All Things Richonne

I know I said my last edit was going to be my *last*... but I love Richonne way too much. 🤭❤️

Thank you all for the love on my last post 🥰🫶🏽.

I hope you enjoy this one,

And DID 💅🏿

Also if anyone would like to be a mod lmk!

FYI

It seems ff.net is acting wonky…i tried to post chapter 9 last week and again today but the “old” site would not let me upload the chapter either time.

It worked on the new site but the link is wonky sometimes it takes you to the page sometimes you get an error and the app was iffy too.

SO, I am probably going to take a break until after the site issues are fixed.…hopefully it will be fixed soon!

FYI

It seems ff.net is acting wonky…i tried to post chapter 9 last week and again today but the “old” site would not let me upload the chapter either time.

It worked on the new site but the link is wonky sometimes it takes you to the page sometimes you get an error and the app was iffy too.

SO, I am probably going to take a break until after the site issues are fixed.…hopefully it will be fixed soon!

Before I begin, a quick PSA: There will be minor spoilers, major feelings, and language that is absolutely NSFW. Proceed accordingly.

I chose @lamorenareina to kick off this rec series because her stories were the first Richonne fics I devoured back in the of fall 2025 after my summer rewatch binge of TWD and TOWL. The timing was divine. The very moment I decided to prowl the internet to feed my Richonne withdrawal (let’s keep it real—addiction), she had just updated several works on AO3.

As I waded through AO3’s chaotic “Rick Grimes x Michonne” tag (seriously, what is that filter even doing), one author name jumped out at me:

La. Morena. Reina.

A Spanish username meaning “Black Queen”? Oh, I knew I was in the right damn place. I was expecting Richonne love and Michonne love and she delivered both in abundance.

This author spoiled me rotten and set a bar so high that every fic I read afterward had to limbo under it. Her writing is just that damn good.

I’m the kind of psycho who must read an author’s works chronologically—I know. Is it Autism? OCD? Both? Who knows. Who cares. It’s my process.

So I started with her earliest Richonne offerings:

“This New Thing” A smutty one‑shot. Delicious. But I was craving something longer, something I could sink my teeth into.

“Untitled x Rockets” Another short, spicy morsel that absolutely lived up to its name. Let’s just say I may or may not have instigated an incident with my husband after reading it several times. Anyway…

Both pieces were scrumptious amuse‑bouches, but I was still feeling a main course not an entrée.

“And If I Cry Again”, the fic that ruined me.

Where do I even start.

This story is three chapters of lush, poetic, emotionally surgical, profoundly intimate writing that had me in tears. Actual tears. The ugly kind.

It’s a slow, aching meditation on grief, love, and the quiet, devastating ways Rick and Michonne hold each other together after Carl’s death.

As I read and re‑read, I could feel how much this author loves these characters. The prose lingers on gestures, textures, breath, silence—it’s not plot‑driven; it’s emotion‑driven.

And it’s

SO.

DAMN.

GOOD.

Read it. Immediately. NOW!

This woman wrecked me. I mean WRECKED. It took divine intervention to pull me out of the Richonne stupor she put me in. And then she had the audacity—the unmitigated gall—to destroy me again with the next one.

Let me gather myself.

“Because I’m Okay Too”, la hermana (sister) story.

I consider BIOT the sister to IICA. Same author, same emotional intelligence, same devotion to Rick and Michonne, but doing different narrative work.

IICA is a lyrical, intimate novel about two people learning to breathe again after losing their son. BIOT is a rich, expanded, emotionally intelligent retelling of TWD canon; filling in gaps, deepening motivations, and tracing the slow, inevitable gravitational pull between Rick and Michonne.

And yes, it’s unfinished.

And yes, I screamed.

And yes, I am still screaming.

FUCK!

“A Rare Sameness”, the prestige blockbuster.

Shiiiiit.

If IICA and BIOT are emotional ballads, “A Rare Sameness” is the prestige summer blockbuster akin to Michael “My Movies Go Boom” Bey; however, much more elevated, atmospheric, gritty, and character‑driven. Plus, Richonne.

This fic introduces Rick and Michonne at the Atlanta camp, giving us a deeper, more emotionally loaded foundation for their compatibility than the show ever did. It’s cinematic, immersive, sensory‑rich (which I ate up like a plate of mofongo) and it was the spark that ignited my obsession with all things pre‑season 3 Richonne re-imaginings.

