Okay, It's Not That I Hate Rainbow High. It's Just That...who Thought "future Influencer" Was A Good

Reblogging from myself to add an update: Upon recent rewatch, Kim offers to help Bonnie, Bonnie doesn't even ask, certainly doesn't force her to.

Then Kim leaves on a mission with Wade, forcing Ron to set up the Meet the Queen event to find Bonnie a new boyfriend, a job he didn't want at all, which leaves me with all kinds of conflicted feelings.

When the team decides to head to Italy, Bonnie is upset at feeling abandoned, so Ron offers to have her come to Venice with them.

So, Kim offers to help, and then immediately abandons the job, forcing Ron to pick up the slack. Not happy about that.

Also, I don't blame her for harshly rejecting Larry since he was picking his ear when he approached her.

Nor do I blame her for being so upset that Brick dumped her, since he had apparently promised that he'd be back for homecoming.

I do blame her for moving in on someone else's boyfriend. Regardless of my feelings on Ron/Bonnie as a pairing, moving in on Ron when he was already dating Kim was uncool.

What are your thoughts on Bonnie cheating to become the homecoming queen and the fact that she tried to steal Ron from Kim, going so far as to kissing him. Not to mention the audacity of her asking Kim to find her a new boyfriend not caring if she’s bothering her or not.

That was definitely a horrible thing to do. I don't justify that, nor do I condone it. This is one thing I do not excuse. I'm not overly fond of Kim, and I clearly prefer Bonnie, but I do agree that I'm on Kim's side on this one.

That being said, I don't actually recall Bonnie asking Kim to help her find a new boyfriend, I think Kim just did that on her own.

Actually, Ron was the one to set up the "Meet the Queen" event to find Bonnie a new boyfriend.

But, it has been a while since I saw that episode in full, so I could be misremembering things.

Kim and Ron's dynamic seems...off. They don't seem like they've been best friends for ten years, it'd make more sense if they had only recently become friends, like in middle school.

And I'm not just saying that because Kim can be mean and judgmental at times, especially towards Ron. I'm saying that because, despite being best friends for 10+ years and living next door to each other, they don't seem to know things about each other that actual long-term best friends would.

"Monkey Fist Strikes" - Ron is aware that Kim dislikes her cousin Larry, but never knew about the monthly family game nights that have been going on since she was three.

"Mind Games" - Kim had no idea that Ron's been getting bullied since kindergarten. This especially makes no sense as this is something Ron would've asked Kim for help with. It definitely should have come up at some point.

"Two to Tutor" - Kim is genuinely surprised that Ron is good at baking, even though he's been doing it since he was eight.

"Hidden Talent" - Ron is unaware that Kim can sing, or that she has trouble hitting the high notes. Bonnie was able to obtain a video of this event, but somehow Ron was still unaware of it before now.

"Showdown at The Crooked D" - Ron is unaware that Kim has an uncle and a cousin, even though Kim actually seemed excited to see Joss.

"Bad Boy" - Kim is completely unaware of the existence of Ron's evil cousin Shaun, despite this being another thing that would make sense for Ron to ask Kim's help with.

I understand that they need a way to explain stuff to the audience, but can you imagine being someone's best friend for ten years, living next door to them, and not knowing about their family and interests?

Would they really be your best friend if you two knew so little about each other?

Thoughts on Josh Mankey

So, in some fanfiction, I've seen Josh portrayed as, well...I wouldn't say mean, but not as nice as canon. This is usually to highlight how Ron is better for Kim. Obviously, I'm going to have issues with this.

Firstly, Josh is kind and patient. When Kim is acting weird on their date, he doesn't seem bothered by it. Maybe concerned, but he never once loses his cool.

Secondly, he's accepting. Though Kim's interest in putting marshmallows on hotdogs is weird, he doesn't give her a hard time about it. And he doesn't seem judgmental towards Ron for still trick-or-treating in "October 31st". (Actually, he seemed to enjoy that.)

Lastly, he's charitable. Near the end of "Blush" we learn that Josh worked with some kids to clean up a bunch of graffiti and paint a mural in place.

Josh is a kind, caring, patient, and tolerant guy who volunteers to work with kids and paints murals after cleaning up graffiti. He's also a musician and likes hanging out with Ron too. ("October 31st")

So, if people want to get Josh out of the way to have Kim and Ron end up together earlier, portraying Josh as a horrible person doesn't have to be an option.

So, it's not as though a fashion show isn't cool or anything, it's just that...

I feel like assigning each group to do a fashion show for their end of semester project is...limiting.

For example:

Ruby is a Mixed Media and Graphic Design focus. I literally cannot tell what her contribution to their final runway was.

(Someone tell me if they know what it is.)

Sunny's animations were good, but they weren't all that she could do. She could do more if she wasn't limited to doing a fashion show. A short film or animated music video would be cool.

