#and fell even more in love with daryl tbh

[wildlyfreemoon]

SEASON 11 EPISODE 21 OF TWD. DARYL CHECKS ON CONNIE FIRST EVEN THOUGH ONE OF THE COMMONWEALTH TROOPERS IS GETTING AWAY. HE PUTS HIS HANDS ON EAITHER SIDE OF HER HEAD AND CHECKS HER OVER AND SIGNS "u okay?" jfdnghvbrwgbvwkbr I NEED HIM

[ghostboneswrites2]

Lots of love if you write this, and lots of love if you don’t!

Could you do a Daryl x reader where at first he doesn’t like her, and she tries to get to know why hes so mean to her? Maybe he yells at her and then some comfort after?

Note: this is a cute idea! I might write a different version of this one later <3 not sure how I feel about it. This ended up a lot more angst and has a lot more of an argument than I originally intended tbh

Another note: I usually write in past tense but this one has both past and present tense. It’s lightly proofread but I apologize if I missed any errors in past vs present tense!

Summary: Every since he first saw you he’s seemingly had it out for you. All that frustration comes to a head when you have to go rescue him from the side of the road.

18+ MDNI || WARNINGS: Daryl bring a Dickson, profanity, TWD typical non graphic violence, guns

        Daryl stepped into the RV for a gun, shaking his head with annoyance at the sight of your failure. Well, multiple failures. See, you started with a standard Glock, but the recoil spring in that one was too hard to set in place. Then, you switched to the Beretta, where you found your current firing pin spring issue. 

        Daryl stared down at all the bits and pieces sprawled on the table in front of you. 

        “Y’gon’ take every damn gun apart ‘til we ain’t got none when we need ‘em?” He complained. You glared. 

        “Well, excuse me if taking apart guns to clean them wasn’t my hobby of choice before shit hit the fan.” You shot back. 

        That day was the beginning of a long standing feud between the two of you. A feud that was frankly one sided. You never had a problem with the smelly hunter. In fact, you often made meager attempts at impressing him or even going as far as to be friendly. Unfortunately, you were always met with rude snark and bitterness. 

        One time, at the CDC, you had a little too much wine with dinner. You were stumbling through the hall, attempting to find the room you had previously claimed, when you had the misfortune of walking right into Daryl. 

        “Oh! I’m sorry.” You giggled. 

        “Damn it.” He grumbled with an annoyed sigh. “Can’t ya watch where the hell you’re goin’?”

        “I’m sorry, really—“ You tried to apologize again but he had no intentions of hearing it.

        “Don’t drink if ya can’t handle yourself.” He snapped. “Got the dead roamin’ the damn earth and you get shit-faced the first damn chance ya get!”

        In your drunken, emotional state, you sniffled and cried quietly to yourself that night. Why was he always so damn mean? You missed your friends and family so much, and you couldn’t even bare to think about your cat.

        When Sophia got lost everything was worse. You’d offer to help with the search and you’d always hear the same response; “I already got one little kid to look for. I don’t need two.” 

        You also tried to console him when Sophia’s body came staggering out of that barn. 

        “You’re a great tracker, Daryl. We were all just too late.” You’d say. 

        “Ain’t no we! You didn’t do shit but stay back and twiddle your fuckin’ thumbs! Get on somewhere. I don’t need your caudlin’.”

        When the farm fell, he’d always snap at you for lagging behind the group when you were on the move. You couldn’t help it. You were so tired and hungry.  

        “Keep up, damn it. Can’t afford to keep slowin’ down!” 

        When you were all clearing the prison, he wouldn’t even let you shoot. 

        “Jus’ stay back and hit the fence. Distract ‘em. You can’t shoot for shit.” 

        Since then, you reasoned to just avoid him. You’d never met anyone who could make you feel so bad about yourself. You decided to stop asking yourself why he hated you. You weren’t going to try and change it anymore. You were just going to exist the best you could, as far away from him as the prison yard would allow. 

          Which brings us to now. Inventory is your main task at the prison. Some people make it hard. Carl never checks out his weapons, nor does Daryl. But with Carl losing his mom and Daryl being such an ass, you never say anything. You just make notes on the weapons they’re most likely to take without telling you. 

        Beth sometimes grabs formula without letting you know, but taking care of a baby is hard work for a teenage girl to be doing full time. You have no intentions of nagging her. So, as usual, you just check your inventory every day and report to Rick or Hershel, usually the latter. 

        When your inventory is done for the afternoon, you decide to find Carol and help her with laundry. Maggie is on the tower today with Glenn, so she’s all by herself out there scrubbing everyone’s smelly clothes. 

        “Hey. Need some help?” You ask her, pressing your lips into a thin smile. She returns the same expression and nods. 

        “Please? For such a small group we sure go through a lot of clothes.”

        “No problem.” You say as you get down on your knees and begin scrubbing and ringing out a pair of jeans. “Jeez. These really stink.” You mumble. Carol giggles. 

        “Daryl.” She sighs. 

        “Does he ever shower?” 

        “I mean.. never would be a strong word. Rarely, though, that might be the accurate description.” She jokes. You chuckle.

        “Hey, (Y/N)?” Rick asks as he approaches you. You look up from Daryl’s stained jeans. “Could you take a car out to the main road? Daryl’s broken down out there. He can’t carry all those supplies back.” 

        “Me?” You raise your eyebrows, tossing a quick glance to Carol. If anyone is accustomed to your strained relationship with the archer, it’s her. Daryl would often complain about you to her, and she’d just as often give you a reassuring pat on the shoulder when she’d notice his harsh treatment. 

        “Well, yeah, if ya don’t mind.” Rick nods. He is a little more oblivious to how rude Daryl can be toward you, but he isn’t  blind to the visible tension the two of you share. He just assumes it was never that serious. 

        “Um.. Sure.” You shrug. A pit in your stomach is already festering, growing bigger as it feeds on your anxiety. You had been very successful at avoiding Daryl since you’d been at the prison. The only solace you find is in the fact that you had grown more confident since you guys found this place. Being in charge of inventory gave you a much needed sense of control. From there, you realized just how much you really did have control over, and soon enough the scared girl you once were had become a productive young woman. Now, you have to put that confidence to the test, facing the man who kind of stole what little faith in yourself you had to begin with. You vow to yourself that today will be the day you stand your ground to Daryl Dixon.

        You brush off your jeans and accept the keys from Rick before making your way to the vehicle parked near the gates. When you start the engine, Carl drags open one gate, then the other, and you head out. You notice Daryl right away when you make it to the main road. He’s smoking a cigarette, leaned up against the red truck he had taken into town. 

         You can’t help but wonder why he was on a run by himself to begin with. It isn’t like Rick to send anyone off on their own. Then again, knowing Daryl, it’s not that hard to figure out why he might be a solo kind of guy. 

        You pull the car up beside the truck. He glances up at the vehicle but immediately looks back down at the ground when he realizes it’s you. He makes sure to seem indifferent. 

        Instead of letting his lack of a greeting (or gratitude) phase you, you just step out of the driver’s seat and pop the trunk open before approaching the bed of the truck and beginning to transfer all of his loot into the car. When the trunk fills up, you resort to packing the back seat. 

        By the time Daryl finishes his cigarette, he notices there are a few more items still in the truck. He huffs and impatiently grabs the three items, shoving them in the back seat and slamming the door shut, mumbling something about you taking your sweet time. 

        “What was that?” You speak up before sitting back down in the driver’s seat. 

        “Move over. I’m drivin’.”

        “That’s not what you said, first of all. And no. I drove here just fine, I can drive back.” You roll your eyes. 

        “Quit bein’ difficult damn it! I’m tired. Been workin’ all day out there riskin’ my neck.” He snaps. 

        “I’ve been working too.” You shrug, sitting down and starting the engine. 

        “Scribblin’ on a clipboard ain’t nothin’ like what I do.” He argues, still standing by the driver side, waiting for you to give in and let him drive. You won’t, though. You won’t cave in and bow to him like a puppy with its tail between its legs like you used to. He lost the privilege of your kindness — or maybe cowardice — a while ago. 

        “Actually, I woke up and spent two hours on the fence impaling skulls, then I helped Hershel hoe the ground for spring crops before I scrubbed the common area of the cell block on my hands and knees. Then I did inventory, then I washed your smelly ass jeans. So, no, I don’t just scribble on a clip board.” You correct him. “And, while we’re on that subject, you’re supposed to check out your fucking weapons. Would make the scribbling part a lot easier for me.” 

        He clenches his jaw and his fists at your insubordination. 

        “I don’t know when you grew a smart ass mouth but I ain’t got time for it so quit your bitchin’ and move outta my seat.” He demands. 

        “Or you could stop wasting time and just get in the passenger seat.” You roll your eyes. 

        “God, do you ever stop bein’ such a damn burden?!” He shouts. You run your tongue over your teeth and nod. 

        “Burden?” You repeat. 

         “Yeah. A burden.” He drawls. “As in, makin’ shit harder for everyone around you.” 

        “Hmm.” You hum thoughtfully. “Okay.” 

        With that simple response, you shut off the engine, toss the keys on the ground beside him, and stand up. With your knife in your belt for protection, you start walking toward the woods. You realize that he is absolutely unbearable. You won’t subject yourself to even a five minute car ride with him. 

        “Where the hell are you goin’?!” He calls out after you. You ignore him. “C’mon, (Y/N), get in the damn car!” 

        By this point you’re blending into the trees and he’s losing sight of you. He groans and slams the car door shut, snatching the keys off the asphalt before he marches off after you. He swears when he gets his hands on you, he’s dragging you back by your ankles and cramming you in the trunk with the rest of the shit he looted today.

        “(Y/N)!” He shouts. You sigh. 

        “Fuck off! You wanted to drive so bad, be my guest! Whole car to yourself!” You call back. 

        “Quit bein’ so damn—“

        You whip around, eyes blaring with fury. 

        “So what? Burdensome? Annoying? Stupid?” You cut him off, recalling some of the insults he had bestowed upon you in the past. “I’m so fucking sick of you! All I ever did was try to be nice to you! And all you ever gave me in return was cruelty!”

         You’re shaking now. He’s stopped a few feet away from you, silent as you unleash your pent up frustrations on him. 

        “You know,” you begin, not as loud and shrilled as before. “I didn’t even want to come help you. Because I knew it would be like this. I only came because I was asked to. So you wouldn’t have to try to carry shit back to the prison and go through more trouble. I didn’t talk to you, I didn’t try to be friendly or otherwise vexing. Yet, somehow, that wasn’t good enough. If my presence alone makes you so miserable, then I’ll walk.” 

        With that, you turn around and start storming back toward the prison. 

        “(Y/N)—“ He tries to protest but it just triggers another wave of anger. 

        “What?!” You throw your hands up. “What did I ever do to you?! Just leave me alone!” You shout, turning back to him. “Why do you hate me?!” 

        “I don’t hate you!” He fires back. 

        You scoff and cross your arms. “Sure seems like it.” 

        “Well if ya would just listen to me I wouldn’t get so mad!” 

        “I’m not your fucking dog, Dixon! I shouldn’t have to listen to you for you to treat me like a human being.” 

        “Treat you like what?” He scoffs. “All I ever did was try and look out for ya! Ya can’t do anything right! How the hell am I supposed to keep ya safe if ya can’t follow a simple fuckin’ direction?”

        “Look out for me? How? By making me feel like shit about myself? Reminding me every chance you get how much you just can’t fucking stand me? You don’t treat anyone else like that. Nobody.” Your eyes are watering now. The rage is slowly wearing down into what it really is at its core: hurt. He hurt you time and time again and you always tried to make it right, even when you had done nothing wrong. Shit, (Y/N), get it together. Don’t let him see you like this. 

        “Well why the hell are ya so worried ‘bout what I think?” He asks. 

        “I don’t know!” You snap, turning away from him again. You hug yourself and sniffle. “Just leave me alone.” You beg quietly. “Go drive yourself back. I’d rather walk.” 

        He stands there silently, mouth opening and closing like he has words to say but can’t find them in his sea of thoughts. He doesn’t want to make you cry. He doesn’t even know why you piss him off so much. He does know that seeing you there, hugging yourself as your shoulders rise and fall with silent whimpers makes him feel like shit. He steps toward you slowly, reaching out to place a hand on your shoulder. You flinch at his touch and he retracts his arm. 

        “I don’t hate ya.” He finally speaks. When you don’t respond he realizes he has to continue. “I just don’t want ya gettin’ hurt.”

        “Yeah, right.” You mumble. “All you do is hurt me.”

        He swallows a dry lump. Is that true? 

        “I don’t mean to.” He insists. “I just.. Ya don’t belong in this world. You’re nice. Ya ain’t violent, you’re pret—“ He stops. Your ears perk up. Was he about to call you pretty?

         “What I’m tryin’ to say is… Ever since I first saw ya I knew ya had to be looked after — kept safe. Ya ain’t like most people. I’d feel too bad if ya… If ya got hurt.” He admits softly. You turn your head a little, peeking behind you to try and catch a glimpse of him. 

        His hand finds your shoulder again and this time you don’t shrug him away. You sniffle and wipe your eye clean of tears. 

        “So you’re mean to me to protect me?” You summarize. He realizes how stupid that must sound. 

        “I just get frustrated when I see how vulnerable ya are. Can’t clean a gun and put it back together, can’t aim to save your life, can’t—“

        “Couldn’t.” You correct him. “I couldn’t do those things, but I’ve learned how. You just haven’t been around to see it. Or encourage it.” 

        He nods. “‘M sorry.” He mumbles. “Maybe you could, uh, show me sometime.” 

        “Show you what?” You turn back to him. 

        “Dunno.” He shrugs. It’s a lot harder for him to speak freely when you’re actually looking at him. “What ya can do.”

         “Oh.” You nod. “Maybe you could stop being such an asshole.” You suggest. 

        He smirks a little. 

        “I can try.”

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[thebookofcarol]

Daryl and Carol back together again

And everything is right with the world again. So now that y'all seen the reunion, we can finally talk about it.

There's something primal, raw and heart-wrecking about the way Daryl just stops cause he cannot believe his eyes, drops his weapons, fuck it, he doesn't need anything, except to run to that one person who means everything to him - Carol. Thanks Norman for letting us know, this is exactly how you meant to play it.

It may or may not get long, so more spoilers after the jump...

