#and maria's engaging in mild gaslighting like 'that's a bit dramatic dear here have a sugar cookie'

[polysyndetonaddictsupportgroup]

oh my god i'm so in love with all the fic ideas you talked about, but especially the last two with the castles kidnapping matt in like a friendly and well-meaning way. it's so funny to me and also the dynamic here would be absolutely excellent. never realised i needed a pro-crime hyper-competent maria castle in my life but apparently i do???

the dynamic in those, but especially the christmas one, is fucking hilarious. i love it so much. i'd write it tomorrow if i had the time

like the castles are treating this like one of those times where you pick up a puppy out of a cardboard box in a kmart parking lot and like, it's a little scrawny and underfed and feral and yeah, it probably would have been smarter to pick one out of the shelter where at least you know they've been checked out and have their shots and everything, but you know, the kids wanted one so bad and it's christmas, and it's cold and the poor thing's probably going to freeze to death in the cardboard box, so you bring it home, and suddenly it's in these new and unfamiliar surroundings and it keeps trying to skitter out the front door every time it opens, so maybe you have to keep it in a back room or tied up for a while and you hand feed it treats until it stops trying to run away and like, you know eventually the puppy's going to warm up to you as long as you treat it right and when that happens you'll have a happy new member of the family that you can probably shove felt reindeer antlers on for the family christmas card

meanwhile matt's treating this like a fucking kidnapping

#it's so funny to me #like matt is somehow in the minority in thinking kidnapping an adult man is a big deal #normally he'd be able to hurl is body out a third story window and fuck off #but devastantly frank is one of the few people on the planet that can go toe to toe with him on a good day #and he keeps dragging matt off the windowsills and acting like matt's being ridiculous for trying to escape his own kidnapping #also he could try to just fuckin. kick flip frank #but it's so much harder to do that to maria and the kids #and it's SO AWKWARD to get into a physical confrontation with the dad of the kids whose lives you saved and who idolize you now #like merry christmas kids i need to punch your dad #maybe the real kidnapping was the societal conventions we found along the way #also matt's not super at one hundred percent on account of he took on the CIA in a t-shirt and sweatpants and like he WON but it's not GOOD #matt spends this entire time like 'please stop trying to teach me about the magic of christmas time' #'i need you to start treating this hostage situation seriously this is a federal crime you are committing a FEDERAL CRIME' #and maria's engaging in mild gaslighting like 'that's a bit dramatic dear here have a sugar cookie' #matt: 'i don't want a sugar cookie i want you to UNLOCK THE HANDCUFFS' #see the thing is that i'm absolutely convinced teh castles are absolutely fucking insane all of them #like we know frank is not above zip tying a child to the bed and kidnapping her for her own safety #maybe they're just all like that #the moral of the story is that this nice young man helped them and is living a horrible fucking existence so there's no reason why #they can't forcefully adopt him and make him take his medication and recover in their nice guest bedroom instead of a fucking boiler room #like this is 60% physical force and 40% a guilt trip keeping him captive