Howdy friends! I've created a comic, better angels, for the BHF24 Christmas prompts! You can follow the link to read it on AO3 because I don't much care for posting multi-page comics on tumblr. (i like the scroll instead of the swipe i guess)
feel free to read my nonsense ramble after the cut lol
i have not drawn for like a year and jfc my hand hurts and that is also why beth and daryl look different in every panel as well as a mishmash of styles. apparently the yearly MIGHTY NEED to create a comic wasn't dead, just biding its time so this is a few year's worth of pages apparently
but i am glad i made it even if they look friggin' wonky it felt good to maek aert again
also way back when i first started writing for twd, i made a short little epistolary one-shot to help figure out beth and daryl, and thought about making it into a comic thing, so i made fonts for their handwriting. in the end i scrapped that idea, but i used the beth font for this comic, so that's cool because hand-lettering in krita is a gd pain in the ass
I am still going on this book binding thing and practice certainly helps 😂 here's Nature, Nurture, Heaven and Home. Now that I look at it I can't help but feel like the cover is v serious and looks like some old academic book lol but I was trying to bring in the map I used on Two for the Road
Anyways, since I now can make things that don't look terrible, I'd like to make an open offer to my fellow Bethyl writers to bind your fics & mail them to you because it's really cool to hold your own book in your hands. The requirements would be:
A collection of one shots -or- completed story under 200k words that you wrote
Must live in the US and be 18+
Be okay with me making a copy for myself
Understand that I'm still learning and can make no promise of quality 😅
Revenant is finished and being edited so I'm already thinking about what to write next. My mind's latched onto a sci-fi/cyberpunk au (but still with zombies), so here's a drawing in that theme though mostly just having fun with outfits here — Daryl's outfit is pretty much s knockoff of Kaneda's from Akira because I couldn't resist 😂
I've been quiet for a bit but I haven't been idle! I've been working on my next longfic. You can find a preview of some of the first chapter below the cut!
Also, I have been balls-to-the-wall with this dang story and have absolutely no outside perspective on it 🙃 so if anyone would be interested in beta-ing, hit me up. I'm not looking for line-by-line editing, more so pacing and "why the fuck is this plot thread here when you never pick it back up" kind of beta-ing. It is already a long story (so far, 27 chapters and over 100k with more to come), so I would be happy to offer betaing in return, or illustrate your story, or attempt binding one of your fics into a book (I'm still learning how to do this though lol).
Revenant
Beth wakes up screaming in the back of an ambulance, dying not from a gunshot to the head, but from a suicide attempt. Walkers are nothing but a distant memory she can't forget and no one remembers. Three lonely years later, Beth is almost ready to accept the memories are delusions, until Daryl Dixon crosses her path for the first time.
And he knows her name.
A loose thread dangles from her sleeve. Beth captures it between her fingers, rolling it back and forth until it twists itself into a sharp point. She lets go and the thread curls, but the point remains. There is a muted squeak from the office chair across from her as Dr. Blake shifts in her seat.
Beth looks at her from beneath wheat straw hair, dried to a crisp by the industrial-strength shampoo she must use. Dr. Blake is pretty in the way older women are; the lines on her face are comforting and the crows feet punctuating the corners of her eyes hold a lifetime's worth of experience. Beth knows she is married because of the ring, but there are no photos of her family on her desk. There is, however, a framed photo of a sunset, film-grained and amateur in a way that speaks to it being a shot Dr. Blake or her husband took, rather than a photographer's work. Beth has always wanted to ask where it was taken.
Dr. Blake shifts again and says, "Are you sure you don't have anything else you'd like to share with me today, Beth? Not even your opinion about our kitchen's take on chicken parmesan?"
"No, I've been feelin' alright," Beth says with a little shake of her head, straw hair rustling like dead grass.
Grass baked by the sun crepitated as worn soles broke the stems; the enduring sun brought beads of sweat popping up across her forehead as she watched Rick make his way down the hill. On the other side of the fence waited—
"Can you tell me what you see right now?"
The thread is caught again between her fingers and Beth lowers her eyes to her laceless shoes. "I see you. In your chair. Your desk. I see my shoes. The carpet."
"Good. Will you tell me what it was?"
"My hair. It sounded like grass."
