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Post by Luke Danger on Mar 22, 2016 20:38:09 GMT -5
Chapter 8 - Hail Hail, The Gang’s All Here Picking up right where the last chapter left off…
This was being set up the moment we saw Bonnie being nice under the Transducer’s spell. But it’s fitting, in some ways. Ron has just flipped everyone’s morality, which means that he also runs the risk of facing those who were now turned good. Though I’ll admit, Killigan looks like he’s drawing a claymore in that picture. “Ah’ll cut yer head off and spit down yer neck!”
Sensei’s line here hit the key point. With this scheme, Ron not only had to worry about Kim, but also other villains he’s now just created. More than a couple times in the series the villains have fought each other to be the one in charge, even going as far as to help Kim against them. And with Ron as the one presently powering it, Ron’s basically the biggest threat. And heroes can make the choice of going for the source to save as many as possible, and in some times that’s really the moral thing to do when the small goods you do will get overwritten anyways if the big bad wins. The only way this would have been any more ironic had Ron sent them wristbands to keep them evil and they decided to go after him s while still evil because he was a threat to their plans.
And… his lines are utterly accurate. Let’s run them down: Drakken: Has never conquered the world despite the most bids. THAT SAID, Drakken has done something that none of the others have done: he’s gotten closest to victory and is the only villain who’s managed to break Kim’s defiance to the point where she was ready to give up. Even Grimm and Evil Ron hasn’t accomplished this as Kim hadn’t surrendered yet, merely been battered down. Shego: Her biggest problem is a lack of initiative and ambition. She’s outright one of the most dangerous villains in the show and in A Sitch in Time succeeded in conquering the world with the help of a time travelling monkey idol - but at the same time, this was almost certainly aided and abetted by the fact that Kim went missing in the time stream (if her parents knowing she was just lost in the time stream means anything), and even then she didn’t think of the idea herself. Her own future self had to basically spell it out to her. The Seniors: Ineffectual villains, but I’d say it’s not so much a lack of brains (especially since Junior is a rather effective anti-villain in the fourth season) as much as lack of craps to give (Junior) or adhering strictly to ‘evil tradition’ (Senior) since it’s more of a hobby for the old man to have something to do with his time. Monkey Fist: Not much was said in depth, but then again the monkey ninjas have never won a fight worth a dang. They’re really just glorified goons and they’re not specifically numerous either. Killigan: He only had one solo episode. Every other time he’s part of an ensemble cast or is even secondary. He’s really more of a thug for hire like Grimm most of the time.
I love this reaction. Ron’s finally decided to get serious and throw in the kitchen sink. Actually I wouldn’t be surprised if he USED the kitchen sink in one of those Mega-bots… but at least he’s got an upper limit before he gets flustered. Can’t predict everything. And really, flustering Evil Ron is a really satisfying moment after how implacable he’s been throughout the whole thing. I definitely like the two contrasting images though. Kim flanked by the former villains all look determined, but standing together. Evil Ron and Team Probable look vicious and ready to attack… save for Rhonda, who’s uneasy, and there isn’t quite a sense of unity in the images. This whole fic did spring up questions from reviewers - we had seen evil Ron, but what about good Rhonda? Given that Slyrr chose not to use the Attitudinator again for that, it’s interesting to note that whereas in her other pics she’s dropping evil smirks galore.
Hah! Even as a bad guy Ron’s still got that phobia. ‘course, the Megabots are plowing through them like Zealots through Zerglings...
Oh come on she’s going to attack you, I think you’re allowed by honor (and chivalry) to defend yourself against the wench who’s challenging you. Then again, the Seniors are practically hidebound by evil tradition, so I guess this fits…
Kim knows Ron all too well, and she’s now able to employ some of his phobias to full effect. Now all we need are combat capable garden gnomes. I’m sure there’s a GJ base with those somewhere...
Even when good, Shego’s still got her snark. Probably a relic from her days as a heroine with her brothers. And Drakken becomes a goody two-shoes with a knack for fixing things. Interestingly enough, Drakken is most famously competent when he’s helping the good guys - and it is even discussed in the epilogue of the Graduation episode where Dementor finds it exquisitely amusing that as a mad scientist Drakken is a failure, but saving the world he comes up with a more or less foolproof plan. Admittedly it had a two alien sized hole in it, but Ron (... unfortunately ...) filled that all too well.
I find it interesting that Ron agrees with the assessment that beating him would make that much of a difference considering Grimm and Rhonda are both active. Two ways to read it: one, Evil Ron is pragmatic enough to recognize he’s the one who supplied a lot of the power to his side of the fight and without him they have limited ability to retreat, regroup, resupply, and attack since he designed just about everything they’re presently using. Or two, he’s arrogant enough to assume he doesn’t need the others to win against the combined villains, while they’re purely reliant on him. I think it’s a mix of both, more of number two. But a fight between Kim and Ron feels appropriate as a way to really bring this story to it’s climax. The thing that really makes Evil Ron such a great villain is the fact that Ron is Kim’s closest friend and at this point, they’re lovers. Combined with being one of the most effective villains, it gives him a rather unique standout compared to other villains. In some ways, he’s both a physical and a psychological one. Physically is pretty obvious. Psychologically… Kim knows that it’s Ron under there. That he’s a victim as much as anyone else. And she needs to fight him to stop his plans. He’s part of her team. He’s her responsibility. Particularly since, if you want to really stretch things, this is somehow her fault via being the target of Grimm’s revenge or getting him involved in these missions in the first place.
I’ll admit, Good Drakken is actually rather adorable in that ‘mad scientist who doesn’t really like violence but still gets involved in it’ kind of way. Admittedly he flashed a solution quickly, but remember he is a mad scientist who’s developed numerous doomsday devices, turned an automated factory into a functional robot warrior that could rip a tank in half, did all the stuff for Lil Diablo himself (except for the toy design and the specific tech, which he had to modify anyways), and more. He’s ripped on as being incompetent, but when it comes to building stuff… he’s pretty damn good. Of course, that also means that Ron’s boast was too soon about Kim being on borrowed time. Drakken’s just weakened a key part of his army the same way the Psi Disruptor makes a muckery of the Zerg.
At this point, the two drop out of the story until the fight is over to focus more towards Kim and Ron. And really, I think that fits; they’ve really done their role so far and this is supposed to be the Return of Zorpox, not the return of Grimm. For the final act of this story… Grimm and Rhonda really has no place besides being in the background. They’ll be back in this chapter, but for the last fight? They’re really not important as Grimm notes. After all, he didn’t start this to put Evil Ron on top. He outright said it in the first chapter, he wants revenge on Kim. So, Kim Possible versus (Evil) Ron Stoppable. Kim as the Battle Suit, Ron has MMP, the Lotus Blade, and his Zorpox outfit. Battlefield is a warehouse lair, a fight is going on around them involving numerous other villains and warbots, using the Attitudinator on Ron to get him out of the fight is presently not an option. Who wins?
This is why I mentioned that Kim has probably at most sparred with Ron in the last chapter. Kim’s probably mentally restrained by not wanting to hurt him, and her aforementioned feelings. Normally I dislike ‘I was just holding back’ since it’s usually an excuse, but here… honestly I think it’s plausible, no, sensible. Kim doesn’t want to hurt Ron because this isn’t Ron himself betraying her but rather it all being a result of mind muckery. Now she’s realizing that it’s not going to be as easy as just flipping a switch. Grimm made sure of that and she can’t easily access the other wrist band to let the Transducer affect him. But just like Captain America in The Winter Soldier, she can’t let her feelings get in the way. She has to hurt him to save the day, and in the end… Kim is a hero, and if she has to hurt him to save everyone she’ll do it. It’s a hard choice, but it’s a legitimate one, not the memetic one where you do this horrific thing when you have a much better option that wasn’t disadvantageous just to prove your manliness. It does at least justify the previous chapter - she was trying to do it without hurting him, but now she has to go full force. And she knows he can take it, having struck earlier, so full force is the appropriate response.
THERE WE GO! That’s what I’ve been waiting for.
Had Ron been using his MMP in normal circumstances, the Lotus Blade probably would’ve flown out of her hands anyways. Kim doesn’t have it, so she can’t control it even if she could still wield it as a standard katana. Of course, Ron’s using a gadget rather than MMP, but either way the Lotus Blade’s full properties are only useful in the hands of someone with MMP. That said, I don’t think this really takes away from Kim’s win. Unlike with Grimm’s fight where the aftermath implied that Grimm allowed it to happen, Ron simply was prepared for the eventuality and it reads as such. Ron probably tried to use MMP on the Lotus Blade earlier and realized he couldn’t recall it at a distance, so made the MMM just in case. Jeez that’s a lot of acronyms... Still, Ron isn’t the only one with MMP…
Monkey Fist and Ron are the main ones… but Rufus also has MMP. His is usually overlooked, though, in favor of Ron’s. In fact the only time where his MMP ever came up is in Exchange, otherwise MMP is all Ron. The Lotus Blade does seem to have some level of intelligence - as Sensei described it in the episode it first appeared in:
So, the Lotus Blade seems to have a preference or the ability to at least go towards those who want to use it for the right reasons. Now, Monkey Fist was able to use it himself with MMP in the same episode so it was never an item with “Required Alignment: Good” or anything like that, but it does seem to have some preference. Eh, it’s magic, why am I trying to explain crap?
Poor Rufus. Then again we hadn’t seen him at all. Which usually happens - Rufus isn’t really there until he’s needed, hence being in Ron’s pocket. Then when the deus ex is needed, he pops out when it’s time and afterwards promptly goes back into the pocket.
Unfortunately, Grimm is probably hoping for ‘no matter what it took’. I do like that Kim actually went to check - even if she was prepared to beat him to a pulp, she probably wasn’t planning on killing him if that was what it took. Her checking, in my opinion, affirms that yes she does genuinely love him. Though Ron having an off switch is probably not so much “hey Kim here’s something you can use” as much as “If I need to shut the shield off I need to be able to”, since you know, mad science is probably a maintenance hog. Still, it is a hope that Ron could be restored otherwise if there’s still a part of him in there.
Leave it to the villains. Happy to turn on Kim once the Tower of Opposite Alignment was offline, but some ninja show up and they all bail. Meh, they’re really not needed at this point anyways and they’ve probably got schemes to get back to before this interrupted them. And this does reaffirm that the Lotus Blade has some ability to choose at a distance. If he managed to make contact Monkey Fist would probably have an easier time, but Sensei cut that off. Which leaves two others to deal with…
Okay, this is a pretty plausible out for the ‘Ron is now permanently evil’ from before, but I will have to note that given all we had seen of Grimm before it’s hard to foreshadow it. Looking back, the main one is Grimm telling Rhonda to hold onto it in case they needed later. Which admittedly is a detail that, looking back with it being in Rhonda’s belt pouch, is a detail that only really makes sense when you know how it ends. Until then we probably could just assume Rhonda had given it to Grimm - what mattered was they were saving it. And when he threw the blue phosphorous, it seemed like this was what he was saving it for: to do it in front of Kim. Grimm himself made it clear he’s out for revenge, and nothing we had seen so far indicated that he was unwilling to actually go through and destroy part of Ron’s personality to get it. Yes, villains lie, but they also use the truth when that hurts more. If Grimm wants Kim to suffer - and his dialogue with Rhonda and Jade at the start of the story made it clear he wanted to - doing something like this is the most reliable way to do it. Destroy part of Ron and make her agonize over the choice of having to live with the man she loved no longer being who he was and now a villain screaming canned threats in a jail cell (or worse, breaking out and becoming another recurring foe for her)... or she has to do a morally depraved action on someone - quite likely an innocent - to fix Ron. So Kim believing it is actually logical; to her knowledge, Grimm is a villain who happily unleashed Zorpox knowingly and aware of what he was getting. He’s doing this for revenge, and doesn’t seem to care too much about the collateral given his response to Jade being collateral is, quote,
Yeah. She has no reason to think he wouldn’t do it, particularly prefacing the act by saying he wanted her to suffer and then rubbing it into her face. It’s very important to separate what characters know, and what we know as readers. Even then, we aren’t really given much by Grimm to indicate he wasn’t going to hold onto it and that he wasn’t willing to go this far. While there may have been other artificial solutions like a mini version of the transducer to artificially restore the balance, that’s still a distant hope. And to go further, even Kim would have a reason to believe Grimm throwing it out because she would know what she would do, and Grimm is her opposite. When she really hates someone, she can get scary. Take Shego: that infamous kick in So the Drama? That wasn’t Kim being mad at a one-off; that’s a culmination of all of Shego’s attempts to kill her, Ron, and others set off by Drakken’s scheme. Kim knows the temptation to hurt people in retaliation very well, she just has the morality to hold back. It’s why Bonnie hasn’t ended up in the hospital at Kim’s hands! Grimm, as her villainous opposite, does not necessarily have that control, particularly since she only had two relatively brief encounters. Admittedly this is all much more high level than Kim’s immediate thought process, but she’s not much of the ‘sit back and think about it’ type, she’s the one who gets in there and gets it done. Now, is this a cop-out? Eh, I’m on the fence. On one hand, doing this kind of thing does feel a bit like Slyrr was yanking us around with the idea of a permanently evil Ron. On the other, a lot of foreshadowing only is really visible as such when you go back. Case in point, Knights of the Old Republic where they actually show you all the foreshadowing that was there. Without that context? Wouldn’t have guessed the PC was Revan. With it? Now it suddenly makes sense that they were subtly preparing the idea. In a similar way, it being specifically Rhonda is that preparation, and perhaps if you want to stretch it Grimm not caring either way, but I’d say that it would fit whether he was going to fix Ron or not. Anyways, let’s see how Grimm plays out using this.
Nothing we didn’t already know, but it does kinda bring back how petty this is. Grimm, if she had to use a one-off piece of trickery to beat you or if you had to let her do it (read: earlier in the tunnel)... how is that an insult? If anything that’s a compliment that a fighter like Kim had to resort to dirty tricks! That’s practically an admission that she wasn’t confident in being able to fight you herself! But I think what really grates him is the fact that Kim beat him the way he beats others: psychology. His ego couldn’t take losing in his own arena, especially after he had trashed Kim in hers. Of course, this also means it’s hard to sympathize with Grimm. Any willingness to let go of lost sympathy for him throwing out Ron’s good side being nothing more than a trick to tweak Kim goes with how petty it is. But then again, I compared him to Arcturus Mengsk for a reason. Petty villainy and shock at others doing what he does to them goes with the package. After all, it takes some gall to be shocked that you’d be subject to a public execution after you unleashed the zerg on your own loyal troops, to say nothing of the population of an entire urbanized planet. Yet we still loved to hate Arcturus because he did have the charisma and gall needed to be a bad guy. And as a minor spoiler, Grimm does not let this grudge go. He’s repaid the insult with massive interest, and he still feels the need going forward to try and bring Kim down.
See what I mean? He’s made his payback, and he’s still going for more.
And thus, Team Probable exits the story, and alas there is no GJ hoverjet waiting to turn them to human confetti. Before we deal with the aftermath, I think it’s a good time to deal with all the crap they’ve pulled in the story. So, at the start this was all about revenge. Grimm was pissed at being beaten once, after getting a rather flawless victory himself, and wanted revenge. And he wanted to repay it with excessive interest. Okay, fair enough, as Senor Senior Senior put it in Animal Attraction:
So I can’t necessarily fault it being disproportionate, that’s perfectly in line with the setting. In fact considering that mind control was used before I can’t even fault the use of the Attitudinator other than it being a rather sharp jump. Actually… I think Grimm’s scheme of revenge was pretty well planned and executed, with the main hole being “What if Zorpox the Conqueror cannot be put back in the bottle?” In fact, using Zorpox as a way to hurt Kim is an absolutely brilliant plan of attack, especially since he probably would have some knowledge about Eric. Really, I can’t fault Grimm’s scheme there and playing along with it allows him to further it and by taking the Shego role for Evil Ron, he allows him to give jibes like Shego does and more opportunities to tweak and torment Kim. So, overall I approve of the scheme. It’s a good one, the motive is very believable, Grimm does his research for it, and he milks it for all its worth without overcommitting by actually destroying Ron’s good side. Had he done that, I think that would’ve changed the outlook a bit as, while certainly genuine, also means he’s ignoring the ‘genie back in the bottle’ hole and not leaving himself with an out when he’s pinned down after the dust settles. Really, as a scheme the one thing I can fault it with is Grimm not being willing to pull out to force Kim to think over how she’s going to restore Ron. If he wanted to go further, he probably could have done that. Get out while everything’s going hell in a handbasket once it’s clear Ron will lose, then watch Kim’s struggle for a few days before using the fact that they still had it. Don’t give Kim the hope spot since honestly… I kinda wanted to see that too. What would Kim choose with such a hard choice ahead of her? That’s some really great material to work with for a fanfic. At the same time, if he only reveals it later Kim has no reason to trust him. At least here, he could at least have his back against the wall as a reason to tell the truth. Furthermore, it did allow him to give Kim a sharp case of the anger that Grimm was going to threaten her with feeling again if she crossed him. Normally, villain threats as they flee are canned. This one? Actually rather chilling, especially since next time Grimm might not hold back. What if he does it to her parents, to her siblings, to Wade, to Monique, and goes even further? Grimm’s shown he can strike hard where Kim lives... His line about ‘not needing the attitudinator’... okay, Kim probably shouldn’t have taken the swing, but after all he did… it’s hard to fault Kim for it. It’s both genius from a writing point, but also infuriating. On the genius side, it allows Grimm to further show his mind game superiority and get his revenge - he can prove he can goad Kim into taking a hit she otherwise wouldn’t take and that the only way she gets a good hit on him is when he lets her - but just like I had big problems with the fight in the access tunnel, that’s the problem. It reinforces to the reader that Grimm can play Kim like a fiddle and take away her agency. I think I missed this the first time though, but at the same time… Grimm isn’t supposed to be a hero here. He’s supposed to be a villain, and reviled as Arcturus Mengsk was he was still liked as a villain. Grimm has so far done that - made himself reviled, but as a villain should be. I still think that Slyrr needed someone to go over the balance of the fights or at least point out that he had left Kim vulnerable to Grimm from all angles and stripped a lot of her agency, but that’s the main issue. As a villain, Grimm has solidified himself as a memorable one who has the heartlessness and skill to hit Kim where it hurts. And in some ways, that makes him a better villain than the rest in the KP ‘verse - in fact, I’d say Drakken is the only villain superior to that, and he’s only held back by the fact that… well, he didn’t win. Grimm did. He got his revenge and escaped quite handily. And I think this is what really made Team Probable popular with the Kim Possible fandom; they were great villains and they can always come back for more. But at the same time, Kim has no reason not to report this to Global Justice even if the shenanigans from the last story weren’t reported or just filed away in some random archive. Grimm’s name should be on the most wanted lists for this stunt - sure, Ron did the stunt primarily, but unless there were no security cameras (Evil Ron never shut his off when he took over Drakken’s lair in Bad Boy), then there should be some footage. If anything, this act should have put him and his team at the top of everybody’s bingo books considering that it caused destruction that Lil Diablo was probably the only thing to rival it up to this point. And Drakken was in jail for months until an alien broke him out for that. Admittedly this wouldn’t be a problem if not for the events of A Friend in Darkness… anyways, there’s still more story to go over. That bridge can be crossed when it gets there.
I like this. Any moral man would be freaking had they realized that they had just done that. Freaking out at the possibility of abusing power like that, especially since MMP is involved and even if he doesn’t know it’s upper limit, that’s terrifying. Sure, being a world conquering dictator might be a bit cool at first and part of the fun of games like Total War or Overlord is being the conqueror, but when you start to seriously think about it gets more terrifying. Even more so if you’ve fought villains for a couple years and seen their evil at work, and having already had one happening of it before. I mean, video games is one thing, but reality? Yikes. Speaking of that, the image of Ron looking into the mirror. That really defines the conflict he’s feeling right now. A shattered mirror, offering a glimpse of the abyss amidst reality.
So those were the upgrades Grimm was talking about in Chapter 3... But if you want to reassure Ron, that’s a good way to do it. Furthermore what Sensei points out is really the point Grimm missed in his philosophy. It’s supposed to be in balance - I compared Kim and Grimm flipping the usual gender association to Legend of Korra, and that was a criticism of Raava and Vaatu. One being ‘good’ and the other ‘evil’ without the balance of needing both. Now that’s a debate for another time, but it does serve as a reminder that not all philosophies look at what many consider evil as being utterly reprehensible. In fact… I’d say that the way the story is going, Kim shows that. We’ve seen her as a hero throughout the show, helping people across the world whether it’s helping conservation of wildlife (IE, rescuing baby eagles that had gone missing) or saving the world from doomsday devices. But even then we see that she has serious flaws. She has problems with pushing herself too hard and trying to do that to others (see episodes like The New Ron or most chillingly Coach Possible), she can get quite angry and take shots that aren’t necessarily controlled (here with Grimm or in So the Drama). Yet without that, we actually would get Ron’s lack of achievement. Shego’s flaw is that she lacks ambition to be more. Kim has that ambition - perhaps too much given her extensive extracurriculars - but it’s been counterbalanced by a genuine desire to help people and a loyalty to her friends, and the ambition is directed in a more positive direction because of that. Consider that while she was raring to go after and stop Evil Ron, Grimm only revealed why she shouldn’t (and this is AFTER Kim asked what the catch was) when she was already trying to move on to save the world. And she immediately dropped that go stop Grimm from destroying it - in fact if Grimm didn’t interfere she would’ve succeeded even if it meant that Grimm could now seal off the tunnel. For all of Kim’s flaws, when the chips are down she will stand by her friends and family and do her best to save them. She has problems, but let’s be honest what teenager doesn’t? The show showed them, but as the series went on Kim also began to mature out of the flaws. She stopped pushing Ron so hard to change - heck that’s probably why she hasn’t forced him to learn his MMP on top of the other reasons: she respects him. She still pushed him, but she went more for encouragement, setting an example (IE, getting a job herself so he would), and a rather improbable amount of tolerance for his antics. It’s probably not what Slyrr was going for, but it was an interesting thing to realize. As Sensei pointed out, there’s good and evil in most, but it’s balanced. And sure, while Grimm may think he doesn’t need the Attitudinator to ‘turn’ Kim, Kim still kept in in check. If anything, that punch was less petty vengeance and more a response to all the crap Grimm had done - not just to her, but to Ron, to her family, to her friends, and to the world. But we still have one more chapter; two titles. Worse than the Storm: Aftermath, or Always There. Back in the summary, Slyrr said that Grimm’s most formidable weapon is the truth, and in Chapter 2 we saw it with the chip. Now that Ron almost certainly remembers… and Grimm made a point of claiming what he believes Kim will say once it wore off.
