744 replies to this topic

[RotS Targe]

BeakieHelmet, on 23 June 2012 - 01:15 PM, said:

Okay, hold on. I like how generally calm this thread has been but I have to say something here.

Why is this thread a thing?

Liking something, from anthropomorphic characters to my little ponies, should not define who you are. No "fandom" should define who you are, ever... but that's besides the point.

Why does liking anthropomorphic characters matter here? Why feel the need to tell others about it and try to seek out others that like it? This is like going to a Boston Red Socks themed bar during a boston red socks game and trying to find fellow self-identified NRA members to talk about firearms with, there is a time and a place and this is not it. It just makes you look obsessed.

There seems to be this longstanding fallacy that not talking about something wherever you go and being vocal about something you like is being "in the closet" about a certain thing, when that's just not the case. The people on these forums are more or less adults, if they find out you like furries they're probably not going to think less of you for it unless the way you introduce yourself to people is "Hello I am a furry named ____."

By self-identifying as a furry AND by mentioning it as one of the first things that you say about yourself to people, people immediately assume you're one of the absolute worst sorts of furries, the ones that come to mind when you say "Furry" to someone from outside the fandom. The people who act like children and dress up in cartoony outfits who then proceed to make complete fools of themselves while at the same time being creepily sexual about it.

Basically, it all boils down to this: Liking something that certain other people don't like is not an excuse to act like a child about things. Just be rational in general about things, and if it comes up sometime? People won't blink an eye because they'll know you well enough to know that you are not one of the terrible ones. It's not something that if you admit will instantly get you to lose friends. Making a thread like this though? Not a good way to meet people.

Now, if I met people through the FRR house forum, then hung out with them and exchanged recolored pictures of mechs and such with them for a while, then talked about favorite weapons and loadouts, then one of them googled me and found out I paid for my founder's pack by drawing sergals and rather explicit furry images for people? I don't think they'd care too much, because that's not what we're here about, we're here about mechs. Not furries, not ponies, but mechs. While you should never be ashamed of an interest you have, there's always a time and a place.

ok, well, let me try to explain, though I'm having difficulty forming the words.
This thread is for furs, by furs, so we can discuss common interests (namely MechWarrior, and being a fur), and how they might mix, that was the OP's point, and it has been taken off topic many times, for many reasons. I would also point out that there is a Jettisoned Communications section for basically this reason, stuff off topic to Mechwarrior, but still interesting to people (no matter how weird/small that group may be). I like threads like this because I know that there are people with (interest), who also share (other interest).

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Liking something, from anthropomorphic characters to my little ponies, should not define who you are. No "fandom" should define who you are, ever... but that's besides the point.

Do you like cool cars? a lot of people do, and even call themselves car guys, gear-heads, petrol-heads, and many different names. How is defining yourself as a (insert one of said names here) any different from defining yourself as a fur, or a brony, etc.? The only difference I can see, other than the interest in general, is that being a car guy is socially accepted, while being a fur often isn't.

[BanditRaptor]

RotS Targe, on 23 June 2012 - 04:01 PM, said:

Do you like cool cars? a lot of people do, and even call themselves car guys, gear-heads, petrol-heads, and many different names. How is defining yourself as a (insert one of said names here) any different from defining yourself as a fur, or a brony, etc.? The only difference I can see, other than the interest in general, is that being a car guy is socially accepted, while being a fur often isn't.

If you introduce yourself to people and say "Hello I am Targe and I'm a gearhead." people are going to think you are obsessed with cars, possibly to the point that they won't want to talk about cars around you period in fear that you'll go off on a rant about the engines used in early '67 mustangs compared to late '67 mustangs.

Now, if gearheads had a stereotype of being immature and creepy, it'd be a bit more fitting, but furries have to contend with this too, but there's another problem as well. When you come out and introduce yourself, and say "Hello I am _____ and I'm a furry." you are basically saying "Hello, I am ______ and I proudly associate myself with people who are immature and dress up in cartoony mascot suits, often for sexual purposes." That might not be what the person thinks and it's definitely not what they are actually saying, but that's generally the message that comes across, because that's the stereotypical furry in the eyes of the internet, unlike the stereotypical motorhead who just likes cars a lot.