Like BIOT, it’s an ensemble piece. But ARS goes further—it gives Rick and Michonne a depth and dimensionality that makes even the best written episodes of the show (and certainly the comics) feel… well… mediocre.

Apart from TOWL Episode 4, of course. Looks sheepishly at Queen Danai.

“A Cowboy, Sheriff, and Lawyer Walk Into A Bar”, the canon divergent wild card.

This one is quite the departure; adult in theme, canon‑divergent, and as the title suggests, a Richonne + 1 situation. It’s not my personal favorite only because I am a Richonne monogamy purist, but if this flavor of romp is your jam, it’s a whole dish.

Final Thoughts (and a Plea)

If you haven’t read this author’s Richonne works, fix that immediately. And while I encourage you to shower her with love, please be gentle—she’s a doctoral student and deserves peace, hydration, and a full 10 hours of sleep.

@lamorenareina, wherever you are, I wish you success, blessings, and health. Your stories—está cabrón. Truly. Thank you for sharing your talent with us while juggling life and a PhD. I am humbled.

And now, allow me one moment of childish petulance:

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE UPDATE “A Rare Sameness” AND “Because I’m Okay Too” SOON stomps foot, I WANT MORE of your "Horny Fandom Shit and Writing" flops dramatically onto fainting couch

DAMN IT. I almost posted this before midnight. >_<

Passes out.

TL;DR: I WILL UPDATE.

You couldn't know when you wrote this how much I needed it. Desperately. I am languishing under the work of my dissertation and it is hard. Writing is hard. Thinking is hard. Locating myself in wider academic discourses among immensely brilliant people is existential. I am on a deadline. I am tired. I am unsure of my words, my thoughts, my feelings.

I try to be circumspect about my personal life online, but to drive home the gift this post is, I will share that my father died last year. And everything, everything, has been arduous. ESPECIALLY writing. I often find myself at a loss for words, even when I need them (a dissertation is just a bunch of fucking words).

But writers know too that not writing is emptying in its own way. So I have been depleted. I have missed writing even as I cannot bring myself to do it.

I got your notification this morning, as I sit before my computer, staring at my dissertation chapter, at a loss for words.

And then here you come, offering a lifeline.

My dissertation is about feeling, about desire, specifically Black women's desires, which are so often subject to dismissal and ridicule. I write about wanting, in ways we can explain and ways we can't, in ways that may be fulfilled and in ways that will be deferred.

And I write about how fandom often becomes the primary space where Black women work through what it means to want and reach for things that are always just out of reach but that may be briefly apprehended.

In that smutty 10K word fic. In the short drabble. In a giggly Tumblr back and forth. In that delicious GIF of a season two Rick in "Nebraska."

It's through desire—even or especially fan desire—that we imagine and build new worlds and come to know ourselves in significant ways. As (black)(women), as people who want things, as people who reach and reach and reach.

I write about how we do that in community with another, and I think about how the act of wanting in community is the work. It's where you/me/we come alive.

Your kind words testify to this work and I am beyond grateful for them. I hold them close. I let them propel me into another kind of work that so often wears me down.

And to those who have read my writing (even privately), commented, left kudos, etc. I hold you dear.

I haven't abandoned those stories, I swear! Let me get this chapter finished.

I've thought about scenarios for this, too. 🥀I can see Rick being so deeply moved by being back with his family and getting to do life with them. And sometimes in the beginning, maybe he’d be looking at his kids and Michonne at home and feeling really guilty that he almost chose not to come back to this, and that without Michonne fighting for him, even when he pushed her away, he might’ve missed out on all these precious moments he’s now present for. I could see after one of their family nights, when Rick and Michonne are alone getting ready for bed, Rick comments on how he almost missed out on the best thing that ever happened to him, and that he’s so sorry he made her think for even a second that he wouldn’t come home. I can see him directly apologizing for how he hurt her, and I feel like Michonne would then remind him that they’re here now and that’s what matters most, and he doesn’t have to carry guilt because, like she said in ep 5, being back with their family is more than enough. Plus, while she appreciates words, Michonne seems like an actions-over-words person. So the way we know Rick would show how committed he is to their family through actions would be what most effectively communicates how determined he is to not hurt her again.

The Ones Who Live Episode Posters

And a special shoutout to Danai Gurira for writing what is, in my opinion, one of the best episodes in the entire TWDU.

-

The Walking Dead // The Ones Who Live

Rick Grimes - Helicopter boy