Omg The Amount Of Angst - Tumblr Posts

I don’t know what it is about Kastle that awakened this beast of an Angst Monster inside of me but I really want to write a fic post-tps1 pre-dds3 that develops into dds3 where for some Marvel Reason the Castle family comes back to life (and also Kevin just for the added angst) and they all have to deal with it.

Like. Definitely Kastle endgame but lots of Angst in between, ya know?

Recently I saw a post here about American boys coming back from the war with European wives and not knowing how to be with American girls anymore because they’ve seen death and found it easier to connect with people who shared their trauma and it got me thinking about Frank and what he says versus what’s actually the truth for him? I think I might not make a lot of sense here but my point is... Frank has a narrative he tells himself that he firmly believes to be the truth and it blinds him to the actual facts. Like how Schoonover and Billy betrayed him, how he felt like everyone should kind of see the world like he does, etc.

I know it gave a touch of realism to the series when Frank was talking about Maria and making a point to say that they fought and it wasn’t everything perfect but it got me thinking how he said that every time he mentioned her in dds2. This is a man who went through a very traumatic experience and is already looking back on his past only being able to think about the good stuff (he said so himself) and I found it so interesting how he still managed to have “bad” things to say about Maria and Frankie. Not bad as in criticising but bad as in not happy memories I guess or mentions of fights. I have a bit of a headcanon which can totally be wrong but I think it’s because Lisa is the only one in his family that Frank really had a strictly pure connection with. I might go back to change this phrasing since I’m not sure it really captures what I mean but let me explain.

Maria was a soldier’s wife through and through and while this isn’t common in my country and I can’t speak from experience, it feels to me like that might put a particular kind of strain on any relationship. We can see in the series when she talks about Frank leaving pieces of himself behind every time he came back and her feeling insecure (“Where is home?”) and I think that speaks a lot about their characters and their relationships, esp if we consider the fact that Frank is remembering all that with rose coloured glasses. I do genuinely think they had many problems and it really interests me to think how they would have dealt with them after Frank quit. That’s not to say I think their relationship was doomed from the start but my whole point is that for Frank there was a lot of love involved, yes, but also guilt, sadness, anger and resentment.

Then there’s Frankie which oof. He breaks my fucking heart. Out of everyone he’s probably the one Frank speaks about the least and it’s just so common for there to be distance between a father and his son esp when the father himself had a shitty relationship w his own dad. Again, Frank’s relationship with his son had a lot of resentment, fear and guilt involved, imo, he missed his goddamn birth for christ’s sake. But not Lisa. From day one, Frank took on the responsibility of being a dad and he wanted Lisa, she was his whole world, his sweet little girl who held him up when he cried. Out of all of them, she’s the one he mentions more, and that I felt (while watching dds2 just once) the one he grieved more in a way. Only because it felt like pure unadulterated grief with no other conflicting feelings in the mix. The only thing he ever mentioned feeling guilty of with Lisa was not reading her the story and then he latched on to that so fucking hard after everything (one batch, two batch, penny and dime).

Anyways let me get back on track. Just thinking about Frank coming back from his last tour and trying to fit into a civvie life already gets me thinking about how hard it would be for the Castle family. Remember, Frank didn’t join the Marines because he felt some sense of patriotism or whatever, he did it because he’d always had that war inside of him and Schoonover told his dad he’d be a good fit there. So yeah, we go back to Frank telling himself his narratives. Now, I’m not sure this was canon or fiction but the sentiment is the same even if he never said the words “If Maria walked through those doors and asked me to cut off my arm I would no questions asked”. Because of his loss, I think it’s very easy for him to fall into that mindset of “I would do anything for them” and simplify it a bit too much. Because the fight with Maria didn’t come out of nowhere, she had been feeling like that for some time and either they’ve been fighting about it for close to ten years or they haven’t but the problem was still there and I have no idea what’s worse.

Backtracking to Frank, I think one of his most admirable qualities is his loyalty. He treats people who aren’t blood like family and everyone he considers family has a special place in his heart and soul and he listens to them. Frank was pushing Gundel (was that his name?) forward when they were burying bodies and digging out bullets from civilian’s brains “It’s our orders” and while I don’t think he was unaffected, I think it was something he was prepared to do quite easily in some ways and that says a lot about him. Then he takes Rawllins eye and Billy, his brother, is there telling him to quit. Next, there’s Maria crying and asking him to come home. Frank doesn’t think twice about doing what both of his loved ones told him to do. Because Billy is his brother and Maria is his wife and those things mean something to him. Something really deep and really raw and intrinsic in his soul but... it doesn’t change who he is.

