TuxedAaron

Hello all.

You know, I think it's fair to say that Kim Possible has been weighing heavily on my mind the last couple of weeks. Something you'll see in the next couple of art projects I'm planning to post in the foreseeable future. But before I do that, I feel compelled to share with you something that's been swimming around in my head for years that I just don't feel like keeping to myself anymore...and that's my own personal analysis of Kim and Ron's romance on the show...specifically, how it developed. Some of you will already find this thesis quite familiar as I've discussed it with a few people over the years. But you still might find something a bit different, as I've had time to refine my thoughts on the matter...not to the point that it overhauls or contradicts anything I came up with originally, but just that it tweaks one or two things a little bit.

Personally, I've always found it interesting how the mentality of this relationship evolved. Because the thing of it is, just as Kim and Ron are opposites in terms of personality, their romantic feelings for each other developed in completely opposite ways. In Ron's case, everything was straightforward and up front. The way I see it, Ron basically fell in love with Kim pretty much the moment he met her. It just took him 12 years to figure it out. I mean, all you have to do is just look at half the things he does for her in Seasons 1 through 3...hell, even just tagging along with Kim for all the mission stuff...and you can't tell me that LOVE wasn't the primary motivator. But it wasn't until the episode, "Emotion Sickness" (easily on every fan's Top 5 List), that he plainly laid out what the problem was. The thing was, even though Ron was beginning to accept how he truly felt about Kim, he still wasn't comfortable with the thought of expressing it, mostly because he was afraid if they ever DID get together, that he'd find some way to screw it all up and then not only would he not have a girlfriend, he wouldn't even have a BEST friend anymore. So he figured, why take a gamble when he was already sitting on a sure thing? But then, Eric, the (then as yet-unknown) Synthodrone came along in the movie, "So The Drama", and suddenly Ron's guaranteed arrangement wasn't such a guarantee anymore. So now he had to make a choice...do NOTHING...do SOMETHING. Either way, that meant he had to take a risk...not something he'd ever been particularly comfortable with.

Kim, on the other hand, took a much more roundabout route with her emotions than Ron did. It wasn't love at first sight with her, but I think it's fair to say that Kim's feelings for Ron began to change around the same time Ron was coming to grips with his. Obviously, the first evidence of this actually came during the movie, "A Sitch in Time", when we got just a taste of how much they truly meant to each other. There was a clear emotional need there, beyond simple friendship. For Ron, this just took the love he'd always had for Kim and brought it into focus. But for Kim, this feeling was something new. And once she'd tapped into that, there was pretty much no turning back. Even after the timeline had been reset at the end of the movie and all the changes had been undone, there were still minute lingering aftereffects, so the argument can easily be made that that door to Kim's heart was still left standing wide open.

It was after this that we started to see Kim's jealous side start to peek out. Obviously, the episode, "Gorilla Fist" and her reaction to the presence of ninja girl, Yori, in Ron's life is the most prominent example, but it wasn't the ONLY one. Consider the episode, "Steal Wheels", when Ron suddenly starts hanging out more with buddy, Felix Renton, as opposed to when he was just spending all his time with Kim. While Felix was, by no means, a romantic rival, the fact remains that, all of a sudden, Kim didn't have a monopoly on Ron's social life anymore and she didn't like it.

And then, of course, we come back to "Emotion Sickness". Yes, the obvious refrain is that when the "Love" function got triggered on the Moodulator chips, it simply amplified the already-existing emotions that Kim and Shego had for Ron and Drakken, respectively (and that it was Kim's TRUE love for Ron that ultimately allowed her to break the Moodulator's control). But the far more subtle indicator was Kim's reveal of how she had drifted away from her longtime crush, Josh Mankey, in the aftermath of their "perfect" date in the episode, "Blush". I mean, she'd finally managed to get her hooks into the guy she'd had eyes on for so long, only to come to the realization that everything she THOUGHT she wanted in Josh...turned out to NOT actually be what she wanted. Basically, the argument could be made that Kim's heart already belonged to someone else by that point.

GEE...I-WONDER-WHO-THAT-COULD-BE?

Now, some may say that Kim's feelings for Ron grew gradually, without her even noticing it, but I don't think that's true. My own read on it is that she understood what was going on, but had more or less mentally conditioned herself to not think about Ron in a romantic way, as a defense mechanism to avoid things getting..."awk-weird"...between them. This was all mostly laid out in "So the Drama", starting with Kim's phone call to her mother, early on in the movie, when Kim blurts out, "He's not a GUY...He's RON". It's not that Kim was OPPOSED to the idea of Ron as a prospect. Quite the contrary...if Kim and Ron had actually been together at that point, there would have been no problem (hence, no conflict and therefore...no MOVIE) because Kim would have already been perfectly happy and content. But since she didn't know how Ron felt about her yet, she couldn't bring herself to think of him as romantic option. He was the platonic best friend, and she never saw any indication that he wanted to BE anything more. So putting her life on hold for a relationship that (as far as she knew) was never going to happen just wasn't practical.

