#and most if not all richonne AUs don't really do a straight up what if everything was the same except no zombies?

[thosewildcharms]

i truly do believe richonne would have found each other in every universe. If the apocalypse didn’t happen they would fall in love and in every variation of space and time they would have found one and other

yeah, you know. as much as i've been joking about how ~five pizzas and a wedding ring~ proved that they'd fall in love in every universe, i do actually think there's support for it. if nothing else certainly there is an element of fate/destiny in how they met, and met again after the prison fell. and if anything, the ones who live leaned into that even further. michonne saying she knew rick was alive, despite all evidence to the contrary because she could "feel" him - and being right about it - is soulmates 101, and as @danaredbeard pointed out in a genius reblog, rick felt a similar connection. and if THAT wasn't enough, there was that time michonne just so happened to gain a new bff on her hero's journey who was a self taught expert in explosives, and said bff just SO HAPPENED to shoot down rick's helicopter that JUST SO HAPPENED to be flying right over them almost immediately after both rick and michonne had finally given up on ever seeing each other again. and not only was rick miraculously unharmed, but instead the missile targeted the person sitting directly next to him who also happened to be the guy who was holding rick hostage in the CRM by threatening michonne's life. like, this doesn't just feel like an invisible string tying them together. it feels like the universe insistently shoving these two people together over and over and over again.

all of that being said, i will say i don't think that if the zombie apocalypse hadn't happened it would have happened as easily as five pizzas and a wedding ring. the rick and michonne we met in twd 1x01 and the flashback in 4x09 respectively were living two very different lives and were very different people and michonne in particular seemed pretty content with her life and partner. these two would not have locked eyes in the middle of a crowded room and fallen in insta!love, given their circumstances at the time. BUT. i always felt watching twd that the universe was like, fuck it, if a zombie apocalypse had to happen to get these two people in front of each other so be it. and now after watching towl, i firmly believe if it wasn't that, something else would have sent these two people careening towards each other under the exact right circumstances. so to that end YEAH. i agree. soulmates.