[ bring it around town ] january classic word association meme

[youare40]

Word Association is a common word game involving an exchange of words that are associated together. The game is based on the noun phrase word association, meaning "stimulation of an associative pattern by a word" or "the connection and production of other words in response to a given word, done spontaneously as a game, creative technique, or in a psychiatric evaluation." ~ our lord and saviour wikipedia GUIDELINES ① post with your character's name & series. ② include a word of your choice and optionally the definition in the body of your comment. -- visit the random word generator if you need help! ③ other characters will reply with the first word their character associates with the one you chose. ④ continue back and forth until one of you just has to know the story behind an answer.

Comments

[underachievement]

[ see-.. oh. ]

Super dickhead.

[380s]

Yeah. Yeah, I know.

[underachievement]

I was talking in general. If I meant yours, that'd rank as a compliment compared the words I'd associate with that bag of dicks.

[380s]

Right on both, counts, either way.

[She's not pitying him, he has to remind himself. Just telling the truth.]

[underachievement]

God, I can't believe how stupid people are. [ it didn't take intensive digging to find this crap out, not by her standards. his outburst in court didn't do anything from keeping people from seeing what they wanted to see by the time a bullet storm hit the DA's office ]

And I still can't figure out what they got on you to get you to beat your chest in court like a full-fledged nutjob.

[380s]

They don't have shit.

[He snaps, but immediately rears back, sighs. There's nothing to have when he has nothing to take.

She might have read accounts of it, but at least it wasn't filmed. Watching Karen's face fall in disappointment and shock had been bad enough.]

That was Fisk.

[underachievement]

[ she never met the guy but the loyalty he inspired was ominous at best. getting information from that prison was a lot easier before the kingpin took it over. to his damned credit, the place seems to be running more efficiently ]

The one that got away. [ whatever shit they did or didn't have, fisk got to keep breathing. a dude like that creeps her out all the way from here. ] Evil pricks in suits. You know what, I think I'll trade Dickhead for the ninjas.

[380s]

[Frank grumbles to himself. He didn't think anyone that had nothing to do with how he got here would ever piss him off as much as Wilson Fisk does. He still feels like a pawn on the chessboard that bastard makes out of people's lives.]

Doubt he'd let you. They both got a way of makin' things personal.

[Frank grunts again. One day, he'll settle it with Fisk. Take the fat fuck down in fire if he has to, simply because Red won't be able to do what that takes to scratch him out permanently.]

[underachievement]

Which you never do. [ right. she has a pointed sip of her spiked coffee and lets the insinuation air out over the corpse of this conversation. ]

I never got much out of these shrinked up head games that I didn't already know. Paranoid, pessimistic worldview, blah blah blah. Good way to run out the clock though.

[380s]

[Not anymore, Frank tells himself. But he doesn't correct her; it's not an argument worth having, especially when it's one that could get ugly over nothing.]

Don't think they gotta mean much to the patient.

[The evaluations whenever he got back from a tour of duty were always the same, though the results today would be different. He didn't pick up his scars over there, after all.]

Better than ink blots. Had to make shit up half the time.

[underachievement]

[ it goes without saying that she was a nightmare for psychiatrists at any age, though she was more willing to accept help the last time she had to go. she adopts a grin at their mutual unkindness. on the road to recover, trish had her share of shrinks too, and talking shit about them with jess was its own kind of therapy. ]

Butterfly. Blood splatter. Butterfly. Blood splatter. Butterfly, butterfly, butterfly. I'm cured!

[380s]

[Frank can't help but start to smirk, either. He got out of his evals with a clean bill of health every time, but always with notes to his superiors about how he didn't take the Freudian quiz bullshit seriously.]

Told 'em, it's fucking ink. That's what I see. If you want me to tell you I see an IED, I don't.

[underachievement]

[ at that, she looks genuinely baffled. ]

Isn't the thing about IED's that you don't know what they're gonna look like?

[380s]

[Frank shrugs and sips his own coffee, no booze added.]

There's a few typical kinds you run into. Can't hide anti-tank mines in somethin' small. Shrinks were just looking for the guys who see 'em everywhere back home.

[He met more than a few fellow soldiers like that-- nervous wrecks who got their licenses revoked over it. Poor fucks always had a hell of a time explaining that.]

[underachievement]

[ she doesn't pity them either. her neuroses were(/are) bad enough when they were, for the most part, people-shaped. seeing danger in everything smaller than a briefcase-- ]

Sounds fucking exhausting.

[380s]

Probably.

[Back then, he'd been thankful for his ability to compartmentalize. Now, he's put all of those people in a box and pressed them into a corner of his mind that he tries to ignore, like they might do with their flashbacks. Frank squints, tries to recall a few faces-- it takes longer than he'd like.]

