Reblogging From Myself To Add An Update: Upon Recent Rewatch, Kim Offers To Help Bonnie, Bonnie Doesn't

Since I mentioned that there are times when Kim could have gotten character development if the creators had chosen to do it, I thought it'd be fair to give examples.

"The New Ron" - Kim learns she can be pushy and needs to respect her friends' decisions, even if she doesn't agree with them.

Note: I'd like to take out the aspect where Ron embraces the haircut and have him stay miserable instead. The takeaway from this episode, as written, is that you shouldn't force people into things because you might hate it. I want to focus on how miserable it'd make others to be forced into something like that. So, for those purposes, Ron stays miserable with his new haircut, and Kim learns that the reason you don't push people into stuff like that is because they'll be miserable and that's not something you should do to your friends.

"Number One" - If they had chosen to portray Will as competent, this could have been a valuable lesson for Kim about how being good at something doesn't mean no one else is good at it either. And that someone else being good at something doesn't diminish your skills. And that, sometimes, it is better to let someone else take over. The episode could end with Kim having a moment of humility where she has Bonnie takeover the job as Cheer Captain, not because she believes Bonnie will give it up in a few weeks, but because Bonnie is genuinely much better suited for the job.

"Sink or Swim" and "Return to Wannaweep" - These could have been episodes where Kim recognizes that she tends to dismiss Ron's feelings and realizes she needs to work on that.

"Coach Possible" - This would be a great moment for Kim to recognize that her competitive drive can get the best of her. It would be great if, to show that Kim recognized this and is going to work on it, they actually showed Kim apologizing to the team.

"The Ron Factor" - This would have been a great episode about Kim recognizing Ron's contributions and learning to appreciate him more.

"Adventures in Rufus-Sitting" - Kim could learn a lesson about taking her responsibilities seriously, both watching Rufus and guarding the chip.

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

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

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

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

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

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

I don't believe she was a bully, I think she probably was bullied.

And then she found out her bully had a bad home life so she started being nice to her and her bully started being nice because of that.

And Ms. Bustier just hasn't realized that that's not going to work for every scenario.

Being nice to Chloe won't make her nicer because she rarely wants to be nice. She's faced no consequences for being mean so far, so there's no reason for her to want to be nice.

And making Marinette be nice to her only forces Marinette into situations where she's going to suffer.

Obviously, I so wanted Chloe to have a redemption arc, and I certainly give her one in my stories, but it does involve Chloe facing consequences for her actions.

And Ms. Bustier doesn't just not enforce consequences for Chloe, she also tries to make Chloe's victims be nice to her.

And this is stuff that definitely would have needed to change for Chloe to grow as a person.

So, really, Ms. Bustier isn't just failing Chloe's victims, she's failing Chloe as well.

And don't even get me started on Lila.

Continuing onto Bustier having trouble seeing Chloe as a bully, I how kinda headcanon that Bustier was a bully herself when she was Chloe’s age. Often bullies who grow up don’t know/realize they were in fact bullies (until someone points it out/calls them out) so maybe she’s blinded by her own inner guilt from her past? Idk just an idea

I don't think I'd agree with that for canon, but I'd def assign that headcanon to SL Bustier.

Thoughts About "Clean Slate"

Obviously, I have thoughts.

And they're mostly about Kim/Ron.

More specifically, the fact that Kim doesn't remember the fact that she and Ron are dating.

Even more specifically, he reaction to being told they're dating.

Ron: No, not to worry. I’ll have KP back in time for dinner. After school I’ll give her a refresher around Middleton. It’ll be like a second first date.

Kim: Are you hitting on me?

Ron: Um, Kim, we are dating. I’m your boyfriend.

Kim: Boyfriend? Oh, wait, you’re serious?

So, here we have Kim finding the idea of her dating Ron amusing. She doesn't take it seriously, and doesn't seem interested in the idea.

I realize that Kim can't remember anything at the moment, and thus she's not really acting like herself.

But it's kind of unfair that Ron is the last thing Kim remembers.

Ron, who should be the most important person in Kim's life.

