Thoughts On "Emotion Sickness"

What are your thoughts on the Tweebs?

Well, the original pitch bible had them as sociopathic geniuses...

Which is kind of a horrible way to describe ten-year-olds. End of.

Jim and Tim are energetic, hyperactive, rambunctious geniuses with a tendency towards taking apart household appliances to build things.

They don't respect Kim's boundaries and work hard to embarrass her.

James and Ann don't seem to be big on disciplining their kids or regulating their behaviors.

And Kim is constantly commenting on how she wanted a sister, thinks of them as freaks, and doesn't think they're human.

Frankly, I wouldn't blame them for not wanting to be nice to her after dealing with that for a lifetime.

Especially after they went through the trouble of helping her on a mission and she used mind-control chips on them afterwards.

The same ones they had freed her from.

The same ones she said were unethical to just make.

I know that when my older sibling spent my entire life telling me how much she never wanted me, I wasn't exactly inclined to be nice to her either.

(We're doing better now, but it took an acknowledgement and an apology on her part before I was even willing to try. I think it'd be nice if Kim did this, too.)

But even though they had nearly helped embarrass Kim out of existence in "Blush", it's clear that they hadn't known what was going to happen, and thus hadn't intended to cause that much harm to Kim.

So it doesn't seem like Jim and Tim are as "sociopathic" as the creators had originally intended for them to be.

TLDR: They aren't really different from how any other ten-year-old boys would be if they were geniuses, had access to advanced technology, had parents who don't discipline or regulate them, and had an older sister constantly talking about how much she hates them.

So I can't really blame them for how they turned out.

Would you?

Will Du: Can't, or Can? (Redux)

Starting off with a fun fact: Will's original concept was Ken Du, who was just as capable as Kim. They had a rivalry with each other, but also a bit of a romance. Concept art had him looking just like Hirotaka.

So, honestly, the idea of Kim having an actual rival in saving the world is so interesting. Unfortunately, Will doesn't measure up to Kim.

Or, he's not supposed to.

But he's the top agent at Global Justice for a reason, so there's probably more to his mistakes on the mission than being incompetent.

Let's review:

The first thing we learn about Will is that he doesn't want to work with an amateur. He finds it insulting that he's being asked.

Instead of it being snobbery or an insult to Kim's abilities, it could just as easily be that he wanted to get the job done without having to teach someone else to do it, and was insulted that they wanted to waste his time by making him teach someone to do the job.

I mean, I don't know how it works in the world of espionage, but in every job I had, if someone of high rank was being asked to work with a new recruit or potential recruit, it's because they were expected to teach them or determine if they'd be good for the job.

(Also, Kim needs to not take being called an amateur so personally. She never even fought an actual bad guy until "Tick-Tick-Tick", which was less than two months ago at this point. She is definitely skilled, but she is technically an amateur.)

And Kim is someone who said, to Dr. Director's face, that she's wrong about why someone would kidnap Professor Green because "you can learn everything he knows at the library."

(Honestly, odds are that wasn't true. This is the era where computers were still boxes, Wikileaks didn't exist yet, and only nerds spent a lot of time online anyways. There were still projects from WWII that were classified, so it's doubtful that everything Professor Green worked on was declassified.)

Will Du and Global Justice assume Professor Green had been kidnapped for his weapons knowledge. Even if that wasn't why he was kidnapped, they still have an interest in making sure none of his weapons knowledge got out anyways.

But Kim keeps insisting that the trained professionals who do this for a living are wrong.

It must be really frustrating for Will.

(Just because Kim was right doesn't mean she has to be a know-it-all.)

There's also the fact that Global Justice had only asked Kim on the mission, but she brought Ron and Rufus along anyways, meaning in addition to ensuring Kim's safety, Will also has to ensure the safety of a civilian and his pet, who should not have been there in the first place.

Despite Will having an entire database of verified information on his wrist, Kim insists on going to a den of criminal activity to talk to some crime boss for information, despite being unable to prove the information would be correct or helpful.

