ahungeringknife

[ahungeringknife]

With more and more Ao3 authors restricting their works to the archive (due to AI scraping), they're going to be losing guest interaction. And probably generally feeling down because. You know. AI is stealing their hard work.

So! Now is a great time to stop by your favorite authors/stories and drop them some comments! They really appreciate it!

[ahungeringknife]

I have completed another orbit around the sun today

As if in celebration my body is reminding me I'm over 30 and my knee and shoulder have been bothering me all day :)

[ahungeringknife]

If I've totally missed something please ignore me, but have you ever written or considered writing out the rules and cards for the card game that you have hunters play in Entropy? I've been thinking about it for a couple days, wondering how far it differs from a normal deck of cards.

It's like Bullshit mixed with a rummy game, where you draw one card a turn, can play as many cards onto the center pile as you want, and can also pick up part of the played pile (the whole pile or some of it) but it's also all Calvinball (so things I'm about to say might not make any sense in actual play) but sequencing is an important part of it. It has suits like a 52 card deck but the suits are decided on by the Hunter corps at large. Each suit is a run of cards from 3-12 and don't include specific number cards (number cards are limited to the 3 Light elements 0-9 (0 counts as a 10 for counting reasons)) that need to be played in order but can also be interrupted by someone else starting a suit but only if the card they're playing on top of the suit is of higher value than the one they're playing.

How do you know it has higher value? LOL GOOD LUCK BETTER KNOW!! It's something you just have to memorize and it's why learning cards is HARD. There are currently at least 20-50 suits so you just gotta learn them. Some are more popular than others so you'll see them more often and learn them quicker. You also don't have to play the WHOLE suit if you don't want (Eric's deck only plays 3 cards from the celestial suit) but they need to be either the highest cards in a suit or can be played in an order.

Decks range from 50-250 cards and so long as all the suits are legal the deck is legal. Xander notoriously plays with a massive deck (I think it's like 200) of only Void number cards which make it INCREDIBLY difficult to play because the sequencing becomes very strict with such a deck.

The only strict deck building rule in cards is you must have at least 4 non numbered Void cards in your neck. Voids are a way to play on top of a suit if you don't have a winning card and start a new suit over top it. It's also a big dick swag money move if you win in a Void card.

There are other rules about cheating too, mostly if you're caught you lose but if you cheat successfully you're fine. Two people playing together is a form of advanced cheating that's quite hard to pull off but when done well makes the person theyve decided to cheat on behalf of basically not able to lose.

You win by playing out all your cards. Usually once there's a winner the game ends but popular formats do include playing out 2nd and 3rd place.

Hunters will sit down and play cards with any other Hunter when asked. Usually a New Light Hunter will make and get their first deck once they win their first game which can be anywhere from 1 day to 50 years or more if they are SO BAD. Usually Hunters don't like playing with Warlocks and Titans because Warlocks find the rules nonsensical and Titans hate when they cheat. If you're a Warlock or Titan and your Hunter friend invites you to cards night with the boyz you have MADE IT with that Hunter. Might as well start dating lol

[ahungeringknife]

not reblogging the 'um actually guardians do pay rent' reply because you know what? I wanna believe in a kinder world. I wanna believe that the City IS kinder to refugees, and regular citizens, and Guardians, and we escaped fucking late stage capitalism. Does some capitalism still exist? Probably. Is it a soul sucking, life destroying thing citizens have to deal with daily? No. The Golden Age was as close to a utopia as humanity got in this sandbox and the City is built on the stories of the Golden Age, of a 'utopia'. I wanna believe Bungie wouldn't go 'we made this world and story full of hope and love and being there for each other, and also everyone has to play by 2024 Capitalism rules uwu'.

