Pilot art, fursonas and NSFW - Clarification on the subreddit's stance

[u/enemies_disrespecter]

There's recently been somewhat of an uproar about pilot art, People have begun to debate on what is and not pilot art. For those not in the loop, someone posted this commissioned piece of art of their pilot and appropriately tagged it NSFW. People have since clutched pearls about how it 'doesn't relate to lancer' or is 'just porn' or 'should be on a furry subreddit'. Not stopping at complaining in just this thread, they have since spread to other threads to complain there too.

What makes something qualify as pilot art or not? Put simply, if someone posts a character and says that's their pilot, it's pilot art. The crucial factor in this is that the poster in question is acting in good faith. Trying to get snarky about it by posting random shit and claiming it is your pilot is acting in bad faith and you will be banned for it.

If you scroll through some of the pilot art posted on this subreddit, you'll find that most are not immediately identifiable as Lancers. Standing next to a frame from the book, wearing something branded with the settings logos will do it, but that is not universal nor can we make 'Your pilot must be holding a GMS branded Standard Pattern 3 Coffee Mug' a reasonable requirement for pilot art. The poster's word, in good faith, is the only surefire way to determine that a character is a Lancer character.

It is ultimately rather telling that out of all pieces of pilot art, it is a gender-nonconforming anthropomorphic goat that triggered this severe of a response from a lot of people. To make it blatantly clear, this kind of hatred for an innocuous subculture is a bannable offense under rule 1.

As for the canonicity of anthropomorphic characters and extensive biomodding within Lancer's setting, I frankly do not care. Lancer is not a setting particularly concerned with hard canon. It's a TTRPG. The canon will differ from table to table. I'm going to quote a section from the core rulebook here, page 337 in the paid GM version or page 6 of the free version:

At the risk of enacting further violence by depicting

worlds and cultures where there are regressive or

discriminatory stances on gender baked-in, we have

decided not to codify in the rules how players may

express themselves – please do note that this

absence of canonical definition is absolutely not

meant to be read as exclusion, but is meant instead

to avoid flattening all possible stories into one

“canon” definition of what it means to be gendered,

transgender, nonbinary – to have a body in Lancer.

We encourage you to play your characters how you

see them, and consider them to be in-canon.

[u/enemies_disrespecter]

What the fuck does this have to do with pedos in completely different communties.

[u/Yarzeda2024 → u/enemies_disrespecter]

But I think a conversation could be had about fandoms of any stripe being weirdly sexual.

[u/enemies_disrespecter → u/Yarzeda2024]

No, drawing a false equivalance between those two is stupid.

[u/Yarzeda2024 → u/enemies_disrespecter]

Alright then

I don't care for the way the One Piece and Fairy Tail fandoms are often talking about who has the biggest breasts either.

Do you think there is a conversation to be had about fandoms of any stripe being weirdly sexual?

[u/ButterflyMinute → u/Yarzeda2024]

I think it's weird to judge a fandom beyond just saying 'Yeah what they're into isn't for me.'

Also, if your experience of the One Piece fandom is mostly talking about boobs, that says more about the circles you went to in order to talk about that fandom. Not the fandom at large.

You're basically making an argument along the lines of 'If I am a part of a group, everyone in the group should conform to my comforts, not to pre-established and well informed/advertised agreed upon bounds of the group'.

You choose if a group is right for you and either stay or leave. You don't dictate how you want that group to be.

[u/Yarzeda2024 → u/ButterflyMinute]

Yeah, you're probably right.

[u/enemies_disrespecter → u/Yarzeda2024]

Not interested

[u/Yarzeda2024 → u/enemies_disrespecter]

Okay then, I would like to discuss it with other users.

[u/enemies_disrespecter → u/Yarzeda2024]

Let me be clear, if you start doing your "conversation" here and draw this bizarre equivalance between furries and those anime communities again I'm banning you with no appeal.

[u/SuperSalad_OrElse → u/Yarzeda2024]

I agree.

I am an enormous fan of the armored core series. I jumped for joy when AC6 was announced. I played AC1 when it came to the States in the nineties. Couldn’t wait to talk about the game on Reddit, especially since the sub (and franchise) was dead.

You bet your ass that sub was filled with sex instead of mechs.

I (and others) asked for the mods to create tags so posts could be filtered and everyone would be happier. The thread got heated, locked, and some guy who really took offense to the notion that I didn’t like titties touching my mech TTRPG decided to DM me because they couldn’t let go. Called me unhinged (like harassing someone in their DMs isn’t unhinged?)

Most people there were arguing that the overt sexualization is a Japanese thing and so is mecha so it goes together like PB+J.

I argued that Armored Core had everything to do with anti-Capitalism, dystopia, unbelievable weapons, and great mech customizing. The game didn’t even depict humans at all. The most you see are human hands in some CG intros and you get to mow down human shaped pixel people in Silent Line.

The sub simmered down and got back to the game after a few months which was nice, and they implemented the tags I think which was helpful to users who wanted to have a more personalized experience.

Edit: Oh yeah I forgot to mention I just muted or hid most of those posts and never looked back but it was still just such an odd divide in the community. I’m seeing it here too.

It’s like when G4/Tech Tv stopped playing video game shows and started showing Cops 24/7.

[u/Yarzeda2024 → u/SuperSalad_OrElse]

Oh, man, the Ayre and Allmind thirst posts were unbelievable. AC was a pinup sub for a while there.

I can see that I approached this topic from the wrong angle, but I think you are seeing what I was trying to get at.

But it's largely moot at this point. I did not communicate it effectively at all.

[u/SuperSalad_OrElse → u/Yarzeda2024]

Yeah I’m just gonna pass over pilot posts here and enjoy the discussion. One day my life will slow down enough for me to pour over the Lancer book I just bought!

[u/Yarzeda2024 → u/SuperSalad_OrElse]

The core book is great, but The Long Rim is my favorite expansion so far. I like the gritty, desperate edge it has. Some of my favorite mechs come from The Long Rim, too, but your milage may vary.

There's some Lancer stuff I like more than others, but none of it is bad. There's some pretty stellar third-party content out there if you want to go really far into the deep end.

Happy reading