That reunion scene is everything to me, and tbh at first, I was emotional but thought there was something missing and it hadn't topped the Terminus reunion for me, BUT after watching it a few more times, and in context, I really can't pick which one is my fav. I just can't. I can't even explain it, but there's something so real and palpable about it, that I didn't quite feel with the Terminus one. I guess this one was more serious, more emotional, deeper somehow... I'll be going around in circles and still powerless to translate my feelings into words. So BOTH, I'll pick BOTH. BOTH IS GOOD.

With the reunion out of the way, I feel like Daryl is constantly trying to make Carol understand he did not give up on going home, while Carol is confused and wondering what the heck happened for him to have created that connection with the people in France (Isa and Laurent) in such a short period of time.

Daryl tries to explain, he sounds downright apologetic to her. He says stuff like he didn't mean to care so much, he kept trying to get home to HER, things just happened when he and Isa just tried to help each other with Laurent's acting as the glue that held them together. That is all too familiar for Carol because that's how she ended up married to Zeke. But the way Daryl is trying to explain things doesn't sound at all like he's telling his best friend he fell in love, it feels like a cheating husband apologizing to his wife for his transgressions. I'm not saying Daryl betrayed Carol - HE DID NOT. However, the way he is acting is as if he is guilty, so what I think is that Daryl realized he's betraying his own feelings, and that's why he needs to explain it to Carol. Obviously, it all goes over her head since she states Daryl loved Isa, to which he stays absolutely quiet, just looking at her, and giving her the silliest little smirk ever. LIKE this woman is completely oblivious to what he is trying to convey. And it's so hilariously infuriating Carol of her to do that.

ANYWAYS, all the foreshadowing with Didi and Theo, how they found each other late in life, and are currently living happily together (not married!), just the two of them, living for each other. It's beautiful, it's romantic, and I believe it's exactly the type of happy ending EP's Norman and Melissa have in mind for Carol and Daryl's endgame. No matter who they are to each other, romantic or not, this is how they find happiness.

AND FINALLY. There's time for Carol and Daryl to make small talk, and they instantly fall back to that comfortable back and forth. It only feels different because the Carol and Daryl we used to know could not afford the time to just talk about wants, needs, school and traveling the world while on the main show. Now, they can just be themselves, have much more room to talk, talk about meaningless stuff that show us a bit more of who they are. And that's wonderful to me.

[theteasetwrites]

The Beginning Is the End Is the Beginning

Chapter 31: Before I Sleep

❧ Pairing: Daryl Dixon x Reader ❧ Era: Season 5 ❧ Pronouns: she/her ❧ Warnings: mild swearing, scary situation, kind of depressing in some parts tbh ❧ Word Count: 6k

❧ In This Chapter: Your group travels to Virginia in a last-ditch effort to find somewhere to stay. Daryl accompanies you for your own pilgrimage to your childhood home for closure. Broken and weak, your group finds shelter in an abandoned barn, and in the morning, you come to face to face with someone you've been missing for a long time.

❧ A/N: An all-around sad chapter, that gets really happy towards the very end...

The church was overrun.

Bob and Beth were dead.

Eugene lied about having a cure.

Washington was out.

Noah was taking you all to Richmond.

That was where you were now, all of you.

Noah seemed to be confident that his home was safe. You were skeptical, most of you were. Still, you needed to have the promise of a destination. That was what you lived on now, promises.

Promises you made to yourselves, promises others made to you. All promises that couldn’t be kept, but you fell for them anyway.

The only promises you trusted anymore were Daryl’s, and he couldn’t promise you anything in good conscience. There wasn’t much left to promise. All he had was his love, and that was fine for you.

A while after your group buried Beth, you agreed to take Noah to his home in Richmond so he could be with his family. It was as if fate was shining down on you when Rick announced your destination now was Richmond. Like Noah, you came from a suburb of Richmond, and you had a little voice in the back of your head for a while now saying you needed to return home.

You spoke to Rick and Daryl, asking them if you could take a detour to Tuckahoe, your hometown. Of course, you would meet back up with the group at Noah’s home, but you needed to make this personal journey.

Daryl agreed to go with you, though Rick wanted to send more people with you to make sure you were safe. After some convincing, you managed to get Rick to understand that you needed to do this on your own.

It wasn’t a long ways away from Noah’s house, just about twenty minutes by car. You expected the two of you would be back before sundown that day, so you split off from the rest of your group around noon.

Daryl set up a car and soon you were off to Tuckahoe, following closely behind your group’s caravan until you split off as you approached Richmond.

You couldn’t say you were excited. Nothing much excited you due to recent events. Still, there was a strange sense of homecoming within you. Even being within your home state again was somewhat comforting.

You loved Georgia, and passing through the Carolinas the past week or so was a nice change of scenery as well. Nevertheless, Virginia had a special place in your heart.

“We gettin’ close?” Daryl asked you, his one hand loose on the steering wheel and the other nervously picking at the dried skin on his lips. You had insisted on driving, but Daryl wouldn’t let you. You were, not shockingly, still in a lot of pain from being hit by a car a week earlier, so he hardly let you do anything.

You nodded. “It should be the next turn-off. Exit 181-A.”

After a while of giving Daryl directions, and bickering at each other like an old married couple, you finally made the turn onto the street you grew up on, Cedarbrooke Lane.

It was a long road, sprinkled with hundreds of trees and lined with countless charming one-story homes, all built uniformly enough to be attractive, yet uniquely enough to be interesting. Every home had either siding or brick, or a combination of both. Yours was the latter, with red brick broken up by a pale yellow siding.

All the houses were built between the 60s and 70s, but they were all kept up well—at least, before the turn.

Now, everything was overgrown and weathered looking. No one was keeping up appearances because there weren’t any people to appear for. The once lively neighborhood, where children played on the manicured lawns and their parents watched from their covered porches and sipped lemonade in the Virginia summer heat, was a ghost town. You didn’t expect it to be thriving, but it was eerie to see such a vibrant part of your childhood deteriorating at the hands of time.

“There,” you stretched your hand across Daryl to point to your childhood home. You hardly even recognized it. The once charming yellow paint had chipped away and faded to a solemn off-white. “There it is,” you muttered.

Daryl pulled into the driveway, feeling oddly anxious. It wasn’t like he was meeting your parents or anything, but that’s how it felt in a way. He found himself thinking of some kind of alternate universe in which he actually could meet your family. He would be sized up by your father, doted on by your mother, engaged in awkward conversation by your brother, hounded by the family dog, and stared at ambivalently by the family cat.

It wasn’t that he necessarily wanted that, but it was something he thought about. It was, after all, the way things used to be.

Now, you were lucky if any of your family were actually alive, and if they were alive, it was likely that they were half-dead.

You took a deep breath before unbuckling your seatbelt. Daryl looked over at you as you stared blankly at the dashboard. “You okay?” he asked quietly.

You flinched a bit at the sudden sound of his gruff voice cutting through the air. “Yeah,” you said, nodding your head and swallowing hard. “Just… nervous.” You laughed awkwardly. “Don’t know why. I know what’s in there.”

He tentatively rested his hand on your knee. “Whatever we find,” he said, “if we find anythin’ at all, you still have a family. And you ain’t alone.”

He wasn’t sure if he said the right thing, but he was trying. You looked up at him with tears in your eyes, and held his hand as it squeezed your knee. “I know,” you sniffled. “I’m ready.”

Approaching the steps leading up to the porch, you took a long gaze at the state of the place. The black window shutters were covered in overgrown ivy, and the window boxes where you and your father used to plant bright pink and purple petunias were dried up and cracking at the seams.

Approaching the door, Daryl raised his crossbow and planted himself in front of you. “I’ll go in first,” he said.

You shook your head and reached for your axe. “No, I want to do this.”

Daryl hesitated, looking between you and the door. “At least let me knock first.”

You sighed sharply. “Do what you have to do.”

He did just that, knocking on the door’s window and peering in to see if he could see anything. The window was too caked in dust from the inside, so he ended up just looking at his own reflection.

When no one came to answer the door, Daryl opened it for you and let you walk in first.

You walked slowly through the living room, trying to ignore the dark red stains on the wood floor that had long crusted over. You turned the corner to walk into the kitchen and dining area, which had been completely ransacked. Going down the hallway and into the first bedroom, which was once your brother’s but had belonged in recent years to your step-sister, you saw the rotting corpse of your mother.

Though she was decomposed beyond facial recognition, you knew it was her by the dress she was wearing. It was one of her favorites, and a hideous avocado green color no one else would be caught dead in.

Her skin was leathery and stretched across her bones in a way that made your own skin crawl. She was almost a skeleton, except for the flesh that was still clinging to something.

Stepping closer to her body, strewn out on the floor at the foot of the bed, you began to kneel down to see what happened to her.

There weren’t any visible bite marks, and the .44 Magnum in her near-skeletal hand and the matching hole in the side of her head told you it was self-inflicted.

You were silent for a while, and Daryl figured it was your mother, so he quietly began to search the rest of the modest three bedroom home.

You didn’t cry, at least not as much as you thought you should have. She was your mother, but you didn’t like her.

While she was cruel and insensitive to your brother, she dressed you up like a doll and paraded you around like some kind of trophy. It wasn’t that you had ever been especially gifted, but she wanted you to live up to something.

She wanted you to be like her, but to be the perfect version of her.

Even when you did something to make her angry, she would spout verbal abuse and express how disappointed she was in you.

If your father hadn’t been the saint he was, and if you didn’t have such wonderful grandparents, you were sure you would have ended up far worse than you did.

Though you never liked her much, you wished things had turned out differently. You weren’t at all surprised to find she had killed herself, and from the looks of it, she did it not long after the outbreak. If she had to go out, she was going to do it her own way. That’s how stubborn she was.

You supposed the two of you had that in common.

“The house is clear,” Daryl said to you quietly as he stood in the doorway.

You nodded, still looking down at your mother’s bony face, no longer possessing any muscles to display her last facial expression.

Rising to your feet, you walked past Daryl and into your old bedroom. Surprisingly, she had kept it in the same state you left it in when you went to college. The walls were painted the same periwinkle blue, and your antique wrought iron daybed was untouched, with your floral duvet still tucked in neatly and the decorative throw pillows still fluffed up as if waiting for you to rest your head on them.

All the books in your bookcase were covered in dust, but they were still in the alphabetized order you arranged them in meticulously.

The artwork was still there, too. You were sure your mother would have sold it. There were a few prints of Mucha and Rossetti paintings framed above your bed, and a slew of vintage postcards you collected and pasted on your wall, much to your mother’s chagrin.

The only change you saw was the minimal wooden cross nailed awkwardly above your paintings. It was there from the time you were an infant to the time when you stopped believing in God. She must have put it back up when you left.

“Could tell this was your room,” Daryl said from behind you. “No one else would have that bedspread.”

You turned and smirked at him, though your eyes betrayed a melancholy. “It’s vintage.”

He nodded, and the two of you were silent again. “You wanna bury her?”

You closed your eyes and sighed, raising your hand to your head and pressing it to your temple. “I guess I should.”

He shrugged. “We don’t have to if you don’t want to.”

“How about… we just cover her up. With a blanket or something,” you suggested.

Daryl nodded. “If that’s what ya want.”

“It is,” you said. “She was a bitch, but she at least deserves a blanket.”

You took one last long look at her before tossing an old quilt your grandmother had made over her. On your way out of the house, you stopped by the wall near the front door where your mother kept pictures of your family.

Most of the pictures were of her, your step-father, and his daughter, but there was one of you, your father, and your brother. It was actually taken at the quarry near Atlanta. Your dad had his arms around both of you. You were about six years old you guessed, and your brother was around twelve. All three of you were smiling so wide, and you looked closely to see that your brother was holding bunny ears behind your head.

That little shit.

“That you?” Daryl asked, pointing to the picture.

“Mhm, me, my dad, and my brother,” you pointed to each face respectively. “We were camping at the quarry. I remember that day. I accidentally brushed my teeth with sunscreen.”

His lips upturned just a bit before he returned to his usual serious expression. He was a lot more serious lately.

You reached forward to take off the picture frame and removed the back to take out the photo and folded it into your pocket.

“In case we ever have a place to hang it up in,” you said.

The ride back was quiet, but you used the time to gather your thoughts. Now that you knew what was left of your family, at least, part of it, you could rest just a little easier.

As the sign welcoming visitors to Tuckahoe, VA faded from view in the rear view mirror, you smiled ever so slightly. It wasn’t that you were happy, not at all. Rather, it was that you felt relief.

When you met up with the others outside of Noah’s suburb, you were shocked to find that Tyreese had been bit, and that he had died from blood loss.

To make matters worse, Noah’s family was dead, too. Now, there really wasn’t anywhere to go, or anything to look forward to. If Noah’s town wasn’t safe either, there was no way you could stay there.

Rick asked you about Tuckahoe, but the place was crawling with walkers, too. Even if you stayed back near your house where there were less of them, they would gain on you sooner or later.

Now your group was smaller again. You didn’t know Tyreese as well as you would have liked, but you knew he was a good man. Sasha was completely devastated, and you understood why.

Not only had she just lost her brother, she lost Bob, too, and they had just begun to share in some kind of romantic relationship.

Maggie was heartbroken, too. Seeing Beth in that state was too much for her to bear, so she shut herself away from you all.

Even though you had only lost three people in the last week, it was more like you lost five, and all of you lost parts of yourself.

With nowhere to go, your group decided to keep pushing towards Washington, D.C. Eugene had admitted to you all that there really was no cure that he knew of, and that he wasn’t a scientist at all. He just wanted someone to take him to D.C. because he thought it was his best bet for survival.

Any positive feelings you had towards him evaporated along with any hope of the world ever changing.

You weren’t sure how long you had been on the road since Tuckahoe, but you knew the van your group was traveling in was on its way out.

“We’re out,” Abraham said. “Just like the other one.”

“So we walk,” replied Rick.

Walking—it was ten times harder than it used to be. You were running on no food and barely any water, and there wasn’t any time to sleep either.

For all Daryl’s efforts, he couldn’t find anything in the surrounding woods, just worms and tree bark. So, that’s what you ate.

When Daryl sat down on a log with you and handed you a pile of squirming pink earthworms intermixed with flecks of mud, which he had tried to clean off as best as possible, you stared at it for a moment in disappointment. Have we really come to this?

“Eat,” he said, raising his hand higher to your face. “Ain’t much but it’s somethin’. Just don’t think about it.”

You took a deep, exasperated breath, then shakily picked the worm that moved the least and closed your eyes shut before tossing it into your mouth and chewing it as quickly as possible, hoping to bypass any gag reflex.

Swallowing hard, Daryl handed you his plastic water bottle, which only had a few sips left. You looked at him with concern. “We should save this,” you said.

