so.fi

I’m not really a karedevil or kastle shipper, however I do lean more towards kastle, heads up (after writing this I do come off as poo-pooing karedevil a lot, but just to be clear, I don’t want fans to feel like they are being attacked, this is just me venting my personal thoughts, do your thing but be forewarned).

I think karedevil had/has potential, both the actors are amazing, and yet, something about it doesn’t click for me. I think a lot of that stems back to season 2, Matt kind of screwing things up and being emotionally involved with two women (unknowingly to Karen, Elektra I think knew but didn’t care). Matt never really acknowledges it or takes accountability, like ever.

Season 3 Karen and Matt chase their own story arcs. DDBA S. 1 Karen is barely there, and then with the latest season, suddenly, finally, they are a couple. Yet we’ve missed so many important relationship beats by then that their coupling doesn’t land with any emotional impact.

We still don’t know anything about what happened between Matt and Karen from season 3 to DDBA. They do allude to a friends code- so maybe Matt and Karen have tried being in a relationship, maybe they’ve been friends with benefits but it didn’t work out, we don’t know. Sometimes leaving it up to the imagination can be fun, but, sometimes all that does is give us nothing. There’s always opportunities to do flashbacks, but to not show anything that happened between them in those years makes you feel like.. well, that nothing important has happened between them in those years.

In DDBA Matt begins a relationship with Heather while he’s still depressed from Foggy’s death and wants to be the man he thinks Foggy wanted him to be, Daredevil free, settling down in a nice, normal relationship. Heather is a vehicle for that, until it implodes. We don’t get a clear ending to Matt and Heather’s relationship, and we don’t see how Karen/Matt start, which makes things feel like season 2 Matt all over again, who switches from one love interest to the next, seamlessly, with zero reflection or communication with the people involved.

Side note: Matt Murdock is canonically a bad boyfriend, so not all the blame goes to the writers of the show. The writers of the show evolved Karen’s characters so so much, so kudos to that (although I do still feel like show Matt/Karen could have been written better).

So Karedevil doesn’t do it for me because Matt Murdock is just.. the worst when it comes to relationships. Matt’s love interests feel like they could be swapped out at any moment and he wouldn’t care. Karen feels like the definitive love interest only because she’s the most willing to put up with Matt’s shit (and no, I don’t think Karen gets off on Matt’s trauma/issues as much as she claimed to when rage baiting Heather).

In karedevils defence, Karen is the only person who knew and loved Foggy like Matt did, that gives them a special bond. There is also the rest of their shared trauma.

Despite all that I still don’t find them to be a compelling couple, and I think Karen can do better.

Now onto Kastle. First, I do not think that dating Frank would be Karen doing better. That man’s even more fucked up than Matt. However, however, the way Karen and Frank come together in their scenes is electric. I don’t know if it’s the actors or the way the scenes are written but the chemistry is insane.

In season 2 Matt lies to Karen and hides who he is, but Frank is laid bare, tragedy on full display, and that raw, emotional honesty, just, ooh, it hits good. Especially in contrast to Matt.

Frank is very intense, Karen is in turn matching his intensity in their scenes and they just.. play better off of each other

Any softness/fondness Frank has comes out when he’s with Karen, and that side of him, that display of trust and vulnerability, is mostly for Karen and Karen alone, it makes every scene they are in together something special.. Not saying that’s a healthy thing for Karen to be Frank’s only anchor, but probably the best moments for Frank are when he’s with Karen. If Frank Castle is capable of feeling anything close to fun, in the most light-hearted sense, it’s probably giddyness from being near Karen.

Matt on the other hand.. Matt seems to have more fun with literally every other love interest. Heck even that two minute scene with Sofjia was more fun and flirty than karedevil. Matt and Karen come together more out of shared grief and trauma than fun (at least since Foggy died..). Yet, you could say the same for Frank and Karen coming together over traumatic events, so why do they work so much better?

