#IN ORDER OF GOOD TOUCHSTONES

[illiana-mystery]

2004/2005/2006

[reiniesainyo]

IN BETWEEN. charlie bushnell x reader – 01

01 | SPARKS FLY previous | next | masterfile

SYNPOSIS. when a girl's co-star is good to her and now she wants it more than everything in between. (smau)

A/N. this chapter is more like world building (it's where i explain what the fuck i'm doing with the YN okay)

The "Percy Jackson and the Olympians" series at Disney+ has added an unexpected pick to its growing cast.

The new live-action series is based on the hugely successful novels from author Rick Riordan of the same title. We will be seeing YN LN join the series as Rina Velasco, one of the supporting characters of the show.

LN's Rina Velasco is referred to as "the offspring of The Muses, goddesses of the sciences and the arts." Unlike most other demigods, she is born out of the artistic and scientific output of the muses. When the moral ingenuity of humans meets the divine musings of The Muses. Her character is described as a unique allrounder who becomes a mentor figure to our main cast as they embark on their journey.

This will be LN's first on-screen role of her career. LN's experience mostly lies in Broadway, she is known for playing Kim in the Miss Saigon revival on Broadway. LN was nominated for a Tony in 2022 for the same role. She is repped by Salonga/Chien Entertainment and B817 Agency.

Riordan posted on the Meta app, Threads, about this update to the casting saying: "YN was one of the actors we didn't expect to see a tape of but when we saw it, we couldn't help but fall in love with her. She embodies the spirit of Rina so well and is such a kind spirit, we can't wait for you to fall in love with her too! Welcome to the cast, YN!"

The live-action show is based on Rick Riordan's Percy Jackson book series. It tells the fantastical tale of the titular 12-year-old modern demigod (Scobell), who's just coming to terms with his newfound supernatural powers when the sky god Zeus accuses him of stealing his master lightning bolt. With help from his friends Grover (Simhadri) and Annabeth (Jeffries), Percy must embark on an adventure of a lifetime to find it and restore order to Olympus.

Production on the show is now underway in Vancouver. Riordan and Jon Steinberg are writing the pilot with James Bobin directing. Steinberg and his producing partner Dan Shotz are overseeing the series and serve as executive producers alongside Bobin, Rick Riordan, Rebecca Riordan, Bert Salke, Monica Owusu-Breen, Jim Rowe, Anders Engström, Jet Wilkinson, and Gotham Group's Ellen Goldsmith-Vein, Jeremy Bell, and D.J. Goldberg. 20th Television is the studio. Salke was formerly the president of Touchstone Television and originally put the show into development.

liked by percyseries, iamcharliebushnell, and 37,789 others thelnarchive the child of the muses @percyseries

percyseries OUR MUSE!

user1 this is literally perfect casting who cried i did ↳ user2 she's so rina coded! thank the gods for the casting directors

iamcharliebushnell only muse in my life ↳ thlnarchive only traveler in my life ↳ user3 the way filming hasn't started and they're already like this ↳ user4 their chemistry is chemistry-ing

user5 roman empire. she is my roman empire.

dior.n.goodjohn i LOVE LOVE LOVE women ↳ thelnarchive HELP i love you

user6 this is so fcking random but i NEED her in a taylor swift music video

A/N i truly hope you guys can forgive the horrible editing in the pictures. the article portion is based on (and has some parts that are directly pulled from) this article from variety ! here's some succint information about rina velasco, the PJO character YN LN plays (and is my childhood OC!) - rina velasco, filipino, 18 years old (year younger than luke) - she's an offspring of the muses, not directly a child or daughter, though she may be referred as such - by her being an offspring of the muses, i mean that she was born in the same way athena's children are born. - but in rina's case she's more like a weird conglomeration of each muse. her birth is a rare event, but her mothers are honored as minor goddesses so she stayed in the apollo cabin (connection to music) - rina operates as a guidance figure for the main trio, especially annabeth - she's also luke's love interest, there's a lot of tragicness and doomed romance stuff with those two - and for the sake of everyone, we pretend like the weird i love you from the books didn't happen !

[gacha-incels]

regarding character design in gacha games- if you haven’t played many, I will show examples from some popular ones here. This is for reference regarding confusion as to why incels often play these games. This isn’t to cover everything in these games either, there are games with much more absurd designs and I’m not even going to get into the “sexy little girl” designs a lot of them have. In the future I plan to research more and intend to make a concise post regarding the incel relationship with these games. These character designs and tropes exist across societies and are enforced through many types of media - it’s not just gacha games alone perpetuating them. I think they are however hypervisual in this specific genre mostly due to the huge amounts of money being spent by players in “purchasing” them. again this is just for reference, if you already are familiar with female character gacha design feel free to skip this. I’ll put it under a cut.

gacha games are infamous for typically having extremely sexualized female characters who will usually flatter the assumed male player. Again there are some that designers and writers will dress more chaste or have them give the player shit, but by “winning” these characters they are now “yours” anyway, they are not real women and therefore can’t walk away. I believe a big part of this appeal is due to incel men wanting to control a woman designed for an audience of people like him. The hypersexualization serves both to flatter his idea of a woman’s true place (his consumption) and to create a very rigid and obvious differentiation between men and women during a time when women are fighting tooth and nail for their dignity and equal rights.

Nostalgia and rigid character design dichotomy can be seen in the extremely popular gacha game Fate/Grand Order, I believe a good piece of its success can be attributed to this. There are thousands of Japanese gacha games that take already popular anime franchises and create a money pit gacha with them, it’s been happening for over a decade now. These games usually make bank taking already popular characters and giving them hypersexualized alts and costumes. FGO is an interesting phenomenon to me because it seems like for a lot of fans, the Fate franchise’s cultural touchstone is now this actual gacha game. The game adds popular existing Fate characters of course, so you can see how different the gacha character designs are from the VN/animes:

When you can only watch them/read their stories, the characters are dressed like the above examples. When they are added to the game and you can buy and own them, they look like the bottom examples.

The (rare) depiction of darker skinned female characters in these gacha games is pretty uniform across the board- they are somehow, consistently, sexualized even more than the other female characters, they are often exoticized and sometimes have a “wild” or rebellious looking aspect incorporated. I would consider this something the intended audience expects to see, regardless of the truth, and the gacha game reflects this back to their customers, therefore enshrining this damaging stereotype to its audience. These examples don’t account for everything of course.

As to not offend the delicate male viewer, these games also typically design furry/animal characters by having the female retain the most human-like features (like a small and delicate face) while the male is allowed to actually look like the animal. When a female character has armor that conceals her sex, there is of course a version of her you can “upgrade” where she takes off her armor to reveal a very delicate girl in revealing clothing.