Again, I’m not saying they were doomed to fail (Frank and Maria) but I have a lot of doubts about them if they got to have a future together. First let me just say that I think the key for a good lifelong relationship is putting in the work every day and Frank and Maria had that down to an art imo. But it’s not the only thing. No amount of work can change a person’s knee jerk reactions, their base thoughts, the way they really feel deep inside. Sure, you can work to change habits and all that but how is it fair to have to keep fighting to change a part of yourself just for the sake of staying together? I dunno. This, of course, can be very easily argued with because everyone has an ideal relationship in their head and in the end I don’t really think there’s a right or wrong in this, just different opinions and perspectives. But my next point I can’t see a way around. Bc look. Frank and Maria had three months together before they had to get married because of Lisa. They were both really young (I’m thinking 21?) and immediately after Frank got deployed again and again and again, missing all this shit that was happening with his family. I have a friend who used to be married to an airline pilot (closest thing I can think of from “personal” experience), they had two sons and she said that she was basically a single mom for all the things that counted. Now that they’re broken up she can only remember the good things but still. Imagine Frank back at home after never having been home full time before. Imagine Frank, who has this darkness inside of him and that only snowballed with PTSD (bc really Frank? U don’t have it? Psht) and trauma and all that shit and he has no more outlet for it all. Because yes, he is a family man, but he only had to be a father and a husband for some stints of time and then he was being deployed again. Most of his time, he was used to having a family in war with his brothers.

Now, all of that was pre-Punisher Frank. Imagine Frank fresh out of avenging his family, changing names post-dds2 AND post-tps1 suddenly getting his family back. His family who he would do fucking anything for but they still haven’t been around for the past almost three years (i’m guessing, the timeline is so shaky). The past really traumatic and life changing three years of his life.

I already have a lot of headcanons for this but since this is a Kastle post and it’s getting way too big I’ll just backtrack to the beginning.

When I first started thinking about this scenario I only saw heartbreak for Karen (and Frank, really) but the more time passed, the more complex it got in my head and it all revolves around the canon relationship Karen and Frank have, more specifically, that it wasn’t about being together or being physical. (short disclaimer: I will never watch tps2 and I pretend it never happened). See, Frank in a lot of ways was still grieving Maria. I think he was still in love with her and he would always be as long as she was dead and the pain would never fully go away. Imo, I don’t think any of those facts were the reason him and Karen didn’t end up dating. I think they could (should) have ended up together eventually but those first 2/3 years where not only Frank but also Karen were hot messes with a bunch of shit thrown their way wasn’t going to be it. Instead, something much more meaningful and intense was building between them.

Shared trauma really bonds people and brings them together, it’s why Frank considered the marines his family and also why him and Karen got so attached to each other to the point that Frank could look David (who had been miserable for a year and a half because he lost his wife and kids and was at the end of his fucking rope) in the eye and compare her to Sarah. “Sarah is my wife, my family.” “So is Karen”. Again, the fact that they never shared a kiss or anything makes it all that heavier because their connection wasn’t because of attraction or lust or just loneliness, it was something so much deeper.

And if his family got back, his wife, I don’t think Frank would have any guilt associated with his connection with Karen. Bc even though to someone looking from the outside it might seem like they had something, in his head he wasn’t thinking in terms of this is my next girl now that my wife is dead. He wasn’t battling with guilt over his dead wife to make a move on her or not. He was just Frank and she was Karen and she became his family. They shared moments in the eye of the storm, she grounded him, made him remember.

And anyway, in the same way I don’t think David could have let Micro die, I don’t think Frank could keep the Punisher at bay, even with their families back. You can’t go back to who you were no matter how hard you try and once you get a taste for something so addictive as that, it’s really fucking hard to go pretend it never happened. This would be a story as much about the Lieberman’s as Kastle and the Castle family because oh wow how interesting would it be to explore it all?

Anyway, no one will probably read this giant post about weird ramblings but if you do and you’re interested to discuss it, feel free to reblog w your answer or dm me! <3