#i draw him a lot but i cant help drawing shithead characters

[fortrustory]

garbage boy stink man belongs in the trash

[icecreamkink]

so i watched cobra kai all in two days and i have so many -

this show has so many cool and smart angles to it, but the same time.... its so stupid oh my god everyone is so dumb literally mr miyagi held all of the braincells in this whole universe 

like i am but at the same time i am not surprised it was made like this, bc in hindsight of course there were hordes of ppl simping over johnny lawrence ....  but it still amuses me that this is like... an Actual Official Thing

ok this will get long so cut it is

how much fun this cast has is super visible and i love it

i rly enjoy how the world was expanded ! i did grow up watching the karate kid movies, so watching how they progressed the world of the movies so organically was pretty cool. it rly feels like its the same universe

i fucking LOVE stories that are largely about a Thing. dancing ,skating, sports its just so thrilling to experience this all consuming relationship people can have with this type of activity? and martial arts are just that much more intense, so yeah, grown ass men kicking each other around at the lightest provocation and a war veteran caring so much abt teen karate is Ridiculous.... but i love it all because thats the intensity i find so thrilling

was kinda surprised with how much im missing mr. miyagi. first because, like everyone is so unhinged jesus christo, it just really throws into relief how much his character grounded the narrative of the movies. but also hes just a really great character

and on that note it rly Gets Me that the show itself aknowledges that and plays that into daniels angst and all the little ways they sorta weave myiagisms into the whole show........ im not getting emotional over this dumb karate dads show OK

related - i really miss hearing ‘daniel-san’ 🥺🥺

ACE DEGENERATE oh god oh no

they really went down the down and out johnny lawrence route huh. like i was always kinda bummed we see kreese choking him and then we never see him again in the movies, and while i love dumpster fire problematic trash himbo ck johnny, its like......................... actually really sad that his life turned out like this fjngn

everytime i hear ‘babes’ and ‘pussy’ i die a little inside. i know thats the point but i am a v cringe easy person, have mercy (ehe)

loved the way they are constantly drawing parallels between johnny and mr. myiagi of all people. hes the handy man of his building that has a bullied kid asking for help and eventually steps up to teach them karate, beats up a bunch of bullies for him, creates a friendship with said kid, estranged from family, drinks his sorrows away, surprisingly one of the least quick to anger characters (which says more about everyone else really but.... Well.), no schemes or ulterior motives hes just tryna vibe here.... oh and ofc magically heals miguel of is asthma apparently. the true disciple.. meanwhile daniel is his usual messy petty self even tho he wants to be mr myiagi so bad 

also interesting about that is how miguels character is a parallel of both johnny and daniel at the same time

overall the parallels in ck are done really well, drawing comparisons and also subverting them constantly. theyre well thought out

THE PARALELOGRAMS

fr tho, the angle being explicitly the cycle of trauma and its effects and how trumatized adults in turn traumatize kids, maliciously or not, is so interesting

but! on the flip side of that, it feels like the writers are getting in their own way @ letting the characters grow. especially this last season. theres only so many times you can do "johnny and daniel are getting along but 5mins later they are (literally) fighting over some dumbass random issue" or "johnny puts in 20% of effort with robby and then gives up" before it gets on your nerves yknow?

i see daniel no longer talks like macchio ingested 15 shots of espresso before every take and idk how to feel about that tbh

interesting tension in daniel, as in, in tkk mr miyagi was there and daniel was frankly, kind of a lil shit, this messy petty spitfire hot tempered sassy kid,(johnny lawrence voice: just... stop being so annoying) but now hes the adult, and he wants to be mr. miyagi... but hes just not, and never will be to his very core and it shakes him and in a way hes trying to find who he is now that he sees himself in a position to be a not! cobra kai figure. i kinda really like that 

plus how that relates to his cobra kai trauma. idk if the writers thought abt it Like That, i think so, but in any case, its interesting bc it seems like daniel has told everyone whod listen about johnny lawrence his Pretty Boy Karate Rival and high school and 84 cobra kai... But. no one seems to know what went on in 85 (or 86? idk) which was just so much worse

like ye og cobras were shitheads, but tkk iii is just two hours of daniel being emotionally and physically tortured. 