Typically, the consumer will see powerful, sturdy looking male designs that attempt to not alienate the straight male viewer first before adding “sexy” elements. In contrast, female characters are almost always very thin (often with exaggerated tits and ass) and her pose is chosen to show off her body first, before her power. This is an Arknights dual banner that displays this design philosophy well:

some of the biggest incel shitfits come from male designs they see as being sexualized and objectified as the typical female design. these are 3 characters Korean incels have lost their minds over:

In their world, the rigid sex dichotomy is breaking down and the hierarchal system of gender where men are on top is being threatened. they don’t feel powerful seeing lithe and skimpily dressed men, and they aren’t the hentai “femboy” fetish these guys seem ok with either. incels see these games as their playground. when designs like these are included, they see it as their job to rectify this. Lyney’s costume and demeanor is too “sexy” and “gay” for Korean incels, they mass dislike his character trailer and write hateful comments across SNS. Sinclair is shirtless and wearing a collar - Korean incels are furious he’s wearing less than the female summer character and see the collar as meaning he’s a “slave” for the female customer. This snowballs into them targeting a female artist on staff, Vellmori, and getting her fired even though it was a male artist who illustrated the cards. I’ve posted Korean incels comments on the Honkai Star Rail character- similar to Lyney, they are angry he looks “slutty” and/or “gay” since he has a boob window and detached sleeves. This is too similar to how the female characters are made “sexy” and it means women have prominent roles creating for these games, something incels of course hate. Regarding the role women should have in creating these games, a Korean incel wrote (after seeing photos that include many female staff members at Mihoyo) that they should just be there working at the cafe to serve coffee to male employees and look pretty for them.

In regards to how some of these games are marketed, we can again look to the article written by a Korean woman who was a victim of feminist ideological verification.

character designs for NIKKE and Destiny Child:

what the gameplay for NIKKE looks like:

[indie-ttrpg-of-the-week]

CAIN

HE CAN'T KEEP GETTING AWAY WITH THIS

Touchstones: Chainsaw man, SCP Foundation, Jujutsu Kaisen, Mob Psycho 100, all of which it wears proudly on its sleeve

Genre: Horror, Action

What is this game?: Cain is a game about being psionic exorcists tasked with purging humanity's sins

How's the gameplay?: Cain runs on a simple gameplay loop where players must go into investigations to find out more about Sins, powerful beings made out of psychic energy from deeply traumatized humans. The game uses a system similar to FITD, where you roll amounts of die equal to your skill in something, then add more dice equal to any advantages you have, then you make it so any result of 4 or more is a success, and you count up your successes to see if you succeeded in doing the thing! The game also has an economy, the Agency will provide you with most things for free, but you'll have to buy certain amenities and privileges. Your character will have an Agenda (determining how they act) and a series of Blasphemies (determining how their psionics manifest), character creation is as such pretty quick as you just pick between different blocks of skills that you can take up. As a final note, the game contains a system where players can "Spare" sins in order to spare their originator from copious amounts of mental scarring, so they may instead force the sin to collapse into itself, gaining a reduced reward, but keeping the victim safer.

What's the setting (If any) like?: CAIN is set in a world where a psychic warfare happens under the very noses of the common people between psionic exorcists, and Sins, creatures made out of humans under extreme duress, an organization known as Cain seeks to destroy and contain these creatures before they become problems, categorizing them and eliminating them before they grow in power, scale, and danger. There's also many neat details such as different psionic abilities the players may take on, past incidents, a categorization system for the Sins, and corporations that seek to counter Cain's efforts

What's the tone?: Dire, while you're saving people from trauma by defeating their sins, you're part of the meat grinder that is CAIN, being thrown at creatures beyond mortal ken to stop them from becoming a bigger issue, while retirees exist, its said 40% of exorcists die before they can reach Category 3

Length: 2-3 hours is recommended, the game is also deliberately tooled into shorter 10 session games

Number of Players:  4-6 is recommended

Malleability: Cain's setting is pretty baked into its mechanics, but you can definitely change some stuff around

Resources: Online sheets are available and look very good

CAIN's one of those games that you can just tell what its inspired by at first glance and it rocks for it, its a really nice little game, esp for something that's effectively a side project gearing up for the release of ICON

[sirfrogsworth]

The Babylon Bee School of Comedy

Have you ever wanted to make Elon Musk reply to you with a double cry laughing emoji?

If you crave that sweet billionaire validation you need only follow this carefully crafted conservative comedy content creation course for that powerhouse of online satire... The Babylon Bee.

Soon you too could be bootlicking billionaire balls with the rest of The BBee writers.

Are you ready to get your learn on?

Let us Bee-gin.

The number one most important rule that all The BBee writers must internalize to their core...

Conservative comedy abhors effort.

Brainstorming for hours on end to craft the perfect premise and punchline... is for the Libs. Check out this Facebook meme that got 10,000 likes.

Can you order Starbucks from a bar? Doesn't matter, it's a snowflake drink for a snowflake Lib.

Does this joke not have an actual punchline? Doesn't matter, get lost you stupid Lib!

Is this technically a joke by definition? Doesn't matter, if you believe it is a joke, then it's a joke! Just like modern currency.

If you put too much thought into a joke, it might grow in complexity. That could be confusing! The death knell of any conservative joke are the words, "Hmm, that's a thinker."

This brings us to rule number two...

NO THINKERS!

Let's take this Ben Garrison comic as an example.

Spell everything out! Label everything! Don't leave anything to the imagination! If your audience has to figure something out or draw their own conclusions, what fun is that?

Conservatives want to hear things that are familiar. They want their beliefs parroted back at them. You must regurgitate those beliefs and then just make it *sound* like a joke. Don't break new ground or introduce new ideas. Don't get all caught up in interesting wordplay or clever puns or subverting expectations.

All expectations should be fully verted.

That is definitely a word because I saw someone use it on Facebook. End of research.

Here is a helpful tip. If you can't imagine the joke coming out of the mouth of late night comedy genius GUTFELD!, then you need to dial it back a bit. Do not surpass GUTFELD! levels of humor. GUTFELD! is your touchstone.

Oh, GUTFELD! I laughed so hard I FELD it in my GUT.

See, I went too far with my fancy pun. That is not the GUTFELD! way.

But what happens if inspiration is fleeting and you can't pay attention to your comedy writing task because you don't believe ADHD is real and thus you are unmedicated?

Don't you worry. If you do happen to get writer's block or are distracted by a funny Pepe meme or a shiny object, just call your racist uncle and say the magic word... "Bidenflation."

As the ensuing unhinged rant darts from subject to subject without any kind of connecting theme, just start writing down every right wing buzzword you hear. Then just insert those buzzwords Mad Libs-style into a derivative joke format.

Let's practice!