And that's not even getting into some of the other people who's shows we didn't see.

What would Daria Roselyn, a Music Focus, and Georgia Bloom, a Performing Arts focus, do for a fashion show? Model?

What about Emi Vanda? Did she paint a set? Make props?

We don't even know who was in Colin's group, or what he did for his runway.

The point is, making everyone do a runway for their end of semester project can be limiting.

It also requires every group to have at least one Fashion focus, which seems a bit...unlikely.

A better system would be...well, it's complicated, but I'll do my best to explain it.

Everyone gets assigned a group. (I don't like this, but I'll leave it for now.)

The group has to agree on a project and submit their idea to a group supervisor for approval. (Our main girls would probably still do a fashion show.)

Their project proposal must say what each group member is going to contribute.

If it's approved, they get to start on it. If it's not approved, they have to make the changes their supervisor asks of them.

There's a deadline to get their proposals approved. If they're not approved by then, they'll be assigned a project. (I'm sure Miss Wright would have a few ideas.)

Regular check-ins would proceed as normal, with everyone showing the progress they made on their part of the project.

By the end of the semester, they have to have their project finished.

This could lead to some interesting ideas for projects, such as:

A museum exhibition

A clothing display

A mini concert

A short play

More ideas

This could be interesting. It could be fun to hear about groups doing something other than a fashion show.

And, like I said, giving the students a chance to pick their projects for themselves would give them better opportunities to show what they can do.

What are your thoughts regarding the fact that Brick dated Bonnie even though it’s been canonically stated that he was in high school for 7 years thus making him a legal adult? I mean he didn’t break up with Bonnie until he graduated. Did he not consider himself an adult dating a teenager since he was still in high school? Was it the main reason he dumped her since he realized it wasn’t okay to date her anymore?

My first thought: Disney should've thought about that a little better. It's a bit creepy in hindsight.

My second thought: if Middleton High needed seven years to teach Brick what they should've taught him in four, someone wasn't doing their job. My guess, Middleton High could not accommodate someone with a learning disability, and that Brick has one.

Final thoughts: Normally I'd call that creepy, but Bonnie was definitely the one in charge in that relationship, so I'm not actually worried about a power imbalance.

I also don't think Brick was doing anything inappropriate with Bonnie. The one date we see them on, he kisses Bonnie on the cheek.

(Granted, he could have been avoiding PDA because Kim was there, but Brick didn't seem overly concerned about that.)

I do think Brick knows he's older than his classmates, but I also think his relationship with Bonnie was more "she said we're dating so we're dating". I don't think he was actually that into Bonnie.

(His jealousy over Hirotaka was weird and out-of-character, not the norm for Brick or his relationship with Bonnie.)

As for why Brick dumped her, I imagine that was one reason. Another reason could have been their schedules no longer being compatible.

Their relationship could be creepy, but Bonnie was clearly in charge, and their relationship didn't actually have a lot of physical aspects.

Even though no one's asking, in a reboot, I'd get rid of it taking Brick seven years to finish high school. He'd be roughly the same age as the rest of the main cast, maybe a year or two older.

Would Kim grow as a character if she did the whole “young character reacting realistically to trauma” via Finn Martin, Anne Boonchuy and Luz Noceda?

She would probably grow as a character, at least a little bit, if she did that. It would at least make her more sympathetic to Ron's fears, so she wouldn't be constantly dismissing them all the time.

(Of course, I'm upset that she's constantly dismissing Ron's fears when she knows they were caused by traumatic experiences, but that's for another time.)

So, yeah, probably. And I think it'd be very interesting to see that.

It'd be nice to know that even the girl who can do anything experiences fear and trauma. And that experiencing those things doesn't keep her from being a hero, and it's not bad to seek counselling for it either.

It'd be really cool to see, I would love that.

Reblogging from myself to add:

Kim was meant to be a role model for little girls. Real little girls. In the real world.

So, it kind of seems like she should be expected to follow real world standards, when it comes to behavior and morals, at least.

Especially because real people doing those things would get in trouble.

It's not like Kim's never allowed to make mistakes, I'd just prefer it if those mistakes were from a lack of knowledge, not because she didn't care.

But, again, you don't have to follow me if this isn't for you. I just had to get that last thought out there.

I’ll agree that is usually Ron who is a more dynamic character and he is usually the one one who seems to put more effort/is more invested into their relationship, (but this can be easily explained by S4 focusing more on him) but a lot of the things you are complaining about are just a result of judging a cartoon by real world standard and taking it far too seriously.

All of the points you brought up were just scenes that are meant to establish the plot of the episodes or show the changes the characters were going through, like the coupon scene was to establish Kim and Ron needed jobs.

And Kim expressing she wanted something different for their next date isn’t bad, she is communicating her needs and that’s a good trait in any relationship.

I'm aware they're scenes that were brought up to establish plot.

What's your point?

Maybe I am taking a cartoon too seriously, but that's my perogative.

