#i have motivation but no ideas and it's killing me

[luveline]

hello lovely angel!! humbly requesting zombie!steve au, perhaps more of jealous steve? i love their dynamic so much💗 maybe someone is flirting with reader, and enter protective steve:)

thanks for requesting! fem, 2k

You tend to think of it in two weird halves. You love Steve, and you never would’ve known that without the end of the world, so things are okay. Sometimes you wonder if he ever could’ve loved you if he hadn’t been so close to you for so long, but he loves you in this insane capacity of softness that says otherwise. Like, soulmate style. 

It didn’t begin that way. Steve your reluctant guide, and you his unlikely saviour. You’d stopped him from dying at the very start of it all and he couldn’t leave you behind. And Steve, he’d been mean to you. He didn’t want to take care of you initially, but you’d grown to get along. You’d argue black and blue and he’d still rub your back at night. 

There are so many moments you’ve shared that make what you have all the more special. A hundred different memories from before you’d ever kissed. You think about it now, watching him across the firepit as he shows a young girl, Cassandra, how to braid her hair. 

The one that’s sticking today is when Steve got really bad food poisoning for the first time. When you’d known you were in love with him for a while, and when he’d stopped pretending he didn’t know. He’d been sick everywhere, on both your shoes, and you’d rubbed his back through everything.  

It was nice to take care of him. Nicer that night when you’d shared a bed and he’d hugged you half to death. 

He has no idea how much he means to you, or how much those moments with him kept you going when you were all alone. You’re lucky now to have found community, but those stolen hours in bed with him hugging him and getting to be his support, you wouldn’t have made it here without them. 

“Hey.” 

You look up as a man sits down. A boy, a man —what do you call twenty somethings? You don’t feel like a woman most of the time, but you are. 

“Hi,” you say. 

“I’m Jamison.” 

“You’re Eddie’s friend, right?” 

“Who, Munson?” Jamison makes a kidding face, a disgusted scrunch of his eyebrows that falls away to more friendly fondness. “Yeah, we go back. You’re Eddie’s friend too, right? I saw you guys taking out some laundry a few days ago.” 

Jamison is handsome. He has tan skin, short hair, and a crooked nose. His smile is disarming. If you hadn’t fallen in love with the handsomest guy around, you might feel nervous under his gaze. 

Time spent ugly under Steve’s reverent handling makes you confident. You genuinely feel prettier knowing Steve loves you, and it makes it easier to be yourself with strangers. 

“Eddie’s awesome,” you say easily. “I thought he was gonna kill me when we first met, but he’s too nice.” 

“Nice, really?” 

Jamison is casual, as people go. You wonder what his motivations are for talking to you at first, but as conversation stretches, littered with the cracking pops of the fireplace and brief pauses of surprisingly comfortable silence, you realise he’s just talking. Maybe he’s lonely. You know how that feels. 

He tells you that he and Eddie had been in a rock band together before the apocalypse. You’d known to some extent that Eddie was in a band, but Jamison tells you all the details you’d been missing. They were called Corroded Coffin, four members, Eddie played guitar and Jamison thought he was pretty fucking good at it, actually. 

“I don’t think we would’ve been, like, Metallica. But we could’ve been good. We were gonna make a record.” 

You smoke sympathetically. “I bet you could’ve been.” 

“What were you doing? Before all this?” 

“I honestly barely remember,” you say quietly. Your life before Steve is a blur, and it’s painful, too. “Things are harder now, I know that. I wish every day that we could go back to how things were, you know, I miss TV and grocery stores and my family.” You lick your lips. “I wish things were different, but somehow, I think I like my life now. I have stuff to do. Is that crazy?” 

“It’s not crazy. Everything fucking sucks,” —you both laugh— “but that’s not crazy. I’m lucky, I still have my dad, and my friends. There’s purpose in being here.” 

You nod emphatically, just once. “Exactly.” 

You have purpose, now. You get to be a friend, a girlfriend, a confidente. You take care of people. 

It all comes back to Steve, at the end of the day. Would you change the world if it meant never having met him? 

Nope. 

You glance across the fire for him, but he’s not there. 

You put your arm behind your back and bend, looking for him. 

“Looking for someone?” Jamison asks. 

You deflate with relief when you spot him standing near the gaggle of tents about fifty feet away. He’s looking at you from over Robin’s shoulder. You wave, and he waves back with a big smile. 

Something seems a little wrong. 

“Steve,” you explain. 

“He’s your boyfriend, yeah? Eddie told me you’ve been together since the start.” 

