#fck i forgot to add those tags earlier

[variousqueerthings]

sort of a musing on Amanda LaRusso

Amanda was never good at “caring” the way people expected a good little girl to care. She got bored with other peoples problems quickly. 

She was biting too. Never good at pretending. Always got to the point. Realized early on that you were a winner or a loser, and that she hadn’t been born on the winning side. It wasn’t until she started to get older and figured out how to tailor herself to others’ expectations - a bit of wit, a tight dress, a smile to mitigate the sting of her words - that she began to change all that.

It was wrong, anyway. All those people who thought she was cold or whatever. Women were meant to be emotional and empathetic and she wasn’t those things, but she did care. She cared about not fitting in, she cared about making something for herself, she cared about smoothing down her rough edges until they were invisible, unless she wanted to cut you. Sometimes she even cared for whatever boyfriend or girlfriend she kept around for longer than a month, extended her little bubble around them until they burst it and she had to excise them. 

And she cared about Daniel. She hadn’t even wanted to care about Daniel, but he got under your skin in some incalculable way (she’d learn years later just how many peoples skins he’d gotten under, so she could be forgiven for falling into his endearingly unintentional trap). 

She’d started out competitive, thinking about all the ways to win, but she was always practical. They worked better together. Best sales team in the valley. Getting married made sense. He was on the way up and so was she. They’d pull each other up. They were attracted to each other (he was a giver from the beginning - a rare gem amongst men). And she cared about him. That made him practically unique until the kids came along.

Mr Miyagi was an odd, but welcome addition. That was another thing about Daniel. Apart from the family he didn’t bring any baggage with him (she thought back then). Amanda could deal with the fact that his mom and her didn’t like each other too much. Daniel was all hers. Miyagi was unobtrusively present in everything that Daniel did. He grounded Daniel into something less flighty than Amanda suspected he would be if left to his own devices. 

Amanda did the rest. 

Smoothed out some of his rough edges the way she’d smoothed out her own. Best sales team in the valley, best dealership in the valley, a perfect couple. A kid was an expectation too, to cement that picture; one that she felt fine about, because Daniel wasn’t the kinda guy who’d push her into some mothering, “caring” role once the baby was born.

Not that she didn’t care. 

From the moment she saw Sam, she thought: This one might be yours, but I’ll make sure she doesn’t get hurt like me. She’ll learn to smooth out her edges much quicker, be the kind of girl who doesn’t get left out. The kind of girl who doesn’t make the mistake of trying to be too much herself. She’ll be fine. 

I won’t let anyone hurt her.

#is this kinda aromantic amanda? #what I'm saying is that daniel might have A Type and that type has at some point fantasized about squashing him like a bug #I have Opinions about some of amanda's Opinions esp in season 1 - she cares about status - she hints she was an outsider #she doesn't recognise the red flags of sam's friends or kyler #she doesn't have a lot of patience for daniel's various crises (to some extent understandable but also I'm not sure she always listens #when what he's saying is the truth.. but vice versa daniel's truth is often obfuscated so... two way street right) #she doesn't appear to have any friends -- much like daniel #unlike daniel she ALSO doesn't seem to have family? #once she realises that *this is serious* it's like a facade is dropped in terms of her going over to hit kreese #amanda larusso #ck #cobra kai #fck i forgot to add those tags earlier #anyway - point being her concern is with appearances a lot of the time #but she's got an acerbic shortness to her as well #I hc she's wearing a respectability mask under which is a much more feral girl #also I want to see much more amanda and sam -- sam is a daddy's girl 100% but amanda's brand of parenting is interesting to dig into