Someone made a reblogs said 'its not Star Trek' and I ask… why not? Why can't it be Star Trek? Star Trek is great. You can still have stores and shop stalls in a socialistic society, you need places to get things, food just doesn't appear in your home.

i think some usamerican wiriting their last city headcanons are nuts.....

why does your guardian pay rent.. why are there homeless beggars in the street...... why do you think this is something that would happen in the last city

[ahungeringknife]

I love you its ruining my life 3

what'cha got there Shin? Could it be? Some feelings????

----------

Shin was in his kitchen making something that resembled breakfast dressed in just his boxers and there was a beautiful girl sleeping in his bed. Now and then he looked over to make sure she was still there. She was. And by the Light she was beautiful.

Shin didn't think he was into Awoken girls. He mostly slept with humans when he did seek companionship. No real reason. Just familiar. The glowing eyes of an Awoken or EXO could be a little disconcerting sometimes. But there was something about this one.

He'd thought about her and her cute bubbly sign accent for days after the first time they'd met. He hadn't expected to run into her in Crucible. He'd been on his way out when Shaxx's voice had boomed out her name along with her fireteam for that Control game and then he'd stayed just to watch. Watching her play and manipulate the score had been amazing. She didn't care about her own score. He could tell by the way she played. She just wanted to play as long as possible. And when she did play for keeps she was ruthless. Most Guardians were good at gunplay, that was their job after all. Kass was on another level. She didn't care about her ratio, she capped zones to be a team player but only if they were falling behind. He'd watched her walk out into a lane three times to get sniped by someone he knew she knew about just to bring the score up out of mercy territory. He'd never seen anything like it before. It was amazing. And terrifying. What sort of person thought like that?

From his bed he heard movement and looked over. Kass rolled over before sitting up, her hair a mess even as she rubbed it The sheet fell away and Shin stared at her tits. They were great tits too. He only had the light in the kitchen on so it was still dim in the part of the apartment the bed was in. For a moment he froze when glowing purple eyes met his, pinning him in place. They were eyes that loved to fight and he knew a terror when he saw one. She was dangerous and it sent a whole thrill through his body. Scared and turned on was not a feeling he usually had but she made him feel it. Then the hard edge softened, her eyes dimmed and became less like the edge of a knife at your throat.

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[ahungeringknife]

Shin should really know better than to ask Eric anything. She's just gonna drag him. Like he deserves it but that's besides the point.

[ahungeringknife]

I love you it's ruining my life 2

Kass hummed the song that was always playing in her head even while she was hunkered down behind a piece of cover. Shaxx’s voice boomed over the match about some play on the other side of the arena. The song was in her head and in her pulse and in her throat as she hummed it. She didn’t even realize she was doing it most of the time. She just did it when she was happy. Grey and Archie liked to tease her that it was like she was purring! That always caught her out. She didn’t know how to explain to them it was just… there… all the time.

Rolling out of cover as the red on her radar became more pronounced she raised her handcanon and surprised the Warlock with rapid shots right to the head, ripping through their helmet and exploding out the back of their skull. She didn’t reload and went headed for the B spot which was under contention. Ghost was keeping count of her Crucible mandated countdowns on her grenade and Golden Gun but as she rounded the corner on B the Golden Gun was up and there were three Guardians standing on B recovering after the previous firefight with her side. Kass smiled slightly as she infused her handcanon with Solar Light with a bang and it smoked in the air between them. They opened fire on her but it hardly mattered. They couldn’t flinch her off and in three shots she had B cleaned up with only Solar ash on the ground as she stood on the point. Some of her team came around to run with her as a ball once the point changed blue for them.

The match ended a few minutes later and Kass was back on the top of the song in her head. Her team was ahead by thirty points. Grey, Archie, and Nef found her as she was leaving the arena. The Titans clapped her on the back and shoulder nearly sending her flying. She was at the top of the leaderboard again. They were in good spirits as they left the simulation arena as it was rebuilt into something else with an absurd amount of white and blue glimmer.