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Post by neosaiyanangel on Mar 22, 2016 20:38:30 GMT -5
You might want to start spoilering for length... Yeah, might be a good idea. Any suggestions on specifically how? IE, spoiler the scenes, not the commentary?... or I guess I could spoiler the whole thing... actually yeah, think I'll do that once I get RoZ up. That could work. I'm sure a few people've already read the fics and would know what you're referencing with the commentary without the fic alongside it. You hafta add it manually as far as I can tell. I can't find the command. Not that it's all that complicated. Just a and another one with the /. -shrug-
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Post by Luke Danger on Mar 22, 2016 20:40:28 GMT -5
Yeah, might be a good idea. Any suggestions on specifically how? IE, spoiler the scenes, not the commentary?... or I guess I could spoiler the whole thing... actually yeah, think I'll do that once I get RoZ up. That could work. I'm sure a few people've already read the fics and would know what you're referencing with the commentary without the fic alongside it. You hafta add it manually as far as I can tell. I can't find the command. Not that it's all that complicated. Just a and another one with the /. -shrug-
*nods* Actually, I just tried spoilering the whole thing with the above and I think that works. I include a small intro on the top to specify which chapter, then it can be opened to look at the whole thing. Also much easier to add - just throw the tag in at the start and end
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Post by Luke Danger on Mar 22, 2016 20:44:03 GMT -5
Final Chapter - Aftermath: Worse than the Storm Zorpox the Conqueror has been conquered, Grimm Probable and Rhonda Fatigable have beaten hasty retreats, and the Mega Synaptic Transducer is now in the scrap bin of history. But Grimm’s revenge was not physical, but psychological. Yeah, I can understand Ron’s hasty retreat. But given the cops didn’t go after him, I think it’s safe to say they bought it. Kim has serious credit with law enforcement organizations and they like her - in the Christmas episode a British cop was really happy to see her when she came to check out a crashed escape pod. Now sometimes they’re rather incredulous at the villains she fights, but they believe her and take care of the legal end of things. Much like her favors, much of this is reputation so as long as she sticks to villains she’s busted she has the benefit of the doubt. Plus most of the times the police are involved there’s some pretty firm evidence on hand. So if Kim told them that Ron had been mind warped into being the big bad, they’d probably trust her. Especially after having the same thing happen to them - it’s not so unbelievable after it happened to the whole world, especially since Kim has the tool that Team Probable used right there. The Attitudinator seems to have some sort of backlog given that it could fix the balance on Ron and Drakken in Bad Boy. Hacking hell, there should be tanks rolling up the company’s holdings to shut them down. I mean, they probably don’t sell to people like Al-Qaeda (discussed here as an example of one writer using that), but you’d think that Wade wouldn’t need to hack in to get that stopped after something like this. ‘course, it’s probably the same reason why bad guys keep escaping Cell Block D; otherwise they’d have to keep making new characters. Still, at least making the effort to avoid a repeat helps. So, tackling Ron’s screw ups head on. Honestly? I think this is something that Ron would be flustered with in the aftermath, especially with what Grimm told him. This stuff has happened before in the series with Ron screwing up as mentioned above - the dialogue as the Kim and Ron fought in Bueno Nacho in Ill Suited after Ron was revealed to steal the battle suit was actually rather heart wrenching, especially since it could have ended horribly. As I said, Kim puts up a lot with Ron’s antics. But the reason I supplied the whole scene is because … well, see for yourself. Here we go. Was anyone expecting the two to break up over this? I mean Grimm probably said that to cut off what Kim’s likely response would be since… it’s an understandable motive. That chip let them find Ron when he’s been captured and saved his life. In fact this is exactly why I always wondered if Team Probable had similar countermeasures in their line of work since as villains they don’t have nearly the reliable support network to lean on if something goes wrong. Yet, ironically enough, by doing this he actually probably helped them, just as they had helped Grimm and Rhonda figure out their feelings for each other. Cutting it off put a breaks on Kim’s likely standard explanation and forced her to confront the reality and, most importantly, admit it. A strong relationship has a foundation of trust, and Grimm more or less swept away a lot of the remaining secrets and let them deal with it to go forward. Remember what I said about needing some cushion for your curbstomp to show the heroes weren’t totally wrecked back when Grimm utterly trounced Kim in the last story? This, I think, is one such piece of padding. Grimm wanted to drive a wedge between the two, a lingering pain to make Kim continue to suffer, and he failed utterly. If anything it backfired on him because he was too eager to shove the stake deeper into Kim’s heart. Which, compared to them abusing their romantic uncertainties, highlights a key difference. Kim and Ron weren’t aiming to drive a wedge between them, just neutralize them. Grimm was going for a long term game to hurt them in that time frame. And comparing the success… well, Possible actually won it, for a certain value of win. Now, one more scene to end the story. There’s a handwave for all the damage being far less than it should have been. Makes sense actually; hard to take over the world when everyone else is at the same time. Plus, the world should’ve suffered a lot of damage from crap like Lil Diablo, but in the end no matter how nasty the doomsday schemes get the world keeps trucking on as if not much is happening. At least as far as we can see - the series isn’t a political thriller, after all. … man that’s cruel. But you know, if you can’t wreck HenchCo for selling weapons to villains, wreck their name in the business of providing equipment. That, and you know, foiling said bad boy. Mind that was in part more the MAD with Monkey Fist… hmmm, something for later. Still, I’m not surprised Ron’s got a scary rep for now. I mean, with what he just did… yeah, knowing he could do that if sufficiently motivated probably doesn’t make his numerous former bullies scared. Took two Helm of Opposite Alignment induced rampages, but Ron finally got the bad boy reputation he wanted in Bad Boy where this all began. D’awww…. Anyways, that’s it for the story. However, there are some author’s notes first. So, what to think of The Return of Zorpox? As for myself, I think it’s very good. The plot was sensible, everyone has believable motivations, and there wasn’t too much that stretched my ability to suspend disbelief and almost no idiot balls. Slyrr tackled some fairly complex things and delivered it well in an enjoyable read that gave me chills when I read it. It pulled the reader in - perhaps too well given how it kept pulling me forward when I first read it even to the point of missing some details. As I discussed prior, the schemes were great and Grimm brought his A game as an original villain and did something that none of the canonical ones would be able to do without having the show in the back of the reader’s minds. In essence, he does one of the reasons why original characters are such a great tool: they allow you to do things that you might have trouble doing with the canon characters. And while Grimm had plenty of focus, he didn’t overtake Zorpox while they were together. Alone, Grimm took a clear lead, but when they were together Ron took it clearly. Now, some of this is probably Grimm playing along, but I do think he was genuinely worried about crossing Ron while he was evil. As Zorpox, Ron was a great villain and while I certainly found myself wondering where he built all the stuff, there was at least some upper limit when the villains showed up he just got completely flustered and flung all he had in rather than pulling out yet another counter. That’s important, and keeps him from being a total villain sue. Great way to unleash a popular but for good reason rarely used villain. I do think he was a bit too powerful in some cases - particularly wielding the Lotus Blade or whipping up another battle suit - but I can’t really fault that since he was the villain and supposed to be powerful. Grimm, likewise, could be called a villain sue. Particularly since he’s an original character he’s got a harder road to climb, but I think Slyrr made him a definitive character here very well… as a villain. This established him as a different breed of villain, one more than happy to use psychology and some really scummy stuff that even Drakken rarely stooped down to - and Drakken jacked a kid’s wheelchair! Cybernetic technology in the wheelchair or not, Grimm outdoes that by (pretending to) destroy a key part of someone and happily unleashing one of the most dangerous things on the world knowingly just to get revenge. World class villains defined by disproportionate revenge indeed. Now, Rhonda was not nearly as developed, but she still had enough to define her as fiercely protective of her friends, but also a certain level of caution. She’s the one who asks the questions like how do they know that Evil Ron won’t turn on them, and interestingly enough she has a lot of uncertain looks in the artwork whereas Grimm has a perpetual smirk. Of course, now there’s a question lingering: we’ve seen Evil Ron… what about Good Rhonda? However, it’s not all good as I’ve noted. Particularly chapter six with Grimm. Look, him chucking the fake good out the tunnel was a great moment because it made a statement about him. Him egging Kim on and getting too much to handle nicely tied into that. Then… Grimm bounces back with the implication he let Kim get her small victory. I’m sorry, but I really can’t ignore that even if it wasn’t meant to be written that way. In fact, overall… Kim was actually a bit useless here. In the end, she didn’t actually break any of the villains or have a massive effect. It wasn’t even her that eventually defeated Evil Ron - that was Monkey Fist and more a case of MAD fighting over the Lotus Blade. It leaves a bit of a bad taste in my mouth, particularly given Grimm’s bounce back from her finally seeming to get the upper hand on him. Now it certainly was plausible, but I think like Cap being willing to hurt Bucky in The Winter Soldier and not faltering where most heroes do was a great moment, Kim should’ve been the one to seriously hurt Ron to stop him. I think that might’ve added another dimension to the conversations afterwards that him being neutralized by MAD would lack. Now in fairness Kim did perform some things - she foiled Dementor in the beginning, she covered Yori and the Yamanouchi Ninjas from the laser fire, kept Zorpox from interfering in that afterwards and lasted until everyone else had lost so she could be dogpiled, and then managed to outwit Ron’s usage of the Lotus Blade and land a powerful hit on him. But overall… Kim’s role felt more to be the victim here. Which is not necessarily a bad thing - this whole plot is basically Grimm trying to make her suffer for what he underwent. Still, I think it left something to be desired, especially with Grimm’s bounce back robbing Kim of quite a bit of agency. I dunno, that kinda tainted the rest of the story. It’s what should be a crowning moment of awesome for Kim and to show that she wasn’t sitting on her laurels after the last bout… and it just gets yanked out from under her in a completely unneeded manner, and the two things she really does to try to cover just… doesn’t do it for me. Maybe I’m too high standard on keeping the heroes appropriately tough, but still, it’s a criticism I have. Slyrr makes a note of turning the tables in his Author’s Notes - Kim having to answer for a screw up rather than Ron. I definitely like the flip; it’s bound to happen eventually and the ones she had were usually relatively mild. And really any criticism I give it is not really on Slyrr, but on the actual show itself for having Kim get grounded for a month by lying about where she was going for Halloween while Ron merely had to do twenty laps of crabwalks after joining a Varsity sports team under false pretenses and then cheating in a Varsity Football game. I can’t blame that on Slyrr, though. He handled the chip far better than the show handled stuff and I couldn’t really fault the talk about the chip. Heck, he did it rather well in my opinion. I would like to note - just as I see using the Attitudinator on other people as extremely wrong, Slyrr treats the chip as similarly horrific and explicitly does not have anything like that on Team Probable. I think it’s a discussion worth noting because I think that has influenced my reading of this story. I consider things like mind control to be a very deep line because you’re overriding someone’s convictions in a way that it’s ‘them’ doing it. Yet… I can’t do that without considering the fact that Kim used the same mind control chips Drakken used on her and Shego to put her brothers to sleep (which, admittedly, is probably required to get them to in most cases), or that in the episode Stop Team Go Kim was willing to leave Shego attitude adjusted into a heroine and didn’t make any comment when Ron zaps Electronique with the device (in fact it’s basically treated as a joke). Ditto with what Ron does to his vile cousin. It’s rather disconcerting to see the heroes do it, especially since it never comes up again. It doesn’t really apply here as chronologically this fic preceded it, but it’s something to consider. But likewise I see the chip as not so bad, while Slyrr makes a point of doing that without consent to be a very dark place. And… I perfectly get where he comes from. That is a massive violation of trust, regardless of intent. There was never any indication that it was some sort of mutual agreement to have secret countermeasures so they don’t blab under interrogation. The fact that the show treated it as a joke only makes it worse and more glaring like the above mind control, and a very large stain on the white battle suit that Kim has. Slyrr outright notes when asked that Team Probable have no similar countermeasures for the reason of trusting each other. Fair enough; makes it easier for Global Justice to put them in remote cells without the others rescuing them. All in all, I think this story was a very good delve into the Kim Possible setting, not just giving us the bad boy again, but actually taking a look at the morality underlying it. On the surface, Kim Possible has a simple good versus evil setting where everyone basically acknowledges the faction colors it involves and goes along with it. Dig deeper, there’s some surprising shades of grey that Drakken even invokes once in Ron Millionaire even if he outrights admit it doesn’t apply. A very good read, and the only thing it really needed from All Things Probable itself was to establish the context of why Grimm is so gung-ho about revenge and damn the price. But really, they go together as one story I think. But as I mentioned, the pure evil that Grimm employs here and Rhonda going with it doesn’t jive later. But we’re still a story away from where we get there, so it’s time to move on to the next one so we can get to it. And that story is Back to Kwitcherbeliakin. Grimm has had some development to show us his cold and calculating nature, but Rhonda’s has been… lackluster so far, more or less just being overprotective of her boyfriend and parroting the philosophy he spits at Sensei. However, it is the sign of good writing when someone can take original characters and do a story relying purely on them. As Slyrr notes in his first author's notes for the next story, he can’t rely on the crutch of the community liking Kim and Ron for that story. Although the two make cameo appearances in the story, it is essentially an Expanded Universe style of entry, broadening the horizon beyond the canon’s limits and focusing on other areas.
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Post by Luke Danger on Mar 22, 2016 20:53:32 GMT -5
All previous chapters now in spoiler tags due to the length. Should make scrolling easier now. Good to know the forum has a relatively robust system of spoilers, though I kinda wish the spoiler pop-up appeared in the preview... ah well, it works. All future posts will have that added in when posted.
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Post by Luke Danger on Mar 23, 2016 8:48:10 GMT -5
Back to Kwitcherbeliakin - Chapter One Although it is the the third of Slyrr’s fics following Team Probable, he does not consider Back to Kwitcherbeliakin to be ‘All Things Probable 3’, but rather a side story. Published first on August 27th, 2007, Back to Kwitcherbeliakin (let’s see how many times I butcher the spelling) was at the penultimate phase of the show. Only three episodes - Larry’s Birthday and the two-parter Graduation, had yet to be shown in the United States. The series was on it’s last phase with pretty much all the changes of Season Four having been done - Ron’s parents had adopted Hana and her whole mess with her own little spin of MMP prophecy had been done, Kim had switched to her S4 mission clothes with the purple top instead, and we had even seen Bonnie start to date the supervillain Junior (and get a massive case of dodging justice, but that’s something for later…) This story takes place around the full transition phase, however, occurring shortly after Stop Team Go and, by need of Kim’s new mission outfit, the episode Clothes Minded which performed that switch. The clues are quickly evident, but it’s confirmed in the second chapter. For this story, Slyrr instead puts his focus purely on Team Probable, Rhonda in particular but we also see another side of Grimm besides the psychological warfare specializing villain in the prior two stories. I started this whole Let’s Read because I felt Team Probable was an excellent case study of Original Characters, and you don’t get a better one than a story where the canon characters are merely cameos. So, let’s start with the first chapter: Unforeseen Consequences Not much to say for this scene, just the two being cute and reinforcing that yes, they’re still together. And with this scene, the two basically vanish from the story. This is in some ways almost an obligatory scene, but I think it’s a good one. It gives us context as to what’s happened since the last story and gives us a few clues as to when it occurs - the college forms was the B-plot for Clothes Minded (Kim hadn’t actually put many if any in at that point, and finding a place at all was Ron’s problem as he was spamming them), and that it’s been quiet since then. And it indicates that the villains had been quiet - makes sense, after all that happened the majority of them probably did take a lot of damage. Now, I’m not sure how it would work legally, but I doubt Aviarius’ defense would hold up in court. While maybe it could be argued that it wasn’t really a good arrest, it’s not like he can’t be charged otherwise for the crimes he was wanted for. He basically had been gift wrapped for the authorities by an entirely unrelated event and when they regained control he was still imprisoned. I’m sure there might be some concerns about the precedent it sets, but considering the other things that could have happened… that’s one I think I’d be okay with. The reference that Kim makes to Midas’s touch is a direct line from the series. Episode, Mad Dogs and Aliens: Kim Possible got away with a lot of stuff hidden between the margins. That’s one of the more blatant examples in the series. Here’s a list from TVTropes if you want some more examples, but it did serve to help with making it popular because it could slip in stuff that older people might appreciate. As to what villains actually do in their off time; that’s never really been addressed in show other than Shego being a regular visitor to various resort beaches and spas. Otherwise most of the time we see the bad guys working on their plots. We get some ideas of what Kim does in her off time - cheerleading, a wide assortment of extracurriculars, etc. - but the bad guys? Not really. Speaking of Grimm Probable, though… This image is actually the first time that Grimm’s home is actually depicted in art - we had seen a table in art during The Return of Zorpox, but this is the first time we see his room. The posters have Kim in the battle suit, Hego, and the third man in the blue suit is a member of Team Impossible, Crash Cranton, who at this point would be working for Global Justice after their failed attempt to edge Kim out of saving people so they could do it themselves and charge people exorbitant costs for the service. Not unlike Team Probable, actually: they had a similar policy of only helping if they got paid. It’s just that Kim was cutting deep into their profit margins by doing it pro bono. Much as I always get a laugh out of this and Grimm being bored out of his skull, it does kinda bring back the Grimm’s lack of a reaction to Jade being a victim to the Mega-Synaptic Transducer and the closest to being sorry being ‘I have to buy her a bundt cake or something’. I’m just going to write it off at this point as they’re used to weird stuff happening. That said, Ron didn’t actually tell them what the bracelets were before flipping the switch on, he just told them to put the bracelets on. The Doylist answer is that it’s a minor continuity error, while the Watsonian one is that Grimm is either telling a little white lie that’s technically true (they didn’t even know about the bracelets at all until right before the MST was fired) or his memory is a little fuzzy on the exact rundown of events. Personally I’m going with continuity error and memory being fuzzy - it wasn’t a concern of his until he actually realized that Jade had helped Kim, and he was quite fixated on revenge. And we get a clearer version of what’s happened since RoZ. Which makes sense - Jade is more likely to be able to directly ask them and get an honest answer if she was hoping to find something for Grimm to do once his asking got incessant, whereas Wade or Global Justice would be limited to the outsider perspective in. Still, if Grimm’s worried about being blacklisted for what he pulled, you’d think that doing a few jobs for relative cheapness would be a good way to keep the clientele happy and thinking that he’s genuinely on their side, his own scheme just went too big. Then again, this is a setting where Doctor Drakken and Shego can walk into Smarty Mart and not have 911 called on them or where Gemini is still welcome at places like HenchCo despite flat out murdering his subordinates for minor failures (or simply saying the words ‘Global Justice’ or not going an extra mile past their given assignment like kidnapping a target when their mission is purely recon)... Eh, considering all the crap Ron has done to Kim, well, as Ron pointed out he’d be a total louse if he didn’t forgive Kim for the chip after all she put up with for him. Really I would say Grimm didn’t fail here so much because it was purely Ron’s good heart as much as Grimm neglecting his research or even discarding it to fit his narrative about Kim. After all, he knew a lot about Team Possible and did tons of data mining to piece together his plot. You’d think he’d realize that they’ve done a lot of crap to each other (what teens haven’t?) and are still able to be romantically involved in spite of that. Maybe he thought the chip would be the stick that broke the camel’s back, but, well, there was a fanart that showed how Ron’s little “kid’s menu coupons” stunt would have likely gone in real life. Still, it’s an interesting thing to wonder about Grimm’s characterization. For all of Grimm’s ability to shove pins into people’s brains, he neglects the fact that some things you just can’t explain. Maybe he’s too cynical for his own good? Or perhaps he simply wants to see the worst of Kim, unable to forgive her picking apart his brains back in ATP? Now this is something - in the last two stories, Rhonda seemed just as eager for Grimm to get in on missions, but this time she’s hesitant. One dynamic between Kim and Ron was that Kim was the doer, Ron was the one who liked to lay back. It seems that dynamic is alive and well - we didn’t get much of a chance to see it before, so now that they’re actually in down-time I think it’s an interesting contrast. And a big one with Kim. As I mentioned back in All Things Probable when Kim was training after Grimm curb stomped her, Kim is almost never seen training in the series. The closest is some of the training things in the video games (which are more for the player’s benefit), and cheerleading. By contrast, Grimm is being shown to do his own training and seems to not consider romance to be something to spend time on when it could be done with training. Originally I thought that the two scenes with Kim and Ron were really more just because it’s a KP fanfic and it needs some lip service to the idea, but reading it much closer really makes it clear that it establishes another contrast. Kim can take a break and not stress herself out with constant mission-related stuff, Grimm feels he has to do something related to business. I mentioned that Grimm never really gets comeuppance for the whole Zorpox thing… and much as I find the whole ‘the job cost him business’, it doesn’t really have any sting that makes the comeuppance anything notable. As Grimm himself pointed out, they weren’t desperate for cash. He’s just bored. A few weeks of boredom just does not seem to be fitting for what he pulled. And again the whole “Kim never trains Ron in MMP” comes up and Grimm is looking for ‘logical’ answers to why Kim never had Ron trained in it. Ironically, he also outright said that Rhonda was a bumbler and seemed to accept that overall she wasn’t exactly an asset in day-to-day missions when he first met Team Possible. Which begs a question: does Grimm recognize that his confusion at Kim and Ron staying together could easily be turned at to why Grimm keeps bringing Rhonda to missions? As for the super soaker… okay, it’s a funny image, but it also contrasts how Kim tried to get Ron to do things. She started by trying stuff like getting him to change his hairstyle, then abandoned that in favor of a good example for him to follow and gentle encouragement. Grimm seems to like just pulling stuff on Rhonda until she gets going; a much more direct approach. Next scene… And we’re going to get a flashback! Looks like that smug crap-eating grin of Grimm’s was something he always had. Rhonda certainly has more than a passing resemblance to pre-K Kim, though. Poor Rhonda, kids can be cruel. I got made fun of for my last name as did a lot of my family - and no it’s not Danger, I don’t use my real name on the internet, but if it was you’d bet I’d get tons of crap for it. ‘course, for me I got more crap for liking things like PBS shows (Arthur, Cyberchase, Dragon Tales, etc.)... when we were in craping Elementary School, the intended demographic, rather than crap like Yu-gi-oh… so having a last name with ‘Fat’ in it? Yeah, I’m not surprised Rhonda’s getting picked on. Of course this is a place where we’ve got people saying stuff like ‘Professor Dementor’, ‘Pan-Dimensional Vortex Inducer’, ‘Mystical Monkey Power’, ‘Destructobot’, ‘Go Team Glow’, ‘Flamingo of Doom’, ‘(Robot) Monkey Ninjas’, and a whole host of other stuff with straight faces. Sure, they lampshade Kim’s name a few times (like her not believing it was a name after suffering amnesia due to a plot device of the week), but overall people generally don’t blink at all these odd names. Eh, kids are cruel. And that’s how the two met. I think now would be a good time to really discuss how far Slyrr takes the Possible/Probable parallels. I’ve mentioned that there are times where he directly lifts from it, and this is one of those times. HOWEVER… it’s actually quite possible that in the actual canon Kim and Ron met in a completely different manner. We see Kim and Ron actually meeting for the first time during the events of A Sitch in Time, which was a time travel three-parter. However, we never actually see the unaltered timeline of the events and by all indications all the events snapped back to normal after the plot device of the episodes (the Tempus Simia) was destroyed. In ASiT, Drakken, Killigan, and Monkey Fist had used one of Drakken’s toys to appear as toddlers to infiltrate Kim’s first day of preschool with the goal of ‘breaking her spirit’ so she’d never become the teen heroine. They seemed to succeed, but Ron called them out and the bad guys decided to just gang up on him instead, prompting him to threaten them with his imaginary friend… Rufus. Kim’s response as she saw it was to grit her teeth and take a flying leap at them and apparently managed to send all three of the villains running in terror. Afterwards (and present-time Kim forcing the villains to withdraw via the Tempus Simia) we see the two meeting with Kim saying that she felt Ron was weird, but she liked weird. But as I said, this was an altered and erased timeline. Before those changes took effect, Ron’s recollection is that they met right after nap time and nothing about bullies being involved. There is some indication that they may have had the ‘you’re weird, but I like weird’ exchange (Kim brings the line back when Ron’s freaking out over Wade’s new love interest having her own Cupid Ray), but… it’s almost as likely that the two meeting was far more mundane. That said, as a writer Slyrr can’t let himself run the parallels too far. Especially since Team Probable have already exhausted a lot of the interesting parts of just being gender and morality swapped versions of Team Possible. Pretty accurate. I was a target growing up because I wasn’t much of a fighter. And unfortunately, the teachers at my school were pretty bad about this kinda crap… do I need to say “if you hit back to defend yourself you are on the hook just as much as the guy who started it”? Grimm’s damn lucky that this probably took place in the early 90s, ‘cause I imagine that this kind of crap wouldn’t have flown if it happened today. Then again, neither would half the stuff that happens in the series… Not yet, Rhonda. Not yet. … that is one useless teacher. There’s kicking and legs sweeps flying and you only come in now? Eh, start of the 90s. And still true today. Considering what their town is… eh, anyways. So yeah, the flashback ends showing us how they met. This story uses a lot of them, but much in the same vein as the show did with Ron’s misadventures at Camp Wannaweep and the odd incident mentioned in the past (such as revealing that one year Kim went to Halloween as a cowboy while Ron was a ballerina…). Fortunately, Slyrr makes his flashbacks clear with italics as the go-to and they’re usually self-contained as their own scenes or indicated as such, and serve as a way to show the reality to Rhonda’s recollections. So, next scene out of flashback: For being the first time Rhonda’s really been a major focus and not just as Yori’s opponent, I have to say this casts a very sharp contrast to her prior self. I wouldn’t have imagined that she wasn’t an eager participant - especially with how gung-ho she was about the revenge scheme if her taunts at Yori were any indication (and for her that was the main one) and happily letting the Yamanouchi Ninjas beat the tar out of her so Grimm could nick the Lotus Blade. The main thing she did ‘against’ the mission was ask some practical questions like how did they know Evil Ron wouldn’t betray them. However, her focus was far more secondary in the prior stories. We got a view on Grimm’s nasty side, but Rhonda was, well, as she put it she was there to press buttons. She didn’t really plan much, just made some brushed aside comments and ran with the scheme. Literally, in the case of racing Yori and the other Yamanouchi ninjas. And I think her fears of being useless have a lot of weight - in some parts she is overstating how useless she is, but she’s not wrong that Kim probably doesn’t think much of her. In part it’s because Kim hasn’t actually fought her directly - the only time they’ve really fought was Rhonda participating in dogpiling Kim during RoZ, in which Rhonda grappled Kim for a judo throw while Kim was still trying to get back on her feet after having her grapple line severed. Kim probably doesn’t even remember it given how everyone was piling in on her at that point. But as Rhonda noted, Grimm was afraid of Ron’s potential and she came here after Grimm was going on about how Ron would be a greater threat going on. And while they have done extensive research on Team Possible, Kim simply is unable to acquire much information about them, even Wade can’t dig up any dirt on them. But the first part of this scene also raises a big question: Grimm started the website ‘on a lark’ and the help call from a supervillain was unexpected, and escalated from there until he was a regular operator for hire for any villain willing to pay Grimm’s cost. Yet by Rhonda’s account, she mostly went along with it because he enjoyed it. Which begs the question: what caused Grimm to decide that backing villains was the choice, and is Rhonda actually okay with it or did she just want to be with him? I noted in a lot of the art for prior stories that when dealing with villains there were plenty of times where she looked uneasy rather than eager like Grimm was. Which brings us to Rhonda’s conclusion: is this what Rhonda really wants? This is the first time that Rhonda’s been the focus as more than doing her part of Grimm’s scheme, and it has her considering quitting while Grimm is so focused on jobs that he even wants to spend down time preparing for jobs. It’s actually an interesting contrast; while Ron was not as eager as Kim was for her missions, he never voiced any desire to quit and never felt he was useless - he acknowledged that he was prone to messing things up, but he never felt he was useless. Actually, the show kinda made a point of showing he wasn’t, particularly as the seasons went on and the focus shifted to him. Now, in fairness we don’t have much of a sample size for what Rhonda does, but she isn’t useless as she has similar ‘mad running away skills’ that Ron does and an endurance to pain that makes her a distraction just like Ron is. I should make a note that on his site, Slyrr uses character names for the ‘webpage names’ of his stories. So All Things Probable was Grimm, The Return of Zorpox was Zorpox, and this one is Rhonda. And I think it fits; this one heavily fleshes her out as a character; more so than Grimm, and this is really her story. We learn about Grimm as well, but the focus in on Rhonda. Speaking of Grimm, however… For a master of head gaming, Grimm missed quite a few signs and could be rather free with describing Rhonda’s failures. Of course, given how focused he is on missions, he may have simply missed it since Rhonda isn’t screwing up jobs... I think that last line sums up Grimm pretty well. Though torture has been proven to be quite ineffective as a method of interrogation, so it might just be simple pragmatism. That said, this line was actually a nod to Team Probable losing out as ‘Best Villains’ in the Annual Fannie awards, which is basically a vote for some of the best stuff the Kim Possible fandom made back in the fandom’s heyday. It’s still technically ongoing, but the fandom had dried up so much it’s kinda… well, a shadow of a former heyday. In the second one, Team Probable lost out to a ‘Kara Fang’, who apparently was a character that liked to torture people with needles, and the whole thing was meant to be a subtle jab at it according to Slyrr. It’s worth noting that as “Best Villains”, Team Probable’s cast have never won, though the stories have won several other awards in the Fannies. Much as Rhonda was right about Team Possible probably not wanting to tangle with them again, Grimm was right here about Rhonda being more than what the praise directed towards her indicates. As for the crack about fanfiction geeks? Eh, I’ve always been a fan of having some self-awareness in one’s writing. That said I wouldn’t mind some more feedback - and I don’t mean ‘good story’, I mean actual constructive feedback like if I’m dragging on too long or if I’m misrepresenting some of the characters or if I overlooked something… you know, stuff to help me write. Still, I don’t think this is actually going to get into Rhonda’s problems with it, but then again it’s a question of is she wondering if she wants to stop because she feels useless - at which point she just needs a confidence booster (or someone to slap sense into her, sort of like how Ron needed his dad to point out that if you spend all your time calculating risks, you also need to understand that some things are worth that risk), or if she doesn’t even want to be an operative for hire helping people try to subjugate the world under their bootheels, which has no easy solution. Which again begs a question - why does Grimm need these missions if it isn’t money? The only times Kim is really desperate for missions is when she needs an excuse out of stuff she doesn’t want to deal with - like her utter fangirl (in the worst sense of the term) of a cousin, Joss, who looked up to Kim’s adventures far too much. But as we saw earlier, when there’s no missions, she’s fine with spending time with her boyfriend. Grimm… wants to train for missions rather than spend time with his girlfriend. I’ve always had a hard time pronouncing some Native American names - or at least I don’t catch when there’s a different pronunciation in text. I used to say ‘Sioux’ as ‘see-u-ex’ rather than ‘sou’. Since it wouldn’t be pronounced otherwise, I think lampshading it is very important for the reader’s benefit. Though I’m not surprised Grimm started to tune out Rhonda’s whining about the camp - after all, it’s implied back in All Things Probable that Rhonda whined about it more than Ron did - and flashbacks to Ron’s phobias of Camp Wannaweep were a regular occurrence in the first season to explain his issues. … band camp, and science camp… Okay, yeah, it’s another reference to the series where Lake Wannaweep was shared with a bunch of other camps. Science Camp somehow produced enough runoff to create mutants of those who spent extended time in the lake and even had a grotto of stuff hard enough to do the whole thing in seconds... Now that’s just pathetic, Rhonda. But if her horror stories are anything like Ron’s… I can’t blame her. Camp Wannaweep was abusive as all hell - the monkey mascot was psychotic, the aforementioned polluted lake that everyone swam in (Ron was the only guy who didn’t during his tenure there), it was loaded with nasty bugs, poison ivy like you wouldn’t believe, and other such traps… and Ron’s parents stopped accepting his phone calls after a certain point. However, there was never any big special statue at Camp Wannaweep. The closest was some totem style one seen at the end of Day of the Snowmen, a half-episode, but that was a last second gag about how toxic the Wannaweep stuff is considering that snow generated by that water created armies of zombie snowmen on its own… Anyways, this chapter has some author’s notes as well. I think Slyrr makes a very important point about original characters, both in fanfiction and expanded universes, often relying on the crutch of the already existing characters. When I read a Star Wars book, I often do it for more stories about Luke Skywalker or Wedge Antilles or Leia Organa(-Solo). And this core cast is almost always present - in some ways this has actually been to the detriment of the old Star Wars canon as it led to that utterly stupid fanon that the New Republic is utterly useless and has to rely on the Heroes of Yavin or Rogue Squadron to survive. Yet, the Star Wars EU also has it’s own originals who weren’t in the core movies at all (so this discounts guys like Hobbie or Janson who had minor roles). Mara Jade, Grand Admiral Thrawn, Gilad Pellaeon, Corran Horn, Kyle Katarn, and if you consider TCW to be the EU, Ahsoka Tano and Captain Rex. They were often introduced alongside the canon characters as the stepping stone, but many of them built up their own fandoms and could star in their own stories such as Corran Horn with I, Jedi. And then sometimes it’s an outright new setting - whether it’s Bioware with Knights of the Old Republic or Rebels having very few of the core canon cast being present (of those that appear, they’re mainly as side characters or one-off appearances to show us something of the larger galaxy). And that, I think, is important to do. If the same people do everything… well, that stupid piece of fanon I mentioned above. Fanfiction is mainly defined by being unofficial and expanding on existing universes. An EU is basically legal fanfiction if it doesn’t come from the original authors or creators. But you can’t keep using the same characters over and over again without it starting to grow tired. Yet if you can go beyond them, you build that universe up all the more and make it richer. And that, I think, is something that Slyrr attempts to do. He wrote The Return of Zorpox hoping to address the problem with Ron being chipped, which was never tackled in the series and was forgotten in the fourth season. As he notes, however, this is a risk. While Kim and Ron made cameo appearances, it mostly was to serve as a contrast for how Team Probable spends their off time and to give us some continuance from The Return of Zorpox. The rest of the story save for one small epilogue scene has to do without being able to rely on the fandom’s love of Team Possible to carry it or the series cast. In a way, Back to Kwitcherbeliakin is a test of how he can write them and if they can be characters in their own right. Original Characters are a tool, and used right they can make a setting more diverse. So, how does Team Probable stack up to that test? So far we’ve seen them working in the same story as Team Possible, but I’ve had my problems with them in comparison. But how do they do on their own, without being directly measured up against the characters that they’re meant to be opposites of? I personally disagree with Slyrr not considering this ‘All Things Probable 3’. I think it should be as the changes in what he considers ATP 3 are significant enough that it deserves focus as part of the ‘main’ plotline. The Return of Zorpox, while lacking in quite a bit of the weight without it, could on its own stand without having All Things Probable, just throw in a few lines establishing what happened in more detail. But that’s getting ahead of myself. And finally, Rhonda’s power. I think he made a very important point in not just making an evil Yamanouchi - Grimm knowing Monkey Kung Fu is already pushing the implausibility of it far, Rhonda also having MMP would just be too much. Yet he does draw heavily on a parallel to Ron here… but this is something that I think would be good discussion for the end of the story when we’ve seen Rhonda’s power. So, next chapter: Flight of the Testoster-1 … Grimm, are you compensating for something?
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Post by Luke Danger on Mar 23, 2016 8:54:30 GMT -5
Back to Kwitcherbeliakin - Chapter 2 So Rhonda’s heading back to her old summer camp, and this chapter begins with more flashback, showing us Kwitcherbeliakin for the first time. Chapter 2 - Flight of the Testoster-1 Correction; we’re actually getting Rhonda’s recollection of it as a dream. Normally I try to cut my commentary when scenes break, but this time it worked better having the break in there. Compared to Camp Wannaweep, Kwitcherbeliakin seems to have much more of an immediate theme. Wannaweep had coonskin caps based on what Ron wore in the flashbags and a lot of the construction was made up of logs, but there was never much of a theme otherwise. It was generic summer camp. Still this isn’t much, it’s just Rhonda arriving and confirming that like Ron, her parents are utterly oblivious. We never found out exactly why Ron’s parents sent him to Wannaweep, but I imagine the arrival was a similar event to this. Down to the not telling Ron until he was there. Another parallel - though this one at least seems to be much more limited. In the fourth season of the series (specifically the episode ‘Big Bother’ (often confused as ‘Big Brother’), Ron’s parents adopted a baby, Hana (sometimes called ‘Han’). A lot of people thought ‘Han Solo’, of course, and to continue that Slyrr seems to have used Indiana Jones as a reference, another Harrison Ford role. Now, Hana turned out to be a mystical superweapon tied to MMP and was apparently planted there by Sensei; exactly how he convinced the Stoppables to do it is unknown, but if nothing else he personally made sure the adoption went through. Indy, fortunately, is mundane as far as I remember. Still, I hope that her parents were at least a little more in the loop than Ron’s were. He literally found out about it by coming in to find his room turned into a nursery and that he was being moved into the attic. Heh. Though, Grimm being prepared makes sense, and I don’t just mean he knows Rhonda is nature-phobic enough to pack a chem lab of repellants. He was a Boy Scout at some point so he’s probably more familiar with woodcraft than Rhonda is. So this confirms beyond a doubt that this is post- Clothes Minded, when the switch happens. I mentioned the Fashionistas back in the Return of Zorpox let’s read, but they were basically counterfeiters who happened to be fairly skilled. They tried to bargain designing Kim a new outfit for getting out of jail - and naturally Kim rejected. Clothes Minded is a loathed episode of mine because it utterly ignored a lot of the history and made Kim’s mission wear an utter trainwreck. I’m not going to share half of the crap she tried, but never once did it occur to her that she could just do what she had done tons of times before and, in a way, what she had always basically done. Go in fricken civvie slacks. She’s fought killer robots in her cheerleading uniform and dueled Shego in a dress for crying out loud. But no, it had to be ‘maybe the outfit had some magic to it’ and she needed something… look I get that Kim is a woman who appreciates fashion, that’s been a longstanding aspect of her character if usually not in focus, but that was too much for me. Especially some of the stupid crap that got designed and she tried to use.... in fact I think the only time I’ve gone back to that episode was to check how Kim located Ron at the end of it (to see if it was by the chip or not), and I just skipped the majority of it. It was an episode bad enough that watching it once is hard enough. Now in the end Kim ended up using the Fashoinistas’ design since Rufus got a look at it and was able to sketch it out, or at least enough of it, for Monique to fill in the gaps. The Fashoinistas still claim it’s their design; I don’t know intellectual properly law intimately but if they never registered it it probably wouldn’t matter, and on top of that even if Rufus gave Monique the reference, are you really going to argue in a court of law that a naked mole rat memorized your brief sketch on the back of a basketball and then copied it for Monique to duplicate? Actually, given the differences the designs probably are independent if similar and I don’t think they had actually shown it to Kim; did the designing, but before showing Kim they listed their price which was too much for her. That said, I do find the easy solution of ‘just get a tailor’ to be a bit annoying. Look, I know Grimm tends to be more monetary, but it kinda reads off as “wow why was Kim not smart enough to think of this?”, especially with that ‘look like barney’ insult tacked on, because it’s not like Kim is some poor person with no money - she’s been buying the stuff from retail for at least three years. I don’t know how much a tailor would charge in comparison, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the good publicity wouldn’t be enough to keep the cost practical (IE, enough to do it and make a profit, but not the usual price gouging since being able to say you’re supplying Kim Possible is probably great for your advertising). That and there was one more problem. Ron and even Wade never had any problems getting their hands on the same thing. Kim’s the only one who updated. So really, it probably shouldn’t have even mattered for Grimm since presumably he’s the same size as Ron. And it’s not just ‘Kim and Grimm are elitists who’d go to Club Banana but not Smarty Mart’ - Kim had tried Smarty Mart too; actually I think that was one of the first things she tried. ‘course, my question is why would the things get discontinued. They weren’t exactly some specific pattern and quite frankly I’m more surprised there weren’t more people trying to mimic Kim Possible, or at least cosplay. It was a big fashion style for a while, after all. I mean, it’s basically a black top and cargo pants, there were probably a couple variations. Sure, Kim might no longer be showing off her navel, but I really doubt that all the stuff like her old kit was suddenly retired. And if it was, you’d think Kim would’ve had some forewarning from Monique about it since even if Kim is out of touch with the present fads, Monique would be very in touch and knows that a sudden loss of supply could hurt Kim. Okay, I’m ranting a bit, but it’s something to discuss. Personally I’d of had Grimm wondering about it and then later have his dad point it out or something, rather than Grimm just off the bat instantly have a better solution than was available to the canon characters. Or better yet, have Grimm go for something else entirely to further distinct the two teams. Kinda like branching upgrades; started with similar kit, but go in different directions with it. Though if you want to compare the two outfits, here’s the picture for the next section, and a picture of Kim’s outfit from Odds Man In. See? Wade, who had never worn it prior, had no problems getting a set in his size. You know, if it’s supposed to be a flying motorcycle, wouldn’t parachutes be a good idea? Or maybe jet packs; Kim and Ron seem to have no problems having a set, so why wouldn’t Grimm and Rhonda outfit with some just in case the bike fritzes out at the wrong moment?... … actually thinking about it I don’t think Team Probable ever used any jet packs. And as the series went on neither did Kim; I think the last appearances of the jet packs were in Team Impossible, though they were a fairly rare gadget beforehand anyways. And another parallel - the events of Car Alarm where Kim was given her father’s old car - and I mean old, like, there was a recall for them old. Kim’s brothers souped it up to workable, but after Motor Ed (Drakken’s cousin) and Shego jacked a prototype space rocket (which Motor Ed turned into a giant drag racer), they upgraded it with lots of upgrades. Kim had a very similar deal that Grimm got, but the Tweebs let Kim out of it once Bonnie (whose car was damaged when it was near the rocket going supersonic) took another contract with the Tweebs to get it fixed. Right now they’re just an offhand reference, but yes, the ‘Twisters’ are Grimm’s sisters the same way the Tweebs are Kim’s little brothers. Likewise, Donnie is by context probably an expy of Bonnie. Thinking about it, Grimm’s fate involving this little contract was never specified or shown, whereas it provided a lot of the ‘comedy’ for the episode with Kim’s… eh, his sisters probably just got tired of the gag. Rather explicit reference there, but then again ‘Speeder Bike’ alone is vague enough that it might not draw the exact comparison. But if it’s a Star Wars speeder bike… Grimm, just get yourself some white plastic armor with a visor around your eyes. Hopefully the last thing that won’t go through your head is the afterburner <_< And he better hope he doesn’t have a Nazgul on his tail. But yeah, a very short chapter and really the main thing of note is their new ride (which certainly fits their MO and is nicely different from Kim’s car), Probable’s new mission clothes, and Grimm effortlessly getting around that made up a whole episode for Kim. On one hand I don’t object to making the teams look more different and Slyrr is hard locked into canon with Kim. On the other… well, this was a plot for Kim, but Grimm is able to just effortlessly sidestep it? Yeah, not a great taste after the last two stories, especially since Grimm at least probably doesn’t have the same problem given that Ron and Wade could keep outfitting themselves. Next chapter - The Summer of Discontent
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Post by Luke Danger on Mar 23, 2016 9:01:45 GMT -5
Back to Kwitcherbeliakin - Chapter 3 - The Summer of Discontent And like the last chapter, this one begins with another of Rhonda’s flashbacks. I’m not too familiar with Native American names, but my understanding is those like the ones done here are more descriptive. Then again that’s true with a lot of names; presumably they use the actual language and we just got the translations. After all, the meaning of some names usually sound downright eye rolling when spoken aloud. Ron slept with Wannaweep’s mascot too, but compared to that manic chimpanzee, Gentle Paw looks absolutely passive. I mean, compare the image above with this: Does that chimp look sane to you? Well, I’d say this goes beyond ‘affinity with animals’, but basically being able to understand something equivalent to dialogue? Both Sakituya and Rhonda showing the ability, with Rhonda being notable as one of the only kids who has? I will say though that compared to what Ron had to deal with, Rhonda seems to just be a lot more panicky. At the very least the bear isn’t out to get her. But yeah, Slyrr decided to weld together the parallels; whereas Wannaweep’s role in Ron’s MMP arc is to supply his phobia of monkeys (among other things), for Rhonda… well, let’s keep reading as we’re back to the present. You know if they’re going to be wandering the woods, random encounters with Hobgoblins might at least get them enough XP for Rhonda to level up appropriately And Rhonda’s reaction to Kwitcherbeliakin is the exact same as Ron’s for meeting Montgomery Fiske - ‘bad road’. Though this is a much smaller parallel. I don’t begrudge the minor ones, and Slyrr’s not using them all 1:1, so the differences will be more pronounced. Which begs the question; is Rhonda’s bad road assessment fully accurate like Ron’s was, or not? So far other than being ditched by her troop, Kwitcherbeliakin hasn’t done much to her. I will say, I’m finding myself liking Sakituya. He’s been introduced as a kind guy and here he’s showing insight into Grimm - and in a different way than Sensei. Yeah, he is kinda playing the stereotype somewhat, but as long as they’re more than the stereotype… well, let’s see what else we get out of him. Compared to Camp Wannaweep, we never really got any of the names of the staff, or if we did it was offhand and they never appeared again. Meanwhile, Sakituya seems to be setting up to be a major character. Welding together Wannaweep and Yamanouchi? Though Rueful is far more happy to explore Kwitcherbeliakin; when Rufus was near Wannaweep he shared Ron’s disgust. Damn that is some jump. Six feet vertically from a standstill, and not even using rocket boots? I’m surprised she isn’t part of the Track & Field team at her school; they’d love that kind of person for the high jump. But yeah, Rhonda’s phobias are just as alive as Ron’s, yet they seem a lot more misplaced. Certainly a dynamic; Ron’s phobias were all quite justified from what happened at Wannaweep - even if not quite applicable in other times (though the monkey one certainly is when dealing with Monkey Ninjas), but so far Rhonda’s seem to be much more… irrational. Not that Ron’s were either; after all Bo-Bo was a chip (apes, not monkeys, as Monkey Fist made clear), but it was at least similar enough. Next scene: I don’t know why, but Rhonda seems to be a lot more… toothless in comparison. I mean, compare this kind of scene where it’s comical, to this from RoZ: There, while Rhonda certainly was still a much less serious and more comedic threat than Grimm was, she at least still got across being nasty. Here, she’s a lot less. Of course, this time she’s on the backfoot and fleeing and really given everything prior with Rueful I doubt it’s anything more than the usual banter. Which is not necessarily bad - people react differently to different people, but Rhonda seems a lot less… evil, here. Whereas before while it’s still close enough she doesn’t feel like a separate character, it does feel like her outlook got a lot softer between stories. Ron’s parents stopped accepting his phone calls, so… I think I can guess. Though like Rhonda, Grimm seems to be a lot less nasty here, but then again I think it’s because we’re seeing them in different contexts. Before, we’ve basically seen Grimm in combat with Kim, either being a smug git in a first encounter or being utterly loathsome for revenge. And if all you saw of a particular group was them in action against people you like, well… they’re not going to be too sympathetic in your view. The question of course is going to be will it be too far that it seems like it’s inconsistent, that’s the big thing. This isn’t ‘soldiers versus civilians’, it’s the same characters. And the next scene is another flashback, led into by the above comment. Well, that’s one thing exactly the same: parents just hanging up about Rhonda’s stories. But that’s not really on the camp... Sakituya sure sighs and shakes his head a lot, doesn’t he? And that’s a lot of fire. Is Rhonda the American and fire using equivalent of Elsa or something? But this is somewhat opposite of Ron; for Ron, crafts was the one thing he was good at at Camp Wannaweep and he used it to great effect against Gill to create a makeshift next that managed to trap him. For Rhonda… well, things explode around her. … which is probably something she shares with Kim, given how many lairs have fallen apart around her when she isn’t even trying to bring them down. Now that’s just neglectful, Fatigables. But oh so much like the Stoppables, who did the exact same thing. My question though is how did they know it was their kid calling; both cases. I mean, it’s like a pay phone... Still, there’s a reason Sakituya is putting this much effort into getting Rhonda acclimated. I’ve been liking the setup so far; it’s clear that Sakituya sees something in Rhonda and is willing to work for it, but we aren’t being given too many exact clues as to what. Of course given the parallels and Slyrr outright mentioning Rhonda’s equivalent of MMP it’s probably something that can be figured out by context, but… hey, at least with just the story it isn’t out of nowhere. If you have to use the author’s notes to understand the context, something’s wrong with the story. Though this also means that these flashbacks are more than just Rhonda's memories, at least some of them are more third person omniscient since I doubt Rhonda overheard that. Back to the present: Okay, funny as this is, it’s kinda gone on a while and Gentle Paw doesn’t seem to really get that she doesn’t like the place and that having a bear chasing you - even in a fun way - is kinda terrifying. I mean, this isn’t Korra and Naga where they’ve been friends for a long time. Probably could’ve been similar if Rhonda regularly went back to Kwitcherbeliakin rather than only one summer, but I think Gentle Paw is a little too big to be a Rufus equivalent. Still, with what’s been shown in the flashbacks so far, most of Rhonda’s fears are either more being panicky, or… well, somehow setting things on fire. Compare to Wannaweep, where Ron was getting attacked by the various stuff in the camp. Heh. That is a line directly taken from So the Drama, when Ron was discussing it. Of course, that time Ron was still trying to figure out what his feelings for Kim were - platonic or something more. This time they’re already in a relationship. But… it does kinda bring up a question. A trend in Rhonda’s flashbacks is Grimm and it mentions that she looked towards Grimm a lot when she needed help. One unfortunate piece of fanon that has cropped around the KP fandom is that Kim had stunted Ron’s growth into being a Type B rather than using the potential he seemed to have (IE, when he’s Zorpox). Personally I find it to be bullcrap since it’s also quite likely that without Kim pulling him forward, Ron would’ve been even worse than he was since his parents don’t seem to really do much for him (Ron spends more time with Kim’s family than his own in the series…), and in general I’ve always disliked that ‘sidekick is held back by the hero, if the hero just let the sidekick go they could do so much more’. Yet here, I’m actually now starting to wonder… did that thing happen here? Not intentionally; much as Grimm mind games people like Kim he does seem to have at least some form of genuine respect for his friends. Maybe it’s simply the different format trying to convey the same thing and it therefore comes across differently, but is Rhonda… emotionally dependent on Grimm? Like, a need to be close to him as the one guy who was nice to her over the years? I don’t think Grimm is aware of it, but it very well might be that here Rhonda hasn’t really figured out what she wanted besides being with Grimm. Which goes back to the question from Chapter 1: are Rhonda’s problems simply that she feels like she’s not able to pull her weight on the missions, or is she not even really interested in them in the first place? I will say this does really highlight something with Grimm; he’s too used to tweaking people that he doesn’t seem to get love. Which kinda makes sense; he didn’t see Ron forgiving Kim about the chip as something like that (as Rhonda suggests), he assumes Ron’s a doormat or something like that. Which begs a question; is Grimm a sociopath of some form? Mike from Monsters Inc. was labelled as one by a psychologist, the argument being that he had taken control of Sully in more than a couple ways. And… honestly I’m actually starting to wonder if it might be similar with Rhonda. Now in fairness I don’t think Grimm is necessarily doing this consciously against Rhonda; he interacts with her a lot differently than he does people like Kim. But on the other hand when Rhonda started expressing her doubts, he did basically start analyzing her as if he was trying to get into Kim’s head. Plus, he didn’t really give much of a crap about all the collateral going on in The Return of Zorpox, even Jade getting whammied by the Mega-Synamptic Transducer, he was so focused on his revenge. I’m not a medical professional, so I will refrain from saying definitively so, but… it would certainly put a perspective on Grimm’s actions that does befit how he’s more of a psychological villain than others. Which of course begs the question; is he going to be able to handle a stable relationship with Rhonda if this is the case? The scene above showed that while he does at least care, he’s not much for romance. As he put it himself, ‘no time for love’. And that’s probably Maze, but the chapter ends here. So, what to think about it? It’s a character building chapter and establishing Rhonda’s experiences at Kwitcherbeliakin more fully. I think it’s given us a much needed look into both Rhonda and Grimm. Yeah, there was quite a bit of copying off of the Team Possible template, but there are differences enough that it could go very differently. Plus, my question about Grimm potentially being a sociopath - but again I’m not a medical professional so I’ll refrain from saying so definitively either way, plus it could just be the format giving a different message. The dynamics certainly could be something to really step Team Probable away from being copies of Team Possible. As I mentioned before, the mileage out of just having them be opposites of Team Possible is fading fast. While he’s still gotten some good stuff out of it, they do need to separate very distinctly in a short time. The team genuinely caring for each other but being latched together for very different reasons than Team Possible certainly is something that would fit ‘similar, but different’, and really was something I don’t think I had ever really caught in my previous reading of this. Next Chapter: The Paw that Refreshes
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Post by Luke Danger on Mar 23, 2016 9:07:53 GMT -5
Back to Kwitcherbeliakin - Chapter 4Before this chapter starts however, Slyrr has a forward: This is going to be a common preface when he uses his research in the chapters. Personally I don’t object to it; I know some people find author’s notes annoying, but in this case I think it’s a nice touch to show both that he’s done his research and is confident enough in his ability that he’s willing to let people look it up themselves and is giving them the source for it. Let’s start. I must say, this is a relatively heavy topic to bring in, even in passing, for what the series usually is. Essentially, we’re dealing with cultural appropriation. Maze seems to see the whole camp as twisting their proud culture to simple childish amusement for kids who cannot quite yet comprehend what’s going on, Sakituya is of a more open mind. Which, I think, serves a few purposes. One, it shows that Maze’s opinions are his personally rather than some trope of ‘all Native Americans/Indians (whichever term you prefer) hate the people who colonized their continent’. Two, it also establishes that yes there has been some terrible stuff in real life history. It doesn’t address it head on, but shows that yes it still has some effects on the present day. And three, it highlights the difference of perspective between the two. Maze is a lot more jaded and oriented towards power to force change, whereas Sakituya has found his own niche and is happy to let it take it’s course. They are on speaking terms though, but whether it’s regular contact or merely agreeing to disagree is not too clear. Heh. Yeah, I think we’re dealing with a racial supremacist here. Not much to say about how he’s described by Rhonda, though. I mean, he is relatively normal looking compared to the usual KP fare. For a guy who seems to have a big beef with white people, Maze doesn’t seem to be taking too many precautions. That’s probably why Grimm does the half up front half later, besides probably wanting some insurance in case the job goes south. I can get wanting to get to the monument quickly, but it does seem odd that he’s so free with the full pay. I mean, Grimm probably knows it’s bad for business to just take it and go, but if you didn’t trust him… well, yeah. Anyways, scene break here. Not really much to say here besides it confirming what we already guessed, and some further highlights of their differences of views, though… selling artifacts of his own people to get it does indicate something about Maze. Namely, ends justify the means. It’s actually something common amongst supremacists, now that I think about it. They espouse something, yet they happily sacrifice quite a bit of it to get at something that may or may not be true. Which of course begs a question - does Maze really value the history of his culture, or is it perhaps an excuse to justify his own desires? Anyways, next scene back with Team Probable… Reminds me of those images in The Return of Zorpox where Rhonda was looking uneasy. It does seem that, like Ron sometimes warns Kim about certain missions, Rhonda also seems to have her own reservations. Though with Team Possible most of the time it’s specific like Ron’s phobia of monkeys, and sometimes Kim is the one who is suspicious. For example, Hidden Talent where Drakken managed to electronically impersonate Wade to send Kim to steal from Professor Dementor. She caught onto the fact that a few things were suspicious like Dementor claiming to have invented the device, whereas Ron bought it like cake. Still, is this going to be more Rhonda being quick to panic as a lot of her camp stories seem to be so far, or does she have a point? You know, besides the fact that Team Probable’s standard clientele are criminals with often global scale villainy... Not too much to say other than more insight into Maze - well, I suppose Team Probable doesn’t exclusively cater to villains, plus Maze is more after a very specific thing which only they can deliver. My question now though is how did Maze find out about Rhonda? Probably through the camp, given that he and Sakituya know each other. Which means either Sakituya never told him until recently, or it’s gone through the grapevine since Rhonda probably talked about this to others who might’ve had more loose lips. I do like that Slyrr made a point of differentiating between the different tribes, though. While sure there’s some broad similarities, if you said that someone from Massachusetts has the exact same values as someone from California, you’d probably get some weird looks even if both are American. And the pic with Jade is another image that conveys stuff the text doesn’t - the screen behind Jade about the MRTs. I half wonder if she was going to use that for her presentation as a little humor if she ever went before a bunch of guys in fancy dress to describe it. Nice little justification for not taking the bike. Not that it’s really important, but if they had time to spare I half wonder if maybe they should’ve tried to see if Rhonda’s gut went off as they flew over. Then again, as far as they know this is mundane, not supernatural. ‘course, this is the setting with Mystical Monkey Power and a functional Talisman of Anubis, so… *shrugs* Eh, kinda like Kim taking the pot shot with the EMS at the Mega Synaptic Transducer in the last story. Doesn’t really matter either way. Next scene. Pride goeth before the fall, or somesuch. Though it does highlight that Maze took no precautions against getting backstabbed. Given his suspicions and distaste, you’d think he wouldn’t have just blindly handed them all of the money. Though I’m curious as to why Sakituya knows all this about Grimm - I can understand knowing about a younger Grimm from Rhonda’s experiences, but unlike Kim, Grimm has been very low profile. Which begs a question - does Sakituya have sources of information that Kim simply doesn’t have? Or is he simply extrapolating from what he’s seen of them and what he learned from Rhonda when she was in the camp? And we get another flashback. Unlike Ron, Rhonda actually ended up in the water - which wasn’t actually polluted, it seems. Then things go nuts with fish. This is the first time where Rhonda’s birthmark comes up. Prior to this it was never mentioned - in fact if Rhonda was portrayed in art without sleeves before this story it would’ve have been there as Slyrr didn’t come up with it until this story. Fortunately, whenever she was portrayed in art her arms were covered, so that handles the matter nicely. I do like that Sakituya made sure to keep Gentle Paw back; good reaction since he knows Rhonda’s getting freaked out by all this nature. … and a hickey? I’ll admit if I hadn’t chanced on some discussion about that it would’ve flown right over my head. Nice thing to slip under the radar, Slyrr. Welp, if going in the story didn’t have the premise of Rhonda getting her power, this would confirm that Kwitcherbeliakin is Wannaweep and Yamanouchi rolled into one for Rhonda. And that Sakituya has been aware of Rhonda’s potential for some time, which would actually explain him trying to keep tabs on her. Depending on the circumstances she left camp, he may or may not have had reason to not try to keep contact. And yeah, another chosen one. Though this time at least it’s from the start - when Ron got his powers, it was purely a one-time one-up as far as could be told. The ‘Chosen One’ status of Ron’s didn’t come until later. Of course, if there’s this storm she has to be prepared for… why hasn’t Sakituya explained any of this to Rhonda? I mean when she was her age I could understand, but now that she’s an adult (or at least on the cusp of legal adulthood) you’d think this might be something to explain to her. I do find it amusing that gender indistinct paintings were assumed to be male, though. Looks like guys everywhere assume it’s virility unless otherwise noted when dealing with matters of power Well, back to the present: Not surprised Maze is good at woodcraft. Given what he does for a living and his discussion about the Blackfoot heritage he probably spends a lot of time in the wilderness while doing his searches for artifacts. Okay, what class is Rhonda? Familiars are for Wizard/Sorcerors. Rangers/Druids get Animal Companions… D&D jokes aside, ‘familiar’ is actually a very apt term for not just Rueful and Rhonda here, but also Ron and Rufus. These two sets have a very close connection; a lot more than I have with my family’s cats. ‘course both animals do seem to be able to do some very basic English, or at least fragments of it (Rufus spits out a few one liners, and we have Rueful’s reaction to Rhonda wanting to pack weasel repellant), and also understand it quite clearly. And that’s it for this chapter. So, what to make of it? Well, Sakituya takes a very different approach to Sensei. Sensei directly arranged for Ron to be brought to Yamanouchi for a week to get some training, incomplete as it was. Here, Sakituya seems to be just letting things happen. Now I’m not familiar with how the Native Americans view things, but I feel like this is extremely unwise, especially since Rhonda would not have that cultural background to understand it assuming that whatever’s out there does correlate with the myths and legends. Which begs the question - if this is going to be lethal, why isn’t he warning Rhonda despite showing a lot of care when she was a kid? What exactly is at play here, because it doesn’t seem like he’s eager for her to prove herself in a trial by (possibly literal) fire, but seems sad about it. Questions that won’t get answered in this chapter, of course. But now, an author’s note. Not much besides a repeat of the source to go to for some of his research. I took a quick look, but to be clear it’s not like Behind the Name or something like that which gives you a list of names and what they mean, more explaining the structure of it. So, this chapter. We’re past the halfway point of the story, and yet we’ve only just gotten to the actual core plot, their mission with Maze. Personally… I think it’s been good. It hasn’t been filler dilly-dallying about unrelated stuff, it’s all been focused on more firmly establishing Team Probable besides being bad guys, and gives us history to show us why things that’re about to happen are significant and giving us some strong indications of what Rhonda’s abilities are related to. Otherwise, there really isn’t too much to say about it. The next chapter is titled “Use the Forest, Luke” … No I will not.
