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Here is a heads up on upcoming shows leading up to the new season!! Thanks @leofortis725 for sharing!!

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hi, how are u?

Hey! Not bad, yourself?

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I wanted to expand upon a couple of things about Diverged because why not?

1) The Knife — We know from AK and also just from being perceptive that the knife is the main thing that connects Daryl’s and Carol’s stories. It’s a piece of the other person they both need to accomplish their goals, and they are very conscious of that fact throughout. Carol knowingly strives to make Alexandria feel like home, most importantly her home, with the tool Daryl provided her. Daryl realizes that Carol holds the key to being able to get back to Alexandria, the place he’s determined is where he belongs. Yes, they are resourceful and strong enough to survive on their own, but is it worth the extra hardship? (The answer is no). 

On a larger scale, the knife is also the connective tissue between Daryl’s and Carol’s stories in 10c. It comes attached to memories of Leah in Find Me, but by the end of Diverged, the sentimental value changes. No longer a piece of Leah that Daryl holds onto, it has become a piece of himself that he willingly gives to Carol, and ultimately wants her to keep. It’s his way of confirming he’s completely moved on from his past with Leah and is ready to focus on his future that he hopes Carol will help him build (or rebuild). That knowledge is lost on Carol though, who isn’t sure if the knife is a peace offering or something else. As per usual, they won’t make those feelings of longing explicitly clear until the other does so first, thus important things that could fix everything right then and there go unsaid. 

2) Carol’s Biggest Fear — When Carol asks Jerry,  “What if you really are broken, and your best friend  just realized it a lot later than everybody else,” she is essentially confirming what a lot of us already suspected which is that she’s terrified of losing Daryl. In her mind, if he sees her for who she “really is,” that she’s damaged beyond repair, he’ll want nothing to do with her. Hence why she struggled to open up to him about her grief and drive for revenge. Now she just needs to confess all that to Daryl directly so he can stop thinking she doesn’t value his friendship. And Daryl needs to tell her flat out that he loves her for who she is (not who she thinks she is) and that’s never going to change. 

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reblog this if your blog is a safe space on april fools and won’t have any jumpers, screamers, or anything scary or anxiety inducing

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HNNNNGGGGGGG OUCH MY HEART

• A friend is someone who thinks you’re perfect, even If everyone else thinks you’re broken. | 10x21 “Diverged”

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THE WALKING DEAD

10x21 - “Diverged”

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People complaining nothing happens in Diverged: a

Me: did you see my babe girl Carol? Like, DID YOU SEE ALL THE STUFF SHE DID WHILE MISSING DARYL AND SUFFERING AND FEELING LIKE SHE DOESN'T BELONG?

she took care of Dog Dixon the entire episode,

she had meaningful conversations with Jerry and Dog/herself,

she decided to make an odd but probably delicious soup,

she went outside ASZ just to gather spices and herbs for said soup, like a beautiful enchanted and badass witch,

she killed a bunch of walkers,

she made a very creative rat trap lady Macgyver

she fixed a solar panel, like how she knows how to do that? so intelligent ffs

the rat escaped so she proceed to chase it until the little asshole went inside the drywall,

she changed her clothes (probably showered, such a shame we couldn't see it) and went to bed,

she destroyed the entire drywall looking for said rat,

she had another meaningful conversation with Jerry, admitting to him that she had a bad day and that she's not ok which is HUGE for her,

she finished her soup,

and she already started to fix the drywall when Daryl came home.

ALL OF THAT looking sad and vulnerable and tired and hot as fuck but trying her best to fix things and be useful

People still complaining about the episode: whatever carol hate LOL anti-carol cancel the spin off

Me:

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THIS PARALLEL I CANNOT

10x07 / 10x21

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AKXNSKALMSKEJSNS YES TO ALL OF THESE THINGS HNNNNNGGGGG

My thoughts on Caryl canon--as if you lovelies actually asked, lol, go a little something like this.

We’re getting a spin-off.  

I know the antis and the haters are doing whatever is in their limited, petty ass power to sink said spin-off and who knows?  Maybe they will somehow succeed (highly doubtful).  But they can piss and moan about it all they want and they still will not be able to change the fact that a spin-off is and has been planned. 

To hear Kang and Norman and Melissa talk, it’s been in the planning stages for quite awhile.  