Dr. Blake blinks patiently, waiting, as she always does, for Beth to volunteer more information of her own free will. But the more Beth talks about these delusions—delusions, she must use the right word or she will slip up; they are not memories—the longer she will be here, so she doesn't. It is her second longest stint, three months so far. She's been shuffled between the centers, units, and wards of half the state. Maggie promises there's a place waiting for her at home every time they talk, but Beth knows the bed waiting for her is conditional. She will lose herself again and return to the bland embrace of locked wards.
She doesn't get a say in these decisions. Each one is made for her and will be long after she returns home. One of the decisions made for her happened right after she was locked away the first time and the courts said she was not in a place to make decisions for herself. The problem with being crazy is once people know you're crazy, you can never convince them otherwise
"Okay. Our time's almost up. I'm really proud of the progress you've made here," Dr. Blake says, turning her clipboard over to reveal the smooth, brown back. "I think you have a solid foundation for success."
And with those words, Beth knows she is getting out soon, because she has not made any progress, she only knows how to lie in the way they want.
We are so proud to announce the winners for the 2022 Moonshine Awards!
Congratulations to all the winners! Thank you to everyone who nominated and voted, but especially to all the wonderful creators in the fandom who breathed life into Bethyl all year long.
Click here to view the winners on the official site.
Congratulations to everyone! My reading list grows ever longer. And thank you for the hard work you put in, @ultimatebethylficlist for the events throughout the year! Let's have a great 2023!
And a big thank you for all your continued support, it means so much 💕
Part III of The Humbling River (also to be titled The Humbling River) will post Monday the 12th! It will consist of three parts and a short epilogue, clocking in at about 60k words, all posted together because I have been waffling about with this story for too long and I need to get it off my plate 😂
A scene from the third installment of The Humbling River
Also, now that nudity is no longer non grata on tumblr there will probably be the occasional butt/tiddy from me so if you have any savior tags you want me to use outside of this community label rigamarole, just let me know 👍
By now the sun was low in the sky and fierce in its light, with bright, pure rays slanting through the blinds. Beth and Daryl ate what the twins didn't finish for their meal, then brought in two buckets of water to the room. Daryl shucked his vest, setting it on the floor to wipe clean later. Sitting on the far bed, Beth pulled off her boots, displeased to find the sole peeling away from the upper around the toe. Maybe there was superglue in one of the drawers.
While Daryl unbuttoned his sleeveless shirt, Beth yanked her tank-top over her head and then unclasped her bra, throwing both into one of the waiting buckets. Swirling tendrils of red leached from the cloth. Daryl's sleeveless shirt joined her clothes and was followed shortly after by stiff jeans. Shoving her hands down her pant legs to unstick them from her thighs, Beth then tossed her own jeans in, and finally peeled off her underwear and socks. She sat on the bed and leaned back on her hands. The blood on her skin had turned tacky, like the way sweat got after not quite evaporating.
Daryl sat on the bed opposite her and rested his elbows on his knees, letting his hands dangle between his thighs. They each sighed and sank a little further.
"I'd just looked," Beth said. "She waved at me and I waved back. And then I turned my head. That's all it took."
She leaned forward and grabbed a washcloth hanging from the clean bucket's edge. After a quick twist to get the excess water out, Beth started scrubbing at her arms, turning the terry cloth rusty and setting her skin tingling.
"That's all it takes," Daryl said.
"Yeah. I only… I was so damn scared, Daryl. I've never been that scared in my life. That's sayin' a lot."
"Felt the same. We can't keep this up, Leg. Sooner or later—"
"I know! I know."
Daryl sighed and motioned her over, saying, "Got shit all over your back."
So Beth sat beside him on the other bed, turning her back to him. He touched her hip briefly to prod her into scooching to the left a little more. Pulling her stiff hair to the side, she closed her eyes as she listened to the water trickle. The sun vanished behind trees as Daryl set to scrubbing her back clean; suds slipped down the knobs of her spine and in that way, at least, a little of the terrible day washed away at the same time, caught up in the soap bubbles.
Suddenly the washcloth paused and Daryl's thumb ran over her shoulder blade, which she only registered as pressure on the surrounding skin.
"That still messed up?"
"The scar? Uh-huh… I didn't feel much of that at all. I don't think it's ever gonna come back… the feelin'."
"If it hasn't happened by now, it won't. There."
Turning around, Beth pulled his hand up to her lips and pressed a kiss on his knuckles before prising the washcloth from his hand. She said, "Thank you. Your turn."
I’ve been wanting to try podficcing for a while and was wondering if any writers had any shortish one shots they wouldn’t mind me using to cut my teeth on and get the hang of things. Just let me know if you do!