Speaking of Sniper, Scout, and horror, have you ever read “It Came With the Rain” by FiveBucksWorthy2 on ao3?
If you enjoy horror (especially body horror) and fics where Sniper and Scout have the “immovable object vs unstoppable force” dynamic (platonic) you described earlier, I highly recommend you check it out. The prose is great and the character writing is top notch.
Hey, have you ever read a horror work so good it made you genuinely, physically disturbed? I LOVED it!!!!!
It Came With the Rain by @fivedollarfred
This fic was in my bookmarks for years but, as I am, i kept postponing reading it, because if I'm sure I'm gonna like something - I better be mentally ready for it. AND OH BOY I STILL UNDERESTIMATED THE IMPACT IT WOULD HAVE ON ME.
The easy to read, engaging writing style? Sniper and Scout SO in-character as if it were written by original Valve writers? Little headcanons sprinkled here and there that FEEL SO CORRECT!! And, oh my god. The JUICINESS of their platonic bonds??? You know how much i appreciate it when characters, not being involved romantically, has this CLOSURE of paleolithic people snuggling together to warm themselves up to survive and to feel safer in this cold dangerous world... YOU GET IT, AUTHOR!!!
Also yyeess I've been thinking of Sniper and Scout surviving in an isolated environment/situation ever since I just joined the fandom, this is the perfect setting for exploring their personalities clashing and getting closer!!! I didn't know this fic was about this exactly, yet I GOT EXACTLY WHAT I NEEDED!!! GGGRWAAWRRGHHHH--
Should I even... Should I even comment on every thing i liked? It's gonna take very long and spoilery😭... Just one more thing that was very very special for me in this experience. That scene with Not-Scout and Scout... you know. YOU KNOW WHAT I'M REFERRING TO IF YOU'VE READ IT, i DID NOT expect something like this in this fic, so when I read it, i gasped, threw my phone in the nearest continent and. realized something new about myself.
ASaasasdsfdjsdfgkjsdk sorry sorry. I've actually read it months ago, but I could only finish the fanarts now sooo sorry for the wait lol. AND SORRY IF MY AO3 COMMENTS WERE WEIRD AUTHOR. I WAS VERY HYPED BUT SLEEP DEPRIVED. I couldn't stop reading. I literally could not, i was so worried about the characters it made me too anxious to fall asleep. which is. PROBABLY NOT HEALTHY. Um. YEAH IT'S NOT.
Ohh and about that, by the way😭... I've already mentioned this work disturbed me. IT DID. IN THE LITERAL SENSE OF THIS WORK which is good✋, i was genuinely distressed but it's good. I like when fiction does me like that.
ICWTR made me realize that I'm not good at processing... grief? Yeah. Didn't know that before reading, but it makes sense. Sooo when the stakes started to get at a "life and death" high, when Scout got severely sick and to the point when he............. yeah. IT MADE MY HEART HURT SO MUCH AS IF I WAS LOOSING A REAL PERSON CLOSE TO ME. Words cannot express how much. I think I actually just crossed my boundaries of what I can and cannot handle in fiction😭... BUT I REGRET NOTHING!! (ICWTR has got a name of "that evil fic" in my circles though lmao).
Funny, I'm a proclaimed horror lover, yet I couldn't handle this one so well😭. To be honest, I. haven't finished it yet. Exactly because it made me too unwell to the point of almost actually grieving (GOOD THING FOR A PIECE OF FICTION), but I spoiled myself the last chapters via comments so I at least know that it'll work out in the end. I'll pick it up and finish it properly once I'm sure I can handle it well🥹...
Thank you so much, author, for making this. It was everything I loved in characterization of these two, what i love in gen and handling certain themes (Scout's trauma and self-harming behaviors were so realistic and gut-wrenching, I'm still not over it🚬). I wish I could be more coherent, lol.
I'll probably draw more fanart when I come back to my senses (my vacation's just started). ICWTR is absolutely beautiful, and throughout the whole thing I kept imagining how it would look like as a comic. Which says a lot about your writing skills.
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