purplerakath

[purplerakath]

Ginny & Georgia S3 - The Abby and Max Essay

…Okay so it’s mostly the Max Essay but the Abby thing is how the Max thing makes sense. There will be a Norah and Ginny cameo on this later (Ginny probably gets a whole essay to herself on a later date).

Preamble - Before the Cut

What I love about Ginny & Georgia as a show is that it’s a collection of well meaning people (who are not Gil or Press) doing ‘the thing that is right for them’ and the conflict that comes out of that.

What I dislike about the fandom is their blorbo is perfect and has done zero crimes while every other person’s blorbo deserves superhell like Castiel for all the very definite crimes done. With no actual accounting of their own blorbos imperfections because our society has made everything into a zero sum team sport.

It sucks, you aren’t special, please stop it.

The Season Two of it All

So a lot of people are establishing Abby’s reason to not share with Max as being due to the events of Season One’s finale, and Max’s cutting Abby out most of Season Two. I don’t think that’s it.

Abby is cutting Max out because she knows who Max is, and how Max would want Abby to react to all this. Which is the center of this. Because the characters are pretty consistent as to who they are (another positive of the show's writing).

The Girl Without Boundaries

Max loves her friends, and all they do, and all they are. And she revels in their lives as an element of her own. This is why she felt betrayed when Ginny and Abby didn’t share with her, in spite of them very accurately accounting for how Max would be about it.

If given the chance, Max would 1000% share a telepathic link with her best friends so she knows all they are thinking and feeling, and they know all she thinks and feels in turn. And does not get maybe they would hate all of that idea. Norah has healthy boundaries, Ginny has committed crimes for her mom, and Abby… that comes later.

The Norah Sidebar: Norah is the only girl in the group with good boundaries. This is why she mostly just expresses her unease over Georgia, then clams up for the rest of the season. She doesn’t need to let everyone in on all of her life, because they aren’t all of her life. Max shares too much, Ginny and Abby share not enough. Norah is… plainly, really boring.

Abby knows, Max being Max, would want to know everything about Abby liking Tris. And Abby knows, Max being Max, would be incapable of showing a modicum of chill or self-control with that question. And Abby…

The Short Girl with Tall Walls

Abby does not let people in. She should, because what she’s doing is deeply unhealthy and a part of all the other unhealthy shit that is Abby’s coping skills. But while Abby is figuring herself out she keeps everyone else at arm’s length.

My read on Abby’s reactions to Press and Sam’s kisses vs. Tris (buoyed by Katie’s comments in some youtube videos) Abby’s never actually liked anyone like this. She has no idea what she’s doing so she doesn’t want to label it until she’s explored it a bit. A thing she can’t do if Max is going to demand a press conference and statement.

Abby doesn’t know what her orientation is, if she wants to have sex with Tris, if she wants to date at all. She’s a small bag full of a lot of trauma and completely devoid of answers. She doesn’t know, so she sure doesn’t wanna field all of Max’s questions on the subject that, while well meaning, won’t help her.

The Abby’s Parents of it All: Abby’s parents are big on talking and sharing due to both being therapists (at least- prior to the divorce which tanked everything). Abby’s desire not to talk about her feelings now might in part be acting out in anger at her parents. So she’s got another non-Max reason to clam up.

All of this is the closest Abby has gotten to taking care of herself (and it’s so far from healthy it actually is kind of sad).

The Ginny Aside

Is Ginny being a bad friend to- basically everyone this season? Yes. Reminder Ginny’s life is a mess. Like- bigger than you think. You know that time your friend stopped messaging you back and you got mad and then they told you their grandparent suddenly died and you feel like a dick? So over the course of the past few months, Ginny:

Saw her mom get arrested.

For a crime she knows her mom did.

For a crime her brother witnessed.

Had her boyfriend break up with her.

Her step-dad abandoned them.

Her real dad ripped her out of her home.

Her brother was taken by his father, who Ginny knows is abusive.

...And also got mad and abused her.

She. Got. Pregnant.

Struggled with the temptation to return to self-harm.

Got abandoned (temporarlity) by her mother.

Concocted a scheme to get her mother found not guilty.

Which meant blackmail.

To say Ginny had every right to her distraction is an understatement. She didn’t leave Max out on purpose, Ginny just only reached out to who was there at the time. She’d have owned up to the self-harm to whoever came to her car to check on her. It happened to be Bracia.

She didn’t seek out Abby and Norah, Norah was her way to see her brother and Abby asked her to go to that dinner. The only people Ginny reached out to were her mother, Marcus (because he knows her best, and knows about her mom’s murdering people), and Wolfe (who very specifically was reached out to for how much he didn’t know and wasn’t involved, he was her escape from Wellsbury).

So Ginny kind of not being there for anyone is perfectly reasonable.

Where does this leave MANG..?

Well, it means that Max’s mom was right about one thing this season: The other girls aren’t like Max and Max pushing this was a mistake. Abby doesn’t want to talk until she’s had a chance to- simmer, in the state of things. Ginny’s life is an active tire fire. And Norah… isn’t sharing her smutty faerie books because she knows the others will either get too into it (Max) or throw things at her (Abby).

This isn’t a new Max issue, this is just another side of her issues from the past two seasons. The same overly invested girl who tried to push Ginny into Hunter's arms, feels left out she doesn't get a front row seat to Abby's first love. Max invests a lot of herself into the others and this will always lead to her getting hurt, but it isn't really on them to cater to her every whim. Catering to her every whim is how Hunter and Ginny blew up, because Ginny was not into him.

In turn this isn’t a new Abby issue, Abby’s always been the one to hold back from the group thanks to how much significant self-hatred and self-destructive hedonism she has going on. So the same girl that would hide all the hurtful things she's doing to herself is so used to hiding she can't let people in on the good things going on with her. This is just an extension of who they were before to set-up they need to work through more of it.

Now, if you ship it or not is another matter. For me, I don’t want them to be a ship because if Abby was in love with Max I’d figure it’d have happened earlier than this. And retconning it into flashbacks would feel… awkward. Personally my read is Abby in that Demi/Ace space where she just doesn’t catch feelings very often.

Hence all her being real sketchy over it.

[purplerakath]

I'm aware that my pet ship is not canon and never will be. But Ep 3 is giving me so many crumbs and I am going to sustain myself off of them for the next year.

(Let Abby and Ginny kiss.)

[purplerakath]

RTD is bad at Set-up and Payoff.

Chekov's Gun is not a universal writing truth, it's specifically for stage plays, a conservation of details that if you include something in the set it should actually be useful to see early. That if you see a gun on the wall in act one, it should be fired before act three.

