The story of Frank Castle is a legend still in it's infancy-- a ghost story in it's first tellings. A hundred years from now-- even a THOUSAND years from now, his name will still be circled about at night, the names of the wars he fought in updated and changed with the times and yet true every time.
indie frank "the punisher" castle writing/rp blog from the great sprawling marvel empire-- inclusive of netflix && comics and either compartmentalized or swirled together at scribe's will and spiced with homegrown family headcanons.
Established 2018. Resurrected 2023.
21+ to interact || penned by: Angel/ The Emperor (he/him)
Rules
First tattoo Frank ever got as a boot was the t-shirt style tag just below his cervical spine, pronouncing him 100% Italian and made in Queens, like that shit wasn't obvious already. It was something of a trend in his time, plus pride. Italian pride. New York pride. The shotgun biography of one Frank D. Castle.
On his left hand side, where superstition once told him the Devil was, Frank has inked crowned cross and rosary. It sits about where a shirt seam would and takes up a fair bit of his ribs and side.
Naturally, no Marine is complete without the classic EGA or some version of it— or some other other proclamation that they are God's gift to the armed forces. Frank's not innocent of it. His resides on his upper right arm, classic as classic gets.
Truth is, for a time, there was a half-mile long list of additional things waiting for time and opportunity for him to get inked on, but before either was provided he saw enough of his fellow Marines walking around looking like overused coloring books and thought he'd better quit while he was ahead.
bonus:
in post Fist of the Beast verses, Frank often has a new tattoo on his left inner arm. Prominent is the crescent moon often known as Moon Knight or The Midnight Mission's calling card and a compass. Frank will flash it like ID when his leash is long enough to let him patrol again, so the hero set will know he's still doing time and under supervision. Call his warden if you gotta.
Donde esta Francis??? || feat. both 616 and house of mouse Punisher
(credit to @prettytm for the graphic and to @silverjetsystm for being a co-conspirator)
616: In 2022 we got a Punisher run from by Jason Aaron that gave us Frank/The Punisher as The Hand of the Beast and heir to the cult of Ares??? The latter I wouldn't have minded exploring but it was the bit that people poked the least. This is not my favorite run for Frank, so much so that for years I refused to adopt/adapt it. Even heavy applications of headcanons didn't feel like it would clean up that mess. Mr. Aaron and I just happen to fundamentally disagree on too much of Frank's previously established history.
This was also the run that shipped Frank off to Weirdworld at the end and introduced a two-ish year comic book absence for the character.
Enter stage right a cute little E-5 who shall not go unnamed. He too featured in that mess of a run and had maybe one of the only redeemable parts in it. A somewhat decent conversation with a depowered Castle awaiting his fate at the hands of the most random council of heroes ever.
So, fine. If we want to keep Moon Knight's offer to do what he can for former Captain Castle... we gotta keep the rest. It doesn't mean your friendly local Francis scribe isn't taking an x-acto knife to Aaron's bullshit and slicing and hacking away.
FIRST OF ALL, fuck this whole childhood backstory Ay-Ay-ron gives him.
Look, I get it. I've hung around A03 enough to understand that people love them a good hero high school AU and for Frank that means being the edgy teenager who smokes, punches bullies and wears all black. The thing is, that'll never be the case on this blog. While I keep the MAX suggestion that the little black voice boxes that will someday become The Punisher's thoughts, war journal entries, and narration have always been part of him, they were also not the whole of him. Definitely not in youth, and certainly not until he's given reason and enough lifetime/life experience to put on the vest.
Young Frank Castle was a bit of a class clown. The kind of kid who was quiet about it rather than fully disruptive. Under the breath wise cracks about all the school-aged usuals, the kind of thing he'd lean over and mutter about, startling a smile or quiet chuckle out of nearby seatmate. He did enough time with stern nuns to be a full-blown troublemaker during actual class. Come lunch and recess though? He was the kid doing imitations of substitutes, teachers, anyone in authority really. Charming with girls. Eyes set on a prize specific to this blog and lovingly crafted with @streetecho.
