secondfromtheright

[secondfromtheright]

Fandom Racism

I’m not active on social media. But though I don’t use it, I do have this. I’m a terrible, unreliable tumblr user and I apologise for that (it took me way too many password tries to get back on here). I’d rather have been able to post something on my AO3 to any and all of my readers but my option is here instead.

I’m not a good person for this message – I am white, and I am not American. Seek black voices on this subject, please. I’m not tagging this because it’s really just aimed to anybody who already may still follow me on here. To use, but not overstep my lone social media platform. Because I can’t say nothing. I just can’t. You’ve all been so supportive and lovely to me in response to my fics and I’d like to think you’re all as decent in life to understand there are many things that we as white people do not and cannot understand regarding racism and that we need to do better.

So, this is aimed directly to my fandom readers – white fandom readers. From a white fandom writer. Some racism in fandom that I’m aware of, and I implore you all to become aware of too, if you aren’t already.

And again, please research black and brown voices on this matter. Voices that can speak to this so much more than mine, that can give better understanding, that can correct where I’m wrong, that can fill in what I’ve missed, that can communicate pain and hurt that I cannot know.

I get ‘ship and let ship’ and all, but there are major, glaring red flags that scream both personal and structural racism, conscious and unconscious, in fandom and ship conversation that should make you stop arguing, sit up and think about the shit you’re saying or reading.

This goes ten-fold for any fandom you are involved in that has a black love interest in canon that your ship and/or your fandom dismisses.

“They don’t have chemistry.”

Old ass racist trope that is about erasing romantic roles of people of colour. It perpetuates the idea that POC are not loveable, or desirable, especially to white people and especially in relationships (rather than just sex).

Anything that talks of black male characters as “evil” or “creepy” or “untrustworthy” or “weird” or “intimidating” or “aggressive” or “there’s just something I don’t like.”

It is continuing the 400+ year old bullshit premise that black men are dangerous – the ultimate justifying-white-fear-excuse to target and kill black man, then and now, because ‘they were a threat’.

When most of the ship verses ship debate is talk of tearing down a character of colour.

If someone is so confident in their white ship, why the need to tear down and hate another character? Keep it to your ship and only your ship. If the COC is a canonical love interest, especially one that existed before you started shipping your ship, question yourself and/or those shipping.

 Black female characters criticised as “irrational” or “angry” or “manly” or “slut.” Or, consistently praised only as “badass” or “fierce” or “strong” or “sassy.”

These are all major examples of misogynoir tropes that strip black women of their humanity, boxing them into one of numerous roles that do not allow them to be multifaceted, feeling people.

 ANY negative shit about black hair, especially natural, and especially of black female characters. 

Just fucking don’t. Don’t say it, don’t encourage it, seriously side-eye anyone doing it. Whites have no idea what that experience is, nor the effects of generations of products that only appeal to white consumerism and define whiteness as the definition of ‘beauty’. It a low, racist belittling of someone.

 When a character of colour has an insulting nickname within a fandom.

It dehumanises them. Actively and purposely. That simple. If you’ve never been involved or really aware of BLM protests or movement before, you must at least now recognise the chants of “Say their name.” Someone’s name matters, especially with history of slavery. Do not remove a black character’s name because you feel they threaten your ship. It reinforces white supremacy in even the most basic of society.

Any kind of discussion or mention that hopes for or encourages violence and hurt against black characters, including rooting for their death. Especially anything with a group, anything that involves dogs, anything that involves white people in power.

It’s the history of racism, it is about maintaining a white supremacist society and it retraumatises black audiences.

 If you or a fandom member have multiple ships but not a one of them includes someone of colour.

Question that shit. Seriously. If there’s a banner on a tumblr or a YouTube with loads of videos that has a bunch of only white characters, ask yourself why. What are you watching? What are you reading? Are there leading black and brown characters, black and brown voices, in what you’re consuming?

Don’t let yourself fall into thinking white people get to decide the definition of racism. Don’t let yourself think you know everything, even if you know the full dysfunctional and dramatic history of your fandom.

