It's gonna be May! Wait. What's that? It IS May! Which means it's time to announce our May Member of the Month. A round of applause for Sienna27! 

1.) Favorite Fanfiction Authors?

Hi, first, thank you to who/whomever I need to thank for the win!  And sadly, I can only share the name of one fave caryl author because I actually don’t read other people’s fic in fandoms where I’m actively writing.  It might sound strange, but it’s been a rule of mine for a number of years now, because I noticed back when I first started writing (and was still reading at the same time) that other people's ideas and storylines would get stuck in my head, and it would screw up my muses.  Fanfictional chaos ensued! :) 

So, to the one fave author that I have from back in the days when I first dove into the caryl fic world (2016), that would be Praxid!   I don't know if she's on here, but if not you can find her over on ff.net.  Her writing is gorgeous, and I devoured all of her stuff over maybe a week and she broke my heart over and over because everything she wrote was beautiful and tragically bittersweet. I honestly can’t recommend her enough, and it was after I finished her last story that I got the first idea for my own caryl fic.   So really if it wasn’t for her work, I might not even be writing in this fandom!

2.) Favorite fanfictions in last 12 mos?

Unfortunately, for the reasons covered above :) I can’t recommend anything that recent, so again I will plug Praxid, and her favorite story of mine is The Book of Judith.  If you haven't read it, please do yourself that favor and seek it out.   It's a future fic mostly revolving around Daryl and Judith, though there are caryl undertones.

3.) Favorite fic trope?

Oh, love a good Meet/Cute!   I don’t care how cheesy it is, it’s a great way to break the ice when you’re establishing a new relationship.  The best I could come up with for a meet/cute in TWD was Daryl saving Carol from a walker, and her falling into the guts.  A tale as old as time!  Ha, ha! :)

4.) What would you like to see more of, or what haven’t you seen in a fic that you would like to see? 

Again, not reading in the fandom right now, but something I would love to hear had became more of a trend are Pre-ZA stories.  Because honestly, the reason I started writing in this fandom was because that was the exact story I wanted to read, something super in depth about the days leading up to the collapse of civilization, and I couldn’t find anyone who had written that yet.   At least nobody had done one yet with the caryl ship, so I started writing my own version.   That became my biggest story, and I have had more than a few people comment after finding it, that they had also been specifically looking for something pre-ZA and I was one of the few that they’d found.   So I think it’s a good niche spot still ripe for a lot of ideas, because you can stick with canon concepts or go totally AU, and either way it’s a wide open space to explore.

5.) What made you start shipping Caryl? 

The CDC scenes!  First them on the elevator, then him trailing her down the hallway, finally the next day with him hovering near her while Jenner did the presentation.   Whether it was intentional or not with TPTB, I immediately saw those moments as growing attraction/protectiveness on his part.   And those feelings were something very much confirmed (and shown to be reciprocated by Carol), opening season two.