Cold Hearted ⭒ Cobra Kai

How Do I End This Season?!

Well, I need help again. Please take a minute to read this and respond.

And there are options for season 5 endings below, so if you wish to avoid spoilers for this book please skip this update. If you wish to give feedback (please!), feel free to read below and give me your thoughts.

I ramble with explanations for a bit below, but if you scroll to the bottom there are 4 clear options I'd like feedback for or for you to vote on if possible. Please, please, please.

I'm currently frustrated because there are little to no co-ed martial arts tournament rules online to reference for this book (my knowledge on real life application of rules and karate and such is limited). I was able to make my own rules more basic for the purpose of the All Valley Tournament, which was great. I don't regret that plotline at all, personally. 

But now the narrative has to shift to the Sekai Tekai, where in the show there are divisions for under-18 girls and boys respectively. This is where Kenny v Hawk and Sam v Devon is shown, right?

Since watching season 5, I've had it in the back of my mind that I want Zion to fight Shawn at these qualifier rounds. I think it's interesting narratively for a few reasons:

-overcoming her fear of Shawn by simply fighting him at all

-following up on her challenge at Valley Fest

-shoving her courage despite everything into Silver's face

-giving her narratively a bigger role instead of a passive voice of "oh look at Sam and Hawk go!" that will entertain you as the readers more (at least I'd hope so)

My intial idea was that the Sekai Tekai has a bracket of 18-25 year old fighters that Shawn and Zion would be fighting each other to be a part of. This is needed because Shawn looks too old to be 17 or younger (so I've headcanoned him as newly 18 post-juvie) and because Zion just turned 18 in the story (she's a year older than everyone but in their same school year).

In terms of being realistic, there are even fewer adult martial arts tournaments that are co-ed than any co-ed teen and childrens tournaments. I want to keep this stilly little karate show fanfic believable to an extent, but I know some of you really appreciated me breaking the status quo for a co-ed tournament in season 4.

I don't want to change the Sekai Tekai teens being in separate gender categories because I'm sure they will be important for season 6. This is why I thought a young adult co-ed category could become my creative liberty. 

As I'm writing this, I'm also thinking about the Sekai Tekai qualifiers shown in the show being for teens 13-19, and perhaps that's the way to write it. I could have Zion potentially take Sam's place in the girls' fight, but that would still keep Shawn as an unknown. And it would ruin Sam narratively as the Miyagi legacy/ LaRusso 2.0 because her final fight with Tory in the tournament was robbed in my version and now her victory over Cobra Kai in season 5 would be snubbed, too.

It's clear that the series is bringing back Shawn for their canon adaption (as I've brought him back early myself as an adversary for Zion), and I'm wondering if this fight would be premature even in that case. 

Yuck, I'm rambling. Here are the options and please let me know which you believe to be the best for whatever reason(s) you may have:

1. Keep the storyline the same and have Zion cheer from the sidelines because we're unsure about the future season 6 Sekai Tekai storyline.

2. Break realism and let Zion fight Shawn in their own young adult co-ed qualifier match in order to progress both their characters and create more drama.

3. Use the canon storyline except substitute Sam with Zion, thus giving Zion more development while leaving Sam rather stagnant.

4. Any other ideas you have! Please! Give me solutions I'm not seeing! <3

Okay, if you could leave feedback on this I'd truly appreciate it. I'm also debating just publishing like two more chapters and leaving it like that until July 18 when we find out more. 

I can already tell that it's going to frustrate me that season 6 is in three parts and that I won't know narratively where exactly to take Zion to round out her arc.