The song was a bit louder than usual today after the match so when her friends left her for only a few seconds she was surprised by a member of the Crucible press. They were speaking to her but all she could hear was the ringing song between her ears. She stared at the reporter inside her helmet. Light crackled at her fingers erroneously. Why were they talking her? What did they want? What were they saying? What-

“Hey- scram,” a different voice cut in that also severed the song in her head. “Can’t you see you’re making a mess of yourself.” Ghost pulsed against her neck in her hood with Light and a display came up on her HUD at the Hunter who’d come over to tell the reporter to fuck off: Shin Malphur. Oh! She remembered him. He’d taught her how to whistle like a robin.

“Just trying to get a daily,” the reporter said but was cowed.

“Beat it. Go bother someone else,” Shin said, imposing himself between her and the reporter on her behalf. Thank the Light. She didn’t know how to deal with reporters.

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[ahungeringknife]

Event Status: Early Sign-Ups Open!

Did you want another event to add to your end-of-the-year roster? Well, look no further than the AO3 Favorite Tag Bingo! There are never too many Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies or Domestic Fluff pieces created or celebrated, so why not use this event as an excuse to do just that!

This is a no-pressure event designed to round up your favorite non-fandom-specific AO3 canon tags and challenge you to create or celebrate something using them. It’s just an added bonus that you get fun PDF badges when you complete certain milestones along the way!

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*This is a multi-media creator event that is in no way connected to The Archive or the OTW

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During sign-ups, you will select all prompts you'd like to possibly see on your bingo card(s) with a minimum of 30 tag selections required (that is approximately 10% of the submitted tags)

More Info! on minimums and what counts toward submissions.

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The event will run for 3 months and can be joined from October 1st to December 14th 23:59.

September 1st: Tag Nominations Open!

September 14th: Tag Noms close!

September 15th: Sign-Ups Open!

October 1st: Cards begin to go out!

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Collection

If you have any questions or concerns regarding this exchange, please feel free to send an Ask, a DM, an Email, or check out the FAQ!

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Jess (Lacerta | @blendinginthecrowd)

[ahungeringknife]

Also I might briefly go 'X missed when ABC happened' as an aside. But otherwise, tough luck my dude. Character doesn't know.

[ahungeringknife]

Actually friendly reminder to comment on that fic.

Leave one word “subscribed” comments

Tell them “consider this extra kudos <3″

Leave that essay on that old fic

Tell them if you’ve reread it once. Tell them if you’ve reread it 100 times 

Tell them how much you’ve seen their writing grow

Tell them when you rec their fic

Tell them how much you can see their passion

Tell them when the fic made you grin when it made you cry when it made you FEEL

leave that comment. You’ve got nothing to lose but .02 seconds of your time and everything to gain by making an authors day.

[ahungeringknife]

I started writing this back in... May? Woof. I started it like 'yeah it'll be a fun one shot!' and now it's.... 40,000+ words long :) (they do get together before then! Prommy!)

So yeah. No longer a one-shot. Figured I should start posting it.

Since the end of "More God Than a Man" and now I've had family visit and been in the ER again (I'm fine). I just wanted some soft ass cute ShinWolf okay

I love you, it's ruining my life

Shin spent plenty of time in the City but sometimes you just wanted to listen to the sounds of the wilds. Hear the wind. Watch the clouds. Exist in the quiet that was Earth post apocalypse. He often had excuses for coming out here of course. A hunt. Someone thought they were better at hiding than he was at tracking. They never were. He could smell the corruption on them. Today wasn't like that. He was just sitting at his camp listening to what he thought was a pair of robins singing looking for a mate. He knew it was some robins he wasn't sure how many there were.

He had a seed cake on a log nearby and some other birds had come by and pecked at it. Not the robins though. He liked robins. They were cute little birds and had a wide range here in America.

After a few minutes listening to the robins his Ghost, Magpie (because they were annoying talking birds just like him), played the sound of a robin call while floating next to Shin's shoulder. The actual robins quieted. Shin scoffed. "Don't," Magpie said.

"You have a recording and everything, still can't make bird sounds," Shin teased him, flicking his shell with a finger.

