cruel world.

                                                 ( because it’s that time of year ) 

Sentence  starters meant to be used as roleplay prompts & sentence starters.  These are from the book War of the Foxes by Richard Siken.  Please feel free to change pronouns and words as needed!

the paint doesn’t move the way light reflects.

what is there to be faithful to?

i am faithful to you, darling.

some people don’t understand anything.

you see the man but not the light.

you’re easy to desire, there’s not much to you.

no one wants to know what’s in my head.

land a man in a landscape, and he’ll try to conquer it.

what do you do with a man like that?

crown yourself with leaves and stake your claim.

i turned away from the darkness to see daylight, to see what would happen.

why take more than we need?

you’d break your heart to make it bigger.

will you defend yourself? from me, i mean.

i prefer to blame others, it’s easier.

it helps to have an anchor.

all these ghosts come streaming down, and sometimes i wish i had something else.

what is a ghost? something dead that seems to be alive. something dead that doesn’t know it’s dead.

can we love nature for what it really is: predatory?

ask for a blessing? you can try, but we will not remain unscathed.

abandon your will and let the world have its way with you.

you should disappear and save everyone the bother of a dark suit.

color bleeds and gravity pulls so make it work for you.

when you have nothing to say, set something on fire.

i wanted to explain myself to myself in an understandable way.

something’s not right about what i’m doing but i’m still doing it.

my inner life is a sheet of black glass.

the enormity of my desire disgusts me.

want something to chase you? run.

you need me for the moment you need me.

you saw a bird and found him beautiful.

your heart is a metaphor for your heart, as everything is a metaphor for itself.

the fear: that nothing survives; and, the greater fear: that something does.

this is how we measure: walking away.

a map without landmarks is useless.

dead things cannot hurt me.

history is painted by the winners.

accidents never happen when the room is empty.

everyone needs a place.

people like to think that war means something.

who will master this love? love might not be the right word.

let’s admit, without apology, what we do to one another.

you cannot have an opponent if you keep saying yes

all stories are the wrong story when you’re impatient

in the wrong light anyone can look like a darkness

lovers look, and strangers look away.

how much can you change and get away with it, before you turn into someone else, before it’s some kind of murder?

difficult, to be confronted with the fact of yourself.

see me, not through me.

it’s hard to talk about what you believe while you are believing it.

this is also part of the story: how the story changes.

i think that you might like it here.

i tell you these things because i love you.

none of it is real, darling.

i will not cross you, and you must move on.

everyone needs a place. it shouldn’t be inside of someone else.

i turned my back on the story.

we smuggled ourselves into ourselves, hunted by each other’s knowledge.

to hide somewhere is not surrender, it is trickery.

i try to guess your trajectory and end up telling my own story.

what happens when i no longer want to meet you?

nothing lasts forever: we know this.

you asked me to hold this for you.

i want to give you more but not everything. you don’t need everything.

someone has to leave first.

as i mentioned in my divergences for the punisher season 1, frank did not give up being the punisher post-dd s2. instead, he gives it up after the events of the punisher season 1 and starts living the alias of pete castiglione. while working at a construction site in the bronx, where he’s stayed since the ending of season 1, frank meets donny chavez. though frank has kept his head low and has effectively isolated himself from everyone in his life (including curtis, david, and madani) for their own safety, he can’t help himself when a group of men from the site try to kill donny after robbing a mafia-affiliated (gnucci) poker game. frank brutally murders them all and kills all of ma gnucci’s sons thereafter, in what he excuses is to protect donny. realizing he can’t stay in new york city without possibly ruining his pardon, frank leaves to drive upstate to the canadian border.

upon arriving in buffalo, frank rents a motel room for a few nights after travelling non-stop for nearly a day, having taken detours through pittsburgh and cleveland to lay low and attempt to enjoy the travel he’s been encouraged to partake in. on his first night, frank attends the bar next to the hotel because he was drawn in by the live music show from his motel room. it’s there that he happens upon a young girl clearly uncomfortable with an older man who acts invasive and generally menacing toward her. it’d be easy to ignore if he didn’t run into her again later that night with the same man, who was clearly staying with her. finally, the next evening, when he watches the girl try to escape into the women’s room while the man follows behind her, frank steps in to confront him. he has no idea that there are several other people in the same group that night, apparently with the man and the young girl, and a chaotic fight ensues in which frank and the girl narrow escape, but not before his enemies and some bystanders are killed and the patrons of the bar terrified. out of fear, she tells him her name is rachel and she’s eighteen, but once she realizes he’s not law enforcement she tells him her name is actually amy bendix and she’s sixteen. frank discovers she was one of many girls all over the country and that she stole footage that would implicate the philanthropist and CEO of dynaco, a wall street financial firm, harry ebbing in the crimes as well as the son of a new york senator, david schultz, from the man trafficking her. she also reveals that she was in touch with a social worker in new york city and planned to expose the information to her. the man she was staying with was trying to leave the trafficking ring and kidnapped her to bring with him, and she planned on stealing the flash drive to escape on her own after her friend died in the process of trying to expose the footage to said social worker.

