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[choccymilllk]

wake Up its the scheduled once in a year anime techno art

org picture below ♡ idea by tord @/ rowarctic on twtter :33

[ninzied]

another kind of goodbye

for @carry-the-sky. happy birthday, my friend! have a little post-cancellation kastle fic.

It’s three months, give or take, when Frank lets himself think about her again. Really think about her. Not in the passing kind of way, where he’s walking down some street and sees a bouquet of gardenias, like the kind he’d almost gotten her instead of the roses that day. Or when he’s sipping on coffee, and Karen’s face flashes like a mirage at him across the cheap Formica table – blonde hair almost white under the shit diner lighting, but those eyes still so blue as she told him he would never lie to her.

So – okay, so he thinks about her. He thinks about her.

(He wonders if she—)

Frank eventually makes his way back to the city again, after. Another day, another job. Madani thinks he’s meant for something greater than this – than picking off these scum-of-the-earth kinds of assholes that litter the streets of a place like New York.

He can’t believe that he was meant for greater, but. Sometimes, he does wonder. If a part of him – whatever part of him that’s not still buried deep down in the ground with his family – was meant to come back here. To walk these streets and feel the pull of her, always, even when that’s all he can afford to feel.

He tells himself that has to be enough.

He’s been laying low, since his return. Coughed up some cash for a three-hundred-square-footer in Brooklyn, but he crosses the bridge to the city most days, maybe even finds his way to Hell’s Kitchen from time to time too. It’s risky, he knows. If Murdock catches wind of him, they’d be lucky to walk away from each other in one piece. And Karen…

There’d be a different kind of hell to pay, if Karen ever found out.

His phone gives a single buzz in his pocket as he’s hunkering his way down 47th, and he stops in his tracks, nearly colliding with an elderly woman in the middle of the sidewalk.

“Excuse me!” she says in a shrill voice, bag clutched tight to her chest.

“Apologies, ma’am,” he nods as she makes a show of putting as much distance between them as possible, and then he fishes his phone out, hesitating for one absurd moment before glancing down at the screen.

Back in town yet, Castle?

He barks out a laugh. Chrissakes, Madani.

His phone buzzes again.

I have a job for you, if you’re still interested.

“Still,” mutters Frank, with a scoffing shake of his head. He thinks he admires her perseverance, but Madani’s gotta know she’s only wasting her breath.

He cuts south down 10th, toward Lincoln Tunnel. It’s a brisk day, and the wind on his face feels sharper than usual, considering he hasn’t bled much there in a while. He jams his hands deeper into his pockets, ignoring the insistent drone of Madani’s follow-up call.

He’s got a date with a park bench on the wrong side of town, and if he closes his eyes, he can pretend it’s the same bridge overlooking the water, and when he opens them again Karen’ll be there, waiting for him.

…

His closest call comes with, of all people, the lawyer. Not Red – the other one. Franklin Nelson.

Frank’s emerging with coffee two storefronts down just as another door opens, and he’s cursing himself for not seeing the signs when out tumbles Nelson with his back turned, adjusting his tie against the wind.

“Foggy bear, wait!” someone else is laughing, and a blonde lady steps out to chase after him, slinging a purse over her shoulder and reaching with her other hand to link around his elbow.

“I told him this was gonna make me late for work,” grumbles Nelson, but without any heat to the words. “Dad’s surprise party isn’t until tomorrow, don’t know why this couldn’t have waited – oh, crap, I forgot I told Karen I’d pick up some coffee—”

Nelson’s about-facing sharply, girlfriend following closely behind. He doesn’t appear to notice Frank crouched down in a corner by the 7-Eleven, hood obscuring half his face as he trains his eyes on the ground by their feet. The girl unearths some coins from her bag as they pass, clinking them onto the lid of Frank’s coffee cup without seeming to hear his low mutter of thanks.

He’s leapt up the moment he hears the door latch shut, brushing the coins into his palm as he goes.

