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authenticmiya · 3 years

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Alone - Johnny Lawrence x Reader

Summary - Based on the song Alone by Heart, reader doesn’t know how to cope with Johnny putting all of his time into the dojo, and not into his marriage.

Words - 1.7k

Warnings - angst

The sparkles on your wedding ring could just about be seen as the moon lit up the apartment. Letting out a shaky yet frustrated sigh, the clock was still ticking, except this time, two hours had gone by. Johnny wasn't back, when was he ever back?

As it neared 1am, the debate of going to bed was playing on your mind, but there was no way you were going to sleep without talking to your husband, if he was that anymore.

"Come on Johnny, pick up." You sighed, trying not only his telephone at work but the stupid cell phone that you should've known he couldn't answer.

But not being able to use technology wasn't an excuse. It wasn't hard to keep a promise, in fact it wasn't hard to just not make the promise in the beginning. A knock on the door pulled you straight from your wandering thoughts. Looking through the peep-hole, you realised it was Miguel.

"Seriously kid." You groaned before opening the door. You loved him like a son, you really did, but you were not in the mood to socialise with anyone.

"Hi Mrs Lawrence, Sensei told me to tell you-" He began but you cut him off.

"Don't worry Miguel, this is the fourth time you've had to tell me that he's gotta do all of the paperwork, I get it. Thank-you." The sadness in your tone made Miguel feel bad.

"He's in the Dojo Mrs Lawrence, it's not my place to say but instead of waiting around for him to come home, why don't you just go down there?" Miguel suggested.

"I appreciate that kid, but I don't wanna start a fight." You admitted to the teenage boy, and you couldn't quite believe it because he hardly knew love himself.

"Fight for this love, you're badass." He chuckled before heading back over to his place. 1am and Miguel had only just left the dojo, so who knows when Johnny will be home. After the brief conversation, the time just went by extremely slow, but that didn't stop you from staying awake.

"I’m not having another night end with me being alone." You muttered, and it was as if god answered your prayers, because the keys jangled in the front door, and in stepped Johnny.

"Jesus Christ why are you sat in the dark babe?" Johnny laughed as he flipped the switch to the lights on.

"Till the moment I saw you them years ago, I had always got by on my own." You told him, twiddling your fingers as you sat on the couch. Johnny looked at you strangely, as he grabbed a beer from the refrigerator.

"I never really cared until I met you Johnny. Nobody cared for me, and I never cared for anybody. I spent years upon years, dreaming I'd marry a guy like you, and I got him in the end." There was no way you could cry in front of him.

"Listen if this is about me and the dojo, I really wanna spare that fight." Johnny sighed as he stood a distance away from you.

"Sometimes I reminisce on the good times we had. Before Larusso, before the alcohol, before this goddamn dojo Johnny." Now the words were just falling from your mouth.

"Don't mention that name under this roof again." He suddenly snapped, and now you had hit the nerve.

"How do I get you alone Johnny? Because I lost you the moment that asshole came back into your life. Don't try and sugarcoat it, please save me the bullshit. You're all I ever wanted and all I've ever had. Ever since Cobra Kai reopened, I don't see you. I wake up, you're not there, I go to sleep and you're still not there." It took a lot of courage to talk to him without getting mad, for nearly every argument that was made, was because of your attitude.

"You will always have me Y/N, but I have a business to run, I'm protecting these kids." Johnny swigged on his drink, also trying not to give you a nasty reaction.

"They're relying on me, they have nothing but karate to help them with their confidence, you would know if you were there." He suddenly came out with when you didn't reply.

"I'm relying on you too Johnny, you know your wife?" You began.

"And here she goes with the whole emotional card. Whatever." He rolled his eyes and turned towards the bedroom.

"'No I refuse to let you do this to me again. We need to talk about this." You grabbed his bicep.

"Every-time we try and talk, a certain somebody turns it into something that could've been avoided." Johnny said sarcastically.

"Yeah and you shrug it off like it's nothing." You pinched the bridge of your nose.

"That's bullshit and you know it Y/N, I don't need to be constantly reminded of shit that you get insecure about." Oh he had finally cracked into his frustrated and angry mode.

"So me missing you is being insecure? Sorry for committing a crime jackass." You crossed your arms over your chest.

"Here she is, little miss childish, once again." Johnny slammed the door to your shared bedroom, now leaving you to decide whether to follow after him.

"Oh for fuck sake." You grumbled, opening the door. He was getting some clothes ready for what you presumed was for after he had showered.

"We have neighbours, you don't need to slam the door so loud." You finally spoke up again.

"I didn't know you could slam a door quietly." Johnny didn't look at you.

"What's going on with you? Please just talk to me Johnny." You felt like begging for a life time. You just wanted your husband back, even if it was just the extra kiss in the morning. But he wasn't talking to you.

"This is getting ridiculous Y/N." He groaned.

"No what's getting ridiculous is that you gradually built a dojo, but gradually pushed me to the side and I'm sorry if you think I'm childish, and that I start a fight with you for no reason. I don't mean to fight with you, we're meant to fight together for crying out loud." Johnny was listening to you but he wasn't responding.

"I never asked for this, I don't deserve this." Johnny stood up, grabbing a towel from the drawers.

