we need more guts 🤔

stan each other, eat the rich, burn amc to the ground, and get daryl to go down on carol for five hours straight every day for the rest of time -diz

[waynedunlaptheorgandonor]

[waynedunlaptheorgandonor]

Hey dude I don’t even know if you check this blog anymore but I’ve been sick as a dog for two days and have blown through almost all of the scrap metal universe and it’s the only thing keeping me from going kinda crazy - thanks for gifting us with this adorable wonderful ‘verse.

You’re a fantastic writer and I adoreeeee the way you handle dialogue. Also you write Merle and Daryl so well. 👏👏👏 thanks for keeping me company while sick via Caryl 🫶

just checked my inbox for the first time in a very long time, so my apologies for not seeing this until now, but thank you! i'm glad people are still getting joy out of that dumb little universe i accidentally devoted years of my life to like an insane person. you're very lovely ❤️

[waynedunlaptheorgandonor]

Hi! I’ve been reading one of your Caryl fics, where you wrote that you’re removing one of your other fics from AO3 and 9L (I think it had ‘undertaker’ in the title or something similar). Pleaseeee don’t tell me it’s too late to read this? (It’s ok if it is obviously, it’s just that I love your writing and want to read everything you’ve written 😭)

hey! you sent this to me over a month ago, i apologize for not seeing it sooner. i don't check this blog that often. i did remove "romancing the undertaker," because i was experimenting with self-publishing and flipped it 50 shades style as practice, and legally i couldn't have both up at the same time. but! i can still give ppl the document, so if you (or anyone else) are interested in reading the og "romancing the undertaker" just lmk and i'll send you a copy. i recommend dming me instead of sending me an ask, because i am more likely to see it

also, thank you! i appreciate the kind words! sorry again for not seeing this for 84 years!

[disease-danger-darkness-silence]

[tronmike82]

I don’t mean to be rude; but I don’t think I’ve ever seen this, does anyone have any examples?

[darkshrimpemotions]

Supernatural

Doctor Who (Steven Moffat specifically)

Sherlock (Steven Moffat specifically)

Actually Steven Moffat is basically just this sentiment given human form.

A version of this happened with The Magicians, tbh. Though instead of expectation: men, reality: women it was expectation: smug nihilists, reality: mentally ill queer folks.

Arguably Game of Thrones.

If we broaden it outside of television…I think Star Wars falls into this, at least the sequel trilogy. Maybe the MCU as well. And I can’t help but think of every band that’s ever complained that their fanbase is mostly women. 5 Seconds of Summer comes immediately to mind.

In general, most white male creators seem to have this massively entitled mindset where they want–and think they deserve–the time, attention, and enthusiasm that creative fandom (i.e. the side of fandom more dominated by women) is known for.

They want our eyes for ratings, our word-of-mouth for free publicity, our metas for social media buzz, and our spending power for merch and cons. But they don’t want us. And they don’t really want the responsibility of telling a story to a thoughtful, engaged audience, regardless of that audience’s demographic makeup. They just want to be praised for whatever schlock they cough up.

And like any other spoiled brat, they will break their toys before they share them.

[pessimisticfanboi]

It goes all the way to the top for kids shows. Toy sales will crash a show. Makes sense, but if those toys are gendered for boys instead of the female viewers, they won’t usually switch up the marketing and move them to the girl aisle. They cancel the show outright.

Mind you it is perfectly possible to make the switch in marketing, but execs would rather throw it all out than have something that doesn’t perform well with male viewers. For example the Rey merch was not expected to be popular, for some reason, there had to be public outcry to get merch of one of the main 3 protagonists. A PROTAGONIST. The fact that she wasn’t a huge part of the 1st launch says a lot already.

And what happened when female fans got too invested in the Sequel Trilogy? The entire writers room didn’t necessarily lash out, but they sure forgot how to behave.

Young Justice

Paul Dini: Superhero cartoon execs don’t want largely female audiences

#WhereIsRey (initial)

#WhereIsRey (ongoing)

'Star Wars: The Last Jedi' owes its box-office success to women

The older, male generation of 'Star Wars' fans may be losing interest in the franchise, but female fans are stepping up.

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker was designed to be the opposite of The Last Jedi

[drunkenhills]

You’re all sitting on the hot take of the decade tbh

[vbartilucci]

And yet when they fond out that boys were watching MLP:FIM in droves, they had NO PROBLEM with it.