Ron, who is certainly the most integral person in Kim's life.

Ron, who is the biggest constant in Kim's life, the person she's spent the most time around, and she doesn't remember dating him until the end of the episode.

And it's annoying when we get scenes like this:

Ron: Hey, just take it slow, Kim. Nothing to worry about. You’re among friends.

Bonnie: Unh. Just learned to walk, K?

Ron: Except for Bonnie!

Kim: Bonnie? Oh, Bonnie! She and I are on the same cheer squad, right? So we’d be friends.

---

Monique: Ron, Wade told me. Lost memory. How’s she doing?

Ron: Eh, a little sketchy in some areas, particularly relationships. You know, she needs to remember things on her own, so don’t expect Kim to just--

Kim: Monique? Monique! I remember you! The first time I met you was at Club Banana. We’re, like, best friends.

---

Ron: Now, you can’t tell me that you don’t remember Bueno Nacho.

Kim: How could I forget? The center of the cheese and chip universe. Home of the naco and managed by Ned.

Ron: How is it you remember everything but the fact that we’re a couple?

Kim: Couple of what?

Ron: People who are dating.

Kim: Are you sure that we were dating? I mean sometimes people read a little more into things than they should, right?

Ron: OK, look, photo evidence, K.P.

Kim: Oh, wait a minute.

Ron: Prom, dancing, the kiss.

Kim: You called me in the middle of the night once to ask about us dating.

Ron: Yes!

Rufus: Yeah!

Kim: Then you said I melted.

Ron: No, ok, no, that was just a dream.

Kim: So we were dating in a dream you had?

Ron: Well, yes, in the dream, but also--

Kim: Why is my watch beeping?

Ron: Wade.

Kim: Hi, uh, Wade?

Ron: How did you remember his name?

Kim: You just said it.

Ron: Oh, right.

Wade: How are you doing, Kim?

Kim: Wade? Oh, Wade! Better. I’m starting to remember stuff.

---

Ron: Wait, wait, wait, wait! Shego, you tell her. Kim and I are dating, right?

Shego: What? For real? Oh, come on. That never made any sense to me. I mean--

Ron: See? That wasn’t a no. Unh.

Kim: Glowing hand. Glow…Go…Shego!

---

Wade: Ron? Ron fought Shego? Alone?

Kim: Well, I don’t know if fought is the right word.

Ron: Sure it is. I fought. Fought for my life.

Wade: Well, hopefully this will help Kim remember her fighting skills.

Kim: Cheer practice?

Wade: Well, so far all of your memories have been triggered by some event or meeting. Good luck.

Bonnie: Hello? Late for practice much?

Ron: OK, don’t let Bonnie get to you and whatever you do, don’t listen to anything she says. You’ll be fine.

Bonnie: I don’t know what your problem is, Kim. I knew this would happen when you started dating Naco Boy.

Ron: Aha, Kim, you see? Do you see? I’m Naco Boy.

Kim: Yeah, I shouldn’t listen to what Bonnie says.

It's not fair that Kim can't remember dating Ron, her best friend of 10+ years, someone who is extremely important to her, until he loses his pants again.

She remembers everything about Monique after just running into her in the halls.

She vaguely remembers Bonnie after running into her, and gets her full memory of Bonnie, including a complicated cheer routine, back after one try.

She remembers Bueno Nacho by just showing up.

She remembers Wade after a phone call.

She remembers Shego as soon as her hands start glowing.

And she remembers Drakken and how to fight before she even goes to confront him again.

But she can't remember Ron until the end of the episode?

This is unfair to everyone.

Especially since Kim is, for some reason, so resistant to the idea of them dating.

I mean, I guess I can understand not immediately believing you're dating some random guy, but Ron's not some random guy.

Kim still remembers their friendship, and trusts him on everything else.

But she doesn't accept that they're dating.

She won't even consider the idea.

And, if dating Ron was as important to her as cheerleading, fighting Shego, hanging out with Monique, or going to Bueno Nacho, shouldn't something have triggered her memory earlier?

Especially since Ron is involved in pretty much every aspect of Kim's life?

But, no, she doesn't remember until he loses his pants.

Not riding on the back of his scooter, which she did during the Li'l Diablos incident which, coincidentally, was the same day they started dating.

And did several other times before Kim got her own car.

Not going to Bueno Nacho, which they do all the time.

Not cheerleading, which Ron happens to be kind of involved in as the mascot.

Not even seeing Ron, which was enough for her to completely remember Monique and Wade (over video!) and kind of remember Bonnie.

No, the only thing that triggers Kim's memory of Ron is that he loses his pants.

And the fact that nothing but Ron losing his pants triggers her memory of them dating, implies that, on a subconscious level, that's how she views Ron.

Not as her boyfriend, but as her clumsy, bumbling, inept sidekick who's always losing his pants.

And everyone - Kim, Ron, us viewers - deserved better.

Speaking of not appearing again it’s weird that for all the focus put on Adrenna Lynn being Kim’s foil, she only had one episode dedicated to her and then nothing for the rest of the series until the finale episode when she had her seconds long cameo. But I guess that’s how popular Shego was. They didn’t know what else to do with this character and Shego being Kim’s foil instead just made more sense.

Yeah, Adrena Lynn was featured in promotional artwork, so they had bigger plans for her.

Unfortunately, her debut episode revealed that she didn't actually have any skills.

And it's kind of hard to make a villain that can't actually do anything.

I'm sure the fans could come up with a few plots that include her, but I guess the creators couldn't.

I don't blame them, I'm just disappointed we didn't get more.

Would a sequel series that acknowledges Kim’s flaws and works to fix them help you see her in a better light?

Ideally? Yes.

Honestly? I'm not 100% sure, but it would be appreciated.

The most important thing is that it's handled without people acting too out of character.

For example, if Ron tells Kim how much something hurts him and she immediately apologizes and corrects it, though it'd be nice, it's not very in-character.

They'd need to have more back and forth before Kim acknowledges that she's hurting him/that it's bad.

Not saying they have to break up, but it wouldn't be very in-character for Kim to immediately recognize her faults.

Kim's very stubborn. Not being mean, she just is.

It's a requirement for saving the world, but when it negatively impacts her personal life, it's a problem.

Also, even Ghoulia's texts were in "zombie", which isn't actually a great representation of non-verbal people.

The non-verbal people I knew, keeping in mind they were nowhere near as intelligent as Ghoulia, were still able to type and write.

G1 Ghoulia didn't have that. It sucks that there's no non-verbal representation, but g1 Ghoulia wasn't a great representation.

And the creators acknowledge that. So they changed it. Because they want to do a non-verbal character authentically.

One of the show runners even stated that this was the reason.

And, I still believe Ghoulia does represent some kind of disability.

In "Growing Ghoulia" she talks about how difficult it is for zombies to earn points at monster high because they're not as fast as other monsters.

That sounds familiar...

In "Flaunt Your Skeleton" we learn that Ghoulia has anxiety tics and, in "Dawn of the Dread" her anxiety manifests as a monster.

So, Ghoulia might not be non-verbal anymore, but she's still a good representation of disability.

People can be upset that she's no longer non-verbal, but she's still a great character.

And here's hoping that, when they include a non-verbal character, we love them as much as we love g1 Ghoulia.

Alright, time to share some thoughts. This is going to be about Monster High g3, specifically Ghoulia.

Now, I understand why people are upset that she can talk in this generation as there's now no representation for nonverbal characters, but I do love that they veered away stereotypical zombies that are super slow and can only communicate with grunts & other noises that aren't recognizable as words. But, more importantly, she wasn't intended to be representative of nonverbal people.

Now, I'm not saying that nonverbal shouldn't relate to her, that's not something anyone has control over. What I'm saying is this: the writers for the new generation likely decided to give her the ability to speak so that they could explore her character more, and so that when they eventually do add a nonverbal character, they can be sure to do it right & consult with nonverbal people about their lived experiences.

