#robby too i have this feeling they will make him a doormat again

[bluektw]

You know the character/shipp is ruined for you in the show when writing an AU where you have full control over them is easier and makes you way less angry than writing something canon compliant

[lysteriaposts]

-and considering how people romanticize the Hawk and Demetri friendship after how badly Hawk fucked him over, or how everyone loves that Daniel made peace with his attempted murderers... I don't know why people draw the line at Robby becoming friends with Miguel and Hawk, or Sam and Tory not hating each other anymore. (Sorry this ask got too long)

Hello anon,

Definitely not too long, I've seen longer... just put it all in one ask next time haha. See, my issue is that the show felt completely different s1-2 and much more grounded (despite s2 and the cringe teen drama making it one of my least favorite seasons). Not to mention a smaller cast. And I felt like these relationship issues between characters were lingering and building for longer than it took for them to be resolved, and it feels like a cop out. As well as just lazy, rushed writing.

For one, I did like how Miguel and Robby resolved things... although the constant exaggerated romanticism of violence on CK is getting kind of weird, it keeps escalating with every season. Especially if the main message of the show is to argue against extreme violence in the form of the Cobra Kai mentality.

I don't need them all to throw around apologies to each other... but then... write around that and use that for the story. Why does every character need to be great or even best friends, if the execution is going to fall flat or not feel earned? Is this Disney? Instead, make Hawk and Robby carry this half tension to the next season, have Hawk and Sam be reluctant allies, have Robby get along well with Miguel but not Sam - switch it around! Different dynamics especially in such a big cast will actually bring more to the show, and not take you out of its already ridiculous storylines. We need to ground it somewhere again because to me s5 just made everything above and beyond - in a bad, excessive way.

The Demetri and Hawk "reconciliation" (if you can even call it that) was horrible, they completely dropped the ball with both characters there and that relationship. During that time Demetri was my #1 favorite character so it really disappointed me, he was growing into a new person and they made him a doormat again. And Hawk remained a *slightly less psychotic* arrogant asshole.

If you are going to center stories around certain relationships and conflicts within those such as Sam/Tory, Demetri/Hawk, Miguel/Robby... for seasons... you better make the resolution satisfying. That's just how I see it. I want them to treat those relationships like they treated Daniel/Johnny throughout the show, maybe not to as great of an extent but give them that nuance.

Either you let the characters drive the story, or the story drive the characters... and to me it seems like the writers of CK are doing the latter which is why some of them will make questionable decisions and out of character things because the plot demands it. It was so evident in s5 and a bit in s3+4 as well.

[messymindofmine]

You know, the more I think about it, the more it doesn't surprise me at all that Johnny's version of the events leading up to this season make Robby out to be the unreasonable kid who didn't let anyone help him. Johnny is the type of person who will blame everyone else before himself and we already know he had a tendency to alter the truth to make himself look better. He even does this in his own mind. He did this for decades with his rivalry with Daniel. He actually managed to convince himself that he was the victim in that scenario. That Daniel "stole" his girlfriend when Ali was already very interested in Daniel from the first time they met and Johnny behaved like a jackass the whole time. The in Cobra Kai, his entire guilt about Robby is rooted in his own feelings rather than guilt for causing his son pain. So it's actually no surprise at all that his version of what happened when Robby was on the run is very different from what actually happened. I wouldn't be one but surprised if in Johnny's mind, he really does think that he made a real effort to look for Robby and is actually not even thinking about how he had to be guilted into it by Daniel and how he bailed almost immediately. So when he says this to Robby, he's only thinking of himself and not the actual truth nor is he thinking about Robby but that's a given with Johnny anyway. I did think it was retconning when I saw the spoiler but having watched the whole season and taking the context of the whole show into consideration, it's actually pretty consistent with Johnny's character. He's always bent the truth into what's convenient for him and in their scene he is outright using it against Robby. He makes Robby feel as though he should be the to feel guilty for not accepting Johnny's help when the simple truth of the matter is that Johnny just did not do anything to help him at all. Hell on the occasions that Robby did approach Johnny, Johnny was still so wrapped up in himself that he completely ignored what Robby was saying to him. And when Robby challenged him, he simply retreated into himself again. For example, when Robby came to Johnny in s4 about Hawk, yes Robby said he didn't plan on staying but Johnny could've at the very least insisted that Robby come in. Instead, he took the opportunity he had and turned it around onto Robby and started going on about Kreese. And then when Robby pushed back, he straight up told him that he was busy and if there was nothing else then Robby should leave. Funny how Johnny apparently doesn't remember any of that right? And it actually works out really well for Johnny bc Robby has always been all too willing to put the blame onto himself for everything. We can see how hearing Johnny's version of how they went looking for him affects him. Johnny himself remains as indifferent to Robby as always. He says "look I'm sorry" as though it's an inconvenience he needs to get out of the way so he can get down to business. In this scene alone, he told Robby a half-baked version of the truth (if not a total lie) and made Robby feel guilty then acted like the very act of talking to Robby was an inconvenience for him. We can see Robby changing himself right from that moment actually to fit into what Johnny wants. Now that Johnny has made him feel guilty about something that he absolutely should not be feeling guilty about at all, he feels the need to ingratiate himself to Johnny. He recognizes that Johnny's barely even interested in talking to him the way he was behaving before (even though Robby's behavior was 100% reasonable" and so changes his behavior to fit what Johnny would want. Regardless of whether Johnny realizes it or not, through that conversation alone, he sparked a fear in Robby's heart that went on to get even worse as the season progressed. To the point that Robby in this entire season became nothing more than a doormat to be used at everybody else's convenience