Ex. 1: Why did the PRONOUNS cross the BORDER? To get to the DRAG QUEEN STORY HOUR!

Ex. 2: How many GENDERS does it take to GROOM a lightbulb? Two! One to hold the BUTT PLUG and one to GO WOKE, GO BROKE.

Great start! I'm sure with a polishing pass those will make more sense. Or not. The bar is pretty much "will it get clicks?" so we're not too worried about coherence.

Heh... Mad Libs.

U MAD, LIBS?

Get it? Cuz Libs are always mad? About the normalized bigotry and whatnot.

Jokes are always better when you need to explain them.

Oh! That's another rule. Write that down. Wisdom like this is why I am teaching this course, of course. Hah, that's like that horse show song. I got jokes coming out the wazoo. Wazoo is my butt, right? Siri, is wazoo a butt? Oof, I'm kinda spacing on what the next lesson is.

I really wish Matt Walsh hadn't flushed my Adderall down the crapper.

Can I get a second opinion? Top Gun was so good. What does Tom Cruise think about ADHD? He always has good takes on stuff like this. Did I leave my oven on? Shazam, what song goes doodoo doo doo doooooo? Can you vacuum a yard? Has anyone tried that? That sounds more like a marijuana thought than an ADHD tangent. I should double check the THC content of that cotton candy vape juice.

I'm flyin' off the rails over here.

Matt, are you super duper sure it's not real?

Okay, fine. I'm an "energetic boy."

I hope whichever fish absorbs my meds is extra focused on whatever fish shit he needs to get done.

COMEDY WRITING!

Sometimes it is best to learn through observation. Let's eavesdrop on an actual The BBee writer's room to see how the sausage is made...

"So what did your racist uncle have to say?"

"Well, first he texted me a cameraphone picture of Trump as an astronaut that he wants me to print out cuz he doesn't know what a crypto wallet is... but then he said all the woke schools are turning kids into a bunch of gay commies."

"EUREKA!"

Classic! The BBee writers strike again. I mean, they aren't striking. There is no commie clamoring for a union at The Babylon Bee. That's for damn sure. FOCUS!

Do you get the joke though? With the kids and the gay and the communism?

Because all of those woke schools totally cover complex economic theories in 4th grade and all it takes to turn gay is a little persuasion from a teacher with green hair. Libs of TikTok wouldn't lie about that. End of research.

Look at this public school teacher!

I mean, you knooow she has a litter box in her classroom. I can just sense it. End of research.

Sure... it is just a context-free picture of a person with green hair in front of a flag and you cannot actually judge the quality of their teaching ability from this. But yoouuu knoooooow she is skipping right over grammar lessons and giving detailed instructions on how to turn gay.

Step 1: Look at a bunch of butts. Step 2: Touch a bunch of butts. Step 3: Gay sex a bunch of butts.

(Replace butts with cooches for lesbians.)

Grooming accomplished.

And you definitely shouldn't look up that green-hair'd, nose ring'd educator and research her any further. Extensive research is for the Libs, bro. Because you definitely don't want to discover she is a passionate high school English teacher who makes fun content on TikTok in the hopes that people will buy things off her wishlist so her students will have a better learning experience. I mean, caring about her students? That's so gay.

YoooOOOuuuUUU knnnooooooOOOw she is a bad teacher because she has green hair and a flag. End. Of. Research.

So... you have your gay communist headline that is perfect to get all of those sweet conservative clicks. But you still have a full webpage to fill out with more words and stuff.

Now I want to see if you learned anything from my perfectly focused and informative teachings. I want you to write some jokes about kids becoming gay communists.

Ready? GO!

Joke #1 Little Billy has wealthy parents so all the students will share his cookie at snack time.

Joke #2 At the beginning of the day, students pick a new gender out of a hat but all the kids fight over Attack Helicopter.

Joke #3 At lunch, the students have to stand in a peanut butter and jelly bread line.

Joke #4 The teacher makes the kids take turns combing each others' hair for a grooming session.

Wait a sec... are those... THINKERS?

No no no no no! You made my brain all confused and thinky!

You need to calm down, you overachieving silly billy. You forgot the first rule... NO EFFORT.

Just make the same joke over and over again with slightly different wording. EASY!

Remember the classic final rule of comedy...

Jokes always get funnier the more you repeat them.

Anyway, that's probably enough... joke.

Now let's close this article out!

Maybe we can drop the pretense this is comedic satire and just do some hardcore pandering. Gotta own the Libs, amirite?

Gender theory and drag queens and guns, oh my! That is pure pander-monium.

Just shove those factless tactless Tucker talking points straight down their gullet. They'll forget this was supposed to be funny and shake their fist in the air with exaltation. And it's definitely a great idea to put the thought of gunning down drag queens in their heads. That won't backfire in any way!

Congratulations! You are now ready to "write" for The Babylon Bee.

Please purchase this official Trump NFT certificate for $99 that acknowledges that you have completed this course and have a very poor understanding of what satire actually is.

End of research.

[mylordshesacactus]

Tag Game - Writing Patterns

List the first line of your last 10 (posted) fics and see if there's a pattern.

1.Smoke and the sharp tang of blood drifted over Teldrassil. (Reunification, Warcraft)

2. It was a nameless backwater moon in a nameless backwater system, and Ahsoka had never wanted to be anywhere less in her life. (Riposte, Star Wars)

3. Padawan learner Barriss Offee scuffed her heel idly against the duracrete. (When These Moments Have Passed, Star Wars/Fox and the Hound fusion)

4. “Going somewhere, Lady Crowley?” (Shadows and Goldclover, Warcraft, E)

5. It’s a good place for an ambush. (some desperate small creature, Warcraft)

6. Sunrise on Rannoch was—Tali’s chest constricted painfully. (Housewarming, Mass Effect)

7. “Again,” the instructor ordered, voice crisp. (Quicksilver, BG3)

8. The world grows quiet. And their time grows short. (Truesilver, BG3)

9. A boy dreams of a wolf’s whelp. (an unkindness of ravens, Assassin's Creed: Valhalla)

10. FOREWORD (By Miranda Lawson) | In 2196, a young asari named Ashethe Matolis was granted asylum by the Alliance. (257 Years Of Unanswered Correspondence With An Ardat-Yakshi Monastery, Mass Effect)

-

I think the most prominent pattern here is that I definitely have a strong preference for opening "with two feet down", as my high school mentor and creative-writing teacher put it. Not necessarily in medias res, though I do love doing that--but immediately grounded, placing the reader IN the scene from the first sentence.

As such a lot of these involve sensory details, an immediate touchstone for the character's physical location or surroundings, or both. The worst thing you can do for immersion is have your reader spend several hundred words either unable to picture the characters in context, or THINKING they're picturing the context correctly and then out of the blue dropping that they're actually somewhere completely different.