You don’t bother correcting him. He might not mean together as how you’re thinking it. “Yeah, that’s him. Have you met him?” 

“Kind of. We all thought he was a huge dick, back then.” 

“He sort of was,” you say. “I mean, we all had our own stuff going on. I get that I’m biased, but he’s my favourite person I’ve ever met. He’s so kind, I don’t think I could describe it to you or anyone just how much he cares about people. I wouldn’t be here without him, and… I don’t know, I’m not saying you’re wrong, but if you ever wanted to meet him again, he’s amazing. He’s a great friend. He’s so fucking funny, he makes me laugh every day.” 

“He’s sort of giving me the stink eye,” Jamison says. 

You wave your hand weakly. “He has raging jealousy issues.” 

“Shit, am I getting you in trouble?” 

“No, never!” you say, tempted to laugh. “He doesn’t get mad at me for stuff like that. He’s normal, I promise. Just sensitive.”

You tell Jamison that it was nice talking to him because it really was, but you’ve been missing Steve for hours already and you need to get back to him before you go totally bonkers. 

He’s sitting on the floor in the tent. The weather has been beautiful lately, you could sleep under the stars if you weren’t scared of being zombie charcuterie. Steve has stripped down to just his jeans and socks, no t-shirt or shoes to be seen. He has his sketchbook splayed open on his thigh, but he abandons it the moment you kneel down. 

“Hey,” you say. 

Steve folds his book closed, pencil between its pages. “Hi. Have I told you lately how beautiful you are?” 

You shuffle in to take his hand. Clumsy touches, his fingers warm and a tad clammy between yours. “You told me yesterday that I have a smile like an angel. I know you were kidding, but I still felt it.” 

“I wasn’t kidding,” he says, wrinkling his nose with a smile. “You think every compliment is a joke.” 

“Don’t make me laugh so much, then.” 

He squeezes your fingers gently. “Sorry I didn’t introduce myself to Jamison. Just, I knew him already from school. And he did not like me.” 

“That’s okay. He seemed nice, I think you’d get along if you met now.” You kick your shoes off and crawl as close to him as you can get. He looks up at you, but you look down at his lap. “What are you drawing?” 

“I was just trying to touch up that landscape I did of the river,” he says, a sheepishness to him as he opens his sketchbook. 

You read it with affection, trace lines and hatchings in awe. “Steve, I really wish you had time and space to do this stuff properly. Not that you aren’t doing it properly, just, I know you could make something just as beautiful as this with paint.” You slide to be sitting properly, putting you both at the same height, so you can meet his eyes as you continue. “Did you know what you wanted to do, when you were finishing school? Did you ever think about art?” 

“I thought about it.” His lips quirk. “Mostly about how my dad would’ve kicked me out if I said something that stupid.” 

“It’s not stupid.” 

“I know.” 

That would’ve been a nice life. You and Steve living together, with a basement for his paintings, or a garage turned studio. You’d read books together every night like you do now, and you’d scrub paint smudges off of his cheek. 

You love him so much it must give you an aura. 

“I’ve got nothing to worry about, huh?” he asks softly. 

You drift in, tipping your head back for a kiss you don’t take. “I don’t know, Steve, Jamison used to be in a rock band.” 

He scoffs in disgust. You think it might be a mixture of anger at Jamison and himself. “Who wants to date a rockstar?” 

“I might’ve.” 

You’re teasing, of course, smiling as your kiss draws nearer, and nearer. 

“Well, I can be a rockstar,” he says quietly, warmth of his breath on your lips. “Just give me a chance to get there.” 

You brush the tip of your nose against his and hold your breath. “That’s okay,” you say, letting it rush out of you in a huff, your excitement to be kissed too much to bear, “I like my guys all mixed up. Preferably good at track, and swimming, but with a soft side. Kind of guy who fills a sketchbook up with my face.” 

Steve lists to the side. Your lips are so close, you can feel the phantom of them against yours as he moves in. “It’s not just your face… it’s your hands, your arms… your everything–”

He cuts his own explanation off with a soft kiss. That softness swiftly hardens, turns rough, ten long seconds of sweetness before his hands coming up behind your head and he’s pressing inward, deepening the kiss, and giving you little room to breathe. 

You have no intention of dating any rockstars, but his jealous streak has nothing but upsides for you. Steve knows that his jealousy over the innocuous is his own problem, his own insecurity that he’s working on, and while you sympathise with him (after all, haven’t you yourself worried he’d find someone else he liked more?), you have to confess to enjoying the edge to his kissing. 

You make a pleased, humoured sound as he breathes you in like you’re a drug he’s been waiting for. He gets sloppier, and you can’t help pulling away to laugh. 

“What?” he asks, thumbing at your cheek in a soft juxtaposition. “Sorry, am I being a dick?” 

“No, it’s fine. Kiss me how you want to.” 

Steve kisses your cheek softly. “He knows you have a boyfriend, right?” 

“He knows.” 

Steve hums like he’s smiling and nudges your nose with his, until you part your lips, and he wades in for another dose. 

[fullmetalgirl98]

I realize that using the term "like" for the description of a trauma may seem indelicate, but I use it not in the sense of "I like to see this person suffer in this way rather than this other way," as much as in terms of how much sense it makes what we have been fed of.

Can something like that really trigger trauma with those specific characteristics? Wouldn't it have made more sense for Hifumi to develop a fear for humanity in general, rather than just for women?

Please, if you thought Hifumi's trauma was something different, or if you liked just part of the explanation, write it down under this poll.

Ok, I'm glad to see that the result of the survey is in line with what I expected. I'm going to express my personal thoughts under the cut, if you're interested. In any case, this is just my opinion. I felt I needed to vent somewhere, you're very free to disagree, obviously.

As for me, I'm not at all convinced by the story we've been fed. I always believed that Hifumi was sexu*lly ab*sed at school by Honobono and other girls (ergo, the fear of women). And I will remain convinced of this, despite what is now the canon.

Imo, something must have prompted the authors to change the initial idea (out of fear, perhaps??? A theme too heavy for Hypmic? Idk ... The fact remains that heavy themes have been dealt with in abundance, I don't see why treat Hifumi differently). It simply doesn't work for me. The issue turns into a “simple” act of bullying, in this way, but the clues and allusions that have been scattered all these years hinted at something quite different (and I think we all pretty much agree on that).

Does the motivation provided by the drama justify fear solely and only toward women? Imo, absolutely not. It would have made more sense to develop a fear for humanity in general, at this point, and to become a hikikomori. But this is not Hifumi's case. And then let's remember that the theme of bullying has already been addressed with Jyushi, yet the latter (whose grandmother was even killed!!!!!) did not develop any kind of trauma!

Now, it's clear that different people react to events in individual ways, but as far as I'm concerned, this just has no way of working with the premise with which Hifumi's character started out. Besides, Hifumi's work itself is, to a certain extent, about love and pleasure (obviously within limits). His very MC is a reference to the sexual sphere!!!

Let's remember that he only feels “strong” when he wears the jacket. What sense would this make with the explanation provided to us??? To me, the act of putting on the jacket and regaining confidence makes sense from a perspective in which, by antithesis, one is responding to an act of forced denudation, which obviously makes one vulnerable. It makes sense in the moment when Hifumi would be forcibly stripped by a group of girls (if Honobono had been alone, he would have developed a phobia exclusively against her, no?), hence his fear of women when he doesn't have his armor, his jacket (= his clothes to cover his body).

Hifumi has always felt a great deal of difficulty talking about what happened to him, shame. And Doppo, of course, didn't mention it at all, not even to Jakurai. This of course would have to be done in any case, because these are personal facts, in the end...But the matter was made too important and too secret to be, as I said, “a simple act of bullying at school.” What would have been the point of not saying anything about such a thing to Jakurai for years??!

One thing, however, does make sense. And it was the very thing I couldn't understand from the previous drama tracks, namely what Honobono did to Hifumi's brother-in-law and father. I approve of the explanation, it makes sense. But again, what sense does it make for the mother and sister to judge and repudiate Hifumi for this??? How is he to blame for that? Also, excuse me...Honobono would have seduced them but not Hifumi??? This does not make the slightest sense.

This drama was a deep disappointment and I'm still furious because I waited too many years for answers that were then not at all satisfactory nor logical.

The impression that @justanotherniky and I got is that they wanted to soften some heavy criticisms of Japanese society that perhaps went too far at the beginning of a project which was not thought to take off so much and that now are no longer the case to make so blatant. In particular, now, I'm referring to Doppo, which was the quintessential criticism of the Japanese work environment. Suddenly he's doing great at work, the boss is pleased with him, he has become the best employee. But WTF??? NO???? As nice as it is to see Doppo treated well, for once, finally, this is not how it works! We are sweeping the dust under the rug! It would have made much more sense for Doppo to quit, to rebel! And okay, he did in a sense, but we still did not reach a point to the “work” issue that oppressed and characterized him. His growth had to be in that direction! Now that would have represented personal growth, for a character like him! Taking the reins of his own life, setting up his own business, I don't know! Instead they just improved the environment around him.

I'm so mad, I swear.

[stompysoap]

Funny little doodle page

[the-red-planet-mars]

500 notes on this and you write that angsty mars fanfic

JKDHGHOIJWEHBGEHUIWO FINE!

sigh im making the deadline to 5th May despite knowing this will reach half the goal in under an hour

[holy-reference-in-a-username]

Look out for magic mirrors~!

Congratulations you activated my trap card. Take a comic.

Ell: Holy shit they're idiots.

[mxtxfanatic]

I just know that the moment Mu Qing ripped the veils off the statues in the Cave of Ten Thousand Gods and the trio found the mural was a religious experience for Xie Lian. I know because it felt like a religious experience as I was reading it.

[triglycercule]

dust with a fucked up savior complex save me dust with a fucked up savior complex SAVE ME!!!! he's literally sooo savior complex coded. he killed his underground to "save" everyone and stop the human from killing them. he thinks that it's better that he does the murdering instead of the human because he has better intentions. he's sad at the beginning (rightfully so) but savior complex dust really gets so much cooler when you add in the fact that dust eventually started to LIKE killing his underground 😭😭 like just..... imagine a manic dust who's gone mad going around claiming he's helping everyone with what he's doing when he's really,,,, not. soo cool.,,, (like dude how are you SAVING people if they don't exist after you've killed the person who was killing them. there is nobody to be safe but yourself anymore) (can you tell this was inspired by the one comic of dust killing his papyrus and saying "it was better if i did it" or something)

but also also on the other hand,,,,, revenge fueled dust??? he's gotten SO bitter from the repeated resets and genos that he's genuinely bitter enough to risk it all to stop the human. he doesn't have pure intentions in this one. dust doesn't claim he's saving anybody with what he's doing murdering them all. he KNOWS it's bad and wrong and hypocritical but he does it anyways because he wants to not only stop the human but to make them suffer. he purposely wants them to keep coming back after killing them just so he can kill them over and over and over and have them experience a fragment of the suffering he did with having all of his friends and family killed. but i think a revenge fueled dust (in contrast to savior complex dust) would be a lot cooler if he still felt shitty for killing everyone. it's painful to do but hate is stronger than love and dust's hate for the human is MUCH stronger than his love for the underground atp

[camzverse]

i could probably like or even love william afton if he made any fucking sense to me as a character

[tibtew]

*clutching head* rodya and meursault would have such a good dynamic actually

I wonder if rodya would initially see meursault's indifference as like. a simpler version of her own feigned carefreeness and as a deliberate attempt to place himself as an outsider... only to realise that No, he really Is just Like That. and then she gets annoyed because it turns out that people who don't care about anything don't seem to be any fun.

(ofc he does actually care about a lot of things, just not necessarily his grander place in the world lol)

idk. nihilism vs absurdism. fun duo 👍 rodya would find meursault's genuine comfort with being a speck of dust in the universe baffling, while he would probably find her desire to assert her own importance pointless, but they could probably bond over little things like their shared desire to live in the present and appreciation of/indulgence in earthly joys. and meursault would probably listen if rodya wants to rant about anything without asking any uncomfortable questions. I think they could appreciate each other's presence.

[fernzwing]

I feel like I just woke up from a coma sorry for not posting anything guys. 2024 is not a very happy year

[rupicoluu]

Oh to be a young god's very first creation, cherished beyond mortal understanding

[francy-sketches]

I'm gonna have to work on my final project non stop for like a month straight bc I procrastinated on it too much fuck my stupid baka life

[just-an-enby-lemon]

I think a lot about how badly the "I lied on my CV" scene would go with Archivist Sasha. A LOT. Now this is based on some things:

a) The paranoia

• A lot of Archivist Sasha AUs act as if she would be imune to the paranoia arc and here is why I disagree:

1. By being the Archivist and feeding the eye you are automatically dealing with an extended feeling of being watched all the time. Not to mention the Eye is literally a paranoia entity (between it's other areas).

2. While Sasha doesn't appear to have Jon's trust issues she has a need to know at least equal to him and a tendency of theorizing. She was of course right when assuming Gertrude kept the archieves messy on purpose but that also shows that between being very smart she is very doubtifull of any behavior outside the person's normal.