For example: when the live-action movie came out, I related to Frankie's struggles with social situations, but the creators said they're not autistic. (And my twin explained that Frankie's only 2 weeks old & it's hard to diagnose autism before 3 years). I was a little heartbroken, as they were the only character I sort of related to. Note: were.

And then g3 Twyla made her debut, and then had an episode about growing up, and it was like someone put my lived experience on the screen. I felt so seen & understood, as did many autistic fans of the show.

So, while I understand that the current lack of nonverbal representation is frustrating, I'm sure(ly hoping) that they will make a nonverbal character, and that they're just making sure they can make them accurate and not written as a harmful stereotype.

Pick One: Magical Girl Show or Rom-com. You cannot be both.

Early in season four we get the episode Gang of Secrets. An episode that ends with Marinette outing her secret identity to Alya. A touching moment that sparked outrage across the fandom because it meant that Marinette had made the choice to reveal her identity to her best friend while keeping her hero partner in the dark.

This choice spat in the face of the exceptions that many fans had for the series. Thousands of pre-season-four fanfics feature moments where Ladybug and Chat Noir promise each other that they'll be the first to know each other's identities. After the Alya reveal, scores of fanfics were written to salt on Marinette's choice to tell the "wrong" person.

Most of these fics feature a betrayed Chat Noir quitting or otherwise punishing Ladybug for breaking their promise to be each other's first, thereby destroying his faith in their partnership. But that promise was never made on screen. It only existed in the realms of fanfic and, when Chat Noir finally found out in canon, his reaction was largely neutral. He never once blamed Ladybug for her choice or pushed for a reveal or even asked for the right to tell one of his friends.

So what happened here? Why did the fans have such wildly unrealistic expectations of canon? Were their expectations even unrealistic or did canon betray them? The answer to that is not as straight forward as you might think because it all comes back to one of Miraculous' many, many, many writing problems: Miraculous is trying to be both a Magical Girl Show and a romantic comedy, but those are not genres that mesh. You can only be one (or you can be a third thing that we'll get to at the end as it's the easiest way to fix this mess, but I want to mostly focus on where the anger is coming from and why the writing is to blame.)

To discuss this mismatch, we're going to do something that breaks my heart and talk about some of Origins flaws. While I love that episode and unironically refer to it as the best writing the show ever gave us, it's not perfect and its flaws are all focused around trying to set up both genres. Do note that I'm going to use a lot of gender binary language here as magical girl shows have a strong focus on gender segregation and rarely if ever acknowledge gender diversity.

Let's Talk Magical Girls

Magical girl shows are shows that center on young women and their friendships. While male love interests are often present in these shows, the boys tend to take a backseat and function primarily as arm candy while the girls save the day and carry the narrative.

A great example of this is the show Winx Club. This show features a large cast of teenage girls who save the magical universe from various threats with their magical powers. Each girl has a love interest, but the boys are usually off doing their own thing and only occasionally show up for a date or to give the girls a ride on their cool bikes or magical spaceship. I don't even think that we see the guys fight or, if we do, it's a rare thing. They are not there to save the day. They are there to be shipping fodder.

Like most magical girl shows, Winx Club starts with the main character making friends with one of the girls who will eventually become part of her magical girl squad. This brings us back to Miraculous.

Did you ever find it weird that Origins implies that Marinette has no friends? She doesn't even have a backbone until new girl Alya shows up to become Marinette's First Real Friend:

Marinette: I so wish I can handle Chloé the way you do. Alya: You mean the way Majestia does it. She says all that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good people do nothing. (pointing at Chloé) Well, that girl over there is evil, and we are the good people. We can't let her get away with it.

This is a bizarre opening because Miraculous is not about Marinette making friends or learning to stand up for herself. If you skipped Origins and just watched the rest of the show, then you'd have no clue that Marinette wasn't close with her classmates before this year. You also wouldn't know that Alya was new in town and you definitely wouldn't know that Marinette had never stood up to Chloé before this year. So why is this here? Why waste screen time setting up elements that aren't actually important to canon?

