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ZAC AND CAITLYN TORRES MADDOX

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ZAC TORRES & BROOKE RHODES MOTORHEADS | 1.03

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I love you shows with planned & definitive endings, I love you epilogues that prove the happy ending lasts, I love you finales that feature direct parallels to earlier seasons, I love you cast members that left years ago but came back to say goodbye, I love you well crafted & impactful final lines, I love you fitting send offs for the characters I love

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I left the fandom because i was so done with woobification of johnny…

Honestly that's the way I've been feeling since 2022-3? I've definitely lost a lot of moots because of what was pretty gentle criticism. I specifically remember having to block more than one person because I made a post boring how disappointed I was that Johny had yet to apologize or even acknowledge his fault and I got nasty comments about how "he was never a bully! It was because XYZ etc etc"

And I was like. Well. Actually he was a bully. That was kind of the impetus of the plot.

Also I found a lot of people genuinely believing the whole "repressed homosexuality is the entire reason he bullies Daniel" thing. Which is fun to explore and I DEFINITELY think that's part of it. But then the fandom at large seemed to think that bullying people was actually just gay disaster energy and because of that it didn't matter?

Like. When I joined the fandom there was so much good toxic, tragic, melancholy, hurt/comfort/coming of age, etc fic. That really played with their dynamic. And then I saw it get watered down very quickly. As they got more popular the general fandom tropes became zeitgeist that was inescapable and if you didn't agree you were ruining everyone's fun.

Like if just accurately describing a characters actions in canon will get described by other fans as "hate" then I don't think that's the character they actually think they like.

the problem is not liking problematic characters. It's when people can't own up to the fact that the character is problematic. If you like a little soggy bastard man then fully embrace the bastard part. Don't make excuses.

HOWEVER. The narrative itself (due to JohnJoshHayden heavily imprinting and projecting so much into Johnny. Like. No. It's totally normal how angry these types of men get about Daniel.) then goes out of the way to reinforce this idea that he never actually did anything wrong.

And right up until the end of the show. There was not one apology. He did not take responsibility once. He didn't grow as a person at all. If anything he regressed. But he also got all the rewards that he would've gotten in turn for actually progressing. It all feels very "wish fulfillment self insert".

Because actually, after alllll this time. Daniel is wrong. And CK actually is the only way to win. Because the movies are totally just sports movies instead of emotional narratives that use karate as a tool to tell their stories, obviously.

Like. JohnJoshHayden missed The Point so hard. But they absorbed enough to realize what it was supposed to be, and then have hints of good writing, only to throw it all away and become the antithesis.

Genuinely I feel like there should be a sociological study done on the impact of this franchise and specifically how we, as civilians, have reacted to it depending on the cultural and political climate.

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one of the more frustrating things that ck does is this obsession with reframing the aggressor as the victim and thereby absolving them of all blame or accountability in the situation. the obvious example of this is kreese, who they spend an entire season showing us war flashbacks of in order to garner sympathy for…him abusing children? yeah. and of course johnny in season 1, who they tell us over and over again has had a hard life, and therefore not only is he not responsible for what he did to daniel but actually, daniel might’ve been just as bad as him the whole time. they do it again with miguel, who is the aggressor in his relationship with robby, by having robby kick him over the balcony so that now not only will he never have to take accountability for his actions before that but he will forever have the moral high ground in their rivalry. they do it with tory, obviously, by making her life increasingly horrible to somehow make up for what she did to sam. they’re honestly a little better about it with hawk because he has the whole s4 beat about joining miyagi-do and bringing people together but also at the end of the day he’s absolved almost immediately for what’s probably one of the most deliberately aggressive acts by the main kids in the series (breaking demetri’s arm), and the consequences he faces are totally and completely unrelated to it (getting his mohawk shaved). they even do it with axel. the only rivalry they don’t really do it for is anthony and kenny, but also to that it doesn’t escape my notice that this rule apparently only applies to cobras, because no amount of suffering on the part of robby, sam, or daniel ever seems to justify their aggression.

