#the worst thing a story can be

[spaciebabie]

okay i keep thinking abt this specific arc in two that i think is gonna end up being my favorite arc n i keep thinking of kat specifically

she goes thru SO MUCH in this arc, and throughout it all she wears a brave face as horrible situation after horrible situation is thrown at her until she's barely taking care of herself and in one of the few moments of her down time she finally looks at herself in the mirror.

and she see's her hair. now idk how other ppl feel abt their curly hair, but for ppl like me (biracial and/or black) our hair means a LOT to us n im thinkin abt this moment where she realizes she has let her hair get to a point beyond repair. its too long to manage in her current situation, its matted, tangled, and she hasn't washed it in weeks and she realizes she can't take care of it anymore.

and its such a small thing right? hair grows back? but its not a small thing. she worked for YEARS to attain the length, ta get it looking the way she wanted it to and this is her breaking point. where, she has had almost EVERYTHING taken from her, and NOW-

she has ta take one more thing away from herself.

and suddenly everything comes crashing down on her. the sleepless nights, the mere scrapes w/death. how is this fair? the one thing she is able ta control in her life. and she has ta cut it off.

can you have brainrot for your own story?? auduahduahd short hair kat is gonna ruin me

[laurapetrie]

She was a princess in a snow globe, a cream puff in fabric form.

Gigi Griffis, The Empress

[novelconcepts]

Every time I see someone complain about the wealth of monologues in Midnight Mass, I just want to shake them and whisper, “It is a direct reference to Catholic homilies. It is. It is a direct reflection of the heart of a Catholic sermon.” Every character is granted the ability, regardless of what they believe, to offer the audience their own sermon. Science. Experience with abuse or addiction or bigotry. Hopes for the future. Forgiveness. Every character is given the chance to reflect back to the audience, via a homily, the heart of what’s going on in their world.

It is intentional, y’all.

[aaronstveit]

read in 2022

i’m starting this super late but howdy!! here is my reading thread for 2022 (inspired by a few mutuals <3) you can find my goodreads here and my askbox is always open if you have any questions about these books!

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie (★★★★★)

Crooked House by Agatha Christie (★★★★☆)

A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder by Holly Jackson (★★★☆☆)

I Am Not Your Final Girl by Claire C. Holland (★★★☆☆)

Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng (★★★★★)

Final Girls by Riley Sager (★☆☆☆☆)

A Study in Charlotte by Brittany Cavallaro (★★★★★)

The Last of August by Brittany Cavallaro (★★★★☆)

The Case For Jamie by Brittany Cavallaro (★★★★☆)

Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston (★★★★★)

A Question of Holmes by Brittany Cavallaro (★★★★★)

Under Lock & Skeleton Key by Gigi Pandian (★★☆☆☆)

The Nation Must Awake: My Witness to the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921 by Mary E. Jones Parrish

Cherish Farrah by Bethany C. Morrow (★★★★☆)

Portrait of a Thief by Grace D. Li (★★★★★)

A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf (★★★★☆)

You’ll Be the Death of Me by Karen M. McManus (★★★☆☆)

The Cousins by Karen M. McManus (★★★☆☆)

The Hobbit, or There and Back Again by J.R.R. Tolkien (★★★★★)

When No One Is Watching by Alyssa Cole (★★★★☆)

Heartstopper Volume One by Alice Oseman (★★★★☆)

Heartstopper Volume Two by Alice Oseman (★★★★☆)

The Night Shift by Alex Finlay (★★★☆☆)

Heartstopper Volume Three by Alice Oseman (★★★★☆)

To Break a Covenant by Alison Ames (★★★★☆)

The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien (★★★★☆)

Heartstopper Volume Four by Alice Oseman (★★★★★)

Dial A for Aunties by Jesse Q. Sutanto (★★★★★)

Four Aunties and a Wedding by Jesse Q. Sutanto (★★★★☆)

The Girls Are Never Gone by Sarah Glenn Marsh (★★★☆☆)

Cover Story by Susan Rigetti (★★★★☆)

On the Jellicoe Road by Melina Marchetta (★★★★☆)

Sadie by Courtney Summers (★★★★☆)

Book Lovers by Emily Henry (★★★★★)

Queen of the Tiles by Hanna Alkaf (★★★★☆)