(And does not tell Will ahead of time where they're going, denying him any ability to refuse to go or offer an alternative.)

Sure, it got the job done, but Will no doubt has procedures, rules, and regulations to follow, along with a list of things that he shouldn't do, and using unverified, known-criminal sources for information is probably one of them.

In summary:

Will has to ensure the safety of an amateur that charges into things without talking to others, and the civilian and rodent she dragged along who shouldn't be there.

Will has to follow rules and procedures that Kim doesn't think about and likely wouldn't respect anyways.

Will has a database of useful and verified information, but Kim insists on using sources like Big Daddy Brotherson.

Kim went into the mission with an "I know better" attitude, already believing she was better than the professionals who do this for a living.

So, while Will is probably actually extremely competent, he was also off of his game because his style doesn’t mesh well with Kim’s at all.

And he would have been an interesting recurring character, but the creators decided not to give Kim an actual rival in saving the world, for some reason, so we never see Will again.

(I like to imagine he specifically requested to never work with Kim again, so Global Justice only contacts Kim for things that Kim would be better suited for, or when they were studying The Ron Factor.)

So, Will could have been a very interesting character, someone to serve as an actual rival to Kim when it comes to saving the world.

Sadly, his potential was wasted by turning him into a seemingly incompetent agent.

And that's just sad.

Bonus Thoughts:

Will doesn't seem to be very experienced with combat. I'm not saying that's a bad thing, it just leads me to a certain conclusion about him:

He wasn't trained for combat.

Global Justice's top agent would be very skilled at whatever they needed him to be good at, but combat doesn't seem to be one of his skills.

So it's very likely Global Justice probably didn't need him for combat. His skills probably lie more in intelligence gathering and espionage, which requires more stealth and diplomacy than fighting

And it certainly never involved fighting villains like Kim's.

Thus, Will is not incompetent, he's just not suited for combat against supervillains with gimmicks.

The only moment of the whole show where Kim looks distressful (almost about to cry) in the whole show is when she thinks Ron died in the Christmas episode.

when she tells Ron she loves her in Clean state and when she confesses to Ron she is scared too. Those are amazing emotional moments that strength Kim and Ron’s relationship, but again they are so few and far in-between.

Again, all of this was because Kim was never allowed to ponder about her feelings, or have flaws nor be vulnerable

And I think this is part of the reason why some people in the fandom (I’ve seen a few, even though I disagree with them I get where they are coming from) dislike Kim and tend to pair up Ron with almost any other character (Tara, Bonnie, Yori or sometimes even Shego ) instead of Kim.

Kim is almost a non-character in the fandom, even on Kigo stories (Once I tried giving Kigo a chance, but I disliked almost everything about it, finding about the age-gap didn’t help) Kim is a non-character only being there to act as a prop towards Shego.

In the majority of the stories (even in KimRon stories) Kim acts more like a self-insert or as a prop to either Ron or Shego. 4_5

Yeah, Kim actually having realistic, relatable emotions is so rare in the show, it makes it feel like she's not even a character in her own show.

This is probably why she often feels like a non-character in fanfiction - she was never given enough emotional depth in the show to use in fanfiction.

She definitely had flaws, but they were so rarely acknowledged, and even more rarely corrected.

The only person to regularly acknowledge Kim's flaws is Ron, but he's usually not taken seriously. So Kim never feels a need to try and improve herself.

I know I prefer to ship Ron with other people because Tara and Yori were nice to him when Kim wasn't, and Bonnie was unequivocally supportive when they were dating in "Ron Millionaire" and really nice and kind to him in "Homecoming Upset" when she was trying to date him. Tara and Yori treated Ron better than Kim did at times, and Bonnie definitely had the potential for that kind of relationship with Ron.

I don't ship Ron with Shego for the same reason I don't ship Kim with Shego - the age difference makes me uncomfortable. It's pedophilia, even if nothing happens until Ron or Kim is eighteen.

I know it's an old show, but my sister proposed one of the craziest possible AUs for Avatar: The Last Airbender.

