#cobra kai season 3

[demetriandelibinaryboyfriends]

I can (and will!) talk at length about all the issues with Yasmine & Demetri as a romantic/sexual dynamic, but one of the biggest underlying problems is that it fundamentally misunderstands why women are attracted to intelligent men.

I'm putting this under a Read More so it doesn't eat peoples' dash, but I HIGHLY encourage all my followers to read it, even if y'all are just here for the funny memes and Gay Shit. As a woman, I think the show AND fandom's questionable treatment of Yasmine as a character and how it makes me and other irl women feel incredibly uncomfortable and objectified is important to talk about. Way, WAY too many people are okay with how the Yasmine-Demetri relationship was portrayed, and knowing people are that chill with a female character being turned into a man's accessory makes me feel, um. Unsafe at best. Read on if you love women and drink your Respect Women juice!

Anyways, I feel I have some room to speak on why women like Demetri-esque guys. Although I eventually realized I'm a lesbian, I identified as bisexual for a long time. Before that, in high school, I didn't even realize I liked girls at all. Ironically, I used to be into boys a lot like Demetri. I tended to pursue the smart, sarcastic, gangly nerd types, sometimes to my own detriment! I once liked a whole ass physics major who could easily solve equations that would send me into a stress coma on sight. I dated a premed in college, and for much of that relationship, I was wracked with insecurity that I would only ever be known as that person's girlfriend, with no significant renown or accomplishments to my own name. I pined after lots of guys I perceived as smarter than me, and constantly felt unworthy of them because I didn't think my own intellect measured up. Especially as someone who's never been attracted to "traditional" masculinity (so himbo types and muscles do nothing for me, lmao), I know the draw of sharp, witty guys who keep you on your toes and have interesting and often unique stuff going on in their brains.

From what I've observed, there's two main reasons why (non-lesbian) women crush on this kind of dude. The first is they make fun, engaging conversationalists, and can have complex and thought-provoking discussions with you. If you spend a lot of time in your head, pondering the world around you, it's nice to find someone who also thinks deeply about similar things and can explore those cognitive threads with you. It makes you feel seen and understood, and it's stimulating! Sometimes the other person can introduce you to new ideas that take you in new directions, too, so it's the dynamic that keeps on giving. This was always my own draw toward smart men, personally.

The other reason is more pragmatic. Smart men (especially coding CS/robotics type guys like Demetri) are more likely to get secure, 6-figure jobs. When you consider the widening wage gap between men and women as well as how difficult misogyny can make it for women to get into high-paying fields like technology, robotics, and other hard sciences, dating or marrying a guy making 100k can be a woman's ticket out of poverty. Or at the very least a financial improvement. With the wealth gap increasing in the USA and many other parts of the world, dating "up" to try and gain a bit more financial security is...well, I don't want to make ethics judgments on it (condemning gold-digging??? In THIS economy???), but it IS understandable.

All this to say that neither of these aspects apply to Yasmine and Demetri's relationship in the least.

Yasmine and Demetri don't have enough common interests to have ANY kind of stimulating conversation, and the ones we see certainly do not read that way for either, lmao. They have little shared ground aside from being kind of sassy and mean and having suffered wedgies at some point. There's a bit of banter in Season 3, but it's not particularly witty or deep. It's largely just...fairly surface-level meanness and easy digs. Yasmine makes a jab about not wanting to talk to Demetri regularly, and he makes a jab about her decreasing popularity and a poor taste sex joke. Yasmine tells him his cast smells and calls him a defective freak and a pain in her tits. Demetri calls her Cruella DeVil. It's amusing and maybe even a little endearing, but that's primarily because it has the potential to grow into something deeper and more fun as these two get to know each other better.

And then it stops completely. No more banter whatsoever after Season 3. Every interaction Demetri and Yasmine have in Season 4 and Season 6 is just Yasmine being a sickly sweet, giggly, horny cheerleader for Demetri, revolving her entire person around his likes and interests while making no mention of her own. For fuck's sake, the only times she gets upset with him is when, *gasp*, he's not believing in himself enough! Or when he cheated, obviously, but even that was easily resolved by gift-bombing her with Stereotypical Woman Things until she was back to being inexplicably insane with lust.

Also worth a mention that the show makes a point about how Demetri is a lot academically smarter than Yasmine, so Yas likely wouldn't be capable of having a conversation he considered stimulating or interesting anyways. I don't care how much Demetri lies his ass off about how Totally Into Conventionally Hot Girls he is--he mostly doesn't seem to give a fuck about them except when not responding to their interest in him would make him look weird to his peers.

I also do not believe for a second that Demetri would ever actually want a partner not on his level of (traditional academic) intelligence. We see him act snide and condescending toward people he views as dumber than him--Chris when he first joins Miyagi Do, and Johnny on a few occasions throughout the show. He consistently treats his closest friends (namely Eli, Miguel, and Sam) as intellectual equals, but I don't think he really sees Yasmine that way. Ironically, he treats Moon, the crystal healing chakra granola girl, with more respect and dignity than his own girlfriend!