[bobbylovesalex]

The Lighthouse

Robby is a good kid.  He doesn’t talk much but he works hard and has yet to object to anything I’ve told him to do.  Except for the horses.  He still refuses to get on a horse.  Kind of funny that the kid who was brave enough to stand up to Kreese and Dutch fears a horse.

I sip my coffee and watch him through the kitchen windows.  He’s playing fetch with Lexie and Axel.  I would say he and Lexie are playing fetch with Axel, but Lexie keeps forgetting the objective and running after the ball herself.

Maybe it wasn’t the right thing to do, to tell Johnny about what Kreese had done to Robby.  I’m pretty sure that when he finds out, he’ll never tell me anything again.  Probably never tell anyone anything again.  I just thought that maybe if Robby knew, if Johnny could tell him about what he’d suffered at Kreese’s hands, maybe it’d help him feel less emasculated and defeated by the whole thing.  No wonder he fell for Dutch’s trap.

And, if I’m being honest, another part of me wants to scream at Johnny for letting it happen.  How did he not see it?  How could he not notice his kid being beaten and bruised for weeks?  He had to know that Robby would have naturally been a target for Kreese and that was even without Robby offering himself up as a sacrifice for ‘the friend who wasn’t a friend’ he’s mentioned a few times.  

That’s something else he refuses to talk about.  That and Johnny.  He clams up at the mere mention of either.

But, last night, he did start a joke with Johnny, teasing him about his out of date lifestyle, so maybe there’s hope yet.  I finish my coffee and go outside.

“Hey, Lexie-girl,” I say, bending down to her level.  “Can you take care of Axel for Robby while we work today?”

“Yes, Pop,” she answers, seriously.  

I can’t help but smile.  I may have never been a father, but being a grandfather is pretty damn great sometimes. “Grandpa is upstairs.  I’ll see you later.”

“What are we doing today?” Robby asked.

“I thought we’d go out to the lighthouse.”

“I told you I wasn’t getting on a horse,” he laughs.

“You don’t have to,” I admit.  “We use them for guest, but if you don’t mind getting a little wet, we can take the ATVs too. The channel’s not that deep.”

“What do we need to do out here?” He asks once we’re on the little island.

“Nothing really.  I just like to come out here and make sure everything is okay,” I say.  “And I knew you wanted to come out.”

Watching Robby explore the lighthouse reminds me of me the first time Alex brought me out here.  It’s kind of amazing.  

In the tower, he’s leaning against the rail, staring out at the waves crashing against the rocks below.

“He wasn’t there,” he says softly.

“What?”  I have to step closer to hear him.

“Johnny.  He didn’t know what Kreese was doing because he wasn’t there,” he says.  “You can’t blame him for that.  It was all my doing.  I thought…, I thought I could save someone.  He was being destroyed.”

“Your friend?”

“He was never my friend.”

“That’s Kreese talking.”

He shrugs.  “Even a broken clock is right twice a day.  It’s not Kreese talking, though he was right.  It’s me finally seeing myself for the sucker I am.  Anyway, like I said, I was on my own.  Nobody even cared if I was alive.  If Kreese had killed me, no one would have known until Mom needed me to get money out of Dad for her.”