"And you know what robins want?" Magpie said in his annoyed monotone way.

"Let's see," he hadn't tried this in a while. Took him a moment to get his tongue in the right place behind his teeth before he produced a sound not unlike the robins as a whistle. Magpie's recording was perfect but Shin could make the sound of a female robin, which was what the ones singing right now were looking for. The robins in the trees called back when Shin stopped.

"Show off," Magpie grumbled.

"Yeah well- Shit!" he jerked back in his seat, jump scared by a Hunter who'd appeared at the edge of his campsite. He hadn't heard them or seen them. Magpie disappeared into his scarf to be unseen by the Hunter standing there just inside the camp line.

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[ahungeringknife]

between my dad visiting, and the hospital, I just have had no brain power to write anything

but god I need to just. Grind my face against it and do it because the two scenes I wanna write will NOT leave my stupid brain

[ahungeringknife]

ppl talk about the difficulty of writing characters smarter than yourself, but the real challenge is writing a character who is funnier than you are

[ahungeringknife]

My biggest tip for fanfic writers is this: if you get a character's mannerisms and speech pattern down, you can make them do pretty much whatever you want and it'll feel in character.

Logic: Characters, just like real people, are mallable. There is typically very little that's so truly, heinously out of character that you absolutely cannot make it work under any circumstance. In addition, most fans are also willing to accept characterization stretches if it makes the fic work. Yeah, we all know the villain and the hero wouldn't cuddle for warmth in canon. But if they did do that, how would they do it?

What counts is often not so much 'would the character do this?' and more 'if the character did do this, how would they do it?' If you get 'how' part right, your readers will probably be willing to buy the rest, because it will still feel like their favourite character. But if it doesn't feel like the character anymore, why are they even reading the fic?

Worry less about whether a character would do something, and more about how they'd sound while doing it.

[ahungeringknife]

365: May 12

Amanda looked up from what she was doing as a ship landed in the hanger looking like it'd been through a war. Panels were cracked, the windshield was just gone, and it looked like every nut, bolt, and rivet were straining under the pressure of keeping itself together. The ship itself flailed as it landed, rocking back and forth. Her bro furrowed. What had happened to it that would cause the gyroscope to be damaged like that? Not even the gravitational gyroscope just the normal one. She'd seen Guardians crack a gravitational gyroscope by pushing their ships to the limit of physics (and had had to chew Ren and his stunt buddy friends out for it) but this? The ship landed like a belly flop, barely catching itself on the platform. She heard the strain of the metal landing gear trying to support itself.

She stepped away from what she was working on, letting the tablet fall away to her side, catching on the attached strap so it dangled from her belt like any other tool, and went over to the ship. The engines heaved and as they wound down she heard them sputtering and sucking and knew they wouldn't be coming back up for some time. Not without some work. Even the paint was frayed.

She recognized this ship. Special fabrication for a very special Guardian. She'd seen it a week ago and it had been perfect. Flawless. Completely space and air worthy. The thing was barely a month old! How did it look like this? The Taken War was... 'over' she supposed. Oryx was dead. And yet it looked like this thing had just been flown through Oryx's asshole.

The Guardian climbed out of the broken windshield and landed lightly under the nose of the ship. Amanda folded her arms. At least Kass the Kingslayer had the awareness to look guilty. Not that Amanda could see her face. It was in the slouch of her shoulders and the way her hood was pulled so far forward it was like she was trying to hide her helmet. You got good at learning to read Guardian body language because for hell like they'd talk to you face to face sometimes.

"Um... I can explain," Kass said, voice thin over her helmet's speakers.

"I'd love to hear it," Amanda said, sarcastic as the day was long.

"Um- well... you see-- uh," she'd never seen this little lady nervous but here she was.

Amanda sighed and unfolded her arms. She went up to the Hunter. "Do you even know what happened?" Amanda asked. Because she knew well enough wild stuff happened to Guardians. Stuff they couldn't always explain.