Unsurprisingly, the only person Demetri seems to view as truly on his level of intelligence is Eli. We learned all the way back in Season 2 that they won a coding competition together, showing they're both very smart and capable in a conventional and easy-to-recognize way (which seems to be the type of intelligence Demetri values above all other types). He doesn't think twice about them going to MIT together because he assumes they'll both get in. They make a fucking karate fight VR together and then squabble about the technical details in a way Demetri physically couldn't squabble (or even TALK) like that with anyone else. Demetri praises Eli's design abilities and gloats about how the physics "checks out" on his sparring deck. Demetri rambles to Eli about his Terry Silver internet deep dive, and Eli nods along like he actually follows what Demetri is saying. And Demetri, presumably, volunteers it in the first place and doesn't mince tech jargon because he also assumes Eli will understand. When Demetri chews Eli out for not applying to MIT, he angrily accuses him of "turning into a moron"--a thing that, from Demetri's POV, seems just about the worst possible thing someone can be.

Nothing we see of S1-S3 Yasmine indicates she has any reason whatsoever to find the things Demetri talks about, or his CS and robotics interests, appealing. Yasmine either actively doesn't care for academics or she struggles with them, viewing them with dismissive contempt because they make her feel inadequate.

Recall how back in S1, she reacts with scorn and disgust when Sam and Aisha are making chemistry jokes. But there's more than just disdain for the uncool "nerds" there--Yasmine also looks uncomfortable and embarrassed. In a sense, the sodium chloride thing IS an "in joke" between the book smart Sam and Aisha. Yasmine feels excluded, outed as someone not "in the know" because she doesn't quite get the reference. It puts up a barrier (dare I say...a gate, even? That Sam and Aisha can keep? Lol) between Yasmine and her peers, one of whom is her friend, and makes it harder for her to relate to and interact with them. No coincidence, imo, that Yasmine gets more malicious in her bullying toward Aisha after this, i.e. more direct fat jokes and the "cheeto pig" thing. It's jealousy and insecurity that Sam and Aisha have this commonality and more "sophisticated" interest that Yasmine can't be included in.

And then there's Season 3, where Yasmine is pleasantly surprised that with Demetri's assistance, her parents "won't have to pay for her A this time." We can gather from this that either a) Yasmine sees herself as "above" the banality of schoolwork, and finds it easier just to make doe eyes at her parents until they bribe her teachers or b) Yasmine genuinely struggles with academics but doesn't deem it "worthy" of putting in the work to actually get better, so she takes the easy way out with money. She might have some insecurity around not being great in school, as shown by the S1 sodium chloride scene and her genuine disappointment when her and Demetri's science project is ruined. Maybe she was planning on using Demetri's success to show off to her parents that "look! I CAN do my own work without your help!" Maybe she enjoys being seen as a competent student, and worries losing her fake good grades would make her look stupid and inept. This could knock her even lower down the social food chain, further isolating her and opening her up to ostracization from her peers. All things being equal, though, we don't have much reason to believe Yasmine cares much about school in of itself. It's a means to an end for her--just one more thing that affects her reputation, and where school performance can improve or detract from it.

In any case, it's clear Yasmine does not VALUE academics, hard work, and dedication the same way Demetri does. Demetri makes a BIG deal about how much he busted his ass to get into MIT and "earned his spot," while Yasmine only enjoys the image of academic success and having As and the way it makes her look good, while not giving a shit about what it actually represents.

Cut to S4 and S6, where Yasmine is now, completely out of left field, highly invested in and enthusiastic about Demetri's interests. Between snubbing him in the hallway last time we saw her to maybe a couple months later at max, she has become seemingly enraptured with all things Demetri. She loves when he talks nerdy! She is incredibly stoked about supporting him at his karate tournaments, and even chews him out when he doesn't have enough faith in himself! She ditched her dad's wedding halfway around the world because he's more important! She makes her junior prom dress a nerdy movie reference to Jessica Rabbit! All the while making, of course, naught a peep about her own interests, goals, passions, etc. At first glance, it looks like Demetri's been exceptionally lucky to find a hot girl who is somehow equally as gung ho about all the same things as him, and it coincidentally only came out after she started dating a nerd that she happens to share all his passions. Except...Yasmine does not have any discernible reason to like any of Demetri's interests.

"But tumblr user demetriandelibinaryboyfriends!" you say. "A few weeks have passed in TV show time! Is it not possible that Yasmine engaged with and grew invested in Demetri's nerd shit and karate offscreen?" Theoretically possible, yes, but due to all the S1 and S3 actual onscreen canon scenes we get of Yasmine, it's incredibly illogical and unlikely. I'd be more forgiving of this ship if Yasmine was in any way set up as a closet nerd, or secretly intrigued by the karate she loved scorning in S1 (and flat out ignoring in S3, and basically S5, too).