(Unless you're deliberately misleading the reader in order to deliver a punchline, obviously, but I think that should go without saying.)

I also tend to make my opening lines direct and to the point, and rarely open a fic with a full paragraph. In order to give the reader that sense of standing on solid ground--essentially of "landing with two feet down," falling into the fic and looking around to see where they are--you gotta give that opening line a little room to breathe.

The only exceptions on this list are 4, 9, and 10, and honestly, only 9 really counts!

-> The structure of 257 Years is an epistolary fic, so it actually IS serving as that immediate sensory grounding--It's establishing from the very beginning the sense that you are, in-universe, picking up a book and opening it to the front page.

-> Shadows & Goldclover is my fun little Tess/Lorna porn, and the setup is in fact that Tess is startling her in the garden. So the initial brief disorientation (I do immediately give some setting details in the next paragraph) is exactly the sensory experience I want my readers to have, it puts them in the same headspace as Lorna

-> Unkindness Of Ravens is, genuinely, one of the best stories I've ever written and I hope people are willing to give it a chance even if they're not really asscreed people--it stands on its own just fine as an exploration of fictional Norse queerness. And in that case, the deliberate sense of....an unmoored, vague, disoriented lack of any solid physical setting, is exactly what I was going for! It's a prophetic vision; it should feel otherworldly. I deliberately avoid giving the reader ANY solid ground until after the scenebreak..at which point they are IMMEDIATELY given sensory details and a place name, because the whole thematic point of the fic is Valka being brought in from the cold and finding acceptance, security, and a place to belong.

[ouroborosorder]

Can you tell me more about the negators mapping to fighting game character archetypes? I don’t know much about fgc archetypes but I love UU and this sounds super interesting.

alright so groundwork. Totsuka is a massive fighting game fan. UU is fucking full of references to street fighter already, and he's said before that he wanted to make a manga about fighting games. Dude loves them, so I'm not saying this baselessly. It's to the point where my conspiracy theory is that this started as a hypothetical fighting game roster.

I'll just go through the first few in order and then some notables:

Andy - Shoto. A mixed fighter who specializes at having good tools for any distance. Usually featuring a long-range projectile (parts bullet), a wide reaching mid-screen poke (Crescent series), and an approach option (Fucking flying.) Also, many Shotos have an "install" form, where they unleash a dormant power and transform into a more dangerous, aggressive version of themselves. Come on, dude has a Victor install. Also, "cocky immortal" is a very common fighting game archetype narratively, and one of my personal favorites tbh.

Fuuko - Setplay debuff character. Usually relies on defensive play, mixups, and pokes. When you come to understand the target well enough, you can push your luck, find their pressure point, and land a single glancing hit that applies a debuff that allows you to steamroll the opponent. And like. Falling in love with the opponent and then using that love to understand them is exactly how Fuuko fights. Characters like Londrekia from Under Night are a good touchstone here.

Shen - Chinese stereotype martial artist. This is a common thing in fighting games. Also, they tend to focus really heavily on mixups, forcing the opponent into making bad calls by faking one move and going for another - finding the truth through untruth, as it were.

Void - Bigbody close-range brawler. The dude literally walks into the boxing ring dressed like Balrog from Street Fighter. I mean, come on.

Gina - This is where my theory gets Weird but bear with me. Gina is the bigbody grappler. Grapplers in fighters are slow-moving, highly defensive, and focus primarily on forcing pressure by existing. Grapplers are scary because they don't have to change their position at all to force you to have to play differently. Plus, Gina is associated with her big barrier around her at all times that limits her movement and would make her hitbox larger. Also, her giant Unchange hands are a phenomenal grappler tool. Also, when fighters try to be subversive and make a grappler that isn't a massive guy, they almost always do it by making it a small girl who plays identical to a big guy.

Top - Obligatory rushdown fighter. His new 101 interpretation feels basically tailor-made for rushdown play tbh. Give him a rekka series and we're fucking good.

Rip - Motherfucking CHARGE CHARACTER BABY. This one is entirely because Rip literally has Guile's flash kick and a sonic boom, he does them on screen.

Phil - Full screen zoner. Also the amount of fighting games that have just one extremely weird robot character is absurd, he's basically tailor made to be the obligatory One Robot.

Billy - Copycat fighter. These aren't common anymore, but used to be more common back when sprites were frequent and tracing over another character's sprites was way faster than making a new animation. A character whose entire premise is using other fighters' moves, copying their abilities into an entirely new kit. Mechanically, these characters tend to have weird, disparate kits with a lot of unique options that otherwise would never be on a kit together, allowing them to adapt their playstyle to be the exact perfect enemy to whoever they're facing. Also "bouncing gunslinger" is a very very common fighting game trope, since fighters tend to balance out guns' innate power with weird firing angles.

Juiz - Midrange bait and punish swordfighter. Prioritizes pokes from every angle, allowing you to react and punish everything your opponent can do. Usually calm-collected fencers personality-wise. Maps perfectly to Unjustice's idea - wait until you know what your opponent's intent is, then negate their Justice.

Julia - Protege character who takes after two other members of the cast - being Fuuko and Juiz. Their fighting style usually is a mix of the two, combining their best aspects, copying their moves exactly sometimes, with their own unique aspects in there to show her own persona growing alongside their influence.

Latla - Actively a reference to Rose from Street Fighter. So. Rose from Street Fighter.

Backs - Joke character. You lose to this in bracket, you're going to be posting some real scrubquotes shit.

I can do this for almost every single Negator in the entire manga. The only characters I can't find easy maps to are Chikara, Sean, Tella, Ichico, Lucy, and whatever Unchaste's name was. (this may change if Unchaste actually ever appears again.) But they're all not fighters anyway, they're all support characters or literal children dying of an incurable disease.

[skaruresonic]

Unpopular take but the Shadow manga was pretty dissapointing from art wise to how different the characters behave from what we have seen in he older games. I just feel like the manga is getting overly praised because " its not idw or american or flynn therefore its good!' While not looking at the short story critical enough.

...What is there to criticize yet? People have been jumping the gun with assumptions that Black Doom retconned Maria's death when we quite literally don't know that for sure. This is the first issue. Maybe give it some room to breathe first.

I plan on reading the issue in full once I buy it, although not knowing Japanese will hinder my comprehension. I likely won't understand the dialogue, but it's not bad, at least from what few snippets I've seen. Certainly, it's no Tolstoy, but like. Does a manga need to be?

You also have to keep the Shiny New Thing(tm) phenomenon in mind. Lots of us have been asking for a Sonic manga for years and now we finally have one. Everything new will initially receive hype before people reexamine it with a critical eye.

