#kastle trash

[onlykastle]

Okokokok….you ever see a quote, and like an image/movie/character/show/song/thingy immediately pops into your head as a direct correlation?

THIS IS WHAT I SAW.

AND THIS IS WHAT IMMEDIATELY POPPED INTO MY BRAIN

[braedenhales]

MY KASTLE PLAYLIST [DEAR LOVER]

[aiobhlin]

Witness

When Karen’s safety is threatened after she’s witness to an almost unspeakable crime, she sees Witness Protection as her only hope. Frank Castle has other ideas about how to keep her safe.

Set in a world where I didn’t rewatch any of the shows before writing it, and I just never watched Daredevil 3 or Punisher 2, so there’s lots of canon inconsistencies. Take a deep breath, buckle in, and just ride it out. We’re gonna have a good time.

This is a (mostly) finished work that I will post in semi-regular installments for my sanity and to make sure I have everything all buttoned up. I hope to have the whole thing posted before November 2023.

Credit to @garglyswoof for the magnificent, thorough, thoughtful, and supportive beta. I truly couldn't have done this without you.

For this first chapter, The Evidence, Karen goes undercover to get a story for the Bulletin and ends up seeing more than she anticipated.

“Are you going to approve my leave?” Karen kept her face neutral, and met his eyes straight on. It was a challenge, and he rose to it, holding her gaze with a challenge of his own.

“No.” He turned away.

“No? Ellison!”

“I said no, Karen. The last reporter I had who went deep on a Fisk story died. Do you remember him? His name was Ben Urich. He left the paper…”

“You fired him…”

“…chased after the story, and ended up dead.”

“I am not going to end up dead,” Karen started to protest, but Ellison waved a hand in her face and cut her off.

“Look, Ben was careful, okay? He took things slowly, asked questions discreetly. You’re like a bull in a china shop.” Karen looked like he had punched her in the gut, and Ellison mentally patted himself on the back for bringing Ben into it. “One thing I admired about Ben, and that I admire about you, is how devoted you are, how driven to report the truth. But there’s a difference between taking a chance on reporting corporate embezzlement and putting your life on the line by looking into whatever Vanessa Fisk is doing.”

“I’m hardly going to be putting my life on the line!” Karen recovered and rolled her eyes, her task of sorting files long forgotten.

“Going after anything regarding the Fisks is putting your life on the line, don’t you see? Ben was murdered for what he was trying to expose.”

“Yeah, and Fisk’s now in prison because of that.”

“I don’t want you to get killed, Karen.”

[konakoro]

Ok yes I may be a bit tipsy but I'm rewatching season 2 of Daredevil for the Punisher subplot and still just can't get over the relationship between Karen and Frank and how it formed. How Karen's character displays both a strong sense of strength and empathy that she then uses to help others, whether it be Frank or Grotto, and even with that conflict of interest (Frank was 110% making sure Grotto was dead and buried), Frank still gravitated to her because of her desire to help shed the truth behind the horrible tragedy that happened to him and his family. Karen was the only one in the law firm to show that empathy, and you see Frank looking over to her frequently during the interviews and when he was on the stand, because she was his anchor that he could ground himself to. Neither like to sugarcoat themselves, and because of that, the gentleness and kindness each showed each other was genuine, and culminates in their desire to protect each other in whichever way they can, and I'm dying once again I hate that we're never gonna get a Punisher s3 with these two aaaaggghhhh

[the-shining-river]

He checks the kitchen window a couple times before the white roses displayed there remind him of something. Then, he understands.

Karen must have seen the news about his escape, and put the roses in the window for him.

It’s a contract that’s older than the world. It’s older than his life that, for the past thirteen years, has been spent in prison. And he has no right to breach that contract.

Он несколько раз смотрит на окно кухни, где выставлены белые розы, прежде чем это напоминает ему о чем-то. И он понимает. Карен видела новости о том, что он сбежал, и выставила розы для него. Этот договор древнее мира, древнее той его жизни, которая длилась тринадцать лет в тюрьме. И он не имеет права его нарушить.