A Thousand Mornings by Mary Oliver (★★★★☆)

My Darkest Dearest by Kayla Cottingham (★★★☆☆)

The Two Towers by J.R.R. Tolkien (★★★★☆)

Sawkill Girls by Claire Legrand (★★★★★)

Love From A to Z by S.K. Ali (★★★★★)

Our Violent Ends by Chloe Gong (★★★★★)

Some Kind of Happiness by Claire Legrand (★★★★☆)

The Secret of the Old Clock by Carolyn Keene* (★★★★☆)

The Cartographers by Peng Shepherd (★★★★☆)

The Agathas by Kathleen Glasgow and Liz Lawson (★★★★☆)

Rules for Vanishing by Kate Alice Marshall (★★★★☆)

Good Girl, Bad Blood by Holly Jackson (★★★★☆)

The Return of the King by J.R.R. Tolkien (★★★★★)

Peril at End House by Agatha Christie (★★★★☆)

Lord Edgware Dies by Agatha Christie (★★★☆☆)

The Bad Beginning by Lemony Snicket (★★★★☆)

The Reptile Room by Lemony Snicket (★★★★☆)

The Wide Window by Lemony Snicket (★★★☆☆)

The Miserable Mill by Lemony Snicket (★★★☆☆)

The Austere Academy by Lemony Snicket (★★★★☆)

The Ersatz Elevator by Lemony Snicket (★★★★☆)

The Vile Village by Lemony Snicket (★★★★☆)

The Hostile Hospital by Lemony Snicket (★★★★☆)

The Carnivorous Carnival by Lemony Snicket (★★★★☆)

The Slippery Slope by Lemony Snicket (★★★★☆)

The Grim Grotto by Lemony Snicket (★★★★☆)

The Penultimate Peril by Lemony Snicket (★★★★☆)

Ophelia After All by Racquel Marie (★★★★★)

The End by Lemony Snicket (★★★★☆)

The Final Girl Support Group by Grady Hendrix (★☆☆☆☆)

The Woman in the Library by Sulari Gentill (★★★★☆)

Murder at the Vicarage by Agatha Christie (★★★★☆)

The Obsession by Jesse Q. Sutanto (★★★★☆)

Dog Songs by Mary Oliver (★★★★★)

Finlay Donovan Is Killing It by Elle Cosimano (★★★☆☆)

Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier (★★★★★)

56 Days by Catherine Ryan Howard (★★★★☆)

The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater* (★★★★★)

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn (★★★★☆)

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll (★★★★☆)

If Not, Winter: Fragments of Sappho by Sappho (translated by Anne Carson) (★★★★★)

The Dream Thieves by Maggie Stiefvater* (★★★★★)

House of Hollow by Krystal Sutherland (★★★★☆)

Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There by Lewis Carroll (★★★★☆)

The Gathering Dark: An Anthology of Folk Horror by assorted authors (★★★★☆)

The Weight of Blood by Tiffany D. Jackson (★★★★☆)

This Wicked Fate by Kalynn Bayron (★★★☆☆)

I’m Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy (★★★★★)

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury (★★★★☆)

Blue Lily, Lily Blue by Maggie Stiefvater* (★★★★★)

Working on a Song: The Lyrics of HADESTOWN by Anaïs Mitchell (★★★★★)

They Never Learn by Layne Fargo (★★★☆☆)

Tweet Cute by Emma Lord (★★★★☆)

Greywaren by Maggie Stiefvater (★★★★★)

Slasher Girls & Monster Boys by assorted authors (★★★☆☆)

Hangsaman by Shirley Jackson (★★★★☆)

The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie (★★★★☆)

The Raven King by Maggie Stiefvater* (★★★★★)

The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater (★★★★★)

Poirot Investigates by Agatha Christie (★★★☆☆)

Clap When You Land by Elizabeth Acevedo (★★★★☆)

Luck of the Titanic by Stacey Lee (★★★☆☆)

Orpheus Girl by Brynne Rebele-Henry (★★★★☆)

I’m the Girl by Courtney Summers (★★★★☆)

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins* (★★★★★)

Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins* (★★★★★)

Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins* (★★★★★)

Little Women by Louisa May Alcott (★★★★★)

Five Survive by Holly Jackson (★★★☆☆)

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak (★★★★★)

The Silmarillion by J.R.R. Tolkien

The Body in the Library by Agatha Christie (★★★☆☆)

A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens (★★★★☆)

Stardust by Neil Gaiman (★★★★☆)

Opal by Maggie Stiefvater* (★★★★★)

Note: * marks a reread.