As established in the S1 pre-halloween dance cafeteria scene I mentioned, Yasmine has no love for academic nerdiness. References to school shit she doesn't understand appear to make her feel uncomfortable and alienated. In S3, Yasmine only enjoys Demetri's nerdiness insofar as it can help her get a good grade. We're given no reason to believe she would like his smarts beyond that. Hell, even when we see them first making out, it's after we've seen them bond over their experience as bullying victims, not because Demetri suddenly changed Yasmine's mind about how interesting math and coding and dinosaurs are! Yasmine isn't shown to be into pop culture type nerdiness, either, with not a single "geeky" reference to her name. (Besides Jessica Rabbit, I guess, but even that might well have been a thing she was doing FOR Demetri rather than herself. Hell, she's never shown ANY particular interest in movies, and reads much more like a music girlie, if the pop music playing when she crashed her car, the little boombox we see in her bedroom, and the S1 concert she goes to with Moon are anything to go by.) Her sense of humor is more dry and dark, too, like the S1 snide remarks she makes about her and the girls being "chained up in that meth-head's basement" if she hadn't driven away from Johnny. Or her blase scheme to "torture" Anthony.

As for karate, Yasmine actively sticks her nose up at it in S1. She essentially straight up tells Aisha that she and her "karate gang" will always be freak outcasts. In S3 and S5, Yasmine makes no mention of karate that I can recall, and doesn't even have much of a reaction when the fight breaks out at the waterpark. If anything, she seems apathetic, bored, and kind of annoyed, because karate just keeps getting in the way of her Hot Girl Summer XD She never asks Sam much about karate, either, even when Moon does. Hell, even in S4, Yasmine makes one (1) comment about being bummed she won't be there to root for Demetri, before...proceeding to fly back for the prom and not stay for the AVT. Yasmine only manages to muster up any interest in karate when directly interacting with Demetri, and ceases to care about it whenever he's gone. So, clearly, it's not something she finds interesting outside of its relation to her boyfriend.

Which brings me to my next point: When you look closely, the way Yasmine hypes up Demetri's interests and passions does not suggest any deeper care or understanding. The things she says relating to how much she "loves" all things Demetri are...exceptionally non-committal and surface level. "I love it when you talk nerdy!" or "You're more important than my dad's wedding!" or "you have no idea how much I like you!" are all easy things to say, but the underlying why--as well as any details that back up or flesh out these statements--is always missing. We have no reason to believe Yasmine sincerely means what she's saying. She reads like she's going through the motions, almost placating Demetri by telling him what she thinks he wants to hear and nothing more. Yasmine has decided that it's in her best interest and the best thing for her reputation to go out with a fairly popular, well-liked athlete--likely to get back some of the popularity she lost after The Wedgie Incident™️. So she says what she believes she needs to and acts accordingly in order to keep Demetri around. But her supposed zeal for all things geeky, all things karate, and Demetri himself vanishes as soon as he's not around, with Yasmine not making a peep about any of these in S5. Even her pep talk in S6 is ultimately Yasmine trying to convince Demetri to put off their date--perhaps she's looking for an excuse to not have to see him more than she absolutely has to?

And make no mistake--this complete and utter disinterest in their partner's brain and personality goes both ways. Yasmine is, contrary to what the jabs CK makes about her being "book dumb" would have you believe, NOT unintelligent. She has a significant amount of cunning and people smarts, seeing as there's no possible way for her to have EVER been the school queen bee without them. She has good intuition about people who might be dangerous, like Johnny (with his yelling and aggressively slamming on the car door) and Lynn (with her demanding money and a very unconvincing "I ain't gonna hurt ya!"). Yasmine comes up with a convincing cover story about why her Range Rover is totaled. Hell, even her scheme about how to use Anthony's attraction to her to fuck with his head shows she knows how to be manipulative, and is the type of detailed "longcon" that she simply wouldn't have the capacity to plan and pull off if she was truly nothing but a ditz. The issue is that Yasmine is not a type of intelligent that Demetri really cares about or values.

In S1, he DOES seem to respect Yasmine's power and influence, and basically says "I don't think I'm cool enough to be talking to you" the one time they do interact. By S3, though, Yasmine has mostly lost her power and influence--and Demetri directly says as much! Now, his interest in Yasmine seems to be all about her looks. Less because Demetri particularly cares how hot a girl is--I don't think he's attracted to women at all, as I've said in many of my posts--but because of the social capital he gains simply by having a conventionally attractive blonde white girl as his arm candy. And (ironically much like Yasmine!) Demetri goes through the motions and does what he needs to keep his Coolness Trophy and Proof of His Normality and Straightness around.

Demetri takes it a step further, though. While Yasmine seems to have a general idea of his personality (geeky shit, karate, insecurity), Demetri does not bother to differentiate Yasmine from any other girl. Every "nice thing" he does for her is either base-level common courtesy (i.e. not actively saying mean things to her or verbally berating her or whatever), or things like jewelry, flower, and candy gifts, which Yasmine has never shown ANY kind of particular affinity for (and fucking trust me--I have watched every Yasmine scene DOZENS of times). Demetri does less than the bare minimum, treating his girlfriend like The Generic Woman™️ and giving 0 indication he knows anything about what she likes as an individual. Hell, the ONE time I gave him credit--remembering that she likes bleunamis--I realized...Yasmine never confirms she actually likes bleunamis? Or wants one? In fact, she immediately follows up with "maybe you should train longer so we don't have to go on this date"!!! It truly does not seem Demetri cares in the slightest about Yasmine's actual personality, or unique traits. The only reason his half-assed "romantic gestures" even work is because Yasmine likes the optics of being with him.