A Million Years / Миллион лет by fandom_Hells_Kitchen_2018 team on AO3 | (image credit here)

[ofsinnersandsaints]

I Love You, Asshole

Frank went into danger, Karen followed. Now, they've both been caught and Karen confronts Frank about his reckless, life risking behavior. He doesn't understand why she cared, the poor idiot for @kastlenetwork's Kastle Week - proximity Rating: G Word Count: 1540 One Shot AO3

If someone asked, Frank would say he was beyond pissed.

“This isn’t my fault.”

Frank glanced at Karen who was studying the door which kept them both locked in a tiny room for the past five minutes. “Didn’t say it was.”

She looked over her shoulder at him, a bruise already forming on her cheekbone which just pissed him off more. “No, but I could hear you thinking it.”

“You can read minds, impressive.”

Karen stood up and walked over to him, hands on her hips like she was going to scold him for not taking out the trash. “Look, we need to get out of here, and brooding isn’t actually going to help. So, you can either stop, or you can at least help while you’re at it.”

She turned to go back to her inspection, and Frank reined in his emotions. He’d already been bloody and bruised when two guys walked into the massive warehouse with a struggling Karen in their arms. Her knee had been scraped, there was dirt on her face, and a small cut on her cheek bone.

It had been almost a decade since he’d been scared the way he’d been scared when he saw her in trouble.

“I was scared shitless when I saw you with those goons, Karen.” He waited for her to look at him and added, “How is a story worth your life?”

Karen let out a humorless laugh, “You honestly think I was here for a story?”

The question confused him for a solid five seconds before he finally asked, “Why else?”

“You’re an idiot,” she answered with a shake of her head. “I came here because I realized what you were going to do, and that you were going to do it alone. I was hoping to get to you first and stop you before you did anything stupid.”

“Karen-”

“Forget it,” she shook her head. “We just need to figure out how to get out of here.”

Despite the fact he wanted to keep talking he was also fully aware this was neither the time or place, so he just held out his hand. “Give me your shoe.”

She looked at him with furrowed brows, “What?”

“I’m going to try something, but I need your shoe.”

She began to take off her small heels, “If I lose another pair of shoes because of you, I’m going to be pissed.”

It was his turn to be confused. “What?”

“A story for another time,” she promised as she handed them to him.

[booksapphic]

YOU GET IT!! My biggest issue with a lot of Fratt fics is they either write Karen out, underplay her role, or make her the villain. I love Kastle, but in a Fratt context it's so easy for them to just be friends who adore eachother or even exes who stayed close and are fond of eachother just in a more platonic way now. Karen is so important to both Matt and Frank and she adds a lot of fun potential to Fratts dynamic, stop throwing her in the trash!!

OH 100% YES

(under the cut bc this got long i have so many thoughts about them)

And yes, I understand some fic concepts don't lend to her inclusion which is completely fine but, and luckily i haven't seen any that make her the villain but it's so insane to me bc in my mind, when I think about post-canon how are Matt and Frank actually going to start working together? how do they end up in each other's orbits again? It's Karen. It's all Karen, it has to be Karen. Even if Frank's back in the city he'd probably stay out of Hell's Kitchen as much as possible, and it's not like Matt would seek him out if he's in another part of the city. They'd never reach out for help on their own bc they're way to proud for that, each of them. But Karen? Karen would get them both to her apartment and basically strongarm them into working together and Frank would give her anything she wants because he always does and Matt would probably try to protest but eventually give in bc they're trying to be friends again, and Matt's trying he is, and he knows Karen just wants to help. Meanwhile, Karen orchestrated this whole thing bc two of the most important people in her life exist on the same tiny island and they both do something deadly every single day and she just wants them to live so goddamit she's going to strongarm them into working together. She'll pull a compromise to kill only in self-defense out of Frank and a nod out of Matt and any time she finds something in her PI work and/or reporting work (bc in my mind she stays a freelancer) that she guesses they're gonna get involved in she tags them in on it until they exchange their numbers and she doesn't have to play middleman (yes i have already written this scene for an upcoming fic how could you tell).

