School Spirits, Season 2 Episode 4 "a Walk-in To Remember"

the problem with making axel and zara too overpowered (OP) in part 2 of cobra kai.

going into part 2 my biggest worry was that they were going to make axel and zara too OP- like never losing a fight in the tournament, and unfortunately that’s exactly what happened.

the issue with making them too OP is that it messes with the balance of our existing characters. when you introduce new characters and have them win every fight without losing not even one it cheapens the tournament and it also screws over our existing characters.

axel and zara could have been strong, shown as threatening without the need to make them bulldoze throughout all of their matches.

by never letting them lose, it sets up absolute annoying and ridiculous discourse like this:

‘it doesn’t make sense for this person to beat this person’

‘they were nerfed’

‘they only won because of plot armour’

and let’s be honest. the ‘plot armour’ discourse is fucking stupid. every character in the show has plot to some extent. if they didn’t, they wouldn’t have made it this far in the show. but also, why would they have 2 characters who were introduced in part 2 of the last season win over sam, miguel and robby who have been here since season 1 and tory who has been here since season 2. that literally wouldn’t make any sense.

moving on, if our existing characters had lost to the new characters that wouldn’t been fine. like that is not the issue here. the issue is that axel and zara completely dominated the tournament. it should have been balanced.

axel and zara should have been shown to be beatable by actually losing matches in the tournament. and if the writers didn’t want them losing matches, the least they could’ve down was allow them to take hits in their matches. here’s how:

1. zara vs another competitor in different dojo (like tiger strike or redentores) in an early round OR vs tory or sam | let zara lose a match to one of them but come back stronger later in the tournament, showing she can adapt easy from a loss.

2. axel vs competitor | have axel lose a match against the competitor in a very close match, only after giving the person he is fighting against a really tough time, pushing his competitor to his limits.

3. injures and exhaustion playing a role here | show them both struggling with fatigue, and having minor injuries, proving that they aren’t fucking invincible and the tournament is tough for everyone involved.

but instead, we got axel and zara just bulldozing their way through the tournament like it was nothing. the big brawl too. in the big brawl, no one landed a hit on axel. zara beat tory in the opening fight with cobra kai vs iron dragons and in the big brawl tory only managed to land one kick on zara before zara regained control. it’s sooo frustrating that they were made out to be so untouchable and invincible.

what makes this worse is learning that choreography was cut that actually showed them both taking hits. i’ve posted this on my blog here a bit ago but there was choreo cut in which tory was getting the upper hand on zara but that didn’t make the cut.

zara was also supposed to take hits in the semi finals against maria. this comes from the woman who plays maria (jewels) in an interview on youtube.

and axel was also meant to take hits from kwon in the big brawl. this also came from an interview with brandon who plays kwon.

like.. that’s still not ideal but it’s at least better than making them untouchable.

this has been sitting in my drafts for a while now and i’m posting this ahead of part 3 since that drops in a few days, also the fact that we know someone is gonna be beating axel and zara in the sekai taikai.

i can’t believe i have to sit through ‘axel/zara was nerfed’ and ‘it doesn’t make sense for zara/axel to loose to..’ ‘… beating axel/zara is unrealistic’

like dude cobra kai was never a realistic show in the first place, don’t piss me off. ‘in reality this character would win’ no shit dude. like that argument is so stupid and irrelevant. like thank you so much for pointing out the obvious ??

as if those people who say this aren’t insufferable enough they’re gonna be even more insufferable now that they’ve basically been given the ammo to say all of this shit.

like i’m truly so annoyed about it, but hey. what can you doooo?

cobra kai writers you had ONE JOB! ONE!

big big sigh.

FELIX MALLARD & ANTONIA GENTRY in season 2 episode 2 of ginny and georgia

Keenry's Family

xavier and simon weren't really the duo I thought I needed, not by a long shot, but their trust exercise in ep4 really sealed the deal for me. like yes thank you actually I do need more moments with simon being too stressed out and xavier being the shrug emoji about it. they balance each other so well, it's hilarious.

wondering if janet is a different type of ghost to the others.. because why is it that when all the other ghosts pick stuff up, it resets.

but with janet, it doesn’t?

when wally broke that vase that janet made they had to clean that up.

so either a different type of ghost, or two other things.

one thing being that janet discovered a loophole on how to not have things reset when she picks it up. probably through countless experiments

i feel like there might be rules based on each ghost about how you die and how it happens? pretty much everyone their apart from maddie has passed away in some freak accident.

we know janet and mr martin both died in a fire, but hear me out on this.. is the reason why janet can somehow pick objects up and they don’t reset beach’s she had something to do with the ‘fire’ she died in?

that’s just a theory, in hindsight it seems a bit ridiculous so i’m gonna stick with the fact that she was probably conducting experiments and discovered a loophole somehow.

who knows atp, but i’m loving making up theories while waiting for next episodes!

“She wasn’t forcing him in any way” YOU chose to show Robby so drunk he couldn’t talk and could barely stand. YOU chose to show Robby come out of that room and say he couldn’t remember what happened. YOU chose to show him stand there like a zombie unresponsive while she kissed him and then stumble away like he didn’t know what planet he was on. YOU chose to depict a situation where one party so obviously could not consent, and the other was acutely aware of that fact. Stop playing fucking dumb and admit you’re a pathetic rape apologist and move the fuck on.

Basically, Johnny replaced Robby with Miguel. Therefore he doesn't feel the need to fix his relationship with his own son, since this 'hole in his heart' has been filled by Miguel already. Robby will never actually have a place in Johnny's life. Dang my boy's always getting Ls yo

From this interview.

Seeing too many people shitting on Tory for something bad that happens to their favorite character ("Robby had it bad but it's always poor Tory!" "People are hating on Sam, why aren't they hating on Tory!" "There aren't consequences for her actions!" *cough on probation, criminal record, her trophy taken away, cough* where're Hawk's consequences btw).

You don't HAVE TO drag a female character just to complain about fans/writers being shitty to another character. It's not a requirement. You can always not do that.

WE GET ANOTHER SEASON WOOOO!!!

Honestly so happy this was renewed on my bday. Best gift