[traitorestraven]

oh no wait. wait wait wait.

so mjf has the like. Daddy Cycle. where he finds an older man to cozy up to, gets himself in their good graces long enough to further his career, and then fights them. With each iteration, his new Older Mentor Figure gets more and more aware of how terrible he is: cody was oblivious, jericho thought he was controllable, punk saw through him from the start and tried to make him better, and now....

Regal. Who goes into this knowing exactly who MJF is, with the express purpose of making MJF worse. And MJF, who was prepared to actually become better in order to win Regal's approval, is now instead going to have someone who is actively giving him attention, not in spite of, but because of his worst tendencies. Which makes me wonder! if this is going to be the cycle where, instead of turning on his mentor, MJF has a mentor turn on him.

[winepresswrath]

If he were Chang Ping, he wouldn’t have cared how prominent or powerful the LanlingJin Sect was, or how much glory the road ahead offered him, and he wouldn’t have let the matter go. Instead, he would’ve went to the dungeons on his own, cut Xue Yang up so that he was nothing more than a puddle of flesh on the ground, and summoned his soul back to repeat the process to the point that he regretted ever being born in this world. But, not everyone was like him, preferring to perish together with his enemy. Some of the Chang Clan’s people were still alive. Chang Ping was also still young, single, and childless, having just took his first few steps on the path of cultivation. No matter if he was threatened with the lives of his remaining family members or his own future and cultivation, he had to think carefully.

Mo Xiang Tong Xiu. “Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation 魔道祖师

I love Wei Wuxian and his vengeance appetites so much. There’s this absolutely delightful gap between his initial rage and his eventual willingness to let it go. Like for somewhere between three days and three months after you wrong him, you’re beyond fucked if he catches you but after that there’s a steadily increasing chance he’ll forget about you altogether.

[xay2jang]

sometimes i think abt the only times shinichi feels his voice is heard is when hes using someones elses voice (upsetting) but then i remember that he usually just sits right behind the guy he drugged (hilarious). sometimes he even just stands right in front w his back facing the room. detective conan is objectively the funniest show ever

[madbalalaika]

SNStober 2021, Day 8. Inner Demons

Вижу душу и демона страшного, Взглядом красным в тебя он глядит, А внутри той души, в угол загнанный, Одинокий ребенок сидит.

Впрок обличий тот демон имеет, За бесчувствием прячет свой лик, И когда гнев и страх одолеют, Одиночество – худший из них.

If you like my art, consider donating a coin or two: here's my Ko-fi ♥

[doodlebloo]

Eventually I will make a post about how yes some people are too attached to c!beeduo but a lot of us are just bummed that they were established to have been really important in each other's stories but now the characters don't interact or mention each other to the extent that it literally doesn't make much sense in canon. Not as in "why didn't c!Tubbo revive c!Ranboo" but as in "these characters were once one of each other's most important people and their stories are about to end with absolutely zero closure at all for no reason and that is incredibly narratively unsatisfying".

I'm not asking for them to be like "omg we're married and were always a super healthy partnership!" I just think it would be nice if they spoke again even once. And I especially think it sucks that there isn't any canonical reason for them to not interact again even once unless you make the stretch that they hate each other because c!Tubbo read c!Ranboo's memory books and c!Ranboo is mad that c!Tubbo didn't revive him, but that's really not even been implied, it's just a headcanon.

(Making this unrebloggable in hopes that people actually read my tags on this post.)

[fuckspn]

i really can’t get over the plan for the band kansas to appear in the supernatural finale. like obviously it’s hilarious because it means this show killed an entire band canonically but also it’s just. such a clear signal that the writers/producers were viewing the finale as “saying goodbye to the tv show supernatural” and not “wrapping up the story we’ve been telling,” because the only connection between kansas and the main characters of supernatural is a meta one (the use of “carry on wayward son” in the recaps before each season finale, and the girls in 10x05 singing it in their musical). in-universe, the band that’s most meaningful to the characters and that they bond over is led zeppelin, not kansas; dean and sam getting to heaven and finding the band kansas waiting to play a show for them would seem completely out of left field to them, because to them kansas is just a random band that wrote a song sam doesn’t even like. “everyone’s in heaven for a kansas concert at the roadhouse!” is the supernatural finale you come up with if you’re not thinking about the characters or the plot, but rather making a Grand Finale that requires minimal storytelling effort. like i would bet actual money the conversation/thought process behind the finale went something like this:

“supernatural is finally coming to an end, what should we do for the finale?”

“how about a huge reunion with all the beloved characters we’ve seen over the years? we could set it in heaven so we could bring back all the dead characters, maybe even set it in the roadhouse since we know fans loved it. maybe we could even book kansas to play carry on wayward son one last time.”

“perfect! but wait, how do sam and dean get to heaven?”

“idk, dean used to say he couldn’t live a normal life and sam used to want to quit hunting, so... dean gets killed on a hunt and sam dies of old age?”

“yeah, sure, fuck it. it’s all just groundwork to get to the big payoff of the heaven kansas concert anyway.”

whereas if they’d been thinking about where the characters were at story-wise by the end of season 15, it should have been more like:

“okay, so they’ve defeated chuck and finally gotten the free will they’ve spent years fighting for. what do they do with that?”

“well, sam was really messed up about losing eileen again, so his first order of business should be reuniting with her.”

“definitely. what about dean, though? he just watched cas die, and that always hits him hard.”

“you’re right, and he found out that cas loved him immediately beforehand. that’s gotta be fucking with his head.”

“okay, so we’ve gotta address the cas situation in some way. probably easiest just to bring him back to life, right?”

“yeah, we can figure out exactly how we want to play it later, but we can’t really wrap up dean’s storyline in 40 minutes if cas stays dead. hey, do you think they keep hunting now that chuck’s not forcing them to?”

and so on.

[bylertruther]

so crazy to think there was a time in this fandom where saying "idk guys i think the character that gets called multiple gay slurs, bullied specifically for that reason, and whose own mother suggests he's gay, and who other people say his disappearance was also for that reason might, like... idk... actually be gay :/" would get you ridiculed and talked down at and now we're here talking about how will is in love with another male main character, his bestest friend and scene partner that he's now spent two entire seasons with, and had multiple mike-will specific subplots with, and who he's literally in a love triangle with, and whose art for him is real actual merch that you can buy in 39483 different formats. like. 😳 fucking FINALLY

[subtotechno]

i wish i could unfollow tommy but i cant because of plot reasons

[abundanceofnots]

Selfless Acts of the Illegal Variety

Chapter 1: Mickey Needs a Green Card Rating: E Word Count: 5.1k Summary: The last thing Ian Gallagher thought he’d be at 19 is married—and to a grumpy bouncer called Mickey who’s barely said ten words to him since they first met, no less. But when a rare chance at love knocks on your door, you don’t just send the cute guy in dire need of a green card back to his homophobic father, right?

Read the first chapter of Selfless Acts of the Illegal Variety here.

[emletish-fish]

Johnny and Daniel and thematic journeys. Daniel vs the monster and Johnny vs the self.

This rant was inspired by a discussion with @arabianflowers ​ on this post.

TV is a visual story-telling method, so lots of hugs/smiles/closeness in one dojo vs lots of solo practice in another dojo is a quick visual short-hand for telling the audience something about the environments/priorities within those dojos. Cobra Kai is trying to tell us something about these two men by framing it this way.

Season 4 makes it clear that these two need to blend their approach and have a lot to learn from each other.  Johnny teaches with more physicality and Daniel teaches with more philosophy and the kids need both. 

Short answer; I think this plays into the red-oni/blue-oni,  hot and cold, red and blue thing they have going on with Johnny and Daniel.  Johnny being a warmer sensei vs Daniel attemtping to be coolly logical and philosophical  ties into this red/blue theme. 

(I do not at all think this is deliberate or intentional on the part of the characters at all.  Can you imagine Johnny’s reaction to being told he has the cuddliest dojo and he’s the snuggly sensei?)

Longer answer -

This actually ties into something thematic in their overall arcs so far.

Daniel is on a daniel vs external foe (and evaluating how to fight that foe. eg examining his connection to and understanding of miyagi-do, what he is willing to sacrifice to win, price of victory, nature of evil, what is justice etc etc. All good moral and juicy questions that the show is in the process of answering.)

Johnny however is on an internal quest. It’s Johnny vs Johnny all the way down.  Can he overcome his toxic masculinity, overcome his past, and learn from his mistakes? Can he build successful relationships despite past failure. Can he atone? Can he have an improved relationship with his son? Can he break the cycle and be a better teacher/male role model than what he had as a youth?

Daniel’s story is about overcoming a seemingly insurmountable obstacle. Johnny’s story is by nature more interpersonal, so that is why there is probably a greater focus on his interpersonal relationships as a result.

Caveat - it’s much easier to analyse stories when they’ve been completed and you see where all the loose threads end up. Cobra Kai is still in progress, so predictions are all just based on my best guesses. 

So yeah, it’s hard to predict where this is going to end up - but two thematic journeys are taking clear shapes.

Johnny and Daniel are mirror characters and foils for each other but they are on very different thematic journeys.

Daniel vs the Monster -

Jee, for someone who idolises a pacifist, Daniel does love to provoke and escalate fights, doesn’t he?

But that is kind of the point.

From season 1, Daniel’s driving action has been geared towards trying to defeat external enemies. First Johnny, then Kreese and now we are entering a new and probably final Daniel Vs Terry arc.

Terry is the ultimate big bad for Daniel.

Terry is the monster lurking in the traumatic shadows of all the things Daniel has suppressed.  Terry and the experience of everything that went down in Cobra Kai III are behind Daniel’s trust issues and his less noble actions. Terry is the undertow that pulls him towards escalating conflict.

In season 1, Daniel sees an instant enemy in Johnny NOT when he comes into the dealership. (There, faced with the man himself, Daniel can be magnimous and generous and tactful and kind).  No - the second that Daniel decides that Johnny is his ENEMY is when he sees the Cobra Kai sign.

Daniel is really fighting the snake - but it leads him to seeing enemies in people like Johnny and Chozen, when the real monster is just lurking off to the side.

And it’s so interesting that Chozen and Johnny and Daniel are all going to work together in season 5. I’m so curious as to how this dynamic will play out. 

The two people who seemed so bad and terrible to young Daniel will actually be his greatest allies and assets if he can learn to work with them.  We know that as soon as Daniel stops seeing them as enemies and starts seeing them as people, he can be the open and generous person he is in his heart. He enjoys their company and has fun with him. (We don’t get much carefree daniel).  And as of season 4, he’s acknowledged that there are things he can learn from both of them.

Daniel sees that Johnny and Chozen were messed up kids who were subjected to toxic idealogy when they were younger, and not inherently bad people or monsters.

he’s not a monster. he’s just a guy with a lot of demons.

He is much more forgiving of them as individuals - but also much more strident about his mission in ridding the valley of Cobra Kai. 

 But how much is Daniel willing to sacrifice to win and how far will this take him away from the Miyagi principles?

We see Daniel really lose sight of Miyagi principles in season 4 when he proceeds to do the opposite of what Mr Miyagi would do - all to beat  Cobra Kai and Terry Silver. 

(And I am predicting that season 5 will take us further down this rabbit hole.)

but this has been a building theme since season 1. Daniel drives all the escalation in season 1 and 2.  Aside from the dick graffiti, Johnny doesn’t instigate any of the drama and is much more reactive to Daniel.

Bizarrely, Johnny strike-first Lawrence is also more likely to be the one who reaches for de-escalation. eg the season 2 dojo confrontation and the season 4 battle both have Johnny attempt to diffuse the situation without violence.  He’s unsuccessful, because this is not his strong suit, but it is so interesting that the attempt is there.

Anyway, a pattern is forming.

In season 1 Daniel tries to fight Johnny indirectly through various means and close his dojo.

in season 2 he tries to out-karate him and open his own dojo to show everyone a better way.

(teaching karate is almost secondary to the goal of destroying cobra kai though ‘showing them a better way’, which is why Daniel’s storyline is more geared to  that, and has more philosophy etc.  The focus isn’t on the interpersonal relationships, but on daniel as a teacher.)

In season 3, Johnny is no longer the enemy and new villian has taken centre stage. Kreese is running the dojo, and Daniel tries to fight kreese indirectly and get the dojo shut down through various means.

Season 4, Daniel tries to fight Terry and Kreese by out karate-ing them at the AVT,.

I’m predicting season 5 will have Daniel once more trying to fight Terry through various means, rather than direct karate confrontations.  But in each season, the stakes get higher and the villians get stronger/badder/more evil, and Daniel has to make more compromises with himself and his values to confront them and the toll it takes on his family and his life gets bigger. 

Daniel is driven to fight the snake, often against his better judgement.

Daniel’s story is all about exploring how to be a pacifist in a violent world with violent foes, and what is the true meaning of justice and honour and mercy?

Daniel fighting an external foe means that he has his eyes on that goal and he loses sight of the bigger picture. Which is why he can use children to further his cause but justify it to himself as being for their own good.

Because Cobra Kai is terrible and Daniel will save them from it by using what saved him.

Miyagi-do.

and Miygai-do is a solo practice for self-betterment, it’s for defense only, it’s good.

and cobra kai is bad. 

so the ends justify the means.

I mean, that’s clearly where we are at right now.  Daniel is going to be obsessed with taking down Terry next season, and I’m just wondering where that obsession will take him.

I am so fascinated by both Daniel and Sam’s black and white thinking and how it affects their choices. Sam has been able to grow through hers because all the kids are wiser than the adults, and I hope Daniel will follow her footsteps.  I am hopeful that through the course of fighting Cobra Kai we will see Daniel eventually reconnect with himself and rediscover a more complete understanding of Miyagi-do.

Daniel’s story is about our connection with our own values and how this is tested by external circumstances.

Daniel’s story is driven by his need to defeat an evil, and that is why we get such a focus on his devastated face at the end of season 4. Because evil won, and he lost and now a snake is going to coil all around the valley and a new generation of vulnerable young people are going to be indoctrinated with poison. 

But how does Johnny react to this same loss?

They are on the same team with the same goals at that point, after all.

While Daniel is devastated by this horrendous defeat and what it means for the big picture (Cobra Kais all over the valley and generation lost to a toxic idealogy that he knows destroys lives, Mr Miyagi’s legacy trampled into dust)

...  But Johnny’s son is looking sad and lost even after his dojo winning, so you know, Johnny’s much more pre-occupied with that.  Plus he’s had a falling out with Miguel, so that’s weighing on him too.

His biggest stake in the AVT are all mostly personal; a knee-jerk desire to get back at Kreese, and prove that he’s equal to Daniel and get Robby out of the crazy dojo are all personal motivations.

He DGAF about the All Valley or the nuances of karate philosophies in a general sense, he only really cares what is going on with the people close to him.

Because Johnny’s story is about connections with people.

Johnny vs Himself

Johnny, at the start of the series, is a very isolated character, but it seems to be largely self-inflicted.  He pushes people away. He’s estranged from his son. He has no immediate close bonds with other people.

He’s a trauma-ridden mess. an alcoholic. a loser.

Johnny struggles to genuinely connect with people because he hauls so much baggage into every interaction.  But through the simple, surprising state of being NEEDED by Miguel, Johnny begins to change.

(I will also argue that Johnny, even though he didn’t realise it at the time,  needed Miguel just as much as Miguel needed him  - and that’s a big part of why their relationship has always been on more equal footing than Robby and Daniel’s). 

Miguel needs something very simple from Johnny - karate instruction. And karate is something that Johnny feels confident in giving. He is able to give Miguel this piece of himself and it goes well.  He isn’t rejected. he feels like he’s helping the kid. and it feels kinda nice, to have someone to help and a reason to get up in the morning.  Teaching Miguel becomes a big priority for him. 

and once again, karate is kind of secondary.

Daniel teaches karate to fight Cobra Kai.

But Johnny teaches karate to build connections.

In Johnny’s lessons, we get a much bigger focus on the interpersonal relationships between everyone in the dojo, but especially on Johnny’s role as a teacher and how he develops this relationship with his students.

We see him initially copy kreese exactly, but very quickly he learn to soften the drill-sergent nasty stuff and he reaches out them as fellow losers, and take pride in their achievements and stand up for them at all valley committees, and it’s all part of his journey towards being a better sensei/better mentor than the one he had.

He clearly wants to be better than kreese.

And there’s the rub, and the tension.

Because try as Johnny might,  he has so many toxic and embedded patterns from his time with Kreese - and sometimes he is not even aware of them until it is too late.

Johnny’s biggest struggles mostly boil down to him trying to break his toxic cycles, move past his inter-generational trauma, and be better that any of his father figures.

And when he succeeds, it’s great. (Back half of season 2, Johnny kicking kreese to the curb because he could see what a negative effect the man had on the kids. the fact that he could do for the kids what he couldn’t do for himself and was finally able to stand up to his abuser because he thought they were being mistreated.  Johnny fully breaking with his indoctrination and fumbling to try and show his students a better way, more merciful way  - that was peak Johnny for me. A real high point in his journey.)

And when he fails, it’s tragic.  (The downward spirals, the season 4 insecurity leading to all manner of poor life choices, and the way his inability to overcome his trauma affects the younger generation, especially Robby and Miguel.  These boys both want him, and Johnny wants to rise to the moment and meet both their needs but he often fails and then hates himself for failing and withdraws. but that doesn’t do anything to help either boy.)

This is why Johnny’s biggest foe isn’t an external enemy.

Johnny’s biggest enemy is himself.

His inner kreese, the voice that whispers ‘you lost, you’re worthless, you’re nothing’. The insecurity and toxic masculinity and the need to be tough and the aversion to showing an vulnerability, the hyper-vigilance to threats and the overwhelming need to  over-compensate for any weaknesses are all things Johnny learned from Kreese alongside Strike Hard- Strike First - No Mercy. (A philosophy that no doubt has had an irreparably negative effect on Johnny’s life).

Whilst Mr Miyagi gifted Daniel a path to inner peace, what Johnny received from his Sensei was inner turmoil. He needs to constantly fight his inner demons and he doesn’t always win. And listening to his inner kreese causes some of his biggest mistakes with the kids.

But Johnny’s mistakes as a sensei can’t hold as candle to his mistakes as a father.

Robby and Johnny’s desire to connect better with his son has been driving the action in Johnny’s story since we first met the kid back in season 1.  I would say most of Johnny’s narrative drive is centred around him trying to improve himself and build better relationships rather than fighting external foes.  

Final thoughts:

so yeah, because Daniel’s story is all about how to fight and enemy bigger than yourself and how to stay peaceful in a world of violence and how to find balance  - his teachings are much more philosophical to mirror that sort of journey.

But because Johnny’s story is all about moving past inner demons/past experiences to build meaningful connections with others, his dojo has a much heavier emphasis on those interpersonal relationships and more found family vibes - because that is the sort of story that is going on there.  

It also leads to this wonderful dictomy, because Daniel is teaching more pacifist teachings whilst engaging in fighting  external foes. He’s got a much more active and aggressive character journey.  Daniel is much more rigid in his approach to most things, and his attitude to his students is no exception. He needs them to meet the Miyagi ideal because Daniel is fighting a war, and Miyagi- method is the weapon he is sure will win. 

(Oh Daniel, what a wild ride this season will be for you!)

Whilst Johnny teaches assertiveness, he’s actually far more passive in his personal life and has to work up the courage to reach out to people.  He’s more likely to question his own actions and second guess himself and change his approach depending on the circumstances.  He’ll respond if provoked, but we very rarely see him instigate fights (and will only really do so if he has some personal stake.  like, the only example I can think of is beating up the sleazy dude who was trash-talking Carmen back in season 2 and the bikers who insulted Tommy). He’s less invested in the karate war as a battle of ideas and much more focus on the people.

Season 5 has set up Johnny taking a break from the karate scene and peacing out from the drama so he can focus on Robby and Miguel, whilst Daniel goes down the fighting-terry rabbit hole.

And I’m excited to see where the rabbit hole goes.

[heniareth]

I wish the marketing industry a very please die

[enlighten3d]

that familiar feeling of being so close to the end of something you really love and not wanting to continue because that means that it will end but you keep going because you love this thing so much and you want to see it through to the end.