He shook his head. “Drink, you need it. Ain’t seen ya drink all day. ‘Sides, it’ll wash down the worm.”

That worm didn’t exactly hit the spot, but it kept you going a bit longer.

The mid-afternoon sun beamed down on you all oppressively, causing your already weakening eyes to squint until you could hardly see a thing.

You were sure that you were all walking so slow you could easily be mistaken for walkers from a distance. Still, they seemed to follow you, probably detecting the scent of life, though it was becoming faint.

“We’re not at our strongest,” Rick said to Daryl as he looked back to check on the small herd that was gaining on you from an increasingly shorter distance. “We’ll get ‘em when it’s best. High ground, something like that.”

Daryl and Carol went off to find food soon after that, and your group waited there on the road for them. Soon, the walkers caught up with you. Death caught up with you, like it always did.

You all stood on the road frozen, unsure of what to do. You had your axe but no energy in you to lift it over your head, and no will, either. Not wanting to waste that limited energy, you all let the walkers come to you and pushed them away off the slope of the road when they got close enough.

It was agreed you wouldn’t actually kill any of them now, just slow them down so you could start walking again. But when Sasha decided to plunge her knife through a walker’s head, that seemed to rouse the walkers even more.

“Plan just got dicked,” said Abraham.

Now, you had to fight as they picked up their pace. You shakily raised your axe and landed it in the walker’s skull with all the strength you could muster. It wasn’t enough to penetrate its brain, and now your axe was stuck. It was desperate for a sharpening, but you didn’t have the means of doing that.

With the axe still in its head, the walker pushed you down and pinned you to the dirt road beneath you. With one fluid motion of Michonne’s katana, she sliced its head in two. “Thanks,” you sighed.

Daryl and Carol came back empty-handed, and he went out again a little later to try to find something, anything, but there was nothing.

Completely demoralized, your group sat on the road to rest. When a pack of hungry dogs came your way, Sasha didn’t hesitate to shoot them. Daryl did the dirty work and cooked them up over the small fire you made.

None of you looked at each other as you ate that evening. The dog meat was enough to satiate your shrunken stomachs, but they were starving, too, and didn’t have much nutrients to them.

The sun was close to setting when you continued on again, still only able to move your feet at an incredibly slow pace. Daryl went off again, and he told you to tell everyone he went looking for water. When you called out to him, trying to get him to stay with the group, he ignored you.

Ever since you lost Beth, he wanted to be alone more than he did before. You hoped that he wasn’t reverting back to his old ways, but you were sure it was just his way of grieving.

So you let him go off on his own, though not without worry.

Walking alongside the others, the road began to rise and revealed to you an odd sight—a stash of plastic water bottles.

You were the first one to reach it, your gait increasing to the fastest walk you had done in a while. Just looking at the clear liquid inside those bottles reminded you of how dry your throat was.

Stopping in your tracks, you noticed a piece of paper lying across the top of the stash. “From a friend,” it read. You looked over to your group who were following you behind, now picking up their pace, too.

Rick looked around suspiciously. “Someone must be watching us,” he said.

Well, at least you knew it wasn’t what was left of Terminus. Rick and the others had dealt with that problem back at Gabriel’s church while you and Daryl were in Atlanta.

Still, it could be poisoned or tampered with in some way. No matter how thirsty you were, you didn’t want to take the risk.

When Daryl returned, he looked at the water curiously before you presented him with the note. He immediately removed his crossbow and looked around defensively.

“What else are we gonna do?” Tara asked.

“Not this,” said Rick. “We don’t know who left it.”

“If that’s a trap,” said Eugene, “we already happen to be in it. But I, for one, would like to think it is indeed from a friend.”

“What if it isn’t?” asked Carol. “And they put something in it?”

Eugene didn’t waste anymore time contemplating the risks. He lunged forward to pick up a bottle and unscrew it.

“Eugene,” Rosita said sternly.

“What are you doing, dude?” asked Tara.

He brought the bottle to his mouth. “Quality assurance,” he said. Before he could take a sip, Abraham smacked it away from him.

“We can’t,” Rick insisted.

A distant rumble came from somewhere just then, though you couldn’t pinpoint the direction. You knew it was thunder. Your stomach had stopped growling days ago when it knew it wasn’t going to do any good.

You felt the first droplets begin to trickle down onto your face as you looked up to the cloudy sky. It’s a miracle.

You sighed heavily and closed your eyes to let yourself feel the cool, cleansing water rain down on you.

Laughing, you looked at Daryl as he stood next to you, also letting the rain trickle down his weary face. He wasn’t nearly as happy as you, and he couldn’t even look your way as he stared at the gravel beneath him.

You took his hand in yours, causing him to look at you with those blue, hooded eyes hidden behind strands of wet, dark hair. He looked exhausted, worried, ashamed. He put too much on himself, too much responsibility for everything that had happened. You knew that, but you wished he didn’t think that way, as if everything was his fault.

“We’re still alive,” you assured him, hoping it would be some consolation for the pain he felt that was so evident in his downcast eyes.

When the rest of your group’s state of euphoria died down, the torrential outpour was starting to remind you that you needed a place to stay for the night. If you stayed out in the rain, you would all get sick, and none of you were in the state to fight that off.

Daryl had seen a barn when he last separated from the group, so he led you all there to seek shelter for the night as the inclement weather raged on outside.

The barn was pretty dilapidated, but it was dry enough for your group to stay in. You wandered around a bit and found a big stack of books in the corner of the barn. Someone else must have been holed up there for a while before you came along, you guessed it was the lone walker Maggie killed when she and a few of the others were checking to see if it was safe.

“She had good taste,” you said to yourself under your breath. Rummaging through the stack, you uncovered a dusty compendium of American poems. You thought perhaps it would be as good a time as any to use the free time you had during the storm to read.

You were about to settle into the corner to be alone, in a kind of makeshift fort surrounded by books, but Daryl walked over to you before you could. “Come sit by the fire,” he said to you.

You sighed. “I was going to read.” You held the book up in your hands.

“You can read at the fire,” he replied. “You’ll freeze your ass off over here, and you’re soakin’ wet.”

True, plus there wasn’t much light at all where you were. “Okay.”

It was a small fire, but it was enough to warm you a little.

Sitting down with Daryl, he attempted to make the fire bigger by adding a piece of wood he picked up on his way over to you. He huffed and threw the thing down on the ground when it didn’t seem to even want to catch on fire.

“I’ll try,” said Glenn.

“No, too wet,” he replied.

There was an eerie silence lingering now, only interrupted by the harsh sound of the rain pounding against the roof of the barn, and the thunder bursting from somewhere in the distance.

“What you got?” Michonne asked, nudging her head towards the book in your shaky hands. You were colder than you thought.

You looked down at the dusty paperback and shrugged. “Just… some poetry book.”

More silence, and the feeling of several pairs of eyes on you. “Maybe you could read us something?” asked Carol. She knew you liked to read to Daryl, and that it calmed him down and took his mind off of things. She thought you could do that for the group, too.

You looked at her wide-eyed. “I don’t think anyone wants me to.”

Rick shook his head. “Nah, read us somethin’.”

You looked at Daryl. His eyes were fixated on the small fire before him, as if it was challenging him, ridiculing him.

“Go on,” said Glenn.

It all felt too serious to read a poem to them around the fire. Not even all of your group was there, the others were scattered about the barn. Carl was asleep, so your main audience would be Rick, Carol, Michonne, Glenn, and Daryl. Still, you supposed most of them wanted to hear it, except Daryl who didn’t say anything.

You took a deep breath, then thumbed through the pages to find something appropriate for the mood. It wouldn’t be the best idea to read about something particularly happy or romantic at a time like this, so you opted for a poem by Robert Frost that you remembered reading in high school.

It was a simple poem, but it was perfect.

You cleared your throat, then looked around again hesitantly to make sure they really did want to hear it. “It’s called ‘Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening’ by Robert Frost.”

You swallowed hard before beginning:

“Whose woods these are I think I know.

His house is in the village though;

He will not see me stopping here

To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer

To stop without a farmhouse near

Between the woods and frozen lake

The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake

To ask if there is some mistake.

The only other sound’s the sweep

Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,

But I have promises to keep,

And miles to go before I sleep,

And miles to go before I sleep.”

You looked up from the book and were met with the same faces, but with something different in their eyes. You shrugged. “I hope that was okay.”

Rick nodded at you. “It was beautiful,” he said. “Thank you.”

Daryl went out again for a while after that. You were worried sick of him being out in the dark, rainy night, but you figured he wanted his space. It was better than him lashing out at everyone like he used to do when he was upset.

When he came back, he was soaking wet, and you were laying down in the dark corner of the barn where you had found the books. It wasn’t comfortable on the ground, but there was that old familiarity in the faint smell of dusty books surrounding you.

You were half asleep when Daryl knelt down next to you and laid a bath towel over your body. He had seen a small shed earlier not too far away, and he went to scavenge it when he noticed you were cold earlier. “Daryl…” you muttered sleepily, your eyes still closed. “What is this?”

“Blanket,” he said simply. “You were shiverin’.”

You slowly opened your eyes. “Oh my god,” you said, taking in his soaked appearance. “You’re drenched.” His now almost shoulder-length hair was completely dripping, and his shirt would have been sticking to his skin more if it weren’t for his leather vest. Still, he was wet enough to kick in your worry mode. “Here,” you quickly peeled the towel off of you and wrapped it around his shoulders. “You need it more than I do.”

He pushed your hands away. “No,” he said. “You keep it.”

You tried wrapping him up in the towel again, but he rose to his feet. “Damnit, woman,” he said angrily, trying not to wake the others. “Told ya I’m fine.”

You frowned up at him. “Talk to me, Daryl.”

He scoffed. “About what?”

“About Beth.”

He looked at you silently. “There ain’t nothin’ to talk about.”

“Yes, there is. I know her death affected you.” You patted the ground next to you. “Sit with me.”

He hesitated for a while, so you broke out your innocent doe-eyes, the ones he simply couldn’t resist. He sat himself down and folded his legs in with his arms.

You rested your hand on his forearm and began rubbing it up and down, the droplets still fresh from the rain. It was a miracle he was able to keep the towel dry on the way back. “You know it wasn’t your fault, right?”

You knew Daryl. He had a tendency to blame himself for things that were out of his control, and he always put himself down. You were sure it was a side effect of being mentally abused for at least half of his life, and the thought of him, the man you admired most in the world, thinking that he was worthless broke your heart.

He looked down at his feet for a while before speaking. “Jus’… shoulda never let our guard down… back at the funeral home. She might be here.”

You tilted your head. “You can’t think like that. If you do, every little thing you do is going to be the cause of something else. That’s no way to live your life.” You brushed a strand of his wet hair back behind his ear. “The walkers would have come no matter what, and Beth would have had to run anyway.” You paused. “I… I regret not leaving with her, but I would also regret it if I hadn’t and you had died. Either way, I lose somehow.”

“Was tryin’ to protect ya both, get the walkers away.”

“I know,” you said reassuringly. “And you did protect us.”

He shook his head. “Nah, shoulda done somethin’ different. Never should have left either of you alone.”

You sighed. “I know it’s hard, but you can’t think like that.”

“Can’t help it,” he said. “I just keep thinkin’ about how…” He trailed off as he played with a piece of hay in his fingers.

“How what?”

He moved his head up to look at you, then swallowed hard. His face was still wet, but you were sure he was starting to cry, too. “How… how I couldn’t keep Beth safe…” He sniffled. “And I can’t keep you safe.”

Your eyebrows knit together when he hung his head in shame and let out a few whimpers and sobs that sent tiny pins and needles into your heart. “Oh, Daryl,” you said, wrapping your arms around him and pulling him close to you. “I’m right here, aren’t I?”

He didn’t say anything, just kept his head held down so it almost rested on his knees. You squeezed him tighter. “Daryl, look at me.” He wiped his face with his hand roughly before turning to look your way, your face just a few inches from his. “Am I here?”

He blinked his eyes, as if expecting you to disappear. “Y-yeah.”

You smiled. “Then you can keep me safe.” You unwrapped your arms from around him and brought your hands up to hold his face delicately. He was a strong, firm man, but you always handled him like a rose whose petals threatened to fall with even the slightest of movement. “It’s you and me till the end, whether you like it or not.”

He smirked, wiping away a few more tears. “Is that a promise?”

You nodded. “You bet your ass it is, and I intend on keeping it. Now let’s go to sleep.”

You wrapped the towel around the both of you. It couldn’t stretch enough for both of your bodies, but it kept you warm and helped Daryl get dry.

He laid with you for a while until you fell asleep, then quietly got up to take watch, making sure the towel covered you completely before he did.

Your slumber didn’t last long.

You were stirred awake by a cacophony of sounds, including the raging rain and thunder outside, Daryl’s grunts, and the snarls of walkers. You jolted up to see Daryl pushing against the barn doors where a herd of walkers was bombarding the thin wood slabs with all the force of a hungry mob.

Without hesitation, you bolted to the door and threw your weight against it with Daryl. Soon, others joined, and before long every single person in your group, except Judith, who was crying profusely, was pushing back against the walkers.

You grunted and groaned in pain as the wood splintered into your skin the more the walkers pushed back against you. Your heels dug into the dirt floor, your teeth clenched, and your entire body felt weightless against the force of at least a couple dozen walkers from the looks of it.

At some point, you lost track of the series of events. When you woke up with the sun that morning, leaning against the barn doors with Daryl at your side. Of course, he wasn’t asleep.

You yawned and leaned your head tentatively against his shoulder. “Good morning,” you said looking up at his dirty face.

“Mornin’.” He tried to smile at you a little, but the weight of the seemingly hopeless situation you were in cemented a dejected look onto his tired face.

In an effort to soothe him, you leaned up and kissed his cheek. “Hey,” you said quietly, barely above a whisper, “we’re alive.”

“Hey,” Maggie’s voice called out to your group from outside the barn doors. You raised your head from Daryl’s shoulder and stood up with him. She peeked in through the door as she opened it cautiously. “Everyone…” You reached for your axe while Daryl moved in front of you with his crossbow as he saw a man following behind Maggie, and Sasha following him. You, however, couldn’t see anything, on account of Daryl’s broad shoulders blocking your view. “This is Aaron.”

Daryl moved swiftly to close the door behind Maggie, Sasha, and the newcomer as they came in. The others cocked their guns and pointed at him, but you just looked at him.

“We met him outside, he’s by himself,” Maggie said. “We took his weapons and we took his gear.”

You had been hit by a car before, so you know what it felt like. You had been shot, too. You had been punched and kicked and knocked the wind out of several times over, but nothing could prepare you for this.

You stood frozen, staring at him as Daryl aggressively patted him down, then looked back at you from over the man’s shoulder. In a reversal of roles, he couldn’t read your expression. If he had to guess, he’d say it was somewhere between bewilderment and ecstasy.

Your eyes wide and your mouth agape, you willed yourself to move your legs forward when the man gave you a knowing look, then a wide, joyous smile.

You lumbered forward slowly and dropped your axe to the ground with a puff pluming to surround your feet in a small cloud of dust and hay.

Daryl grunted at you, his way of telling you to stay back from the stranger. You inched closer, the others watching you out of the corner of their eyes as they steadied their sights on the man.

You stopped dead in your tracks when it hit you that you weren’t hallucinating, and that he was really there and not singing an old wartime song to you in your dying stupor.

You covered your mouth with both hands and sobbed. “Aaron!”

~

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[whateverthedragonswant]

So even though I watched it a couple of weeks ago, the TWD final season is still in my head. And I just had some more thoughts about two topics:

1) Leah: While I didn't like Leah as a love interest for Daryl (which they made pretty clear that she was not going to be from the outset of when Daryl saw her again), and while I thought she was...an extreme character, I actually liked this iteration of her compared to when we saw her last. She still had the same issues, wanting Daryl to choose her and be all for her, having that concern about loyalty and I daresay devotion. But, she was an actual badass, until things went to shit. I was stuck on this story I'm trying to write and it actually helped to dissolve that block because she literally physically represented everything that has been in my head for a character for ages but could never find the right visual to represent them. So maybe that's why I'm more kindly inclined towards that part of the season for Daryl (not to mention, imho that faction was way more heart-pounding-terror inducing for Daryl than the Commonwealth arc but that's just my opinion).

2) Caryl: When it comes to Daryl and Carol, I know I've said it before but I really am happy with how they left it. Tbh, Daryl was never one of my favorite characters (Carol was more so). Don't get me wrong, I like him, I like how Norman plays him, he's obviously very important to the story, but I think I personally connected more with Rick's story than I did Daryl's for example, even Negan compared to him I think. But I always loved the Caryl dynamic and it became my OTP. But, with Daryl, I never really looked too closely at his character but considering they never really gave him a romance on the show that included the physical (except Leah and we all saw how that one turned out), I do wonder, considering Daryl's sometimes still wanting to be off on his own, if perhaps the Caryl "I love you" at the end of the finale was as far as Angela Kang felt that she could go with that relationship, along with Norman and Melissa.

The reason I say that is Daryl had Beth, right? While it didn't go canon per se, there was a strong hint there. He lets her in, little by little, but they only get as far as some lingering looks basically, right? Daryl cares about Beth but then he loses her.

Connie comes along and it's obvious that he likes her. Connie cares about him and vice versa, even Carol picks up on it. He loses her but then gets her back, even with Carol encouraging him to do something about it. He never does, and it's clear by the end of the finale that while he cares about Connie, it feels like it's settled more into a friendship, especially for Connie. He's comfortable with where it's at. She's alive, happy, healthy as possible, and living her life safely. That's all he can ask for her, right?

We also have Leah. While he hooked up with Leah and possibly even fell in love with her for a time (I'd have to go back and watch this episode, I don't remember if they had this convo or not), eventually Leah leaves and he doesn't think he'll ever see her again. Even though he made the tough decision to give up his family for her as she had been demanding of him (which as a side note is obviously not healthy). He didn't want to give them up but he cared about her that much that he was going to give it a shot. (again, I really need to rewatch that episode, forgive me if I'm forgetting anything) Then when he sees her again, she's part of this extreme faction, he has to play on their old connection to stay alive and suss out the situation. When he realizes she might not be as extreme as her leader, he trusts her with the truth and very quickly finds out it was the wrong move. Leah still lives by that old ideology: you're either with me or with them, and now it's to the extreme. He mercifully lets her live and then is forced to kill her in order to save Maggie's life later on.

So all in all, Daryl has not had the greatest run when it comes to possibly-romantic (and sexual) relationships with the women he has come to care for in more than a familial or friendship way. The two women who mean the most to him on that scale (Carol, Connie - when in comparison to people like Maggie for example) are yes, still alive and he is able to do something about it, but he chooses not to.

I don't remember the exact explanation about Daryl's character back in the day but we know he's not from the comics and this is obviously not a romance-focus show. That doesn't mean romance can't happen (i.e. Richonne, Cazekiel, Glen x Maggie) but it's not the core that all other events of the show revolve around. My point being, Daryl wasn't created for that reason.

So my thinking on this, after seeing him not doing anything about Connie and thinking back to Beth, and seeing Daryl taking off again in the finale to be on his own (yes, this does set up the spinoff but it's also integral to his character I think, he's still restless, not able to settle in fully), I'm thinking that this is a make-up of his character that AK chose to stay true to. While Daryl lived in Alexandria, he still went out past the gate. He was able to live as he liked, like we see him doing in the finale. When he lived in the Commonwealth, he wasn't able to do as he liked, but he did it for two reasons: Judith and RJ. Those were the roots that were tying him down, meaning that was the only thing he was willing to put roots down for I mean. When things are made better by the end, he no longer has to do that.

How does this all relate to Caryl and their ending? Because AK took it as far as could go without A) betraying Daryl's character & B) keeping his character open for the spinoff. If there wasn't a spinoff, I still think AK would have gone this way. What Daryl has with Carol isn't sexual in nature. Which is interesting when you compare Leah to Carol, where Melissa herself talked about how there was mirroring going on between Carol and Leah in that episode where Daryl meets Leah. And there is: Dog is a big link between the two, for example. So not only do we have that connection between these two women in his life, Carol is the antithesis of Leah if you think about it. Daryl had sex with Leah, and he was giving up his family for her even though he didn't really want to. She made him choose. Carol and Daryl don't have a sexual relationship, and she has never made him choose her over the family, or even wanted him to. While Daryl wasn't happy with Rick when he kicked Carol out back in the earlier seasons, Carol never wanted to find Daryl in order to get him to choose her over the group, even after she came back.

So this ILY scene in the finale actually holds way more meaning than I think some people are giving it credit for. As we know, Carol loves Daryl for who he is, how he is. She doesn't make demands of him or insists he change the core aspects of who he is. Not in the way Leah did for example. Beth and Connie I don't think would have either, but they were never connected to Leah in the way Carol had been.

And if we go further, Carol has always been connected to the other ladies, not just Leah. Beth was stuck in the same hospital as Carol, both taken from Daryl while he was with them solely. Carol is there to see Beth die. Connie was lost due to Carol's actions/choices and she feels guilty due to it, it's why Daryl is so mad at her and it causes friction in their own relationship, and she never stops giving hope to Kelly. Carol has always been connected.

So for her to also mirror/be connected to the one woman we see Daryl get physical with and get the closest he's ever been to a verbal ILY in the show, it means exactly what we've been saying: Daryl loves Carol and vice versa. So that ILY holds way more weight than I think most people realize. Was it a kiss? No. Was it them getting married or them riding off for a makeshift honeymoon? No. But we got the confirmation. In a way that was true to Daryl's character, their relationship (who he has the most intimacy with emotionally and shares tender touches and embraces with), and having an unfinished air about it with hope for the future.

I did not see the Talking Dead so I have no idea if the actors were asked about this scene or not, but considering the story and how this occurred in that story, it completely makes sense why AK decided to go this route for them.

And Daryl being told he can still be happy too (alluding to him having to find it) isn't because Carol isn't it for him or he hasn't fallen in love yet. It's to keep things open for the spinoff while Daryl is still restless. Daryl is a guy, imho, that will always be on the move. Even if he married Carol, let's say, and they had a huge family of their own, there is no way that Daryl won't become restless during that time and still go out beyond the gate, for days at a time. He's not Rick or Negan or Eugene; that's not who he is. I think he even confirms that when telling the story of the hiding spot he used to go to when he was a kid, to hide until his dad fell asleep. While it's sad that he had to do that, it's what he became used to. Even when he had Merle, he was always on his own. I hate to use the word 'drifter' or 'nomad' but that's basically what he is. No matter how happy or settled he might be in other areas of his life. That's another reason why Dog is so appealing for his story line: Dog can go with him anywhere he goes. Dog can settle into Alexandria 3.0 or he can be on the road for days at a time. (not comparing Carol to a dog obviously but you get my point)

So for Carol to be saying goodbye to him, for them to mention how Carol has the new job now (as a reason why she can't go anywhere with him), it isn't just for the spinoff. It's because they're telling you this is why we're doing things this way; this is who they are together. And for them to have both characters saying ILY to each other (yes, even without the kiss), they're telling you all you need to know.

This is who has taken residence in his heart. And because of who he is, that ILY was as far as they could have taken it at that moment. Or else we would have seen him do something about Connie when she came back, or we would have seen more romance for him in the show. But that's not who he is.

[autisticcassandracain]

Duke Thomas

the only character that matters <3 focusing mostly on how I write him and what I try to keep in mind

Under the cut bc it's a bit long, but in short the aspects I find most important to keep in mind when writing him:

Duke's a massive adrenaline junkie

His parents' influence

Duke's strong sense of personal responsibility

Duke's way of connecting with people

Duke being extremely analytical

1. Duke's a Massive Adrenaline Junkie

Seriously. TBH this might be like, my favourite part of his character. I fell in love with him the moment he reacted to being shot for the first time with 'isn't that baller'. If fandom HAS to distill him to one assigned character trait, I want it to be 'the crazy one'. On a more serious character analysis note, I think it's one of the most interesting things about his character because it was born out of trauma. He explicitly states this in We Are Robin; after all of Duke's death-defying experiences, he started craving the thrill of escaping death at the last second. You know how heroes sometimes create their own villains (and how people will argue heroes create their own villains even when they don't)? The villains of Gotham created the Signal when they decided to pull their batshit stunts. I just think it's neat!

2. His Parents' Influence

Might be a bit of a weird one to include? I think canon does pretty well on this, especially when it comes to his mom, but in fandom portrayals I find it lacking. People often slot Duke in as yet another Wayne kid, and while I don't doubt he sees certain Batfam members as family (he explicitly considers Cass his sister), I really don't think he ultimately considers himself part of the Wayne family. He was never adopted by Bruce, just fostered, and his parents are still alive and he has a strong attachment to them. I think erasing his biological family (or at least, the family he grew up with, since I guess his biological dad is a villain) in favour of the Wayne family does Duke's character a massive disservice, since so much of his identity is wrapped up in the way he grew up and especially his mom's ideals and values. Also I think it's Pretty Shitty to erase his biological Black parents in favour of Bruce, a white dude.

3. Duke's Strong Sense of Personal Responsibility

@/phamtai did a wonderful meta on it here, which I feel like I don't have much to add to bc it said pretty much everything that needs to be said. Duke considers it his personal responsibility (and, by extension, the responsibility of others) to help if he's able to do so, and even if he's unable, he needs to try. He's absolutely the kid who got into fights with bullies in school. 100% think that's what the majority of the fights referenced in We Are Robin are about lmao.

4. Duke's Way of Connecting with People

IDK how to put this? I think one of Duke's most prominent character traits is (or at least should be) the way he connects to the people around him. This manifests itself in various ways in canon. One of them is that he's a great and natural leader/team player; we see this in We Are Robin, and also in Tales of the Dark Multiverse. (Personally, I think this is one of the main ways in which Batman and the Outsiders dropped the ball on him; putting him in a team but not having him truly and properly interact with it.) In addition, he's a natural at reading people; we see this when he figures out Damian's entire psyche in like, a day, in the ways he approaches villains and mysteries (trying to connect with Daryl, figuring out the motives and secrets of Szasz' victim in The Cursed Wheel, even the way he connects to Batman), etc.

Like, Duke just has charisma and is a natural at reading and connecting with people. He can get them to believe in stuff they otherwise wouldn't, and he's great at pulling them apart and putting them back together. His first response when faced with a human problem is almost always to try and reach out and understand them, and it often pays off. (TBH it's why I'm still kinda wondering how they're gonna play the 'Daytime Vigilante' thing with him, since it's by nature a very isolating position in Gotham, and I think Duke works better with a large cast because it highlights his people skills. It's part of why I'm so pissed they're ignoring the potential of the Robin Collective in his continued story.)

5. Duke is Extremely Analytical

This is something I pay a lot of attention to when writing, because I feel like it affects pretty much all of his thought processes. Duke is, by nature, extremely analytical. He tries to pull patterns out of the world and unravel them. You can easily see this in the way he tried to challenge the Riddler as a kid, the way he approaches/uses his powers, his natural talent for detective work, etc. This talent also got nurtured by Batman's training during the Cursed Wheel, so Duke's actively using and trying to improve on it. I think it affects how he sees and interacts with the world a lot.

[jojolovenotes]

hey berry! can i get some hol horse headcanons, like when his bday is, what his mbti personality type is, what you think his real/birth name is,

[and what you think of my name hc, i think his name's zachary hall, bc i think zachary is a handsome name that i think fits him, and hall, bc hol horse, and hol horse is a stupid ass nickname he came up with as a kid, and goes by, bc he's thinks it's cool]

btw can you possibly even some cuddle and general romantic hcs, if it's not too much please??

also- when i start calling hol holhol to screw with him at first, he doesn't like it bc it reminds of his enemy polnareff, but over time he gets more used to it. and eventually starts liking me calling him that, bc he thinks it's cute, and kind of a lovey pet name. do you think that's like him, or is that kinda ooc?

i'm sorry if this is a lot- and thank you so much in advance for answering any of this-

Hey Ultra! Thanks for stopping by... Apologies for taking a bit to get to this! Feel free to agree or disagree with my take of course!! ;w; But oh!! Zachary Hall I really like that tbh!! I could definitely see his name being something like that... Seems very fitting for him honestly. But oh my gosh... I could imagine him totally coming up with something like that when he was a kid. Maybe he watched a lot of Westerns and he thought that'd be a cool name for a cowboy :P

Tbh, I think that you calling him Holhol is something he would enjoy especially since he'd take away that negative association of Polnareff and just focus more on how you gave him that affectionate nickname. I don't think it's ooc at all. The thing is even if Hol can come off as being somewhat of a jerk to his enemies, I think he'd be very sweet to his loved one! and no no please don't apologize it's all good! Tysm for stopping by and asking for these! ♡

♡ I do like your headcanon name of Zachary Hall for sure, another suggestion I would have would be Daryl Hall after the namesake of Hall & Oates - sure it might be a little obvious, but I think it would work for him. But Zachary is also a very solid choice as well.

