Eddie Munson Owns Me

We start September with two big announcements. Firstly, below you will find the details of our first fanfic challenge in several years - we hope you will be inspired to take part.

The second announcement is that, while we have been incredibly fortunate to have had enough funding to keep us going through the Caryl dark years, sadly funds are now running low. 

Our last funding drive was in 2021, and the money raised then and since has paid for upkeep costs through 2024!

We are incredibly grateful to those who have donated to the site in the past, and those who have set up a regular donation - you are seen and appreciated, friends! 

However, In order to continue Nine Lives as an active site, we need to ask for your help to boost the funds and keep the site going.

We want to keep being the Caryl safe haven you love and need through the next few years, so if you can help contribute to the running costs of the site, please click the donate button on the home page.

Thank you in advance for any donation, however small. 

FANFIC CHALLENGE - REUNIONS 

Reunited and it feels so good… After a long hiatus - enough time to take a slow boat to France and back - the Nine Lives Fanfic Challenge has returned!

To celebrate Carol’s return to the Walking Dead Universe, and the premiere of season two of TWD: Daryl Dixon The Book of Carol, we invite you to participate in the challenge by writing a fic on the theme of “Reunions”.

Just as we are reuniting with challenges, many fans are being reunited with The Walking Dead - all because we know this fall we will be witnessing another epic Caryl reunion, as Carol travels to France to find Daryl.

Your fic can be your imagining of the upcoming French reunion, or it can be any other kind of reunion. Maybe AU Caryl are attending their high school reunion? Maybe you want to expand on an already canon reunion between Carol and Daryl with new insight? Maybe pirate Caryl have a reunion on the high seas? 

Whatever kind of “Reunion” takes your fancy, here are the rules if you wish to take part in the challenge:

Challenge Dates - Submission date is September 28th; Posting date is September 29th (fics will be posted ahead of the Sunday evening premiere, to give you something to read as you wait.)

Open to - Fan Fiction (Caryl)

The Prompt - Write a story that deals with the theme of Reunion. Please remember, however, as this is a Caryl archive, the story must feature both Carol and Daryl prominently.

The Deadline - All submissions must be turned in by midnight on September 28th, Pacific Standard Time (PST).

Send a PM to tarascarol, subversivegrrl, or ikkleosu on the Nine Lives site that you want to enter the challenge. Even if you’re not sure you’ll have anything ready in time - let us know you’re planning on it. *YOU MUST DO THIS TO BE INCLUDED*

WRITE! Stories must be at least 100 words.

Multiple entries are allowed (and so veryyyy welcome)!

Do not upload it yet!

Submission Day is Saturday, September 28th – post your fic. It will not appear on the archive, but will enter our validation queue. Make sure you submit it under the Nine Lives Challenge category! Just like in challenges past, we will be suspending automatic validation for that day for all authors who enter the challenge. (This is one of the main reasons why you need to let an admin know you’ll be participating.)

Publication Day is Sunday, September 29th – We will post the master list and all of the challenges entries so everything shows up at once.

Any challenge fics posted before September 28th will be deleted. IF FOR SOME REASON you are unable to post on the 28th, please send a PM to one of the challenge mods - we will work with you.

Dear fellow carylers, today's AU is for the domestic bliss fans with a huge side of Merle 'I'm a damn mystery to me' Dixon. A love letter to the Dixon brothers and to Caryl altogether worthy of your reading.

If It Helps, written by sweettooth7, is posted on 9Lives and FF.net.

Summary: It had always been Daryl and Merle against the world, for as long as either of them could remember, and there was no way in hell Merle was letting that stop now. It was all just a big misunderstanding.

Rated: E Word count: 61.696 (17 chapters) Published: April 15, 2015 (complete)

ANON! You sent me this ask on January 1st but some error on Tumblr didn't make it visible until now! I hope you're still there to enjoy this small selection of fics despite the six month delay. While there's life, there's hope so fingers crossed that Carol finally tells Daryl about The Grove in TBOC. Caryl on! 🥰

Every Bit by Wanderings/ @deannawoso [ 9Lives ] Summary: Carol finally breaks down and tells Daryl what happened at the grove. Rating: T Word Count: 2.330 (02 chapters) Published: November 19, 2014 (incomplete, but with a satisfying resolution).