Now, the reason for this is that there's a set-up (the item on the wall), and a payoff (the logical application by the end). Putting a gun on the wall in act one, and it doesn't matter feels disappointing. Similarly, having it used as a secret spy phone in act three, is not a proper use of set-up and payoff.

And this is fundamentally what RTD does wrong in Doctor Who.

Spoilers for Season 2 (2025) and various other spoilers for other Doctor Who seasons behind the cut.

Doing it Right

So I'm going to use Moffat's Season 5 (2010) as a very easy example of set-up to payoff where it works. Other Moffat seasons do this same set-up but don't work either cause the payoff feels bad, or the set-up feels annoying.

Amelia Pond has a crack in her wall, the Doctor explains that the crack isn't in the wall, it's in reality itself. So we know, going forward, that crack in other places is more than just a cute piece of set dressing. Our next episode the Doctor sees the crack is in Flesh and Stone.

This lets the Doctor know the crack is still a thing, tells us what interacting with the crack does (erases things from time), and gives us the first timey-wimey scene of the plot. The Doctor talking to Amy but the scene doesn't make sense. It's weird, he has his jacket (which he shouldn't), and there's an establishing shot where he also doesn't have his jacket (to really drive home the weird).

By the end we know the crack in the universe is the TARDIS exploding. And the weird scene with Amy and the Doctor is the Doctor from the future talking to her to make the final reveal of the season work. It ties together nicely and all the pieces of the season are there if you know what to look for.

None of them are cheating, none of them are relying on you to guess the absurd to make it make sense (Time Travel in other shows would be a big leap, Time Travel in the Time Travel show is Tuesday). The Doctor explains the rules from the start.

Now to RTD's 'writing' choices...

Generally RTD's choice is jingling keys, they are a thing to look for in an episode for people to talk about, but so devoid of meaning you can't properly define them as clues. They're just noise. The one time that isn't true (Torchwood) the 'big bad' is usurped by two returning Who villains so it also didn't matter.

Bad Wolf is a message Rose sends herself in the past... which she understands because reasons.

You are Not Alone coincidentally matches up with the Master's human form Dr. Yana. (Vote Saxon is fine, we know Saxon is something but we'll get to that problem in a bit.)

In the new series, we had people as the jingling keys. Susan Triad in Season 1, and Mrs. Flood in Seasons 1 and 2. We guessed Mrs. Flood is the Rani (back to that later) but Susan Triad is a secret message about the return of Sutekh (also back to that later). But neither one really allows you to play along at home because the Doctor doesn't know either. There's no theme to it, no meaning.

Back to Moffat, the Series 8 (2014) pattern was 'strange woman talking to recently killed characters' which is 'each of these characters died and were now a part of the Cybermen memory computer.' It's not an amazing set-up to a fairly lackluster payoff. But it is a pattern the audience can engage with. ('how does talking to dead people make sense?' 'who is that woman?')

When the Doctor explains things at the end of Season 1 (2023) and Season 2 (2024) most of it would not make sense without the exposition. The bone beasts and how Ruby's mom became a secret because the plot insisted she be a secret.

The other Problem

So Series 1 (2005) the big bad of the season was the Daleks. On a practical level this was needed to keep the Dalek's license good. Plus they're kind of the monster. After this it was Dalek and Cybermen, then the Master, then Davros and the Daleks again. And in the year of specials it was Rassalon and Gallifrey.

And now that we have RTD back in charge it's been surprise Sutekh, and surprise Omega. RTD has not, once, ended a season with a new monster, his own creation, cultivated by him. And in every case the reveal came at the cost of the any actual set-up to the ending.

(Except for Series 3 (2007), The Master being Harold Saxon is fine.)

Essentially the best way to enjoy Rusty's set-up is to nod along, then put every Doctor Who villain from the past on a dart board and throw one blind until you hit a villain you like. There's no way to match Susan Triad to Sutekh, or Mrs. Flood to Omega.

The "Good" Problem

Annoyingly, if you remove the series finale, most of the Doctor Who seasons RTD runs are actually pretty solid. Every episode from the new series (2023-2024) is perfectly watchable. Space Babies is goofy but it isn't horrible by any means, just weird.

Same goes for most of his run of the old series, except for Love and Monsters and one or two others. Family of Blood is disappointing largely because we don't revisit how much of an asshole the Doctor is for that one.

But they always lead to this batshit final episode that RTD's writing swears is a reveal you could get to when it is always, at most, blind luck to guess and doesn't make sense to get to.

Even Reality War has good elements to it, absolutely ruined by RTD's desire to turn every Doctor into a sad wet cat man. But there are a lot of solid scenes for Archie Panjabi as the Rani, Steph de Walley as Anita, and Millie Gibson as Ruby.

And while I hate RTD insisting on sat cat man Doctor, Ncuti Gatwa does it wonderfully in that last scene.

The "Bad" Problem

RTD has a "Play Freebird" problem. Which I don't know is on RTD having no ideas, or the executives demanding the classics. But both the Fourteenth Doctor specials and the regeneration in Reality War involved going back to TenRose in different ways.

I hate it and I don't think it does anything for anyone. This isn't a knock against Billie, for the record. But the current era of the show doesn't allow for the level of tomfoolery needed to make that work.

When Romana regenerated in Series 17 (1979), into a face of a woman she met, they talked about it, with the final decision being they were never going back there so it was fine. The idea of regenerating into a new face for fun was a lot more of the norm for Regenerations at the time, it was a cute scene.

There are a very limited number of explanations for why the Doctor turning into Rose Tyler is acceptable, and I do not trust RTD to use any of those. This is a move for clicks, and it feels like a move for clicks.

It is worse for the show long run even if people will come back because of TenRose.

The "D+" Problem

Since I've already been ranting, have some more. Although I can't firmly plant this on Rusty. I can only plant Rusty's not trying to work around it on him. 8-9 episode orders mean you need to spend much more time cementing your characters. Which neither series did.

It leaves Fifteen, Ruby, and Bel all feeling like we didn't get to know them before they left. Even worse for Bel because we don't know her because her life was rewritten so she had a kid with the asshole guy who had her kidnapped in the series premiere because shallow red pill guy metaphor.

I hate everything about how that plot point reads out in practice.

If D+ is going to insist on spending more budget per episode for less episodes (at a shorter runtime per episode)... make the episodes count, give us more of the Doctor and their companion. And less... 'please give UNIT a spin-off.' Even if Ruby's episodes in Season 2 (2025) are better than her episodes in Season 1 (2024), that's more reason to give her better episodes as the companion.

Overall...

A lot of RTD's run of the show is built off of the feeling you get from specific moments, but almost none of those scenes feel good when you look at a whole series as a single story. Several of them fall apart if you look at them too sincerely. And a lot of his choices as showrunner are built off of either surprise (returning old Who characters) or sad cat man feelings (this man loves putting David Tennant in the rain).