"And you think I do? When was the last time you actually checked if I was okay?" Johnny didn't know what to say, he knew he hadn't been the best of husbands.

"Miguel stopped by today, actually ever since the dojo opened he's come by quiet frequently, telling me the usual that you're doing paperwork." You began.

"Also told me I was a badass who needed to fight for this love, but it takes two to fight, and right now, it's pretty clear that I'm the only one even fending for this marriage." A single tear dropped down your cheek but you refused to let him see it.

"I'll leave you to shower." You left the bedroom and decided that maybe tonight you should just keep your space from him. Deciding that sitting around doing nothing wasn't an option, you just decided to take the trash out. It wasn't really a normal thing to do in the earliest of hours in the morning, but it was something.

Johnny felt his heart stop when he heard the front door shut, something telling him that you were going to leave for the night and just not come back to him.

"Shit." He scrambled off the bed, completely throwing the thought of a shower out of his head.

"Y/N? Babe?" He called out, but he didn't know you were only just outside.

"Shit!" He shouted, grabbing his keys, ready to drive all lengths of the country just to bring you back. As he opened the front door, you were just heading back in.

"Please, just don't leave. We can talk this through, you can't leave me Y/N, I need you. God dammit I'm an asshole, I deserved everything you said to me just please come inside and we can talk it out, no arguing, no nothing." Johnny had his hands firmly on your shoulders.

"Why the hell would I leave you? I took the trash out." You told him, he glanced around back to the trash-can noticing how it was now empty, and had a huge sigh of relief.

"And besides don't you think I'd have been gone a long time ago if an argument was the reason we ever broke up?" You questioned him.

"Yeah I suppose you're right, you put up with a lot of shit huh?" Johnny took in your appearance for the first time, in such a long time.

The way your hair was just in a messy bun, the fact you were in one of his shirts and a pair of sweats. The Y/N he had fallen in love with, had been waiting for the affection she deserved and he simply hadn't realised how long she had gone without it.

"I'm sorry." He began.

"This isn't gonna happen again. You're not just gonna apologise and I'll melt into you. Johnny you've gotta mean it, you've seriously gotta mean it." You pleaded.

"Shall we order-" You cut him off.

"It's literally 2am and all I want right now, is to relax. We're both hotheaded and we need to be able to talk about things without getting riled up with each-other." You could tell he was listening to you very intently and without hesitation he lifted you up in a bridal fashioned way.

"This isn't what I expected but I'm not complaining." You chuckled as he shut the door with his foot. The two of you settled down on the bed together.

"I love you." You told him, the argument slowly floating out of the window.

"I don't think you have any idea how much I love you." He sighed, pressing a firm, passionate kiss to your lips.

"We'll be okay won't we Y/N?" Johnny sighed, draping an arm across your waist.

"We'll be okay Johnny."

#cobra kai imagine #Johnny Lawrence x reader #Johnny Lawrence imagine #cobra Kai #eli moskowitz imagine #Johnny Lawrence #hawk #the karate kid

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boundless11 · 2 years

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The writing with Tory tends to run into a lot of problems, probably because they needed to flesh her out after first creating her to be a female opponent for Sam to fight. For instance, with the fact that she's her family's caretaker, I wonder how she's able in season 2 to hold down any sort of job and at the same time have free time to attend Valley Fest, hang out with Aisha, take karate lessons, have a relationship with Miguel, attend Moon's party, and have time to premeditate an assault on Sam at school.

Then there's the fact that at a time when her mother is seriously ill and she might have to take over custody of Brandon very soon, she considers feuding with Sam over a boy and winning a karate tournament to be bigger priorities.

Hell, I would argue Tory isn't redeemed at all in season 4 because we don't get any indication that she regrets starting the school fight, or that she even acknowledges she was wrong for doing so (not to mention her continuing to antagonize Sam after Amanda signs off on her returning to school). Because let's face it, she should've been made to make a public apology for her actions in front of the whole school because Sam's not the only person who was hurt in the school brawl: Miguel ended up in the hospital, Robby ended up in juvie, and all the other Cobra Kai and Miyagi-Do kids got hit with suspensions that will now be on their permanent records and will likely affect their ability to get into certain colleges.

I feel with Tory, the writers have gone down the easy route in order for the fans to root for her: they've given her the sob story of an ill mother, a young brother, who she cares for and working multiple jobs.

I completely agree with you: how does the girl even juggle all of this and take part in karate, have a boyfriend, attend a party and cause all these crimes? If Tory really was bothered about her home life, then she wouldn't take part in Cobra Kai's criminal activities and at least sort her attitude out and try to hold down multiple jobs. She hasn't shown any remorse over her actions-actions, which caused her boyfriend paralysis, another student sent to juvie, suspension for multiple students, an assault, which left scars on her victim and her own expulsion. Yet fans love her! I don't think she's much of a role model or even badass. At least Hawk showed remorse and made amends. Tory didn't make any amends. In fact, I think she loved Sam's frustration over Amanda helping her and used that to her advantage. Instead, she should've taken the high road and not let Sam's insults (who had every right to treat Tory after all the crap she'd pulled) get to her, thus showing the audience that she's taking Amanda's help seriously.

