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mighty med hero society: no killing!! >:(

davenport family (esp in this arc):

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woah this character is so cool i wish they were covered in blood their whole body trembling with a look of absolute horror on their face as theyre struggling to breathe in panic

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how do we know you're actually spider-man and not just some imposter

how many other guys with spider powers do you know.

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Hi there! 👋 It's really nice to see you posting about Kickin' It 😊 I discovered the show only recently on Disney+ (I was a bit too old for watching Disney XD during the original airing) and loved it, and I was surprised to see that the fandom isn't as active on here as I expected, but it's lovely to see your analysis of the show 💖

AWW THIS IS SO SWEET :D!! thank you!!!

and yes totally!! i was also very surprised to see that the fandom was so quiet, especially because the lab rats cult still seems pretty active. i'm glad you enjoyed the show! kickin' it was a huuuuge part of my childhood LOLLL

some rambling under the cut that i sectioned off to make this nicer to look at T__T RAHHH I TALK TOO MUCH

even back when i was watching it as it aired, i have always adored the idea of taking these kids shows and recontextualizing them with fun sad little headcanons, usually taken from the reinterpretation of canon evidence. i think that's what kickin' it is best for, in my opinion!

i adore lab rats & mighty med [shows involving loads of physical danger; both commonly associated with kickin' it, if you're unfamiliar with them!] but those shows don't need a lot of help to become "darker" if that makes sense. there's enough daily life or death going on with their circumstances, so i think taking kickin' it and playing around with the emotional nuance of things is suuuper fun from an uncensored, adult perspective.

i haven't roamed too far outside of canon yet but i have a lot of thoughts about the cast & their potential mental struggles that i'm looking forward to posting about sometime soon. to me, kickin' it is a show about rudy & the troubled kids he provides a safe space for in his dojo. (:

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im so sad they never brought back gord. where did he go. im not accepting that hes dead.

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TOXIC YURI

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How the debate should have gone:

they're fighting for the rights to the lucifractor

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Weird question but does Benny live with his grandma? She’s the only relative of his we like actually see, but we know he at least has a dad because of the magazine & cologne he gets in Smells like Trouble, but he says his dads in the dating scene sooo

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Since Dusk is the mbav-universe version of twilight, does that mean that the 9/11->MCR->Twilight->50 shades of gray pipeline happened there too?

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actually if my own experiences tell me anything they most likely had an 8am call time. so let's say that after breakfast & makeup they were shooting bunker scenes until lunch-ish. they were probably put in that forest around noon & stayed an unknown amount of time past nightfall before getting to leave.

no wonder they needed to be boxing rudy's head, he would've taken them off set immediately after they climbed the ladder lmao.

isn't it crazy that kickin' it has an episode where two fifteen year olds are tricked into filming a movie where they fight grown ass adult warriors, run from wild dogs, "dodge spears & escape traps" [according to kim because this is an off-screen event], presumably spend several hours in this fake? forest with no food or water & are told that one of them has to kill the other to survive? and this still isn't the most intense episode of the series?

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isn't it crazy that kickin' it has an episode where two fifteen year olds are tricked into filming a movie where they fight grown ass adult warriors, run from wild dogs, "dodge spears & escape traps" [according to kim because this is an off-screen event], presumably spend several hours in this fake? forest with no food or water & are told that one of them has to kill the other to survive? and this still isn't the most intense episode of the series?

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OMG KITTY HI

HELLOOOOOOOOOO

HIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII :3

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HELLOOOOOOOOOO

HIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII :3

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jack versus kai

part 1, part 2, part 3

third & final part of the "kickin' it in china" analysis! our boy fights for his life on the great wall of china.

TW for light discussion of ptsd & trauma; once again, it's all nonspecific.

jack fighting for his future

very tiny thing but jack going to congratulate kai is STUPID because he didn't earn it & jack of all people wouldn't be able to let go of that but i don't have much to say about it. i understand that they needed a reason for him to approach to see the tattoo lol. would've been awkward if dude was just. watching kai hug his buddies. lmfao.

anyway jack's strong sense of justice is what starts this fight. not only does he know that what's happened to him is unfair, he now also knows that kai was behind it. i genuinely think he'd have a much easier time letting go of the fact that he had to forfeit if he didn't find out kai put those guys up to it, because that fact just adds another level of wrongness to it. jack would approach him with the most threatening, silent fury, & that anger would override his trauma-rooted anxiety about confronting him.

to jack's credit though, he doesn't throw the first punch. he most likely just wanted to show kai that he knew he was afraid of him, & being aware of that that was probably enough for him to find that closure he'd been seeking ever since kai beat him. he already won the fight because his opponent didn't want to have to fight him.