A later example comes during the scene in the treehouse, where Kim and Ron are actually having two entirely different conversations, but because they're so completely out of sync, they don't realize it. The key moment in that scene is where Kim says, "We're not in Pre-K anymore. Time to grow up," because Ron is moping and upset over the fact that Eric is in the picture. Ron, naturally, is tweaked because HE'S the one who wants to be with Kim, but Kim still doesn't know this yet and assumes that Ron's recent state of tantrum is because he's just trying to hang on to the best friend and playmate he's always had for years. So Kim is trying to make the point that having a playmate isn't enough for her anymore. She wants a companion...someone she can share her life with. And if Ron can't be that guy for her, then she has to start looking elsewhere. But of course, Ron doesn't know how Kim feels either, so he's not getting the message.

It was only just before the climax of the movie, when Ron hinted at how he felt (even if he didn't exactly shout it from the mountaintops) that everything finally changed. Granted, this was a definite, "flipping of the switch" for Kim, but it wasn't because she suddenly discovered that she HAD these feelings for Ron. It was because she suddenly realized that it was okay for her to ACT on them. In that one instant, all the mental roadblocks Kim had put up over time were completely obliterated, because as it turned out, all the reasons she thought they had to be there never ACTUALLY existed. Basically, Ron opened the door and put out the welcome mat for Kim to do all the things she thought she couldn't do before. And DAMNED if she wasn't gonna do EVERY...SINGLE...ONE OF THEM.

You know, when you actually look at it in the broad strokes, Kim and Ron's situation wasn't really all that unusual, or even unique. I mean, I think it's fair to say that every single one of us has been there at least ONCE in our lives. You know the drill...you become attracted to someone, but you're not quite sure how to express it (especially if they're an existing friend), because you don't know what THEY think about you. And if YOU bare your soul and THEY don't feel the same way, now suddenly, it's this THING around your neck for all time. Kim and Ron were both at that same impasse, and again, their reluctance to move past it was for completely opposite reasons, with Kim suppressing her feelings out of pragmatism, and Ron suppressing his out of fear. And as with any situation of this kind, it took one of them finally breaking the deadlock to make them both realize that they wanted the exact same thing...specifically, each other.

At least, that's just MY thinking on it. Granted, there's a lot to unpack here. But like I said, that's what makes it interesting. ^_^

Questions? Comments? As always, feel free to tell me what you think. Look forward to hearing from you.

Later.

Aaron

Hello all.

I know it's been a while (AGAIN) since anyone's heard from me. Unfortunately, the last couple of years, my life has really been thrown out of whack and it's only been the last couple of months where I've begun to build any forward momentum. That's been taking up A LOT of real estate in my brain and can REALLY mess with my concentration. Hence, why I just haven't been able to focus on things like my artwork.

Not helping matters is when I tried my first foray into accepting art commissions last year, during a four-month layoff period at work. Initially, I thought it could serve as just some pocket change while I was receiving Employment Insurance. Unfortunately, something I believed would be simple turned into something ludicrously complicated and put the kibosh on that whole thing. As you can imagine, that didn't improve my overall disposition on the trajectory my life was taking at the time.

It's only been recently that I've come up for air, so to speak, and my head's been able to clear. So I've managed to complete a few projects...specifically, the first five commission requests I received (one that was paid for and the rest I did for free). A few of these were actually completed some time ago and just weren't posted yet, but I'll be putting them up soon enough. Consider them Christmas presents, in the spirit of the Season. ^_^

The bottom line is, I haven't exactly been doing nothing and with the holidays come and gone, I'll be doing more as the weeks move forward. I still don't know how regularly I'll be getting things posted, but I definitely want to do more than I have been. I can only ask that everyone be patient with me for a little while longer.

Thank you for those who have stuck with me.

Later.

Aaron

Hello all.

Okay, there's been a slight complication. Don't worry, nothing's happened to my computer or me. It's just that a recent turn of events has forced me to make a very difficult decision and stop accepting commissions at the present time.

See, I thought doing commissions was going to be a relatively simple endeavor to get into...just something to supplement my income while I was on EI over the summer. But due to a razor-thin legislative technicality (which was only brought to my attention just today), it has turned into something OBSCENELY complicated.