[Roy Calbeck]

*shrugs* As has recently been shown in this thread, a lot of folks get their stereotypes from hyperbole, usually because someone thought it was funny. Same thing as going into a gas-station restroom and finding that someone smeared feces over everything for a laugh; it's now a standing trope that gas-station restrooms are just normally expected to be filthy, sometimes frighteningly so. It's not true except in a few scattered cases, but it's those cases that folks remember and dwell upon.

In the end, you can either give up doing the things you like because someone else is giving you a hard time over it --- this applies to anything from Trek to anime to furries to D&D --- or you can laugh at them for wasting their time trolling you.

The latter REALLY tends to tick them off for some reason...

Edited by Roy Calbeck, 23 June 2012 - 05:16 PM.

[Kobura]

Sssounding off.



Even the respectable among us have a wild side.

Edited by Kobura, 23 June 2012 - 05:31 PM.

[Roy Calbeck]

CommieGIR, on 23 June 2012 - 11:27 AM, said:

No, you are being blind. He is claiming he owns ALL of the Battletech franchise because he wrote something that became a part of it.

Actually, that was also Topps' argument before the District Court. Specifically, that if I were a co-author in Battletech, then in absence of a work-for-hire or other limiting agreement, I'd have to be found an equal co-owner in the property. They also cited case law in support of that.

Yes, that's entirely stupid. Unfortunately, it's also a core of US law: "co-authors in a joint work are co-owners". The courts have continually ruled that this equates to equal division regardless of who contributed what.

That's why the court focused on whether or not I qualified as a co-author in the entire thing, as opposed to my small portion of the franchise. Even if I hadn't made the claim, Topps did.

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Hence why he LOST the court case.

Actually, I lost the argument about being an equal co-owner, and won the argument about being a Battletech contributor. Which was the original Internet Argument that I sued over in the first place.

It's nice to be vindicated.

[BanditRaptor]

Roy Calbeck, on 23 June 2012 - 05:15 PM, said:

In the end, you can either give up doing the things you like because someone else is giving you a hard time over it --- this applies to anything from Trek to anime to furries to D&D --- or you can laugh at them for wasting their time trolling you.

This post really baffles me.

First off, In the case of trolls, what you want to do is simply not respond to them, because if you give them a fake laugh they're going to know it's getting to you and that'll feed their ego. This is also assuming that anyone who doesn't like what you like is trying to get a rise out of you, when it's easy to see a lot of people here are being honest. If they're having a civil discussion you can join in and have a civil discussion too, so long as things don't spiral into name calling and insults.

MWO honestly has a nice community, I wouldn't be too quick to judge anyone on here as actually trolling - even the Tetatae goons are just having a good time here.

Nobody should ever give up what they like because someone's given them a hard time about it, but at the same time you should never just assume that anyone who doesn't like what you like is trolling.

[Lightdragon]

i simply laugh at those who actually believe in their simple minds that furries are all fat antisocial dudes screwing eachother in costumes or f-king animals on their spare time

[CommieGIR]

Roy Calbeck, on 23 June 2012 - 05:46 PM, said:

Actually, that was also Topps' argument before the District Court. Specifically, that if I were a co-author in Battletech, then in absence of a work-for-hire or other limiting agreement, I'd have to be found an equal co-owner in the property. They also cited case law in support of that.

Yes, that's entirely stupid. Unfortunately, it's also a core of US law: "co-authors in a joint work are co-owners". The courts have continually ruled that this equates to equal division regardless of who contributed what.

That's why the court focused on whether or not I qualified as a co-author in the entire thing, as opposed to my small portion of the franchise. Even if I hadn't made the claim, Topps did.



Actually, I lost the argument about being an equal co-owner, and won the argument about being a Battletech contributor. Which was the original Internet Argument that I sued over in the first place.

It's nice to be vindicated.

Don't care. You are not vindicated, no matter how many places to put up your claims.

Because no one cares but you. And it doesn't matter how many mountain tops you scream it from: Topps won the case. You lost.

Also, to be blunt, yes you contributed to Battletech, and for that we can thank you. But Battletech is Battltech, and I have seen so many forums you post these claims on and pretty much every single one has told you the same thing: Go away, and get off your high horse.