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Post by Luke Danger on Mar 23, 2016 9:22:01 GMT -5
Back to Kwitcherbeliakin - Chapter 5 The story is underway as Team Probable goes into the forests. The question is, how long is it going to take for them to find the statue, and if they do find it, what’s going to happen with it? And just what exactly is Rhonda supposed to be? Given the chapter’s name, “Use the Forest, Luke”... uh, Rhonda isn’t going to be running around with a little green dude on her back, is she? Or meet some old blind lady who’s a bit too eager to pick fights with the PTSD suffering woman who’s got the spirit of order loaded up into her... Slyrr repeats the previous site link for the Native American languages from last chapter. I’ve decided against including it as the link has already been provided, but if the foreward changes I’ll be sure to post it. For now, the chapter awaits! … you know, you’d think that Rhonda would be a little more used to this given all their missions. I mean, they can’t have parachuted down into all the secret bases they’ve raided or evil lairs they’ve visited, right? I mean, Team Possible has walked through some thick woods just to meet their contact, such as in the episode Tick-Tick-Tick to meet Professor Acari’s home which was in the middle of a jungle. ‘course, Tick-Tick-Tick would be two or three years prior; a comparable event would be Roachie, a half-episode, where they dived into the sewers to investigate the source of tremors and Ron freaked out when Rufus started crawling onto his back. Ron, of course, had an explicit phobia of bugs. Which might be what Rhonda’s dealing with - her phobia of Kwitcherbeliakin is making her even more panicky. He’s enjoying that. But yeah, this goes way back to the first story where he was using Boy Scout knives to intercept Kim’s attempt to disable the timer and later to cut the grappling hook so she couldn’t pursue. But it looks like Rhonda and Maze are going to be at it. Makes sense; one’s a city type, the other’s very much in tune with nature. ‘course, Rhonda’s also got her own attunement... And since Slyrr has used it for his later fics in (primarily) background mention… think Maze would get along with Pleakley? (Bit off topic, but something that popped into my head. I’ll probably rant more when it actually comes up in-story, but suffice it to say Disney did a bunch of crossovers with it’s animated series using Lilo and Stitch as a ground zero. Although at the time I had some enjoyment of it, I personally consider it as not part of the KP setting, particularly after it was established that the KP series had its own aliens.) Haha! Already considering that eh? Okay, no, they’re just talking about marriage, but still. Actually reminds me of captainkodak’s The Lotus Bloom where an old German maid is very disapproving of Kim and Ron sharing a room (but separate beds) in a later chapter… when in the third or fourth (I forget which) they had already shared Kim’s bed after escaping a mission gone south - fully clothed, of course. Plus Kim and Ron themselves have slept over on some missions, such as… fittingly enough, Monkey Fist Strikes, same episode that Ron got MMP. Of course at that point they were only 14, and not dating at the time. Speaking of dating, Kim and Ron’s relationship was a big part of the fan’s push for a fourth season, it ended up not being focused on too exclusively. It was used regularly and touched on, but there was no real talk about their long term considerations. The closest was them mistaking a set of magno-rings (to help Kim hold onto a speeding rocket) as wedding rings, and Ron fearing about being able to keep a long distance relationship if they went to different colleges. Otherwise it usually played second fiddle to other plots, but regularly weaved into it (such as their discussion after Ron was revealed to have stolen Kim’s battle suit). Here, Grimm and Rhonda actually directly discuss it. Though the last name debate for Kim has come up in the fandom. A few fanfictions has her switching over or wanting to. Personally, I feel like while Kim might consider it legally, she’d probably still go by her normal name just because that’s what she’s known as. ‘course, Kim actually has a pun that’s got some mileage with her last name (“Impossible? Check my name.”) One last paragraph before the scene cuts. Well, this guy isn’t just a random archeologist then... Anyways, next scene. I’d say those two were probably reading Tolkien recently for school, but they referenced both The Hobbit and Fellowship of the Ring… *shrugs* Still, I actually think stuff like this is okay as long as it isn’t overdone. Sure it’s three in a row, but they were relevant and the ‘second breakfast’ was actually worth a chuckle, and fits how Rhonda’s being characterized (and really an utter Ron moment)... … speaking of Ron, I’m now genuinely curious. Ron’s noted to be a big eater in the series. Is Rhonda similarly big with her diet? Then again with her focused training from Grimm she probably wouldn’t have the problems, though then again she does make a big deal at having ‘fat’ in her last name so maybe she’s a lot more alert than Ron is about it, even if it simply means doing the physical exertions to match the intake at a healthy level. Which, given the fact that Grimm seems to be focused on training, is probably where she gets her exercise in. So, Maze for Captain Planet "protagonist"? But seriously speaking I have to say Grimm did a good job interceding, which given his speciality in mind games is a logical thing for him to recognize. He cuts in a logical compromise and points out that a trash bin is, well, meant to be a receptacle. Though given where most trash ends up (even some recycling, given what some people throw in), I can see why he’d still see it as polluting nature. Especially having taken an AP Environmental course during high school. Doesn’t make Maze any less of a Captain Planet protagonist though with that. And cue flashback. So Rhonda wasn’t ditched by the whole troop, just those she was partnered with? Given how tired the kids were it sounds like anyone else who might’ve noticed Rhonda’s face missing were too tired to put two and two together. Still, shame on that Counselor. You’re supposed to call individual names and make sure you get an individual response just to avoid this kind of thing! “Squeebette” is a play on the term Gil used for Ron during his days at Camp Wannaweep, with Gil calling him ‘Squeeb’. However unlike Gil who became the mutant supervillain Gill (yes all he did was add and L, but he actually had gills so… *shrugs*), as far as I recall these two never appeared again for Rhonda. Which I think is good - a cheap fill in for Gill is a bit too obvious and would really be unoriginal and well, pushing the parallels too far. That was the whole flashback, so back to the present! For a guy who was riffing a Captain Planet protagonist and was prone to believing they were just going to take the money and run (and you know, not taking any precautions…), he’s surprisingly reasonable about it taking them time to find. ‘course, given that Maze has tried so long, what happens if it’s too long for Grimm or Rhonda to handle? After all, if Rhonda barely remembers how she got there… *shrugs* Nice pun. Though I think Slyrr probably should’ve put some more indications of this prior to Grimm’s comment because the way Rhonda’s view indicates how the footfalls are loud to her reads to me more like she’s getting more tense, not less tense. Of course by the same token, Grimm’s known her long enough to recognize things about her that she might not with her own biases, and vice versa. Well, going by schedule that means they’ve used up Saturday. Friday was getting there and the camp, this was a day where they didn’t find anything. If they don’t get it done on Sunday, they’re going to have to make ends meet with school. On one hand, the series’ fast travel time probably would help, on the other… well, yeah. Good thing Grimm had them get their homework done ahead of time though. Wait, Rhonda going into the woods alone? Huh. Maybe she is less tense like Grimm indicated given she seems freaked about it otherwise. Or Maze is just that much of a pressure on her. Before she gets there, the scene shifts to Grimm, though it’s not a proper scene break. And yet Ron is a doormat for forgiving Kim about the chip rather than friendship, eh Grimm? I think this actually works, though. Grimm isn’t aware that Kim and Ron being together inexplicably also applies to him and Rhonda. Because, well… he’s human. He isn’t always going to be aware of how hypocritical it is that he likes to harp on how Kim doesn’t treat Ron right, yet he was very free with referring to Rhonda as deadweight way back in the first chapter. And he did use her as ninja fodder to steal the Lotus Blade. ‘course, Ron’s usually the distraction for Kim, and she has also said some very free things about Ron as well. Though, most of the time she does it out of Ron’s earshot rather than offhandedly insult him to his face unless he’s doing something quite stupid at that moment. But Grimm does consider Rhonda a genuine friend - Grimm only became an operator for hire within the last few years, and he’s known Rhonda since pre-K. He had that smug grin as a preschooler, but he didn’t seem to have the same ‘in it for the money’ thing and being evil that he has now. So it’s going to be a question of will he be able to handle this when he’s so used to being a manipulator, and perhaps realize some of his own hypocrisy in the process. I mean, his first response to when Rhonda was showing surprising feelings was to basically start analyzing her the way he does his opponents. Either way, it is a nice flaw for Grimm and shows that he’s not infallible. He can have very human failings. Still a little frustrating when he starts harping on Kim, though... Anyways, next scene, to Rhonda’s activities by the lakeside. Looks like Rhonda’s about to have another dance number with the animals. That ability is coming back from her camp days. Amusingly enough, watching fireflies was something Ron did in a similar situation during Cap’n Drakken, where the Middleton High School’s senior class had their spring break trip cancelled by volcanic ash and they were sent to Port Mystic Cove Haven instead… to be forced to live as if it was colonial America for that duration instead for a grade. With all of their belongings confiscated when they got there (though they did eventually get it back, given in the scene’s epilogue Kim and Monique were back in their normal clothing). That episode premiered a few days after Slyrr published this fanfic so I doubt he riffed the idea from there. Plus, it’s actually quite different. Ron just watched fireflies in a jar since they didn't have TV. Here, Rhonda’s actually directing them with some form of Animal Empathy (to reference Dungeons and Dragons again) and it’s more than a one-off gag. Really the only similarity in the end is mentioning not having TV, and superficial stuff. Yet at the same time, this shows that Grimm was right. Rhonda is relaxing. She’s actually appreciating the beauty of nature when normally she knows she’d be lost on it (okay it was boredom, but still), and she’s going with it rather than just assuming they’re here to set her on fire or something silly like that. Or not so silly, given her incendiary camp experiences… Anyways, the next scene… oh hai Maze, lurking in the back of that picture. Two scenes, but that second one was all on it’s own. Really, I think most of that could’ve been merged into the previous one for Rhonda and Grimm, then have Maze as his own little scene as he thinks on what he had scene. But for the scenes themselves, given this is the second time Rhonda has been said to never get tired (first in the flashback, now here), well… maybe I should discuss the Kim Possible series’ punny names. Kim, Ron, and Grimm are all obvious. Impossible, Unstoppable, Improbable. Rhonda’s last name is a little more exotic; actually I had to flat out look it up. It’s supposed to be a spin on “Indefatigable”, which according to Merriam-Webster means ‘Incapable of being fatigued’. Rhonda’s first name stretches it a bit, but I think that’s more for the parallel to Ron’s name than anything. Now I’m not sure if this has really been born out before; she certainly wasn’t too winded running from the Yamanouchi ninjas, but that could simply be being physically fit since it wasn’t a marathon. She was short on breath when she hauled over her chem lab worth of repellants, but considering how much crap she was carrying… *shrugs* Not a big deal, really. Plus, it’s probably more of a pun from her name rather than an actual trait she has… yet. And Grimm analyzing these events is fitting for what we’ve seen of him. His approach is to analyze the data and try to figure it out. Not that he has an answer yet, but neither does Maze who seems to be more familiar with this stuff. … Sakituya really chose not to explain stuff, didn’t he? Wait, Grimm is a foot fetishist? … on second thought, let’s not go there. So that’s a second bear and now Grimm’s seen it. However… Maze’s patronizing tone certainly lends credence to the idea that he might be espousing one thing but might not quite have actually comprehended the whole set of tales as intended. This is the guy who sold a bunch of Native American artifacts to pay our mercenary duo, after all. I like this. Although this is nominally Rhonda’s story, she might not necessarily figure it out, especially with her experiences coloring her outlook on matters. Same with Maze, actually. He’s looked before so he’ll have that confirmation bias in all likelihood. Grimm may lack the affinity for nature, but he’s able to provide an outsider's view into the situation because this is all new to him. He lacks those preconceptions of the area or what they’re going to find. And this is after he’s seen the fireflies and her understanding that bear. Wow, Maze has really got his opinion about Rhonda set, doesn’t he? I mean, see her as a bumbler, sure, but she does have that affinity. Plus she is the one who found the monument… Grimm’s taking that Indian name really for all it’s worth isn’t he? Well, arrogance is not a uniquely American or a uniquely villainous thing, but he does it better than both combined. That, and probably trying to reassure Rhonda that she won’t be the star of a wilderness damsel short. And cue flashback of Rhonda waking up after being ditched... You know, she really lucked out. That easily could have ended with Rhonda’s (empty) grave being marked “Went Missing, Presumably Eaten by Local Fauna” And I can easily see Grimm being a bit smug with his reaction to how Rhonda got into it. Kim’s been quite happy to drop the snark about Ron when he messes up or gets himself into a stupid situation. And back to the present. … we’re about to have another musical number I think. Yup. Here’s the part of the song in question. Suddenly speaking Blackfoot? Well, if the birthmark didn’t solidify that, I think this definitely shows that whatever Rhonda’s power is, it’s actually hers intimately rather than being something she’s empowered with later as it was for Ron. The question then is what has kept those powers dormant before? MMP was noted for being flashy, and I suspect Rhonda’s powers will be too. What, was she such a city girl that she lost the Druid special abilities? Though even if they are hers natively, that would at least somewhat head off any ‘it’s not Rhonda, it’s her powers’ which Ron started to have dogging his. Of course that’s true for anyone with powers; so I guess it’ll be a question of the agency of the powers themselves. Will they be something that just arbitrarily bolsters Rhonda as MMP randomly bolstered Ron (or seemed to, as he’s got more than a few feats that fans have attributed to MMP when he suddenly gets competent and scary), or will it be something that she’ll need to start to consciously use? This animal empathy makes sense as something she wouldn’t really control, especially since it’s probably second nature for her after all the time she’s spent with Rueful, but it’ll be the other parts of it that’ll be up to question. B Minus? This is going to be Rhonda’s Naked Mole Rap equivalent, isn’t it? Yup. Her version of the Naked Mole Rap. To compare, here’s the version of the Naked Mole Rap used in the episode Rappin’ Drakken, which is when it became a song in-universe. And the lyrics: Yo', listen up, hap a holla from Ron. 'Naked Mole Rap' is the name of the song. Here's the story, in all it's glory. Ain't hidin' nothin', you'll know what the truth is, how Ron met Rufus! Never heard a cat bark, Never heard a puppy purr. My dad's allergic to every kind of fur. So I searched for hairless pets on the internet, Saw a jpeg of a pink thing... Gonna need sunscreen! What is that? That freaky thing? Yes, that's right, it's a naked mole rat. Come on y'all, let the girlies sing! Listen to the naked mole rap! Uh huh! What is that? That freaky thing? Yes, that's right, it's a naked mole rat. Hey, wait, I can't hear the girls sing! Listen to the naked mole rap! I heard'a Smartie Mart was havin' a sale on a hairless pink rodent with a long skinny tail! It seemed to be this could be a solution, The perfect pet for my dad's sensitive constitution! So the manager came to open the cage, He said, "You know this pet's hairless?" I said, "I couldn't care less!" Handed him to me, said, "Be careful don't drop it, and do you want this cage?" "No, I'll keep him in my pocket!" What is that? That freaky thing? Yes, that's right, it's a naked mole rat. Come on y'all, let the girls sing! Listen to the naked mole rap! Hey Wait I can't hear the girls sing. Yes, that's right, it's a naked mole rat. Gonna buy me some bling-bling! Listen to the naked mole rap! What're we missin' here? Rufus, the naked mole rat! Can I get a boo-yah? Boo-yah! Oh, can I get a boo-yah? Boo-yah! Look at the camera, say, "Cheese!" Cheese! Smile for the camera say, "Cheese!" Can I get a boo-yah? Boo-yah! Oh, can I get a boo-yah? Boo-yah! Look at the camera, say, "Cheese!" Cheese! Smile for the camera say, "Cheese!" We go to Bueno Nacho, chimurrito and a naco. Always grande size and why not? I'm buyin'! Rufus in my pocket, you can't stop it, can't top it, Don't drop it, you might just pop it! Rufus and Ron Stoppable, with our best friend: Kim Possible. We're not afraid of any attack. I say "Yo, KP, we got your back!" What is that? That freaky thing? Yes, that's right, it's a naked mole rat. Come on y'all, let the girlies sing! Listen to the naked mole rap!) What is that? Super freaky thing! Yes, that's right, it's a naked mole rat. Come on y'all, let those girlies sing! Listen to the naked mole rap! Yeah! This ain't no, no freak-o! Yeah that's right, it's the naked mole rap! Come on y'all, it's the naked mole rap! Yeah, that's right, it's the naked mole rap! Come on y'all it's the naked mole rap. Listen to the naked mole rat! So, how do I compare the two? Well I’ve always been kinda ‘meh’ on the Naked Mole Rap, so I’m not anymore partial to this Long Tailed Weasel Jam. And yeah, it’s basically a rehash of Naked Mole Rap, but… You know, if you want a parallel that’s fairly the same, that’s one place to do it, plus it’s not like he copied it 1:1. It’s shorter, for one, and by indications in-universe it was purely for school rather than 'used for a mission, then Ron brought the recording in as his project’. And like the Naked Mole Rap, it provides us with the context for how Rhonda met Rueful and it also fits what Rhonda’s becoming. So, when’s Rhonda going to go star in a Disney Princess movie? Poor Grimm. Rhonda probably wasn’t paying much attention to the class when she did it. I mean, Ron thinks people laughed with him as he was the Middleton Mad Dog mascot. As Kim put it, he couldn’t see out of it very well. Now they did genuinely like him, just not quite as he imagined. IE, enjoyed to laugh at, not with. Though I’ve always been a guy who never really got dancing, and singing in public (not at a specific concert or something) I also find awkward. Yeah, saying it as the guy who was in band. There’s a reason the third song cut off, though... Okay, that one paragraph was way too busy. Probably should’ve been split into two or three smaller ones because it really mixes together and there’s at least two different groups speaking. But I have to say - wow, for someone who was creeped out by Maze earlier, Rhonda sure laid down the smack. Think Maze is going to need the cryo-science of modern (mad science wielding) man to treat that burn. Yet this scene I think solidifies that Maze’s views on nature are, perhaps, a little skewed. I don’t think it’s really a form of mind control over animals; fitting as it would be for Team Probable’s general MO if it was control then wouldn’t Gentle Paw have been much more responsive? Plus, when Maze directs the animals they seem to barely tolerate him, whereas with Rhonda they love her. But at the same time, Rhonda didn’t really make her case of not controlling them very well given she does say ‘everyone point and laugh’, which while she probably did not mean it as an order can easily be read as one. Which, since that’s how Maze is likely to read it, means she just offended the client. And Grimm makes a point about always accommodating the client… Well, next scene. I’m surprised. You’d think that supervillains might’ve blamed them for their schemes going wrong later when they decide not to further hire Team Probable. Or even Drakken after the two got captured and then Drakken presumably got busted, all the way back in the first story. Even if Drakken was giddy for that picture of Kim defeated and they did run interference for Drakken to break into a German weapons facility, Grimm knew that Kim was going to bust Drakken without his cover. And you know, the fact that despite their services and Grimm’s apparent ability to neutralize Kim without much fuss, no villain has actually taken over the world... Don’t be hasty, Maze. Though yeah, this time it’s just Rhonda. Grimm’s a total mundane, and even with his abilities Maze can’t hear it, so it’s down to her. And that’s the end of the chapter. Two more to go, and Rhonda’s now been able to zero in on it. The author’s notes are again a rehash of the guide, but Slyrr also included the pronunciation for the names given to different characters. So, what to say about this chapter overall? It’s moving the plot forward, far more than the previous ones, which is needed as well, the pace was pretty slow given how much time was (very well) spent on elaborating more on the characters, and it did the same here. I also will say that despite me usually having problems with Grimm and his hypocrisy… I really haven't had any here. It’s like it’s a completely different side of him. He’s still that manipulative jerk, but he’s dropped a lot of the jerk. In great part, I think, because he’s not dealing with an opponent. He’s dealing with his girlfriend and his client. But I also think it’s because he’s not so blatantly being contrasted with Kim, which in the last two stories hadn’t exactly gone well. Grimm has… well, become his own character and moved past needing to rely on Kim to function narratively. Likewise, Rhonda has also gained her own characterization and, I think, the shot in the arm known as confidence that she’s been needing from the start with her depression about how little she did in The Return of Zorpox. She was always competent - she happily took Ron on and had him too busy to do anything else (if likewise neutralized herself) in the first story, and she did handle herself against the Yamanouchi students in the second. But this time, she’s actually doing it directly on her own initiative rather than either as a tag-along to Grimm’s objective (keeping Kim busy) or at direct orders (dealing with the ninjas at Ron’s order). Yeah there was the odd paragraph that was too condensed together, but that happens. Fanfic writers don’t get editors that often. Overall, a good chapter and if it weren’t for me making comparisons to the series such as the maiden name debate or directly comparing the Naked Mole Rap to the Long Tailed Weasel Jam, I probably could’ve done this with some different analysis. Admittedly it probably would’ve been shorter, but that’s more a factor of not much to say on a lot of this. Next chapter: Lairs and Fighters and Bears, Oh My! Or at least that was what is given at the end of this one. The actual next chapter is called ‘The Great Bear Spirit’.