Back when dinosaurs roamed the earth and IDW was just starting out, most of us were, in fact, praising the book and getting hyped for new issues. We weren't yet privy to the steep nosedive it'd take in quality following the metal virus.

---

I just feel like the manga is getting overly praised because " its not idw or american or flynn therefore its good!'

Hey now, that's not entirely true: I also enjoyed the Schadenfreude of dunking on "Shadow was tortured on the ARK" headcanons. To say nothing of the quality Shadria and that tasty Parasite Eve reference :P

Look, I know I have Shadria goggles strapped on so tight they're practically cutting off circulation to my head, but I feel like that's a little unfair to say considering we've only seen bits and pieces of issue one and have to rely on fan translations to know what's happening on any given page. It's not like we're 15 volumes in and Shadow's done nothing but brood. And just because I wasn't tempering my gushing with "Shadow looks weird in some panels" doesn't mean I wasn't silently thinking the latter. Trying to give the manga the benefit of the doubt here.

When you wander the Fauxteur Desert for years, even cloudy water will look like an oasis. In a series where the majority of fans and creators view the source material with disdain, as something to be mutilated in order to be considered "good," beggars can't be choosers. You have to take whatever Ws you can. It can be simultaneously true that I think the manga is good on its own merits and good because it's better than its contemporaries. One doesn't necessarily negate the other.

Besides, at the risk of sounding massively hypocritical... Is it so bad to feel relieved when you finally get served some decent food in this Chili's and you discover you're not as emotionally broken as everybody says you are? IDW fans gaslight you day in and day out with "you can't read," "you don't understand the characters," "you hate the series," and "you need therapy," and when you find something that brings you joy, for once, amidst the sea of phoned-in spinoffs tha pussyfoot around being faithful to the games at best and regard them with disdain at worst, something that doesn't feel like pulling teeth to read? You realize how full of shit they were.

The Shadow manga is better, objectively speaking. And I don't think it's quite fair to imply that comparisons to IDW should be off the table when we keep getting IDW forced down our throats as the cultural touchstone that defines Sonic, sometimes taking top billing before the games. I had to listen to everyone parrot "Eggman can't plan" as if it were Ohshima-given fact for three and a half years. Certainly, people can handle me going "omg Shadria <3" for a few posts.

The art is better. The blocking is better. The emotional beats land by virtue of being competently executed, instead of thinking we'll be won over by five-paragraph monologues. Sometimes the art carries the story! Wow! Compared to other media where the characters never shut up long enough to let us draw our own conclusions - a problem shared by Archie, IDW, Prime, the films, and Boom - that actually is a lot, all things considered.

And, yes, suffice to say, if fan translations are accurate, the writing is better, if only because it seems to come from a rare place of respecting the source material.

That probably sounds like I have no standards, but you have to realize the bar has been placed in hell and writers continue to cha-cha slide right on under it. IDW has Starline knock Shadow out with a freaking log, whereas in the manga Shadow stops a bullet in midair. I'm sorry I can't shut off my initial gut reaction of "holy shit that was bad ass."

It's not even like he stopped the bullet psychokinetically a la Neo, he caught that shit mid trajectory. Unlike the scene where Shadow gets knocked out with a log, nerfing him in order to hype up an OC, thinking about the logistics of the speed and precision needed to intercept a bullet in such a manner just makes it even cooler.

Good writing is enhanced by the application of thought. It doesn't punish the reader for considering the implications. The writer doesn't tell you to "go read something else" if the narrative disappoints.

This isn't even a contest.

...I know, dude. I'm aware it's not the best thing since sliced bread. It's a serial manga. Not expecting Shakespeare here. I just need it to be relatively faithful to the games and not emit an air of arrogant superciliousness towards the source material.

My standards are incredibly low considering how much higher they could be, and that's because 90% of spinoffs fail at clearing the first bar. If I maintained as stringent a standard as my adoring fans say I do, I'd have absolutely nothing to read lol.

[septemberlikeastorm]

Obviously, we all got a good laugh out of that "What If...?" Post where Anakin researched the Aniseya Twins in the Jedi Archives and deduced they were his much-older half-sisters. 😄 I don't know if Force-genetics are a thing or if what happened with Aniseya and Koril was the same as what happened with Shimi's pregnancy. Probably not, since Shimi wasn't Force-sensitive, and the other moms were both Force-Witches. But I do find it interesting there is a connection between the Skywalkers and the Aniseyas. Osha and Mae were identical twins; Anakin's children, Luke and Leia, were fraternal twins. Twins tend to run in families, usually skipping a generation. Does that mean there really is a family connection or it just more SW fandom hijinks?

helloooooo my friend i think there is certainly a connection, just not a FAMILY connection, unless you count the Force as a deadbeat dad? if you do take his ass to court, being the Force doesn't excuse you from paying child support

like anakin was basically immaculate conception, whereas osha & mae's mothers actively CHOSE to conceive, & seemingly did something horrific in order to pull it off? which honestly, good for them, that's metal as hell. maculate, murderous conception will forever be more interesting in a story than *waves hands* behold jesus christ superstar!!!!!

for the twins bit, i think perhaps the writers may be using as a touchstone the rate of twins being much higher for artificial insemination than for regular conception? & particularly in the case of osha & mae, it kind of seems they chose to have two in order to split that insane amount of power between them & thus be more stable

also, writers just are & forevermore will be fascinated by the idea of twins, love a good narrative foil

BUT i also love me some fandom shenanigans, maybe there IS a blood connection & osha & mae are so powerful in the Force that it artificially extends their lives & they live to be anakin's weird great aunts who give him bad advice a la:

why not!!!! we speculate like sickos & we die like men!!

[fantasyfantasygames]

Beyond the Shield of Time

Beyond the Shield of Time, Titania, 2005

If you own entirely too many RPGs, Beyond the Shield of Time (BtSoT) wants to leverage that.

The basic premise goes like this: Someone is stealing major artifacts from across a number of worlds. Your characters have been drawn into their "slipstream", pulled from their own world into a new one where the thief is their only way home. The game hops from world to world as you track down the villain, they escape you, you fall through another portal, and you slowly gain what you need to get ahead of them. Eventually, you confront them and their secret is revealed, and the game ends soon thereafter.

The coolest and most difficult part of BtSoT is that it's not a game. It's a framework for running a campaign across multiple games. They provide a semi-universal character description template that works across a wide variety of fantasy RPGs, and you reference that in order to make new characters in each world you fall into. Your characters are changed in the process - someone built as an assassin in Burning Wheel might end up as a bard in Dark Sun D&D, because that's the role that bards have in that setting.

