Is-a-spell

fgo does not do this. the vast majority of fgo servants don't have a special trick at all, they have buffs and debuffs and damage. very rarely they make something that manipulates the mechanics directly a little like BB summer card lock but categorically they make each kit by simply checking some boxes on the list of things that can happen in the game. the extella games gave every servant's noble phantasm and abilities the exact same effect of "damage" with only the animations being different. the extra games did put a lot of emphasis on information over raw numbers so they got closest to capturing the nature of servant vs servant combat imo but they still didn't really dabble into manipulating what is game-mechanically possible to happen. they stick to the rules. they preserve "balance'.

but servants are not balanced. servants are completely defined by the fact that they each have their own unique gamebreaking trick. just like 6* operators.

More AU Hakuba becuase I've been thinking about how his 'powers' might work. And his relationship with it.

habecrane :)

the doctor is the character you play as in og arknights!!! (NOT endfield. endfield is an entirely different thing with an entirely different protagonist)

^^ behold. my eepchures.

to cut 6 years of gacha game lore Extremely short; the doctor is one of the last remaining survivors of a spacefaring precursor race heavily implied to be humans, or at least human adjacent, but we don't have time to get into All That who shaped the entire arknights setting as everyone knows it. due to Tragic Backstory Reasons, they've almost completely forgotten their origins + identity, so they spend most of their days as a field commander/cancer researcher/ruthless tactician/prolific gambler/silly little freak/former oracle/bringer of doomed yuri/devoted parent/actual doctor. they're hyperintelligent, hyperempathetic, and exceptionally physically frail. like, "the only hand to hand combat they've ever won is against a dying old man", frail. like, "their bones break from a really strong handshake and they get winded walking up stairs", frail. it's heavily implied (and maybe outright stated somewhere? i'll have to double check) that the suit they wear is a physical necessity because their immune system is thinner than a dehydrated leaf. ☝️ but! they make up for this by minmaxxing intelligence and wisdom to the maximum. in lore, anyway. for some inexplicable reason they immediately forget how to command and become a bumbling idiot the minute i personally get to play them. weird 🤔

they also canonically wake up at 4 in the morning to cook instant noodles, and by cook, i mean eating uncooked noodles and pouring boiling water into their mouth so it cooks inside their mouth.

they're also autistic.

too weak to carry a medkit

from valorem-vigilo

archer's very existence challenges the premises that lancer builds his identity as a hero on. lancer has always conceived of a hero as someone who is memorable, who shines brighter than the other stars if only for a moment, but archer is a complete nobody who doesn't even want to call himself a hero. the fact that someone like archer can keep up with him forces lancer to reconsider what makes him a hero too. clearly it's not fame or pride, because archer has neither but is his match all the same.

it really pisses lancer off that archer takes no pride in himself, because archer is good. archer is skillful as hell to be able to keep up with the legendary cu chulainn. lancer's initial hostility towards archer was about archer not taking him seriously, using disposable swords to fight him instead of the bow that should be his noble phantasm as an archer, but by their second fight in ubw it's become about how lancer can't stand to see someone this obviously capable deny his own worth like this. if he managed to become a heroic spirit surely he has succeeded at something in his life? surely there is something he can take pride in and fight for as a hero?

archer denies the very notion that a hero's life is worth taking pride in and lancer's response is to try to vaporise him with the noble phantasm that embodies his own heroic pride, but while lancer is overwhelmingly the victor of that clash he didn't actually defeat archer. lancer isn't wrong, a hero cannot be perfectly good and save everyone because the world simply isn't that black and white, and to be a hero therefore is to be memorable and take pride in what you have achieved. but archer isn't wrong either, if all it takes for a hero is to be memorable then even the vilest deeds devoid of pride or honor can be washed away with conveniently heroic results.

What gets me is how god damned frustrating it would be to work somewhere that one of the Leverage crew supports. Nate would be okay, he’d just make small monthly gifts to ten million different organizations so that nobody thinks he’s worth very much (he doesn’t own his home and he gives such small amounts monthly that Development writes him off as an earnest but low-capacity donor who should get a thank-you card around the holidays). It’s probably a bigger inconvenience to him because he’s on every nonprofit mailing list known to man. He has so many address labels, guys. (I don’t want to be Nate but I am Nate. I have so many address labels.)

Sophie I imagine has an extravagant alias for every charity she supports; she gives outrageous amounts and in return demands only attention and adulation, tickets to all the galas, and to be in at least one photo in every annual report. We have a donor like this – she’s genuinely invested in our work, gives generously of her time and money, is never rude or demanding, but if she’s in the room all eyes must be on her at all times. I actually really like her but constant exposure could get…tiring. 