Genesis by @silversundown2 [ 9Lives ] Summary: A new beginning grows in the ruins of a burnt city. Set in the episode “Consumed”. Rating: T Word Count: 1.706 Published: June 25, 2016 (one-shot)

Home by sweettooth7 [ 9Lives ] Summary: Since the moment Tyreese died she'd been carrying it all alone. Here's my version of Carol telling Daryl about what happened at the grove. Rating: T Word Count: 2.996 Published: October 04, 2015 (one-shot)

In Your Eyes by @equuleus86 [ 9Lives ] Summary: My take on a conversation we all want to see taking place. Carol relives the events of The Grove. Rating: G Word Count: 2.680 Published: November 05, 2017 (one-shot)

Hey everyone, long time no talk... very long time, lol.

I just wanted to get something off my chest.

So I was going through some stories on Nine Lives, wanting to find something to read and get lost in, and I was just kind of hit with nostalgia.

I was by no means here when the official Caryl fanbase really kicked off, but I began following it in the year 2015. Doesn't sound very far now, but if you think about it, that was nearly 10 years ago, and I fell in it hard. I began looking at all of the amazing blogs and posts that talked about how awesome caryl is and how there were hints here and hints there about them eventually getting together. I soon began making my own posts and trying to keep everyone positive and just talk about our common love. I started writing my own fanfiction, and some of the stories that came out of me in those years, I'm even surprised at how creative I was.

We weren't necessarily stressed about things or other ships or what have you; we just enjoyed caryl and what it was.

Fast forwarding to now, and I feel like this fanbase has gone through the fucking ringer. Bad writing, bad showrunning, shipbaiting, ship wars, gaslighting, trolls chasing Melissa off of Twitter, all that mayhem. We have just gone through so much crap. Now it's like we're holding our breath while we wait for the Daryl Dixon spinoff to give us what we absolutely deserve, but are constantly being pulled back and forth about it.

And the worst part is, some of us are just so tired of being let down that we might be thinking, "even if it goes in our favor... would it be worth it at this point?" And I wouldn't blame those people, I really wouldn't. We've all gone through some hell.

Anyways, to make a long story short... anyone else miss the old days?

Back then, all we did was speak about the shared Caryl scenes in the latest episode, and how Daryl's hair curling around his ears makes him look handsome. Or Carol showing her growing fierceness and self confidence. All the while, so many amazing writers were punching out fanfiction novels that would put the very show's staff of writers to shame. Life was good; we just enjoyed the fanbase we were in.

I just miss those days, you know?

Now everything is so complicated. It's like a once clean river has gotten polluted and no one knows how to clean it up. At the end of the day, most of us just want to enjoy Caryl and the beauty that it was and still is. But so many things are dirtying the water, it's so hard to bring the focus back on why we all came here originally.

Hell I haven't written anything fanfic wise in over a year, and that was only after not writing anything a year prior too. My mojo just got muddied up like the rest of it.

I don't mean to make anyone depressed of course; I'm just venting a little bit I guess. I just miss when things were so much more simple. Could we go back to that? Maybe... if Caryl actually becomes canon and it's done right for both the characters and the audience, but we'll see though.

In the meantime, I'm just going to read some fanfics and remind myself of why I joined in the first place. Maybe that'll remind me of how much I enjoyed writing for these characters.

Have a good day/night/week loves.

I keep reading Carol's surname the wrong way all the time. I call her Petelier (not Peletier) bc for me it sounds like "petals". Yup, constant tags don't help, still always Petelier jesus

Moodboard by @acrossthesestars

Rating: Explicit

Pairing: Eddie Munson x F!Reader

Authors’ Note: Alright canon, you can see yourself out. @acrossthesestars and I have it from here.

Part One ║ Part Two ║ Part Three

_

Eddie Munson woke up thirsty. Painfully, dreadfully, thirsty.

He woke up cold, in complete darkness, his bones aching so badly he thought they would snap. He opened his mouth and tasted dirt, fighting the urge to breathe too deeply and choke on it. It smelled like earth; it smelled like life and death and things more ancient than he could name. And it smelled like her.

I just need everyone to see this picture of Joseph Quinn. 

Let’s get our beloved metalhead and Steve’s boyfriend back !!