BtSoT has guidelines for conversion from their template into D&D (Rules Cyclopedia, 2e, and 3e), Burning Wheel, Dark Hammer, MERP, WFRP 1e, GURPS, HERO, and a handful of others. There are examples of suitable artifacts in each one, from the Silmarils to the Eye of Vecna. It's a shame Glasswork wasn't published for another two years, because it would have been a perfect world to pop through. It has recommendations for what other games will work well with this system and which won't. I appreciate that BtSoT isn't one of those books that claims to be universal even within the fantasy genre. For instance, it excludes Exalted on purpose rather than by accident, for reasons of power level. It's going to be a lot of work between sessions, but I feel like it would be a hell of a cool game. Then again, I'm the guy who's reviewed almost 100 games so far, so, grain of salt.

The art is fairly good. I think it might be Storn? There's more than one piece with the heroes walking through a portal and coming out changed, with two different worlds on the opposing sides of the page. There's another that's very reminiscent of the "Frodo reaching for the ring" image, but with a Dark Sun halfling reaching for what is still clearly the One Ring.

I feel like the reveal of the secret doesn't 100% work any more. Social values and expectations have changed since 2001, and people are familiar with different cultural touchstones. Much as I love the Amber setting (which is half of the reveal), I'd probably want to rewrite the ending for a more modern audience.

Titania was one of the first game designers to publish as herself (or even a pseudonym) rather than as a company name. Even Monte Cook was still "Monte Cook Games" rather than just his name. Now that's basically the standard if you're in the younger bracket of game designers. There were some rumors that Titania left the industry, but there have been some more recent books with her trademark writing style, so I think she's still out there somewhere.

[thursdayinspace]

Hi! :)

What are your top 10 MSR moments?

A comment you made yesterday made me curious.

oh man, how to choose? I don't know if I even can name a top 10. i did something similar a little while ago but it changes all the time and also I might be forgetting some . . . let's see. these are not in order. they're just all favorites. and I'm going to go with only moments where both are actually present.

the amor fati "my constant, my touchstone" speech + the forehead kiss. it is such a declaration of love. telling her, basically, that she's The One. no matter what happens. so many moments summarized in those few words: "you saved me," "my one in five billion," "now I can only trust you," etc.

the hallway speech in ftf. I mean. he tells her she's the most important person in his life. just . . . yeah. excuse me while I die a little from feelings.

I'm just going to cheat and roll all the kisses into one moment -- I could write a separate post about each one.

the baseball scene, I mean, come on, the two of them just having fun together, laughing, being cute?

combining two irresistible moments into one: when she tells him she wants to go back to washington to work from there, and he lets her walk away with her dignity intact by telling her that hey, more experienced agents have fallen apart on cases like this, and if she needs to talk he's there, but yeah, working from washington is actually a really good idea, she should do that! and then after they find her, she can let herself fall apart in front of him because he's already shown that he respects her. he offered himself as a safe place already and respected it when she wanted to handle things her own way. that episode is so pivotal to the development of their partnership and friendship.

in anasazi, when he thanks her for taking care of him. he sounds like he doesn't quite know how to say it, but it's important to him. he's not used to being taken care of like that, he's not used to being loved quite like that. what she does is pretty insane, shooting him in the shoulder and taking him on that crazily long drive afterwards while he's unconscious. she risks so much for him, with no ulterior motive.

"i wouldn't put myself on the line for anyone but you." when has he ever been that important to anyone? kind of goes with the moment above. he's not respected by his peers. people call him spooky. they laugh at his work and his beliefs. and here is this smart woman who could have a brilliant career, but she's willing to risk it all to work with him. and she doesn't even believe his theories. she just respects him, and *likes* him. she wants to be by his side. and he wants her around so much. how does that have to feel, to hear that not only is he respected, he's *wanted*?

"maybe i did want to be out there with you" from htgsc. after being told by the ghost that most people would rather stick their fingers in a wall socket than spend a minute with him. and here she is telling him that it's not true. she chooses him. she wants to spend time with him.

the two of them in plus one cuddled up on that bed/couch in the middle of the night. he's holding her and she's asking questions, testing the water, not sure where they stand anymore. she is still so afraid but she loves him. and he doesn't push. he is just *there*. he makes it so very clear that he will always be there. i have a lot of feelings about the quiet, patient way mulder loves in the revival. he will be what she needs, he just wants to be there for her and wants to be allowed to make her happy.

in detour, "i don't want to wrestle" and their whole conversation where they jump from funny to serious to funny just like that, just two good friends having a conversation. his head in her lap is cute and all, but i love the way they just *are* together. they're comfortable with each other.

there are so many more. i wanted to pick a hospital scene but there are too many. the ending of je souhaite is missing. milagro. the scene in the rain from the pilot. the phone call in sleepless "i'm surprised i put up with you so long." the various hugs and forehead kisses. but those are the ten that stood out to me right now. the list is neither good nor complete. this is difficult!

thoughts and opinions? does anyone else have a top ten? or top 500?

[onesunofagun]

This is probably a wildly unpopular thing to say, but I see chatter and takes concerning Hyrule and the Hylians and Hylia where the fandom dissects them as white European, or more often British coded. I've seen it be argued that this is because of surface level European (like Greco-Roman and Celtic) aesthetics are commonly used for them, though these are pretty shallow wrapping paper at best in game. Not that similarities can't be drawn! I'm saying this with all my Irish distaste for Britain! But it seems to be more of a symptom of ignorance or unfamiliarity with Japanese culture and history, and its own tilt at Imperialism.

Which I get! The average Western Fan's closest touchstone to Imperialism is likely Britain.

But Hyrule represents Japan. It's narrative is deeply rooted in Japanese Shinto beliefs regarding the relationship between man, nature and spirits-- including spiritual purity and impurity-- as derived from Buddhist concepts. Hylians are a fantasy race of elves who are Japanese coded, their Royal Family and Imperial structure and attitudes reflect a Japanese Nationalism that is deeply tied to Shinto. Hylia reflects aspects of the Goddess Amaterasu and her role as a progenitor of Emperors in Japanese myth.

I fully understand that many criticisms that apply also pertain to British Imperialism and their own Divine Hegemony, which is valid. But I think it's also falling short to critique and dissect the meta and intention behind this franchise without bothering to have the context of Japanese beliefs and history, and without bothering to really seek it out.

JP Imperialism formed as a response to the Western encroach and their subsequent focus on forced unification of the east in order to defend against it is deeply reflected in how Hyrule operates. The localisation of games like SkSw and TotK have wildly missed their mark in the impression that they give of certain concepts to especially the North American audience, and entire concepts and references to cultural beliefs and history (and what they might imply within game) are simply invisible to many who do not have that context to connect back to.

And I'm not trying to say that what anybody takes from the story they personally received isn't a valid impression based on their own experience with the games and media around them. There are many interpretations and themes that you can take away and play with.