#tory with a y #tory nichols #cobra kai #sam larusso #samantha larusso #peyton list #mary mouser #cobra kai cast #ask

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your-ace-cousin-clover · 3 years

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If You're Looking For Something To Read, Consider Reading One of My Fics -

[I'm not above self promoting lol. Fics listed under each ship]

{All of these are complete fics}

Destiel

Years Down The Line [T]

After the events of Ep 10x01 Black, Anne Marie moves forward in life carrying the hurt in her heart from Dean's casually inflicted words. Throughout the years, she thinks of the ways she'll react if she ever meets Dean again. But, a quaint afternoon at the bar might bring her the opportunity and some revelations.

Je Pense À Toi [T]

4 times Castiel ponders on the relationship between Dean and him in different alternate universes and one time he acts on his own relationship.

In Another Universe [G]

When Dean Winchester gets drunk some nights and sprawls on the hood of his Baby, he tells Castiel stories about them in a different place.

You Are Trying Not To Tell Him That You Love Him [T]

The one where instead of a civil war in Heaven - Castiel is facing up against Raphael in an election, Dean's trying not be lonely and HunterCorp has to endorse someone.

*You’re in a car with a beautiful boy, /and you’re trying not to tell him that you love him* - Richard Siken

Lawrusso

Our Common Goal Was To End The World [T]

He bends down and grabs the other man’s hair not so gently to try to get to look at him. “What didja mean-” he slurs, it’s very hard to remain coherent or even sort out his mess of thoughts - but, he tries “-mean, about a League? You part of some punk crime group or something?”

The other’s eye go while and his writhing body becomes very still. He looks for something in Johnny’s face and softly whispers - a complete 180 to his earlier monologue “You didn’t get the letter? We paid for extra shipping and handling. Fuck- uhhh, so you know how Daniel-?”

Daniel Fucking Larusso.

“Right-right, so, some of these people came together to form a League to prevent Daniel from getting to karate and you opening Cobra Kai is preventing us from our goal. So, we sent you a letter trying to be nice. But, if you haven’t received the letter, I must warn you that six other people will be coming for you - I’m not sure who they are but, I think some of them might be serious karate people. And they’re not gonna be easier than me.”

---

The Scott Pilgrim vs the World Au which I'm still not sure that the world needs, but here it is.

Tomgreg

New York State of Mind Series:

Not To Me. Not If It's You. [T]

7 years later. A distance over 300 miles.

And yet, Tom’s back in New York for the weekend when he bumps into Shiv.

Canon-divergent from Kendall’s conference meeting.

Or sometimes, it’s just hard to outrun the past or the scars that it leaves behind.

The Worm Princess's Lullaby [T]

One day, Shiv wakes up to an empty and cold bed. And it goes on from there.

Talented Mr Greg [T]

Shiv’s marrying a fucking mad man, he thinks. Handsome though.

- * -

Cousin Greg thinks over things and takes things into his hands.

Other Tomgreg Works :

But You're A Carhop! [T]

"Greg smiles as he twirls around in his roller skates. Today, they’re wearing a short skirt that way above their knees and it swishes as they speedily skate away to the diner.

Knowing that the next 20 minutes would see him being lonely, he simply cranks up the radio in the empty drive-in place. Bruce Springsteen sings about his brother dying and being disillusioned with America and for once, Tom understand the whole “fuck the rich” sentiment when he’s out of the circle himself."

(or the one where Tom is lonely and Greg is a carhop at the local diner)

#Lol #self promte #fanfiction #let me know what you think about my writing #Destiel #Supernatural #Tomgreg #Succession #Succession HBO #Lawrusso #Cobra Kai #TKK #AO3 #AO3 all the way baby

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fakehappy96 · 3 years

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I started watching Cobra Kai and I’m exactly 6 minutes into the first episode and here are my thoughts so far. Disclaimer: I don’t have any intention of attacking anyone here these are my 2:33am thoughts and observations

Main character is portrayed as this asshole with clearly lots of issues about losing this championship, taking to lots of damaging habits to get which is fair honestly. If his whole youth beforehand was fighting then yeah tbh that would be a kicker too.

But what I don’t understand is why the FUCK is he still holding this grudge like 30+ years and a midlife crisis later? He would have moved the fuck on by then, surely. A single YOUTH championship lost is NOT something that would be taken this far through his life. Especially when he’s clearly won one before (the trophy in his closet). He’s a grown ass man upset about a kids championship and his rival from back then. Ofc he’ll be upset about that for a while but 30 years? No. Sony get off your own dick. Majority of people don’t work like that. Maybe he has a mental affliction, idk.

Rival has also gone into the car business, and maybe has his own dealership or smth. I get this is to show that the rival is more successful and to kick down the main character more, but you’d think he would have moved cities or made an active effort to put distance between them instead of literally living in the past for all this time. His sensei didn’t counsel him or anything like? Just left him to it afterwards? Did no one TRY console him? I mean if that’s the case then yeah okay that makes sense; his sensei was an asshole by getting him to kick the rival in his injury and I��m glad that got called out (wait or did it was it just an illegal move he did idk I’ve not done karate for years).