That’s literally the first time he’s mentioned his mother in the week he’s been here.  “Where was Johnny?”

“He was hurt, had a broken knee from some of Kreese’s goons.  You’ll have to ask Dad for that story.  I wasn’t exactly in his life right then.  He was staying with the LaRusso’s, then Dr. Ali while he recovered.  I was staying at his place by myself,” he said.  “It was easy to hide.  I just never went over.  When I had to face others, I made up some bullshit story about falling off my skateboard. Everyone bought it but Mr. LaRusso…,”

“Why was Johnny staying with Daniel?” I ask.

“Another story you’ll have to get from him,” he says.  “Anyway, Mr. LaRusso didn’t buy my story.  He’d been training me in karate, but that all stopped when… when Dad got involved.  Whatever. Doesn’t matter.  People can’t help it.  They’re just drawn to him and they’ll forget everything else.  I’m used to it.  My mom has done it my whole life.  The only person who never threw me away for Johnny was Granpa.  Maybe that’s why I liked him.  I knew he was a fucking awful person to most everyone.  Hell, he was probably only nice to me to be an ass to Dad. More of showing him what he could never have.  Jason hasn’t. But then, he’s only ever had two conversations with Dad, so who knows what will happen with that.”

“Jason?”

“Jason Schwarber.  My boyfriend.”

That does surprise me a little.  “You’re dating Ali’s son?”

He nods.  “For now. I’m sure that he’ll either go like everyone else.  Or just realize what a fucked up person I am in general and leave,” he shrugs again.  “Dad doesn’t mean to do that, or to be that way, but he can’t help it.  It’s just like, when he’s around, he’s the center of the universe and everyone just gravitates to him. He can’t help it.  And they can’t help it.  It’s just the way it is.  I can’t even get mad at him about it anymore.”

“I don’t think a truer statement has ever been made about Johnny,” I say. “Is that what happened with the guy you thought was your friend?”

He shakes his head.  “He was already Johnny’s.  Johnny’s better, smarter, less fucked up son.  Or at least that’s what he wanted him to be.  Miguel is…, well he’s a better person than me by every measure.  No wonder Johnny wanted him over me.”

“That’s not true,” I say.  “Johnny loves you more than anything.  He’d do anything for you.”

“Yeah, he probably would,” he says.  “If he knew what I needed.  But he usually doesn’t.  You don’t know him anymore.  He has huge blind spots where he can only see one thing, and I’m usually standing smack in the middle of where his vision ends.  Again, he doesn’t mean to.  It’s just how it is.  I’m used to it.  I handle myself so that I don’t need to depend on him.  That way I can’t get hurt and I can still love him.”

“What happened with Miguel?”

“I just realized that I was being used.  Again.  So, I split,” he says.

I sigh.  Getting this kid to talk is like unraveling Christmas lights.  Everything is tangled up in knots and just when you’re ready to give up, out will come another line, but there’s a new knot at the end of it too. “How was he using you?”

He turns red and looks out at the ocean again.  “He…, I liked him…, he knew that…, he didn’t like me, not like that anyway…, but he…, I don’t know, he said he liked being chased.  He liked the feeling that someone wanted him enough to go after him because that had never happened to him before.  He fucking humiliated me time and again and I kept going back for more and that was before Kreese was even involved.”

“You loved him.”

He nods.  “God, I’m so stupid.  He was using me, and I knew that he was, and I still let him over and over.  This is why I don’t get close enough to love anyone. It’s nothing but humiliation.  Giving people the power to hurt you and happily smiling while they do it.  I’ve watched my mom do it a hundred times.  I should have known.”

“And I bet you didn’t make it easy for him, did you?”

“What?”

“To use you.  You didn’t start trying to fix all his problems.  You didn’t start trying to give him things he didn’t have.  I’m sure you didn’t try to make him love you by trying to make his life perfect for him,” I say.

He glares daggers at me, and I know I’ve hit a nerve.  “What would you know about it?”

“Kid, I was in love with your Dad before I even knew what love was,” I say. “And I thought that I could make him love me if I could fix everything.  I confused dependency for love.  I made myself a doormat for him and he took advantage of it.  I don’t think he even meant too.  Just like I don’t think your friend meant to do that to you.  It’s just human nature especially when you’re making it easy for them.”

