#✘ || Excuse the shit out of my goddamn french ( ooc )

[savedpeople]

//So uh... a post.

As much as I hate to say it and make it official, this blog's hiatus is going to be indefinite.

I love Negan to death and I miss writing him so much, but truth is I'm having a hard time finding the motivation or muse to be here. While some lovely people are still here, so many who helped make this blog what it is and who I built my most cherished memories with here are gone, and my more recent attempts to find new blogs to follow or interact with haven't gone well, so looking at this account, more often than not, just leaves me feeling sad and frustrated and longing for earlier times. And as much as I love TWD, the fandom just isn't appealing to interact with much anymore, and hasn't been for a while.

This blog isn't being archived or deactivated. The queue is still ongoing, and has enough in it to last nearly two years, so the images and gifs will continue posting for quite some time. I still have things in my likes that I plan to reblog. Any memes or threads I had, are still in my drafts (though I may delete some threads, I don't know, they are years old anyway.)

When or if the inspiration strikes, I will absolutely pop in to write or even just talk about Negan or send some memes. But activity from here on out will be extremely low, indefinitely. This has been eating away at me for a while, the idea of losing this muse or RP has a hobby (I've been having a really hard time with all creative hobbies for a long time now) has had me grieving in a weird way, so I'm just finally biting the bullet here.

I'm still very active on tumblr elsewhere and still have notifications/emails on, so if you send an ask or message me or anything, I'll see it and reply when I can. I do have two other RP blogs, one that's low activity like this one and another still under construction while I debate if I want to go through with it or not, but they're both anime muses so I'm not sure if I'll ever link to them here. From what I've seen, most people in this fandom don't interact with animated muses so I'll save myself the embarrassment lol.

That all said: thank you everyone who has stuck around and continues to enjoy and interact with this blog in any way, even if it's just to like or reblog pics of Negan and JDM. I hope you're all doing well. I'll be around when I'm around. <3

[batwieldingbastard]

🌹

miss ellie! you’re so fucking approachable, it’s mad refreshing. i’m always all over the place but i know that i can slip and slide on one of ur opens and boom, great things will happen. you’re possibly the most consistent indie rp’er i’ve ever seen which is some mystical shit, send me ur motivation. your ooc posts also always make me scream and i’m glad i follow u on all my blogs cause my dashboard would be so weird if u weren’t on it GDHJS 

━━ 💀┊MUTUALS SEND ME A “🌹” AND I’LL GIVE YOU A COMPLIMENT!

[blackbeltkitten2ficsnships-blog]

Bad, bad Alphonse Capone (Chapter 7)

Sainte-Hélène.

Fandom/Movie/Series/Ect: Night At The Museum

Setting: Larry is still the night guard, several exhibits from the Smithsonian are at the Museum of Natural History

Pairing(s): Eventual Capoleon, Jedtavius, Teddy/Sacagawea

Characters: Al Capone, Napoleon Bonaparte, Ivan the Terrible (Awesome), Larry Daley, Teddy Roosevelt, Sacagawea, Jedediah Smith, Octavius, Ahkmenrah, Shaka Zulu, several Zulu tribe members, Dr. Richard McPhee, several Mobsters, Antonio Villalobos, Mariana Villalobos, Ramón Espina, Doctor Jess McClain, Docteur Alain Chaput, Claude Travere

Genre/Warnings: Some slightly graphic violence, Foul language, Angst, Fic inspired by a song, I’ll come up with more tags later

Notes: I listened to the song “Bad Bad Leroy Brown” by Jim Croce about a thousand times and decided I just HAD to make a fic.  The reason Al and the boys get made into color (as a plot point) is so everyone can see what happens to Al.

If anyone is OOC or this reads like a Dick & Jane, this is my second posted fic and I haven’t done much writing in the NATM field. (Disclaimer: I don’t own the song, nor the characters.) (If anything suddenly changes, I had to fix a mistake I missed.)