like, the third movie is.............chaotic, to put it nicely, and many people ignore it, but the writers clearly didnt. daniels actions are, in a way, responding so much more to the events of tkk iii than to the first movie ie. johnny himself, AND. daniel doesnt rly seem to have dealt with that trauma? he never told sam? doesnt feel like hes ever told amanda? he doesnt even say terrys name out loud? freaks Out over kreese ? the way he reacts to robbys deceit? his FACE when he walks past the new "fear does not exist in this dojo" paint or kreeses photo? hmMm i sense Pain

his fashion tho........... disappointing. where are the flower shirts daniel huh we had one (1) shirt what a tragedy STOP WEARING SUITS ALL THE TIME . also the band ts/grunge bi are a look for johnny but part of me longs for the preppy lovable 80s bully chic johnny lawrence getups

weird that they never used that last moment of karate kid where johnny kinda... snaps out of his anger and hands daniel the trophy almost in tears. like “youre alright larusso, good match” “thanks a lot”  that being their last direct interection seems like itd be perfect fruit for cobra kai but... they just dont. weird. 

especially when, the FIRST SCENE they see each other, suposedly in 30+ years, the first thing to come out of daniels mouth is QUOTE "u still got those golden locks huh?" WHO SAYS SHIT LIKE THAT DANIEL FUCKING SAN 

also amandas immediate reaction "your pretty boy rival?" like. can we talk about the fact that daniel had to have imparted to his wife the very important information that his high school bully/karate rival was like Really Cute and Fucking Hot Actually

 the writers Knew exactly what they were doing and honestly.............. power to them

tkk director voice: and billy was just so cute  

also I was thinking that daniel sounded strangely fond in that first scene, and i wonder if he developed a weird affection for johnny on the grounds that of all of his Karate Rivals johnny was actually the only one who didn’t actively tried to literally kill him

i was actually delightedly surprised with how great the chemistry between them is, like from the get go i am Invested. their rl friendship totally bleeds through and its fantastic

. granted, idiots enemies to lovers friends is my Thing so i am biased  

johnny lawrence: i am down in the dumps, i fucked up my whole life and my sons probably, largely in light of the trauma that the father figure sensei and the philosophy of my karate inflicted on me and all my friends. u know what i should do, as a traumatized, unreliable mess of an adult? teach that same philosophy to some other kids! what could go wrong! 

but really i enjoy the setup of it. i kinda like that i watched it late because, season 1 was johnny setting himself up for failure in a way and it was exciting to watch it all go to shit sjfn

Like. his heart might be in the right place, but theres just.... not a way to teach something like ‘strike hard, no mercy’ and not have it fuck up a kid 

case and point: aisha, miguel and hawk become annoying as all hell over that bullshit in the end of s1, even before shit gets truly fucked up

billys subtle panicked eyes when he sees hawk and miguel fighting dirty in the all valley was SO GOOD especially in parallel with the panic that is so visible in his face in the movie when kreese tells bobby to injure daniel and in the sweep the leg scene 

seen people question wether kreese should have returned and i absolutely think he needed to. johnny needed to realize that cobra kais fundamentals are flawed, at the root, beyond kreese himself being a toxic piece of shit 

also who are we kidding? we are here to see the tkk characters play on new playgrounds!

i get what they're doing abt kreeses backstory, ( also. cobra kai. pq eles caem nas cobras djjs sorry) but did it need to take up that much time? feels like they couldve  done it in half the run time and developed some other stories better 

martin kove has such an evil eye. i love it

love that we get a good follow up to kreese breaks johnnys trophy and tries to CHOKE HIM in the parking lot, which happened in the movie and then....................... was never mentioned again

“the gang is all back together again” aaaa u piece of SHIT 

also. terry silver is definetely appearing ha ha ha PAIN i cant wait

seen ppl say kreese was too much of a cartoon villain like..........................oh......... sweetie........... u dont even Know

interested how johnny will fit into that bc kreese was simping rly hard for johnny here. like i did not expect him to be so adamant to have him with cobra kai ... under his control, sure, but he really wants johnny by his side despite already having control of the dojo and how will terry silver self appointed jon kreeses forever simp going to feel abt that? 