Edited by CommieGIR, 23 June 2012 - 06:12 PM.

[LaurenceMcFunk]

Roy Calbeck, on 23 June 2012 - 05:46 PM, said:

It's nice to be vindicated.

Well, I guess that settles it. It must be really nice to have a huge residual check in your mailbox every month, as a true contributor to the BattleTech™ canon.

[Risky]

So how did a thread about furries turn into a thread about someone's failed conquest to win a legal battle?

[Roy Calbeck]

BeakieHelmet, on 23 June 2012 - 05:50 PM, said:

This post really baffles me.

First off, In the case of trolls, what you want to do is simply not respond to them, because if you give them a fake laugh

That's where you're confused; there's nothing to fake. To me, they're genuinely ridiculous in the original sense of the word, people who flame in the hope that others will get angry and treat them as a serious concern. They're not. And you don't have to "fake a laugh" or even verbalize one: just, literally, laugh them off for what they are.

Not to say that ignoring them altogether isn't generally the best thing to do. You're quite right there.

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MWO honestly has a nice community, I wouldn't be too quick to judge anyone on here as actually trolling

Aside from the obvious example, no. It seems to be a fine community overall. There's always going to be a few goons running around.

[Roy Calbeck]

LaurenceMcFunk, on 23 June 2012 - 06:11 PM, said:

Well, I guess that settles it. It must be really nice to have a huge residual check in your mailbox every month, as a true contributor to the BattleTech™ canon.

Heh, yeah, a lot of the guys with actual work-for-hire contracts would've liked that too. Mike Stackpole wrote a great piece about how FASA managed to "forget" a six-figure sum in foreign royalties, as just one of his many horror stories. Kept writing because he loved the game universe more than the money, and in the end he still ended up swearing that he'd never write another Battletech novel for FASA. He didn't, either.

Me, my work appeared on a web page with no ads. Lots of readers; my ELH History wound up on just about every ELH fansite of the day. But it wasn't for a novel or sourcebook, so I never expected or asked for any money. Didn't take Topps' buy-off offer, either. I'm happy enough having the rights to develop, publish and profit from new Battletech material.

Risky, on 23 June 2012 - 06:15 PM, said:

So how did a thread about furries turn into a thread about someone's failed conquest to win a legal battle?

When a guy with a hate on for furries brought said legal battle into the thread in order to talk about how horrible furries are.

And I did get what I originally set out to get: recognition that I contributed to the Battletech property. LONG before the lawsuit, I was being smeared merely for insisting that my work had been published as canon. I filed the suit to settle that particular hash, and it snowballed into the "you have to sue for the entire thing or none of it" bit, which Topps also argued for in court.

Edited by Roy Calbeck, 23 June 2012 - 06:31 PM.

[Arthinas]

Roy Calbeck, on 23 June 2012 - 06:20 PM, said:

There's always going to be a few goons running around.

You can't keep a good thing down. Lowtax be praised!

[BanditRaptor]

Roy Calbeck, on 23 June 2012 - 06:20 PM, said:

That's where you're confused; there's nothing to fake. To me, they're genuinely ridiculous in the original sense of the word,

No offense, but you in particular have a bit of a reputation in the battletech community and I really don't think you can convince me that this is true at this point. :-/

Sorry man.

Roy Calbeck, on 23 June 2012 - 06:20 PM, said:

Aside from the obvious example, no. It seems to be a fine community overall. There's always going to be a few goons running around.

The goons are here to have fun, nothing more, at the moment they aren't actively trolling anyone. Their banner is poking light at Far Country and how serious a lot of people take Battletech Canon as a whole while at the same time respecting Battletech. Think of them as what Batman: The Brave and the Bold is compared to Batman:TAS. While TAS is genuinely good and the more serious approach, BATB was crafted out of love and poking light at just how ridiculous some batman stories are, especially ones from the silver age.

The goons here? They're doing the same thing. They love the franchise and they're having good tongue-in-cheek fun with it.

[Roy Calbeck]

BeakieHelmet, on 23 June 2012 - 06:33 PM, said:

I really don't think you can convince me that this is true at this point.

I can't convince you that goons are inherently ridiculous? Well, okay.