Understand that words and phrasing used has a whole history, and context. All of it. Microaggressions, tropes, coded language, connotations, dog whistles. Understand that just because you may not have known the history, it is no less relevant, or prevalent in the real lives of people of colour. More so, the fact that you can go about your life ignorant to it is evidence of your – our – privilege. And on this one I’ll add, especially if you’re not American. Learn real history – both American and your own country’s part in racism and slavery. Fandoms are global – recognise who you are interacting with.

Fandoms are tricky, often toxic as shit on a multiple fronts, I get it. Not everything within fandoms with characters of colour is simplistically only about race, but a lot of it is and none of us live in a vacuum. Don’t act like we do. Everything we say and do has a whole load of history and context behind it and we don’t get to cherry-pick.

If you say (or want to say) any response to the noted conversational points that sounds like

“So I can’t have an opinion now?” “I’m not racist but…” “I know black people and they said something else.” “I don’t care about/see skin colour.” “I didn’t say anything about race.” “Why are you bringing race into it?” “It’s just hating white people.” “That’s just how the character is written.”

Stop.

And seriously challenge yourself to be better, to listen more, to question and learn the origins and hurt behind such phrasing and what you may really be putting out, even if you didn’t realise it.

Because all that instinct that makes you want to push back, that has you wanting to dismiss the criticism and shut down a conversation that makes you uncomfortable and drives you to defend yourself – that is your privilege screaming because suddenly you are not the centre of everything. White discomfort. You have to recognise that instinct, and move past it. It takes continuous work. You don’t have to be perfect on racial understanding overnight – and please don’t get so terrified at such a prospect to the point of closing up and shutting down and doing nothing – but we do all need understand more and do more than we currently think we do and are.

I’m not trying to shame people, or even guilt people (not yet, anyway). But as a white person, you – we – need to start taking more responsibility for what we involve ourselves in, and what we don’t stand against.

I don’t care how good you believe you are (and maybe you are) or how many people of colour are in your life. If you are a white, you have a privilege – we - have a privilege. And whether you seek it or not, whether you’re conscious of it or not, you – we – benefit from that privilege because it is embedded in every part of society that we live day to day. And we do so at the expense of black lives.

I encourage everyone to be as involved in the movement as possible, but if you can’t attend protests, if there are COVID 19 concerns, if you don’t have the resources to donate or be in physical presence, and if you are not in a position to call out your friends and family, please, for the love of god please, at least do it in fandom. It’s a social circle that as we know, can take up a lot of our lives and our interactions. Challenge your friends in fandom – challenge yourself, if any of those phrases are in a space in which you inhabit.

Learn.

It is not the responsibility of people of colour to educate whites who suddenly realise the extent of racism, or worse, that there’s structural racism at all. But you can educate yourself, and you need to. Read black and brown experiences, listen to black and brown activists and academics. Hell, even read white antiracist voices as well if that helps you understand. If numbers are better communicators for you, look at data, whether on wealth disparity, environmental disparity, health disparity, educational disparity, justice disparity. Listen, absorb, push past your white privilege instinct that makes you uncomfortable, be driven by empathy and compassion and instead learn.

Learn history, learn data, learn what a black family has to talk about that you don’t. Learn about white fear and white grievance and white comfort and white discomfort and why they cannot be placated to. Learn to understand many forms of racism, systemic and institutional, overt and casual, personal and interpersonal. Learn to understand what privilege looks in real life, from a missed job opportunity to fear of a whole community every time they leave the house. Learn the extreme examples as well as the subtle, daily embedded. Learn to recognise the tropes and language. Learn about collective grief and trauma. Learn the psychology of looting from generationally oppressed view. Learn about the generations of violence against non-violent protest. Learn their names.

And act.

As a white person, you – we – can never really understand, but we can do a lot to try to. And we can be part of changing things. And frankly, we have to be. Racism is a white people problem; one that projects onto people of colour.

And especially to those who consider themselves any kind of liberal, those who think they can recognise misogyny or ageism or homophobia and problematic behaviour elsewhere – you have to step up on racism. And you can’t stop at the examples of obvious lack of humanity that are impossible to miss - go deeper.

And I’m asking you to not dismiss any racist language and behaviour within fandom on the basis of “It’s just a character, it’s not real.” Media and the depiction of black and brown lives is too often the only real relation to black and brown lives that a white someone has. It is a huge part of reinforcing white supremacy in society – it always has been.