If it bothers you, you don't have to follow me or see my posts. I'm not going to force you, or even hate you if you decide that my blog is not something you'd like to see regularly.

It's not for everybody, and I don't blame people who decide this isn't for them.

Yes, Kim expressing she wanted something different for their next date is good. My biggest complaint, and that's on me for not making it clear, is that when Ron did provide her with something new, she pouted and moped.

At a ceremony Ron's dad was being honored at.

It might not have been the most exciting thing ever, and I could understand the disappointment, but for an almost-adult, pouting and moping is kind of immature behavior.

Her sarcastic comment of "Yep, real exciting" also wasn't necessary.

Ultimately, it's not bad the she wants something new, it's bad that she doesn't offer specific ideas but complains about what Ron arranged anyways.

I understand that most of what I complain about is meant to establish the plot of the episode. I just think there were better ways to do that.

The coupon scene: there could have been other ways of establishing Kim and Ron wanting and/or needing jobs.

For example:

They're seniors who want a bit more independence and spending money than their allowances can provide.

Kim's saving up for a car and Ron's saving up for a new scooter.

They're both hoping to put extra money in their college funds.

Kim might want new clothes and Ron might want a new gaming system.

Kim wanted the employee discount at Club Banana and Ron wanted the employee discount at the places he applied to.

Any combination of the above.

There are definitely other scenarios in which they'd want and/or need jobs.

Kim complaining about Ron using coupons for their dates, despite not financially contributing to them herself, didn't have to be one of them.

This is probably small in the grand scheme of things, but how did Emilie being noble play any impact in the story at all?

I mean, I'd get it if it was just a small detail to help deepen Emilie's character, but why nobility of all things? I don't know, from what I'm seeing so far, the whole "Emilie renounced her noble title" shtick just feels worthless if it's not going to impact the story or add depth to Emilie's character (like maybe upbringing or personal values?).

I don't know. Like everything else, the noble part just feels shallow and means nothing to the story, especially for a character like Emilie, who is the plot device for the whole show. Any detail about her, like her personality and life story, is supposed to influence the story and characters one way or another, namely Hawkmoth since she's his driving force.

So what was the point?

For context, this ask is about Félix's play which says that Emilie gave up her title to be with Gabriel. I'm gonna give a slightly larger section of the transcript of the play for full context, but the relevant but is at the end of the last paragraph:

Félix: The king and queen's twins grew up, each day as different in heart as they were similar in body. The firstborn, curious and brazen, despised life at court and escaped at every opportunity. The younger daughter, well-behaved and respectful, did everything she could to please her parents, and stayed quietly in the castle. Félix: (as Mr. Graham de Vanily) Oh, my queen. Did we entrust our legacy to the right princess? Kagami: (as Mrs. Graham de Vanily) She will fall in line, eventually. Félix: Confident that she would settle down as she matured, the king and queen allowed the curious princess to leave to study beyond the sea in another kingdom. There, she immediately found true love in a humble tailor. Félix: The tailor was making clothes so magnificent that they revealed the beauty of the soul of anyone who wore them. Although it made her parents furious, the curious princess gave up her rank, her wealth and her kingdom to live a bohemian life with the tailor.

Story wise, I have no idea why any of this was added since it adds nothing to canon. It's not like this finally explains why Gabriel and Emilie are poor while Amelie is wealthy. Along similar lines, it's not like Amelie's title has ever mattered. Prior to this play, I don't think that we even knew that she had a title or that she was the younger sister. The play is all about explaining things that we never had reasons to question in the first place.

My best guess as to why the writers wrote this pointless backstory is that they wanted to make Emilie seem even more pure and perfect so they went with the tired old trope of a rich girl giving up material things for the sake of love and art because good pure women don't care about material things! Only nasty, shallow women care about money. (Way to play into sexist tropes, guys.)

There may also be cultural elements at play here given that France doesn't have the greatest history with nobility, so giving up a noble title may be seen as good and pure to a French writer, but I don't know enough about French culture to say that with any certainty. If anyone who reads this blog is French and would like to chime in, then feel free!

While we're on the topic of the play, I wanted to point out that the above quoted passage is why I say that the Graham de Vanily parents can be as kind or as abusive as you'd like to make them. It's incredibly vague and you can read into it whatever you want to read into it. Were they good loving parents who were just upset about their daughter living in poverty or were they miserable controlling classist who Emilie fled England to get away from? It's up to you because you can get both reads from this. The play commits to almost nothing of value. Politicians could take lessons from this impressive level of noncommittal writing.

A better version of the play would have focused on things that actually matter to canon like the details of finding the miraculous and/or Emilie learning she's sick, but you could only have those details if they were coming from Nathalie or Gabriel. Félix is a terrible choice for a character to tell us the show's backstory because he knows so little of it, thus the play focusing on his largely pointless backstory.

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.