Background info: We're both convinced that the Ty sisters are descended from air nomads. They're all good at acrobatics, and their faces look just like Aang.

So, for the AU:

Firstly, Kuzon never claims to be from the colonies, just that his family does things a bit differently

When Kuzon gets into trouble, the school doesn't ask to meet his parents, they say they've already contacted his parents.

See, a free-spirited kid who disrespects the teachers, dances, gets into fights, and "does things differently" has got to be from the Ty family.

They assume no one ever mentioned Kuzon because, compared to his sisters, he is quiet and respectful, so he must get overlooked quite often.

Mr. and Mrs. Ty did show up. They were planning to just clear up the misunderstanding, but then they see a young boy who looks just like their daughters, and is on the verge of a panic attack, and just roll with it.

"You know why we know that the history book is wrong. We're not going to punish him for being right."

"He didn't start that fight, so we're not going to punish him for defending himself."

"Kuzon, sweetie, you can't dance while playing the tsungi horn, you'll hit the other students."

The Ty family might not show it often, but they are nobility, so it's not exactly the best idea to get them upset.

Mrs. Ty has air nomad heritage, and she and her husband disagree with most of the current Fire Nation policies. They've hoped to make good changes, but it's not easy.

Aang tells them he's the avatar after he finds out about their heritage.

The promise not to sell him out, and ask for air bending lessons.

Not much else planned here, but Ozai does get defeated quicker.

Some additional thoughts:

I wish we were able to get tender moments between Kim and Ron in S4

In fact we already have a few of them, only for them to get cut short usually in comedic effect by another character or the show tries to undermine the moment by making a quick jab usually at the expense of Ron’s character.

I feel that paradoxically in S4 Ron had the most amount of character development and plenty of heartwarming moments, but the show still makes him the butt of the joke on those scenes, so despite having the most development his character is portrayed very dumb during some scenes.

Like in the scene in the episode Clothed minded where Ron tells Kim that her clothes is not what makes her Kim possible, she is the one who is amazing, Kim looking so happy and reassured about what he said and then the scene tries to make it “funny” by having Ron panic and go back on what he said, completely ruining and undermining the scene.

I’m not saying Ron isn’t allowed to be silly, is just that Ron being the comic relief and the butt of the joke no longer seems fitting for his character at that point, because he has developed well beyond that character archetype.

That doesn’t happen when Ron tells Kim “she is beautiful” and this is one of the most memorable KimRon scenes in the series.

I understand why this was done, they were afraid of putting too much romance, they didn’t want to scare the kids away, they had to make it funny and appealing to the little Kids somehow.

But I wish the show allowed for more personal, emotional and tender moments between the two. Sometimes I feel like S3 handled this aspect better than S4.

I’m sorry about all of the ask, I know you are not even a KimRon shipper, but you are one of the few people who has openly talked about the flaws of the show and about the way Kim was handled and this is one of the only ways I think I can safely address all of this issues and feeling I’ve had about the show for a long time.

Hope I didn’t overwhelmed you with all of the sudden influx of asks. Thanks for listening.

What do you think? Do you agree or disagree with any of my points?

Yeah, Ron outgrew the "goofy sidekick" archetype way before season 4. Maybe partway through season 2.

I have a post on how Ron deserved to be treated better by the narrative where I list the times Ron's done something truly amazing and it actually begins pretty early in the series. It's just so rarely acknowledged.

But, despite showing pretty early on what he's capable of, he was still the butt of many jokes, and the narrative never acknowledged that he grew out of that. It never really allowed him to grow out of it.

Simultaneously, the narrative never acknowledged that Kim might be flawed so she was never allowed to grow.

I understand how you feel; there are certain places on the internet where, if you try to criticize Kim Possible - the show or the character - you get a bunch of hate.

I don't know if it's because the nostalgia is too strong or what, but it can make someone afraid to criticize the show. But trust me, we're not the only ones who have issues with it.

I still have people disagreeing with me here, but at least I'm not getting hated on. People here are much more open to discussion about the flaws of the show.