Coincidentally (I think not), Carol’s story (Daryl’s too but I’m going to focus more on Carol here) started to become a little more defined around the time that this spin-off idea was born.  It might not have been obvious at the time, maybe it still isn’t quite yet–we’ve been burned so much over the years–but Kang pumped the brakes and reversed course on a storyline that has seen Carol sentenced to continually rolling a stone up a steep hill for what has felt like all eternity.  She started dismantling the relationship between Carol and EZ really before it found its feet and not only that?  She cut the anchor of Henry from around Carol’s ankle.  

Now at first, the deconstruction of the Kingdom family unit seemed like more of the same, essentially another misery arc for Carol, and to a certain extent it was.  But the thing is?  

Kang might have shoved Carol harshly to the ground and given her a kick for good measure, several in fact, but something that might be lost a bit in the shuffle of everybody crying this is nothing but rinse and repeat of the same old, same old, is the fact that Carol has clawed her way out of yet another abyss and whether she’s wanted to or not, she’s starting to feel it.  All the losses she’s endured along the way, and she’s learning how to stand on her feet and rise in spite of them.  

All those little boxes she’s shoved her past traumas into are popping open one by one and the ghosts are spilling out and she’s having to face them head on and that’s just as much thanks to Daryl as anything else because he’s been right there with her.  

Daryl, who she sees. Daryl, who she can’t lose.  

The above statements have always been true, but Kang’s added another little wrinkle to this relationship.  

Daryl, who Carol dreams about a life of domestic peace with.  

It’s a shift in Carol’s perception of Daryl’s role/potential role in her life that’s perhaps too subtle for some.  Or maybe, just maybe, it was the first warning shot to them.  The one that made them sit up and take notice.  

I know which one I think it was.  Do you?  

Remember.  The spin-off had already been conceived at this point.  The groundwork to lead these two out of their status quo had already been started.  That’s important.  That nugget informs everything that’s unfolded onscreen since.  

Leadership was thrust upon Daryl in the latter part of Season 9 and the whole of Season 10 and he rose to meet that mantle, but through all of that?  Carol and her mental, emotional, and physical well-being remained a priority to him.  

What’s more, Daryl Dixon ‘manned up’ and stepped outside of his comfort zone.  He found his words and used them to tell Carol all the different ways that he could without shoving them both off of a precipice they weren’t completely ready for how he felt.  

Seriously.  How much more explicit can you get than “we have a future?”  Than offering multiple times to run away together?  

Those weren’t just aimless shots in the dark, although many took them to be.  We all know who they are.  

Again, we’re getting a spin-off.  It’s in the planning stages at least.  Kang might not have all the pit stops mapped out but I do think she’s got a general destination in mind.  She’s just making a few stops to fuel up and get supplies first. 

Let me ask ya’ll something.  To any outsider, anybody that might live underneath a rock and might not have seen an actual episode of TWD, how do you think this plot might read to them?  Without any physical descriptors, without knowing these two characters’ history as longtime friends and even with knowing it, what do you think they might glean from the fact that Kang has chosen to lead them back to each other? That she has chosen to emphasize the strength of their bond before pushing at its limits until it is so strained it has no choice but to either break permanently or weave itself tighter together with a new type of thread?  

Once again, I am going to remind anybody reading this that there is a spin-off in the works.  A spin-off featuring Carol AND Daryl.  

Carol and Daryl’s relationship over the years and seasons has evolved from strangers to friends to best friends and now?  Now they seem to be standing at the edge of a cliff staring into the unknown because seemingly Kang has decided to deconstruct their relationship.  She’s in the process of breaking it down into its base parts right now and causing Carol in particular to really examine what it is that she wants.  

She’s already given us all, Carol included, hints along the way.  

She’s paralleled these two characters’ separate journeys to each others’ sides.  

We’re ten years in.  With a spin-off impending and a bit of a been there, done that aspect hovering over the whole Carol and Daryl friendship, does anybody other than the antis and haters really and truly believe that Kang is deconstructing Carol and Daryl’s relationship only to return it to its original state?  

Does anybody really believe that there aren’t various romantic tropes being employed here?  That this story is being framed in anything other than an unabashedly shippy way?  Seriously.  How many fucking times has the sheer LONGING between these two jumped literally out of the screen and attacked us with its intensity?  