If fans of colour in your fandom are telling you something is offensive, something is hurtful, something is racist, listen to them. Allow yourself to be challenged, uncomfortable and corrected. Because Black Lives Matter.

Black Lives Matter.

[secondfromtheright]

What do you think about Micro's lack of presence in TPS2? At least they could have mention it...

I kind of love that I got an ask about Mentions, considering what I write. That made me smile, thanks! :)

And I totally agree with you about him or the Lieberman family in general getting some of kind of mention. It would have been so easy right? But would have had such a reaction for some people.

So it was disappointing and I think it’s part of the now reliable letdown that happens from lack of crossovers in the one Universe (even though the Lieberman lot are just from The Punisher. It feels the same, if you know what I mean). Brett’s presence was one of the things that really saved season 2 for me, I have to be honest.

I’m obviously big on the power of a good Mention…and how fucking annoying the lack of one is.

In a character-reasoning take… Well, like, the last *nice* lesson we see in season 2 before Frank becomes total Punisher-mode is the acknowledgement of Amy having “changed his life.” Of her importance, and how that relationship has made an impact…and yet he not only lets her go, but encourages her to leave. It’s his choice to cut off. So I guess you could argue it would be the same for Mirco and the Lieberman family. The lack of contact there doesn’t mean he doesn’t care, or he’s just forgotten - it can’t, when he declared doing anything for Amy, that she has changed his life, but still he’s setting up I assume, never seeing her again.

I think the choice to stay away from Micro and the Lieberman family is the early, season 1 example of what he does with everybody else in this season 2. In which case, at least they’re in good company haha.Frank makes a lot of choices for other people, especially in season 2, which I have…opinions about, haha, but dude is consistent at least. Season 1 has Frank seeking other people out, Curtis, Karen, Billy, Madani in the end. I think other than the whole other thing of calling Madani, Curtis is the only one he really seeks out in season 2, and I think that’s only because he thinks he sort of has to. Everybody else who cares about him comes to him. There’s a big difference there.I would have liked to know for sure if he’s ever had contact with Micro since season 1. I think we get the impression that he hadn’t had contact with Curtis while he was away? I don’t know if there was anything mentioned about possible contact or lack of it in any media before the release that would maybe give some answers? I don’t even know if it was a cast thing, or just a writing choice? I assumed cast.

From Micro’s side, I assume he’s concentrating on rebuilding his family, and he’s understood Frank is…well, Frank, so I’d hope he’s doing okay and doesn’t have any resentment about Frank making that choice. He could have maybe looked and found Frank if he really wanted to, so I assume he didn’t try, or if he did try and found him, he didn’t make contact, which I can’t fault him for because he should be focusing on his family, and Frank, I think, would want him to. Micro would have seen Frank Castle was back, and I suppose maybe I’d like to think he would have tried to visit Frank in the hospital, but he was only there for the day. So Micro’s lack of presence there doesn’t mean he wouldn’t have tried to see him, if he’d been there for longer.

It is disappointing and I don’t know if the take was…just don’t mention it and we don’t have to explain it? But there were quite a few things in season 2 that I wasn’t a huge fan of and that lacked an obvious amount of logic to me.

Thanks for the ask. I’ll have a think about maybe a possibility of a Micro Mention…or maybe some kind of a cameo for a Karen Mention…hm.

[secondfromtheright]

Really enjoyed your new westallen fic. Can you please update the earth 2 one? It’s so good and do you still watch the show? I hope you keep writing more of them your writing is amazing ♥️

Thanks so much! I’m glad you liked the new one.

Earth 2 Comes to Earth 1 will definitely be updated, and finished. I actually wrote the new fic after skimming some of Earth 2 Comes to Earth 1 and really, as a test to see if I could still write Westallen, especially a pre-canon Westallen with all tension and excitement from that stage. I think I did okay with that haha, and it gave me some of the confidence I was looking for for finishing Earth 2 Comes To Earth 1. I’ve been writing the POVs of darker, uh, more dysfunctional characters, shall we say, for quite a while now so the switch back to Barry Allen and the real sort of simplicity of such uncomplicated love and adoration that is Westallen...well, I wasn’t sure I’d still be able to write it. But I’m pretty happy with how the new one turned out. So I feel in a pretty good place to start writing them again.Totally still watching the show! And loving this season and the West-Allen family dynamic. I struggled with some of last season, particularly things like Ralph and an apparent new humour that is not my kind of humour, but I think they’ve softened him pretty well and there’s less of a ‘this episode will be all this, and so none of that’ feel that I felt was there last season? Does that make sense?