(Or maybe I just got lucky this time. Who knows?)

I agree with all of your points, actually. I may not ship KimRon, but that's because their relationship was handled poorly, even before they started dating.

After they started dating, there should've been more tender and emotional moments between them. It sucks that we didn't see that very often. Or that, when it did happen, it was interrupted by something "funny" happening, usually at Ron's expense.

It felt like they weren't in a serious relationship because the relationship wasn't allowed to be serious.

I don't mind all the asks. I actually appreciate them. You're totally allowed to send me your thoughts about Kim Possible. I like having discussions with people about it. And I will do my best to reply to all of them.

The most unbelievable thing about Disney's Descendants is that the princes and princesses, people who are known for being kind and compassionate, would be okay with literal children living on The Isle, despite knowing what things are like on The Isle, just because their parents are villains.

Like, I'll believe they decided to put their dangerous villains there to protect everyone.

(Not villains like LeFou and Smee though, because they're just not worth the trouble.)

But you expect me to believe that no one thought it wouldn't be fair to punish the kids for their parents' crimes? That people who are known for being kind thought this was fair?

Sorry, not buying it.

And it's not that they didn't know, because everyone knew the villains had kids, so they just, somehow, honestly thought this was a good idea.

But I don't believe it.

I understand that it has to be that way for plot reasons. My proposed change would be a very simple one:

They didn't know there were kids on The Isle.

They only found out shortly before Ben was going to be coronated, because Belle and Adam wanted to check on The Isle one more time before it became Ben's responsibility.

Thus, Ben immediately decides to invite some VKs to Auradon for a better life, but Belle and Adam are concerned that the VKs might be a lot like their parents. He agrees to only invite a few at first, but he's confident that they're not evil, just in terrible conditions.

Okay, it's not that I hate Rainbow High. It's just that...who thought "future influencer" was a good career goal to give a teenage girl?!

Especially in a franchise geared towards children?

There are so many stories about what's wrong with influencers that I wouldn't make that a goal at all.

There are so many other things you can do with a Digital Media focus than influencer.

Or, if they didn't want to keep that, Violet has won at least one award for her photography.

Or, as we learn later, she used to paint.

Either of those would be acceptable.

Far better than influencer, the most unhealthy and toxic lifestyle you could pick for a Digital Media focus.

And they think one of their main characters should have that as a career goal.

Good grief.

Bonnie wasn’t supportive of Ron she was enabling his worst traits (traits that were born out of insecurity ) Kim keeps Ron grounded and acts as the voice of reason or as an inspiration to come out of his shell when he lets his fears consume him.

She has moments where she is harsh and even unfair but a few of them are intentional and outright shown how she is decidedly in the wrong and at the end of the episode Kim and Ron always come to a mutual understanding.

I feel like many of your issues aren’t with Kim’s herself, but rather with the way the narrative treated each of the characters.

Ron was stuck with the comedic relief role even though that no longer fit him, Kim had to be written as a role model so her flaws were never taken seriously nor addressed.

I think this is the issue, the way the narrative treated them both. Technically Kim’s character is as muchof a victim to the narrative as Ron was.

So, I guess we have different opinions on this. But if those were Ron's worst traits, then he's a Saint.

Or whatever the Jewish equivalent would be, if there is one.

Because the things Ron's done in "Ron Millionaire" are:

Literally gives money to classmates and Barkin. Not seeing anything wrong with that. Maybe not smart to advertise how much money he has, but not a bad thing to do.

Complains about getting adult lettuce instead of baby lettuce. He definitely could have been nicer, I'll give you that.

Kind of goes over the top with insisting on being called "The Ron" but, again, it's not bad, just a little annoying.

Forgets to put Kim on the guest list, but this was probably unintentional. We don't even know Ron made the list, and he certainly didn't seem like he was trying to avoid Kim.

Tries to buy gaudy jewelry. Maybe not what I'd do, but it's not harming anyone, so I'd keep my mouth shut.