Also odds on his sensei showing up later on and being like “I was too hard on you i saw potential and pushed you” and the neighbour kid also being the happy go lucky unwitting partner in crime and MC hates him but then warms up to him. Like the kid and grandpa from Up. Very common and kinda overused mechanic. Also bet his partner in the show in the future is one of those bad ass chicks who gets him back into karate or smth and starts his arc of getting back into it so he can defeat the rival

more importantly tho HE’S A GODDAMN ELECTRICIAN. AND HE DIDN’T TURN THE POWER OFF BEFORE FUCKING WITH THE MAINS?

After thought while venting: is this show his redemption arc +30 years into his life? Surely this would have happened earlier like 30 years is a long fkn time there’s no way he lived like that for so long and did NOTHING to improve himself. No.

#personal #vent #long post #it’s 2am and I hate this #I’m so tired #spoilers #cobra kai #I mean it’s 6 minutes in is it really a spoiler

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yourmandevine · 3 years

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Some stuff that made me happy in 2020, in no particular order

God send you no greater loss. It’s something my grandmother said a lot — a bit of highly Irish Catholic wisdom intended to remind you, warmly but sharply, that whatever you’re currently suffering through isn’t all that bad compared to what lots of other people are dealing with. That it probably isn’t too much to complain about, in the grand scheme of things. That you should, instead, be grateful for what you’ve got, big and small and everything in between.

God sent a great many people a great many unfathomable losses this year, and as hard as it felt at times, our family wasn’t among them; we’re lucky, in the big picture. In the past, people have recommended I try writing those reasons down, to give myself a list of stuff to be thankful for, for the times it’s tough to summon up the gratitude. I figured the end of the year was as good a time as any to make that list, to highlight the stuff that helped me get through this year — the reasons big, small, and in between.

So: here goes.

Peanut butter and jelly

I haven’t counted how many peanut butter and jelly sandwiches I’ve eaten since March 11, which is good, because that would be an absurd thing to do, and a sure sign that I have succumbed to a very specific kind of madness. It’s also good, though, because I would undoubtedly be ashamed by the number; the figure would be titanic, like the unsinkable ship of same name, or the iceberg that sunk it.

Or, at least, I would be ashamed under normal circumstances. This fuckin’ year required whatever flotation device you could find, and you know what I found in the fridge and cupboard? A couple of slices of bread, some strawberry jam, and some goddamn Skippy.

Need a weird mid-morning “brunch” after not having breakfast because you went right from waking up to remote school with the 6-year-old? Crank up a PB&J with that third cup of coffee. Need to pack something in the diaper bag to feed everyone while you’re out at the playground for the afternoon? Stack ‘em up, son. Need a late snack after working the overnight shift filing weird bubble playoff columns? Three letters, one ampersand, one love.

I need to eat better in 2021. But I kind of needed to eat sort of like shit to get through 2020, and time and again, when your man needed it most, PB&J was there.

Sunday night Zoom sessions with college friends

I know that most of us started something like this back in March; I’m not sure how many have stuck with it. I hope the answer is “a lot,” because honestly, knowing that I’m going to end the week by seeing a few friends — some here in Brooklyn but mostly beyond our reach for safety’s sake, some who’ve moved away — has felt like a stabilizing agent on more than a few occasions. It’s important, and no small blessing, to have people in your life who really know you, weird messy ugly bits and all, and in front of whom you can let everything go.

That gallery view’s provided a place to vent, to seethe, to laugh, to cry, and to try to find some semblance of center before heading back into another week. I’m grateful for it, and for the people in those little boxes. Except for the time they reminded me that, when I was 18, I was pretty sure I was a Pacey, and they were all extremely confident I was a Dawson. They were right, but still: a bitter pill to swallow, then and now.

Olivia calling herself “Dr. Bloody”

She took out her little toy doctor kit and just turned into a cackling villain.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Dan Devine (@yourmandevine)

Deeply disconcerting, yes, but also adorable.

All Fantasy Everything

What got me in the door was the conceit: three very funny stand-up comedians (Ian Karmel, David Gborie, Sean Jordan), often with a very funny guest but sometimes without, pick some topic or another and engage in a fantasy draft of their favorite aspects or representations of that topic. (It is, crucially, a serpentine draft. Now what is that? That’s a great question.) Some favorite examples: Mikes; Words That You Think Make You Sound Smart, vols. 1 and 2; Things You Yell After You Dunk on Someone; Fictional Athletes; Crimes We’d Like to Commit. Yeah. It’s that kind of podcast.

What kept me around was the friendship. Listen to an episode and it becomes really clear really quickly just how much the three hosts love each other, how much fun they have being around each other and making one another laugh. The warmth radiates, just pours out of the speakers; in a year where I sorely needed some good vibes, I appreciated my regular check-ins with the Good Vibes Gang to just ... unclench for an hour and a half or so.

Drinking beer

OK, I’ll admit: This doesn’t sound great for me. It’s true, though. I really like beer. (We brewed one in our kitchen, which I realize is something of a “bearded guy in Brooklyn” cliche, but here we are. It was exciting to complete a project, and it tasted OK-ish.) At some points this year, it didn’t feel like there wasn’t much to look forward to, and sometimes drinking some High Lifes or Narragansett tall boys — with my wife in our living room, with friends on the computer, whatever — helped take the edge off a shitty day/week/month/year. I look forward to being able to do that outside with people again.

The Good Place

I am sure some very smart cultural critics and political thinkers and social revolutionaries have forwarded compelling arguments for why this show is Bad, Actually, because that seems to be more or less true about most things, whether because said thing is Actually Bad or because the economics of the attention economy on the internet functionally necessitate the composition and publication of pretty much every position on pretty much every issue, and especially ones that present a counterargument for why you shouldn’t like the thing you like, and might be kind of a piece of shit for liking it. But I liked this half-hour comedy about the way the universe might be put together, why we should try to take better care of each other, and how doing so might be a pretty great way to take better care of ourselves.

Andrew let me write about it a little bit for a big project we did before the series finale aired, which was really nice of him. I found myself thinking about this part a lot this year:

I also thought a lot about Peeps Chili, but that happens every year.

Taking pictures of my dog

Check out this flumpy goddamn champion:

“Lugar is a good boy” is the main takeaway here. They don’t all have to be complicated.

Schitt’s Creek

I know we’re not alone in this, but we inhaled this show this year. A half-hour comedy about people being laid low, learning how to deal with who they actually are, and finding some grace and community and opportunities for growth kind of hit the spot, I guess.

One of the most wholesale enjoyable ensemble comedy casts I can remember; Catherine O’Hara was already in Cooperstown, but what she made with Moira Rose only polishes her plaque. I’ll never be able to describe with any specificity the thing Chris Elliott does, but I know it has made me laugh since I was a child too young to understand the Letterman bits or see Cabin Boy in the theater, and it’s probably going to make me laugh until I am dead.

I love that people who, for years, never got to see themselves or people like them on screen got to see David Rose on screen and maybe recognize themselves a little bit. The idea that seeing the David/Patrick relationship might make them maybe feel a little more at home, a little safer and more whole, makes me happy. Sad, about the before, but happy, about the now and the what comes next.

Past that, I just love how what was ostensibly a family-and-friends production for a Canadian channel just got absolutely everything right—the tone, the look, the sound, the theme song, the cast, the jokes, my goodness, the jokes—and before long, the rest of the world just got it. Like catching a fastball square on the barrel. Something the show clearly knew a little bit about.

Finding new outdoor places it was safe to go

Necessity is the mother of invention, and the need to give the kids a place to be that wasn’t unnecessarily dangerous but also wasn’t inside our two-bedroom apartment led us to do more exploring than we had before. Shirley Chisholm State Park is great. Canarsie Pier was a fun place to spend a Sunday morning; so’s Canarsie Playground. If we got there early enough or made our peace with some rain, the beaches at Jacob Riis Park and Fort Tilden were pretty rad this summer. I lived in Staten Island from ages 8 through 18, and during breaks throughout college, and don’t think I ever hiked in High Rock Park — that’s dumb, because it was nice!

Even if all those little excursions did was kill a little time and reduce the overall stress level of the four humans stuck in our four walls, that’s not nothing. Some days this year, it was everything.

Cobra Kai

I know I’m late here; I didn’t rush to seek it out because I don’t consider myself a huge fan of The Karate Kid, or at least not a big enough fan to sign up for YouTube’s premium service. I checked it out when it came to Netflix, though, and I honestly can’t believe how much I enjoyed this show. Give me “dumb, but with heart” every day of the week.

I believe in Miguel Diaz; I believe in Johnny Lawrence; I believe I will be firing up Season 3 next month, and perhaps drinking some Coors Banquets in its honor. (I cannot, however, believe how the “get him a body bag” thing came back around, but that’s neither here nor there.)

Closing unread tabs

I’m a serial hoarder of links, and I am bad at finishing all of them. I’ve tried to get into Pocket and Instapaper, but I’ve never been able to turn that sort of workflow — open link, save to third-party service, go back to third-party service later to read, then delete from there — into something that felt instinctual, natural, or habitual. So: lots of tabs. Like, lots of tabs.

This was a dicier proposition than usual in 2020, because cutting my work week in half to be able to more effectively coparent two kids who didn’t have school or day care for most of the year meant less time to read things.

I tried to do my best to keep up with the important stuff for work, and to read at least some stuff about how other parents were dealing with their anxiety/anger/depression/frustration at having to be on 24/7 and work, and to stay abreast of (at least some of) what was happening in the world. Sometimes, though, I would wake up and realize I’d been holding onto blog posts about Really Interesting Rotation Decisions on the 11th-Seeded Team in the East or whatever for literally nine months, and I would go against my nature and just hit the eject button on a 25-deep window, and something amazing would happen: I wouldn’t get fired for being shitty at my job. I would move on with my day, and I would feel about 10 pounds lighter.

I still keep too much stuff open. (As we speak, I’ve got three different Chrome windows open on two different laptops. I choose not to count the total tabs.) But I do so knowing that, if it gets too heavy, I can experience the momentary joy of surrendering to the inevitability that I can’t catch everything. In that moment, I feel OK with my decay.

Reading writers I wasn’t familiar with before

Two in particular stand out in my mind: Nekias Duncan, now of BasketballNews.com, who does excellent film breakdowns and statistical analysis, and Katie Heindl, who writes basketball stuff of all types all over the place, and strings sentences together in a way that scratches an itch inside my brain. I’m grateful I got more chances to read them this year, I look forward to bigger and better things for both of them, and I’m hopeful that, if things calm down and our schedules go back to something approximating normalcy, I’ll have more bandwidth to hunt out more new voices in the year ahead.

The time I ambushed my wife as she was trying to break down and put away the girls’ space tent

Pretty good.

Siobhan learning to ride a bicycle (with training wheels, but still)

The moment passed pretty quickly; Not Exactly A Mechanic over here can’t get the training wheels to reliably work right without either loosening them too much or tightening them so much that she can’t pedal it. In that first moment, though, and for as long as it lasted, it was really great to see her get excited about doing something new, big kid shit, for the first time.

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She was proud. I was proud of her. And then we went to a playground for a few hours. Pretty good day.

Tyler Tynes roasting me

Tyler did some incredible work this year — The Cam Chronicles is getting deserved praise as one of 2020′s best podcasts, and his reporting on the Movement for Black Lives was exemplary. It’s hard to top this, though:

You know what the messed up part is? I was excited to tell him what I was doing, just because I knew the reaction would be so violent. Like a body rejecting a transplant. So lucky to have such a dear, dear friend.

PUP

I’m late on everything, so I didn’t start listening to PUP until the spring of 2019, but I haven’t really stopped since. This year has been too sedentary too often; this band is too kinetic to allow me to stay there.

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“Bloody Mary Kate and Ashley Kate” is never more than about 20 minutes away from returning to the front of my mind. I would fucking love for it to be safe enough to watch these guys live at some point, and I am absolutely going to take Steve up on his offer.

Someone sending me a shirt based on a joke I tweeted

First:

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Then:

I’m not sure you should be rewarding my behavior, SnoCoPrintShop, but I appreciate it all the same.

Which reminds me:

Family dinner/family movie night

My wife works in Manhattan and commutes back on the train, and we've tried to prioritize getting the girls to bed early since they were little, so that doesn’t leave much of a window between when she gets home and they go in the tub for us all to connect; before everything shut down, we almost never really ate together. We’re still not great about it, but for a while now we’ve carved out Saturday as family dinner night, where we sit down to eat and talk about our “up” from the day — something that happened that made us feel good or happy, or something we’re looking forward to. (We used to talk about our “down,” too, but that kind of seemed like overkill. Why try to focus on more bad shit right now, you know?)

Then we settle in for a movie, with who gets to pick rotating each week. It’s mostly been Pixar, which has been great but also has its drawbacks; after she caught me crying during one of them (maybe the Bing-Bong scene in Inside Out? or Miguel singing to Grandma Coco?), Siobhan straight up told me, “You need to get yourself together, man.” We just watched My Neighbor Totoro, too, which they loved, so we’re probably going to try some more Miyazaki soon. It’s a really simple thing, but it’s one we rarely made time for before, and it’s been really nice to manufacture something positive that we can share and look forward to together.

Sometimes looking like a shiftless drifter

No shade to anyone who felt strongly about getting a lineup or whatever, but I haven’t really felt like going to the barbershop was worth the risk, and I continue to refuse to believe that my wife can actually pull off the fade she’s long wanted to give me. (It is also possible that she just means she’s intending to run my fade, and that I will before long wind up cold-cocked and slumped by my bride of nine years.) So I’ve just kind of been growing out my hair like it was when I was single, and sometimes been letting my beard get kind of out of control too, and, well, I sort of like looking a little bit like a Wildling, it turns out.

I have since trimmed things up a little. It didn’t go over well with my youngest. Oh, well. I’ll try to do better next time.

My wife and daughter singing the Pixies

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We don’t know all the words to too many lullabies, so we sing the ones we do know the words to. This will probably come back to bite us in the years ahead. For now, though: Pretty good.

Doughboys’ Tournament of Chompions: Munch Madness: Mac Attack

I can’t believe how invested I became in Nick Wiger and Mike Mitchell’s quest to determine the best menu item at McDonald’s in a 64-seed tournament that spawned hours and hours of delightfully funny audio featuring all-time home-run guests like Jon Gabrus and Nicole Byer, who gleefully feed into the often warm, sometimes antagonistic, always entertaining chemistry between the two hosts. I have also never found myself wanting to go to McDonald’s more in my entire life. I have hit the drive-thru a couple of times since, and the boys are right: The McDonald’s fountain Coke does just hit different.

Sound Only

I’ve lost track of whether or not a 38-year-old is considered a millennial, but I’m quite confident that I’m not exactly plugged into “the millennial lifestyle” as my teammates Justin Charity and Micah Peters discuss it on their podcast, which relaunched this summer. Doesn’t matter, though, because I love hearing Charity and Micah talk to each other even if I don’t know what they’re talking about.

Their conversation about Dave Chappelle was great. After listening to their Travis Scott episode, I felt like I kind of understood who he is and why he occupies the space he does in pop culture now. I had no idea how they were going to get me to give a shit about set photos from The Batman, but this they not only got me there, but wended their way toward blaming 50 Cent for needing to know who Groot is to have a conversation on the internet, which is something for which Abraham Lincoln did not die. The show is good, it's getting better, it’s fun to hear them talk their shit, and Charity’s regular bellowing of “I, TOO, AM AMERICA” has made me smile for four straight months.

Siobhan’s letters and notes

She’s in first grade now, and she’s taken to communicating her feelings through the written word. A lot.