So, going by all this, I think it's fair to say Yasmine and Demetri don't give a shit about exploring or embracing one another's interests and passions. They've had plenty of time to learn about each other, and neither cares to. They both stick to superficial platitudes that will appease the other person (and perhaps their observing peers) just enough to keep the relationship going, with no indication they have anything but a skin-deep read on who the other is as a person. Yasmine boils Demetri down to Insecure Karate Nerd, so as long as she appeals to one of those traits, she's good to go. Demetri boils Yasmine down to Girly Aesthetic, so as long as he buys her stereotypical girly stuff, he's good to go. Additionally, Demetri and Yasmine broadly do not share values, or how they define a competent, successful person. Demetri values putting in work to get what he wants, while Yasmine is far more concerned with the end result benefiting her than whatever she has to do to get there.

I don't think just because she is hyperfeminine, Yasmine can't be a deep thinker who spends a lot of time in her head, contemplating things she likes. Assuming someone concerned with her appearance who happens to like a girlier presentation doesn't have a rich and complex interior world and an active mind is...well, obviously really misogynistic. But ultimately, it doesn't matter how "loud" Yasmine's mind is or how intricate her inner monologue is. If she and Demetri don't ever go down the same cognitive rabbitholes, then it won't matter a fig they're both deep thinkers. And, naturally, we arrive back at the question people have been asking since these two started dating in S3: What the fuck do they talk about?

Demetri probably wants to talk at length about coding, tech, robotics, his favorite sci-fi and fantasy media, science in general, etc. With Yasmine, we don't know her passions for sure, but I'll extrapolate she's knowledgeable about things like fashion trends, social media, health spas, her favorite pop stars, French culture, the best ways to do a home manicure, etc. Maybe she loves learning even more about these things and telling people about them! But if Demetri and Yasmine were either to ramble to the other about all the thoughts they've been having about That Cool Thing They Like, they'd put their partner straight to sleep. Their partner's eyes would glaze over and they'd just mutely nod along while playing Charlie Brown trumpet noises and letting their mind wander somewhere completely different. There's just no sustainable common ground where they can bond for the long term. So TL;DR, to wrap all this up: Demetri and Yasmine's basic disconnect on values and lack of shared hobbies means that neither would be able to regularly engage the other to any significant degree. This means conversations that are stimulating and fun for both is not really possible in the long term.

As for the second reason women seek intelligent men, well. I don't feel I need to convince y'all too much that Rich Girl Yasmine being a gold-digger isn't the case. But nonetheless, I'm covering all my bases.

Yasmine is absolutely richer than Demetri will ever be by means of old money alone. In fact, Yasmine's wealth is the first qualifier we are told about her. Demetri says to Miguel "don't even bother thinking we can associate with those girls; they're rich. We're worth less than the dirt they walk on." Demetri views this clique as superior and untouchable because of their money. Even when he talks later about how he needs to do well on the PSAT so he can eventually get a good, stable job, he never really frames it like "I want to have as much money as Yasmine someday." He wants a more realistic, achievable picture of middle class success and stability: A decent, well-paying job that is good enough, and a hot trophy girl to show for his hard work. Having money on Yasmine's level seems to be beyond Demetri's wildest dreams.

Keep in mind that Demetri knows he's smart and good at tech--he and Eli won a coding competition pretty recently! Still, having a marketable skill with the potential to make you lots of money is much different than having easy access to generational wealth, like Yasmine is implied to. Her parents fly her to places like France and Australia and buy her new cars without batting an eye--the girl is loaded. She essentially has the money to do whatever she likes (and Annalisa said as much in an interview a while back!). There's no real reason why Yasmine would seek out money in a partner.

You could argue "maybe she wants to be even richer," but investing time and effort into having a relationship with someone who might one day be wealthy (and even then--maybe never as wealthy as Yas already was!) doesn't fit with how we know Yasmine approaches her life. She likes tangible, immediate results and instant gratification, and she doesn't mind cutting corners to get what she wants quicker and with less work. Dating a guy she finds quite boring for years and years and years and banking (no pun intended) on his tech someday making him a millionaire is not a risk I see Yasmine taking. Far less trouble just to mooch mommy and daddy's money and play nice with them so she makes sure she gets that inheritance someday! That, and "oh no, someday I'm gonna be expected to marry a rich, respectable guy so my family won't cut me off :(" isn't a concern I see High School Yasmine losing much sleep over. Girl is using her teenage years to fuck around and have fun, and she'll worry about those pesky adult concerns when she's actually an adult.

So, between no possibility of engaging conversations and Yasmine not standing to gain any money from Demetri that isn't dwarfed by what she already has, there's no logical reason why she would be attracted to this math brainiac in any way that would last.