ANGST ALERT ANGST ALERT, SOB TIME.

Word count: 1,460

Summary: Al and the boys practically beg (Though they won’t stoop so far as to say they were actually begging.) for him and his gang to be colored up like everyone else.  Finally one day they get a paint-job, despite McPhee’s ever-present paranoia; Capone and the gang being popular in grey-scale.  Several weeks after they finally get what they want, Al gets in a fight, and doesn’t come out of it well.  Luckily for him Napoleon is compassionate enough to put up with Al’s grating personality to help him.

First Chapter | Previous Chapter | Next Chapter | Last Chapter

Al and Claude enter the lobby.  Two groups huddle on either side of the room, and British soldiers stand in the middle, creating a wall.  Larry stands at the information desk, eyeing the two groups.  You could cut the tension with a knife.

Al sighs and rubs his eyes.

“Alright Stache’, come on.”

Al practically drags Claude over to the information desk.

“Slim, what happened?”

Larry picks at the corner of his book, staring at the French soldiers, who don’t look happy to be in the same room as two groups they think of as enemies.

“I heard yelling and ran back here to find them mid-brawl.  Your guess is as good as mine as to why they were fighting.”

“Damn idiots, always raring to fight...  Claude, you talk to your men, I’ll talk to mine, and we’ll compare stories.”

Claude marches over to his men, and presumably orders them to relax and stand up straight.  They still give the British and Al’s men dirty looks, though.

Al is pretty sure Frankie would go off and Ralph would babble, so he’ll start with someone else.

“Hey Tony, come here a minute.”

Tony stares at the French soldiers as he walks over.

“Tony, what the Hell happened here?”

“Well...  Umh...”

“Tony, whatever it is, you gotta tell me.  We don’t need some kind of all out war with the French guys, alright.”

Tony grimaces and picks at his shirtsleeve.

“Ah, I wasn’t paying attention to everything...  Talk to Frankie, maybe.”

Al rolls his eyes.  He doesn’t know how Tony manages to be both secretive and gabby at the same time.

“Go sit down, send Johnny back.”

Tony slinks away like some kind of gumshoe and Johnny walks up.  Al gives him a questioning look.

“All I know is a fight started and I joined in.”

Al digs his nails into his palm.

“Fine, sit down and tell Ralph to get over here.”

Ralph, per usual, immediately starts shooting his mouth off.

“Listen boss, it wasn’t my idea, someone else started it!  I didn’t mean anything I said, it was the heat of the moment!  It’s not my fault Frankie decided to poke the Frenchies about Napoleon-”

“Ralph, Ralph!  Shut up, relax!”

Ralph clenches his hands and stand up straighter.

“Sorry boss...”

“It’s alright, Ralph, now what happened- Put it simply.”

“Uh...  So we were sitting around in the lobby, talking and laughing, the normal.  Then the French soldiers walk in, staring at us, sneering, babbling in French, ya know...”

Al motions for him to carry on.

“Frankie made some comment about Napoleon, I wasn’t listening so I didn’t catch it.  Whatever it was it pissed the French off.  Next thing I know we’re beating each other...”

“Frankie started it, great...  Go send him over.”

Ralph draws his shoulders up under the gaze of the French, and points Frankie over to Al.

Frankie marches up, head high, hands in his pockets.  The poster boy for defiance.  Al almost wants to slap that smirk off his face.

“It wasn’t my fault, they started it.”

“Ya sure about that?  Ralph says otherwise, Frankie.”

“You know Ralph, can’t tell a cow from a cat.”

“Hey now, Frank, Ralph might be a little scatterbrained, but he knows what he saw.  Now, what did you tell the French?”

Frankie leans his head back and crosses his arms.

“Why do ya care, Snorky?  You’ve hated the French since the Smithsonian.”

“Maybe I’m changing my mind about em’.  Spill!”