Oh, Frank had a list of upsets and grudges— injustices life had dealt him, and with them an Anger™ about them all, but he wasn't sketching murder in all red in his notebook about it. At best, he knows there's something wrong with him. Temper. Violence. Quick to scrap when he gets irked about really specific things and almost always needing to be stopped— no STOP button within himself. It upsets his old man, worries his mother. He tries to keep a lid on it. His mentor, Salvatore, tries to teach him where and when to point it.
The rest of the time? He's your average Catholic school boy teenager from New York. Busy being the scourge of Bayside of Bayside; getting chased out of windows and doors by brothers, uncles, fathers... crushing on one girl in particular and following her around like a puppy dog. A likeable guy. Easy enough to be friends with.
That means this:
all the way through to this:
will never apply or be treated as canon on this blog. Fuck all that noise.
What I will keep:
Frank being approached by the Archpriestess of The Beast and being convinced to go along via Maria's already completed successful resurrection.
Frank using their army, weapons, etc to do what he always does.
Ares joining the list of higher beings that claim Frank as a force of their own.
• Frank as the new God of War once he kills Ares.
Frank's near death at Maria's hands and subsequent "capture" by Captain America, Black Widow, Wolverine, Dr. Strange and Moon Knight.
Frank's general attitude about them/it all. Would've welcomed a clean death at Wolverine's hands. Doesn't really believe that any of the assembled group has any room or authority to pass judgement on him.
What I won't keep:
Frank's final prayer to The Beast. End of the day, that's just not who he says his prayers to, when he deigns to say them.
Frank's two year-ish long stint in Weirdworld.
Whatever his original sentencing was going to be via Captain Rogers, it gets commuted to house arrest and supervision at Moon Knight's Midnight Mission. As promised, the Fist of Khonshu made a case for his former marine Captain. Offers his place up as supernaturally secure containment, from which Castle can try to rehab himself back to as much trustworthiness as he ever had as The Punisher. Vouches for him. Accepts responsibility for him. You need him? Come see him in Times Square. As long as your intentions aren't to break him out or cause other chaos, the sentient house will let you in and the Moon priest will allow visitation.
Punisher: Red Band 2025
Our first comic on the scene out of a total 2.5 that the same premise and beat us all over the head with it— Frank included.
Our boy wakes up surrounded by fire, bodies and blood. He can identify the many places on his body he's been shot and knows he needs to dodge legal heat on account of the scene around him. Problem? He doesn't know his own name.
More than that? He has no memories of a life, at all. All he's got is an aversion to hospitals and no idea if he's a good man or a bad one. The body he's in tell stories, sure, but they're incomplete. He takes civilian help where he can get it but even that doesn't last long. Something's pulling strings on him he shouldn't have. There's an unexplained scar on the back of his head that predates this most recent mess and when he least expects it he gets hit with impulses and urges that he can not overpower or control.
Welcome to Frank is Wilson Fisk's Brain Chip Puppet!
They do give slight mention to 2022's Weirdworld ending. Fisk, mayor of NYC, needs him here more than there and says a throwaway line about bringing him back. How? With who's help? You wants answers? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Go fuck yourself.
ANYWAY— round these parts Fisk got his hands on Micro. More go fuck yourself answers or lack thereof about that too. It's Micro who gets hold of Frank via messages sent to the Midnight Mission, asking for help and to meet. Despite a bad end between them previously, Frank gets permission and goes.
That's your local HC explanation for him ending up under Fisk and Micro's scalpel. Together they microchip Frank into being an on-demand Punisher for Fisk. They remote control puppet Frank, hijacking him from what little rest he finds to do what he used to; the no free will version.
Fisk has him going after criminals likes Frank already used to, just not as discerningly. Where Frank takes out traffickers and rescues their victims, Fisk is in his head trying to convince him that he should take out both.
In a battle of wills? Frank will always win. His code is written into his bones and can not be so easily overwritten by the likes of people like Fisk.