"... No," she said after a moment. "No I just-- I just woke up and it was like this." There was more to the story but Amanda wasn't going to force it out of her.

Amanda looked at the ship, hands on her hips. "It really took a beating," she said.

"Yeah. I don't- not that it wasn't a really good ship!- but I don't want this one anymore?" she said nervously.

"I'm sure with how wrecked it is."

"Is my old ship still in storage? I'll just use that one again," she said quickly.

"That death trap? Yeah, no," a silky voice Amanda associated with Kass' mentor came out of her Ghost.

Kass sighed dramatically. "Fine. Fine," she huffed. "Do you have like... a loaner or something I could use? I was in the middle of something for the Vanguard," she asked Amanda.

"Do I have a- Kass do you not know how many schematics you own?"

"No?" Kass said and she could imagine how big those purple eyes of her were behind that helmet.

Amanda sighed and scooped up her data pad from where it hung at her knee. She projected several ship schematics between them. "These are all your ships," she said.

"... Since when?" Kass asked, voice going up in pitch.

"Since forever?"

"Why do I have so many?"

"Girl I have no idea," Amanda said. "This isn't the most though. Some Guardians collect them."

"Where did I even get these?" Kass leaned forward to look at the projections.

"Again; no idea," Amanda said. "So which one you want me to bring out of storage?"

"Ummm... this one, I guess," she indicated a sleek looking jump ship.

"This one is cockpit only. There's no room for sleeping."

"Oh. Hmmm. Well then I'll come back and try another one after I guess. I just need a ship now," she said.

"Right," Amanda said. "And what do you want to do with this?" she indicated the ship that was still moaning and groaning under its own weight.

"Do I have to keep it? I'm sorry," she added quickly.

Amanda chuckled. "Nah," she said and tapped on her datapad. "We'll scrap it for glimmer and parts. I'll send you a cut of it once it's been disassembled. Your other ship should be coming up any minute. And really? You just woke up and it was all messed up?"

"Yes."

"What Ghost say caused it?" she asked, more curious than anything.

Ghost stared at her. "Bad dreams," he said and Amanda didn't understand what that meant.

"Well, anyway, there's your new ship," she nodded at the ship being raised up into the Hangar. "Try and keep it in one piece?" she asked.

"I will! Thank you. And sorry again!" Kass cried and darted off. Amanda just sighed fondly after her. She was such a nice girl, really.

Once Kass had taken off she went and inspected the damage a bit more thoroughly. Her brows creased in confusion as she looked at the scorching and damaged electronics. She'd seen all sorts of destruction from ballistics and Fallen aggression and Cabal aggression and even her share of Hive tearing into it but nothing like this. All the damage had come from inside the ship. It was like... she didn't even know really. She'd never seen anything like it. Just that all the damage was done from the Light and the power of it bursting from the inside out had nearly ripped the ship to pieces.

She thought about asking Kass about it when she came to trade in the other ship but what had Ghost said? 'Bad dreams'.

Maybe she didn't want to know actually.

[ahungeringknife]

ngl sounds like a skill issue.

You don't have to think writing should be fun. I don't think I conciously had any fun when I write.

But think of like, videogames. When I grind for them, it's not like it's THAT fun or anything. But I'll always look back on the time I spent on it and thought "yeah, I had fun."

So don't think you should have fun. Just write and only worry about writing. The fun part will come naturally.

[ahungeringknife]

basically I think that if your protagonist doesn’t want to fuck someone so bad it makes them look stupid, then there probably isn’t enough energy in your story. “Fuck someone” isn’t literal btw—they can want to uncover the secrets of their parent’s death, they can want to prove their worth, they can want a donut from one particular bakery—it can be anything so long as they want it so bad that they’ll make decisions that make any sane person go “are you a moron??”, with little to no forethought, or even tons of forethought and this is still the option they chose. Because they want to fuck that thing so bad.