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The goons are here to have fun, nothing more, at the moment they aren't actively trolling anyone.

The entire point of trolling is to have fun, from the view of the troll. Whatever their motives are from moment to moment, the routines they employ are the same --- which makes it actually funnier, if they from time to time actually take themselves at all seriously.

Hey, I'm laughing, same as you are --- I'm just laughing for different reasons.

[BanditRaptor]

Roy Calbeck, on 23 June 2012 - 06:39 PM, said:

I can't convince you that goons are inherently ridiculous? Well, okay.

That's not what I said though, I was talking about trolls. Goons are basically anyone from the SA forums, while they are from a humor site and sometimes actively make fun of certain people that doesn't make them inherently trolls one hundred percent of the time, especially this particular batch.

What I said was that I don't believe that you really find people trolling you funny. You're a well-known guy in this community and I think there's enough evidence to suggest that, to put it simply, you don't like being wrong, and you seem to take anyone telling you that you are wrong very personally.

Roy Calbeck, on 23 June 2012 - 06:39 PM, said:

The entire point of trolling is to have fun, from the view of the troll. Whatever their motives are from moment to moment, the routines they employ are the same --- which makes it actually funnier, if they from time to time actually take themselves at all seriously.

Hey, I'm laughing, same as you are --- I'm just laughing for different reasons.

When you say that you're laughing like this... it just paints the above picture clearer. There's no need to laugh at people, as if you need to somehow prove or convince yourself that you're better than anyone else. You just need to relax, dude, and have fun with the game and the people playing it. You might not believe it but the goons in this thread are here for the same reason you are, to play mechwarrior online, and in the end nothing is going to change that, no matter who says what you and they are here to have fun not at anyone's expense but to have fun with a game.

And yeah, that might be a little hard at times, because you've kinda burned some bridges along the way with these lawsuits that have left a sour taste in a lot of the fans, but there's more than one way to move past this subject without coming off as a jerk, and you might even make some friends along the way.

[Hagetaka]

Roy Calbeck, on 23 June 2012 - 05:46 PM, said:

It's nice to be vindicated.

That's nice. You're vindicated in that you contributed an incredibly insignificant part of a backstory, literally thousandths of a percent of the total output in the BT universe (by inserting your Mary Sue) to a corny giant robots in space RPG. And then you sperged out so bad you actually took it to court trying to own the whole thing. You have a giant unicorn character you've buried two decades into your life to. You've spent years arguing about it on the internet like a tard.

You are the most gigantic loser I've met on the internet in the last five years, easily

If we could scientifically create a scale to measure the attractiveness of a person to a potential mate, they would just benchmark you at zero

[Arthinas]

See, BeakieHelmet's got it down perfectly. He gets what's going on here with us scary, terrible goons. (Love your name, by the way!) I'm not here to ruin the day of someone for being a furry or a brony or whatever. But I'm definitely gonna take the **** out of anyone with a swollen ego!

edit: Also you've got a seriously bad reputation with a lot of Btech players. Hell, on the official forums your name still gets dropped once in a rare while, and not in the best of ways.

Edited by Arthinas, 23 June 2012 - 07:38 PM.

[Risky]

Metro, on 24 February 2012 - 07:47 AM, said:

The last FURRIES thread was removed, because the behavior of those posting, got out of hand.

So This thread has already been reported and it will be up to Garth as to whether or not it will be allowed to remain.

We want you all to be able to log in and enjoy your visit, but it only takes one wrong post to ruin it all for everyone.


>> so we are Watching <<

My suggestion would be to remove all the posts pertaining to the lawsuit, would freshen this up a little.

[Risky]

Arthinas, on 23 June 2012 - 07:35 PM, said:

See, BeakieHelmet's got it down perfectly. He gets what's going on here with us scary, terrible goons. (Love your name, by the way!) I'm not here to ruin the day of someone for being a furry or a brony or whatever. But I'm definitely gonna take the **** out of anyone with a swollen ego!

edit: Also you've got a seriously bad reputation with a lot of Btech players. Hell, on the official forums your name still gets dropped once in a rare while, and not in the best of ways.

We have a bad reputation with a lot of people. I mean, look what just happened in New Jersey, bet that gives us a great name.

But hey, gotta deal with it.