This run is only 5 issues long, thankfully. No big retcons on my end beyond the previously established Weirdworld shenanigans.
It ends with Frank getting the chip taken out of his head, "rescuing" Micro from Fisk, and trading hands with Fisk until he's seeing his life flash before his eyes or the light or whatever corrupt mayors see when they're flirting with Death.
Marvel Knights: Punisher 2025
when???
Frank Castle is the man you know and love as The Punisher. On his radar at this particular outset? A man named Armando Molerro.
Drug production and trafficking. Frank's on it. Doing his thing, working his way up through Molerro's organization, dangling mooks off of roofs like he's been spending too much time with a certain somebody and picking up the influence.
Oh no...
Yeah, we get imprisoned, drugged and essentially mind-wiped Castle again. This time, rather than be at the mercy of a microchip implanted into the back of his skull, Frank is kept fed on a steady dose of identity suppressing drugs and he does another round of being a bad guy's killer on a leash.
IT'S BEEN HOW LONG?!?!?!?
Yeah, I don't know about that. In the end, this run is essentially Elseworld to me. I can gladly adapt for anyone who wants a shot at getting Frank out of Zombie prison, but I don't see why our boy has to be locked up with the Molerro's for two decades. That's just too long, even if he is the eternal soldier.
Beyond this point, the story gets dark. Castle does get sprung by Agent Ross and a Mexican government agent. Getting the drugs out of his system means his memories come flooding back. Suppressed, not erased. He gets hit with the guilt of having killed innocents on Molerro's orders. Men, women, children. Unsurprisingly, he tries to eat a gun about it but manages to fail— only mangling his face rather than putting his own lights out.
Wrap up is that he barrels through the Molerro family org. Mrs. Molerro turns state witness for protection. Mr. Molerro gets zombied into being one of the agent's personal errand boy and Frank claims he needs a break for a while. We all know, those never last long for him.
The Punisher 2026
(╯`Д´)╯︵ ┻━┻
Annnnnnnnd we're back with Percy, picking up where Red Band left off which is why this is only tagged as .5 of a crime. The thing is, if you've been reading Punisher for years, you've seen him shake off worse with less explanation. The explanation is that he's built different, okay? He's just like this. Sometimes he catches a quick dirt nap if shit is bad enough, and then we're back to business with a quippy title like FRANK'S BACK IN TOWN~! and that's all it takes.
But sure. Let's do another stretch of amnesia!Castle meandering the city lost and confused. He's meant to be recovering from what Fisk had done to him, but it turns out... Micro's got his own agenda and a hidden bit of programming/control that has intentionally been left behind.
Micro, like Daredevil and so many others, can't see the reason for the need behind Frank's extremism. Until he does. One bad day, as Frank is always telling people. One good exposure to cruel and heartless injustice about things that could be prevented and you'll see it his way. That's the way this story is shaping up.
Castle's in poor shape in spite of kidnapping a neurologist with Micro's help and getting scans done. Something about doing the job is making him sick. The doctor, of course, sees all the evidence of multiple TBI's and everything else Frank has been through and there are no easy solutions, except quitting. Which Frank doesn't accept.
For some reason this turns into being put on Lithium, of all things. This is about where Percy and I stop being friends. It's not bad enough that his run is started to read like reheated nachos, he is painting Frank as the dumb jock that Frank often pretends to be. Frank does! He does pretend to be a bit of a caveman. It's usually meant to disarm people a bit, get past the discomfort/fear that his build and shape inspire. He's charming when he wants to be, but one part of it totally relies on playing up the dumb as rocks cliche when really, he couldn't be further from that. He's a strategist, a long-term planner. Frank is intelligent in many ways! So it sucks to see him reduced to the kind of man who thinks more pills = more effect. That's not how lithium works and he would know that. It's not tylenol, he can't just up the dose every couple of hours when he wants to feel it hit, and yet Percy's got him popping them like M&Ms and sprinkling them on hot dogs so he can get over the weird nausea/squeamishness he suddenly has around Punishering.
