𝐍𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐓𝐌𝐀𝐑𝐄𝐒, carl grimes

announcment + authors note.

    — hello ! ♡

I would like to start this out by crediting the wonderful neverclear once again, she helped me get the inspiration and gave me the idea for the epilogue of this book, and the whole flower inside the bible idea! as well as what psalm I would use. I cannot thank her enough for being one of the many who helped me write this. Her book and writing ideas absolutely amazing, and what inspired me to start writing in the first place! She is an amazing soul and I could not recommend her more!!

I also feel like I should follow up with saying the last thing I want to do is romanticize something like suicide or declining mental health. I simply wanted to make a story that felt realistic to me, a character that could not recover from the world around them. I feel like the main show never did really touch up on the aspects of mental health as much as it should have. Even just looking at COVID and seeing how it made so many people depressed says a lot about what an apocalypse scenario would do.

I absolutely hate when people write suicide for romance, not when it's done poorly. I have experienced my own fair share of mental health troubles, as well as having a Dad who ended up taking his own life. I hate how social media portrays suicide so poorly, as someone who can understand the profound impact it has. It is not a pretty and glamorous thing. It is a tragedy that changes the life of hundreds, similar to all other death. If you need anything, ANY help at all, please reach out to someone! I will always be here to help support you all, as you all have supported me through these past several years! <3

Writing Ella has helped me a lot. Even though she remains to be just a figment of my imagination, I understsnd her like she is a real person ( which sounds rlly funny LMAO ). Her story is raw, which has always been my intention. She is someone who I feel like we can all relate to, or have related to, at some point in our lives. That's why I don't regret ending this story, like I did — because, her ending is the one we all managed to avoid, and contain the strength to avoid, on a day to day basis. I wanted Ella to be someone we all can admire, for trying so hard to be strong, despite her struggles. :)

I want your honest opinion tho: was this a bad ending?

Personally, I may be biased, but I cannot imagine another ending for Ella. My initial goal into writing this story was to make an oc that spirals downhill rather than developing into a strong character. That may be bad writing on my end.. but oh well😭I do wish I could tweak some aspects of it but i'm not sure if I ever will. I wrote Ella at her lowest times in some of the lowest times of my life, I feel as though to accurately describe her pain there was no other way to do so. Another reason why the final chapter was so painfully difficult, I have gotten a lot better mentally💀

I would like to imagine Ella having a good ending, but I never planned on writing a relationship between her and Carl that was healthy and would ever end in a healthy way. They were toxic from the moment carl started liking because he saw her cry, so.. toxic, as in they are so, soooo co-dependent. part of me regrets knowing that some parts of the story may be interpreted as a cringy "oh i'm so depressed woes me" type of fanfic, but I tried my absolute hardest for it not to be. I wanted to write suicide and mental health in a way that reminded people of the tragedy of romeo and juliet, not the "i'm in middle school" edgy stuff that gets posted on snapchat. there was never a character on the show that was sick and never got better, at least not a main one, and I wanted to write one. I don't think we have ever had a main character that goes through episodes of depression and never recovers — I mean, like even if ella wanted to get better, she physically COULDNT. that's why I added her disease, to add more of a helpless aspect to her character.

At the end of the day Ella was cursed from the beginning being blonde AND one of Carol's adopted kids soooo..

It feels so unreal to me that a story I started making in 2020 had lasted this long. My life has changed so much it's actually insane. I started writing this when I was 16, when I was going in my Junior year of high school, and I just now finished my freshmen year of nursing school. Absolutely INSANE. If any of y'all go to the University of Cincinnati hit me up 🤠