He leaves them with a guy camped out by the train stop, a dog lifting her head from their blankets to blink sleepy eyes up at Frank, and he walks away harder, takes the steps two at a time and wishes – God he wishes—

…

Another text from Madani.

He shuts his phone off. Goes back to retrieve it ten seconds later from the trash can that he’d dumped it in, wiping it down and scowling as her message pops up on the screen.

Castle – offer still stands, FYI.

“You should call her back,” advises a man huddled down by the newsstands next to him. His face is like leather, worn down and weathered with age, with living. “Apologize for whatever it is that you did, so you don’t end up out here like me.”

“Already there,” Frank tells him, turning the phone over and over in his hand. Madani’s message lights up again each time, flashing and flashing until he sees it like a burn through his retinas even when the phone’s no longer facing him.

“Damn. That’s a damn shame.” The guy shifts, scratching at a spot on his back. “Maybe shouldn’t’ve stayed away from her for so long.”

Frank shakes his head, uttering a short, incredulous laugh. “Well, maybe I got my reasons, yeah? You think about that?”

“Doesn’t matter what I think,” shrugs the guy. “Does she think they’re any good? These reasons of yours?”

Frank turns away, jaw working furiously.

“Yeah.” The guy shouldn’t have any right to sound as smug as he does, and yet. “Yeah, I didn’t think so.”

…

He’s got no place in coming here. He knows it. He knows it, but he thinks it was always meant to be this way, him circling back around to her, even after everything that he’s done to push her away. Maybe a part of him had never left. And the rest is just – there, hovering right at the edge of some sharp realization, that he could try to be whole again if he simply took that first step. And a part of Karen must at least sense that. It’s why she’d never really given up on him, before.

It doesn’t change how I feel about you.

Frank wonders if she’d forgive him this time. If he’d even want her to.

It wouldn’t be anything close to what he deserves, that’s for goddamn sure.

He gazes up at her fire escape, counts the number of steps it would take just to be able to reach that bottom rung from his vantage point across the street. Her shades are drawn, the lines of them blurred out in the dim orange light. On one corner of the windowsill, wedged up against the glass, there’s a small stack of books. On the other, a vase. From this angle, the shadows folded into the fabric of her curtains look almost like flower stems.

Frank squints, and the stems disappear.

…

There’s about a week in between, where he feels himself inching closer to something, each time he drops by her block. He never goes farther than the patch of sidewalk across from her building, but it’s getting harder not to just careen over the ledge.

More than anything, he wishes he knew, in those moments obscured in half-darkness, whether he’s come to look for that after she’d spoke of, or if he’s come to say goodbye.

Then, one day he spots flowers in her window, for the first time since—

(They’re pale white against the cream of her curtains, their stems dark slivers of green, and he imagines them pricking the pad of his thumb, drawing up a spot of blood.)

Frank takes a deep breath.

…

She doesn’t look surprised to see him when she opens the door, swinging it back two-thirds of the way before stopping. Her lips are pressed tightly together, like there’s too much to say, or maybe there’s things that she can’t, either way he can’t read her and he thinks she’s never terrified him more.

Frank drops his gaze, mouth moving soundlessly until the words grind their way out. “How’d you know I was here, Karen?”

He’s not sure what kind of answer he’s expecting. That Nelson had grown a real pair of eyes, or that Red had managed to ferret him out of his lurking somehow. Or maybe Karen really just hadn’t known at all, and those flowers were never for him.

What Karen says instead is, “Dinah and I grab a beer together, sometimes.”

“That right?” he asks, trying to lay out an image of this in his mind. It sits strangely there, stumping him for a moment, and some of his bewilderment must show on his face because Karen’s mouth almost turns up in a smile before flattening again.

She leans away from the doorjamb, waving her hand in a worn-looking gesture before letting it drop to her side. “Besides, you…haven’t exactly been subtle, in your haunting of Hell’s Kitchen.”

He doesn’t know what to say to that, other than a gruff, “’S’what dead men do, Karen,” as she folds her arms and sighs at him.