I wouldn't care nearly so much if his way to do these things wasn't to chuck a bunch of interesting avenues into a woodchipper.

[purplerakath]

So, I could very easily respond to ALL THE THINGS (my Maya tag is full of essays, and also crack ships with everyone because I cannot be stopped), but I'll focus on the one thing that sticks out to me: Maya feels more grounded than Emma, Clare, and Frankie (who seemed to be the NC girl to take over after Maya until a hard pivot to make it Lola, the better choice) because at each point it never feels like things are happening too Maya, they are always happening because of Maya. Season 11 to BSS Maya's choices are based on her feeling immature to her peers and trying too hard to be a thing she isn't. After BSS it all comes down to 'I have to step in, because last time I didn't, and he died.' She starts spiraling when Tris runs away in Paris, and her first thought at this is that he'll be dead in a ditch by nightfall. Tristan has been gone for a day and Maya is ready to fear everything. She reaches out to Zoe (after Drew the first time) because she feels bad about how things went in Paris. She reaches out to Zoe again after the sexual assault plot, when Maya doesn't even like Zoe at this point.

Aside: My second most hated Tristan line is "I'd hustle a lot more if we got a pep rally." after the pizza line. Where Tristan is aggressively bad at being a friend.

There are a lot of 'wild' Maya plots, where if it was any other character the 'getting kidnapped over the summer' would not be a plot that works. But Maya got mad at a girl once and clearly it's her fault that girl went missing, so Maya has to save her.

Maya Matlin does a lot of very stupid things, but the reason she does it is clearly labeled and obvious. By comparison, a lot of Emma and Clare plots feel more like this happened to them, and their character had nothing to do with it.

...and also they screwed up the whole Clare pregnancy plot to make it Eclare friendly and made the whole thing infinitely worse for no good reason and I hate it thanks.

Aside 2: The other thing, regarding how Maya semi-emotes. Maya generally is emoting a beat or two after a normal character would. She's not completely without response, but she seems to freeze up in a ton of scenes during any of the stressful Maya plots like both cyber bullying plots, and after the crash. Which as far as acting choices was good on the directors/Olivia to go with.

E201 - Drama Follows Me (Maya Matlin)

Help! A washed up teen star is trying to kill our season premier!

That’s right Panthers, the Anti-Grapevine is back for Season 2, and this episode, Conor, Loren, and special guest and fellow Degrassi podcast host extraordinaire Eevee Pacini are looking to the future to study the main girl of Degrassi’s Next Class, Maya Matlin. Our first foray into Next Class, Maya’s story starts with chicken cutlets and cellos, and ends with what we believe is one of Degrassi’s strongest character offerings. Life isn’t a race, so buckle up—because we’re not making any stops until the last exit.

The Season 2 Premier of the Anti-Grapevine is now streaming, wherever you get your podcasts.

(Content Warning: This episode includes discussions of mental health and illness, drug abuse, and suicidal ideation and attempts.)

[purplerakath]

Cobra Kai Season 6 - A bunch of Little Things

So Eps 11-15 are... good, minus the wedding which was stupid, but the kind of stupid that's okay. It's not really a... problem so much as a sign the writer's room was all dudes. It's bad, don't get me wrong, but it isn't... narratively bad. Just a kind of tacky feeling.

The rest of that five ep block is very solid conclusions to every story, that are good enough to pass as a happily ever after. The overall main narrative flows and the path of events is followable and workable.

Eps 1-10 are another matter. There's a lot of stuff wrong there that doesn't work, it detracts from where we're going, and generally hurts the overall season. Time to go through a bunch of them.

Spoilers, etc, you know the vibes.

Kreese's Redemption

So they set up Kreese was realizing maybe he was wrong with Johnny back in Season 4, during the All Valley. Where he choose to back Tory's plan over pushing for Silver's cheating. It's a small moment, but a noticeable shift in the character. And, with the right plot beats over Eps 1-10 would make his realization in Ep 11 work very well (it works, but it feels unearned).

Kreese needs to feel shady without actively being shady. Which you can do by having him back both his students differently. He backs Tory's desire to win on her own skills and merits, and back Kwon being a little shithead to everyone off the ring to mess with them in the ring. He's not actively antagonizing Daniel or Johnny, but he's not- undermining their assessments of him either. Keep his general motives vague, and his specific goal (to win the sekai taikai) on point.

Now to keep the Silver reveal surprising, of course, there's still a guy with a cobra tattoo messing with Daniel, and Daniel distrusts Kreese because Daniel's never met a grudge he couldn't nurse for 50 years. But Kreese isn't egging it on, he just exists and Daniel's a little shit about it.

It'll smooth the path between Season 4's finale to S6 E11 out to be a more gradual path of Kreese learning he made mistakes.

Tory's Relationships

I'm not going to try to fix Robby and Tory's relationship (that's a lot more work I can't do here), but they can buttress it by putting more focus on Tory's other relationships in the first five episodes. Showing more of her and Amanda, or her and Devon.

This is not just because Devon needed a better plot, she is a pretty solid shadow to Tory as a character and easy to work into this.

Showing other characters caring about, and noticing, when Tory is off, and checking in on her. Which will help sell her big speech at the end of the series. Also showing them advocating for her while she's not there. (The difference between Johnny blaming Daniel for messing up with Tory, and Amanda doing the same thing? Huge.)

During 6-10 you can have Sam and Devon put a little more time into checking in on Tory. If you wanna get spicy you can give a scene to Miguel or Johnny. The lack of Johnny and Tory comparing notes on Kreese is honestly criminal.

Hawk - Past, Present, and Future

So Hawk's whole 'I don't know if I want to go to MIT because I'm not who I was a few years ago' is good. It's a shame it got tossed aside so Demetri could be a victim in all thi- wait, no, that's next section.

This section is that they could have spent more time focusing on who Eli is now, vs. who he started, and who he was in Cobra Kai. This probably would be best served by giving him time with Kwon. Kwon attempting to mess with Hawk, and Hawk just- no selling the whole affair. "You think that shit is going to work on me? I've been you. You're going to wake up one day with nobody having your back, alone with all that anger you have and for what? I have better things to do than waste time on you."

There's no real capstone on Eli's arc over the series, and they could have put one into 6-10 to really seal the deal that Hawk (the bully) is gone, and Hawk (the hero) is here to stay.

Free Space - Demetri whining

So I've done a whole thing about Demetri here, and I am always ready to complain how badly this character is handled. Still, Eps 1-5 put a lot of effort into his 'mad Hawk has decided to explore other colleges than the one he promised to go to when he was like six' plot that, all told, did barely anything for Hawk and nothing for Demetri.

