what does being a stalkerkin mean?
stalkers are a concept first introduced in arkady and boris strugatsky's novel roadside picnic, released in 1972. they are humans who illegally traverse anomalous areas known as zones, or simply just The Zone, depending on the media you're talking about.
zones do not obey the laws of reality, containing areas that either warp or fully break the fabric of existence. zones are often characters in of themselves, and are generally regarded as sentient, if not sapient. they've had various causes over the years, from alien visitation in roadside picnic, nuclear disasters as seen in the s.t.a.l.k.e.r. games, or some sort of unspecific human-caused event, as seen in parties are for losers.
stalkers enter the zone specifically to look for loot/ artifacts, which are various objects that have been tainted by a zone's energy and gained reality-breaking properties of their own. some canon examples of these are the empties of roadside picnic and the batteries of pafl, though there's never really been a definitive list of artifacts, and i love coming up with my own.
i am a pafl stalkerkin specifically, which means my beliefs as a stalker and my knowledges of the zone abide by the rules of the parties are for losers (pafl) universe. which is: there is one zone (The Zone), which was caused by some sort of human-made disaster.
if i had to say there was a universe i'm least in-tune with, i'd say the s.t.a.l.k.e.r. universe. The Zone doesn't like guns, people. dear god yuri do not bring a gun into the zone you'll kill us all /ref
i'm also obsessed with the chernobyl exclusion zone as a general concept, specifically how the cultural impact of roadside picnic affected the real-life stalkers who traverse it regularly. also, the dogs of chernobyl are a fascination of mine. cute oupys :)
so... if you ever spot me being extremely weird about empty fields or catch me trying to run off into the forest at night,,, now you know why! it's because my soul is broken and i will never recover.