So why is Yasmine and Demetri being this deeply incompatible a genuine problem? They certainly aren't the first sloppily unconvincing forced romance in TV. The trope of dorky nerd boy x popular girl is even considered banally common to the point that a lot of the initial criticism of this pairing came from it being "cliche." In a lot of cases, badly-done canon ships just make me roll my eyes and move on, either ignoring the dynamic or writing a better fanon alternative. The Yasmine-Demetri dynamic, I'd argue, is a lot more harmful than it first appears. So much so that I can't just turn away and push them off my radar.

The ship sends this really weird message of how dumb girls (or at least girls society perceives that way due to them not performing super well academically or being a bit slow on the uptake) go for intelligent guys because...they like feeling like brainless arm candy? They enjoy feeling like nothing except a hot body next to their well-spoken and probably much more broadly-respected boyfriend, who is actually taken seriously by the people around them? It's just so painfully illogical because no woman would choose that life, especially if the dude is not, like, an insane stud.

What does Demetri do for her that would make her so fixated??? We don't have reason to believe she actually understands his "nerdspeak", and she doesn't need to be his girlfriend to have him get her good grades--she could always string him along just enough for him to keep tutoring her or whatever. Even outside his vibes of being an absolute flaming homosexual, he's canonically a virgin when they get together (at least as far as women go...), so he can't be THAT good at sexual stuff--or at least not compared to some more experienced jock boy. And if she wanted to use him for his body, she could just...do that. She could go to him for a quick, easy lay without them being in a relationship. This is high school, and you can fuck and run, and it's fine! Maybe the idea is that he doesn't care about her enough to get possessive and he's always down for a quick makeout sesh when she's feeling the urge, but like. There are plenty of guys at that school who I'm sure would be delighted to be casual with Yasmine, and wouldn't give a fuck if they weren't exclusive.

I think the implication is that Yasmine really is so stupid that she doesn't know any better. It doesn't compute that she gets nothing out of this relationship, and she's inexplicably insatiably turned on by this guy's smarts. Which is obviously problematic and all but it's just so overtly a dumb male fantasy--every (straight) weird nerd dude wants a super hot conventionally attractive popular girl to become obsessed with him to the point she forgets her own personality, but doesn't want to have to do anything to appeal to who she actually is as a person and what she does and doesn't like. Demetri just conveniently has everything Yasmine's ever wanted in a guy, and doesn't have to put in any effort whatsoever to maintain the relationship beyond doing a 5-second google search of "what to do when your girlfriend is mad at you."

Say you're sorry a bunch of times! Get her flowers! Get her candy! Get her jewelry! And all of this miraculously works because it's every guy's dream to have a hot, endlessly horny girlfriend who can be appeased by The Most Typical Woman Things on the rare occasion she gets cranky. Because women love their frivolous girly plants and their sweets and their materialistic displays of wealth, and must not have any needs or desires beyond that. Just dump enough roses into the sex vending machine, and she'll be back to tonguing you and slapping your ass in public in no time!

All in all, not only is yas/metri prettily-packaged misogyny, it's an aggressively illogical breed of it that holds no water even outside its ickier implications. It's a ship that inherently belittles and demeans the woman (who in of herself is a rather mean-spirited representation of feminine girls), but in a way where the logic falls apart upon any scrutiny whatsoever.

This is the kind of mlw ship dynamic that feels sexist in such an over-the-top, ham-fisted way that it's almost satirical. The het tropes used here are just so incredibly uninteresting that it feels almost intentional--a parody of the type of dynamic it tries to play straight.

Usually I'd just laugh at yas/metri and write it off as a catastrophic failure. And, back in 2022, me and the entire fandom more or less did. It's going for a sweet nerdy dork x hot rich socialite type of thing, and it absolutely did not stick the landing. All we're left with is two characters I don't buy would be romantically/sexually involved for any length of time, and what appears to be some old white men dealing with the fact their high school crushes didn't find them interesting and vicariously living through a teenage boy character about it. Yas/metri was as nonsensical as it was filled to the brim with concerningly misogynistic implications, and so I could take solace in the fact that no one was taking it that seriously.

Except now people are. Now, more and more, a lot of what I see in the character tags for Yasmine and Demetri indicate people see no issue with this dynamic, or how it actively does a disservice to both characters by sticking them with a partner who I believe will never, ever be able to share in or care about the things they love and value. People are praising the "cuteness" of Yasmine's little Demetri cheerleading routine and giggling over her horniness, while there's largely radio silence about how deeply fucked it is that the story objectifies and dehumanizes a female character for the sake of propping up a male character and showing off his "coolness" in getting a hot girlfriend.

It's concerning, and it's saddening. As a woman--particularly one who has been catcalled a LOT and rarely feels safe around straight men these days--it's disheartening to see people enthusiastically condone the use of my gender as pretty props, especially in an online space I've always thought of as a sanctuary.

Fiction does not exist in a vacuum, and it DOES affect reality. When you praise and back couples like Yasmine and Demetri, you send a message to many women that you are not someone they can trust.