But I don't think that saying Hylians are just white people coded or following Christianised themes or 'basically Britain' and calling it a day is quite good enough if you want to meaningfully and accurately discuss and dissect the narrative and intent of the Zelda franchise. Being able to critically read it with both external and Japanese context is really important in having the full conversation about what it reflects on real world history, religiosity and nuance.

[nikibogwater]

Ya girl's been SICK this week (my first time getting Covid, yaaaay), which sucked, but it did mean I finally had the time to properly binge the How to Train Your Dragon movies for the first time since The Hidden World released. I've never actually sat down and watched all three films back-to-back before, even though this was THE film franchise of my teenage years. But having finally done so, I have Thoughts™.

First movie is still arguably the best of the three, if only because it's an entirely self-contained narrative. The script is really tight and focused, and the whole thing is really well-paced. The animation actually looks way better than I remembered, but that might just be because this was my first time watching it on Blu-Ray instead of digital.

First movie also still has the best soundtrack of the three (which is saying a lot, considering John Powell was absolutely COOKING with all three movies). "Test Drive" is just too iconic to be outdone.

I really like Astrid's character arc in the first movie. I normally don't like tough-as-nails girlboss characters because they're so often one-dimensional and boring, but she works really well for me because her girboss-ness is as much a flaw as it is a strength. While she is athletic and competitive in her own nature, she's also under a lot of pressure to be a tough warrior, since that's what her society values. I love the way Hiccup brings out her softer side, how he shows her through Toothless that it's ok to be gentle, that compassion is a strength in its own right. I love the way she in turn becomes his pillar of support and comfort. Somehow I'd forgotten just how good Hiccstrid really is.

It's weird re-watching the second film as an adult, because I can still clearly remember a time when it was just the coolest thing ever. The second film was really what sold me on the series as a whole, to be honest. Like, don't get me wrong, I always loved the first one, but the second is where I really started getting into the worldbuilding and characters.

So it's weird to come back to it now and find out it's....actually the weakest of the three films (in my opinion, anyways). I can't quite put my finger on why, but the second film feels like it "drifts along" more than the other two. Like things "just happen" without as much input from the characters. Again, I'm not sure why it feels like that, because it's not like the characters aren't proactive and shaping the way the story unfolds.

None of that is to say that the second movie is bad by any stretch of the imagination. It introduces a bunch of really cool new concepts that do a great job of expanding the world and characters. It just had that weird drifty feeling to it that the other two lacked. Does anyone even know what I'm talking about here, or am I just crazy??

It's nuts how much of a touchstone "For the Dancing and the Dreaming" became in fandom culture. Ten years later, and I still see this song popping up in fics from every fandom under the sun. I think that's a testament to how beautiful Stoic and Valka's reunion was.

Unfortunately, Drago Bludvist is....not a very good villain, imo. He kinda just screams a lot, and that's it. His whole thing of imitating dragons in order to subdue them is cool, but it really needed to be backed up by a stronger personality. But it's not too much of an issue since really, his Bewilderbeast is the real obstacle for the heroes to overcome.

Now, The Hidden World is a weirdly controversial movie within the fandom. I still see people whose hatred for this film rivals that of the Tales of Arcadia fandom's hatred for Rise of the Titans. Which...I gotta admit, doesn't make a ton of sense to me. Like, I can understand not liking the bittersweet ending, but it's not as though THW went out of its way to ruin the entire series.

Looking at the series as a whole, I'd say THW feels like the most logical and organic conclusion to the series. Especially if you've read the books or seen the tie-in tv shows. I knew going into this movie that it would end with the dragons leaving--DeBlois even told us as much in an interview leading up to the film's release. And I'm okay with that.

The first movie touches on the theme of loss with Hiccup's leg. The second movie digs into that theme a bit more, with the loss of his parents (first Valka, who thankfully is found again, then Stoic). The Hidden World dives headfirst into the idea. Loss is no longer a mere consequence of the story's events, but the thematic backbone of the whole movie. And it's here that I realized the series has always been about loss, because the series has always been about growing up. You can't mature without losing something, whether it's a place, a person, or your childhood naivete.

HTTYD uses its fantastic premise to explore a painful reality of our own world, and it does so in a way that's entertaining, sincere, and encouraging. Hiccup has lost so much on his journey to adulthood, but he's also grown strong enough to be able to rise above it. He'll be okay. Toothless will be okay. And we'll all be okay too. Idk, maybe I'm reading too much into it, but that's my takeaway from the series, and it's definitely something that I've needed to hear more than once as I've grown up.

Grimmel is definitely a huge step up from Drago for me. He's essentially who Hiccup would have become if he'd lacked that compassion that caused him to spare Toothless in the first film. I also love his overall demeanor and presence. He's not a force of nature, or a feral war-lord. He's just a Guy who is very, very good at his job and knows it. Plus, F. Murray Abraham just has a really cool voice.

Unfortunately, as much as I like Grimmel as a villain, he's still outclassed by Viggo Grimborn from Race to the Edge.

I can't get over how insanely good the visuals are in this series. Especially the textures. Like, there's times in the first movie where the textures look so good that the actual models almost can't keep up. I can see what Toothless's scales feel like, the scratchy weave of Hiccup's tunic, the coarse fur of Stoic's cloak. HTTYD is the only series I can think of that seamlessly pulls off a "realistic" look with animation. The world feels real, without taking away from the suspension of disbelief that makes animation such a freeing medium. It's as if they came to the edge of the uncanny valley, then got into a hot air balloon and floated across without ever touching it.

Looking back, I think this was just the perfect series to be a teenager with. It's just the right blend of action, adventure, and emotion, all wrapped up in a wholesome and often heart-rending tale of a boy and his dragon growing up together. I really wish we could have more series like this.

(Edit) Also the Light Fury is my favorite dragon species in the entire series, no I will not take that back, she's super pretty and sparkly and I just want to pat her on her cute nubby head.

[serialreblogger]

the thing about the joker

is that - well, even canonically, he’s not actually “insane.” in the most canonical version of his backstory (bc there are many conflicting incarnations, but this one is the touchstone for a lot of later canon), he was part of a street gang before falling into a vat of Nondescript Toxic Waste that damaged his melanin production and That’s It. he supposedly “lost his mind” after seeing his reflection, which is absurd on many levels. no. he’s not “insane.” what he is, is an angry white boy.

the thing about the joker is that he exults in his own uncontainability. He laughs, because all of gotham - all the world - is built to be his playground. the only lunatic thing about him is the lunacy of ~Society~, to borrow from the joker’s own playbook; the lunacy of the joker lies in the world that grants him power: in the inheritance of loss: in white privilege, and what it means for everyone else.