“Maybe I don’t want to spill, see ya later, Al.”

Frankie turns and walks a few steps away.

“Oh by the way Frank,-”  Frankie turns to looks at Al.  “-don’t call me Snorky.”

Frankie’s face drops but he doesn’t say anything, he just walks away with his head down.

Claude sneaks up beside Al, and makes him jump a little.

“Well, what did you get out of em’, Claude?”

“They won’t tell me what was said, only that your men started it.”

“Mine won’t spill anything either, but I have a feeling this is all wrapped around Napoleon.”

Speaking of Napoleon, he walks through the door.  Al jogs over and grabs him by the arm, pulling him out of the room towards the night guard office.

“Wha-  Capone!”

Al doesn’t release Napoleon’s arm until the office door is closed and locked.

“What was happening out there, Capone?  Why did Frank look so upset?”

“Well...  It was a fight.”

Napoleon’s face wrinkles up more than Al has ever seen.  It was cute, if Al admitted it to himself.

“Fight?  Who started it?  Why did it happen?”

Al lays his hand on Napoleon’s shoulder, to get him to shut up.

"Ni- Uh, Napoleon, let’s not talk about it.”

Napoleon’s face smooths out, his eyes wide.

“Alphonse...  When do you ever call me ‘Napoleon’?  To my face?”

Al feels his face heat up and by the slight crinkle in the corners on Napoleon’s eyes, he’s turning red too.  Damn himself, and Napoleon too.

“Shut up.  Just shut up.”

There it is, that infinitely glowy smile, all tooth and joy.  Damn if he isn’t turning redder.

“I might, for a price...”

“Do I want to ask?”

Napoleon’s done it, he’s struck the nail on the head, finished him off, with that stupid, stupidly cute little giggle; the Goddamn one where his cheeks nearly force his eyes closed, and you can see him bite the tip of his tongue.

If Al had any less self-control, he’d cave right here.  Say “Whatever you want, I’d do anything.  Anything.”  A faint thought of him pinning Napoleon to the wall crosses his mind.

Luckily he yanks himself together in time to hear whatever Napoleon has in mind.

“Walk with me, let me tell you about the art from my time.”

Al stands there like a dope, glancing around the room, seeing if he has any fanatical excuse to say no.  He wasn’t going to say no anyway, but it made him feel better about himself.

“Fine.  But no three hour spiel on one painting alone.”

“You have a deal, Alphonse.”

It wasn’t nearly as boring as he thought it might be.  Napoleon told stories of kings and queens, myths of dragons and the French Revolution. Al doesn’t think about the quiet steps behind him.  He know who it is, and he plans to make him leave them alone for a few minutes.

Al muses about what his life would’ve been like during Napoleon’s time between paintings.  Mid-thought about what kind of clothing he’d have to wear, he runs into Napoleon’s back.

The painting they’re looking at now is of a familiar figure standing on a hill, facing the ocean, framed by blue sky.  Al would’ve said it was “Poetic” or some shit if it hadn’t been for Napoleon’s shoulders shaking a little in front of him.

Napoleon’s inhale was shakier than his shoulders.

“Me on Sainte-Hélène, by Fran Josef Sandmann in 1820, roughly one year before...”

Al lays his hand on Napoleon’s shoulder squeezing gently.

Napoleon swallows thickly, trying to steady himself.

“Roughly one year before I died...”

Napoleon shifts to move on to the next painting, when he notices just which one it is, the one of himself on his deathbed.  He jerks and bends over, choking on a sob.

Al just barely manages to keep him from falling over.  He pulls Napoleon around the corner, where he couldn’t see the painting.

Napoleon practically sits in Al’s lap when they get to a bench.

Napoleon looks Al in the eyes, his face red and scrunched up, tears running down his face.  His Adam’s apple bobs several times and he chews his lip, like he’s trying to think of something to say.