3. In that same conversation ahe mentions how everyone has a mask and says to Tim, likely her best friend, that he is as honest to her as he is to Jon it is just different masks. She is fine with this. She is okay with the masks. But that is before things go wrong.

4. She KNEW Gertrude. That means solving her murder is more personal.

b) Sasha knows her shit way to well

• This one is the real fascinsting thing: Sasha is a master in figuring out people's secrets and keeping them for herself. She knew from the start Jon lied about his age and that Martin lied on his CV. To the point that for her this knowledge about Martin is a fun fact and irrelevant, a thing she keeps from because she knows he would be anxious if he knew she knows. The thing is that translating to the "I lied in my CV confession" we have:

• Paranoid Sasha found Martin's letter to his mother (likely writen as a diary with no intencion to actually send it) and thinks that Martin lied about Trevor being dead.

• She knows Martin lied on his CV and it's meaningless to her to the point she might suspect he knows she knows.

• She knows Martin has a complicated relationship with his mother and that means she would assume it to be very unlikely he would ever write this personal of a letter to her.

Conclusion:

Sasha would probably think Martin is using the fsct he lied on his CV as a diversion and truly has an awfull secret. She would also likely tell to his face she knows it isn't it because Martin's mum would never read or care about his feelings or letters and Martin should know this enough to not even bother to write "so this is likely a codename".

[shrekyaoi]

It's a pickle isn't it? There's so many ways to combine me and cw together it really depends on what you want out of it. Despite all the faults in cw I like Bell so ideally I'd say keep Bell but shuffle them forward in time to mw. Another part of it is that I love tragic yaoi and am now having serious thoughts about Gaz and Bell. It's all about putting characters together and forcing them to interact you know? The dynamics.

You bring up a very good point about having Bell just be an Ultranationalist since at least for the reboots there's a connection between the two. Zakhaev was originally a Perseus member before leaving due to some disagreements over ideology and methods. Which brings me to another point. What do you think is the difference between the Ultranationalists and Perseus in terms of goals and ideology.

Theres a lot of different directions you can take this. This is fun!

you get me. i love sticking little guys in a room together and seeing what comes out of it. it’s really funny to me that some of my favourite ships are shit that no one on the PLANET would enjoy but me (yuri/nikolai nation we are few which is to say completely nonexistant but proud. nikolai/price/kamarov it’s lonely out here). bell and gaz has a certain je ne sais quois that’s so bitter and so fantastic. this person that listens to you when you talk and laughs at your jokes and is so deeply perceptive and seems to genuinely care but they’re only like that because you want them to be. everyone else is either dubious or outright aggressive to them and for good reason because yeah, they were the enemy, but so was nikolai and he’s our primary pilot now. it’s easy for these lines to blur in your head.

gonna be real perseus is not really in my wheelhouse nor pre-cod4 zakhaev so i’d have to guess and take a couple stabs in the dark about it. ultimately, the thing about the ultranationalists is that their ideology is fucking vague. it’s impossible to really pin anything down other than “former soviet” and “mean :(“ and everything else is usually perscribed to individuals rather than the institution (this is a BIG problem with cod in general). it’s hard to say if any of the differences in leadership had anything to do with levels of violence though who they deal with, maybe. from what i can tell perseus wasn’t too picky aside from being anti-western, whereas the ultranationalists were largely russian but even then it’s more of a “yeah kinda if you squint and ignore some things.” it’s times like this when i have to pull out my own speculations of motive based on the very blatant real-world coding and reverse engineer what the hell the point of this shit’s supposed to be. so, short answer, depends on your mood. long answer, i’m 80k words deep into a fic still trying to figure this shit out so your guess is as good as mine. cod games love obfuscating the actual truth of what they’re saying. it’s fun for them it’s enrichment

[sysig]

Special Counseling (Patreon)

[triglycercule]

if dust takes off his hood and scarf then nobody can recognize him. he has literally no permanent traits that make him recognizable (which actually kinds upsets me because,,,,, there is no physical representation of his character development from sans to dust BUT EAAHHHH whatever,,, we cope with it.) but in like a silly goofy comedic way. it's like perry the playapus ans dr doofenshirmst (incorrect spelling but only by societies standards)

dust with hood down and no scarf

killer: a sans?

he puts on the scarf

horror: a GENOCIDE sans???

the hood goes up

killer: DUST SANS AKA MURDER SANS AKA DUSTTALE SANS FROM HIT AU DUSTTALE?????

horror's skull breaks a second time on the other side from sheer shock