[partiallypearl]

Mary Mouser as Samantha "Sam" LaRusso in Cobra Kai S3 EP1 - Aftermath

[sleepyicon]

keenry- robby’s pov (i’m insane)

I NEEDED TO GET THIS OUT BEFORE PART 3

keenry tory’s pov: https://www.tumblr.com/sleepyicon/773121101619429376/keenry-torys-pov

s2

“there’s good in everyone. she just has to be shown the right way”

s3

taking tory up on her offer to go to the zoo. he’s done running away.

grabbing the snake with his bare hands to please tory and the other cobras

s4

robby offering to help tory up when he took her down in a fight

robby having tory stand by his side as he makes his speech to to the cobras. he views tory as an equal.

robby once again offering to help tory up when he takes her down

robby asking tory where her new job is, but respects her not wanting to share

robby once again respecting her boundaries when he found out tory had a shitty day, even making a light hearted joke out of it

robby asking tory if she’s going to prom and amused when she asks him

robby assuring tory that he understands her when she calls her motivations to win the tournament stupid

robby accepting tory when she rests her head against his and telling her that he didn’t care about sam and miguel, which gave her the courage to feel the same

robby jumping into the fight at stingray’s after party to help tory

robby not caring when tory pulled him into the pool and laughing with her

robby complimenting tory’s dancing and karate skills and laughing with her when she mentioned she was going to return her dress

robby initiating kissing her

robby and tory sparring together and robby smiling up at tory when she lands on top of him

robby throwing his gi to tory before his final fight (i saw the way piper looked at tory after ik this means something)

robby telling tory that he’s alright and that she should focus on her fight when she checks on him after his loss, not wanting her to worry about his own baggage before her big fight

robby’s struggling right now, but he STILL SHOWS UP FOR TORY’S FIGHT AND WISHES HER LUCK!!

robby cheering with the other cobras when tory wins, he’s no longer rooting for cobra kai, but he is rooting for tory

s5

robby telling his dad “i could be at home right now with tory” when he finds out johnny lied to him about why they were really in mexico. she was on his minddd

robby shouting her name across the water park

robby looking out for tory by attempting to convince her to take a break from cobra kai, and trying to understand tory’s decision not to (yes his ultimatum at the end of this ep was shitty, but he knew cobra kai was causing damage and i’m glad he ultimately stood up to it in the end)

“there’s some others in cobra kai i care about too” we all know that means tory.

robby showing concern for something potentially happening to tory when she doesn’t show up for her sekai taikai qualifier match

robby looking at and nodding to her after his speech to silver, noticing that her loyalty to silver is fading and that he’s there for her

robby trying to get into contact with tory later that day

robby immediately noticing tory’s hand and asking what happened to it, seemingly not believing her when she tells him it was a training accident

robby smiling at tory when she looks out for the both of them due to their probation

robby (kinda) putting his arm in front of tory when silver walks over to the both of them (what i like about this scene is that silver is the one who set them up, and now they’re both against him)

robby apologizing to tory for abandoning her and respecting that she’s tired (which after everything, i definitely believe that was her true reason to not want a longer conversation) and just wants to kiss

s6

likely, tory was the first person robby went to when he got to school to show that he was reinstated

robby wanting to help tory and sam become friends and going along with miguel’s double date idea, but he sets the record straight with tory when she seems uncomfortable, while still trying to encourage her to give her a chance

also robby calling bs (with his eyes) when tory tells him that she’s not avoiding sam

robby’s sekai taikai pact with tory (do i even need to say more?)

robby looking absolutely CRUSHED when he sees that tory rejoined cobra kai

robby conversing with the cobra kai’s at their hotel in barcelona and his face softening the second he sees tory, and then attempting to run after her

robby smiling at tory when they were taking their captain’s photo and then going after her as soon as it was done

robby having an honest and heartfelt with tory about cobra kai in the aquarium (this scene was so beautiful and absolutely cut short by sam invading their privacy for some reason??)

robby trying to stay away from cobra kai and their challenges, only participating when kwon eggs him on by mentioning his gf is on their team and then agreeing to a bet with kwon (which in my opinion is very unlike him)

robby going to tory’s room in the middle of the night and assuring her that she’s not making things worse for him when she thinks that she is

robby being extremely unfocused during the tournament due to tory putting them on pause and competing for a rival team

robby being jealous of tory and kwon

robby being so heartbroken and off balance due to no longer having tory and screwing up the tournament that he drinks, possibly for the first time and getting extremely drunk

robby attempting to fight kwon when he tells him that he’ll keep tory warm, but being too drunk to do it (once again, all of this is unlike him)

robby did not come to play in his fight against kwon when he discovered that kwon played him by faking a relationship with tory. as johnny said, robby was making it hurt

robby apologizing to tory for letting her and kwon get to his head, saying that he knows himself and her better than that.