All Napoleon manages is a depressing moan before he buries his head in the gap between Al’s neck and shoulders.  Al takes both his and Napoleon’s hats off, intending to run his fingers through Napoleon’s hair, but he’s got a fabric cap covering his hair.

Absently Al wonders why he’s wearing a cap under his hat.  Maybe it’s to keep his hat from getting sweaty.

Napoleon squeaks out this pathetic little sob and Al forgets about the cap, and squeezes Napoleon tight, rubbing his back.

There’ll probably be wrinkles in the back of his jacket, the way Napoleon’s hands are clenching the fabric, but Napoleon is more important than something that can be steamed.

Frankie leans around the corner.  Al regrettably locks eyes with him.

Al can’t read Frankie’s expression, he almost looks sick, but he also looks a little depressed.

Napoleon lurches, slamming Al back into the wall.

“Sorry, I’m sorry...”

Al pats his back.

“It’s okay, Napoleon.”

Napoleon practically wails at that, and Al squeezes him tighter.

First Chapter | Previous Chapter | Next Chapter | Last Chapter 

[savedpeople]

//i haven't written negan in a long time and haven't written the ship for even longer, but today (technically yesterday now, the 17th) was negan and rick's @mercyprevaild anniversary, so i found myself thinking about them anyway

[savedpeople]

//what do you MEAN there was a deleted scene of s9 negan telling rosita he's impressed she was able to "pull together a harem" (gabriel, siddiq, eugene) HELLO??? how did i not know about this??

are there any other deleted/extended negan scenes i should know about

[savedpeople]

MULTIMUSE QUESTIONAIRE

RULES: Answer the questions with the Muses that would best fit the answers. Bonus if you give details why. If tagged, copy and paste into a new post – DO NOT REBLOG!

(Since this is a single-muse blog, I'm going to include muses I've played on other blogs. I'm not going to include every muse I've ever written though because 1. it already feels funny talking about muses that 99% of my followers have never seen me write, and 2. some of them were very short-lived. So I'm only including the ones that I've written most or were most significant, plus my newest one that I haven't written yet, since they've been on my mind a lot lately.)

1) Rank your softest Muse and your toughest Muse. (Personality-wise) - Strictly personality-wise, softest to toughest: Ted Logan (Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure), Max Caulfield (Life is Strange), Izaya Orihara (Durarara!!), Amaimon (Blue Exorcist), Satoru Gojo (Jujutsu Kaisen), Negan, Levi Ackerman (Attack on Titan.) This is kind of funny though because aside from Ted and Max, none of these characters can really be considered "soft."

2) Which Muse would blow through $1000 quickly? - Gojo. But he's also rich rich, so $1000 is nothing to him. He canonically owns shirts that cost more than that. Aside from him, I think if you gave Ted $1000 he could easily blow it all on music gear and albums pretty quickly lol.

3) Do any of them have nicknames? Is there a meaning behind them? - Negan has been called "Neegs" by a few, but not many can get away with that. "Ted" is short for Theodore, and "Max" is short for Maxine (never call Max by her full name, she hates it.)

4) Are any of them up-to-speed on the latest trends? Anyone more old school? - Ted, Gojo, and Max are most likely to be up-to-speed on trends, but Max appreciates the old school stuff (she prefers analog cameras over digital for her photography, for instance.) Levi and Negan are more old school, though Negan might attempt to learn trends to seem cool to his students/the kids (it rarely works.)

5) Who has the best relationship with their siblings? - Three of them have siblings: Ted, Izaya, and Amaimon. Ted and his little brother probably have the best relationship, at least as kids, though he deals with insecurity and envy as their dad clearly favors his brother. Izaya has two sisters who are twins and about ten years his junior. Their parents were abroad for work so much that he basically raised them, but his bad influence played part in them turning out eccentric. Their relationship is complicated and a bit love/hate. Amaimon has six brothers and a sister. They are all demons (literally, they are children of Satan lol.) He's only seen interacting with one which I interpret him to have a neutral to positive relationship with. I don't see him having a close relationship with any of the others. But I also haven't read or watched the series in years, so I have no idea if more has been revealed.