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every day i think about how daniel spent so long searching the streets for robby and had to basically drag johnny along in trying to find him and how daniel called and emailed robby several times when he was in juvie even when robby wouldn’t speak to him and johnny didn’t show up to visit him and how daniel sought robby out while he was in cobra kai and pulled him aside at the tournament to talk and johnny told him “we have nothing left to talk about” the one time robby came to him and how they STILL had robby go to johnny instead of daniel when he left cobra kai and basically never touched daniel and robby’s relationship again……..ohh if i were in that writer’s room i would’ve been throwing chairs i would’ve been fist fighting people i would’ve started biting

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people hate robby for still hating miguel after the school fight but like. ok pov. your absentee dad has been out of your life for like sixteen years and finally is kind of a little bit trying to make an effort, so you think okay how about it and you go and try to find him only to find out he’s hugging some other random kid. and then in retaliation you go work for/become the student of your dad’s decades-long karate rival, and while you’re tangled up in this scheme you go to a party with your boss/sensei’s daughter who you’re like kind of into and then that other kid is there and he's also her boyfriend. and he’s super drunk and possessive and tries to hit you and ends up hitting her and you’re like wow he’s kind of an asshole. and then not too long after, your scheme has been exposed, you’re at the tournament, you’re fighting this guy in the finals after your shoulder just got busted by his buddy. he’s really coming after you and targeting your shoulder but after you land a hit you think what the hell and offer him a hand, and he attacks your shoulder instead. and then he beats you and you go home second place and he goes home with your dad. and then his friends and dojo spend the whole next summer coming after you and trashing your dojo, except then one day he shows up on your doorstep (well your boss/sensei’s doorstep) to return the medal his dojo took and he’s actually being kind of not terrible. and maybe you think it’s a fluke or maybe you think he’s changed but either way it’s not your business, you don’t tell your girlfriend, you move on. then there’s a party. your girlfriend gets way too drunk and cheats on you with him except you don’t know that yet. his girlfriend starts a massive fight at school over it, and now you do know. she was drunk, though, so you think maybe he took advantage of her. you’re genuinely trying to break up the fight and then he comes out of nowhere and attacks you, and now you’re in an all out school brawl, and he throws your dad back in your face. and then he shows you mercy. but it kind of feels like pity, and you’re thinking of him wrenching your arm, so you kick him, but it goes way too far, now he’s falling over the railing. the fight stops. everyone’s looking at you. you run. and you do feel bad about it. like, really. but then you’re in juvie and your dad doesn’t show up to be with him. then you get out of juvie and go to the one place where you’ve always felt safe, and you find him with your (ex?) girlfriend. and he looks fine. and it looks like he won. he got the tournament, and your dad, and your girlfriend, and your dojo. so fuck him, right? maybe you’d do it again.

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KENNY PAYNE AND TERRY SILVER IN COBRA KAI S6EP9 - Blood In Blood Out

Maybe they don't see the champion in you. I always have. You know, with the loopholes in the roster system, I'd make a spot for you on my team in a heartbeat.

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Daniel LaRusso & Robby Keene parallels

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my fav genre of fanfic is "ship i have not ever considered but the author is insane abt it in a way that intrigues me immensely"

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robby keene + adapting on the fly

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too much monogamy in fandom in general

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like.....keenry's love confession scene shows me exactly the problem i have with them. tory lets out her frustrations, robby tells her he loves her, she kisses him and doesn't say it back, and he says that godawful "no fucking mercy line." every single problem i have w keenry right there! tory gets more out of the relationship than robby does, robby's role is reduced to tory's boyfriend, and he will act out of character for the scene to work. and that's it!

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robby keene: (◠‿◠✿) literally everyone: i'm about to end this man's whole karate career

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something that I feel like is missing from fandom nowadays is the idea that you dont have to have a unified, chronologically/tonally consistent interpretation of your favorite work. your fics dont have to fit within the same version of canon, even if theyre all canon-compliant on their own. your headcanons can contradict each other. be a multishipper. write metas that take two totally different interpretations of the same plot point. write a character as a villain and then write them as the hero next time. write a character as a lesbian and then write them as straight next time! engage in hypotheticals and drop them when you get bored! make up the rules as you go!! have fun with it!!!

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𝐏𝐀𝐓𝐑𝐈𝐂𝐊 𝐋𝐔𝐖𝐈𝐒 as 𝐀𝐗𝐄𝐋 𝐊𝐎𝐕𝐀𝐂𝐄𝐕𝐈𝐂 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐓𝐀𝐍𝐍𝐄𝐑 𝐁𝐔𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐍𝐀𝐍 as 𝐑𝐎𝐁𝐁𝐘 𝐊𝐄𝐄𝐍𝐄

#who said axel didn't had a homoerotic karate rivalry.