♡ I'm not really big on looking into personality types or anything, but I feel like he'd be ESTJ maybe? Just kinda being energetic and looking for those opportunities. He's got no problem teaming up if it's going to help him achieve his goal. He's not looking to be a leader or anything, he's just fine kinda being the backup.

♡ I could see him being a Leo, so I'm thinking he's a July baby... Maybe July 22nd.

♡ He's a big cuddler tbh... Especially when you two are on the couch maybe watching some TV or movies together. He prefers cuddling on the couch rather than in bed ( although of course he'll gladly cuddle with you either way). It's most likely because sitting on the house reminds him of watching Westerns late at night as a kid. He tried so hard to stay up late, but usually ended up falling asleep in front of the TV. So now that he's able to stay up, it's so much nicer to have you to hold while watching these movies.

♡ I don't think he's always considered himself to be a true romantic, but that definitely changed when he met you. Yeah, he's always been a flirt but he's the kind of person that people warn that will end up breaking your heart. When he fell for you though, that's the first time he realized he didn't want to end up causing you any trouble or pain. He does what he can to make you feel loved always - he's very verbal about his feelings, and he gives you plenty of reassurance to remind you how much you mean to him and how special you are to him. Oh, and this definitely includes him serenading you when you least expect it!

[gunmetal-ring]

Tbh I think we underestimate how emotionally intelligent Daryl was earlier in the show. Obviously yes s1 and s2 he was emotionally constipated/oblivious but those months on the road + those months in the prison with everyone in constant close quarters forced him to grow up. And I think by the time s4 rolled around he was a lot more insightful than we give him credit for, which is why he was able to actually break down w beth at the moonshine shack.

I think that he knew he was in love with Carol- or even if he didn't know it was Love, he knew it was nothing like how he felt for anyone else - probably in s4 and definitely in s5. It's why he was so adamant about starting over with her - he wanted to get back on the path they were going if not for the governor destroying the prison. He knew they were heading Somewhere and he wanted to get there with her! I think he'd been putting it off at the prison bc he just wasn't ready for it and wanted to make sure he could do it right before jumping into something.

But then the prison fell and he was like "OK well clearly the world isn't going to just wait around for me to Be Ready so let's just do the damn thing." But then she had withdrawn bc of the Grove and he wasn't able to reach her emotionally, and then Beth's murder was too traumatizing for him to handle anything else, and by the time they got to Alexandria they were both emotionally blocked off - not necessarily from each other, but from Everyone, bc It's Just Too Hard Right Now, and there was no space for them to reconnect the way he had wanted them to, and then they were just in different places emotionally at different times.

And given that his last thoughts before he was assuming he'd die were about her, and immediately went looking for her after he escaped, I fully believe he was like "oh we gotta do this bc it's now or never and we might not live to see another day". Except then he realized she was in no place to handle it so he decided to keep it to himself until everything w the saviors was decided one way or another.

And then she was with zeke bc it was an emotional escape and I think daryl knew that, and wasn't thrilled but was like "OK well its not gonna last it's FINE," except then all of a sudden she's a mom to Henry and she's marrying zeke and daryls like "what the fuck this is not supposed to be happening oh no I fucked it all up back in s4" and then his BFF blew up.

And Daryl was like "well I can't handle that AND having the love of my life married w a kid (even tho I know the marriage isn't Real, the Motherhood Is Real, so she's in it for the long haul) so fuck it there's a pretty lady in the woods that needs someone and I'll grieve w her and maybe I can make her feel better and who knows maybe if I pull her out of her funk I'll hate myself less for letting Carol/Rick slip thru my stupid fingers, and maybe I'll be able to do what I couldn't/can't do w carol, idk, but at least I get to see Carol every once in a while, even if it means I have to listen to her talk about the dude that reminds me of my failure to Get With Her and the kid that I Can't Give To Her, I'll just drown my sorrows w Leah, it's FINE."

Except THEN Carol's like "oops now I can't see you anymore, hubby and the kid need me to be All In At The Kingdom," and he's like "great! Now there's nothing left to live for, guess I'll go All In w Leah, except now she's gone and life sucks bc I am totally and completely alone and have to grieve all by myself and nobody cares about me anymore."

And then Carol drags him back to the real world and then her kid is murdered and she breaks up w zeke bc she's Just Not That Into Him and Daryls like "omfg wait a second now I can do what I should have done back in s4 and she Felt Things for me once so she's gotta be able to Feel Things for me again and/or still," except she's a little bonkers crazy from having all her kids die and also never really dealing with Ed abusing her, and then she betrays him a bunch and he's like "okay well. This is fucked. Maybe this isn't such a great idea bc clearly too much has happened since s4. Idek if we can be friends bc she's hurt me 100x over and besides she's just gonna hurt me even more bc she'll run away like she always does and she's made it clear that I'm not important enough to her to stick around anymore so WHATEVER. BYE. You do you, I'm sick of playing 2nd fiddle."

Except THEN diverged happens and he's like "hm well I guess maybe we DO Need To Be Together in some capacity" and then s11 will happen and he'll see that she IS sticking around, and bc they're Meant To Be Together they'll overcome whatever shit happens Together and they'll both be like "I'm sick of fighting, let's ride off into the sunset Together, but let's finally end 10 years worth of sexual tension in the last 30 seconds of the series finale w a kiss bc the show likes to torture its audience, and we'll figure out all the relationship shit on the road"

In classic tradition I rambled but this is my headcanon and unless something wild happens in s11 to unravel this I will always and forever fully believe this sorry not sorry

[ultimatebethylficlist]

Veteran Author of The Month: June 2021

The featured veteran author for June is also a co-admin right here at UBFL: SquishyCool (or @im-immortal )!

SquishyCool can be found on AO3 and FFN under the same penname.

When asked what got her into Bethyl and what the fandom means to her, she said:

I’ve been a hardcore TWD fan since the show began airing, but that’s because of my love for zombies. In all honesty, I didn’t really ship anyone for the first 3-4 seasons. I kind of shipped Daryl with Carol, but then it became clear that it was a platonic relationship and in all honesty, I just wanted to see them both get some action lmao. Then the prison fell... and in those first moments of “Still,” when we see Beth and Daryl running and running and finally collapsing on the ground, breathless and exhausted... the butterflies started. Something clicked and I immediately thought, “uh oh.” The rest is history, especially considering how “Still” and “Alone” played out. I can’t explain how or why I’m still so heavily invested, especially considering my last 2 fandoms only kept my attention for about 2-3 years each, but here I am. And I love it! I am so incredibly grateful for the Bethyl fandom because not only has it helped me improve my writing so much more than I ever could have imagined, but it has also introduced me to some of the most amazing people, including someone who I now consider one of my very best friends! It’s my happy place :)

For her personal fic rec list, she recommends:

In The Maw by ronsparkyspeirs

Way Down We Go by LeathernLaces

Surfacing by lindentree

Wild Things (The Moonshine Poet) by Abelina

The Gift by Feliz

The Man Who Can't Be Moved by burningupasun

New Experiences Series by wallflow3r

Whisper Softly to Me by taylorcatherine

Interstice by leftmywingshome

To Love Like a Man by Seraphique

Death, Death (i defy thee) by alamorn

In My Blood by Courtneyshortney82

Let the Good Times Roll by gutsforgarters

Resolved by Allatariel

the weight of these wings by peachthorns

all my spaces are filled with you by annabeth_writes

A Little Jailbreak with the Little Jailbait by wandering_gypsy_feet

between the beginning and the end by sheriffandsteel

SquishyCool’s Works & Personal Thoughts:

Dirty Fingernails and Dried Blood Summary: What happened during the months between "Still" and "Alone"? Beth uses the last pages of her diary to write down every detail of surviving with Daryl. Thoughts: My first Bethyl fanfic. It holds a special place in my heart for that reason, though it is pretty rough. If I could go back, I never would’ve done it entirely in first-person. But I do plan to finish it one day. There are some scenes I’m particularly proud of, and I still have a long note full of ideas and plot points.

Most Wanted Summary: After Beth’s mother and half-brother are murdered in a drug war, the godly veil on the Greene Family operation is lifted, and law enforcement comes down hard. In an effort to protect her family, Beth commits a heinous crime that could mean life in prison alongside them. Now everyone she’s ever trusted is in police custody and her only chance at freedom is to get as far away from Atlanta as she can... Thoughts: Well, this is a must-read if you like my writing. I hope to one day convert this into an original fiction and maybe get it published, but I need to finish it first LOL. I got the idea from ONE scene of “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt,” and from there, it exploded into a huge mystery thriller (with lots of romance and smut). I’m really really proud of it, and I’m scared I’ll fuck it up tbh, so I keep putting off continuing it. But I really need to get back to it because I really want people to see what I have planned! (Also, this fic is the reason @courtneyshortney82​ started talking to me, so that alone is pretty historic lmao)

The Crow’s Song Summary: Beth and Daryl spend a few more days together in the funeral home and come to terms with all they've lost along the way. But soon, they must decide what comes next. Thoughts: This fic... this fucking fic. It took me a full year to write. I made numerous edits. I even got a little depressed while I was writing the last two chapters, and my bf didn’t know why until he read what I’d been writing lol. It’s honestly the Bethyl fic I’ve always wanted to write but just didn’t know how. I’m still really really proud of how it turned out.

Carnival Games Summary: Daryl is a traveling carnival worker and Beth is a barely legal farmer's daughter looking for a night of fun when the carnival comes to town. Thoughts: Omg this fic is so fun!! One of my first Bethyl fics, and one of my first Bethyl smut fics. Short, sweet, a little funny, and a lot hot. I am still impressed with myself on this one, especially considering how much my writing has improved since lol

Breathe. Please. Summary: Beth shows up at the Hilltop. Alive. Daryl can hardly believe his eyes. Until she's lying in his bed, an arm's reach away. And he can hear her inhaling... exhaling... inhaling... Thoughts: Another “fix-it” that I’m proud of. Tbh I didn’t think it was anything all that special, but a lot of readers have said it’s one of their favorites, and some say they reread it regularly, and nothing makes me happier than hearing that, so I am extremely proud.

picking @ scabs Summary: Sometimes, no matter how much you love someone, being with them just isn't right. But what wouldn't you give for it to be right? Can someone like Daryl learn how to swallow his pride and stop repeating the same mistakes over and over? Can someone like Beth learn to fight off her demons and allow him to get close enough to hurt her again? How can they stay away from each other when it's all too easy to fall back into one another? Picking a scab will leave a scar, but they both have so many scars already... what's a few more? Thoughts: This fic is very, very personal for me. It’s like my “therapy” fic. I have poured some of my deepest feelings and struggles into its chapters, and the whole idea that got me to start it was that I wanted to find a way to navigate and cope with ending my 3-year long relationship with my emotionally/mentally/sometimes physically abusive ex. I still have a lot of fond memories from that relationship, but even more so, I have painful memories. Not to mention, going through your early 20s as a woman in the modern day is a fuckin’ trip, so this kind of explores that. It’s really self-indulgent, I think, but I’m really proud of the smut in it. And more than that, I’m proud of the response. I’ve had a few people message me or comment to say that they’ve felt all those things, or have experienced similar things, and it’s really just... relieving. I put my heart and soul out there, and what I got back was “you’re not alone.” So yeah, this fic is special. I wanna finish it soon, but I have to be in A Mood to do so. 

In Toto Corde Summary: Despite a million reasons not to, Beth and Daryl fell in love. Then he made the ultimate sacrifice in order to keep all of his promises. Now, facing unimaginable consequences at the hands of witch hunters, Beth has no choice but to use her powers to bring Daryl back from the dead. "He won't be the same..." Thoughts: I LOVE THIS FIC. I love it so much that I had to rewrite it after like 4 or 5 years. And I already started on a sequel that I really hope I’m able to finish. Though it doesn’t have many hits, and I don’t think many people have read it at all, which I understand since it basically is entirely focused around Daryl being killed. But damn, I’m proud of this one, and it was really fucking fun to write because witch!Beth is just... the best.

risk it all (part 1 of in for a penny, in for a pound) Summary: Daryl Dixon has a pretty decent life, all things considered. He's got his own place. A good dog. A few friends. Even a girlfriend. He keeps himself out of trouble. Until he starts texting Beth Greene. And hell, if he ain't about to risk it all for this damn girl. Thoughts: This was supposed to be one short multichapter fic focused entirely on smut and social media. Then I got on a roll and it ended up being the beginning of a series! This fic is purely fun. Nothing too serious or heavy. I write it when I’m in a Good Mood because it’s my little happy place. I have plans for about 4 more fics before the series will be finished!

Don’t Make Me Haunt You Summary: So here's the thing: Merle Dixon is dead as fuck. And as it turns out, Beth Greene is the only one who can see or hear him. Which is weird considering she's never met or even heard of this guy, let alone anyone with the last name Dixon. That's her first problem... Thoughts: The reception to this fic has absolutely blown me away. I had no idea anyone would want to read about ghost!Merle haunting Beth and forcing her to solve his murder with the help of his grumpy brother. And it was all inspired by an episode of South Park lmao then I started really getting into it and now it’s just like, my super fun fic where I explore a range of emotions and all kinds of religious beliefs and different mythologies and I can build the world however I want and goddamn I just love writing this fic. Plus there’s a podfic for it! I can’t even begin to explain how much I love this fic and how proud I am of it :)

[shimmershae]

My thoughts on Episode 12--The Lucky Ones

Yeah.  Spoilers have me not too excited for this one either, I admit.  Maybe that’s at least one of the reasons for the crackdown?  Like Angela knows we won’t tune in if we preemptively find out they boring as hell?  I dunno.  

Anywho.  Starting the ep in 3-2-1.  

As always, placed behind a cut for those of you that would rather escape my babbling, lol.  You’re welcome.  

Okay.  I have to say that I do love how nerdy Real Stephanie, aka Max is. 

I’m tired, though, of glasses being used to denote nerdiness.  Because some of the biggest nerds I’ve ever met (hahaha) don’t wear or need glasses.  The Clark Kent stuff is getting a wee bit old.  So long as they don’t eventually have Max undergo a “glow up” just by removing them and fixing her hair, a la She’s All That, I can overlook it but still.  

Sidenote:  I love Max’s quilt.  Because it’s colorful and pretty and feminine and these characters have long been deprived of those kind of things so it’s nice to actually see it again.  

