#Dimple..... AUGH. I'm so (VIBRATES INTENSELY) about Dimple in canon and in this au

[brown-little-robin]

more of my mp100 zombie au lore! Dimple this time <<<>:} (behold my beautiful Dimple emoji)

the thing with Dimple in zombie AU is, he's the only survivor of a village that got completely wiped out by zombie disease early in the apocalypse. Water that's in contact with zombie bodily fluids becomes a disease vector, and a zombie drowned in their water purification plant, and everyone was infected before anyone realized.

But there's different forms of the zombie disease, and—rarely—it reacts uniquely to someone's body. Dimple is one of those cases. Dimple thinks of himself as half-turned, but that's not quite right; technically he definitely Has The Disease, he's completely turned, he's just mostly asymptomatic. The biggest change was that he got amnesia—lost his name and his past and even his hometown after he wandered away in the days of fever and pain that was his turning process. He doesn't know his real name. He became numb to pain, and then his nerves built themselves back; he got a zombie's resilience, but less of the strength. And, of course, Dimple still has language and awareness.

More details about the LOL cult below the cut!

Okay, so, to quote a conversation with a friend:

in this early-meeting scenario, Dimple would think Ritsu had some mysterious power to control zombies, because Dimple himself has something like that.

Dimple is extremely charismatic, but also can use body language to get zombies to react the way he wants them to.

he looks like he's dancing or something, but he's good at grabbing zombies' attention and manipulating it.

It's not magic, it's not psychic powers. It's just Dimple being good at non-verbal communication.

he still preaches happiness, but the main "miraculous" draw of the (LOL) cult is the fact that with only a few full-body gestures and a laugh, Dimple is able to temporarily tame zombies. Even starving ones. Everyone who travels with Dimple is safe from attacks. And if his followers conveniently leave zombies to die after Lord Dimple hypnotizes them temporarily wakes up their souls and distracts them with fragrant food, well, that's just the way this world works. The point is that Dimple keeps people feeling safe.

and to people who are sick of terror, that's a power worth worshipping someone for.

(Zombies are "people with sleeping souls", according to Dimple. when a zombie dies, it's like a person dying naturally in their sleep. that brings a lot of comfort to people who want to think of zombies as people but also want to feel good about killing in self-defense.)

Dimple is making this all up as he goes along, but he's trying, okay? With his charisma, his hunger for power, he could easily be doing something far worse than leading a band of people to where he hopes the Narita International Airport is still operating. He's trying to escape Japan first and foremost, because he heard that other countries still have, like, wealth and stability and stuff.

Yeah.