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Post by Luke Danger on Mar 23, 2016 9:44:42 GMT -5
Back to Kwitcherbeliakin - Chapter Six The penultimate chapter, Rhonda’s got a sense of what they’re looking for, and it’s time to see just what Maze wants. The author’s forward also changed for this chapter. I will say that I like that he is upfront about how he is taking liberties with the rituals and that they’re not meant to be real ones. It’s the usual “all things in this movie are meant to be fictional and any resemblance to reality is coincidental”. But it’s also kind of like having a historical advisor and choosing to not use their advice; a lot of movies have one along just to say they consulted a historian. Here, he shows that he can do his research but he also is deviating from it for the story and outright admitting to it, rather than just having the link to say he consulted. Kind of like that disclaimer at the start of The Prince of Egypt where they outright point out they deviated from the actual story in the Bible. It’s a refreshing amount of candor to the fact that it’s not accurate, at least in detail, and that there are changes to fit the story. As for the translations; I’m probably not going to translate them. I’ve taken a look at some of the sources and unfortunately I don’t think I’ll have the time to delve in and find the translations. Sorry, but unfortunately real life limits how much time I can spend delving in and I think my time would be better spent getting these done than trying to find translations. That said if I happen on any reviews for the stories that happened to have someone translating them, I’ll be sure to share it. But for now, onto the chapter! You know it’s rather bad that it took Sakituya to notice Rhonda was missing. Especially since there may be a good chance that he mostly noticed it because a) Rhonda seems to be some sort of chosen one, and b) because Gentle Paw noticed. But from what we’ve seen, Sakituya was right. Thrusting it on her seems to have driven it away given how little experience in nature Rhonda seems to have gotten between the two trips to Kwitcherbeliakin. Yet at the same time, diving in seems to helped her as we saw last chapter, even if she’s in denial. Still, it begs the question of why he was so hands off about Rhonda diving in again with Maze. Now, to Rhonda’s side of the flashback… Our first look at what Maze is after, and how Rhonda found the statue originally. Seems she was always meant to have that name - though the question is was it based on her last name or something else? Either way, back to the present… right where the last chapter left off. Good to see they were prepared to dive off the trails. Of course, given that even Rhonda’s vantage point didn’t show her the camp either they’re going to be going quite far or Rhonda simply couldn’t make it out. I like this - it’s an acknowledgement that this might not be the best idea, but we need to separate what we know as viewers with what the characters know. We might know something is a bad idea (how will vary), but that doesn’t mean the characters will. Of course, Rhonda’s being driven by a writer too, if you want to get technical. But that’d probably be a little too meta of a comparison for her to make. Ah hypocrisy. You’d think if he’s fine with letting mosquitoes have his blood he’d be fine with thorns getting some. Plants need nourishment too! Still seems a bit deliberately jerkish, especially mixed with that forced politeness above, but that’s been established long ago. I will say this is a nice detail - gloves aren’t a one-thing-does-all, you need specific ones for specific things. That said, I do find the fact that their gloves wouldn’t really hold up against much to be odd. You’d think that given their line of work, they’d want gloves that can handle some punishment and piercing, to say nothing of the stuff they probably have to handle for their clients. Not sure what Maze’s eyebrow raising is supposed to be, though my guess would be he’s surprised at the idea of needing to switch back to ‘old’ clothes. I’m not quite sure how true it was for the Blackfoot, but I do know that the various Inuit communities had to make their clothes last as long as possible (they even had a special scraper to get the snow off of their clothes before stepping inside as the high heat/humidity would melt any snow they wore coming in and weaken their clothes a lot faster). So depending on how he lives normally, it’s quite possible he still is in that ‘make clothes last as long as possible because it’s not just going to Smarty Mart to get more’. Rueful seems to have an idea of what’s going on - which, given I’ve made a joke about Rhonda being a druid class character, might seem appropriate if Rhonda’s powers are nature based. Which would be backed by the fact Maze hasn’t seen this specific trail before; if this is something hidden it’s quite possible that either he has seen it from a different angle and only briefly, or that thicket of nettles was basically protection for it. Which of course begs the question - how did Rhonda get past that, unless the nettles grew after she had found it as some sort of barrier? Spitballing, but it’s a thought. Anyways, flashback time! I think this really was the only thing he could do with Rhonda after that. In fact I’d dare say that Slyrr missed a great opportunity to do another deviation, or at least do a sharper contrast. Ron, by all indications, had to stay in Wannaweep until the very end despite suffering similar torment at the hands of all the stuff he faced. Rhonda was terrified by something quite specific and was sent home a little early, but basically still towards the end. This really could’ve been a great way to contrast either Rhonda’s parents by having her pull her out after this with it being long before it was supposed to end, whereas Ron’s kept him there to the bitter end. Alternatively, have Sakituya insist that she leave immediately after that trauma on grounds that it’s really outside his purview to help her through that, maybe even refunding part of the cost to send her to camp. Either way Rhonda probably needed some therapy… which, given she still has all that baggage, she probably didn’t get unless Grimm was playing shrink for her. I mean what Slyrr did for this was fine - the only people out to get Rhonda in her camp days was those two bullies who were really more opportunists than targeted bullying, and with a call from the camp counselor the Fatigables got their daughter out of there. I just think maybe he missed a chance to do a much sharper deviation than he already had, or at least do some deviation with Rhonda’s parents. Vague as they are right now, it might’ve been a nice detail. But back to the present, they’re closing in on the old source of fear. Welp, they’ve made it. So it seems Rhonda’s ‘never gets tired’ isn’t quite a joke on her name than it seemed last chapter. It’s still basically tell, but then again Ron became a star running back purely from simply running away from supervillains all the time (and their death rays, doomsday devices, and henchmen…), so it’s a pretty logical thing. I should actually mention that nominally, Kim isn’t the only superhero out there. We just never see them - HenchCo mentions ‘heroes’ plural, Ron (high on ego from the ‘Ron Factor’ project of GJ’s) talks about Kim being a freak-fighting cheerleader with a website as not necessarily being unique, and of course Team Go as seen. There’s never been much done definitively, but Global Justice’s presence does at least indicate that there’s more going on than just Kim’s adventures. Of course given how open ended the explanation is it very well might just be that GJ mostly focuses on WEE and gets the odd job beyond that and most supers prefer to live more mundanely (take a look at Middleton and all it’s casual supertech, for example) However, Slyrr also runs on there being more heroes out there. Which makes sense - if it was just Kim, GJ, Team Go, and mercs like Team Impossible, you’d think that they would’ve rubbed shoulders earlier. Team Go at least had spent time inactive before the team got back together thanks to Aviarius and Team Impossible seemed to be happy to let Kim run around until they realized she was a long term threat to their money making scheme. Grimm’s first encounter with Kim and Ron is basically after both teams have been going at the missions for a few years. Yet just who these other heroes are is never touched upon. Which is in part I think a great shame; while I doubt it would’ve ever had the weight to compete with the big names, I think the KP setting is pretty suitable to expand beyond just Kim’s adventures. It’s got just enough room to do all sorts of stuff, yet tight enough that you don’t have all that accumulated and conflicting canon with baggage like Civil War hanging overhead. Nominally. Though if it was a microphone, Grimm and Maze would’ve been able to hear it too and it would’ve been a very long prank. Then again, this is the setting where love rays and doomsday devices are a dime a dozen… Also the mention of a grotto brought a faint smirk to my face - in the second Wannaweep episode, a grotto of the old polluted water that transformed Gill into what he was served as the machine to drive Gill’s second rampage. Ron also took a dip in it to power up - mutate up to fight a mutant. But it’s not really in your face as a parallel, it’s a small thing that really I only caught in this readthrough. A detail for the eagle eyed fans, and on top of that it’s not even direct since it’s only a comparison. I really like this part, not as a guy who’s studied the Native Americans (my studies are mostly limited to browsing TVTropes and assorted stuff I’ve picked up from my history classes), but more just the aversion of not doing the bloody research. Disney’s Peter Pan ran afoul of some trouble with things like the song ‘What Made the Red Man Red’ and it’s portrayal of Indians in that movie - which, functionally, was just the stereotype. Now, Peter Pan at least has the excuse of a child’s imagination and really do you think a British schoolboy would know the difference between the various tribes who settled across the continent? Probably not. Sure, nominally he’s going with that by having a what seems to be a Blackfoot totem pole, but he’s also making a point that this is why it’s such an unusual find. And yet he both has Grimm and Maze point out why that doesn’t make sense - Grimm probably paid attention in a history class at school, Maze… well, hypocrite or not this is Maze’s culture. Plus they also provides a plausible out - it simply predates the tribes that don’t actually build totem poles or statues. So it’s basically a scene where historical inaccuracies are acknowledged and then also backed up by actually citing some stuff beyond the usual knowledge. I mean, asking someone to do minute details is always dangerous (too much in too short a time), but at least get it broadly and try to be conscious about where you deviate, right? Especially when using stuff from real life. Yeah, Maze has been a bit of a broken record on that. Especially his rudeness to Rhonda, who has shown to have at the very least a similar affinity for nature despite being mostly freaked out by nature and the fact that they haven’t been very callous with it overall. I mean, the closest thing to being callous you can accuse them of is the DEET (which, while it is toxic, is only slightly so and is really more of a base ingredient for most repellants than anything), and Rhonda’s musical session (which was spontaneous and not to Rhonda’s plans). But Rhonda, in my opinion, has the right idea. Their contract was to get him there, and they’ve been paid in advance in full. The only reason to stick around is the fact that it’ll be dark soon and the cave is shelter. Otherwise they’ve got no reason to help, and considering how rude he’s been I know I’d be glad to get going. Pride, something something, fall, something something. But on the other hand, Grimm is right. These kind of things usually aren’t shared with outsiders, so being invited to have a hand in it is a big deal and probably an experience that’d be relatively unique as an outsider. In my Cultural Anthropology class for college, my instructor made a point about how some people had managed to see a ritual (IIRC it was a dance of some form) for one of the Native American tribes - I believe it was one in the southwest - not the Apache but somewhere nearby - and then portrayed it in a film, much to that tribe’s chagrin. So for him, this really is a once in a lifetime opportunity. Anyways, while Rhonda gathers the supplies, Grimm is going to be helping out as the scene changes. Ah, the “do a few things better rather than a bunch of things decently.” A point Grimm has constantly harped on for Kim and comes up once a story. Well, you know that saying about being jack of all trades and master of none? Here’s the full quote. “Jack of all trades, master of none, but better than a master of one.” Basically you can be epic awesome at one thing, but if you can’t do other things you’re a one trick pony, a single load to blow, a one-off. You might be great in your niche, but you’ll get slaughtered outside of it. Which, really, is a problem for a lot of gimmick factions or characters in games. Take General Granger in Command and Conquer Generals: Zero Hour. Best aircraft in the game and enough point defense lasers to make anti-air missiles fairly useless. But all you really need to shut him down is an anti-air that isn’t blockable by PDL (such as Gatling weapons and Quad Cannons, available to all Chinese and GLA subfactions) and also something that can hose infantry and light vehicles since that’s all he gets otherwise (... what do you know, Gatling weapons and Quad Cannons) Which, I think, is something that Grimm needs to have come up more if it’s going to be his shtick. I don’t mind specialists - in fact him being a specialist with focused training in combat actually makes him beating Kim relatively plausible since Kim tends to have her fingers in a lot of different pies with her numerous extracurriculars. The problem is, well… Grimm is supposed to have this gaping weakness of not being very good at what he doesn’t specialize in. So far, that hasn’t been seen. We’ve seen the weaknesses of Kim’s style being, as Grimm put it, ‘scattershot’, but we’ve never seen the strength of that, namely that Kim could keep switching her styles rather that toe a specific line of attack. Well, that explains a few things nicely. Maze was deliberately setting this up. And since he seems to respect Grimm, he probably chose to neutralize him in this manner figuring he’d be able to handle Rhonda otherwise. I’m not sure I’d call Grimm’s move being politically correct though. If anything I’d argue it was more ‘be nice to the client’ than ‘politically correct’ since it’s not like he was whitewashing (... heh) anything or using specific terminology. He just helped Maze with the preparations and then politely tried to leave afterwards - if anything trying to leave was the ‘politically correct’ thing since as Grimm notes, the rituals aren’t supposed to be shared with outsiders. Nice Princess Bride reference there. And we get the motive rant as Maze is confirmed for villain. Honestly, it seems to be a bit of a Charles Xavier (... well, the nicer Xavier) and Magneto relationship. Sakituya sees the ability to mingle peacefully and does so with the camp to give the young a chance to experience the wild - plus from what we saw in the flashbacks he genuinely is a kind of guy that kids would probably look up to. Maze is the extremist who seeks power to go on a campaign to right wrongs done in the past. Normally most villains in the series have a lot more personal reasons for their villainy, and usually unconnected to history. Drakken? Laughed at by his friends in college for his failed Bebe bots, wants to prove them all wrong and be recognized for his genius. Shego? Got tired of being a hero (and we’ve seen what her family’s like in this series of fanfiction - that was not an exaggeration back in ATP) and is in it for herself. Motor Ed? Couldn’t handle the dress code at a US military lab (no mullets) and wants to build big monster trucks. Jackie Oates, AKA Jackie the Jackal? Wanted to get into the wrestling ring but was simply too small to make it viable. Adrena Lynn? Ratings. Gemini? Freudian problems with his twin sister (who heads Global Justice). Camille Leon? Disinherited by her father. The list goes on. Which, I think, fits in a way because well, tackling such problems is probably something that would’ve shifted the tone of the series heavily. We’re dealing with topics of racism and horrific actions in history, and not through some artificial lense like American Dragon: Jake Long does with magical creatures so they can basically talk about genocide without the usual problems (I mean, they had to fight hard just so Jake didn’t need to wear a helmet and protective padding while flying, as a dragon…) And really, I like it. Slyrr has the room to do different kinds of villains and he’s doing just that, just as he’s done with Grimm. I really doubt Drakken would’ve been able to seem to destroy Ron’s good side on screen, since apparently Drakken’s original intimidating persona was forced to be made more laughable by the Disney executives (on top of just not being as much of a threat anymore thanks to how many times he had lost). Luckily it crept back time to time, such as So the Drama, but still… you have room in fanfiction to do things that you can’t do in the canon, and original characters are needed for some. Mind control, huh? Seems a bit of a roundabout way to do a ritual… I must say though, Grimm doesn’t look much more evil than he usually does. If anything he looks less threatening with the glowing eyes (and an Avatar he is not - I don’t think Korra would have any nice things to say about this kind of guy…), which is rather amusing. I guess it’s more because Grimm’s threat is usually being a manipulator, not some eldritch abomination under someone else’s thrall. Though it is nice that Grimm’s getting a taste of getting mind raped after what he did to Ron and stood by on for the whole world, but it doesn’t really feel like karmic comeuppance since well… it’s not really related. Plus, well, how this ends. So, the climax of the story. Grimm’s been drugged and subject to mind control to do Maze’s ritual. With Rhonda busy collecting firewood, Maze had no problems. Of course, this whole story is supposed to be how Rhonda got her powers... She’s seen enough bad guys to know this is probably shenanigans. Odd that she isn’t picking up the glow in his eyes, unless that simply vanished once the control was solidified? And what does the Great Bear Spirit think of this plan? There’s a reason why my present instructor for a class on war and the state emphasized why, in Thucydides’ write up of his speech, the Spartan King did not invoke the Greek pantheon when warning against Sparta jumping headlong into a war with Athens. What if the oracles said otherwise, after he had invoked their name to try and get a halt to an off-the-cuff invasion? But Rhonda seems to have gotten the guts she needs to at least shout at Maze and call him out. And of course being an extremist, Maze doesn’t care. Shadow shields are new though - half expected Rhonda to go “Where’d you get a forcefield generator?” A good point to make. In another setting Maze might’ve been rather unique. Here? He’s basically another bad guy trying to take over the world. As I said about the heroes, the same thing applies to villains. There’s a lot more talked about than the ones seen - to the point where Kim brushes off learning about Yono the Destroyer (an MMP based eldritch abomination) as ‘No big. If we had a nickel for everyone of those we smacked down, right?’. Maze may think he’s big, but really, he’s just another goon with powers, an evil sounding name, and a plot to take over (part of) the world. Though I wonder if Grimm would refuse to work for Maze again given this - I mean, generic take over the world is one thing, but something with racially charged rhetoric? Maybe that’s the line he draws? It’s not really delved on, but I’m actually curious if Grimm would’ve helped Maze again if he wasn’t backstabbed by the shadowed shaman. On one hand, someone might say the ‘need a sacrifice’ thing is a bit barbaric and stereotypical, but on the other hand I think it is rather logical without even diving into any mythology. The power used today to run computers is from electricity, and that stuff is both useful and dangerous. The human body can be a conductor for such, but it’s also dangerous. As Iroh made a point of in Avatar: The Last Airbender when teaching Zuko about redirecting lightning, he can’t let it go through his heart. And that’s pretty much what it is here, and I think it fits. Maze is trying to add to himself extreme power over mortal men. That much raw power would probably overwhelm his body if he wasn’t meant to have it, or the weakening is the price paid for the power (something something, what Odin sacrificed for knowledge, something something). It’s just, well, Maze is using Grimm like an Op Amp or a Resistor. Something to stop the most danger of the raw power so he can get something usable out of it without deep frying himself. Great power, but you pay through the nose for it. I will say that Rhonda’s line about not caring about money definitely firms up Slyrr’s plan that Team Probable don’t backstab each other. Most of the KP villains would probably have just taken the money and left, especially if it’s henchmen (Drakken considers a henchman not being stuck in an excavation tube to be a serious problem when it gets clogged). Rhonda, and presumably Grimm? Money doesn’t replace friends. Which I think is what helps make Team Probable a nice change of pace from the usual stuff. Sure, you could argue this is Rhonda being more good, and really Team Probable haven’t really been evil in this story, but on the surface it wasn’t really an evil job. They’re not the hired operators helping a take over the world scheme, it was a merc job to find something and only now is it actually a villain’s scheme. And on top of that Maze pretty much hired them under false pretenses. Just like Monkey Fist asked for Kim’s help under similarly false pretenses. He contacted her saying it’s merely a matter of recovering an old artifact, but pointedly left out his plans to become the ultimate monkey master. Of course, Monkey Fist only stole the idol from their camp. He was happy to let them go on their merry way until they involved themselves again investigating further. Here? Maze outright neglected to mention he was going to use one for a human sacrifice. Then again, how many mercenaries take suicide missions for money? Or it’s an express ticket to Hell from overload, but hey, at least this affirms that she really loved Grimm if nothing else. On one hand, I could say this was a stupid decision since for all she knew, well, express ticket. On the other, she is in the moment, panicking about the prospect of losing her only friend, and she’s the only one who can do anything and Maze has cut off the direct problem of ‘simply beat Maze up’. I suppose she could have tried to destroy the statue, but she probably isn’t packing the munitions to do that reliably. So while I still would call it a rather foolish move, it’s understandably foolish, which is important. Yeah, characters can make foolish mistakes, but as long as they have a reason to do it it’s okay. Meet the Great Bear Spirit. I will say the descriptions worked - relatable, yet still conveying divine majesty. As I noted back in the first fic, Slyrr is pretty good at keeping all the grandiose majesty of ancient stuff from being too hard to swallow. Also I see the GBS has packed Time Stop for his daily spells… which, really, is needed. This is going to be exposition, and talking is not a free action. I’m going to put my commentary after all this, mostly because I think this section really should be read together. So yeah, Rhonda’s supposed to be this thing’s chosen one. And a Cleric with nature based domains (probably Animal and Strength, given it’s a bear) rather than a Druid. And to stop taking rogue levels, I guess, to take the D&D jokes to it’s end. Yes I’ve made far too many of those here… I do like that Rhonda made a point about feeling that this shouldn’t be hers - of all of Team Probable’s crimes, looks like Cultural Appropriation won’t be one of them. Or at least, they weren’t trying to appropriate it The point about seeking power and those who don’t want it find it - on one hand that’s tired and trite, so many people use it, but again that’s also probably true. The many people who want power are the ones who are in it for themselves to some degree. Those who don’t want the power in the first place are usually those who are going to be prone to avoiding the abuses of it. That’s not to say that there aren’t people who seek power for good purposes, but as the saying goes absolute power corrupts absolutely. But there’s still a question: why Rhonda? Actually, why is anyone a chosen one? With Ron, it seems to have been a case of being the one who happened to get MMP besides Monkey Fist. MF wanted it for evil, Rufus is a Naked Mole Rat, so that leaves Ron. With Rhonda… why was she chosen at birth? As it is, the GBS might be extremely lucky about the fact that Rhonda isn’t as malicious as Grimm is despite knowing him from pre-K. Eh, Nature versus Nurture, and for some reason I suspect the GBS sits on the ‘Nature’ side. Then again he… it… also has a very different perspective on things. And we’ve got all of Rhonda’s problems coming to the forefront. And I think it’s a really good point - Rhonda probably has fantasized about being powerful and all that. How many of us haven’t, especially as kids? Yet now it’s actually happening. It’s one thing to pretend, but when you actually consider what you would do if such power was offered, in reality, how many of us would have an answer right off the bat? This is a big step - this isn’t Rhonda picking how she’s going to keep leveling up. This could very well be her making a choice that will determine the course of her life. This is her chance, but is this what she really wants to do? Does she really want to be some Bear Priestess? I really liked this last bit. It sounds… modern, or something you wouldn’t expect from something like this. Most would probably use language like ‘Partly to honor me, and partly to offend as she knew her lack of skill as a sculptor’. No, Slyrr has the GBS use ‘cheese me off’. Which I think works. It’s a small moment to show that despite all that ancient splendor he seems to be using otherwise, he’s not unapproachable. He’s just, well, not human. Which goes into his perspective about the power and being tied to a specific group. To a human, we’re probably more aware of different groups of humans having their own things. To something that’s bigger than humanity, it probably sees it as amusing tribalism and doesn’t care about the skin color of the user, just who they are. And you know, the GBS is probably right about things being twisted. Mythology is a complicated mess, but there is always some truth in legends. Finding that kernel of truth is the hard part, because as time goes on history changes to better suit the present day. When the record is merely word of mouth, it’s very easy to change the history as long as you control the narrative. With written word, it’s harder to do as long as the records survive and people can read them. Which is what would’ve happened here. Abish would’ve been well remembered in her day, but as time wore on things likely started to shift. Either because of incomplete information, faulty memory, deliberate misinterpretation, or other circumstances (malicious or accidental), it evolved. Even Sakituya, who seemed to have a good grasp on what’s going on, was expecting a man rather than a woman to have the power. Yet he had the wisdom and, more importantly, the open mindedness to avoid fitting Rhonda into preconceived notions but instead adjusting them. Meanwhile, Maze simply made her out to be merely the bumbler who happened to find it for the ‘real heirs’ of the power. Of the two, Sakituya approached it as you should approach history - be confident in what you know, but be prepared and open minded enough to evolve your opinion when you find out new information. I’ve never been a fan of predestination, but i’m going to guess that since Rhonda is tied to the GBS, he has some sort of ‘in’ on reading her mind, so it probably was able to just pick up where she was going to go. I mean, the future is always in motion, right? Plus, agency. And that was ripped straight from the episode - Grimm gave Rhonda the same advice Cousin Larry gave Ron when he went to juice himself up with MMP - down to referencing Fortress (a game in universe kept vague in the show) Difference is, Rhonda got empowered first, she just didn’t have the go ahead. I’m a bit concerned with this - on one hand, Grimm is important to Rhonda and she’s always been able to help him. On the other, this is supposed to be Rhonda’s scene, isn’t it? Assuming Grimm is telling the truth (how he knows how to transfer this stuff I have no idea), this seems like it’s undermining her agency even if it’s supposed to be Rhonda acting on behalf of the whole team while Grimm’s knocked out. Of course at the same time, Ron’s agency was quite important when he got MMP as while he was given the advice by Larry, it was purely the advice. Larry didn’t give Ron anything else, just made the game reference and Ron figured out the rest. Other than being bolstered by MMP, Ron was master of his own agency. Here… it doesn’t feel like that. It feels like Rhonda still relies on Grimm rather than this being her stepping up. Then again, she's done that for years at this point. Hard to shake such instincts. Though why is Rhonda repeating Ron’s “I must become that which I fear most”? Ron had an explicit phobia of monkeys. Rhonda… okay she has a form of a nature phobia, but she doesn’t specifically fear bears. It’s only Gentle Paw and that second bear, and in the second case it was more a rude awakening from sleep than “Bear!” “AHHHH!” Not surprised that the power hurt Rhonda