while on the run with amy, the two finally stop at a motel in albany, where frank seeks to divulge more information from amy and tells her his real identity. while amy sleeps and frank watches over her to figure out their next move, police cruisers approach the room and demand to come inside. before frank can think to answer, they shoot up the hotel room in a spray of bullets, barely giving frank time to cover amy to protect her. the two of them play dead on the floor when the officers enter the room, which is when frank surprises the officers by shooting them with a gun hidden under the bed while amy hides in a nearby closet. they leave the scene of the crime. from there, several new york state police unions as well as the commissioner of the nypd denounce the punisher as a cop-killer and start a state-wide manhunt. he is also accused of kidnapping amy bendix.

the two consider crossing the border while frank thinks to call dinah, who is the SAC of the new york homeland field office. at first, she refuses his call, but locates the two of them from frank’s cell signal and flies to them via helicopter once she sees the reports about the manhunt for the punisher on television. she takes them back to new york to stay with her to work with frank and amy once she realizes the value of the information amy possesses. while dinah urges frank to stay put for his and amy’s own safety, he leaves her apartment to find more information. after spending a day looking for intel on traffickers in the area, frank finally comes back to ask amy for the social worker’s name from amy after getting nowhere. she reveals her name is jen cooke, a social worker and lecturer. frank sits in on one of her lecturers and follows her into her office, where he gives her the flash drive. after some reluctance, and driven by her own frustration at the inaction of the nypd and corruption clearly from a level above her pay grade. she has also been threatened multiple times, including via snuff footage sent to her that included amy’s murdered friend. frank tells her that once he finds whatever kids that may be captive, he’ll bring them to her, and pursues the names she gives him - first, he starts with a russian diplomat who’s staying in a hotel nearby. frank kidnaps him with amy’s help and from there, they get the address of a house in brooklyn where the girls are kept. frank sends amy back to dinah’s place and goes on his own.

meanwhile, dinah looks into ebbing and schultz on her own and ends up, much to her dismay, faced with similar roadblocks as with the kandahar investigation. she is approached by brett mahoney who immediately suspects her as having something to do with frank castle. the two of them work begrudgingly together as brett is the only man in his unit who remotely is interested in the truth surrounding the punisher manhunt.that is when brett and dinah are approached by jen cooke while at the precinct together, who tells them frank told her to see mahoney for protection and about how she’d told frank about the house’s location. dinah realizes what frank’s done and brings jen back to her place along with brett, only to find only amy there. dinah convinces brett not to call for back-up about the house, who is only convinced due to the nature of the footage dinah finally has a chance to watch herself along with brett for the first time. it’s brett who immediately recognizes schultz and ebbing, and it is dinah who recognizes william rawlins.

meanwhile, frank prepares for a total ambush on the house in brooklyn, and has sent amy to go back to dinah’s place. he manages to kill the men inside and keeps one alive for information. it’s there that he finds a group of young girls and boys, varying in age but mostly teenagers, and escorts them outside, where dinah and brett are waiting. frank insists they leave without him and they do, to bring them back to dinah’s place where jen is also hiding. after frank tortures information about the video and the other traffickers out of the man he keeps alive, he sets him on fire to burn to death. as he drives away, a mercenary hired by ebbing known only as barracuda shoots at his tires and sends frank crashing into a ditch, where he barely manages to pull himself out. after a brutal fight, barracuda beats frank to a pulp, and frank only manages to get away but gouging out barracuda’s eye with a knife. completely worn down, frank calls curtis before passing out in the middle of the road and wakes up on dinah’s couch, with curtis, dinah, amy surrounding him.

frank tells dinah about the corruption and complicity from within the nypd and the location of schultz’ wife’s office, where she runs her operations out of. dinah informs him about rawlins and ebbing. dinah instantly recognizes barracuda’s name, as he is a widely known mercenary in the intelligence community wanted for multiple atrocities, which is only an added complication to their issue. however, dinah and brett have both managed to arrange for a warrant to be issued for ebbing’s arrest. after recuperating in dinah’s place briefly, frank leaves to pursue schultz’ wife and curtis takes amy to safety with him.

after frank plows through schultz’ wife’s office, he tortures her to death. as predicted, barracuda is there in the wake of the carnage, where he and frank fight again. meanwhile, the nypd arrest ebbing and schultz, and the two of them are kept in holding cells amid a media frenzy. frank gets the upper hand on barracuda until barracuda slams his face against a desk corner, effectively also gouging out of one frank’s eyes. he stabs frank in the stomach two times until frank shoots him. as the cops arrive, barracuda escapes, leaving frank to be taken into police custody at the hospital. it’s there that david lieberman arrives, impersonating foggy nelson, revealing that the entire time the punisher manhunt has occurred that he’s kept a distance, but could no longer ignore it when the news of his arrest circulated on the local news. the two manage to arrange a power outage and for frank’s escape with dinah’s help, and it’s together that they get the news that ebbing was found murdered in his holding cell before further information could be had and schultz is nowhere to be found.