[jediorgana-deactivated20260403]

#SONS OF ANARCHY!!!!!!!!!!!!!#LITERALLY SONS OF ANARCHY IS THE BIGGEST EXAMPLE OF THIS LIKE EVER#kurt sutter wrote that show for MEN and ended up with an overwhelmingly female audience#because he’s actually a good writer and knows how to develop characters well and wrote excellent female characters#but once he realized that his audience was almost entirely women he literally took it out on tara and gemma in the show#but like tara specifically#he resented her character for being a huge draw for female viewers so he tore her development to shreds and killed her#in the most brutal gut wrenching way possible#kurt sutter you will pay for your crimes#i actually wrote a manifesto about this on one of my old blogs i should try to find it sldkjsldfjsdljf#long post (via@m-oonknight)

OMG YES. I LOVED Sons of Anarchy, especially the women and then I got to season 6 and it was like - everything was just tossed in the trash? And like, why did Sutter hate that Tara drew tons of attention? That should have been a good thing! He should have been like “Hey folks, this girl’s getting us more viewers, let’s put her in more scenes!” It just doesn’t make sense to me. MEN don’t make sense to me.

[geraltcirilla]

The 100 too. I’ll never forget how Jason Rothenberg would attacked female fans on Twitter and mock them in interviews, and then post links to male fan discussions on Reddit to praise and thank them. In his goodbye letter to the show he SPECIFICALLY thanked Reddit and it was so disgusting.

[annaknitsspock]

Star Trek from TNG on was also a boy’s club, even though the TOS fans were mostly women. Women, in fact, who literally created modern fandom with their zines. But after TNG it was all, “Women don’t understand Star Trek, only smart men hur dur.”

[help-help-i-need-an-adult]

I think it would be harder for us to find examples of when this DIDNT happen than when it did. It happens all the time.

[nova-arcania]

Doesn’t stop it from boggling the mind

(though it could probably start to make some sense if you follow the money past audience bases to maybe a couple of investors or like a rich patron … 🤔)

[ridleymocki]

Stooooop I just wrote a masters thesis on this shit. Media creation and distribution is a means by which dominant power structures consolidate their hegemony. Dominantly situated creators get upset when the audience they attract isn’t the audience they wanted, because they view the whole creation and sharing of the fiction as an exercise to sustain kyriarchal conditions that benefit themselves. When the audience is Other, they see it as a failure of those efforts and lash out.

Simply, they’re trying to assert a particular worldview via fiction, and upon getting confronted with something else, begin foot stamping. It’s not just men wanting male attention and gatekeeping. It’s that the fiction in the first place was an attempt to curate dominance and whoopsie! they miscalculated.

(anyway if anyone wants to read 35k words of philosophy about this, hmu)

[nerdsandthelike]

I think a lot about an interview I heard with Bo Burnham a few years ago, where he talks about this phenomenon with his own work. He gained a large audience of teenage girls, and people in comedy spaces would look down on him for that or say what a shame it was, but he responded differently:

“The real truth is, I would perform my show and I would meet kids after and young girls would come up to me and they understood what I was expressing in that bit onstage way more than guys my own age. Way more. So if there was a bridge between us that I had to cross to write the movie [Eighth Grade], it was built to me by them. I felt understood by them before I presumed to understand them.”

Instead of trying to change his comedy, he decided to lean into and celebrate the audience that he actually had by making a movie specifically about the experiences of a teenage girl. It’s fascinating to hear him talk about how he got there, but also to acknowledge how rare that reaction is.

[breelandwalker]

Slight tangent - all of this is true of the sports (and related entertainment) industry as well. Female fans drive so much of the event attendance, media hype, and revenue, but it’s still viewed as Just For Men.

[lookmomitsmytmblr]

Also true in the ALTA fandom— the creators specifically demeaning their young female audience for engaging with their show and driving hype

[mindibindi]

White male showrunners: We’re a HIT! WHOOOHOOOOOO 🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉 🍾🍾🍾🍾🍾 …with women & girls. oh. 😒😒😒

Two more BIG names I wanna throw out there (if they haven’t already appeared in the comments) and two of the WORST offenders in this (cos we gotta gatekeep our boy genres from female influence) are:

The X Files

The Walking Dead

[waynedunlaptheorgandonor]

would rather see gifs of caryl canonically murdering each other in cold blood and saying they never loved each other than to be forced to keep seeing this ai bullshit on my dash

[waynedunlaptheorgandonor]

i think something is broken inside me bc today, for the first time in literal years, i thought the words, "i should rewatch the walking dead"

even worse? i kind of actually want to

terrified of this new development. we'll see where it goes

[waynedunlaptheorgandonor]

a new chapter of "diy steps to serenity" in MY 2025? it's more likely than you might think!

not just a new chapter, actually, but the final chapter! look, i completed a project, and it only took me *mumblemumble* years!

mega shoutout to @thegratefulsouth for inspiring me to revisit my wips by basically lovebombing me by going through my entire backlog of caryl fics and leaving novel-length comments on every chapter (if you were wondering if you can emotionally manipulate a writer into finishing a project, even if it's not your intention, the answer is yes, and it's by showering them in validation #lifehack)

here is your link to the story, and your three final out of context images to get you hype!

thanks for tagging along for the ride. i love this dumb story, love that YOU love this dumb story, and might revisit it in oneshot form down the road. until then, tho, 🫡

-diz

[lola-andheruniverse]

Hello lovely Lola

I have perused the index and I couldn't find this one, so not sure if I'm too late to submit, but I have to try for Umbra by mizdiz on Ao3. Sorry if you did rec it and I missed it. This is such a unique tale featuring exquisite elements of magic realism, so beautifully told. Captivating, stunning and heartwarming. And hilarious. Carol and Daryl are from very different worlds, but they meet, as if by fate, in a magic room in a Victorian house owned by Dale Horvath.

The banter between Caryl is glorious, especially given their different life experiences, eg:

Carol’s puzzlement turned to excitement when she realized he was pulling out his phone.

“You’re going to use your google?"

“I myself have never engaged in amorous congress”—Daryl mouthed the words “amorous congress” to himself.

"Somehow you talkin’ all polite is makin’ this so much worse.”

"Okay, no, go back to callin’ it amorous whatever the fuck. Sayin’ it outright ain’t better, I was wrong."

They are both so utterly precious, and it's such an emotionally vibrant, vivid journey, that I cannot recommend it enough.

Summary:

In the old Victorian house, in the room controlled by the moon, Daryl meets a woman who swears she isn't a ghost.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/25946395?view_full_work=true

Hello, dear anon! What an amazing recommendation you sent today! I remember reading Umbra when it was a WIP and thinking "that's such an interesting premise, how @waynedunlaptheorgandonor is going to get Carol and Daryl together (aka engaging in the so called amorous congress) if they are literally in different time spaces?" Dare I say, her solution did not disappoint. Heartwarming and captivating is truly what this story is, so thanks so much for rec'cing it. Besides AO3, Umbra is also completed and available on 9Lives. Rated: M Word count: 95.680 (15 chapters) Published: August 16, 2020 - complete

[waynedunlaptheorgandonor]

i am kissing you both on the mouth

[does-this-character-eat-pussy]

daryl dixon from the walking dead

Does Daryl Dixon from The Walking Dead eat pussy?

Yes

No

Voting ended onFeb 16, 2025

[otherwindow]

you ever look at a character you like and think

[kendallroy-deactivated20210425]

the absolute best dynamic to read/write about is between 1 person who is so good at performing and wearing masks that they don’t know who they really are and 1 person who cannot be anyone but their most excruciatingly authentic self at all times and sees right through them; the mirrorball and the one who is not like the regulars, so to speak

[theewalkindead]

THE WALKING DEAD (2010-2022) S02E07 ★ Pretty Much Dead Already S10E01 ★ Lines We Cross

[reedusmcbridedaily]

Daryl and Carol’s most iconic moments with Norman Reedus and Melissa McBride

Who knew hugs could be so dangerous… #TWDCaryl

[waynedunlaptheorgandonor]

oh, btw, since ik there's overlap btwn my caryl lovers and xfiles fans, i have an unhinged project going on over on my xfiles side blog where i am keeping track of how often they solve cases + other misc stats

-> @xf-cases-solved

[theoldaeroplane]

worried that thing you put in your art or writing or game or music is too self-indulgent, too self-referential, too niche for anyone but yourself? fear not! you can do whatever you want forever. and you should.

[fireheartedpup]

Funniest fandoms are where the fans are like, "I'm obsessed with this. I don't recommend it even slightly."

[waynedunlaptheorgandonor]

mulder/scully + caryl parallels, round #2

“hey, do you think our lives will be this shitty forever, or is there more for us out there?”

“i can tell something’s wrong, but you’re the stubbornest, proudest woman on the planet and you won’t talk to me. why won’t you talk to me, i’m trying so hard”

“seriously! talk to me, damnit! god gave me one mouth but two ears so that i can LISTEN to you, now fucking TALK”

nothing to see here, just two strong, capable women dealing with the aftermath of being held hostage while their Soft™ boys cradle them, ft. gentle chin touches

you and me against the world, bb

and a good ol’ “thank god you’re okay” hug

pt. 2 of ?

pt 1 here