Mercer busting on up in Max’s room like he did feels more like an uber-overprotective dad move than big brother.  Maybe dude took over the rest of raising her young (baby) adult self when the world fell.  Tbh?  Mercer and Max kind of put me in mind of Connie and Kelly, though I feel the age gap with the latter is more significant.  Are they mirrors of each other?  Interesting to contemplate.  Anyway.  Babbling temporarily over, lol.  Onward. 

“Especially for me and you...”  Okay, though.  Where was Mercer going with that statement?  Is it especially dangerous because it puts their high positions (Commander or whatever of CW soldiers/Pamela’s assistant) in peril?  Or for some other reason?  Like they’re part of or at least sympathetic to the burgeoning Resistance?  

That look Fake Stephanie gave Real Stephanie, aka Max.  Does she know?  Does Lancy already know or at least suspect Max was the voice?  Because dude totally seems like the type to sit on information until he hatches the perfect scheme for it to benefit him.  

I promise.  I won’t call Max Real Stephanie forever, lol.  It’s just a hard habit to break.  

“A day without my son acting like a little asshole.”  LOL.  To dream the impossible dream be just as dangerous as not Pamela.  

Poor Eugene in  his teenage, prepubescent feels as a grown ass 40+ year old man.  Kang really thought let’s do the 40 year old Virgin in the most emotionally traumatic way for this man. I mean.  It could have been worse.  But Eugene feels so betrayed. Ms. Angela has a mean streak a country mile wide don’t she?  

What’s so special about ASZ, Lancy?  With half of my faves vacating it, it’s just some place.  

It makes 100% sense Aaron was the one to stay behind and oversee rebuilding ASZ but I don’t like not having him interacting with everyone else.  Tbh?  It was around the time they started splitting Team Family off in so many groups that my interest in the entire show (separate from my favorites) started to tank.  Just saying.  Because this season is sadly giving me some of those same vibes and making it hard to stay engaged.  Coupled with the lack of any kind of promotion or even connection between the characters that we have long watched and loved together and I feel my initial excitement at seeing how they tie all these threads up into ZA-appropriate bows eroding as I type this.  

“It didn’t matter.”  Daryl’s answer to Mercer when Boss Dude asked him what he did before gives me mixed feelings.  Because on the one hand, I’m loving it because it really didn’t matter.  Who they were burnt away so they could become the people they were always meant to be.  But on the other hand?  I’m just as curious as Mercer as Zach as everybody else and actually hope we find out more about Daryl’s past as he and Carol pursue their future because I feel there’s some real good, meaty stuff there for NR and MMB to slay us with and bury our damn bodies, lol.  

I don’t recall Daryl being that big a fan of Deanna but I guess time and maturing your viewpoint is what hindsight is all about.  

Interesting that Pamela said she wasn’t interested in politics at that time when I had HER pegged as a politician from birth.  

Finally.  Something that makes actual sense.  EZ’s right hand man Jerry actually being his literal right hand man, lol.  

Lancy must have been mega impressed with our girl to move EZ all the way to the front of the line and pay off his bill.  The power she has.  

Ofc, Jerry is ecstatic.  I love it.  <3

Pedicures during the ZA.  Imagine that.  

Nothing against Rachel.  But did they ever satisfactorily explain WTF happened with Cyndie and why Rachel ascended to leadership?  All I’m asking for is a little continuity.  If it makes actual sense?  All the better.  They waste so much expository dialogue to fabricate wholeass friendships and other relationships out of thin air but don’t bother to use it to explain where the hell people disappear to if they’re not canonically dead.  I just don’t get it.  Angela, girl.  Sometimes I question your priorities.  Especially when you’d rather feed the trolls for the sake of feeding them instead of informing the rest of us watching the actual show and not rewriting it into fanfic in our heads where so many previously established characters just up and disappeared to.  

On a related note, where the hell was Oceanside when ASZ was starving?  Make this shit make sense.  Please and thank you.  

Is Aaron really that much bigger than Lancy?  LMAO.  I mean.  I know he’s definitely the “bigger” man but literally too?  

Damn, y’all.  Even that Daryl/Maggie hug was more intense and intimate than THAT hug.   NR really demonstrating the difference amongst friendly hugs (Connie + Kelly), family hugs (Maggie), and forever (SOULMATE, I mean Carol) hugs and people be sleeping on the man’s work big time.  

C’mon.  Subconsciously, you know they have to KNOW.  

Did Lydia go back to Hilltop because she felt a connection with Henry there because when has she shared more than 10 words with Maggie?  And when were they more than civil?  Because Maggie was pretty distrustful of her in the past so I’m not seeing the draw for my girl in going back to Hilltop.  Unless she just felt uncomfortable with CW helping rebuild ASZ and didn’t feel like it was “home” anymore without Daryl and Carol there.  

“When do I ever?”  More proof Daryl is playing this CW system solely for the kids’ sakes because you know he ain’t trusting them far as he can throw ‘em.  

Pamela Milton acting like she’ s on some type of safari hunt has me LOL.  I don’t know if I’m supposed to or not, though.  

Pamela’s either a super slick politician or just innately savvy enough to press Maggie’s buttons.  Probably both.  I’m thinking both.  

The self-proclaimed king is dwelling in poverty.  No wonder he’s questioning things.  I mean.  To go from a kingdom of admirers to one real admirer in Jerry and an ex that’s on a mission .  Ouch.  

Took 20 fucking minutes for my girl to show up.  Do better, Angela.  Not everybody has the patience of Job waiting for the best part of the show to commence with her arrival.  

How is MMB so freaking beautiful?  What damn show are the ageist haters watching because she is gorgeous?  

“Because I don’t want you to die.”  Carol’s never wanted any of them to die.  This is nothing new or even all that special in case some people want to pretend it is, lol.  Just saying.  Her facial expression though, lovelies.  LMAO.  The unspoken but blatant WTF still has me rolling.  Like, is EZ more offended that she circumnavigated around a corrupt system and “cheated” on his behalf?  Or that she did it and shows no signs of throwing herself into his arms and declaring her everlasting romantic love?  That she did it simply because it’s the kind of thing she’d do for anybody she’s ever cared for?  

Sorry.  Sorry.  I’m being unfair.  But dude is 100% aware there’s nothing there for them as a couple, you can tell.  And I think part of his attitude toward her stems from that knowledge.  

“...for her shitty son.”  LMAO.  Tell us how you really feel, Carol.  

Cue the overzealous, performatory CZers jumping all over the lesser man commentary in 3-2-1.  He still ain’t the man of honor she’s been looking for since Season 2.  In deed and everything else?  That man is Daryl Dixon but some people are never gonna be ready for that conversation.  

Against my will, I’m actually, I wouldn’t say liking Pamela, but I would admit to falling deeper into intrigue over what makes her tick.  That’s all thanks to the actress, I’m sure.  

Beautiful shot of Eugene in front of that body of water.  But can somebody, anybody please, PLEASE take a pair of scissors to that rat tail hanging from his head?  Because it vexes me so, lol.  

Aww.  Rosita stopping by with Coco.  I have really grown to be touched by this friendship.  I’m not gonna pretend I haven’t.  

I know she don’t want that baby’s stroller close to the edge of that pier but it doesn’t sit right with me that Rosita is relaxed enough at the CW to have her literally positioned at her back.  Like, is it bringing up any of the same feelings in anybody else or just me?”

“Pretty damn good at everything you do, Rosita.”  Aww, Eugene will always have her on a pedestal, won’t he?  

It’s not that he’s wrong exactly but Rosita’s expression says she thinks he’s given her too much credit and yet?  She’s touched.  

Rosita being excited about the future makes me worry she won’t have one because this damn show has given me major PTSD and trust issues.  

I’m refraining from d’awwing again but I do love what the Rosita/Eugene friendship has grown into.  Rosita is so sweetly supportive of him that it gives me major feels.  

I almost didn’t recognize Dianne without her armor.  Especially with her hair down.  

Other than the Henry connection, seriously, somebody help me understand why Lydia threw her lot in with Maggie because I’m blanking on when they’ve ever shared more than a semi-friendly scene.  

Sweet hug between Lydia and Daryl.  I was wondering when or if they were even gonna acknowledge each other.  

Lydia asking Daryl how to know when to walk away feels multifold.  Like not just from trying to fix a broken community but a broken relationship (with somebody that feels broken) too.  

Daryl asking Lydia if that (walking away) is what she wants to do felt like a concerned guardian going “oh shit, you gonna make me worry about you, too?”  LOL.  No.  Seriously.  Season 11 Daryl is all about choices.   You’re not gonna convince me that Lydia bringing up that question didn’t lead his mind back to Carol.  For reasons.  

Why is Hershel wearing Mercer’s hat/helmet thingy making me think of Spaceballs?  LMAO.  Glad they finally showed the little dude because I was starting to think TWD straight up giving all these kids the soap opera treatment.  

Wonder who it was that thought it’d be better for Daryl to be out of his armor for appearance’s sake?  Lancy or Pamela?  

I do enjoy the Daryl/Mercer interplay so more of it, please.  Also?  I enjoyed the fact that Mercer respects Daryl enough to voice a subtle warning about CW.  

“Pineapple on pizza makes no sense.”  Literally the first thing, aside from thinking Carol is an absolute goddess, that me and the self-professed king have agreed upon in ages.  

Okay.  I think smarmy Lancy just overplayed his slimy hand but we’ll see.  

Another quick sidenote:  Mercer is so effortlessly badass and I love him.  

“Everything costs something.”  I’m actually with Maggie on this one.  

“It was an infiltration of the most epic proportions.  He is a snake.”  And Carol’s gonna cut the head off that snake but carry on, Eugene.  

Eugene is tugging on my heartstrings.  I’m not gonna lie.  

Okay.  Screw it.  Eugene and Max are cute in their nerdy way.  I wouldn’t be opposed to seeing more of them.  But not at the expense of more Carol scenes because GD.  Somebody remind Angela who her female lead fucking is.  

Judith sending Hershel candy was sweet but what about her forgotten BFF Forever Gracie?  

So.  Pamela knows Lancy’s a snake, too.  Is this a case of it takes one to know one or?  Who is the bigger evil here?  The devil you know or the one waiting in the wings?  

Interesting preview but again no Carol that I could see and they’re introducing yet more new characters.  I’m tired AF of this.  If they hadn’t completely pushed their female lead aside in 11A for the other newb group Kang was deadass determined to push down our throats, it would be one thing.  But it’s developing into (or revisiting) a shit ass pattern I hate so nah.  

Let’s see what Angela’s explanation points hold for us, shall we?  

Very moral person, huh Angela?  As opposed to Carol who’s what?  You know what?  Fuck the implications of that statement and editing, intended or unintended.  Dude is not some moral paragon.  He’s fallible and human and humanly selfish.  Trying to pretend otherwise, to whitewash the only non-caricature personality points he has?  Does not do him any favors.  Just saying.  

Carol’s always right.  We been knew.  

Pamela added to the list of those impressed by Maggie.  Like, we get it, Angela.  You keep telling us Maggie’s the greatest but is she?  Is she really?  Have her actions demonstrated it?  I still retain some meassure of affection for the character but damn you’re laying it on thick. 

These fools might be impressed with Maggie but they’re never in a million years gonna see Carol coming so.  I know who I find more impressive and it’s not the character you’re using a buttload of other characters to tell me they’re impressive.  

Thing is?  I want to be on Maggie’s side and embrace her return so bad (for nostalgia and Glenn-related reasons) but the blatant ass kissing at this point REEKS of shit so it’s a no for me right now, dog.  

Overall impressions?  

I enjoyed the episode much more than I anticipated because it kept me engaged and you know why it kept me engaged?  

Because every spoke of the story had a link to our long-term characters, be it Daryl on the mission with the CW’s political leaders, Aaron overseeing ASZ’s reconstruction, Maggie highlighting Hilltop’s struggles, Eugene and Rosita touching base as he navigated the perils of love and betrayal at the CW, and the Carol of it all and her desire to fix other “broken” things with EZ’s flagging health.  

Don’t get me wrong.  Last week wasn’t terrible.  I really do have a soft spot for Eugene, I like Connie and I love Princess, and any time Carol is playing superspy I am there.  But it  honestly didn’t feel like TWD and not just because of the tone.  Because of the choice of characters not as firmly rooted in my heart and imagination as Carol and Daryl and the other long-timers.  

The superheroine sisters are great but they are supporting characters at best.  Eugene, by default, is what I consider a long-term main character but without the anchor of other similar characters, his character suffers somewhat.  

Essentially, last week felt like they played us the B-side of one of Princess’s records and while it had some merit and enjoyment factor, there’s a reason it’s not on the A-side.  You lovelies get me?  

LOL.  

Anyway.  

I’m not too inclined to sit my ass up waiting for next week’s ep either so who knows when you’ll next get these rambling thoughts nobody much cares about, lol.  

Until next time.    

[lauraluna98]

Diana’s mothers fanfic

Have you ever think about Diana’s parents?

Have you think how did Daryl become so mean with Diana?

Why only Daryl, the twins and Diana are the only Cavendish remaining?

Where’s Diana’s grandparents?

Who’s Diana’s grandparents?

Why they aren’t there?

Why Bernadette was dead?

Who’s Diana dad?

How’s Bernadette Luna Nova years? If she really studied there

What happened in the Cavendish manor?

I’m going here to ask all these question with this fanfiction I wrote that is going to give a proper and a writing you guys never seen about Bernadette Cavendish the mother of Diana and her wife

Things here are going to change from the canon a little but well this is fanfiction and this is what fanfiction stand for

“Wait Wife? How? Why?”

Yeah Wife, by magic they made their kid and I’m going to explain why I choose a woman to be Bernadette’s wife rather than a dad

Simply, because feels generic and shallow to just simply give Bernadette a generic husband, this wouldn’t give a better writing to Bernadette as if was with another girl, Bernadette would simply marry or just have Diana with a generic man #1 and then one day he will die, leave her, or even plan to kill her

Plus the great majority of the fandom shipps Diakko, and they never think about the whole dilemma around Diana, by Akko’s side is easier she just need to fell in love with Diana and then yay they are together. But What about Diana’s side? Have you guys ever think that she’s an aristocrat (I’m not assumpting that aristocrats are LGBTphobes), she needs to keep a reputation there, a image and even she needs to have kids in order to keep her lineage being the one who will keep the head. So by Diana’s side things are harder, the reputation side she just can be simply strong and say openly that she’s a lesbian and everyone needs to accept that because we are in modern days but things get complicated about having kids

And pretty much the fanarts about a Diakko kid the children is always 100% biological daughter of Diana and Akko, so an artificial insemination by a donator is out of question (unless the donator is someone from the family who looks like them). Trans headcanon? That’s a pretty cool concept I think, tbh I love it, but to that work Diana or Akko wherever is gonna be Trans need to froze their sperm before the HRT if they want to have kids in the future, because the HRT make person infertile after a while. So magic? Well this is a another cool concept if both are cis so a fertility spell enters here, but how this is going to work? Leave that to the writers to do it. This is the idea I pick up with the fertility stone

This is why I come into the idea of giving Diana two mothers rather than a generic dad, because with that possibility Diana would get into the conclusion that a fertility spell is real with her at the first not actually believing it, until she finds out that her father was actually an another mother and she used the fertility stone with Bernadette

See how cool is that? And I’m not even starting to tell about Diana’s mom deeply, because this isn’t a story that takes place in the modern days but in the past

This is going to focus on Diana’s mothers

Bernadette Cavendish (the one everyone knows) and Laura McLaren (better than the generic Diana’s father OC)

Just to enter into the context of this story, the Cavendish family was into a time where they are even more close minded than today, on a time where Diana’s grandmother was alive and she’s a very conservative person, she was LGBTphobe AF not allowing their two daughters being other sexuality rather than straight, she controlled a lot of Bernadette’s life and even pressure her to be perfect

So times there was even worse for her than what is today. Bernadette’s mother was someone who preserve for the traditions and the image of the Cavendish family and this is where Daryl’s hatred among Diana enters

“What? But Diana wasn’t even born”

Because the hate wasn’t with Diana, but at Bernadette, Daryl hated Bernadette

“But in the anime has shown that Daryl had some feelings with her sister”

Really? I’ve only seen her screwing up with Bernadette will to keep the traditions of the family and she simply sell everything, I’ve seen her pretty much being very mean to Diana, not even taking care of her niece, plus when Bernadette was alive she pretty much was bullying Diana for liking Shiny Chariot

Come on the twins are less worse because they are kids but Daryl was a grown ass mother with two kids, she was simply bullying her niece for nothing when Bernadette was still alive in the canon

So this is how I come that Daryl is envy of Bernadette and she in reality hates her and I pretty much think that she’s even responsible for her sister death

Because of power, money and the wish to be the head of the family, Daryl pretty much has shown that in the anime and even her redemption was more like “Yeah you didn’t leave me to die so I’m in debt with you” (If LWA was going to have a season 2 she could pretty much fit into a villain and even if LWA didn’t have, Daryl was more Villainous than Croix ever was)

This envy among Daryl was something that started since she and Bernadette were kids, because their mother prioritize all the attention to the eldest daughter, the eldest daughter should be the one who will deserve to be the head and all the attention, but this is how their mother think is right to do and because of that Daryl starts to hate Bernadette’s side, plus that she was educated into a different way, she got more “evil” and greedy with the influence of her great aunts that think like that, while Bernadette was educated to be someone more “nice” and preserve the traditions of the family, she was even a little influenced by her grandma that actually believes into the fertility stone legend, where all the family think that’s bullshit

Bernadette needs to improve herself as a person to overcome all that weight over her, to have her own personality and freedom, because she didn’t have any freedom on her residence, until she enters on Luna Nova and meet someone called Laura McLaren

Laura is the complete opposite of Bernadette with her family, the McLaren family was like the Cavendish but from Ireland, they are rich too, but they prefer to live on a more simple big house, rather than a big ass castle because is more cheaper to maintain, Laura’s family is open minded AF they already knew about the fertility stone because the matriarch of the family is a 88 years old trans lesbian who used the fertility stone back then, so they are pretty much very fine with LGBT thing. Laura is openly a lesbian and she’s free to be herself, even tho she was most of the time trained with magic to become a powerful witch, so that makes her a strong ass witch that she didn’t even need to study in Luna Nova, but she’s there just for the grade

Laura was going to show to Bernadette how’s the freedom to be herself and not accept everything, that she needs to impose herself when someone is making her feeling down and Bernadette was going to make Laura being more mature with herself, since Laura was a little teen rebel, since she didn’t care that much about the authority of older persons rather than the family, so she really feels like she’s an adult and wanted to be respected like one. She’s the kind of badass tomboy girl who don’t care about authority and thing that she knows how the system works, so she obeys only who she really want

The time was going to be set around 1987 on the very first chapter which could fit very well into the canon since the anime canon takes place 30 years later, plus the time they make into adulthood and when the couple finally have their kids

The 15/16 years students on that time are going to be born on July 1971 to June 1972 and their birthdates will actually fit into the school year

Daryl is 3 years younger in this story she will be born in 1975 just like Laura’s sister Chelsea

The main differs with the canon

Since the time is changed in this AU with the anime being set on 2014 the 16 years old characters of the anime are born in 1998 in this AU.

Another thing I’m going to fix from the canon is the School year, since Luna Nova is a British school I’m going to change the school year from the canon which use the Japanese school year starting on May, but here I’m going to make the year starting in September to June next year with three vacation, December on Winter, two weeks after the easter on a spring break and the 3 months vacations from June to September when the year ends

And the whole magic limitation of them need to be near the sorcerer stone in order to use magic, in this AU they can use magic wherever they want, the most powerful the witch the most capable she is with the magic to point some of them can use their own body as wands

The dates are going to differ from the canon on the AU only when Diana is born and Chariot/Croix age since this is a part of the whole AU where the “anime” is set on 2014 and I make them both on the 30s when I didn’t know their canon ages there, so Chariot will be born on 1984, this will make her a kid when she meets Laura McLaren when she come to the Du Nord family residence to research for the fertility stone this presence of Laura is what made Chariot enchanted with magic

Bernadette have olive green eyes, idk if this differs a lot since we didn’t have proper canon information of her eyes and we didn’t even see her eyes in the anime, the main information is that the Cavendish has mostly blue eyes and I put her with greenish ones just because I want to make her unique, being the only Cavendish with a different eye color in her family

Diana is Irish/Scottish here, since Laura is Irish and Bernadette Scottish this makes Diana half of each (making her more Irish than Amanda lol)

Bernadette didn’t die, but that part could be also the one with Bernadette die and the whole canon anime happen with Laura didn’t come back to see her daughter

The Claiomh Solais didn’t appear for Chariot neither Croix and the main reason is because wasn’t needed at that time, the magic was pretty good, so both girls still become rivals but into another thing that is Broom Racing, just like on the real life we have Formula 1, so why not a championship with broom racing like Formula 1? This is what I bring into the AU in the next story which takes place after this one

Akko still idolize chariot but into her dream to become a Broom Racer and you can see here

Diana also like’s Chariot career but her main Broom Racing icon is her own mother Laura McLaren which become a excellent Broom Racer on the 1990s decade, without actually know that broom racer is her mother

The fic

It’s a remake of The mysterious mother, a lot of things are gonna be like the original but I’m also going to do a lot of changes to give more development to the characters, give more reasons to them to do what they did and also I wanted to do a story to fit in my whole AU

Well I talked a lot but not about the story, but this is because I don’t want to give a lot of spoilers on what happened and the whole answers to all these questions, even the one where Laura leaves Diana, since she’s a nice person, something happened that Laura leaves her lovely wife and her daughter and how did Diana never knew about who’s her dad actually is

Take a read into the very first chapter and have fun because this is going to be a very looong story with some familiar faces around there and some of them that are OC’s but they are needed to appear since most of the cast isn’t born at all despite the teachers at Luna Nova or Chariot and Croix that are still pretty young

This story is also the 3rd part of the whole AU of the fertility stone which you can check out all the parts I’ve wrote just to be more clearer with this whole story

Part 1: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26913469

Part 2: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27899341

Part 3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/31098311

Part 4: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23807575

Also not only we are going to know about Diana’s mothers but a lot of things that will play on the part 5 story read it to find out, since the story is going to take place 50 years after this one, also is going to be a very very long story with them I’m already with 30+ chapters wrote and I’m gonna write even more, plus I’m gonna do daily updates so stay all the days on Ao3 for updates on the same time if you got interested on this story (I’m also very sorry with bad English and Grammar since I just put the story into Deepl translator and I change a word or another into the translation, when things get confused, since English is not my language)

Ao3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/31098311

Fanfiction: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13875351/1/Laura-McLaren-The-mother-of-Diana-Cavendish-IV

Wattpad: https://www.wattpad.com/1065632225-laura-mclaren-the-mother-of-diana-cavendish-iv-so

[theteasetwrites]

Hello there! I, uh, just wanted to tell you, how much I love and adore your writing. You're brilliant, honestly! I am grateful that I have the honour to read your amazing work. I stumbled over your blog a few weeks ago. I am quite 'new' in the TWD fandom (currently watching Season 9). I wanted to see what all the hype is about - and gods, I didn't regret it one moment that I started to watch it! I fell so utterly in love with Daryl (and Norman himself) - and well, here I am. *blushes*

Not gonna lie... I literally binge read The Beginning series in the last few days/weeks! It's wonderful. I think it's one of the best series I ever read! You took me on a whole new journey through the series... I cried, I laughed, I was shocked and afraid to the core - but I loved every single word. This story touched my heart and soul - especially the chapters in Season 7, when Y/N starts to hallucinate. I can't wait to read more!

Thank you from the bottom of my heart for writing this breath-taking story. I raise my hat to you and bow down, 'cause what you do is majestically. 🧡

Hi! Thank you so much, that means so much to me. Reading messages like this is what keeps me going! I'm so glad you started TWD and like it enough to read fanfiction! Tbh I don't really like any other media enough to read fanfiction for it so this is like my main thing lmao. It's always nice to know that people are still getting into TWD and starting to read the fanfiction!! <3 And I mean how could you not fall in love with Daryl? He's so dashing. I didn't even really like Daryl as much as I do now until about season 3/4, then I became smitten.

Awww that's awesome! Thank you for reading my series! I am so glad to hear you like it. Omg did you really cry? I am touched. Omg you're going to make me cry now. And yes, she had a tough time in season 7. I feel for her too when I read that chapter back.

You're welcome! I loved writing it. I still love writing it. I don't ever want to stop writing for them! And tbh, I don't think I am done with that series yet. I am going to continue it somehow. I'm not sure how yet, but I most likely will, and I will keep writing oneshots for it. And please don't bow down to me lmao I am on the same playing field as everyone else <3

Thank you, ily

[damn-daryldixon-imagines]

Just Hold On

Your name: submit What is this?

Request: Can you please do an imagine where the reader(female) is in the van in the S-6 finale and Daryl is in bad shape. You find him a blanket and hold him until dwight gets them out after Abe's chosen Daryl passes out you help care for him at hilltop when Daryl realizes whats going on hes shocked to find out you caring for him.He thought you hated him. You found his scars and he opens up to you.You have always loved him but he's always so mean. Please=super awkward Daryl Fluff comfort/care love

A/N: Super excited to be writing again tbh

     “Just hold on, just a little bit longer,” you whisper, emotion spilling into every word you said to Daryl. He was covered in his own blood and shallow breaths were the only response you got. You could tell he was close to blacking out. Your arms were wrapped around his much larger frame, keeping the blanket secure while his head rested on your chest. The hunter didn’t acknowledge you, most likely in a world of his own pain, just trying to hold on to the thin line of consciousness he had left. 

     You were gently running your fingers through his hair, attempting to bring yourself some serenity as the man you loved was bleeding out in your arms. Tears were no stranger to your face in this moment; you were desperately praying to whoever, whatever was out there that Daryl would survive. You couldn’t let him die, not now.  

     The love for him blossomed back at the CDC. You don’t know what did it, maybe it was his fierce determination to keep everyone safe, but you knew in that moment that you fell hard. It continued at the farm, growing more and more. Although you were undeniably attached to this man, you never got too close. You knew this love was one-sided, that he only felt your presence bothersome. Every time you approached him, he’d snap or give you stares that froze the courage in your body.

     But now, he was weak and letting you take care of him. You were whispering reassurances in his ear that you would keep him alive and that he didn’t have to worry when the truck lurched forward and stopped. A groan escaped Daryl’s lips from the sudden motion.

      Then the doors swung open to reveal Dwight. He yanked Daryl out of your arms and then pulled you as well. That’s when you saw it.

     Your family was lined up, all on their knees. 

     Dwight pushed Daryl to the left while you got tugged to the right by another arm. You were forced to fall to your knees next to Carl, who gave you a sympathetic but intense look. 

      You glance to the hunter, aching to be by his side and protect him from harm. He was looking at you already, fear evident in his eyes, making you feel terrified of what was to come.

     And then the trailer door opened.

     Sobs came from everywhere once Negan and his men left you all there, taking in the sight of Abraham’s mangled body. Rick looked defeated at this point, slowly taking in what happened. 

     You couldn’t look at the body, not without feeling a wave of sickness wash over you. You couldn’t look at your dead friend, not after what Negan did to him. 

      So instead you look at Daryl who was silently crying, unable to move. You were the first to stand, rushing over to Daryl who looked on the brink of something deadly. You sit and cradle his head on your lap while you both cry. But mere moments later, Daryl was closing his eyes, igniting panic in your body.

     “No Daryl,” you said firmly, “you have to stay awake.” you knew what could happen if he fell asleep, you knew you could lose the person you loved.

     Instead, he drifted off into a deep, blood-loss induced sleep.

     The journey to Hilltop was excruciating; everyone was haunted by the images of the barbed wired bat striking Abraham’s head again and again while none of you could do a single damn thing.

     Daryl’s arm was slung around your shoulders as you helped his half conscious state move forward. His groans were the only sounds that came from your group, all too traumatized to speak. You were struggling to keep him standing, but the thought of him dying fueled your determination to get to Hilltop.

     Once you saw the gates, you almost cried from relief.  

     You rushed, trying to half drag the hunter’s bloody form into Hilltop as they opened the gates to you and your broken down family.

     Daryl was in pain. He could feel every muscle cause a splinter of fire to travel to his wound. He was met with lights above his head and a bed under his body. But also, there was a pressure on his legs.

     His eyes traveled down to find you, clutching his hand and sleeping on his lap. A frown was on your lips, making you look distressed, even in sleep.

    “She hasn’t left, you know.” Daryl glanced to the doorway, finding Maggie standing there. He looked down at you, taking in the sight of your angelic face breathing in and out. After getting no response, Maggie spoke again. “She dragged you here and wouldn’t eat or drink or shower until she knew you were getting treated. I suggest you thank her when she wakes.” And with that, Maggie left Daryl alone with you.