“to prove a point.” those were the joker’s exact words, when he shot and paralyzed Barbara Gordon. she asked why: he laughed. “to prove a point.”

because that’s all he ever does. he hurts people because he can. and because all the power in the world can’t save him from getting hurt - and isn’t that just peachy?

because the thing about the joker is that he can get hurt. he has been hurt. but he has so much more capacity to harm than to be harmed. he is immortal. he and he alone will never have to face the consequences of the hurt that he inflicts on other people.

so then: why not hurt them? misery loves company, after all.

the joker is the embodiment and end result of our own social system: the madness of the exception: the laughter of the white man: the imprecation to smile, as he kills you.

(no one ever says it, i find, but it’s still true: barbara deserves to kill him.)

and who, then, is the batman? if the joker is the yin to his yang? if they’re two sides of one irredeemable coin, if they represent the “balance” of an unjustifiable system - who is he if not another white man?

because he is. Bruce Wayne is a white boy born into unspeakable privilege and forced to endure suffering anyway; who copes with his suffering by taking it out on others; who copes with his suffering, not by taking advantage of the world as it is, but by attempting to reshape it. to make it in his own image - as if it isn’t already his, as if claiming it further will crush out the pain.

the batman is the benevolent oppressor to the joker’s malevolent one. he changes nothing, in the end. two privileged white boys with their own respective navel-gazing grudges - where, after all, lies the difference between benevolence and malevolence?

because they are not “chaos” and “order.” not really. They are laissez-faire laughter and law. Joker exults in the disease of the system, Batman seeks to treat its symptoms, but neither of them will ever change anything about the root cause. because they may have suffered the faults of this system, but they still benefit so much more from it as it exists. Uphold it or break it, neither of them wants to change the law.

but the law is only as good as the people it’s made to protect. and who does that law protect, really?

waylon jones is, in one issue, explicitly depicted as Black. between that and his skin disorder, there has never once been room for his character to be any more than a monster: king croc is, always, a character to be violated and brutalized, over and over and over and still - always - written as the villain. (he tried so hard to scrape out a place for himself, so many times, in so many incarnations, and each and every time he finds himself relegated once more to the sewers. he will never be anyone’s king. there is no place under the sun for people like him.)

victor fries only ever wanted to save his wife, and a capitalist mogul decided a few extra numbers on his eight-digit paycheck were more important than the people whose lives depended on that money. fries’ body was damaged to disability by that choice, left without the resources to find a cure for his wife, and he robbed banks because there was no other option available to him. we seem to have forgotten, or maybe never really understood, why that matters. why a desperate man trying to save his life and that of his loved ones under the crushing gears of capitalism is a villain, and the one who stops him is our hero. why, under the law batman upholds, a bank vault and a CEO’s hoard is worth more than a life.

poison ivy just wants to live, too. wants a life not defined by the devastation of her body, of the beings that exist as extensions of her, a life where green and growing things are not commodities to be plowed up and poisoned and destroyed for the sake of another man’s profit. these are villains; they are written as such. these are their motives.

who does batman fight for, really? who is our hero, this emblem of our law?

is he our hero? ours, the broken and bleeding members of the world he claims to protect?

who does the law protect, except him - him, and the joker?

[indie-ttrpg-of-the-week]

Lancer RPG

pfft, your mech is your dead mom's soul? well MY mech is co-piloted by Cthulhu!

Touchstones: Armored Core, General Mech Media

Genre: Mecha, Tactics game

What is this game?: Lancer is a tactical TTRPG focused on mechs, and the folks piloting them, with a sturdy "Gameplay over Realism" mentality to its game design

How's the gameplay?: Lancer is a tactical RPG using primarily d20s for attack rolls and other problem solving, it's primarily based on the tactical combat rules of Dungeons and Dragons 4th edition, however it is mostly its own thing, with new mechanics, simple but fun character creation, and a high focus on quick and aggressive combat rather than lengthy and Defensive combat. in effect imagine character creation as going to a subway (of mech parts) and picking your ingredients, with a mech's frame being your choice of bread, and combat as an SRPG of your choosing but everyone is in giant mechs

Out of Combat is a bit different, to the point where I didn't even bring it up during my first draft of this! the Out of Combat rules are deliberately bare bones, you can very easily insert straight up a different game in there, or mod it to be something else. But I wouldn't recommend it, as the rules by themselves are 100% useable, fun, and blend into the combat portions pretty easily, Lancer is fully aware of this, and the lack of out of combat depth is partially covered by the KTB book, which gives characters simple out of character skills

What's the setting (If any) like?: Lancer throws you into a world where mankind's either solved, or is close to solving, most of the issues back on earth... too bad we also colonized other planets 10k years ago! Now, while Earth thrives, planets outside of it struggle with poverty, imperialism, dictatorships, and human and non-human rights issues, Earth tries its best to help, but they're stretched very thin. Lancer also has many small details to its setting that are way too in-depth to get into right now, but a major one is the existance of non-human people, eldritch beings strapped to computers in order to create effective and fully sentient artificial intelligence

What's the tone?: Lancer's tone is generally speaking, hopeful. Empires are mighty, but there are people fighting, and they will be toppled, mankind's horrors have attempted to wipe out entire species, but survivors remain, and secretly thrive. While there is some doom and gloom and grimdark stuff, especially with how the highly unethical and wicked corporations are treated as necessary evils for enterprising pilots, but overall lancer is a setting where no matter how bad things get, there will always be hope

Session length: A few hours, it depends on how mean your GM is, generally speaking however combat heavy sessions will only run you around 2-3 hours, with RP sprinkled in between

Number of Players: I generally like to recommend around 4 or more, but I'm sure you can do it with less

Malleability: While lancer's mechanics are pretty hardset in its setting, the existance of Beacon RPG and how at its core its very much a Lancer hack does show that Lancer can be hacked into differing settings, a very popular one I've seen is Magical Girl Lancer.

Resources: Lancer's primary resource is Comp/Con, it effectively serves as a do everything tool for lancer, allowing you to manage characters, encounter, and homebrew, while also having a very slick and easy to use UI Lancer also has many pre-made modules, of... varying quality, Siren's song and Solstice rain are pretty good, Wallflower is very good but the encounters are of mixed quality, and it's not great for introducing people to the game in my experience

Homebrew is also fairly popular, new frames, NPC types, Bonds, and modules are all pretty popular, my personal favorite being Field Guide to Suldan and Field Guide to Iridia, I also enjoy Field Guide to Liminal Spaces though that one's a bit on the "Be Very Careful" side

Overall, lancer is effectively THE indie ttrpg, being quality, fun, and affordable, with the core rulebook being 100% free if you just wish to see the player-side content, it's a great time, and everyone who's interested in the indie ttrpg scene should check it out at least once