6) Karaoke night! Who is likely to grab the mic first and bust out a tune? - Ted. Max will join him with some encouragement. Negan if he's had a few drinks.

7) Who is least likely to enter a beauty pageant/model? - Levi (he could actually probably do well as a model, but suggest this and he'll vehemently deny it.) Also Amaimon because he doesn't spend much time on Earth and probably doesn't even know what a beauty pageant is.

8) If your Muses visited a haunted house where actors scare you, who would panic and who would be unfazed? - Ted and Max would be panicking (but they're having a blast.) Levi and Amaimon are unfazed.

9) Are any of your Muses particular about taking certain modes of transportation? - Not really. Max does get nervous about airplanes and Izaya prefers to walk or take a taxi/public transport. Gojo doesn't drive and either takes the train/subway, has his assistant drive him, or teleports/warps short distances since he can do that lol.

10) Share a little-known fact about any Muse. - So I can't really think of anything, but I have twd verses for most of my muses that I never got to use/talk about so I'mma ramble on about little things about them here. Ted - and Bill - were following a band on tour that summer, and were at a music venue in the Atlanta area when the outbreak hit. Bill's dad died saving them the first day, and they and Missy go on to survive traveling around in their RV for a while. Max found an old vintage photography store shortly after the outbreak and took as many packs of polaroid film as she could realistically carry. She continues taking photos, not just to document the new world but to also capture small moments of beauty and happiness within her group. Gojo acts nonchalant about the apocalypse until he loses his best friend to a walker bite, after which he essentially shuts down and locks himself in a room with the (restrained) walker for days, refusing to let anyone in. He even attempts to remove its jaw/hands to keep it with him (kind of like Michonne did), and it wasn't until after that he finally killed it. He puts on a big smile and acts fine, but the unresolved anger and grief come out in spades whenever he goes up against walkers. Izaya and his sisters are in an airport preparing to fly back to Japan when the outbreak hits, and get stranded in the Virginia/DC area. A group takes them in out of pity, despite Izaya giving them the creeps. But when his sisters are eaten in a large walker attack, the group abandons him, and he's presumed dead. Months later, cue The Saviors showing up with Izaya at Negan's side as one of his lieutenants. Surprise! Levi meets up with his uncle, the only family he has, when the outbreak happens. It doesn't take long for them to start butting heads morally - his uncle is much quicker to warm up to the idea of stealing and killing. But they stick together until they're separated while fighting a horde, and Levi's been on his own ever since, unsure if he's alive. He's eventually taken in by Alexandria, but has a hard time adjusting. I don't have anything set for Amaimon, but he's naturally violent and off-putting and very likely ends up with the Whisperers or becomes a cannibal or something lol.

tagged by: @wexarethewalkingxdead tagging: @esoterium @survivoirs @chitteringbeast and anyone else that'd like to do this (y'all are the only active mutuals I know that have multiple muses and weren't already tagged I don't think??)

[savedpeople]

thoughts on the dead city finale:

sucks that ginny finally tried to talk and didn’t get to

everything i didn’t want to happen, happened lol. it’s revealed that ginny’s dad was one of the five men negan killed, and negan told her this to push her away and get her to go with armstrong, and now their relationship is likely strained if not ruined. she didn’t even want to wear his shirt anymore :( but you can also tell it hurt him to tell her and that he actually cares about her more than he says (confirmed bts later.) it also bugs me bc in ginny’s eyes this most likely confirmed maggie’s “he’s a monster” from last episode

and then i was unfortunately right, in that the dama wanted negan to... lead? help her lead? honestly it’s bizarre that she decided she needed him THAT badly and making him THAT important solely based on the croat’s fanboying, without ever meeting him. and now negan’s being forced into a position where he’ll likely have to be “old negan” again. 