like bitchs dropping by every episode like ‘joooooohnny ..... come bacc to me joooonny......... this ur last warning! for real this time johnny! i wont say it again! watch me ! im leaving johnny! im rly leaving ! im dragging a chair” and johnny is just like. dont let the door hit ya bitch it was so funny pls

and on that subject oof, johnny! doesnt! Know! he doesnt get that side of daniels cobra kai trauma. and i kind of.............. cannot wait for ck 2021 johnny lawrence to meet terry silver like. what a shit show i need a front row seat and popcorn (imagine terry tries some greasy charm and johnny just roundhouse kicks him in the teeth bc he just doest Not Have the Patience for This. glorious)

feels like we, as a society, should acknowledge that cobra kai will never die................ bc their sense of design is just chefs kiss. their name is COBRA KAI. they have sexie sleeveless black gis. theyve sneks. colorful leather jackets with embroided naja insignia, the get ppl thru the aesthetics. evil geniuses

the flashback cuts : masterpiece behavior

the other takes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! of the movie!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! the differente angles!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! of the FIGHT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! THE CLOSE UP ON JOHNNYS FACE AT THE KICK 

that scene of daniel and johnny vibing to 80s music in the car. just. oh my god. the fan wish fullfilment. no thoughts head empty.

the new characters! theyre .... good. but. idk. i really like miguel (save for the annoying phase mid s1 - end s2) and amanda, who is a damn riot and has some functioning braincells, but everyone else is       

like dont get me wrong, i dont hate anyone,its not a jane and rafael from jtv situation,  and i am interested and invested in their arcs, but i wouldnt say i like   Like them, as in, personality wise 

like, sams grappling with ptsd was rly gutting and i enjoyed that plus her slight rage issues, 

which nicely parallel torys rage issues. torys background is all over the place tho so im pretty on the fence abt her so far

robby deserves better in every way, and i like how smart and cunning and surprisingly sweet he is

hawk............... is there i guess,

 demetri is annoying in the best way possible,

 carmen is sweet but. i just feel like her character is blunted to make the johnny relationship easier. like when shes furious with him after miguels injury but then forgives him like an episode later? and then convinces him to fight for the tournament bc she had a karate epiphany off screen even tho she was always against it? meh. feels like with the plot thiccening she was swallowed and now shes like a crutch for johnny mora than anything, which is disappointing.

aisha was cool and im kinda mad she wasnt in s3, especially bc a storyline with her tory and sam was like RIGHT THERE , but also... cant say i was super super fond of her... doesnt feel like we ever spent enough time on her

moon the bi icon, 

overall its a good cast but the main draw for me remains the og cast 

the tory/sam miguel/robby Thing. enjoy how theyre Narrative Foils and i like how their stories were so dramatically entangled but oh god give me a break with the teenage love square for the love of god. if u gonna put us through that at least have the decency to not make it so straight

and honestly some sam/tory        miguel/robby romantic tension would even make more sense. just saying! 

also im not sure how i feel abt the cobra kai: red miyagi do: blue theyre going with since some of daniels most iconic looks in tkk are also red. like it was a color they (johnny and him) sorta shared. i get it, opposite but complementary but idk... a little too fire nation and water tribe for me .

 and like the cobra kai kids are so funny abt it bc their outifts grow progressively more ridiculously coordinated. its like do they group chat every morning before leaving their houses? 

robby still sticks out like that tho. he went thru an athleisure/daniel san tsleeves phase and now hes back in the bandts grunge, but his color scheme doesnt fully blend with the other cobra kais. hmmmm.

LOVED LOVED LOVED both the okinawa episode and the cobra kais easy rider episode just such good good heart aching fun

bobby is an icon. he was in tkk and he is now ck hope appears more and more

 tommy is like the most iconic background character. all his lines, freaking gold then and now. sigh :( 

the framing in the okinawa trip was so good everything was so good

i stand by the fact that kumiko was the love interest daniel had the most chemistry with and shes is overall such a joy to watch, loved to see her again, idola, fashion icon

also tkk ii is good u guys are just mean

also really enjoyed chozens role in the episode, his evolution; i love that they introduced the pressure points (ty lee the blueprint) and! the honk + karate! cousins! absolutely iconic

when kumiko reads mr miyagis letters........ oh my god, my eyes FILLED with tears, it was so heart wrenching :(( tamlyns delivery was so emotional and lovely and its so obvious everyone involved in ck has so much love and respect for pat morita and mr miyagi as character, and i adore that it exists like this electric current through the show

when we were watching i told my sister i thought that ali would be miguels big shot surgeon and ngl i am so disappointed that didnt happen. hire me cobra kai writers

also the johnny ali daniel amanda chemistry? off the charts

AND the sassy retconning of daniel and alis breakup! LMAO ‘I HOPE U DIDNT TELL MR MIYAGI IT WAS MY FAULT’ HFDJJGNKFKSD

i am preeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeetty sure back injuries dont work like that    but oke

daniel and johnny are so good together whenever, like they never actually help the kids or get shit done and end up fighting anyway but its just so much fun when theyre hanging

JOHNNY LAWRENCE AND DANIEL LARUSSO FIGHTING TOGETHER

daniels “plan” on how to get robby to juvie was so stupid. literally were u TRYING to make him hate you. dumbass

parents at those hearing rly brave for ppl that did not do ANYTHING as their kids got involved in a karate gang war until now

“bullshit i heard u were the real bully!” i mightve screeched

this s3 ending was SO DRAMATIC omg

everyone is such a MESS go to THERAPY u unhinged motherfckers

also im sorry but uh. a richass neighborhood in california doesnt have some type of neighborhood watch? the larussos rly dont have any security at all? neighbors wont hear the sound of a damn karate brawl happening next door??? also wasnt tory all like ooo i cant go to juvie, my mom yada yada yet shes always running around town getting into fights even at the rich girls house she was kicked out of school for fighting??   ?  ??    ??        ?                ?    ?          ??                  ?    ? girl??

stop destroying the larussos house, its so pretty :((((

sam finding her center looking at mr miyagis picture...  uwu maybe

robby yelling ‘U ARE WEAAK’@  johnny \as he is easily blocking him is like.... so funny and so sad to me. sweetheart. 

also i know it was meant as ‘oh johnny pushes him and HURTS HIM’ but it just looks like robby runs himself into the lockers and IM SO SORRY I FEEL SO BAD BUT IT WAS SO FUNNY 

i like that he and tory are the cobra kai kids now. we need ppl we care abt there to not revert to a good vs evil schtick, and this is the most engaging it could be... tho it hurts that these kids cant catch a break

ah yes "lets bet some real shit on the result of this teen karate tournament bc that is always a great idea" is BACK

so daniel saves johnny from kreese..... maybe johnny will save him from terry 🧐

and dojos unite ohohoho. lets SEE how that’ll work out 

miguels face of Despair when the ck defectors and the md kids are bickering like 'this is never gonna work' : gold

also. Johnny Lawrence is gonna learn some myiagi-do karate AHAAHSJAKDFH

 ive been waiting for this moment all my lifeeee oh lawrd 

final thoughts! there are def things i hope the writers will improve on the next season, but i am very excited for it either way AND i feel like it has made me enjoy the movies even more and that is a win for a reboot/sequel to me!!

[fourteenacross]

hi its me again. sorry. ive got some oc's for a story that im trying to piece together, but its kinda a mess. turns out i cant write natural dialouge. youre really good at it, and since i havent figured it out by re-reading your stories over and over again, i figured id come to the source, how do you write dialouge that doesnt feel forced or awful? ❤❤-Myah

Don’t worry about it, I love getting messages even if I cam crap at actually responding to them in a timely manner /o\

As for dialogue…gosh, I wish I had an easy answer! Dialogue is my favorite thing to write and it’s the thing that generally comes easiest to me. About half of the stuff I cut when I’m editing is unnecessary dialogue and the reason so many of my things get stretched out to so many words is because I can never make the characters shut up. I like banter, I like jokes, I like people with an easy rapport, which leads to lots of chatting.

The key for me, for fic anyway, is hearing the dialogue in the character’s voice. I don’t know if it’s a skill or a talent or what, but that’s how I know I’ve nailed it. If I can get the character’s voice in my head, hear what I’m writing as if it’s said by the actual actor or in the same cadence as the writer, that’s half the battle. It solves the problem of it sounding realistic and the problem of it sounding like something that particular character would say. 

Getting to that point, though, is a little harder for me to advise because, like I said, it’s either a talent or a skill, but that’s something that I’ve just…always more or less been able to do to some degree. The advice I can give, I guess, is to listen to the way people talk to each other on teevee or movies or whatever. Listen to how you converse with your friends. Do you ever obsess over what you’re going to say to someone in a particular situation and make it up over and over in your head? Break that apart, look at how it’s structured and why you put it that.

