#this is my way of flirting too...... this is a projection giys

[churmac-blog]

herman’s idea of flirting with newt is putting the beds next to each other when they play minecraft

[rosetyler42]

Weeeeell, there are bits that sort of foreshadow K/R gettimg together before season 3 and DURING season 3, albiet it's not ad obvious as, say, Jake/Rose or Starco. K/R's little discussion where Ron is surprised Kim wants to go with a date rather than him in Crush, Kim getting a little upset when girls start flirting with Ron about his new hair cut in Ron The Man, A Very Possible Christmas has Ron kiss Kim on the cheek. Of course Grydge Match has Ron stressing about Zita seeing him with Kim amd memtioning that the two of them COULD happen. K/R's friend Jealousy on both ends, That moment of tjem back to back in Mind Games where Kim as Ron is tryimg to teach Ron as Kim how to cheer amd Ron is enjoying being next to Kim so much he falls over when she moves away, Kim's jealousy of Yori is a big one in Season 3 and her awkwardness preventing her from saying the truth, Ron's more romantic holds of Kim in Tick-Tick-Tick and The Fearless Ferret, the Fearless Ferret Spider Man scene, Ron mentioning about asking Josh Mankey out "What's the big deal? You and I do that stuff all the time!" Etc. Alot of it is subtle pre-season 3 or somehow subverted, usually on Kim's end. I did not notice alot of it so So the Drama was a surprise to me. A very good one though. My PARENTS however could tell K/R was ALWAYS going to get together. As for instances of showing the crush peak through in So the Drama, for one the Kim believing Ron over Eric's protest I consider one. Kim shows no real problem going with Ron until Bonnie starts making "Food Chain" and "What's sadder than going with your 'Just a friend'" comments. Another problem you have to consider is to a certain extent Kim felt unwantable, that she was weirding guys out, which could also affect whether or how she acted on any feelings she had. Ron had also, up to this point, had shown little interest in her and the one time Kim DID ask him out, he broke up with her (Moodulator episode.) While Kim's crazy behavior was moidulator, Kim's feelings weren't, but I still imagine Ron dumping Moodulated Kim had an effect on Kim admitting her feelings. As did DNAmy's crazy running after Monkey Fist, which perhaps after her crazy jealousy Kim saw a little too much of herself in. She thought Ron was not interested and so Kim tried to respect that. Kim also seemer to prefer the giys made the first move (Possibly because she's a shy awkward girl who comes apart when talking to some guys she likes. Guys asking first relieves some of that social anxiety) Eric was assertive and knew what he wanted, and made Kim feel like she was wanted, hense why she went with him. And when he was revealed as a bad guy, while Kim DOES memtion wanting to Kiss him, she seems less bothered by losibg HIM in particular, and more that she had beem fooled by the one person that she knew of that actually wanted her, so much so she was willing to give up on it ALL until Ron's kind of confession. While I would have liked a scene of Kim tryimg to text Ron, I believe Kim DID have a crush on Ron if you look back, she just didn't really think anything was going to happen there, and of course like Ron Kim is a shy awkward person in her own way. It wasn't just projected by Monique and mom. She was ALWAYS supposed to end up with Ron. Even the creators mentioned that. They just never really get in your face about it. Both are happy to stay friends with each other and value their friendship, so there's no real complaining about the friend zone going on. And alot of the foreshadowing is subtle or subverted somehow. They don't beat you over the head with it. It's a nice subtle build up from friends to couple, and I love that.

How do you think Kim and Ron’s relationship and eventual romance was handled in the show?

I think both worked pretty well! So I actually spoke a lot about their friendship in this post, so I’d recommend checking that out because I’m gonna focus more on their romantic relationship here as to not repeat myself.

The fact that Kim and Ron’s romance was never thrown in our faces was their relationship’s secret ace in the hole. At the start of the series and until about Season 3, Ron and Kim were friends, they never had crushes on one another, and they both liked other people, and they both regularly casually conversed about their crushes with each other. That allowed for two and a half seasons of organic intimacy to build up between them because there was no stress to their dynamic for a romance by the creators.There was no carrot on the end of the stick to make the audience feel impatient as we waited for them to get together because it wasn’t even close to being promised. Like, Star and Marco from Star vs. The Forces of Evil were in-universe ship teased from like the tenth episode. So people who wanted them together were now stuck in this waiting period until the penultimate episode of the series until they finally got together, lessening the broader importance of their other romantic relationships and making every tease for Star and Marco agonizing. 

But with Kim and Ron, there was no such issue and it not only allowed us to see them together, we got them together ALL the time with none of the stress and groans that came with waiting for them to become a couple. Because of that and their already established friendship, they and the audience got to know them as both individuals and a team and fall in love with their dynamic before anything else happened. They got to explore other romantic options and see why they didn’t work where theirs might. And when the time finally came for these feelings to emerge, it wasn’t out of nowhere and knocked it out of the park. The idea of Ron realizing his feelings for Kim when she finally gets what seem to be a long term boyfriend in “So The Drama” – something we had never seen before in the series – made us feel that same punch in the gut that Ron did. We saw those moments of bonding between Kim and Ron lessen so dramatically as Kim and Eric’s increased and that sense of not knowing what you wanted until you lost it (Or her) resonated so strongly. Kim and Ron are still friends, but she and Eric are connecting and bonding on a level that used to only be reserved for she and her friends and Ron’s no longer a part of that. Even when they are together, there’s this clear distance in the shots that are used and Ron’s not an active part of the scenes in the same vein that Kim is, making the moments where they collide feel intelligently awkward and heartbreaking.

This got long, so meet me under the cut for more!

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