I’ve been on a Kim Possible/Kigo (Kim/Shego) kick recently, and ended up reading through the top twenty or so most popular Kigo fics on Fanfiction.net. Some are great, some are mediocre, some make you think, but it’s been an interesting ride. Since I just overdosed, I thought it might be worth going through and giving some thoughts and reviews on what’s interesting. This isn’t necessarily a ‘best of’ or my favorites; it’s notes and reviews, no more. Order is probably going to be based on the ordering from Fanfiction.net: That is, who has the most ‘favorites’.
Note that there are spoilers below. Sorry.
Alone, Together by Failte200
This one stands head and shoulders above the rest: It’s got a third more recommendations than any other Kigo story on Fanficiton. net. In fact, I think it’s got more than any other Kim Possible story regardless. It deserves it, but it’s also a very unique Kigo story: It discards the normal setting entirely, or nearly so. For the first half of the story, Kim and Shego are literally stranded alone on Earth. They fall in love partly because they are each other’s other halves, but partly because there is no one else. Both grow into new people.
And then they come back, only partially remembering all of that, and have to fit what they are into what they know. It’s not a clean fit, always, but they make it work. The ending has a small Dues Ex Machina, but it’s acceptable.
Kim Possible: Mind, Body, and Soul by Hobnob-rev
Awesome, emotional, tear-jerking. Also gave me nightmares for a week and half — it has one of the most evil villains I’ve ever run across. At the end of the story, one of the characters admits to being in therapy — all of them should be. Every time the heros think they have won, something else gets thrown at them. It’s not a story to take lightly. Worth a read — but you may need therapy afterwards. (It also shows the true horror of what a villain with mind control powers is possible of. Rape is attempted, and torture performed. You are warned.)
A Small Possibility by NoDrogs
Drakken gets Kim pregnant — And Shego’s the father. Part of a series, that actually gets fairly convoluted on how the Kim Possible universe could work. Notable mostly because it’s quite possibly the archtypical Kasy & Sheki fic. (Kasy and Sheki being Kim & Shego’s kids.)
Walking the Line by StarvingLunatic
One of the best Alternate Universe (AU) fics out there: Shego is a cop, and Kim is her pet. It’s another series-starter, and most of the series is worth reading. (The last story in the series — One in a Billion — gets a bit off-track as it follows their kids, in my opinion.) Nearly every character from the main universe gets a showing, often in unexpected situations.
This is actually one of my favorites: It gets argued that Kim is out of character here, but I disagree. (Spoiler Warning: The rest of the review, actually.) Kim is still the hyper-competent friend to everyone and everything that she is in the series. However, this story shows a reasonable problem with that: She’s burnt out, and having trouble with the pressure. All through high school, her life was planned for her, and while she was driven and accomplished, she knew what she had to do. Go to school. Get good grades. Save the day. Simple.
Then she graduates, and suddenly everyone is asking her ‘what are you going to be?’ Or, more realistically: ‘Will you be what I want you to be?’ Everyone knows she’ll be exceptional in whatever she chooses to do with her life, and therefore no one knows how to just let her live it.
Enter Shego, at the start of the story. She doesn’t know a thing about Kim, and doesn’t care, really. She accepts Kim as she is, and doesn’t ask questions. Eventually she starts to insist that Kim do something with her life — but she never gives any pressure as to what that should be. In a way, she’s the only character in the story to see Kim as human: Everyone else sees her as some hero, something more than human. (Or, if they see her as Shego’s pet first, as less than human.) To Shego, she’s just herself, and they can let down their defenses.
As a follower of the BSDM community, I disagree with the proposition in some of the later stories that Kim can’t be a pet and a wife at the same time, but I understand the point being made in context.
One of the best. Period.
At the Centerfold of the Storm by SHADO Commander
Unfinished, and that’s a shame. One of the few stories that takes the entire series as cannon, and sets the story afterwards. The starting point is that Kim posed for a Middleton High cheerleader calendar to raise money to rebuild after the invasion — in a nude (though covered) pin-up pose. The calendar is a success — and that’s an understatement. It’s also changed how people perceive Kim: Before she was a child hero, a teenager. Now she’s an adult.
The story starts a year later, with the mayor wanting to keep the money flow coming, and hoping to outdo the last year — so he asks Kim to make a new calendar. With (a semi-reformed after the pardon) Shego. Shego sees that Kim is burning herself out, and doesn’t realize what exactly she’s stepped into, so she takes her under her wing. And at the same time, they realize that there is no one else in the world that either can call an equal.
There’s a dozen scenes in this I would love to see on the big screen. I don’t know how you would do some of them, and the descriptions of Kim and Shego’s sparring matches are… Amazing, to say the least. Worth the read.
Between Bouts by Trahern
Interesting in that it’s set during the series — and takes the entire series as cannon, while still being Kigo. The conceit is that Kim and Shego meet up after every time they fight, to… Well, it starts with talking.
12 Days of Kigo by intorvertedtiger
Light, fun, and sweet. A good antidote for the heavy drama of some of the other stories in this set of reviews — it has the Possibles visiting the Go family for Christmas. And since Shego and Kim can’t fight, they find other ways to interact.
Very sweet.
Emerald Kitsune by ReaperCB919
Unfinished, and it manages to overdo it a bit, but a story where Kim turns to crime to be with Shego instead of Shego turning good is at least unusual. The premise is that Kim’s in it for the rush, not humanitarian reasons, and she decides that being with Shego is better. They aren’t very evil criminals even: It’s just for the joy of it.
Finis
I could keep going, but I’m going to end it here. There are a lot of good ones in the stories I’ve read; these are ones that stood out, going back. There are others that I remember — I didn’t stick to the top twenty list, by any means. ‘Kitten Possible’, ‘Unveiled Feelings’, ‘Chronic’, ‘Morning, Pumpkin’ also cross my mind as some worth reading, though they are mostly one-shots. There’s a lot of different ways to take the basic idea.
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