand. And so, as a result, corporate lobbyists will move in to help control those levers. So it doesn’t make much difference in the end. What does make a difference is political accountability, a general deterrence set to stop political organizations behaving in a corrupt manner. Continue reading →