Buys a private jet, with auto-pilot, and a special forces team for missions. At least Kim appreciates that.

So, his "worst traits" are not bad.

And they're still way better than Kim's worst traits.

Kim doesn't need to dismiss Ron's feelings to keep him grounded.

She's not inspiring Ron to step out of his shell by forcing him to do things he's uncomfortable with.

It is entirely possible for someone to keep their friend grounded, inspire them to step out of their shell, and be kind and supportive, even for a high schooler.

Kim and Ron may come to an understanding by the end of some episodes, but it doesn't seem to be enough for her to actually treat him better.

I am perfectly capable of acknowledging Kim as a victim of the narrative and as a horrible person.

From A Writer's POV: Kim is a victim of a narrative that refuses to let her be vulnerable, even if it means she can't be kind, either.

In-Universe: Kim is majorly controlling, hypocritical, possessive, uncaring, condescending, and judgmental.

I can have both POVs at once. They're not actually contradictory.

But my acknowledgement of Kim as a victim of the narrative doesn't negate the fact that, in-universe, she treats Ron horribly.

So, for me at least, it's not just that Ron's a victim of the narrative, it's also that Ron's a victim of Kim.

One of the reasons I refuse to watch Rainbow World is because its introduction completely derailed a plot that could have led to character development.

"The Big Day Off" showed everyone getting a day off of classes and assignments, and showed them dealing with problems during them.

Jade and Skyler want to spend their time relaxing, but both have a hard time doing nothing so they keep finding new tasks to do.

Bella and Ruby are planning to revamp the Rainbow Union, but have gotten artist's block and can't come up with anything.

Poppy's planning to bake and Amaya's freaking out over an online personality test.

Violet and Sunny were planning to have a fun day together.

This where the problem arises.

When we make it to Violet and Sunny's part of the story, Violet realizes she lost her phone and freaks out about it.

Now, we could have had a plot of Violet struggling with her social media addiction while spending time with Sunny, but, instead, Sunny and Violet find a magic egg and spend the day taking care of it so any conflict that they might have had is overshadowed.

I would have liked it better if we had Sunny and Violet doing fun things together, and Violet keeps instinctively reaching for her phone. Sunny notices, and eventually she's just sad.

Violet: "Sunny, what's wrong? Aren't you having fun?"

Sunny: "I am. I just...I miss you."

Violet: "I've been right across the hall for months. I think it's the closest we've ever been. Aside from all those sleepovers."

Sunny: "I don't mean physical distance."

Violet: "What do you mean?"

Sunny: "I mean...I totally support your dream of being an influencer, but I miss being able to do things with you without you trying to get the best shot. I miss just having fun with you, without you worrying about showing the rest of the world. I miss you. I think I've seen your phone's camera more than you, lately."

Violet: "Oh. I didn't know you felt that way."

Sunny: "I'm trying to be supportive. You're my best friend and I want to support you."

Violet: "I don't want you to support me if it upsets you. I guess I do have a problem."

Sunny: "I mean, I wouldn't say it's a problem..."

Violet: "But it is, because it upsets you so much. I don't want to upset my friends, especially you. I'm going to try to do better, Sunny. I promise."

Sunny: "Thanks. And I guess I'll start telling you when you do something that upsets me."

Violet: "I'd like that."

Then, Sunny and Violet would hug and discuss their plans for the rest of the day.

See how interesting this would have been? We could have had acknowledgement of not just Violet's greatest flaw (social media addiction) but also Sunny's (overly forgiving and passive) with them both recognizing their flaws and promising to work on them.

Instead, we have Sunny and Violet taking care of an egg all day.

They deserved better.

And it's especially a problem in situations where Marinette isn't actually wrong, so they need to warp the universe to make her wrong.

Marinette's not wrong for saying Chloe had no heart in "Zombizou" because Chloe was certainly acting like it.

Marinette's not wrong for disbelieving Chloe in "Antibug", Chloe had previously lied to them in that episode about the akuma.

