Oooo just realized something I have strong thoughts on that I haven't seen you talk about yet!
Do you have any big thoughts about Isaac's life pre-canon? I have a good few, and I really wanna write something about my thoughts on it one day. I think her slowly breaking away from the mold of the Ideal Son that her dad had in mind for her only after she gets close to the UPP is something that would be clear enough to you (the Isaac of DisRes episode 1 acts Very Different to the Isaac we have now), but I also like extrapolating a bit more with seeing how she acted early on vs. how we see her change.
For example: she's quicker to anger in DisRes, including around Will and Norah (though never angry At Them, just at the situation), and I see that stemming from how James doesn't seem the type of father to teach his "son" how to regulate his emotions healthily, or that men are allowed to express any emotions other than anger. In a situation between moving to this new town with no friends but an abundance of weird things nobody is listening to her about? Yeah, I could see Isaac having a short temper at school, because she's under a lot of stress and anxiety, but men aren't supposed to be afraid of anything, and this is the only emotional outlet she's been taught so far.
Additionally, it adds to a concept I like thinking about, which is that I think it makes sense (and makes Isaac being so undeniably part of the group now more poignant) if the others were originally wary of her. Because they know about the new kid, who does Sports (possibly dangerous to their Nerd natures) and who's maybe even gotten into a fight before (Isaac Does have some points in Brawl despite her sport being track, and they do mention her going to juvie before, after all), but once they investigate, they find somebody who can see the same things they see and doesn't have any support for it or experience with it.
so you know, i saw this at work and was fucking dying over not being able to answer it until now
I really agree with most of what you've said! Particularly the fact that James Brooks was not the kind of man who taught his "son" emotional regulation, and that that backfired pretty spectacularly in his face when they moved to Deadwood and Isaac started lashing out in her attempts to adjust to her new life.
What I've been putting a lot of thought into lately is the idea that the Brooks have lived there longer than two years. I don't think it's much longer—three years at the absolute max—but we know from the start of 1.1 that the current UPP roster has been meeting in Will's basement for about two years. A lot of people, myself included, tend to say that that matches up pretty closely with when the Brooks moved to Deadwood, but lately I think it makes a lot more sense for them to have been in Deadwood for closer to two and a half or two and three-quarters years, for multiple reasons.
For one, I think Isaac would have tried really hard at first to continue being the kid she was in her hometown, the one her parents loved and knew: the talented jock and good christian who sang in choir. (We actually know she's still trying to be that kid; aside from the fact that she says as much, she's also still in track and only recently quit choir.) But thanks to her own lack of emotional maturity in the face of literally everything she knows changing, and likely in combination with her parents' own stresses regarding the move and whatever factors led to it (personally, I think James's job situation got pretty fucked up, which led to him taking this move even harder than Isaac), it was probably only a month or two before Isaac started noticeably drifting from her family, despite her and their efforts. And that rift only got bigger once she found external support in the UPP, as you said.
The other reason is the one you brought up about the UPP not trusting her at first. The jock stuff alone would be cause to put them on edge, but I really think Isaac's built up a bit of a reputation by the time she properly joins UPP; given how much Lui and Will in particular still parrot the "Isaac is just good at being a bad kid" mentality despite knowing her and her fucked-up family situation for two years, there simply has to be some preconceived notions they're still working from. (Norah is also susceptible to this but at the very least doesn't show it to the degree that Will and Lui do.) I also think the fact that Isaac's an out-of-towner, even if she's been living there for a few months by the time she really starts interacting with the UPP, is another significant factor in them accepting her, because yeah, fresh eyes, someone else who sees what's happening, but also what would she know about all this? She didn't grow up here. She didn't watch neighbors disappear and come back wrong.
This also leads into my personal headcanon about how she actually started joining in on the UPP's investigations, which is that she pulled a Bella and just invited herself along when she saw them doing some sneaky shit. I think they tried to sort of shut her out at first, but Isaac was so thrilled to find other people who saw the shit she did and was by that point (probably three to five months into living in Deadwood) so desperate for genuine friendship/affection that she was willing to stick with even this pale imitation of the social life she used to have.
I think she really got their friendship/support when she put herself in harm's way for one of them the first time, probably a month or two after she started inserting herself into their investigations. Isaac would have been more stressed at this point than she was at the start of DisRes, imo, because the move and rift with her family was still so new, and therefore would have been a lot more impulsive and reckless than she is during canon. I could very easily see her, say, putting herself between Lui and a particularly aggressive ghost while armed with nothing but a handful of metal clothes hangers ("IRON, Isaac! They're weak to iron!" "Isn't that what steel's made of?" "THOSE AREN'T STEEL!") And I think this particularly because of how often the UPP, when Isaac is separated from the group, will start openly wishing she was there before heading into potentially dangerous situations. Isaac is clearly the protector of the group, and I think she has been from the start, even if that start was later than is usually thought.
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