on top of the fight itself being super cool, jack is fighting for more than just his own safety here! he's not just facing kai, he's facing his past while also chasing the future in karate he's wanted since childhood. martial arts is really important to him & he's finally been able to practice it in a way that doesn't make him feel miserable, surrounded by friends who actually enjoy his company & support him—not to mention the growing father-son bond he's been developing with rudy! this new jack has something to fight for now, people he cares about, & a future to look forward to. he knows he can't back down to kai here, & for the first time, he doesn't want to.

i like that this is one of the longer fights in the show, too. jack & kai are roughly on the same level, so it makes sense for jack to struggle to get the upper hand, while also literally fighting with a broken hand. i have stuff to say about jack's alarmingly impressive adaptability in combat, but that's for another time.

jack sparing him is obviously an "intense disney channel moment" type thing, but i do think there's something to be said about how he still does what he thinks is right. he knew he won the fight when kai had to beg for his life lmao. i like it. he still whoops kai after he punches his broken hand too, so good for him!

conclusion

because of his ptsd, jack would have a chronic & irrational fear of losing because of kai. not necessarily failure, just losing. he's afraid that every match he loses is going the end the same way his loss to kai did: he'll end up extremely injured, & the people that he cares about will turn him away. that's why he has to do better. he has to win all of his matches, & he has to keep training.

defeating kai leaves jack feeling the most fulfilled he's probably ever felt in his life LOL. it would take a long time to set in, but it also wouldn't cure that ptsd he has. it would, however, leave him feeling satisfied & proud of himself, especially after kim & rudy would definitely express how proud they are of him, too. he'd feel a lot more confident in his abilities because he took down the first & only guy to have ever beaten him so badly.

this win gives jack what he needs to keep moving forward, now more confident than ever. it doesn't matter that kai gets to keep the trophy because jack's the one who won this time, and he knows that. that's all he needs.

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jack versus kai

part 1, part 2, part 3

second part of my "kickin' it in china" analysis! the post got long so i split it up lmao. robin keep your analysis posts to a relatively short length challenge, level: impossible.

TW for general discussion of trauma & ptsd, & a light allusion to abuse ["punished"]??? nothing really specific, it's all light.

seeing kai again; jack's resolve crumbling

i truly think that seeing kai again would emotionally destroy jack for a bit. not because jack actually believed he left that part of his life behind, but because he's always running from it. he dropped karate, became a skater & moved to seaford with no intention of coming back to it. then he does, albeit reluctantly, but this time he actually enjoys it. he doesn't get punished for making mistakes and has people he likes to train with, rather than the one person who's always trying to prove that he's better than him. and then right when he thinks he's let go, when he's at the one tournament where he can show himself that he's actually good at this thing he loves, kai himself shows up. and jack is forced to realize that all he's actually been doing is running away.

hell, he almost drops out of the fight right after, too! jack & kai's brief interaction when they see each other again doesn't give us much [other than the fact that he refused to let kai see him freaking out, showing that he doesn't want to look like a scared little kid in front of him], but jack's immediate resignation to everything does. he's already in the finals, but he'd still rather give up on the championship than have to face kai again; he just accepts that he can't win against him and seems pretty ready to go home before kim & rudy stop him.

about here is where i think things would seriously take a turn if this wasn't on disney! i think jack would've had a complete breakdown after seeing kai because of the ptsd from that match, and his relationship with rudy here would definitely shift into a much more personal one here because he'd see how troubled jack actually is. BUT THAT'S NOT THE POINT OF THIS POST & IS A DEEP DIVE FOR ANOTHER TIME. i also think that jerry, milton, & eddie would've been notified of all this considering jerry's his best friend [or is on the way to becoming his best friend] & all of them in general became close very fast. rudy's dojo is a sanctuary for those troubled kids, so they'd all have a tight bond even if jack keeps them at arms length regarding his personal life & history.

after they get him settled down jack's like okay cool maybe things will be all right! and then proceeds to get JUMPED LMFAO. kai saves him but jack's intuition is very strong. i think he would've known something was up because he's able to sense something off about ricky [1x08], brody [1x20], carson [2x20], & probably a few others i'm forgetting. but he not only sniffs out liars & bad people fast, he's just a smart kid who knows when something's up. my point is that jack has a very strong sense of danger, & it's a pretty consistent trait of his; he trusts his gut, & he's right often enough to be confident in his judgment. i can see him being very weirded out by kai suddenly being there to help, but can understand him looking past it because now he's just worried about whether or not he can compete. and he can't.

i would imagine that being told you can't compete in the tournament you finally felt you could prove yourself in, would suck. in jack's mind, this tournament was going to determine his future—but not his future in karate. winning the tournament would finally let him believe he was actually good at martial arts & that he was finally past all of the stuff with kai and his grandfather. but then his wrist gets broken, he can't compete, and kai, the guy who beat the shit out of him when they were twelve[?] years old, the rival he'd been trying to outperform throughout his childhood, saved him. how conflicting.

final part (: