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What is the norm for showrunner engagement with fans? David Zabel said he doesn’t pay attention to it, Greg Nicotero said they don’t care about fans watching, and it was said that Angela Kang “listens to the fans.” Scott Gimple also said he made TOWL because fans kept “yelling at him” to do it and he said “it works”when fans keep on asking for something. Meanwhile, Norman is saying it’s good to do the opposite of what fans want because “it keeps them surprised.” 🙃

What is the culture actually like behind the scenes regarding how showrunners and writers etc engage with fans? What’s actually normal or expected, and what is seen as better practice in the industry?

It should be a balancing act. A good showrunner can’t base every single decision on what’s being said on SM. It’ll slow down the entire process for one thing and it’ll most likely result in a Frankenstein monster of a story that aims to please everyone, but ultimately pleases no one. At the end of the day, a showrunner has to be able to follow their instincts. If they’re a good showrunner, they’ll have good instincts.

However—and this is a big however—the decision makers on a show have to know who their audience is, especially in cases like TWDU that are already over a decade old. If they’re not sure, then they need to do their research or risk alienating viewers who would have otherwise been guaranteed to watch. Obviously this is where Zabel fucked up. He relied too heavily on his “instincts” and/or took Norman’s and Nicotero’s word too seriously, targeting younger male viewers despite Daryl’s and Carol’s individual and joint fanbases being predominantly female as well as introducing storylines that make absolutely no sense to those fanbases. Similarly, Norman and Nicotero have made it explicitly clear that the only people they’re trying to please are themselves and because of their egos, they expect the audience to simply fall in line. When that doesn’t happen, the guys blame the audience, scold them, say things like they’re “just bitching,” and then try to save face by suggesting that they don’t care about ratings or what the fans want anyways. I don’t think I need to explain why insulting your audience at every turn or completely ignoring them is counterproductive, do I? If the audience isn’t happy, they stop watching. If they stop watching, the show makes no money. If the show makes no money, then there is no show 💀

There isn’t really a standard practice that helps decision makers in the industry find the right balance. Different showrunners, EPs, etc. will have their own strategies and still get it right. The men making decisions for the DD spinoff though have gotten it very, very wrong. There’s no debating that.

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Replies were turned off for that post, hoping anon finds this list:

Also by silversundown: “The Journey,” “It’s Never Too Late.”

“Enough” is S10 but may still be the mindset you want.

“Land of Enchantment,” “The Liminal Space,” “How Big You Can Love” by carol_is_daryl’s_favorite_meal are post-series/post-S10

“Triptych” and “After Apple Picking” by lighteneverything

and, last but not least, “Someday” by my-mt-heart

Are there any Caryl spinoff / 11c good fics out there? Pleaseeeee maybe you know?

Never Too Late by @silversundown2 comes to mind. Anyone else is free to chime in because I'm sure there's more.

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Congratulations! Today, you get to learn the difference between memory and recall. There is an important difference, and understanding that difference will make you a better ally to the disabled community and also more understanding of your own brain!

What is memory?

Memory is the information your brain has stored for later. Let's make an analogy: your memory can be compared to files stored on a computer. Your brain is extremely complex and has a deep, layered filing system.

When your roommate's friend visits and introduces herself, you put her name in one of the many name folders. Our brains are complex enough that we can assume there are thousands of those folders, each for a different type of name and how you know it: friend names, immediate family names, extended family names, classmate names, coworker names, celebrity names, and so on and so forth, forever.

What is recall?

Recall is not whether you have something stored, but whether you can find it. Like that photo of you at summer camp in sixth grade that's stored somewhere on your computer, the information you learn throughout daily life is sorted somewhere into your brain's filing system. The longer ago that you put the information into the system, the harder it is to find, unless you frequently visit those files.

For the average instance of recall, people generally use the equivalent of the search bar of their brain's filing system. The information is sorted precisely so it's, naturally, recalled in the blink of an eye.

However, you may have had moments of recall issues. Everyone does here and there. The sensation of a word being on the tip of your tongue is a common example of issues with recall. You know the word, but it's just not coming up when you search for it.

In instances like these, you end up kind of manually rooting around in your brain's folders, desperately looking for associated folders that it might have been mis-stored in. You're trying to think of a vegetable you know of, so you start listing off other vegetables to yourself, as if sifting through the vegetable folder.

Sometimes, this association game can bring forth the missing file - or in this case, vegetable name. In other cases, you simply have to let it go and wait for it to come to you later. That might mean you smacking your forehead 48 hours later when you're in the middle of driving to work and the name of that vegetable suddenly throws itself right in the middle of your internal monologue.

Recall and disability

So, what does this have to do with disability? Well, the average person may have occasional recall issues, but for many disabled people, these issues are extremely prevalent. For neurodivergent folks or those with brain fog, we can end up having trouble recalling things many times in a day. It is extremely frustrating and can even be embarrassing in social situations.

For example, your roommate's friend, who you've hung out with on multiple occasions and heard numerous stories about might drop by six months later and you might stand there trying to avoid talking while you scramble desperately through your name files trying to recall her name when you know it's in there somewhere. It's a real life reproduction of that scene in SpongeBob where he only knows how to be a waiter. By the time she addresses you, it's too little too late and you have to admit that for some reason her name is evading you. It's humiliating.

Be understanding of recall issues

These issues have little to do with how important something is to a person. If you know someone who's disabled and they have frequent issues recalling words or names, it's just because the search function in their brain sometimes breaks down and they have to rely on manually digging through the billions of memories they have to try and find what they're looking for.

If you know someone with this issue who is comfortable with it, try filling in the gaps for them! It can be a fun bonding experience, especially between two people with recall issues, to immediately offer a word that seems to fit the flow of the sentence as soon as the other starts to draw a blank. The better you know them, the easier it is.

If you know someone with recall issues, be patient when they use you as a living thesaurus. You're saving them countless hours of googling or agonizing over what that word was - you know, the one that's like willingly suffering for an extended period of time about something that may or may not matter? (I just had issues recalling 'agonizing' 😔)

Anyway, that's all for today! I hope you've all learned something new about recall and how it affects people with disabilities differently/more frequently than the average person

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I know I'm sending this to you but I wanna know every Carylers opinion. Btw I'm not a Team Delusional, I'm just very curious. How would you genuinely feel if after 5 years they brought Beth back? What would that mean for your ship? (I asked this to two others btw)

ok. You say your not team delusional….but i’m sorry, how can you not be. Beth is dead. So the idea that she would return is delusional.

The only way that she is coming back is if she is planning on haunting someone. If Beth’s ghost wants to come back and chill out with Daryl then I don’t think it would affect my ship. Daryl choosing to hang out with ghost Beth, is cool by me. I honestly just hope ghost Beth visits her sister on occasion though. 

I was asked something very similar years ago, when this mess was still relevant and my answer remains the same:

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Vanity Fair - 10/07/2019

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It's 2019 and bet*ylers still feel so butthurt that they comment "BEST FRIENDS" on Caryl posts 🤣

That'd be like searching for pics of bethie and commenting DEAD under every pic

Yikes

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What’s good about just the tip is…

There’s commitment and no commitment at the same damn time. Best of both worlds. Everyone’s happy…except maybe Carol😬

#justthetipDaryl2017

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carol sucks

You’re right: she sucks air through her teeth when she’s hurt and water or soda or coffee or whatever they have to drink through a straw when it’s available. She teasingly sucks Judy’s toes to make her giggle and soup from a spoon to taste it before serving it to others. She sucks the tip of her finger when the nail is cut too deep or when it gets smashed while working to build fences, bridges, structures, and homes. She sucks on sunflower seeds or lollipops or frozen chocolate when she gets them. She often sucks on the tip of her pen while considering life, making plans, creating a list for the ever-inevitable run, and sometimes when doodling. When the pacifier falls in the dirt, she’s popped it into her mouth to suck it clean before giving it back to Judy. She remembers sucking on ice or an ice cream pop on a hot summer day. She’s sucked on candy canes and cough drops and suckers and mints in her lifetime. She’s even sucked on toothpicks. But her favorite things to suck are Daryl’s tongue into her mouth when he kisses her at night, the moan from his mouth deep into her throat, and breath into her lungs after he makes her cry out in ecstasy, which happens more often than any of their friends realize. Occasionally she even sucks honey off his tummy and those hard abs she can’t stop staring at. And sometimes she sucks lower.  

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Not getting cocky. I have learned to expect ABSOLUTELY NOTHING FROM THEM, and so I'm never disappointed.

There are some folks getting cocky while forgetting how quickly the show and tptb can and has fucked groups of shippers over. Especially our ship.

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Well, hell, let's ship him with Alpha as well: DALPHA! It just rolls off the tongue

Stop shipping Daryl with every woman he speaks for a first time. Its way too early its ridiculous

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The future is female.

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TTD 11/11/18 MMB said: "This is what I imagine Carol and Ezekiel's wedding would have been like. They would have ridden down the street in the kingdom on horses, and Jerry would have been so proud walking alongside, and Nabila would have been the maid of honor and Jerry was the best man and then we go into the theater, go down the aisle, go up the stairs, and then the king proceeds to talk for an hour, and the hour turns to two hours, then Carol lays down to take a nap, and she's like (in absurdly exasperated tone) 'I do, all right already, put the ring on my finger.'" Exhilaratingly romantic. Mmmmhmmm.

I’m pretty sure she married him already, I think Jerry said something along the lines of you’re married to the king, and then what she said that’s not gonna happen to was people referring to her as the queen. So yeah I think they married already

They might’ve, I could’ve misheard her… either way, the showrunners didn’t think it was important enough for us to see her marry him so that pretty much tells you how the situation is with CZ… 

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Also, this TTD exchange which I'll just leave here and let you draw your own conclusion:

MMB: It was really cute because when Ezekiel falls through and we're all working really hard to get him up and there's one so close to biting him and Daryl takes it out with his arrow.

NR: I was aiming for Ezekiel.

MMB: Oh, you missed the shot?

CH: I guess that answers my next question, how does Daryl feel about Carol being with King Ezekiel?

MMB: I think Carol should have gone over and kissed Daryl for saving his life.

CH: That would have been sweet. Some people would have wanted to see that happen. That was an actual question from Whitney W. on Facebook: "How does Daryl feel about Carol and Ezekiel?"

NR: I like the fact that Greg had me shoot first cause it's me saving the guy that's going with the girl, but I will say that when we were shooting it and they were all kissing and stuff I was kind of like (scoffs) dude this is taking forever.

GN: I thought you were just gonna walk up and push him back in!

NR: Yeah, yeah.

CH: Daryl's off to the side going, "Ok, we get it!"

NR: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I tell you, I was very uncomfortable with it.

JDM: I remember when the script came out, Norman called and he's like, "Man..." Not happy.

Also Norman’s ‘booo’ when Melissa mentioned Carol’s new romance…. I felt that, it was really cute

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Well, I think this puts an official end to the brother/sister/father/mother nonsense.

Talking Dead 10/7/18 MMB: There’s a new romance.
NR: Ewww! MMB: It was really cute because when Ezekiel falls through and we’re all working really hard to get him up and there’s one so close to biting him and Daryl takes it out with his arrow. NR: I was aiming for Ezekiel. MMB: Oh, you missed the shot? CH: I guess that answers my next question, how does Daryl 
feel about Carol being with King Ezekiel? MMB: I think Carol should have gone over and kissed Daryl for saving his life. CH: That would have been sweet. Some people would have wanted to see that happen. That was an actual question from Whitney W. on Facebook: “How does Daryl feel about Carol and Ezekiel?” NR: I like the fact that Greg had me shoot first cause it’s me saving the guy that’s going with the girl, but I will say that when we were shooting it and they were all kissing and stuff I was kind of like (scoffs) dude this is taking forever. GN: I thought you were just gonna walk up and push him back in! NR: Yeah, yeah. CH: Daryl’s off to the side going, “Ok, we get it!” NR: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I tell you, I was very uncomfortable with it. JDM: I remember when the script came out, Norman called and he’s like, “Man…” Not happy.

Caryl. Because she’s the first person Daryl goes for. Every time. He has to know that she’s okay. The rest of them are family, yeah. But Carol? She’s more than that to him. She’s everything.

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MMB and NR discuss Carol's new romance

Talking Dead 10/7/18 MMB: There's a new romance. NR: Ewww! MMB: It was really cute because when Ezekiel falls through and we're all working really hard to get him up and there's one so close to biting him and Daryl takes it out with his arrow. NR: I was aiming for Ezekiel. MMB: Oh, you missed the shot? CH: I guess that answers my next question, how does Daryl feel about Carol being with King Ezekiel? MMB: I think Carol should have gone over and kissed Daryl for saving his life. CH: That would have been sweet. Some people would have wanted to see that happen. That was an actual question from Whitney W. on Facebook: "How does Daryl feel about Carol and Ezekiel?" NR: I like the fact that Greg had me shoot first cause it's me saving the guy that's going with the girl, but I will say that when we were shooting it and they were all kissing and stuff I was kind of like (scoffs) dude this is taking forever. GN: I thought you were just gonna walk up and push him back in! NR: Yeah, yeah. CH: Daryl's off to the side going, "Ok, we get it!" NR: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I tell you, I was very uncomfortable with it. JDM: I remember when the script came out, Norman called and he's like, "Man..." Not happy.

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No surprise, NR is trolling about Daryl and Carol’s “Romeo and Juliet thing but not the way you think.” And then he babbled a bit, then whispered his explanation three times in the ears of JDM, LC, DG and said "when it happens you'll understand;" the other three nodded and said "yeah yeah yeah." I'm convinced he’s referring to the scenes in the trailer where D is shown beating some one while C tries to get him to stop. There are also scenes of fighting between two or more communities/groups. I just know he’s referring to the quarrels/feuds in Romeo and Juliet; D is at Hilltop, C is at the Kingdom, warring factions, etc. But naturally NR purposefully misleads viewers with a trolling comment because why would he change his protocol now? Jackass.

Help? I'm seeing ppl say that NR compares Caryl to Romeo & Juliet. Where is this coming from? First, he references Alice in Wonderland with the down the rabbit hole comment and now R & J. Has NR been reading over the hiatus, lol? Anyway, both of these comments make me think of negative and sad scenes and not anything happy. Regardless, he definitely knows more about their relationship this season and I bet we will know too.

I try to ignore what Norman says, not because I think he has bad intent, but because he doesn’t make sense half the time, or puts his foot in his mouth the other half. Plus, he’s said a lot of stuff in the past that never happened, remember when he said Daryl and Morgan would go toe to toe? Never happened.

He just talks and it could mean something, or it could mean literally nothing. I find it easier to not get myself tied up in knots over what he says about the show or caryl. That’s not to say I don’t still go “wait what?” when I may read something he’s said, but letting that feeling pass is way easier. Hang in there and hugs to you.