Didn't keep in touch.

[underachievement]

Damn decent of you.

[ she's distantly curious if he ever had the kind of friends like trish, who'll wedge themselves into your shit life regardless of protests and a metric ass-ton of caution tape. they didn't show up as character witnesses so either they were dead or smart enough not to associate themselves with the punisher. it's in the past and she doesn't ask about that without at least one full bottle in her.

she cleanses her mouth with a fresh sip of spiked coffee, setting it down with both hands on the table between them. ]

New game. Least favourite Avenger.

[380s]

[Frank actually outright chuckles for once. It's as rough as boots breaking glass, but unmistakeable, even if he hides his mouth in his mug. He naturally drifted from most of his old friends-- most of them didn't have a wife or kids to occupy their time, and took exception to a friend who wouldn't ditch them to go bar hopping. It just made things easier when the time came.

Still, he's grateful when Jess changes the subject, despite his pained grimace. How many times had the waitresses in this diner have to suffer through this conversation? His choice is obvious, either way.]

Answer used to be up in lights around here until aliens redecorated.

[underachievement]

[ jess projects her absence of surprise by letting her head fall to a slight angle, briefly rustling the layers of hair around her face. her stare could be drier, although not to the unpracticed eye. ]

Should've started on hard mode. [ but she has no defense for iron man whose latest melodrama plastered an insufferably pithy nickname on all the headlines for over a month. ] I can't wait to find out how much of Rogers' job was keeping him in check.

[380s]

[Frank has had plenty of practice, sometimes much closer than this. Enough to question it.]

You'd pick someone else?

[He seriously doubts it. That, and he can't even think of any of the other ones who showed their ass to the world so much. Sometimes literally, back in the day. As for Captain America ditching him, Frank grunts.]

I can. [The rich boy guilt got tired a long time ago.]

[underachievement]

[ she decides against mustering a shrug for that. whatever happens is going to happen. there's no touching the dysfunctional boys' club that is the avengers and no point worrying about it either -- like they really give a shit about the people on the ground. it's a mutual disrespect. ]

The green guy. I get the appeal of a secret weapon but- kids walking around with those idiot fists and shirts and crap. [ her gaze is cast towards the window. the only pedestrians to observe are stragglers and the occasional group moving from bar to bar but the gaps between cars is much shorter. ] What the hell kind of parenting is that?

[380s]

[As long as it won't involve them and Red getting hunted down by robots. Sokovia, hopefully, had been a learning experience. Not that Frank hopes for much.

As for Banner, there had always been rumors coming down from top brass about that, even between military branches. He didn't believe it until the army showed their ass all over the upper west side. Merchandising was the least surprising result of it.

Frank ducks his head slightly to get a better look at Jess' features. At least Banner had the privilege of being his own guinea pig.]

The kind that didn't have their apartment complex wrecked by 'im.

[He never had that problem. Frank, Jr. liked Thor, and Lisa liked Cap. She used to say her dad was like having her own at home. Those memories wash over him like a bucket of ice water, and he takes a long gulp of coffee to chase away the chill.]

[underachievement]

[ jess scoffs, peripherally aware of his stare. she grinds her teeth, eliciting a tic in her jaw. all the dismissive judgments that come to mind would be pointedly cruel to air in present company, like how if you wanted your kid safe, try taking them out of new york city. ]

Breeders. [ she glares down into her coffee, brain swimming with flashes of shitty parenting. a lot of it involves trish's mom or the stellar friends she kept around. the majority of her cases involve, at best, lackluster guardianship. she can count on one hand the number of people she's met with kids that didn't make her think there needs to be some kind of test to pass before you get to go ahead and start having them. nothing to do about it but get paid. her contribution is to withdraw herself from the equation, even if she thinks she wouldn't make the worst mom. she's had plenty of demonstrations in what not to do. ]

This is why I tried to do the word game thing. I just suck at this. [ chatting. talking. d....ating?? no it's a stakeout. for yknow general crime. a stationary patrol ]

[380s]

[Frank hasn't been in the vigilante game as long as everyone else, but he already came across more exploited and uncared for kids than he ever anticipated. It makes him feel sick down to his core, where it almost instantly festers into roiling anger. He's done terrible things to abusers, but they never survive long enough to get every ounce of what they deserve. He's already blown one hideout protecting a little girl in that apartment building from her junkie parents. He never told Jess about it; Max hadn't been there, so it didn't seem noteworthy.]

We don't gotta talk, you know.

[It's not double entendre. It isn't even his typical brusque manner, though that never fully drains out of his voice. Talking isn't his forte, and it's barely hers, either-- God knows if they'd get along so well if it was.

Frank looks out the window now, scanning higher up for any activity in the windows of the opposite building.]

Order whatever the hell you want. I got it.