“like mommy and daddy coming together”

i’m glad the croat’s still around i kinda like him lmao

BUT. it’s complete bs that the answer to “how did the croat know about negan and maggie’s history” is “he randomly ran into Jerome The Random Savior (i checked and this is not someone who was seen previously in the saviors, not even as a background character) over ten years later, and jerome told him about the story of The Widow, because for some reason, out of everything negan did, maggie’s story is the only story anyone from the savior era ever talks about.” still doesn’t explain how the croat knew what maggie looked like or managed to find her new community, or how he knows negan worked with her in season 11, since jerome was long gone by then. I really hate “characters absent during important events know intimate details about those events because random character the audience never met told them about it off-screen bc the plot needs it” stuff

negan indirectly/accidentally killing luther ended up having no consequences and was never found out since everyone in luther’s group died. all it did was distract maggie from telling negan about ginny’s dino... which she ended up never telling him about. he realized she wasn’t being truthful about things but the fact that she hid the dino never comes up.

negan got stabbed in the chest/shoulder?? and he just pulled the knife out and there was no blood or tear in his jacket? dude was just entirely unaffected lol

negan also confirmed that he would’ve helped maggie anyway if she’d been honest with him from the get-go

look okay i’ll say it the negan/maggie fight scene was hot idc

armstrong lied and told the marshals he killed negan, which is nice, but will probably backfire on him later

hershel not seeming excited, relieved, grateful, or anything about maggie rescuing him. how long was he with the dama? seeing that he drew a picture of her and mentioned almost feeling safer there than at home, it almost seems like he liked being there or formed some kind of bond with her, despite her chopping one of his toes off.

their relationship makes me sad. i honestly also, sincerely find it a bit weird that they’re writing maggie as being “obsessed” with negan still? like i understand the idea of her having a hard time with looking at hershel and just being reminded of glenn, and that affecting her relationship with hershel and him being bothered by that. but hershel specifically says it feels like she only sees negan when she looks at him, not his dad. and that his whole life she’s just been looking over his shoulder waiting for negan. this feels weird to me, and is different from her being reminded of glenn and thus also what negan did, if that makes sense. she’s spent years and years away from negan, and that on top of how their relationship was at the end of season 11, this obsession being described doesn’t really make sense? you’re saying that throughout those years of finding and building communities, in private she’s still obsessing over him that noticeably? that it’s so bad that hershel thinks 5+ years later that she still cares more about “revenge” and says he felt safer in nyc with the dama? it doesn’t totally seem to line up with what we’re seeing. idk maggie deserves a better storyline than constantly revolving around negan and glenn. and vice versa for that matter. i don’t want hershel to turn out like he did in the comics.

i like that hershel seems to have creative hobbies. he’s great at drawing and i believe we saw him playing the guitar?

i don’t know how i feel about the River People, and the confirmation that there were more groups Negan once ruled over. with the whole “people are a resource” thing and negan being vehemently against simon wiping out entire communities, and all out war presumably being the first time negan got desperate enough to resort to killing everyone, what happened to the River group since they’re clearly not in the picture anymore by the time Rick’s group shows up? if they were truly unable to provide, thus negan killing someone when they fail to deliver, i don’t see negan just continuing to kill someone every week until there was no one left. so like what happened there. this is also another issue with them adding new things to negan’s pre-rick days. they do realize negan was only a leader for likely not even a year and a half? there was not that much time after lucille’s death for negan to find the sanctuary, take over, and go through a whole bunch of communities. I also don’t know whether or not i like negan offering to let the croat use lucille and be the person to “kill one” in order to get the group to submit. especially since it was said that croat was brand new to the group and didn’t even know how things worked yet?? though it’s hilarious he missed the first time. you’re embarrassing dad, dude.

quietly adding “negan is a gin man, not a brandy man” to my box of random info canon has given me, as someone who has never had a sip of alcohol in my life and therefore can do nothing with this information