I may do another one-shot or so, to get used to writing the characters again, but I promise not to do another multi-chapter one until Earth 2 Comes to Earth 1 is done. I really do want to get it finished.

Thanks again! I really appreciate the support. I hope you’re enjoying this season too.

[secondfromtheright]

I don’t know if you heard but in the TPS2 interview that came out it says Frank doesn’t start off in NY, his currently travelling the county’s in the US so that does explain his absence in DD and why he didn’t contact Karen because he literally had no idea what was going on.

Ah-ha! Thank you. I hadn’t heard. My Punisher updates this year have consisted of my partner reading everything first and then telling me only tidbits so I at least know some things haha. It hasn’t been as fun following every single thing this time round, you know? So in self-preservation it’s like if I don’t know things, if I don’t go looking for awesome things and don’t find them, I can’t get disappointed. I took the same approach with DD3 and it wasn’t really until really close to the date that I let myself get super involved. I think a lot of it had to do with the lack of DAW sightings and being worried about Karen’s fate. I’m still to decide if it’s logic that’s working or not.

So thank you. Yes, I’ll take that. I still think there was so many times in DD3 that he should have been mentioned, even if not an active presence. And on that, I’m going to try to get some Frank Castle mentions done next week :) So I’ll change my hope to Frank mentioning being sorry he wasn’t there... See! It happened, I know something and I upped my expectation! Oh no.(In seriousness, thank you for the info! I appreciate it.)

[secondfromtheright]

I really hope you continue your bellarke fic!! I love it so much.

Hi! Thank you :)

I will be, I promise. I’ve had exams and stuff so have just been elsewhere, basically, but I’ll start writing again next week.

[secondfromtheright]

I just read your bellarke fic on ao3 and it has given me so many feels! so excited to read the ending of it <3

This is so late and I suck. Sorry!

But thank you, I’m glad you’ve liked it. December has been kind of a write-off for me but I’ll definitely be back in January. I hope you’re still excited for the last couple of chapters :)Thanks again.

[secondfromtheright]

Daredevil is over but we got a chance there could be some kind of something kastle in season 2 of punisher right? But then the big glaring omission of Frank completely from season 3 when karen was nearly getting killed repeatedly after he moved heaven an earth to save her at the hotel, seems like they may be making sure to shut down Kastle'ers completely. What you think?

Hey, I’m sorry this is late and obviously now it has been officially confirmed that DAW will be in Season 2, so we know for sure we will indeed get something.

Though I will say that personally, I’m not expecting much. If for nothing else than the fact that it will not have been written or filmed with it being the end in mind. DAW’s comment about there being ‘more to tell’ is in line with that. It’s a could be, and will now remain a could be, I think. I think if they knew it was the end, it may have been different. But I don’t expect the Kastle relationship to really move forward, or progress. I expect it to be much of the same, which is this awesome blend of seriously established importance and something. So that’s where I’m at right now.Having said all that, while I’m basically fucking heartbroken at the cancellation and don’t expect too much, it doesn’t mean I’m not hyped for it. Kastle has existed in the nuances. It’s the power of the quiet and the intensity of their stare and has always been this totally unexpected huge and unique thing out of such otherwise normal moments. And I think Punisher has given has more than we could have ever dreamed already. So much of Kastle is canon. They’re something, something they take with them into their lives, their days even without each other. They’ve impressed this place for themselves as individuals and as a together, into each other and it marks and they carry it. That’s all already there. I don’t think either show has been subtle or lacking in that and it can’t just be erased, no matter what does or doesn’t happen in Season 2. She’s there. That’s what matters, too, I think.To your real question regarding DD3, I don’t think that was shutting down Kastle at all. Or, actually, I’ll rephrase. I don’t think it had anything to do with Frank Castle at all. I think simply, he is not a DD character (anymore). Different showrunners, different writers, all prioritising their own characters and the relationships of the individual show.I think DD3 was about the trio of DD characters and that’s it. I think they especially wanted to strip back to the basics of the dynamics of that trio after criticism and the complications of certain storylines before DD3.I think the lack of Frank Castle in DD3, and the lack of all the Defenders to be fair (a whole bunch of folks who should have given a damn that Matt was back, enough to be popping up) was completely because it is not their show and they are not the focus and the showrunner/writer wasn’t going to tell those stories over the relationships of the show itself.And I think that’s the problem you have when you have 1 universe, but a bunch of different shows, with different showrunners and writers. No one is going to put not-their-characters before their own. The cameos work fine because they’re fun and they link, but when there’s a real debate about the involvement of some of those characters in each others lives, I think there’s problems. I think we first saw that with Claire, whom originally was so established with DD characters, but then was placed first and foremost on other shows and so when Defenders happened there was a big wtf there. And I think we saw that with Kastle because that relationship is two different characters on different shows. Matt Murdock’s story no longer involves Frank Castle. Foggy Nelson’s story no longer involves Frank Castle. And DD3, minus flashbacks, wasn’t Karen’s whole life, it was her life within the crossing story of Matt and Foggy.I think it was poorly done and it was very obvious something was missing, but I also understand why the folks of DD would put DD characters first. Remember DAW’s comment about how she had to remind them ‘I know you weren’t there but I just went through this big thing’ before filming? They had to be told that because that was not their focus, it was not their story, or their character.