Also, just, my read? 'They agreed' was 'Demetri insisted' and Eli, being absolutely terrified of being alone with all the bullies, agreed to anything Demetri said because that was their pre-canon relationship.

The easy answer is don't do this plot. At all. Honestly the easy answer is don't have Demetri be part of the team going to the Sekai Taikai. He doesn't like Karate, every part of him in 1-10 is generally worthless and also tacky and they don't really build off of it.

If you have to, give him any motivation to compete that isn't 'fucking over his friend Eli' or 'fucking Yasmin.'

Any. Motivation.

Ghost of Miyagi Past (AKA Free Space - Daniel whining)

So the whole 'mystery of Miyagi' thing didn't do anything. It could have done something though, and I'll talk about that first. So the big problem with Daniel this series has been refusing to see change unless it matches his perfect view of karate. This is his general big character weakness the show refuses to scrutinize and there is a way to work this.

If Miyagi did a crime thing in the past, because at one point he was hot headed arrogant, mad at the world due to systemic issues that are preventing him from being happy, and he moved past that to a state of peace and contentment... it could teach Daniel to cultivate that sort of change In Johnny instead of the 'Johnny will never change he'll always be my high school bully' thing Daniel had going on.

Because the biggest threat to Daniel and Johnny working together has always been Daniel being like this!

Now, doing this doesn't fix the deepfake'd Miyagi face they did (which is tacky and bad). Or the... white person absolving a nonwhite person of his crimes done during a time where being visibly Asian was the crime. But it'd at least be a Daniel character growth moment and I'd take that.

Devon Taking her Chance

I don't, for the record, hate the Devon drugging Kenny plot, innately. I do think it needs to be better set-up to make it work. I think the best answer would be that she did it based off of something Johnny said to her she interpreted in the cruelest way possible. Something along the lines of 'life doesn't give you opportunities, there are the ones you take for yourself. If that asshole isn't going to notice you, make him notice you. Make sure he can't help but see you.'

And then realizing that doing that sucked and she hates what it meant and maybe she shouldn't be there.

Alternatively you can, hypothetically, cut Demetri from the squad in the tournament, give Kenny his spot, and give Devon a better plot. Devon's insecurity as being the newest to Karate, also letting her act as Johnny's proxy in any argument among the kids, would work really well.

Robby get your Head in the Game

Robby has two problems, not counting the SA shaped problem I talked about here. I don't need to talk about the Zara thing anymore so this post is safe on that.

The message that 'Robby already won he has a real family now' needed more groundwork in 1-5. Instead of focusing on him and Tory (for the... two scenes they got), give him moments of Carmen, Carmen's mom, Miguel, and the LaRusso's geniunely being there for him. And especially Johnny. Show Johnny giving Robby 1 on 1 training in 6-10. Things to make it clear he has a family.

The other problem is that in 6-10 while he's spiraling over Tory, it'd help if he got some support from anyone. Prior to Miguel standing up for him at the end. Sam is probably the right call for this, alternatively having Kenny there from the start (in place of you know who) means that Kenny can advocate for Robby (sowing the dissention needed for them to suck that early in the tournament).

Miguel and the-

Okay, listen, the whole 'fly home to fly back' thing? That? Don't do that. Just- no. That was not needed. Do anything else.

Sam's Drive to Win

Once Tory leaves, centering Sam's whole arc on what her desires for the future are seems good, so that when she forfeits in the semi-finals it has a narrative backing. That she's not enjoying proving herself in the tournament, and that she's stopped having fun now that everyone is bickering with each other.

That her drive to win was more tied to the situation than anything else. And that the only time she really enjoys Karate is with her dad, her boyfriend, and her future wife rival. Anything outside of that just... no longer fuels her.

I get one SamTory joke, I am showing restraint.

So she's still motivated in the tournament (to make her dad look good, to protect her boyfriend in matches, and to get her last round with Tory) but she is so over all the petty drama Kwon and Zara are trying to stir up.

[purplerakath]

Cobra Kai - One Change per Season

So... Cobra Kai is really good when it wants to be, but it has some pretty glaring blindspots. So I'm going to go through and redo one thing per season to make the overall show better.

But first, the ground rules:

These changes are to make the series better. While I'll be changing things for characters it's to serve the purpose of the whole series (and so every change isn't 'give Demetri redeeming qualities').

I can't fundamentally reshape the plot (that's the madness I'm facing with my fic I need to finish), so I'm mostly reshaping the vibes. There will be ripples, but the ripples can be covered in a paragraph each section.

Okay, so, spoilers, and junk, let's go:

Season One: The Break-Up

So the issue with the Miguel Sam break-up in Season 1 is it does one job very well (set-up evil Miguel for the finale) and... everything else poorly. So I'm going to try to resolve a few things at once by making the break-up less a comedy of errors and more a tragedy of ideals.

Instead of 'Sam get's in trouble and loses her phone, so Miguel gets paranoid and drunk' which- again, did one job well. Miguel goes to see Sam when she doesn't answer. And everyone in the LaRusso house fucks this one up.

Amanda, who has no idea who this is, politely tries to tell Miguel to leave (Sam is grounded and all). She's aware something's going on but doesn't know what. Robby, who is jealous of Miguel's relationship with Johnny, butts in to tell Miguel he should go, and makes it clear he's Cobra Kai. Which Amanda, who is just like everyone else only hearing Daniel's view of Johnny and his students, makes her more insistent that Miguel leave. Which is when Sam and Daniel show up.

Sam tries to cut through this but Daniel, being Daniel, puts himself between everyone and Miguel, and tells Miguel to get off his property. Refusing to let Miguel even try to explain himself. Miguel, with one last disgusted look toward Sam, and anger for Robby, leaves.

Which is the break-up from Miguel's side, he can't date someone whose family reacts to him like that, and she does nothing to try to call them out.

Sam looks miserable/furious, Amanda twigs onto what that means. And when Daniel says 'What was he even thinking coming here!?' Sam storms off. Daniel tries to follow, Amanda warns him off with a 'you've done enough.' to leave Daniel wondering how he became the bad guy. And Robby can add in 'that was her boyfriend.'

In a later scene Amanda gets to explain Sam didn't feel comfortable telling them she was dating Miguel because 'all dad ever does is call Cobra Kai evil.' Which means Daniel gets to finally eat crow over how his vendetta against Cobra Kai is not healthy and (eventually) he will have to get over it.

...of course Miguel is going to be an angry little shit who doesn't give Sam the chance to explain, because he's done. So he can be all business evil guy for the All-Valley. It also means that Aisha gets to rub salt in Sam's wounds over this 'what did you expect when you can't stand up for anyone you supposedly care about.'

Which can still lead to them making up in the finale, but Miguel is full on angry mcgee until next season starts (and by then Miguel did a violence on Robby's shoulder and Sam is done with him).

Season 2 - The School Brawl

Covered this one already, Cobra Kai wins their fights in the Brawl (not Miguel). Tory is ready to ruin Sam's face. Mitch takes Chris out with a book. The scrawny kids... are still trying to kill each other from either shoulder of a security guard. And Hawk is ready to break Demetri's arm.

Cobra Kai wins, and are ready to show no mercy.

But then Miguel goes over the rail and everyone in the atrium forfeits their fight to either check on Miguel (Tory) or try to kill Robby (Hawk). This means when Johnny goes to the Dojo and finds they are all Kreese's students, 'mercy is what Miguel hurt' and Kreese's methods (in this moment) worked.

This also means in the start of Season 3, Miyagi Do fighting so hard is because Cobra Kai won. They have all the run of the school and call the shots now, a proper Empire to RotJ transition of 'we lost super hard' into 'trying to win in the aftermath.' But that isn't the Season 3 change...

Season 3 - Daniel Accepts his Fault

Also one I've covered before, Daniel spends most of the series certain without question his appraisal of Miyagi's teachings are the one, and only, correct way to handle Karate. Season 3 introduced that Daniel was not told everything, and Miyagi hid parts of the karate from him.

It also introduced a former rival of Daniel, who tried to kill him, is no longer evil.

So we're rolling 'Daniel taught Sam and Robby hate,' 'Daniel does not know every lesson of Miyagi Do,' and 'Daniel's visceral reaction to Cobra Kai' into one with his trip with Chozen. Chozen uses his own growing up and changing, and Daniel's growing up and changing, to suggest that Johnny might not be the same kid Daniel remembers. That possibly Johnny isn't the problem, and Daniel needs to let this go.

So that when they work together in Season 4, 5, and 6 Daniel isn't immediately jumping to 'and now you should abandon your identities and use mine!' every time Johnny does literally anything.

Season Four - More Devon Lee

That was my one totally self-serving joke. Devon is my favorite.

Season Four - ...Um... Season Five - Mexico

There's no real 'big' change for Season 4 that serves the narrative, as much as I wanna just slam the button that says 'Miguel sees Hawkless Hawk' over Demetri, that's not really a change for the series. I just hate Demetri's overall character.

But the big change for Five starts in Four. Which is we don't do the Mexico trip. I don't- actually have a replacement for it though. The problem with the Mexico trip is very plainly it doesn't serve to mend the Robby&Johnny divide because it's about Miguel, it doesn't do much for the Miguel&Robby divide because Johnny being the less terrible dad in this case is a default judgement.

Miguel probably needed a plot just with his mom (about his dad), while we needed a solid 'Johnny and Robby work through their shit after everything' plot that isn't about Johnny's more favoritest son.

Season Six - Team Disharmony

Yes, yes, yes, the objective choice is remove the casual SA from the season but again that's not a 'plot saving' change that's just a 'don't accidentally write an SA into your plot you idiots' thing.

I have a bunch of small selfish desires that probably get their own post in the future.

But for now, keeping in mind team Miyagi Do has to be losing in the Sekai Taikai all the way through, the reason they were losing kinda sorta didn't work. Not the 'everyone isn't working together' bit, the 'everyone took stupid pills for stupid fights' bit.

Daniel hunting down a Miyagi Secret that goes nowhere, Demetri being Demetri over MIT, Sam and Devon both being daddy's girls ready to fight each other over their dads not agreeing. Binary Idiots believing Kenny is a spy. The only conflict that worked (for as much as any Robby/Tory plot works) is Robby being off his A-game and Miguel being real fucking tired of it.

So we'll break this down into two camps. The adults not managing their skillsets correctly, and the kids looking at the other teams and feeling inadequate.

For the adults, one of them will screw up coaching through an event (going with Daniel preaching defense on an event where aggression was the better call). So that the next event the other (Johnny calls for aggro when this was an event for patience and balance) can over-correct to 'fix' the mistake of the last event. This is a Johnny-Daniel clash where it's less petty high schoolers and just not balancing their chocolate and peanut butter.

For the kids, put the focus on teams that are well suited to work together. Doing their absolute best, and rather than be themselves, team Miyagi Do tries to be one of those team... and fail spectacularly at it. Only starting to win when one of them (Robby once he gets his game face on) calls them on how stupid they're all being.

It's still a little bit of an idiot plot, but it isn't four idiot plots in a trenchcoat. Which is what we had in canon for eps six through ten.

Would this Make the Show better?

Who knows, I'm just a Pikachu on the internet. I know that these were all plot areas that bothered me the most. But they might not bother you. Season Six probably has the most 'stuff I'd change' to it of any season, but that's largely a million tiny changes.

Compared to Season Two which feels pretty much perfect except that one thing. Or Season Fi- let's not talk about Season Five. Or maybe we will later.

It is a mystery.

[purplerakath]

Cobra Kai - And my Dissection of why Demetri felt so... wrong.

If you like Demetri, and all the ways the writers gave him flaws that just- never were really explored, you do you. His actor is nice enough and people are entitled to their opinion.

But for me he was just one mistake after another writing wise. And I want to explore them. As how we got here is honestly worth looking at.

I'm planning to talk all six seasons so spoilers for all across his story. And Hawk's story because they aren't really separate narratives.

The Basics

So... a usual thing in writing is to talk about what a character wants compared to what a character needs. Their drives, how those drives determine their actions. Sets who they are.

What are Demetri's?

I mean it, he has short term motivations in the early seasons (S1-S3) but after that he's just... there. And often those early season drives are very 'in the moment' and lack any deeper impact to them. This isn't exactly a problem, because he's not really a main character. But it makes him feel very hollow.

He would like Kyler and co to stop bullying him, but he doesn't do anything about it. He just enjoys the fruits of Miguel and Eli's labor. He likes girls talking to him, but he won't work to make that happen. It happens in spite of him. His plan is to enjoy life when he's 25 and rich in the tech sector (a mindset that feels worse in hindsight).

If he left Miyagi Do after the events of Season 3, to just do his own thing away from the the others nothing realistically changes about the show. He isn't relevant because the writers didn't make him relevant.

Demetri vs. Karate

All of that is, understandably, bad. But that puts him in line with Chris, Mitch, and the other 'characters who vaguely exist' on the show. And those two don't cause me as much trouble. What makes Demetri worse? Well next is his relationship with Karate.

Demetri is the only character with an actually antagonistic relationship with Karate, that thing everyone does. The only character close to Demetri as far as 'hating Karate' goes is Antony. Who shows a bit more 'growing to appreciate' Karate as his part of the plot goes on.