Eliot just sends enormous, anonymous checks once a year through a shell company or DAF, which while not unusual would be irritating in that they can’t ever reach out to thank him and/or steward him into a larger gift appealing to his interests. They can’t even send him dumb swag! He deserves a charity-branded bottle opener and keychain flashlight! (He has stolen all of Nate’s, but they don’t know that.) Still, they’ve probably got a fun nickname for him; I have a few people in my research files who are simply named after characters from Greek mythology because that’s all the data I have or am allowed to store. 

For a long time Hardison just dumped money into the bank accounts of his charities of choice, seamlessly, invisibly – it just APPEARED in the account, and he was cool with that until he checked back after a few years and found none of his money was being used because they couldn’t figure out where it was coming from and were worried it was a clerical error despite the bank assuring them otherwise. Now he still dumps money into the accounts but he entertains himself building an elaborate digital paper trail so that the accounting all works. Have you ever watched a Gift Processing office try to balance a nonprofit’s books? Sometimes they cry! Don’t be mean to them, Hardison. 

Parker, bless her heart, just leaves bags of money on the doorsteps of random employees with notes directing how, in general terms, it should be spent. If she’s particularly pleased with the climbability of their home, she leaves a donut for them, too. Generally if she mentions she’s done this to the crew, Eliot calls up the charity to assure them that the large bag of cash was a legitimate donation and is not some kind of money-laundering scam. (That was ONE TIME Eliot, and the IRS didn’t even NOTICE.) This happened to me once. A tiny old lady in a Cubs jacket showed up to our office with a backpack full of money and it was a very intense morning. 

you've seen the jokes. india is "dirty", indians are "everywhere", why don't they fix their own country. ok. let me tell you why, and what's happening right now while nobody's watching.

first, the history you skipped: britain ruled india for two centuries and drained it. economist utsa patnaik's research estimates around $45 trillion in today's money was taken. the india that got independence in 1947 was one of the poorest countries on earth. every "why is india like this" question starts there. you don't get to profit off a robbery and then mock the crime scene.

now, what's happening RIGHT NOW:

in may the question paper for NEET leaked. that's the national medical entrance exam. over 2.2 million students took it. cancelled. years of studying, families' savings poured into coaching, gone overnight because someone sold the paper. students died by suicide after. these were kids who wanted to be doctors.

and out of that came a protest movement. a gen z group called the cockroach janta party, started by a 30 year old named abhijeet dipke, got 22 million instagram followers within DAYS. they've been doing a sit-in at jantar mantar in delhi demanding education minister dharmendra pradhan resign.

and then there's sonam wangchuk. if you've watched 3 idiots, he's the real engineer the character was based on. built solar schools in ladakh. invented ice stupas so himalayan villages have water. spent his whole life on education. he's 59 and he's been on hunger strike for 17+ days now. reporters went to see him this week and he was too weak to talk. and the troll armies are calling him "anti national" and "foreign funded". a man starving himself for other people's children. that's the thing here, anyone who asks a question is suddenly a traitor.

it's not one incident, it's everywhere you look:

• infrastructure worth thousands of crores failing within months of the ribbon cutting. tunnels collapsing in regions where heavy rain is a guarantee, not a surprise.

• youth unemployment near 10% for ages 15 to 29, 13.6% in cities. in a country of 1.42 billion where more than half the population is young.

• only about the top 3% of indians earn above 10 lakh a year. meanwhile billionaire wealth keeps ballooning and the headlines celebrate it.

• manipur burned for over two years. an ethnic conflict, tens of thousands displaced, and the prime minister barely said the word manipur while it happened.

• journalists raided. critics' houses bulldozed. activists sitting in jail for years without trial under laws like UAPA. our press freedom ranking has cratered.

• even the petrol is a fight now, ethanol blending pushed through while drivers complain about their engines and get no straight answers.

and through all of it, the PM, who came to power on religious polarisation (americans, sound familiar?), travels abroad for photo ops and has not held one single open press conference in over a decade. not one.

what i'm asking:

if you're not indian: share this. our media mostly won't cover any of it because the big outlets are owned by the same billionaires the government serves. the only reason wangchuk's fast is getting any coverage is people refusing to look away.

if you ARE indian: speak up even if you're comfortable. especially if you're comfortable. join the protests. add to this, correct me, translate it. staying quiet is a choice when nothing in this post touches your life.

india is not "dirty". india was robbed, and it's being robbed again, from the inside this time. but it's also the country where a 59 year old will starve for strangers' kids and 22 million young people will rally behind a party literally named after cockroaches, because cockroaches survive everything.

we can still save her. but only loudly.