     He hesitantly brought his other hand to your hair, combing it out of your face. He absentmindedly ran his fingers through your hair while you continued to sleep. Daryl thought you hated him. You avoided him at every cost, acting like he was the big bad wolf. He was shocked that you were caring for him.

     You did wake though, briefly forgetting everything that happened; you woke up warm and nothing seemed wrong. But then it all crashed into place. The truck. Daryl. Negan. The bat. Abraham. The struggle to get to Hilltop. Everything just started hitting you hard, one by one. 

     “Uh, you okay?” 

     Then you realized you dozed off on Daryl’s lap. Heat flooded your face as you brought your head up. “I’m so sorry Daryl. I really didn’t mean to.”

     “’S alright.” He muttered, looking anywhere but you. Awkward silence filled the air as you struggled to find something, anything to say. Daryl beat you to it though when he said, “Thank you. For what you did. Maggie told me.”

     You nodded, saying that it wasn’t a problem and that he would’ve done the same for everyone else. Guilt was eating you up, though. You helped change his shirt and you knew you saw something you weren’t supposed to. You had a feeling you knew what happened and your heart broke every time you thought of someone hurting your Daryl.

Not your Daryl, you corrected yourself.

     “Daryl,” you said slowly, “I saw your back and I swear it will stay between us. You don’t even have to tell me what happened.” You looked back up, expecting an angry glare. Instead, you found a soft expression fall over his features.

     “’S not your fault. It was my dad. Used to hit me ‘n Merle when he was drunk.” Daryl said quietly. You nodded, not sure of what to say. Again, Daryl filled the silence with a question. “Why did you do all this?”

     “You would’ve done it too.”

     “That’s not the reason.”

     You sighed, knowing that even when injured, the archer was hard-headed. “I’m in love with you. I have been for a while now.”

     You dared to peek at the hunter’s face. He was wearing a confused look, almost doubting. “I thought you hated me.”

     “No,” you insisted. “I thought you hated me, so I stayed away.”

     He softly smiled. “Couldn’ hate you if I tried.” You gave him a smile as well, as much as a smile you can give after everything that happened. “I think I might be in love with you too.”

     And that night, you slept next to Daryl, shielding him from the evils of the world you lived in, while he gathered you into his arms as best he could. That night you got the best sleep you had gotten in a while.

[gunmetal-ring]

why do you like angela kang from caryl shipper perspective? what did make you to have faith in her regarding caryl ship and it's spinoff?

Haha I see you've sent this to quite a few people, I feel blessed to be included so ty

I mean I watched twd as it aired thru season 4 and just never picked it back up. Ms. Rona then forced me to desperately grab onto any form of media and hyperfixation that I could to retain my sanity in 2020. And I sort of just fell into the caryl ship when I decided to rewatch twd in conjunction w reading fanfic and it was after the spinoff was announced so I felt pretty confident lol

I loved s10 bc it was just caryl&co, and that one fuckin scene that Daryl is wiping away Carol's tears and looking like he's a breath away from kissing her? Oy vey

Ngl I was absolutely fuckin devastated when Leah spoilers dropped. Like completely crushed. And a large part of that wasn't even possibly-caryl-ship-sinking related, it was that I felt that Daryl (a character i relate to on a deeply profound level, in a different way than I do carol) was all of a sudden totally alien to me. Wildly ooc.

However. Upon actually watching find me (just like @waynedunlaptheorgandonor and @my-mt-heart recommended lol) I was able to find peace with it. A fear of mine was that the spinoff would be about caryl looking for Leah. But episode was basically screaming "Look! Daryls ex gf is basically name brand Carol!" And as much as I hate using women as nothing more than plot devices for men's development, I was hypocritically relieved that Leah was basically "Look at how far Daryl fell during those 6 years! Look at how much he wanted Carol and had to settle! Look at how desperate Daryl was not to be alone!"

And then once the filming spoilers dropped that Leah would be in s11 I was like "Alright well the spinoff won't be about her it'll be about caryl"

And then I found out that the spinoff originally was about caryl dropping into team family and checking up on them every so often, and now it's they ride off into the sunset, I'm like oh OK. That's that on that

It's funny bc I've gotten much better at like critically analyzing TV and movies specifically due to this show - and I know that bc now when I watch tv/movies I'm able to predict "Oh X plot will happen bc Y character said Z line" or whatever and like 90% of the time I'm right lol

All of this to say... I personally feel like the whole time-jump-retcon-gf deal is lazy and alienating but I get why it happened and I'm still p confident that caryl will be canon. My only concern now is just the execution bc of the unbelievably bloated ensemble cast and concurrent storylines.

Sorry for rambling but tbh... you asked a woman who almost exclusively writes fic that is devoid of fluff/established relationships and usually doesnt make caryl canon until the absolute last second so you get what you asked for!!

[empressmcbride]

Daryl/ do you hate him or blame him for Glenn's death?

nope. never have, never will. this is victim blaming at it’s best. people talk about this as if daryl was the one to swing the bat instead of n*gan. n*gan decided to play this game with them. n*gan decided it was so much fun to torture them all. and n*gan decided to swing the bat and kill glenn. 

do i like where daryl is as a character lately? no, i absolutely don’t. i am sick and tired of his so called “story arc”. the writers should be more than ashamed by what they write for him. i miss the older seasons so much and have no idea how people dislike them so often. the writing was so much better. the characters actually talked to each other, had storylines that made sense and the villains were good. good old times.

i love daryls character. always have, always will. but we can also all go back and watch the episode together, because other characters decided to either talk or jump up to someones defense too. michonne begged him to stop and that they understood, glenn jumped to maggie’s defense and so on and so on. the only difference is that nothing happened there. and we wouldn’t have this conversation if anyone elses actions had lead us to this end result. let’s be really fucking real. i am absolutely disgusted that this scene, or the whole episode, were written the way they were. stop giving daryl these stupid arcs when you showed how intelligent he is in the past. people crawl up n*gans ass and yet say daryl killed glenn. as long as it involves n*gan it’s “just a character”, “he’s a villain, that’s what he does”….

and like hanna said over here i am so shocked and disgusted with the material the writers decided to give glenn for his final season. or better what material to not give him. he deserved ten times better than this. the whole dumpster bullshit makes his death even worse. instead of giving him some more backstory or moments with his wife they pull this shit. it’s just not the show i fell in love with anymore. they take and take and take from us and we get nothing back. only pain and misery. and twenty new characters who get bottle eps and arcs instead of showing us team family.

do i get that people are angry at daryl? yes, i do. i absolutely do. what he did in that situation wasn’t right, but he simply reacted to protect someone. because that is how he is. he would die for team family, and he was ready to. but the person with the bat and twisted games is n*gan. n*gan killed abraham. n*gan killed glenn. and that fact shouldn’t even be up for discussion tbh.

[whitewolfofwinterfell]

4 , 9 , 17 , 18 , 24 , 26 , 31 , 32 , 20 ,

4. What’s your current NOTP?D*lena and C.lace. 

9. Do you have many ships that never got together at all?I already answered this, so I’m just gonna copy and paste, cos obviously it’s the same answer. I have a fair few. Off the top of my head, Eleven/Amy, Daryl/Beth, Dexter/Debra, Harry/Hermione, Bella/Jacob. Then there’s Emma/Regina and Bonnie/Damon, but there’s still a chance they may get together (we can hope!).

17. Talk about a pairing you’ve stopped shipping romantically.I already talked about Emma and H00k, so this time I’ll talk about Sherlock and John. I’d always been unsure about whether I shipped them romantically tbh, but it was one of those situations whereby cos the Sherlock fandom is so dominated by Johnlock fans, I kinda got sucked into it too and started shipping them. But I just realised that I don’t ship them romantically at all. Don’t get me wrong, I can see the chemistry is there, but I just see Sherlock as being so bad for John. There’s a very unhealthy dynamic to their relationship and ultimately Sherlock is always the one pulling the strings and John is forced to follow. But honestly, it’s mostly because I just see them as being friends more so than anything else. 

18. Talk about a moment which made you question an entire ship.I’d definitely have to say the TVD season 4 finale where Elena chose D*mon. Like I had complete faith all the way through season 4 that by the end of the season Elena would find her way back to Stefan because he was the love of her life, so I was actually so shocked when that happened and it made me doubt everything. Because like, her choosing to be with D*mon and loving him more than Stefan is something she said would never ever happen, so the fact that it had definitely made me question everything. There were a lot of moments are that that made me question everything too, but that’s another story haha. 

20. Talk about a ship you feel alone in shipping.Dexter and Debra. I’m pretty sure when the show as still airing and the fandom was bigger and more active, there were probably some Debster shippers, but most of them are long gone. And I remember in season 6 when Deb finally admitted she was in love with Dexter so many people were disgusted at the writers for going down that path and complaining how it was wrong for them to be together because they’re brother and sister and blah blah blah. But they’re probably one of my OTP’s and at the darker end of the spectrum on my shipping scale. I loved them for - in Deb’s words - being so fucked up. I loved that they were complicated, messy and dangerous. It was such an intriguing dynamic to me and it sucked me in. 

24. Do you mostly ship canon pairings?Definitely. There was a time when I pretty much only shipped canon pairings, because I didn’t understand the concept of non-canon ships. Like a lot of the time non-canon ships are two characters that are portrayed as being solely friends or they barely interact and I’d be thinking, “So why/how do people ship them?”. But over the last year or so I’ve opened myself up more to non-canon pairings and they can actually be so much more fun than canon pairings. The reason for that is that there’s more creativity involved. The shippers can create endless headcanons and write stories of what could/should happen in the future with the ships or create endless AUs, they can make manips, write theories on how they think the ship could be canon or why they should be canon. With non-canon ships it’s an entirely different world that is completely open and free for the shippers to do what they want and I think sometimes canon ships don’t have that, because there is a limit on the creativity and freedom because the focus is the material/scenes they’re given by the show/movie, rather than creating their own, if that makes sense. 

26. Have you noticed a pattern in your shipping? Is there a romantic dynamic you’re more drawn to?I already answered this one, too, so here’s my answer from before: I don’t think I have a pattern to my shipping. In fact, I think if you look at a list of my ships it’s very random. I’m really the kind of person where if it’s there for me it’s there. Like, your ships just choose you and it’s a hard thing to explain why or how it happens. I think that the only thing that all of my ships have in common is that they changed each other’s life in some drastic way. I think I’m generally drawn to those domesticated, loving, supportive, soul mate, vanilla type relationships where the two people are good for each other. So I’m talking about ships such as Monica/Chandler, Snow/Charming, Jane/Michael, Glenn/Maggie, Michael/Sara. But at the same time, I have a fascination with ships that are the complete opposite, ships that have an interesting, messy, complicated and sometimes even a dangerous dynamic, such as, Regina/Emma, Dexter/Debra, Chuch/Blair, Cook/Effy, Henry VIII/Anne Boleyn, Phoebe/Cole and Jax/Tara. So yeah, for me it’s all about chemistry and whether the story of the couple intrigues me or not. Whether or not I like the characters involved as individuals also has a pretty big influence. Generally, most of my ships involve two of my favourite characters.

31. Talk about one of your favorite headcanons for a ship you love.The one that really sticks out in my mind, is one I have for Eleven and Amy. When the Doctor was gone for long periods of time, Amy missed him so much that there were nights where she’d lie awake at night. She just couldn’t sleep, because every time she closed her eyes she saw his face and she was constantly straining her ears to listen out for that familiar sound of the TARDIS. So, she’d wait until Rory fell asleep, then she’d sneak downstairs, go in the freezer, grab a box of fish fingers and then go to the cupboard and reach for a can of custard. Once they were done she’d take her bowl of fish fingers and custard outside into the the back garden and perch herself on the bench. It would be bitterly cold, so she’d have a woolly blanket wrapped about her shoulders, the bowl cupped in her hands and steam rising from it. She didn’t even notice the tears streaming down her face until she lifted the bowl up to her face, inhaled the smell and noticed them dropping one by one into the bowl. Once she saw them it made her cry harder until she was sobbing. She stayed out there in the cold for a long time simply bawling, until the fish fingers and custard were cold and then she looked up at the stars and prayed for her raggedy Doctor to appear from the dark night sky. She thought back to the night she spent lying back in the grass, hand in hand with the greatest painter that ever lived and her Doctor, she wished for more nights like those. She knew she should be moving forward, living her life with Rory, but she couldn’t let go of the Doctor or the life she had with him. Even after all those years, she was still the girl who was waiting and she’d realise in those moments that she didn’t know how to stop waiting. Eventually when the tears ran dry, she’d get up, take one last look up at the stars and whisper, “Goodnight, raggedy man” and then turn to head inside the house. She’d climb into bed next to Rory and feel so guilty that she still longed for the Doctor, that she still dreamed of running away with him all over again. Eventually she’d drift off to sleep, memories of the Doctor at the forefront of her mind. In the meantime, the Doctor would just be returning to the TARDIS after yet another adventure, he’d step in, a spring in his step and a jolly grin on his face, but once the door was firmly closed behind him, the mask would slip and the sadness would return. He’d lived for nearly a thousand years, spent a majority of his life without Amy, yet the TARDIS didn’t quite feel the same without her presence. It didn’t feel like a home to him anymore. There was a deep sadness in his eyes, that no matter how hard he tried he could never hide, yet none of the people or creatures he met seemed to notice. He’d get ready for bed, change into some hideous grandad pajamas and he’d warm up a bowl of fish fingers and custard - just like he did every night - then he’d sit on his bed, eat it and finally feel like he was closer to home. Unlike Amy, he wouldn’t cry, because he knew he’d see her again soon. Instead he’d place the empty bowl at the side of his bed, turn the lights off, lie back and whisper, “See you soon, Pond”, before falling to sleep with a smile on his face and Amy in his heart

32. Share five must-read fics.I have to admit, I haven’t read many fics, so I don’t know if I can share five, but here are the ones I recommend:1. Break Me Everytime (Dexter) - honestly, no fanfiction story could ever beat this in my eyes. @six-impossible-things is such a talented writer, I could read her stuff forever.2. In the Aftermath (Dexter) - this is an addition to Break Me Everytime (above)3. There Are Rules (Dexter) - a sequel to Break Me Everytime (basically, if you like Dexter, read all of the fics Solia has dedicated to Break Me Everytime, because they’re amazing). 4. Black and Blue (Once Upon a Time) - the first (and only) Swan Queen fic that’s managed to keep my attention so far. But there are so many Swan Queen fics out there and this is only the beginning, hopefully soon I will be able to recommend a lot more. I don’t have a fifth to share. Sorry, I suck. 

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