Marinette's not wrong for being confused over her feelings for Luka and Adrien, she's a teenage girl.

Marinette's not wrong for wanting to call out Lila for lying and manipulating, she's a liar and manipulative.

Marinette's not wrong for not taking Chat Noir's flirtations seriously, he flirts with a lot of people and doesn't take his job seriously.

Marinette's not wrong for not showing up for Chat Noir's date, she had already told him she wouldn't be there.

She's certainly not wrong for not wanting ice cream when she's too upset to eat it.

It's not just that they wrote over 100 ways for Marinette to do something wrong, it's that they wrote 100 episodes that portray Marinette as wrong, even when she isn't.

I can understand the "lesson of the day" formula, but the writers of Miraculous drastically misunderstood the assignment.

In Defense of Marinette

I like Marinette. While there are many valid criticisms of her writing, the same can be said for literally every other character and she's actually doing pretty well given that she's the main character. After all, in a show where consistent characterization is an ongoing issue, the one with the most screen time will probably be the one who's the biggest victim of the issue.

This is heavily exacerbated by the rule that supposedly governs Miraculous. Namely that, in each story, Marinette must make a mistake. Or, at least, so says the head writer:

I really do not care what this guy says on Twitter or anywhere else. I only care about what's in the show because, if you have to go outside the text to understand the text, then you have no idea how to tell a good story.

However, unlike many of the tweets that I've seen, this one isn't some BS bit of lore. It's a writing rule and it has substantial backing in the text. It's extremely rare to have an episode where Marinette comes out smelling like roses and that's a problem because Miraculous has over 100 episodes. In other words, to follow this rule, the writers have to come up with over 100 ways for Marinette to be wrong so of course she's going to come across poorly. Why would you do this to your main character?

It's extremely common for kids shows to have a "lesson of the day" element to them. Someone always needs to learn something, but I've never seen a show misunderstand the assignment so badly. Learning a lesson is not the same as doing something wrong.

It's been a while since I watched the 2010 version of My Little Pony, but it really leaned into that whole "lesson of the day" thing and it actually knew what it was doing, so I'm going to talk about it briefly to discuss things that Miraculous should have done.

The first thing to note is that MLP had an unambiguous main character - Twilight Sparkle - but Twilight was not the one who learned all of the lessons. She had a pet dragon and a crew of five friends who would, occasionally, be the ones to learn the lesson because there were lots of lessons that simply didn't fit Twilight's character. Instead of warping Twilight to make the idea work (cough cough Ikari Gozen cough), the writers just let someone else have the spotlight for a bit.

This is an excellent way to build out your cast and Miraculous had plenty of opportunities to do it. For example, Lila should not have been Marinette's issue. The fact that Lila hates Marinette could have certainly stuck around, but the one who takes her down and learns to investigate her sources? That should have been Alya. A liar is the perfect enemy for an investigative journalist, but a poor enemy for someone who shines as a battlefield commander and overthinks when she's given too much time.

Another way that MLP would teach lessons was to have someone other than Twilight or the main crew cause the issue that they then had to deal with. This leads to one of the best moments in children's television:

And, frankly? Marinette deserves a moment like this. That poor girl has been through hell and is never allowed to make the right call when it really matters. The show will even completely rewrite its lore to make her fail (see: Strike Back). That is such an awful thing to do to your lead! Shows about female empowerment should include women feeling powerful and, no, Lila and Chloe don't count!

Also, the show is literally about Gabriel taking advantage of people who are upset. You don't need to have Marinette make a mistake to shoehorn in a life lesson. Akumas are life lesson fodder and season 1 actually seemed to get this. I'm not sure why they switched gears to "Marinette is the star and, therefore, must always be wrong."

The final way that MLP taught lessons was to have Twilight do something wrong because having your main character do something wrong is a totally valid way to teach lessons. It just shouldn't be your only way because you know who is always wrong in children's media?

Villains.

They wrote Marinette like a villain.

And a large part of the fandom hates her for it because of course they do.

You're not supposed to like villains.