I won’t pretend that I loved all of these in the moment. I can only get so upset, though, when she’s already writing with such a clear voice. (And trying to use proper punctuation. (And drawing little cartoons to drive the point home.)

Palm Springs

I’m having a hard time remembering too many specifics about it right now, which probably means it’d be a good thing to rewatch over the holidays. But, as I’m sure many people noted many months before we got around to watching it, a comedy about living the same day over and over again, and about trying to figure out how to make your life mean something when everything seems meaningless, scratched a pretty particular, and particularly important, itch this year. It could’ve been twice as long, and I would’ve eaten up every second of Andy Samberg and Cristin Miloti together.

I’m pretty sure I cried, although this year, that doesn’t necessarily mean much. Also, put Conner O’Malley in more things.

Joining our union’s bargaining committee

I won’t say too much about this, but I will say that becoming an active participant in the process of a labor union negotiating its first contract with management has been an extremely educational experience. It’s pushed me to have conversations, sometimes difficult ones, about our priorities as a staff and a company. It's helped me get closer with the other past and present members of the BC, and has led me to start developing relationships with members of our staff that I otherwise might not have had much of an opportunity to get to know.

The organizing work takes time, effort, and energy, but trying to do what I can to help take better care of my colleagues has been well worth all of that. Here’s hoping that in 2021 we can reach a deal that helps make our workplace even better, stronger, and more equitable for all of us.

Publishing a story about Stevie Nicks’ Fajita Roundup

I swear this is true: After I accepted my offer to work at The Ringer, but before I started, I told a friend that one thing I was excited about was that you had the chance to work on offbeat stuff here, in both the “kind of weird” and “not about the NBA” senses. That, I thought, might maybe open the door to me getting to write a story about a Saturday Night Live sketch I saw when I was a teenager about Stevie Nicks from Fleetwod Mac running a cheap Tex-Mex restaurant in Sedona, Arizona — a sketch that I wasn’t sure anyone else remembered, but that was stuck in my head forever.

That story ran on May 26.

A lot of people seemed to like it.

Accomplishing this goal was, as dumb as this might sound, a highlight of my year, and, honestly, a highlight of my career. I’d like to do some more stuff like this next year, time permitting; we’ll see. Whether or not I do, I got to do this. I’ll always have that.

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curiousdamage · 4 years

Text

Drabble post!

# 22: “This isn’t goodbye.”

For @missviolethunter Sorry it took so long!

Fandom: Cobra Kai- Ten Minutes

Pairing: Robby/Soapy

Warning: Very LaRusso negative. Robby is feeling a way about how Daniel treated him in the last episode. This ficlet is part of a future chapter.

Robby looked down at Sophie’s fingers intertwined with his, then back out at the ocean waves. It had been six months since the fight at West Valley, six months since Miguel had gone over that rail. Six months since life as he knew it had ended.

In those six months, he’d changed, really changed, not just the superficial changes he’d made while working for Mr. LaRusso. Then he’d just changed from wanting to please his friends to wanting to please Mr. LaRusso. That Daniel was a better person than Trey and Cruz was the only reason he’d replaced stealing and selling Molly for hard work, karate, and trying to do the right thing.

Yes, doing the right thing was better than what he had been doing to survive and he hadn’t gone back to that when his mom had taken off with Rick or whatever his name was. Though, he wasn’t sure how much of that was that he wanted to be a better person or that he was afraid of losing Daniel’s approval.

Pastor Bobby and even his Dad had told him that ultimately it was he that decided not to do that, not Daniel instructing him not to, but he hadn’t admitted to them that the reason he’d been so desperate to keep Daniel’s approval was that his hatred and anger for Johnny made it fed his own. It was easier to blame Johnny for Miguel’s behavior at the All Valley than admit that it probably had more to do with the fact that he had been hitting on Sam at that party, when Daniel was reiterating that Cobra Kai was a cheaters nearly daily.

He’d only seen his former Sensei and mentor once in the last six months, when Daniel had shown up at his first hearing to say that yes, he had taught Robby karate but what he had done to Miguel wasn’t the self-defense discipline Miyagi Do taught.

Whatever. He’d always known that their relationship had been built on Daniel’s midlife crisis, his teenage rebellion, and their mutual hatred for Johnny, but it still stung to hear Daniel disavow him like that. As though his hard work and all that he'd done meant nothing because he was a Lawrence and therefore, irredeemable.

In a moment, he'd lost everything. Broken, beaten, and alone, he'd ran, not knowing what else to do. Away from the life he'd built but as he was learning, to the life he needed.

It was just as well that life didn't include the LaRusso, he was finding it very hard to hold on to any of his own resentment for his father as the villains in Daniel's life were become heroes in his.

Mr. Jimmy had stood up for him in court, not by denying his criminal past as the first lawyer Sid had hired tried to do, but contrasting it to the changes he'd made over the last year to show that putting him back in juvenile detention would only make him a statistic whereas releasing to Johnny and having him do community service and seek counseling would help him become a better person. He was sure that it had only flown because Miguel had been given a positive prognosis, but it was still more than anyone else had done for him before.

Pastor Bobby had been awesome, helping him find his dad that first day, going to every court appearance with Johnny and him, visiting him every day that one awful week he'd spent in juvenile detention, even working with the court to set up an acceptable community service program, getting him into his church's private school since he couldn’t go back to West Valley, and finding a decent counselor that Johnny could afford.

And his Dad. His Dad had been awesome in the past few months. He’d stopped drinking, gotten into AA, and had managed to be there for both he and Miguel without making either of them feel neglected or that they were being pitted against each other. He was sure that hadn’t been easy. He’d even helped Shannon when she’d gotten out of rehab with no place to live.

Then there was Sophie. She’d been by his side from his first day of community service when Pastor Brown had led him over to her and told her to show him how to work in the food pantry.

“Sure. We have food and we give it to people who don’t. It’s pretty much that simple,” she smiled.

“Yeah, right,” he’d scoffed. He and Shannon had gone to a few food banks over the years and it was never that easy. It was a long, drawn-out, humiliating process.

“Well, I mean, we do have some guidelines on how much food they get depending on the size of their family, but otherwise, that’s it,” she shrugged. “Dad says it’s hard enough to ask for help without having to prove just how badly you need it,” she replied.

He'd been struck by how friendly and genuinely nice she'd been to the people who came in, keeping up a steady stream of chatter as they let them through the warehouse, picking out food. Not to mention it had kept him from having to talk which was fine with him.

She never brought up the fight unless he did first and she never made him feel like criminal, or worse, over it. She’d been by his side as much as the adults had. She was the first friend he’d had in a long time who hadn’t wanted something from him. Trey and Cruz had wanted a partner in crime, Demetri had wanted protection at first, his North Hills friends had wanted ease access to pills, and Sam had wanted a rebound guy. Whether she’d chosen him due to proximity of living in her house and the time at the dojo, or because he would be the best revenge on Miguel, he didn’t know. He was, however, certain she hadn’t liked him just for him, himself. She’d never tried to talk to him about anything more serious than last names, not even after his mom took off then came back only to go to rehab. It was all about distracting her from wanting Miguel. He knew that now. Maybe he wasn’t being fair, maybe he didn’t have the whole story but that’s how it felt to him.

He looked at Sophie again. He liked her. The truth was that he’d been crazy about her for months, but she was his only friend and he been scared to lose that if she didn’t like him that way. Besides, even if he believed what his dad said, that he didn’t have to keep punishing himself for what happened by making himself miserable, there was a very real chance that the state of California was going to hand out a very real punishment. It wasn’t fair to her to start a relationship knowing there was a chance he was going to Juvenile Detention until he was twenty-one.

Tomorrow was the day. His last court hearing. The day the judge would decide if he’d shown ‘enough commitment to improving himself’ to be allowed to stay on probation or if he’d have to be locked up until he was old enough to drink. He knew what he’d choose if he was in the judge’s shoes but hopefully, he was more lenient.

He glanced back at the waves. The sun was slipping over the horizon. He sighed and squeezed her hand.

“Come on, Soapy. I better get you back so I can get home on time. Tonight’s probably the worst possible night for me to miss my curfew.”

He stood and pulled her to her feet. The urge to kiss her, just once before he spent his teenage years locked away, was strong but he just couldn’t. Instead, he let go of her hands and picked up the soda bottles they’d had earlier, depositing them in a recycling bin as they made their way back to Johnny’s motorcycle.

“Cold?” He asked, noticing her rubbing her arms.

“A little. I don’t think I planned well for this outing,” she admitted.

“Here, take my jacket,” he offered, slipping it off his shoulders.

“Then you’ll be cold,” she protested.

“Nah, I’ll be fine. But if you’re worried, you can always hold on to me a little tighter,” he smirked.

“I’m sure that will help,” she laughed, rolling her eyes as she put the jacket on and reached out for the helmet he was holding.

“Worth a shot,” he shrugged.

Maybe it was wishful thinking or just his imagination, but she was holding him tighter than usual as they wound their way out of the hills and zoomed towards her East valley home.

It seemed all too soon to Sophie as Robby stopped the bike by her curb. She hadn’t wanted the day to come to an end either.

“Here," she said, offering the jacket back as she climbed of the motorcycle.

"You keep it," he deflected. "It looks better on you anyway." And that he wouldn't be needing it after the next day went unspoken. They stood in awkward silence for a moment, neither wanting to leave the other.

"Well, I guess this is it," he said finally.

She nodded, then suddenly threw her arms around his neck, hugging him tightly. After a second of shock, he returned the hug, pressing her against him as he breathed in the minty scent of her shampoo.

“I'm scared Soapy" he admitted softly.

"I know. I've been praying for you and I know it will be okay. It has to be. You'll be back at school by third hour," she replied. "This isn't goodbye. It can't be. I refuse to believe that. You have to refuse to believe it too," she pulled away and looked into his eyes. “Third hour, okay?"

He smiled, sadly, "Third hour." He wished he could have her unwavering faith on the subject, but he knew guys like him didn't catch the good breaks. “By..”

“This isn’t goodbye,” she insisted, putting her hand over his mouth. “See you later.”

“See you later,” he smiled. He watched her going into the house before starting the bike again.

This isn’t goodbye.

#Cobra Kai #fluff/angst prompt #Robby #Soapy #ten minutes

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