To be fair, Matt nor Foggy are mentioned in The Punisher, you know? Because it was not their show. The difference is Punisher was Frank at the centre, and we could imagine unsaid, unseen things happening in Karen’s life (like maybe she saw Foggy one of those nights after everything) so it got away with that lack in a way I don’t think DD3 did.But I really don’t think it was about shutting down Kastle at all. In fact, I think what was to me, the utter lack of romantic Karen and Matt and instead such focus on each friendship dynamic in that trio, would be encouraging for the possibility of Kastle. And I think if there was intent to shut down Kastle, they would have really done it. Again though, in the same vein that they weren’t telling a Kastle story, I don’t think they were speaking on behalf of it either. I think a lot was sort of implied without saying anything, like us going ‘where the fuck is Frank?’, but I think that’s a consequence of them putting DD characters first, not an intended statement about Frank or Kastle, two things that are ultimately now of another show. The DD3 Frank mention was purely of Frank’s involvement in DD2. “I didn’t judge Frank” (”Frank, I can’t judge you”) and Matt’s restating that he sees Frank as a killer. No mention of anything Frank post-DD2, you know?I hope Season 2 gives explanation to the lack of Frank in DD3, like he’s totally inaccessible and couldn’t be there (like DD3 having Matt being bedridden and so explaining why he couldn’t be there even though someone was going after Karen in Punisher). But on the other hand, like with DD, that’s not really on the writers of Punisher to explain. Again, it’s the issue with 1 universe but multiple shows. Arrowverse has the same problems sometimes where shit is going down and really, given relationships with people on other shows it’s like ehh, wouldn’t such and such be looking in right about now? Different shows with different characters with writers and showrunners that put their own characters first.It was disappointing as fuck. Seriously. Every episode I was hoping he’d somehow, someway turn up. But I also didn’t take it as any opinion or hint to the future of Kastle. Just that it was about the trio.Again, so sorry this was so late. I hope my ramble at least sorta answered your question? Ha.

[secondfromtheright]

I keep going to write some Kastle fic and then...I remember it’s over and I kind of cry and I’m not sure how to make sure my upset/rage at the cancellation doesn’t get into the fic.

This sucks. So much.

[secondfromtheright]

White Blood - Chapter 6

Part 6 of the All We Do Is Hide Away Series

Matt’s back. Frank doesn’t deal with it very well.

She’s gone for exactly 128 minutes. He counts it, treats it like a countdown to stop himself going insane and scoffs at the fact that he could wait for hours for a mission. Still, silent, the only thing to worry about was his piss jar filling up. He’s good at everything it involves, he always has that control. It just gave him more motivation to keep it going. Except when it comes to possibly losing her. And maybe it’s worse now that they share their lives, but it’s always been that way. It’s partly what brought him back here, even as he watched her, even as he kept up his effort of making sure she was okay and his choice to stay away, the idea that he was losing that connection with her, losing what he’d always understood as her, terrified him enough to push him out of hiding. Since the damn hospital room where he felt this need to let her know she'd been safe, trying to keep whatever connection they immediately had, it's always been there.