“You sure you’re not just losing your touch, Frank?” She steps into the doorway, whether to move closer to him or to block him out of her apartment, he can’t tell. “Or was it because you wanted me to know but couldn’t tell me to my face?”

His eyes snap up to hers, twitching slightly under the sharp weight of her gaze. He shakes his head, wishing he could just ask her, What do you want from me, Karen? but they’re long past that now, and if he can’t find his own way to answer her, then.

God, he really doesn’t deserve this woman.

“I think I—” He shifts his body and tries again. “I think I needed to figure some things out. Karen. I was waiting 'til I felt like I was ready, and I don’t think I’ll ever be that.” But I’m here, he wants to say, but I’m here.

“Yeah.” Karen’s nodding, hair falling into her face, and she brushes it back, resting her chin in her palm for a moment. “I know that, Frank.” All of the fight in her seems to have ebbed slowly back, and he resists the urge to reach out and shake the storm back into motion, to make her understand she doesn’t get to let him off the hook so easy.

The look she gives him now is softer, but he knows. Fight’s not done. May never be done. And he knows this because he knows he’ll never stop fighting for her.

She’s stepped back into the door, letting it swing open further. She doesn’t invite him in, but she’s quirked an eyebrow up at him, biting her lip with another deep sigh and a shake of her head.

“You, uh.” Frank glances back and forth at their surroundings, doesn’t quite meet her eye. Tries to lighten his tone through the gruffness as he asks her, “So, you wanted to see me?”

Her voice is soft, forbearing, with a hint of gentle knowing behind it. “You didn’t?”

She’s holding back the clear start of a smile from him this time, and Frank. Christ. It’s taking everything in him not to step toward her, to—

Karen tilts her chin at him, the motion loosening another wave of blonde hair, and he can’t remember anymore why he was trying so hard to stand back from all this. He’s moving, swaying forward until she’s just an arm’s length away, and there’s something almost teasing about the way she relaxes her shoulder into the door as she watches him.

“You back to kill some people, Frank?”

He feels a corner of his mouth turn up. This girl. He licks his lips, lets out a quiet sort of laugh. “That was the plan, yeah.”

Karen gazes up at him, unblinking. “Have you?”

“I was—” Frank has to look away for a moment, finally turning back when he can. His eyes are steady, boring into hers, voice low and full with meaning. “I was. Working on it.”

Karen nods. Doesn’t speak for long seconds, and he measures them out in heartbeats, chest tightening hard enough it feels like it might break when she asks him, very carefully, “Still?”

Frank steps closer, close enough to feel the way her breath shakes with a small sigh, how her body moves away from the door to meet him.

His hand is inches from hers, but he doesn’t reach for her. Not yet.

She waits, gaze searching. He gives the barest shake of his head, and a single word, gravel-filled, a promise. “No.”

Something cracks open in her expression, and it means everything to him, her head ducking away as though she can’t have him looking too closely at the way she's biting back that smile of hers, and he thinks – he thinks he wants to make her do it again, and again, for as long as she will have him.

“Would you like to come in, Frank?”

He takes her hand in his this time, feeling the pull of her as he steps across the threshold, door shutting firmly behind them, and it feels like coming home.

[uneasyjupiter]

You Dont Have To Forgive Them

No matter what anyone tells you,

You do not have to forgive someone who abused you

My great grandfather mentally abused me for years, and even physically abused me at times. He constantly made fun of my weight, my interests, my looks, everything.

He twisted my ankle violently, making it hard to walk on it for the next few hours, for tripping over my brother and accidentally hurting him a bit. I was nine.

He slammed a milk carton into my ribs in the middle of a store for forgetting something my great grandma asked us to get. I offered to run out to the car (where she was waiting on us) and ask her, it would take a minute or two at most. He got angry, and slammed the gallon of milk into my chest, it hurt really bad, this man climbs trees and gets on houses for a living, and was in the army, and was (and still is) very healthy for his age. I was around ten years old.