Also re: Kastle as exes--I like equally as well the amiable exes and the decided-to-stay-friends route. I think of Luulapants' Fratt fic A Crateful of Grenades in which Karen makes the decision to be only friends with both of them and I like that a lot for several reasons. Primarily, it's important to me that Karen has the agency in relationships with either of them, considering they've both had previous love interests be fridged. I don't think Matt would pursue her again based on how their relationship ended in s2, and I don't think Frank would pursue so much as make it clear he loves her and leave it on her to make the decision. (For the record, I do think Karen would be the one to eventually break it off, bc I don't think Frank would give her any information regarding his work outside of what's reported in the news. Even if he's credited with killings that he didn't do, I don't think he'd tell Karen nor do I think he would answer her questions about them. The complete honesty that's so important to her, that drive for truth--I think it'd spell their downfall in the same way it spelled matt and karen's.) There's deliciousness to be had in the resulting dynamic either way. If kastle dates for a time and then eventually breaks up, while they're dating I can see that adding such an interesting dynamic to Frank and Matt's friendship--they are tentative allies but this is possibly someone who will be around in their life permanently, depending on how kastle's relationship goes. Them mentioning her ("tell Karen goodnight for me" "let Karen know i'm going to be late tomorrow bc of my injuries" "Karen mentioned your client whose story isn't adding up. We're going after him tonight, yeah?" etc.) and to some degree bonding over her, giving the other person a chance bc they trust her so much is so important to me. Once kastle breaks up and Matt begins to catch feelings for Frank it turns into "i should not date my best friend's ex." and then "i need to make sure Karen doesn't mind me dating her ex." If they're just friends then from both Matt and Frank's perspective she's the one I could see them talking about their feelings (would they? no, or only in an incredibly roundabout way. but if they were going to, that's who they'd go to.) Either way, too, we get Foggy being like "pls get another friend/date someone else. someone who's not a mass murderer. I know he's hot, but god, is it really worth it?" (they answer, yes he really is, you don't get it, but-- Both Karen and Matt look a little red-faced and hazy-eyed and Foggy's like that's not what I meant dear lord pls don't share that information with me ever again). This, again, opens up for the TOP TIER DYNAMIC of Karen, Matt, and Frank each being one of the most important people in the others' lives and Foggy is horrifyingly along for the ride. Frank doesn't really understand why Matt and Karen are so committed to Foggy, but that could be bc Foggy just glares at him anytime they're in the same space.

FINALLY with your last point, another part of the fratt dynamic i would love to see karen explored more is that she is just as insane as both of them. she is just as likely to commit crimes, she just doesn't have the training they do. i would LOVE to see her getting herself involved in more investigative reporting that leads to her calling Matt and Frank as back-up, or as her being the person who gives them a lot of leads--Frank will break up drug deals, and Matt will punch muggers, and Karen will be dropping all the information necessary for them to take down rampant corruption in the NYC mayor's office right into their laps like "i have a job for you" and they'll look at her with stars in her eyes. (Matt: "... how did you get some of this information?" karen: "i broke into the mayor's house during her lunch break and also made some minor threats to her wife." Frank: "WHAT?" "... on second thought don't worry about it :)") Neither frank nor matt would ever tag her in intentionally, but if they let something slip about something they're working on and it catches her interest? now they're the ones along for the ride.

(ALSO i've talked about how i can't actually imagine fratt getting married but if they have a wedding, Karen's their maid of honor. which one-? yes.)

ANYWAY i have to go to bed but thank you for letting me rant about them i love them so much goddamn

[earaercircular]

Where Does New York City Office Furniture Go When No One Wants It?

Some office furniture in the metro area has been caught in pandemic limbo. What awaits it in the afterlife?

Herman Miller is one of the most revered makers of office furniture in the world, its designs so esteemed that its Aeron chair,[1] which became a fixture of New York City cubicles, was put in the Museum of Modern Art’s permanent collection.

This month, some Herman Miller chairs, which can retail for over $1,000, met a less dignified fate: an appointment with the crushing metal jaws of an excavator.

More than three years after the coronavirus pandemic began, about half of the office space in the New York City metro area in June was occupied, according to Kastle Systems[2], a security-card company tracking activity in office buildings. The hollowing out of the city’s cubicles has raised existential economic and cultural questions, but also a big logistical one: What do you do with all that office furniture?

