#every time i have to look back at what i've written it becomes abundantly clear this is a plot fic

[chronicowboy]

wip wednesday

tagged by @alyxmastershipper ryan i love youuuuu

anyway. i've decided i hate this fic. it's clunky, it's difficult to write, and it's SAD. but i'm too far gone to stop now and hurting eddie is sooooooo much fun so here.

"What's going on, Buck?" he asks, gentle and uncombative and genuinely curious.

"I-I don't know." Buck shakes his head, eyes darting anywhere and everywhere dizzyingly fast. "Something feels wrong. Like really, really wrong, and I—" He chokes on his next breath, inhaling raggedly. "I don't know, Eddie. Did I make a mistake? Am I making a mistake?"

"Hey, Buck, I need you to calm down, okay?" This Eddie can do. He can calm Buck down. He knows how to soothe Buck as intimately as he knows his own heartbreak. "Come on, bud, breathe with me. Close your eyes, focus on my voice, and breathe with me." Buck's eyes flutter shut and he tilts his head back against the bricks as Eddie coaxes his lungs back into a normal rhythm. "That's it. There you go." Buck takes a deep breath before opening his eyes. They're clearer now, but there's still fear settled deep into the lines around his eyes. "Talk me through what you're thinking right now."

"What if Natalia isn't the one?" he says in a rush. "W-what if she's not my person?"

Eddie doesn't quite know how to explain what happens to him then. It's not comparable to anything he's ever felt before. Except maybe... Maybe it feels a lot like the few seconds he was conscious as the helicopter came down. He wasn't even aware he remembered the fall, assumed that memory was lost to blunt force trauma, the haze of war and wilful post-traumatic repression. But suddenly he's falling through the Valley of Death all over again, weightless and resigned, covered in blood and gore, hoping he can save his charges and knowing that it's a fruitless endeavour.

"Buck, today's a big day, this is just delayed cold feet," Eddie says calmly, hands out like he's trying not to spook that baby deer.

"N-no, Eddie." Buck pushes off the wall then, pushes into Eddie's space with something pleading in his eyes. "It's not cold feet. W-what if my person is still out there waiting for me? What if..." Buck's eyes suddenly land on Eddie, focused and unerring. "What if I've already met them? What if..." He inhales sharply. "What if they're right in front of me? What if they've been under my nose this whole time?"

tagging @danielsousa @diazass @butchdiaz @shitouttabuck and anyone else who has something to share

[youmakethelight]

Honestly, this makes me feel some type of way. Melissa's return could have, should have, and would have been something huge for pulling in an audience to this show, but they severely under-utilised her.

I've been speaking to my friends, who watched the show, but aren't in the fandom. They were beginning to get hyped for TWD again, but this spinoff, especially season 2, has made them lose their desire to watch or to rewatch. They hate the way isabelle, as a female character with potential for an interesting story, was sidelined and fridged, they hated the writing, they wanted carol to be more central (in fact, they would prefer carol to be the lead), they hate the way daryl was written, and they don't like him being the lead. A quote from my friend: "Carol crossed the Atlantic Ocean and for fucking what?".

The writing and direction for this show are absolutely ridiculous because they resonate with absolutely no one except the club of boys who made it. It's abundantly clear to me that the leadership does not have the perspective to tell a story about these characters that will resonate with their audience. The leadership needs to change in a direction that uplifts female stories, particularly Carol, and honours the character integrity of Carol and Daryl. Without this, AMC will continue to lose money, and the show will become an embarrassment.

It doesn't matter how good the season 3 trailer makes it look. The audience has given up. The only chance to claw back interest is by making a MASSIVE change and rebranding. The audience has lost faith in the 'Daryl Dixon' show. The only faith they have left is in Carol, who was heavily sidelined. So, continuing to market the show as though there's no reason to expect her being sidelined to change isn't going to work for this audience. The current showrunner doesn't have any interest nor ability to tell Carol's story in a way that satisfies the audience. Melissa McBride carried all of what landed with viewers.

So, it's blatantly FUCKING obvious that one MAJOR things needs to happen: Melissa McBride needs to be uplifted.

1 . The title of the show needs to be rebranded to include Carol. I don't think a neutral rebrand to something like 'Raise the Dead' will work at this point. Potential viewers need to know that Carol will be elevated in the narrative of the show.

2. The showrunner absolutely needs to be changed to one who is both capable of and enthusiastic to uplift Melissa McBride. It wasn't the writing for Carol in TBOC that resonated with viewers. It was Melissa McBride.

3. With that change in showrunner, it needs to be blatantly apparent that Melissa's ideas for Carol are not just heard, but given focused attention and respect. The writing for those ideas needs to be deep, complex, and interwoven with the flagship source material for her character. The same is needed for the writing of Daryl, but the audience has already lost faith in him, so Carol will be the bigger draw.

4. Melissa's acting and her chemistry with other actors, especially with Daryl, need to be allowed to truly shine. The camera should not be panning to Daryl in every scene where they're together, Carol's perspective needs to be elevated in scenes with Daryl and in scenes without him, and scenes between Carol and Daryl need to be allowed more time for the viewer to sit in them, to breathe them in, and to listen to them speak to each other without constant interruptions.

5. The new showrunner and writers need to be more familiar with the flagship source material. It's a mistake and an insult that Angela Kang wasn't given an opportunity to write on the spinoff, despite being given an EP credit. Writers like Kang know the characters, and they're able to write dialogue that sounds like the characters. All of the burden to deliver a sense of character integrity shouldn't be on the actors. Well done to Melissa for being able to do this despite weak dialogue, but Norman did not manage this. To regain any faith in Daryl, the writing for his character AND his relationship with Carol absolutely needs to be improved. Specifically, both of those things need to be reflective of what the audience loved about them in the flagship show.

Don't know why I wrote all this, it just came out. That's my response to these ratings.

The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon: The Book of Carol season 2 ratings

Ratings for season 2.

Episode 1 : 580,000

Episode 2 : 497,000

Episode 3 : 580,000

Episode 4 : 480,000

Episode 5 : 504,000

Episode 6 : 476,000