It burns at him to stay here waiting. Unlike any mission that always feels offensive, staying here trying not to pace the fucking room just feels passive, useless.

And he’s worried about her. Knows he shouldn’t, but he still knows better than anyone who and what is out on those streets. Just because Murdock is back doesn’t mean there isn’t just as much scum as there was last week. He knows she can take care of herself, but what if something happens? What if tonight is the night someone she’s pissed off with a grip of a story decides to go after her and he doesn’t even know where the fuck she is?

He has to stop himself going for his phone to call her, again. He wants to respect her space, doesn’t want to chase her like an asshole, but fuck it’s hard.

He breathes in the apartment, remembers how many good days he’s had in here, remembers he’s been happy here, remembers he’s in her space, their space.

...

Continue reading on AO3

[secondfromtheright]

White Blood - Chapter 5

Part 6 of the All We Do Is Hide Away Series

Matt’s back. Frank doesn’t deal with it very well.

It’s the silence that gets him first as he stands eyeing the door. Total silence. He thinks that can’t be right. New York is outside the window, there’s a number of neighbours who are loud about their lives, sometimes the fridge buzzes, but somehow it’s just so fucking quiet, and it presses into his mind, against his skull as he stands stuck to the damn ground like an idiot.

When he manages to move again, it’s to gulp down a bottle of water. There’s one beer bottle in the recycling can, just one. Either one of them didn’t drink theirs, or the second was meant for him. He realises it was probably what Karen was looking at when she mentioned Foggy as Frank had walked in. She'd thought he'd go get a coffee or something, she'd said. Fuck.

He takes deep breaths, he rolls his neck, his shoulders, trying to get the oppression he can feel off him. He closes his eyes, fucking smells the apartment. But there’s no hyacinths this week. Of all the fucking weeks for the flowers to be absent. He’s so aware his sanity just walked out the door. And that - he doesn’t know what to do with that. He thought he was doing so much better. Thought the silence was a rare haunting these days, something he was mostly over. Fuck, something he can could actually enjoy, because he does. He sits in silence in this apartment all the fucking time, finding something soothing in the solitary, in the fucking purity and simpleness of it. Yet now he’s standing here trying not to have a shitfit over the screaming silence. And why? Because she wouldn’t look at him? Because she needed a couple of days to try to deal with her own shit? As if he hasn’t done the same, over and over. As if he hasn’t fallen into himself as he’d try to handled shit. As if he hasn’t seen her lose herself, hide herself, in his shit before they were even together. As if he doesn’t get why her and Foggy would come together through this – he still talks to Curtis about Billy sometimes. He knows the three of them were family, what they went through together; she’s told him that. Foggy probably needed it as much as she did. And he doubts Marci has been having tantrums about not being involved in every second and Frank is pretty sure she's still not in on the fact that Murdock is the Devil of Hell's Kitchen. She probably would have just rolled her eyes at them and left them to it, not giving much of a fuck.

Christ, he's more dramatic than Marci.

He didn’t even just tell Karen what his damn problem was – is. Didn’t just tell her it was getting to him. He’s so used to her getting his every damn twitch, his every tensed jaw, without ever saying anything. He’s such an asshole he couldn’t even acknowledge that she’s allowed to be too caught up in her own chaos to be focusing on him as much as usual. Instead he lashed out, threatening the possibility of leaving, when he knows that’s a weakness for her. And as an extra piece of shit he is, he made out it was her fault.

He'd lost his shit over it. Complete fucking meltdown. Is that how fucked up he still is? Is that now near the edge of ruin he constantly is? Even after all of it?

...

Continue reading on AO3

[secondfromtheright]

White Blood - Chapter 4

Part 6 of the All We Do Is Hide Away Series

Matt’s back. Frank doesn’t deal with it very well.

“Hey, where have you been?” Karen asks the second he’s inside the apartment. He comes to a standstill at the doorway and stares at her.

“Serious? You fucking told me to leave.” He spits back, all patience he has just gone. Only then, only with the anger does she react enough to look at him.