The shitheads are easy for me to write because they’re a little younger than me, but they’re here and now. They’re in this time period, living in a place I lived, with a lot of the same references. They’re dumb twenty-two year old boys, and I’ve known a lot of dumb twenty-two year old boys in my time. They’re casual and sarcastic with each other the same way my friends and I are casual and sarcastic with each other. There’s a little bit of code-switching involved–they’re more formal in the classroom and on cases and with the Washingtons, and those are conscious choices that they make, but generally they swear a lot and use slang and pepper their speech with filler words (”um,” “uh,” “ah,” as well as “like,” “I mean,” “basically,” “you know,” etc).

The other big thing that helps, I think, is just knowing your characters inside and out. If you’re in their head and you know their motivation, you start to structure their speech with the background of their intentions, if that makes any sense. Whether they’re cautious or trying to get some information from someone or oblivious to what’s going on or secretly angry at the other person or whatever–that all changes how people say things to each other and that’s a big part of giving life to the language. There are a dozen ways to ask the same question, and some will be perfect and others will sound totally stiff and wrong, even though they’re essentially asking the same thing.

FOR EXAMPLE, let’s look at two things under the cut:

So, here’s a thing based on a conversation in a fic I just posted, a dialogue between two characters:

“Good morning, my dear. I’m shocked that you’re up earlier than usual.”

“I went to the gym.”

“That’s strange, because usually you have trouble getting out of bed to go to work in the morning, but today is the start of our vacation and you got up earlier than you normally would for work.”

“As I said, I was at the gym. I find that if I’m going to go to the gym, I need to go very early or very late so that it doesn’t throw off my schedule.”

“We’re on vacation, though. Do you have plans today that I don’t know about?”

Which, you know, is a perfectly civil and valid conversation for two people with a more formal style of speaking or a less familiar relationship to have with one another. But even though it says exactly the same thing, meaning wise, as the actual dialogue I used, never in a million years would shithead Alex and John have that conversation at ten am on a Saturday in their kitchen, if they would ever have it at all. So instead, we take the same meaning and we shift it to get what I put in the actual story:

“Good morning, starshine. I can’t fucking believe you’re up this early.”

“I went to the gym.”

“You stumble half-asleep into the lab most days, but your first weekend off and you’re up at the asscrack of dawn.”

“I went to the gym. If I’m going to the gym, I’ve either gotta go first thing or last thing. Any other time and it fucks up the whole day.”

“There’s nothing to fuck up, we’re on vacation.”

“It fucks up my sense of time.”

“Vacation. What could you possibly be planning on doing today?”

Which, you know, sounds much more like something these assholes would say to each other, while conveying the exact same meaning.

The other tip I’ll give you is to give certain characters particular verbal tics that they repeat. If you do this, it really helps flesh out the character in the readers’ minds and adds a certain rhythm and tone to their speech that makes it particular to them. For example, in the ghosthunters, each of the characters have very specific names that they call each other. I actually made a chart to keep track of it. For instance, Lafayette sometimes calls GWash “George,” while everyone else only calls him “Washington” or “GWash.” Herc mostly uses people’s last names. John never calls Alex “Ham,” even though all the other student characters (except Burr) tend to do it. Beyond names, John swears a lot and has a hard time expressing his feelings, so anytime he’s saying something emotional, he draws it out and stutters. Lafayette uses a hodge-podge of formal and informal English and occasionally gets thrown off if a word is the same in French and English. John has terrible pick-up lines that come out when he’s tipsy. Alex has a tendency to go on random tangents questioning the literal meaning of idioms he uses. Alex and John have two exchanges that they frequently repeat (”Hey.”/”Hi.” and “I’m/You’re a _____.” / “But You’re/I’m my/your _____.”) Et cetera.

Oh gosh, I hope this makes any sense whatsoever and is at least a little bit helpful. I feel like I’m just rambling at this point. I have a lot of difficulty explaining HOW I do certain things if I don’t have to put a lot of work into them and, to be honest, dialogue is something I personally don’t have to work hard to nail.

So, tl;dr: 1) Try to hear the words in the characters’ voices; 2) Listen to how people around you, in fiction and RL, speak to each other; 3) Know the characters well and take care in choosing words that you think it makes sense for them to use; 4) Give further character to people’s speech by giving them repeated verbal tics.

I hope this helps!