“did any of it include me” when tory said that she never should have let herself believe in any of it AJDMFIFNEKSKGNRODN

after kwon rudely interrupted them, he told tory to get home safe and that he would see her there. he was determined to figure things out with her (don’t even get me started with this “oh it’s one sided and toxic” shit TORY’S NOT IN THE RIGHT HEADSPACE RN SHE’S STILL A GRIEVING CHILD, EVIDENT BY THE FACT THAT SHE WAS HOLDING HER AND HER MOM’S MAGIC JEWEL WITH A SAD LOOK ON HER FACE. SHE WAS ELIMINATED FROM THE TOURNAMENT THAT SHE WAS IN FOR HER MOM! AND SHE HAS PROVEN MULTIPLE TIMES THAT SHES A GOOD PARTNER, BUT SHE CANT BE PERFECT ALL THE TIME MY GOD wait this is supposed to be a robby post anyways)

robby pulling a badass double kick to save tory from zara during the tournament brawl

robby telling zara that it’s not even close when she questions him choosing tory over her (more like there’s no decision at all you stupid abuser)

robby and tory fighting together!!!

robby and tory standing next to each other in the aftermath of the brawl, both of them devistated after kwon’s death

shout out to all the times he looks back when tory looks at him across every season

[18-2024]

Darkest Eras:

Season 1: Miguel

Season 3: Hawk Moskowitz and Tory Nichols:

Season 4: Robby Keene and Sam LaRusso:

Season 6: Demetri Alexopoulos?

[mo-hawk]

Still angry about the fact that Demetri just instantly got back into karate after the arm break.

There was absolutely no reason for him to stay with it at that point. He didn’t have a deep, personal relationship with karate ir his Sensei. Karate lost him all his friends and fucked up most of his life: Miguel almost died after a horrible karate brawl, Aisha was forced to move away because of karate, Robby went to juvie for nearly killing Miguel with karate, Sam was horribly traumatized and had literal karate PTSD, and Eli, who he was absolutely in love with, either platonically or romantically, became a toxic, violent bully. All because of karate.

Demetri only started karate because his friends were being jerks and he wanted to protect himself. After Hawk breaks his arm, he has no reason to keep doing it. Karate has done nothing but hurt him and everyone close to him, and Demetri is the character most likely to realize that and duck out. Yet he apparently has no negative feelings about it at all and is right back with Miyagi-do for the season finale 🫠

[toxictrannyfreak]

I strongly feel that in Hawk’s evil bitch s3 era he gets super into American Idiot. Stewing in his room punching the wall like no one understands me… I’m so alternative while listening to one of the biggest hit albums of the 21st century. When Demetri tells him it got a musical adaptation he gets so mad he punches Kyler

[saccharine-dean]

I'm not myself, I'm not myself, I'm not myself.

[mystic-insightss]

I'm not myself, I'm not myself, I'm not myself

[nikredd]

The underdog characters in Cobra Kai

I feel bad for Robby getting third place (door number 3) because of Johnny and Carmen's baby.

[ihatethebrits]

do i even have to say it

[wild-catra]

cobra kai spoilers

why does no one ever call the police??? these kids are forming gangs, assaulting random straners, breaking and entering, stealing, almost killing people, comitting arson and like none of their parents cares abt it?? I don't believe demetri's parents would have just ingored his broken arm and not asked around his friends what happened. same as the larussos not pressing charges against the kids who trashed their house and assaulted their guests???

again why does all the plot depend on everyone being dumb and insane

[demetriandelibinaryboyfriends]

Pretty baller that they let Kumiko friendzone a guy, but it sure would be nice if they let some other women in the show also do that.

[sweetbrunch]

binge watching cobra kai even if I said I'd never watch it.

I haven't even slept for 24+, I'm at season 3 episode 5, karate is a very sexy sport 😮😮😮

I'm confused with daniel's trip to okinawa, he found new techniques and karate stuff 'cause mr. miyagi's ancestor had chinese wife? and they invented that stuff to defend themselves of japanese people?

but... aren't they japanese? are they defending themselves of themselves?

my fave character is robby keene, what he did was self defense, I really hate miguel and sam, no idea why sam got suspension though if she was the victim, she was defending herself, why was she scared of the crazy ex girlfriend if she beat her before?

[sleepyicon]

keenry- tory’s pov (im insane)

s3

tory accepting robby and giving him advice related to training and home life

tory inviting robby to hang out with the cobras and defending him against hawk

s4

tory telling robby to stay when he was going to leave the dojo

tory smiling at robby when he respected her boundaries

tory smiling at robby and asking him what he had in mind in order to get revenge on hawk without fighting

tory asking robby to prom and obviously lying when she said it was strictly a tactical move

tory trusting robby enough to open up a little and resting her head against his

tory allowing herself to fully forget about sam and miguel because she liked robby too much

tory pulling robby into the pool and being silly with him

tory asking robby if he was alright after his fight with kenny at the avt, going after him and being being the only one concerned for him after his loss against hawk

tory almost smiling at robby when he wished her luck before her fight with sam (silver interrupted their moment, he hates keenry and regrets setting them up i can feel it)

tory looking at robby while holding her trophy

s5

tory telling robby she missed him

tory admitting to kreese that she didn’t like hiding the truth from robby

when robby came to cobra kai, tory’s moves were delayed and when silver was giving the class commands not chanting no mercy with the other cobras. she gave him a final look before he left