“What?” her eyebrows furrow. “No I didn’t,” she shakes her head. “I just meant…I thought you’d go get a coffee or something. Foggy…” she looks towards the kitchen, but Frank chokes out a laugh, shaking his head too as he cuts off whatever she was thinking about saying. He throws his keys on the kitchen counter as he walks further in, figuring it’s time to give them back anyway and he doesn’t want fucking tearful goodbyes, wishes of it turning out differently. He isn’t interested in the bullshit.

“Okay.” He says, condescending as fuck and finding twisted freedom, power, in being an asshole.

“Frank.” She says his name like always, like this isn’t the last time, like they aren’t about to be no more, but delicate and with care like he matters, like his name matters. He ignores it, can’t hear it right now. Because she is why he’s Frank. Her. He’s Pete to everybody else. She lets him still be Frank, still wants him to be Frank. Except that’s not how it is anymore, and he can’t hear it. There’s confusion in her eyes – he ignores that too.

...

Continue reading on AO3

[secondfromtheright]

White Blood - Chapter 3

Part of the All We Do Is Hide Away Series Matt’s back. Frank doesn’t deal with it very well.

Sitting on the subway heading back downtown, Frank feels exhausted. His body is heavy, and his mind dazed, and as he sits in the corner he finds himself more on edge, more worked up, more pissed off. All he wants to do is close his eyes and lean his head back, but he can’t do that. Because of who he is, he has to keep his head down, covered. And though he’s dog tired and just done, he still has to be aware, because of who he is, because of what he is. Red doesn’t have to do that – Murdock doesn’t have to do that, even though he’s something too. But Murdock gets the luxury of his stupid mask. He can sit on the subway, brazen as can be and no one would know it’s the damn devil of Hell’s Kitchen sitting there. Murdock can even come back from the dead and go back to his life. Frank never got to do that. Being a dead man was the only thing that allowed him to do as he needed to do. Coming back cost him as much as it gained him. And the only real power Frank has over the asshole is to expose him, and that isn’t an option. So he can’t do shit. Well, he can punch the guy's arrogant face in.

He stares ahead, letting the ride rock his body, juts of movement that remind him he’s alive.

He doesn’t know where to start with everything that’s going through his head. And anytime he starts to examine any one of them, that panic starts to go through him, hollowing him out. And for the first time, closing his eyes to think of Karen’s smile doesn’t soothe him, doesn’t quieten all the noise; it makes it worse. Because he could lose her, because he doesn’t even know if he’s ever had her now, because now he’s wondering how many times she herself was feeling insecurity or anger but wasn’t showing it. How many times when he thought she was right there with him, was she actually somewhere else in her head?

And what the fuck does all of make him? He was never in denial about his family being gone. Dreaming about them, waking up and thinking for a split second that maybe, maybe they would be there too…but he focused on vengeance. He knew there weren’t coming back. He felt it constantly in his bones, in his blood. And now every fucker is coming back, getting that second chance. And Frank doesn’t know if he’d choose it. He’s not David, they couldn’t all just go back. He’s different – too different. They were better off without him when they were alive, they’d be even better off without him still if there was a second chance. But thinking it, he feels a self-hatred he hasn’t for a long time. He clenches his jaw, fists his hands.

And Karen – it’s different. His life never lacked love, happiness - life - but what he’s found with her…it’s just different. There's a rawness to it, an honesty that's new for him. He didn't expect her. He didn’t expect to ever want to sit on the subway and wish he could be normal again.

...

Continue reading on AO3

[secondfromtheright]

I’m hoping to get the final chapter of White Blood posted this weekend. There’s three scenes to it and two of them are pretty much done so, yeah, that’s the plan.

And so with that in mind, I’m about to basically spam every chapter on here so that when I post the final one, I can post it on here too. Just wanted to apologise in advance for that.

I’m shit at keeping my fics up to date on here but for every fic I write - if it’s on AO3 and you’re up to date there, then there’s nothing new posted elsewhere. I always update AO3 first.

[secondfromtheright]

This Lifetime Is Worth All The Rest

This Lifetime Is Worth All The Rest 12 Monkeys Cassie x Cole One Shot

Summary: He thought he might have found forgiveness. He hadn’t fixed everything, he hadn’t gone back and saved 7 billion people in one move like he was supposed to, but maybe he’d played a big enough part to earn forgiveness, to earn her, to earn this life together.