The answer can often be found in the back of a moving truck — en route to the auction block, a liquidator or, more likely, a landfill. Some of the furniture has found new purpose in schools, churches and movers’ living rooms; other pieces have been repackaged by hip resellers,[3] or shipped across the globe.

Over 70 million square feet of direct office space was available for lease in Manhattan in the second quarter of 2023, a record high, compared with about 40 million square feet before the pandemic began, according to Savills[4], a large commercial real estate brokerage that tracks the market. New leasing also remains far below pre-Covid levels.

A small class of movers and liquidators has been thrust into the suddenly growing office-afterlife market. Lior Rachmany, the chief executive of Dumbo Moving and Storage,[5] said a rush of businesses put their furnishings into the company’s storage facilities in 2021 and 2022. Close to 2,000 midsize companies in the region, from law firms to tech start-ups, have stored office equipment in Dumbo’s three New Jersey warehouses since Covid hit.

We have “never seen so many Herman Miller chairs,” he said.

The shift in the wait-and-see posture has translated this year into a growing number of clients failing to pay for storage, Mr. Rachmany said; the company now holds auctions for delinquent lots five times a year, up from once or twice a year before the pandemic. It also regularly donates unclaimed items to local charities, he said, but a lot of that inventory still gets discarded, because of a lack of warehouse space.

At a Dumbo company warehouse recently in East Orange, N.J., on an industrial stretch opposite a cemetery, a crew of workers was preparing to jettison the last of a 9,500-pound office lot that a Brooklyn tech company had had in storage since April 2021. According to Mr. Rachmany, the client paid for the disposal of, among other things: 25 Herman Miller chairs; 20 computer monitor stands; 10 cubicle panels; nine boxes of carpet; and two flat-screen TVs.

“The amount of waste in this industry would boggle your mind,” said David Esterlit, the owner of OHR Home Office Solutions[6], a refurbishing company and liquidator in Midtown Manhattan that has resold equipment from big office tenants.

The Dumbo crew drove for over an hour to the Maspeth neighbourhood of Queens, arriving at a waste transfer station — one of 38 in New York City — where towering excavators were crushing all manner of commercial debris, and the air smelled like acetone. The trash’s final destination could be a landfill in upstate New York or Pennsylvania, a station manager said.

The van backed onto a giant industrial scale to weigh its cargo: 1,080 pounds, at a cost of $81 to Dumbo. Two workers in lime green shirts tossed one chair after another near a mountain of chewed-up debris that was sorted roughly into recyclable metal and everything else.

Despite efforts to reuse and repurpose office equipment, most still ends up in the trash, said Trevor Langdon, the chief executive of Green Standards[7], a sustainability consulting company that helps to minimize office waste. Based on 2018 federal statistics on waste, the latest year with available data, Mr. Langdon estimates that more than 10 million tons of office furniture in the United States end up in a landfill every year.

Green Standards said it has diverted almost 39,000 tons of office waste from landfills since the pandemic began.

The Brooklyn office equipment was not so lucky. In a choppy motion, the mouth of the excavator swung over the half-ton pile of furniture and chomped down, contorting the chairs into a dangly metal cephalopod.

Then a worker removed a final chair from the van and placed it gently on the asphalt. Its ergonomic back rest caught the wind to perform one last spin. Then, the excavator crunched down, and the chair exploded into a hail of plastic bits.

A New Office Culture [8]

The past few years have changed the way we work in profound ways.

Gen X in Charge: The original “latchkey kids” are grown up, in the boss’s seat and ready to make the rules. Don’t make a big deal about it.[9]

Flat Structures: Businesses that reject hierarchies in favour of a “flat” corporate structure rarely work. A new crop of companies is aiming to find a middle ground [10]

R.T.O.’s Desperation Phase: Tens of millions of office workers have faced three years of scattershot plans for a return to in-person work. Now, for the umpteenth time, businesses are ready to get serious. [11]

Pay Transparency: More and more young people are entering job searches with a cleareyed view of how much money they can expect to earn thanks to new salary disclosure laws [12]

Source

Stefanos Chen,     Where Does New York City Office Furniture Go When No One Wants It?, in: The  New York Times, 10-7-2023, www.nytimes.com/2023/07/10/nyregion/office-furniture-nyc.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

[1] A product designer’s job is equal parts scientist, engineer, archivist—their work, the result of years of research and tinkering, may start as one thing and turn into something completely different. No one knows this better than designers Bill Stumpf and Don Chadwick, who put in years of combined research into the way people sit. Their most well-known joint production is the Aeron Chair, an ergonomic revolution when it first hit the market in 1994, and now the gold standard for office seating today. But Aeron wasn’t invented out of thin air—Chadwick and Stumpf worked on a number of predecessors that assayed their ideas of elemental chair design. Here’s the Aeron journey, from prototype to industry pioneer. https://www.hermanmiller.com/products/seating/office-chairs/aeron-chairs/design-story/

[2] Kastle provides leading managed security to 10K+ companies globally. https://www.kastle.com/

[3] https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/25/technology/office-furniture-tech-companies.html

[4] As one of the world's leading property advisors, Savills services span the globe, with 40,000 experts working across more than 700 offices in the Americas, Europe, Asia Pacific, Africa and the Middle East. https://www.savills.com/

[5] We have earned our reputation as the Most Trusted Moving Company in NYC. At Dumbo Moving & Storage, we take pride in providing exceptional moving service at the most affordable prices. https://dumbomoving.com/

[6] OHR Home Office Solutions is a boutique used, refurbished, and remanufactured office seating and furnishings company servicing the greater New York area and Philadelphia area. We maintain a showroom at 134 West 29th Street NYC and a warehouse in New Jersey. Both retail and commercial clients are welcome.  https://ohrhomeofficesolutions.com/

[7] Green Standards is a paid service for companies undergoing large moves or renovations at their corporate offices. https://greenstandardsltd.com/

[8] Nnof (Nearly New Offices) is a local manufacturer in Belgium that develops and produces sustainable office furniture in its own workshops, based on existing raw materials supplied by the customer. The solutions are good for the environment, budget-friendly, innovative and flexible. Nnof offers a wide range, ranging from simple reuse to a complete transformation of existing objects. Slides are reborn as lockers, table tops are sawn into seating blocks, and so on. https://nnof.be/en/

[9] https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/07/business/gen-x-in-charge-companies-chief-executives.html

[10] https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/05/business/flat-structure-companies.html

[11] https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/20/business/return-to-office-remote-work.html

[12] https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/20/business/job-search-salary-ranges.html

[w00wzerz]

This Is It! My Wig Is Non Exsistant! Kastle Has Been Acknowledged And I Am Freaking Out!!!!!

I am back from my Kastle Hiatus and thousands of kastle metas and fictions are coming your way! Feel free to spam me with ideas

[pitbull-luva]

She couldn’t turn away...

[onlykastle]

Someone should write a Kastle AU, where Frank’s world goes black and white after his family dies, but then when he starts shooting at the guy in the hospital, when he sees Karen the color comes back!!! Or else the color comes back when she steps into the hospital room!!!

[scotts-tot]

The elevator scene forehead touch™

[aiobhlin]

Witness Chapter 7: The Journey

I hope y'all have been enjoying this story! I really suck at making tumblr posts and promoting my own work but I'm thrilled people have been finding it and reading it anyway.

Summary: Karen and Frank embark on the next phase of their new life together.

Excerpt:

As soon as they were settled, the flight attendants began their safety speech, and Karen realized she was vibrating from the adrenaline. The coffee on top of very little sleep probably didn’t help, either. She leaned her head back and closed her eyes, breathing slowly and deeply. She had no room for regrets now, as the plane started to move. She kept her eyes closed, mind racing with memories, and hopes, and dreams, and fears. They flitted through so fast she couldn’t focus on just one long enough to even identify it, so she focused on her breathing instead.

She woke up with Frank gently stroking her arm.

“Karen,” he said quietly, “we’re in Chicago. You need to wake up.”

[onebatch2batch]

currently writing a kastle ‘david tricks them into a room and locks the door now KITH’ fic because wips? what wips???

[superrpowerlesshuman]

[witchygagirl]

♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