At the start of Season 6 the only reason Demetri is trying at all is Yasmine would break up with him if he was a loser intentionally. This is, by far, the biggest issue for Demetri as a character in the show. He cares about Karate once in one scene in Season 2, and then immediately isn't invested again after he's not shoving it in Eli's face, and is never invested again.

I'm not doing a full section of Demetri and Yasmine's relationship. Short version is they used it as a joke because the image of them making out is surprising and that's it. There's no actual narrative behind it, it does nothing for his character, it's just there.

Demetri vs. Hawk

So Eli in Season 2 is a lot, excluding pathologized diagnosing of Eli's behavior isn't super helpful and I'll try to avoid it. He created an image of himself as a badass, and protecting that image matters to him. He likes not being the lip, he likes deciding his own name, he likes being seen as more than a victim.

And he runs a bit wild protecting it and becomes a huge jackass. Characters on this show are flawed and do bad things for fairly legit (but not absolving) reasons.

However, Eli becoming a monster doesn't change how much of Demetri's purpose in the show was trying to hammer Eli back into the sad pathetic loser that relied on Demetri for everything, and that's kind of fucked up. Because he started it before Eli went evil, and he continued it after Eli became good again.

And that's a serious red flag on Demetri as a person. As a character this would be fine, if like Kyler dating Sam, the show made it clear that this behavior is wrong and clearly a red flag. The show painted all of it as either 'Demetri is a good friend' or 'Demetri standing up against Evil Bad Hawk.'

And this is their relationship through all six seasons. Because the entire basis of their conflict in Season 6 is Eli (who has grown and changed so much over the show) is not sure he would be happy going to MIT for college, and wants to explore other options.

Demetri does change his college plans in the finale to stay with Eli, but it's not attached to any other real growth on Demetri's part.

How to Fix This?

There are two fixes to this, and they are completely contradictory in nature. As is all complicated writing things. The first and harder option is to make this an arc. Demetri learns to find value in Karate, and as he learns to understand why Eli took to it, he figures out that Eli being so reliant on him was comforting, and his lashing out is due to being lonely.

You can make it romantic if you want. But he has to realize he was using Eli, and that is bad. And it wasn't fair of him to hate Hawk for being more outgoing than Eli.

This means Demetri is doing Karate to be close to his best friend/boyfriend, he's doing it because it makes him a better more rounded person, and he actually is invested in the plot.

Or you cut his screentime to make him on par with Mitch, Chris, Yasmine, and Moon as 'a character that exists' but not 'an actual protagonist.' The gulf between him and even the kid squad (Antony, Kenny, and Devon) when it comes to motivation and character traits is massive. He doesn't have a balanced 'rival' to him the way Migeul vs. Robby, Sam vs. Tory, or Kenny vs. Antony work.

Eli is defined by the extremes between Eli and Hawk more than he's ever defined by his rivalry with Demetri.

If he just isn't as much of a player in the series, the flaws in his writing would just be less obvious. But he's given so much screentime and they do nothing with it. Parts are also just written without a full grasp of what he did? In the same ways Zara is a much worse person in practice than what the writers wanted.

Demetri being a comedy character doesn't help his case either, annoyingly. But that's less about the character and more about the writers just not giving him really solid comedic bits. His best repeated bit was 'pop culture reference' into 'Daniel points out that reference does not support Demetri's point.'

[purplerakath]

Cobra Kai S4-6 - Why Robby/Tory doesn't Work

This is one of those ships that should be really easy to make work, but the show just kind of doesn't. There are a few factors to why this is generally.

The reason is show's focus drifted more and more to Daniel and tanked a bunch of sub-plots there.

But there's also just- a narrative issue the show ran into and didn't even try to resolve. Which is Season 5.

Spoilers, etc, for Seasons 4 and 5 mostly.

Season 4 - P(r)etty Spite

So season 4 actually works! Season 3 set-up some common ground with both having probation officers and both being kind of fed up with happy people with families. Both are good at that thing they like doing (Karate), and bad about letting people in. And their specific 'person of problem' is equally a person the other has a vested interest in.

Tory wants to mess up Sam's happiness, and Robby the same for Miguel (on different reasoning but they don't talk about why they're like this they are just using the situation they are in). This is: good. This works. This I buy into.

Okay, but...

Spite and revenge are not actually the healthy groundwork for a relationship. That's the thing, you'd need to pivot that into something more stable for the relationship to play out. The shared 'world is shit to us and our parents suck' angle would be a good basis.

Except we spend all of Season 5 with them on two wildly different plots. And Tory's plot here is good, Tory discovered she didn't win. Her achievement has no value, and she's mad about it. The sensei that respects her as a person is in jail, and the sensei that cheated her out of even reveling in her victory put him there. So Tory, lil' miss do it all herself trust nobody they all betray you, is doing deep cover investigation shutting out everyone else.

While they do the barest bones 'make Robby and Miguel brothers' plot for Robby (which is fine, it's not bad, but it isn't good). But this means Robby is firmly out of Cobra Kai, he reaches out to Tory, but she rejects it because she's a walking ball of trust issues. So they don't have a lot of screen time to be- you know- together.

Tory's strongest relationship in Season 5 is Devon. They share a bond of dead/dying mothers, they share a love of karate, and they have a complicated relationship with Sensei Kim. And the most tense relationship for Tory is Sam, with their history and Sam realizing as much as Tory was awful to her, Tory has a lot more going on behind the scenes Sam just- did not know about (and could not understand).

So when the finale rolls up, and Robby is still into her there's no actual groundwork for why that's a relationship that matters.

So this is when we cement it in Season Six and- oh NO.

Season 6 rolls up and there are only five episodes where we can cement why Tory and Robby are still into each other. We spend most of them on repeating Daniel and Johnny fights from the past three seasons. The big Tory episodes are:

Finally putting the Sam/Tory rivalry to bed.

Tory's mom dies and everyone fumbles this.

Once she's back on Cobra Kai, on her own again, we get a single awkward Robby scene. Several 'Robby and Tory looking at each other' moments, and a really good Sam and Tory scene where she says 'we're not on the same team but I'm still on your side.'

A scene that, if given to Robby, would have done literally anything to cement them as a couple. Tied in with the very... ill thought out happy ending for the pair of them, it all comes down to being just a bit- gross.

I think that either becoming a pro-martial artist with sponsorships and a career path would have worked, both of them being a branding purposes influencer couple does not.

Which sucks because separately, their final moments of clarity defining who they are as characters work. Robby got cheated out of a victory (again), but instead of past losses (where he feels like he failed), he knows he could have won and knows he already has what he needs to get back up.

Tory, meanwhile, needed to hear confirmation she's loved and isn't alone. Which she got from Robby and the LaRussos. And she needed to kick a few of Zara's teeth down her throat for generally justice related thoughts. Outside of the Influencer couple angle these work.