Miraculous did it for the same reason that Winx Club did it: magical girl shows traditionally start with the main character making friends with at least one of her eventual female teammates because Magical Girl shows are all about the girls and their relationships. The boys are just arm candy.

But Miraculous isn't a magical girl show. The writers have explicitly stated that it's a rom-com and romantic comedies aren't about female friendship. They might have female friendships in them, but that's not where the focus is. The focus of a rom-com is on the romance and Origins is very clearly all about the romance.

Origins as a Rom-com

Origins has a lot on its plate. It has to establish the villain's motivation for the first time, show us how the heroes got their miraculous, show us how the heroes first met on both sides of the mask, show us how they met their respective best friends, and show us how the heroes dealt with their first akuma. It would be perfectly understandable if this 40 minute two-parter didn't do anything with the romance. They have a full show to give us that!

In spite of this, Origins has some incredibly touching moments for both Ladynoir and Adrienette because romance is the heart of Miraculous. It is the main focus of the show. The driving motivation for both of our leads and the majority of the show's episodes. To tell the story of how their journey started without at least one of them falling in love would feel wrong. That's why we see both of them fall in love!

First we get Chat Noir giving his heart to his bold and brilliant lady, then we get Marinette's heart being stolen by the shy sweet boy who never once thought to blame her for her snap judgement of his character. We even get a touching moment where Chat Noir inspires his lady to accept her role and be Ladybug, leading her to boldly face their enemy and call him out:

Roger: I have a new plan, unlike you! Move aside and let the pros do their thing. You've already failed once! Ladybug: …He's right, you know. If I'd captured Stoneheart's akuma the first time around, none of this would have happened! I knew I wasn't the right one for this job… Cat Noir: No. He's wrong, because without you, she'd no longer be here. (they look at Chloe) And because without us, they won't make it, and we'll prove that to 'em. Trust me on this. Okay? Ladybug: Okay.

I love this moment, but it does lose a little of its power when you remember that we had an Alya-driven variation of this exact same thing five minutes prior:

Alya: HELP!! (Marinette suddenly gets filled with courage. She gets the case out of Alya's bag and puts on the Miraculous. Then, Tikki appears, happy to see Marinette again.) Tikki:(raising her arms) Mmmm! Marinette: I think I need Ladybug! Tikki: I knew you'd come around! Marinette: Well, I'm still not sure I'm up for this, but Alya's in danger. I can't sit back and do nothing.

This scene initially confused me because - if Miraculous is a rom-com - then why would you make Alya the reason that Marinette became Ladybug? Why wouldn't you have Chat Noir be the one in danger so that Marinette chose to fight because of her love interest and then encourage that bond with the later scene of him encouraging her? Why split the focus like this? Why give Alya so much attention?

In case you haven't figured it out, it's because Origins is trying to establish two different genres of show. Two genres that will continue to fight for the rest of the series (or at least the first five seasons).

Magical Girls Vs Rom-com

Why is Alya the one to shake off the nightmare dust and inspire the others during the season five finale? Why is Alya the one that Marinette trusts with all of her plans while Chat Noir is kept in the dark? Why does Alya and Marinette's friendship get so much more focus than Adrien and Nino's? Why was Alya the only temp hero who got upgraded to full time hero?

It's because Alya is Marinette's second in command in a magical girl show and magical girl shows focus on female friendships while the boys are just there to be cute and support the girls.

Why do most of Marinette's talks with Alya focus on Adrien? Why is Chat Noir the only other full time holder of a Miraculous for the first three seasons and then again for the final season? Why do Marinette's friends become more and more obsessed with Adrienentte as the show goes on? Why is the love square's identity reveal given so much more narrative weight than any other identity reveal?

It's because Miraculous is a rom-com and the love square is our end game couple, so of course the story focuses on their relationship above all else!

Are you starting to see the problem?

Circling back to our original question: no, it was not unreasonable for the fans to expect that the Alya reveal would have massive negative consequences for Ladynoir. That is what should happen in a rom-com and Miraculous is mainly written like a rom-com. But the writers are also trying to write a magical girl show and, in a magical girl show, Alya and Marinette's friendship should be the most important relationship in the show, so it makes perfect sense that the show treats the Alya reveal as perfectly fine because the Alya reveal was written from the magical girl show perspective.

When it comes to Miraculous, if you ever feel like a writing choice makes no sense for genre A, re-frame it as a thing from genre B and it suddenly makes perfect sense which is fascinatingly terrible writing! It's no wonder there are people who hate the Alya reveal and people who will defend it with their life. It all depends on which genre elements you've picked up on and clung to. Neither side is right, they've both been set up to have perfectly valid expectations. Whether those expectations are valid for a given episode is entirely up to the mercurial whims of the writers!

How Do We Fix This Mess

At this point, I don't think that we can, the show is too far gone, but if someone gave me the power to change one element of Miraculous, that element would be this: scrap both the magical girl stuff and the rom-com stuff and turn Miraculous into a team show where the friendships transcend gender.

At this point, I've written over a quarter of a million words of fanfic focused on these characters (the brain rot is real) and one thing I've discovered is that it is damn near impossible to keep Adrien and Alya from becoming friends. They're both new to their school while Marinette and Nino have gone to the same school for at least a few years. Alya and Adrien are both obsessed with Ladybug plus Adrien is a natural hype man who loves to support his friends and Alya loves to talk about her blog. Alya is dating Adrien's best friend. On top of that, Alya, Adrien, Nino, and Marinette are all in the same class, meaning that they pretty much have to be spending time together five days a week unless French school don't give kids a chance to socialize or do group projects. If so, then judging them for the first issue, but super jealous of the latter.

Given all of that, why in the world is does it feel like Alya is Marinette's close friend while Adrien is just some guy who goes to Alya's school? Along similar lines, while canon Marinette barely talks to Nino, I've found that Marinette and Nino tend to get along smashingly, especially if you embrace the fact that they have to have known each other for at least a few years.

If you embrace this wider friendship dynamic and scrap the girl squad, replacing it with Alya, Adrien, Marinette, and Nino, then the fight for narrative importance quickly goes away. It's no longer a question of is this episode trying to be a magical girl show or a rom-com? Instead, the question is: which element of the friend group is getting focused on today? The romance or the friendship?

A lot of hero shows do this and do it well. I think that one of the most well known examples is Teen Titans. That show has five main characters and the focus is usually on their friendships, but there is a very clear running romantic tension between the characters Robin and Starfire with several episodes giving a good deal of focus to their romance. I'd say that this element really starts in the show's the 19th episode - Date with Destiny - and it all culminates in the movie that capstones the series: Trouble in Tokyo. The character Beast Boy also gets a romance arc and, while it's more short lived, it's further evidence that you can have strong romances and strong friendships in the same show and even the same episode. You just have to own the fact that boys and girls can be friends with each other, a very logical thing to embrace when your show has decided to have a diverse cast of heroes instead of imposing arbitrary gender limitations on its magical powers.

I couldn't figure out a way to work this into the main essay, but it's relevant so I wanted to quickly point it out and give you more to think about re Origins. Have you ever found it weird how Origins gives both Adrien AND Marinette the "I've never had friends before" backstory and yet wider canon acts like Marinette has this strong amazing friend group while Adrien doesn't seem to care about making friends and instead focuses all his energy on romance? Why give both the protagonist and the supposed deuteragonist this kind of origin if it's not going to be a major element of the show? It makes so much more sense to only give one of them this backstory and then focus that person's character arc on learning about friendship.

First off, I'd like to thank you for taking the time to reply to me. It doesn't happen often, so I do appreciate it.

Secondly, I'm going to politely disagree with you.

To address some of your points:

I will agree with you that Kim would try to hide an embarrassing incident from her childhood, and that Ron would probably have forgotten it, so I will actually agree with you on that one.

Ron agreed to forget that Shego and Kim get their eyebrows waxed in "Stop Team Go", so I agree with you there.

But it's revealed that Kim asked Ron to help her when her braces got stuck to Walter Nelson's in the eighth grade, so it seems like Kim calls Ron when something embarrassing happens. So him not knowing about the singing incident does seem unusual.