though - seems to be a regular thing when people get powered up in the series - for example, Kim getting Hego’s powers transferred into her when Aviarius was stealing Team Go’s powers. It actually hurt her - not badly, but it still hurt. And Rhonda’s getting, well, a full load. Also, one thing to note: Rueful was also touched by the glow. As noted in the last story, Rufus also has MMP. To my knowledge, Rueful possessing MBP has yet to be touched on in Slyrr’s fics, but I may have simply forgotten. Of course Rufus’ MMP is usually forgotten as well, even in canon. It only comes up when they need backup MMP such as Monkey Fist having Ron imprisoned and someone needs to use the Lotus Blade… or comedy for Rufus being better at being a ninja than Ron was. Well, time to see just what Rhonda’s powers can do. This is going to be picture heavy. Now that’s some firepower. Demolished those shadow barriers like they were nothing and reduced the proud and arrogant Maze to cowering. Personally I’m curious about Abish’s form forming up around Rhonda; is this actually, you know, her coming from across the gulf between the living and the dead to give the heir to the GBS’ power the needed boost? Or is this the GBS using Abish as a reference for Rhonda to give her the needed knowledge to use these powers since Rhonda has no experience? Though when I asked Slyrr, he said it was more symbolic from Maze’s POV - supposed to be Maze having a vision of Rhonda as Abish's spiritual heir to this power. Now when Ron got his MMP, he was suddenly fighting toe-to-toe with Monkey Fist, who was also a trained master. Ron was also losing, since he was against a trained master, and had to resort to Rufus destroying the statues and mostly won because he was able to deal a heavy blow while Monkey Fist couldn’t defend after rushing to save said statues. However, it was still at least Ron clearly doing it and it felt like Ron was in control of himself, or at least choosing how he was employing his new found abilities. Here, it feels more like Rhonda is running on autopilot. Now maybe it’s just a difference of visual medium versus textual, but… *shrugs* Which is not necessarily bad - as I mentioned Rhonda has no experience with these powers. Given this and seeming to be on autopilot, it makes sense as otherwise Rhonda wouldn’t even be able to use those incantations. Rhonda seems to have been imbued with some level of knowledge by her powers - IE, referring to Gentle Paw by his name in Blackfoot - but not consciously. Plus, that’d be a real lack of foresight if this ‘Mystical Bear Power’ (I’ll use MBP for short for Rhonda’s newfound powers) didn’t have some sort of defense mechanism. And speaking of a defense mechanism, the Avatar State is probably the best comparison for what Rhonda’s in right now. She’s had that unlocked, but she isn’t in control of it. It’s a defense mechanism for her, and that’s probably how she survived as a kid. It didn’t need overt glowing eyes and spirit strikes, just giving her some instinctive locations to go to while lost. As for shouting ‘spirit strike’, on one hand I feel like that is corny, on the other it might very well have been a quirk of Abish’s that got passed through these powers to Rhonda. I’m guessing ‘tried to save him, didn’t think it through’. Which, given her lack of time to think about it and desperation, is probably what happened. That or good old Greek tragedy of the two lovers dying together. I’m sure Hades can set them up with a nice abode - heck he probably needs some new hirelings since Pain and Panic are useless... Though speaking of Greek; I kind of like how this image looks like something portraying a scene from an old myth… yet we know it’s just two teenaged mercenaries and the girl’s weasel wrapped up in matters they weren’t quite prepared for. Sort of like that image of Kim breaking down with that Z in the sky during The Return of Zorpox. Teleport? And at long last we have a scene cut, this one taking us to Maze for his reaction. Rhonda really blew full power didn’t she? Which may be a problem - if this wasn’t also a danger just as the Avatar State is and Rhonda can unleash that kind of power regularly, well… okay, Ron’s MMP could match this as of Graduation, but that’s going to leave both Kim and Grimm in the dust and well, ancillaries to their powerful significant others. And of course Maze slinks away. Probably for his own good, considering how badly he just got wrecked. … looks like she got more than Grimm’s ‘courage’. That sounds a lot like something Grimm would do. Unleashing Zorpox the Conqueror over losing once, anybody? Grimm breaking his arm certainly is notable since the KP series usually have people shrug off serious injury. Everyone in the show involved in the missions have been quite badly hurt - from Drakken suffering comedic soot covering after an electric overload with the Genomic Sequencer, to Kim having the roof of a hospital dropped on her (okay she was wearing super strong power armor at the time, but still…), to Shego getting kicked into an electrical tower and just falling on top of her… but in the end none of them were seriously hurt long term. Or if they were hurt, it wasn’t something that stuck for any amount of time. In fact, the only time I’ve seen casts and crutches come out in the show is when the Tweebs tried to replicate one of Adrena Lynn’s stunts and broke most of their limbs, and the assorted cheerleaders and mascots following Gill’s second rampage. Otherwise… yeah, not a lot of serious injuries. Well that fixes quite a bit. To be fair, you deserved that Grimm. And not for this story, but more for prior ones. Ah well. But at the same time, I can’t really fault Rhonda for believing it’s possible. This is the setting where good and evil can be changed, essentially, at the flip of a switch. Grimm being able to give Rhonda courage like an iPod is not… ahem… impossible in comparison. In fact it’s not even improbable given the active spirit shenanigans going on at the time. Though just how aware was Grimm of goings on? Either he picked up on things very fast when released, or he was somewhat aware the whole time. Yet he was confused when he got out of Maze’s thrall. I’m going to write it off on Grimm piecing it together quickly - Rhonda suddenly being empowered isn’t all that far fetched if he was seeing her outside of his body and her asking for help. *shrugs* Seems a little inconsistent, but not a big deal. And well, Grimm’s manipulative side again and the fact he isn’t afraid to use it on his friends. For a good reason, but at the same time it also undermines Rhonda’s moment still. As I said before, when Larry gave Ron advice, he still acted on it. Here, Rhonda was acting assuming she was, well, Grimm in courage and such. Sure in the end it was her, but at the same time she acted like she had Grimm’s strength. On one hand, it makes sense that Grimm might need to do it. He hadn’t really helped her self esteem given how free he was calling her dead weight. On the other, it still leaves a bad taste. I know it was Grimm trying to kickstart Rhonda since he knew her hesitancy might get them all killed, but at the same time it implies that Rhonda wouldn’t have been able to do something without thinking she was on par with Grimm. But regardless, I think it fits Team Probable. Kim would’ve told Ron he could do it flat out. Grimm chose to lie to Rhonda. It may have yielded a more effective result, but he still defaults to manipulation when faced with challenges. And while he seems to only use it on his friends when he thinks it’ll help them - IE, prodding Rhonda to find out why she wanted to leave, or if she was just saying it, it’s still something that’s going to have to be solved. Can Grimm deal with not doing constant manipulation? That’s something different from Ron. I don’t think he’s ever done a dance like that. Danced? Yes. Danced because he was right? No. Which is good, Rhonda needs some more of her own personality just as Grimm needed to be distinct from Kim. And that’s the chapter. One more to go, nominally an epilogue but quite frankly it’s more denouement then epilogue. Epilogue implies it doesn’t really add to the story, if you ask me. I think it really solidifies everything here. Author’s notes, again more with the languages and pronounciation guides. As for the chapter and, what do I think of it? Well… I will say that compared to Ron’s, it felt a lot less like it was Rhonda’s agency. Again, because she thinks she is as courageous as Grimm because of him “giving” her his courage. Okay, sure, in the end it probably was hers, but again she also seemed to be running on a sort of auto-pilot along the lines of the Avatar State. Which, quite frankly, works as a contrast to when Ron got his powers. And it’s not just that; while Ron was probably vastly improved with knowledge of Monkey Kung Fu, at the time MMP was not very flashy. In fact, it lacked flash. The main thing was Ron suddenly being a peer hand to hand combatant to Kim at minimum. The flash of MMP came later, but also the weakening of Ron’s agency by it. For Rhonda, so far the start has been a weakening of her agency in regards to MBP. While it may have at least still been Ron at the start, as the series when on his MMP became less, well, Ron’s and more something that seeme to be arbitrary. It was never definitive, and then eventually Ron flat out says that MMP came and went. And because we never really got a clear indication of what was MMP going off and what was actually Ron, a lot of feats that could’ve been Ron’s own personal competence got attributed to MMP itself. Now some you could make a plausible argument, such as him delivering a kick powerful enough to topple over heavy stone statues at the end of A Sitch in Time, yet at the same time Kim regularly flings around men several times her size and she is explicitly normal (or at least as normal as you get in the setting). But because of that, well… Ron was stunted. What is actually Ron stepping up, and what is this fickle MMP kicking in to bolster him? By making MBP flashy from the get go, I think Slyrr offers a way to avoid it. It’s very clear what is MBP, and what would be Rhonda herself doing things. Now maybe you could argue that this now means some of her more mundane feats are MBP, but… well, it really comes down to how the powers are written. It’s actually something that dogs a lot of things - are heroes who they are because of being given powers, or is it because they learned how to harness them? Take Captain America. Yes, the Super Soldier Serum turned him into a ‘peak human’, but how useful would that have been had he lacked the innate courage to do what he did or the training? In fact, if The First Avenger did anything right it’s that they established that Steve Rogers was not Captain America because he got the Super Soldier Serum, he became Captain America and got the SSS because he was Steve Rogers, a guy who stood up to bullies whoever they are despite being a tiny asthmatic. Of course going forward the question is will MBP continue to be Rhonda going into the Avatar State, or will she learn to harness it as hers, rather than it using her? That’s the main thing missing in this chapter, was this the one-off as she got the powers unlocked and a defense mechanism until she had the control? But whereas for Ron the MMP was a one-off for the first episode that spontaneously became more, I think Slyrr nicely used imagery to indicate that these powers aren’t a one-off for Rhonda. The two eagle feathers; they become part of her look going forward and I think that worked because her keeping them here indicates that yes, MBP is now a part of her life. Compare to MMP, where it went away and comes back without any sign of it actually having something to change Ron. It’s symbolic, but it’s symbolism used right. So with this chapter overall, while there was some corny stuff like Grimm’s lie about courage I think it all worked. While Rhonda’s agency was made dubious in the actual big moment, if nothing else the courage was hers - even if it was just her acting the way she thought Grimm would, and this also very well might have sorted out her problems at the start. She’s affirmed now that she isn’t completely reliant on Grimm and she can help herself - the question is will the powers now dominate her going forward or will she use them for herself? After all, Team Probable are mercenaries. They may have filled the more conventional hero role in this matter, but only because they were put in direct danger by Maze deciding to use Grimm as a human sacrifice. This isn’t Kim Possible going after Monkey Fist before he can use an artifact to turn the whole world into monkeys, this was them trying to save themselves. So, one more chapter: ‘Aw, Natural’.
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Post by Luke Danger on Mar 23, 2016 9:53:45 GMT -5
Back to Kwitcherbeliakin - Chapter Seven Final chapter of the story, and we’re back to the camp itself.
And Grimm’s already eager to harness Rhonda’s powers for their own usage. I will say that I like this; it helps firmly establish a difference in methodology but also that no, MBP is not going to vanish. The eagle feathers were a good hint for the end of the last chapter, but this irons it out. Grimm’s going to do what he can to get her to train and use it, and probably an intent to make the powers hers rather than her a vessel of the powers. But this begs the question: how are they going to get it? How is Grimm going to train Rhonda to do something that he can’t do himself and is basically learning alongside her? I mean they can probably research the actual stuff, but a lot of what they do is almost certainly going to be trial and error. That’s… doable, but it feels like it’s prone to a lot of mistakes and dead ends. Slyrr did actually recognize it was a bit of a stretch when I asked about it, but he didn’t want to do a whole long story over them doing trial and error and constant mistakes. The idea was that while it was T&E, it was with an educated guess as to what they needed to do. Fair enough; I can see why he would gloss over training if it’s going to be a bunch of trials, but it’ll depend on how it comes off in A Friend in Darkness when Rhonda’s training is done. The other thing is that it’s Monday now, but that’s a detail that Slyrr was aware of but decided not to really focus on (IE, Grimm having a rough day when he gets back to school from said broken arm). Plus, this is the Kim Possible setting. If Kim doesn’t have many problems with school, why should Grimm? The only thing that really makes it notable to me is the fact that they had discussed getting their schoolwork out of the way, but for all we know it was a long weekend for whatever reason. Plus it’s not an important thing to the plot, so it doesn’t bug me that much.
Direct reference to Stop Team Go. Actually if anything this probably meant that that episode happened during this. Always good to ground the timeline a bit if you can do it without being intrusive, and given the similarities between the episode and The Return of Zorpox, it’s a good thing to reference.
And we get the answer to why Sakituya was so bad about giving them needed information. He felt that trying to interfere was the wrong way to go about helping Rhonda. And as he noted, warnings might not have even helped, or may have even made things worse. In fact, this kind of logic is exactly what happened in the first story - no lasting harm had been done at the end of All Things Probable, and in fact they had gained something major: the circumstances to push them past friendzoning each other constantly. And this also revealed another thing - Maze said earlier that Sakituya was a fool in not seeing some things. This probably was what he was referring to - his shadow medicine - yet Sakituya was aware. I suspect that it was not ‘evil, burn the witch’, just a different power. One that Maze wanted to use for his own views on things. As for the storm coming - it’s a reference to Graduation, more specifically the alien invasion. But as Sakituya points out, it’s not something they know about. They know something is coming, but not what. Not exactly useful information besides generic preparedness. This thread doesn’t get used until later - although IIRC by the time this fic finished Graduation had premiered, Slyrr probably only had general and vague notions of what he wanted to do with Team Probable around that time frame. The last and presently ongoing story of the fics is exactly what Team Probable was doing just before and during the series finale.
Unless the GBS gave her another explanation between trips, I don’t really see how Rhonda would know that they were come and go. She literally just got them; when Ron made the statement, he had two or three years of having them come and go. Rhonda literally got them last night. And well, they aren’t come and go.
And Grimm attributes Ron’s lack of MMP to Kim trying to suppress Ron. While it fits Grimm’s mindset, this… really irritates me. Because well, similar to the whole ‘Grimm goes for the simple solution to get their mission outfits’. It reads off as Grimm being better than Kim for doing this. Yet ironically, I also think it shows him as worse as he doesn’t really acknowledge Rhonda’s unease or nervousness, he latches onto the idea that Kim is unwilling to help Ron reach his potential, he’s willing to help Rhonda, and just pushes forward like an Ork who just got its hands on one hundred Baneblades. Personally, I actually wonder if maybe Kim did try to push Ron to use it, but backed off when either they found they lacked the ability to train him in something that none of them knew half a thing about (at best Kim knows mundane Monkey Kung Fu), or Ron simply wasn’t interested and by that point Kim had learned that trying to force Ron to change wouldn’t help him. As I said prior, as the series went on Kim got a lot more gentle in trying to inspire change in her sidekick, going from forcing him to get a haircut and such to trying to set an example for him to follow. Plus, Kim did try to abuse the Battle Suit for her missions, it’s Dementor’s tampering that put a stop to that. I could see Kim wanting Ron to step up to his potential, but back off when she realizes that forcing Ron to it wouldn’t help him or that they simply don’t have anything. Which goes back to the trial and error training. Grimm also references Gemini looking for a ‘Rhonda Factor’... okay, rant incoming because this is a very sore point of mine with the series. Not really a point to harp about for the fics, but the series and to a smaller degree aspects the fandom. The ‘Rhonda Factor’ is a direct reference to the episode and in-universe concept The Ron Factor, a theory developed by Global Justice at the start of the second season to explain Kim’s success. In fairness to GJ’s commander in chief Doctor Director, she didn’t buy it immediately. But the scientists pushed it on, saying that it wasn’t Kim’s athleticism, will, or even her genetics (rocket scientist dad, brain surgeon mother, and one of her grandmothers had completed the Navy SEALs’ Underwater Demolitions Training Course), nope. It wasn’t Kim at all. It was Ron and certain ‘intangibles’ he brought. I’ve said quite a bit about agency, but I think the Ron Factor was where Kim’s agency started to get attacked - and not just in the show but the fandom. The Ron Factor was deemed bunk in the episode… yet more than one overview of the series by fans has referenced things as ‘Ron Factor moments’ the same way they also attribute some of Ron’s successes to MMP. Now Kim was being a bit of a jerk about it (I mean, she even breaks the fourth wall during the opening theme asking in surprise that GJ needed Ron), but… honestly? I have a hard time blaming her for that and when Gemini captured him to try and harness the Ron Factor himself she still dropped everything to go save his ass despite how much of an egotistical prick he had become when he was told about the theory. I mean, Global Justice, an organization that had looked up to her in the past and she seemed to be in awe of being able to help out (“GJ? No way!”)... was now telling her she wasn’t the key to her own success and outright ignored the possibility that she might’ve had something. GJ loaded up Ron with a bunch of electronics to test it out, utterly ignore Kim. “Maybe they could test me? Might help.” “No thanks!” [sends them out via transport tube]. If that’s not a big insult and a slap to the face, I don’t know what is. Plus, it also heavily undermined the idea of Kim’s own success. And while I can’t presume events went similar, I imagine that the same problem would happen with Gemini searching for a ‘Rhonda Factor’. It would undermine Grimm’s agency - now Grimm has done a fine job undermining Kim’s during The Return of Zorpox, but agency is not just for female characters. Really… both Team Possible and Probable work best as a team. There are times when it’s one member who steps up and saves/dooms the day, but by working as a team they maximize what each of them can do individually. Which makes any factor - Ron, Rhonda, or even Rufus - bullcrap and terrible for a story. It robs other characters of their agency by implying they’re just ancillaries to a ‘Great Man’, or are even the front for that greatness. Now, much as I had problems of Kim’s loss of agency in The Return of Zorpox… it at least wasn’t as in your face about it. It was more an effect of Grimm seeming to let Kim beat him up to lure her into a trap when the leadup was Kim having learned lessons from the last battle, or him pushing all her buttons. I had problems with it, but at least it bothered with the pretense of Grimm doing all his research about Team Possible and didn’t try to make her out as relying on Ron to do everything. And on top of that, it was Grimm trying to make Kim feel angry and helpless as revenge. Anyways… overall, my problem with this is that it’s another thing where it’s assumed that the reason Ron never mastered MMP was something malicious or vain on Kim’s part. So, moving on…
Mod Jade drops the banhammer at command of Admin Grimm on poor user Maze? Personally I’m more surprised that they haven’t had this happen in the past - apparently they’ve worked with Gemini, and Gemini is a guy who flat out murders his henchmen for misdemeanors. Perhaps the most memorable incident of this: he assigns one agent to gather information about Ron. The agent gives a full breakdown on their target. Didn’t capture Ron because his mission was recon, not abduction. Gemini vents the guy into the Atlantic Ocean - the middle of it, not off the coast or something, smack dab in the middle. The other henchmen react as if the guy had just been killed. Then again, maybe this is the first time a backstab actually worked so effectively since most villains probably telegraph their evil intent far too much. Maze probably seemed to be an odd job that they did for rep, a chance to let Rhonda prove herself, and a little extra cash. Then suddenly he’s trying to kill them and take over the world. And you know, why wouldn’t this be a disclaimer earlier? Grimm is well aware of his clientele. He knows how villains like to reward their henchmen - look at what Shego was prepared to do without Drakken even giving her much of a prompt. Waste ‘em with her powers. Even if he was confident in being able to deal with it, you’d think he was aware of it and would want to warn off his clients from trying to kill him if they wanted the deal to go smoothly. I mean that should be basic SOP, but we’re dealing with mad scientists here… I will say that Grimm’s logic of using the money to buy back the artifacts is a nice thing to do, plus it shows Sakituya’s standards in comparison to Maze. Maze willingly sold those artifacts on the chance that this girl he knew nothing about had found the Great Bear Spirit’s monument. Sakituya only takes the money back to try and reclaim said artifacts. I don’t think it was ever said if he was successful or not, though.
You know when I read Sakituya giving Grimm the keys I realized that I hadn’t actually recalled reading if Grimm had given Sakituya the keys to the shed back. I remembered that Sakituya got his ride, but I wasn’t sure if Grimm returned them. I will say I think this does firm up that Grimm’s a merc, but he at least has some level of standards and can return a gesture of good faith. Which, considering some of the crap he does later… well, yeah. Speaking of ‘getting beat up by a girl’, there is a theory floating around that the reason that the governments of the world stand back and let Kim handle things is the humiliation. You’re this mad scientist. You’ve build doomsday decimators, legions of terror - robotic, genetic mutation, henchmen, and otherwise - and have this fortress in the middle of nowhere. You give your demands to the world and threaten them with conquest. Who stops you? Not a full carrier group. Not an armored battalion. Not a surprise cruise missile. Not a team of Navy SEALs. Not even the cops. A pubescent cheerleader and her slacker friend takes you down. Even worse if you’re Drakken? That cheerleader is the daughter of a guy who graduated from the college you dropped out of. And well, it works, despite being closer than any other villain to succeeding in taking over the world everyone treats him as a laughing stock, in and out of universe. Personally I imagine that while it might factor in, it’s also probably a matter of Kim usually just getting there first. Plus, well, it’s a TV series of the superhero genre. It’s just fiction. And scene break:
For a guy who seems to be ground bound, he sure can fly. Man, I almost wish Slyrr was able to animate. That probably would’ve been a cool sequence to watch.
I do like that Grimm makes a point of not suddenly becoming a good guy and that he intends to use Rhonda’s new abilities to his edge, and that Sakituya tries to warn him off. I’ve got my predestination problems as usual, but I’m not going to bug it here because well, different worldviews. Plus, the GBS is the source of this power in the end. I made comparisons to D&D far too much in this, but…. Rhonda’s basically using Divine Magic. If the GBS chose to cut her off from it, I have no doubt that’d happen. Which actually is a nice contrast to Ron. MMP seems to lack a direct source of the actual power, only a way to get the access. As such it’s fickle, it’s like Ron’s drawing from his own energy or something. Rhonda is… expressly drawing from something that has it’s own motives. If she’s going too far contrary, the GBS might cut her off. Which, in a way, could also be the catalyst for them having their own clearer problems beyond Grimm simply being too mission focused. Rhonda seems to be aware that they’re not powers to use at will, but Grimm is eager to do just that.
If Grimm had to put a lot of work coming up with the pun, Rhonda’s probably going to be disappointed in a few years. … okay that was too much, but still, say it out loud. Hard to take it seriously… which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. After all, Grimm is a teenaged boy. I know I had some stupid ideas at that age… Though I’m curious as to why Grimm kept Maze’s kit. What, is it something to trace to Maze, or does he think Rhonda's powers might need certain equipment?
They’ll be back. [/Schwarzenegger] But I do like that Slyrr hasn’t just limited this whole thing to a one off; and really, I think with the adventure past what I liked most about this is that while Slyrr is doing a mirror, he’s not just riffing the MMP alone or Wannaweep alone. He’s mixing it all together, and then doing his own thing from that springboard. And by having the adventure change them, well, change is the only constant, but it’s also a nice aversion of having a status quo of Rhonda supposedly having these awesome powers, yet never using them. And drawing on the adventure here to name their craft also fits - it helps tie it all together and gives them a bit more of a theme, whereas Kim got the name for the Sloth (her car) because that was the thing’s actual name, it’s just that due to a recall before the series it’s probably one of the few back. That, and after the Tweebs finished with it it was really a one-of-a-kind anyways.
How much evil have they done? They might not want to tempt fate too far since there are powerful beings out there that they’ve just encountered… Or it’s just irony that they’re enjoying. Now there’s two more scenes, both of which really are more epilogue than the rest of the chapter. If anything, I’d have cut this as the end of the proper story, and the last two scenes as epilogues, but I understand why Slyrr might’ve considered this all epilogue as it is a denouement and more the characters looking back at the adventure that had passed.
“I sense a disturbance in the Force.” “You always sense a disturbance, but yeah, I feel it too.” Not much to say otherwise, just Kim and Ron together, and Ron sensing something going wrong. Though, I am now curious as to why. Is it a case of those with power can sense others (to go to Lord of the Rings since Slyrr has referenced that quite a bit, Gandalf lighting a fire with magic. “Well, now I have just shouted to all magic users of Middle Earth that Gandalf is here!”), or something else? Either way, one more scene to the story.
It takes a very special kind of thickheaded to hear your own god (or equivalent) explain to you that you were wrong, offer you a second chance, and then utterly ignore them to go onto your preconceived notions. Well, looks like Maze is thick headed. Ah well. Though on that topic, I should note that Slyrr, like the show, doesn’t really delve into if there is a god (little or big G) and at most has some mystic stuff sticking around. While Rhonda is now nominally some sort of priestess for the GBS, it very well could just be translation convention or to indicate how Rhonda’s getting those abilities. This comes up a bit more in Graduation, but when I talked to him he was pretty clear on trying to avoid delving too much into it and that Rhonda herself does not see herself as any sort of religious figure. On one hand, maybe he’s trying to have the cake and eat it too, but the big thing he wanted to contrast is that Ron goes for something abroad, Rhonda’s doing something more local to America. *shrugs* And that’s the story, besides the author’s notes.