Could the Show have fixed This?

That's the big problem I have looking this over, my mind leans toward no. Season 5 being Tory on her own really defines that arc for her. There's no way to write Robby into her plan and not make her plan feel less... structured and good. And between Robby and Sam, Sam is the better tension to build and explore in Season 5. Because that's kinda driven both characters since the start of Season 2.

I will also refuse to suggest anything that takes any time away from Devon.

Season 6 they could have devoted more time to Tory's insecurity and put more focus on how she needs to feel supported (and give some of that to Robby). Either Robby making an effort (and Tory rebuffs it because she's bad at things) or Robby genuinely gets to be on her side for things (and reframing all the Kwon vs. Robby to match it).

Fair is fair, I'm a big SamTory shipper so I may be biased. But it would be interesting to try to cement a better basis for RobbyTory within canon before plot makes both of them do stupid things.

[purplerakath]

Happy 2025. The thought of Wednesday season 2 releasing later this year is single-handedly bringing me enough joy to power through.

Barely. But still.

[purplerakath]

Cobra Kai S6 - Various Part 3 Thoughts

So I'm not going to go as far as saying 'it stuck the landing' because... it dropped a few things pretty hard, but it did much better than I expected. And at least did something approaching resolve some of my overall issues with the show.

The sorts of things I whine about whenever I post on this.

So please enjoy this rambly hastily cobbled together thing on the whole of it. Spoilers, obviously.

The most Important Thing (to just me)

Sam looked so good in the Cobra Kai gi.

...what? You thought it'd actually be important? I mean- it is, if your whole thing is 'failing to figure out how to conclude a fic where Sam is team Cobra Kai from the start.' But okay, okay, onto the real matters.

The End is the Beginning

So Team Miyagi Do (which in this case means Danny, Sam, and Robby) had the right lessons for it. If you really wanted Robby to win... anything, ever, I'm sorry. But the whole point, the whole thing, of Miyagi Do, is not fighting. Robby didn't need to win, he needed to know he could win. Sam... wasn't really fighting for herself anymore (once S4 and S5 resolved her threads with Tory she was there for Miguel and her dad, nobody else). And Daniel was trying to defeat an enemy that didn't really exist until he made it exist.

Which left only the characters with actual things they needed to fight for.

The Show isn't Miyagi Do

The pivot away from team Miyagi Do winning the tournament to Cobra Kai is one that only works because the show is Cobra Kai. And the only characters left with a thing they needed to prove were all the pinnacle of Cobra Kai.

Which isn't for themselves, for the record. Miguel knew who he was and what he can do. Johnny knew what his purpose was and where he needed to be. Tory knew she was no longer alone (although reminding her helped). And all three knew that those Iron Dragon assholes needed their kick teethed out onto the mat in front of everyone in this very arena!

I don't think they stuck the landing on Axel, balancing 'really is just a sweet kid' that 'happened to be weaponized by his sensei' but they got close enough. Wolf and Zara are entirely deserving of all that happened to them. Which helps, that of the three fights the narrative of fighting monsters was more in the latter two fights, Axel was just... there to be a punching bag for Miguel.

Old Couple's Explosive End to Marriage

So the Silver stuff is gold (pun I do not apologize for), his reason for everything, what's going on. Why he's doing this all worked. It's petty and dramatic and overblown and we love that for him. He's good, love it.

Kreese's sudden heel face was less believable largely due to less foreshadowing this season. There was plenty of it in earlier seasons showing he genuinely cares about his students (and expresses it in destructive bad ways). But this season it came out of nowhere after having him double down on evil.

That. Being. Said. Kreese's final act being to protect his student from Silver did work. He apologized to everyone, expected nothing in return, and died in a way nobody will ever really know. He doesn't get lionized in death. He just- at the last moment, did the right thing in the shadows.

Free Space: Demetri Sucks

We didn't get a lot of the rest of the cast for the finale due to... five episodes with a lot of fights. So naturally we let Demetri fail back into a relationship he blew up by cheating on her and he did nothing to win her back and I hate everything about this.

They never actually wrote this character learning anything about himself and I will be bad about it forever.

Plot Twist: Saying something Nice About Daniel

My other 'the writers do this so wrong' focus is on Daniel, and his 'do this my way and no other way' behavior (which the show never calls out and he never learns from). But he actually learned something once? Weird, I know, but it happened!

He hit Johnny with a Cobra Kai pep talk! He wore the gi, he went to Johnny's side of things and did things Johnny's way! That's way more than I ever expected from him! He even owned up to how much his emotions got hackled by the sign (in a throw away line but I'll take it!)

Odds and Ends

Sam/Miguel's romance stuff was sweet and generally good vibes. It was the right balance of grand gestures and practical 'teenagers moving on with their lives' to it.

Robby/Tory still doesn't work, largely due to it having a very poor basis two seasons ago. Their moment during the Zara fight was aces though.

Devon hugging Johnny after the fight was so wholesome, she'll be a great older sister to Johnny's daughter.

Hawk's hair was great, no notes.

The answer to Miyagi's backstory mystery was... fine? It didn't really do anything long term. It created a plot arc for Daniel he didn't need. But it ended on a message of ACAB so I'll take it.

Deepfaking dead actors is still weird and they need to stop.

The girls training storyline worked better than the boys training storyline, but at least the boys one included Robby being stunned how much his step-brother is more like his dad than he is.

So, overall...

It could have been better, but it could have been so much worse. I wasn't expecting Daniel to step aside and let it all fall to Johnny, to Trust Johnny.

The focus on Johnny getting his dojo at the end, loved that. So I'm pleasantly content with this.

[purplerakath]

Finished Cobra Kai

Proper thoughts and essays in the future. Oddly stuck the landing even if there are some pretty... glaring issues, of course.

It wouldn't be Cobra Kai if some of the shit just didn't land correctly.

But like overall happy with it. Not expecting that.

Neat.

[purplerakath]

Honestly, Arcane was the first animation I’d seen in decades that made me so incredibly excited about what this medium is capable of. What a masterpiece! Here’s my favorite girl Jinx 🩷💙

[purplerakath]

favorite outfits: imogen moreno (season 11)

[purplerakath]

Anyone curious about School Spirits

If you haven't watched season one and wanna know what it's about, Paramount+ put the whole of the first season on their youtube for free (In the US + if your computer is connected to the internet via the US via some virtual computer nonsense).

[purplerakath]

This is everyone's friendly reminder Maddie 'died' because her mother spent her college fund on a timeshare property trashing all hopes for her future to get out of Split River. In the process shattering her soul badly enough her body could get hijacked by a ghost nerd and allowing Maddie to see/hear ghosts. She's spent weeks for sure she's dead, and just wanted to know why.