“So, what happened?”  He asks.

“I reached my breaking point. Like you did.  I realized I could live like that, it was hurting me too bad,” I say.

“What was it?”

It’s my turn to be embarrassed for the boy I was.  “I guarded the locker room door in the dojo so Ali could…, give him a surprise…, Yeah.  I did that. Got my ass beat by Kreese for being there after hours because I was the one who stuck around to lock up.  Johnny laughed and told me I should have ducked when he saw my black eye.  I’m sure he didn’t even know that I was Ali’s decoy, or that her surprise was what I got in trouble over.  I certainly wasn’t going to tell him.  Anyway, that was the moment I broke.  I went home, spent a few days hovering between anger and crying.  Except for Cobra Kai, I didn’t speak to Johnny for a month or better.  Then I realized I missed him.  Not the him that I’d made practically into an idol, but the guy that had been my friend. The guy who had my back when Kreese was on me.  The guy who sat beside me in the courtroom when my parents’ divorce turned nasty.  I knew that if I wanted to keep him in my life, I had to let go of the pain, and accept what was.”

“How did you do that?  How did you stop loving him?”

“I realized that I deserved love too. I wasn’t going to get it if I couldn’t love myself first and I wasn’t being very loving to myself,” I say.  “I dropped him off the pedestal I had put him on and started being a real friend to him again.”

“I haven’t loved Miguel in months.  If I ever did.  I care about him, but it’s not the same way I feel about Jase.  Maybe I never was in love with him.  Maybe I just wanted to take someone from Dad so badly, I confused my feelings of friendship for love.  If I loved him and he loved me, then he’d pick me over Dad.  God, that’s more pathetic than just being rejected,” he rolls his eyes. “It doesn’t matter anyway.  He made it clear where I stand in his life and I’m through hurting myself too.  He and his idiot friend were playing with an M-80 firecracker and blew up a mailbox.  He got hurt. Broke his nose, chipped his tooth, probably had a concussion due to how out of it he was…, Hawk ran off.  Miguel came to me at Granpa’s and I hid him.  Tried to help him.  Tried to convince him to call Dad or his mom.   He knew I could get in trouble for that.  And he knows that if I get in trouble again, it’ll be real trouble.  I’m not getting community service.  I’m going to jail.  He knows that and he still came to me.  He said I made him feel safe.  Whatever. The next morning, I convinced him to let me call Dr. Ali.  He told her what happened and I said Hawk was involved…, it wasn’t fair that he was going to get all the blame when that moron was just as guilty.  He blew up at me.  Then lied and said Hawk wasn’t involved.  Hawk left him wandering around, drunk, hurt, and disoriented to save his own ass and he was protecting him.  I hadn’t done anything but try to help him and he didn’t give a shit that I was risking juvie to do it.  He’s never going to care as much about me as I do for him, so I’m done.  I can’t be his friend anymore.  No matter how much I may miss him.  Because he was never that much of a friend to me.”

I nod and pull him into a hug.  “Well.  Only you can know that.  But if you’re saying he’s not your friend because of that incident, I think you may be discounting your whole friendship. You should maybe try to see things from his side before you throw it all away.”

“Yeah,” he laughs.  “Especially since it seems Dad is hitting on his mom pretty hot and heavy.  Not speaking to my stepbrother might get a little weird and I’m running out of places to run.”

“Well, you’re always welcome here,” I say, hugging him again.  “You’ll want to come to visit Axel anyway.  Because I don’t think you’re going to be able to get her away from Lexie and Alex when you leave.”

He laughs again and we head back to the house.

I send Robby up to his room to change and go in the kitchen to talk to Alex.

“How did it go?” he asks.

“Pretty good,” I admit.  “I finally got him to talk.  But damn. Everything that kid says makes me want to give him a hug and a cookie.  Maybe I helped him though.”

Alex put the knife he was holding down and wiped his hands on a towel before coming over to hug me.  

“Even if you didn’t help, you cared enough to ask, and he’ll remember that. And maybe he’ll come back to you before he goes off the rails again, and that is something.”  He kisses me.  “You can’t save the world, Bobby.  But that you try is why I love you.”

I smile.  “I love you too.”

 @everyonesfavoritegoldenboy @chickskickasstoo @therunawaystudent @dr-ali-mills (Just so that you all see it because some of the Bobby posts aren’t showing up in the timeline.)