Pining has taken on a whole new meaning and yet, there are so many still (willfully) blind.  

Or maybe they’re not as blind as they claim.  Maybe they see the writing on the wall that so many that have actually longed for Carol and Daryl to take this step are afraid to really hope for and that’s why they are big time mad and ramping up their efforts to delegitimize romantic Carol and Daryl before it can be an undeniable reality.  Maybe that’s why so many of them are having hissy tizzy fits over a spin-off that was born in spite of what they claim is their majority.  

My personal opinion is too many exposed nerves are being hit and hit rather forcefully with a narrative that is becoming more overtly romantic all the time.  

Kang is bright-lighting us all with Caryl canon and because of past events some of fandom is still too stunned to see it coming.  

The rest sees it but some of them are still in big time denial.  They think they can keep speeding ahead and force it to swerve completely off the road.  

I don’t know about ya’ll but I’m going to respectfully pull over to the side of the road, do a U-turn, and follow these two to New Mexico and beyond. 

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I watched Diverged AGAIN. Someone described it as a "comfort episode" and I agree. It's intimate, personal and we get to know a little bit more about Carol. It's a different type of episode. She's sad and working through her pain as best as she can. Melissa makes you feel all the feels with her amazing performance.

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Ugh her face I LOVE

Carol in 10x21 “Diverged”

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Caryl + music headcanon

Daryl:

grew up listening to a lot of country music because of his father and absolutely hates it

only exception: Johnny Cash; mostly because of the principle of it, being a classic and all, but also because he likes the stories the singer tells

when he was a teenager, Merle used to take him to motorcycle clubs and bars where he listened to a lot of punk rock, classic rock and southern rock

he thought it was ok as long as it wasn't too loud or screamy

that's the main point: Daryl's not a big connoisseur of music because he prefers silence

so he doesn't really miss music after the ZA

but sometimes he sings Tom Petty's Free Fallin' while driving his bike

Carol, on the other hand:

Carol fucking loves music

kid Carol used to sing in the church choir, and listened to Elvis and The Supremes without her grandma knowledge

one of her favourite things to do when a teenager was to go to the only diner of her small city after school on friday nights and play her favourites songs on the jukebox

so much that she got a part job as a waitress there just to do it almost on a daily basis

she also really enjoyed call the local station to request songs

Carol liked all types of music, especially the dancing kind

she listened to ABBA and Whitney Houston and Foreigner and Prince

she really loved Marvin Gaye and Bon Jovi and how sexy they were

when she married Ed, she quickly learned to not listen to loud music

few years in and she stopped listening to music at all, and that was a really important part of her that she had to keep hidden and it hurt

years and years later, after ZA and a lot of heartbreak, mending and love confessions, both of them are riding to New Mexico and Daryl starts, really soft

she's a good girl, loves her mama

loves Jesus and America too

and before he realizes Carol starts singing with him and she just goes all the way

I'M FREEEEEEEEE - FREE FALLING

YEAH I'M FREEEEEE

poor boy is #shocked and also amazed to hear Carol singing her heart out while opening her arms like a bird

after that they stop to eat some lunch and Carol tells him all about her love for music- disco, folk, glam, pop, R&B, rock- and Daryl mostly listens and smiles at her enthusiasm, offering the little he knows about country and classic rock which Carol also likes and they sing Jackson together like a post-ZA Johnny and June

and to that day forward, when they feel like it, they sing together old songs they will probably never hear again, and Carol stands up and dances to her favourites while teaching the chorus lyrics to Daryl

and when they remember really cheesy songs Carol fully embraces the mood -hands in the heart, suffering expressions and passionate eye contact because she wants to know what love is and wants him to show her - and Daryl gets ashamed and red faced but sings along because she always laughs and kisses him by the end of their perfomance

babies

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BABIES THEY ARE BABIES OH MY GOD

You followed me out here. Nobody’s following anybody, Daryl.

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JUST LET HER FIX THINGS IF SHE WANTS TO FIX A PIECE OF FABRIC LET HER DO IT SHE IS SOFT AND PRECIOUS

10x21 Sneak Peeks and Promos

Is it Thursday yet!?

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5x01 // S8B Trailer

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10.06 / 10.07

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The Walking Dead 5.01 - No Sanctuary