The bottom line is, until I get a better read on the terrain, I'm going to have to put commissions on hold. I've already contacted the people I've agreed to do commissions for. Two have already received their pictures and I plan to get the other two completed over the weekend...after which, I'll be posting them sooner than later. But I have to stop asking for payment. It's just too much risk for too little reward right now.

My sincerest heartfelt thanks does go out to those who were willing to pay for my work, though. It really does mean a lot. ^_^

Later.

Aaron

Hi.

Recently, I've begun giving some serious thought to the possibility of accepting commissions (possibly even opening up a Patreon) in order to supplement my current income*. However, I'm currently unclear how that affects things when it comes to taxes and things of that nature. Also, since my current employment calls for seasonal layoffs, that would mean applying for Employment Insurance during that period and I'm not sure how that affects things, either. Granted, like I said, this would just be a supplement, I wouldn't be trying to make an actual living off my artwork (at which point, I would be declaring myself self-employed), but I'm not sure of the government recognizes such a distinction. And even if they do, is there any real difference?

Basically, I'm just asking any Canadian artists with experience in commissions and Patreon to get in touch with me and hopefully give me some advice as to how they've navigated these particular minefields. After all, I don't want to jump into this unprepared. Any and all advice on this matter would be greatly appreciated. I hope to hear from someone soon.

Thank you.

Aaron

(*For anyone who's sent requests to me, I haven't made a decision on commissions, as of yet. Like I said, I need to get some insight first. But if I do decide to go that way, rest assured that anyone who has made a request prior to that decision, those requests will still be honored. So you don't have to worry about that.)

So I just caught the end of Ms. Marvel recent on Disney+. And after taking everything into consideration, I'll say that I thought it was...fine. Just...fine. I'll admit, it didn't set my world on fire. But I realized going in that I wasn't going to be the target audience for this show, so I accepted that it couldn't (though obviously, your mileage will vary, depending on how loudly the subject matter speaks to you, as an individual). Taken strictly on it's own merits, however, I didn't consider it to be a waste of my time and thought it was a solid B+ outing.

What's gotten people's attention, though, is the end of the Season Finale, where it was essentially revealed that the MCU Kamala Khan is not an Inhuman, but is in fact, a MUTANT. Personally, I thought this was an interesting development in an "art imitating life imitating art" sort of way. After all, the whole reason the Inhumans got such a big push when Kamala first arrived in the comics was because Marvel knew they couldn't use the X-Men in the MCU yet. So they were trying to build up the Inhumans' public profile because they were a close enough analogue to Mutants to serve as a replacement. But then, in the intervening years, two things happened. First, the Inhumans, themselves, turned out to be a miserable failure...one of the few black marks on the MCU's record (not that the Inhumans were ever much of a success story to begin with, so Marvel was kind of ice skating uphill from Day One on that). And second, Disney bought 20th Century Fox, which meant that Mutants COULD be brought into the MCU now. So...yeah. Since they'd essentially flipped the script in real life, why not do the same in the MCU and introduce Kamala as a Mutant? Sounds reasonable to me.

That being said, while this also suggests strongly that Marvel might well nudge Kamala in the direction of the X-Men when they finally get that corner of the MCU off the ground, I don't think it's going to be like what we've seen before. In previous incarnations, we've been given the likes of Kitty Pryde, Jubilee and Rogue...generally a young female Mutant who just got her powers and has no idea what's going on, and who usually gets brought into the fold as the obligatory Entry Level "POV" member...someone whose initial function is to indoctrinate the audience into the X-Men's world. In Kamala's case however, I'm not so sure that's what we're going to get. After all, she seems to have a pretty good handle on her powers already and odds are, we're gonna see her getting involved with a bunch of next-level cosmic stuff when "The Marvels" comes out next year. So by the time the X-Men decide to become a part of her life (assuming they do), her suspension of disbelief is likely going to be pretty high already ("*Pff!* Please. You think YOU guys are weird? Want to know what I'VE been through?").

My guess is, in all likelihood, if they're gonna put Kamala in an X-Men movie, it'll primarily be in a guest-starring capacity. You know, have some element of the plot send the X-Men blowing through New Jersey for a few minutes, just so she can show up and go, "Oh, hey...you guys need a hand with something? Because I don't have anything better to do today". And then, the X-Men can just go, "Yeah, sure. Why not?", and off they go. But whichever direction they end up taking things, it looks to me like they're starting off on the right foot.

At least...that's just MY thinking on it.