>>33 You’re very welcome. I enjoy grimdark as much as anyone – I think that’s why ‘Reunion’ made such a lasting impression on me: it’s a type of fic I don’t usually read, but it caught me right from the start and swept me up, and I was surprised at how much I actually enjoyed it. Your writing style is perfect for this kind of fiction and, as I’ve already mentioned, you have a true talent for composing dialogue. Everything your characters are and think is right there in their conversations, speaking to the reader directly without an intervening narrative. It’s a very powerful and direct form of communication between me as a reader and your characters, and the way you let them speak for themselves is masterly handled and not something I’m used to seeing in fanfiction. Well done! As for the interactions between Rosie and Sniper in ‘Reunion’, I guess my foreigner’s grasp of English did get in the way of me there. That paragraph, and the lines before it, would have been a perfectly sneaky way of inserting even more dramatic tension into the story and making for a big reveal in ‘Afterwards’, and with the way Rosie reacted, it seemed to me that there could have happened something between them off-screen, just hinted at. Maybe I’m just getting paranoid from reading all this drama. With how flawed your characters are, it wouldn’t have surprised me if it turned out that Sniper had reacted to Rosie’s naïve infatuation and his own growing frustration with his girlfriend and suppressed desire for someone youthfully spirited and full of life by going to her during the night, perhaps sleepless from thoughts of the day’s event and just needing someone to talk to, and without meaning to having seduced her into sleeping with him – only to realise the next morning how fucked-up it is to return an old friend’s generous hospitality by sleeping with his teenage daughter. His guilty feelings towards Rosie, Engineer and Moonchild/Samantha would have been why he’s acting all awkward and not meeting anyone’s eyes at the breakfast table, just looking into his cup and trying to hint at Rosie without saying it outright that it was a one-time mistake. And Rosie’s reaction the next morning, hopeful and embarrassed and for the love of god daddy can’t know about this EVER, just seemed to add to the suggestion that, well, something happened between them. Ah well, I apologise for reading too much into your stories – it made for a good brainfuck in any case. Thank you for your reply and explanation; I’m eagerly awaiting more from you – grimdark or drama or poetry, I’m not picky!