My great grandma asked me, knowing I had already had one that day, if I wanted the last ice cream sandwich so she could throw out the box, and the sandwich wouldn't sit in the freezer forever. I said yes, and he started making fun of my weight full force. Saying' are you sure you need that? To me I really think you don't need that, you'll just get fatter than you already are.. ' I had it. I called him out, saying 'seriously, please stop calling my fat and making fat jokes. It hurts. A lot. '

He then walked into the kitchen, dumped his coffee in the sink, then threw his GLASS COFFEE CUP AT ME, nearly hitting me in the head. I called my Nana crying, who showed up fast with my dad, who had to get up for work just a few hours away. My mother punished me for calling my Nana instead of her. My mom was the one sending me over there, not my nana.

I told my mom all of this. That he was the reason I was anorexic and not eating anymore, he was the reason for my depression and that I was self harming. She refused to really take it to heart, and kept sending me over there anyways.

Now she's trying to tell me that I 'Cant keep holding a grudge''ill regret all this hate when he dies' and that 'he's family, you need to forgive him'

No

No I dont

This man caused me to cut myself, hate myself and starve myself, and almost commit suicide on a few occasions. I don't care if he's family, I will never forgive him for what he's done. If anyone should regret anything, it's him.

She still sends my baby sister over there. I ask her all the time if he's doing anything bad, if he makes fun of her, if he hits her. Thankfully, she has told me so far that he hasnt. If he ever touches my baby sister, I will gladly beat the shit out of him for what he's done to me, and for hurting my baby sister.

My brothers dad, my first and former stepdad, nearly choked me to death, hit my mom, broke our door, and is manipulating and controlling my brother. She never tells me to forgive him. What's different about him?

One hurt us once, one day, for me telling mom he was playing with the beebee gun when she told him not to, while it was traumatizing for a first grader to experience, the other abused me nearly my whole life. I only have to forgive one according to my mother.

I shouldn't have to forgive either.

No one has to forgive their abusers, no matter who they are, or who tells you you need to.

You

Do

Not.

[alfeaux]

Bold what applies to your muse! tagged by @shroud-of-sinners

I’m loud.

I’m sarcastic.

I cry easily.

I have a bad temper.

I’m easy to get along with.

I have more enemies than friends.

I’ve smoked

I drink coffee.

I clean my room daily.

My appearance:

I wear make-up

I wear a piece of jewelry at all times.

I wear contacts.

I wear glasses.

I have braces.

I change my hair color often.

I have piercings.

I have small feet.

Relationships:

I’m in a relationship now.

I’m single.

I’m crushin’.

I’ve missed an ex before.

I’m always scared of being hurt.

I’ve told someone I didn’t love them when I did.

I’ve been in love more than two times.

I believe in love at first sight.

Friendships:

I have a best friend.

I have at least ten REAL friends.

I’ve gotten a phone call in the last 48 hours from a friend.

I’ve beaten up a friend.

I’ve been in a serious fight with a friend.

I can trust at least five people with my life.

Experiences:

I’ve been on an airship.

I’ve been on a ship.

I’ve ridden a chocobo.

I’ve ridden another mount.

I’ve made a speech.

I’ve been in some sort of club.

Music:

I listen to R&B.

I listen to pop.

I listen to techno.

I listen to rock.

I’m one of those people who play songs repeatedly

I download music.

I buy CD’s.

I listen to anything really.

Family Life: (non-existent since she had never been raised by her parents)

I get along with both of my parents

My biological parents are still together.

I have at least one brother.

I’ve been kicked out of the house.

I’ve sworn at my parents.

I’ve made my parents cry.

I’ve lied to my parents.

I’ve lied to my parents about where I am.

I’ve lied to my parents about what I’m doing.

Hair:

I’ve had streaks.

I’ve cut my hair in the past year.

I’ve dyed my hair in the past year.

I’ve been blonde.

I’ve had black

I’ve been red.

I use conditioner.  

I’ve curled my hair.

I’ve straightened my hair.

Tagging: @rabbitstardust @semper-miles @isarmont-sorel @ffxivaltaholic @rheyla-ffxiv @vexanoir idk!!! whoever hasnt done it!!