“i have a funky cramp in my leg, buggin’ the shit out of me” old man (lovingly.) cramp in his leg bothering him but his shoulder that was stabbed is a-ok lol

for dama handing negan the key my notes literally just say “fckn toe in a box” lmao

they need to give us the croat’s and the dama’s real names in season 2 bc i cannot go the rest of my twd days calling them The Croat and The Dama every time they’re mentioned and i refuse to believe negan actually called him “the croat” the entire time he was at the sanctuary

if this doesn’t end in negan offing the dama and getting a second chance to lead and doing it The Right Way this time then i don’t want it

if there was more, i forgot it, and it’s nearly 4:30am so i am o u t bc I have work tomorrow

[savedpeople]

//if you wanna know how huge my queue is, some of the posts have been in there so long they're still in the old legacy editor format

[savedpeople]

//rick and michonne are officially returning in february!!!

[savedpeople]

squints

why is jdm wearing negan's old leather jacket again on set

not sure whether to be excited or terrified of the idea of more savior-era flashbacks

[savedpeople]

//oh i am SO rusty

[savedpeople]

//anyone else have the fear that a reply is going to post to the dash when you hit the save draft button. i think tumblr had a bug like that a while ago, and ever since then i always check to make sure the thing actually went into my drafts and not to the dash lol

[savedpeople]

me looking at the things in my drafts from as early as 2020: is it... too late to respond to these...

[savedpeople]

//Happy New Year everyone. I know I haven't been truly active here in quite a while, but I appreciate each and every one of you <3 I hope you all have a great 2024

[savedpeople]

//was not expecting to hear that ross marquand has cancer. he said it's one of the "better" ones so hopefully all goes well for him

[savedpeople]

@ambiences-stuff a week or so ago commented on this post, asking:

For the ask, curious; 🧂 Least favourite part of canon

And I'm very late to it but I'm finally able to sit down and answer!

So I'm going to stick to only Negan's part of canon, and also stick to TV canon without comparing it to the comics-- because off the top of my head I have no real complaints about his comic canon, and a LOT of my issues with TV canon involves changes made from the comics and we'd be here all day if I went into that lol, but it could be summed up with "they made loads of changes to Savior-era Negan that made him more unnecessarily evil."

So all of that aside, my overall least favorite parts of Negan's canon on the show are his random love interest/baby plot in season 11, and honestly most of the plot of Dead City.

I want Negan happy more than anything but, without writing a whole essay about it: him randomly showing up with a new wife and kid on the way was unrealistic, their entire relationship happening off-screen was insulting, we learn absolutely nothing about Annie or them as a couple leaving it all feeling one-dimensional (virtually everyone only refers to Annie as "Negan's pregnant wife," even Negan himself most times), and we never get to see them interact except to talk about the baby and staying safe. The relationship itself turned out to just be a plot device to further Negan's storyline with Maggie (this continues to be true in Dead City), and was not to mention a slap in the face to Lucille's memory and importance to Negan when almost "losing everything" (Annie and unborn baby) was what pushed him to relate to and apologize to Maggie, and not when he had actually lost his everything (Lucille.) Even JDM didn't like it.

As for Dead City, my biggest issue is that the entire plot hinged on the Croat knowing things he realistically couldn't know. It was literally "random character the audience has never met but was totally there during the story, tells other character we've never met everything they need to know for the plot to happen, even things they have no way of knowing." It's a HUGE pet peeve of mine when characters learn important information off-screen in ways that don't make sense. How could Jerome the random Savior know about Negan and Maggie working together in season 11 when that was years after the Sanctuary had fallen (which is why Jerome ended up in NY in the first place)? On top of that, how did the Croat have any idea what Maggie and Hershel looked like? How did he find out where they lived, when they were no longer at the original Hilltop location? I also hate that this leads to everything being Negan's fault one way or another.