All this to find out that Micro's behind it all, regrets it, and the solution is for Frank to shoot himself in the head with a "de-programming" bullet. Percy, thy name truly is Edgelord and as a fellow one YOU ARE GIVING US A BAD NAME.
Literally the saving grace to this run is that they are doing interesting things with Jigsaw. Go see @prettytm for some of that goodness. If we're lucky we'll get a new mayor out of her while Fisk sleeps off a Castle beatdown. Or just a new criminal Kingpin. We'll see.
The NMCU/Mouse House Punisher deets were supposed to follow, but honestly I don't have the strength and this post is long enough. Live action Castle will get his own post shortly.
"Who, Russo?" Confession gets amused little scoff of a chuckle out of Frank. If he has to do the most minute double-take, it ain't for the reasons she probably thinks. Cute. Loving Billy is like— like acknowledging water's wet. Sky's blue. Air's for breathing. She didn't need to say it. He knew. Banked on it when he set her down the path of figuring out how dirty the government he'd faithfully served had done Billy. Burned him. Pinned a worse man's crimes on his jacket, lay all the blame at his amnesiac feet like he hadn't just been used and used and used. Frank's already taken care of Rawlins. For his own reasons. Russo included among them. Still he'd turned to the only person who'd given a damn about truth when it was his turn on trial to do for his former lieutenant what she had done for him. Investigate. Root out the corruption that had swallowed Billy whole and spit him out broken after like bones from fish.
Had he known then, at outset, before she ever asked the question about Billy's involvement and level of responsibility in his own family tragedy that this would be the result? Yeah. Pretty much.
See, far as Frank figures... it's pretty near impossible not to love Billy. There's only one person he knows for sure didn't seem to, and even then he questions it. Maybe surrendering him to the fire station was Billy's mother's version of loving him.
There's just something about him. Oh, women want him and when he was the suited and booted CEO of ANVIL men wanted him and wanted to be him. The Russo Effect. He wore power and prestige like he should always have been born to it, and softened it with that slick ass New York charm of his. Sparkling eyes winking. Crooked smile. Talk always quiet and intimate, close... like he was forever letting you in on a secret. Or selling you something.
Worse? Performance of all that aside... there was something about Billy. Something else, beyond how fuckable he is— or was before Frank peeled his face of at the carousel. There's always been something about him that appeals to better and protective natures. He makes people want to take care of him. Make up for what he had missing. Shield him. Save him. Be a wall between him and a world that's never been good enough or kind enough to him. Frank oughta know. He's pretty sure he's the first person it ever worked on how it was supposed to. He knows he wasn't the last.
Maybe Karen'll take that slot. Wouldn't that be something? Frank can see it. Her and her .380 standing between Billy and the world. Nobody else would take a bite out of him with her on guard.
Maybe that's what this visit is really about. Frank has been to Billy both protector and thing he needed protecting from. Maybe Karen's here to mark her territory. Put him on notice that he'll catch one of her bullets someplace it'll hurt like the devil and may even take him out if he doesn't lay off.
It only makes his smile all the more fond.
"He likes fancy watches and Bucky Barnes memorabilia. Real nerd about him."
"chain swinging in my face, Jesus piece be headbutting me"— Cardi B.
On all fours with him leaning over your back, pinned beneath him missionary style, or even just little spooned up against him with him cocooning you... if you're getting busy with Frank, then you're also getting nice and intimate with the lovers he carries around his neck.
Dangling from a chain that almost NEVER comes off is the holy trinity of a singular dog tag that doesn't have his name on it but one William Russo, Murdock's small humble golden cross, and Maria's wedding band.
Three relationships over his life of an importance he can't be parted from. Each one gave him something to remember them by, whether or not that's how those tokens were meant at the time. This is how he carries them. He's never without them, in or out of the vest. They live close to his heart literally and figuratively and occasionally he has a tic about going looking for his chain and holding it's contents in his hand all while it still hangs from his neck.
He never really thinks about it when he's getting intimate with people, especially not random one offs, but in long term relationships? It just becomes one of those things. Hands touch and glide, closeness is established, layers start coming off... and here is this piece of him that will always feature, metal warming from heat trapped between bodies, sometimes a conduit for sweat that's pouring, swinging pendulum grazing over skin keeping the same rhythm as him...
The Punisher has a tailored approach when he's on the hunt, tracking down the bodies that go with the names on his never-ending list. Ever a soldier, he's got a uniform for the job too. Iconic memento mori in gleaming white on void black chest is meant to be seen at a distance, one last kindness in this life, the chance to mutter a prayer or something—whatever comes natural when people know and understand that DEATH has come for them.
If he were coming for her properly, she would not be an exception to this rule.
It's a big fucking IF. Truth of the matter is she's his type. A soldier. It means a lot of things. Up to and including her taking work from the wrong side. Getting dirty. Or, playing at it. The double-cross game. Old as dirt and right up her legendary alley. She's usually above his paygrade, but either the Widow has really crossed the line this time or her cover's just that good and deep and tripping up the wrong wires. There's a certain FINALITY about the powers that be trying to crawl up in his bed about it, putting her name on his list. They only ever deign to deploy him when they need and want the permanence of his results.
Still, Frank has never been a man easily bought or paid. He certainly doesn't take orders blindly. Not anymore. Not ever again. Once was bad enough for a million lifetimes. The Punisher may be a living death warrant, but that's not who has boots on the ground within the confines of her web. It's a civilian face and guise he sports, drinking up bodega coffee in her shadow, haunting piers, talking long walks to nowhere. Just another body in a city of eight-million souls. He knows her craft nearly as well as his own. The eyes she's bound to have watching in every direction. The beard and construction worker's gear will keep the average civilian from looking at him and seeing the vigilante best known for his military high and tight, tactical gear, and war paint— but not her. She'll know and she'll DO something about it.
A something that Frank patiently waits out, sipping burnt coffee out of blue paper cups and playing tourist in a neighborhood not his own.
When I have a severe mood dip I just put my favorite characters through the worst scenarios possible to make me feel better like I’m slapping a water soaked plushie on a wall
"So, how long?" Bodega breakfast is divvied up, her classic bec tossed on the reclaimed wreckage that currently serves them as a makeshift coffee table. Appearance and it's relation to age makes him err on the side of picking her up a Coke to go with it, rather than a coffee like his own— his second of the day. Just enough fuel in him to power the chat he's been mulling on since the night before.
She helped him out. He assumes he's helping back what with the shared spot in his current safehouse. Mutual aid. No debts on either side. Convenient and appreciated but he's not stupid enough to think it's going to stay easy. Nothing ever does. Not in his life. Frank's made his peace with that. Rather than let current good run end with surprises he'd rather do what he can to batten hatches or take his leave before storm hits if it's not in his wheelhouse.
His own breakfast gets unwrapped and torn into, big bite, chewed up and washed down with coffee black as his jeans. Black as his boots. Having jumped into the deep end, he roots around and finds a few more words to toss at the conversation, help catch her up to speed. Shrug. Sit back, cock head, spit it out. "I don't care about your story— I ain't askin'. All I wanna know is how long 'til it catches up. Figure you might know that much, at least." Depending on her answer, they could be rolling out within the hour, or taking it easy— his version of it, a little longer before burning the spot and moving on.
// s.c. — while I work on headcanons bridging comics things and a few ancient inbox drafts. tryna beat the rust off of frank with a crowbar like his name is jason todd. open to anybody and everybody.
ECHOESTM: a sideblog multimuse featuring canon+ Sam Carpenter of Scream V/VI as well as a random assortment of characters from other horror media, marvel, and the dc universe.
ECHOESTM: a sideblog multimuse featuring canon+ Sam Carpenter of Scream V/VI as well as a random assortment of characters from other horror media, marvel, and the dc universe.