Even without the 'getting her hopes up' angle she'd go back to a life where she's a criminal, with a future burned to ashes. When she was already a miserable and depressed teen before any of that.

Maddie might genuinely not see much reason to go back to her life.

She probably will go back, the ending where she decides to stay a ghost or cross over is real bleak.

Something I haven't seen anyone talk about yet but has kind of been nagging at me is Maddie and Wally's conversation about Maddie's body -

"Does that mean you could go back to your life?" "I don't know." "Well... would you?"

They get cut off but Maddie just seems so uncertain in this scene like. In part I think she doesn't want to get her hopes up that she could be alive, but it also seems like she's trying to avoid even thinking about what that would mean - she doesn't seem to have a solid answer to whether or not she would go back to her life, or want to think about it even.

[purplerakath]

School Spirits S2 Theories - Ep 1-3

So the first episodes did a lot of things, they mostly feed into my theories from last season. I don't plan to distinguish between the three episodes as I don't have time to rewatch them one at a time so I will just- do all of them.

Spoilers, and junk.

Despair Theory

For those that didn't see any of my theories before, despair theory is the way that heartbreak ties into connecting to the spirit world. Both in the creation of Ghosts, and being able to hear/see ghosts. This has gotten two big additional pieces of evidence.

Janet is just as much of a despair pit as the other ghosts. Thanks to her dad. (I hate her dad.)

Xavier can't see ghosts, because in spite of everything, he isn't heartbroken enough to see them.

I would add that the next living person closest to the despair event horizon to see ghosts is Claire, thanks to her whole... everything. Ironically the two that want to see Maddie are too hopeful to see Maddie.

This feels a little too solid to break apart with new information. The themes of the show feed into it too much to really argue the point any other way. The only real question marks to the theory are the band kids (they're weird) and Xavier's small stint in the ghost world while he was dying.

But the latter is less evidence and more anomalous, he was dead a few moments. And the second part of what we know comes into play now.

The Doors, the Keys, and Crossing Over

So the path to the Other Side is blocked off by... whatever snarl of trauma has these ghosts trapped. Which is physically accessed with the key (an item from your death) and the scar (the location of your death). That was pretty well set-up already.

Because we've seen it before. The Reverse Seance. Dawn didn't have her room, or her key. She just... recalled all of her trauma, faced it, and found whatever her answer was. We assumed, at the time, it was Maddie calling her a friend. But now?

I don't know how to tie that into the rooms and the keys. The structure of the rooms makes it seem like you have to find the answer in yourself, but so much of the show is about the characters as a comradery. And if the mechanism for crossing over is built on a little help from your friends, it means someone doesn't get to cross over.

I dunno, I'm curious where this will go. And it's the thing we haven't investigated yet since it was the end of Ep 3.

Janet and the Dead

I don't think Janet can see the dead, right now. At least, that's what I think they were setting up with the flashbacks to her leaving? It'll make the whole thing more complicated if she can't talk to the dead kids, but know they're there.

I do think Janet and Maddie interacting is going to be the juiciest drama when it happens, and I do want that very much.

Other Thoughts

Quinn is adorable. I like Quinn.

Charlie kind of feels underwritten so far this season, but this season has been a lot of Wally and Rhonda thus far.

Again, Janet's dad is the worst. Hate that guy.

Where is Theater Ghost!?

The living buying everything Simon said about Maddie feels weird but also not that weird. Because the more they see how nothing Janet does makes sense for Maddie, the easier it is to think 'that's not Maddie.'

Yuri is pretty adorable, not gonna lie. I do appreciate how every ghost used as evidence for Mr. Sketchy Ghost Teacher's teachings is in fact not evidence at all.

Except for the Band Ghosts, who are still very weird.

...I'll do one of these next week with the next episode, hopefully better put together.

[purplerakath]

Feels less than charitable, to me. A key part of Log Horizon, like a major plot carrying factor of the story, is that every character is a little bit socially dysfunctional in different ways. Akatsuki (who took up gaming because she's 4'11" and started getting self-conscious wearing her younger sister's hand-me-downs) doesn't really know how to interact with people, so she's reverted to her character as her defense mechanism.

A loyal ninja useful and with a place to belong.

Which is a pretty big part of her development, as she's got no ability to make friends early in the series and gets better at opening up to others as the series moves on. Her big character growth arc is her learning to trust other people (mainly other girls) having lived a life of being bullied for being small. Most of the main cast have similar levels of weird. You say 'Shiroe and Naotsugu are just average guys' Shiroe is a devout loner who prefers to have everyone fear him than trust him. He's adept at combat coordination and politics but can't make small talk to save his life. Naotsugu has a panty fetish he has zero issues talking about, and couldn't get a girlfriend in the real world because of it.

This extends to most of the other characters. Like- Nyanta who speaks mostly in cat puns is the most social and functional of the cast (and that's largely due to him being in his late 30s, when everyone else is in their teens or early 20s).

Akatsuki acts like that because she's an insecure dork who really is afraid she'll end up alone if she isn't useful.

Why is it Isekai specifically that always goes like that? It does it disproportionately more that other genres.

Because it's written mostly insecure dudes who've never had a healthy relationship of any kind with a woman and hacks copying those insecure dudes because they see it's profitable? That would be my guess.

Like, okay, perfect example: in Log Horizon, a bunch of normal Japanese people are zapped into a fantasy world that's a version of this MMORPG they were all playing. Mentally, they're still the people they were in the real world, they just now look like their game avatars and have all the equipment/skills/etc their characters had. But while the guys of the main trio, Shiroe and Naotsugu, feel like (somewhat) ordinary dudes from our world, the one girl, Akatsuki, talks like she's in character. Instead of just being some person from our world, she acts like an actual fantasy assassin with her speech patterns and calling Shiroe "my lord" and all that. Is she just really into LARPing? Maybe, but we're never given any sort of explanation. She just... acts like she's part of this fantasy world instead of like someone from our world who just got airdropped into this strange and unusual place.

So why is she written this way? Well, I obviously can't read the writers' minds, but I suspect it's because they wanted an Exotic Action Babe in the party, so they wrote her that way despite it making no sense for a normal Japanese college student to talk like she's in a bad kabuki play. The guys get to be normal, relatable dudes that the presumed male audience can project onto, but the girl is othered, made into an object to be admired from outside for her attractive qualities rather than someone who's headspace we're invited to share.

Is that subtle? Maybe. But it's an example of just how ingrained this shit is in isekai. Log Horizon would literally rather break the logic of its fiction to turn a modern-day girl into a stilted fantasy roleplayer than let its most prominent female character be someone audiences can actually relate to. And it's still not even in the ten most egregiously sexist things I've seen from this genre.