I can kind of see your point about Ron having his own interests, but he's been known to tell Kim about all of them; wrestling, video games, boy bands, etc. He's never had an interest Kim didn't know about, so her not knowing he bakes seems unusual.

He started baking after getting a toy oven for his eighth birthday, something Kim was around for, so it seems like something he'd tell Kim about almost immediately. For him to not tell Kim about it is unusual.

I appreciate your perspective on the family situation, but Kim and Ron aren't Latin American; they're from Colorado. Kim doesn't have a lot of cousins she hasn't seen since childhood. Larry's been coming over to her house once a month since she was three, and she at least keeps in touch with Joss via email.

Ron lives next door to Kim, so the fact that he never noticed Larry going over to Kim's house is unusual.

I can be more understanding of not knowing about Joss, since it does seem like they haven't seen each other in person in a while.

Ron doesn't strike you as the kind of character who would ask for help with things like that? No offense, but when was the last time you watched the show?

Ron is known to whine and complain about everything, especially to Kim. He asks for Kim's help with anything, so the fact that he never asked for help with bullies, either the ones at school or his cousin, is unusual and out of character for him.

He's known Kim longer than he's been bullied, longer than Shaun's been alive, and isn't afraid to ask for her help, so it seems strange that Kim never knew about either of those instances.

In "A Sitch in Time" it's revealed that they met when Kim saved Ron from bullies, albeit in the alternate timeline it was Drakken, Killigan, and Monkey Fist as toddlers, so it doesn't make sense that Ron wouldn't ask Kim for help with that.

I will grant that we don't know what event lead to them being friends in the unaltered timeline, but I feel my point still stands.

I have nothing against them still learning new things about each other, given that they're at that age where they're still learning new things about themselves, so I can understand not knowing some things about each other.

Ron's interest in boy bands was a fairly recent development, he didn't even like them before the episode.

Kim's obsession with designer brand clothes probably didn't happen until she had her own spending money.

Those are understandable things to just be learning about each other.

But the specific things I mentioned in my original post are things that they would've been reasonably expected to know each about each other by the start of the show.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I found the episode "Showdown at the Crooked D" kinda insulting towards Ron(excluding the final scene) it literally would be impossible for Kims cousin to know every detail about Kims missions, including the times Rufus was vital, but know nothing about Ron. I know it's supposed to be for "comedic purposes" but that gag was so overdone by then(late s3) as you said in some of your posts, Ron has stepped up so much since the first episode, she should've been treated with more respect. It also kinda made Kim look bad, not defending him or recounting atleast one of the missions where he came through.

First, "Showdown at The Crooked D" was late season 2, not late season 3.

Second, I agree with all of it.

There's no reason for Joss to know all about Kim, Rufus, and Wade, but know nothing about Ron.

(She even knows about the Centurion Project, which was a top-secret project she reasonably shouldn't have known about.)

Except, of course, that the narrative likes to make jokes at Ron's expense.

And when I say Kim doesn't appreciate or respect Ron on the team, it's not just because of how she treats him in their everyday life, it's also because of situations like this.

Kim won't acknowledge Ron's contributions to the team.

When someone praises Kim as a hero, she never even tries to give Ron credit for his part in their success.

(And when Joss praised Ron as a hero, it was because he faces his fears to be there for Kim, not because she recognized his skills. Not a bad reason to admire someone, but still...)

Kim acknowledged his importance once in "Sink or Swim", which Officer Hobble didn't believe at first. She never does it again.

(Also, she follows this up by telling Ron he's not going to be allowed to lead a mission anyways.)

Kim's the one getting praise, getting people to owe her favors, getting recognition, and Ron's not.

And, though Kim will probably say she's not doing it for the fame and recognition, it hardly seems fair to not allow Ron to have any.

(Also, it's easy to say you're not doing it for fame and recognition when you're the one getting it.)

The point is, even ignoring her mistreatment of him as a best friend, she fails to acknowledge or recognize his contributions to the team as a hero, and he deserves better.