tory punching through stone in the name of love

tory assuring robby she was ok when he asked about her hand

tory looking out for herself and robby, making sure they didn’t violate their probation

s6

tory shamelessly kissing robby in front of devon when she found out he was reinstated (THIS WAS GOLD KWKWKWKSNDMD)

tory sticking around at the double date robby brought her too, even if it was kinda uncomfortable

tory asking robby about kenny and supporting him when he wouldn’t give up

tory stopping kenny from using a bat on robby, working with sam to keep kenny away from their boyfriends

tory entrusting robby with the fact that she ran into kreese

tory supporting robby when he opened up a little about his second place trauma

tory apologizing to robby for not showing up to the captain’s match sooner

tory using a softer tone with robby when he tried to console her after the news of her mom broke out

tory putting their relationship on break, knowing how her rejoining cobra kai has affected him and not wanting to cause further harm

tory confirming to robby when he asked that it was a pause, not a breakup, and that she still wanted to see him on the podium next to her just like they said

tory wishing robby good luck even after he reminded her of her trust issues (which she’s improved on)

tory stealing zara’s phone and outing her to her followers (even tho my girl misunderstood what zara actually did to robby)

tory reminding robby that she never broke up with him, still willing to stay with him even under the impression that he cheated on her

tory yelling “kiss this bitch” to zara before kicking her. i know for a fact that tory would be enraged if she found out what zara actually did and i would do anything to see that play out in the show

bonus: tory looking at robby. she be doing this every season it’s so cuteeee

did i forget anything? idec at this point bc this has been sitting in my drafts too long 💀

making a robby version that i was planning on posting at the same time as this, but it’s sitting in my drafts unfinished and im lazy :P

[theweirdcobrakaifan]

Definitely wish we got to see Tory and Daniel interact more because if Tory should fight anyone to get her anger out it is definitely Daniel They definitely parallel each other a lot and I really wish they talked more without the whole Daniel being biased thing” when literally Johnny had to go to Mike make sure Devon got picked who is really mature because I really don’t think it’s Johnny with the whole standing on counter in Daniel dealership

and I’m so happy that Amanda called him out yes yes I know she “voice of reason” but I hated so much that she let Johnny get away with so many things and didn’t listen to Daniel and I know “the karate war is stuipd” but if anything it never was Daniel fault ever and he had so much trust issues and he knew that Terry would come back one day and was trying stop it from before it began and he was so right because it did happen and Daniel went through so much hell in s5 and terry knew how to make himself seem like “oh yeah I’m a rich old man i could never hurt anyone”and I hate the “daniel was the real bully” it is so stuipd that she never yelled or anything at Johnny for what he put Daniel in Kk1 and god damn because I know that if Mr Miyagi was alive he would definitely made sure that Daniel went through the hell that he went through and I love that Jessica was there and chozen to help Daniel and Jessica clear up to Amanda about what Terry did and chozen for always being Daniel side and I adore him for that because he really needed that person that always ready to defend Mr Miyagi legendary and defend him and I know he felt so much joy because of chozen and he could relax and he didn’t have to be stressed

im sorry but if anyone understands Tory it is definitely Daniel

Yes Johnny might have lost his mother but he was a adult by then

And Daniel lost his dad as a kid he was probably like 5 or 8 or something and he saw his dad die infront of his eyes

And Daniel grew up poor just like Tory

And the parallel of the bloody knuckles

And I hate the take “Johnny and Tory are so similar Johnny understands Tory” no he doesn’t he really doesn’t he is projecting onto a child

And I hate I hate so much that people think that Daniel is worng for stopping that fight because if anything he was totally in the right because he definitely know what it like to lose a parent at a young age and fight with anger but he knows not to let it control him

And I really really wish that they would definitely talked more about the bloody knuckle or losing a parent at young age or growing up poor

And I need a young Daniel backstory talking about his dad death because god damn maybe those “Johnny glazer” fan will realize that Johnny isn’t the only one with a sad backstory which i totally believe they threw in the last minute in cobra Kai to make him sympathetic but whatever

And I hate that they made chozen leave because they that chozen would kicked Johnny ass for what he said about mr Miyagi and I really hope he finds out what Johnny said in part 2 because I want Johnny to get beat up by chozen I mean what 👀

[myundeadgayson]

my favorite hawk song vs. my favorite demetri song for season 3!hawkmetri:

season 3! hawk: “you’ve been pushin’ me out to the fuckin’ edge. i’m about to rip my hair out ‘cause i’m madder than i’ve ever been.”

“i just wanna call you, but i know i can’t.”

“bitch! are you trying to make me cry?! are you trying to make me lose it?! you win some and lose some... this could get gruesome.”

“careful with me, i’m volatile...”

season 3! demteri: “you said you could save me, i’m doing the saving.”

“[he] went to sleep a superhero, then he woke up a villain… my love, oh, what happened?”

“but i don’t wanna fight, don’t wear no tights, and i can’t fly… i’m no superhero.”