Loner

The Defenders working title is Group Therapy

kastle is slow. i mean, it’s technically not even canon yet, but even from what we did see of these two in the show you can tell it’s slow. it’s reluctant and slow and tentative, because i mean it’s frank castle. the punisher. and karen page, who i think loves so freely and it always comes back to hurt her. even if kastle actually becomes a real, canon thing (in the punisher series??) it’s not going to be fast. i mean, did y’all see how that crashed and burned at the end of season 2?? yeah, that’s going to take a while. they have to build trust first, and that’s a hard thing to do. it’s two people who will fiercely deny/ignore any sort of attraction because that’s how they work, i think. it’s silent comfort, silent understanding, staying up with the other late into the night because neither can sleep because of nightmares. it’s a gentle touch to remind the other that they’re there, it’s 2am coffee in crappy diners while they’re both exhausted and trying not to smile at each other because it’s just so surreal. and i love this. 

with matt and elektra, it’s more of an all-consuming sort of love. all or nothing. holding nothing back. they aren’t soft kisses and going on actual dates. their love is passionate and fierce and love/hate at times. both pulling and pushing at the other until they inevitably fall back together again. i guess that’s kind of what they are - inevitable. i mean, even in the show as we saw, they really can’t be separated for long. life keeps dragging them back to each other, and in a maybe twisted way, they need each other. whether they like it or not, there’s love there. maybe it’s unhealthy, maybe it isn’t. taking without giving and trying not to think about it. and yet, in a way that’s disproportionate with everything else, it’s silent support, a push to do good, clashing moral views that somehow balance each other out. and that’s what i find really interesting about it because yeah, at first glance, it’s not a healthy sort of love. but if you look beyond that it’s… different, better, a lifeline, a way to anchor each other (especially to elektra). It’s fierce and harsh and it drags them down but keeps them up, keeps them fighting, all of it kind of paradoxical in itself. 

Matt Murdock’s super power is hearing his own bones break but he maintains a constant attitude of “try and stop me from fighting the entire Russian mob and an army of (immortal?) ninjas using only two sticks and my undying righteous fury. I’ll take you both together; I’ll beat you at your part!”. 

matt: