#kim possible (character)

[jennywebbyart]

Harlivy's Halloween costumes.

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

How to Use Absurdist Humor

I will often excuse away the “worst” of Marinette’s behavior with a very dismissive, “It’s an obvious joke, so there’s no point taking this as a serious character beat. Let’s not waste our time here.”

While I stand by that statement, I can see why some people struggle with this approach. Miraculous has made the unfortunate choice to tie the humor to parts of the narrative that have actual meaning to the audience. This undercuts the power of the humor, making it hard for some people to separate the humor from the actual character beats, so let’s step back and look at a show that did this right to show what I mean.

That’s right, folks, it’s time for more gushing about Kim Possible!

For today’s case study, we'll start with episode 17 of season one: The Twin Factor. In this episode, Kim is stuck babysitting her little brothers while on a mission to stop her arch nemesis. You may be thinking that Kim's "flaw" in this episode is the fact that she brings two 10-year-olds on a dangerous mission.

You would be wrong.

This is the lead-in to Kim bringing the twins along:

Kim: Er, speaking of forgetting, I totally spaced on the baby-sitting. Mrs. Dr. Possible: Kimmy, you made a commitment. Kim: Two commitments, actually. I'm suppose to go on a mission today. Mr. Dr. Possible: You'll just have to take the boys. Kim: Mom, can you please tell Dad that's a bad idea? Mrs. Dr. Possible: Oh, Kimmy. I'm sure Jim and Tim would love to visit a secret lab with you.

This is how you do absurdist humor. Is this technically horrible parenting? Yes, but there is no way that anyone is taking this seriously. It’s just so over the top that anyone trying to criticize the Possible’s behavior comes across as completely missing the point.

The other important factor is that Kim’s parents are played as genuinely loving and supportive parents, just in a really absurd way. This is a very natural bit of loving family dialogue about a totally ridiculous version of a normal family conflict. None of these three characters show off flaws that we expect to see address here save for their complete lack of concern about Kim’s life-risking adventures.

If Kim’s parents were shown to be genuinely neglectful or if Kim’s adventures were played more seriously, then this humor wouldn’t work anywhere near as well as it does. It would still be an obvious joke, but it would stumble the landing if you knew that the episode would go on to see Jim and Tim die. (They don’t, btw. The absurdist humor carries on, I’m just giving an extreme example of a plot beat that would kill – or at least weaken – this humor.)

Another example of Kim Possible doing absurdist humor right comes from the next episode in season one: Animal Attraction. In this episode, Kim is up against Senior Senior Senior, an eccentric billionaire who pursues villainy as a hobby, leading to exchanges like this one between him and his son:

Jr.: Did we not leave Kim Possible on a conveyor belt to her doom? Sr.: Yes. A proper villain always leaves his foe when he's about to expire. Jr.: Why? Sr.: Well, it would be bad form just to lull about, waiting for it. Jr.: Why? Sr.: Tradition!

This episode has a lot of moments like this. Moments where Jr asks why they don't do the obvious, more easy/effective thing and his father blows him off because that's not how villains do things! It's totally illogical logic and it's great. I love it! Perfect example of absurdist villains and a great way to keep the show from getting too serious. The writers never wanted you to feel like Kim was in over her head.

If you look at these two examples and compare them to Miraculous, you'll notice a big difference. While Miraculous does occasionally pull off good absurdist humor, a lot of the absurdist humor is more questionable because it's tied to the show's central conflicts.

As an example, let's talk about Marinette's inability to confess to Adrien and all the nonsense tied to that. Her many failures and attempts to know him better are clearly jokes, but they have this serious edge because the show has not set up the love square as nothing more than a source of humor. This is our end game couple. The audience expects to see their romance developed. The longer the show goes on without doing that and the more absurd Marinette's attempts get, the less the comedy works.

Another good example is Lila's lies. There is a solid argument to be made that the writers are trying to be funny with Lila's extremely obvious lies, but it doesn't work because the lies are a source of serious conflict. Lila is working with the villain! She gets Marinette expelled! We want to see her outed! Every obvious lie she tells just grates on our nerves because this is not the time for jokes!

To be fair, you can use absurdist humor in more serious shows. Another of my personal favorites is The Good Place, which relies heavily on absurdist humor, but has a very serious and heartfelt overall plot. The humor works there because the show knew when to use the humor and when to be serious and also because The Good Place is not a formula show. It's a serialized show. One big story told in 20-minute chunks. This meant that the humor had more room to breath and could be more closely tied to serious conflicts. When every story has to stand alone and be finished in 20-minutes, that blending rarely ever works. You're trying to do too much.

Kim Possible's writers knew this, too. The two tie-in movies (Kim Possible: A Sitch in Time and So the Drama) are still comedies, but they both have far more serious tones because they had the time to do that. While the episodes run about 20 minutes, both movies run a little over and hour which meant they could be more serious than in a standard episode.

So why did I write all that up? Because I was watching Kim Possible and thinking about how much better the humor generally was and I suddenly realized how easy it would be to be confused by Miraculous' humor if you didn't have this kind of background. I've seen enough absurdist humor to identify it with ease and even I struggle with Miraculous at times. Like I'm still not sure if Lila's lies are supposed to be a joke or not.

If you're new to absurdist humor or struggle to interpret less overt humor? Then I can see how you'd take Miraculous way more seriously than the writers intended because a lot of the absurdist humor simply isn't absurd enough. That doesn't change the fact that it's humor and I'm still going to treat it as such, but I can see why it goes right over some people's heads and leads to complaints like, "Marinette has his schedule for the next three years!!!" That was a joke, but I get why you're missing it.

[draw-the-squad-like-this]

Draw your characters like this

[creatorping]

this is what hyperfixation for 2 years does to your art development

left is Kim from my first KP fanart that I posted and right is the current Kim 👁️👄👁️

I’m definitely more confident in face rendering (˶‾᷄ ⁻̫ ‾᷅˵)

[natfoe]

[accio-bagel]

Day 30: What is your MC's costume?

Went through a few iterations of this, trying out a flat/comic kinda style, but I’m not sure how I feel about it and may revisit some time and add shading. Anyway here Shego ���🖤

[geekgirles]

[best-character-named-x-poll]

have you done your daily click

[theythemonade]

It took me over a year to finish this so I’m kinda off trendy art challenges now 🫠

Behold: cartoons that made me gay

Feel free to zoom! You will no doubt see numerous mistakes but also the incredible effort this took

[ciccerone]

Shego by Hyung

[pastelanthophila]

What if Frida was designed by me and was a bad bvtch? Ft. My bad handwriting.

Some extras below

[maslosstuff]

Rc9gn x KP Main characters line up

[most-fuckable-character-showdown]

Finals Bracket Round 1 Matchup 2

May the most fuckable win!

[natasha-in-space]

So I'm replaying Ray's After ending rn, and it got me thinking that what I adore so much about Rika as an antagonist is just how damn scary she can be. I always found those who cause harm with good intentions (at least in their point of view) much scarier than those who hurt you with pure intention on hurting you. I think the best example of it is this CG in particular:

Look at that. Such a loving, gentle expression on her face. Probably kissing his forehead. Because she loves him. Heck, without any context, this CG looks even sweet, if you think about it. And yet, all that is while Saeyoung is forcefully sedated on a powerful concoction of drugs even a trained agent like him can't do anything about (and Saeyoung WAS definitely trained to deal with this sort of thing, hence it's mentioned that this is a 'special' kind of drugs). He looks miserable. Bags under his eyes, his expression pained and troubled, even his hair is paler than usual. All that as a direct result of her actions. But she's utterly blind to it. What's scarier, is that she knowingly shuts off her understanding of what's really happening. She's not oblivious to it at all. She just chooses not to see it that way. Simply because she doesn't want to.

Rika is the type of antagonist that will cup your cheek into her warm hand with the most loving of smiles on her face, all while you are getting elixir poured down your throat. Even whispering to you that you're doing great, that the pain will soon pass, and that she can't wait to see you reach the happiness she knows you deserve. I won't be surprised if she even cried genuine tears of compassion during some ceremonies for her believers. All while being the sole reason behind their suffering.

And that's... God, that's terrifying to me. I love that about her.

Rika Kim, they could never make me hate you

[theartofdreaming1]

"The Heather? And the Quinn?!"

Every once in a while, my old Kim Possible obsession will come back in full force and resistance shall prove futile - so I might as well have some fun and indulge in drawing my very first OTP (plus, they just look really cute in this scene from "And the Mole Rat Will be CGI" ;)

I love the way I can always find something new to appreciate about the show whenever I return to it - this time, I've grown absolutely enamored with its stylized backgrounds: the simple shapes that are still so effective at communicating just enough information about the environment while being very aesthetically pleasing at the same time... *chef's kiss* Very fascinating to me, who is still struggling with backgrounds.

I might have to recreate a few more stills - purely for the sake of studying and improving my own art, of course ;)

[flowery-laser-blasts]

OUTFIT SWAP!!

I was inspired by @railwynn's art post and some other people (sorry I couldn't retrieve them but they looked so cool as well. Will post them here once I find them back) to do my own comfort character clothes swap with Shego and Dr Drakken!

I honestly LOVE Shego's Miss Go/Teacher outfit. I'll draw myself in her suit sometime soon but I thought, this outfit is just really nice and full on opposite of what I usually wear... Changed a few colours on my clothes to make it fit better with Shego's design.

Drakken is just an elder goth 'nuff said (jk). Thanks to @redmenacekun for pointing out that there's a VERY BIG CHANCE of Drakken wearing a skull shirt underneath his labcoat.

Like, everyone keeps the same outfit, but Drakken loses his labcoat.

Also... why is that skull blinking?

Anyway one of my fave DIY shirts that I still wear from time to time is from my highschool days. If you can guess where that skull is from (mind I didn't drew the entirety of the design) then props to you!! 🤣

But yeah, if this is an actual thing, then that man's got a great taste.