Maybe because it doesn’t feel like Karen compromises herself around Frank as much? Idk. Everyone makes compromises in relationships.. obviously if Frank became a serious love interest there would be compromises.

So. I don’t really want to see Karen end up with either of the love interests presented to her so far. I don’t think either of them uplift her character in any way.

I’ve been thinking a lot about how great it would be if Elektra came back and took up the Daredevil mantle, how fun it would be to see Elodie in that role again and the relationship potential for Karen/Elektra 👀 idk Elektra is such a harbinger of chaos, and making them both bi and into each other would prob be too much for Disney, but I’d loooove to see Karen examine her attraction to Daredevil beyond Matt. Not gonna happen, but it would be so much fun to see those two personalities bounce off each other, and Karen deserves fun, which is why in the end I don’t really ship karedevil or kastle, because Frank and Matt are not much fun and both too consumed by their man pain. Karen, girl.. drop the weight.

during at least two seasons of the show's original run i was the a big karedevil fan as my blog can testify. my issues today are mostly due to the writing from season 2 onwards: i genuinely believe cox is the biggest shipper there is and woll isn't against it in any capacity, they're both highly capable actors who could still sell this story, but the writers simply didn't care and i'm afraid they care even less now.

so, about those first two seasons. they aren't perfect mk wise but they can work. season 1 is i guess fine. yes, matt falls for claire while karen has this obvious big fat crush on him but you can tell their separate journeys are meant to bring them closer. you might even tell matt keeps a polite distance from karen because he feels that she's special. in season 2, he does fall for her but elektra's return fucks him up because she knows who he is while karen doesn't. it's natural for matt to be drawn to someone who knows every part of him, plus she's his first love. mind you i'm not at all downplaying matt's feelings for elektra but i also think they're undeniably connected to a downward spiral literally culminating in a suicidal disposition. and i know a lot of people find kastle to have been romantic from the get go but i don't personally believe that to be true, i think karen and frank's connection and chemistry were accidental and only built upon later, but by the end of season 2 karen still is in love with matt, however frustrated with him she might be. in the season finale matt tells karen the truth and that's supposed to be the moment that changes everything for them.

but then every single showrunner has dropped the ball except for the punisher's (which includes scardapane in ddba). the most maddening moment for me was when the defenders had karen praise matt as a friend (!) even though he failed her and foggy badly and repeatedly just what? weeks before? days? and while season 3 is still daredevil's best to date, mk are really just friends in it. there are very few hints to anything more potentially happening and the biggest comes from sister maggie, not even the way the two of them act or feel. more importantly, the show fails to address matt's wrongdoings. not a word is uttered about elektra. matt doesn't apologise nor explain anything. to this day i still don't know if karen knows he didn't exactly cheat even though he might as well have. it's like the showrunner didn't like the previous season and chose to pretend it didn't exist.

then came ddba and the show simply decided the mcu is too big for any writing to stay consistent. scardapane, who tbf probably doesn't even like karedevil that much, established that something he didn't care to tell happened during the time jump between the first show and the second. so where was karen while matt hooked up with she hulk and whomever else? were they friends? what exactly is their "friends' code" and how did it come to exist? did matt ever explain or apologise? did karen tell him she effectively asked frank to run away with her? should we actually think whatever mk did that we didn't see is more important or believable than frank's feelings for her?

Is there something you planned to do before you got trapped in the endless tumblr scroll?

Are you yelling at yourself to get up and do the thing, but you can’t, because you’re trapped in the endless tumblr scroll?

Consider this your save point.

eat breakfast

go to bed

get out of bed

take a shower

write

practice

watch Superman Returns and write a paper on it

retain shreds of sanity

I’m tired, can we get a new enemy for Daredevil? Please, I know he has tons of villains to choose from. Let’s explore his character more with a different archenemy, stop rehashing him and Kingpin, it’s been done enough.