I’ll echo the ‘I told you that story so I could tell you this one’. That, unfortunately, is a habit of my own writing. One I’m trying to shake, but it’s also a matter of scale. Sometimes you simply need to, other times it goes on for too long. The important thing is to try and make the story you tell to tell a story interesting in it’s own right, but unfortunately it can also lead to early burnout. It’s a tough scale, and one I’ve sat on the ‘too much stuff before’ way too much. The story he mentions is A Friend in Darkness. But that’s for the next post; so, what about this one? Overall? I liked it. It read very much like an EU of the KP ‘verse, and… isn’t that what fanfiction is supposed to be when it tries to adhere to the canon? To expand the universe. And not only to expand it with more tales of our favorite heroes, but also to show us those we don’t see. Now of course the reason people want an EU is often to get more from their favorites, but to rely on the same old heroes causes tons of problems. You have it start to feel like the core heroes are the only thing holding the world together, or it gets stale after so many times of the heroes saving the day. In this regard, I think ending the KP series after its fourth season was a good step. The series just was not really well geared towards having such big changes because of its policy of continuity by accident and a certain status quo. I think they started to change it nicely with the fourth season, but that season had also showed that the barrel was starting to be well reached within the show’s own tone. But enter fanfiction where you can do things that don’t quite work on the big screen. And furthermore, Slyrr goes beyond Kim and Ron and the usual bad guys. Yeah, Team Probable started out introduced as just mirrors of Team Possible and the first two stories were more about Kim and Ron than them, but at this point they were able to carry a story themselves. And I think that’s the important part - sure, it is technically an interlude between two fics, and on it’s own it would not really get to the readers what Team Probable is. Yet it did something very important: it got them away from relying on their interactions with Team Possible to define them and showed that they had stuff beyond that. The KP series usually focused on villains and their schemes, but it still made a point of showing the villains doing other things. Usually related to the plot, but we still got stuff like Drakken and Shego heading out to a Friday Night karaoke or find out that they have their own things to do in their off time. And while it was a mission, that’s in a great part what this was. Showed us what Team Probable is like without Team Possible around. About the only thing missing is the fact that if you really want to argue it, Team Probable were the good guys here. Mostly in self defense, but still… I think this might might’ve benefitted from something more obviously evil from them. At best, they were unwitting pawns rather than the usual willing pawns. Actually, if anything I think this was where Slyrr began to consider the idea that Team Probable wasn’t evil, but mercenary nominally affiliated with evil. Take a look at Rhonda; in prior stories she was parroting Grimm’s yin-yang “those who are evil are unique individuals” philosophy, here she’s… well, actually pretty nice all around and Grimm comes off more as being business focused than a sadist eager to watch a teen heroine suffer because she had dealt him a defeat that… well, just like here didn’t really hurt them in the long run. They didn’t come across as evil, but as normal people. And in fairness, even the card carrying villains of the show have their own softer sides, and even the biggest maniacs in humanity aren’t focused on doing 100% evil deeds all the time. Plus, they’d be very flat characters if being evil was their only thing. Of course that also means Team Probable is three for three in things coming out good for them. It’s understandable here as they’re the protagonists this time, but… well, even if number one was supposed to be a defeat, it didn’t really feel like one. Look, I think that for original characters who are centered around being mirrors of the core cast they’ve come along great, but at some point they need to suffer a defeat. Especially a lasting defeat, or at least one where things don’t come out with an upside outweighing the downsides for them. But this is less of a criticism of Back to Kwitcherbeliakin than more the overall fics. As for Team Probable themselves - well, Grimm didn’t come across as owning the story as much as he had previously. Sure, he prodded Rhonda in the right direction and the whole thing with a motivational lie, but in the end he was still hapless against Maze. Yet he still had his agency - he did as much as he could in the position he was in and he got into that position because of his own failings (read: deciding to stick around for the ritual for his own curiosity). Likewise, while Rhonda was pushed by forces beyond her and Grimm’s motivational lie, it was still her who chose to lay the smackdown on Maze (even if how was more out of her control once she got going) and it seems it was her who jumped after Grimm when Maze launched him off the cliff. And well, we got more of their backstory. We saw how Rhonda became the sidekick she was - Kwitcherbeliakin terrified the crap out of her, and she seems to have latched onto Grimm for help when she needed it. We got an idea of how they got going as villains. No we don’t have their whole histories, but as of now we don’t really need them, we just need an idea of what got them here. And we also got to see something they sorely needed. The side of them outside of messing with Team Possible; we got an insight to their more daily lives when they aren’t dealing with the show’s protagonists and saw some of the dynamics. Even with romance, Grimm is still business oriented and still looks at it analytically. Rhonda is less eager for missions than the first two stories hinted at with her being out of focus. We still lack stuff on Jade, but she really was in no position to help much for this one and I think working on them one at a time works best. And most of all, it showed that Team Probable could have their own adventures without having to rely on Team Possible as the actual protagonists with Probable as the antagonist. Overall I think the fic was well written and while it doesn’t pull off any particularly inspiring twists (it telegraphed Rhonda’s powers very obviously), I don’t think it was meant to. It’s the equivalent of an airplane novella - it’s meant to draw you in with something to enjoy for a plane trip, nothing more. Plus, being canon adherent limits just how many twists Slyrr can pull that actually last, at least with the main characters. Team Probable and OCs like Maze he has more room, but it still can’t be something that contradicts later events. So really, I’d say this was a story that was good, but it’s really more of an interquel. I can see why Slyrr doesn’t say it is All Things Probable 3, but at the same time I feel like if I read A Friend in Darkness without this, I’d be wondering where Rhonda suddenly got the powers and who the heck Maze, Sakituya, and the GBS are. And yes, all three feature in AFID. And speaking of that, A Friend in Darkness is up next. However, before we go into it, I think there’s one more fic I need to read, and one that I’ll be doing blind. It’s not written by Slyrr, though, but rather it was a fic of a fic. And later, Slyrr integrated parts of it into his own. I think it’ll make a good pair up with the short prologue for A Friend in Darkness, particularly since it does have a role to play in the overall story.
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Post by Luke Danger on Mar 24, 2016 19:09:44 GMT -5
The First Odd Job, properly titled ‘Kim Possible Team Probable First Odd Job’, was written by the author DarkWarrior. The summary was as follows: Okay, right away spelling error in the summary. I’m not going in with high expectations. It is worth noting that this guy hasn’t written anything since 2012, and this was published in November 2007, so both the show has ended at this point but Slyrr had also finished with Back to Kwitcherbeliakin, and had posted the start of A Friend in Darkness. The last story DarkWarrior wrote was a My Little Pony one-shot in 2012, and his first story was a poem for Naruto in 2007 by the looks of it. He also has what seems to be a start of him trying to do when Kim started to save the world, but I haven’t looked at it. So, I’m going in blind to this guy’s writing. Well, hey, time to fanfic spelunk. I’ve prepared a root beer to drown out my brain cells if required and snotty elitism is ready to go. Let’s do this! Actually not as bad as I expected. A few errors, fairly choppy and abuses the comma too much, but as far as the writing goes it’s not horrific. Unfortunately, it’s relying far too much on mimicking the canon. In this case, A Sitch in Time. Now nominally the scene we saw of Kim setting up her website is after time’s been messed with, but I see no reason why the circumstances would change, unlike when Slyrr used how the two met in the same multi-parter episode. While Slyrr has mirrored quite a lot, he also changed things and did something different. IE, Grimm helping train Rhonda a bit in some of the basics he knew at the time and then Rhonda using them. Here? More or less the same. Of course, given this seems to be him being an early writer I really cannot throw stones, snotty elitism or not. I deleted my old fics around that time period for a reason. Good grief I was such a moron… but if I didn’t keep going at it, I never would’ve improved. That’s a bit too on the nose, since well, Kim gets through a grid like this. I do like the allusion to Mister Paisley, who did have such a grid installed to protect his collectable toy. Paisley was also the reason for Kim’s first mission when he activated it with himself trapped inside. Holy crap, those henchmen are stupid by the show’s standards. And there’s some very stupid henchmen! Quote Drakken about one of their missions: “I sent you to do one simple thing, ONE! Steal the Atmos-freezer! And why didn’t you? ‘The door was locked! O f course the door was locked! Super secret think tanks aren’t known for their open door policies!” “Hey what’s eight letters for indifference?” “I don’t care!” “Thanks!” and wow, I mean, fat footing a ‘k’ is pretty bad, but at least it was next to m and i. Though I’m confused by this reference to Team Possible - is this meant to be after Paisley’s Mansion? I’m going to assume it was meant to be Team Impossible rather than Kim’s group, but still... And no, I don’t think Slyrr ever did anything with a ‘Team Improbable’. Though when I asked him, he stated that he only took broad strokes from this and is leaving it up to the readers to determine just how much was integrated that hasn’t been said as he didn’t go through in depth to weld it into his stories. For my part, I prefer to neglect there being a ‘Team Improbable’. Way too on the nose and some things need to not have a direct parallel. For those curious, here’s Mister Matter and his henchmen, as seen in A Friend in Darkness. Next scene we go… to Kim? And it’s before she was set up? (Welp, that confirms that referencing Team Possible was probably a mistake…) Okay, having Kim is probably obligatory just so it really is a fanfiction, but still… this guy is relying way too much on the parallels. And really, I have a hard time seeing Grimm do that showing off; particularly when it’s contrasted with how Slyrr writes Grimm’s role on the team. He’s… reading like Kim with a gender and name change. Okay, that’s what Grimm is inevitably, but in Slyrr’s hands he was evolved to be significantly different. I mean, it really feels like this is how Kim would approach it; go in and wow them by raw talent and acrobatics. Grimm is supposed to be a more calculating character; a big flashy display seems… odd, coming from him. I mean, in fairness Kim’s routine was set up by Bonnie with the intent of failing her, but this time it reads like it was Grimm doing it by initiative. At least Grimm wasn’t said to also need braces… bet then we’d hear about how he locked braces with some girl... Otherwise this has basically been utterly copying ASiT showing Kim’s first mission, down to Donnie blowing hair away from his head (to Bonnie doing something similar). Now, Donnie at least was mentioned off-hand in Back to Kwitcherbeliakin, and we do see him in AFID, but still… the parallels are getting way to blatant. Okay, finally something a bit different, Grimm mentioning the imaginary pet thing. Kim didn’t comment on it in ASiT, so at least there’s something different, plus not having a reaction of ‘this seems to be something the police should handle’, but I’m still not exactly thrilled. Holy crap, this guy’s copying it down to Grimm’s near miss and the sweating foreheads of the victims. All that’s missing is a background soundtrack of Grimm’s version of It’s Just You… Hmmm. I’m actually not sure if Grimm’s dad used that riff on the saying that Kim’s father used to motivate Kim… But still, I’m not sure Grimm really was analytical in it. At best, he just looked before he dove in whereas Kim just did it offhandedly. He still had the exact same miss that Kim had. It reads like DarkWarrior had the idea, but didn’t really apply it very well. And the rest I have to block quote; it just welds together too fast. Okay, on one hand, the unison trick wasn’t a bad idea, but it really just blended together. I think DarkWarrior was trying to do a scene that works well in visual mediums, and then tried to do it in a text based one, and it simply did not translate. However, this at least was new ground. We never saw the aftermath of Kim saiving Paisley and how that went forward - in A Sitch in Time it was interrupted by the time travelling villains unleashing the Stone Guardian of Satsuma on the pre-teen Kim. It is a good contrast though - Kim is doing this altruistically, Grimm is doing it for pay. And in the end they both reach the same idea, opposite side of the law. But it’s still not the most inspiring thing. But there’s one more scene to throw in... A lead in right to before they were hired by Drakken in All Things Probable. What I find odd is that they hadn’t heard of him by now since Drakken should’ve made global news due to So the Drama if nothing else. You know, when Drakken had almost won and had managed drop multiple skyscrapers with his warbots on screen. But yeah, that’s the end of it. I can’t really say much to it. It’s… well, it’s not bad in the ‘Oh god WHY AM I READING THIS!’ - no, in fact for an early fic it’s actually rather decent. It’s got grammar problems up the wazzo, but I can forgive those in an early writer. It’s just well… it’s terribly mediocre and unoriginal. It literally rips the events of canon and changes the window dressing. We don’t even get anything clever like who Mister Matter is. It’s going to be Slyrr who really developed the villain into his own thing and actually use him. Slyrr did so with full permission from DarkWarrior, as a note. Although I would not really recommend the fic, I think that’s more due to this being DarkWarrior early in his writing and not really doing his own thing. If anything I think it’s a showcase of just how easily something like Team Probable could go horribly wrong. While Slyrr plays to parallels, he also tried to adjust things like context or reasons and not copy it 1:1. Here, they were copied 1:1 and some additional window dressing. I don’t know if DarkWarrior got better later on or not, but the link is above if anyone wants to try and take a look. Yet at the same time, we’re seeing something like what happens in an EU. One writer makes something, another tries to expand on it, and a third does the same. Take a look at the Star Wars Legends EU - George Lucas created the franchise. Timothy Zahn wrote a book set after Return of the Jedi to take a look at how things could be going later, and introduced characters like Thrawn, Mara Jade, Pellaeon, and Talon Karrde. Talon Karrde later featured in Michael A. Stackpole’s X-Wing books, specifically The Bacta War, along with other new characters like Booster Terrik or Corran Horn. Then for the Hand of Thrawn duology, Zahn used Stackpole’s new characters as well as his own. In that case, it worked really well because the two authors were in communication and forwarded each other drafts of scenes with the appropriate characters to make sure they got it right; and as I understand the revisions from those were minor. It really shows what a community can do… yet at the same time, we also have the downsides. Case in point; Karen Traviss, Mara Jade and Pellaeon in Legacy of the Force. ‘nuff said. But yeah, I threw that in since it is going to be part of A Friend in Darkness, and speaking of that… The prologue went up on September 15th, 2007. by this point the series had been over for a week as Graduation had premiered on September 7th. The events are alluded to in the above picture, and this fic is where Slyrr goes whole hog with tying the loose ends of the canon together by having this take place between the rest of the series and the finale. In the KP series finale Graduation, Ron’s MMP quite frankly was out of nowhere. Foreshadowed by Sensei making a ghostly appearance (he can project himself), sure, but it still wasn’t really tied to the actual episodes plot too well (sort of like Starkiller Base in TFA; just kind of… ‘wut?’ in what it does). This fic helps tie things together more, and also addresses other lingering concerns of the series. And of course, it’s Kim and Grimm forced to team up eventually. As noted in his author’s notes, Slyrr is following the ‘traditional model’ - meet villain, establish villain, hero and villain team up against something bigger. In this case, Maze and a Yono-empowered Monkey Fist. I’ll address the important points as it goes in, but here’s the summary from Fanfiction.net. Back in The Return of Zorpox, I noted that Grimm spat out a lot of Yin-Yang; good and evil in everyone, and that Kim showed it both having her heroic side as well as her own vices and flaws. And here, the duality is still played, but it’s written more as an epic. And quite frankly, it is an epic in the old sense of the term. I’m a verbose writer, but in part that’s because I typically write more episodically, a set of self-contained stories connected together. Kind of like a season of a show. This is all organized into one overarching plot, standing at almost forty chapters with 400k words. It has arcs wrap up on the way, but it’s all one big plotline. It’s a door stopper; and quite frankly getting this will probably take the rest of the year (particularly since I’m going to be dealing with school as well). It took Slyrr three years to write this, so let’s see if I can read it in less than that. However in the interest of getting these out a little more consistently, I’m going to split up some of the chapters. Slyrr also splits some of them into multiple parts; all posted in the same chapter, but some have divisions. I’m going to use those when they crop up and for longer chapters, mostly to try and get these out faster. Some chapters I’ll be able to do in one go, others I’ll probably split up. This is really where it all comes together - the magnum opus. Team Probable, Team Possible, both stuck together so their parallels and differences come out in full force. All the great things about OCs and what you can do with them comes up, but so to do the dangers of using them. But for now, the prologue of the story. Shadows of Portent
You know, I’ve always wondered how it feels to see statues of yourself. I mean, when you’re dead you at least aren’t around, but Hego’s still alive. I’m actually now wondering what his views on it were; I don’t remember it ever being said. ‘course, I can see why there’s be a statue of him - the guy’s basically Superman in personality. Okay, a flanderized version, but still… The prologue doesn’t really give much, but it’s a preview of what’s to come. If I recall correctly, this scene reappears far later in the actual story. For now, Slyrr’s author’s notes.
I’m going to not spoil the answer, but then again you can always just follow the links… most chapters also have two names, sort of like the last one for RoZ. Though in this case, I think it’s more “there’s an answer to the question, then the chapter name.” But yeah, Slyrr’s plan for this one is to tackle the remaining issues of the series that weren’t resolved in the show, particularly in regards to Kim and Ron’s relationships, with Team Probable as a vehicle for doing so as well. Now, I will say that if nothing else I must credit Slyrr for being willing to take a pickaxe to the pedestal that quite a few KP fans have in regards to Kim - and also trying to do it in a way that doesn’t turn her into a villainess in all but name. He tries to be true to her character, good and bad, and that I think is all that can be asked of a writer. To be as accurate to the personalities they are portraying as possible. As for my part, besides commenting on the actual story I’ll also add my two cents into some of these issues. But don’t take what I say as being right and him being wrong where we differ - quite a few of these matters will be differences of how to view things. Naturally I feel that I am correct, but feeling that I’m right and being correct are two entirely different things. It’s up to each individual to decide on what the truth is.
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Post by Luke Danger on Mar 24, 2016 19:15:47 GMT -5
A Friend in Darkness - Chapter 1The answer for the last riddle was “Nerves”, and the chapter name is “Familiarity Breeds Contempt”
The downsides of having Ron Stoppable as your boyfriend. But yeah, in the fourth season Ron joined the football team. Initially as quarterback using the battle suit to overcome his limitations (and participated in a varsity game with such…), but afterwards due his cheating he was kicked off as quarterback… and made running back instead because he could actually do that on his own, and even got a little trophy for breaking the ‘All Middleton Rushing Record’ when he was failing utterly without the suit otherwise. His only punishment otherwise was twenty labs of crab walks. Another sore point of mine given that Kim got busted far worse for merely lying about where she was going one Halloween night, and on top of that even if she had told the truth people’s lives still would have been endangered by the villains! Anyways, the other thing is that the series got really weird about timeline, even after trying to clean up the continuity. Ron’s doing football games well towards the end of the season, yet supposedly this is occurring in the spring. Homecoming Upset was the biggest offender as it was clearly later in the season (Kim is in the purple mission outfit now), but it’s also something that would normally happen in the fall. That’s more on the show than Slyrr, though, but yes timeline wise this should be in April or so. I’m just going to write it off as a quirk of the setting or maybe Middleton is part of a league that does it in spring too. While Kim had been a cheerleader for the whole series, other than a brief appearance at the end of Attack of the Killer Bebes and various competitions, most of the time we only saw the cheer squad practicing, usually as a lead in to her getting the episode’s plot. Once Ron joined the football team, they were able to show Kim doing her efforts at the games while also having Ron doing something. It still remained a backdrop for most of the series, and that’s where it belonged. Really, what pro-bending should’ve become in Legend of Korra, a backdrop for the characters to lead into the real plot. One thing I did like is Slyrr having Ron’s mindset not be that he’s dodging football players, but bad guys and their goons. It was said the reason Ron was so good at being runningback is from all the bad guys he had to dodge over the years, so putting himself in that mindset probably helps. He already knows what to do when goons are rushing after him, and it keeps him focused. It’s sort of like a reverse of the First Task in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire where once he’s on his Firebolt, Harry more or less treats the Hungarian Horntail as another Quidditch team and the fireballs/big tail as bludgers. Except this time it’s the super dangerous thing to stand in for the more mundane.
An oblivious Ron moment. On one hand, it was rather funny, on the other… well, as the series went on Ron went from just being book dumb to genuinely completely missing the point. He became more and more of a standard issue Disney butt monkey. Now in fairness he always was oblivious to a degree - Drakken trying to steal Christmas rather than take over the world, anyone? But as the series went on it got worse. Though those jocks must’ve known that if they tried to do something to Ron they were going to be dealing with Kim fricken Possible. I mean, football jocks are basically henchmen with some body armor to her if it came to a brawl. Not going to last very long. Though they might’ve just been trying to get a rise out of him. *shrugs*
Reference to Grande Size Me, an obligatory good eating episode that the show had to do for the fourth season. It’s widely held to be a bad episode, but it was intentionally so and they did try to subvert the lesson as much as possible (during the credits Ron does a “And knowing is half the battle” type of skit, and the lesson he gives is… don’t fall into vats of chemicals.). So yeah, it was a bad ep, but it was a deliberately bad one and it still had some good moments (Jack Hench’s incredulous reaction to most of the villain cast not being able to subdue Kim at HenchCo, for example) Still, I find Kim being weirded out by this odd. Ron’s been eating big for years and the only real comment Kim makes is when he tells Rufus to clean up his act during Vir-tu-Ron because he was expecting a date with Zita Flores (minor character who goes to Middleton High and a geek). While she did call him out on it in that case, that’s the only time off the top of my head where she has objected to it. Heck, if anything she only got worried about it when Ron was doing his Super Size Me stunt, since well, it was destroying him. He literally got fat like a pig being prepared for slaughter and his usual running and never running out of stamina? He could barely walk once it got going. It was bad enough that even the bad guys were concerned for his health. But yeah, it does seem odd that Kim’s objecting. Like, if he was just getting messier than usual that might’ve worked, but Ron’s always been a huge eater, so her raising such an objection feels odd. Not necessarily out of character, but odd.
At least this time Ron didn’t take her to a fancy restaurant to use kid’s menu coupons. But yeah, Slyrr’s tackling the fact that the two are quite different head on. Monique usually does deflate Kim when she starts to get a bit antsy about the social side - IE, Monique realized that Kim was jealous over Yori when Yori pulled him in for a mission for Yamanouchi. To be fair, Ron’s first instinct was to call Kim in, but it was keeping Yamanouchi secret that prevented that. Then Kim finds out anyways. It’s worth noting that Kim jumped to the assumption that Yori was working for Monkey Fist, so jealousy was probably a factor. But yeah, Kim and Ron like each other, it’s just, well, they’ve got their flaws like anyone else. And really the BDD might be why Kim’s so agitated - it’s embarrassing and even lovers sometimes get frustrated with each other. It’s not all happily ever after, folks. There’s always problems that need to get sorted out and there’s always some irritation, but it's loving them in spite of it, right?
If you watched the series, Adrena Lynn would be a name Kim hasn’t heard since the first season. Starring in only one episode, All the News, she was basically this stuntwoman who did all sorts of daredevil stuff on live TV. She actually faked it, but people ate it up like candy and there were dozens of copycat stunts. Eventually she was outed by a fake thanks to Kim risking her life to save the mannequin Lynn had dressed up for a bungee jump, and Ron getting a picture of both in the same frame. Lynn went for revenge as she was then cancelled due to that, but Kim outed her publically as a fake and afraid of heights by… grabbing her, shooting into the sky with a jet pack, and then just doing complex maneuvers until Lynn gave in. Adrena Lynn was originally supposed to be a recurring antagonist - the original plan was that Drakken and Shego would be part of a rotating cast rather than the go-to villains - but Lynn didn’t pan out very well while Drakken and Shego worked very well, so the focus shifted and Lynn was left in the dustbin. If you take the games as canon, Kim had another and far more recent run-in with Adrena Lynn in the DS game Global Gemini, but it was really a glorified gimmick level appearance than a proper plot. If you don’t take the games as canon (and IIRC Slyrr hasn’t alluded to the content of the games at all), then Kim hasn’t seen Adrena Lynn in over three years and only had to fight her once. And yes, her name is a pun on ‘Adrenaline’. Well she was basically a junkie for it... As to Wade and Monique - remember the love ray I mentioned Wade making? He used it on Monique after being smitten when they met for real rather than by video screens. Let’s just say that it did not end very well, particularly when the Seniors stole the device and upgraded it to use for Junior trying to be a pop star. It’s like the Attitudinator for love, with all the disturbing implications that carries. Anyways, there’s finally a scene break here.
Someone’s been mixing magicks. Golems are originally from Judaism, or at least the form that Maze is using, right down to ‘emet’ (‘truth’) being inscribed. Seems he mixed it with Blackfoot since well, I doubt Maze has a rabbi that’s sufficiently holy on hand. Though, I think it’s worth noting that while the KP ‘verse has had things from religions in the past - Ron is explicitly Jewish (though he probably isn’t very practicing given his dietary habits) and they also ran into a talisman of Anubis during the first season - for the most part it tends to avoid touching the matter with any seriousness. Makes sense - probably too controversial. However, it has freely taken elements from them and made them more supernatural, and Slyrr’s continuing that. In this case, taking Maze’s ‘shadow medicine’ and mixing it with Jewish lore.
Nice job breaking it, Rhonda. But no, I can’t fault Rhonda there. It’s something Maze could’ve found out had he been paying attention to the news, and it’s not like he’s a total shut-in from the modern day given it was said he had some activity that Jade could trace (such as raising a fuss about returning land and turning down some pretty big opportunities at universities). At best, Rhonda just gave him a vivid image to remind him. And it seems that Maze did get some of the Great Bear Spirit’s power just like Rhonda had. Probably the stuff that got channeled through Grimm before Rhonda interrupted that plan. Unless Maze is mistaken that he has some of the GBS’ power and is drawing it from elsewhere? After all, the GBS did give him a verbal witch slapping at the end of the previous story, and he is the source of these powers. Then again, maybe I was wrong in comparing it to divine magic and the GBS is more a product of it than him being the source? Eh, never really was firmly established. The advantage that golems would give Maze is that, like robots, they’re going to obey all orders and are under his direct domination. Actually, IIRC they can’t even be taken over by someone else, which is an advantage over robots that can be hacked. Furthermore golems are probably more durable than things like synthodrones since they lack the internals to spill, and I doubt an ion grenade or a shot from the EMS would break them either. The problem is that as Maze has found, animating them takes a massive toll on him. He can’t make an army like that, and let’s be honest he needs one. But that is for later, for now it’s back to Kim and Ron dealing with the fake daredevil.
Cell Block D was introduced in Season Four as the place where most of Kim’s foes got locked up, and it’s also like Arkham. Villains get out fairly easily. That said, this has always been the case in the series and after So the Drama, it took months and an alien attack for Drakken to escape. Shego got out far more easily, but in those cases she always had outside help (such as Junior and Motor Ed breaking her out) - it was even a running gag for the first couple episodes of Season Four that everyone broke Shego out but left Drakken to rot. Yes, even his cousin. Now while Adrena Lynn was a coward, she wasn’t incapable as she did steal a giant blimp to do her bungee jump. So, being a thief probably fits her more than trying to go toe to toe with someone like Kim - especially since now Kim has a couple more years of experience under her belt while Lynn seems to have been inactive. The ‘Pink Sloth’ is the car Kim got in the fourth season. Modified by her brothers, it’s basically Bond’s car with all sorts of toys in it. In the show itself, aquatic capability (later), rocket boosters, and even missiles (though the missiles were only used once and only to blow down a wall). It served as a form of transportation for Kim and in many ways replaced her constantly calling in rides. I always felt it was more of a purple color myself, but then again for a while I thought Korra had black hair rather than a very dark brown, so hey… *shrugs*
Considering that Kim’s been absolutely active and on the news in the years between, how did Adrena Lynn get that mimic of Kim’s reaction? Okay, sometimes Drakken and Ron have similar reactions (“... and it vexes me so!”) but never to each other. Really seems out of place for Lynn to make the remark, but that’s really a minor nitpick that’s easily covered by Lynn being a self-absorbed prick who only cares about what happens to her personally.
Yeah, Lynn’s only chance against Kim is going to be retreating and losing her in the environment. And really I think that works - most of Kim’s foes will fight her. Having Lynn be someone who just tries to steal the goods and escapes works well to give her something more than being a fake, and as I said before is probably where Adrena Lynn’s actual skills lie.
And she knew it not just Kim being a hero. The last time they fought in the show, Adrena Lynn had a hostage (Brick Flagg) who was on a (broken) rollercoaster hurtling towards his doom. The clock was ticking and when Lynn locked Ron on one of those swing rides that spin around a lot, Kim stopped to save Ron. Then she saved Brick with a quick jetpack flight before dealing with Lynn, but Lynn has every reason to remember that Kim will go save Ron, and this time there isn’t another hostage that Kim might go to save instead. But yeah, Ron just spoiled the catch… which is perfectly true to the show, his arrival more than a few times has interrupted Kim. For example, in Bonding Kim had Dementor beat, then Ron landed on top of her after he had been stuck in his grapple line. With Kim dazed from having him land on her, Dementor managed to get away. Other times he ends up setting off alarms and getting them captured (either personally or his actions chain reaction to it, such as in Crush where he misses a laser alarm just barely, then Rufus slides out of his pocket right into it). As Slyrr noted in The Return of Zorpox, Ron screwing up was a constant of the series.
Better a shill than a corpse… now about Adrena Lynn...
I like that even if Wade got caught in the smoke screen, he still was taking the initiative to reroute and get his systems back online. Wade lives by being wired as he says, so if he’s being DC’d he knows it, and probably has countermeasures in place. It just takes time to switch to them.
Well someone got step one done. The question is, who? And if it seems Kim is being harsh on Ron, well… again, Ron has screwed up plenty of times in the past and let the bad guys get away. If Kim’s not used to it I’d be surprised. It’s also worth noting that she also outright told Ron that she’s used to it. Ron wasn’t too miffed at that time either about her pointing it out, though in STD Ron didn’t really screw up a catch and seemed to be more bummed with himself than anything. But yeah, it’s basically something they’ve accepted at this point. Ron sometimes gets in the way and that lets the bad guy escape. Actually, comparing it to the scene from So the Drama, both times Kim says it it’s to reassure Ron after he (feels that he) screwed up; and she also pointed out that they would get the bad guys eventually. However the tone here is written quite differently - more like Kim saying she expects Ron to be a screw up. Scene cut to Adrena Lynn.
Yeah, there’s only one team who’s all about helping villains, and it seems Adrena Lynn was their catspaw.
So that’s where Drakken gets his little plant potion for Graduation; he tired Team Probable for it. But yeah, Adrena Lynn is being used by Team Probable as a smokescreen for their own activities. Kinda makes sense; they might not want Kim to be aware of what they’re up to yet and if Wade suddenly loses connections Jade might be relatively high on their list of possible culprits. At least with Adrena Lynn as a screen, they’ve got an extra layer of cover. Though how did Jade know that Wade freaked out, or Grimm knowing that he’d do so? I can easily buy her doing a DoS attack on the local hubs to shut people down and Wade not being able to track because he got hit in that, but I can’t buy her specifically knowing that Wade ‘took his eyes off the ball’. And again, because Grimm said he would? I dunno, that bit rubs me the wrong way. I know what was being aimed for - Wade got countered enough that with Adrena Lynn as a smokescreen they could go unnoticed, but I feel like it was executed too much as ‘Probable easily beats Possible’. Again, how would Jade know that Wade ‘freaked’ if she isn’t in Wade’s system again? She cleaned herself out during The Return of Zorpox, but you’d think that Wade would now know how Jade ghosts systems or at least be able to recognize the signs that she’s doing it since the last time she did the world almost had instant sunshine uncanned by everyone’s morality being flipped. I don’t really mind Wade getting knocked out and as he told it he knew he had been disconnected so he rerouted and on top of that Jade did something to the local electrical grid to cover her tracks, but I dunno, even if this is supposed to be bluster on Jade’s part to make herself seem better than Wade, given previous events it feels more like the truth than it should be if that is the case. Personally I might’ve left it as “Yeah, going the extra mile gave him too much to keep track of” to imply that they had gone all out to make sure Wade couldn’t counter them. No need to imply that Wade had just let himself get distracted, make it clear they went all out to keep him from being able to track them. Certainly fits their style given how Grimm organized the entire Zorpox incident with rather extensive outfitting (a fake Bueno Nacho, getting an abandoned warehouse with assorted items, doing full research, so on and so forth).
And that’s the reaffirmation that Rhonda’s been going hard at harnessing MBP, but this does seem to be a little bit of a 180 from Grimm’s reaction at the camp. He wanted to be able to charge premium to customers because of Rhonda’s abilities. Yet now he’s keeping it down low? I’m guessing that as Grimm thought about it more the more he realized that maybe he shouldn’t tempt the Great Bear Spirit to intervening. Even if the GBS can’t directly intervene or cut Rhonda off from her powers, that’s one enemy he might not want to have, particularly since this one has a direct link to Rhonda. Though Rhonda being eager to go in now from her hesitancy actually fits - she went to Kwitcherbeliakin feeling she couldn’t compare to Ron. She saw all the stuff he did as Zorpox the Conqueror, and no one has ever seen her in that level of capability, not even herself. Now she’s worked hard and seems to have an in, a chance to prove that she can be the top dog in a mission and make Kim speechless the way Grimm was about Zorpox, she wants to prove it. I know I called out Grimm on forcing her too, but it makes sense that now that she’s managed to get the powers going she wants to use them, especially since she probably didn’t have her fears materialize during training. And we get an explanation on the training - which was mostly done off screen. I can’t really begrudge Slyrr for that; it’s hard to really do an extended training arc and not make it repetitive because, well… training is repetitive. Still, I would’ve liked a little more indication of either it being shaky because they basically had to do trial and error, or maybe it’s something they only just got to combat grade and that’s why Rhonda is eager. Speaking of Rhonda’s powers, I should probably make a correction. In the fourth and fifth chapter of Back to Kwitcherbeliakin I had commented on Rhonda’s powers seeming to be innate to her, then in Chapter Seven went on about how it’s more divine magic from D&D. I don’t think the two are necessarily contrary - Rhonda always had them, but the source was the GBS, Kwitcherbeliakin was when they were ignited full power. Just something I realized I should’ve said before. That’s the end of this chapter. Overall I can’t say too much more - a bit more episodic, or really more like the first third of an episode for the actual show. Plots are introduced, bad guy completes Step 1 of their dastardly scheme, more to come. And the riddle for this chapter:
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Post by Luke Danger on Mar 24, 2016 19:49:29 GMT -5
A Friend in Darkness - Chapter 2 The answer for the last riddle was “Warnings”, and the chapter name is “A Future Set in Stone”
Looks like that rut of no business faded after The Return of Zorpox, and they haven’t even missed a beat getting back into it. And we know now exactly where Drakken got his hydroponic formula for Graduation. I’m of two minds about it. On one hand, this does fit Slyrr’s “fill in the gaps” idea; in this case showing how Drakken got the hydroponic formula for Graduation. On the other, well, ‘have Grimm set up everything’ is a risk. On the first one again though, as Drakken noted he’s doing multiple schemes, and he can’t have time to put the effort he put into a single one like Lil Diablo. Plus, even though Drakken is a capable inventor in his own right (he’s going to design the distribution mechanism), he outright admits that outsourcing (read: stealing) is a perfectly valid thing for a villain and happily does so. So, with the hydroponics here he’s got one scheme he doesn’t need to focus on so he can put personal efforts into others, and well, completing Step 1 is usually what Team Probable is hired for. So my verdict? I actually don’t mind it in this case. Sure it would’ve been nice had it been something Drakken built himself, but it’s perfectly in character for him to just outsource stuff. Anyways, next scene.
I’m a little on the fence about the whole quiet problems throughout the day. I mean it makes sense, Kim would probably hate losing to Adrena Lynn of all people (sort of like Kanan’s incredulous reaction that the Ghost crew was going to lose to the Mining Guild overseer in ‘The Call’ for Star Wars: Rebels), but on the other Ron has shown a surprising ability to keep track of conversations despite his own thing. Case in point, in Number One he’s going on about a burrito being thin on material at Bueno Nacho and then shoots back Kim’s rant verbatim when she asks. Of course by the same token Ron can be very oblivious.
Eh, I guess it fits, but at the same time I feel like it’s something they should’ve really been used to by now or even sorted out. Also some of that ‘romantic view’ stuff like ‘always had him hypnotised’. Eh, I’m just going to gloss over that unless it becomes particularly terrible. Minor stuff like that’s okay, it’s when it becomes too loaded that I’ll complain. That said, I do think Ron has a point about having a 50/50 chance for help/hinder not being good enough to watch someone’s back. Though it’s probably not a weighted average. When Ron comes through, he comes through big. When he doesn’t, while certainly a hurt, it doesn’t end with one of them facedown in the mud adding to the dirt. And another callback - this time to The New Ron, which was a very early episode. Long story short, the premise was that Kim made Ron get a haircut from one of her contacts in France. Initially Ron disliked it, but eventually it managed to make him popular and as he often does when he gets popular his ego got to him. He even started to abandon carrying Rufus around in his pocket because there was no room in the pleather he wore to go with the look once it set in and kept the naked mole rat away so he didn’t mess with the hairdo. Also worth noting that Kim did it outright saying “I know what’s best for Ron, even if he doesn’t” - and Ron wasn’t just in ear shot for it, but he was pretty much right there. Amusingly Kim’s mother saw that this was going to explode and was not shy about telling Kim that she’d work in an ‘I told you so’ about what to do when it went wrong. Of course this was three+ years ago, even earlier than the last run-in with Adrena Lynn, but I can definitely see Wade not letting her forget it when she starts considering ‘fixing’ Ron again. And to tie into the scenario here, it’s actually one of the few times where Ron making a mess of things did more damage than what he did right. On one hand during the mission he for the most part did nothing wrong - he took on Junior in hand to hand successfully and stopped Senior Senior Sr’s missile attack on Middleton, and then saved Kim from multiple spinning tops of doom which had her on the ropes. On the flipside, neither their hometown nor Kim would’ve been at risk if Ron hadn’t told the Seniors how much their island home was basically a villain’s lair and then gave Senior a bunch of tips including more or less everything - including said spinning tops of doom. Heck if not for Ron, they would’ve harmlessly drained too much power and then dialed it down, and may have never become supervillains. Although it’s more of a hobby for them, the point stands.
Ouch, that had to hurt hearing your girlfriend say that. Quite frankly, it really sounds like something that Season One (or early Season Two) Kim would say, not her at this point in the series. This line is in fact a reference to the series itself, specifically one of the first Season Two episodes, Naked Genius, where she outright tells Wade that Ron did just that. In context it should be noted that this is when she’s explaining to him that overnight Ron was suddenly able to do complex math that included calculus far beyond what a high schooler learning algebra could do. It wasn’t actually Ron (Rufus got brain boosted by the military intelligence enhancer that Drakken tried to steal and ghostwrote for Ron), but the disbelief was there since it was beyond ‘late blossoming’ as Wade initially thought. She also expressed a very low view of his intelligence at that point, then again the previous night he had proven that entirely correct. I’ll let the episode speak for itself.
I mean holy crap, Ron was always book dumb, but this… well, I said that The Ron Factor episode was a preview of Kim being sidelined. This was a big preview of Ron going ‘too dumb to live’. Of course this was also an episode where Ron built a functional doomsday device (and promptly turned it onto Drakken’s armor robots), but still… though the episode ended with Ron showing some actual learning when Kim sat down to tutor him.
That sounds very much like something Barkin would say. I mentioned prior, and in these fics we saw it very clearly in The Return of Zorpox, that Ron was very competent when he wanted to. He was always able to at least keep pace with Kim when infiltrating and sometimes he’s actually been able to pull off missions all on his own. Usually he lets Kim do it, but sometimes he fills in the gaps where Kim leaves off or misses. It seems to somewhat be a matter of desire - most of the time Kim comes up with a good plan so he really doesn’t have much to add. Sometimes he steps in and comes up with good ideas. This seems to be one of those times. And after hearing that comment from Kim, I could really see Ron trying to do anything to prove that wrong, and well, necessity is the mother of invention. Desperation is the bastard father. Amusingly, Ron’s suggestion is also pretty much ‘do the staff work for a mission’, in regards to getting the blueprints. Which is always nice - the show usually just lets Wade do it and it’s usually glossed over. As to Ron having a communicator of sorts, it’s worth noting that in the show itself he only got his version (a ‘Ronmunicator’ as Kim called it) during the alternate timeline of A Sitch in Time, and it vanished with the timeline. However, the games have brought it back starting in the third GBA game Team Possible, and it reappears in all subsequent games, but as I mentioned the games are dubiously canonical and in the show itself he’s more likely to communicate via his cell phone or pager. And in the next scene we’re… back to Go City?
I’m not sure why Wade downloading blueprints is weird - he usually does the staff work as I mentioned and Wade always has a pretty accurate method into a lair as long as it’s security isn’t hacker proof. And even if it is proofed he still tries to get stuff like that. But otherwise, looks like Rhonda’s target is going to be Shego’s family. Hmmm, wasn’t this how we met Team Probable in the first story? And back to Team Possible
Holy crap Lynn that is some ego. You’ve actually fought Kim once, got your butt handed to you, and you spent more or less the rest of your encounters with her running for your life. Which is perfectly in character for her, but wow that kind of brazenness… I mean, Shego can at least match Kim and has actually flat out defeated Kim in a few battles. Lynn hasn’t even managed to stand toe to toe with her.
Well as far as losing goes, that’s… actually pretty much the only way Lynn could dare hope to be able to beat Kim. Though I’m wondering why Kim didn’t try to use her grappling line on the ceiling - unless it was simply too high? Eh, write it off to defaulting to the simplest solution since she wouldn’t have had much of a fall, and it’s fiction. I don’t really blame her having a panic moment either - first reaction, and she immediately calmed down once she was sure she wasn’t about to star in a drowning fetish. Also wow, Ron memorized that stuff fast, didn’t he? But let’s see if it pays off now that Kim is under the water.
Another very dense paragraph. I wouldn’t broken it up about the ‘But now that Kim was delayed’, or when Ron has the realization of Lynn going back for the loot. Lynn probably needs a Bag of Holding next time… And yeah, Ron would know what it’s life to live rich. Ron Millionaire was an episode that gave us a look at that...
I don’t think Tom Brady would object to a football he signed being used to stop a villainess. Especially since Ron did a pretty damn good throw considering he nailed Lynn and not the hostage. I do like that Slyrr made a point of noting that Lynn’s leverage wasn’t going to last if he resisted. No simply grabbing someone by the shoulder and having them hapless here! And of course, you don’t have to always deliver a strong blow to break a grapple, just enough to force them to let go.
Kim as usual - as long as Ron can cover the hostages she’ll get the villain. Usually when there’s hostages Kim gets them out of there first, usually leaving Ron the much less delicate task of distracting the guards. But she’s also perfectly willing to let Ron handle extracting the hostages, such as in the half-episode Truth Hurts where she goes toe to toe with Shego while Ron rescues the scientist that had been kidnapped. In this case, she’s confident that Ron was able to get Russ, and goes after Lynn to stop her from escaping. Is it a bit egotistical for Kim to go after Lynn rather than make sure the hostage is safe? Maybe. But at the same time if she’s confident in Ron’s strength - and he has been both working in Smarty Mart lifting oversized things and football training - I think it makes sense.
And of course, Lynn gets away. That said I think it makes sense that Lynn would have some daredevil experience. She faked her stunts, but she can’t fake all of them and of course, stealing a giant shrimp shaped blimp is not a task that you can pull off without some skill. Not much else to say. Standard getaway incident. So let’s go to Go City and see what Lynn’s cover managed to do even if Lynn didn’t get any loot.
Could’ve been a Big Fricken Gun. That’d be more up most supervillains’ alleys, unless this gem is needed as a focus to use in a laser, or even just a source of electrons… As to the cruise - a reference to the events of The Mathter and the Fervent, which was the only episode where Hego featured but the rest of his team didn’t. Season Four episode, and the lack of appearance from his team was justified as being on a cruise that Hego couldn’t get someone to cover his shifts for. And of course, being the Superman expy and parody he is, Hego is taking this way too seriously. I don’t think anyone would object to him sitting down considering he’s just been asked to do extra security and it’s night time. As long as he’s alert and ready to respond to any situations, I don’t think anyone would object.
Considering Rhonda’s silhouette is very much like Kim’s, I’m actually a bit more surprised that this hadn’t happened earlier. Grimm and Ron are a little more distinct, but in the shadows Rhonda could actually probably pass for Kim. At least until you saw her face or hair color…
… wait, Hego actually came up with a good line? And we’ve got ‘Ninjella’ again. Rhonda really needs to come up with a better supervillainess name...
… you know for this being Hego as the Worf to set up how powerful Rhonda has become, he’s actually doing a pretty damn good showing all things considered. And another good one-liner! The hammer of justice is indeed unisex! That said, Hego’s chauvinism seems extremely misplaced. He had absolutely no problems beating the tar out of Electronique, one of Team Go’s regular villains. Off screen admittedly, but still, the implication was clear that they actually fought each other. On top of that, he had fought side by side with his sister for at least several years when they were all heroes and other than being sad he could no longer he a hero himself he had no problems trying to pass on his mantle to Kim when she accidently got his powers, and had no objections to sending her into combat when she wanted to switch them back to him. I really don’t see where Hego having some ‘cannot hit a girl’ came from other than him being far more of an anachronism than he should be. I’m going to write it off as taking Hego being a silver age superhero too far, but it still feels rather odd.
As it turns out, having asked Slyrr after I had written this for the other forums I wrote it on, the idea was less "Hego won't hit a girl" so much as "Hego has super strength, Rhonda doesn't look like she could absorb such a blow, Hego's not the kind of guy who's going to punch out all her blood with one blow", but it didn't really read like that. Probably a case of how it was written coming off as chauvinism when it was probably Hego just trying to make an excuse. *shrugs* Though I have to ask - why does Rhonda need to expose her arm to use it? What, is that birthmark basically a USB cable for magic? If it can be kept hidden you’d think they’d try to hide it.
Cameras down or not, seems a bit odd to take off the hoods if they’re really concerned about hiding their identities. And yeouch, Rhonda’s powers actually shorted out Hego’s glow? Okay, that’s… on one hand, that’s a really nifty ability, but on the other that could be very dangerous of the “make anyone with powers irrelevant”. Unless maybe it’s meant to disrupt unnatural things, which would include Hego’s powers since they were from being at ground zero of a glowing rainbow comet? But it is significant that this can tear into him since well, Shego took a falling signal tower with only some bruises and a bit of blood on the face, and she wasn’t on full glow at the time. A common fan theory is that the same event that empowered them also added super resilience and even a healing factor to Team Go, tied to that glow. So if it shorts out, that makes sense that it’d be able to really hurt, but wow, that’s some heavy firepower. We also got a look at Grimm’s analysis and… going to the canon, he’s correct. Hego’s fighting style has always been very sluggish and reliant on his super strength, and it was not very hard for Aviarius to outwit him and let him tire himself out when he tried to fight the avian villain without it. He’s very proficient in it’s use - he doesn’t just punch or fling things but he can even use it to do some level of super jumping - but he is reliant on it. Though if they’re trying to keep their identities hidden, I’m not sure if Rhonda should be shouting ‘Spirit Strike!’, if she does it too often someone is going to put two and two together… same with the Blackfoot invocations, though that may be required with her abilities.
I’d say “then they have to dodge the cops”, but then again the prologue made it pretty clear that Go City’s police department is pretty used to having heroes around. Actually kind of wonder if law enforcement is suffering what Hego did; overreliance. It’s just over reliance on heroes to catch the big targets in this case. And looks like Grimm really does like being evil, since he objects to describing his squad as a ‘good’ team… or maybe he just likes the pun? I’m going with the former. And next scene we're back with the aftermath of Lynn's heist.
How did this guy know all of that? I mean, there’s news being quick on the uptake, then there’s this. This guy knew exactly what happened inside the mansion. Knowing that there was a commotion is not hard at all. Knowing Lynn got away can be as simple as seeing her speeding away on her bike. But knowing that there was a hostage situation on the inside and that Kim had fallen for a trap? Also I’m a little curious as to why Slyrr’s going for the abbreviated version of ‘Miss’; it doesn’t seem needed here, and it is spoken dialogue. Though that’s more of a stylistic thing.
… craping paparazzi. But I have to say, the fact that it’s only now that Ron’s getting attention for missions really reeks of something wrong. Ron’s gotten media attention before, but never for his role in Kim’s missions. In fact it was a running gag that he would be mistaken for Wade for the first season and Joss, who was an utter loony fangirl about Kim’s missions, didn’t even know Ron existed. I mean this is probably just the usual modern media crapslinging for a story, but still, that’s a response time that the canon never has. Also worth noting the language - Grimm makes a point of calling Rhonda a partner, Ron describes himself as a sidekick. This is actually true to the show, even into the end of the series. In The Mathter and Fervent when the Mathter saw Kim and Ron for the first time he assumed they were new sidekicks for Hego. Ron flat out admits that he was a sidekick. However, Ron never seemed to have any problems with it and as the series went on it started to feel more like something leftover from an earlier phase with the two acting more like partners.
… which is exactly what happened in The Big Job when Martin Smarty promised to offer Ron a job as a reward for saving his life. Though it was actually more of a nudge, but yeah…
Ron’s geeking out, and at least Kim caught on that the news was way too on task for this. And you know, I really doubt Lynn would hide the fact she was going to beat Kim if she was confident enough to send a tip. After all, she hijacked all the airwaves to deliver a challenge to Kim to lure her into a confrontation. And as Grimm noted, Lynn is bad at hiding her tracks when being subtle. Probably Team Probable that tipped them off. Perfectly up Grimm’s alley - send some newshounds after Kim to try and tear down her reputation through the events of their catspaw. The question is whether Grimm had it done just to tweak or to add another distraction. And a lampshade about the fact that it was a recurring gag in the series for Kim or Ron to ask Wade to hack into something and he’s in before he even finishes explaining. That said I think there’s a reason - there are systems proofed against Wade such as the facility that developed the Centurion Project. It’s just, well, Wade’s good enough (or his programs are) to get in quickly in most cases. I actually half wonder if he goes “wow their cybersecurity sucks” in his mind when that happens.
Makes sense Hego would check to make sure Kim wasn’t there, but otherwise nothing much more than Hego relaying to Kim what happened. Though, wouldn’t Yori have mentioned Ninjella to Kim as the identity of one of Team Probable’s members after The Return of Zorpox? Maybe Kim just didn’t have it at the top of her head, but it’s an alias that Rhonda used before to people Kim knew… or we to assume either Yori didn’t think it was worth mentioning given the lack of identity hiding going on/Kim didn’t ask? Probably simpler to just assume the latter. After all, what we know as readers includes things that the characters wouldn’t know.
Wait a minute, Kim never got negative press? I’m sorry, but I really gotta call bullcrap on that. Now if you just go purely by the actual events of the show no, Kim never has had the news after her as shown here. The closest thing would be Bonnie’s antics. But at the same time I’m really surprised that no mudslinger writer with a magazine hasn’t tried to do something to stain Kim’s name to get ten minutes of fame. Unless the idea was that this is the first time a respectable news organization had done so? But if so, that was very poorly communicated. I mean, it’s not like Kim getting no respect for what she does is new to the show, case in point Bonnie. Really if anything Kim should have had enough people trying to wring her name through the mud that she tunes it out. And no, there’s no reporter punching, so don’t get your hopes up. Though after I originally wrote this I did ask Slyrr, and he mostly went on the fact that in the show the press was mostly glowing in it's review of Kim's activities, so it probably is 'first time a semi-serious organization took a shot at it'. As to Kim’s introspection, I’d say… yeah. Makes sense. Most of the times when Ron’s being praised the news isn’t also simultaneously trying to insult her as it did here. That’s probably what really is causing her problems right now - she doesn’t mind Ron stepping up, what’s bugging her is that Ron is being put up at her unwilling expense. Really this is probably the whole Ron Factor thing again - Kim was reacting very much like this when Global Justice was saying her heroics were purely due to Ron’s ‘intangibles’ rather than her own abilities. Yet when Ron has risen on his own and isn’t pushing his friends away with newfound ego - such as how he became the running back legitimately - Kim is quite proud of him rising to the occasion. It’s angst as was promised in the prologue author's notes, but it’s not to a stupid level. So far. So, next scene and the next day:
You know, last time Grimm messed with Kim’s confidence he ended up being outwitted in his own arena, a loss so bad he had to resort to unleashing Zorpox the Conqueror for payback. If Kim’s mind is working similarly to that or other times she’s gotten devious to trap a villain, Lynn is likely about to get her comeuppance at last. Question is, how will it trip up Grimm? And speaking of him, looks like he learned from the first encounter. Last time they got a note like that from Team Probable, Rhonda had used something with perfume samples. Looks like he learned from that and avoided doing it again since that’d probably give it away if any of them remembered that detail. As for the school events, not much to say other than that usually people don’t comment about Kim’s missions. Usually it’s something off hand like “Oh didn’t you save an ambassador in Dubai or something yesterday?”, otherwise no one really seems to care about Kim’s missions unless it affects them directly. On one hand it’s a little absurd, but on the other it did work in keeping the show’s mix of action hero/spy genre spoofing and high school dramedy intact, plus it kept the drama from getting too soap opera worthy. And one last scene for the chapter.
And that’s the chapter. Poor Bates. Bates was a one-off character in the show who only appeared in Monkey Fist Strikes as Montgomery Fiske’s butler, then vanished from the canon entirely save for a cameo in one of the loading screens of the PS2 game What’s the Switch?. Whether he was still employed afterwards or not was never made clear, but in this case it seems to be that Slyrr has kept him around. As for the DVD that Maze watched - the monkey scrapbooking everything was from the show. In Monkey Fist’s last real appearance, Oh No! Yono!, one of his monkey ninjas had been taking pictures of the events and it was used to justify the ‘as you know’ bit to bring the plot thread back to speed. Always nice to see author’s bringing in the details of canon back to support their plot. Anyways while that is it for the chapter, there was an author’s note.
And… he’s correct. He did take these from the show for the most part as I noted in the above incidents. The comment about counting numbers on his toes? From the show. Kim hitting Ron when he was thinking a job was a terrible reward? Straight from the show. I actually think he would need to point out that it’s the canon since some fans are quick to tear into things that don’t fit their headcanons. Heck, isn’t that what I’ve basically been doing this whole Let’s Read? Actually, going back to some of the episodes to check Slyrr’s claims it’s really surprising sometimes when compared to Kim in later episodes. Yet Ron often deserves it. The main notable thing I think is that in later seasons most of Kim’s remarks about Ron are usually due to him doing something stupid then and there, rather than just saying it, and also trying to use more of a gentle touch to help him out rather than flat out saying she knew what was best for him even if he didn’t. Of course the thing to be careful of is that it’s very easy to go for demonization here since a lot of these lines are being brought back without the original context. And Kim has not had an easy time in these fics considering how she’s only really got one big win against Grimm to her name - I can’t count her punching his clock out and blowing him through a manhole given that the way it was written was Grimm letting it happen to let Evil Ron put a feedback modulator on her leg. I mean there’s putting characters you love through the grinder, and then there’s tearing at them to tear at them. It can be a very fine line, one that gets even thinner when you’ve got OCs who are directly based on them present and also doing quite a bit of that grinding. And the riddle for this chapter:
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