Maybe he did. Two years of so much happiness…it’s worth the lifetime of anything else. It’s not just something for him to believe in anymore, something to say and help motivate him through all this shit. He’s living that belief now. This will make it all worth it. Even if he doesn’t get to keep it, he still had it. And Cassie will be safe, alive.

Missing scene from Memory of Tomorrow

It’s rougher than his, her scar. Jones’ stitching isn’t on terms with Cassie’s. Her bullet wound is messier than his. That one at least, the first one she saw him take, the first one she sewed up. Though looking at his body it’s obvious Cassie, someone, is much more skilled than the people who have sown up all his other wounds. The knife to his stomach, courtesy of Ramse, the bullet to his shoulder, also from his brother, and that first one she watched him get hit with when he’d kidnapped her and taken her into that alley, trying to get through to her, trying to get her to listen. Desperate and ill-prepared and not having any real kind of clue what he was doing. Not about what was gonna happen, what had already happened, what was responsible, for all of it. The Mission. Those scars are all so much cleaner, neater, than the others he got before he knew her. He thinks they might even almost totally fade one day. Maybe, if he survives long enough for them to have a chance to.

“Hmm, what are you doing?” Cassie’s sleep-laced voice distracts him from his attention.

“Nothin’” he murmurs back, continuing his stroking around the scar on the side of her stomach.

“Matching scars,” she mumbles into the pillow before she blinks her eyes open. “So romantic.”

His mouth quirks slightly but he doesn’t say anything, running his fingers back and forth. He won’t get to do this after tonight. He might not get to do it ever again, and he can’t stop thinking about everything, all of it, everything they’ve been through, everything that gave those scars. When she got shot, it wasn’t the first time he lost her, but it was the first time he thought he really might not get her back. He feels like that again now. It’s taken them so long to get to this place, to be together, and he has to give it up now. And even if they work it out, if she lets him in enough again, if he can be brave enough again, they won’t have this ever again. They won’t have normal, no worries. They won’t have this house. They won’t have a baby that can grow up in this house and play outside in the grass.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” she asks, bringing his eyes to her. She looks up at him as he rests on his elbow. “I know we talked about it and you said you just needed time to get used to it but –“

...

Continue reading on AO3

[secondfromtheright]

IM OBSESSED WITH YOUR BELLARKE FIC! any spoilers for where you intend to take it?

Thanks so much! It’s been my first big Bellarke fic so it’s been really nice having people respond favourably :)

Hmmm, to spoil or not to spoil… 

Well, there’s 3 more chapters to go. I’ll post one today. It’s shorter but it’s all Clarke and Bellamy.Uhmmmm… I would say the plot is pretty simple. Nothing shocking or totally unexpected, I don’t think.The last two chapters will have characters that haven’t been in it yet.Annnnd…it’s gonna hurt…but I’m not looking to leave readers miserable so it’ll get better in its own way (that will make more sense come the last chapter, I promise)

[secondfromtheright]

The Many Ways Frank Could (Should) Have Been Mentioned - Chapter 1

“Do you have some place to go?” Maggie asked, looking at the troubled woman in front of her.

“No. Uh,” Karen frowned, closing her eyes as she pressed her lips together. “Mm..maybe,” she stammered as she met Maggie’s eyes again. “I was going to get the first bus out of town tonight and then…” she sniffed, pulling her shoulders up in a shrug, her hands still shoved in her pockets. “I have a…friend. He's…good at disappearing. Had a lot of practice. I thought I might…” stilling, she swallowed, nodding with her own thoughts. “Go to him. And then…” she trailed off, shrugging hopelessly.

Maggie took note of her reaction. “Is this friend Matthew’s friend too?”

“They uh,” Karen’s eyebrows pulled together as she tilted her head. “They…know, each other.” She said uncomfortably.

“Practice disappearing or running away?” Maggie asked pointedly.

Karen’s tired, red eyes became even more weary. “Maybe sometimes they’re the same thing? I don’t…” Stopping, she inhaled sharply, trying to compose herself. “I have to leave.”

“I can help you.” Maggie offered.

Fic here.

[secondfromtheright]

I’m trying to get White Blood finished before DD3...

I’m sure once upon a time I wrote Frank Castle fairly well...

*cries*